JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 3/30/26

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Ben Clemens

2:38

yeah good work by them I agree

Kwanbelievable

2:38

Re: coaching players, do you think that should inform how front offices think about roster construction and transactions? An example that pops into my head immediately is Carter Rustad for Jonathan Rodriguez which looks like a challenge trade for both orgs given their development strengths

Ben Clemens

2:38

yeah. I am okay with that. change of scenery really does work sometimes

Oaktown Blues

2:38

If you had to predict a position player's 2026 performance, and you have their career stats through 2025 plus either their 2026 spring training stats OR their stats through the first x games of 2026, what's the minimum value of x where you choose the regular season data?

Ben Clemens

2:38

honestly, that's probably a question for Dan. I would have to do the math to give you an answer I'm comfortable with and the truth is that the juice is not worth the squeeze for me there

RetireNutting

2:39

Oneil Cruz and CJ Kayfus lead all MLB players in negative OAA (-2). If someone made the claim to you that yesterday's ball off the wall Cruz relayed in to get Lindor would not have resulted in an out if Jake Mangum was in CF, where would you begin to validate their claim? I first looked at max arm velocity on statcast and saw Mangum has hit 92 to Cruz's 98.

Ben Clemens

2:39

i think you'd have to look at something like time to cutoff man

2:40

i believe there's a good writeup of how Statcast does their arm score

but you have to do some basically with or without you stuff. how often do fielders overall make plays like this

Laurel and JJ Hardy

2:40

Mike Trout is fully back and I will not be taking any questions or comments at this time

Seam Shifted Wakefield

2:41

Has there ever been a retroactive analysis of guys like Yusmeiro Petit, now that we know about seam-shifted wake, pitch tunneling, more technical measurement of 4-seam fastball "ride," etc.? Petit is one of those guys who hung around a long time despite supposedly mediocre stuff because "He's got a sneaky good fastball. It just jumps at you. Hides the ball well." I'd love to see the metrics behind him specifically, if they're able to be calculated.

Ben Clemens

2:41

Can't be calculated, didn't have the right cameras then

Baseball learner

2:41

Is there anywhere we can get 90/10 percentile projections for players? If not it would be a great feature

Ben Clemens

2:41

that's a question for Dan. I don't know how involved it'd be to calculate ALL of them but I kno whe can on demand at times

Derek

2:41

Is there any world in which MLB just keeps the current ABS challenge system? Seems like it's been a huge success so far but I feel like the moment there's a bad call in a high stakes moment with a team out of challenges the calls for full ABS will be overwhelming and I'm struggling to see a scenario where that doesn't lead to full ABS. (Which I think is a bummer - framing is cool! And I think the probabilistic nature of the strike zone that subtlely shifts with game state and/or count is more feature than bug...)

Ben Clemens

2:42

In the long run, it'll be full ABS

but it might take a bit?

sports leagues only expand the use of automation and replay over time

WBCfan

2:42

When I read about how measurables such as EVmax, contact%, EV90, etc correlate to positive outcomes like higher wOBA (or pick another outcome based statistic) its usually done in a one for one way (how EVmax correlates with wOBA for example). I am wondering if there has been any analysis that looks at these measurables in networks and how closely networked groups correlate with positive and negative outcomes like a high wOBA. I am a microbiologist so we at times do whole Gene co-occurance network analysis (WGCNA) to see what groups of genes (or groups of microbes in microbiome data) for co-ocurrance netwroks and how these network groups correlate positively and negatively to certain traits (metabolic output, chlorophyll content of a plant, etc)

Ben Clemens

2:42

not that I know of, but that doesn't mean there aren't any

2:43

seems like a good general idea, and honestly that sounds like what projection systems do, right?

calculate some kind of mahalonobis distance or seomthing

Mario

2:43

I like to think Trout moved back to CF since he saw what RF did to his WAR

Ben Clemens

2:43

haha me too

Oaktown Blues

2:43

What about no math, just gut feeling for the spring vs regular season question?

Ben Clemens

2:44

now that I'm into. Like, 3 series worth of games

Sun Devilish

2:44

We know the Brewers beat their FIP handily every year for the last decade (-0.26 since 2016), and especially so the last three years (-0.45 since 2023), why does Depth Charts only project a -0.07 differential? At what point does the model need to be adjusted?

Ben Clemens

2:44

great question for Steamer and ZiPS, I'd say

like, if those projections for the Brewers are wrong...

2:45

but like, I don't know what to say here, I'm with you that the projections haven't been great there in retrospect. If there were a way to reduce errors on our projections, I'd want to do it. I have not a clue how I'm supposed to do this one, though

2:46

I am very actively looking at our playoff odds. like, frequently. if you look at how much stuff we've done to change site calculations or improve things over the last year, it's claer that we're not just like putting our fingers in our ears and not listening. I dunno, the model has errors and we haven't been able to reduce it by more

pecota has had the cardinals wrong for a decade, etc.

i'd love for our odds to be better. i'm not biased against the brewers. I just can't make them be better

Sirras

2:46

MLB just sent me a survey. I got to tell them to cool it with the gambling ads and to please make games more affordable for families. I feel better, even knowing my answers likely will be ignored

bosoxforlife

2:46

I have lived in Connecticut for 84 years and I have to give a shout out to my Huskies, but last night's game may have shortened the number of years I have left to root for them and the Red Sox.

Ben Clemens

2:46

wild game

2:47

that is one of the greatest endings that I've watched in a march madness game

Derek

2:47

Did you see Ryan Helsley's (successful) 3-2 ABS challenge? He was so clearly thinking "I know I'm not supposed to do this but it was a STRIKE". Goes against basically all the conventional wisdom I've heard thus far (and also led to the Twins' manager getting ejected for arguing that Helsley took too long to call for it but it was actually pretty quick), but it worked! How often do you think we'll see pitchers challenge like that?

Ben Clemens

2:47

I did and I loved it

I don't think it'll be very often

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