JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 1/23/23

Prev Page View Full Chat Next Page

Ben Clemens

2:55

the guy can hit, though

Mets fan

2:55

Why is Ronny Mauricio falling quickly in prospect rankings compared to Elly De La Cruz? The stories don't seem THAT different

Ben Clemens

2:56

I have not done a deep dive on either of these guys, so I'm just working off the cuff. But uh, their trajectories don't look that similar to me. DLC is nearly a full year younger and just spent a year shredding Hi-A and then Double-A (admittedly with concerning strikeout numbers)

Mauricio didn't show the same kind of raw, and I'm probably equally worried about their approahces

2:57

I don't really know, it's probably more of an Eric question, but they don't seem that equivalent to me

Nick

2:58

The crowd-sourcing took Sheffield but not ManRam for the Hall of Fame. Is there a rationale here? Sheffield seems to have worse numbers and has PED concerns just like Manny.

Ben Clemens

2:59

The obvious difference is that Sheffield was never suspended for using PED's

Kvn

2:59

It seems like there have been a couple high profile prospects last couple years that have hit all the way up until they have to do it against MLB velocity and then they cant get on top of the ball (e.g. Kieboom, Hiura). I feel like there should be some way to screen for this, but maybe teams just weren't looking before? I feel like there has to be some inefficiency here to exploit.

Ben Clemens

3:00

I really do not think that's the story with Hiura, for what it's worth

He'd always had a lot of swing and miss to his game

He was amazing in his MLB debut despite a 31% strikeout rate

3:01

Like, if you read prospect reports from the time, I think you could roughly predict the kind of career that he's had in aggregate

Jeremy

3:01

What are some unexplored areas of baseball you think have more predictive power than people have been able to prove so far?

Ben Clemens

3:01

I'm gonna take the lazy one and say pitch calling

Tstats

3:01

How did you greenify Jotcast??

Ben Clemens

3:01

We just hit the green button. Definitely should have done it a while ago, huh?

Izzy

3:01

To RTJ... I am saying this as a Cubs fan... first of all welcome to our fine city!!! I'd recommend going to both parks. The fanbases are very different. It will be clear to you which one you prefer. You can enjoy both as a fan, or you can give your heart to one, but not both.

Ben Clemens

3:01

I think that's a good way to put it

Datt Mamon

3:01

How likely do you think a Ketel Marte bounceback is this season?

Ben Clemens

3:01

73%

3:02

To elaborate qualitatively, I buy it. I like what he does. I'm not THAT concerned by the BABIP

Armadillofury

3:02

What do you think of the Marlins decision to move Jazz to CF.? He had a hard time staying healthy at 2B, so CF won't help right?

Ben Clemens

3:03

Yeah, I see why they're trying it but it's a pretty big risk in my opinion

3:04

I don't really buy the Dee Gordon comparisons, they're very different types of athletes, though the parallels are certainly amusing, but I think that with a guy like Jazz, you should focus as much as possible as just getting his bat on the field

He's so dynamic

Having him learn a new position, and maybe not be great at it right off the bat, particularly a position with tough physical demands, is weird to me

It'd be one thing if he were a natural outfielder or if he were a fringier bat

3:05

But I don't know how you look at Jazz and think 'let's have him learn a tough position on the fly, that's how we'll get value from him on our team'

you get value from him slugging the ball to Boca Raton

Baseball Fan

3:05

Re: Jazz - at this point can you argue there is more positional scarcity in cf than SS? If Jazz's bat is legit, I think he probably has more value as a potentially elite CF, right?

Ben Clemens

3:06

If you're not trying to win this year, fine. If you think he can become an elite CF in a year, fine. But he was an All Star 2b, I just wouldn't want to tinker so much

Appa Yip Yip

3:06

The other thing about Jazz is that his waffle cone gloves look extremely cool

Ben Clemens

3:06

People who say baseball isn't cool have clearly never seen Jazz Chisholm play

Michael Wacha

3:06

How did Jordan Lyles get paid, and I'm still looking for work?

Ben Clemens

3:06

I assume it's just a situation where no one came in with a contract Wacha likes early, so now he's waiting for a team to have an unexpected need

Buttcheex

3:06

If the Brewers are 10+ games out of the WC at the ASB, do you see them tearing down this core or trying to reload around Burnes/Woodruff/Adames/Contreras core?

Ben Clemens

3:07

I think they'll look to move one of the two pitchers

3:08

I hope they just compete, though

Milwaukee is a very fun sports city, they deserve a contender

New UK fan

3:08

Options article was great too. Would be interesting to see it extended a) with different assumptions for player volatility (as you pointed out, pitchers are different but presumably even some position player archetypes are too); b) for team options. For b), it always seems to me that they make more sense than player options since utility is probably ~Log(money) for players vs linear for teams

Connecting…

Message History

On Off

Your current subscriptions

None

E-mail Address	Chat Owner	Status	Remove

Enter your email address to be notified when Ben Clemens hosts a chat