JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 1/24/22

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Dan

3:00

Could you make a playoff team with only 17 year olds on your team if you could pick the best of the best from the last 30 years or would the talent with zero experience just not he ready?

Ben Clemens

3:00

I don't think they would, and I don't think it would be close

17 is REALLY young

if you said 20-year-olds

3:01

I think I'd take the 20-year-olds easily

but 17?

yikes

who is the best 17-year-old hitter in history?

And are they even a league average bat?

Ben Cleboys

3:02

For an auto strike zone, would this idea work? Use lasers around the plate that will pick up the ball crossing the plate. For strike zones on individual players, have them sized up by an MLB official to properly measure their height and measure where their zone is.

Ben Clemens

3:02

I don't think they actually need that. The Hawkeye cameras work really well for pinpointing where the ball crosses the plate

3:03

I do think that some changes to the rulebook definition of the strike zone would be necessary

a)I think it would need to become 2d

b)I think they might want to look into how they define the top and bottom

I've done some looking into exactly how that works and it's basically a snap when they come ready to hit?

So not every 6'1" hitter has the same zone, etc.

Appa Yip Yip

3:04

Your 20 year old starting outfield would be Soto, Harper, Trout. Yeah you'd be fine. Pitching would be the problem. 20 year old starters are not so common.

Ben Clemens

3:04

Yeah, I'd have A Rod too

I just think that team would be dominant offensively to the point where I'd just put up a touchdown often enough that pitching wouldn't matter too much

Esoteric Skubal

3:04

will we ever see another utility player like Jose Oquendo? One who can play all 9 positions?

Ben Clemens

3:05

Eh.... I think that there are players like that today, who could do it in a pinch

Isiah Kiner-Falefa became a catcher because the team needed him to, and won a gold glove at third

Kyle Farmer!

Andrew Romine did it, though Oquendo is a different class of player, you know?

3:06

I guess my point is that we probably won't see it taken to quite the gimmicky extreme that it was with Oquendo

But heck, Gavin Lux started at six positions last year (he didn't catch or play first base)

namiki

3:06

Is the spin axis in the baseball savant csv file the one observed by Hawkeye?

Ben Clemens

3:07

Sure seems like it

Given that it doesn't exist before 2020

(that column)

Jeb