Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 8/19/25

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! It’s been a minute since our last chat, to say the least. Summer goings-on, especially a family vacation that ran Tuesday to Tuesday, did a number on my schedule here. Anyway, I’m back in Brooklyn and back on my b.s., so here we are.

Jay Jaffe: Yesterday, I wrote about the season-threatening shoulder issues faced by Zack Wheeler and Josh Hader https://blogs.fangraphs.com/injuries-put-the-seasons-of-zack-wheeler-a… since that went up, Wheeler had his blood clot removed by thrombolysis, but that doesn’t address the cause of the clot, and we’re waiting to hear from the Phillies as to whether he’ll pitch again in 2025.

Jay Jaffe: On Thursday and Friday of last week, I wrote about the Dodgers’ face-plant (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-dodgers-have-face-planted/) and the Padres’ surge (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-revamped-padres-have-surged-into-first…), then of course the Dodgers swept the Padres to retake the NL West lead.

Jay Jaffe: Tomorrow I should have the first installment of this year’s Cooperstown progress report; my plan is to follow up with a second one next week.

Jay Jaffe: Anyway, on with the show…

Pitchers for the Hall: Great article on Logan Webb today from Mike Baumann. I know it’s early in his career, but do you think that today’s version of the ultimate inning eating sinker baller is on the start of the path to the Hall?

Jay Jaffe: Since I started with pitchers for the aforementioned Hall piece, I checked in on Webb but he hasn’t yet cracked the Top 500 in S-JAWS. He has racked up 20.1 WAR so far and is just 28, so he’s some time to build a case. Piling up high-quality innings is a great way to do that in general, particularly if you can notch ~170 strikeouts a year, though so far from Webb I see only a couple of foundational seasons (4.6 bWAR in 2022, 5.6 in ’23).; he’s at just 2.8 this year, though he did make his second All-Star team.

Opifijikl: Good article on the Phillies/Astros. Do you think Dombrowski has a chance of being elected into the HOF? He even seems to be keeping the Phillies farm above water too, maybe. What criteria would you judge him on?

Jay Jaffe: Yes, I think Dombrowski’s a future Hall of Famer, having built championship teams in Florida and Boston, and pennant winners in Detroit and Philadelphia. In fact, i expect he’ll be the next executive to be elected once he retires.

Dansby Swansong: Esteban Rivera just published an article about Soto’s declining D.  With his big contract, is his overall value likely to decline sooner than expected?

Jay Jaffe: Some amount of bad defense was already baked into those projections; he had -9 DRS in 2020 (!) and -17 FRV in ’22, and entered the year with -15 DRS and -28 FRV for his career between the two outfield corners. He’s shown the ability to improve (0 DRS and -1 FRV last year after -6 and -4 the year before), so I wouldn’t call this a dire situation just yet, and it’s worth remembering that he’s probably going to be a full-time DH sooner or later, which is also factored into those projections. It’s his bat that’s gonna take him to Cooperstown if anything is.

War2D2: Hi Jay! Hope you had a great vacation! You’ll probably get this question more than once today, but thought I’d ask anyway. Given the recent IL trip and potentially scary diagnosis for Wheeler, what would you put his Hall odds at if he winds up having to quit baseball due to health? He’s not at all close in any traditional metric, but if you aggregate the last five years he’s been the best starting pitcher in baseball (9 bWAR ahead of second place in that period). How do you weigh that, given the changing role of starters in the modern game? I’m not saying he should get in (only 40 WAR, no Cy Young, etc), but I’m curious what you think.

Jay Jaffe: I’m not going to game out odds on him making the Hall, but I do address Wheeler’s progress in tomorrow’s installment. I’m less keen on the utility of a 5-year rolling WAR calculation for Hall purposes than I am a 7-year one; as Mike Petriello wrote about in early 2024 (https://www.mlb.com/news/how-the-hall-of-fame-should-judge-starting-pi…), 80% of the post-integration starters who can make such a claim are either in the Hall or will be. Wheeler is the leader for the seven-year stretches starting in 2018, 2019, and ’20 (he’s got about a 9-win jump on 2nd-ranked Max Fried); the only pitchers in that span with as many or more such leads are Clemens, Stieb, and Santana. So that’s not nothing.

Grant: When I look up a split on Fangraphs and I check the wRC+, is the wRC+ that’s displayed like sOPS+ from Baseball Reference in that it’s comparing to the league average in that split or is it comparing to overall league average?

Jay Jaffe: It’s a comparison to overall league average.

21127: The Dombrowski as HOFer is interesting. What other modern execs will likely be considered: Cashman, Epstein, Friedman, etc.?

Jay Jaffe: As GMs/POBOs for multiple champinship teams, all of those guys are probably going to wind up in the Hall as well. Beyond those guys, Billy Beane, despite never winning a pennant, is considered by many to have a pretty good shot on the basis of the influence of his Moneyball-era A’s.

Jay Jaffe: The other exec of recent vintage i’d mention is Beane’s mentor, Sandy Alderson, though the end of his tenure in Queens was an absolute shitshow that could hurt his cause.

Brave Believer: I know you’ve done a lot of work on quantifying a player’s performance as it relates to Hall likelihood. Have you or anyone else found a way to quantitatively take into account team performance for how the players likelihood changes?

Jay Jaffe: The foundation of what I do with regards to the Hall is to focus on the context-neutral aspect of their performance via WAR, where team performance isn’t the point. Of course, I think team success is a valid part of a player’s Hall case, and can be reflected to some degree in individual postseason performance, but I don’t have a prescription for how to quantify that and I expect that voters will differ in the subjective weight they accord team success.

RaisedUp: Is Junior Caminero having a under the radar great season? Even the image that comes up when you google him is a Yankees Pitcher.

Jay Jaffe: I suppose you could call it under-the-radar season in that he plays for Tampa Bay and is a 22-year-old in his first full year in the majors, but Caminero did make the AL All-Star team and finish second in the Home Run Derby, and he’s currently thid in the AL in total bases and home runs, so we’re not talking about someone who’s completely obscure. I expect his profile to grow in the near future

12 to 6: the alexis diaz rehab experiment is a worthy one, but given the dodgers seeming return to somewhat health in the bullpen, i would much rather he experiment at aaa instead of in the midst of a pennant race. paul gervase is a unique look for their pen – any reason he isn’t up already?

Jay Jaffe: When Gervase was traded from Tampa Bay to Los Angeles on July 31, Eric Longenhagen graded him as a 35+ FV and described him as a “gigantic righty with elite extension, plus fastball playability. Walk-prone track record.” I don’t know isn’t up besides roster space, but he is on the 40-man roster and figures to get a look. I imagine the Dodgers front office likes him but wants to try a few tweaks at OKC before they throw him into the fire but I’d bet we’ll see him in Dodger blue sooner or later.

sandy: Hi, any thoughts on Sandy Alcantara ROS?  One game very good, the next is awful.  Thank you

Jay Jaffe: The raw stuff is still pretty good but that drop in swinging strike rate – from 12.3% in 2023 to 8.6% this year — worries me greatly. I think he’s going to need another winter and maybe a change of scenery to be good again.

Maddoning: What’s up with Mookie Betts exactly?  Is it that early-season illness?  It’s a little early for an age-related decline, isn’t it?

Jay Jaffe: i think it’s a combination of factors — the early-season illness, the physical demands of shortstop, age, nagging minor injuries, and the mental toll of his long slump.

Jay Jaffe: He does seem to be through the worst of it and has looked better at the plate lately

Maddoning: Did Houston rush Cam Smith?  He’s batting .159 since the ASB, with ballooning K-Rates

Jay Jaffe: it does seem that way, which shouldn’t be too surprising given that he had all of five games above High-A coming into the year. A Triple-A reset while there’s still minor league ball to play would probably be a good thing for him.

md: How can you truly explain the Dodgers smacking the stuffing out of the Padres for a weekend then immediately looking extraordinarily pedestrian against the Rockies

Jay Jaffe: That’s baseball, Suzyn.

Jay Jaffe: it’s hardly inconceivable that after players get keyed up for the biggest series of the year so far, there would be an emotional letdown, and Coors Field takes a physical toll on players. The ball finding Teoscar — a bad outfielder these days — at a couple of inopportune times had an outsized effect on the results.

Sodo mojo: So earlier in the season the Raleigh over Judge conversation was laughable now with the gap in WAR tightening do you think Raleigh having one of the greatest seasons by a catcher gives him an edge in the mvp race

Jay Jaffe: it’s a real MVP race, and yes, Raleigh is having one of the great seasons for a catcher while Judge has cooled off and missed time due to injury; by fWAR the gap is just 7.4 for Judge to 7.0 for Raleigh. I don’t have an MVP vote t but if I did, I’d be waiting until late September to make up my mind; we’ve got another month to see what transpires. I hope both players make this as hard to choose as possible.

Tom R: Is Stanton really going into the HOF with 500 HRs?

Jay Jaffe: Well, I don’t think he’s going in without 500 homers. But I do think that if he does get to 500, the fact that a player reaches the milestone untainted by scandal is going to do a lot of the work for him.

Opifijikl: I’ve got a question about C. Rafaela. If you were trying to make a “context-neutral” list of pretty good players, would you include him? How do you take into account roster decisions beyond his control? He’s great at CF and Still Learning 2B/SS but is being a team player and playing there despite bad results.

Jay Jaffe: Sure. This is a guy who’s got 3.0 fWAR/3.7 bWAR this year at age 24, with about a quarter of the season to go. He plays elite CF defense and has the ability to play the middle infield as well. He’d probably be more valuable if the Red Sox stick with him in center field, but the fact that they may make the playoffs with him spending time at multiple spots isn’t going to hurt him.

next for HoF?: Sorry, probably an often asked question, but now that Hodges, Santo, Allen, Oliva, etc are in, who do you see as the best or most deserving to get in via committee?

Jay Jaffe: Among AL and NL guys, it’s Bonds and Clemens. If you want to look past PED-linked guys, I’d still say Whitaker and Grich on performance but would probably put Curt Flood above them for his sacrifice towards ending the reserve clause.

Your Name: The Pirates currently have no players with a wRC+ of 100 or above. Not even someone who went 1 for 1 and got hurt for the real, or someone who started hot and got traded at the deadline (hypothetical examples). Has any team finished a year with 0 players putting up an at least average wRC+?

Jay Jaffe: Somebody noted yesterday they didn’t have a single above-average hitter and I meant to check that. It’s much easier to do with OPS+, where among post-integration teams the 1980 Mariners, 1981 Twins, and these Pirates have just 1 guy with 1 PA and an OPS+ of 11 (Liover Peguero, in 58 PA for the Bucs)

Jay Jaffe: I can’t find any with 0 such players going back to 1900 or 1871 though.

Guest: Do you have Larry Lucchino on your HOF radar?  Lots to like there, from ballpark revivals to mentoring to championships and charitable endeavors…

Jay Jaffe: no, because he was a business-side guy who never served as a GM. Those types generally haven’t been rewarded with Hall consideration, at least not lately.

MF Luder: Does Carlos Rodon start in a Yankees playoff series?

Jay Jaffe: if they get there and he’s healthy, i don’t see how they couldn’t start him

Jay Jaffe: I don’t even get why that’s a question, the guy has a 3.25 ERA and 3.85 FIP and unlike Max Fried, he hasn’t stunk on ice lately.

SDG: Has Kyle Tucker hurt his free agency?

Jay Jaffe: all of those people talking about Tucker getting $400 million or more are kind of quiet now, aren’t they? He’s in a slump but I think he’ll be fine. More in the $200-million contract area (as ZiPS suggested https://blogs.fangraphs.com/kyle-tuckers-walk-year-is-off-to-a-strong-…) than the $400 million one, though.

Jon: Why won’t the MLBPA at least entertain a cap-and-floor system that sets total player share of revenue higher than its current level? Concerns over manipulation of baseball revenue? Is it that the PA weighs superstars more than the younger/middle-class types who would benefit? Something else I’m missing?

Jay Jaffe: Because the math doesn’t work for the players, particularly if the owners won’t go for a floor.

As Joe Sheehan pointed out, the only leagues that have cap-and-floor systems are one where the owners have basically broken the union. The MLBPA isn’t as strong as it once was but it’s far more powerful than the NFL, NBA or NHL unions.

Jay Jaffe: Go read Joe https://www.joesheehan.com/2025/07/joe-sheehan-newsletter-january-28-2…

Insert Witty Name Here: Fangraphs @ 20! What’s your fondest and what’s your weirdest moment working for the site?

Jay Jaffe: My fondest memories of FG are the times we can get together as a group, most notably the winter meetings and our 2021 November AFL trip. The 2019 winters, where our fancy staff dinners kept getting interrupted by major free agent signings that forced one of us to leave mid-meal were memorable; there was a funny moment in the one that didn’t, where Dan Szymborski and I ordered ridiculously expensive Old Fashioneds on the company dime, that I’ve recounted elsewhere. Will try to dig up that link post-chat instead of retelling it here.

The early months of the pandemic were absolutely surreal. Getting a crash course in the KBO and suddenly getting to be on ESPN because of our coverage — that was weird as hell.

I know you’ve…: …probably answered this before, but I can’t find any reference, so I’ll ask (again). Why do you use bWAR as the default in your HOF discussions? Bonus: Does anyone at fGRAPHS give you crap for that?

Jay Jaffe: I’ve never been satisfied with fWAR as a long-term historical measure for pitchers, as it seems to break down in low-HR, low-strikeout environments such as the Dead Ball era. When I was hired, David Appelman and I agreed that I’d never have to move JAWS to fWAR-based if I didn’t want to. We’ve played around with an fJAWS behind the scenes but aside from framing-inclusive catcher stuff, it’s unofficial.

Nasty Nate: Why don’t we talk about Eovaldi’s season more? Lack of electric stuff in his age 35 season? DeGrom a sexier name to talk about on the same team? I was watching one of his recent starts and the announcers mentioned he was calling his own game. Surely that adds cool points! I know underlying metrics indicate he is getting a bit lucky, but he’s still pitching his brains out.

Jay Jaffe: he’s worth a look! I think i’ll put a claim in on writing about him soon — I’m not really sure what’s going on there yet.

Slew(Seattle): Would Kenny Lofton get your HOF vote?

Jay Jaffe: yes, in a vacuum. Would depend who he’s alongside on an Era Committee ballot, though.

Bobby Jenks, on the roster: Kyle Tucker:  hurt, or just the coldest thing since Vanilla Ice and Cleveland Spiders?

Jay Jaffe: Vanilla Ice and the Cleveland Spiders sounds like the 1890s/1990s mashup we need.

BumpHadley: Thanks so much for creating JAWS. One of my favorite things to do is look at JAWS broken down by position. In general, finishing in the top 15-20 in JAWS means a guy is a surefire Hall of Famer. Over the last few years, we’ve seen the Veterans’ Committee putting in guys like Parker and
Baines who fall outside the top 30. If you were voting and had to choose, what retired players who fall outside the top 30 would you consider voting for?

Jay Jaffe: Flood (46th in CF) tops the list. There are a lot of decent starting pitcher candidates outside the top 30 of course

Jay Jaffe: Strictly on performance… Stanton is 36th in RF (40.9 JAWS) and has work to do to get to 30th (Brian Giles at 44.2) but I’d like to see him make it to 500 and into the Hall.

Jay Jaffe: Ok folks, that’s it from me for this week. Thanks so much for stopping by! We’ll do this again soon.