Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 1/24/22

Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, welcome to a Monday chat

Ben Clemens: Let’s talk about some baseball, plus I don’t know, some other stuff

Josh: Best guess, if/when a new CBA is finally agreed to, how many years of service will a team have over a player before free agency?

Ben Clemens: Six

Ben Clemens: I could see the Super 2 stuff getting eliminated, because it’s kind of absurd and owners keep acknowledging that in their proposals

Ben Clemens: What the Rays did to Wander, the ultra-Super-Two move, might have started happening to more stars otherwise

Ben Clemens: (they signed an extension obviously, so all is forgiven in that instance)

Ben Clemens: But I don’t see the owners budging below six and I don’t see the PA being willing to make enough sacrifices elsewhere to come up with a palatable deal with less than 6 years to FA

Conner: What do you think of Jordan Walker? He’s only 19 and has some crazy exit velocities.

Ben Clemens: Love him

Ben Clemens: Don’t know that much about him, because yeah, he’s only 19 and hasn’t played above Hi-A, but dude can mash. I’d be marginally worried about the strikeout rate but doing that well at his age and level is a HUGE plus as far as I’m concerned

Ben Clemens: and the power seems very real

Inaccessible Rail: I recently listened to “The Rumor” podcast. One thing that came up during it that surprised me was that one of the podcasters attended an Orioles tryout in what sounded like the early 90s. Do teams still actually do such things? If so, do they ever actually find players this way?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think teams actually still do such things, though I remember some NFL teams having punter/kicker tryouts at some point in my adult life

Ben Clemens: I’ve been meaning to listen to it ever since I heard the EW episode about it

Farhandrew Zaidman: Randomly re-watched The Last Dance this weekend and remembered that Tito Francona was MJ’s skipper at AA, where MJ batted .200 with 50 RBIs as a 31 y.o. who hadn’t swung a bat in about 14 years. Francona in the doc says that if they gave MJ about 1500 MiLB ABs, he would have been big league ready. Do you buy it?

Ben Clemens: No

Ben Clemens: I could say more but uh…. no

Ben Clemens: It’s very impressive and all, but no

Inaccessible Rail: When reading about the Rays Montreal gambit, I noticed that such a thing would have to be approved by the MLBPA. Does MLB need signoff from the MLBPA on any expansion? Or just this because it’s a weird situation? Or maybe because Canada?

Ben Clemens: I don’t know the answer to this, so I’m just selecting it here to say that hey this is a good question that I’m curious about

Ben Clemens: But uh…. I haven’t done the research. I’ll do some poking around

DK: Are you planning on reprising your “Mid-Tier Hitters I Like” article during Prospect Week 2022?  I really enjoyed it last year!

Ben Clemens: Thank you!

Ben Clemens: And yes, I’m going to be reprising it, and I’ve been tinkering with more things I could use in it

Ben Clemens: I was actually pretty pleased with my success ratio last year, looking back on it

Ben Clemens: I had some misses (Hudson Potts was probably the worst of them)

Ben Clemens: Oh and Omar Estevez was not ready for AAA

Ben Clemens: But I was happy with the thought process, hit some guys who I think deserved more shine, and had a lot of fun designing my models

Appa Yip Yip: From a pure fun differential standpoint where would you like to see Freddie Freeman sign?

Ben Clemens: The Marlins

Ben Clemens: I’d love to see him come back to the Atlanta suburbs 10 times a year in a different jersey for a bad team and just crush the Braves…. while the Braves continue to excel otherwise

Ben Clemens: I mean, the actual answer is just Atlanta!

Ben Clemens: He should be a career Brave, the team has a ton of fun players, why not keep going?

Marnell: Kyle Tucker or Cedrick Mullins?

Ben Clemens: Great question!

Ben Clemens: I like that they are pretty close

Ben Clemens: I’m a big Tucker guy, so I’ll say Tucker

Ben Clemens: Mullins improved in so many different facets in ’21 that some part of my brain just doesn’t want to accept that this is the new normal

171: If players accumulate any more service time than say, Oniell Cruz last year, that should count as a full year. I feel that that is a happy medium for the two sides. Enough incentive to have your best players on the opening day roster but teams can still call up guys for a few series at the end of the year to get them some PA/IPs and not have it count as them playing all year. Thoughts?

Ben Clemens: Agree!

Ben Clemens: You can do something around the September roster expansion and exemptions

Ben Clemens: But you shouldn’t get an advantage from calling someone up in May instead of April

Moog Powell: Are there any defensive metrics that take into the different surface areas of coverage for outfielders? Like is their a positive positional adjustment for playing CF in Comerica or a negative adjustment for only having to cover LF at Fenway?

Ben Clemens: The best option for this would probably be Statcast’s Outs Above Average, but it’s my understanding that all of the major outfield defense ones do control for that

Ben Clemens: I understand the OAA methodology best, and it takes distance to cover, time to cover distance, and walls into account

Ben Clemens: So it actually looks at how far you’d have to run to catch a given ball

Ben Clemens: The outfielders who play small parks are just going to have easier chances on average, so they’ll get less credit

Rachel: What are the chances the Angels make Ohtani a full time hitter taking the pitching away? Thanks!

Ben Clemens: Uh

Ben Clemens: It’s like 5%

Ben Clemens: and it involves a catastrophic arm injury

Ben Clemens: He’s probably the best pitcher on the team (depending on Thor’s recovery)

Baseball Enthusiast: I was super intrigued by how you calculated spin axis for that Luke Weaver article today. Any way you can share the formula/way to do that for the rest of us? I think it could be a good way measure to SSW for the public.

Ben Clemens: Oh yeah it’s super easy. You just take the arctangent of the pitch’s movement

Ben Clemens: So like, this will just calculate the ‘observed’ axis

Ben Clemens: Like Statcast reports

Ben Clemens: But here’s my awful formula for it in Excel

Ben Clemens: =180-(ATAN(AC2/AB2))*180/PI()

Ben Clemens: AC2 is VMov, AB2 is HMov

Ben Clemens: I said ‘SOH CAH TOA’ out loud for the first time in decades while writing that article

Guest: How do you personally watch baseball? I’ve found myself watching a game with Baseball Savant open or going there when something catches my eye. Is it a stream of consciousness thing where you think “Hey I wonder about ___” and then look it up?

Ben Clemens: Very stream of consciousness unless I’m watching a gamer

Ben Clemens: watching baseball is one of my favorite things to do, which is how I got into this job in the first place

Ben Clemens: So usually when I watch I like to listen to the announcers, watch the game, and whenever I have a question about what just happened, I’ll pull up the Savant gamefeed

Moog Powell: Re: OF Defensive statistics; Does OOA (or any other defensive metric) have any penalty for batted balls not caught? And if so, would that at all be weighted towards outfield dimension?

Ben Clemens: They all do!

Ben Clemens: So for every batted ball chance, they figure out how likely you were to catch it

Ben Clemens: (that’s the secret sauce in them that’s hard to do)

Ben Clemens: Then let’s say it’s a 33% chance

Ben Clemens: If you miss it, they dock you 33% of an out

Ben Clemens: If you catch it, you get 67% of an out credit

PackOdds: arctangents are for lovers.

The Real Ben Clemens: Thoughts on the reports that the Royals are considering shifting Bobby Witt to 3rd to allow Lopez to stay at short? Obviously Lopez’s defense is fantastic, but it sort of feels like a mistake to not at least let Witt get a chance to stick there.

Ben Clemens: I think I’m okay with what they’re doing, but boy it feels strange to move your solid shortstop prospect off of shortstop

Ben Clemens: Like… Lopez won’t be there forever, Bogaerts came up at third and moved to short and was just fine, etc.

Ben Clemens: But it’s just so weird!

DK: Do you buy Tyler O’Neill as a 130+ wRC+ hitter?  Not a ton of comps for a guy with his barrel rate, max EV, whiff/K rate, and sprint speed.

Bob: Odds that TON goes 40-40 next year?  what about 30-30?

Ben Clemens: The Pillar of Meat is getting a lot of love (both among Cards fans and fantasy people I talk to), and I am into it

Ben Clemens: Do I buy him as a 130 wRC+ hitter? If you set the line at 120 I’d take the over

Ben Clemens: So good market!

Ben Clemens: I think I’ll take the under but quite close

Ben Clemens: As for a 40/40 or 30/30 season, I don’t think he gets there on the steals

Ben Clemens: He’s fast as hell but that’s a LOT of steals for someone with a 30% strikeout rate who also hits bombs

Ben Clemens: 40 homers before 30 steals, in other words

Matt: Do you think Spring Training will start on time? Will any regular season games will be missed?

Ben Clemens: I do not think ST will start on time, but I also don’t think any regular season games will be missed

Ben Clemens: I’ve been too optimistic so far, and maybe I still am, but I don’t think the owners are as unified as we normally think they are

Ben Clemens: I think the leverage that a lot of teams took out to make expansions and build out non-baseball revenue really bit them in the butt given the pandemic

Chip: I feel pretty certain the Yankees are going to play Urshela as a full time SS next year. Tell me I’m wrong.

Ben Clemens: I mean, they COULD. But I think it’s far more likely, even if they sign neither of Correa or Story, that they get Jose Iglesias or something

Bort: When is prospects week, Ben?

Ben Clemens: I actually have no idea

Ben Clemens: Good question for Kevin or Eric

Nat: Have you attempted to put numbers on the various moving parts in the CBA negotiations? I.e. raising the luxury tax by $x is worth $y to the players; an international draft costs the players $z (accounting for the substitution effect on free agents); expanding the playoffs brings in $a in additional revenue but costs players $b in disincentivizing competition?

Ben Clemens: Basically no

Ben Clemens: I probably should

Ben Clemens: Sounds like a good article

Marnell: Let me throw another name out to compare with Tucker, Teoscar Hernandez or Tucker?

Ben Clemens: I’ll take Tucker, I feel like Teoscar’s strikeout rate means that he has to REALLY shove in every other category to keep up with Tucker

Ben Clemens: That’s not to say he can’t. But if you’re looking for a bunch of value over many years (which is kind of what this question boils down to), I like the stability of Tucker quite a bit

Another Ben: Shouldn’t the Phillies be in on Correa when the lockout is over? I haven’t heard him linked to them

Ben Clemens: Yes

Ben Clemens: I did some offseason shopping lists pre-lockout and had shortstop as their priority

Ben Clemens: I dunno what the heck they’re doing

Farhandrew Zaidman: The Rangers have an interesting choice on how to line up their IF defensively this year. Part of me thinks that Seager 3B, IKF SS, and Semien 2B is optimal, but you also have to think that Seager signed that big contract expecting to play short. Thoughts?

Ben Clemens: Iiiiiinteresting

Ben Clemens: I mean, IKF didn’t grade out particularly well defensively at short

Ben Clemens: particularly by OAA

Ben Clemens: I think Semien 2B is a lock

Ben Clemens: I think I’d be pretty indifferent in terms of value to the club between Seager SS/DH and IKF 3b/SS

Ben Clemens: and Seager 3b IKF SS

Ben Clemens: So at that point it comes down to what makes your team happiest, and yeah, thath probably means Seager plays short

171: Ben, how is it possible that you are turning out this many quality articles at this quick of pace? Are you using performance enhancers?

Ben Clemens: Word steroids

Ben Clemens: Nah, the real key is having a)a ton of interesting coworkers whose articles you can coast off of b)editors who suggest good topics

Dank Meme: What percentage chance is there currently of Jeremy Pena starting the year as the Astros SS?

Ben Clemens: 85%

Ben Clemens: And trending upwards!

Everette T Bolton: Any thoughts on Jeremy Pena?

Ben Clemens: I love him

Ben Clemens: I don’t see why in the world you wouldn’t give him a shot

Ben Clemens: he’s 24, he looked like he belonged in AAA, just give it a try!

Farhandrew Zaidman: I say this with love as a die hard Dodger fan who saw pretty much every defensive inning that Seager has played at SS. He’s a 40 glove SS with a 45-50 arm since TJ. I have to believe IKF is a better defensive option.

Ben Clemens: That doesn’t sound like a great 3b either!

Ben Clemens: And IKF is certifiably premium at 3b

Ben Clemens: So my thinking was that surrounding a below-average SS with two plus defenders might beat having a below-average 3b, average-ish ss, plus 2b

Ben Clemens: But who knows

Ben Clemens: SS get more chances

Ben Clemens: It is definitely amusing that the Rangers signed two of the top three shortstops and we still have no clue who will play the position for htem

Steve: Curious how you see the TOR catching situation playing out.  Do they trade Kirk?  What might he bring in return?

Ben Clemens: I think they’ll end up trading Jansen and McGuire for blah value over the next two years, and end up with a Moreno starter, Kirk DH/backup situation

Ben Clemens: My thinking is basically this: the Jays should have a bias towards just keeping the best two overall players among the 4 catching options

Ben Clemens: None of them has enough juice to drive a huge return (with the exception of Moreno I think)

Ben Clemens: So figure out the two you like the most, and trade the others

Ben Clemens: For me, that’s Moreno (my prospect crush who is now the world’s prospect crush) and Kirk

MatGermain: Rays have Jonathan Aranda, Curtis Mead, and Austin Shenton as 1B options for ’23. Which of these players could supplant Ji-Man Choi at 1B?

Ben Clemens: I don’t know much about Shenton

Ben Clemens: I suppose that implies I know a lot about the others, haha

Ben Clemens: My model likes Aranda! It’s not the best model in the world, but that’s I think a good sign. He plus Mead could make for an interesting platoon at first

Ben Clemens: So that’d be my vote

namiki: Do you think a metric like Stuff+, which evaluates pitches based on velocity and movement, is correct?

Ben Clemens: I haven’t dug into the nuts and bolts that underlie Stuff+ enough to take a strong stance. I do think that the idea behind it — quantifying stuff through measurable data — has merit

Ben Clemens: Driveline also has a stat called Stuff+, I think

Ben Clemens: wonderfully generic name, etc.

Ben Clemens: And they had an interesting blog post last year about pitchers who have reliably over- and under-performed it

Ben Clemens: Kyle Hendricks is the head of the class there, obviously

Ben Clemens: Since he throws a college fastball and gets big league results

Appa Yip Yip: What makes you say Jansen has blah value?

Ben Clemens: I just don’t see a team shelling out for an arb-eligible catcher who hasn’t really handled a full year’s workload

Ben Clemens: I think he’s a nice player, I’m just looking for comparables in trade and not finding any obvious ones

hamothy: jays need some bullpen help, thoughts on a kimbrel for McGuire trade?

Matt Damon: MATT. DAMON.

Ben Clemens: I mean…. I guess that trade would be fine?

Ben Clemens: I like Kimbrel!

Ben Clemens: I kind of thought the Sox would be hunting bigger game in trade

Ben Clemens: But if Toronto eats his entire salary, seems like both teams get somethin they want

Liam McPoyle: Ben.  I don’t know if you watch tennis, but the AO is using their Hawkeye system on every point to determine if a shot is in or out (with a human voice saying “out” if it is out).  Now there is virtually no argument on line calls because…who will the player argue with?  A computer?   It has literally changed how one watches tennis since there is none of that crazy drama with out calls, player challenges, etc.  The ball is either in or out.           I am encourage after watching the tennis that this could be what happens with robot umps.  It is either a ball or strike, that’s it.   Thoughts?

Ben Clemens: I love tennis!

Ben Clemens: I kind of suck at actually playing it, but I watch a ton

Ben Clemens: I think it works a lot better for tennis than baseball, but my issue with the auto strike zone has never been whether players would argue with it

Ben Clemens: I do think it would be good at that, to be clear

Ben Clemens: I know that there are stories of people arguing with the umpires even with Trackman up, but nah

Ben Clemens: Over time they’d stop saying anything about it

Ben Clemens: It does work better in tennis where it’s a comparably small part of the game, I think

Dan: Do any teams have better playoff chances with a shorter season or is it simply underdogs gain odds and favorites lose odds?

Ben Clemens: It’s basically just th at

hamothy: Yeah was thinking whole salary, but Kimbrel is a little tricky to trade, bc it’s only contenders that want an expensive closer, and they don’t give up MLB contributors that also-contending CHW wants unless they have excess at a position like Toronto at C

Ben Clemens: Yeah I am more into it the more I think about it

Ben Clemens: It kind of makes sense that they n eed to target surplus somewhere

Guest: How do you think Carlson does this year. He seems like he has the basics down pretty nicely and could really put it all together. Cards outfield looks really well set up

Ben Clemens: Couldn’t be any more hyped about him

Ben Clemens: I dunno if he’s going to be a breakout type in 2022 but I was very encouraged by how quickly he figured it out in the majors

Ben Clemens: And I think that the Cards outfield is one of the best groups in the NL, which is kinda weird to say given how recently it seemed awful

Tom: Ben, appreciated your views on why you’re not voting for HOF. On a sort of related note, if Scott Rolen goes into the Hall, this year or soon, do you think the Cardinals would retire his number and build a statue outside Busch Stadium for him? Thanks!

Ben Clemens: That was Ben Lindbergh

Ben Clemens: I am not a BBWAA member, in fact

Ben Clemens: Though I appreciate the bind he felt he was in

Ben Clemens: As to a statue outside Busch… I think they would do it

Ben Clemens: There are enough statues out there that a Hall of Famer who won a ring on the team should get one

Tom: Sorry, man! Too many Bens. My bad!

Ben Clemens: No worries at all

Ben Clemens: We are legion

Helmut: Dominic Smith:  will he get another chance if there’s a DH or is he done in NYM?

Ben Clemens: I’m leaning towards done

Slayer: Jose Barrero going to start for CIN this year or do they keep using Kyle Farmer?

Ben Clemens: I think they are going to keep using Kyle Farmer and I’m going to keep wondering why

Ben Clemens: Barrero deserves a shot imo

Ben Clemens: Farmer is good too!

Ben Clemens: But I think they can use him as more of a utility type and try to get Barrero established at short

Guest: Thoughts on combining a tennis style Hawkeye camera with an umpire? Hawkeye should be able to nail the “over the plate” aspect of the pitch, while the umpire can focus more on whether the pitch was in the zone vertically (which is harder to nail with Hawkeye).

Ben Clemens: My understanding is that Hawkeye doesn’t have a huge problem with that assuming decent strike zone definitions, which they’ve been getting better at snapping. The bigger problem seems to be that it sometimes errors out on pitches right down the middle

Moog Powell: Ben, appreciated your willingness to both play and excel at many different positions for the ’06 – ’14 Tampa Bay Rays. You had some seasons that we’re borderline MVP worthy and deserved more credit at the time.

Ben Clemens: I also wrote Poor Richard’s Almanac and discovered electricty

Ben Clemens: I have range!

Appa Yip Yip: If you got beaned by a big league fastball how long would it take you to recover? I would simply cease existing.

Ben Clemens: Uh yeah, I’d retire forever after one hit

Ben Clemens: one hit by pitch, rather

Ben Clemens: My recovery is not what it used to be an it was never particularly good lol

Dan: Could you make a playoff team with only 17 year olds on your team if you could pick the best of the best from the last 30 years or would the talent with zero experience just not he ready?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think they would, and I don’t think it would be close

Ben Clemens: 17 is REALLY young

Ben Clemens: if you said 20-year-olds

Ben Clemens: I think I’d take the 20-year-olds easily

Ben Clemens: but 17?

Ben Clemens: yikes

Ben Clemens: who is the best 17-year-old hitter in history?

Ben Clemens: And are they even a league average bat?

Ben Cleboys: For an auto strike zone, would this idea work? Use lasers around the plate that will pick up the ball crossing the plate.  For strike zones on individual players, have them sized up by an MLB official to properly measure their height and measure where their zone is.

Ben Clemens: I don’t think they actually need that. The Hawkeye cameras work really well for pinpointing where the ball crosses the plate

Ben Clemens: I do think that some changes to the rulebook definition of the strike zone would be necessary

Ben Clemens: a)I think it would need to become 2d

Ben Clemens: b)I think they might want to look into how they define the top and bottom

Ben Clemens: I’ve done some looking into exactly how that works and it’s basically a snap when they come ready to hit?

Ben Clemens: So not every 6’1″ hitter has the same zone, etc.

Appa Yip Yip: Your 20 year old starting outfield would be Soto, Harper, Trout. Yeah you’d be fine. Pitching would be the problem. 20 year old starters are not so common.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I’d have A Rod too

Ben Clemens: I just think that team would be dominant offensively to the point where I’d just put up a touchdown often enough that pitching wouldn’t matter too much

Esoteric Skubal: will we ever see another utility player like Jose Oquendo? One who can play all 9 positions?

Ben Clemens: Eh…. I think that there are players like that today, who could do it in a pinch

Ben Clemens: Isiah Kiner-Falefa became a catcher because the team needed him to, and won a gold glove at third

Ben Clemens: Kyle Farmer!

Ben Clemens: Andrew Romine did it, though Oquendo is a different class of player, you know?

Ben Clemens: I guess my point is that we probably won’t see it taken to quite the gimmicky extreme that it was with Oquendo

Ben Clemens: But heck, Gavin Lux started at six positions last year (he didn’t catch or play first base)

namiki: Is the spin axis in the baseball savant csv file the one observed by Hawkeye?

Ben Clemens: Sure seems like it

Ben Clemens: Given that it doesn’t exist before 2020

Ben Clemens: (that column)

Jeb: What do you think Don Smith gets in a trade, assuming no cash is exchanged?

Guest: Dom Smith got MVP votes the year before last, and was trending upward each year until 2021. He seems to be a great team player, willing to fill whatever role the team needs, and there are always injuries. I would hate to see the Mets trade him just because they don’t see where he fits, especially while his value is down. I can just imagine Alonso getting hurt and a not-ready-for-primetime Baty or Alonso getting thrown into the fire for a couple of months…

Ben Clemens: This is a really interesting conundrum for the Mets, I agree

Ben Clemens: I don’t care so much about the MVP votes in 2020, to be honest, but he did look really good that year

Ben Clemens: I’m just really skeptical of his power, basicall

Ben Clemens: Aside from popping a crazy barrel rate in 2020, he just isn’t a bopper, and that limits his value given that he’s pretty close to 1b-only

Ben Clemens: I could see him getting a bit of run at DH/backup 1b/backup LF, but between him and Cano and Davis, there are a lot of bodies for not that many at-bats

Ben Clemens: So I think they  might opt for a more flexible roster spot. At theh very least, I think they should trade one of those three?

Mitch: Thoughts on what the Marlins have done? Is Wendle, Stallings, and Garcia enough for them to compete?

Ben Clemens: My opinion: no

Ben Clemens: I like Avi a lot

Ben Clemens: I like Wendle okay

Ben Clemens: They’re still playing some players who don’t seem ready for prime time to me, and their offense BADLY needs a star

Dan: Shouldn’t a team with good offense but wholes in their offense and pitching fix the holes in offense first, assuming the upgrade amount is equal since you also get more at bats for your best hitters by lowering the out made by your weaker hitters and even the worse pitching staff has a chance at a combined shutout

Ben Clemens: If baseball were played on a spreadsheet, I think this would be a no-brainer

Ben Clemens: Like you said, there’s synergy to improving your bad hitting spots so that your better hitters get more ABs

Ben Clemens: In practice I think it’s not the case, because there’s kind of an opposite effect in pitching where if your pitching is bad your staff gets overworked

Ben Clemens: and then people are worse, etc

Ben Clemens: Also, this is more context-dependent, but it’s generally easier to improve a bad unit than a good one

Ben Clemens: That comes down to which players are available when, though

Ben Clemens: I guess in the end I’d say I’d prefer to improve my pitching a bit, but that I wouldn’t be dogmatic about it. If the best move is to continue to have a bad staff but to just outscore people, then do it

Ben Clemens: There’s no ‘oh we HAVE to improve this spot’ in baseball

Phil Laws: Are you familiar with the 90’s Mariners when they played in the Kingdome?  They put up touchdowns all the time and lost. See also Orioles.

Phil Laws: The 90’s era Mariners had to improve their pitching

namiki: Do you think hiring DH in NL is a good thing?

Ben Clemens: I do. I think that the game is more exciting on average when there are DH’s

travis: is it possible teams already have back channel deals with Free Agents or perhaps trades?

Ben Clemens: Free agents? No

Ben Clemens: I don’t think teams could be sure that no leak would get out

Ben Clemens: and it would look quite bad were it to come out, and the players might be incentivized to leak, and so on

Ben Clemens: Trade talks between two GM’s? I could see that

Guest: Even in his dreadful first two samples (wRC+ of 74 & 83), Dom Smith put up an ISO of .196 & .198. In 2019 & 2020 it was .243 & .299. So, I can’t argue with the advanced stats that don’t like him, but he actually always demonstrated decent power before last year.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, he has a career .189 ISO, which is like slightly above average

Ben Clemens: Projected to be around average next year, it appears

Ben Clemens: But ‘slightly above average iso’ is not really something I’m interested in for a guy who strikes out more often than average, walks less often than average, and plays first base

Ben Clemens: I think it’d be cool if he broke out… but I understand why the Mets wouldn’t want to wait on him

x2R: Robots calling strikes and balls. Framing will be a lost ability? And have you think about a pitcher/batter that would benefit the most with the robots?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, framing would die. I think it would really depend on the exact way they implement it, but if they just keep the strike zone as it is, people with steeply vertical breaking pitches would be the biggest beneficiaries

Ben Clemens: so like, Glasnow?

Gashouse Gorilla: If the owners get their wish on international drafts or even a universal draft, what on-the-field implications might it have? Would we see players move faster? Or is it just a cost-saving measure for the owners?

Ben Clemens: Cost-saving

Teddy: Who’s your favorite DH to watch these days?

Ben Clemens: Shohei

Ben Clemens: But if we’re not counting him, I enjoy the stylings of J.D. Martinez

Ben Clemens: and obviously Yordan Alvarez

Ben Clemens: Yordan is probably the most underrated player in baseball

Ben Clemens: he’s got a 4-5 WAR projection and people think he’s some platoon bat

14343: Assuming this is part of Houston’s internal decision-making process: would you prioritize Tucker/Alvarez extensions over a monster Correa contract?

Ben Clemens: I wo8uld

Ben Clemens: What’s the point in having Pena if you’re not gonna play him at short? And I’m just quite high on the core they have even without Correa

Ben Clemens: Alright everyone, great chat today, but I’m still stretching out my typing fingers (and answering brain) after the chat offseason, so I’m gonna call it a day here

Ben Clemens: Thanks so much for chatting, and next time I would like to talk chili oil, because I’ve been making a good homemade version lately but I want to hear other ways to do it.

Ben Clemens: Have a great week, and I’ll talk to you soon!