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Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 1/5/26

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Ben Clemens

2:15

which incorporates arm. Statcast added this option a while ago, it's on our leaderboards too

but since they did OAA first, which is range only, people still quote that a lot

I agree that you should measure arm

2:16

I disagree that DRS is a better 'holistic' defensive measurer. I do a lot of back-checking of defensive metrics when I vote for Fielding Bible awards every year and I have found that DRS is so-so in the outfield, its best position relative to the other models is first base. FRV does very well in the outfield in aggregate

Scott

2:16

Hi Ben, I had a brief back and forth in the comments about your Ohtani answer in the mailbag a few weeks ago. My main issue was that neither method you used to calculate wRAA is the actual way that Fangraphs calculates wRAA, and if you do use the standard method and impute the player’s mean non-IBB result across the IBB PAs, you get 8.3 runs above average (at least according to a leaderboard I pulled for Oct 27th). That very well may be the highest single game wRAA in history, and I'd be curious to know if it is.

Now, I don’t want to make too much of those particulars – obviously it’s incorrect to count an intentional walk as half a homerun, model be damned. But that absurd result did make me revisit the question of whether there isn’t a better way to treat IBBs. Shouldn’t we just figure out if the game state distribution means IBBs are on average 30% or 50% or 70% as valuable as an unintentional walk and give them their own coefficient in wOBA?

Ben Clemens

2:17

Oh, I have no idea how we calculate game-level wRAA. It sounds like we do it a bad way. That way is obviously wrong

But.... no, we're not gonna try to calculate a roving, varying, game state distribution value for IBB's and change it year to year

they're incredibly contextual and the context is far more importnat for them than for your average outcome

2:18

our method works really well at the seasonal level, and game-by-game wRAA is kind of a silly thing anyway. I think we'll almost certainly keep it as is, with the possible excpetion of redoing the game-by-game version to apply a seasonal wOBA rather than a game-level wOBA. I assume that we just do it that way for ease of calculation, so that calculating the stats for, say, Shohei Ohtani on 8/8/25 doesn't rely on anything other than stats from 8/8/25

Vic

2:19

What is FSG doing with $$ they saved my trading Devers for nothing? FSG promised to invest, yet they are only team not to sign a FA ( Rockies don’t count) !!

Ben Clemens

2:19

I mean, they'd tell you they are extending core players like Crochet (sure, done before the deal, but still probably counts) and Anthony, plus saving money for Bregman

but like, yeah, they cleared payroll on purpose. If they don't take advantage of it, that's trange

strange

Thomas

2:19

Ben, I got J Kenji Lopez Alt's The Food Lab, and The Wok for Christmas. Any favourite recipes I should start with, preferably vegetarian?

Ben Clemens

2:20

I really like the brocolli roasting methods in the food lab

and I've been making a ton of stir fried veggie bowls using the technique section of the wok cookbook

honestly I don't use his stuff much for recipes, way m ore for technique

Nate

2:20

Opinion on molasses cookies? They're a holiday staple in our household

Ben Clemens

2:20

I love molasses cookies

this year we made dark and stormy cookies, an NYTimes/grossy pelosi recipe, and they were a huge hit

2:21

I ended up baking 3 batches in total and mailing them to people, leaving them at my mom's, taking them to my mother-in-law's, etc.

The person who asks the lunch quesion

2:21

cookbooks and cookies and yet....

Ben Clemens

2:21

haha yes, that's because I don't know what I'm having for lunch yet

2:22

maybe leftovers from last night's turkey bolognese

GraphFan

2:22

Dodgers reportedly inquired on Freddy Peralta. Would they run a 7 man rotation? How would they fit Peralta with Shohei, Yoshi, Snell, Glasnow, Sasaki, Sheehan? Would Emmet be in the return package?

Ben Clemens

2:22

either Emmet in the return package or they're separately going to deal Glasnow or something

2:23

but yeah doesn't make sense if they don't then follow it up with something

Appa Top Yop

2:23

You sign a starting pitcher to a six year deal. You can lock in one of two results: 6 years of 4.00 era/fip (he's a unicorn the numbers match exactly every year statisticians lose their minds over it) or 3 years of 3.00 era/fip and 3 years of 5.00 era/fip but you don't know when you're getting which. IP is the same. Which do you pick?

Ben Clemens

2:23

I thought about this a lot

and it's really fun, maybe this is an effectively wild question

one complicating factor is that I'd try to game this

2:24

like... obviously if my guy as a 5.33 ERA in August, I don't think I rolled the 3.00 ERA year

so I bench him

also the last year is great. I know what he's gonna do. So in expectation, he's better than a 4.00 ERA average player, b/c he's either 4.00 ERA over 6 years (3.00 ERA season as his sixth) or a 3.8 ERA pitcher for five years, and I just bench him for year 6

Naoko

2:25

In the talk of defensive metrics being noisy, how much do you think is inaccurate measurement versus players performing differently? Everyone acknowledges that a player hitting 100 wRC+ one year and 140 the next year doesn't mean the stat is flawed, but it seems people use this argument against defensive stats.

Ben Clemens

2:25

I think it leans far more towards the second, honestly, and I agree with you that people are too quick to get mad at defensive stats for not capturing pure fair value perfect defense in a year

I mean, the chances you get are themselves very noisy

the times you get them are noisy. players perform all over teh place on a given day

2:26

I think I should probably keep saying this more often when I talk about defensive stats to drive it home

bosoxforlife

2:26

Please tell me that the Red Sox are going to make a move to help alleviate the outfield logjam. I cannot take any more of watching a 5 Star CF play 2nd base.

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