JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 8/17/20

Prev Page View Full Chat Next Page

Ben Clemens

2:12

Mize is polished, throws a four-pitch mix, has an awesome splitter and a great cutter/slider thing

I love that the Tigers are doing this.

It makes a TON of sense

2:13

Giving up the back end years on pitchers has rarely come back to haunt teams, and this is a year the Tigers have their best shot at making the playoffs

So go for it!

YardGoat

2:13

How are you doing on this Trade Value Monday Ben? Has your dog's cardboard cutout made a TV appearance yet?

Ben Clemens

2:13

Not yet! Although I haven't watched every A's game of late, I'm on a working vacation which means I've been watching less baseball at night after writing all day

Billy Beane

2:13

Hey Ben, you're in SF, right? Have you had pupusas from Panchita's #2?

Ben Clemens

2:14

I haven't but now it's on the list. I love pupusas

Rick

2:14

So delaying a few games because of COVID is not ideal, but from an on-field perspective, is there any team that benefits more from playing some 7-inning doubleheaders than the Reds (currently 1st in fWAR in team starting pitching, 25th in fWAR in team bullpen pitching)?

YardGoat

2:14

If the Reds have a breakout of positives come back, does that more or less make it impossible to reach 60 games for all the NL Central teams? Seems like a really bad scenario having two teams in the same division with outbreaks

Ben Clemens

2:14

Two questions here, both of which are interesting

I think the Phillies actually benefit more, and they have a boatload of doubleheaders

But don't forget, a lot of those second games are going to be bullpen games

2:15

And, uh

As to YardGoat's question, yeah it's really rough.

If they miss 10 games, a lot of the Central will end up short, and there's no way to avoid it

Ryan

2:15

Kevin Pillar to the Indians: make sense?

Ben Clemens

2:16

I think so? Their outfield is just ughhhhh

Defenestrater

2:16

Article idea: go through the math on whether to save the closer for the 10th in a tie game (since that inning starts off as higher leverage). I assume the answer is no, but it is good to check these things.

Ben Clemens

2:16

I have some stuff in the queue on home field advantage and on pitching to the corners, but after that perhaps

It would be interesting to see the change with the new rules for sure

Human Rain Delay

2:16

Ootp brewers update please?

Ben Clemens

2:17

Bouncing between 1 and 2 games back of the Pirates, in WC2 at the moment

Yelich is back next week

Seems like we handled it okay

Giodude

2:17

If two players with identical bat speed make identical contact with a pitch, but one player is 100 pounds heavier than the other, will the heavier player's batted ball go significantly further? I am trying to understand if, when announcers say "XYZ player is so strong he can go the opposite way with that pitch", they really just mean "XYZ player has such good bat speed".

Ben Clemens

2:17

It's important to note that I'm not a physicist, so you know, don't take this as gospel

2:18

But from my understanding, it matters in a technical sense, but hte magnitude is so small as to be meaningless

The bat's weight matters

Because basically you're transferring the bat's momentum to the ball

2:19

But that's the key weight, not the player's

Any actual physicists, please let me know what I'm wrong about

Mike Troutrzemski

2:20

re: the Trade Value series, are there good pieces to read on choosing which interest rate to use for contract NPV calculations? I see numbers ranging from 4% to 8% in past FanGraphs articles, but sadly for most of them the justification for the interest rate is just a dead link to an external site.

Ben Clemens

2:20

Haha there absolutely is not, and it's something I've struggled with quite a bit when I do NPV stuff

I tend to use BBB corporate bond yields as the appropriate team discount rate

Because that seems to most closely approximate their cost of funds

2:21

And then when I'm looking at what a player's cost of deferral is, I kinda freelance. Usually something like t-bills + 100?

Because I assume these guys would be pretty risk-averse with investments when they have life-changing money

GSon

2:21

What's a "cutter/slider" thing?

Connecting…