JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/29/20

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/29/20

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Ben Clemens

2:50

There's an argument to be made that literally only essential businesses should be letting people gather

The Rangers weirdly having 200 employees come into the office, for example... that seems like a needless risk

2:51

But if you accept that a)the US has made the decisions it has, i.e. no contact tracing and so on

2:52

and b) we're not valuing every life as absolute

That sounds grim, but what I basically mean is, if you could shut down the entire economy to save 1 life

Would you do it?

If you think that a is yes and b is no, I think playing baseball is completely defensible

The specifics absolutely might not be

2:53

You could, for example, send 200 employees to work somewhere when they could easily work from home!

2:54

And maybe the whole 'sports are the best way to raise morale' thing is overblown, I'll give you that

But I don't hate baseball's plan, and I see why both sides were incentivized to make it happen, despite the extended bickering

Fans @ the ballpark?

2:54

I'll admit I haven't read everything on the 60 game season, but I'm still not clear on whether they will be playing in empty ballparks, socially-distanced ballparks, or "normal fan capacity" ballparks.

Ben Clemens

2:54

Nothing is set in stone, but very likely empty ballparks

2:55

A few governors/states have made noises about maybe allowing people in

But given the recent spike in positive test rates, I find that unlikely

JD

2:55

Do 80 grade runners get a boost in all formats due to the “runner on 2nd” rule?

Ben Clemens

2:55

Oh for sure

Not a big boost

(talking fantasy here)

2:56

Because it's 5 extra inning games a year on average

But that guy is almost always going to start the 10th on second

And he'll score quite often

So that's, say, 4 runs extra of value

Now, lots of these 80 speed guys are bench types, so

2:57

That part is so-so

But in really deep formats where you might roster someone like Hamilton, I guess he gets a slight bump

Lorenzo

2:57

Generally speaking, in the 10th inning with the runner on 2B and no outs, is the obvious choice to attempt a sacrifice bunt unless it's a stud hitter? Will we see lots of attempts to steal 3B? That would be the more exciting/risky choice.

Ben Clemens

2:58

I did a decent amount of thinking about this for my Hamilton article

I settled on the visiting team playing it normally

Being out of position, as it were, is a huge problem for the bunting strategy

Because it caps your odds of the big innings that always lead to wins

And if you succeed in your strategy, your opponent can always mirror it

2:59

It's kind of like going first in college football overitme

It's a meaningful disadvantage

I think, however, that you might see a lot of this pattern: first batter strikes out, and then runner attempts to steal third

that's a spot where stealing actually gets far more interesting

3:00

Let's do another round of Live Math so I can explain why

3:01

Ah actually this is going to require a few data pulls

So I'm just going to do some Live Approximation instead

3:03

I lied

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