JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 7/15/24

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 7/15/24

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Ben Clemens

2:00

Hey everyone, welcome to the chat

I'm gonna try to do a speed round type deal today because this is a heavy week of work for the trade value series

I'm not gonna answer any trade value questions, of course, that'll be reserved for next Friday's trade value chat, but there's a ton of other stuff to talk about and I'm going to try to fly through it

Champdo

2:00

So how hard will it be to solve Rainer's bat speed problem?

Ben Clemens

2:01

I think Eric's various draft profiles do a better chance of answering this than I could hope to, particularly in chat form

I'm gonna try to keep my draft questions focused on process stuff and team strategy rather than going into the particular pluses and minuses of an individual player, that's not really my skillset

that said... no clue!

Princess Leia

2:01

Help us Obi-Wan Clemonobi you're our only hope! Still annoyed that I didn't add Langford over Carroll last week. He's now on my top competitors team and I'm losing all hope for Carroll..

cool

1

Ben Clemens

2:02

I still feel very good about Carroll going forward, like I said, if he's your worst player, your team is probably quite good

The person who asks the lunch question

2:02

What's for lunch?

Ben Clemens

2:02

Leftover Thai food today

Dan’l

2:02

Do I get to enjoy a Winn/JJ pairing at some point? Maybe even for 3 years??

Ben Clemens

2:02

I could see it. I'm pretty hyped about Wetherholt as a fan b/c I kept seeing him in the top 3 available players

Carlos Danger

2:03

Juan Soto: .984 ops, 23 homers, hitting .243/.431/.456 over his last 30 games…. Rafael Devers: .977 ops, 23 homers, hitting .310/.382/.664 over his last 30 games. But Soto has a 20-point advantage in WRc+ still. Is this not an example of walks being overrated?

Ben Clemens

2:03

I think it's a good reminder that a)Fenway is a great place to hit

2:04

b)OPS can be confusing when one guy OBP's a lot higher

2:05

c)well your past 30 games thing is confusing b/c over that sample, Devers has a higher wRC+ than Soto

so like.... what are we doing here?

Marcos

2:05

How are you sizing up the Mets/Cards/Giants/Reds/DBacks/Pirates/Cubs scrum? Any chance the Dodgers, Brewers, or Braves fall back into this group?

Ben Clemens

2:05

I think the Braves and Brewers are juuuuuuust above the fray, I think that both are going to be more aggressive adding at the deadlin as a result

2:06

the Dodgers could, I guess, but their underlying numbers are just a lot better than everyone else in that group

they have the second-best BaseRuns record in the majors

hard for me to believe they're secretly bad

Sonny

2:06

Is it possible to get all statcast pitch info in a given day? Like one large csv export?

Ben Clemens

2:07

Sure. Go to the baseball savant statcast search page:
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search

Put in game date >= the day you want and also <= the day you want

after you run that report, hit the little spreadsheet with chain export button

et voila

Gary

2:08

What do you think are the top factors as to why starting pitchers are so inconsistent from start to start

Ben Clemens

2:08

I think there are two main factors. One, plenty of pitching results are outside of pitchers' control

hitters sometimes hit very good pitches, they also frequently miss mistakes

2:09

the other factor is that the start-to-start variability of stuff is real. sometimes you're just feeling a little worse, sometimes you're feeling better. Path dependency also means that sometimes you get to throw your best pitches less

Okra

2:09

Are teams upset with the league for not controlling the consistency of the MLB ball better?

Ben Clemens

2:09

100%

2:10

I don't know which direction they want it to go, but the lack of control a)makes it harder to build teams b)makes everyone look bad

George

2:10

Do you think that team Stuff models incorporate body data to include deception? I’m thinking about DJ Herz who’s generating elite in-zone whiff rates on a generally poorly rated fastball because of a funky delivery where he almost wraps the ball behind his back.

Ben Clemens

2:10

I think that modeling deception is certainly an AIM of team stuff models

I do not know whether they've succeeded. It's a phenomenally tough thing to handle

2:11

And given that there are so many different kinds of deception, you almost necessarily have to use results-driven data to get an idea

Dj

2:11

Prediction on who gets the last two wild card spots in the nl? I go Mets and F’backs. Also would you agree that Lindor is a stealth mvp candidate?

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