JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 5/22/23

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Ben Clemens

2:11

Although I really was surprised they thought he could handle shortstop. I was always kind of skeptical

ELDC

2:11

Do the Reds call me up this homestand (ending 5/25) or the following homestand (beginning 6/2)?

Ben Clemens

2:12

Great question. I have no inside information whatsoever here, I don't even think I've ever spoken to someone in the Reds organization now that I'm thinking about it

2:14

I'd I think they should call him up for a homestand, though, I think that would be very cool. I would guess that they'll want to make sure he doesn't get enough service days to qualify for a full year, but they're already past that

Also, there's some chance they do the Rays/Wander Franco thing and hold him down long enough that he doesn't even qualify for Super 2

2:15

Super 2 was 2.128 this year, but let's say it's more like 2.120 to be conservative. That would mean that if they want to minimize how much credit he gets monetarily for playing in the majors, they'd have to wait until the second week of June or so

So if he's mysteriously ready on June 15, well, you can guess why

Guest

2:15

I am convinced the article on this site titled "It Is Time for Mike Trout To Be Less Patient" is what altered Trout's swing decisions in the same way the tweet about his defense made him improve it. So I kindly ask for you (or another writer) to do what is right and fix him

Ben Clemens

2:16

Wrights_Back

2:16

If pitching matchups determine expected win probability - eg.if peak Sandy Koufax faced a replacement level pitcher, the odds of the Dodgers winning would be way higher than if he faced the other team's Ace (no matter how less acelike he was than Koufax), then why don't managers spend more time trying to get the best matchups? Is 'regular rest' a demonstrably better strategy.during the regular season?
With the advent of more 6 man starting rotations, the ability to find advantageous permutations must be greater, no?

(This wasn't meant to sound rhetorical).

Ben Clemens

2:16

What you're missing here is that the other team's ace is still gonna pitch, and their replacement level guy is still going to pitch too

There's a tiny difference, but it's not huge

So we can use a generic log5 approximation to come up with an answer

2:17

Let's say that Koufax is a .600 true talent pitcher, the Dodgers' next dude is a .525 pitcher, the other team's ace checks in at .550, and their replacement level guy is .425

2:18

That means that using this formula: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log5

Koufax would be .550 against their ace, and .670 against their scrub

2:20

Meanwhile the second-best pitcher (Don Drysdale, let's say) is .475 against the other team's ace and .600 against their scrub

So if you go Koufax/Ace and Drysdale/scrub, you expect to win 1.15 games

out of the two

not bad!

and if you go Koufax/scrub and Drysdale/ace, you expect to win 1.145 games

huh, basically the same