JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 2/1/21

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 2/1/21

powered by

Prev Page View Full Chat Next Page

Ben Clemens

2:37

That said, I think that teams with more middling rotations are probably not doing enough to protect their investments in players

Successful Steals

2:37

One of the many articles you have written that I enjoyed was the one answering whether successful steals apply measurable pressure. In that article, you wrote that "[The Book] found a large advantage to batters when a runner was on first — exactly what proponents of steals suggested. There was a big problem, however. That advantage was for all runners on first base. The faster the runner, the smaller the advantage." Just so I understand then, The Book found that having a faster runner at first was worse for the batter than having a slower (i.e. non-steal threat) at first? And "worse for the batter" means just plain worse for run production (all else being equal)?

Ben Clemens

2:38

Yeah, exactly

That said, a lot of the disadvantage (enough to make it statistically insignificant) from a faster runner

Is that batters perform worse when runners take off

The faster runners take off more often, etc etc

George

2:38

I asked the Soto trade question mostly because of the Houston Texans' possible trade of Deshaun Watson. I am just trying to think up a comparable MLB trade of a young mega-star years away from FA.

Ben Clemens

2:38

Yeah, football is just so weird compared to baseball that way

2:39

A frequent conversation topic between me and my friends is how many first round draft picks the Jets would need to put on the table for the Chiefs to trade Mahomes

I'm of the opinion that it's more than 10

Football just puts so much value into QB

Guest

2:39

Even stripping out ballpark effects, Arenado runs a big home/road split (128 wRC+ at home, 108 wRC+ on the road, for his career). Should we expect a similar home/road split going forward? Is that kind of split normal for hitters?

Ben Clemens

2:40

So, it's a bigger split than normal, but Coors batters run bigger splits than normal. There's been some good research that I don't feel like digging up right now showing that batters who leave coors tend to improve on their 'road numbers'

2:41

Going from altitude to not altitude is tough

Kiermaier's Piercing Green Eyes

2:41

I think a vast majority of neutral observers prefer what SD is doing this season compared to, say, TB's approach. But there's a very real sense in which the latter is "smarter," at least in terms of maximizing long-term WS odds with a given budget. And the league continues to incentivize mediocrity with expanded playoffs. Could we have our cake and eat it too if the postseason were made less random by playing more games? It'd be a completely different setup, it couldn't all fit in October, but it could disincentivize the Moneyball era's strategy of building a team to get to the playoffs and then shrugging and saying playoffs are a crapshoot.
To be clear, this is a question if it could work hypothetically, not whether the owners or players would want or agree to it.

Ben Clemens

2:41

Yeah, for sure

2:42

If you make it smart to build a super team, it will be smarter to build a super team

MB

2:42

How would you respond to a fan of a small-market team (actually small market, not whatever the heck the Cubs think they are)who is sympathetic to wanting to pay players what they are worth, but is worried that adjusting how and when players get paid will hurt their team's ability to compete with larger market teams?

Ben Clemens

2:43

I'd say that's a totally reasonable concern that would need to be addressed by the other changes that are being made

2:44

That said, with the amount of revenue sharing and playoff money splitting going into the game right now, even small-market teams are just starting wiht a giant pot of money

Guest

2:44

Re: the proposal from "Kiermaier's Piercing Green Eyes": Is it at all realistic to think that MLB ever could play enough postseason games to take out more than a negligible amount of randomness? Even a 162-game full regular season doesn't result in the best teams coming out on top. Would we see any significant difference in, say, 7 versus 9 game series?

Ben Clemens

2:44

You'd have to give byes and stuff

Or give some teams game advantages in various series

Gord

2:45

What would you say needs to be done about the amount of teams that have seemingly thrown in the towel on the season already? It seems like half the league is non-competitive. Is a salary floor a possible option?

Ben Clemens

2:45

Teams are going to argue against it really hard

Because salary floors have a multiplicative effect on player salaries

Because teams completely not trying to spend money limit free agency markets

I just don' think they'll give it up period

2:46

The owners are incentivized to minimize their outlay on players, because they're just profit-maximizing

And a salary floor would have a big effect if it was set at a reasonable level

Guest

2:46

What would the baseball equivalent to the Stafford-Goff trade be? Hockey twitter was trying to figure out their equivalent and there's no real answer

Ben Clemens

2:47

Iiiiiinteresting

So it's a good player on a big contract in exchange for a medium player on a big contract

George

2:49

Have you ever thought about writing about football analytically? I'm always on the hunt for an NFL-fangraphs

Ben Clemens

2:49

Not writing about it, but I love following football from a play design standpoint

So I read whatever Chris Brown of Smart Football writes, for example

I have a weird relationship with football, played it a lot as a kid and love the tactics but I find myself watching less and less of it

EbenezerBatflip

2:50

How many years on the ballot before David Ortiz makes it into the HoF? 1st year? 2nd?

Ben Clemens

2:50

I think he's a first-ballot HOF'er

In that I think he's a hall of famer and I hate the idea of ballot gating

Connecting…

Register

Message History

On Off

On Off

On Off

Your current subscriptions

None

Register now to continue managing your subscriptions

E-mail Address	Chat Owner	Status	Remove

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