JotCast | Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 3/23/20

Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 3/23/20

Jay Jaffe

12:33

Good afternoon and welcome to the rescheduled, on-the-fly version of my weekly chat. It's been a rough eight days since we last connected here, for you as surely as it's been for me, but last night I saw a flicker of hope via a YouTube broadcast from Busan, South Korea, where the Lotte Giants (who employ FanGraphs alum Sung Min Kim) played an intrasquad scrimmage, with former MLB hurlers Dan Straily and Adrian Sampson starting for their respective squads.

12:34

I wrote more about that in today's COVID-19 roundup, as well as some other developments involving a minor league advocacy group and the use of Marlins Park as a spot for drive-through testing https://blogs.fangraphs.com/covid-19-roundup-flickers-of-hope-and-even...

12:36

The hope for the KBO is that they can start their season in mid-April, in which case I plan to become as well-versed as possible in the league, because baseball.

12:39

Last year I did a bit of poking around KBO stat sites when the Blue Jays brought up Ryan Feierabend, a lefty who remade himself as a knuckleballer while pitching for the Nexen Heroes and KT Wiz https://blogs.fangraphs.com/ryan-feierabend-and-the-disappearing-knuck...

12:41

Anyway, I'm chatting here with my 3 1/2-year daughter and her partner in crime, our mutt Sandy, underfoot. The queue is filling slowly. I'll start tackling questions but if there's a delay in my responses, it's because I'm keeping the apartment from burning down or at least sticking two LEGOs together.

STRAY

12:41

Will we see 125+ games this season?

Jay Jaffe

12:43

Right now, it doesn't sound like we'll get anything close to that. Via Craig Edwards' article last week (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/how-many-games-can-mlb-realistically-play-...), opening the season at the beginning of June — probably a best-case scenario to allow for the resumption of spring training given the May 10 target to lift restrictions on gatherings of 50 or more people — would yield a season of 100 games, give or take a few.

12:44

I can't see the union agreeing to play baseball into deep into November, or playing something on the order of a month's worth of doubleheaders, in order to boost the total.

Dave

12:44

I was laid off. GF and I both don't have health insurance. Our quarantine was broken at 2am by someone we do not trust. Any positivity would be deeply appreciated.

Jay Jaffe

12:47

I'm so sorry for your current situation. That sounds like a lot of worst-case scenarios coming true at once. I'm hopeful that your luck turns for the better, and that you remain healthy despite your exposure. If the occasional reading at FanGraphs helps to boost your mood, so much the better.

Dan

12:47

When comparing players at the same position, is the positional adjustment of WAR adequate? For example, Musial vs. Rickey Henderson. The latter played far more games in OF, while Stan spent half of career at first base. Does dWAR and positional adjustment cover that, or does an additional adjustment need to be made bc Henderson played a more difficult position?

Jay Jaffe

12:50

dWAR adjusts for that. While we understand positional adjustments to be single numbers (1B -9.5 runs per 1,350 innings, LF -7 runs per same), in actuality each player's adjustment is individualized based on where he spent those innings.

12:52

For Musial, who — just to pull an example from his B-Ref page — split his 1955 season between first base (947.2 innings), right field (342.2 innings) and left field (28 innings) — his adjustment (Rpos) is -8.

12:53

Note that those adjustment numbers change over time, as patterns of defensive plays made change as well (fewer bunts, more strikeouts, etc).

12:53

last night, i re-watched alomar's hr in 1992 againt eckersley. more broadcasters should be replaying historic games. and suck it, oakland. suck it.

Jay Jaffe

12:55

as my attention was spotty during the 1991 and '92 postseasons, I'm not sure i've ever seen that one before this.

12:58

The home run completed a comeback from the Jays being down 6-1 in the seventh inning and facing a possible evening of the series at two games apiece. it was the fourth hit Alomar collected that day; he also walked. The Jays won in 11 when Pat Borders' sac fly brought home Derek Bell, though it took until Game 6 for Toronto to clinch its first pennant.

12:59

YES YES YES

Jay Jaffe

12:59

I'll have what s/he's having.

Mike

12:59

Just for fun I was trying to come up with team-specific JAWS numbers (e.g. what was Willie Wilson's JAWS for his time in KC). Given that most players don't spend 7+ years on one team, I went with 3 years for the peak score. Is this a reasonable bastardization, or would you take a different tack?

Jay Jaffe

1:01

I've never really considered using JAWS in that context because as you say, many players don't spend that long with a team. I don't mind if somebody does it, particularly if they note what they're doing and why — as you've done. Carry on.

1:05

gonna do a quick Play Index thing. In the meantime, since there aren't many questions in the queue, I'll open the floor to you along the lines of our staff picks for favorite games to rewatch (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/our-favorite-games-to-rewatch-part-2/). Unlike our mandate to use only official YT or MLB.tv feeds, you can get it from anywhere so long as it's streaming. Playoffs, regular season, whatever. I'll share 'em here if you provide a link.

Sweaty Vedder

1:08

What player has the lowest WAR for 15+ year career? 20+year career?

Jay Jaffe

1:12

Play Index time, so I'mma work in bWAR....

The lowest bWAR of any position player with at least 15 seasons appears to be infielder Tommy Thevenow with -5.7 from 1924-38.

I can't easily find a 20-year-low because World War II gaps keep messing with my searches (which are plate appearance based not year based) so I'll put this aside for the moment.

Guest

1:13

How did the 1994-95 suspension of play affect HOF worthiness/eligibility? Think we'll see an affect from the current suspension on borderline guys who miss out on preciously-needed WAR, Ws, RBIs, whatever people care about?

Jay Jaffe

1:19

It didn't have much effect on eligibility, since for Hall purposes the 10-season requirement boils down to at least one game played in that season. The outage probably contributed to Fred McGriff missing out on 500 home runs, which would have been a boon to his HOF case, and likewise Harold Baines (who also missed time during the 1981 strike) falling short of 3,000 hits, and of course he was elected via the 2019 Today's Game ballot anyway.

One who comes to mind as somebody who could have been helped by playing out the 1994 season is Kenny Lofton, who of course went one-and-done on the 2013 ballot. Via B-Ref, he led the AL in WAR and was on an Indians team that had a real shot at a title.

I think this is probably a good topic for a future article, so with my daughter pawing the keyboard, I'll file that away for another day.

1:20

get up on this

Jay Jaffe

1:20

my daughter pointed to this game to share

Guest

1:20

2015 Mets/Dodgers 2015 NLCS. Greinke v. deGrom, 1-run game for all the marbles. Rookie Syndergaard pumping an inning in relief. Lots of fun.

Jay Jaffe

1:20

and that one

showmeyourtatis

1:22

Do you have a favorite baseball clip on YouTube that you re-watch when you are most bored? I enjoy watching the Pujols at-bat against Lidge in the postseason but there are soooo many....purple monkey dishwasher

Jay Jaffe

1:25

One that immediately comes to mind is Tim Raines' May 2, 1987 performance against the Mets, which ended his collusion-driven absence. He went 4-for-5 with a walk, bookended by a triple off David Cone and a decisive home run off Jesse Orosco — and the game was called by Vin Scully.

1:27

I watched that game live on NBC's Game of the Week. Raines was one of my favorite players and one of the best in the game. Had he played a full season that year, he might have won MVP, which likely would have accelerated his HOF election

Josh

1:27

Was listening to Effectively Wild and Ben was talking about Wes Ferrell. I was wondering how you personally balance the fact that pitchers in the past before pitch counts and such routinely burned out quickly, even while amassing quite a bit of value early. Do you have any personal adjustments for some of these things or just go "that's too bad" and then move on?

Jay Jaffe

1:31

From a JAWS standpoint, more innings in a given season tends to yield higher WARs and thus higher peak scores. Ferrell's 54.3 peak score (best seven seasons) — which includes his considerable offensive contributions — is the best thing he has going for him on the advanced stat front.

This has less to do with Ferrell and more to do with 19th century pitchers but I am thinking about a workload adjustment to WAR7 for pitchers. I futzed around with it last summer but mothballed it once playoffs, Hall season, and free agency rolled around. It's probably a topic I'll explore in the coming weeks.

Pat

1:31

My favorite to watch on YouTube is the Kirk Gibson AB vs Eckersley..with Vin Scully on the call of course. 8 minutes of baseball heaven..& I'm not even a Dodgers fan!

Pat's Bat

1:31

My favorite baseball clips to watch are Bonds v. Gagne and the Kevin Mitchell bare handed catch

Guest

1:31

Pujols off Lidge - yes!

Jay Jaffe

1:32

would love it if you folks add links to the clips you suggest, though those are easy enough to Google.

Load More Messages

Connecting…

Your current subscriptions

None

E-mail Address	Chat Owner	Status	Remove

Enter your email address to be notified when Jay Jaffe hosts a chat