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Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 9/14/26

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Ben Clemens

2:12

and if you're Milwaukee, on Milwaukee's budget plus the uncertainty of next season (obviously ownership has had many m eetings about each team's willingness to punt the entire season to get a salary cap, they'd be crazy if they weren't polling their constituents)

are you really doing this for what feels like a marginal gain? the risk-reward doesn't seem amazing to me

mike sixel

2:13

Ryan Jeffers gets the QO, right?

Ben Clemens

2:13

Again, I'd be surprised

we'll see, and I imagine we'll get WAY more info and rumblings about this before I have to make all these predictions in like two months

2:14

but the Twins don't act like a team that doesn't care if they give out 20 million dollar contracts

bosoxforlife

2:14

Tolle's antics are some of the most fun things I have seen in stodgy old baseball in a long time. The hug when tagging the runner was great and then his smirk before completing his immaculate inning was just plain cool.

Ben Clemens

2:14

100%

I don't really know what else to say about that

I love athletes that are having light-hearted fun out there

and he definitely qualifies for me

Jeremy Fox

2:14

Have Murakami and others shown that the minimum viable zone contact rate actually much lower than we used to think? If you swing hard enough, hit the ball in the air enough, and make good enough swing decisions, maybe you can get away with swinging and missing at 1/3 of the strikes you swing at?

Ben Clemens

2:14

I think so

2:15

I think it's kind of metagame-dependent. I'm not sure you could make this work in a different kind of league (this is a tricky question, I dunno how to make a bunch of counterfactual leagues to test)

2:16

but OBP isn't that high and contact rate isn't that high ANYWAY

so why not sacrifice more for some power

I've been bouncing around an article about how a lot of analytical views of baseball lead to less fun baseball, and that we analytics people don't WANT that, we're just good at counting

and I think this is a great example

I'm not even that big of a fan of homers, personally

2:17

but like, the game has evolved in a way where hunting them has the most reward

so what, we want our teams to be willfully dumb?

colecards

2:17

What would you put the odds at that the AL representative in the world series will come from the AL East? Personally, I really like the Yankees and Red Sox to make it. Meanwhile in the NL, I could buy any division making it to the world series, or winning

Ben Clemens

2:17

our odds have it at 64%

2:18

that honestly sounds about right to me. they'll have half the representatives or more, and half the byes

but they'll bounce each other out some percentage of the time

and it sure looks like yankees-sox winner will face the Rays

2:19

so one way of looking at this is:
a)what are the odds the Jays get the last wild card, beat either the ALC or ALW representative in the WC series, and beat the other in the ALDS

2:20

b)what odds do you give the Yanks/Rays/Sox winner against an unknown ALCS opp

hard for the odds to be much below 60% or above 70% in my head, so I like our model

Auswan_Kletin

2:20

Is steven kwan officially the most underrated player in baseball? He's once again an above average contributor on offense and has continued to play great defense. feels like all the talk about him during the 1st half was how he finally appeared to be cooked (which was fair at that point)

Ben Clemens

2:21

The four-time gold glove, two-time all star who everyone's dad says is the best player in baseball?

i'm gonna say no

I'm not sure who is

because I'm underrating him, presumably

but I'm fairly certain it's not Kwan

David

2:21

In an alternate universe, would Ohtani have had more career value/durability if he played the outfield instead of pitching several hundred innings? With his skill set, he probably could have been an elite center fielder.

Ben Clemens

2:21

Babe Ruth is an interesting parallel

2:22

he gave up pitching because it was hard on his body, and turned into a defensive outfielder who at least our best defensive estimates of the era THINK was a decent corner outfield defender

and got to play more, too

I could totally see Ohtani doing the same in an alternate universe

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