Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 2/2/2026

Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, welcome to the chat

Ben Clemens: Last week was transactions central. This week we’ll still do transactions, but plenty of other assorted stuff too. Our projections are out, we’re doing some fun overhauls under the hood, and honestly, there have been some neat deals in teh last week

Laurel and JJ Hardy: What’s up with the Suarez deal?

Ben Clemens: Hey, good news! I wrote this deal up, and that article will be going live in the near future

LB: Where does Geno to the power-starved Reds rank among the most impactful FA signings under $100M this offseason?

Ben Clemens: It’s a good one. I think the power-starved thing matters more b/c he’s a good fit for their park than b/c being power-starved as a team is a huge problem or anything

Ben Clemens: offense is offense, but his offense profiles well in GABP

Ben Clemens: Generally speaking, late signings haven’t done all that well, even on a $/WAR basis

Ben Clemens: Here’s a writeup of that effect:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/presenting-further-research-on-when-free-a…

Ben Clemens: That said, I still like this deal. It’s always risky to play for leftovers, but the Reds are at a spot in the win curve where it’s particularly valuable to get a little bit better

Ben Clemens: And also, there might be a general effect that players who sign late are worse than advertised, but Suarez signed for MUCH less than we expected him to be available for. It’s possible to get a bargain so big that the ‘oh their projections were too high’ fact just doesn’t matter

Potato: You’re not really a social deduction game girlie, right? No point asking you if you’ve played ‘Blood on the Clocktower’?

Ben Clemens: no, i am too

Ben Clemens: i’m an every type of game kind of person, though I’ve never actually set aside enough time to play

Ben Clemens: one of my friends lives in a big old house and has had a few blood on the clocktower nights, it just never lines up with my schedule

Arraez: Man if Arraez was willing to abandon his current approach, I feel like he could be good again. But last year I watched him sacrifice literally everything just to cut his strikeout rate by a percentage point, so I’m not gonna hold my breath

Bog: Can Luis Arráez play second base?

Ben Clemens: Two very interesting, and very different, observations about Arraez

Ben Clemens: I don’t know if he can play second, but like, I’m not optimistic

Ben Clemens: I haven’t had a chance to read Jay’s writeup yet, but man, weird fit for a team who employs Logan Webb

Ben Clemens: I need to let it bounce around in my head more, basically

Ben Clemens: As for his current approach, couldn’t agree more. Maybe Vitello is a good preacher of that. Or maybe Raffy Devers, who has learned to whiff more and make thunderous contact

Ben Clemens: I do think that the park is a good fit for Arraez – if you can’t hit homers, might as well play in a park where no one can

Greg: Which data set do you use for pitch by pitch run values? I.e. if I wanted to find what the run value of a 1-1 pitch in a specific AB between Roman Anthony and Paul Skenes last year (pitch was on the corner but was called a ball). Extra points if I can get a run value of the impact of that incorrect call catered to the specific context of that event.

Ben Clemens: I often make my own, but that’s because this is my full-time job and I like making stuff. Baseball Savant offers a plenty good one on their site that will definitely get you as far as you want for this kind of question

Ben Clemens: so, here’s a search of every pitch Skenes threw to Anthony last year:
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=&hfAB=&hfGT=R%7C&h…

Ben Clemens: Download the data (there’s a little picture of a chain link over a spreadsheet) and there’s a column called ‘delta_pitcher_run_exp’. That’s the change in run expectancy to the pitcher that results from this specific pitch

Ben Clemens: That specific pitch had a run expectancy change of -.044, for example. You’d have to find a 1-1 pitch that became a 1-2 pitch (you can look up anyone with the same base/out state here) to get the counterfactual. These values are adjusted for the base/out context, so run scoring, but not for the game context, so it treats up 6 in the 7th the same as down 1 in the first. That’s a feature, in my opinion, not a bug

I AM RANDAL: HELLO OLD FRIEND

Ben Clemens: HEY THERE RANDAL, HOPE YOU FIND AN EMPLOYER WITH A POOL YOU CAN USE

Ben Clemens: NOTHING BETTER THAN LAPS IN THE POOL AND TILAPS ON THE GRILL AM I RITE

DFJ: With Arraez and Eldridge lurking, how limited are Devers’ position player days?

Ben Clemens: mmmm…. I don’t see much difference between him and Edlridge at first, and I don’t have any read on what the team is going to do there

Ben Clemens: like, i don’t think it’s a value issue. it’s a player comfort issue.

Dodgers Blue: Talk to me about the White Sox closer situation….  Two years back, I thought Leasure was being groomed.  Last year, I thought Grant Taylor was being groomed.  Now they go out and sign Seranthony!  Who is going to be THE GUY?  Is there a chance Taylor will see action as a starter now?

Ben Clemens: I dunno man. I think that I’m getting more and more open to the idea that they odn’t want to give pre-arb guys saves

Ben Clemens: and that no teams do

Ben Clemens: b/c that boosts arb salaries

Ben Clemens: definitely a chance Taylor will get some starts, why would they not try if he’s into it? And also, I just didn’t like the Seranthony signing that much

Dodgers Blue: Matt Shaw for Peyton Tolle or Connelly Early.  Who says no?

Ben Clemens: I think the Sox would

Ben Clemens: like, they like thoes guys! and they love to hoard pitching

Ben Clemens: also they obviously dislike paying up to trade for infielders, or trading their guys below their perceived internal value

bringbackpologrounds: Rafael Devers is projected for a .250-.255 batting average despite consistently hitting .275-.280 for his career. Can this be attributed strictly to the ballpark change, or are there other concerns relating to his contact ability?

Ben Clemens: well I think the fact that he hit .252 with a .307 BABIP in 2025 surely plays SOME role in this

Ben Clemens: ‘consistently hitting .275-.280’ he hasn’t hit .275 since 2022

Ben Clemens: He has a .265 average over the last three years, and he’s plyaing in a park that decreases lefty results. doesnt’ feel wild to me, particularly when you consider that his contact rates have been on a steady decline

Ben Clemens: The counterpoint is that maybe he can adjust his swing with a full year of knowing the kind of stadium he plays in, and start ripping more liners or something. But this doesn’t look at all like a weird projection to me

Petey Bienel: After looking at the Jordan Hicks deal, should Paul Toboni call up Craig Breslow and offer Keibert Ruiz for Yoshida plus, either alone or as part of a CJ Abrams deal? Ruiz and Yoshida are due just about the same money, but Ruiz has it spread over 5 years (vs Yoshida 2) lowering the CBT hit.

Ben Clemens: I mean, definitely

Ben Clemens: i have no clue if the Sox would be interested in doing that deal, but they’re working hard to reduce payroll. They’re going to be around the CBT line and could use some short-term relief.

Guest: I looked up Hank Aaron’s stats again after reading the most recent FG Weekly Mailbag. He put up at least 5 WAR every year from his age 21 season through his age 37 season. I don’t have a question, I’m just amazed.

Ben Clemens: Absolutely amazing

TameImp: How does the money exchanged work in a deal like the Hicks one. Is it paid out at the time of the deal? So if Hicks shoves and the White Sox can deal him, they pocket the money?

Ben Clemens: Nah, I haven’t read the specific terms of the deal but the way these work is that the trading team is responsible for paying a portion of the salary

Ben Clemens: so that moves around with the player

Ben Clemens: you can be getting paid by three plus teams, theoretically

Ben Clemens: I think Arenado might be in that camp this year

Guest: Pete Alonso had a 157 wRC+ against RHP last year and a 102 against LHP. His career splits are more neutral but still a little better against RHP than LHP (135 vs. 125). How real do you think his reverse platoon splits are going forward? Should we expect him to be better against RHP, LHP, or the same against both?

Ben Clemens: I have him as basically without splits. There’s a good rule in The Book, which remains one of the best references for baseball analysis that I own, that we can use here. If you want to measure a righty’s split, take 2000* a league average split, take their vL PA’s * their measured platoon split, and do a weighted average

Ben Clemens: The average righty is 5% better against lefties than against righties. In 1196 career PA against lefties, Alonso has a -4% average platoon split

Ben Clemens: blend it all up, an dyou get that he projects at 1.6% better against lefties than righties, way less than the average split

TameImp: Do we know for sure Verlander is playing next year?

Ben Clemens: We don’t

Ben Clemens: I think he will, but I am a lot less sure now than in November

TameImp: Does the Geno deal make the Polanco deal kind of eh given a similar ish role they fill?

Ben Clemens: Well, let’s wait and see how they perform, but generally speaking I don’t think it’s a huge deal

Ben Clemens: like, someone was gonna be the last of the second-tier hitters to sign

Ben Clemens: and that guy was going to go for a bargain

Ben Clemens: now, maybe the Mets actually were willing to give Geno 2/35 and taking Polanco at 2/40 is worse now

Ben Clemens: but it’s just a fact that SOMEONE will sign late for cheap

Ben Clemens: that was known when they made the deal. we just didn’t know the exact identity, or how cheap

Ben Clemens: but for me, not a huge chagne in my evaluation

joe: can i get your complete shot in the dark guess on roman’s HR count for 2026

Ben Clemens: put me down for 16 but like 35 doubles

Ben Clemens: I can’t get the picture of him just flicking doubles off the monster out of my head. Feels easier to me to do that than to turn up the homer dial by a ton

PinstripedPride: Nice writeup of the playoff odds. You mention won projections a bunch but I don’t see them on the site yet, the projected standings still are on 2025

Ben Clemens: If you’re looking on desktop, ‘proj w’ is on our playoff odds table. If you’re looking on mobile, uh, huh

Ben Clemens: I dunno

Ben Clemens: they’re there, though!

joe: oof, low!

Ben Clemens: low but it’s actually a higher total power output than our projections

Ben Clemens: extra doubles are really valuable

Dodgers Blue: What’s keeping Hayden Birdsong from finding a permanent foothold in the majors?  Is a change of scenery needed at this point?

Ben Clemens: command

Ben Clemens: I’ve been to a shocking number of Birdsong starts, by pure happenstance

Ben Clemens: it feels like he has no idea where teh ball is going, and that is clearly a big drag on his results

Ben Clemens: that kick change is nasty and he just throws his fastball by people. but he cannot hit the zone enough

bosoxforlife: In a game in which the home run has become the dominate way to score I see Suarez as far more valuable than what he was forced to accept. I see it as a terrific move by the Reds. I wish the Red Sox had used the $17 they saved by jettisoning Hicks to pick up 30+ home runs.

Ben Clemens: I tend to agree with you. I think one thing that is really tough to figure out with these things is that Suarez has plenty of red flags

Ben Clemens: but he’s also had a lot of those flags for yeras

Ben Clemens: I put this in my article, but did you kno he’s super slow? totally true, he’s been super slow for 10 years and is top 10 in homers in that time. did you know he doesn’t swing hard? true, and yet it’s not declining, he just isn’t a bat speed dude

TameImp: Any idea why the projections hate Geno so much other than old?

Ben Clemens: hate? I very much think they do not hate him

Ben Clemens: ZiPS thinks he’d be a nearly 3-WAR player if he played third

Ben Clemens: we’re docking him meaningfully for playing DH, which makes sense: models say he’s a scratch defender at a tough position, DH is much less valuable than that

TameImp: If no one is willing to eat a pick to sign Gallen how long does he have to wait before he’s unencumbered? It’s June right?

Ben Clemens: if I remember right, it’s when the draft happens

Ben Clemens: it was June the last time it mattered, but that’s July now

Ben Clemens: that’s just off the top of my head, to be clear

Sog: What would Suarez have made if he wasn’t so terrible with the Mariners? 53 games isn’t a huge sample size but it’s not nothing either

Ben Clemens: I mean, hard to know a counterfactual, but I was not compelled by the ‘he’s bad in Seattle’ stuff

Ben Clemens: like he had a 91 wRC+ despite a 36% strikeout rate

Ben Clemens: he hit 13 homers. he was worth 0.7 WAR. He was Seattle’s sixth-most-valuable hitter in that stretch

SoundWavesHello: What are your thoughts on some of the more recent BaseballSavant stats that have come out in the last ~3 years?  

I ask because I’m excited about some of the things they’re trying to measure, but increasingly bummed out about how much ‘secret sauce’ ends up in their stats.  For example: I love that they’ve got a double play factor for infielders these days.  But when I take a look over at the methodology for how such a thing is calculated, it’s a far cry from how transparent public-facing stats (like wOBA, wRC+, etc.) have been in the past.  We’re talking Intercept Point, Action Point, and all sorts of other things that just aren’t publicly available in the Statcast dataset (heck, from what I can see in the available attributes, I don’t even think I could impute that info with any confidence).  

I’d be curious to hear how this sort of thing is viewed at Fangraphs, particularly given its standing as one of the best resources out there for public baseball stats.

Ben Clemens: yeah – I guess I’d say that I like their statistics a lot for their novelty and the fact that they are generally presented and normalized very well

Ben Clemens: also they do have intercept point now in the spreadsheets, for the record; ‘intercept_ball_minus_batter_pos_y_inches, it just rolls off the tongue

PinstripedPride: True or false: the DH penalty in WAR disguises the fact that for some teams, they have defense covered with decent hitters anyway, so even if the DH could play a little defense he wasn’t going to get a chance to do so, and it’s good to have nice hitter

Ben Clemens: oh, true for sure

Ben Clemens: a)we have a ‘WAR working group’ that we hope will make changes on this front, though honestly i doubt that’s happening imminently

Ben Clemens: b)it’s very clear that teams value offensive WAR more than defensive WAR, I think largely because it’s a little bit more stable. so teams definitely behave the way you’re tlaking about

Ben Clemens: I expect us to change our positional adjustments to penalize DH less in the future

War2D2: Piggybacking on the Gallen question, what happens if he signs a 3-month deal with some indy ball team while he waits for the “unencumberance” deadline? Are there rules surrounding that? What if he wants to play for the Chicago Dogs for a few months in beautiful Rosemont, IL, do the Dogs then owe the DBacks a pick from a local D3 school?!

Ben Clemens: haha no, that team would not be bound by collectively bargained terms between MLB teams and MLB players

Ben Clemens: so he could do what he wants

Ben Clemens: he’s not under contract to anyone. He could come write for FanGraphs

Ben Clemens: the QO specifically determines compensation should another major league franchise sign the guy, and assigns penalties to that prospective signing team

Gabe: Any hope for Jordan Walker or Norman Gorman?

Ben Clemens: absolutely

Ben Clemens: i mean the easiest pitch is that they’ll never feel more secure in their jobs than they do right now

Well-Beered Englishman: Gotta follow up on your Emily Henry tip from last week. What got you into the genre? What’s the comfort of it for you?

Ben Clemens: Oh, great question that I forgot to asnwer earlier

Ben Clemens: I think the main thing drawing me in is that I really like good writing. I will read pretty much any genre if I think it’s written well, which to me is a combination of believable character motivations and then just prose that sparks joy

Ben Clemens: am I a fan of the Emily Henry genre? I mean, not particularly, but I’m not wildly against it either. ‘contemporary romance’ or something, i guess? it’s fine, the unremarkable entries in the genre are absolutely not my thing

Ben Clemens: I just think she’s one of the best writers going right now. Delightful to read, well paced, sentences and constructions that make me wish I thought of them

Zac Gallen: Is that an official offer?  Can you send over the contract?

Ben Clemens: would you accept ‘total enlightenment on your deathbed’ in comp? We’re a little ligth on the ‘money’ part of an offer

Booney: Do you think that signing Alonso and extending basallo reduces the chances the O’s end up re-signing Adley? Alonso will likely need a lot of DH at bats toward the end of his contract, and basallo’s best fit may end up being there or 1B too. I’d also imagine Adley will need DH at bats as he ages, especially given the demands of catching and his injury history…so it feels like something would have to give.

Ben Clemens: Oh absolutely. I read this as Adley’s ticket out of town

Ben Clemens: not before FA, I don’t think

Ben Clemens: but how are they gonna square all this?

bosoxforlife: Nothing, but nothing would enhance my perception of the Fangraphs analysis team than recognizing that the DH penalty is absolutely without foundation in reason.

Ben Clemens: Well, challenge accepted

Ben Clemens: We have some really cool stuff on the horizon

Ben Clemens: I feel justified in saying that in the next month, I personally will have contributed more to the FanGraphs analysis suite than in the rest of my career here combined

Guest: I’m surprised more old pitchers don’t do what Clemens did and start the year late. Especially if you have school aged kids. Sure you have to be good for teams to be interested but I don’t think you have to be generationally good and you can save some wear and tear and still be playoff relevant.

Ben Clemens: Yeah. Maybe this is the year Scherzer and Verlander do that

Tigers pitching: Who do you think has a better season, Olson or Mize?

Ben Clemens: ooh, tough one but gimme Olson

Steve O: Is it just me or are the penalties for spending money quite harsh already? Luxury tax spending is taxed heavily, draft pick losses for signing qualified free agents, draft pick moving back 10 spots, loss of IFA money, smaller bonus pools with winning, smaller IFA pools if a large market team, extra picks for “small market” teams, loss of qualifying free agents, revenue sharing, etc. I mean this is all quite substantial and the luxury tax is essentially a cap, right? Not many teams pass the cohen tax.

Ben Clemens: VERY harsh

Ben Clemens: on purpose

Ben Clemens: it’s all grandstanding

Ben Clemens: and like, what are ownership sources gonna do? NOT say they want a salary cap?

Insert Witty Name Here: Tennis! How does Djokovic keep this pace up? I’m around his age and I get tired walking the dog.  Also, Sabalenka – I had flashbacks of Curt Schilling with the towel over his head in the 93 World Series.  Such a bad way to end that 3rd set. Lastly: could Rybakina have looked less excited to win? She seemed like she was finished doing her taxes.

Ben Clemens: oh hell yes

Ben Clemens: let’s talk

Ben Clemens: i didn’t catch much of the two last Djokovic matches but I love that he won 47% of poitns against Sinner, and 47% against Alcaraz, but he just couldn’t pull out that Djokovic clutch magic in the final

Ben Clemens: that’s fun, and also I find myself liking the guy more and more with every slam. His interview after Musetti had to retire was incredible, just the exact thing I want more of from my athletes

Ben Clemens: as for the women’s final, I love Rybakina’s all-no-show attitude, but eh, I think I like Sabalenka’s pure wearing her heart on her sleeve game more

Ben Clemens: I’m Team Iga if you made me pick one, and Team Mirra if I got two…. but I do like Sabalenka

Screw ICE: Djokovic is an anti-vaxxer

Ben Clemens: yeah, look, starting from a low baseline. He’s also pretty annoying if you like good competitive tennis, what with him just winning everything with a very boring-to-me style for a decade

Ben Clemens: I’m just saying that my opinion keeps going up, and that i think he’s getting more mature and more interesting with age

bosoxforlife: Watching Djokovic reach deep, deep into his soul to find the strength to defeat Sinner was something that stirred my soul. He was beyond exhausted but showed why he is the GREAT champion that he is!

joe: if you got problems with djokovic brother, just wait until you hear about 90% of mlb!

Oaktown Blues: FG offers “total enlightenment on your deathbed” coverage? Is that compatible with the HSA plan?

Screw ICE: Djokovic didn’t win a set in the 2 matches leading up to the final, he was very lucky to be there

Ben Clemens: the semifinal, but yeah. Like, we’re not getting another of these anytime soon

Ben Clemens: it was an absolute miracle that he made the semis, a walkover and a retirement

Ben Clemens: but that rarity made the chance of it happening feel more precious

Insert Witty Name Here: I’m a Sabaleka fan for the same reason. She has that fire and has no problem showing it. On the men’s side, I actually like Zverev because we’re similar.  Who would you compare him to in baseball? Really really good but can’t beat the best? Side note re Novak, he’s definitely matured big time and I love it.

Ben Clemens: Boy, Zverev crosses the ‘do I like this dude for his off-field stuff’ line for me, by a lot

Ben Clemens: my men’s side comparison is a worse player, Shopovalov. I was at his US Open match with Sinner last year, and also at his Indian Wells match vs. Alcaraz, and while he got rocked in both, he’s SO fun

Ben Clemens: wears it all on his sleeve

bringbackpologrounds: Better start to their career: Alcaraz or Trout?

Ben Clemens: Alcaraz but it’s close

Ben Clemens: I actually made a cross-sport comp between Elly and Alcaraz in the year when Alcaraz first broke onto the scene

Ben Clemens: uh…. might have oversold Elly there

Walker Buehler: Are my days as an effective MLB pitcher over? Any chance I can catch on as a reliever?

Ben Clemens: If I’m a GM, I want to try

Ben Clemens: (as a reliever)

Ben Clemens: but I can’t see a team with postseason hopes coutning on Buehler in the rotation after last year, and I imagine he doesn’t want to sign somewhere to be a seventh starter

Guest: Do you have a recommendation for a good article on the upcoming CBA/ lockout, all ‘perts talk about it, but never really get around to explaining the matter in depth.

Ben Clemens: I don’t, but maybe I’ll write one in March or when there’s some downtime this season

Ben Clemens: I wish I had a good one for you, and if I find one I’ll mention it in a future chat

Screw ICE: Sorry Ben, I love your stuff, I just hate Djokovic

Ben Clemens: buddy, totally understandable. He was the freaking end boss for so long, and often unlikable while doing it. I’ve rooted against him in a LOT of finals

Ben Clemens: but I like him more now than I did then, basically

TameImp: Who would be the most fun player to unretire from a 5 year absence like Phillip Rivers? Wouldn’t you like to see Matt Kenp again? Cole Hamels?

Ben Clemens: oh man

Ben Clemens: Julio Franco

Ben Clemens: oh, five years

Ben Clemens: an old dude. Let’s see Nelson Cruz come back in a few years

Ben Clemens: and an old hitter

Ben Clemens: I wouldn’t hate seeing some old flamethrower come back in the mid 80s and survive, but a big, slow, burly hitter sounds amazing

Ben: Could a player theoretically self-insure himself to play in the WBC?  Like if I get hurt, I will agreed to not get paid for time missed on the IL from that injury.  Otherwise, like you can get hurt in a spring training game, so what is the difference?

Ben Clemens: I really don’t kno wthe legal implications here

Ben Clemens: and how that’d interact with the CBA

Mas Datos, Por Favor: Does Kristian Campbell for Donovan make a decent start to a deal? Which side is most unhappy with this?

Ben Clemens: I think it depends a lot on St. Louis’s evaluation of Campbell

Ben Clemens: I personally would not be into this return because I don’t think his deal is an obvious big selling point

Ben Clemens: like, sure, lots of controllable years, but the money goes out either wya, and the delta that he’s a good MLB player is below 100%

Ben Clemens: it’s one of those things where early career extensions are a good deal for the team b/c even a bad outcome usually leads to a breakeven

Ben Clemens: but like…. we look like we’re headed for a breakeven here

Ben Clemens: whereas Donovan is pretty clearly a bonanza of a contract/control/talent situation

Idiotic Failson: Mariano Rivera could come back out of retirement and still be a top 3 closer in the league.

Booney: Buster Posing signing himself to a rest of season contract would be pretty fun

Ben Clemens: two incredible options that I wish I had selected

bosoxforlife: Tennis needs more top notch players just below the God level. Even while Federer, Nadal and Djokovic were dominating they had to beat Murray, Vavrinka, DelPotro, Cilic and other Grand Slam champions. Alcaraz and Sinner have only almost good players to beat.

Ben Clemens: I’d like to suggest women’s tennis to you, then

Ben Clemens: I agree that the men’s game has a lack of Tier 2 stars right now. The women’s game is lousy with them. Like, Sabalenka and Swiatek are pretty clearly the class of the sport in terms of aggregate results, but they get beaten a lot, and the top 10 has a big mix of styles

Dan: Picture two 1yr $10M contracts, but one is structured as a $9M signing bonus with a $1M salary and the other as a $1M salary and a $9M buyout of a mutual option.

Dan: if the player is traded mid-season who gets the luxury tax hit?

Ben Clemens: okay, so with the caveats that I know the rules pretty well but not by heart, and that if I were a team, I’d have a lawyer read through first to make sure I’m getting this right:

Ben Clemens: the buyouts accrue in future years, so the guy with the 1m/9mbuyout would mostly hit his new team in tax

Bill Dewallet: As a Cardinals fan how worried are you that the team is gonna run sub 100 million dollar payrolls going forward? Because I am at an 8/10.

Ben Clemens: oh yeah, very serious worry here

Ben Clemens: like…. I imagine that if you told him ‘hey Chaim, go nuts, you have a 300 million dollar budget’ he’d go nuts

Ben Clemens: but he clearly has a predisposition to play the surplus value game, build for the future, clean house

Ben Clemens: and so if that’s what ownership is saying they’d prefer, I bet it’s a situation where his tendencies and theirs self-reinforce

Ben Clemens: and ownership is like ‘hey we’re doing well with this low budget’ and so he’s like ‘oh, you want some other low budget but high performance ideas? here’s some I’ve had’

Ben Clemens: like speaking to an LLM who starts egging you on without your knowledge, owners who ask questions to Bloom might be getting back a response that self-perpetuates towards financial austerity

Ice Cream Helmet: Which will we see again first: A knuckleballer win 10 games, or a one-handed backhand in a major semis?
(The correct answer is probably ‘never’ to both and it bums me out)

Ben Clemens: oh, one-handed backhand in a major semi. We would have had one last week if Musetti didn’t get hurt

Steve O: If you were a GM of a large market team would you typically speaking try to sign all your young players like the Red Sox, or play things out year to year like the Dodgers/Yankees and benefit from the small luxury tax hits?

Ben Clemens: ehhhhh… depends on my initial conditions

Ben Clemens: I think that the Dodgers have a pretty clever idea, which is that they do long-term deals with galactic megastars and then play the flexibility game for the rest of the rsoter

Ben Clemens: the Sox and Braves are doing different things

Ben Clemens: I do think that if the DOdgers develop another mega-talent, they’ll lock him up forever

Ben Clemens: but I think it’s contextual to what else is on your roster. the Dodgers plan is a lot more palatable when you have Ohtani and Betts and Freeman, and likewise the Sox pushing their AAV up now is a lot more palatable when they don’t have many veterans making big bucks

maaaaaaaaaatt: ben….please….tell me the cardinals aren’t going to hold on to Brendan Donovan too long like they always do (see: Arenado, Goldschmidt, O’Neill, Carlson, etc. etc.)

Guest: How likely do you think it is that STL doesn’t trade Donovan this year?

Ben Clemens: I’m gonna say it’s 30% likely they don’t trade him

Ben Clemens: Blomo has never had a ‘not willing to capitalize on value’ problem

bosoxforlife: I am on the Red Sox side in the Hicks and Sandlin for a bag of balls and $17M giveaway? Hicks just couldn’t show up in a Red Sox uniform again.

Ben Clemens: me too, me too

Ben Clemens: I don’t think you were a part of this group, but I got many Red Sox fans in my mentions and comments last year, after I’d written up the Devers deal, saying that I was clearyl biased against the Sox because I coudln’t see the truth that Hicks was the team’s next closer

Ben Clemens: hell, he closed a game out within a week of his debut in Boston, the Sox might have thought the same

Ben Clemens: but like, no! I’ve watched him pitch a LOT

Ben Clemens: I was at his major league debut, randomly (Mets season opener)

Ben Clemens: his deal came back to Boston as a salary offset to Devers, and now they’re biting the bullet and taking that off the books. That was always the case, and if the alternative was to give him meaningful high-leverage playing time this year, I like what they did quite a lot

wrights_Back: Are the A’s becoming.a  leader in signing rookies to modest, long term contracts?   And is necessity the mother of invention?  

Seems a  good value play: you might whiff totally on a rookie, but there are loads of “stud dud” signings as well (eg, 30yr+ stars who age out or decline preciptiously).

Ben Clemens: I mean, I think they’re trend following, but nothing wrong with that

Ben Clemens: it’s definitely very good!

Ben Clemens: the idea of basically acting as an insurance company by writing a ton of your young players deals that pay them 90% of their expected payout, but with 100% certainty, is just good

Ben Clemens: the players should be accepting these deals a lot, and the team shoudl be offering them. good to see theory and practice align

2131, 1312: Do the orioles have some kind of very different alternative defensive metrics, or is Mike Elias super desperate? Jackson Holliday and Jordan Westburg are ostensibly the backup options at short if Gunnar were to go down, and they also have Cowser in center

Ben Clemens: the plan is very clearyl for Gunnar to not get hurt

Ben Clemens: I don’t see what’s so controversial about this 🙂

Ben Clemens: no, um, it’s not great, but I don’t think it’s THAT bad

Ben Clemens: I’d be worried about either of those guys at short, but I think I could live with it? at least briefly

Ben Clemens: I think they could probably grab a waiver dude to cover it if it was gonna be a 15-day stint. Maybe Griff O’Ferrall could get a cup of coffee, put up a 65 wRC+, and play average defense?

Ben Clemens: I don’t mind Cowser in center but I know I’m in the minority here

Potato: Speaking of books, have you read any of the Brandon Sanderson Cosmere? It’s officially being adapted for Apple TV now

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I’m VERY excited for the stormlight archive

Ben Clemens: just heard about this yesterday, really excited about it

The Person who asks the lunch question: Thank you for acknowledging me in my absence last week <3 What’s for lunch?

Ben Clemens: a pasta salad from the deli at my local grocery store

Ben Clemens: my wife was gone for the last week so I was doing a lot of cooking for one, I’m tired of it

Alex: Junior Caminero has five more years of team control. The Rays play in the AL East, which is probably the toughest division in baseball. Would they trade Caminero’s next five years for five years of getting to play in the AL Central instead (say, they swap with the Royals)?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think so, because you still have to beat those teams in teh playoffs, but it’s a good question

Ben Clemens: like, if we just made a rule that the Rockies got a 100-game head start in the divisional standings, it wouldn’t bump their odds of winning the World Seires as much as you think

Ben Clemens: b/c like, they suck!

Ben Clemens: so moving divisions is not negligibly valuable. But I don’t think it’s more valuable than making your team a lot better, like employing Caminero does

529: In the NFL, any team can sign anyone. In MLB, half the league is practically locked out of the exciting free agents. Do you view this as a problem?

Ben Clemens: I mean, do I think it’s bad that these teams are choosing not to sign good players, telling themselves they’re totally out of it? absolutely

Ben Clemens: like look at the contract the Royals signed Bobby Witt to

Ben Clemens: if you’re referring to only the top 5 free agents or something, then maybe sure fine. but like…. anybody has enough moneyt o pay Bregman 30 mil a year for five years

Ben Clemens: any team that is poor enough for their fans to think they can’t afford it is getting that much in revenue sharing, for starters

Ben Clemens: I do think that it’s a bummer that the way the salary structure in the game is set up, you’re really incentivized to chase the artificially-depressed-compensation years

Ben Clemens: the early-career low salary scale does two things: it makes free agents get paid a ton more, and it means that teams that are cost-constrained have an obvious place they NEED to work in

Ben Clemens: I don’t want to change the total compensation paid to the players in baseball. I’d need to do more math on this, but I believe it’s pretty close to the revenue split in major north american sports overall

Ben Clemens: But I do think that the way things are done – that you get SO much value over 6+ years – is leading to behavior that is not fun for us fans

Ben Clemens: like, higher minimums, earlier free agency, you’ll see the premium for free agency decline quickly

Ben Clemens: even stipulating that this comes with some way to keep the total outlay the same, the issue for me is lock-in, not free agency

Ben Clemens: when you give teams SUCH an attractive option for cost-controlled players, what can they do but respond to incentives?

Hopeful Rose: Been reports of Jordan Walker unlocking some power at driveline. Do you think that can cure what ails him? Or is the swing just too long?

Ben Clemens: I mean, never say never

Ben Clemens: but I will say he’s a funny Driveline candidate

Ben Clemens: they’re open about believing that for most hitters, adding bat speed is the fastest way to success

Ben Clemens: LOVED the ESPN article about Edgar Quero’s time there, for instance

Ben Clemens: so what will they do with a bat speed god who can’t hit anyway

bosoxforlife: The temperature hasn’t reached 25 since the 19″ of snow that  fell a week ago and it hasn’t melted one bit, but it is only 18 days until the first ST game. Can I last that long?

Ben Clemens: grim. but yes! and then baseball will heat up faster htan normal this year because of the WBC, what a treat

JEWELS: so how come the Dodgers don’t get a villain nickname like the Yankees did when they were spending more $$ than any other team?

Ben Clemens: i mean, it doesn’t change the fact that they’re the villains

Ben Clemens: even my casual sports fan friends know it

Ben Clemens: we’re a little too far from Star Wars being culturally relevant, and you can’t use Evil Empire again

Ben Clemens: (sorry, Disney, the kids don’t like Star Wars like I liked Star Wars as a kid)

wheelhouse: Is this the year Ryan McMahon breaks out? For the purposes of this question a 105-115 wRC+ and 3 WAR will suffice

Ben Clemens: probably not

Ben Clemens: reality has a well-known Ryan McMahon not breaking out bias

Ben Clemens: here are his wRC+’s by year over his nine (!) year career:
47, 69, 89, 76, 93, 97, 90, 88, 86

Ben Clemens: he’s actually spectacularly consistent

Ben Clemens: six of those nine years have 500+ PA, too

Ben Clemens: the only ones that don’t are 47, 69, and 76. the man just has one speed

JT: Who will be the Mariners ace this year? Feel like it’s been back and forth over the last few…

Ben Clemens: I’ll take Kirby despite the way we have them lined up in depth charts

Vee: As a fan, I think it sucks big time that the NFL doesn’t guarantee their contracts. It’s a totally different economy.

Ben Clemens: yeah, agreed. it’s a really different space. although players dn’t have guaranteed deals in MLB for their first six years either!

Ben Clemens: it just seems like they do because their salaries are so constrained that what kind of dummy team wouldn’t keep paying them

Ben Clemens: but look, the Dodgers non-tendered Cody Bellinger. these deals are not guaranteed

Vee: McMahon and Ke’Bryan Hayes having long careers without being able to hit makes me appreciate Matt Chapman a little more

Ben Clemens: yeah. Hayes in particular gives me a ton of appreciation for Chapman

Ben Clemens: because he really is eveyr bit his match defensively

Ben Clemens: and he has some offensive tools, like Chapman

Ben Clemens: and like…. it doesn’t work. whereas for Chapman, it does

JT: Best Sophomore SP this year? Schlittler, McLean, Chase Burns, or someone else?

Ben Clemens: it’s really hard, and you didn’t even include Yesavage or Horton

Ben Clemens: I think I’m on Burns? but man, not with much confidence. lots of good options that are not particularly differentiated, imo

CFH: Djokovic claims he turned a glass of water green by directing angry thoughts at it, while keeping another one clear with happy thoughts, cried after getting surgery because he thinks the body is a beautiful, self-healing machine, and diagnosed himself as gluten intolerent because he felt weaker while holding a loaf of bread in his hand. I feel like he was kinda never gonna get a vaccine, but he’s still a weird and interesting dude. Can’t stand Zverev mostly cuz of off the field stuff, but also good servers are boring

Ben Clemens: haha i mean, I’m not sure I could have said it better. If you’re not going to share my values, at least be weird

Ben Clemens: Djokovic is definitely delightfully weird, that’s inarguable

Dodgers Blue: According to Ben Clemens, Jac Caglianone’s upside is _____

Ben Clemens: 50 homers with the greatest raw power this side of Judge

Ben Clemens: like good god he can hit bombs

Ben Clemens: the floor is not major league caliber, to be clear

Guest: Ever try Brass: Birmingham?

Ben Clemens: I’ve tried to, and never finished

Ben Clemens: not sure if that’s a good sign. I know that my friend who is most plugged in to board games loves it, though

JEWELS: I would love to see a SP’s reaction to Judge charging the mound after plunking him.,.

JEWELS: like if Sonny Gray plunked him and Judge starts running towards him all angry.  What do you do if your Gray?

Ben Clemens: added this question because it makes me giggle

Ben Clemens: I love Sonny Gray. I think he would make a business decision and either cower, apologize while cowering, or jsut straight up run away

Ben Clemens: That seems very wise! Why would you choose to get in an altercation with someone shaped like Judge?

Ben Clemens: and presumably you didn’t hit him on purpose

Ben Clemens: just admit fault and survive to pitch another day

Guest: Who is the Red Sox second best SP in 2026? Suarez is the obvious candidate, but Bello, Gray or Oviedo might surprise people. Who do you think?

Ben Clemens: I’ve got Gray. I think he’s really good, and that Suarez’s greatness is more consistency than top end, if that makes sense

JT: best baseball Substack besides Pebble Hunting?

Ben Clemens: I’m not a huge Substack guy, but yes obviously Sam Miller is great, best living baseball writer, as I’ve said a few times

Ben Clemens: other than that I like Down on the Farm and whatever Lance Brozdowski is calling his these days – I just call that one ‘Lance’s thing’, it’s got good stuff on pitch mix

Ben Clemens: alright guys, this was a wonderful chat, but it’s gone on 90 minutes and I am getting pretty hungry

Ben Clemens: let’s do it again, same time next week

Ben Clemens: have a great day