JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/29/20

Ben Clemens

2:00

Hey everyone, and welcome to a Monday baseball chat.

Baseball is freaking BACKKKKKKK

(in theory)

Guest

2:00

BASEBALL IS BACK.

(theoretically)

Ben Clemens

2:00

Love it

I'm extremely excited, though of course, it does feel a bit weird to just be baseballing it up while the world burns, as it were.

2:01

But honestly, I'm a baseball writer, so yeah, I'm probably slightly biased in favor of having it happen.

Nathan

2:01

Is this the year we get a .400 hitter winning the batting title?

Ben Clemens

2:01

Let's answer some short season questions

Dan is going to write about this, I believe

2:02

But I sure hope it is, I'll say that to start.

.400 is one of those things I never bothered rooting for

Becuase it just wasn't going to happen, you know?

2:03

But now that it might, I want to see it happen

Yeah, it'll be all asterisked up

I don' care

It's just so cool

Really want to see this happen

Luis Arraez

2:03

Am I the player most likely to hit .400 this season?

Derek

2:03

What player has the most capacity to do something truly stunning over this shortened "full season"? Normally I'd just default to "Trout", but his superstardom seems to be built more on consistent excellence rather than briefer flashes of brilliance... So maybe DeGrom putting up some insanely low ERA? Soto having an ugodly wRC+? It's probably just Trout, isn't it...

Ben Clemens

2:04

These are kind of similar questions, and I'll add one more in there as well

Matt

2:04

Who's someone you think could get hot and absolutely RAKE during a 60 game season?

Ben Clemens

2:05

I've done some thinking about this -- I'd like to have my own answers before reading Dan's

Here's where I've wound up: you want a hitter who has a pretty high non-contact rate

2:06

So someone with big walk totals

Strikeouts are stable too -- but obviously someone who strikes out a lot, in a stable way, isn't a great bet to be a star this season

2:07

So someone like Yelich, or Soto, or Trout

Nathan

2:07

I’ll vote for Yordan. What did he bat over his first 60 games?

Ben Clemens

2:07

Him too

Anyway, one of those types is, I think, the player archetype most likely to go completely nuts

2:08

The idea is basically

2:09

You want the fewest at-bats with random results, because that's how you can achieve greatest variance

So heck, yeah, let's say Trout

But I think that Yelich is actually a great bet

News Alert

2:09

Mike Leake, SP for Arizona, is the first player to voluntarily opt out of 2020 because of the pandemic.

Ben Clemens

2:09

Big news right there.

2:10

This is obviously going to be a tough decision for anyone

2:12

I think that players in Leake's situation -- hitting free agency after this year, money already in the bank -- are most likely to do this.

2:13

I'm sure that Leake agonized over this decision

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