Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 12/21/20

Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, and thanks for joining me.

Ben Clemens: I’m going to keep today’s chat short and sweet, but I’m a big fan of themed chats, so if you would like to share how you’re spending the holidays this year, I’d love to hear it. My family and I are trying out a bunch of things we never have before and I’m curious what everyone else is doing/has done.

Ben Clemens: Also, of course, baseball!

Rob: Why not just DH Ohtani every game and use him as a multi-inning reliever or high leverage arm? Seems to be the best way to maximize his talent while minimizing injury risk.

Ben Clemens: I think that if they go down this path, it will quickly turn into just full-time DH’ing, which is coincidentally my guess for the most likely outcome anyway

Ben Clemens: I think that mid-game warmups to reliever-level readiness are probably not easy to pick up on the fly — that’s basically why I don’t think they’ve tried it.

Mike: What does a nats reds Suarez trade look like?

Mike Rizzo: Kieboom for Suarez, Garrett, and Lorenzen. Who says no?

Ben Clemens: I think the Reds say no on that one, though it’s close

Ben Clemens: Id love that trade for the Nats if they could make it, b/c I think Suarez fits the team pretty well and his contract isn’t ludicrous

Ben Clemens: Garrett and Lorenzen are kinda throw-ins

Ben Clemens: The reason I think the Reds might say yes is if they’re really serious about cost-cutting. I am still in wait-and-see mode there.

Rob: Ohtani as a full time DH seems like such a waste of his athleticism. Hopefully if they move him to being a hitter full-time he can try picking up RF or 1B.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I think that if he moved to hitting full-time he’d end up in right

Ben Clemens: Eventually

Inaccessible Rail: This year for the holiday, I’m going to sit around and wait to hear if the Mets have signed anyone good, which is what I do every year for Christmas.

Uri: Given his age and contract, even coming off of a Cy-worthy season, what is Darvish’s likely trade value?

Ben Clemens: Darvish has a good deal of surplus value still. You wouldn’t be able to sign him for 3/60 this offseason, which is roughly what his contract comes down to

Ben Clemens: Let me put it this way: we crowd-sourced Bauer at 3/87, and I’d rather have Darvish at 3/60

Ben Clemens: So I think he’d command more than that 27 million dollar gap in surplus value?

Ben Clemens: SOrry, meant to say I’d rather have Darvish for the next three years

Ben Clemens: If the contract were longer, I’d be more hesitant, but pitchers break more than age, so eh

Jeff: I was just about to read your velocity spike article but then saw this chat. Hello!

Ben Clemens: There’s been a Ben Clemens article spike today

Ben Clemens: Will it last tomorrow? Stay tuned to find out!

Ben Clemens: (but no)

Doug: Think it makes sense for the Angels to float trading Jo Adell with guys like Snell and Castillo out there? Probably not for Gray though, right?

Ben Clemens: I think it does. As Dan has noted a few times, having Mike Trout means you should constantly be in win-now mode

Ben Clemens: All you have to do is build an otherwise average team and he makes you a playoff contender

Ben Clemens: I’d be interested in Snell and Castillo, and yeah, like you said, probably not as much Gray

billyjojimbob: Not too much this holiday. Staying with the immediate fam. Question: A trade for Luis Castillo. Could the Red Sox get involved in this? It starts with Cincy native Bennitendi.

Ben Clemens: The Sox could get involved, but my guess is that their plan under Chaim Bloom is going to follow what the Dodgers did initially upon adding Friedman, in that they’ll focus a lot more on internal shoring up and less on trades. That has the convenient side effect of not acquiring more payroll, but I think it’s probably long-term wise for them as well. Spend a few years rebuilding the system and then go from there

Am I Jake Cronenworth: What do you make of Texas Rangers offseason – are they headed toward a full rebuild? They seem to be pretty active so far

Ben Clemens: Yeah I think they’re going to end up tearing it completely down. Their quick turnaround plan didn’t quite get there

Sharp: Worker Placement or Deck Building?

Ben Clemens: I’m a realllly big deck building game fan. Something in my brain likes the feeling of building my own pile of things and having that pile give me new rewards and capabilities over time

Ben Clemens: Games like that just scratch the exact right itch for me

Am I Jake Cronenworth: Is Gary Sanchez more or less likely to be a Yankee in 2021?  Also, I am going to be staying up all night on Xmas eve to try to measure Santa Claus’ exit velocity

Ben Clemens: More

Guest: How likely is another irregular season (i.e., fewer than 162 games)?  Health necessitated it in 2020, but a shortened season seems entirely revenue-related for 2021, which does not seem like a legitimate reason.

Ben Clemens: I’ve been wondering about this question myself. I don’t think that baseball has a ton of ability to force the union’s hand in this one, which means it’s largely a negotiating tactic for now

Ben Clemens: But I’m not particularly confident in that read. The owners have been more willing to push for changes than I’ve expected of them in the last few years, so my read might be off

Jeff: Thoughts on Ryne Stanek’s dramatic velocity drop from 98 to 96? I’m interested in that splitter and slider, but am also scared the velocity drop means injury is coming

Ben Clemens: I’m largely ignoring velo stuff for the 2020 season, because there are just too many factors conspiring to make things confusing. Changing workloads, abbreviated buildup, and change in measuring systems are just too much for me

Ben Clemens: I’d still be interested, but mindful of the fact that relievers like that aren’t the most stable commodities

Matt Damon: MATT.  DAMON.

Joshua: Nats send Robles, Kieboom, Crowe, and Denaburg to the Reds for Suarez and Castillo…….who says no?

Ben Clemens: Whoa, this would be some trade. All of the Nats’ farm system in exchange for two studs. I thiiiiiink that the Nats would say no but that could be because I haven’t revised Robles down enough in my head

Ben Clemens: If you think he’s just a league average guy then maybe it’s fair, but if he’s still a borderline All Star-level guy a few years down the road, I think that’s too much for the Nats to give

Ben Clemens: That’d be a heck of a trade though

Angel Hernandez: You think it’s more likely we’re going to see Yadi in Angel red or Cardinal red next year?

Ben Clemens: Cardinal Red, though I’d take the field over the Cards at this point

Guest: Is it just me or does it seem like the entire NL Central is about to be rebuilding at the same time while also saying they’re not rebuilding.

Ben Clemens: I’ll exclude the Brewers from that b/c they’re just doing their usual plenty-of-spinning-plates-in-the-air thing

Isolated Thinker: My wish for the holidays is for there to be fans in the stands next season.  Then I can enjoy seeing which fans come up with the best Astros trash can/cheating sign.  Over a year of brainstorming.  Do you think Springer on a new team will still be heavily booed?

Ben Clemens: I do, at least for a bit, but not to the same extent that Correa would be if he changed teams

Andrew: How does Eugenio Suarez not carry more trade value than Kieboom? 4 Win player 17-19. Slow start last year with off season shoulder injury into above league average hitter. 11M / year extremely reasonable

Ben Clemens: Maybe I’m a little low on Suarez, and I thought he was a year older than he is. The worry, though, is that he’s trending the wrong way and if his defense takes him off of third, the uptick in strikeouts that we’ve seen the last two years makes hiim just a guy at first

Ben Clemens: I think I’d basically say that the market for borderline corner defenders with power bats is just really saturated which drives down his value. If you think he’s a plus defender, then this isn’t the case, though

Guest: The reds have spent the past couple years rebuilding then decide to sell everyone off after getting booted in the first round of the playoffs? I feel like if I was a fan of the team i’d be pretty disappointed

Ben Clemens: Oh yeah I agree. If they’re really tearing the whole thing down, I would be very disappointed as a fan.

Ben Clemens: I don’t know if this is a where there’s smoke there’s fire situation, but there is a LOT of smoke around further tear-downs

Ben Clemens: I don’t think anything they’ve done so far is unforgiveable but getting rid of their pitching core would make no sense to me

Jeff: Defense is undervalued in a vacuum. Yay or nay?

Ben Clemens: I think I’d’ say that defense is over-valued by new-age, FG-reading fans at this point

Ben Clemens: Not by a huge amount, but I find people are consistently surprised that defense-first players aren’t compensated ‘fairly’ relative to their WAR all that often

Ben Clemens: And I think it’s clear that teams don’t value *most* defensive contributions as having the same stability that core offensive contributions do

Ben Clemens: The amount of surprise around Kolten Wong’s option being declined is one example

Ben Clemens: Teams do stuff like that a lot, they just don’t pay up for one-dimensional defenders

The Ghost of Wade Boggs: Is there a divisional bottom-dweller from last year that you think you could overhaul with enough available free-agents to get them to the playoffs this year?

Ben Clemens: I think that you could do that with the Red Sox if you count them as a bottom-dweller, and certainly the last-place New York Mets

Andrew: Possible the Reds are working on more a Retool than a Rebuild? Previous rebuild saw them trade all assets not at max value. By trading a pitching piece they can add multiple assets to round out the roster and trust the Derek Johnson/Kyle Boddy development continues to work.

Ben Clemens: I mean, call it what you will, if they trade away a pitching piece for some far-off pieces, I don’t tihnk that’s a plus

Ben Clemens: If they’re making a lateral move that’s different, but I don’t see how they can actually make that happen

Ben Clemens: Particularly given their stated interest in reducing payroll

Ben Clemens: If there are actually multiple cheap and controllable assets they can get back for Castillo or Gray let’s talk, but I haven’t seen a lot of evidence that that’s how it would go

Ben Clemens: And they have a decent amount of players who are good now but not likely to be better in three years. Straddling the line between contending now and later is weird for a team with Castellanos, Moustakas, and Suarez

Jeff: What about two way defenders? Those guys with any kind of track record of hitting

Ben Clemens: I think they get properly valued. In fact, it might be that teams value roundedness more than we think they do. One-dimensional players just don’t seem to get paid what we ‘think’ they should be worth

Ben Clemens: Wong is kind of on the borderline of this

Ben Clemens: Another way to think about it is that teams are increasingly headed into non-linear player valuation

Ben Clemens: i.e. a 3 WAR player is worth a lot more than 3 1 WAR players

Ben Clemens: The good defenders and bat-only corner guys are capped out, so they naturally end up at lower valuations, because you need a combination of hitting and defense (or to be just ludicrously good at one or the other) to get to the juicy part of the value distribution

Sam: what do the cardinals do to get better? do they even do as much as go after joc?

Guest: One of you fangraphs colleagues said he thought the cards were a favorite fro Lindor, what do you think?

Ben Clemens: This would certainly be an improvement. I’m not sure if they’re the favorite, but I think it’s reasonable to put them in the first tier of suitors. The Indians are into quantitiy over quality in recent trade returns, which the Cardinals match up well with, and they also have a penchant for trading for stars a year before free agency and trying to extend them

Ben Clemens: Goldschmidt is a good example of this kind of trade, and I could see that happening with Lindor, though I don’t think that necessarily puts them literally first

Ben Clemens: An interlude for some holiday traditions we are amending this year

Ben Clemens: My stepbrother usually makes a lovely clam dip, so we’re each making it in our respective far-flung houses this year

Ben Clemens: We normally do a family book exchange — we’re doing that on a video call this year, with fancy Christmas cards subbing in for the books. We’ll then mail the books out to whoever selected them

Ben Clemens: Last but not least, we are opening presents with my wife’s mom on Christmas morning on a video call as well

Ben Clemens: Lots of video calls!

Jeff in T.O.: Tell me more about this clam dip????

Ben Clemens: Oh, this I can do.

Ben Clemens: It’s very similar to this recipe:

Ben Clemens: https://www.foodiecrush.com/best-clam-dip-recipe/

Ben Clemens: More clam — 1.5 cans worth of minced clams per package of cream cheese, whereas this recipe recommends 1

Ben Clemens: But same basic idea. Cream cheese, minced clams, green onions, worcestershire, and tabasco

Ben Clemens: Eat with Ruffles

Ben Clemens: I always like Clam Dip, and it just feels like the holidays because I have it exactly once a year every year

Nate: My family usually does a pretty stellar gift exchange. Since we can’t be together, we gave gifts to other families. Find time this holiday season to do good! The world needs it.

Alabama Hot Pocket: Two years ago, I was reading about how Rowdy Tellez had some of the slowest bat speed in recent memory, with one expert saying it was like watching someone swing a bat underwater.  Now, I’m being told that he’s a statcast darling, and that he’s a major sleeper.  Has he improved his bat speed?

Ben Clemens: I hadn’t heard that, but it probably says something that his highest EV came in 2020 in a shortened season. I don’t have a good answer for you, though, because I dunno where to get bat speed data publicly

NashvilleSounds: Huh, I’ve never had clam dip. Given how good smoked trout dip is, I’ll give it a try.

Ben Clemens: Yeah fish dips always beat my expectations

Lindor: Wouldn’t my contract demands take me out of the Cards plans? Cards extended Goldy for 5 years $130M. I am probably looking at twice that as the starting point no?

Ben Clemens: Certainly possible. Thta’s why they aren’t my favorites to land him

Ben Clemens: You could see them focusing on Lindor because so many of their contracts fall off next year

Ben Clemens: Carpenter has a vesting option he won’t likely hit

Ben Clemens: Fowler and Miller will be gone

Ben Clemens: Carlos Martinez has a club option that probably won’t get exercised

Ben Clemens: If they want to sign Lindor and also don’t want to exceed, say, 2019’s high payroll, they easily still can

Guest: Every year I scratch my head when I look at the comp balance round of the draft & certain teams stick out—most notably,  the Cards.  They haven’t seemed to have much trouble competing, especially relative to other teams in that set.  Are they truly deserving of being in this group? Or are they the only team that seems to know what they’re doing with the pick?

Ben Clemens: As I understand it, they’re in the Comp Round because of Market size — you can be there for revenue,  market size, or both

Ben Clemens: Oakland is just as weird to me for different reasons — they have a big market! It’s the same market as the Giants and no one says the Giants are a small-market team

GoMs: Why aren’t Mariners in on any stars this off-season? …or are they?

Ben Clemens: I think they are in on pitching some, and are maybe kicking the tires on people they think can be tentpoles in 2-3 years. I think they’ll end up aiming for pitchers with high upside but question marks, because they can use a year to sort out what they have

Ben Clemens: Paxton would be pleasingly symmetrical and also is the exact kind of pitcher teams who are improving but not yet good should be trying to sign

Jeff: Do the Cardinals actually have anyone to trade for Lindor? Is Cleveland really bowled over by like…Tommy Edman?

Ben Clemens: I think that if the Indians are still doing the many-prospect return thing, sure

Ben Clemens: Like, look what they got back for Mike Clevinger

Ben Clemens: 35 interesting but not overwhelming names

Ben Clemens: Do the Indians turn down, say, Knizner, Tyler O’Neill, and maybe Johan Oviedo? They might

Ben Clemens: But if they’re willing to shop for quantity, and they seem to be, the Cardinals consistently hvae a lot of okay prospects

Benji: And in the 80s and early 90s the A’s ran high payrolls it’s just John Fisher being a stingy billionaire that turned us into a small market team

Ben Clemens: To be fair the stadium has something to do with it, but yeah, small-market is what you make of it

David: Re:Mariners – They are probably better off letting position players play and see which of their younger players stick than sign a mid name fielder.

Ben Clemens: yeah another benefit of signing pitchers is that you’re not blocking anyone

Ben Clemens: Unless you sign a LOT of pitchers

Guest: The Mets are technically coming off a last place finish, but anyone who dismisses them as such is either trolling or ignorant- they finished tied for 4th in a tough division after losing Thor to TJ, Stroman opting out, and Wacha, Matz, and Porcello all putting up career-worst lines. Any one of those guys having an even average year might have been enough to bump them from last to 2nd.

Ben Clemens: Haha yes that was a bit of a joke. I picked them to win the East last year!

Ben Clemens: I don’t think you can just dismiss the struggles as ‘oh that was unlucky won’t happen again’ without acknowledging that htey also got some unexpected and good performances, but yes, the Mets weren’t a cellar-dweller, the level of the East was just quite high last year

GoMs: Mariners perfect offseason: sign FA’s Paxton, Walker, and Trienen; trade for and extend Story to play 3B (package for Rocks: Trammel, Dunn, Then)

Ben Clemens: If they made all these moves, would you say that their offseason would be Dunn, Then?

Ben Clemens: Sorry sorry sorry

Benji: More likely to be traded Story or Arenado?

Ben Clemens: Story. Arenado’s contract is just such a confusing one

Ben Clemens: With an opt-out after 2021, he might be an expensive rental

Ben Clemens: On the other hand, he might be there for six more years at 30-something per

Ben Clemens: It would be an extremely negotiated deal, particulalry given his no-trade clause. The team trading for him would need to get assurances that he wouldn’t opt out, and he’d have to be willing to give those assurances, etc

Ben Clemens: But if he doesn’t opt out, that limits the number of teams who are going to pay that much for a corner bat, even such a defensively-gifted one

Ben Clemens: Not to say it can’t happen, but with Story, there are probably 20 teams who would be interested

Ben Clemens: He’s a rental, but a nice one

Ross: How valuable would a truly ambidextrous relief pitcher be if he could strike out batters from both sides? Would he be worth ~4.5 WAR or greater in today’s matchup-driven league?

Ben Clemens: Wait I want to answer this one but first, to close the loop:

Benji: Would he want to do those assurances to get out of losing situation in Colorado?

Ben Clemens: Maybe yeah. I think it’s possible for that exact reason

Ben Clemens: Though he could also just opt out after this year

Ben Clemens: And pick his team more proactively

Ben Clemens: Okay, the ambidextrous reliever

Ben Clemens: Let’s say that he gets the best of both sides

Chris Farley: It’s amphibious, not ambidextrous.

Ben Clemens: My bad

Ben Clemens: 🙂

Ben Clemens: SO he’s Adam Kolarek against lefties and Liam Hendriks against righties

Ben Clemens: Let’s say that works out to a 1.5 FIP

Ben Clemens: Eh, let’s make it Hendriks’s 1.14 FIP

Ben Clemens: At around 75 innings and all high leverage, that gets you to your 4.5 WAR number, which owuld be one of the best relief seasons of recent memory

Benji: Ooh I like ambidextrous reliever, I’m also wondering could they do double the workload or does overall body fatigue kick in beyond just having two arms

Ben Clemens: I think body fatigue would still kick in, but we’ll probably never know. True ambidexterity seems unlikely to happen at a major league level

Ben Clemens: Even Pat Venditte is semi-ambidextrous

Arenado: Isn’t it good if I opt out? My contract is pretty heavily under water. Rockies are going to have to pay someone to take me off their hands. If I opt out the team got paid for one great year!

Ben Clemens: It is, but that confusion just adds to things. Not knowing is the worst, because if you assume he’ll opt out, it’s trading for a rental, and the Rockies might not be into that. If Arenado is definitely going to opt out and he and a team agree to that, well, what are you offering for a year of Arenado at 35 per? and would the Rockies take that? It’s a confusing one

200 Pitches: If there was an ambidextrous starter he could just throw CG every time out. 100 pitches with the right arm, 100 pitches with the left. Could even alternate it more to give each arm some rest. Or start a game one day with the right, next day with the left. 2 starters for the price of 1!! Fun to think about, but like you said not gonna happen

Isolated Thinker: Kluber is expected to throw for teams in early January.  Considering his massive upside, can you see a bidding war on the one-year gamble?

Ben Clemens: Yes!

Ben Clemens: You might see a wildly incentive-laden deal that could pay him $25 million if he hits a bunch of hard-to-reach milestones, or a vesting deal for 2022, or something like htat. The upside is just so huge

Mick: I’m curious what your thoughts are on Luis Roberts and whether he can make adjustments to fix his contact issues given the WSox hitting coach was also his instructor on the minors.

Ben Clemens: I think that Robert’s aggressiveness at the plate is going to put a cap on his offensive production, but that he’s good enough that he can still be a star with below-average plate discipline. I don’t thikn it’s contact issues, per se — I think his problem is more that he swings at so much stuff that he’s swinging at some bad pitches to hit

Ben Clemens: Now, that’s a bad issue to have, too!

Ben Clemens: But this seems like a case where even if he remains free-swinging and makes some poor swing decisions, he could rein in the aggression a little bit

Ben Clemens: And just automatically improve his contact numbers, even if he still swings at too many balls

Ben Clemens: If you’ll excuse my Cardinals homer-ism, look at Paul DeJong. His contact rates ticked up in ’18 and ’19 as he just started swinging less

Tacoby Bellsbury: If you instead wrote for FanGrafts, what player’s body part would you graft onto another player to create a mechaplayer? Why?

Ben Clemens: I think I’d put Billy Hamilton’s legs on Jarrod Dyson’s arms and create a four-legged uncatchable pinch runner

Ben Clemens: You’d have to teach Dyson to gallop, but small price to pay for a guaranteed steal

Ross: Why are the Cardinals attempting to sign a soon-to-be 39 year old catcher who has statistically declined for at least three seasons at the plate? Legacy contracts haven’t treated the team well in the outfield or infield with Carpenter or Fowler.

Ben Clemens: They’d do it because people love Yadi!

Ben Clemens: I’m honestly with you on this one, but I know plenty of Cards fan friends who want him back no matter what

Ben Clemens: I think my specific issue with bringing him back is just that he demands so much playing time, but I totally admit that I like having him on the team

Ben Clemens: I think I’m in favor of ripping the Band-aid off and seeing what Knizner can do next year, but I also thought Yadi would be retiring this offseason

Inaccessible Rail: It used to be a fun challenge to participate in Fangraphs chats while working, but working remotely as I am these days, has taken all the sport out of it.

Ben Clemens: As a former lurker/sometimes question asker, I totally agree

Ben Clemens: I also miss coming up with pun-based names

Bookie Metts: What is your hottest hot take about the 2021 season?

Ben Clemens: Hm. How about this: Yu Darvish will be worth as much WAR as Trevor Bauer and Luis Castillo combined

Ben Clemens: Certainly not likely but I’m just veyr high on Darvish

Johnny5Alive: If you were Springer, assuming salary is the same, do you want to play in Toronto or New York? Do you want to play with the young studs or behind the best pitcher in baseball and the richest owner?

Ben Clemens: Personally I’d take NY, because I lived there for 11 years

Ben Clemens: As Springer…. I think it would depend on where I wanted to live more than the roster construction. Both teams are gonna be good or good-adjacent for years to come

Sam: When do you expect a big trade like the Lindor one to occur?

Ben Clemens: Not until the terms of the 2021 season are set

Ben Clemens: So…. midi-January maybe?

Jason N: Is Luis Castillo on the market to bring back high-end prospects, or to accompany a bad contract?  What’s the difference in prospects in each scenario?  If the Padres are a trade partner, I imagine if it’s just Castillo it’s Gore+, but if a contract is coming back, then who’s the headliner and package look like?

Ben Clemens: I…. guess? I don’t see the Reds as having many bad contracts, just a lot of low-surplus ones

Ben Clemens: Like short of trading Votto, I don’t think Moustakas is wildly underwater or anything

Ben Clemens: And if that’s the case, then sending those contracts out won’t *decrease* the return, it just might not add much

Alby: New Christmas tradition: Standing in line at the post office waiting to mail out everyone’s presents.

GoMs: ”short and sweet”… just like most holiday plans… but never seems to work out like that!

Ben Clemens: Touche

Ben Clemens: But okay, this chat is ending at 12:30 PT, so it’s time for a lightning round

Benji: Could Castillo get Gore+?

Ben Clemens: I’m gonna say  yes, but also to ask Eric b/c I’m just spitballing here

Jon: It sucks to see Lindor go, but haven’t the Indians generally won these types of trades? They’ve been a pretty stable competitor with these types of moves

Ben Clemens: Yeah the bigger thing here is the Indians not trying to sign him

Ben Clemens: If they already know they aren’t gonna sign him, that’s a bummer

Ben Clemens: But trading him wouldn’t’ necessarily be the problem, it’s the not-signing

Chris: What team has done your single favorite move so far of the off-season ?

Ben Clemens: I really like the Mike Minor signing by the Royals still. Cheap and if he’s great and they suck, they can flip him

Inaccessible Rail: Mets getting sold!

Ben Clemens: Another good option

Jon: Do the Indians have 300 mil to sign him? They don’t really do long-term deals like that and it seems to be working for them.

Ben Clemens: I would quibble with whether it’s working for them, b/c they seem to be doing a good job of not spending more money but also sliding back to the pack a little bit every year

Ben Clemens: That said, if they just aren’t going to spend it, they aren’t going to spend it

Ben Clemens: So in that case he’s gone anyway, and yeah, do what you have to do

GoMs: Story for Dunn, Then, Trammel – who says no?

Ben Clemens: I think the M’s say no

Ben Clemens: Cut Dunn or Then and maybe not?

Inaccessible Rail: I think the PO is closed on Xmas.

Ben Clemens: Many of my traditions will not happen on Christmas Day

Mad Joe-Don: What’s your favorite off-the-wall potential new name for the Cleveland Ball Club?

Ben Clemens: I like the idea of following the spirit of the Cleveland Naps and naming the team after the captain every year

Ben Clemens: That would be a blast, and they could sell more jerseys too!

Cambodian Creamsicle: Dayton Moore, as always, doing just the bare minimum to keep from being fired.  Other than ’14-’15, it is so sad to be a KC fan.  Sure wish the team would move on from the current regime and their terrible drafting and development record.

Ben Clemens: Being a KC fan is interesting, b/c the highs have been high but the lows low and the ride bumpy

Quarantino Martinez: I always fear the mean. But that’s only cause I’m so nice.

Guest: We should petition to change the name of the team in Colorado so that we can have Cleveland Rocks.  Agree or disagree?

Ben Clemens: Into it

Ben Clemens: On that note, I’m out of here for the week. Have a great week, everyone, and stay safe.