You are viewing the chat in desktop mode. Click here to switch to mobile view.
X
Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 10/1/21
powered byJotCast
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:02
Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to the first Joctober edition of my chat
2:03
It was a busy week for me here! Today I've got a Team Entropy update with a focus on the Mariners' Pythagenpat-defying clutch goodness http://blogs.fangraphs.com/team-entropy-2021-dial-m-for-mariners/
2:04
And also a podcast spot with Fred C. Harris, co-author of one of my longtime favorite baseball books, The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading, and Bubblegum Book http://blogs.fangraphs.com/fangraphs-audio-fred-harris-chats-baseball-...
2:05
Yesterday I looked at Devin Williams' ill-timed, wrong-handed punch of a wall http://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-brewers-devin-williams-has-punched-hims...
and on Wednesday, I dug into the NL MVP race http://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-fascinating-and-still-unsettled-nl-mvp-...
Dan
2:05
Any suggestions on steps to learn R/Python with an end goal of executing baseball queries? I’ve started with a YouTube course, but wanted to see your opinion. Thank you!
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:07
My opinion is that it's a good idea to learn that stuff... which I have no idea about, but if you tweet this at me I'll retweet and see what kind of responses turn up
Chris
2:07
Do you believe???? Go mariners!!
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:09
Other than being happy that they were hanging around the Wild Card race, I didn't have much feeling either way about the Mariners before writing today's piece, but I have to admit that after doing all that research, I hope their ship comes in. I was born in Seattle, have a ton of family on both sides there, and of course this site is historically heavy with Mariners-flavored writers.
2:11
The M's have a 30% chance of winning a Wild Card spot, which is about 60 times what it was on September 18, which is pretty remarkable!
2:13
Looks like we've got a technical issue that's gotten the chat off to a slow start (sometimes the "LIVE CHAT: Jay Jaffe is chatting now" banner doesn't go on) so the queue is pretty slim. Might have to take a pause shortly.
Naftali
2:13
Where would rank Judge among the top players in the league and do you think he'll get a huge extension this winter?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:17
I think Judge is among the top 10-15 position players in the game; he's 12th in WAR this year and 4th since the start of 2017. His durability and propensity for injuries probably keeps me from putting him much higher than that but the Yankees are getting better about managing his workload; this is just the second time he's gotten at least 600PA in a season.There's some good stuff on that topic in today's Lindsey Adler's feature at The Athletic https://theathletic.com/2861339/2021/10/01/the-drive-of-yankees-slugge...
2:19
As to whether he gets an extension, I wouldn't expect anything to happen before a new CBA is in place. That's going to slow down business in general, and without knowing what's going to become of the current Competitive Balance Tax system, the Yankees probably aren't going to do much.
WinTwins0410
2:23
Jay, it’s a small sample size, but it seems like a lot fewer guys play into their late 30s and early 40s than they used to. Feels like a guy playing at age 40 is far more of an anomaly now than it once was (say, in the 1970s or 1980s). But I don’t know the data! Have you run any statistics like this? If not, what’s your sense?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:23
since we have the time, here's a Stathead query on players 35 and older making 100 PA in a season since 2008 https://stathead.com/tiny/5dAsV
2:24
and 28 in 2019, compared to an average near 40 from 2008-11
2:25
only 2 40 year olds met that criteria this year and none in 2018-19, compared to 4-5 annually fro
m 2008-12
2:26
front offices' better understanding of aging curves and the squeeze they're putting on mid-tier free agents are both probably factors in that, but not the only ones
>this guy<
2:26
tre: the python question, there is a program just for that called "Learn to Code with Baseball." I bought it, have not started ot yet so cannot confrim effectiveness. But it's affordable!
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:26
thank you for that response
JupiterBrando
2:26
Regarding a Twitter comment the other day, why are you so dismissive of people thinking the Giants are cheating somehow? Either they're cheating, or whatever they're doing is a breakthrough in baseball development not seen since the invention of the farm system. Shouldn't writers and the media be a bit more incredulous about what they're doing? It sure seems like they're undermining a lot of modern sabermetric theory regarding aging curves.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:30
I'm dismissive when somebody offers it up as the only explanation without a shred of evidence. As a professional, I can't responsibly sit here and offer "probably cheating" up as even the most remote explanation for an anomaly.  

Yes, we've seen scandals in recent decades — PEDS and sign stealing (I don't consider sticky stuff a scandal) — and we've also seen changes that have reduced the routes by which those could happen. Have the Giants come up with a new way to cheat? I highly doubt it, but if you have actual evidence towards that, by all means, please share it with the class.
barney gumble
2:30
hey jay. should yankee fans be concerned about Gerrit Cole, at least in a wild card game? he looks quite shaky but insists it's not the hammy...
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:33
I think it's tough for the Yankees to feel great about where Cole's at given his last 5 starts (6.15 ERA, 5.14 FIP, just 26.1 innings), just two of which were serviceable. Maybe it's the hamstring, maybe it's fatigue. If they make it to the Wild Card, the Yankees better have a backup plan.
Guest
2:33
How will you or others evaluate Salvador Perez's Hall of Fame candidacy?  The disparity in fWAR versus brWAR is pretty amazing.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:34
considering his Hall case without somehow incorporating framing stats — an area where he is alas not very good — is malpractice.
2:35
We have multiple resources — FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus, Statcast, and even a version of DRS — that tell us he isn't very good at it. That can't be dismissed
>this guy<
2:35
Giants are doing a lot of practice, development, research etc that no one else does. Eno hints at it all the time on R&B podcast
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:36
There's been a lot published about some of the stuff the Giants have done regarding coaching and preparation. at the Athletic and elsewhere. Some of it certainly seems to be paying off.
Morton, Fried, Pray for Rain
2:37
Braves and Brewers have super similar run differential. Are they actually comparable or is this more the Brewers enjoying the fruits of a big division lead?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:40
They have very similar records in blowouts (games decided by 5 or more runs): 28-15 for Brewers, 27-14 for Braves, but even there, their run differentials diverge (+79 for Milwaukee, +114 for Atlanta). Meanwhile, the Brewers are 21-15 in one-run games, the Braves 25-30. i think it's fair to say that the Brewers have been more  "efficient" in their run distribution. They're 1 game ahead of their Pythagenpat record, the Braves are 6 games behind theirs.
TarzanJoe
2:40
If it's true that today's players are exponentially better than those in the past (i.e. Trout would hit 100 HRs per year in the 20's, Ottovino would K Ruth every time he faced him, etc.) then isn't it specious to use WAR as a means of comparing players across eras? Maybe DJ LeMahieu is an objectively better player, but he's never reaching Rogers Hornsby's WAR total
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:43
What WAR is attempting to do is to measure a player relative to a baseline based upon his surroundings. We can speculate about what Trout would hit in 1927 or what Babe Ruth would hit today, but all we really have is a knowledge of what these guys did in their own times and what the competitive landscape looked like then. Mike Trout is ahead of the replacement level of his his time by comparable amounts to Willie Mays in his time, but the actual level of play has improved thanks to better training and nutrition, for example.
2:44
better training and nutrition as well as a narrower gap between the best players and the worst (which is why we don't see Ruth/Hornsby-level WARs consistently)
Naftali
2:44
Before this year, Salvy didn't have a wRC+ above 110 in a full season since 2013. With him in his thirties now I can't see him being a HOFer.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:45
Perez is a fan favorite, and fans aren't always rational about their favorites.
Mrs. Phanatic
2:45
Has there ever been a team with the MVP and Cy Young who didn’t make the playoffs? Will it happen this year with the Phillies?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:46
Somebody asked me this recently on Twitter. I believe the only team so far is the 1962 Dodgers (Maury Wills MVP, Don Drysdale CY) – and they just missed the playoffs, losing a best-of-three tiebreaker series to the Giants
Cy Young
2:46
There's about 5 guys in the NL you can make a case for, who gets your vote for my award?
Load More Messages
Connecting…