JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 9/23/24

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Ben Clemens

2:54

I think it depends on what "move on" means

2:55

I have absolutely moved on from thinking of him as an impact player

But I think from the Pirates' standpoint, it's a matter of traige

triage*

this lineup has some real stinkers

like, it has three good hitters if I'm being charitable

2:56

and one of them is 38 year old Andrew McCutchen

There are a ton of question marks, and third base is one of them. But Hayes adds a ton of value defensively, he's cheap and also on guaranteed money, and he definitely has at least the ABILITY to hit for power

2:57

I'd focus on solving other problems first

wheelhouse

2:57

luke weaver has a better stuff+ on his fastball than mason miller

Ben Clemens

2:57

this is the kind of content I'm here for

Delbert

2:57

Is fWAR based more on result stats or expected stats?

Ben Clemens

2:57

an excellent and confusing question

Given that the key inputs to fWAR are strikeouts, walks, and home runs, obviously result stats matter a TON

2:58

I'd say that what fWAR does, philosophically, is focus less on the results that are less controlled by a pitcher

like, grounders are a great example of this

you can do some fancy estimation of how much control a pitcher exerts over their ability to convert groundballs into outs

but realistically, it's a very low amount

fWAR ignores those kind of as a feature, and really focuses on the results that a pitcher had a strong hand in

2:59

I wrote about this a few years ago actually:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-case-against-a-case-against-fip/

Sonny

2:59

judges relative power outage didn’t sway you towards Witt?

Ben Clemens

2:59

It does not

he's hitting .323/.458/.695

with 55 homers

and a 216 wRC+

like...

amazing

wheelhouse

2:59

on the fWAR topic: does it frustrate you that pitching fWAR often comes down to the "who had an outlier low HR/FB rate year" leaderboard?

Ben Clemens

2:59

a little bit, for sure. to be fair, that matters a lot for ERA too

Joe

3:00

Have your overall expectations for Jackson Holliday changed at all given his struggles this year?

Ben Clemens

3:00

Yep!

They are much lower now

Or well, they're lower

How could this not change my opinion?

obviously, there's a decent chance that he is exactly the player he thought and that this is just an adjustment period

3:01

but surely you have to recalculate the odds that that's the case with the knowledge that he'd be unplayably bad for a few weeks, go back to the minors, and then come back up with less fanfare and be... replacement level

Guest

3:01

Who should replace David Bell as Reds manager? And do you think David Bell was at all actually to blame for the Reds' struggles this year?

Ben Clemens

3:01

I think that Dan Szymborski has a great opinion about this

3:02

unless you have a truly sensational manager, use a short leash

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