JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 5/1/23

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 5/1/23

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Ben Clemens

2:01

Hey everybody, welcome to the chat. Let's get started right away; I'm going for a minimum of dead time to keep the running time a little shorter, like a pitch clock let's say

JT

2:01

The Giants are 2nd in xFIP and 26th in pitching WAR. What do you make of this?

Ben Clemens

2:01

Sounds like they've given up a lot of homers

I dunno, team-wide stuff like that early in the season is noisy

Aaron

2:01

The date is May 1st and the Pirates have the best record in the National League. That is all.

Ben Clemens

2:01

Pretty amazing

love

1

Appa Yip Yip

2:01

Does baseball have an AL Central problem? It's been the weakest division for awhile but with fewer games against each other holy smokes are they getting the crap beat out of them. It's kind of embarrassing for the sport.

Ben Clemens

2:02

I don't think it's usually this bad, tbh. The White Sox folding like an umbrella in a windstorm is making everything look worse than normal

But to some extent yes

It's more of a central problem, and I think you can even argue that some of that comes down to where big metro areas are located in the US

but when the Chicago teams are both bad (the Cubs are'nt this year, thankfully), yikes

Mike M

2:03

Which LA team finishes with the better team and why?

Ben Clemens

2:03

The Dodgers b/c they're better

Didace

2:03

Josiah Gray has turned into a very good pitcher. Tell me I'm wrong.

Ben Clemens

2:03

I mean, I think you're wrong, but I'm willing to believe that he just figured something out

He has made two consecutive good starts, which I think is a new career high for him

2:04

Eh, no, that's not true, he had some flashes last June

But I guess I'd say this: his stuff still doesn't play

2:05

So he needs to be very fine control-wise to make it work

Whats going on in the Centrals?

2:05

Are the Pirates for real? Are the Cardinals and White Sox actually bad? Why do the Brewers consistently get under rated coming into a season?

Ben Clemens

2:05

In order: ish, no, yes, they don't?

Or, well, it depends on who you ask, I guess. The Brewers were projected just a hair behind the Cards before this year (by us), which seems reasonable

2:06

Last year, we had them 7 games ahead of the Cards before the season started

The year before that, 2 games ahead

2020 was all messed up but we had them second in the central behind only the Cubs

2:07

I think that the brewers get less big-fancy-national-media-operation coverage than you'd expect for a good team, b/c they're in Milwaukee, but I think that statistical models have pretty consistently thought they are good

Pat

2:07

AL Central- I think it comes down to Chicago/KC/Detroit being terribly run for the last 5-6 years or more. Maybe that changes with the new FO's in Detroit/KC..& Detroit has shown they'll spend if they

Ben Clemens

2:07

Yeah, I'm willing to believe that the Tigers and Royals can change things up

Jeremy

2:07

If xFIP is less noisy than FIP, why do you guys use the latter in the WAR calculation?

Ben Clemens

2:08

i mean, projecting league average or last year's stats is probably the least noisy of all at this point in the season

but c'mon, pitchers are responsible for the hoimers they give up

noise is not all there is when it comes to stats

Mike S

2:08

You've just been named the GM of the Cardinals organization. What's your plan for 'fixing' this mess?

Ben Clemens

2:08

Let's do some Cardinals question!

questions*

Uh, I think I'd mostly just keep running the same team out and maybe trade for pitching

I would not have brought Walker up to start the season, but that's small potatoes imo

Indiana Cardinal

2:08

Do you have any sense that the players have quit on Oliver Marmol in St. Louis?
Regardless of your answer to #1 above, do you think Marmol is on the hotseat?
Did the Cardinal front office make a mistake in how Jordan Walker was handled in the first month? The had the same number of OF candidates when the season started as when they sent him down.
When Wainwright comes back probably later this week, who will be, and who should be, the man out of the rotation, Matz or Woodford?

Thanks for all the information contained in both your articles and chats.

Ben Clemens

2:09

No
No
Yes
Woodford

diadem

2:09

Is Matz toast? If not what has to change?

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