JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 3/13/23

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Ben Clemens

2:43

I think that it'd be reasonable to wonder about VC/startup coordination, and whether their extreme interconnectivity is legal

It's a bit absurd that there are group chats of hundreds of founders/vc's talking about whether they should take their money out of a bank

2:44

I take no stance on what should be done, and I'm not saying it's 100% necessary, but uh: that seems very close to collusion to my non-legal mind

Jim

2:44

Fair enough. But there is a pretty sizable contingent of people that are interested in whether spring performance is meaningful, and I would hazard that the contingent includes a lot of people who use this site and, in particular, Rotographs.

Ben Clemens

2:44

Surely

2:45

And if they clamor for it long enough, maybe they'll be able to get some public side analysts doing that stuff

I'll say that quite frankly, there'd need to be more money in public-side baseball analysis to get people to start gleaning the same insights as teams

Dan

2:45

As much as I like fangraphs and high quality analysis I remember my youth fondly when the unknowns meant the error bars on predictions where wide enough that it felt like every team had a shot at the playoffs even though they didn't.

Ben Clemens

2:45

I both agree and disagree with you

2:46

I think that the magic of baseball is in the uncertainty, and I think the world would be better off if error bars were a little wider in general

Mob Ranfred

2:46

Scale of 1-10, how much do you care about the WBC? Have you gotten more or less interested over time?

Ben Clemens

2:46

I'm like an 8

2:47

It remains maddening to me how hard it is to watch

I'm super enfranchised

I'm a baseball writer who pays for all kinds of online tv nonsense

how do I watch it? see if I can search through layers of youtube tv nonsense to try to find a live broadcast

Morbo

2:48

I know this is extremely premature but odds Jordan Walker has one MVP caliber season in his career over or under 10%

Ben Clemens

2:48

Under by a hair, sadly

Mets fan

2:48

How about if Ronny Mauricio produces like this the first month of the season? How do we get you on board the Ronny train!

Ben Clemens

2:48

Is he worth a yo for fantasy? I'm sure

But I dunno, I find that being slow to believe changes works out better for me

2:49

I read them and write them, so uh, never say I'm not a hypocrite

but I need more than numbers to change default assumptions, which I find to be a good mindset to have from an avoiding bad conclusions standpoint

Lorenzo

2:49

The Friars will be ridiculous if Nellie Cruz has one more good 30 HR+ year in him. Are you buying the "I just needed left eye surgery" excuse or is this more likely age catching up to him? What's your Cruz prediction? Thanks

Ben Clemens

2:49

I think it's age :(

2:50

I hope I'm wrong, love Cruz

Trev

2:50

Was looking at Randy Johnson's page. Do you find it weird that nobody is talking about all the guys of that era who had random carreer peaks in their late-30s while steroids were running rampant?

Ben Clemens

2:50

We've just all agreed not to talk about it, haha

but yeah, it's weird!

Former Cardinal Legend

2:50

Harrison Bader is going to mix six weeks with an oblique injury and I am sad.

Ben Clemens

2:50

Totally agreed

The guy gets hurt a lot, sadly

ryan

2:50

Re: Juan Soto, have you ever seen a player that defensive metrics oscillate on to such a degree each year? His OAA percentile is a roller coaster what would kill riders from the g-force, and the defense value on fangraphs isn't that much difference on a rate basis

Ben Clemens

2:51

Our defensive value uses OAA plus arm runs, so it's gonna be verrrry similar

and yeah, to me that says 'hey defensive metrics are weird and take a while to stabilize and maybe let's not be as rock-solid certain of their contributions to value'

Wow, Nicaragua running into an out on the basepaths down 6-1 in the 8th is nooooot good

2:52

Juan Soto with the OF assist, speaking of!

a laser

omar moreno

2:52

Is Roman Laureano still an A come July?

Ben Clemens

2:52

Nah

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