JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 8/10/26

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 8/10/26

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Ben Clemens

3:03

perhaps? I think that people will be a little skeptical of the Brewers magic

but yeah, he's been really good and looks the part

like, this isn't just empty air stats

njwr

3:03

Speier was suspended the last two days, so the Mariners were down a bullpen arm (or, were at the same bullpen depth they willing went with while carrying their six man rotation for much of the year). Speier hasn’t pitched since August 5. Ferrer and Bazardo, on the other hand, pitched the game before Speier served his suspension. Does this fall more on Dan or Jerry, or is this not the bullpen mismanagement it seems like it is to me?

Ben Clemens

3:04

meant to answer this one earlier

3:05

but yeah, that seems bad!

it's one of those communication issues that is hard to pin on someone directly without knowing the internal workings, but to me says that things aren't operating as smoothly as they should be

bosoxforlife

3:05

You wrote an article on the year of the bunt earlier but the use of the bunt is absolutely returning to levels not seen in many years, maybe decades. Yesterday I even saw a real hit and run play. I find it fun to watch instead of the TTO game that the game has evolved into.

Ben Clemens

3:05

it's great

3:06

it's a great counter, too

I think that the best games, not limited to sports, involve multiple feasible strategies, not a singular dominant one

even if the correct weight of those alternative strategies is low

3:07

and yes, I also just love seeing athletic players doing athletic things

we're never gonig to get away from the fact that TTO is the best mainline strategy

it's just the way that pitching has evolved and hitting has evolved as a counter

3:08

but I appreciate that teams aren't just brainlessly trying to do it 100% of the time anymore

war2d2

3:08

Sorry, crappy iPhone keyboard made me hit send too soon. I meant to say “99% of players wouldn’t have” or words to that effect. luckily my “09%” typo almost made it make sense!

Ben Clemens

3:08

yeah I figured I knew what you meant

whipstache

3:08

Hey Ben, there was an article today in the Baltimore Banner highlighting the Orioles' struggles in 0 out situations. I looked it up and sure enough their 0 out numbers are well below their season averages.

I was trying to figure out if this is random noise or if there's a possible coaching/approach angle that might cause this, and was thinking about looking at swing decision data, but I couldn't figure out how to pull team swing decision data with Out Situation splits.

What's your initial thought: coaching/approach problem or random noise?

Ben Clemens

3:08

my initial thought is that that's noise

unless the team is yelling THERE ARE ZERO OUTS. REMEMBER TO SUCK

just seems like a thing that is noise

3:09

I dunno if you've heard of the idea of pre-registering in scientific papers, but the idea is that you come up with what you expect to see beforehand

and that prevents 'p-hacking', as in just finding something that looks like an outlier b/c if you look at enough stats, something willb e an outlier

is there a good reason to think that something the O's do makes them bad in 0 outs but not bad other times? no

so the good prior, for me, is that it's just noise

Alexander

3:09

What are your thoughts about Lombard Jr.? What do you think about his ceiling?

Ben Clemens

3:10

hoepfully it's sufficiently tall, he's a large gentleman

if he's living in a house with like 7 foot ceilings, he's going to be banging his arms into things constantly

whipstache

3:10

I just thought they might be taking too many really good pitches or swing too agressively at the start of an inning

Ben Clemens

3:10

maybe! I'm skeptical

whipstache

3:10

My gut was that it was noise also, but I couldn't find a way to get the data to verify/disprove

Ben Clemens

3:10

yeah. that tends to mean noise

in my opinion

SPArn

3:10

There's like a 20% chance that the 2028 Nats pitching staff features both Miguel Sime Jr and Jarlin Susana in some capacity, and holy hell would that be fun

Ben Clemens

3:11

I mean, the Nats are poised on the precipice of being very fun

I'm excited to see it

It's not a given or anything. but I'm pretty into them of late

I think I've mentioned that they're the official team of the year for five things or whatever, as in I've watched a ton of their games

3:12

alright guys this was an awesome chat but truthfullyk, I've barely started on my article for tomorrow, and we have some new lab tools coming out soon that I am working on as well, so I need to bounce, cook lunch, and then get moving on that

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