JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 8/14/23

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Ben Clemens

2:57

My thoughts are that it probably isn't a huge deal, but that there's really no way of knowing

Insert Witty Name Here

2:57

Board game question: what’s your chess skill?

Ben Clemens

2:57

I was awesome when I was a kid; our elementary school had a team, we went to nationals a lot b/c they were often held in the Southeast, I got 2nd in my age group in Tennessee in third grade. But in 5th grade, a Russian kid transferred to our school and started wiping the floor with me, so I quit and started playing sports instead

2:58

So, yeah, basically haven't played since lol

Zach

2:58

Last week I saw you took the over on the Dodger's win total at 95... At this point, do you think they'll reach 100 wins yet again?

Ben Clemens

2:58

Oooooh.... let's just say, no, but really close

but man, I had to think about it

they have really jelled

v2micca

2:58

Did Mike Trout give us unreasonable expectations? Before Trout, it was kind of accepted that your superstars might group together a couple of elite seasons, but would generally have them broken up by just good or above average seasons. Trout comes along and reals off 8 elite seasons in a row to start his career. Who can live up to that?

Ben Clemens

2:58

100%

not every star is an inner circle hall of famer

Deathclaw

2:59

What are your top 3 favorite Matt Damon movies? Mine are Gerry, Behind the Candelabra and Interstellar

Ben Clemens

2:59

Oppenheimer has to be on this list for me, probably first. I absolutely loved it

3:00

I dunno, there are just so many. I loved Ocean's 11, Good Will Hunting, the first few Bournes, Promised Land (?) I think it's called. I heard that Stillwater was incredible, though I haven't seen it. His part in Interstellar was excellent, agreed

We're leaving out Saving Private Ryan!

Sanford

3:00

Hi Ben, what's it been like to live in a different city from your favorite team, particularly in a city that has a team of its own? As a Mets fan who used to live in Boston, I was pretty easily able to embrace the Sox (mostly due to the charm of Fenway), but there's something about fandom vis-à-vis living in close proximity to your team—being able to catch a random weeknight game, chatting up someone on the train who's wearing the Local Team hat, just knowing that a majority of the passersby are following the same rollercoaster season that you are—that feels essential to my experience as a fan, and is a noticeable void whenever I've lived outside of NYC. Do you relate at all to this as a Cards fan living in SF?

Ben Clemens

3:00

For sure. It helps that I've never lived in St. Louis, though

3:01

I just pick up a local team wherever I go. I lived in NYC for a decade and just became a secondary Mets fan, same here with the Giants

v2micca

3:01

I can't be the only fan that loathes the idea of MLB implementing ABS as a challenge system. I can't be the only one that sees teams challenging every called third strike on principle alone.

Ben Clemens

3:01

You only get three misses

So, better be sure!

Wainwright

3:01

What would you think if the Cardinals used me in a piggyback starters/opener game to get two more wins for 200 career?

Ben Clemens

3:01

Yeah, into it

Seamus

3:01

Bogaerts has had a weird season. At the plate, his middling first half wRC+ of 106 was entirely built on a good April (itself strongly dependent on a great first week). He was awful at the plate in May, below-average in June, and seems now back to a bit above-average for the last month or so. In the field, it seems like last year's unexpectedly good defensive performance wasn't a total fluke, and he's gone from being one of the worst defensive everyday shortstops in baseball to one of the best. What do you make of his first of eleven thousand years in a Padres uniform?

Ben Clemens

3:02

My overall impression is that the Padres would have expected a different shape (less D more O, like you said) but that they're getting roughly what they expected. I think that my perception is probably a bit biased by the fact that he's been incredibly un-clutch, and in games where I've been watching

3:03

Jeez, he's 1.2 wins below average by WPA this year

It feels like he's constnatly up with two men on because the other team fell behind Soto 2-0 and didn't challenge him

Jax

3:03

On the point of run differential, I've always thought there could be some benefit of winsorizing the individual scores so as to dampen the impact of games like Saturday's 21-3. Maybe something like every margin of victory/defeat greater than 6 is replaced with 6.

Ben Clemens

3:04

Totally. Sounds like a lot of work if you don't have the right database, but also sounds interesting, maybe it's a good offseason project for me

Andrew

3:04

If it’s easier to steal bases this year, does that make singles more valuable than they were in previous years before the rules were changed? Do statistics like WAR sufficiently account for those year-to-year rule changes?

Ben Clemens

3:04

So, the general answer to this is yes, because of the way wOBA and wRC+ work

They use actual in-season data to determine how many runs score after a given base/out state

3:05

so, if more runs are scoring after a man on first and no one out, then the value of going from none on none out to 1 on/0 out goes up

Now, WHICH hitter gets on matters more now, and I'm not sure we account for that very well

Johnny5Alive

3:06

playing every day requires health, and in that regard, the braves have been lucky with their stars - work ethic or not.

Ben Clemens

3:06

Luck, skill, and intent, all three

3:06

Thoughts on Abrams and Ruiz? Both have done well lately, but the defense scares me.

Ben Clemens

3:06

One of my best friends is a huge Nats fan and is all over me to write about Abrams

He's already on my list of ideas, and yeah, he's looking legit to me

Ruiz, nah, I'm out

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