JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 2/19/26

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 2/19/26

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Ben Clemens

12:51

or like, it would be impossible to do with any reasonable amount of performance

12:52

for other tools where we're just dropping the data in without doing much transformation, it's much easier to show short spans

the other issue is that the sample sizes would be really small

Oaktown Blues

12:52

Is there a source on Kurtz working with Judge's guy? I can't find anything online. Maybe Colton can weigh in

Insert Witty Name Here

12:52

Re Velo: aren’t pitches going in a direction and balls exiting the bat in a direction so there’s velocity? I’m probably wrong, but that was always how I thought about it.

Ben Clemens

12:52

I mean, they are

we just aren't citing the direction

it's like, 70mph on the highway? that's the speed you're driving at

70mph due west? velocity

Insert Witty Name Here

12:53

Say you had to spend 2026 watching every Logan Webb pitch in person with the caveat that you cannot obtain any stat during that time. How close do you think you’d be guessing his WAR and Stuff metrics?

Ben Clemens

12:53

hmmmmmm

I think I'd do okay. I'd do just fine at WAR, because I can count runs and whatnot

12:54

stuff is tricky b/c I already know a lot about him,b ut I'm not sure I'd recognize it if I didn't already know how good his sinker's stuff is, for example

Colton

12:54

Braden tweeted out yesterday that Kurtz went yard to center with a 120mph EV. Teacherman, Judge's hitting guy, tweeted last night a text thread where someone asked what the correlation was between loading without moving your hands and hitting because it was his cue and he went yard to center with a 120mph EV.

aiyer917

12:54

what level of mathematics did you have to use most frequently in your finance days? do you find the baseball stuff requiring a similar level of technical sophistication?

Ben Clemens

12:54

um.... like, nothing that fancy

12:55

I think that various versions of portfolio theory required good understanding of correlation math, and I did a lot of Bayesian inference too

12:56

it's good to understand the idea behind the models that your quants build, but knowing every little detail is less importnat than understanding how it can break

I'd say the same in baseball. Learning a ton of math is nice. Learning what the math won't show you, or the ways things break down, is way nicer

Colton

12:56

By Braden, I'm talking about Dallas Braden. Should've added that.

Insert Witty Name Here

12:56

Replace Logan Webb with say Andrew Painter who no one knows how his stuff will look this year - how well could you grade his Stuff (should ask Eno this question too).

Ben Clemens

12:56

Oh yeah that would be WAY harder

I think I'd do okay if his stuff was the obvious kind of great, and poorly otherwise

Crabcakes

12:56

I love baseball in large part because of the stats and analytics, but a sad side effect for me is the optimization of player approaches makes for less diversity of player types. As such, I'm unreasonably attached to guys like Chandler Simpson in the hopes they can make a "run really really fast" approach work. For this season, what odds would you give on (a) Rays have him run wild and he steals like 70 bases, (b) sits a bunch because the bat is hollow and he ends up with 30-40 SBs, or (c) the Rays decide he's not actually good and banish him to the minors by mid-May?

Ben Clemens

12:57

oh yeah, that I agree with you about

I think that a)is actually the most likely because I think heh'll figure out how to be a great defender

12:58

but I'm definitely a little bit sad that our projections don't agree and have him in the 30-40 range

aiyer917

12:58

did you work mostly in portfolios? or options/other stuff too?

Ben Clemens

12:58

i did fixed income relative value stuff, mostly as a PM, but also as a market maker

bringbackpologrounds

12:58

Which MLB superstar is the most likely to be ripping his teammates on burner accounts, a la Kevin Durant?

Ben Clemens

12:59

what a delightful question

I have no idea how to answer it, I just want to note that I love KD

this kind of pettiness is next level

1:00

I guess maybe Nolan Arenado?

I only say that because I have a memory of him barehanding a baseball, turning to the opposing dugout to say 'watch this', and then basically no-looking it to first

cool

1

529

1:00

Does having two elite defenders next to each other amplify or diminish each other? Or neither.

Ben Clemens

1:01

my guess? neither, because they steal a few balls from each other but allow for better certainty of who's where which raises their efficiency on other balls

but yeah, I have no idea how to measure this

RAH

1:01

Continuing the small market/big market thing... I actually wonder if it's more about wanting to see teams clear their hurdles. I'm more interested in the Mets than you would think if mainly looking at market size and payroll. They are still the LOL Mets playing in the shadow of the Yankees. Sort of how I loved watching Nomar and Pedro break the curse of the Bambino, only to despise "Red Sox Nation" a few years later.

Ben Clemens

1:01

another reasonable suggestion

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