Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 3/16/20

Ben Clemens: Hey guys. I’m not exactly sure what we’ll cover today, because I don’t really know what baseball is going on. But let’s just answer a few questions and see where we go from there.

James: Top 5 board games to get for a quarantine?

Ben Clemens: This is very SF, but my wife and I went to the local board game store yesterday to stock up, and the place was packed.

Ben Clemens: We got Robinson Crusoe the game, which felt appropriate.

Ben Clemens: But legacy games will probably serve you well, because you’re going to have some time on your hands

Ben Clemens: Pandemic Legacy if you’re into very on-the-nose suggestions, but we’ve been playing Aeon’s End Legacy, which is fun, and also Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective

Ben Clemens: Anything that takes up a lot of time, basically.

Stevil: Two things. First, Monopoly is the greatest multi-player board game to date. Second, has there been any talk about how this situation could or will affect the Rule 4 draft?

Ben Clemens: Haha well, I don’t agree with that at all, but if you’re looking for a multiplayer, money-themed game, there are other old classics.

Ben Clemens: I think Acquire is awesome.

Ben Clemens: As to the draft, I hvaen’t heard anything, and I think it’s way too soon to speculate. If the baseball season isn’t starting up again until July, which feels like a distinct possibility, they still need to have a draft, but it would be reasonable to push it to later in the summer so teams could have workouts, showcases, whatever.

Doug: Would a half season of missed games holistically hurt or help anyone’s HOF chances?

Ben Clemens: It probably hurts everyone, particularly given the lens we look at HOF through. There might need to be some adjustments to JAWS for partial seasons, but this is just taking away from everyone’s counting stats, and many players’ peak stats.

Ben Clemens: Least of our problems, obviously, but it’s bad.

Bleh: I’ve done more work since 8am today than I think I’ve ever done in a week in the office.  Does this long-term change how america views working from home?

Ben Clemens: It’s a good question. I think different people will handle it differently. My wife has gone a little stir crazy; if she doesn’t have something external (needing to walk to a meeting, needing to go from room to room, stopping for lunch) to make her move around, she’ll just work nonstop.

Ben Clemens: So she’ll look up at 3, having worked nonstop since 7, and just be a zombie.

Sirras: Have any advice for those of us not used to working remotely?

Ben Clemens: Same idea here, so let’s combine them.

Ben Clemens: I would suggest making sure to take breaks.

Ben Clemens: Writing isn’t really the same kind of job that most people have, so I’m perhaps not the best point of comparison.

Ben Clemens: But I make a point of getting up and walking around the apartment every 20 minutes whether I need to or not, regardless of where I am in my writing.

Ben Clemens: I also try hard to get some social interaction in; chatting on slack with coworkers, or catching up with friends by text or email.

Ben Clemens: Lastly, I always keep up some random story I’m interested in (could be a book, could be a news article, whatever).

Ben Clemens: And read it in little drips and drabs

Ben Clemens: Working from home, you’re susceptible to working way too hard without breaks and burning out. Just try your hardest to avoid that.

Ben Clemens: Also, don’t work in bed, or on the couch. I have an office setup, but find something that separates work and leisure in your mind.

Cube Jockey: Assuming the season starts around July1, do they just play whatever remaining games are on the existing schedule, or are the schedules adjusted to equalize division opponents, home/away, etc.?

Ben Clemens: Oh, they’d have to adjust I think. It’ll depend on how much time they have left, but if nothing else, home/away needs to be fixed. That’s the least of baseball’s problems when they’re ready to restart, but it’s definitely something they’ll need to handle. I’d guess that as soon as they announce a new start date, they’ll announce a new schedule as well.

Sirras: My group at work is trying to find a few games we can play while all working remotely as a 15 minute sanity break. Right now the Jackbox games are the only thing we’ve come up with. Any suggestions?

Ben Clemens: Oh Jackbox is fun! If you all have a console, maybe Overcooked? I’ve always enjoyed that game.

Ben Clemens: Mario Kart same kinda deal, though I doubt everyone would have a Switch.

Ben Clemens: But this isn’t really my forte; I play a few online card games but I’m more of a board game person.

Bubbles: If you haven’t watched The Wire by now, I take all your opinions less seriously. GOAT show.

Ben Clemens: I mean, people can watch what they want! No accounting for taste. But yeah, the Wire is great

Ben Clemens: I’m considering getting Disney+ for the Mandalorian, because I am a Star Wars fan but haven’t been willing to pay for that yet. This seems like a reasonable excuse for it.

Sum: idea: RSNs should show every game, on the date (but not the year, obvi) they were played, for a given memorable season. for instance, I’d love watching the 2007 Red Sox in real time again.

Ben Clemens: I think some RSN’s might do something like this.

Ben Clemens: If you can stream YouTube to a suitable device, you could do this yourself back to 2009:

Ben Clemens: https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/51ghh1/psa_how_to_watch_any…

Ben Clemens: MLB stores games in a consistent, searchable form on YouTube. I’ve used this to create gifs of weird old games in the past, but there’s nothing stopping you from just watching a whole season of a team’s games.

Derek: The Mandalorian is excellent!

Ben Clemens: I’ve heard mixed things, but I’m a Star Wars fan from way back, so I’m pretty sure I’ll like it.

Ben Clemens: I used to have a miniature Slave One ship model when I was a kid. How can I not watch a show about people who look like Boba Fett?

Curtis: Revisiting Ken Burns Baseball series would seem appropriate… can watch in segments as necessary breaks.  There’s a lot of excellent player bios as well out there…if you need a baseball fix.

Ben Clemens: Another excellent suggestion. I saw somewhere that PBS was going to be replaying some of it. But you could just buy it as well presumably, and it’d be money well spent.

Derek: Also, if you are okay with watching cartoons, both Clone Wars and Rebels are excellent tv shows as well. They are definitely more geared towards children (especially early Clone Wars), but honestly they are just good shows period  (again, assuming you don’t have a prevailing aversion to watching animated shows, which some people do), and they mature as they go on. The Clone Wars is miles better than any of the 3 prequel movies imo and Rebels is at least as good. They’re good on their own merits but they also make paying for Disney+ palatable!

Ben Clemens: I think there’s even a new season of Clone Wars coming out, too.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I’m probably buying it before too long. You’ve talked me into it.

Team Staffer: Doing sporcle quizzes as a competition is a good team break.

Ben Clemens: Oh, great suggestion. I hadn’t thought of doing that remotely, but it would definitely work.

Team Staffer: I am a very low level Team analytics employee who has a dry cough (but no other symptoms and I’ve been self-isolating for a week, I’m fine) and my one solace in this trying time is that if it turns out I have COVID 19, Ken Rosenthal will probably be trying to figure out my name.

Ben Clemens: Stay safe, and I hope you are well

Ben Clemens: That’d be extremely small solace, especially given that you might just be called ‘team employee’

Bay Area Resident: Does a team like the Yankees (and perhaps the Indians too) with injured pitchers actually benefit from this whole situation? Tough to say that a pandemic (and the layoff it causes) could actually benefit someone, but still.

Ben Clemens: I don’t think benefit is really a fair word, but there are going to be a lot of impacts like that.

Ben Clemens: Players who are hurt will now miss fewer games rehabbing.

Ben Clemens: Teams who were favorites will have fewer games in the season, and so less inevitability.

Ben Clemens: There are lots of little effects like that.

Ben Clemens: It’s hard to know what those effects will be until we get a better idea of the schedule, though.

Ben Clemens: Also fantasy baesball is gonna be super weird.

Ben Clemens: I had an auction days before the season was suspended, and trying to figure out which team is favored now is really hrad!

Ben Clemens: Wow, DeAndre Hopkins just got traded to the Cardinals. Not baseball related, but look, there aren’t a lot of sports going on right now.

Guest: Best thing to do with canned beans?

Ben Clemens: Now this is a question I feel qualified to answer.

Ben Clemens: Dan would tell you not to make chili with them.

Ben Clemens: I don’t completely agree, but there are all kinds of options.

Ben Clemens: If you have a slow cooker, I like making slow-cooked spicy beans.

Ben Clemens: You can find all kinds of recipes online, but it’s going to largely be black beans and spices.

Ben Clemens: Let those cook on low for eight hours and you get a delicious bean and spice slurry

Ben Clemens: You could also mix them with beef and spices to make chili (sorry Dan).

Ben Clemens: I haven’t cooked a lot with dried beans, but have a bunch of those too. I’d imagine it’s roughly the same.

Ben Clemens: If you don’t have a slow cooker, you can still make bean tacos, with or without chicken sausage.

Ben Clemens: If you do that, though, I’d go heavier on spices; the slow cooker makes everything delicious but if you’re just cooking them in a pot, I’d want more flavor.

Innocent Team Owner: Surely the public will pay me back for the revenues lost? Maybe a new stadium?

Stefan: How the heck is the MLB gonna handle traded players who are gonna be free agents? Did the LAD trade away Mookie for no reason? Does everything just get reset. This all seems so messy

Ben Clemens: It’s definitely too early to think about questions like this, but when there’s a more fixed structure in place, analyzing winners and losers is going to be a hot topic.

Ben Clemens: At this juncture, a complete season cancellation seems unlikely.

Ben Clemens: And given that, the Dodgers might actually benefit *more* from trading for Mookie?

Ben Clemens: The shorter the season, the less favored the Dodgers are.

Ben Clemens: It’s just math.

Ben Clemens: So a half-season Dodgers team could actually lose the division.

Ben Clemens: Which means he’s now useful in the regular season

Ben Clemens: Before, he was basically just an acquisition for the postseason.

Ben Clemens: Now, what will the postseason look like? Who knows!

Nolan: at least one form of baseball can’t be taken from us: THE SHOW comes out tomorrow!

Ben Clemens: This is true. If you’ll allow me a plug for a fellow writer, Paul Sporer streams The Show on Twitch, and it’s a fun time.

Ben Clemens: More baseball when you’re stuck at home is never a bad thing.

GSon: Hypothetically… the entire season is cancelled.. does the service time remaining on a contract (Lindor. for example) go to one year or does accomodation for the lost season keep Lindor under team control for two more years?

Ben Clemens: I don’t know the answer to this, and to be honest I’m not sure that the MLBPA or the teams do either.

Ben Clemens: Heck, they still haven’t figured out how pay works exactly, and there’s the question of how to handle the minors.

Ben Clemens: But it’s going to be negotiated, that’s for sure.

Derek: OOTP comes out this weekend too! For the spreadsheet-incline among us

Ben Clemens: Another plug: Brad Johnson of Rotographs is organizing a complete, 30-team OOTP league to mirror the regular season to provide people a fake baseball fix.

Ben Clemens: I’m going to be one of the 30, though honestly I don’t know many of the details yet.

Ben Clemens: It should be fun, though.

Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: Canned beans person, if you have chickpeas, canned tomatoes, and hot peppers (ideally Thai bird, you can sub Serrano, note that freezing them is fine), channa masala is the way to go. Otherwise, chili. Either way, make some rice and you’re set for a few meals. Great food even without the pandemic.
https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2016/04/channa-masala-recipe.html

Ben Clemens: Linking to Serious Eats is a sign that you know what you’re talking about.

Ben Clemens: They are an awesome source of recipes and techniques.

Ben Clemens: I am not much of a cookbook person, but my copy of Food Lab (by Kenji Lopez-Alt, the Serious Eats guy) is beat to shreds because we use it so much.

Ben Clemens: Here’s a life-changing vegetable level up.

Ben Clemens: If you want charred, roasted veggies (broccoli or cauliflower especially)

Ben Clemens: pre-heat the oven to 500 (yes 500) with a roasting pan in

Ben Clemens: In the meantime, coat your veggies in olive oil.

Ben Clemens: When the oven is preheated, take the sheet out (it’s going to be insanely hot, so be careful), drop the veggies on, and pop it back in the oven)

Ben Clemens: For about 10-12 minutes, shaking the sheet after 5 or so.

Ben Clemens: Because the pan and oven are already so hot, they’ll char the veggies nicely, and you’ll get that restaurant-style delicious blackened outside without a mushy inside.

Ben Clemens: Never been happier eating vegetables at home than after I learned this method.

Ben Clemens: And that book is full of life hacks like that.

Innocent Team Owner: Reminder: the Dodgers got Betts, somehow Graterol, Price (who has a contract so he is bad/evil/greedy/overthehill), somehow a draft pick, and still kept Joc Pederson. Can we keep talking about how insane that is? I can’t believe anyone would want to call takebacks even with a shortened season

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I thought the trade was incredible for them and still do.

Pat’s Bat: Now that we don’t have to run around the the morning getting everyone ready for school and work my wife and I are taking some time to …uh…work on our marriage each morning before the kids wake up.  Keeps us from crouching at each other for the first few hours.

Ben Clemens: Working from home has some benefits.

Ben Clemens: It has lots of drawbacks, too!

Ben Clemens: But benefits

Ben Clemens: I actually think that most people wouldn’t like it long-term. It’s very isolating

Ben Clemens: I’ve gotten used to it, but I really do have to make an effort to be social

Guest: The A’s talent and depth is better than it has been in how long?

Ben Clemens: Hm. Since 2014 maybe? Those teams kind of flamed out but they seemed to be big on depth before Beane went all in with Shark and Lester.

Bubba: I hereby formally request that Fangraphs has a quarantine TROUT WEEK. ALL TROUT PORN, ALL WEEK LONG. Thank you.

Ben Clemens: That’s not what we usually do?

Pat’s Bat: How late into November could the season feasibly be extended?  Maybe MLB could move more games into domed stadiums or to cities with milder weather.

Ben Clemens: They’re going to explore this option for sure.

Ben Clemens: I think you could feasibly have the season end at the end of November if the entirety of the playoffs was in neutral sites; Tampa, Miami, Houston, Arlington, Phoenix, SD, LA?

Ben Clemens: That’s 8 parks worth of warm-weather postseason play if you use both LA stadiums

Ben Clemens: LA can be chilly, but it sure beats Wrigley in November.

Ryan: Have you played Wingspan? We are loving it!

Ben Clemens: It was sold out yesterday, Ryan!

Ben Clemens: The humanity

Ben Clemens: I was trying to buy it

Ben Clemens: Someone in a gaming group I’m a part of has a copy

Ben Clemens: So post-COVID, we are going to have a bunch of board game nights in a row, and we’ll definitely play that.

tz: About taking breaks from work when working from home..no different than when I’m in the office.  I come here 🙂

Ben Clemens: Yeah, very true. I just think that some people are more set up to take those breaks at work because they know their rhythm.

Ben Clemens: Take yourself home, sit at the dining room table with a laptop or whatever, and you can feel very de-synchronized from your normal routine.

Ben Clemens: Next thing you know, you’ve been doing spreadsheet work for three hours.

Pong: What are the chances that a 70 game season ends up the most exciting season in MLB history?

Ben Clemens: Most exciting in history? I don’t know, one in 40 or something? amking numbers up

Ben Clemens: But I think it will be very exciting

Ben Clemens: Way more exciting, in expectation, than a random season

on Dan’s behalf: , I feel obliged to note that Dan doesn’t contend that one cannot add beans to chili, but rather, once you do, it is merely no longer chili.

Ben Clemens: That’s a fair counterpoint. I find it funny that Dan has a nuanced view on sandwich orthodoxy.

Ben Clemens: But he’s a chili traditionalist.

Ben Clemens: I would say that I’m on the chaotic side of things. Call your food what you’d like. Bean soup with beef and veggies is delicious, whether it’s chili or not.

Derek: I think it was Dan who at one point brought up the idea of a FanGraphs Discord server… Now seems like it might be a good time to start that up!

Ben Clemens: Discord usage is probably going through the roof.

Ben Clemens: I’m not sure what we have planned, but sometihng like that wouldn’t be crazy with all of us cooped up.

Ben Clemens: Dan is the most technologically savvy of all of us, I think, so I just wait for him to say he’s doing a thing and then also do it most of the time.

Rays fan in OH: With the amount of grief other teams’ fans give the Rays for the Trop and our fans, I’d rather not share our stadium for non-Rays games.

Ben Clemens: I mean, it’s kind of a greater good of baseball situation. I’d rather not sit at home for weeks eating canned and frozen food, but I’m definitely going to do just that if it’s for the greater good.

Ben Clemens: Heck, the Rays might even end up with a home playoff game out of it.

Ben Clemens: I bet that would be a bigger sticking point than anything else.

Pong: How is that Mookie Betts trade looking if we don’t have a season?

Innocent Team Owner: How happy are my friends, the Ricketts family, that Kris Bryant’s age 28 is cut short? How happy are my other fellow owners that these greedy, spoiled players will all be losing precious time? Just wait until the NCAA pipeline is complete and we can fully control those already super cheap foreigners with a draft

Ben Clemens: Same general vibe, though Innocent Team Owner, as usual, goes a little further with the bit.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, uh, not really clear what service time implications are, but I don’t think that’s anyone’s chief concern right now.

Ben Clemens: When this has blown over, I’m sure owners and players will both try to take what they can out of it, and they’ll be at each other’s throats again in no time.

Ben Clemens: But at the moment, they’ve got bigger fish to fry

Ben Clemens: Like paying minor leaguers

Ben Clemens: And seeking shelter.

Ben Clemens: As an aside, I’m really hopeful that this results in better protections for MiLB players

Ben Clemens: I think that their plight is being exposed to a wider swath of the baseball-following world than before

Ben Clemens: Obviously in crappy circumstances, but it would be nice if the outcry resulting from this means something.

Pat’s Bat: I hope it results in better protections for everyone.  America was woefully unprepared not just for the pandemic but for the economic fallout.

Ben Clemens: Yes, wholeheartedly agree.

Ben Clemens: Let’s keep the chat away from politics (I mean me, not you, I think your statement has a lot of merit)

Ben Clemens: But I think that one thing we’re seeing as a result of this

Ben Clemens: Is how many people are truly in tenuous economic circumstances

Ben Clemens: It’s scadry

Ben Clemens: scary*

Ben Clemens: What you consider the best method for dealing with that is up to you

Ben Clemens: But it’s a huge issue facing the country (and world), and I don’t think you can pretend it doesn’t exist.

Guest: What’s the dealio with Hawk-Eye?

Ben Clemens: It was scheduled to be online for Opening Day this year, so I assume they’ll just use it whenever baseball starts.

Ben Clemens: Things are going to be *very* busy when the season starts.

Ben Clemens: We’ll have new batted ball tracking, a new schedule, players trying to get in shape quickly. We could very easily have teams avoiding some cities entirely and playing in spring facilities or something, so park factors will be a mess.

Ben Clemens: It’s gonna be a weird year.

Derek: In this scenario couldn’t they just move the Rays game somewhere else? Say, Miami? Would be kind of odd, but drastic times…

Ben Clemens: That might be the solution. No home games allowed. I do think that a warm-weather playoffs is a good solution, though.

Ben Clemens: If some teams get unfairly favored by a small amount by being true home teams rather than just designated home teams, that’s unfortunate.

Ben Clemens: But getting baseball to work is more important. You could do what Derek is saying here and force no home games, or just say whatever and let teams play as “away” teams in their own stadium. I don’t particularly care which.

Ben Clemens: San Francisco is going to shelter in place rules effective midnight tonight.

Ben Clemens: That’s going to be weird.

Ben Clemens: Stay at home except for essential needs. Grocery stores will remain open, etc.

Ben Clemens:

Ben Clemens: Reading some of the words in this are crazy

Ben Clemens: People in the six counties will still be able to go shopping for items such as food and household supplies, and seek medical care. They will be able to go outside for walks or exercise as long as they keep six feet away from anyone they don’t already live with.

Ben Clemens: I was actually worried I wouldn’t be able to go for a run, but it looks like that’s covered.

Ben Clemens: The list of essential businesses mostly makes sense

Ben Clemens: Grocery stores, medical facilities, gas stations, restaurants.

Ben Clemens: But also: laundry services!

Ben Clemens: I guess lots of people don’t have in-building access to laundry, and not cleaning your clothes for this long could be a health hazard.

Ben Clemens: It just looks weird seeing it written out.

Derek: It’s quite odd to basically be living inside an asterisk and recognize it in real time!

Ben Clemens: Yeah, that’s how I feel. Usually we only recognize things in retrospect.

Ben Clemens: I started working in finance in 2008, and though I understood things were extreme, I didn’t realize *just how* extreme.

Ben Clemens: It took years for me to grasp how weird things had been.

Ben Clemens: This doesn’t seem like that. This seems bizarre right now, no need for context or distance.

Guest: That’s why I figured we should share some bean recipes

Ben Clemens: They’re certainly more relevant now!

Masaya: And the bean recipes actually help enforce the 6ft social distancing

Matt: Has there been any analysis done for prior work stoppages (strikes, WWII, etc.) and how that impacted the play when it restarted? Is a work stoppage likely to hurt certain players differently based on age? Position? How does this stunt minor leaguer growth?

Ben Clemens: I haven’t seen any. That said, the type of work stoppage probably matters, and we don’t have any previous ones like this. Using WWII as an example wouldn’t make that much sense because of the sheer number of people fighting in the war. And the strike is maybe closer, but it was both shorter and at the end of a season. I don’t really know how to think about it, but we’ve got time to consider it now.

Dave: I’m not a board game player to speak of. Do you and other board game players prefer playing your favorite games over and over, or trying tons of games a time or two for great variety? Or perhaps it’s a combination of the two?

Ben Clemens: I’m definitely a mix of the two.

Ben Clemens: I find that most games are fun at first

Ben Clemens: Maybe not the first game ever, because you have to learn the rules.

Ben Clemens: But after that, they’re ufn.

Ben Clemens: But maybe the 8th or 10th playthrough isn’t

Ben Clemens: Then, there are a few games that I’d play a lot

Ben Clemens: So I try a ton of games just a few times, but then have a few standbys (Seven Wonders, Sherlock Holmes, a few others) that I have played a ton.

Ben Clemens: One thing that distinguishes me is that my wife and I are my usual board game play group

Ben Clemens: So we play a lot of two player and co-op games

Ben Clemens: When we have a bunch of people over, we just pick up something random.

Masaya: What I think is lost in this is the workers in the stadiums that bust their asses selling beer and hot dogs that now have no source of income and no union working to help them. Gotta love Bauer for what he’s trying to do     https://www.gofundme.com/f/mlb-gameday-staff-coronavirus-relief?utm_me…

Ben Clemens: Yeah, Trevor Bauer is controversial in a lot of ways, and I often disagree with him heavily.

Ben Clemens: But this is a great thing he did

Ben Clemens: I hope that more teams follow the Tigers’ suit and guarantee wages for stadium workers.

Ben Clemens: Because teams have more money than players, even though players have a lot.

Ben Clemens: You can’t just rely on every team having a Zion Williamson

Ben Clemens: But yes, stadium workers and minor leaguers are severely affected by this.

Ben Clemens: There’s a reason you’re hearing more about UBI in the last week than you probably have in your life before today.

Ben Clemens: The owners and the players aren’t really the victims here, they’re inconvenienced, but they’ll live. It’s the people who are living week to week and working in baseball, of which there are many

Ben Clemens: Luckily I got my Ty Kelly ‘pimping home runs doesn’t matter the planet is dying’ shirt already

Ben Clemens: Because it feels very apropos at the moment.

Seat Painter: Ever played Terraforming Mars? Has a ton of replayability imo.

Ben Clemens: I was supposed to play this week!

Ben Clemens: A new expansion came out apparently.

Ben Clemens: One guy in my gaming group loves it.

Ben Clemens: That is on hold at the moment.

Dan: I am thinking baseball should eliminate extra innings and play six inning games with double headers at least every week. I imagine people would be against it but I bet it would be more exciting and allow all the games to be played. Final details to be pending actual start day.

Ben Clemens: Never heard that one before. But that’s kind of interesting!

Ben Clemens: I don’t think they’ll do it

Ben Clemens: Why more six-inning games instead of fewer nine-inning ones?

Ben Clemens: There’s the historical record to consdier.

Ben Clemens: But maybe that’d be fun.

Shane: Are you excited for the new Out of the Park Baseball game?

Ben Clemens: I am indeed

Ben Clemens: I was very into OOTP in college, then got out of it for a while when real life intervened.

Ben Clemens: Now that real life and baseball are pretty intertwined,t hough, I’m looking forward to giving it another try.

Ben Clemens: I was always a sucker for overly aggressive tactics when I played, so hopefully they’ve made those work slightly better during my hiatus.

R: do an alternate reality where the Marlins don’t have a fire sale,are favorites with Yelich, Stanton, etc, in this reality ARod is their owner everyone hates while Derek Jeter is on shark tank

Ben Clemens: We haven’t stooped to writing fiction yet, but maybe we will soon.

DH: What are your top teams to play on this year’s OOTP? I usually do an expansion team, but an aggressive rebuild would be fun as well.

Ben Clemens: I always preferred doing Rays-style stuff

Ben Clemens: Trying to churn the roster and keep everything whirring.

Ben Clemens: I’d always fail eventually, but it was fun to see how long I could keep it going for.

Ben Clemens: Maybe the Giants this year, though. I live in the bay now and also you could really tank.

Ben Clemens: Alright everyone, I’m going to call it a day. I’m going to make some lunch (potentially with beans!) and make sure there are no non-essential errands I want to run before shelter in place starts.

Ben Clemens: Be safe everyone.

Ben Clemens: Especially in these trying times.

Ben Clemens: And we’ll talk again soon.