Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 3/12/21
| 2:02 |
 Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! It’s nearly 70 degrees outside in Brooklyn and it’s taking all of the willpower I can muster to remain in front of the computer for this chat, but a commitment is a commitment, and I’m here. A bit of housekeeping before we launch this thing forward…
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| 2:03 |
Jay Jaffe: Today I’ve got a piece on the historical precedents for Juan Soto’s performance and what that could mean with regards to a contract extension and a spot in Cooperstown https://blogs.fangraphs.com/extending-juan-soto-all-the-way-to-coopers…
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| 2:04 |
Jay Jaffe: Yesterday, I took a look at the impact on the Yankees’ bullpen caused by the loss of Zack Britton, who’s having surgery to remove bone chip(s) in his elbow. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/loss-of-britton-puts-a-dent-in-yankees-bul…
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| 2:05 |
Jay Jaffe: And in a trifecta, I took a look at the spring debuts of Shohei Ohtani, David Price, and Stephen Strasburg, and the implications for their respective teams .https://blogs.fangraphs.com/shohei-ohtani-is-on-the-comeback-trail/ https://blogs.fangraphs.com/david-price-is-ready-for-whatever-and-so-a… https://blogs.fangraphs.com/strasburgs-return-and-a-thumbnail-guide-to…
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| 2:05 |
Jay Jaffe: I also spoke to RJ McDaniel about Ohtani for today’s FanGraphs Audio https://blogs.fangraphs.com/fangraphs-audio-joe-block-talks-pirates/
And now, on with the show.
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| 2:05 |
: If he had kept on playing, did Nick Markakis have any foreseeable chance of having a decent HOF case by piling up counting stats?
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| 2:10 |
Jay Jaffe: I really don’t think so. I know there was a notion that Markakis could get to 3,000 hits based upon his having surpassed 2,000 at age 33, but the reality was that he had already become an average-or-worse player even before leaving Baltimore after the 2014 season, and so any slippage of his skills beyond that would eventually reduce his playing time, which is what happened.
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| 2:10 |
: Mike Leake and Rick Porcello are both free agents. Would you expect them to sign?
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| 2:12 |
Jay Jaffe: Leake opted out last year and has already said that he won’t pitch to start this year. https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/mlb/2021/03/02/mike-leake-turn…
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| 2:14 |
Jay Jaffe: Porcello I would expect to land a deal, with the Cardinals my best guess given the concerns about Miles Mikolas and others in their rotation. They need an innings eater, and Porcello is nothing if not that.
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| 2:14 |
: Do you foresee the Yankees treating the luxury tax threshold as a hard cap in years to come or is this year’s “hard limit” of $210 million a response to Covid/wanting to reset their tax rate? Hard to believe the Yankees will not spend freely while the Padres do.
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| 2:17 |
Jay Jaffe: I suspect this is a temporary thing in light of the pandemic, the advantages of resetting, and the end of the current CBA. A decision about a long-term extension offer for Aaron Judge is on the horizon, and likewise for Gleyber Torres, though I do think that if the Yankees are keeping their powder dry it’s to leap into next year’s shortstop market unless Torres does a better job of showing them he can handle the position this year.
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| 2:22 |
: Looks like most projection systems have settled on 83-84 wins for A’s. Vegas looks like over/under set in 86-87 range. What odds would you give on their matching 97 win rate of each of last 3 seasons (approaching Khris Davis .247 average 4 years in a row territiry!)
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| 2:25 |
Jay Jaffe: Wow, I’m just taking a shot in the dark here but looking at their playoff odds, they have an 18.6% chance of wining the division, which already means improving on 84 wins. I’d imagine we’re talking low single digits fo 97 wins, maybe 2-3%? I honestly don’t know.
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| 2:28 |
Jay Jaffe: Folks, we are having some technical difficulties behind the scenes here. Please stand by:
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| 2:47 |
Jay Jaffe: Apologies, we’re having an issue here where the chat never published to the home page and thus is apparently only accessible to whoever came in via the Twitter link. Gonna chalk this one up as a rainout and hope that the elements favor us next week.
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Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated (2012-2018). He has been a recurring guest on MLB Network and a member of the BBWAA since 2011, and a Hall of Fame voter since 2021. Follow him on BlueSky @jayjaffe.bsky.social.
Plus you can go outside now! You probably feel like a kid with a snow day!
LOL – he sabotaged his own chart to go outside. Well played, Jay
…and here come the pretzels. Hall of Famer Whitey Ford now on the field. Pleading with the crowd for some kind of sanity.
That’s what I was looking for, what a information! present here at this website, thank you admin!!
https://www.expresshr.me/
Regarding the Markakis question, there was never much of a chance he was going to the HOF, even if he hung around for 3,000 hits. Those automatic entry numbers (500 HRs, 3,000 hits) are thankfully in the rearview mirror. Any player who achieves those milestone numbers, even today, will get heavy consideration, but no automatic entry. In the past, players reaching those milestone numbers were great players not because they complied numbers, but because they were simply great, be they named Mays or Aaron or Clemente, etc. Mickey Mantle hit over 500 HRs, but that’s not why he was elected to the HOF. Mantle could have retired after 10 seasons and 320 HRs, but his greatness, as evidenced by his 172 OPS+ and being a two-time MVP winner and a triple crown winner, would have meant automatic entry, even though he would have retired before the great HR chase of ’61 and another MVP season in ’62. Mike Trout could retire now and he’ll make the HOF long before he has great compiling stats. Albert Pujols could have retired after his St. Louis years and made the HOF before he reached 3000 hits, or 500 and now 600 HRs. In their cases, the counting stats simply came because of their greatness. It’s not why they’re elected.
Markakis was a good player for the first part of his career, but he was never a great player. and he was fading, putting up below-league-average-hitting from a corner-OF spot in three of the last four seasons. The same arguments were starting to pop up about Johnny Damon before he fell short of the milestone counting stats. We hear some now wondering about Starlin Castro since he has 1600+ hits by 30. Castro can stick around until he’s 40, and if he somehow gets to 3,000 hits (he won’t), he’s still not a HOFer if he plays at the same level. Not even close. Would Dave KIngman have been elected to the HOF if he stuck around another two more seasons, hit 500 HRs, but had a career WAR of 20? No.
I do hope some good-but-not-great player does reach 3,000 hits just for the fun of the debate. Damon would have made the most compelling case as a speedster CFer. He was less than 300 hits short after his age-37 season and was still cranking out 150+ hits a season. 400+ SBs, probably would have reached 60 WAR, good OBP. He’d have had a better case than Markakis or Castro if he continues on, yet even Damon was not a HOFer, but he at least would have made the case for the compiler as HOFer interesting.