JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 8/22/22

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 8/22/22

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Ben Clemens

2:17

Trading for Effross and Trivino was a nice attempt to stem the tide, but it hasn't been enough

I'm a little less worried about the hitting because I never expected it to keep going at the rate it started. Matt Carpenter isn't suddenly Babe Ruth

2:18

Obviously Gleyber's recent form is worrisome, I'll admit to some worry there

2:19

But I dunno, did we think Hicks and Kiner-Falefa were supposed to be great hitters? I'm not super surprised they've struggled with Stanton out. They've also had a .270 BABIP as a team, that'll normalize

They have an 8 game lead! It'll be fine.

Belli Flop

2:19

Does Cody Bellinger have any chance of being even a league-average hitter again? He's had such a clear hole in his swing for 2 years now.

Ben Clemens

2:20

I don't want to spoil things too much, but someone here is writing about him this week. I don't know what their takeaway will be, but for my part, I'm not optimistic

Romorr

2:20

I know he's not the most interesting dude out there, but Austin Voth has put together an impressive turnaround in Baltimore. Was this more, get out of Washington, or Chris Holt putting another feather in his cap?

Ben Clemens

2:20

Porque no los dos?

trophy

1

The Great Giambino

2:20

As a heads-up, youu got a shout-out for your article on Trevor Stephan by one of Cleveland's long time newspaper beat writers! Said you lost him a little bit (presumably on the break explanation?), but always cool to see FanGraphs mentioned by other media outlets

Ben Clemens

2:20

I saw that, actually! One of my dad's friends is a big Guardians fan and forwarded to me. It's never gonna stop being cool seeing my name in a newspaper

The Real Ben Clemens

2:21

any thoughts on Hader's struggles? seems like an oversimplification to diagnose it as a release point issue

Ben Clemens

2:22

I really think the release point has something to do with it. I don't know that it's all of it, but I think he's just lost a lot of his usual Hader-ity, and that maybe that's a sign of it

2:23

His command is not up to its usual level, which is resulting in some bad counts, he's been a bit unlucky homer-wise, and he's always been a feast-or-famine pitcher

But I think a lot of it comes down to that fastball not bullying people like it always did, and I think it's clearly the case that some of his magic comes down to the wild release point

Porcho Villa

2:23

While it has been only a month, have the recent struggles of Bo Bichette and Brandon Lowe changed your perspective on them at all since the trade value series? Bichette perhaps just in an extended slump, albeit bad enough to get him dropped in the order. Lowe's post-IL stint performance is more worrisome and it seems likely he is playing through injuries.

Ben Clemens

2:23

Yeah, I'm not changing my opinion on Lowe too much because I agree, I'm pretty sure he's hurt

2:25

I was worried I had him too high in the ranking, but I was more making a statement about how I think good-bat second basemen have value

I'm definitely very worried about Bichette!

2:26

That's the one I lose the most sleep over (to be fair, it's a many-way tie with 0 sleep lost)

James

2:26

Dusty has been batting Yuli 2nd, in front of Yordan, presumably hoping that he sees some better pitches. It hasn't really gotten more production, but is there any validity to the idea? Or is it just old-school nonsense?

Ben Clemens

2:26

I'm not sure! It seems like something interesting to look into, and maybe something hard to isolate. I'm comfortable saying it's a bad idea, though

Broken Bat

2:27

Pretend… you are GM and your owner says win it all in 3 years. You can have any prospect or current MLB players with less than 2 years of service time on your team. You get the first 6 picks. Who are they?

Ben Clemens

2:29

Let's assume salary isn't an issue, and it can only be players with less than two years of service time. Gimme Adley, Julio, Witt, Wander, Kirk (not sure he's quite there on service time, I'm counting it anyway), and Manoah

I didn't put a ton of thought into this, so I might be missing someone obvious

Guest

2:29

Re: Yankees panic: the 2017 Dodgers had stretches where they won 15 or 16 and lost 15 of 16, and that season worked out okay for them (would have worked out even better perhaps if not for Astros shenanigans). Slumps happen to good teams.

Ben Clemens

2:29

That's my general feel for it, agreed

>this guy<

2:30

SInce the Angels DFA'd Pujols, he has pretty much mashed. And the Angels have a weak offense

Ben Clemens

2:30

You're not wrong!

Appa Yip Yip

2:30

Is Alek Manoah's propensity for beaning people an issue, or is it still a rare enough event that it doesn't really matter? (Except to the dudes getting hit. It sucks for them)

Ben Clemens

2:31

I'm still on the doesn't matter too much side of things, but take that with a grain of salt, b/c I didn't realize this was an issue until you mentioned it

Matt (Oceanside)

2:31

Thanks for the chat Ben! Love your stuff, appreciate you!

Ben Clemens

2:32

why thank YOU

Matt (Oceanside)

2:32

Justin Choi wrote an interesting article for Fangraphs on Kimbrel's underlying metrics being so solid, and it being a mystery outside of the high BABIP on why he has struggled so much. I have watched almost every game of his, and to me it's obvious that the command and control are both rough, consistently rough. What is your opinion on him?

Ben Clemens

2:32

I haven't really watched enough of his outings to have a strong eye test opinion

2:33

I totally buy that he's struggling with command, that's the kind of thing that happened to Kimbrel (in less-extreme fashion) even in his great years

you know, pitches are shaped the same, but they're not really going where he wants, which puts him in some bad situations

A Jollly Good Oberkfellow

2:33

Are we maybe finally getting past some of the stodgy unwritten rules--no one seemed too perturbed, even in Philly, about Canha's epic bat flip yesterday.

Ben Clemens

2:33

I sure hope so

Great bat flip, too

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