JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 8/16/21

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 8/16/21

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Ben Clemens

2:02

Hey everybody, welcome to the chat

2:03

There's been some interesting baseball over hte last week, so let's get to it

'Dians

2:03

Will Fangraphs ever offer win probabilities for individual games during the regular season? I know it exists for the playoffs utilizing Zips, is it too heavy of a lift to update on a day-to-day basis with 30 teams playing?

Ben Clemens

2:03

It does exist!

https://www.fangraphs.com/livescoreboard.aspx?date=2021-08-16

You can see our projected odds for each game that hasn't started right there

doug

2:04

percent chance Alex Reyes starts next year?

Ben Clemens

2:04

I'm gonna put it at 55%. It just feels like a thing the Cardinals want to try, and also something that they SHOULD try

Aus

2:04

Padres signing arrieta them officially waving the white flag? What a disappointing season

Ben Clemens

2:05

I don't think so, I tihnk it's more a sign that they are desperate and don't love their AAA depth

It's certainly bad

You don't want to be counting on a completely cooked Jake Arrieta

2:06

I just don't know what else they were supposed to do. Their pitching is just nonexistent at this point

DarthNateR

2:06

Question about the playoff odds- they have the Rays most likely winning the division, but it gives the Red Sox and Yankees better odds of winning the World Series. I see that the ROS w% is the lowest of those three on the Rays, but it still seems odd to have the Sox almost double the Rays World Series odds since the Sox are more likely to have a 1 game playoff. Do you think those odds are missing something here?

Ben Clemens

2:07

I mean, the odds are what they are. If you think our odds are way too high on the Red Sox (we think they are the 5th-best team in baseball ROS)

Then I can't really argue with you

that sounds high!

Meanwhile we think the Rays are a .500 team

And give the Sox and the Rays a roughly equal chance of winning the division

2:08

I think it's a good bet that we're too low on the Rays, and that does sound kinda high on the Sox

But my issue would just be with the fact that we think the Sox are elite and the Rays aren't, so with the projections. The model is just reflecting that view

Guest

2:09

Hey Ben -- With the A's possibly slipping out of playing contention, why did they not bother trying to improve their current biggest issue, that of the black hole of productivity at shortstop?

Ben Clemens

2:09

That one is going to sting for sure

It's not the A's will definitely miss the playoffs

2:10

But having a shot in the division and also needing to hold off wild card contenders, it's going to look REALLY bad that they did a bunch of adding but left a huge gap at short

it's not like they needed a star to get better there

The Great Giambino

2:10

Re: BoSox/Rays projections, is there ever a scenario where you start weighting the projections for specific teams? E.g. give the Rays and A's an artificial 2 game boost since they've historically outperformed their projections

Ben Clemens

2:10

Definitely not lol

2:11

That's not really a good way to handle it. We've had some behind-the-scenes discussions on whether we could come up with a new way to handle depth

That involved some math I don't truly understand

But I don't think just hard-coding in bumps for teams that generally beat the model is the way to go

John B

2:12

With a few weeks of games past the deadline who is the big winner: Braves, Yankees, cardinals, giants ?

Ben Clemens

2:12

Giants for me, and Phillies/Braves in second

2:13

It's not that the Giants got more likely to make the playoffs, but we have their odds of winning the west up 12 percentage points since 8/1

That's huge

Just holding the Dodgers off is really big

Your Name

2:13

Nico Hoerner is probably going to play fewer games than he did last season. Injuries a big concern for him moving forward?

Ben Clemens

2:14

Yes, to go along with 'is he good enough'

'is he healthy enough' and 'is he good enough' are some rough problems to have

I think Hoerner is probably good enough, but a guy who looks like an average player (at best) when healthy is not exactly someone you can stomach injury issues with

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