Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 1/6/25

Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, welcome to the chat

Ben Clemens: Being that it’s early January, I’m gonna keep it relatively short today

Ben Clemens: Say 45 minutes or so

Ben Clemens: but let’s use that time wisely

Ken: With their additions, are the A’s legit contenders for a playoff spot in 2025?

Ben Clemens: No. I think they’re still gonna be sub-10% or so

Ben Clemens: But more respectable than most of the recent versions of the A’s, nonetheless

Dan Sanchez: The Orioles have starter depth but still need an ace, and the Padres, who will lose Dylan Cease next year, could use a young OF bat. Would something like Heston Kjerstad and Dean Kremer, maybe with a third piece, get it done?

Ben Clemens: I think that would get it done, but I don’t really see them trading Kjerstad

Ben Clemens: It’s just incompatible with the way they deal from their prospects; Ortiz was not exactly surplus but pretty blocked by other interesting prospects at the very least

Ben Clemens: Kjerstad feels more likely to be a real contributor this year, which would make the trade less of a pure upgrade. that seems to me to be the way they like to make deals

davealden53: I know you think Eguy Rosario can have a future if he can get unblocked.  Roster Resource now shows him as the Padres’ DH, but this doesn’t seem like a great fit.  Does he remain trade bait, perhaps an extra piece in a Dylan Cease deal?

Ben Clemens: I think that’d be awkward b/c a team acquiring Cease is probably a playoff contender, and that doesn’t sound like a team that’s going to just slam Eguy into a starting spot

Ben Clemens: I don’t absolutely hate DH for him, but i think that AB’s will be hard to come by there, so yeah, I’d love to see him in a spot where he has regular infield playing time

Idiotic Failson: The Yankees can’t really be assuming DJLM will be playing 3rd again this year, can they? CAN THEY?!?!?!?

Ben Clemens: I really think that they’re going to acquire a bigger-ticket 3B still

Ben Clemens: their roster just makes so little sense with DJLM

Ben Clemens: it’s leaving an obvious point of weakness in a winter where many of their moves seem to be about shoring up weaknesses

Dan Sanchez: What kind of contract do you think Framber Valdez could be looking at next year? Same age at FA as Snell (32), less stuff but more durable. 4/120? 5/140? More?

Ben Clemens: man, I’d be really worried about giving Framber a big deal. That’s a real change of opinion for me, I feel like I was one of the high analysts on him for years, but the last 18 months or so have me wondering how he’s going to handle a change in stuff

Ben Clemens: his fastball seems to need a very particular shape to work, and when he lost it for a while, he was not very good

Ben Clemens: I guess I’d say that he’ll probably get something in the range you named, but I would hope not to be the team giving it to him

Ben Clemens: I think it’s wrong-way risk. I don’t think he’s likely to deliver you a huge windfall at that contract, but coming in way low feels possible to me

davealden53: There aren’t any health updates on Edward Cabrera and he’s projected as the #2 starter for the Marlins.  Do you believe that possibility?  Can he truly stay healthy and productive or is the die cast?

Ben Clemens: I do not believe that possibility

Ben Clemens: Not that it can’t happen… but I’d bet against it at reasonable odds

Alby: Biggest surprise of the offseason so far?

Ben Clemens: I think it’s the A’s turning into aggressive acquirers in starting pitching

Ken: The A’s have a lot of starters on their 40-man roster: Severino, Springs, Sears, Bido, Ginn, Estes, Spence, Basso, and Harris. Barring a trade or injury, Severino, Springs, and Sears are locks for the rotation. But what should they do with the rest of them? None of them really have anything left to prove or work on in the minors. Should the A’s experiment with a staff of tandem starters where two pitchers work 5 innings and 4 innings, respectively, each game, instead of the traditional 5-man rotation and 8-man bullpen?

Ben Clemens: For example!

Ben Clemens: Mmmmm, no, I don’t think that makes a ton of sense unless they have buy-in from everyone. I think more realistically, some of these guys are going to get hurt and some won’t play enough to be in the majors.

Ben Clemens: Like, Hogan Harris is on this list. He’s 28 and every single run prevention stat was above 5.50 in sizable minor league playing time last year

Ben Clemens: I feel like I know a lot about baseball, and I had to look up who Basso was

Ben Clemens: dude was also getting shelled in the minors

Ben Clemens: This is not a ‘we have 8 true established starters’ situation, I think that they should just go the normal route and let injuries and underperformance make things work

wmquirk: Guardians got a steal on Shane Bieber this year after seeing Boyd and Morton’s contracts, among others. I would think he has to be gone at the deadline if they aren’t sure contenders by then

Ben Clemens: I agree with you here

Ben Clemens: I was very surprised to see him sign for that deal given how excited teams have been to pay potential top-end starter

Ben Clemens: That said, I get it from his standpoint. It’s nice to rehab in a situation you’re familiar with, and the money/years aren’t terrible

Ben Clemens: I think this was a case where the potential future earnings bump from having your rehab go well outstrips the extra few bucks you could make this offseason

Oaktown Blues: Brady Basso was not getting shelled in the minors. He was in Vegas and was victim of an unsustainable high HR/FB%. His xFIP was 4.26, which is great for that environment

Ben Clemens: Fair enough

Ben Clemens: do you think he has nothing more to prove in the minors?

Oaktown Blues: No, he has more to prove for sure

Ben Clemens: Yeah, that’s more my point

Ben Clemens: like, that wasn’t a list where I’d be flabbergasted if anyone got sent down

Ben Clemens: i’d be more surprised if no one did

Henry Dodger: Lots of talking heads and fans in NYC are saying that the NYY, as presently constituted, are a better team than last year’s squad with Soto. I don’t see it. What do you think?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I don’t really buy it, but I will say, I like their role players’ odds of bouncing back

Ben Clemens: like having a full season of Jazz is nice

Ben Clemens: and I think that their pitching will probably be better even ex-Fried

Oaktown Blues: Appreciate the brief back and forth, that’s what makes these chats fun 🙂

Ben Clemens: for sure

Ben Clemens: and like I said, I’m no Basso expert

Idiotic Failson: Um, what are the Orioles doing? It looks like they might blow their chance to maximize their window because Elias is brutally risk averse when it comes to their SP.

Ben Clemens: Yeah uh… I write this article every year

Ben Clemens: I actually wanted to write an article called ‘c’mon, orioles, do something’ before they signed Sugano, and I found out I’d already written an article with that title

Ben Clemens: I’m very confused by their methodology

Ben Clemens: it’s kind of Rays-y in that they seem to be trying to build a very sustainably high-floor organization by focusing heavily on trades that round them out rather than make them higher-ceiling, and hten taking occasional swings

Ben Clemens: but that feels like a really strange way to go about maximizing a window built on two stars

Guest: Mountcastle and Kremer get you close to Castillo?  Would Povich be worth more than Kremer?

Ben Clemens: um, no

Ben Clemens: I’m not saying it shouldn’t

Ben Clemens: or well, maybe I am, I haven’t thought too hard about that yet

Ben Clemens: but the Mariners are not budging for scraps like that

Ben Clemens: they’ve made it very clear that htey think their pitchers are worth their weight in gold

Ben Clemens: ‘here, have a roughly average first baseman and a starter who wouldn’t go in your rotation’

AL Central Casting: Do you think teams/pitchers/catchers sometimes claim PitchCom problems when there aren’t any, just to get an extra minute of rest? It could just be me remembering examples during high-leverage situations, but it does seem like they could game the pitch-clock system every so often by saying the PitchCom is not working – very rarely have I seen them replace the device.

Ben Clemens: ‘think’ is not strong enough

Ben Clemens: I strongly believe it

Ben Clemens: I would be shocked, more shocked than I’d be if the White Sox go .500 this year, to learn that it ISN’T happening

drplantwrench: looking forward to the Orioles becoming the next angels

Idiotic Failson: Like – I’m a Yankee fan and even I’m like – ORIOLES, PLEASE DO SOMETHING

Ben Clemens: I don’t think they’re gonna turn into the next Angels

Ben Clemens: I do think they might turn into the next Pirates, in terms of a team that hit it big with some innovative new strategies, developed a phenomenal core as a result of that plus some good draft picks, and then never supplemented the core at all and ended up wasting it

Idiotic Failson: FWIW – Luis Castillo’s weight in gold is around $500k. They’re treating him as far more valuable.

Ben Clemens: oof, touche

Ben Clemens: worth his weight in GPU’s

Ben Clemens: i dunno, some valuable thing. worth his weight in vanilla?

Ben Clemens: but like, real vanilla pods, not the extract

Guest: If the Mariners think Castillo is awesome and they’re totally happy paying him his contract (reasonable I think), what does a trade of him even look like?  A pitcher just as good plus more?

Ben Clemens: a top hitting prospect

Ben Clemens: probably with an ETA of right now

Brian: While I agree on the pitchcom I have another, perhaps more subtle way to game the clock – Francisco Alvarez really likes to throw behind runners. I think that part of that is he likes to throw but it also gives the pitcher an extra moment without breaking any rules

Ben Clemens: Totally

Ben Clemens: I think that this one is less implicit and more accepted

Ben Clemens: back picks last year felt to me, anecdotally, much more likely than they used to be to get lollipopped in there

Henry Dodger: How much of Pete Alonso’s lack of a robust market this year is  due to his poor platform year and how much is it that projection systems really don’t like him?

Ben Clemens: Those things are inextricably linked, but I guess what I’d say is this

Ben Clemens: I think that the projection system consensus was lower on Alonso than fans/baseball execs already coming into 2024

Ben Clemens: I think it largely came from the fact that he broke out late and projection systems are skeptical of career arcs like that

Ben Clemens: but I think that this bad platform year both lowered the projections further, to like ‘red flag, hold up the deal’ levels, and also cooled off the ‘we’re signing him for the dingers and autographs’ crowd a bit

Ben Clemens: I have no clue what he’s gonna do. I think I wrote a lot in my blurb about how I do model-based projecting and there aren’t a lot of cases like Alonso’s so I basically told the model to shut up and went up by a lot from its estiamte

wheelhouse: Is Goldschmidt the worst signing of the offseason so far? Brian Cashman has made this mistake a million times before and shows no sign of slowing, unlike Paul

Ben Clemens: oh man, I don’t think so at all

Ben Clemens: now, if they’re committed to giving him 600 PA’s even if he’s toast, yes

Ben Clemens: but I think that it’s a decent bet at a good price

Ben Clemens: like, dude won MVP recently enough, and players have late-career spike years often enough, that I think this is a good risk to be taking

Ben Clemens: if he’s a disaster and you’re willing to cut him, then it’s no biggie

Ben Clemens: I guarantee you you can get a blah-level 1B at the trade deadline for peanuts

Alby: Are you worried about Rutschman at all or do you think his slump was injury-related?

Ben Clemens: So like… I don’t think a 100/0 view of this is correct

Ben Clemens: I’m definitely much less worried than I’d otherwise be b/c there’s a clear connection to his injury and his decline

Ben Clemens: and I’m also not particularly worried about the various soft denials that it was injury-related, whatever, that’s what you’re supposed to say if you’re the team

Ben Clemens: but I think sticking your head in the sand is wrong too

Ben Clemens: certainly, my base case for him has shifted down slightly

Colton: Jumping in a bit late so not sure if this has been answered, but what do you make of all the Casas conjecture? Breslow has said multiple times that he’s not available and isn’t being shopped but people still seem to think the opposite.

Ben Clemens: speaking of a player who the M’s supposedly didn’t want for Castillo!

Brian: Now that you have been doing the free agent predictions for a few years, have you considered doing a lessons learned recap? Things you got right/wrong, things the crowd got right/wrong, what has changed over time, etc?

Ben Clemens: I did one of these last year

Ben Clemens: I’m going to do a midway ‘here’s how our predictions have done’ check-in this week, as well

Ben Clemens: and yeah, expect more articles of me thinking about my own process. it’s a nice way to fill content voids in the offseason and people seem to enjoy reading them

Ham Fighter: You closer to Steamer (119 wRC+) or ZiPS (108 OPS+) for Jackson Chourio next year?

Ben Clemens: Steamer

Jays realist: In the event Vladdy cant reach a long term deal with Toronto? what are the chances the FO just keeps him the whole year in  hopes that one good year will save their jobs?

Ben Clemens: I think that question is basically impossible to answer without knowing their record in July

Sam: Given the Orioles seem completely disinterested in spending big money, how long is it before teams start sniffing around Rutschman and/or Henderson? Not saying they should trade them but with their prospect depth, I could see Baltimore at least considering it.

Gunnar Henderson: O/U on years until I get traded?  I want my money and they arent giving it to me

Ben Clemens: I don’t think they can afford to do it

Ben Clemens: even if they just keep him until FA

Ben Clemens: trading him would inevitably make hte team worse in the short run

Ben Clemens: b/c like… that’s how trades of superstars work

Ben Clemens: even if you ‘win’ it, you win it in years of control, not year one WAR

Ben Clemens: and I don’t think this front office would survive doing a re-teardown

Ben Clemens: when you aren’t winning playoff games with the best player on your team doing incredibly well, getting rid of that dude does not signal ‘we really care about winning playoff games’

Ben Clemens: maybe if they have more postseason success before then?

Phil: As a Red Sox fan and an English major, I can’t believe I didn’t know that Hanley Ramirez was originally supposed to be named Hamlet (per Jay). What a fabulous thing.

Ben Clemens: That is indeed excellent

Ben Clemens: I had no idea

Dan’l: Is the Arenado trade speculation the most talk ever about a pseudo-salary dump that never actually happens?

Ben Clemens: I still think it’s gonna happen, but man, I’m not so sure that he wants it to happen

Ben Clemens: like, turning down the trade to the astros to ‘let the market develop’ dude you’re not a free agent

J: I frequently see people say someone like Kyle Tucker or Vlad Jr. would be crazy not to go to free agency at this point. Am I myself crazy for thinking these people are not adequately accounting for risk? I would figure that the downside risk of having a year marked by injury or worse than average performance would at least incentivize trying to get the bag now.

Ben Clemens: I would never reach free agency

Ben Clemens: I would be hitting the bid so hard I’d create a gust of wind

Ben Clemens: now, I’d surely fight for a good bid first, but like…. at my level of risk aversion, I’d take an extension for sure

Ben Clemens: baseball players are not generally as risk averse as I am. they probably wouldn’t be baseball players if they were

Idiotic Failson: Rhodium – rhodium and Luis Castillo are approximately the same value by weight. Luis Castillo’s contract could pay for a lot of catalytic converters and is therefore more valuable than any measly baseball player.

Ben Clemens: man maybe the O’s should just offer the Mariners some rhodium mining rights

wheelhouse: am I wrong to really not like the idea of Arraez to NYY like has floated around today? that’s adding a ton of problems to your team to add a singles hitter in the worst ballpark in baseball for lefty singles hitters

Ben Clemens: I think that Arraez is a guy who’s largely immune to park effects b/c of his wild batted ball distribution

Ben Clemens: but uh yeah, I think he’s a really bad fit

Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: Hang on, none of the math in this chat is mathing. Luis Castillo weighs 90 kg. The price of a KG of gold looks to be about $85,000. I don’t know how he’d be worth only $500k. And the MSI GeForce RTX 4090 Gaming X Trio weighs a little over 2 KG and has an MSRP of $1700.
#BringBackNotGraphs

Idiotic Failson: No no. I’m bad at math. His weight in gold is $8 million. But still…

Ben Clemens: whoops, forgot to post that one

Ben Clemens: and yeah, I fairly quickly realized that GPU’s are probably fairly heavy

Dan’l: If none of the Cardinal veterans had no-trade clauses, who do you think they would have moved this offseason?

Ben Clemens: I think just Arenado, honestly

Ben Clemens: if i’m them, I’m interested in dealing Gray at the deadline if the salary dump they’re so into is already done

Bosoxforlife: Do the Red sox need another addition or is Walker Buehler going to be enough? There are question marks but Houck, Crochet, Buehler, Bello and something from Giolito could be very good.

Ben Clemens: I think I like the rotation enough as is

Ben Clemens: it’s kind of defense in depth; I think bad outcomes on ALL these guys at the same time are unlikely

Ben Clemens: even if one or two are very likely to turn out badly

Ben Clemens: if I were the Sox and looking to improve, I’d care a lot more about the infield

Ben Clemens: I’m quite down on Story, and I really think they’re setting themselves up to end up having to play Rafaela in the infield again

Polonius: Regarding the Vlad/Tucker about to hit free agency discussion…Are there insurance markets that they can tap into and get a payout in the event that they get injured or underperform, and can’t secure a $100m plus contract, for example?   I assume something like this must be utilized, when the likely future earnings are so great…

Ben Clemens: perhaps there are, but well, an extension is kind of like insurance too

Ben Clemens: so now we’re just arguing over what type of insurance to take and which pays better

Ben Clemens: or, which is more cost-effective, rather

Ben Clemens: I don’t know the answer to that… but my point is that I’d want insurance

Hulu Sasaki: Do you think teams care that reneging on already established deals to sign Sasaki might damage their reputation with IFAs? Or do Latin teenagers have so little leverage that it wouldn’t really matter

Ben Clemens: mmmm…. I think that they might, but I think ‘sorry, we’ll find some way to make this right for you or at least recommend you to our friends on other teams but this guy threw a perfect game and then another 8 perfect innings’ will be a reasonable excuse

Ben Clemens: like, if they’re doing it for some rando, not so much

Ben Clemens: but this dude’s famous

John B: Lot of analyst expect a regression from Ramos. Do you see that?

Ben Clemens: I think it depends on what you mean by regression

Ben Clemens: I’m higher than Steamer’s 107 wRC+

Ben Clemens: ZiPS is in between his 2024 and Steamer’s projected 2025 and htinks he’ll be an above average player

Ben Clemens: I think that’s pretty close to my view. He’s always going to have some strikeout issues b/c of his swing, but i think that his current approach does a good job of maximizing his talents, and you can’t fake bat speed, the guy has power

Phil: What if you took all of the carbon out of Luis Castillo and compressed it to make a diamond?

Ben Clemens: oh man, this got me wondering how dense diamonds are

Ben Clemens: not nearly as dense as I thought is the answer there

BRAVES: Couldn’t they sign Bregman for 2b and shift Albies to ss?

Ben Clemens: mmm… I don’t think Albies oculd play short

Ben Clemens: I’m not saying he’s an awful defender, but he’s not an unquestionably great second baseman as it is, and his weakest aspect might be his throwing arm

Ben Clemens: doesn’t scream ‘move me to shortstop’ for me

RAH: Have you looked into Eugenio Suarez’s resurgence, or should I say demigod of hot streaks? There is a narrative about swing and game prep changes made, but how much of that performance can we actually to continue seeing?

Ben Clemens: the guy is very streaky

Ben Clemens: but I’d just like to point out that he’s a pretty decent player all the time

Ben Clemens: at the end of those streaks

Ben Clemens: and that I’d expect him to be pretty decent again in 2025

Ben Clemens: I remember last year I said that the market for an above average regular must be pretty light b/c of how little Suarez moved for

Ben Clemens: and many chatters (not everyone, obviously) were like ‘no that guy is bad’

Ben Clemens: streaky players are hard to evaluate

Trader Jerry: Orioles sending a depth sp like Kremer and middle infielder like Ramon Urias for Luis Castillo? Do you see this as realistic?

Ben Clemens: nope, not anymore than I did 45 minutes ago in this very chat

Guest: Ha-Seong Kim to the Yankees to play 2b makes too much sense to not happen.  They have a huge hole at 2b or 3b due to Jazz’s versatility.  Do you think there is a fit?

Ben Clemens: so, this is only speculation

Ben Clemens: but if I’m Kim, I want to either play shortstop or secure the bag

Ben Clemens: b/c his value is a lot higher if he can handle short. So a pillow contract where he’s playing shortstop? yes

Ben Clemens: a five-year deal for a lot of money to play second base in new york? yes

Ben Clemens: a short deal to play a less-valuable position on a team where you might get moved around more than you’d prefer? not sold

Ben Clemens: combine that with the fact that the Yankees seem to be acting cap-constrained, and I don’t think it’s likely

Ben Clemens: it’s a good on-field fit but I don’t think it matches what Kim’s ideal playing situation is

Dmx: If there was one all-baseball mvp would you have gone Judge or Ohtani this season?

Ben Clemens: I think I’d go Ohtani b/c 50/50 was just so dang cool

Ben Clemens: but realistically, Judge would be the right pick, and I think he’d win

Bosoxforlife: You are right to question the Red Sox infield situation. I haven’t been able to figure out just what it might look like. Where do you stand on Casas? I am far from convinced that he is a stud.

Ben Clemens: I’m not 100% locked in sold or anything, but I would love to have him on my team

Ben Clemens: I really like the approach

Ben Clemens: I’d be worried about health

Ben Clemens: but, I think I’d rather have him than a lot of ALE 1B

Ben Clemens: all of them except Vlad, basically

AJ Preller: Do you see SD moving Arraez or Cease before the season starts?

Ben Clemens: I think Cease is 50%+ likely

Ben Clemens: Arraez? no

Ben Clemens: I think that Arraez doesn’t have a ton of value in trade. Not that he’s a bad player, to be clear, just, a 115 wRC+ positionless hitter is not exactly going to fetch a king’s ransom

Spring Training: Isn’t it often smarter for teams to wait for spring training and 60 day IL placements before trading away players?

Ben Clemens: yes

Ben Clemens: that’ll happen this year too, there will be another wave of trades after roster squeezes come down somehwat

Henry Dodger: I could see Roki going to the Dodgers, sure, but I don’t believe in the handshake agreement or anything. He seems like an idiosyncratic guy who’s weighing everything. Do you think it’s been a sincere process?

Ben Clemens: I do

Ben Clemens: and I think that he’s a lot more likely than your average NPB superstar to spurn the big coastal city markets

RAH: To be clear, I’m not asking about Eugenio’s season ending numbers. Those seem to be within reasonable range of career norms. But 2024 saw him go off and perform as one of the best hitters in baseball for about 3 months straight. Without looking it up, i assume that’s the longest stretch with that kind of production since his 49 HR season with the fun ball of 2019.

Ben Clemens: Oh yeah, I mean, I just think of him as very streaky

Ben Clemens: I don’t think he’ll continue that production. and probably, there’ll be a month where you’re like ‘we cannot afford to keep playing this guy’

Ben Clemens: and then a month where no one can get him out

6 man rotation: Will more teams adopt a 6 man rotations?

Ben Clemens: yeah. I think that this is a long-term trend (6-man reg season, 4-man playoffs) that will continue to accelerate

Bosoxforlife: If I am correct in hoping the Red Sox OF in 2025 is Duran in CF with Anthony and Abreu manning the corners then I don’t see a spot for Rafaela, who I think is actually Miles Straw in disguise.

Ben Clemens: I am undecided on Rafaela soon

Ben Clemens: I think I’d prefer four guys for three spots b/c it leaves room for one of them to bust

Ben Clemens: but if they’re really resource-constrained and could get a great infielder for Rafaela, I say do it

Ben Clemens: to me, though, their easiest path forward is to just not do anything

Ben Clemens: outfield-wise

Ben Clemens: alright, on that note, I’m gonna head out and make some lunch

Ben Clemens: let’s chat again soon, by which I mean on regularly scheduled Mondays

Ben Clemens: and have a wonderful week, everyone