JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 8/14/23

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 8/14/23

powered by

View Full Chat Next Page

Ben Clemens

2:01

Hey everybody, welcome to the chat

Let's just get started, I don't have any clever intro today

Joe

2:01

What do you make of Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s season? Underperforming his xwOBA by a ton. What's your read on it?

Ben Clemens

2:04

I think he's a bit unlucky to only have this kind of output, but I don't think you can just look at the xwOBA and call it a day. He's just not pulling enough stuff in the air, and that's a really big problem when you're a bat-only guy

love

1

I think he's better than he's showed this year, but I also think he's just a fairly solid DH type, not the hitter he was in 2021

It's kind of frustrating; he's so talented

2:05

But if he ended up with last year's output, I don't even know if I'd be happy with it as a Jays fan

that 2021 season just set the bar so high

Fonz (Milwaukee)

2:05

Is it time to start a "Free Jonathan Aranda" movement? Is the movement stalled by the fact that it's the Rays?

Ben Clemens

2:05

Start? I'm a card-carrying member

I do think he might end up needing a change of scenery, he's just blocked a ton of ways by the talent the rays keep spitting out

Aadik

2:05

Andy Baggarly shared this nugget in his last piece - since June 22, the Giants "haven’t been particularly good against any pitch type in two months. From the time their 10-game winning streak ended on June 22 through Saturday, they ranked dead last in the major leagues in batting average (.209), on-base percentage (.286) and slugging percentage (.332) while hitting the fewest home runs (35)."

That's ... horrific at so many levels. One criticism of the Zaidi regime for me is that it sometimes seems like a quest for efficiency (maximizing the marginal return of WAR per $) than actually winning, especially for a large market team in the wealthiest area in America. It feels weird to say as a fellow nerd here, but shouldn't the Giants swing big on offense this off season, if its. the back-end is horrific.

Ben Clemens

2:06

Normally I'd agree, except there's really only one interesting hitter this offseason. Shohei Ohtani, maybe you've heard of him

2:07

Now, I expect the Giants to go absolutely hog wild in offering Ohtani a contract. He'd be an incredible on-field fit (for any team in baseball), and a huge marketing hit here as well

But yeah, I don't think it's an accident that they were trying to sign Correa and Judge last offseason

They just haven't gotten enough big bats, they've done too much mini-optimizing

Jon

2:07

Hi Ben, is there a breakdown of where Jordan Walker is bleeding defensive runs? Like, is it on jumps to his left on fly balls, it is giving up extra bases on base hits, etc?

Ben Clemens

2:08

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/jordan-walker-691023?stat...

Statcast splits it out that way, but the results are not encouraging

He's 2 runs below average going in, 3 runs below average going to his right, 4 runs below average going to his left, and one run below average going back

2:09

They also have an outfield jump metric, and he's in the sixth percentile

So yeah, to simplify: he gets bad jumps, which hurts him in every direction

jas

2:09

The Cardinals are 7th in position player fWAR (which as far as I can tell includes defense) and 12th in pitcher fWAR. Is it just sequencing/luck, or is WAR missing something? That pitching number doesn't pass the smell test to me.

tongue

1

Ben Clemens

2:10

Sure, one more cardinals question, why not? I'm even writing about Lars Nootbaar for tomorrow, really feeling the Cards energy at the moment

First, yeah, fWAR includes defense

2:11

but the pitching number feels really suspect to me, and I can basically say why: I think that the contact quality the Cards pitchers are allowing is legitimately awful, which FIP doesn't account for

like, Adam Wainwright is "underperforming" his FIP by almost three runs

2:12

but the reason he's doing that is because he's allowed a .394 BABIP, and he's allowed a .394 BABIP because he's lobbing the ball in there and letting hitters take their biggest rips

2:13

I think that Mikolas, to some extent, suffers from a similar issue; it's not nearly as bad, but so much of his game is based around letting hitters take a cut at his fastball in the strike zone that it's not particularly weird to me to see him with a high babip

when the Cards defense isn't elite, it's tough sledding out there for contact-oriented pitchers. I don't think the defense number can fully account for that

David

2:13

Is Bellinger all the way back to his MVP form or is there some good fortune baked in?

Ben Clemens

2:15

Good fortune baked in for sure. I think a better way to look at it might be that he's back as an All Star type bat, but he's not crushing the ball often enough to merit this type of offensive line. I think he's more good than great on offense, though obviously an excellent defender, and probably one of the most sought-after hitters this offseason

Guest

2:15

The last 2 innings of yesterday's Orioles-Mariners was better than it could possibly be. Mullins catch ranks with the best I have seen, then it was topped by Canzone's 2-out game tying blast only to have Mullins himself hit one out in the 10th. This came after Mullins had just missed the foul pole on a previous pitch. Baseball at its best!

Ben Clemens

2:15

Yeah, it was absolutely incredible, and let's just say that it's a thing I liked in baseball this weekend

Tom

2:16

A couple of tough 10 inning losses to Baltimore shouldn't slow down the Mariners Train.... do you think they will charge to the playoffs?

Ben Clemens

2:16

I think they're juuuuuuust gonna miss

2:17

Every game really counts at this point, it's gonna be close down the stretch between them and some AL East team

Oaktown Blues

2:17

So I know you're not the prospect guy, but since you wrote up the Cole Irvin trade (twice!) I figured you could weigh in: What is preventing Darell Hernaiz from appearing on top 100 lists? He's a 22YO shortstop hitting well in AAA with strong exit velocities and a 12% K rate

Ben Clemens

2:19

Yeah, it wouldn't shock me if he ended up slipping into the top 100 next year, I probably wouldn't say strong exit velocities but certainly not embarrassing

And yeah, the strikeout rate is impressive

Connecting…

Register

Message History

On Off

On Off

On Off

Your current subscriptions

None

Register now to continue managing your subscriptions

E-mail Address	Chat Owner	Status	Remove

Enter your email address to be notified when Ben Clemens hosts a chat