JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 3/23/26

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 3/23/26

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Ben Clemens

2:16

the check swing rule has changed markedly in the last 40 years, in the direction of benefiting pitchers. It's completely undefined in the rulebook. it can be whatever you want it to be. why not make striekouts less common?

cool

1

David Wiers

2:16

Assuming ownerships push for a hard cap, do you see the MLBPA asking for a year fewer of service time, raising the league min, or a salary floor? I don't know if any seems likely, but the former would be interesting for Rule 5 drafts.

Ben Clemens

2:16

so, a salary floor is completely non-negotiable

a cap/no floor system makes no sense. the cap has to have a guaranteed salary chunk going to players

not that I'd put it past the owners to go for a cap/no floor system, but like.... c'mon, that's not gonna fly

2:17

league minimum higher, undoubtedly. fewer years to free agency, 100% necessary, the current system wouldn't work with cap/floor b/c crappy teams aren't going to spend money on free agents

the truth is that if you look at what the ownership side has said so far, they are basically not asking for something realistic or putting numbers on anything

I actually don't think there's a cap/floor system that is anywhere near reasonable and will also get majority team support. The cheap teams might want a cap, but they HATE a floor

Guest

2:18

Do you expect the Blue Jays to over-perform their expected wins/losses this year despite their injuries? I feel like the Yankees and Red Sox have a better chance to win the division this year than them, but it's so hard to tell.

Ben Clemens

2:18

no idea! baseball analysis like that is hard. i like our models in the aggregate so I'd say I trust them unless I have a solid reason not to

Cameron Kear

2:18

World Series prediction for this season?

Ben Clemens

2:18

predictions for everyone on the site come out on opening day

Big Buckston

2:18

On Raleigh in the WBC, I'll add that in addition to the raw production not being good, Cal just didn't visually look competitive in his at-bats. Lots of weak contact, swings and misses.

Ben Clemens

2:19

yeah. it's hard! tournaments are unforgiving

Farhandrew Zaidman

2:19

Serious question - should more players try to bunt for hits? If your game is OBP and not power, why not try the thing with .400 BABIP?

Ben Clemens

2:19

they should, but they should take into account what it does to their count leverage. if you end up falling behind a lot and are a chase-prone guy, maybe not

wheelhouse

2:19

would you rather a pitcher with 4-5 pitch types strictly platoon his pitches based on per-pitch results, or throw all of them to all hitters to maintain more unpredictability? or is it a big It Depends?

thinking in particular of certain pitchers who just won’t stop throwing their sinker and sweeper to opposite-handed batters no matter how many XBH they give up on them

Ben Clemens

2:20

definitely an it depends situation here. like, having different pitch mixes based on platoon viability is very important. i think that completely zeroing out a good pitch you throw is not a great idea, but cutting it a ton still seems very viable to me

2:21

a fun one is Zack Wheeler. He throws 35% sinker/26% sweper to righties, 4% sinker/6% sweeper to lefties

I like that.... zeroes seem bad, but pitches with differential success should be used differentially

also, it matters how it makes your total pitch mix look. like if you cut out a bridge pitch (a cutter, say) because it doesn't work well against a given handedness, you still need to think about whether that pitch was necessary for otehr pitches to tunnel off of, that kinda thing

2:22

I guess the point is that I would want to sit down and think about it for each pitcher individually. Good thing teams employ so many coaches

Matt Damon

2:22

MATT. DAMON.

love

1

Farhandrew Zaidman

2:22

Players would also likely fight for a floor at 75-85% of the cap like what NHL, NGL, and NBA have.

Ben Clemens

2:22

yeah

it's a complicated situation. I know that many players and player representatives say there's never going to be a cap, don't ask, stop asking

2:23

and I think that that's a reasonable position to have, particularly when you think about the fact that the league isn't really arguing in good faith about the reasons for it when they are surveying fans about whether they dislike the dodgers winning all the time, but not surveying them about whether they dislike the pirates and their allergy to spending

but I disagree that there are no good structures that involve a cap and floor. I think that a cap/floor system could be good if well-constructed

2:24

I think it'd have to involve fairly narrow bands, like you said, and probably a major reworking of the service time system

Cameron Kear

2:24

Whats your expectations for my Rangers this season?

Ben Clemens

2:25

I'm down on their chances this year. The range of outcomes is wide, but I was struck by the fragility of their pitching staff, and I expected to like their hitting more than I actually do

2:26

like, we have them below average, basically middle of the pack in batter WAR. And that, plus a pitching staff that depends on two old guys with injury concerns, Jack Leiter, and MacKenzie Gore? Seems risky!

didace

2:26

A cap and floor system (with the floor being reasonably high) would benefit more players that then current system.

Ben Clemens

2:26

right. Like I'm saying, there's a way to do this

2:27

I don't think the owners seem to be offering anything like that at the moment. And I don't think they'll be able to, because again, lots of them are not interested in spending more money

but I think that both sides' absolutist positions ("the league needs a cap to stop the dodgers" and "no cap ever") are unreasonable

Baseball learner

2:27

If baseball set a cap, how do you deal with retroactively penalizing the teams already way over it?

Ben Clemens

2:27

with a long phased transition period

2:28

that's not so hard. just have the hard cap kick in in 2030 or something

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