JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 1/30/23

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 1/30/23

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Ben Clemens

2:00

Hey everyone, welcome to the chat

I have a prior obligation (read: lunch) at noon PT today, so I'm going to keep this chat fast and light. I guess maybe that's similar to always, but eh, faster and lighter. Let's get chatting

Jake

2:00

What were your thoughts on the McNeil extension?

Ben Clemens

2:01

Seems like a great deal for the Mets to me, and I'm pretty happy that McNeil is getting a bunch of money

2:02

I feel like he was overlooked so many times in various prospect and major league player lists while continually being quite good

so I really enjoy seeing him just get a stack of cash, seems great, even if I think it's less than he'd command on the open market if he put up another good season

5 Run Homer

2:02

Woah! It’s green now!

Ben Clemens

2:02

We're fancy these days

Jfast

2:02

Are you higher on Korey Lee or Yainer Diaz to inherit the starting C role for Houston? Yainer's bat seems to be real, but Korey has that arm

Ben Clemens

2:02

Lee, but I'm not particularly confident about it

John

2:03

Do you think the WAR positional adjustments need some reworking?

Ben Clemens

2:03

Yeah, probably. I tried to do a version of it with OAA data and to be honest, it didn't look very different than the existing ones

But I'm not sold particularly on LF, DH, 1B

Gra

2:03

Alonso would get more than Olson on an extension no?

Ben Clemens

2:04

Yeah, reasonable

J6

2:04

Since OBP and SLG both have batting average as a component , should we be looking at BA vs ISO vs BB% instead? Works better with isolating the skills of contact/power/eye in my opinion. Which would rank as the most important?

Ben Clemens

2:05

That's definitely an option, but at that point you're using a bunch of less-intuitive data

like, everyone knows obp and slug, I don't think as many people know ISO

and you run into the issue of unfamiliar scale there too

I think that's fine, but at some point you should just use linear weights if you're gonna make it complex

Justin

2:05

hi Ben. Do you have a virtual hall of fame ballot?

Ben Clemens

2:06

I do. I would have voted for Abreu, Belran, Helton, Jones, Kent, Manny, ARod, Rolen, Sheffield, and Billy Wagner (exactly 10, and I would have voted for exactly 10 even if I had 15 votes)

Deck

2:06

Your articles on batting average were interesting and convincing. My problem was with the definition of value. You define it as adding to wins. For the sport as a whole, that's unhelpful, since every win must be paired to a loss. I would say simply that the .300 hitter is more valuable than a .250 hitter because he's more fun to watch. A player slapping the third pitch to right for a single is a lot more enjoyable than watching a .250 hitter work the count and jog down to first after the seventh pitch. Math has allowed baseball to be dissected in fascinating ways, but has added nothing to the total number of wins. The problem is, by focusing on wins, it's made the sport dull. Ozzie Smith's value to the Cardinals was a lot more than his impressive WAR. His value was that he was fun to watch -- in the field, at bat and on base.

Ben Clemens

2:06

Oh, completely agreed

2:07

Value to a team in a wins games sense is fairly objective, but it's definitely not the same as what makes the game most enjoyable

Steals are a great example of this. If I'm watching a game between two neutral teams, or a game that's not particularly important, etc, I'd prefer 10 steals with a 60% success rate to 3 with a 100% success rate

2:08

It's an oft-repeated trope that unfortunately the data supports fun strategies like going for it on fourth down (football) and spreading the floor (basketball) in other sports, but a style of play that feels plodding in baseball

Guest

2:08

Are you buying shares of Andrew Vaughn? We've seen a couple of years of him already and also wondering about him being slightly under

Ben Clemens

2:08

I am

2:09

Unless everyone is and therefore the shares have gone way up without me noticing?

Appa Yip Yip

2:09

I know they just came out on Friday, but have you noodled about with the new Rogers Centre dimensions?

Ben Clemens

2:09

I'm just gonna wait and see what Derek Carty says, tbh

bosoxforlife

2:10

If the Braves had followed the same prospect pathof most teams instead of skipping Triple-A with Harris, Strider and Grissom would they be #1,#2 and #10 on this year's lists?

Ben Clemens

2:10

I think that's probably a bit high for Grissom

2:11

And then the usual caveats about how time is linear and you can't go back and so on and so forth

Jake

2:11

Is andrew painter getting overated?

Ben Clemens

2:11

I think he's being properly rated

RTJ

2:12

over/under 20 steals for Mondesi on the Red Sox in 2023?

Ben Clemens

2:12

Over

bosoxforlife

2:12

Penalizing a player, the DH, for something that he isn't even supposed to do is the zenith of absurdity.

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