JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 9/26/22

Ben Clemens

2:00

Hey everyone, welcome to a Monday afternoon baseball chat

2:01

It feels to me like we're hitting a slight lull in the season, with Pujols having hit 700, most playoff races settled, and only a few awards chases joining Judge's home run tear as above-the-fold topics. If you want to get in some minor question about stuff that everyone will ignore come playoff time, now's your chance!

Guest

2:01

On a 1-10, 1 being least confident and 10 being most confident, how confident are you of the White Sox making the playoffs in 2023?

Ben Clemens

2:03

Start it off with the ALC. I'll give them a solid 5. I don't have a ton of faith in them going out and getting a ton of impact players this offseason, but they won the division by 13 games last year, so you have to give them credit for their peak form. They may not get back to it, and I'm curious what happens with Abreu, but they certainly COULD get back to it

clem bevins

2:04

is pitcher WAR being suppressed by the fact that so many people are absolutely dominant this year? there are 10 pitchers who could ostensibly win a cy young but none of them are at or over 6 WAR! Furthermore, pitchers have been so dominant that league offense is way down. Is the field muddled by how good everyone has been?

Ben Clemens

2:05

I had to think about this one a little bit, but in the end I settled on 'not really'

Sure, average runs per game has gone down this year, but it's not at some never-before-seen number

Replacement level isn't THAT different this year than in previous years

2:07

That means, to me, that the biggest difference in this year vs. previous years is workload

Other than Sandy, that seems pretty clear from the data as well. Guys have one-ish start left and no one other than him is above 200 innings

2:08

second place is Miles Mikolas, and uh, he's not winning the Cy Young

2:09

Without more innings, it's hard to put up crazy numbers unless you have a truly outlier run prevention season. Alcantara is close in RA9 WAR (7.6, runaway favorite) but the combination of not many innings, no FIP outlier seasons, and FIP WAR is responsible, not how many good pitchers there are

Randy

2:09

Does NYY have something in Oswaldo Cabrera? Seems like he will be starting in LF for the ALDS (If Stanton is locked in at DH)

Tim

2:09

I never put a ton of stock into prospects until they're, you know, not prospects anymore, but I'm getting cautiously optimistic about Oswaldo now that he's showing some pop and speed (in a SUPER small sample, I know). Do you think he's a starter next opening day for the Yanks? And where do you peg his ceiling?

Ben Clemens

2:09

I'm not a ceiling guy. His ceiling is that he turns into an exact clone of Willie Mays, just like everyone's ceiling

2:10

That aside, I'm definitely encouraged by his performance

23-year-old average corner bat with plus defense sounds pretty nice to me

Paul

2:10

Who do you have more faith in this week-plus: Pablo facing NYM and MIL, or Gio twice against the Twins?

Ben Clemens

2:10

Pablo but I don't feel great about either one

Dave

2:10

Last night I made a batch of edible cookie dough to satisfy a sweet tooth and it was absolutely delightful. Edible means no egg and the flour is heat treated (you basically just microwave the flour for like a minute). I am firmly in the camp that cookie dough > baked cookies.

Ben Clemens

2:11

A solid camp to be in. I just eat inedible (read: regular) cookie dough

Ken

2:11

This is a question inspired by fantasy but that I'm generally curious about, as well - when guys come back from relatively minor injuries, I always tend to think they need an extra few days to get up to speedshould you bake in any extra recovery time? For instance, Cron gets plunked on the hand last week and misses like 3-4 days before returning yesterday.

Ben Clemens

2:11

I think teams should do this

But to some extent, they are, and it's just hard to adjust back to game action

As a fantasy owner I'm a fan of playing my stars as soon as they're back, but waiting a bit on bit players

Lucas/DBITLefty

2:11

Hello Ben! If I were to ask you for a gut feeling (or even something more reasoned) about how the Guardians will do in the postseason, what would you say? I want to think they're hitting a stride and have some sneaky-great qualities for October, though it also kind of seems like they simply took advantage of the under-performing teams in their weak division (and we're used to seeing AL Central teams get bounced very quickly in the postseason).

Ben Clemens

2:12

Hey Lucas. This is a good question, one I've been pondering. I think it's a mixture of the two. The ALC is really weak! It's the worst division in baseball this year except for maybe the NLC. I do think that the Guardians will feel like a bad matchup for whoever draws them b/c when they're winning, they feel inevitable

2:13

Huge range of bullpen arms, and Bieber can always spike a CGSO or whatever

2:14

But I think that the offense just isn't up to snuff, getting hot or not, to make them favorites in any of these series. They've played against pretty awful pitching staffs all year, and are still only scoring 4.3 runs per game

They're gonna be in a lot of games where they score 3 runs and need to win

So, it'll come down to whether your offense can score 3 runs against them.

Appa Yip Yip

2:15

700 is a lot of home runs

Ben Clemens

2:15

Just a tremendous accomplishment

random Colorado guy

2:15

Any reasons for concern with the Cardinals' poor showing on the West Coast, or just small sample size against good teams?

Ben Clemens

2:15

yeah, it's not enough games to read anything into it

other than jeez the Dodgers are good and it's not like the Cardinals are a 100-win juggernaut

2:16

Will Luis Urias ever hit for average? It seems his MLB profile is the opposite of his MiLB profile.

Ben Clemens

2:16

I don't think he will, he's changed his swing and approach to look for more power

baseballenjoyer

2:16

As of right now, James Click is not under contract for next year. His tenure is a bit of an "incomplete" right now due to the draft penalties and COVID season, but it seems like a no-brainer to bring him back, right?

Ben Clemens

2:16

I don't know much about the inside perception of him but from the outside, yeah

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