JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 1/25/21

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Ben Clemens

3:05

I don't honestly see the appeal of a teardown though

3:06

You have Juan Soto, just try to win a bunch of games right now

Bauer

3:06

With only 1 full well above-average season, am I really an Ace worth $25-$30M per year for 4+ years? Or am I topping the market due to the lack of high-quality FA SP in this year's class

Ben Clemens

3:06

Not to get too inside baseball, but I've been doing a lot of thinking about this exact question for a future article

3:07

I think that the reason Bauer is bein considred as more of an ace than his career averages would suggest is b/c he started using pine tar (or you know, some other sticky thing)

Which is something that most pitchers do

And was really good

So you have a prior.... Trevor Bauer doesn't use sticky stuff and is an average pitcher

You have new info: Trevor Bauer sticked up and was great

And a hypothesis: sticky stuff improves pitching ability

3:08

You can think of those all together in your head and see Bauer as a top 20 pitcher

I think he's being a little overrated but I also think you have meaningful new data to consider

Ryan

3:08

Who plays the most games at 1B for MIN in 2021?

Ben Clemens

3:08

I'm gonna say Sano

3:09

But my runner up is Brad Miller

Dee Arby

3:09

is corner defense overrated? I get C, 2B/SS, CF are super important on that side. My non-evidence based argument that a LF may get only a few balls hit to him per game, is the one or two balls they can’t get to compared to a better defender worth the trade off of a better bat?

Ben Clemens

3:10

Having a bad defender in a corner hurts less than putting one in an up-the-middle spot, specifically b/c of opportunity

Given that most defensive metrics don't scale to opportunity, they're aware of it only passively

I would argue that corner defense *reputation* is wildly overrated

3:11

And that the spread between the best and worst corner defenders is necessarily smaller

Due to fewer opportunities

I dunno if that's a great answer, but I think you're generally on the right track

Bauer

3:11

Does that mean I have to admit I used sticky stuff in 2020 to teams during the interview process (to prove my 2020 is not a fluke)? I've been very careful about that claim in the past

Ben Clemens

3:11

I mean

I just don't see how this is a thing

Teams aren't like 'well he added 300 rpm of spin but I don't know how, probably just a fluke unless he admits it'

3:12

Also, it's not like he's answering a subpeona that will be published forever

He can privately tell a team that and tell them it's obviously off the record

Appa Yip Yip

3:12

If speculation were to be believed the mets and jays would be the only teams signing players at all

Ben Clemens

3:12

That would be kind of fun, though

Two teams who should be flexing more financial muscle both doing it

Guest

3:13

Re: Defense being overrated- I know a run is a run but you seriously can not convince me that the difference between medium bad defense and good defense is worth the equal run difference in their batting skill. Maybe its because we can tangibly quantify batting, but I remain unconvinced that defense is really that important as long as you aren't a dumpster fire.

Ben Clemens

3:13

Oh, it's definitely not!

3:14

Here's one way of thinking about it: the difference between the best and worst 3b last year per UZR was 13 runs

Arenado vs. Devers

(I wouldn't necessarily buy Devers's defense being that bad but that's neither here nor there)

3:15

The difference between the best and worst offensive value for full-time 3B last year was 35 runs

roughly triple the difference

Also, offensive statistics are more reliable than defensive statistics for a similar sample size, so you hsould believe the gap on offense more

Orioles Tragic

3:16

Hey Ben! Orioles fan dying for good news. There's been rumors of a Santander to Miami trade, what could they conceivably get back? Trevor Rogers at best?

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