Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 9/9/25

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to another edition of my Tuesday chats. We’ve got a nice little streak of four straight weeks going, something that  hasn’t happened since May and June, just before the summer travel began.

Jay Jaffe: Anyway, in case you missed it, I wrote a tribute to Davey Johnson, who passed away over the weekend. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/davey-johnson-1943-2025-a-man-ahead-of-the…

Jay Jaffe: I’m more convinced than ever that Johnson belongs in the Hall. Nothing against Lou Piniella, who missed by one vote on the 2024 Era Committee ballot while Jim Leyland got elected — with Johnson in the “5 votes or fewer scrum — but Johnson’s managerial career is superior to Piniella’s in everything but length, and he was a real innovator in terms of his usage of personal computers and his carrying on the Earl Weaver legacy.

Jay Jaffe: Anyhoo, I’ve got a piece in the pipeline today about candidates for the 30-30 club. Would you believe Juan Soto is the closest to joining from among this year’s crop, and that he has more steals over the past ~2 months than any major leaguer? Yeah, weird times.

Alby: Of the pitchers who will finish with fewer than 200 wins, whose election do you think would do the most to get voters to change their standards – somebody who’s not a unicorn like DeGrom but would represent the new level that would allow a representative cohort to follow him?

Jay Jaffe: I touched upon this a few weeks ago when I did my Hall of Fame progress series (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cooperstown-notebook-the-2025-progress-rep…). I think the answer might be Chris Sale, who is 36 years old, has 143 wins, and has the next-highest S-JAWS after Verlander, Kershaw, and Scherzer (49.2). I don’t see him getting to 200 wins, but 3,000 strikeouts is a possibility (he needs 454), and between his perennial Cy Young candidacy and his bWAR rankings (including six times in his league’s top 5), I think he’s going to be the best choice we see for a few years.

Jay Jaffe: Cole Hamels (48.2 S-JAWS, 163 wins) will be on the ballot this winter and will be a preview case for this. He won’t fare well, particularly because of his lack of a Cy Young, but he’ll be the best candidate until the big guys hit the ballot.

Phil: Would you agree that Rafaela *has* to play center regardless of who’s available? I know Clemens and others have addressed this, but I feel like the Sox overvalue versatility sometimes, which was a problem in the past with Kiké Hernandez etc.

Jay Jaffe: No lineup decision is made in a vacuum, and while the metrics tell us that Ceddanne Rafaela is one of the best center fielders in the game, the Red Sox’s roster construction is such that there may be days where he’s their best option at second base (where he’s basically average), because David Hamilton (who’s very good there) has a 55 wRC+.

Jay Jaffe: In other words, the Sox may need offense more than defense on that particular day, or they may be using a more groundball-heavy pitcher who minimizes the Red Sox’s advantage of having a great center fielder and allows them to put Duran there.

That said, given the state of the Red Sox outfield with Anthony likely done for the year and Abreu still sidelined (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-red-sox-are-stretched-thin-by-the-loss…), it’s probably a pretty small set of circumstances where all this would make sense, since putting Masataka Yoshido in left field (or right) probably neutralizes a lot of other advantages conferred by putting Rafaela at second.

sodo mojo: What does a Eugenio Suarez deal look like next year.  He has been a monster at the plate this year with 132 WRc+ and 45 bombs but he is also going to be 35 and his defense has taken a large step back.  Is he looking at a short 1-2 year deal but with a high AAV or is he good enough that he can command a 3 year deal even with the risk?

Jay Jaffe: Oh I think he gets three years, though it might take bells and whistles (options, escalators) to get there. Maybe something in the 3/$60M+ range.

Doug: Do you see any possibilities of the WC round going to 5 games ever? Could have the top 2 seeds play in a 3 game series for the top seed (or let them

Jay Jaffe: I’m sure MLB would love to create more playoff baseball (ugh) while reducing the length of the regular season, something Manfred and the owners would like to do, but absolutely won’t f—— happen without significant financial gains for the players. My guess is that the owners’ position for the upcoming CBA is going to be so dipped in shit that they won’t get far with the idea.

Lord Thunder: Has Mark Vientos salvaged his chance to be in the Mets’ 2026 mix?

Jay Jaffe: the guy has a 145 wRC+ in the second half and he’ll be a year away from arbitration eligibility. Even if Pete Alonso exercises his player option and returns, I don’t see the Mets parting ways with Vientos unless it’s part of a big trade that gets them something much better.

WinTwins0410: Jay, great piece on Davey Johnson — thank you for writing it.  I thought it was terrific — as was Bruce Weber’s obit in the New York Times (not sure if you saw that).  If I may jump ahead to the Eras committee balloting for the HoF after the season ends, I wanted to ask: Despite how well Gary Sheffield did on his final writers’ ballot (63.9%), does he really have a shot of getting in from the Eras committee, however tangential his PED connections may be?  Seems like it’d be weird if a small committee let him in but not Bonds and Clemens.  What do you think?  The more I think about it, the more it “feels” to me like a committee (and Eras committees have been notoriously stingy toward anyone associated with PEDs anyhow) would struggle to admit Sheffield before Bonds/Clemens.  Thoughts?

Jay Jaffe: Thanks for the kind words about Johnson and yes, I did see Weber’s piece, which was good. I think you’ve hit on exactly the mess that the upcoming Era Committee faces. I honestly don’t know how it’s going to shake out except that with Sheffield, Bonds, Clemens, Schilling, Kent and (maybe) Lofton, Whitaker, and Dwight Evans it could be an absolute cluster—-.

Seattle: How instrumental is it that seattle resigns naylor, he’s such a smart player and is bringing all of these traits that seattle hasnt had since idk when, just a pleasure getting to watch this guy every night

Jay Jaffe: Naylor has been a timely addition for the Mariners. Can you believe he’s 25-for-27 in stolen base attempts this year despite sprint speed that places him in the 2nd percentile? That said, he’s a ballplayer with limitations; right now he’s in his third straight season with 2-3 WAR and a wRC+ in the 118-127 range. That’s hardly a must-retain except at a certain price point.

2131, 1312: Do you think Colton Cowser can be a legit center fielder for the O’s? He doesn’t have to be there every day for the next 5 years, but just long enough until … idk, Enrique Bradfield

Jay Jaffe: I’m not convinced. The guy hit for a 118 wRC+ last year but has crashed to an 85 wRC+ with a 34.3% strikeout rate this year, which is pretty unplayable for a regular who isn’t an elite fielder. To me that’s a guy who should be back in Triple-A, not an everyday regular.

BobbyGrichHoF: Hey Jay. I was wondering what your thoughts on Sammy’s guilty by association steroid use. Sosa never failed a positive test, a lot of the evidence is circumstantial like Piazza or Bagwell, and people hold him using an interpreter in court against him, which is really stupid because English is not his first language. Love all of the work you’ve done.

Jay Jaffe: I think a lot of racism has seeped into the portrayals of Sosa going back to Curt Schilling making fun of him with his “Baseball been berry, berry good to me” caricature at the 2002 Home Run Derby and yes, the interpretation of his using an interpreter in court. Not that Sosa’s own conduct hasn’t helped to fan the flames or that he’s as pure as the driven snow. But I’ve always been suspicious of Manfred publicly noting that David Ortiz’s reported positive on the survey test was for a substance that would have been challenged in arbitration, without mentioning whether the same was true for Sosa.

RAGBRAI: A lot of good rookie pitchers. Is any one of them off to a start similar to current HOFers? In others words based on their rookie year, who has a good basis to build on that in 10-12 years (or more) they have HOF potential. I realize this is all speculative.

Jay Jaffe: Assuming you’re talking about actual rookies and not young pitchers à la Paul Skenes (the obvious answer if you are),  injuries are so prevalent that even speculating is probably a waste of time. Less than a full year in to a pitcher’s career I’d be looking more at stuff than performance if I wanted to think about his long-term profile, with guys like Misiorowski and Schlittler standing out  — but since we don’t have, say, Stuff+ going back far enough to make comparisons to Hall of Famers, it’s all kind of fruitless.

Guest: Is Tanner Scott cooked?

Jay Jaffe: The stuff is still good enough, and he’s getting batters to chase, but… it’s not working out in general. i think it’s very hard to live as just a two-pitch pitcher; he probably has to add a third offering to avoid falling into the same patterns.

2017: Does Judge losing that MVP and then rocketing past Altuve in WAR feel like a funny turn of events?

Jay Jaffe: Eh, Judge was (and still is) the younger player with the higher ceiling so it felt at least somewhat inevitable. But I don’t think anyone saw this coming.

Guest: Is Shohei truly a unicorn? He may be doing it better than Babe Ruth, but he’s not unique in being a MLBer who has hit and pitched in significant quantities.

Jay Jaffe: Yes, he’s a unicorn. It’s not just that he did both well, it’s that he’s done them contemporaneously. Ruth’s double-duty days didn’t last very long, and he was doing it all pre-integration against farm boys who pumped gas or ran the general store in the offseason. Ohtani has been kept on a short leash because of his latest injury but he’s already had more seasons with 100 innings and 500 plate appearances than Ruth (3 to 1); you’d have to go down to 151 PA to get three seasons where Ruth pulled such double duty.

Pinstriped Power: Stanton looks like he will come right up to the for 500 home runs before his contract runs out. Makes you wonder: excluding PEd players and cheats, what the most home runs by someone not in the Hall, and should they be in there?

Jay Jaffe: Pretty easy to answer that. Excluding the not-yet-eligible Pujols and Cabrera, the top home run hitter outside the Hall who was never linked to PEDs is Carlos Delgado (473). Alas, he’s a guy with just 44.4 career WAR as he was a subpar defender and baserunner who retired after his age-37 season and just doesn’t have the portfolio of a Hall of Famer. A true mensch, though. https://www.si.com/mlb/2014/12/15/jaws-2015-hall-of-fame-ballot-carlos…

Nancy’s Friend Sluggo: How close was Bobby Bonds to being a HOFer? He had the peak, but he didn’t compile a lot. (Maybe incessant smoking was an obstacle to continued performance?!?) I’m sure in the time before 3 True Outcomes, his K rates were a deal killer. I wonder if it would be different if he was having the same career today. Thanks, man!

Jay Jaffe: Bobby didn’t make it into The Cooperstown Casebook but I’ve written about him in brief before, most notably at the bygone Pinstriped Bible. Updating the numbers:

A natural center fielder who got stuck in right field by the Giants because he had the misfortune of arriving when Willie Mays was still a going concern, Bonds averaged 5.9 bWAR per year from 1969 through 1974 as a Giant before being traded to the Yankees for Bobby Murcer. He didn’t lose a beat, hitting .270/.375/.512 with 32 homers and 30 steals in his lone season in pinstripes, good for 5.0 WAR…

Bonds seemed to spend much of his career under a cloud of bad luck. He and Reggie Jackson were almost exactly the same age and debuted one year apart. Both had power, considerable speed and a ton of strikeouts, and finished with similar career rate stats (.268/.353/.471/129 OPS+ for Bonds to .262/.356/.490/139 OPS+ for Jackson)…

Jay Jaffe: Yet one was a superduperstar who won an MVP award and five World Series rings, and stuck around into his  forties. The other never finished higher than third in an MVP vote, played just three postseason games, left the majors at 35, his career foreshortened by problems with alcohol.

Nancy’s Friend Sluggo: I’m about the same age as you, and I don’t think I’ve cared for a single MLB Commissioner during my life. Who do you think was the best of the lot during our era?

Jay Jaffe: Giamatti, for banning Pete Rose.

Nancy’s Friend Sluggo: How do you think the market will see Michael King this winter? He’s a wonderful pitcher who’s been banged up in ten different ways in 2025. If he remains in an upright and locked position in September and October, do you think a long-term deal will be waiting for him?

Jay Jaffe: Yes. Somebody will take the risk because the ceiling is so high

Nancy’s Friend Sluggo: Where do you stand on player/managers getting into the Hall if they were very good at both things but not great at either?

Jay Jaffe: Gotta be great at something. Great is a pretty malleable term and we can haggle over the specifics but I need to be convinced a guy was at least in the argument for one of the best at one of his roles.

Nancy’s Friend Sluggo: I’ve always tried to look at potential HOFers objectively for their performance and not pay attention to their personalities, but Schilling makes it impossible for me. Are you able to separate the players from the noise, even if it’s ugly noise?

Jay Jaffe: It’s become difficult to impossible once the writers began invoking the so-called character clause.

Jay Jaffe: Which really was barely paid attention to before Mark McGwire hit the ballot in 2007.

Dan: If Juan Soto can be a leader in steal does that mean he or his base coach figured something out that isn’t related to physical skills and over the off-season other faster players will figure out what it is and next year will be a huge number of steals?

Jay Jaffe: The Soto piece is out: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/juan-soto-leads-this-years-pack-of-30-home…

Jay Jaffe: As noted within, some of this owes to the 2023 introduction of the disengagement rule and the larger bases, but the Mets have an excellent first base coach in Antoan Richardson, who has done some drills with video to help players learn various pitchers’ moves to first. Soto is already a very, very hard worker who has a great eye for detail when studying video, so add that to the advantages that runners now have and you’ve got a template for more players getting more aggressive when it comes to stealing.

Guest: Hi Jay!  Very dumb question that I can’t seem to find an answer to.  How does say a Sac Fly (that brings in a run) impact WRC and WAR?  Do those formulas tab it as an out like any other?

Jay Jaffe: It’s just another out as far as wRC+ and WAR are concerned. Those gains would be captured in something situational such as WPA or RE24 (and of course RBI)

bringbackpologrounds: Sorry if this is a basic question, but when will we learn who makes it onto the contemporary era ballot?

Jay Jaffe: Early November.

2131, 1312: If Verlander (3.64 FIP) and Scherzer (4.95 FIP) still aren’t ready to hang it up after this season, is there a market for either of them? What kinds of contenders might take a swing?

Jay Jaffe: almost certainly some kind of market, but teams will be looking at them as 4/5 starters good for maybe 20-25 starts rather than a full workload.

Jay Jaffe: They’ll cost more than the typical 4/5, of course, so don’t wait up for them in places like Cincinnati, Cleveland, Tampa Bay, Milwaukee, etc.

WestCoastPhan: Non-JAWS HOF question for you. Trea Turner has 26 on the Black Ink metric (avg. HOF has 27). How much do you consider those other rules-of-thumb when thinking about a player’s HOF chances? Also, how much do you look at the fWAR numbers (e.g. Turner is at 47.5 fWAR but only 41.9 bWAR) — I get JAWS doesn’t use fWAR, but do you consider it?

Jay Jaffe: For a guy like Turner, where the defensive systems are so far apart, it will probably make sense to keep fWAR in mind if it’s a dramatic contrast to bWAR but for the most part they tend to be close enough to work with except at catcher, where fWAR’s ability to capture framing (and bWAR not even trying to) makes it my tool of choice.

Jay Jaffe: Black ink makes much more sense to look at for offense-first positions. Nobody should expect a shortstop or catcher to have the same amount of black ink as a first baseman.

Jay Jaffe: Ok folks, that’s it from me for today! Thanks so much for stopping by. Please tip your waiters and waitresses.