JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/26/23

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/26/23

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Ben Clemens

2:37

I won't really consider this to be evidence, sorry to say

Good anecdata at best

Shaq_drizzle

2:37

How does fWAR, statcast, and bWAR differ so much on Taylor Walls? Fangraphs says he is not a very good defender. Reference says he's basically the greatest defender of all time. Statcast says fire him into the sun, bottom 1%. Meanwhile, the Rays lobby for him to get gold gloves

Ben Clemens

2:37

so, we use Statcast data

OAA

so that's why the two of us are right

or rather

right in line

2:38

That said, I think he's a good defender but I trust what Statcast is saying, that he's having a bad season defensively

Kvn

2:38

Have you taken irony at the Yankees' expense into account when evaluating Aaron Hicks wrc+ projections though?

Ben Clemens

2:38

Look, hRC+ (hoped runs created plus) has very different outputs

Fishman

2:39

Is Eury Perez just the best SP in the game inning-for-inning at this point?

Ben Clemens

2:39

I'm writing about Eury for tomorrow, actually

2:40

And I'd say no, he is not the best starter in baseball. But he's pretty dang good and I think that people are getting the wrong idea if they lose him in the flood of recent pitching debuts

Shaq_drizzle

2:40

But the Rays loved running out a backup shortstop with a 70 wRC+, and then touting him as a gold glove candidate. They can't be that wrong. Walls has to be doing something that stat cast didn't picking up on, because they're not giving him 500 PA if he's truly an awful defender.

Ben Clemens

2:40

You can have a bad defensive season and still be a great defender

Shaq_drizzle

2:40

And FYI, Taylor Walls was bottom 3% last year. Something's off.

Ben Clemens

2:41

Yeah, look, Statcast is sometimes kinda weird on the Rays for whatever reason, but I don't think they're super wrong here

here's a good mike petriello thread on walls

Happy Friday. Let's do a defense thread again.

A guy with shockingly good metrics: Daulton Varsho (+13 OAA as an outfielder).

A guy with shockingly poor metrics: Taylor Walls (-7 OAA. I do know DRS likes him better.)

Varsho first.

Phil

2:42

I always assume that teams lobbying for Gold Gloves is more about building clubhouse good will than anything meaningful. The Red Sox made a halfhearted attempt for Hunter Renfroe--and then promptly traded him for a defensive specialist.

Ben Clemens

2:42

Oh 100%

2:43

That has a lot to do with it

Steve O

2:43

Have you looked at AAA pitching lines for top prospects? Seems like the ABS is screwing with pitchers. Lots of pitchers are pitching terribly in AAA and performing better in MLB. Bobby Miller, Taj Bradley, etc.

Ben Clemens

2:43

Yeah, some are doing better and then not doing well int he bigs, though, so I am inclined to just say that it's noise until I do a further deep dive into it

That's a pretty hard thing to disambiguate, I'd say

2:44

like, is it ABS, is it a few of the players, etc.

Matt VW

2:44

Is there some secret sauce to the Marlins overachieving at this point, or is it mostly just luck in one run games?

Ben Clemens

2:45

i KNOW that marlins fans would vastly prefer it to be some secret sauce, but I'm sad to say that c'mon, surely it's not

the odds that it's some new thing are just low

the odds that it could keep going? sure, why not

Anon21

2:45

Any chance that the increase in interleague play will get rolled back? Reduces intrigue in division races, increases travel, creates a lot of matchups with no history and lower stakes. I liked it better when I knew only about 20 of the biggest names in the AL.

Ben Clemens

2:46

No chance.

I'm not sure whether I agree with you on this one, to be clear. I'm not an NL or AL fan, but I kind of like that my dad knows more AL players now

But that toothpaste is not going back into the tube

Getting the Yankees to more stadiums is a one way train

Guest

2:47

Fernando Tatis in the top 10 again?

Ben Clemens

2:48

No spoilers. But also, yeah for sure!

Shaq_drizzle

2:48

They're sitting Isaac Paredes vs lefty's and Brandon Lowe (vs RHP) so that they can play on Taylor Walls at third base and second. I can't buy that the most analytical team in baseball has Billy Brickhands with a slapdick bat playing over Aranda, Paredes, and Lowe (and choosing Walls over the original slapdick, Xavier Edwards). Something has to be skewing his metrics.

Ben Clemens

2:49

what I don't think you're getting here, and I'm not trying to say this in a mean way or anything, is that the metrics can be right and the rays can still think that what they have described, correctly, as happening isn't likely to keep happening

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