Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 10/3/22

Ben Clemens: Hey everybody, welcome to the chat

Ben Clemens: Let’s take a few questions and mostly take it easy in advance of the playoffs, when we’ll be all hands on deck all the time with chats and recaps and all that

Randy: Big blow for the Mets this weekend. That side of the bracket is way less friendly.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, that one hurt for them. You really want to win the division in this structure, obviously

Ben Clemens: I don’t know if there’s much more to say about it than that. Going 0-3 is just not gonna get it done

Yadi Stan: Have you ever seen anyone do an indepth look at pitchers when pitching to Yadi vs Pitching to someone else? Seems like his career is long enough that a decent sample could be made. I am enjoying everyone talk about how great Albert has been his whole career, but I am not sure people understand what Yadi has been for the last two decades.

Ben Clemens: You’d think that but he just catches so much!

Ben Clemens: I haven’t seen a great study of it but the last few I’ve seen (and it was a while ago) showed effects in running but not catching

Appa Yip Yip: Can you say some nice things about Alek Manoah? I just think he’s neat. Also he kind of looks like Paddington Bear.

Ben Clemens: He’s a great pitcher and I find his attitude that he is going to need to be dragged off the mound refreshing. He’s got some Scherzer to him that way, which is a big copmliment

Air Yordan: Thoughts on the Morton extension? Seen some backlash from Braves fans but I like it, it’s a 1 year risk and I don’t see Charlie giving up 1.5 HR/9 again next year

Ben Clemens: I just don’t understand it. It’s a lot of money for a guy who’s been just okay this year. At least wait until after the playoffs or something. I think he’s a clubhouse guy and they like his presence, and the Braves value those soft skills, but I’d just try to find someone else for the money

Leland: Will (should) the Mariners let Robbie Ray start a Wild Card game over Logan Gilbert and George Kirby?

Ben Clemens: I think they’d go with Gilbert

Ben Clemens: or like, will go with Gilbert

Ben Clemens: I’m fine with that. I like Ray to bounce back but Gilbert is on right now

Who’s Fabio?: Hey Ben – is there any news out in the baseball world about where Vladdy’s two younger brothers might be signing with on J2?

Ben Clemens: There might be, but not in the baseball world I live in

Lindor Needs Help: David Stearns to the Mets 2023? Maybe Cohen will trade a couple million to MIL for a new braintrust…

Ben Clemens: There’s enough smoke around this that I assume there’s some fire, so I’ll say it’s a definite maybe

Ben Clemens: I know that’s a week answer but that’s what I’ve got for you. It’s just kinda speculation at this point

O’s 2024: Would you rather build a team around Gunnar or Adley? (love that both of them can go by first name only)

Ben Clemens: Adley for me

Ben Clemens: Gunnar is a great prospect, of course. I think Rutschman is on the ‘once in a generation catcher’ side of things, though, whereas Henderson is a nice hitter with defensive value

Brian: Guardians need a right handed power bat this off-season. Probably one that can play first base. Anybody off the top of your head you think will be available this winter via trade that fits the mold?

Ben Clemens: I like that you asked about trade market rather than free agency, because that’s the name of the game for them

Ben Clemens: Luke Voit?

Sir Nerdlington: Astrophysicists saying Judge would have hit 80+ with the old, juicy ball breaks my brain.

Ben Clemens: Pretty crazy, and I mean, we don’t know the juiced ball numbers for various previous seasons, so there are certainly years where this could have been true in the past

Matt VW: Your thoughts on Casas so far? If you’re the Red Sox, do you proceed from the assumption that he’ll be a 2023 lineup regular, or do you build the roster with some hedging in case he needs some more developmental time in the minors?

Ben Clemens: I think I’d be comfortable without much of a hedge

Ben Clemens: Dalbec is kind of a hedge, of course, but I don’t think you need to bring in this year’s Mitch Moreland or whatever

Ben Clemens: I’m a Casas believer overall and think that the eye gives him a high floor

Mateo: Any updates on whether non-Oriole Michael Baumann has dragged you into the octagon for forgetting that you talked to him professionally one time before?

Ben Clemens: Not yet, but there’s still time

Jason: How would you line up starters for the Cardinals WC series? Mikolas/Montgomery/Waino with Flaherty/Quintana in reserve of any poor outings?  Thanks for all your chats; brings a smile whenever I see it on the site.

Ben Clemens: Thanks! And if we’re assuming they play the Phillies, I think they’ll try to get two lefties in there, so Q and Montgomery

Ben Clemens: Wainwright has also been really bad of late

Ben Clemens: 23 ER in 6 starts in September

Ben Clemens: I don’t think you want that in a best-of-3 playoff series

Broken Bat: Thanks for what you do. I have enjoyed the chats all year. In your opinion, is their an edge with the 2023 infielder rule that benefits either flyball hitters or guys that are more gab

Ben Clemens: Thanks! And hm, I think the biggest benefit is going to be lefties who are fly ball oriented but pull a ton of their ground contact

Ben Clemens: b/c that way, both sides of the shift rule (no short right field 2b, no 4 man outfield) come to bear

David: Do teams that expect to make a deep postseason run place a higher value on players because of those extra games in October? For example, would a 3-WAR player in the regular season potentially raise his production to about 3.5-WAR by playing enough postseason games?

Ben Clemens: That makes a lot of sense in theory. The way that teams are run these days, though, not many teams who don’t have a shot at playing in the playoffs sign any free agents of note

Ben Clemens: Perusing last year’s top 50 free agents, I guess the Tigers and Rangers are the two teams that broke that rule, and they were both making statements by spending, not trying to min/max optimize their WAR

Crone Zone: Would you rather have Michael Harris II on his extension or Tatis on his?

Ben Clemens: I really don’t know what to think about Tatis these days

Ben Clemens: I’m not sold on Harris’s offense just yet, so I think there are some interesting ones about him vs. other young players on extensions, but I tihnk the Tatis contract is becoming untouchable. It’s especially hard to value from the outside b/c we don’t have any information from Tatis himself. It’s completely untradeable at this poin for example

Guest: Alt title: What we do in the Shadow (zone)

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/what-salvador-perez-does-in-the-shadow-zon…

Ya Gotta Believe: If you’re the Mets do you want the Padres or Phillies in the WC?

Ben Clemens: Phillies

Kwanbelievable: Played Betrayal at House on the Hill for the first time over the weekend, and I was underwhelmed. Learning curve seemed super steep and maybe not worth the effort. If you’ve played, what are your thoughts on the game?

Ben Clemens: I’ve never played, but it seems like one of those games that gets a ton of credit b/c it’s the first of its kind

Ben Clemens: But sometimes those games are conceptually neat but not so much in practice. Again, this is without having played it

Liz: What happens if one of Wednesday’s games gets rained out? If it’s eliminated teams and/or postseason seeding is all locked in by then will they just cancel it, or would they try to squeeze the game in regardless? how much do individual GMs/managers(?) get a say in this?

Ben Clemens: They’d cancel it

Ben Clemens: The 2016 Cubs only played 161, for example, b/c they had a game against the Pirates not get reschedule

Ben Clemens: No, I didn’t have a season over with the fine print that all 162 games had to be played for the bet to count, why do you ask?

John B: Goldschmidt’s terrible OAA which is dragging down his MVP case.  He’s been excellent this year, saving tons of errors with his glove –  does OAA not pick that up!

Ben Clemens: I’m unsure how OAA handles scoops and the like. I’m skeptical that he’s as bad of a defender as OAA thinks. That said, he has some shortcomings, like range and throwing arm

Ben Clemens: They’re minimized at first, and I would generally regress his defense back to the mean, but I don’t think you can just watch him, say ‘eh he’s good at catching errant throws’, and run with that

Ben Clemens: fwiw I’d vote for him by a mile just on the general view that you should care less about defensive statistics in MVP voting

Appa Yip Yip: Betrayal at House on the hill can vary pretty wildly based on which haunting you get. Some of them are super fun, some of them less so. It also helps if you have one person dedicated to reading the cards in a spooky voice.

Real Name: I’m not Ben, but Horrified is a more streamlined “family horror” cooperative game that has similar mechanics without a betrayer and going into different rooms to learn separate rules part of the game.

Ben Clemens: Here are some excellent opinions from people more informed than me

brad penny for your thoughts: waino was mostly ok/good this year but as you mentioned, pretty terrible in sept.  so…does he come back next year?

Ben Clemens: Now THIS is a great question. I think he rides off into the sunset as long as they at least win the WC series

MTF: Instead of Voit, would you give consideration to Josie at first and opening a spot on the infield for Arias?  Maybe even move Rosario to third, and let Arias play short…

Ben Clemens: I would not, feels like a waste of a solid defender

JV: Does Darvish still start tomorrow?  I would think they would hold him out to start Game 1?

Ben Clemens: I expect they’ll hold him out

Finnegan’s SSW: If you have any Hayden Wesneski/Scott Effross trade thoughts so far, insert them below

Ben Clemens: Good deal for both teams, bad luck that Effross got hurt

Guest: What does Dansby get paid? If you throw out his shortened rookie year and 2020 … 1/2 his career WAR has come this year. Is 5/125 reasonable or does he get PAID?

Ben Clemens: I think 5/125 is reasonable, I think he might get slightly more length

asnbrv: Has there been an attempt to justify the WARs position player/pitcher WAR distribution (fWAR’s 57:43, rWAR’s 59:41) other than “that’s how teams use their money” recently? That was done a while ago and it always felt one of the more wonky part of WAR to me.

Ben Clemens: There hasn’t but there probably should be

Liam: Interested in a BP article from a few weeks ago about factoring org player development tendencies into prospect rankings – the differences between the top and bottom are pretty obvious, but how would you go about separating, like, the 16th and 17th best player dev orgs?

Ben Clemens: You wouldn’t

Ben Clemens: From the outside, at least

NoAZ Elite: Matt Chapman put up a pretty sneaky 4-win season this year. The bat hasn’t returned to what it was in 2018 and 2019 but he’s still an excellent player right?

Ben Clemens: He sure is

Ben Clemens: I don’t think his offense is ever goin to regain that 2018/2019 peak, because I think his style played really well with the higher home run rate, but his game has so much margin b/c of his defense

Ben Clemens: I think he probably won’t hit as well as this year next year, but I think his defensive metrics will bounce back (I assume his skill is mostly unchanged)

Guest: How do the Yankees handle their 2023 (non 1B) infield? LeMahieu, Torres, Donaldson, Kiner-Falefa, Peraza, Oswaldo Cabrera, & Volpe (eventually). That’s a lot of names and a lot of RHH (Oswaldo is Switch)

Ben Clemens: IKF is probably a utility guy for them, which is a luxury piece. Donaldson/LeMahieu/Torres for 2b/3b I guess makes sense, that’s a lot of mouths to feed and I could see them trying to trade one but injuries have a way of having things work out

Ben Clemens: I mean, they could easily just run back this year’s squad and make the prospects earn their way

Ben Clemens: It’s not like it’s a travesty if they can’t get Oswaldo Cabrera enough AB’s, but the other two it wouldn’t be great

Syndergaardengnomes: Mets fan here.  MLB did the right thing in cancelling those games in Atlanta this weekend.  Can’t be too careful with hurricane paths…

From 2013: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/searching-for-the-value-of-yadier-molina/

KCbbq: You have much hope in Torkelson for 2023? He seems lost.

Ben Clemens: I do, because he’s really good at baseball

Ben Clemens: Couldn’t agree more that he seems lost, and I don’t really have a great idea of how you go from looking lost to crushing everything in sight, but baseball players do it all the time

TomBruno23: “fwiw I’d vote for him by a mile just on the general view that you should care less about defensive statistics in MVP voting” I agree with this in general although I do think some credit has to be given to guys like Machado and Arenado who play a much more demanding defensive position.

Ben Clemens: Oh yeah, I think you can take position into account, and even the fact that Arenado and Machado are both great defenders year in and year out

Ben Clemens: If you want to use like a four-year rolling average of defensive metrics, I’d be more into that

Ben Clemens: One-season numbers are noisy, though, and we all know it

Christian: Who is the odd man out on the Mariners’ playoff roster between Haggerty, Kelenic, and Moore once Julio comes back?

Ben Clemens: I think it’s probably Moore, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it were Haggerty, they seem to have similar roles to me. With Kelenic, I think you have to bet on him having it figured out. He’s been so good this month, the pedigree is there, and if he’s morelike his prospect self than his first two ML seasons, that’s some much-needed firepower for a team that needs to hit

DrunkOnMystery: Betrayal At The House on the Hill is probably worse for new players than Betrayal Legacy, because the latter eases you into all the different rules one game at a time, rather than throwing them all at you at once.

But both improve with repeated playthroughs.

Ben Clemens: I didn’t realize there was a legacy version of this game, but that’s cool

Kwanbelievable: Ben and the readers of Ben’s chat are my favorite people on the internet! Y’all never fail to impart the best board game knowledge, thank you

Ben Clemens: Yeah, for the best board game takes on the internet, definitely don’t ask me. But apparently ask my chatters

Some Guy: Jose Ramirez is a fabulous fielder, but playing first base also requires you to be at least somewhat tall. Jose is 5’9″; so many bad throws would go straight over his head.

Ben Clemens: Yeah also he’s a good third baseman?

Ben Clemens: I just don’t see why it would be a good option at all

RTJ: Why are so many mini golf places pirate-themed?

Ben Clemens: Wow, I have no idea

Ben Clemens: That’s a great question, though

Ben Clemens: Anyone have an opinion?

Overly Optimistic Angels Fan: Livan Soto: Hitting .413/.429/.630 in 50 PAs since being called up, after some thoroughly average minor-league numbers. Is there anything to his success or is it just luck?

Ben Clemens: I’ll be honest with you; I hadn’t really looked at him

Ben Clemens: .529 BABIP makes me think it’s just small sample stuff and we should wait and see

Ben Clemens: barrel rate of 0% agrees

Luke: In your opinion, who is the most exciting or intriguing rookie relief pitcher in baseball? Who is a guy that we should be paying attention to?

Ben Clemens: I think Camilo Doval might be a rookie?

Ben Clemens: Andres Munoz, Jhoan Duran, Felix Bautista

Ben Clemens: This year is not light on hard-throwing impact rookie relievers

Mini Golf Pirates: Non-baseball joke answer: Pirates because they’re usually at the beach.  Baseball joke answer: Pirates because they’re cheap and not very good.

Kwanbelievable: Re: mini golf, my very unscientific opinion: I feel like it’s super easy to lazily decorate something vaguely pirate-theme

TomBruno23: Because children love pirates.

i read fangraphs: What happened with Corbin? How does a slider go from one of the best pitches in baseball to one of the worst so quickly? It feels like it stopped getting whiffs overnight in early 2020

Ben Clemens: Excellent question and I’ve tried to write about him a few times, but I inevitably just get confused

Ben Clemens: Like, yeah, what’s going on here??

Ben Clemens: It does seem like he relied on his fastball being throwable in a few counts to keep hitters from sitting slider

Ben Clemens: But that’s not a great answer, and I really don’t know

Zach: I believe Bautista and Duran are the only rookies that you named. Doval and Munoz are no longer rookies.

Ben Clemens: Hm, our rookie leaderboard could use some fixing!

Ben Clemens: I guess they’re both over on service days instead of IP and maybe we don’t account for that well

Jed Hoyer: Is Nico Hoerner the SS of our future? Or am I inking a FA SS this offseason?

Ben Clemens: I think they’ll roll with Hoerner

Ben Clemens: The main reason they would not is if they are in love with one of the shortstops available this winter. Like if they think Correa is a 6 win guy and no one else is above 3.5, or whatever, they could get involved because he’s the only one they want

Ben Clemens: I don’t find that likely, though. Until I get evidence otherwise I think the Hoyer-era Cubs are penny pinching and trying to build from within wherever possible

Zach: Do you play OOTP Perfect Team 23? What are your best/favourite cards?

Ben Clemens: I do, and I can name two for you. Limited Edition 94 Ken Griffey Jr. and Willie Wells

Ben Clemens: The Griffey card is neat and shiny, and Wells is an unheralded St. Louis legend

Tony Plush: I don’t know if anyone’s noticed, but Drew Waters has been pretty ok for KC!

Ben Clemens: I had not noticed. Now there’s a blast from Atlanta’s past

Ben Clemens: Yeah 100 PA of completely reasonable offense, good work Drew!

Fan: ROY’s?

Ben Clemens: I’d go with Strider and Julio. I am not sure Julio will hold off Adley for AL ROY, and the Braves duo is obviously really close, but man was Stridre’s season impressive

Appa Yip Yip: The Blue Jays have not received any clarity on their catching situation beyond hey these guys are all pretty good. If they were to trade say, Danny Jansen, what would you target? Could be some fascinating challenge trade possibilities.

Ben Clemens: I tihnk it has to be either a pitching prospect or pitcher who hasn’t worked out as well as the team had hoped

Ben Clemens: It seems like no matter how many pitchers they acquire, the Jays still need more

Guards: In part because mini-golf courses have holes with water, so it’s natural to have boats, which have pirates.

Ben Clemens: That seems very reasonable

Some Guy: I appreciate Myles Straw for what he is, but his bat has really deflated his value. Who do you think is the best option to replace him in center so he can use his speed and defense off the bench.

Ben Clemens: Like, on the Guardians?

Ben Clemens: Um…. boy, that’s a tough one. I don’t know enough about Will Brennan’s defense to hvae a strong opinion there. Mostly I think that if Kwan can’t handle center, and the team probably would try if they thought he could, you just have to live with Straw’s offense in exchange for his defense

Ben Clemens: Or I mean, go out and get a free agent CF or something

RTJ: If you were to invent a new season-long MLB award (i.e. gold glove, cy young, etc), what would it be award for? Bonus question: Who would it be named after?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think there are any niches unfilled that obviously need an award. I think a best super-sub award would be cool, and it would obviously be named after Ben Zobrist

Christian: do you like Board Game Arena? They’ve sure added some big names the last few months like Catan, Wingspan, and Ticket to Ride

Ben Clemens: I do, and I particularly liked it during COVID lockdowns when I was rarely seeing anyone

Ben Clemens: I believe Asmodee (or maybe one of the other big game companies) bought BGA recently, which explains how they’re getting such good titles now

i read fangraphs: How real is Ross Stripling? FIP says the ERA is real ( FIP is .10 higher), but xERA, xFIP, and SIERA say it’s not quite as real (all around .65 higher).

Ben Clemens: Probably somewhere in between the two, like 3.4 ERA or so?

Ben Clemens: His heavy changeup use this year is a real reason to expect different results, and he’s getting a ton more chases as a result

BASEBALL: What matchup would serve as the most intriguing WS matchup?

Ben Clemens: hmm…. what about Guardians/Mets. Let’s get a referendum on the Lindor trade once and for all

Ben Clemens: and also the biggest-spending team vs. its inverse, a team mostly made up of veterans vs a pile of youngsters, power pitching against speed and defense

Overly Optimistic Angels Fan: Speaking of Zobrist, has there ever been a concerted effort to develop a “Zobrist adjustment” for multi-positional players’ WAR? Maybe just giving them the highest positional adjustment of all the positions they can play?

Ben Clemens: Eh, we’ve definitely discussed it. One difficult thing is that WAR is a context-neutral statistic, which is a big feature

Ben Clemens: but your multi-positional value is context-dependent

Ben Clemens: More important than the actual positional adjustments is that your team can shoehorn in lineups with their best players more often

Ben Clemens: that’s an extremely difficult thing to value in the abstract

asnbrv: How much do you think LAD’s insane team BABIP against of 0.255 is their pure skill level?

Ben Clemens: Not all of it but a decent chunk. They throw a ton of pitches that look, from the data I’ve perused, like they limit BABIP

Ben Clemens: Sweeping sliders and their big-running sinkers both fit that mold

Ben Clemens: They’re very good at defensive positioning, with and without shifts

Ben Clemens: There’s no inherent law of nature that says a team can’t figure out a way to limit BABIP, and if someone did it, it certainly would be the Dodgers

Kauffmann…: Vinnie Pasquantino in any other ballpark = perennial all star player?

Ben Clemens: Sure feels that way! Kaufman is awful for him

David: Why is there no discussion about Albert Pujols using some form of PED’s? He’s posting better numbers than he did a decade ago. In what world does someone’s eye sight, quick twitch muscles and explosive athleticism improve in their early 40’s?

Ben Clemens: Because accusing any player having a good year of using PED’s sounds tiresome and unproductive

Wireless Joe Jackson: NL still featuring five players with less than a half-WAR separation.  In my mind that’s close enough to really entertain MVP arguments not strictly based on production.  Any initial thoughts?

Ben Clemens: I think Goldschmidt’s overall offensive excellence and role in winning the division for a team that really needed its stars to perform gives him an edge, but I could see a similar argument for Machado. I think the Dodgers, Realmuto, and Arenado are all deserving candidates who just fall short

James: Why do you think Jim Crane seems to be pushing James Click out? Has a 105 win team ever fired their GM?

Ben Clemens: I honestly have no idea

Ben Clemens: It’s very strange

Ben Clemens: And no

Christian: Mariners/Mets WS so we can remind NY who won the Julio trade

Ben Clemens: The Kelenic trade, presumably

Ben Clemens: Mariners anybody would be fun

Ben Clemens: Mariners Padres, with Andres Munoz winning MVP?

Ben Clemens: or Austin Nola MVP!!

John B: Was Correas deal a good decision?  If his goal was 10/325 and he’s banked 35, will he beat the 10/325 number overall?

Ben Clemens: I think he will

Ben Clemens: Not by a ton, but I think he will

Ben Clemens: Liek you said, counting his 2022 earnings

i read fangraphs: Mariners anybody would not be fun because that likely means the Blue Jays losing in the first round which would make me sad

Ben Clemens: Blue Jays anybody would also be fun

Ben Clemens: Basically let’s get rid of the Cardinals, Dodgers, Braves, Yankees, and Astros…. any other pairing would be kinda fun to me

Ben Clemens: also all of these would be fun to me because I love baseball

Ben Clemens: But I’m probably a bad person to ask

Ben Clemens: It’s literally my job

BASEBALL: Are people sleeping on the Padres this postseason?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think so. They’re a tough out, and part of the stakes of the Mets/Braves series was that the winner didn’t hvae to play the Padres in the WC round

Real Name: Do you think there’s a chance the Padres and Phillies essentially “throw” the last three games in a race to the bottom of the bracket? Going through the Mets and Dodgers seems more difficult than the Cardinals and Braves.

Ben Clemens: I don’t. Particularly with the Phillies not having clinched, but I think both teams are going to try to get their pitching right and try not to disrupt the rhythm of their position players much at all

DMcKee: Maris hit 61 HR in ’61. Isn’t it the symmetry the real accomplishment here? And if so, why are we not talking about Ryan Mountcastle hitting 22 in ’22?

Ben Clemens: What, no love for Jake Cronenworth, Jonathan India, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Cesar Hernandez, and Trey Mancini hitting 21 in ’21?

Ben Clemens: Rey Sanchez, like a jerk, hit one homer in 2000 and zero in 2001

Ben Clemens: So he wasted my time trying to hunt down the funniest symmetry

i read fangraphs: holy shit Cesar Hernandez hit 21 HRs in 21? I think he hit his first like a month ago and maybe hasn’t gotten one since

Ben Clemens: I wanted SO BADLY for him to have zero this year so that he could be the player who went from the biggest number to 0

Ben Clemens: and yeah, he has exactly one this year

Ben Clemens: Alright, short chat today, but I’m going to go cook some lunch — zucchini and rice today, nice and simple

Ben Clemens: Talk to all of you next week, and probably for some plyaoff chats too soon.

Ben Clemens: Have a great day