JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 9/26/22

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Ben Clemens

2:17

They keep making ALCS's, that seems good

Gross Nationals Product

2:17

CJ Abrams stats are still brutal despite his recent hot streak. Does he need more minor league seasoning, or does Washington let him develop at the MLB level next season?

Ben Clemens

2:17

I think Washington is going to play him in the majors. I would play him in the minors

asnbrv

2:17

Am I understanding correctly that your site's RA9-WAR does no adjustments for defense like rWAR does?

Ben Clemens

2:17

That's correct. Only park and league

An overly optimistic Angels fan

2:17

Do you see the Angels as trending upward or downward over the next few years? On one hand, there's the young and solid pitching rotation and Rendon (hopefully) back. On the other hand, there's a troubling lack of depth, aging Trout, and potential loss of Shohei

Ben Clemens

2:17

Downward, haha

Or well, maybe sideways?

2:18

If they keep Ohtani I'll change my answer, but losing their best player is not good

Next year is their best shot to make the playoffs in the immediate future b/c it's the last year where they're guaranteed to have Ohtani

NotGraphs Revivalist

2:18

Have you heard the rumors that MLB might have to move the Mets-Braves series to a neutral site because of Hurricane Ian coming through ATL? How much do you think that impacts a series that big?

Ben Clemens

2:19

I have not, but yeah that'd be wild

I'm not completely sure of what I think the impact is; if you think it matches real-life home field advantage numbers, it's costing the braves 6% of a win or so, right?

That's pretty small

But it FEELS like a big deal

Wanderful

2:19

Does wRC+ properly reward doubles? They seem valuable by the eye test but I see a lot of doubles hitters with low wRC+

Ben Clemens

2:20

Depends what you mean by 'properly reward'. If you mean does it account for how much a double changes a team's run production, then yes

if you mean 'treat doubles as really valuable, and even more valuable than linear weights would say, because they're beautiful' then no

I think there's a bit of a confounding variable issue here

2:21

Guys with no power are often doubles hitters b/c those are the balls they really tattoo

So higher doubles can come out of your home run pie, and obviously a double isn't as good as a homer. I think that effect explains a lot of it

Aaron Judge is a doubles hitter; he's just a home run hitter too

2:22

Freddie Freeman leads baseball in doubles, Nolan Arenado is sixth, I think they're treated well

It's more the Ketel Marte types (42 2b, 11 HR) that stand out

Randy

2:22

What's with Randy Arozarena's X stats? He hits the ball hard, makes enough contact, definitely passes the eye test, but X stats say he's a subpar hitter.

Not to mention his base running. Are his instincts really that bad or do the Ray's keep making him be aggressive because they know something we don't?

Ben Clemens

2:24

His xwOBA seems to have a lot to do with his low line drive rate; he gets the top end results when he crushes the ball but he hits a ton of pop ups (25 this year per our counting) and not many line drives, so the batted balls that are, say, between his 40th and 70th percentile of EV

turn into outs a lot more than your average player

2:25

I don't think that'll keep up, and he does seem to consistently beat his xwOBA, so I'm not too worried about them, b/c the top line stuff feels more repeatable to me and he does just fine there

As for the baserunning, he's had a bad year, i think he's a good baserunner anyway though

I don't buy the whole 'the Rays know something we don't about aggressive baserunning' argument, fwiw

It's not like a team-wide thing, and they often have really good baserunning metrics

They just have two guys who are running into a lot of outs this year

Dan

2:25

Are catchers slow because catching kills your knees or because fast baseball players practice/learn other positions growing up? Which is more true?

Ben Clemens

2:25

The first by far

2:26

I think I'll see if I can use Statcast data to look into this sometime soon

Jean

2:26

What can lead to a player outperforming their xWOBA? Looking at Bogaerts, Segura, to name a couple

Ben Clemens

2:26

where you spray your grounders. what park you play in. whether you're good at pulling a lot of your air contact. xwOBA looks at two things: exit velocity and launch angle

2:27

If your balls of a given EV/LA pair are more valuable than the average ball with those characteristics (opposite-field grounders b/c they beat defenses, pulled balls in the air) you'll outperform

Sonny

2:27

Say the Cardinals and Blue Jays both win the pennant, what’s the deadline for the corner infielders on one of those teams to get eligible to play north of the border?

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