JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 7/1/24

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Ben Clemens

3:11

that's why I said 'pretty likely' instead of 0%

I'm just a hedger at heart

Derek

3:11

How well do you think an expansion team run by the entire current FanGraphs staff would fare? My gut tells me the answer would be at least "quite well", and probably better!

Ben Clemens

3:11

Haha, I'm not very modest, so I'd say we'll do well

we'd* do well

that said, I do like the big dispersal of talents we have. We have modelers, scouts, mechanics-type people

3:12

I guess we have me? I'm not sure what category I fit in

Appelman is a very good overall decision maker, so is Meg, I think they'd do a good job at the top of the org

3:12

One thing I really appreciate about FanGraphs, and you, is the trend of "process over results". How often do you need to see bad results before you think about process change?

Ben Clemens

3:12

on this topic!

3:13

I'm cognizant that I lean too much on process at times. I think that the best you can do is really focus on updating your priors. A thing that I try to do when I'm doing more long-term evaluations of players, particularly for the trade value series, is to separately do evaluations of people based on what I think right now

and look at my old evals and ZiPS's evals later

3:14

then kind of hone in on where there are big differences and try to figure out whether I'm just being weirdly biased

I guess I'd say that this goes two ways

on a player level, I'm willing to move more quickly

b/c you're getting all this new data

but on a team construction level, I'm more interested in my prior views, b/c there just aren't THAT many observations

Dan

3:14

I don't think the FanGraphs team is nearly big enough to run a baseball team. If youre only 1/4 of the staff are you really running the team and if you're spending your time corporate managing instead of scouting, modeling etc you are only tapping a portion of your talent.

Ben Clemens

3:14

Oh yeah we'd hire massively

3:15

nowhere near big enough

and yes, one thing that is really tricky is trying to figure out whether people are better as individual contributors or managers

my wife is a really good manager, imo, and off the clock we spend a ton of time talking about that

I'm an individual contributor at heart, so I think I might not be a great fit in this theoretical team

3:16

I think the one thing that might hold us back is that we have a few too many IC's

Kirk

3:16

Oh the wondering of how top flight athletes can change mechanics and still stay good: you mostly nailed it. The chances are usually small in the actual process that they can keep up, even if it looks like a big change to the layman's eye. The experience these dudes have also helps them stay good, because at the end of the day they're still swinging a bat hard or throwing a ball hard.

I think that people would be surprised at how well athletes from other sports would pickup baseball, by the way. It would be rough at first, but if you give someone like DK Metcalf or Steph Curry (two random athletes off the top of my head) a challenge of "become a major leaguer" and then give him all the time and training to focus on that, he'd pull it off.

Ben Clemens

3:16

Thanks, internet stranger, but yeah, I'm with you

great athletes are just ludicrous

MilwakeeBeerjays

3:17

Gunnar Henderson AL MVP 100% 75% 50% 25% 0%?

Ben Clemens

3:17

Well, 50% is higher than the ceiling of where I could put this, right off the top

I'm not gonna have him ahead of Judge, and there are other players

I think I have him around 25%

SkenesMVP2024

3:17

There's been some talk of the Pirates adding 1-2 bats and trying to make a run at the WC. Does that sound realistic to you, or is their offense too putrid for it to make a difference?

Ben Clemens

3:17

it does not

3:18

hmmmmm

you know, that was my snap reaction but I'm gonna give it slightly more thought

3:19

okay, I'm gonna update it to I think that they should wait until the end of the month and see where things are

like if they're still 3 games out of the WC, and one of the teams ahead of them falls behind htem

3:20

I think they maybe can? the thing they have going for them is that some of their offensive underperformance is from players I think are good who just haven't been good so far

there's a difference between that and like, okay 7 of the 9 position guys are filler

3:21

they definitely need more offense. but at least some of that can come from Cruz continuing to develop, Hayes being just okay instead of bad, that kinda thing

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