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Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat - 5/6/22
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AvatarJay Jaffe
2:02
Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to another edition of my Friday chat. I'm just finishing lunch — Pies and Thighs fried chicken, which was outstanding — and am a few minutes behind here.
2:04
I've got a piece on Rowdy Tellez in the pipeline. Yesterday I wrote about the Mets' rotation picking up the slack in the absence of Jacob deGrom. https://t.co/RTsERpQFVa
2:05
Before that was a piece on the struggles of the Braves' outfield (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/even-with-the-return-of-acuna-and-ozuna-th...) and the hot start of Eric Hosmer (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/after-years-of-struggle-in-san-diego-eric-...)
ok, on with the show...
william
2:07
any thoughts on 2022 alec bohm? is he a changed player or just running hot?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:10
I did look at his messy first week and the general state of the Phillies' defense (https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-phillies-defense-could-be-rough) but haven't gone back for more on Bohm. He is hitting the ball very hard but mainly on the ground; even so, his .596 xSLG is 15th among qualifiers, and well ahead of his actual .449 SLG. We saw him hit very well at the outset of his career in 2020, and as a prospect he had a 70 FV grade on his hit tool, so it's not like this is out of nowhere.
tony la bussa
2:12
can the twins star duo stay healthy long enough to make the alc interesting? chw’s bats are gonna wake up eventually
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:13
Assuming you mean Correa and Buxton, I have not-great news https://www.startribune.com/carlos-correa-finger-twins-orioles-hit-by-...
2:14
It's apparently a non-displaced fracture, so it won't require surgery, but i think we're looking at several weeks here without him.
2:17
The Twins have only a three-game lead on the White Sox, and this isn't going to help. It will be interesting to see what Royce Lewis can show. He missed all of last  year due to a torn ACL, and fell from 23rd to 64th on our Top 100 Prospects list due to the missed time.
2:18
His FV grade dropped from a 60 to a 50. that might be an overreaction but the onus is on him to show that he hasn't lost any ground, literally or figuratively.
joe
2:19
Great article by Ben Clemens today on Mike King. NYY rotation has been great so far and injuries are inevitable, but do you think it makes sense to move King to the rotation as things stand? Cortes has also been great but the idea of piggybacking King/Cortes seems pretty alluring
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:23
King has been great as a multi-inning weapon out of the bullpen, and I enjoyed Ben's piece https://www.startribune.com/carlos-correa-finger-twins-orioles-hit-by-.... I imagine he will get a shot in the rotation but right now things are in an if-it-ain't-broke state, where all five starters have ERAs and FIPs of 3.80 or lower but only averaging about 5 IP per start, which is to say that there's plenty of need for a multi-inning reliever.
2:25
It's a long season and I imagine King and/or Clarke Schmidt will get shots at starting if and when somebody lands on the IL or needs their workload curbed. Cortes threw only 93 innings last year and Severino just 6.
Sammy So-so
2:25
Big NYM fan and I always root for guys from the system who go elsewhere, so I'm hurting for Jarred Kelenic. He clearly is too good for Triple A but is struggling so much in the majors. Do you give him more time in the bigs or move him down and let him regroup? Can't be fun for him right now. Thanks!
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:27
He's hitting .127/.213/.268 with a 37.5% strikeout rate, and his x-stats aren't much better. I am always wary of panicking too early on a young player but combined with last year's struggles I think the Mariners have to send him down and work some things out before his confidence takes too big a hit.
Hello
2:27
Honest assessment of Mets thus far? They’ve played well, no doubt. But Braves and Phillies won’t go quietly. What stands in the Mets favor vs. what do you think Eppler will address at deadline and how?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:31
They've got very good starting pitching depth, as noted yesterday. Their offense has been potent, their defense solid (they're 2nd in defensive efficiency ratio but underwhelming on the metrics). The bullpen could be a problem now that Trevor May is down 8-12 weeks with a stress reaction in his scapula (similar to deGrom) and I imagine that barring a major injury that will be the first thing Eppler addresses.
TKDC
2:31
If Judge continues to hit like this, is it possible that he might end up actually be worth the massive overpay that he already rejected?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:34
this might be worth asking Dan Szymborski. Like, if Judge plays to his 90th percentile projection, how does that shake up his 7- or 8-year ZiPS projection and valuation? I doubt it's enough to close what was about a $60 million gap when I wrote about it (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/aaron-judge-bypasses-yankees-extension-off...) but it might cut that gap in half.
Northside Chi-Dog
2:34
Is Hendircks toast?  He's lost more velocity somehow and it appears that his pitches don't offer as much variation as they used to.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:36
I haven't taken a close look but yikes. his walk rate is high, his strikeout rate low, his chase rate very low, and he's getting barreled over 10% of the time. His xERA has nearly doubled in two years. I'm reluctant to call somebody toast that quickly but I think he needs to overhaul... something... or he will be.
The guy who asks the lunch question
2:36
What's for lunch?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:37
So, Pies and Thighs, which does amazing fried chicken in Williamsburg, is now doing its stuff out of a ghost kitchen in downtown Brooklyn as well. I spotted the building two days ago, learned about P&T being there yesterday, and today my cholesterol is a bit higher for it, but wow, that was great.
Dan Bellino
2:39
Stare into my eyes while I fondle your fingertips!
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:40
this being a Friday afternoon, I'm wondering if MLB will hand down some discipline on Bellino. I know Bumgarner can be no picnic but based on the video, Bellino wasn't doing his job and was clearly trying to provoke a reaction.
Dom Smith
2:41
Am I likely to start hitting? Or should the Mets consider trading me for a RP instead of JD Davis?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:43
Dom, buddy, I don't know how many opportunities you're going to get in Queens but sooner or later you're gonna run out of them. Your x-stats aren't great (.240/.405) but they're better than your actual ones, though when you throw in that spiking strikeout rate... it ain't great.

Drilling down a bit more I see a 22.9% chase rate, well below his career norm, and I do wonder if his approach is just a bit passive right now. Something to keep an eye on.
Marshall
2:43
Grienke, Kershaw, Verlander, and Scherzer are all HOF locks, and all are off to very promising starts despite their advanced ages. Who do you think ends up having the best year, and who has the most rest-of-career value?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:45
Greinke isn't missing bats, to an almost comical degree. Like he read where I noted he was two seasons away from his 3,000th strikeout (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/zack-greinkes-return-to-kansas-city-headli...) and decided to troll *me* with his 6.5% rate — seven strikeouts in 28 innings.
He might be five years away from 3,000 at that rate!!
2:47
I've been very impressed by what I've seen from Kershaw so far, and while I won't go out on a limb to say that he's going to have the best season of this quartet, I will note that he's the youngest of the bunch by at least 3 1/2 years (just turned 34, where Scherzer turns 38 on July 27) and probably has the greatest remaining value.
Oliver
2:48
How should we think about top prospects coming up, because I feel like most fans see that one prospect is projected to be a No. 2 starter and assume that he's going to be a No. 2 Starter immediately and if he didn't then he's a bust.
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:51
One thing that I think has differentiated our prospect coverage from other outlets is the effort to communicate risk. Each prospect has a distribution of outcomes (percent chance they'll be a bust, 40/45, 50/55, etc) and an estimated probability of attaining them, and while that still has a lot to do with subjective evaluations, it's better to understand the range rather than view each prospect as occupying a single discrete point.
This, from Kevin just before he left us for the Twins (sob) is worth re-reading https://blogs.fangraphs.com/managing-prospect-expectations/
2:52
It's also worth remembering the more general caveat that pitching growth tends to be non-linear, and what seems like a palooka today might be one adjustment away from progressing towards stardom
2:54
My piece on Rowdy Tellez is now live https://blogs.fangraphs.com/rowdy-tellez-is-absolutely-mashing
2:56
Tellez has a 21.7% barrel rate and leads the majors with a .797 xSLG, which, holy hell
Richard
2:56
Is Fred McGriff the most likely candidate to be elected by this year’s Contemporary Baseball committee?
AvatarJay Jaffe
2:59
If I had to guess I'd say that Schilling is more likely. The new format, which will mean that player candidates who made their marks anytime from 1980 onward, are eligible, is going to make ballot space very competitive — there will be only 8 candidates, and voters can only vote for 3 — and Bonds-Clemens-Schilling will suck up much of the oxygen in that room.

Wrote about the Era Committee changes last week, including some comments from Josh Rawich. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-hall-of-fame-shakes-up-its-era-committ...
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