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FanGraphs 2026 Opening Day Chat
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Brian
4:34
Did I read somewhere that there was a change in the way check swings are being called this year?
Ben Clemens
4:34
being tested in the minors
Arathorn
4:37
How soon is too soon to declare victory in a (very deep) fantasy league where I have Joey Wiemer, Andres Chaparro, and Brandon Lowe?
AvatarJon Becker
4:37
about 185 days too soon
Davy Andrews
4:37
Nah, stunt on 'em. Joey Wiemer will keep this up.
Brian
4:38
I am really really going to learn to hate "Freebird"
Davy Andrews
4:39
People are still chiming in with midwest takes, in case anybody was wondering.
MilwaukeeBeerJays
4:40
Any fun Mideast takes?
Ben Clemens
4:41
I lived in Saudi Arabia for a year as a kid. It's hot. Super hot. You get to go to the beach a lot though.
Oaktown Blues
4:41
All this talk about optimal challenge strategy just cements my opinion that this system is a silly half measure. If we trust ABS to get the calls right, just let it do all of them
AvatarJon Becker
4:41
My big qualm with this is that I'm not sure I want to watch a game where catchers don't have to care at all about presenting the pitch
Davy Andrews
4:41
100%. I would hate that.
Lew Ford Mustang
4:41
What is your go-to ballpark food/beverage?
Davy Andrews
4:41
Chicken tenders and fries.
AvatarJon Becker
4:41
Can't go wrong with a hot dog, I'm a mustard and onions guy
Ben Clemens
4:42
I think the challenge system is gonna do two things: get important calls right, and overturn obviously wrong calls
Davy Andrews
4:42
And reduce shouting.
Ben Clemens
4:42
those both seem like important things. and it's pretty cheap in terms of slowing the game down or feeling weird. very good imo
MattStats5
4:43
Small sample size for me, but I'm not opposed to the challenge system so far.
Jon
4:43
Can we build a baseball academy in Czechia and get the electrician guy to be our pitching coach?
Davy Andrews
4:44
That's electrical technician Ondrej Satoria, and I imagine it might be possible.
4:45
On that note, go out and buy my friend Michael Clair's book, We Sacrifice Everything to Baseball. I'm reading it right now and it's great.
AvatarJon Becker
4:45
Michael Clair, the musician?
Davy Andrews
4:45
He's a renaissance man.
DJ Tofu
4:46
What is the interaction between bat weight and bat speed on exit velo? Assuming average on all variables first, now say if I decrease the bat weight by an ounce, how much more bat speed do I need to maintain the same-ish EV?
Davy Andrews
4:47
You'll need to ask this guy.
AvatarJon Becker
4:47
Two errors today for Caminero, those in-season gains last year have not carried over
(yet)
Brian
4:47
Davy, I am pretty sure the shouting was half the reason my grandpa watched baseball. That said, I also agree its pretty unobtrusive and will improve the game.
Jon
4:47
We need to get the Czechia-to-MLB pipeline started guys
MilwaukeeBeerJays
4:47
Ben! My wiiiiiife spent her high school years in Qatar. Apparently if you are an ex-pat, you have less rights than the...um Qatarians? Qataronis? So if you got into a car accident with a Qatar-person and it was not your fault, it was still your fault.
Insert Witty Name Here
4:47
You're going to get peppered with Saudi Arabia questions next Monday, Ben.
Oaktown Blues
4:48
This may be better suited for a mailbox question, but what is the hardest hit ball in the bat tracking era that wasn't squared up?
Ben Clemens
4:48
by definition, probably not that hard. Since it's 80% of maximum exit velo, and we can kinda guess that maximum exit velo isn't much more than, at most, 130 (otherwise someone would have hit one harder by now).
4:50
so like, maybe 100 mph? that's an 85mph swing at a 100 mph fastball, juuuust below squared up
Davy Andrews
4:51
It's this Oneil Cruz homer! 114.4 mph EV, 84.8 mph bat speed.
Unless it didn't get tagged right?
Torpedo balls
4:49
Do Carpenter, Keith, and McGonigle sit against all lefties?
AvatarJon Becker
4:50
Can't sit all three of them unless they did something weird like Dingler at DH with Rogers catching. My guess is Carpenter pretty much always sits against them and McGonigle gets plenty of chances to show he can hit them
Insert Witty Name Here
4:50
Justin Crawford with a groundball single! We'll be saying that a lot this year.
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