JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 9/19/22

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RJD

3:00

Judge's season is bonkers, on pace to get over 11 f/WAR, only 13 players have ever done that. Currently at 210 wRC+, maintains would be the 11th player to do it, oh and he is going to be the 6th player ever in the 60 hr club; plus a shot at the triple crown. Think Brian Cashman regrets telling the world the contract offer?

Ben Clemens

3:00

Yeah, that one turned sideways on him in a hurry

I am really unsure what Judge is gonna get, my opinion on it has changed since Friday even

3:01

But I think he's gonna set an AAV record for position players, and that he'll get at least 7 years

Sorry, Brian

Kiermaier's Piercing Green Eyes

3:01

Apparently FG has Pedro's '99 season at 11.6 WAR (lost to Ivan Rodriguez). You make a fine case for Judge over Ohtani that I agree with, but I think your analogous Pedro vs Ohtani comparison would be pretty cool, since comparing pitcher value can be trickier than for hitters.
That'd be a fun article, actually. "Why I have Judge over Ohtani, and Why I'd Take Ohtani over Pedro."

Ben Clemens

3:01

My counterargument there is that Pudge was the second-best season that year

I don't mean best second-place MVP finish

I mean best second-best player

Pedro was the best player in baseball that year, whether or not voters agreed

Hawk

3:02

For fun, which of the current wildcard teams (let's not count the Braves/Mets, league of their own) do you think has the best chance at making a WS run?

Ben Clemens

3:03

I'm gonna disagree with our odds here, which have it as pretty squarely the Jays, and take the Guardians (who kind of fit what you're talking about even if they aren't actually a WC team)

Not that I think they're likely to. But I think that their team construction is such that you could see them spiking a few leads and just going Stephan, Karinchak, Clase, handshake line

3:04

I think it'll be an uphill climb! The offense will struggle, likely, as they have for the most part this year. I just like hte volatility basically

3:05

(they're scoring 4.15 runs per game, which will be the lowest among playoff teams unless the Mariners fall below them)

Charlie’s Mom

3:05

This Brewers season turned into a bummer. What do you see as their direction this off-season?

Ben Clemens

3:05

It really did. It's obviously easy to say in retrospect, but the trade deadline was a real turning point

3:06

I thikn that this offseason, they'll try to reload on offense without really retrenching yet again

3:07

The next Andrew McCutchen will be.... let's say Michael Conforto and Jurickson Profar, both

7/294

3:07

AAV is 42.

Ben Clemens

3:07

That's higher than I'm forecasting but look, I'm just doing educated guesswork

goat

3:07

1975 Joe Morgan is pretty tough to beat

Ben Clemens

3:07

This is a good one

Guest

3:08

Re Arm strength, I remember watching a game (probably on MLB network) where they rated the Yankees outfield by arm strength (green light for poor arm to run against red light for good arm to avoid running against) they gave the velocity of throws and percentile rank for each of the three (I assume it was maximum throw velocity rather than average

Ben Clemens

3:08

Yeah, that's the Yankees broadcast I think? It's really cool

My understanding is that it's average velocity of competitive throws or something like that? I really like it though

Joe

3:08

Do you think the league would be better off with more publicly traded owners? It seems like Liberty is really committed to winning. Would other corporations?

Ben Clemens

3:09

Publicly traded corporations don't exactly have a banner record of being great for their employees, but yes, I do. I think that there are enough teams that are run by people that have both no vision and a parochial view of the world that the benefits would outweigh the costs

MikeD

3:09

Re: Ohtani playing the field. The difference is most full-time DH's are bad fielders. Ohtani could add plus value defensively, even if it's for 30 games, while providing additional roster value. They'd have to limit his OF work around his pitching.

Ben Clemens

3:09

That's fair, I just think the upgrade wouldn't be big enough. If he wants to do it, and he really thinks he can, I'd say maybe

3:10

But he just has SO much on his shoulders already

Tel

3:10

Do you think you might lost out on some article (i.e. the Framber article) because you have so many ideas and are such a prolific writer. You are already on the front page 3 times to Justin's none (though to be fair one is the chat and the other is just the update to Judge's home run odds.)

Ben Clemens

3:10

Good news: there's a lot of baseball to write about

I've never really felt scooped on a story here, except for the one time I went on vaca and came back to write about position players pitching, only to remember that Jay does a better job of covering that and had also written about it just the previous week

Ohtani

3:11

Where am I playing in 2024?

Ben Clemens

3:11

Seattle or San Francisco (San Francisco, pls! I'd go to so many games, Giants, and I'd pay full freight instead of going to the press box. Just get Ohtani for my viewing pleasure)

Todd

3:11

Pujols career post-30 seems like it would just break projection systems. He puts up a 77wrc+ at 36, then remarkably remains steady for about 5 years, till he “breaks out” again at 42. Just nuts

Ben Clemens

3:12

Stray comment from earlier, but totally!

This year is baffling from a projection standpoint. Always remember the key rule that projections are always wrong

specific projections, rather

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