Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 12/17/21

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to my Friday chat. This is my first one since the end of the World Series, but also my last one for calendar 2021, a situation that owes mainly to the volume of coverage on my Hall of Fame beat.

Jay Jaffe: Anyway, we’re in the midst of a lockout, which sucks, but we have plenty to discuss today. Before we do, I’ll call attention to today’s entry in my HOF profile series, Bobby Abreu, who makes for a nice palate-cleanser after my Bonds/Clemens/Sosa/Schilling clearinghouse post and then my update on the Omar Vizquel situation(s). https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jaws-and-the-2022-hall-of-fame-ballot-bobb…

Jay Jaffe: Also landing today is the podcast spot I did with David Laurila in which we discussed our Hall of Fame ballot coping strategies https://blogs.fangraphs.com/fangraphs-audio-jay-jaffe-and-david-lauril…

Jay Jaffe: Anywhoo, there are a good number of questions in the queue, so on with the show…

Justin B: Hi Jay, I have been loving all the extra HOF coverage this year. Thanks for your diligent work! My question is about anonymous HOF voters. I read a suggestion a couple years ago that some might work for newspapers that don’t allow their writers to vote, but who want to anyway. Do you have any sense whether there are many such voters, or do you think most anonymous voters simply want to avoid ballot criticism?

Jay Jaffe: I think it has more to do with the latter, not wanting the criticism. If anything, in the last couple of years I’ve heard from some voters that they wish their outlets wouldn’t let them vote, and/or express relief that they’re not allowed to. I doubt there are many actively subverting their employers

Leroy Jenkins: Thoughts on the future HOF candidacy of Zack Greinke?

Jay Jaffe: I think he’ll sail in. 213 wins already, shot at 3,000 strikeouts (needs 191), right around the JAWS standard and above the new S-JAWS one), plus he’s a media favorite.

Ken Boyer: What are his chances going forward? His JAWS is considerably better than Hodges Oliva or Katy but he got almost no support.

Jay Jaffe: Clearing four candidates from the Golden Days group should help his cause, but he’s been dead for 39 years and I don’t get the sense there’s a strong movement to see him elected, unlike Gil Hodges. I’d put his chances below those of Dick Allen, and probably Maury Wills as well, even though the statistical case is stronger than that of Wills.

Christian Colon for Men: Which player who will become HOF eligible in the next 5 years are you most looking forward to writing about?

Jay Jaffe: Joe Mauer, Chase Utley, and Buster Posey are three I’m looking forward to.

Christian Colon for Men: What percentage would you give the HOF voters as a whole for weighing peak versus longevity?

Jay Jaffe: Longevity clearly carries the day among more recent voters; see the Rule of 2,000 and the recent scarcity of non-300 win pitchers. I’ve come around more to the idea of emphasizing peak because in a lot of cases the added longevity doesn’t add a whole lot of value.

Colb: Does Scott Rolen get in this year?

Jay Jaffe: I doubt he’ll make up the 22.1% he needs to add to reach 75% all in one fell swoop; that would be the sixth-largest jump in post-1966 history, but without the urgency of his 10-year window nearing a close. i think he’s a year or two away.

Ekland: The analytics has gotten people to change their outlook on some players and got guys like Raines, Byleven and Trammell into the hof. I think Rolen will eventually get in does Abreu eventually have a chance?

Jay Jaffe: very long shot, i think. But I do think that if he posts steady gains, his case will look a whole lot different to an Era Committee than it does right now. Those voters tend to care a lot about how a player did on the writers’ ballot, as I’ve detailed before

Jay Jaffe: it took until Ted Simmons’ election on the 2020 Modern Baseball ballot for a single one-and-done candidate to gain entry — and that’s 40 years into the application of the 5% rule.

Ben: It looks like in 3 years, in additional to strong candidates like Ichiro and, to a lesser extent, Sabathia, a ton of borderline candidates will hit the ballot (King Felix, Ian Kinsler, Russell Martin, Brian McCann, Dustin Pedroia, Troy Tulowitzki, Ben Zobrist, and Curtis Granderson). How many of those do you think will initially clear 5%?

Jay Jaffe: not all of them! I don’t think Tulo will last, or Granderson. Maybe Martin and Pedroia, who probably have slightly better shots than McCann and Kinsler, but I don’t see any of them getting far.

Justin B: I just re-read your 2014 write-up on Palmeiro and back then you seemed undecided how to regard his failed test, since it came only in his final year. Has your position on him evolved/codified since then? If he were on this year’s ballot would you treat him the same as ARod and Manny, or do you think you would give him leniency?

Jay Jaffe: I’ve become pretty consistent in terms of not voting (or “voting” on my virtual ballots) for players who failed a test and were suspended, which describes Palmeiro, and right now, he’d be off my ballot along with the two guys you name. Once in awhile I do think about the possibility of just going performance-only, ignoring suspensions, but I’m not there yet, and really not all that close to being there either. I’d rather put my vote towards a guy whom I’m convinced belongs but needs the electoral help

Guest: Who makes it into the Hall of Fame first: Scott Rolen or Adrian Beltre?

Jay Jaffe: I think at worst they go in together in 2024, with Rolen having some additional chance of getting in next year.

Rob: Instead of using an average as the JAWS standard, have you considered using a range, e.g., 20th to 80th percentile? It would help the standard seem less like a “cut line,” and would eliminate the inhumanly high-WAR guys (most of whom were pre-integration) that wreck the curve.

Jay Jaffe: I think about all kinds of variations, and I deviate a bit from my own system by voting for guys who might be a little bit low (Sheffield and Abreu, for example), but generally have chosen to stick with *presenting* the system in a fairly simple form. Nobody is bound to use JAWS as the sole determinant of his or her ballot, and I don’t want to overwhelm them with complexity if they’re interested in using it. Baseball Reference just added my S-JAWs and R-JAWS metrics to their starter and reliever pages, and there’s already a ton of numbers there and the potential for confusion.

Jeffrey: Thanks for holding this Jay. Curious which current Astros you think have the best shot for the hall (given scandal and all)?

Jay Jaffe: If we’re talking 2021 Astros I’d say 1. Greinke, 2. Correa (much further to go) 3. Altuve (less far to go but needs to remain very strong). Alex Bregman is trending way down given his 2020-21 performances

Frank Thomas the Tank Engine: Given Ken Rosenthal’s statement that he did not vote for Sosa in part because he had no chance of election and Rosenthal did not want to throw away a vote, how much do you think HOF voters employ strategic voting?

Jay Jaffe: I think it definitely comes into play when you’re nearing 10 candidates, though far moreso when it comes to peeling off a lost cause candidate than a shoo-in one. I know I’ve had similar thoughts regarding Sosa and others when it comes to my own ballots, virtual and actual.

TomBruno23: Recent HOF events have really made me realize what a career Willie Davis enjoyed.

Jay Jaffe: 16h in JAWS, over 2,500 hits, yet he never even appeared on a ballot! Kids:: don’t make three errors in a single inning in a World Series game that happens to be the last one Sandy Koufax ever pitches, or this could be you

Dick Allen is a Hall of Famer: Damnit!

Jay Jaffe: just gutted when it comes to that one.

Guest: A while back you mentioned the possibility of including standard deviation bars at each positions WAR/WAR7/JAWS numbers. Is that still a potential addition? I feel like it’d be helpful for giving context to each players’ case, especially in the case of players who fall below the median.

Jay Jaffe: for space reasons and other considerations, I’m not really pushing for them to be on B-Ref anytime soon, but here’s a screenshot from Excel that may shed some light. These numbers don’t take into account the recent Era Committee honorees.

Jay Jaffe:

Jay Jaffe: As you can see, there’s a fair bit of variation when it comes to the medians and SDs at each position, but I guess that’s the point

Colb: What future changes do you want to see with the Hall? Personally, I want more player/former player input on induction. It seems like everyone has been frustrated with the BBWAA for years now and more player input might help.

Jay Jaffe: It’s funny, the BBWAA just elected a record number of honorees — 22 over a seven-year span — and yet there’s frustration, which I’ll chalk up to the fact that some candidates still didn’t get over the hump during that span.

Jay Jaffe: As for more player input, dear baby Jesus Alou has everybody forgotten the lesson of the expanded Veterans Committee?

Jay Jaffe: When the living Hall of Famers — the vast majority of which were players — were allowed to vote in 2003, ’05, ’07, and ’09, nobody got in, nobody came even close to getting in, and that wasted time ran out the clock on honoring Ron Santo, Minnie Miñoso, Marvin Miller, and Dick Allen in their lifetimes.

Jay Jaffe: When Era Committees (and before that Veterans Committees) that are made up of about 50% players do vote, they’ve mainly been pulling in guys far below standards.

Jay Jaffe: The thing I’d mainly like to see is either a binary ballot or no limitation on the number of spots a voter can use.

Jay Jaffe: Also, expanded Era Committees that dilute the impact of the obvious potential for cronyism. Put 32 voters in a room and it matters less that Tony La Russa is there with Harold Baines.

Mark: The Hall of Fame is supposed to be a celebration of baseball, or at least promote discussion about baseball.  If the steroid guys get in, it’s still a discussion of baseball.  If Schilling gets in it becomes a discussion of right wing politics which has nothing to do with baseball.  There’s enough of that in the news already.  That’s why I wouldn’t vote for Schilling:  baseball provides some much needed escapism.

Jay Jaffe: There’s a lot to talk about as far as Schilling and baseball, but it has been eclipsed by his malignant persona. Baseball provides escapism, but do not forget that a whole lot of political stuff has an impact on what you’re seeing. Those taxpayer funded ballparks, for example, or the longstanding exclusion of players of color, to use a couple of obvious examples. The game does not take place in a vacuum.

Stay Safe: Hey Jay, no question this week, just sending good vibes your way with the Covid rate increase in NY. Hope you and your family/close ones are staying safe.

Jay Jaffe: Thank you, and this goes right back to everyone out there as well — this has been a jarring week.

Jay Jaffe: I’m vaxed and boosted and so is my wife. My daughter hits the 2-week mark on her second vax tomorrow. So we’re pretty well protected, but one of my closest pals, who’s similarly vaxed to the max, had a breakthrough infection this week and now 2/4 in his household are sick. Thankfully, it’s mild, but just when we were hoping for a more normal winter where we could at least dine indoors, there are new curveballs being thrown our way.

How Bobby Grich Stole Christmas: Do Bonds and Clemens get into the HOF before they pass away?

Jay Jaffe: I think so, but it’s going to take awhile.

Leopold “Butters” Stotch: Given that the Early Baseball Committee only elected two of the seven Black professionals (whether Negro-League-associated or pre-Negro League), do you think there will be any momentum for a repeat of something like the 2006 committee on Black baseball?  It seems like it’d make sense to do a repeat; a lot of the research since 2006 has revealed that there are plenty of deserving players on the outside, and trying to get them all in in one fell swoop seems like it makes some sense.

Jay Jaffe: I highly doubt it would be another full clearinghouse like that but I’m hopeful that the Hall will listen to the 42 for 21 Committee and the voices of other experts who say that this level of interest and scholarship when it comes to Black baseball shouldn’t be squandered, and that there will be another vote taken on such candidates before 10 years are up.

Jay Jaffe: Here’s my podcast spot with the 42 for 21 Committee folks (Sean Gibson, Gary Gillette, and Ted Knorr) from last week https://blogs.fangraphs.com/fangraphs-audio-42-for-21/

Jay Jaffe: and here’s Effectively Wild talking to Sean and Ted https://blogs.fangraphs.com/effectively-wild-episode-1785-what-is-this…

Strategic Balloting: Actually, one quick q – I don’t put much stock in many writers suddenly changing minds on Bonds/Clemens in their last year, but: what are the chances enough writers flip but choose to not make their ballots public as a way of sheltering themselves from criticism? Likelihood of 10 being “could happen” to 1 being “not a snowball’s chance in hell”

Jay Jaffe: 2.5. I can see some people doing it, but not the ~50 needed to flip so they get to 75%.

Flanny: Among the current under 30 stars, who would you say are the best bets to make the HOF?

Jay Jaffe: See https://blogs.fangraphs.com/ten-position-players-who-have-most-helped-…. Correa, Mookie, Bryce, Manny, not necessarily in that order

Ben (not Clemens): Thanks for doing this chat Jay. I really enjoyed your Jimmy Rollins article. I’m a Phillies fan who was a teenager around the  time he debuted, so I’m absolutely biased, but what impact do you think culture or personality could/does have on HOF voting? Specifically regarding Rollins and how he was the heart and soul of his team for such a long time and pretty universally beloved in Philly

Jay Jaffe: Thanks, I enjoyed writing about Rollins because I had done so mainly  in passing during his career. I don’t think the heart-and-soul stuff goes very far in HOF voting unless it’s accompanied by strong numbers, and I don’t think Rollins has particularly strong ones, but it might well be enough to keep him on the ballot for a few years or even the whole run (he’s at 6.7% through 27 ballots).

Key Flaw: Should the Spink Award be voted on by players? Seems only fair.

Jay Jaffe: Should patients perform brain surgery on neurosurgeons?

Jay Jaffe: That’s an extreme example, and I don’t mean to equate writing about baseball to brain surgery, but by and large most players don’t, or say they don’t, read what’s written about them. So I don’t see where they’re qualified to vote.

Jay Jaffe: Also, it’s no longer the Spink Award, it’s the BBWAA Career Excellence Award; the Spink name was stripped because he was pretty retrograde when it came to integration

WinTwins0410: Jay, I know each year’s (or two years’, or five years’) Era committee is its own discrete “being,” so to speak, in terms of composition of any year’s committee of 16 voters.  But to your eyes, does it seem like the election of Jim Kaat portends Tommy John’s eventual induction?  Or am I reading too much into the result from one single committee that had several of Kaat’s former teammates (Schmidt, Carew) plus a fellow who won just one more game than Kitty (Fergie)?  Arguing in the other direction, I know, is the fact that Kaat had come close on several previous Era committees, whereas John never has, and the fact that Kaat has been very actively involved, front-and-center, in the baseball community all these years, whereas TJ really hasn’t been.  Thoughts?

Jay Jaffe: Kaat’s election helps John, but even so, like you say, they are discrete committees, and we’re probably expecting too much if we think one committee’s decisions are predictive of another’s.  

Also, and this was very weird: Carew was announced as being on the Golden Days committee but ended up not making it to the vote; he was replaced by Bert Blyleven, who was also serving on the Early Days committee. Even the Hall’s press release had Carew among the voters, but supposedly the switch was revealed on the post-results Zoom interviews with Kaat and Oliva. John Shea wrote a bit about it

Teddy: Any thoughts on whether Berkman was robbed of getting voted in? His career stats are almost shockingly good, always seemed underrated

Jay Jaffe: I wouldn’t say he was robbed.

Jay Jaffe: Left Field (20th):
52.0career WAR |39.27yr-peak WAR |45.6JAWS |4.5WAR/162
  Average HOF LF (out of 21):
    65.2 career WAR | 41.6 7yr-peak WAR | 53.4 JAWS | 4.8 WAR/162

Jay Jaffe: He was a decent enough candidate that on a ballot with less traffic he probably would have gotten at least 5%, but he had fewer than 2,000 hits and retired at 37 and those players tend not to get in.

20longyears: For a few years, it seemed as though Andrew McCutchen was very possibly on a path for the Hall, and then his skills took a sudden, sharp nosedive that removed all chances of it. Are there other position players you can think of whose careers followed such a trajectory?

olethros: Holy moly, some of those SDs are huge! I was thinking that anyone within 1 SD of the average would have a pretty strong argument but looks like that’s not true for most positions.

Jay Jaffe: Right? I think it’s important to remember we’re dealing with smaller samples at each position and that 1 SD ends up being A LOT. I might be more inclined to point out, say, where the line for a 40th percentile honoree is, since I think there are more likely to be considerations outside of WAR and JAWS that still get those guys over the hump.

Don: Do Hall voters communicate with each other about who they plan to vote for?

Jay Jaffe: From what I’ve been told by multiple committee participants, no, at least not while the committee is in session.

Jay Jaffe: They’re not supposed to be coordinating with each other, but it’s probably a stretch to think that they’re not sharing thoughts over cocktails at some point ahead of time.

Guest: Not a Mets fan but any feeling the Utley slide might affect his HOF chances?

Jay Jaffe: I’m sure it will be mentioned, mainly because EVERYTHING gets mentioned come HOF season, but I don’t get the sense yet that it will have as much bearing as, say, Utley’s short-ish career due to his late arrival as a regular.

Jay Jaffe: I also think that for every complaint about him being “dirty” there’s an anecdote like this to balance it out

Eric C: Surprised about Dahlen not getting in?

Jay Jaffe: a little but not overly so, particularly once I saw the extent to which Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues candidates dominated that ballot.

Justin B.: You’ve put a lot of work over the years into developing your methodology for evaluating relief pitchers, and it’s been cool to see that formalized in R-JAWS. After HOF season wraps up, would you consider doing a column that looks in more detail on what R-JAWS says about era committee candidates who deserve renewed attention and maybe induction.

Jay Jaffe: Probably going to have some time to look at this in January if the lockout isn’t settled. Likewise for S-JAWS. Speaking of which…

david: does sjaws change your opinion on any of hudson buerhle and pettitte or are they still below the standard

Jay Jaffe: They’re still below the standard; in fact, their JAWS and S-JAWS are identical, at least to the first decimal. They’re *closer* to the standard because limiting the impact of the workhorses lowers the standard by 4.6 points. https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_P.shtml

Jay Jaffe: I’ll cover those guys in one round-up post this week. I think my opinion on them has softened a bit, but not yet to the point that I’d include them on my ballot

Sam F: Do the early public ballots, and some writers making the distinction between Bonds/Clemens and Ortiz, give you more confidence that Ortiz gets in?

Jay Jaffe: As I’ve said before, I have little doubt Ortiz will eventually be elected, but I’m not sure it will happen this year. Through 28 ballots all three are polling at 76.7%. This is a great place to be for a first-year candidate and a terrible place to be for BB/RC in year 10 because we know how much their support drops off in the public/private split (nearly 12 points between actual and pre-announcement percentages).

Key Flaw: Yeah I was being facetious about players voting for the Spink award, but after seeing some ballots and their weird justification, it makes me wonder if many of the writers are qualified (I do know it has gotten way way better over the years). I greatly appreciate the amount you write about the HoF candidates, and while I don’t think every write would put quite as much effort into their vote, I wish they would.

Jay Jaffe: We’ve already seen some doozies, haven’t we? Some ballots resemble dart boards, with no kind of logic connecting the selections.

Richard: Hi Jay. Does Peter O’Malley have a HOF resume? During his tenure as Dodgers president/owner, they won 5 pennants, 2 World Series, had 9 Rookies of the Year (which included Fernando-mania) and the first Japanese-born and Korean-born players in MLB history. He also played a major role in baseball becoming an Olympic sport, was a tremendous promoter of the game globally, the longtime chairman of the Little League Foundation, ran one of the most respected organizations in sports and hired Tommy Lasorda.

Jay Jaffe: There’s an argument to be made on his behalf but he did inherit a lot of the infrastructure that led to those results. In terms of Dodger execs, I am surprised Buzzie Bavasi never got in for his work as GM during the 1950s and ’60s.

Marvin Miller aside for obvious reasons, I find it hard to get worked up about executive omissions. I’d rather they were voted upon separately, as was briefly the case in the 2000s; with some exceptions, i’d fel taht taking a vote away from a player or manager to vote for an exec would feel wrong.

Thomas: Hey Jay! Big thank you for all of your work covering the HoF ballots and voting process. Out of the last 10-15 years of voting, who are the most surprising one-and-dones in your eyes?

Jay Jaffe: In a vacuum, Kenny Lofton, Jim Edmonds, Johan Santana, and Carlos Delgado come to mind but once you look at how absurdly crowded those ballots were, it makes more sense. Earlier, the one-and-dones of  David Cone and Will Clark surprised me a whole lot.

Scott: Have you read the article on the Nomar Garciaparra All-Stars at Bill James online? What do you think in general of people playing around with JAWS to do different analysis?

Jay Jaffe: I haven’t seen that one. Got a link? [Update: meant to note here that I am gratified people find JAWS useful, and that I’m always interested to see if somebody comes up with uses for it that I hadn’t considered.]

mmddyyyy: If a player passes away before the normal 5 year waiting period, can they be considered immediately? Can’t remember what happened with Halladay.

Jay Jaffe: The rule is that the player can be considered in the next election that is at least 6 months after he passes. For Halladay that actually ended up being the one for which he was scheduled.

Jay Jaffe: The rule was put in place after the election of Roberto Clemente in 1973

WinTwins0410: Jay, can I get your reaction to two more aspects of the Carew/Golden Days committee?  1) That is weird about Carew not being part of the vote and I hadn’t seen that.  Curious what your reaction is (moot point now) to how vociferously Carew was in the day or two *before* the vote, making known publicly that he was going to work hard to get Oliva in.  It was the kind of thing that I don’t feel like we’d seen a lot of publicly before previous vets committees.  And then 2) the Chicago Tribune’s Meghan Montemurro provided some inner workings of the committee in a story on Dick Allen.  I’ve always assumed that the committee members leave knowing what the final vote totals are but apparently it’s a secret ballot.  Fergie Jenkins gave her some insight into how the panel works and told her (and maybe other reporters) about his surprise that Hodges did so well and his amazement that Allen was snubbed.  It didn’t occur to me that committee members themselves can be surprised by results.

Jay Jaffe: For as much as I love Rod Carew (he’s the rare player/ex-player whom I follow on Twitter) I did find his tweet about helping Oliva to be over the line, and I wonder if that had anything to do with his non-participation.  

Jay Jaffe: I didn’t see Meghan’s piece, will have to find it — she and I have talked about Dick Allen in the past when she was covering the Phillies.

But yes, the balloting is secret and the committee members aren’t privy to the results. Even the Hall president supposedly doesn’t know when he opens that envelope.

Lou Perltzman: Not going to answer the McCutchen question?

Jay Jaffe: Whoops, sorry about that. I went to chase down a table, from the Andruw Jones piece:

Jay Jaffe:

Jay Jaffe: With 37.4 WAR through age 29 (and 8.6 since), Cutch doesn’t even crack the leaderboard, but he’s in good company.

Curtis: Would a team made up of those who failed to get 5% beat a team of the “worst” Hall of Famers?

Jay Jaffe: I’d sure as hell take my chances with a team that had Ted Simmons at catcher, Dick Allen, Lou Whitaker, Bobby Grich and Ron Santo in their infield (doing a little rejiggering there to move guys around to other positions they played, and noting that Allen and Santo got back on the ballot due to an amnesty in 1985).

Zac: Jay. David Haugh, a Chicago sportswriter and sports radio host with a ballot, voted for Ortiz and none of the other “steroid guys.”  He published his ballot and has been very upfront with his reasoning, mainly that the evidence against Ortiz wasn’t as robust as the others and Rob Manfred seemed to give his endorsement of Ortiz going to the Hall during an interview.  One of Haugh’s interviews on the radio eventually led down the path of him lamenting that the Hall simply does not give the voters sufficient guidelines about the criteria for election, leaving the voters to their own devices to judge who is worthy of admission.  Do you think the vague criteria is an issue?  If so, is that frustrating to you given how much effort you put into trying to determine who is Hall worthy?

Jay Jaffe: The Hall has always viewed the vagueness as a feature, not a bug. At times it frustrates me, but hey, that’s where the daylight that allows me to do this part of the job comes in!

Andrew: With Miñoso going in this year, 8 of your 14 Cooperstown Casebook profiles will now be in the Hall!  (With Ortiz likely soon, and hopefully Whitaker on the next Modern Baseball ballot.) Have you thought much about a second edition?  Whom might you include in an updated volume?  Kenny Lofton? Thurman Munson?  Bill Dahlen?

Jay Jaffe: Short answer: I have been thinking a lot about that, yes. Maybe I’ll have some news on this in 2022.

Scott: Here’s the link to the article https://www.billjamesonline.com/the_nomar_garciaparra_all_star_team/

Jay Jaffe: thanks

Dalton Wilcox: Any thoughts on writing about guys like Delgado who maybe aren’t HoF worthy (psh) but were such badass and even feared players? Delgado was suuuuch a good player

Jay Jaffe: Wrote about him when he was a candidate. https://www.si.com/mlb/2014/12/15/jaws-2015-hall-of-fame-ballot-carlos-delgado

Jay Jaffe: OK folks, the clock is running out on this chat today. Thanks for so many great questions! I only intended to go for about an hour but was having too good a time chewing on this stuff with you.

Jay Jaffe: We’ll chat again in the new year. In the meantime, have a happy and SAFE holiday season. Please get your shots if you can, and please be considerate of others. I’ll see you in 2022!