Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 9/16/25

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks!

Jay Jaffe: For the fifth straight Tuesday, we’re doing this — which I think might be a season high. A lack of travel will do that.

Jay Jaffe: Anyway, on Friday I wrote about Mookie Betts’ turnaround (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/mookie-betts-may-salvage-his-season-yet/), and yesterday he was named the NL Player of the Week and had a big night against the Phillies in a losing cause, with a solo homer and a pair of sac flies.

Jay Jaffe: Yesterday I wrote about the Mets’ slide; remarkably, they’ve gone 32-49 since Senga was injured on June 12. Their problems basically stem from running out of arms. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/amid-the-collapse-of-their-pitching-the-me…

Jay Jaffe: I’m working on a piece about the remaining playoff races. it’s not Team Entropy but it’s what we have, and it’s helpful to understand the tiebreakers and remaining scenarios

Jay Jaffe: Pouring one out for Robert Redford, whom I particularly loved in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Sting (both with Paul Newman). If you’re young enough that those movies aren’t familiar to you, by all means waste no time in seeing them. As for The Natural and the baseball connection, eh, i don’t hate the movie like i do Field of Dreams, but it’s got problems.

Jay Jaffe: Anyway, on with the show…

sb4321: Cal Raleigh’s framing numbers are all over the place. DRS has him at 5. Statcast has him at 4. FanGraphs has him at 9.9. Baseball Prospectus has him at 11.4.

Which number is closest to accurate in your opinion?

Jay Jaffe: Good grief.

Jay Jaffe: All of those are estimates based on models drawn from years of empirical data. They take similar inputs, but might draw from differing sample sizes, and there’s no right or wrong.

Jay Jaffe: Those are all in the same ballpark, and as with any defensive data, that’s about as accurate as you’re likely to get. Personally, i tend to focus on our FRM and on Statcast’s framing, since it breaks down the data by areas of the strike zone.

Jay Jaffe: Cal Raleigh’s framing is worth somewhere from half a win to a win.

Playoffs, these guys?!: Hey Jay, clearly the brewers have some regular season magic. Do you see them doing anything in the playoffs this year?

Jay Jaffe: Sure. They’re going to get a first-round bye and then play the winner of one of the Wild Card Series; right now it would be the winner of the Padres/Cubs series. They’ve got exceptional pitching and it wouldn’t surprise me if they stop any of those teams in their tracks — including the Dodgers, from whom they swept the season series.

Jay Jaffe: As for whether they can get to the World Series, I think their fate will have at least something to do with the injuries the other NL teams are dealing with. But I think this is a strong team.

sodo mojo: After the White Sox set the modern era for losses in the modern era in 2024 the Rockies were like hold my beer and are about to set the record for negative run differential by a team in the modern era.  Is there an obvious cause for this other than both these teams seem to be horribly mis managed?

Jay Jaffe: The run differential thing certainly owes a fair bit to Coors Field, but both of those teams are indeed horribly run, and mostly unwilling to spend money. I think the Rockies are the worse one because they change directions every couple of years to no avail.

Mike Trout Mask Replica: Jay – I know Nick Kurtz effectively has AL ROY locked up…but I have been wondering whether Dillon Dingler still has rookie eligibility? He has had a very good, perhaps underappreciated, season. I have been surprised not to see him mentioned yet as a ROY candidate…but if he’s not eligible, that’d explain it.

Jay Jaffe: Dingler isn’t a rookie due to the number of days he spent on the Tigers’ roster in 2024. It appears he was up from July 29 onward

War2D2: Hi Jay! Speaking of magic numbers, what’s your gut feeling on the playoffs? Just a wild-ass guess on the CS and World Series matchups. I’m guessing it’s Philly v. SD and TOR vs. Seattle, SD vs. TOR in the WS. Basing that on nothing but current vibes and who seems to be heating up.

Jay Jaffe: Throwing darts here, Phillies-Brewers NLCS, Red Sox-Tigers ALCS, Phillies over Tigers World Series.

I have absolutely no idea how Boston would pull that off except that I presume they’ll smoke the Yankees in the ALWC.

Sleve McDichael: Has there ever actually been a commissioner who’s a good person? Seems like they’re all only shills for millionaires/billionaires and shitty towards the players. (Obviously they’re paid directly by the owners, not the players)

Jay Jaffe: I think there’s something to be said for Happy Chandler, who approved Jackie Robinson’s contract and was generally supportive of integration, and established the first pension fund for major league players, which made him “the players’ commissioner.” That said, he was heavy-handed when it came to the Mexican League

Jay Jaffe: He was a politician from Kentucky before he became commissioner so I’m sure he had some questionable actions in that capacity, so i can’t say whether he was a good person, but he might have been the best commish.

Jeff from Toronto: How excited should Jays fans be about Yesavage?

Guest: trey yesavage >> skenes

Jay Jaffe: Great debut last night, obviously. I think it’s a stretch to think he’s better than Skenes though I imagine that one was submitted firmly tongue-in-cheek. I think anytime a playoff-bound team calls up a player in September who looks like they can help in the postseason — who can be the October Surprise — it’s particularly exciting, but like any young pitcher I expect he’s going to face his share of challenges and I doubt he’s going to be anointed the Game 1 starter

The M’s only win when I’m abroad: What’s your beef with Field of Dreams?

Jay Jaffe: As I’ve said in this very forum, my main beef with the movie is that it never  confronts the matter of race, which is particularly relevant when they changed the character played by James Earl Jones from white in Kinsella’s book to Black on the screen — and then he rhapsodizes about Old Timey Baseball without acknowledging the misery of segregation.

There’s a lot more; I’ll defer to Craig Calcaterra https://craigcalcaterra.com/blog/field-of-dreams-is-absolutely-terribl…

S.: Does Mike Trout ever win a WS ring with the Angels?

Jay Jaffe: not unless Arte sells and they strip the org from top to bottom

Johnny5Alive: Also re: the mets.  On paper, their bats are having good to great years, but when the games matter – late and close – they are completely absent.  I mean has a team every not won a single game being down in the 8th inning in a season? surely even the rockies and whitesox have won some of those games.

Jay Jaffe: I saw that they’re something like 0-60 in that context and yes, that looks bad, but that’s just one cherry-picked stat. it doesn’t explain why, for example, they have 8 walk-off wins, which is tied for ninth and just three fewer than the leading team (Brewers).

Jay Jaffe: That said, the Mets’ clutch score — a measure of how much better or worse a team hits (or pitches) in higher-leverage situations than lower-lev ones — is the majors’ fifth worst on the offensive side… and third-worst on the pitching side. ouch

Jaymes: Hey Jay, Guardians are heating up, and are facing 6 games against the Tigers, and 3 against the playoff hungry rangers. Do you think they have a chance to sneak into the 5th or 6th seed, or maybe even win the Central?

Jay Jaffe: our Playoff Odds give them a 1.5% chance of winning the division — which would require them to overcome a 6.5-game deficit with 13 to play — and an 11.1% chance of making the playoffs. That’s a significant shot but not one you should get your hopes too high about. I don’t see the Tigers rolling over for them, for one thing.

bringbackpologrounds: I enjoyed the Betts article, Jay. Do you think he has a chance at 100 bWAR? He has to average about 3.5 WAR for the last 7 years of his contract.

Jay Jaffe: It’s probably a long-shot. he’s got 4.8 WAR in a down offensive year but he’s not going to be an above-average SS forever, and he’s prone to getting banged up. I’d guess he’s got about ~15 WAR remaining

Phil: Julio Franco’s remarkable career came up during today’s Effectively Wild. Guest Adam Darowski opined that Franco would have had 3100 or 3200 hits if he’d spent his whole career in MLB. Would this make him a Hall-of-Famer, to you?

Jay Jaffe: if he got to 3,000 hits, with his near-.300 AVG  he’d absolutely be in the Hall of Fame.

Bosoxforlife: When a great player fades as he ages does that affect the way you look at his HOF electability. Am I correct in assuming that the age at which the inevitable decline occurs would be an important factor? Andruw Jones is an obvious example of early collapse and Paul Goldschmidt is the player I am thinking of specifically.

Jay Jaffe: Greatness comes in many shapes and sizes both with regards to the physical aspects and the career shape. I’m still mainly going to judge a candidate by the entire body of work, including his peak, and a high peak like those of Andruw and Goldschmidt can offset an early decline. Both have nearly identical JAWS (54.6 to 54.4) and that’s pretty surely a Hall of Famer

Matt VW: Is K-Rod 2002 the best October surprise on record?

Jay Jaffe: Randy Arozarena’s 2020 comes to mind as the top one — 10 homers, and still rookie-qualified the next season. Evan Carter in 2023 is another

Darryl Vanilla: If McLean has two more starts like his first six and is behind only Shaw in WAR, what are his prospects for rookie of the year?

Jay Jaffe: I don’t think ROY voting is as WAR-driven as, say, MVP voting because rookies may arrive at different times. I wouldn’t expect Shaw to win based on his low batting average. We have Isaac Collins, Drake Baldwin and Caleb Durbin all clustered within .1 WAR, and Cade Horton standing out on the pitching side. I’d bet it’s either Horton or Baldwin.

Kevin: It seems a lockout after next season is inevitable. What percent chance would you give to  regular season games being lost in 2027? To half the season or more being lost?

Jay Jaffe: do you not already have enough uncertainty, bad vibes, and impending doom in your life to be asking about something like this over which you have absolutely zero control?

Jay Jaffe: Seriously, start worrying about it when the owners lock the players out, and know that the stuff almost always gets sorted out with very little actual interruption because MLB is a money-making machine

AA++: How much does Ohtani need to be to be inducted into the Hall of Fame?

Jay Jaffe: I think he already passes the bus test.

The M’s only win when I’m abroad: Ah, super fair point on Field of Dreams. Haven’t watched it since I was a kid and didn’t think about those things. Will cross it off the ever-shortening list of nostalgic movies to re-watch. Thanks tor linking the longer-form article too!

Jay Jaffe: rewatch it if you want — it’s fine to revisit things with a critical eye, I think that’s a great opportunity for growth.

md: re: playoff guesses, what’s got Jay not believing in the Dodgers? I’ve already sent them goodbye into the sunset but we come to you for rationality

Jay Jaffe: have you seen that bullpen?

Jay Jaffe: it’s an unsettlingly bad bullpen where injuries are only part of the problem. I don’t have any confidence that Tanner Scott, Blake Treinen, Kirby Yates et al are going to be able to nail anything down.

Eli: I was looking at Ron Guidry’s stats recently and not to play the “Better than Jack Morris” game but given the NY media market and his ’78 season, is he a possible ’81 strike victim? Or even a great full ’81 season wouldn’t have made a real difference in the BBWAA’s mind(s)?

Jay Jaffe: Guidry went 11-5 with a 2.76 ERA (129 ERA+) and finished 7th in the AL Cy voting that year (Morrs, 14-7, 3.05 was actually pretty good and finished 3rd). I think  Guidry would have had to win nearly all of his remaining starts to get to 20 wins, and as it is, he got to pitch in the World Series and compete for a third ring… but Pedro Guerrero and Steve Yeager had other ideas.

Jay Jaffe: (those two hit back-to-back solo homers off Guidry in the 7th inning of Game 5)

Jay Jaffe: I think Guidry still would have been short of the volume needed to impress HOF voters

Captainjameshook: Are The Dbacks going to overtake the Mets and reprise the Tigers’ sell off and get in from last year? And if so, will this have any effect on future FO’s looking at their depth at the deadline and saying eff it, let’s get some pipeline talent and still see if we can sneak in?

Jay Jaffe: I’m not holding my breath for the Diamondbacks but sure, it could happen. I do think that especially now that the playoffs have such a low bar to entry we’ll see more stories like this. People forget but even in 206, when the Yankees sold off at the deadline and got Gleyber Torres in the Chapman deal, they gave a run for awhile thanks in large part to Gary Sanchez and Tyler Austin; if Aaron Judge had hit like he did in 2017, it would have been even closer.

Porcho Villa: What do you make of Framber Valdez’s recent struggles? Rollercoaster of a season, from early struggles to a long stretch of pure dominance and now back in a deep slump. Recognizing that this is anecdotal armchair psychology, I’ve seen him get rattled easily during starts throughout his career. With that in mind I can’t help wondering if the ridiculous crossing-up-his-catcher incident and its ensuing controversy coupled with his expiring contract are weighing him down on a human level.

Jay Jaffe: Maybe there’s something to what you’re saying, but absent him explaining his mindset I’m reluctant to ascribe psychological causes to normal performance fluctuations. I think he’s having a pretty typical Framber season — maybe a little streakier than usual, and I wonder if the workload of four straight seasons with 175+ innings, plus postseason work, is catching up to him.

Clyde: World’s biggest Luis Urias fan here.   Time to move on?

Jay Jaffe: Didn’t have a very good season but he’s only 28. I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of him.

Pirates Hurdles: I think Happy’s defense of the use of the N-word is quite a bit worse than a 40 year old movie failing to deal with race when MLB itself had barely began to do so. The book and story have nothing to do with that.

Jay Jaffe: I had forgotten about the Chandler incident, from 1989 https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/04/06/Students-protest-Chandlers-rac…

That still doesn’t excuse the incongruity of James Earl Jones’ speech in FoD.

Jay Jaffe: To the person who asked about Bobby Bonds and the HOF, i answered a very similar question in last week’s chat.

TugMcGrawFan1996: The two #1 teams in the AL/NL are similar in that they have basically no below replacement level players (the Blue Jays have one, and it’s their closer who still has 30 saves). What does this say about roster construction wrt focusing less on high ceiling guys and more on high floor guys?

Jay Jaffe: Sometimes it’s high-floor teams without big weaknesses that are more successful, sometimes it’s stars-and-scrubs teams, and the context matters. Over the course of 162 games, depth is a huge deal, but in the playoffs, a higher share of the playing time goes to the top ~15-16 guys on the roster so having higher top-end helps

Karl Hungus: I think Ray Liotta as Joe Jackson batting right and throwing left is worse.

Jay Jaffe: Another strike against the movie. And with that, i’m calling it a day for this chat. Thanks so much for stopping by!