JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/7/22

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/7/22

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Ben Clemens

2:11

I don't *think* I'd put him in the Top 50, but he's certainly in that 40-70 kinda range of good young players with holes

Absolutely in the conversation for top 50, let's say

RTJ

2:11

Was looking at Babip - JD Martinez with an absurd .468 Babip. He's got good hard-hit metrics, but I'm wondering how or if the shift on him is maybe not working?

Ben Clemens

2:12

It's just not a big enough sample size to say anything yet

And Fenway messes with everything, of course

I'd generally not shift against JD, though, because I'd generally not shift against any righties

Guest

2:12

Do you have a FLGS in SF you’d recommend ?

Ben Clemens

2:12

Heck yes. I live a few blocks from Gamescape (it's on Divisadero between Oak and Page) and it's incredible

2:13

They have a big stock of things, the staff are really helpful, and if they don't have a game I'm looking for they've either let me know when it's in stock or told me if they know another place to get it

Phil

2:14

I guess this is a question for Meg, but she doesn't chat any more: would anyone over there be interested in a writeup of what Daniel Bard is doing? His best RA9 since 2010, and I really can't find any comparable careers: no one else seems to have missed quite so much time from the majors and been this successful on return, and the closest equivalents are people who were playing in another country, not people who were completely out of baseball as a result of being terrible.

Ben Clemens

2:14

Sounds like a fun thing to look into when there's a lull in article ideas I have. And to be honest, right know I'm writing about Mike Yastrzemski bunting for hits, so it's not like I'm awash in great ideas

Mendoza Line

2:14

What is the capital of Uruguay?

Ben Clemens

2:14

I think it's Montevideo? That's off the top of my head, so let's type this and then Google it:

2:15

Bam! Got it in one. The way I remember it is that I know Paraguay and Uruguay are Asuncion and Montevideo, and so the capitals are in alphabetical order just like the countries

Same way I remember Bismarck/Pierre

jas

2:15

Has Dakota Hudson made a deal with the devil? Check out that statcast page

Ben Clemens

2:16

Check out Dakota Hudson's career FIP/ERA gap, while you're at it

I think he exists as a reminder that sometimes baseball is better experienced than analyzed

RTJ

2:16

Count me among the fans (and managers apparently) that completely forgot that you can't bring in a position player with a run differential of 5. Very stupid rule, even given the expanded bullpens

Ben Clemens

2:16

I have to say, big fan of enforcing the rule if you're going to have it on the books

2:17

I think if you're going to allow teams to carry 14 pitchers, you should just not let position players pitch at all, but I'd prefer 13 or 12 man pitching staffs and letting position players pitch

I see why they have the rule, though

Otherwise you say 'okay only 13 pitchers' and the Dodgers say 'hey have you heard of this hot new pitching prospect, Tyler Anderson?'

Whoops, that should say hot new hitting prospect

2:18

If you can just declare a pitcher a hitter with no consequences, the roster rules don't have teeth

Todd Coffey Time

2:18

It's been fairly well established, I believe, that Barrel% is a solid leading indicator of future perfomance for hitters when it comes to the Statcast stats. However, I am curious what can be considered a similar leading indicator of future performance for pitchers?

Ben Clemens

2:18

Strikeout rate! Whiff rate, too

I like to look at GB% and pop up%

A good mental heuristic is that pitchers control whether batters hit the ball, and what angle they hit it at

2:19

Hitters have control over those things too.... and then hitters also control how hard they hit it

So if you're looking at pitching stats, it's generally best to focus more on up/down and yes/no

than how hard

Pat Kelly's Potential

2:20

Being offered Soto for Judge and I think I should do it if only because of regression to the mean thinking and Judge's injury risk. Am I oversimplifying regression to the mean though?

Ben Clemens

2:20

I think I'd do it too, but I do wonder whether Soto's counting stats are just going to be crushed by the Nats

SJ

2:20

It's assumed some Rangers prospects will eventually have to get traded because so many of them are infielders blocked by Seager and Semien (even assuming some of them bust they have a surplus). Do you think teams knowing they're in this position diminishes their trade value?

Ben Clemens

2:21

I don't think it decreases their value too much if they're good prospects overall. It definitely decreases their leverage on fringe 40-man or rule-5-eligible types

2:22

Think of it this way: let's say that for whatever reason, the Orioles acquired Will Smith and JT Realmuto in trade, and decided they had to trade Adley

Now, do teams know that the Orioles need to trade him? Sure. But they also know that all their competitors want to acquire him. Let's abstract it into random numbers: if Adley has 1 unit of value to the Orioles and 7 to other teams, you might be tempted to offer them 2 units of value in trade

2:23

Hey, the O's double their value, and you know they need to do something, you have them over a barrel

But why wouldn't one of your competitors offer 3 units of value? And why wouldn't another competitor offer 4, etc

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