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Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 8/24/20

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Govtman

2:12

Did the Jays front office drop the ball on the question of Vlad’s conditioning and weight problem..it was obvious last year and even in the minor leagues that he has a issue with his weight, yet he came into this year heavier than ever...you would think the Jays would be more concerned

Ben Clemens

2:12

Similar question, or at least in the same vein

And here I honestly don't think so

There's this Orwellian view of teams that they could just tell their players to be in better shape

2:13

But presumably the Jays weren't blindsided by the fact that Vlad probably didn't have the body type to stick at third

I would assume that in internal conversations, they're concerned

And I'd also assume that they've mentioned it to him, probably in the context of 'if you stay healthy, you'll get paid more and produce more'

2:14

But they can't exaclty control body type, I don't think?

Guest

2:14

Which one is more likely to bring my family together as opposed to rip it apart: Settler of Catan or Pandemic?

Ben Clemens

2:14

I just played three games of Catan last week, the first time I'd played in quite a wihle

(with two friends who don't play board games often but had bought a copy of it)

2:15

It held up wayyyyy better than I expected

I would sya that Settlers is more likely to bring your family together without knowing the exact composition of your family

Pandemic suffers from the bossy coop player problem: if one member of your family is prone to bossing people around, then they'll be doing that on everyone's turn and it gets annoying

bighen

2:15

Would the Mets adjust the rotation so that deGrom starts their first game back? I assume it would be stupid not to but not sure if they want to keep guys on the same track or something. Basically mets should be hoping to have him take as many turns as he can.

Ben Clemens

2:16

They should. The Yankees are doing the same with Cole. The only reason not to would be if dG says he wants to stick to a schedule because of his neck

Guest

2:17

Ports in Settlers are way underbalanced. Also, Longest Road decides 90% of competitive games. Change my mind!

Ben Clemens

2:17

Yeah I don't think it holds up if you're playing it with a room full of min-maxers who want to crush everyone in their path

Games have become far better balanced in the intervening 20 years

Jkim

2:17

Mets' playoffs rotation should be:

Degrom
"Amed, go lick the 7 train"
DeGrom after a few days of COVID-related postponement

Ben Clemens

2:18

Boy I laughed more than I should have

But gross!

Ugh just imagining licking a subway seat is giving me anxiety

Warren

2:18

In retrospect, do the Padres regret the Brad Hand/Francisco Mejia swap? Pads could sure use a hand in the bullpen right about now...

Ben Clemens

2:18

heyyyyyyy

But no, I don't think so

2:20

It's one of those trades where it didn't play out as well as they hoped and yet if you told them today they could trade a great closer for a top 50 position player prospect they'd probably do it again

Particularly given that they weren't going to get much out of the first 1.5 years of Hand's team control remaining

Guest

2:20

Is David Fletcher rich man's Nick Madrigal or is Nick Madrigal rich man's David Fletcher?

Ben Clemens

2:20

Wonderful question, and I think the answer is that David Fletcher is a totally acceptable outcome for Madrigal

2:21

If Madrigal is a league average hitter with plus defense, that's a nice player right there

2:22

Fletcher is probably above the median outcome for Madrigal if he's as good as he's looked in the past two years

Largely because of the glove, but that really matters

Mike Hawk

2:22

I'm seeing Fraley projecting as a platoon but his splits say otherwise. Can you clarify?

Ben Clemens

2:23

Um, I don't have minor league splits handy sadly

Let me see if I can pull them up

2:24

Yeah, if you have them, please post them, because I'm not going to be able to generate them real-time here, but basically, it's decent practice to assume lefty hitters are far better against righty pitching unless you have either a)a huge sample of success against LHP, like more than 1000 PA against lefties or b)a very specific, non-outcome-based reason to think they should do well

2:25

Say that they happen to pick up lefty sliders really well; then you should be able to see it in granular stuff like chase rate and contact rate

Inaccessible Rail

2:25

I disagree about Mets playoff strategy, as Mets seem to forget how to score with deGrom pitching. Unbelievably, their winning percentage is lower in his starts than average over the last couple of years.

Ben Clemens

2:25

What a lovely statistic

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