Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat — 9/20/21

1:59
Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, welcome to the chat.

1:59
Ben Clemens: I’m starting up a few minutes early, and will keep this one short, as I’m on the road at the moment as part of a multi-weekend, multi-state wedding trip (two weddings in two weekends)

1:59
Inaccessible Rail: Most disappointing 2021: Twins? Padres? Someone else?

2:00
Ben Clemens: Definitely the Twins for me. The Padres’ swoon is obviously not fun, but they got a lot of fun moments out of the season, you can look to the future, and it’s understandable to not be GREAT given their intermittent injury problems

2:00
Ben Clemens: The Twins just came out of the gate bad and never came out of the dive

2:01
Ed H: Shane Bieber is pitching rehab starts in the minors. Is there any point in having him do that?

2:01
Ben Clemens: I think so. Not that it’s necessarily a lot different than throwing live BP, but re-establishing a feel for pitching to opponents in something that feels like a game is

2:01
Larry: Who wins the NL West?

2:02
Ben Clemens: My heart says the Giants, my head (and now our playoff odds) say the Dodgers

2:02
Ben Clemens: It’s a true toss-up though. I just think it would be a lot more fun for the Giants to win (plus I live in SF so that would be cool)

2:02
Kyle Seager: Am I still in Seattle or on another team in 2022?

2:02
Ben Clemens: I lean ‘still in Seattle’

2:03
The Ghost of Bobby Thigpen: Hi Ben. When the White Sox acquired Kimbrel, I wondered if their best usage of Hendricks and him would be to put Kimbrel in the 9th, and use Kendricks as the multi-inning, high leverage guy (similar to how the Brewers used to use Hader). Do you think that would have been a better use of their talents?

2:03
Ben Clemens: Maybe, but not by enough to change things that are working

2:03
Ben Clemens: Hendriks is still their highest-leverage reliever on average (I wrote about him today and so looked at a bunch of these numbers)

2:03
Ben Clemens: And he’s absolutely shoving. Maybe it’s worth it to fix Kimbrel, b/c he’s been very up and down

2:04
Michael Scott: The Braves are -7 in luck while the Phil’s are +3, which is the reason for the close race.  This is mainly due to the Braves being one of the worst teams in high leverage. Is this just random, or is it a problem with too many one dimensional sluggers?

2:05
Ben Clemens: It’s largely random, but I do think that having batters with meaningful platoon splits hurts, and also lefties have historically had worse clutch scores b/c opponents bring in LOOGY’s more in high leverage spot

2:05
Ben Clemens: spots*

2:05
Ben Clemens: I haven’t looked into the Braves specifically, but my default assumption on a gap of that size is mostly luck but a tiny bit of signal

2:05
Jack: What happens first: the Mariners making the playoffs or the 2023 all star game in Seattle?

2:05
Ben Clemens: I have to bet the All Star game, just because this is asking if the Mariners will make the playoffs next year and the ALW will be tough again

2:06
Ben: Assuming no CBA changes to the process, do the Astros offer Verlander a qualifying offer? Does he take it?

2:06
Ben Clemens: Yes and yes

2:06
Ben Clemens: er, sorry

2:06
Ben Clemens: Yes and no

2:06
Ben Clemens: They will offer it to him, he will decline it

2:06
Ben Clemens: I read the question as ‘will he decline it’ at first

2:06
Mi Nombre: Josh Hader’s +4.68 WPA trails only Scherzer’s +4.79 in the NL with a sizable gap down to Woodruff (+3.42) in 3rd. Should Hader be getting more CY love? At least some 5th place votes?

2:07
Ben Clemens: I’m more into WPA for MVP stuff than Cy Young. Cy Young is for the best pitcher, and the best pitcher is the one who’s best, not who came in in the biggest spots or whatever

2:08
Inaccessible Rail: I sometimes think that WPA is a stat not used enough in thinking about end of season awards. I realize that there are some obvious problems with WPA and that it’s likely not a repeatable skill, but it does reflect what actually happened, which is what really matters to me. This year the most likely MVP candidates are all among the WPA leaders, but that’s not always the case.

2:08
Ben Clemens: In that vein!

2:08
Ben Clemens: I like it for MVP consideration for that reason. People will dispute things about WPA (hitting a 2-run homer in a game you win 3-2 is worth a different amount based on when you hit it) but I really like it as a statistic

2:09
Ben Clemens: All you can ask a player is to do their most to win the game based on the spot they come up in

2:09
Ben Clemens: So maybe WPA/LI or something?

2:09
Mi Nombre: I prefer everything about FanGraphs WAR to BRef’s version except UZR. Is there an easy way to plug in DRS for the defensive component on the FG leaderboards?

2:10
Ben Clemens: There is not, but we are internally discussing some defensive changes

2:10
Ben Clemens: And I think you will like what we end up with

2:10
Thiago: Do you see any improvements for minor leaguers being included in cba negotiations?

2:10
Ben Clemens: Sadly no

2:10
Cynthia: Can we get an article about Jackie Bradley’s historic offensive ineptitude? Out of 15,372 player-seasons with 400+ PAs since 1920,only 11 have hit worse than his 37 wRC+.

2:10
Ben Clemens: Definitely in the hopper

2:10
Ben Clemens: I have a list of things I want to write about by year’s end and he’s on it

2:10
Jacques Pederson: Pretty massive performance by the Cardinals this past couple weeks, wouldn’t you say?

2:11
Ben Clemens: It’s been a blast to watch. I also like that it’s basically all Tyler O’Neill all the time at the moment. He’s really fun to root for

2:11
JC: Does Fedde’s second start at Cincy make him a no go?  I’m holding a decent lead after week one of points league playoffs and his Mia start is enticing

2:11
Ben Clemens: I think I’d probably still play him, but I’m not a points league expert by any means

2:11
Steve: Baz has higher upside than either McClanahan or Patino?

2:11
Ben Clemens: I’ll take Patino over him still, but yes, plenty of upside

2:11
Scherzer: I’m unsure if Ruiz and Gray was a light return on July 31, but it sure feels like one now with the way Scherzer has pitched. Is it fair to judge the Scherzer trade differently now than it was when it happened, given the short-term boon for LAD?

2:12
Ben Clemens: Not really, in my opinion.

2:12
Ben Clemens: I don’t think they were likely to get more. Teams knew who Max Scherzer was

2:12
Ben Clemens: It’s not like we’ve learned some shocking new information that changes the value, and he was gone after this year anyway

2:12
Marko from Tropoja: Assuming he re-signs, should the Dodgers just schedule Kershaw for say two 10-day IL stints at each third of the season even if he’s healthy? This would be akin to “load management” in the NBA; maybe he can get to 30 starts with a couple of breaks. His peripherals are excellent—2.80 FIP is his lowest in five years—and translate to a six-win pace over a full season.

2:12
Ben Clemens: Why not? Seems like they get to that point one way or another anyway

2:13
5 Run Homer: What would your awards ballots look like right now?

2:14
Ben Clemens: AL: Ohtani/Ray/Arozarena

2:14
Ben Clemens: I would have given AL ROY to Wander if he’d played juuuuust a little more

2:14
Ben Clemens: NL: Harper/Burnes/India

2:15
Ben Clemens: I’m tempted to fake give my NL MVP vote to a Giant or Dodger, but those teams were about overwhelming lineups, not a single star

2:15
Ben Clemens: And I think I’ve said enough about Burnes in the past but I like him! a lot!

2:15
Sean Huff-Scheidel: You’re probably not the person to ask for this, but I’m not sure who is. If I export data from a leaderboard, 0.1 IP is read as 1/10 instead of 1/3. Is there a way to combat this, or do I just have to change it by hand?

2:15
Ben Clemens: In excel, there’s an easy way

2:15
Ben Clemens: use the function dollarde

2:15
Ben Clemens: So dollarde(cell you want to change, 3)

2:16
Ben Clemens: It tells Excel to read the numbers after the decimal as the numerator, with the denominator being whatever you put after the comma

2:16
Ryan: Any realistic chance that the A’s or the Mariners get back into the Wild Card race and bounce one of the AL East teams? Asking as a ‘slightly perturbed about having 2 division rivals making the playoffs’ Rays fan.

2:17
Ben Clemens: Depends on your definition of ‘realistic’

2:17
Ben Clemens: The A’s could get hot, Cardinals-style

2:17
Ben Clemens: It’s happened before. For example, to the Cardinals

2:17
Ben Clemens: But they need to do it NOW

2:18
Sam: The Blue Jays have a better run differential than the Rays (just barely). Has the difference in record between them mostly been luck?

2:18
Ben Clemens: I don’t think “mostly” is a fair way to characterize it

2:18
Ben Clemens: The Rays have done really well at getting their best players into very important situations, they use their relievers well, which always makes run differential confusing

2:19
Ben Clemens: The Jays also have a team construction style (really deep lineup with tons of power) that lends itself to being up 10-2 or whatever and having the other team send in the clowns to throw batting practice

2:19
TomBruno23: Love the best/worst bunt stories. What about doing similar for stolen base attempts?

2:19
Ben Clemens: I looked into it earlier, and the problem is that the WPA changes bunch together

2:20
Ben Clemens: I might do something on the best and worst base stealers, but doing individual ones is tough. The best ones would all be defensive miscues and the worst would all just be CS’s, not so fun

2:20
barney gumble: hey ben. what changes do you think the yankees make if they miss the playoffs? in terms of infield and the FO

2:20
Ben Clemens: Regardless of whether they make the playoffs, I think they are taking Gleyber’s shortstop privileges away this offseason and signing Correa or Seager (I lean Correa)

2:21
Laffy Tuffy: If you’re the head of baseball operations for the Nationals would you consider offering Ariel Miranda of the Doosan Bears in the KBO a one year $1.75 million deal for 2022 with a $3.5 million team option for 2023?

2:22
Ben Clemens: I always enjoy posting this question

2:22
Ben Clemens: And yes, why not??

2:22
CoryMC: Did you know there’s a federal election going on in Canada right now? Curious if Americans even notice us the way we notice American goings-on.

2:23
Ben Clemens: I did! I also traded Canadian interest rates for a number of years and followed Canadian news quite closely for a while, so it’s maybe still because of that

2:23
Ben Clemens: I’m not sure that many Americans are reading up on NDP in their spare time

2:23
Barry: Why don’t the Rangers seem to be viewed/treated as a big market team? DFW is one of the five largest metros in the country

2:24
Ben Clemens: Same with the A’s, and I think Houston is considered mid-market even though it’s huge

2:24
Ben Clemens: I’m not 100% sure why. Some of it is that people think too much about how the country looked in 1950

2:24
Zach: Why is Ohtani still basically the undisputed AL MVP? I mean, he’s obviously been amazing in a way that we haven’t seen in a century, but just in terms of raw production he and Vlad Jr. are within the margin of error and only one of those guys has a shot at the playoffs.

2:24
Ben Clemens: Because Ohtani pitching AND hitting

2:25
Ben Clemens: Like, that’s great, they’re kinda close on a WAR basis

2:25
Ben Clemens: What Ohtani is doing is way more impressive

2:25
Ben Clemens: For me, that’s an MVP season

2:25
Ben Clemens: If people just want to award the person with the most WAR or the most WAR for a playoff contender or whatever, they could have an award for that too

2:25
Tom G: What do you think the odds of Paul Dejong moving this offseason are? Would a team like Oakland make sense in a swap for some pitching?

2:26
Ben Clemens: Eh, it would be the Cardinals selling him for nothing if they moved him I think

2:26
Ben Clemens: His stock is definitely down at the moment

2:27
Raphie C: I’m a Padres fan. Give me a reason to pay attention over the next two weeks before my annual hibernation.

2:27
Ben Clemens: Which will Jake Arrieta accrue more of? IP or HR?

2:27
Ben Clemens: On a serious note, it’s b/c Tatis is so fun to watch

2:27
Ben Clemens: On any given night, he might provide you with the coolest play in all of baseball that week

2:27
Ben Clemens: Seeing that live is why you should watch

2:27
TomBruno23: Paul DeJong has more fWAR than Yadier Molina but do not say that out loud.

2:28
Ben Clemens: Yeah eh, I don’t think UZR’s estimation of his defense is accurate

2:28
Ben Clemens: That said, I also don’t love Molina’s production at this point and think it’s pretty clear that the team is keeping him for non-baseball reasons

2:28
Bill: Given yesterday’s clunker against CLE and his recent injury, do you think Gerrit Cole can fend off Sox hitters this week and salvage his Cy Young chances?

2:29
Ben Clemens: I think that he’d need to be nothing but lights off the rest of the way and also have Ray stumble

2:29
Jrp: Not a question. Just pointing out that the A’s have 6 games left against the Astros and are 6 games back. Will they win all of those? Probably not.

2:29
Jrp: But they could!

2:29
Ben Clemens: They are mathematically live to do it

2:29
Ben Clemens: I hope they win the first few to make it exciting

2:29
Appa Yip Yip: I’m in line to vote right now.

2:29
Ben Clemens: I voted in the California recall last week

2:29
Ben Clemens: There was not a line

2:30
Ben Clemens: (still decent turnout, people just voted by mail)

2:30
Ben: If you are the Rays or the Astros, would you rather face the White Sox in the playoffs or whoever makes it out of the Wild Card game? I know they will have used their ace, but I still think the Blue Jays might scare me more than the Sox.

2:30
Ben Clemens: For me, whoever makes it out of the Wild Card game. The White Sox pitching is just overwhelming

2:31
Ben Clemens: You could easily imagine only ever seeing Rodon, Lynn, Giolito, Cease, Bummer, Hendriks, Kimbrel, Kopech, Crochet for a whole series

2:31
Ben Clemens: and ewwwwwwwwww

2:31
TomBruno23: Being that BFIB here…I agree on Molina and while I know/read lineup construction is not that important I do not understand why he bats 5th every time he plays. I mean I do understand why, but I do not.

2:32
Ben Clemens: I’ve got a running joke where I predict the Cards lineup and leave every spot blank except 5. C Yadier Molina

2:32
Ben Clemens: I should probably re-up it sometime soon, always enjoyable to see how Shildt just jams him 5th no matter what

2:32
Mike: For the person asking about 1/3 vs 1/10 of an IP, if not using excel, the universal process to convert between numerical bases (ie from base 10 to base 3 in this instance) is to multiply by the new and divide by the old: truncate (to .1 IP or .2 IP), multiply by new (3 or 6), divide by old (base 10 starts at 0, so the 10th number is 9), now you have the base 10 decimals (.3333333333 and .666666666)

This handy rule works for any base conversion, and is useful if you’re saving to a database or the like for future retrieval.

2:32
TomBruno23: If you are a BFIB do you root for LA to win the WC b/c it might be easier to beat them in 1 game than 3 out of 5 compared to SF?

2:33
Ben Clemens: Definitely yes!

2:33
Ben Clemens: The only complicating factor is that the ace differential is large btw. Gausman and Scherzer/Buehler, but I totally agree

2:33
J: Luis Garcia has gotten next to no run in the AL ROY conversation despite the fact that he’s been neck and neck for the WAR lead for months now. Is there a reason for this besides the identity of the team that he plays for?

2:34
Ben Clemens: That’s a big reason why for sure. It also is a matter of quantity over quality to some extent — it feels a bit weird to give an award to a mid-3s ERA pitcher with peripherals that suggest he should be…. a mid-3 ERA’s pitcher

2:35
Ben Clemens: And it doesn’t help that 1/3 of the players in baseball are named Luis Garcia (I think this is actually a factor that works against him, unfortunately)

2:35
Appa Yip Yip: Small ball is simultaneously more fun to watch but also less effective in terms of actually winning ball games. How does MLB square this circle?

2:36
Ben Clemens: I’d like to see them make the bases bigger, put in a pitch clock, limit pickoff throws, things like that would all make a marginal impact

2:36
Ben Clemens: But it’s a realllllly tough problem to solve

2:36
Ben Clemens: Imagine if the most efficient play in football was to run for three yards

2:36
Ben Clemens: The game would look very different than it does now

2:37
Inaccessible Rail: How insane is it that Jacob deGrom is still tied for 6th in FG WAR for pitchers, even though he’s pitched like half the innings of the other guys? And that’s not even counting his batting WAR, which is 2nd-best among pitchers.

2:37
Ben Clemens: He’s truly ridiculous

2:37
Matt Damon: Alex Avila

2:37
Guest: Hi Ben! Curious about your thoughts on DRC+ and DRA-. I recently read an article on BP asserting that DRC+ performed better than other all-in-one offensive metrics and I am wondering why it, along with DRA-,  doesn’t show up more in non-BP analysis.

2:37
Ben Clemens: Largely b/c it’s proprietary and a bit of a black box

2:38
Yo-Yo: With Matt Carpenter + Andrew Miller + Dexter Fowler + Carlos Martinez dropping off of the books after this season, where do you anticipate STL upgrades? That’s nearly $60 million. Arb raises and other contract hikes don’t eat into that too much. With the emergence of Sosa, it seems like elite pitching would be the way to go, but STL doesn’t pay for big arms. What do you think?

2:38
Ben Clemens: I think they’ll sign one mid-tier free agent and then convince the fans that the real payroll upgrade is that htey actually are paying for Arenado now

2:39
Ben Clemens: STL has been in the trade and extend game rather than the go after free agents game for quite a while now, and I don’t see a lot that suggests they’re suddenly going to change course

2:39
CoryMC: The “luck” side for the Blue Jays was having a terrible close-game record and now that is normalizing to around .500. They had a bad bullpen for most of the season which contributed to that too. They probably topped out at having a decent lead for the WC1 spot instead of being part of the tight battle.

2:39
Ben Clemens: This is a good way to look at it too. I’m not saying the Jays haven’t been unlucky

2:40
Ben Clemens: They definitely have, but not by enough that they “should” be neck and neck with TB

2:40
TomBruno23: Reminder to all that milb.tv is free rest of the season. So many games every night.

2:40
Ben Clemens: I did not know this but that’s awesome!!

2:40
Mike: I think that even given BP’s stats being proprietary and black-box, if they were easier to search and pull splits and comparisons from (like FG’s leaderboards), they’d get used dramatically more often.

2:40
Ben Clemens: THe FG leaderboards and stats are truly miraculous

2:40
Ben Clemens: I’m not saying this b/c I work here

2:41
Ben Clemens: I think I use our leaderboards LESS now than I did before (b/c we have stuff in a sql database)

2:41
Ben Clemens: I used them so much beforehand that I got an ad-free membership to speed up loading times

2:41
dadfd: Why do you hate my favorite team?

2:41
Ben Clemens: It’s because of that one player who you think is good but I think is overrated

2:41
Ben Clemens: Also I think their manager is a hack

2:41
Sam: Yanks and Red Sox are walking a razor thin line going into what’s shaping up to be one of the craziest grudge matches of the season this week. Who takes the series?

2:42
Ben Clemens: Gimme the Sox. It’s a tossup, but I find the Sox story this year to be more fun (particularly if they make the playoffs), while the Yankees are less fun (but their story would be more fun to me if they missed)

2:42
Mr. Redlegs: As a Reds fan I can’t decide if I’m more bummed about the Reds terrible collapse or the fact that it let the Cardinals into the playoffs.

2:42
Ben Clemens: My Reds fan friends are evenly split on this

2:43
matty: what did you do before working at FG?

2:43
Ben Clemens: I was an interest rates portfolio manager at a large hedge fund, and before that an interest rates swap trader at a bank

2:43
Murray: Mariners fan here. What should I consider to be a successful last two weeks for my team?

2:43
Ben Clemens: I mean, the most successful last two weeks would be an improbable playoff run

2:44
Ben Clemens: If we’re ruling that out? Toro continues to mash, Gilbert and Kikuchi look good, and one or two hitters do something new and exciting

2:44
Guest: Fielding percentage : Outs Above Average :: OPS : wRC+  agree?

2:45
Ben Clemens: I’d maybe say FP:OAA::batting average:wRC+

2:45
Ben Clemens: FP misses a bit more than OPS does, but yeah, I think you’re on the right track

2:45
JD: before yesterdays preformance was Cole your AL CY?

2:45
Ben Clemens: He was! It was realllly close, though, I thought the race was basically a tossup

2:45
Ben Clemens: And that was quite the clunker

2:46
Sandy Alcantara: Will I finish 2022 season with Cy Young votes?

2:46
Ben Clemens: I”m gonna say yes

2:46
Ben Clemens: He’s a player I regret leaving off the trade value series. We had several discussions about whether he should be on there if Pablo Lopez was, and I think we got that wrong

2:46
Richie: ‘Big market’ in baseball terms means ‘Big baseball market’. Generations mean a lot there. Your typical Bostonian has significantly more emotional connection to the Red Sox than does your typical Houstonian to the Astros. (never mind those Johnnie-Come-Lately Rangers!)

2:47
Ben Clemens: Yeah, this is a good way of looking at it I think? Texas teams definitely don’t benefit from how big football is there

2:47
Sandy Alcantara: Don’t think anyone was expecting Pablo to miss the 2H. I can forgive you.

2:47
Ben Clemens: He went on the IL after we had written him up

2:47
Ben Clemens: And the severity was unknown

2:47
Ben Clemens: Ehhhh…. wish we’d hedged, let’s just say

2:48
Dan: Biggest change in the new CBA: free agency time reduced, increased revenue sharing, more “time of game” regs? Your guess?

2:48
Ben Clemens: Free agency time reduced is my best guess

2:50
J: RE: Garcia, I’m a bit confused about the quality over quantity comment. It would apply if the race were between him and Wander, but everything I’ve seen so far indicates that the race is between Adolis and Arozarena, both of whom are going to end up with ~600 PAs. If anything, that argument should work in Luis’s favor, since he’s only going to end up with ~155 IPs

2:51
Ben Clemens: I would vote for Garcia over… Garcia

2:51
Ben Clemens: Over Adolis Garcia, that’s confusing

2:51
Ben Clemens: I think that Arozarena comes closer to being quality over quantity than the others, just b/c he’s largely held down by defensive metrics and I’d take a 120 wrC+ bat over an 80 ERA- pitcher

2:52
Ben Clemens: But maybe I’m wrong about that, and just don’t have my ERA’s calibrated right

2:52
Morbo: Ben, I was thinking about your article on the Blue Jays playoff odds last week. Specifically the discussion about whether or not they were wrong. And while for the most part I agree with you analysis. I do have a quibble. Specifically with the assertion that they weren’t wrong per se. If I understood your argument correctly you essentially made some adjustments to each teams win probability and then treated each game as independent for anything other game. But we know that that is not true cannot infact can’t be true. And I’m not talking about if two teams play each other. I mean that they aren’t independent because for example if you use all the pitcher in your bullpen in one game they may not be available in the next. Or if you blow out a team early you can sit back and rely on low leverage relievers and rest others. Same arguments but to a lesser degree with hitters also apply

2:53
Ben Clemens: Yeah, this is definitely a potential issue with any kind of game-by-game prediction — they’re certainly not truly independent.

2:53
Ben Clemens: They do seem to come out in the wash over hte long run, and I’m going to do a bit of an audit of our odds over the offseason (how often have teams with x% chances on y-ish date actually made the playoffs)

2:53
Ben Clemens: But this is definitely a possible weakness of the whole thing

2:54
Morbo: I’m not sure how you correct for it though

2:55
Ben Clemens: Right, I think that this is a big reason we mostly just ignore those contingent facdtors

2:55
Ben Clemens: They can affect both teams, and they’re hard to model ex ante

2:55
Appa Yip Yip: Sox/Yanks is going to be brutal but I think WC2 is going to come down to Yanks/Jays

2:55
Ben Clemens: To be clear, the Jays are the group of the trio that I most want to see in the playoffs

2:55
Ben Clemens: THey’re definitely the most fun of the bunch

2:56
BettsBellingerCaruso: Who would you start for SF in a do-or-die game? Webb or Gausman?

2:56
Ben Clemens: Gausman, but Webb is making it CLOSE

2:56
Ben Clemens: He’s had maybe 2 bad starts since July

2:57
Ben Clemens: I haven’t been able to pinpoint anything going wrong for Gausman, which makes me still lean that way, but he’s been pretty uninspiring of late

2:58
Richie: Given that the Giants/Dodgers is going down to the wire, whoever loses of those 2 will be starting whomever is on line to start (with an aggressive bullpen, of course).

2:58
Ben Clemens: Yeah, but given that they each have co-aces, the odds that they’ll be able to finagle things to start one of them for the WC game are pretty high

2:59
Ben Clemens: Last game of the season has two rest days before the WC

2:59
Ben Clemens: so unless you happened to start your co-aces the last two games, you can just figure out which of them you’d prefer for the WC and stack it that way

2:59
Barry: Who’s the best player you’ve watched in your lifetime? Your favorite?

3:00
Ben Clemens: Best? I think Barry Bonds

3:00
Ben Clemens: My favorite? Unquestionably Ozzie SMith

3:00
Evan C: Is Tyler O’Neill for real? Is this what you expect from him next year?

3:00
Ben Clemens: I don’t think he’s THIS real but I buy the general improvements he’s made on the year

3:01
Ben Clemens: I wrote earlier this year about how his low walk rate didn’t reflect his true talent:

3:01
Ben Clemens: And I think that his current production on contact numbers probably flatter him a bit

3:01
Ben Clemens: But I do think he’s closer to what he’s doing right now than to an average hitter

3:01
kyle: What does Dusty do with Zack Greinke in the playoffs? He’s been miserable against RHH since the ASB.

3:01
Ben Clemens: Use a short hook and hope that’s just small sample size noise

3:01
Ben Clemens: But it can’t feel good

3:01
Ben Clemens: He’s probably the Astros pitcher I trust third-most

3:02
Ben Clemens: No, fourth-most

3:02
Ben Clemens: (behind McCullers, Framber, and Garcia)

3:03
Ben Clemens: On that note, everyone, I’m going to call it a day. Thanks for chatting baseball with me in a Brooklyn apartment (me, not you, though maybe you too), and I’ll rejoin you next week from sunny San Francisco





Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Twitter @_Ben_Clemens.

1 Comment
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Momus
2 years ago

“Imagine if the most efficient play in football was to run for three yards…”

I think a more apt comparison would be imagine if almost every play in football was the QB trying for a 40+ yd pass.