JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 4/19/21

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 4/19/21

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Ben Clemens

2:01

Hey everyone, welcome to a Monday afternoon chat.

2:02

I might be a little bit intermittent in my responses today, as I'm multi-tasking some personal life stuff in the background, so I apologize in advance, but let's talk some baseball!

Joe Ross

2:02

I know it’s 11 innings and I don’t want to jinx him tonight but he looks good so far. Are we buying him as legit?

Ben Clemens

2:03

Definitely legit when he gets to face the Cardinals!

Good news, he gets to face them again today

That said, I mean ,no? He looks like the same old Joe Ross to me, nothing wrong with that

Chris

2:04

You excited for the big mariners vs dodgers first place battle?

Ben Clemens

2:04

The Mariners have been a lot of fun this year, and the Dodgers are fun as an immovable object to root against, so absolutely

Appa Yip Yip

2:05

Thoughts on Vlad's defense at first? He looks good to me but I am an uneducated prole.

Ben Clemens

2:05

Honestly, I haven't really been able to tell anything, and I'm realllllly bad at judging first base defense

2:06

I totally believe in the broad sweep of the metrics -- there are no +20 first basemen, first base defense is generally not a huge differentiating factor, etc

But if you asked me to grade first basemen? No idea. I'd ask scouts and people who are watching them more than I am

Cubbies

2:07

Do you think Alan Trammell will stay up once Lewis comes off the IL and eventually Kelenic gets called up? Seems like he's destined to be sent down (high K-rate) unless he starts hitting.

Ben Clemens

2:07

Alan Trammell, most likely not :)

2:08

Now Taylor, honestly, I think you're right?

2:09

This isn't one of those 'he's mashing the ball and getting unlucky' situations where you see teams increasingly ignoring the small sample results and focusing on the process

BettsBellingerCaruso

2:09

ESPN screwed up greatly not putting the entire Dodgers-Padres series on national TV

Ben Clemens

2:10

My wife and I were on vacation this weekend in Big Sur, actual middle of nowhere

And we watched the games on my phone anyway

That was really compelling baseball, absolutely worth watching even if you're not a fan of either team

party

1

Solitaire

2:10

How long does it take a team to decide a guy might not just be a platoon player? Luplow crushing lefties in Cleveland while Naylor flailing against righties, do they ever start shifting the playing time or just find a different left-handed batter?

Ben Clemens

2:10

I think you really have to focus on the piecewise splits on these

2:11

What I mean by that is, Naylor hasn't been awesome against righties this year

But, he's got an above average wRC+, isn't striking out too much, seems like he mainly isn't hitting for power

2:12

It's not like he's been some great righty masher in his career or anything

But lefties are better against righties in general, and he hasn't shown that he's particularly one way or the other

2:13

If your question is more 'is Josh Naylor a good enough hitter to be a lefty platoon bat?'

Yeah I dunno

He was pretty hot in that one postseason series though!

Marko from Tropoja

2:13

For aces, is there an inflection point for K% where it starts to become a net negative at the expense of IP because strikeouts require about 50% more pitches than in-play outs IIRC. My guess would be about 35%.

Ben Clemens

2:13

Interesting question. My guess is that the answer is no

2:14

Think of it this way: from 2018 to now, when batters have made contact against Jacob deGrom, they've put up a .329 wOBA

That's everything; jam shots, homers, groundouts, whatever

On a strikeout, it's a 0 wOBA

2:15

Even if you exclude home runs and say he's just going to induce weak contact

That's a .278 wOBA

If strikeouts require 50% more pitches, you get 2 K's per 3 balls in play

the reliever who needs to replace that one batter would have to be AWFUL

for the numbers to work out in favor of fewer K's

2:16

Announcers aren't wrong when they talk about contact finding holes, though I think they're wrong about the tradeoff hitters should be making there

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