JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 8/10/20

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 8/10/20

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Ben Clemens

2:00

Hey everybody, welcome to the chat.

I'm on semi-vacation this week (well, not actually on vacation, still writing a normal amount, just doing so from a cabin in the woods) so if my internet connection is a bit jumpy, sorry in advance.

2:01

Today, I wrote about the first place Rockies as an excuse to show people that I can do statistics:https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-rockies-are-hot-is-it-time-to-re-evalu...

Let's talk about some baseball, as well as hopefully some other stuff

YardGoat

2:01

Hope you are doing well Ben. Will the Cardinals play this week? If they don't, it seems unlikely they would be able to play a complete 60 game schedule. Could you see their schedule being truncated to 50 or 55 instead?

Ben Clemens

2:02

I don't see them playing before the weekend, at which point I think they'd have to shorten their season.

There just aren't enough days to handle it otherwise

It'll be weird, but eh, this season was already guaranteed to be weird

I think we'll manage

Moose_Bolton

2:02

Do you have any favorite "fun" or bizarre facts from the short sample so far? I just looked and noticed that Aaron Judge is rocking a 3.1% walk rate and 8 of his 17 hits have gone for homers. This is certainly a sustainable rate and I'm excited to see it.

Ben Clemens

2:03

I like Carlos Santana walking 200% of the time, and I like negative FIP's, of which there are many

But I think my favorite line of the season so far is Tatis's .810 slugging percentage

Like, what?

Cronebone

2:03

Guess that Tatis guy is OK, huh?

Ben Clemens

2:04

Yup

RAH

2:04

How many Astros and Athletics should be suspended? When will we find out?

Quarantino Martinez

2:04

Jose Berrios is throwing harder but getting hit harder still! Are there pitchers who shouldn't throw harder?

Ben Clemens

2:04

Whoops,threw the Berrios one in there accidentally, so I will quickly say, throwing harder is generally good and I think it'll work out

Back to A's/Astros

Graham

2:04

Should Alex Cintron be reprimanded, suspended, or fired for his actions last night? A follow-up: what do you think punishment will actually be?

Chris

2:04

Thoughts on the laureano fight?

Ben Clemens

2:05

I just saw a video of it, wasn't watching live

2:06

But I think Cintron should absolutely be suspended

Laureano is going to have to get something

But Cintron was kinda the villain here, no?

Bob

2:06

Understanding small samples. Is the only reason a worse team beats a better team is due to luck?

Ben Clemens

2:06

I'd say that luck is a really misunderstood term

In some sense, yes, it's luck

2:07

But I don't think that use of luck is the way pepole think of luck

If you pick a card out of a deck and it's the seven of spades, was that luck?

In the way I use the word, yes.

In most people's use, probably not?

2:08

So bad teams beat good teams plenty

Not b/c anything fluky happens

But b/c that's how random chance works

2:09

As a very simplistic and reductive way of thinking about it, no way do hitters know within three feet where they're hitting a ball

But sometimes those three feet matter

And if one team is ever so slightly better than another, maybe the sum of the breaks of the game work out in their favor 55% of the time

But they also don't work out in their favor 45% of the time

It's hard to say 'oh the 55% is fair, and the 45% is unlucky'

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