JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 2/7/22

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Ben Clemens

2:47

b/c Ballpark Village and Wrigleyville are not great investments when there's no baseball

but presumably interest is still due

Ryan

2:47

Yeah, I doubt Cohen and Nutting see eye to eye on rev sharing

Ben Clemens

2:47

And then there's that of course

Ryan

2:48

Would a team in San Juan be feasible? Or would the lower GDP per capita and travel times dissuade the league?

Ben Clemens

2:48

Yeah, I think that those two things would be a significant stumbling block

2:49

I can't imagine the expansion fee would be the same for a theoretical Nashville team and one in SJ

PerfectBalls

2:49

What will it take for MLB to cure its balls controversy (live balls, dead balls, rabbit balls etc)?

Sticky balls, non-sticky balls, etc

Ben Clemens

2:49

Wonderful sentences

I honestly have no idea. I would have said 'buying Rawlings' except they did that and things got worse

2:50

I think that one potential ending

is that a memo gets out that details that baseball did something nefarious

and then there's just overwhelming public pressure

to fix it and constantly measure to ensure the balls are consistent and fair

Bart

2:50

In 20 years the game will be faster with robo umpires and pitching and batting clocks.

Richard

2:50

Regarding future improvements, I think shortening the basepaths to 88 or 89 feet could be great. Forces defenders to play shallower which opens up the ground game. Would also add be a big boost to base stealing, which is fun to watch.

Ben Clemens

2:50

I agree that shorter basepaths would improve the game

Basically I want things that increase babip

Ryan

2:53

Will we ever see a left-handed catcher again? I've seen that the hitter being in the RHH vs. LHH box doesn't impact caught stealing %, so the rationale against may not be true.

Ben Clemens

2:53

I thikn we definitely will

Maybe not a ton, and yeah, I don't really buy the SB% argument

2:54

I think it's just a matter of few youth players trying catcher as lefties

If you have a big arm and are a lefty, you probably pitch

cpins

2:54

Any sense of how much extra revenue would flow from the owners proposed expanded playoffs? And what kind of split between owners/players?

Ben Clemens

2:55

Well, Sports Business Journal reported that it's $100 million for ESPN's rights:

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/SB-Blogs/Newsletter-Media/2021/0...

2:56

And the split? Well, the owners have proposed essentially 100/0

players get some of the gate, but the gate is not 100 million dollars

2:57

So if it's 100/0, players will need to get a bunch of concessions elsewhere in exchange

Appa Yip Yip

2:57

I'd rather see bigger bases than shorter basepaths, and a rule change that popping off the bag for half a second only results in an out if the runner is no longer over the bag.

Ben Clemens

2:57

That seems fine to me, but probably like not enough of a change to matter

171

2:57

Biggest problem with younger LH players picking catcher is that they can't find a lefty catchers mitt.

Ben Clemens

2:57

That's definitely a thing too

2:58

I'm a lefty, but I do a lot of things right-handed because I couldn't get the proper equipment and/or instruction to learn them with my dominant hand as a kid

14343

2:58

start a team with Kyle Tucker or JRam?

Ben Clemens

2:59

JRam but it's a question now, which is a change from last year

Jfast

2:59

How do teams train players to lower their swing and miss %?

Ben Clemens

2:59

I'm not an expert here