Jay Jaffe's NL Central comments

[mikechamp]

These comments came from a chat with FanGraphs' writer Jay Jaffe that occurred on September 1. If you like him, you can find him on BlueSky at https://bsky.app/profile/jayjaffe.bsky.social.

Not too many NL Central questions this time. I included 3 bonus Q&As: two about September callups and one about time traveling Ohtani. Enjoy!

The link to the entire chat can be found here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jay-jaffe-f ... at-9-1-26/
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Hey Jay, what are your thoughts on Alex Bregman’s HOF chances? Obviously his 7-8 WAR seasons are behind him, but IF he can be a plug and play 4-WAR player through this contract and reach 2,000 hits, he should have a chance.

Jay Jaffe
Wrote about Bregman among the players who have improved their chances, see above. He’s never matched his 2018–19 stats in either a traditional or advanced sense, and hasn’t banked a single 5.0 bWAR season outside of those, but he’s on track to do so this year (4.6 so far). If he keeps doing that for a few years he’s got a shot, but in his age-32 season, he’s playing from behind.

I don’t know how much of the Astros’ sign-stealing will stick with him. He’s not Jose Altuve, and he’s unlikely to have the kind of career numbers of Carlos Beltrán where somebody applying a less-than-total-disqualification penalty (in their own assessment) would still be swayed to vote for him.
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How much credit does a manager deserve for his team’s overperformance of its pythag wins? Can’t help but think Tito deserves some credit for squeezing what will ultimately be 75ish wins out of an awful Reds roster, awfulness that is fully reflected in their run differential.

Jay Jaffe
It’s something to keep an eye on, especially because bullpen use probably has the biggest impact on deviation from Pythagorean records (relievers having particularly high/low rates of success in high-leverage situations), but there’s so much that’s still beyond his control. Can’t force players to hit with runners in scoring position, for example.
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Yandy Diaz has not challenged a single pitch all season, including last night with 2 outs, trailing by a run in the ninth with a runner on, and with two challenges remaining when he disagreed with both strike 2 and strike 3. I don’t even have a question, I’m just flabbergasted.

Jay Jaffe
Yeah it’s absolutely wild how much variance there is from player to player. Sal Stewart had a major league high 46 challenges and has won 26 of them, which has been worth four additional runs.

Diaz is the only player with zero challenges who has had calls against him challenged by catchers (or pitchers)
https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major ... &pagenum=1
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Much has been made of the mediocrity of the AL, but I recently noticed that the Rockies have the worst team WRC+ in baseball at 91. That seems higher than usual, at least over the last ~5 years (the Pirates and Rockies, at times, have gone below 80 for a season). Is this just a general symptom of parity or part of a larger issue?

Jay Jaffe
With regards to the Rockies, my hunch is that this is a data point about the DePodesta regime finding better players, and likewise for the Pirates. Maybe there’s a competitive balance angle to it but I can’t say offhand.
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Speaking of position player pitchers, the Brewers left Vaughn out there for more than 50 pitches yesterday. This after leaving Harrison in for 98 pitches in 3.2 IP. I’m not sure if they were short-handed and needed the innings but both of those numbers seemed way high to me. Especially Harrison, who basically was throwing high-stress pitches from the jump.

Jay Jaffe
Yeah those were weird choices and high counts; i’m not sure about the specifics of their previous bullpen usage though.
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Today is September call-up day. Do you have any general thoughts on September callups? I personally love them, but I wish we had the old rules where teams can carry more than 28 guys. I think this lead to a lot of minor league depth guys getting an MLB shot when they wouldn’t otherwise.

Jay Jaffe
I do kind of miss the days when practically the whole 40-man roster could overrun the dugouts and bullpens but even so I’ll concede that was taking things too far. On the other hand, I think the 2-player increase (to 28) is too restrictive. It’s nice to reward top minor leaguers (and the occasional organizational lifer) with a September callup, and see some of these guys get their first taste of the show. I’d be in favor of expanding to 30 or 32 but effectively creating a taxi squad where only 26 or 28 players could be active.

I think the danger of that is just using it for More Reliever Churn, which I dislike.
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Can we see teams calling up their top prospects as a sign that organizations are not expecting to lose a lot of games in 2027?

Jay Jaffe
Eh, I don’t really think the two things are related. Teams are calling up players to evaluate them in a major league setting. It’s the presidents of baseball operations and general managers making these decisions, with the input of others from the organization. Lockout stuff is first and foremost the province of owners, not baseball ops.
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If Ohtani time traveled back to 1920, is 20 WAR possible?

Jay Jaffe
Color me skeptical because he’d be asked to pitch much more frequently than he is now. “What is this once-a-week stuff?”
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