JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 5/13/24

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Ben Clemens

2:35

I'm trying to think of who these semi-rental players are

2:36

it's not obvious to me offhand, maybe Garrett Crochet?

Princess Leia

2:37

Help us Obi-wan Clemonobi... you're our only hope!

The curse of Cano

2:37

It appears the curse of Cano for the M's continues at 2nd. Is there hope for Polanco or he is cooked?

Ben Clemens

2:37

honestly? I think he's cooked

like, not that he'll keep being as bad as he's been

2:38

but I've been thinking 'surely this is the season things stop working for Jorge Polanco' for six straight years now

Not the Lunch Guy

2:38

Did I miss something or did FG hire a third prospect writer in Travis Ice (60 name btw)?

Ben Clemens

2:38

I have a 65 on it

2:39

And let me paste in his bio from the Giants prospect list, his first with the site

We’d also like to take the opportunity to introduce Travis Ice, who will be joining FanGraphs as a prospect contributor. Travis was a junior college and Division II second baseman. After college, he served as an assistant coach at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College (a junior college in Miami, OK), then worked as an MLB video scout at Baseball Info Solutions before being hired as an Angels minor league video coordinator. He was a member of the Angels pro scouting department from 2014-2020 and has spent the last few years doing freelance scouting work for area scouts in the midwest, while also maintaining his own blog focused on player evaluation. Travis is a big believer in blending modern data and technology with “traditional” scouting. His time as a FanGraphs community member predates his scouting career, and he’s extremely excited to have the opportunity to contribute to all things prospect related at the site moving forward.

Lockard Links

2:39

Do you know where to find milb chase rates?

Ben Clemens

2:40

You can manufacture them for stadiums that have statcast data using the milb search on baseball savant

Princess Leia

2:40

Also, I lost my h2H matchup this week solely on the basis of Logan Gilbert's implosion. Good Process, bad results!

Ben Clemens

2:40

You hate to see it

Ross

2:40

Do u think the Mariners offense turns it around? Julio, Polanco, Garver, Crawford, France, Haniger have all been god awful.

Ben Clemens

2:41

I think Julio's gonna turn it around, he's a good adjustment maker. I don't have a lot of hope that Mitch Haniger is good again for no reason after being bad for a few years. Like I said, Polanco not feeling amazing. Um.... I think Garver will be okay, France probably okay. but yeah it's been rough

Phil

2:41

Do teams control bat weight these days? I feel like it's always been a very personal thing to players.

Ben Clemens

2:42

still personal to players

Andy

2:42

NYY second in wrc+ but yet there offense still seems a tad jekyl and hyde with the amount of low scoring games they have had. Are we just looking at early season variance or do you think there is any reason behind this?

Ben Clemens

2:43

I think it's largely early season variance, but I haven't put THAT much thought into it so take that with a grain of salt

KC Pain

2:43

Is Brent Rooker a better hitter than people gave credit for? Is he another overmarinated prospect? Maybe a .250ish hitter w 35+ pop instead of a .220ish hitter?

Ben Clemens

2:44

yeah, I think that's basically what his 2023 performance said, it's weird to me that people were down on him after he did a passable boom or bust power bat impersonation in the Coliseum

2:45

i don't think he's remotely as good as his numbers this year, but that guy can absolutely crush the ball, and he's always been a lift and pull type, so I think he'll continue to deliver real above average value

big mike

2:45

i'd argue part of the fun of baseball is the ability to quantify it to such a large extent, especially when compared to other sports

Ben Clemens

2:45

I think that it's the fact that you can quantify it but that it's still a bunch of great athletes

i used to trade government bonds, they're incredibly quantifiable and yet you don't have a ton of fans (or any fans)

2:46

'you can quantify it' only matters if it's still fun

Kevin

2:46

If a player has great statcast metrics but their performance keeps declining year over year, are they still good? Thinking of Matt Chapman in particular.

Ben Clemens

2:46

Matt Chapman has great statcast metrics??

we must be talking about a different Matt Chapman, or perhaps different statcast metrics

2:47

he is a man capable of hitting a baseball very hard. I don't think that any of his other statcast numbers jump off the page

bigtimetimmyjim

2:47

I thought it was a little interesting how chapman is near the top of the swing speed leaderboard, do you think thats any reason to be optimistic about him producing more slg going forward?

Ben Clemens

2:47

nah

2:48

like, this isn't a new thing

he's always had a fierce swing, and if you look at some of his max exit velo numbers and so on, the guy can absolutely tattoo the ball when he connects

but he is REALLY bad at hte connecting part

Sanford

2:48

All 13 qualified catchers have a wRC+ > 100. Obviously some selection bias here, but pretty cool!

Phil

2:48

Didn't there used to be an audience at the Chicago Board of Trade? I vaguely remember reading that. But yeah, I'd rather watch baseball.

Ben Clemens

2:49

Haha, if there was that's pretty amazing

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