Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 1/26/26

Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, welcome to the chat.

Ben Clemens: I’ve been on a deals rampage of late. FanGraphs has covered 8 trades or free agency signings in the last week, and I’ve written six of those. So no prospect questions, please: we have two great prospect writers who chat about them. No Hall of Fame or projection questions; you know who to ask those two. I want to talk deals, deals, deals

Klubot3000: Hi Ben! Are you doing the underrated prospects piece again for prospect week? I liked your approach and wondered whether you’d highlight someone fun like Jadher Areinamo!

Ben Clemens: I am not

Babip Roberts: Mets roster looks pretty well fleshed out at this point, but the outfield depth is still worrisome. Looks to me like they could use a righty mashing backup/platoon type who can handle center. Is there anyone available that fits that profile?

Ben Clemens: I don’t really agree; I think you just described Tyrone Taylor, and he’s on the Mets already

Ben Clemens: I think they’re actually very well set up now, and I think that the Nimmo trade did a good job of that. I have an article mostly written, probably out tomorrow, about this, so stay tuned

Bill: Are we going to see any SPs exceed signing predictions? How do you see the market rolling out for remaining SPs (FA, Trade)? Why are there so many SP available?

Ben Clemens: I looked at my spreadsheet and I have been almost exactly bang on in my aggregate predictions to starters this year

Ben Clemens: the crowd has actually been about a million dollars low per player in aggregate

Ben Clemens: so I’m not exactly sure what you’re talking about here. there’s been a bit of a hitter slowdown, to be fair largely influenced by Murakami, but pitcher contracts have been basically as expected

Fin: What do you think of Bader’s deal (more from a Giants perspective than from a Bader perspective)?

Ben Clemens: seems fine. Giants needed some outfielders

g4: Conversely, are the Padres or Reds the 2025 playoff participant most vulnerable to failure in 2026?

Ben Clemens: I think the Padres, but I agree that those two are the most likely

Mr. Redlegs: Inspired by your post about Seranthony and the goal of signing a player just to trade for him. What’s to stop the White Sox from trading him now? Basically sign a guy for $20M, assume most or all the salary and trade him for the prospect you really wanted? Seranthony gets his money, the Sox get the prospect they wanted all along and team B gets Seranthony for a full season instead of just the stretch.

Ben Clemens: I don’t know but like, what?

Ben Clemens: This would not fly for any length of time

Ben Clemens: also why would that team do this? imagine going to your owner to pitch that

Ryan: Hey Ben! What do you think the market for Geno Suarez is looking like right now?

Ben Clemens: cold, gloomy

Ben Clemens: free agents who last this long generally do because their market is cool

tortycraig: 2/20 pretty light for Bader?

Ben Clemens: light to my projections, but honestly given the context of hitters this winter, about right

mopete12: Can you help me understand why the 2026 projections on Steven Kwan’s Fangraphs page project him with a negative dWAR? I assume there is a large negative positional adjustment for playing LF, but shouldn’t the projections take into account his previous years?

Ben Clemens: I cannot!

Ben Clemens: but check back in a few weeks

Ben Clemens: when we’ve gone from transactions chat to projections chat. my guess is that something’s messed up with defense until we fold in ZiPS projections, but also, you should really really not read too much into our defensive metric projections when half of our models haven’t been turned on yet, in late January

Ben Clemens: also I see him as +3.7 Def on the player pages so I’m not 100% sure what you’re talking about here

Mr. Redlegs: Why is it any different than hoping he performs well, still eating some money and then trading him in July? If everybody agrees now the Sox effectively could buy a prospect and Seranthony gets paid more than if he had signed with Team B in the first place

Ben Clemens: it’s different because it makes a clear mockery of the signing process and the White Sox payroll

Ben Clemens: i don’t have a lot of patience for pretending this is not different. It seems very clearly different unless you’re being willfully obtuse

Jack Z: Are the cardinals overvaluing donovan? A lot of teams could use him and seems they’ve tried to squeeze as much out of other teams unsuccessfully

Ben Clemens: Nah, I think it’s a good move

Ben Clemens: I think that generally holding out to be blown away is the right way to go on hitters with multiple years of control remaining

Ben Clemens: will it work out? not always, might get burned, but good bet

mopete12: Steven Kwan’s page

Ben Clemens: weird, I now see this too but didn’t when I first pulled it up, I think we might be doing some maintenance ont eh projections

Ben Clemens: in any case…. don’t pay attention to it

Ben Clemens: it’s wrong, definitely wrong, has to do with the way that some models regress defense

Klubot3000: Ben, can you please write some more about how awful the cap is. My casual fan friends love the idea and I’m not doing a good job articulating why it’s a bad thing for players and for fans.

Ben Clemens: I wish I could write this article. I do not feel that I could please all constituencies with it and I think it would be poorly received and used against me no matter how I wrote it

Ben Clemens: anyway I’m busy with deals

Ben Clemens: ask me more about deals

Oaktown Blues: Will the A’s add more pitching before the season starts, and if so, any predictions as to who they add? Bassitt? Littel? Gallen?

Ben Clemens: Gallen actually makes a lot of sense to me

Ben Clemens: and Bassitt and Littel are fine as 1b options

Ben Clemens: I think that any of those guys will probably go for a ‘bargain’ kind of price

Ben Clemens: I expect that the A’s are involved in at least a few

Nate: Are we going to see KC bring in another outfielder? Their moves so far have been……fine, but it feels like another solid move would bump them toward the top of the division. Feels like a deal for Duran is probably off the table at this point after the Suarez signing, and the fit for a Donovan trade feels a bit awkward.

Ben Clemens: Yeah…. I think they’re not going to, even though I agree with you that they should. I just don’t see a fit

Ben: Is the Nats recent FA spending explainable in a way beyond extreme owner reticence? Is there a plan? i’m worried that we’re on the way to being the pirates right now

Ben Clemens: I am not privy to the internal finances of the Nats, but it’s at least possible that they are pouring a ton of money into modernizing the minor league system

Ben Clemens: It’s not like there were obvious free agency moves to make in recent years. I’m a bit confused that they’re continuing to do nothing and leaning into it more but I think it’s probably too soon to say. Also, like, they do NOT have the benefit of the doubt from me yet, I think you have to assume that the Nats are operating without a plan until you see a bit more evidence of a well-reasoned one

Ben Clemens: I expect to see that evidence. I just haven’t yet.

For The Birds: Think the Os net Valdez or Gallen? Who do you prefer at projected cost?

Ben Clemens: I don’t really know what their projected cost is anymore

Ben Clemens: but probably Valdez. I think Gallen is the guy you sign if you don’t really need a top starter, or can’t afford one, and want to bet on variance a little

Ben Clemens: that would be weirdly out of step with the way the O’s are operating in general, to me at least

Ben Clemens: I’m writing up a Mets evaluation, as I mentioned, and I’m evaluating the offseason on three axes: coherence of strategy, liquidity/optionality, and championship probability maximization

Ben Clemens: I think that signing Gallen woudl be not great on the first and third axes, basically

Broken Bat: Ben, I think with Robo ump walks go up, strikeouts go down OBP + runs are + as are runs scored. Games back up in time tipo average 2:45 or so. Defense is back… thoughts?

Ben Clemens: no clue

Ben Clemens: excited to find out

Ben Clemens: haven’t had time to research it

Guards!: I know JRam is easily a top 5 guy in team history, and if I was a Guardians fan I’d be happy, but it’s still kinda weird how they’ll pay 100 million for his late 30s but won’t sign actual free agents. Like what are they doing?

Ben Clemens: well, I think that the team heard ‘spend money, it’s embarrassing how thrifty we are’ and realized that the best money they’ve spent in the past decade has all gone to JRam

McLean fan: Has anything about the off-season deal signaled “baseball is going to see an overhaul of the financial system in the next cba” to you? Its all seemed pretty standard

Ben Clemens: nah, not to me

Ben Clemens: I’m honestly tired of all the apocalyptic reporting that gets down

Ben Clemens: done*

Ben Clemens: ooh, an ownership source is willing to say anonymously that the owners really mean it this time?

Ben Clemens: i’m sorry, but that does not hit my bar of newsworthiness

Ben Clemens: oh, the owners are motivated to push for a salary cap? Great, publish it in the 1984 New York Times sports section

Ben Clemens: it’s not new news

Sedes: Alonso, Bellinger, Bregman, and Schwarber got similar money. Whose signing team got the best deal?

Ben Clemens: I’d prefer Bregman of the group

Ben Clemens: I had him as my second-ranked free agent, and I’m interested in which players I’d want most, not ‘bargains’ or anything

Ben Clemens: so given that he got the same amount as some free agents I had in my top 10 but further down, I’d prefer him

Bog: Is there a reason teams include mutual options in a contract? Tex purposes or something?

Ben Clemens: Here is an incredible article by the best living baseball writer that addresses mutual options in great detail

Ben Clemens: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/18519226/show-mind-games-mutual-op…

Curious Minds: Best value FA signing this year so far?
Most puzzling?

Ben Clemens: I can only evaluate this from my own perspective, but my favorite bargain of hte year has been Murakami. And if you exclude him because he’s such a weird case, then it’s Ryan Helsley

Ben Clemens: I just think that Murakami is the kind of player you usually can’t sign for any amount of money, let alone a relative pittance. great, high-leverage bet that teams rarely get to take

Ben Clemens: and Helsley got more stink on him from a bad few months than most of the other guys in this class, but he’s been one of the best relievers in baseball for years. The discount he signed for relative to Edwin Diaz is outrageous

Screw ICE: What do you think of the Skubal-Tigers arbitration situation? Skubal’s gotta feel like he’s in a good spot, right?

Skubal Arb: If Skubal’s arb goes to hearing, which way do you think it ends up? I respect him for pushing it from a labor stand point, and guessing he’ll get a higher AAV in free agency, but seems to me like the odds are against him a bit. I know he can compare to free agent deals vs. just arb deals, but will that work here?

Ben Clemens: I’m not really sure. And I think anyone who tells you they are is just lying to you

Ben Clemens: This is a case without obvious precedent. I’m trying to be neutral about it, I’m pro-labor by disposition, and I have to say that if the Tigers hadn’t given out such an insulting number, I think that Skubal would have no chance

Ben Clemens: but by purposefully low-balling him I think that they’ve given the arbitrator a lot to think about. His case that he should set the new standard for arb salaries because he’s the best ever player in arb is pretty good

Guest: If I just leave my driveway unshovelled will I regret it? I don’t have anywhere to go until Saturday.

Ben Clemens: I am possibly the worst person to ask this to. I haven’t lived in a place where it snows for 7 years, and I haven’t had a driveway since I graduated high school

Sedes: Mike Tauchman, guaranteed 2026 big league deal receiver?

Ben Clemens: i extremely doubt it

Broken Bat: iyo, would.a salary cap possibly result in bringing the cost of regular season games down? I mean the price of tickets actually is helping streaming subscriptions for fans. Thoughts, and do you agree with the per ticket price now effecting in game attendance?

Ben Clemens: no, lol, what?

Ben Clemens: prices for games show almost no year-to-year correlation to salary

Ben Clemens: prices for games are determined by fan demand. they’re not ‘balanced to payroll’ and then teams just operate for the harmonious good of the whole

Ben Clemens: it’s just a profit maximization equation that compares costxtickets purchased for various costs

Ben Clemens: teams care a ton more about sentiment when it comes to setting ticket prices. I know because I’m on various season ticket mailing lists and you can really see when they’re desperate and when they’re not

Ben Clemens: it’s all about local buzz, or at least, largely so

Chris: Do you still expect Bassit to get his expected value, or is his price getting lower as ST nears?

Ben Clemens: yeah lower and lower

Ben Clemens: here’s an article I wrote about this last year

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/is-time-money-when-it-comes-to-free-agent-…

Guest: Do you say “feel badly” or “feel bad”?

Ben Clemens: generally ‘feel bad’, unless I”m trying to make a point about how snooty my grammar is

Sedes: Marcell Ozuna, guaranteed 2026 big league deal receiver?

Ben Clemens: I think yes

NL Central Enjoyer: The NL Central has been the second best division by both out-of-division record and run differential over the last two years (after the AL East). It also had the best team last year by record and run differential. Why do you think it tends to be regarded as a weaker division, and is that an accurate characterization? (i.e. is there something I’m missing?)

Ben Clemens: because they never play well in the plyaoffs, never spend, and contain a disproportionate amount of sad-sack teams over the years (the two centrals combined, I agree that the NLC catches some heat b/c of the ALC)

Ben Clemens: and like, yeah, I do think it’s an accurate representation. it’s exaggerated, for sure. but the central divisions spend less and do less well in very long aggregates

Jay: Give me a deal that will be the perfect capper to the Blue Jays season – Donovan? Someone else?

Ben Clemens: I truly think that would be silly

Ben Clemens: where would he play??

Ben Clemens: the most realistic capper would be some ace pitcher unexpectedly becoming available and the Jays trading for him

Ben Clemens: or, ooh, what if Mason Miller gets dealt for some very strange reason?

didace: Nats Plan – Rizzo was a great GM right up until he wasn’t. Times changed and he didn’t. Ownership was loyal (he won a World Series!), but took too long to make the change. Toboni looks like he has a plan, but we’ll need some more time to find out.

Ben Clemens: I concur with this reading of the Nats

Ben Clemens: Rizzo ran so hot in the mid-2010s that he got a very long leash

Ben Clemens: and well, at some point that caught up with him because he didn’t adapt to the changing game

Random Fact Generator: Randy Johnson was traded to Houston during his age 34 season. He produced 66 WAR after that trade.

Ben Clemens: amazing

bosoxforlife: I am trying to solve the Red Sox 3rd base situation. I am content to put Mayer there but a deal with the Astros for Paredes, who seems to be a perfect fit for Fenway, would make me even more content. At the same time grabbing Geno off the bargain basement list also sounds intriguing. There is something about the name Geno that stirs the juices here in CT. Please help me solve this conundrum.

Ben Clemens: I think that I’d list the options Paredes/Mayer/Geno

Ben Clemens: Eh, actually, I take that back: let’s put Mayer last, because I think playing Mayer there assumes no further external additions ot the offense

Ben Clemens: and that seems like a bad plan to me. I just think that a season where they don’t need Mayer at at least one of short and second seems unlikely without further acquisitions

Ben Clemens: It’s amazing ot me that hte Sox have been very active this offseason and yet their projected infield outside of first is Romy Gonzalez, Trevor Story, and Mayer

Ben Clemens: Story is 33 and has hit 600 PA once since COVID

Ben Clemens: Romy might work out, but he’s coming off a career year by a mile at age 28, and while you can hope that continues, not having a backup plan if it doesn’t is irresponsible

wrights_back: You guys ever write up trades which examines the transaction from a holistic standpoint?  What I mean by this is examining how a front office evaluates high variance or rookie talent versus ‘surer things.’
For example, there are many moving parts in the Peralta trade:  undervalued stud pitcher whose WAR is probably bankable, and high variance rookies whose potential is sky high, but also have a chance to crap out.   
I guess what I’m trying to say is “how would you integrate outcomes in arriving at a fair dollar figure over time for a trade?”   If we assume Szym’s WAR numbers are normally distributed, isn’t this possible?   
(Tired typing now, stopping here).

Ben Clemens: i mean, it’s sadly incompatible with the way we produce content

Ben Clemens: the audience wants articles about trades that just happened, quite reasonably

Ben Clemens: most of my work is disposable

Ben Clemens: and that’s on purpose

Ben Clemens: the kind of analysis you’re discussing is not something you just bang out. I’m trying to do one on the Mets offseason and it’s taking a long time

Ben Clemens: also, you want to be really careful in evaluating something like this, because there aren’t a lot of generally accepted definitions for the stuff you’re trying ot measure

Ben Clemens: I’m very cognizant of trying not to be too certain when I dont’ know, and this kind of analysis is particularly difficult in that light. If you’re intellectually honest and trying to evaluate a variable distribution of talent across four players in a trade on a deadline, your answer should be ‘I’m not sure’ every time

Insert Witty Name Here: Is it just me, or is it absurd that there’s a low number of CF’s in the HOF. That’s one of the most important positions up the middle, you’d think there would be more capable players there.

Ben Clemens: you should check out Tom Tango’s twitter/bluesky, he has some really good points on this

Ben Clemens: basically, do you think Tim Raines was a CF? I sure do

Ben Clemens: but the ‘number of CFs in the hall’ says Raines is an RF

Ben Clemens: er, very sorry, Andre Dawson, yeesh

Ben Clemens: got my expos mixed up

Ben Clemens: 9000 innings (elite) in CF. 10000 innings (decline phase) in RF

Ben Clemens: I think that the definition of ‘center fielder’ and the way that aging works leads CF to ‘look’ underrpresented even more so than it is

Insert Witty Name Here: Book recs for pre-spring training? Doesn’t have to be baseball related.

Ben Clemens: ooh! I just read ‘Breath’ by James Nestor, really interesting even if I thought some of it was a bit off the wall

Ben Clemens: I read ‘the last murder at the end of the world’ by Stuart Turton, highly recommended if you’re into suspense and sci fi

Ben Clemens: I think it was perhaps TOO shyamalan-y, but very good overall

Ben Clemens: I really loved re-reading “The Player of Games” by Iain M. Banks over the holidays, perhaps my favorite sci fi book ever

Ben Clemens: I’ve also been pretty into Emily Henry of late, and I’d say “Funny Story” is my favorite of hers, if you’re interested in a very different genre

Interested person: How do you think fangraphs is going to update projections next winter based on these crazy high aav deals like Bichette, Tucker, Bregman last year?

Ben Clemens: So in this instance, FanGraphs means me, since I do our projections for free agency

Ben Clemens: I know how I’m going to handle it, actually. I run two separate models, one for length and another that takes length as an input and predicts AAV

Ben Clemens: I think that I’m going to have to work kind of heavily on the length predictor model, because I had redone it for older pitchers in recent years but hadn’t expanded it to position players yet

ML: I just want to vent about how frustrating it is as a Tigers fan to go from Mike Ilitch going for broke to one of his sons who’s biggest annual move is signing a 5th starter.

Ben Clemens: seems bad, sorry!

Ben Clemens: my late grandfather was a lifelong huge Tigers fan. he passed away before Ilitch, and I have to say, I wish he got to see Skubal but I’m glad he doesn’t have to hear the spendthriftiness

QO: Have you ever looked into quantifying how the QO impacts players that are not obviously at the very top where it doesn’t matter or if they are older? No one denies it hurts players, but I haven’t been able to find any writing that attempted to quantify how much it might impact earnings/years or anything (though I get it’s very difficult and would have a ton of caveats)

Ben Clemens: i tried, and then I gave up

Ben Clemens: it’s just not a fruitful area of research

Ben Clemens: the effect sizes are small, the sample is small, and crucially, my readership doesn’t care much

Ben Clemens: so it’d be a very hard slog for little gain. If I worked for an agency or the MLBPA it’d make a lot more sense as a project

Mel: Thoughts on any additional moves by the Phillies. Roster construction and payroll limits big FA additions, but there are still needs (SP depth, another RH bat). Do you buy DD’s “I like our roster” comments or is there one more needle moving play up his sleeve?

Ben Clemens: I mean, I don’t like their roster, I think it’s too light on the pitching side

Ben Clemens: the RH bat, I’m with you but I think it’s less pressing

Ben Clemens: I think there’s very little chance that Dombrowski is actually happy with their current SP situation. But whether he has the authority to fix it, or whether they’re waiting to see how the current crop works out and then planning on adding at midseason, i don’t know

Bog: You think you will be able to predict with any confidence the players that get short high AAV deals? It seems like mostly just a personal choice by the player

Ben Clemens: I sure don’t!

Ben Clemens: But I need to include it in the model anyway

Ben Clemens: so that I am at least aware of the possibility

Ben Clemens: I’m with you, though. I actually th ink that these things are almost unmodelable. But you know, that wouldn’t be a very good article

Derri: Three weeks ago, Kyle Tucker sends his about-to-be new contract to all 30 teams. The Dodgers aren’t the only ones who actually agree to these terms, right?

Ben Clemens: correct

The Actor for Al Pacino: Cactus League vs. Grapefruit League, which do you prefer as a fan show follows almost every team?

Ben Clemens: I’ve never actually been to the Cactus league, b/c I grew up on the East Coast and go to Fall League when I go to AZ for games now

Ben Clemens: but the experience in AZ is incredible and I’m sure it’s the better of the two if you’re going to follow your team around. The locations are better, and I vastly prefer the dry spring heat to the humidity

Ben Clemens: Salt River Fields in particular is a great stadium, too

Ben Clemens: added benefit if you’re a person who gets nauseous in car rides: not in Arizona you don’t

Ben Clemens: the roads are in much better shape than my northeastern brain could comprehend

Ben Clemens: my wife was shocked at how un-motion-sick she got in our drive all the way across town

bosoxforlife: I am mystified by the Red Sox roster construction as of now. 4 good outfielders, a questionable infield, 8,311 starting pitchers while there are no left-handed pitchers with any proven bullpen experience or competence.  Is it possible that they are planning on using Early, Tolle and Harrison as the primary bullpen arms?

Ben Clemens: I’m wondering right alongside you

Ben Clemens: I do think that Harrison is a reliever, to be fair

Ben Clemens: not that I would have managed him diffrently last year. I just think that his stuff is too natural of a match for the bullpen longterm

Ben Clemens: I mean, they should trade an outfielder, the same thing you and I would have said last May

Ben Clemens: they’re not going to trade an outfielder, it seems. so in that context I like that they at least built some pitching depth. but i hate that they seem unwilling to build infield depth

Ben Clemens: I think that they’re going to give the young guys in the bullpen to start but that they’ll use them aggressively in case of injury, and honestly even not in case of injury in Oviedo’s case

Guest: Giant “great” Mike Yastremski signs for 2/23. New Giant Harrison Bader signs for 2/20.5. Who do you prefer?

Ben Clemens: Bader by a lot

Ben Clemens: I wrote up the Yaz trade and basically said the Braves were paying a premium b/c they wanted this guy specifically, and that I would not agree with that assessment

Ben Clemens: Bader was in my top 50 free agents, and in the middle, like 25-30 range. Yaz didn’t make it. Maybe I had too harsh of a hitter cutoff this year, but like….. every hitter is doing worse than our crowdsourcing, almost

Ben Clemens: Yaz beat his projection by 13 million, he’s actually the third-highest-paid outfielder to sign this winter!

Ben Clemens: so like… yeah, that was probably a reach

Welland Jackfish: if Harrison is a reliever, the Sox’ return for Devers looks even worse. Just “we broke our relationship” and then salary dump.

Ben Clemens: I mean, I might be wrong

Ben Clemens: who knows

Ben Clemens: but he has a reliever-y profile, and he was doing swingman duty in SF before he got traded

The Skubal Deadline: How likely is it that come July many of us will be watching for a Skubal trade like hawks?

Ben Clemens: yeah, very likely I think

Non-Baseball Hobbies: Michael Baumann is apparently cycling-obsessed. Ben Lindbergh is a video game nerd. Dan Szymborski is all about his cats and will debate chili with the best of them. What, good sir, is your biggest non-baseball hobby?

Ben Clemens: oh man, I must be doing a bad job of branding lately

Ben Clemens: I used to have so many lanes, now none!

Ben Clemens: Cooking and board games are probably my two main ones

Ben Clemens: I cook a lot, I play a ton of games overall, and since ‘online writer who likes video games’ is a contested beat, I lean more into the board game side. Also, I’m an outlier in terms of how much I like games, we own at on

Ben Clemens: I have a dog and like dog things. I love skiing. Love watching tennis, we have a lot of tennis chats here during slams usually

Ben Clemens: I dunno why we haven’t during the Aussie Open, maybe next week we can talk results

Welland Jackfish: Have you played any of the Ticket to Ride expansion maps?

Ben Clemens: you know, I have not. But I need to buy a copy of ticket to ride (we are outfitting a vacation home) and I’d love to hear of any awesome maps people love

Ben Clemens: my wife has never played before, which is shocking considering how many games we play, so I want to get a really fun one for her first try

Sandwich: Something that’s been driving me crazy: is there any actual functional difference between opt-outs and player options? A three-year deal with opt-outs after each year is just a fancy one-year deal with player options, right?

Ben Clemens: there is not. there might be technical differences but they’re treated the same both by the CBT and the way you described it, in terms of practical use

Ben Clemens: I model them interchangeably and if you read my articles, I bet you’ll find several times where I’ve mixed them up

Welland Jackfish: IMO Europe is better than original, Switzerland is also fun (but I may be biased because I have ridden the actual trains in Switzerland)

Ben Clemens: I am not exaggerating by much here: ‘the trains of Switzerland’ could have been one of my hobbies

Ben Clemens: i went to Zurich straight out of college for a trip and thought the trains were really cool.

Ben Clemens: 15 years later, i was thinking I might have built them up too much in my head. then we took a train from Geneva to Zermatt and nope, they’re the best trains in the world

Ben Clemens: the only competitors, for trains I’ve been on, are Japan and Norway, two places that would also be sweet for ticket to ride

Destination Stadium(s)/Game(s): I like to travel and I desperately want to see an NPB game, a game somewhere in Mexico (maybe in Mexico City, which peers down its nose and the lowly town of Denver), and elsewhere around the world. Having lived almost all of my life in California, I haven’t been to most MLB stadiums. Any suggestions on which stadiums I should prioritize?

Ben Clemens: Oh man, sure. Yeah, first, go see an NPB game. In Tokyo, though I’m not too picky about which team. I saw the Marines (Ohtani was on the Fighters still and was in town) and it was just a 10/10 experience

Ben Clemens: if you’re mostly west coast, you should try to go to one of Fenway or Wrigley just for the shocking anachronism. And for me, Baltimore and Pittsburgh are also unique stadiums that you’ll be happy you went to

bosoxforlife: I always saw the Devers trade as a salary dump and the way the market is turning its looks like the industry has decided that huge AAV’s are better than ridiculously long contracts which turn into albatross contracts at the end. Xander Bogaerts is a perfect example.

Ben Clemens: I think I agree with you in the short term. Taht said, I think that this particular facet of front office valuation swings back and forth all the time

Ben Clemens: I remember writing about the sudden, unexpected pivot to long-term deals two winters ago

Ben Clemens: I concur that the Devers trade was always a salary dump and that most of the messaging around it was obfuscating that fact, though

Ben Clemens: long-term contracts do have a cost in optionality, no doubt. the question is whether you’re getting enough back for that

Ben Clemens: I think that teams are always changing their evaluation of ‘enough back’ and thus constantly swinging back and forth in what they’d prefer their contract structure to look like as a whole

Interested person: Do you think the Twins are making a mistake holding on Ryan, Lopez? Even in a division that weak I can’t imagine their internal projections love their odds to win that division. Value for Ryan and Lopez might be better at the deadline with more of a bidding war for services I just think this is a gross miscalculation for a club without direction.

The Actor for Al Pacino: Re: Dave Dombrowski and the Phillies’ pitching. Everybody and their mother knows the team is built to win now and not for long-term success. Do you think they are at a point where they’d start to dangle serious prospects for, say, a Joe Ryan or someone similar who is approaching FA?

Ben Clemens: Love these two when looked at together

Ben Clemens: My guess, as I mentioned, is that the Phllies will wait until closer to the deadline for anything like this

Ben Clemens: but I really don’t get what’s going on in Minnesota. I think that they’re just still trying to find their lane. I can’t imagine they aren’t engaging on Ryan discussions, and I am surprised that we saw as many starters as moved last week get traded without them being one of the teams trading their guy away

Big Buxton: I’m a Twins fan living in Philly. The Twins open the season in Baltimore just down I-95. Do I go down for the weekend and gives this team a chance to not utterly embarrass me? Or do I watch from my house in Philly like a coward?

Ben Clemens: oh, what? go

Ben Clemens: three games don’t matter, they could go 0-3 and win the world series

Ben Clemens: but you get to see your team on opening day!

Ben Clemens: i very rarely remember the results of games I go to

Ben Clemens: partially, that’s because I go to a lot of games and baseball has a lot of games. Mostly, though, it’s because being at a ballpark is delightful, totally unrelated to the outcome of the game on the field

Ben Clemens: so a chance to see your squad near you, and on opening day no less? I’d do it for sure

Bob: Mets have made a lot of moves this off season. I was not a fan of signing Polanco to play first and in light of Okamoto’s contract, he felt like a safer option since he’s played 1B before. In light of everything that’s happened since, does it seem like Mets should have gone for Okamoto over Polanco. Would that be a better offseason plan for the infield?

Ben Clemens: not a strong opinion here, tbh

Ben Clemens: i’m fine with Polanco’s offense, would have been fine with Okamoto’s, dn’t think that my evaluation of their offseason would be much different had you swapped those two

The Actor for Al Pacino: What do you think the highest probability outcome is for what the Cubs do with the infield logjam? Trade Shaw, trade Hoerner, convert Shaw to a super utility guy?

Also, who’s the guy in RF for them? The return of the Seiya Suzuki experience? Does Kevin Alcantara get some run?

Ben Clemens: sure seems like they’re trying to trade Hoerner, but I have no special insight into the situation

bosoxforlife: You gave me great advice last summer when I went to PNC Park for the first time. I have Coors on my to-do list this year. Couldn’t go last time I was in Denver. There will also be a long, long drive through Rocky Mountain NP. It is unbelievably beautiful.

Ben Clemens: another great one to see, I downgraded it on the list for a west coaster because of proximity

Ben Clemens: I love the area up in the right field upper deck, whose name I can’t remember offhand, maybe the Rock Pile?

Ben Clemens: but the highlight is that it’s gotta be the most beautiful stadium in the world

Ben Clemens: I love Denver

Bog: Should the Giants DFA Luis Matos or start the year with him as the 4th OF and Gilbert in AAA?

Ben Clemens: ew, do not like this question even though it’s a very good question to ask

Ben Clemens: I think you start Gilbert in AAA unless you decide you’re done with Jerar Encarnacion

Ben Clemens: I don’t think you can DFA Matos while keeping Encarnacion up, it’s too likely that you’ll have to follow that move by DFA’ing Encarnacion, and then you’d want a Matos type to call up

Guest: Devers’ contract ends after his age 36 season though? Like it’s only long because he signed it when he was like 26

Ben Clemens: look…. I concur with you. I think that I mentioned at the time of the trade that I didn’t think this salary dump made sense, and I still think that

guest: You have Framber Valdez at 5/140. Would you change this prediction based on the information from free agency so far?

Ben Clemens: yes

Ben Clemens: let’s call it 4/100 now

Ben Clemens: not b/c the market has been cold, just b/c of the natural shape

Ben Clemens: late signers tend to disappoint

Ben Clemens: alright, on that note, I’m gonna go make lunch

Ben Clemens: person who asks the lunch question, I’m turning some leftovers into fried rice

Ben Clemens: have a wonderful week, everyone