JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 4/6/20

Prev Page View Full Chat Next Page

Ben Clemens

2:46

But not so secret.

2:47

I'll say, uh, Greinke. He's just a weird dude overall.

Krock

2:47

Hi Ben. Is there a way to upgrade my $20 Fangraph's membership to a $50 membership (i.e. pay just the $30 difference)? Wanted to do my part to help out the site after joining a few months ago on the cheaper plan. Thanks.

Ben Clemens

2:48

I'm gonna again refer you to Appelman's thing tomorrow; he's talking about these kinds of things, memberships and such. But I'll also ask around in case this isn't answered there, and try to get back to you.

Davey

2:48

Where does the Mets rotation rank without Thor? Top ten still?

Ben Clemens

2:49

Depth Charts has them 8th without Thor. That seems plausible to me.

2:50

They still have a really good top two; Stroman is if anything underrated still.

And they have acceptable major leaguers as depth, which is a nice thing that many teams just don't have.

Seeforman

2:50

Which ballplayers should launch a series of vblogs, along the line of Serge Ibaka's " How bored am I" series? Great way to show the personality, and keep fans a bit engaged. Along the same lines, FG writers could supplement their chats with vblogs of home activities. I'd be in to watch those.

Ben Clemens

2:50

I'd love to see Mike Trout just tracking weather.

2:51

But first place for me is Juan Soto. I want to know everything about his life.

In terms of FG writers, we're doing an okay job *talking* about nonsense.

And we are streaming things.

But with no Kiley, I don't know how likely a pure lifestyle thing is.

2:52

I am going to start streaming an hour or so of OOTP here and there, and I'm pretty sure that given the pace of that game we'll just be talking about lots of nonsense, but that's not really the same.

Big Boi Pete

2:52

Great article on social distancing for players. Let's spin a different scenario -- let's say that MLB players have an exemption for physical distancing (so mound visits, pickoffs, etc etc are still okay), but *fans* must continue to align to 6-feet of separation. Seating spacing, queuing at the hot dog stands, etc. What would that look like? Would that still be baseball?

Ben Clemens

2:53

I think that they could make that work.

But I'm not sure it'd be worth their while to.

If you require everyone to be six feet apart, the crowds are going to be severely limited.

2:54

Like, you could only do every four rows of seats or so, and then every fourth seat within those rows.

This is one of those 'packing shapes into a 2-d space' problems that I don' feel like solving right now, but if it cuts attendance by a factor of 16 (my lazy, unoptimized answer), yikes.

Turduckenfrank

2:54

Ben, are you going to be streaming OOTP on a personal account or on a Fangraphs-linked one? How can us OOTP-heads follow along?

Ben Clemens

2:54

Oh, when I set it up, it will be on FG.

2:55

So we'll announce details beforehand on Twitter, and potentially start doing a weekly article of stream scheules.

And when it goes live you'll be able to access it either on the FG front page, in an article on FG, or on Twitch.

Dave

2:55

In a chat around mid-March, Brad Johnson said Austin Voth is a better pitcher than Tony Gonsolin. I was rather surprised to hear that. What do you think?

Ben Clemens

2:56

I know that Brad is high on Voth, but I'm not even sure that this is a controversial opinion overall.

2:57

Steamer likes Voth more, at least.

And ZiPS likes them about the same.

Voth has some interestingn bones, as it were.

2:58

But I wouldn't feel confident picking one over the other without a deeper dive.

Both fall in the same bucket of swingman with upside for me.

red

2:58

L. Weaver or J. Musgrove?

Ben Clemens

2:59

Wow, two of my pitcher crushes.

Boy, this is not an easy decision for me.

3:00

I think that overall I like Musgrove more, because I can wrap my head around his arsenal working more easily

He can just keep waylaying people with his slider, and he mixes in a lot of acceptable secondaries beside taht.

Weaver has less margin for error because he still doesn't have a breaking ball. The changeup is gorgeous and the fastball works; those aren't the problem.

3:01

But he needs the cutter to improve if he's going to kick it up a notch.

Boy, though, that changeup sure is nice.

Connecting…

Message History

On Off

Your current subscriptions

None

E-mail Address	Chat Owner	Status	Remove

Enter your email address to be notified when Ben Clemens hosts a chat