JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 4/20/20

Ben Clemens

2:00

Hey everybody, and welcome to today's baseball-ish chat.

2:01

Honestly, I'll try to mostly answer baseball questions but if you have something off the wall, hit me. It's been a long time since baseball has been played, and I'm going a little stir crazy.

Overbearing Padre

2:01

What would you do to get the Padres ready to contend for a World Series by 2022? Thanks!

Ben Clemens

2:01

Well, I think they've done the lion's share of the hard work already.

2:02

That's holding onto their prospects, giving them a path to the majors, and developing some pitching.

Having Patino in the majors by then would be a huge help, particularly if he pans out.

Their biggest issue at this point isn't really a lack of stars, and it isn't, at least completely, a depth story.

2:03

It's a combination of a middling rotation and how much it hurts to have Hosmer at first.

If Franchy and Profar both work out, then they could maybe stand the Profar hit.

Sorry, the Hosmer hit.

2:04

But uh, a Hosmer-sized hole in the lineup stings.

That's the biggest issue to me.

Chris

2:04

I am doing a 1-3 round offline zoom draft every week and this week we are in the 9th round and i have the 6th pick. Was hoping you'd give your rankings 1-6 of who I should take without knowing anything else about the league or my team. My choices are Correa, Sanchez, Jimenez, berrios, merrifield and abreau

Ben Clemens

2:04

This is an incredible idea.

I play poker with friends every week, but I haven' come up with anything baseball-related to do yet.

I love this though.

2:05

As to the rankings; let's just snap these off, but Berrios, Sanchez, Merrifield, Jimenez, Correa, Abreu

Derek

2:05

OOTP Brewers update?

Ben Clemens

2:05

We're 11-11!

Our run differential is comically bad, but we're treading water so far.

2:06

Lorenzo Cain has an unbelievably bad batting line, though.

Like, I say unbelievably bad and you think oh anyone can bat .180 for a month.

He's batting .145/.226/.164

He has one double in 62 PA

2:07

That's a 0 wRC+

Aside from that, things are going pretty well.

Derek

2:07

Did you watch the beginning of the MJ/Bulls documentary on ESPN last night? What baseball figure most deserves a 10-part documentary (maybe excluding Jackie Robinson, since that seems like the obvious answer)?

Ben Clemens

2:07

I didn't watch it, because my wife and I had a date night, but I'll probably catch up on it before too long.

2:08

Jackie Robinson is definitely the answer, but if we're excluding that, I would love to see a shorter (not 10-part) documentary on Denny McLain.

I just don't know nearly enough about him

But for 10 parts? I'd like to see something on the rise and fall of the Mariners.

Jason has written about how they assembled their lineup, which I'll grab a link for:

2:09

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/how-the-seattle-mariners-lineup-dynasty-wa...

2:10

That team is just so interesting, though.

Danny Almonte's Fastball

2:10

What is one aspect about baseball that we do not have a way to quantify that you would really like to know?

Ben Clemens

2:11

I want to know, so badly, which pitchers (or catchers) are the best at throwing batters off via pitch selection.

So like, not a deceptive delivery, not the best stuff.

Just, who throws fastball when they're guessing curve most often

And so on.

Which pitchers are the best at doing that, which batters guess right most often, etc.

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