JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 8/21/2023

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 8/21/2023

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Ben Clemens

2:26

yeah, these statistics are really noisy in general but statcast has not liked his defense at all of late

also, don't use UZR

it's kinda deprecated at this point; I much prefer OAA

Jake Marogersnik

2:26

Re: Spencer Torkelson's recent hot streak, is it just a standard hot streak or a sign of things to come? Not much changes I can see in batted ball data and he was underperforming his expected stats all season

Ben Clemens

2:26

My read is that it's just a hot streak

Like you said, it doesn't look like the process has changed all that much

Appa Yip Yip

2:26

I would like Bo Bichette to be a Blue Jay for life. What contract makes that happen? 12/350?

Ben Clemens

2:26

yeah, I think that would do it

2:27

seager-esque deal

EnglishMariner

2:27

Accidently submitted my question without the question bit - essentially is JP Crawford actually a bad fielder and the Mariners commentators are lying to me? UZR suggests he's shocking, but the eye test suggests he makes plays others wouldn't be capable of.

Ben Clemens

2:27

Ah yeah; I'd say that he's a below average defender, perhaps largely because of range, but that he has dazzling hand-eye coordination

Ethan

2:28

Last week the topic of pythag and blowouts came up. I mentioned a game level version and I was able to track down the original blog post for “pythagenmatt” https://web.archive.org/web/20071205030737/http://detectovision.com/?p...

Ben Clemens

2:28

Ooh, sounds like this will be fun to dive into later

Did Chewbacca use TP?

2:28

What changes has Cody Bellinger made this year to regain this success? How what do you think he'll get in the open market? would you be buying?

Ben Clemens

2:28

I liked this article by Esteban Rivera

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/for-bellinger-and-paredes-it-pays-to-pull/

2:29

I.... don't think I'd be buying on Bellinger

I think he's gonna get the biggest non-Ohtani FA deal for a hitter this year

And I just need more than one year's evidence, even though this year has been really good

2:30

That's kind of all I have to say about it.... I get that he's been better but I just can't lock it in as fully changed yet

Sporter's Five Horses

2:30

I was pretty bullish on the Nats heading into this season as a mid 70s wins sort of team (and boy did I face a lot of probably well warranted mockery for my views), but now it seems my faith is being rewarded.

Ben Clemens

2:31

They've outperformed their underlying stuff a bit, but who cares? I think the Nats have done a good job of trying out some new guys, getting something for their rentals, giving young players PT, there's just a lot to like here

Oaktown Blues

2:31

Looking at the A's trades of the past couple years, it strikes me that the worst results came in trades where the player traded was due a lot of money (by A's standards) the next year (Olson, Chapman, Murphy, Bassitt, Manaea), as opposed to the relatively successful Irvin and Montas trades. Do you think it was an open secret that the A's were not going to pay those players, leading to a lack of leverage and underwhelming returns?

Ben Clemens

2:32

Yes, and I think they did not understand their leverage particularly well given that

Like, yes, the A's were not going to pay Sean Murphy but someone was going to

I think that impatience around playing teams off against each other hurts them more because of that known market

but look, the A's could have had a better return for Murphy if they didn't involve the Brewers in that trade

2:33

so it's hard to say that was about leverage. There were several teams looking around for catchers

The Cardinals were confirmed to have been interested

and they splashed out for Contreras instead

Eh?

2:33

Have you ever heard of people looking into how to quantify deception in a pitcher's delivery? Obviously the easy way would be to point to career-long trends in stats vs expected stats, but I mean REALLY dig into it. Look at which deliveries, release points, etc. yield the best results.

Ben Clemens

2:33

I have, and teams are doing this for SURE

It's really hard to dig into from the public side just because we don't have granular info

Bob

2:33

Umpires this weekend we're terrible with the strike zone...will this speed up implementation of automated Kzone?

Ben Clemens

2:34

Angel Hernandez had the worst zone I've seen this year over the weekend

hitters were just chuckling

Curious

2:34

Word is Nats are extending their GM and manager. Safe to say Rizzo is in the top half of the league? Maybe top 10?

Didace

2:34

The Nationals are now an interesting team.

Ben Clemens

2:34

It's Nats day

2:35

I think that Rizzo is a really good trader

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