JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/29/20

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Ben Clemens

2:26

Have only played once but it was a lot of fun.

Richard Garfield games are generally awesome, though.

2:27

Like I played a tonnnnn of Robo Rally growing up and still consider it one of my favorite games, though I no longer have a copy

Been meaning to try KeyForge as well. Man, that guy makes a lot of games.

Derek

2:27

Wait but live math actually is fun!

Robert

2:27

I wasn't being sarcastic; I quite enjoyed that.

Ben Clemens

2:27

Haha looks like I was too down on myself

Jim

2:28

Back to doing the "I mean" again I see

Ben Clemens

2:28

Blue-Collar Tweeker

2:28

If games are played this year, who's going to call the games? I mean, I love to see Trout, but for the less exciting moments of Angels games their (tv) announcers keep me going.

Ben Clemens

2:29

In almost every case, the regular announcing crew. I haven't heard any specific chatter about this but I expect the crews will mostly remain unchanged. I'll do a little digging on this, though, because it will be interesting to see how their setups work

2:30

Like the KBO games were done completely remotely, and various sports have tried various things. I thought the KBO setup led to awkward lag at times but I don't know how much of that is related to announcers getting used to working remotely and how much is just the strange league

2:31

I'm going to watch the heck out of some Mets games this year though

Billy Hamilton

2:31

I am worth more as a runner in extras than a hitter in the ninth, how many other players does this apply to? i.e How many players should intentionally run into an out in the 9th?

Ben Clemens

2:31

So, you shouldn't *actually* run into an out, but I take your point.

2:32

It's only worth considering after the player is on first -- because no one should intentionally make an out if they might run into a single.

But runners who are significantly better on the bases than the person who comes after them should be very willing to gamble on steals

2:33

For an automatic out to make sense, you'd need some very specific circumstances

Let's say it's Billy Hamilton on first but somehow Jeff Mathis batting.

There, I think you might be able to make a case that Hamilton should just sprint until tagged

Fast runners, though, should be suuuuuper aggressive with two outs in the bototm of the ninth

(assuming they're on first)

@RationalMLBfan

2:33

Ben, I enjoyed your article on Billy Hamilton's proclivity for scoring while on 2nd base with no outs, but how do we disentangle the effect of his speed from the effectiveness of his teammates? (For example, Joey Votto drove in Hamilton 27/85 times [32%] in 2017 and 14/74 [19%] in 2018.) Put Hamilton in a different lineup, and his rate of scoring decreases, yes?

Ben Clemens

2:34

Yeah, it's very difficult to disentangle

What you're saying is true, but Hamilton also increased Votto's effectiveness, and so on

2:35

The correct way to do this is.... challenging

and by that I mean I'm not really sure what you could do. You'd need to look at his rates of advancement on each type of play

Then give him ML-average rates of each of those plays

Then turn that into a run-scoring expectation

But that sounded like a lot of work!

2:36

and also I don't think would move the needle all that much

Derek

2:36

They talked about broadcasting with Mike Ferrin on the most recent Effectively Wild episode - (assuming tv is handled similarly to radio) it sounds like the general plan is for standard teams to call games from the stadium for home games but remotely call away games, a la the KBO broadcasts, with some potential for broadcasting crews to travel, but separately from team personnel. Not sure if I'm recounting that exactly correctly but it's worth a listen!

Ben Clemens

2:36

Oh, thank you!

That's really useful

2:37

I haven't listened to that one yet, partially because I was too busy recording a statblast (I don't even think this is a humblebrag, just a brag)

But basically i was so giddy from Meg and Ben asking me to come on the show that I listened to myself instead of listening to other episodes

Robert

2:37

Besides the Mets crew (which is the obvious answer), who are your favorite TV guys?

Ben Clemens

2:37

White Sox b/c Benetti is so good

The Bill Walton game was my favorite regular season baseball broadcast in many years

2:38

The A's home crew with Dallas Braden gets wacky and that's fun

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