JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 5/2/22

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 5/2/22

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Ben Clemens

1:58

Let's get started a little early today

Welcome, everyone

Let's talk some baseball! And I mean, whatever else too

Chamaco

1:58

Do you ever think about the unique (and pretty awesome) nature of your job? Seems pretty cool to write about baseball all day. Also probably a little surreal, no? Convo in the Clemens household - “how was your day? Well, someone named Appa Yip Yip had a question in the chat that…”

Ben Clemens

1:58

Oh, all the time

2:00

I used to have a 'real' job

This one feels very different. It still feels like a job, trying to find things to write about can be hard, etc... but yeah it's great

Morlock Jimenez

2:00

If a previously decent team decided to adopt a 10-man pitching staff, how good would the bench have to be in order to be competitive in today's game?

Ben Clemens

2:00

I think it would matter a ton who their pitchers are, way more so than how good the bench was

2:02

If you took the Mariners' staff (I think they're a previously decent team), I don't like their odds, because they've got some five-and-dive types

Honestly, maybe that's every team

But it really matters how deep your starters go, basically

2:03

Sorry for my slow responses, I'm distracted because the Royals broadcast is explaining how important it is to throw slowly, and how pitchers who throw in the mid-80s are better than today's crappy hard throwers

Joe

2:03

Is Whit Merrifield bad now?

Ben Clemens

2:04

Nah, I think he's mostly what he always was. Not much power, not many strikeouts or walks, empty average but decent enough at average to make it work

He's just having a rough run of it, and his game is so heavy on balls in play that that can happen

Romorr

2:05

Does XBA consider which side the batter is hitting from? See some high XBAs for a routine grounder to 3rd, but realize if it's a left handed hitter, and there is a shift, that plays into the higher xba.

Ben Clemens

2:05

It doesn't. It also doesn't consider where it's hit

er, rather

it looks at exit velocity, launch angle, and the batter's sprint speed for grounders. It doesn't consider whether it was hit to third or up the middle, whether it beat the shift, whether there is a shift, anything like that

2:06

That's how you end up with pitches clobbered to center with super-high xwOBA that are just outs, etc.

Guest

2:06

Which ends up lower: Joey Votto's season batting average (currently .122) or the Reds season win percentage (currently .136)?

Ben Clemens

2:07

haha, Votto's batting average

even if he hits .350

c'mon now

Bob in Brooklyn

2:07

Cano was DFA'ed by the Mets earlier today. What team, if any, will pick him up for the rest of this season since he'll only cost the pro-rated minimum with the Mets picking up the rest of the tab? Is he even worth that to a ML team at this point in his career?

Ben Clemens

2:08

Dan is gonna be writing about Cano tomorrow, but briefly, I don't really think he's rosterable right now. He just looks done to me; he can't hit fastballs at the moment, and that's a big problem.

Troy

2:08

19 teams average under 5 ip/gs and the Ms interestingly aren't one of them - Flexen, Ray, and Gilbert have all gone deep in all their starts, and you would expect Gonales to as well. Only true five and dive is brash

Ben Clemens

2:09

Well boy, do I feel sheepish

to quote Robin Williams in Aladdin

Tarik

2:09

"and his game is so heavy on balls in play that that can happen". Can't you say the same about strikeout hitters?

Ben Clemens

2:10

It's more guys who get a lot of value from walks that are more stable. This would be something interesting to write about, so maybe I will -- which kinds of profiles have the highest variance

Pumpsie Green

2:10

Does Helsley eventually replace Gallegos as the St.Louis closer? He has been on another level.

Ben Clemens

2:11

I think not, but I also think it doesn't matter much, so long as they actually start using Helsley in bigger spots. For unclear reasons, Andre Pallante has entered in bigger spots than Helsley this year (so have Gallegos and Genesis Cabrera, but eh)

2:12

Strangely the Cards just haven't had a lot of big spots for relievers (other than Gallegos). Every reliever on their team other than Gallegos has an inLI below 1, which means they're coming in in low-leverage spots.

joe

2:12

So uh, maybe a few people overreacted about the Yankees offseason?

JaysFanInLondon

2:12

Are the Yankees better than we expected, or is this just a hot streak against weak opponents?

Ben Clemens

2:15

I definitely think that people overstated how bad their offseason was. I didn't like it a ton, because I thought they upgraded but by less than they could have, but they were already good last year. There was maybe some Yankees fan exceptionalism going on; if you think your team should just constantly be signing the top 35 free agents and developing the top 20 prospects, Josh Donaldson and Anthony Rizzo don't move the needle

They're good! We expected them to be good!

They're also hot, they're not a true-talent .727 team

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