JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 8/29/22

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 8/29/22

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Ben Clemens

2:01

Hey everybody, welcome to the chat

I spent so long listening to arguments about how it's good to give up home runs this weekend, and how spin rate is overrated but pitches with backspin are the best, that my brain is mush

So forgive me if I'm a little bit slow starting off

The Guy who asks the lunch question

2:01

What's for lunch?

Ben Clemens

2:02

Leftovers. We made hakka-style eggplant last night (highly recommend, it's from the Meyers+Chang cookbook) and some spicy summer squash

So those two on rice, basically

James

2:03

I have a hypothesis that umpires are less likely to give a called strike if the hitter checks their swing, even if the pitch was in the strike zone. Do you know if anyone has tested this or if there is any way to find stats on it?

Ben Clemens

2:03

I've always wondered bout this!

I don't think it's an easily trackable thing, unless Synergy is secretly tracking this and I didn't know it

I would totally but it, but it's totally anecdotal

2:04

My thinking is that if you start to offer at a breaking pitch and then hold up, the umpire is watching your bat instead of the ball. And then hey, you didn't swing and the catcher finished low to catch it (presumably), probably a ball

Sammy So-so

2:04

I know this is all conjecture, but in a counterfactual where Cody Bellinger never had shoulder issues, do you think he still has the same career collapse? Is it more holes in his games that would have been exposed regardless or more the injury + surgery? Thanks.

Ben Clemens

2:05

I think that the best evidence in favor of it happening anyway is that all the problems he's had in '21 and '22 were already happening in '20 before he hurt his shoulder

Maybe he wouldn't have fallen so far so fast, but I think it's clear in retrospect that something was going wrong

Fan

2:05

Hello Ben, I had a question about platoons. I was trying to find the average platoon split for the average RHB and the average LHB. Can you help at all with this? Or do you know about how much better the average hitter is with the platoon advantage?

Ben Clemens

2:05

The website has an amazing tool called Splits Leaderboards that lets you do this

We should really make a tutorial of it sometime

2:06

But you can go to that page (it's under 'Leaders' on the top menus), select MLB (to get leaguewide stats), and then ask for whatever split you want

Here, for example, is MLB, vs RHP, as LHH

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/splits-leaderboards?splitArr=2,3&spl...

2:08

You can come up with whatever splits you want by doing this, it's really cool. The 'Count' splits really taught me a lot about the value of controlling the count

Tom

2:08

Ben, how could the Giants not repeat their 2021 season? I don't understand

Ben Clemens

2:08

The Giants are a real mystery. I don't exactly understand what was going on in the first place, but I also think they've been unlucky this year

2:09

I think it's fair to say that they've got some things figured out, but you can think that and also think a lot of guys had career years last year

That's kinda where I am at the moment

They could really use some actual stars so that they don't need to build the whole team out of role players they're maximizing

Lou Perltzman

2:09

Does John Smoltz share any of his salary with you? Ostensibly he's being paid to explain things on TV but it appears his explanations require the Clemens Treatment to be understood

Ben Clemens

2:09

I wish!

2:10

I think that's a bit unfair to him, he has a lot of air to fill, whereas I got to goof around Sunday afternoon at my leisure and write that

But I do wish there were former players who were good at expressing probabilistic ideas

someone in the comments mentioned that Jim Palmer does a good job of it, so there's one example

Russell

2:11

Which team do you think has the best broadcast? That includes camera work as well.

Ben Clemens

2:11

The Mets. There are four or five teams whose announcers I really enjoy listening to. Of those, the Mets have the best camera work

cool

1

The split screen of players facing off is one I particularly like, but they seem to get the best replay angles as well

Matt (Oceanside)

2:11

Hi Ben! I have often wondered if some or all teams routinely lie about injuries to rest players, especially pitchers. The Dodgers just put Tony Gonsolin on the IL with a forearm strain, which sounds scary. However, all year the talk has been what are they going to do with his innings because he'd only thrown 128 before. He's past that now, and I am not a conspiracy theorist or anything, but this seems like a situation where maybe an "injury" would be in the best interest of the player and the team. Thoughts?

Ben Clemens

2:12

This could definitely be precautionary

2:13

Think of it this way -- let's say there's a 50% chance it's a phantom injury, 40% it's a tiny injury and the team is taking no chances given his innings and their division lead, and 10% it's actually bad

That's still more worrisome to hear than it was yesterday, even if you're not tremendously concerned

Fan

2:13

Thanks Ben, I will use that. I always found the splits pages on Bref easier to work with, but I have not tried it on the leaderboard page as you suggest. I will do just that

Ben Clemens

2:13

Yeah, it took me a second to get used to, which is why I think we should maybe make a tutorial. But I really like it

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