Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 3/7/22

Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, welcome to the chat.

Ben Clemens: Let’s just dive right in

Sir Nerdlington: Do you think Oakland and St. Pete could include a rider on public stadium funding that requires the team spend in the top half of payroll each season?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think this would be enforceable, I don’t know how the language would work, and I also don’t think either team would agree to it.

Ben Clemens: Why would you when you can run bottom-dwelling payrolls, still compete consistently for playoff spots, and make googly eyes at Las Vegas and/or Montreal?

Guest: WELL, at least we can look forward to minor league games!  I truly think that some players on the 40 man rosters should be exempted especially with no mlb time.  Thoughts?

Ben Clemens: I mean…. exempted? I’m not 100% sure I understand

Ben Clemens: It’s a lockout!

Ben Clemens: It’s not ‘hey we’re choosing not to pay a few highly paid players but we’d like to still have mostly baseball’

Ben Clemens: They’re part of the union, they’re in many cases the players the entire fight is about

Ben Clemens: You don’t get to lock out part of the group you’re collectively bargaining with and not the rest

Ben Clemens: I too would prefer baseball to continue uninterrupted but I can’t see this happening, and also don’t think it should

Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: Looking ahead: the consensus is that the league wants to cancel a few weeks of games to lower expenditures while keeping its TV money. This is going to put a lot of (self-imposed) pressure on the owners to make a deal then, before the TV contracts decrease in value. The MLBPA, however, doesn’t have that pressure, each marginal day without baseball is just another 1/162. Is MLB risking shooting itself in the foot here? They’re handing the players a lot of leverage.

Ben Clemens: I mostly agree

Ben Clemens: I do wonder if the owners are less calculating than we think and it’s actually just an issue of factions of them disagreeing on what’s best

Ben Clemens: Which leads to Manfred not being able to get consensus around a deal that would actually get done

Ben Clemens: But yeah, I think that owners who rely on revenue sharing and TV money to make a profit are going to start feeling afraid when RSN’s and national networks start calling

Jacob: Even if bigger bases lead to an increase in SB attempts, I am of the belief that the automated strike zone will decrease steals because catchers will be focused more on gunning down baserunners so the success rate will go down. Am I off base there?

Ben Clemens: You are not… even with a bigger base

Ben Clemens: ABS is definitely not good for steals

Sir Nerdlington: How do you think the catcher position will evolve with the ABS? I don’t like watching Angel Hernandez decide games, but I also don’t love finding ways to strip defensive value from a specific position.

Ben Clemens: I think it’s going to tend towards better hitters and guys with cannon arms, but there’s still a lot to be said for game management type stuff. I know we can’t quantify it (yet) but I think some of that is the guys who are bad at working with pitchers getting bumped out in the minors

Jughead: With the Mickey mouse pickoff rules in low A ball last year how does one determine  whether or not a guy like Joey weimer’s speed is real or not?

Ben Clemens: I excluded steals from being any inputs in my mid-tier hitters article today because I don’t know the answer to this exact question and didn’t feel confident that I had the right approach to adjusting for the rules

Ben Clemens: To some extent you can do some comparisons to league average but that’s weird for steals

Ben Clemens: Long story short: no idea great question though

chilly: so i  read over the weekend reports saying players agreed to ban shifts.  was this a bargaining chip of some kind as dont most players hate shifts anyways? always seemed like a front office mandate that never stood a chance to last.  time to slightly upgrade lh sluggers in dynasty leagues?

Ben Clemens: Eh…. the way media outlets picked it up was slightly misleading

Ben Clemens: The players agreed to give the league more power to unilaterally make rule changes LIKE banning the shift

Ben Clemens: which is obviously a concession, though not a huge one…. it’s much more of a cosmetic thing that the PA can agree to

Gibby: Which 2nd year Tigers pitcher emerges as the best of the bunch this year? Skubal was a stud last year but Mize was trending up towards the end

Ben Clemens: I’m a Mize guy, myself

Ben Clemens: But I am definitely not the best person to answer this question

Mets fan: Why was there so much animosity from owners towards Cohen about the Scherzer contract?  I’m sure the Dodgers would have given him a similar deal.  Did other owners resent the Dodgers/Red Sox/Yankees when they were spending money at will?

Ben Clemens: Yes

Ben Clemens: Haha they absolutely did!

Ben Clemens: It would obviously be better, from a profits for ownership perspective, if every team agreed to spend 90 million a year and bank the rest

Ben Clemens: So when someone breaks from this unspoken consensus, of course they’re mad

14343: How was skiing?

Ben Clemens: It was HYPE

Ben Clemens: Saturday was the day we really wanted to get a full day in, and it snowed 10 inches overnight Friday

Ben Clemens: We skied Palisades Tahoe and the conditions were just perfect

Ben Clemens: I’m pretty average at skiing, steep groomers are my go-to, and it was perfect for that, plus there was a lot of snow so the bowls were great too

Dan: Great now I’m trying to process financial transactions and I’m picturing people making googley eyes at eachother.

Ben Clemens: You’re welcome

Guest: As a fellow bay area resident, is it just me or is the Jack London Gondola absolutely ridiculous? I’m kinda shocked this is being entertained

Ben Clemens: I don’t want to completely rule it out but every time I read about it I get confused about how this would work as a way to transport people from place to place in a reasonable amount of time

Ben Clemens: Which is usually the point of building new transportation?

Ben Clemens: Shout out to Original Pattern Brewing, where I went for several beers last time I was in Jack London Square area

Guest: HI ben! I am astonished by how much our interests overlap. I am a cardinals fan Econ major who plays a lot of souls games. Jon Jay! $TNX! Margit!

Ben Clemens: I was always a little down on Jay relative to Cards fans, I’m sorry to say

Ben Clemens: Though I do appreciate his large butt and willingness to aim it at a pitch and get on base

Sir Nerdlington: Been watching a lot of D1 baseball of late. It’s a lot of fun, but the fundamentals can be pretty rough. With Rapsodo, Edger, HitTrax, etc. gaining hold have we over-corrected on maximizing the body movements at the expense of knowing game situations?

Ben Clemens: It’s possible, but I would like to advance an alternate explanation: D1 baseball has never been super clean

Ben Clemens: And that’s kind of what’s great about it

Ben Clemens: I grew up going to Tennessee games b/c my dad worked about 5 minutes away and I mostly remember the games for the wacky fun stuff, not for super crisp fundamentals

Guest: What’s your ideal playoff format?

Ben Clemens: KBO playoffs for each league

Ben Clemens: six teams qualify but division winners have to play fewer series

Ben Clemens: The ghost win thing is fine too, similar idea, I’d just go further

Quincy: I would love to see all the hall of famers turn their back on manfred when he starts to speak in Cooperstown

Ben Clemens: I don’t think that htey should feel an obligation to, but it would definitely be a spectacle

Jacob: Do you think the Padres are being slept on this year? They still have bonafide studs in Machado and Tatis, their staff should be good with Musgrove, Snell, etc…I think they may thrive this year without as much attention to start the year

Ben Clemens: I don’t think so… we have them as the second-best team in the West and close to LA, and Dan’s ZiPS odds have th em around 90 wins

Ben Clemens: I dunno how the larger consensus looks, but from a numbers perspective, I think they look pretty good just like last year

stupid question asker: In a semi deep dynasty league, where my team is pretty balanced and I’m just looking for the most likely upside play….  Eric Lauer or Abraham Toro?    I know, I know…. pretty small fish in the larger sea.

Ben Clemens: Toro! I’m just a sucker for Toro, always trying to overpay for him

mike tyson: designated hitter: Wouldn’t owners view ghost wins as lost revenue?

Ben Clemens: I mean…. I guess?

Ben Clemens: They view everything as lost revenue

Ben Clemens: It’s more playoff games than we have currently, and I don’t think a four-game series would sell particularly different than a 5-game series

Ben Clemens: pretty narrow

Chris: Could the players and owners agree on adjusting the tax rates downwards and keeping the CBT at the owners preferred number? Wouldn’t that help the players in future negotiations and couldn’t they make the numbers match?

Ben Clemens: I mean…. if I were the players, I wouldn’t take that bargain

Ben Clemens: That said, I think there’s not much point in trying to goof around with the CBT until the owners start to sweat a little. The group of owners voting against the CBT that wasn’t particularly close to the players’ ask says to me that there’s not going to be a bargain until someone caves

Ben Clemens: I’m not sure which side it will be, but… the amount of resistance to 220 million as a CBT number means that I don’t think the owners are willing to commit another penny there

Eman: Why don’t the players include “increased asset value of the teams” as part of their negotiation? You see club prices rise from hundreds of millions to billions… why aren’t the players getting a piece? Also, why wouldn’t the league offer all the players a minimum salary of say $1.5 million with everything else going in the clubs favor, to turn the union against each other?

Ben Clemens: I think that they might behind closed doors, and I’m not sure why they haven’t made it more of a public talking point, but I think it’s implied in many of their things

Ben Clemens: And as to your higher minimum salary point, there’s no way the owners would ever propose that because it would make low-spending teams pay more

Ben Clemens: You think Bob Nutting is going to agree to roughly double his payroll?

Ben Clemens: Since he’s paying a huge chunk of that team the minimum?

Ben Clemens: Never happening

Ben Clemens: I would like to see a higher minimum salary and a flatter distribution of salaries overall, which I think would be really good for competition, I just don’t think that owners actually want that

Mitch: How about Jeff McNeil as a fit for the cardinals? That lineup could definitely use another lefty bat and both he and Edman can play some OF if needed

Ben Clemens: I don’t really see it, because he’s just an awkward fit for them defensively given how the team is constructed

Ben Clemens: I’d rather just have a Nootbaar/Yepez platoon at DH than trade prospects for McNeil and try to get that production out of him

DJ: With the model you used for the Mid-Tier Hitting Prospects article, I’m curious what you’ve found some of the needle moving stats to be? For example is K% more important than BB%? Does ISO carry a higher amount of predictive value than most other stats?

Ben Clemens: So, I’ll just speak about the one I gave the highest weight to, which is a binary logistic regression

Ben Clemens: I ran it on a different data set for every level of the minors

Ben Clemens: And broadly speaking: the lower level you are, the more important strikeout rate is

Ben Clemens: The higher level you are, the more important power is

Ben Clemens: Finally: age at lower levels is more important than age at higher levels, which totally makes sense to me

Guest: Ben do you have a favorite part of SF for wings? I am collecting recs for a comprehensive list

Ben Clemens: I haven’t eaten a ton of wings since moving out here, but Square Pie Guys has surprisingly good wings

hombre: Hi Ben, how are you doing today?

Ben Clemens: I’m doing very well! Sore from a weekend of skiing, but well-rested and I’m happy to have gotten my mid-tier prospects article out the door

Pkpkpkpk: If you had to fill out a five player all time mvp ballot for the entire history of baseball, defined here as the five players who have contributed the most value to baseball as a sport, players only, who do you choose? Do you go straight to the Barry Bonds Roger Clemens types or more towards Jackie Robinson types despite lower actual production?

Ben Clemens: Jackie Robinson types

Ben Clemens: Jackie, Babe, and Curt Flood are all slam dunks for me, for example

Ben Clemens: I could see removing Flood of those three

Ben Clemens: Because the way he changed the game was different than the other two

Ben Clemens: But acting like Jackie Robinson isn’t one of the most important players in baseball history strikes me as willfully ignorant

Appa Yip Yip: Important to remember that many owners inherited their wealth they are not all conniving brain geniuses playing 5d chess some of them are dumb failsons who are too rich to ever actually lose anything

Ben Clemens: And some owners like spending money on players and winning playoff games

Ben Clemens: One thing that gets lost in the lockout negotiations is that ownership is a broad spectrum. They tend to negotiate like the lowest common denominator b/c that’s how consensus works when you need 2/3

Ben Clemens: The most annoying voices get representation

Dan: Is that because most MLB relavant players in low lever are young enough to still be growing into power when they are in the lower minors?

Ben Clemens: It’s kinda that… I think more importantly, if you’re striking out a lot at low levels, you’re just not going to be plyaable in the majors

Ben Clemens: Hitting the ball is so important

Ben Clemens: Power can be gained more than ability to not stirke out 30% of the time

copecru: will Alberto Rodriguez make your mid-tier list in 23?

Ben Clemens: It certainly wouldn’t shock me

Ben Clemens: I didn’t put any players who hadn’t played above rookie ball before 2021 on the list because I’m just not confident enough in my methods for them

Guest: what did curt flood do?

Ben Clemens: Led to the downfall of the reserve clause when he sued the League after refusing to report after being traded

hombre: Specific question, but among SPs, where do you put Pablo Lopez? I think with his already apparent success + age and room for further improvement, he’s currently top 25-27 with chance to be top 15

Ben Clemens: i LOVE pablo

Ben Clemens: Kevin and I put him on our top 50 trade value list and got some flak for it

Ben Clemens: I’d still hvae him there, which is about where you say

Jeff: Anybody else think that after the negotiations are over that Manfred is replaced? Depending on how long the deal is I guess. I just feel like the ONLY reason he was put there were for this CBA and his experience regarding labor

Ben Clemens: I do

Ben Clemens: Regardless of how the owners think he did in the negotiations or how long the deal is, I think commissioners in general have a limited shelf life

Ben Clemens: They just build up resentment on various axes — fans, ownership, players — until you get someone new

Guest: Your estimation that the Pirates are one of the most profitable teams made sense, but is such a logical mess for baseball. Is there any way to reasonably fix an imbalance that large? It feels like tying profits to performance should be the number one goal of players

Ben Clemens: I agree, but the owners basically said ‘lol we’re not touching this’ when the players proposed tying revenue sharing to wins

Ben Clemens: and if you have some places you think you can make gains and one where the other side tells you to go pound sand, it’s hard to keep pushing in that area

Ben Clemens: I’d like to see a cap/floor structure tied to revenues, but given ownership’s ability to hide revenues as non-baseball-related (parking, real estate, ownership in tv networks, whatever) I think it would be really tricky to negotiate

Ben Clemens: More importantly, I don’t think owners would agree to it given how well the current system has been working for them revenue-wise

Sir Nerdlington: These D1 baseball games fly, it’s awesome. The MLB procurement teams should look at whomever supplies batting gloves to college kids. They don’t seem to loosen up every time they take a pitch.

Ben Clemens:

Tom C: Hey! Been itching to share this idea I had about an OOTP board game where you play in commissioner mode and run into vignettes which give players various boosts and nerfs (e.g. Doug Latta gives a lesson to your worst ranked position player, +50% Gap and Home Run Power). Thoughts?

Ben Clemens: OOTPDND, we’d call it

Ben Clemens: I’d definitely play

mike tyson: designated hitter: Give me hope for Matt Manning.

Ben Clemens: The stuff plays and I thikn his minor league swinging strike rates are more representative of true talent than his big league season

Ben Clemens: It’s only 85 innings, and I think he can do better

Arms Race: At what point is keeping too many pitchers actually too many? 12 team keeper league with contracts, QS.   Standard auction.  I can keep Weeler (21), Montas (on contract for 15), Ray (6) and Webb (5).  I

Arms Race: I’m tempted to trade for a bat but I also think those 4 arms for $47 is pretty solid!

Ben Clemens: There’s such a thing as too many pitchers but I don’t think you’re there yet

Ben Clemens: Montas is kinda cuspy?

Ben Clemens: But the rest, I’d want to get a bag in return for them if I moved them

Don Russ: What were your most prized baseball cards back in the day and do you still have them?

Ben Clemens: I can tell you my number one by far

Ben Clemens: I went to a card convention and saw a signed Ozzie Smith card from his first year with the Cardinals

Ben Clemens: He was my favorite player growing up, and it was only 8 bucks, so I bought it

Ben Clemens: It’s in a thick protective case on my desk right now

Ben Clemens: That aside, my most prized cards were Future Stars type cards of Carlos Delgado (he played for Knoxville in the minors and I saw him all the time) and Michael Jordan

Ben Clemens: And those have been lost to the sands of time

Ben Clemens: But signed Ozzie? Heck yeah

Sir Nerdlington: Can we skip the second generation of MLB team ownership and go straight to the third where they’re super lazy and squander the family fortune?

Ben Clemens: Tangent: do people like successoin?

Ben Clemens: I’ve been watching it on a recommendation from friends and ugh, I just don’t like any single character in it

Ben Clemens: Please don’t spoil things, but is it worth continuing with?

Quarantino Martinez: People sometimes (less this time, thankfully) get angry at the players because they shouldn’t care about money so much since they get to do this amazing thing we all love, but wouldn’t most people here also love to own a baseball team, even if it wasn’t profitable? That would also be a dream, no?

Ben Clemens: Sure, but we don’t get to SEE them own the team

Ben Clemens: and playing baseball feels more relatable, I think

Ben Clemens: I can picture what it would be like to hit a line drive in the majors

Ben Clemens: I cannot picture how it would feel to own a team

Matt: Succession is incredible, everyone sucks but you somehow root for them. Definitely stick with it

Quarantino Martinez: It took me a while with Succession. The main thing is to see it purely as a comedy, not a drama. Then the terribleness of the characters is less tiresome.

Ben Clemens: I love how everyone feels that way

Rutherford Ke’ Hayes: Succession took me a full season to get into, but it’s worth keeping after it. To your point though, I couldn’t get over the fact that there wasn’t a single, likeable character at the beginning.

Jeff: fellow cardinals fan here, and I sold a pair of Jordans to Jon Jay and also got a game used bat from him

Ben Clemens: Uh, amazing

Guest: I live in a midsize city with a AA league team within walking distance.  Cheap tickets, fun environment, if very low-stakes.  Only recently have I gotten really into following the game at a major league level, and I’m finding my loyalties divided between the MLB affiliate of my local club (who, while I could develop stronger attachments to the players, are located on the opposite coast), and the nearest MLB team, who are ~ 3.5 hours away and I could likely see in person no more than twice a year.  To which should I devote my allegiance if I’m trying to derive the most enjoyment (knowing that I’ll be going to AA games all the while regardless)

Ben Clemens: I can help with this a lot actually!

Ben Clemens: I grew up in a similar situation

Ben Clemens: And I found that I loved minor league baseball without needing to be attached to the related big league club

Ben Clemens: The K-Jays (and later Smokies) were a Blue Jays affiliate when I was growing up, and Toronto is not near Tennessee

Ben Clemens: But I just basically followed any players I’d seen who made the majors and otherwise rooted for the team I more naturally followed

Ben Clemens: (Cards for me, but I had plenty of friends who were Braves fans)

Appa Yip Yip: Guest should just cheer for the Blue Jays tbh it’s not really close

Ben Clemens: Oof, bad news that my example was specifically about not rooting for the Jays 🙁

Quarantino Martinez: Is Square Pie Guys good? I’m also recently moved to SF and finding my way around.

Ben Clemens: It’s quite good. Their toppings can be hit or miss, they try to get a little too fancy sometimes. But the pizza itself is excellent, it’s the best Detroit-style pizza in the Bay imo

Ben Clemens: I also like Little Star quite a bit, totally different style but delicious

Lorenzo: Regarding the proposed pitch clock, is it designed to mainly prevent batters from stepping out of the box for long periods?  That seems to be the issue regarding length of PAs.

Ben Clemens: I think it’s a little of keeping batters from stepping out and a little of stopping pitchers from just holding the ball

Greg from Toronto: any thoughts on  Eli Montero from Colorado?

Ben Clemens: Loved Elehuris when he was a Cards prospect, and he didn’t do anything to change my mind this year

Ben Clemens: It’s a great sign that his injury-sapped 2019 was just that, an injury messing with ihs power

Ben Clemens: I dunno if he can handle third but I’d love to see the Rockies find out. I have few worries that the bat will play

Quarantino Martinez: As an O’s Fan, should I be more worried about Grayson Rodriguez because 1) of the strict pitch limits in the minors making him less able to go deep as a pro or 2) my general irrational terror at the O’s pitcher development issues?

Ben Clemens: 2

Ben Clemens: Definitely 2

Rutherford Ke’ Hayes: Big fan of the prospect piece, and like when you and Eric wade into eachother’s respective parts of the pool. That in mind, what do those smarter than I think of Jesus Luzardo these days? Esp. considering the fact that he landed with the Marlins (who seem to be able to work some magic with pitchers), the guy’s got filthy stuff, and looks like he is one mechanical tweak from being outstanding.

Ben Clemens: Thank you!

Ben Clemens: And, I can’t speak for those smarter than you, but as for me, I’m still in on Luzardo

Ben Clemens: The secondary stuff is just so excellent that I have faith something will click

Matt: Any thoughts on whats going to happen to Scott Kingery? Will he most likely just work out the rest of his contract and then be out of baseball?

Ben Clemens: I really have no idea

Ben Clemens: What a strange trajectory for him

Ben Clemens: I think he’s pretty likely to get minor league playing time this year assuming the lockout ends, and that the Phillies will kind of figure it out from there?

Ben Clemens: What a star-crossed career

Sirras: A friend of mine described skyline chili as “good but an acquired taste.” I know this is typically more Dan S.’s realm but how quickly should I terminate this friendship?

Ben Clemens: I think that in these situations, experts suggest walking away slowly while maintaining eye contact

Ben Clemens: Then running once you reach a safe distance

Greene: Freddie to the Rays?

Greene: That’s based off of a MLBTR report

Ben Clemens: Yeah, Jon Heyman reported that the Rays made him an offer

Ben Clemens: pre-lockout

Ben Clemens: I’m…. skeptical that this will be where he ends up

Ben Clemens: But I could see Tampa offering him a king-sized pillow deal or something?

Ben Clemens: 1/35? I don’ think they will tie up finances long-term, and I don’t think Freeman is super likely to accept that, but a short-term deal at big money could work for hte Rays if they think they’re right on the cusp of the World Series

Greg: Do you think there is any chance the MLBPA exec committee would approve a deal, only to have the union reject it?

Ben Clemens: Nah… I think we’d have heard whispers about this before now if there were a possibility of it happening

Ben Clemens: It’s theoretically possible, I just don’t think it’s a very likely outcome given the way these negotiations have gone

Appa Yip Yip: Rays gonna pay Freeman in exposure

Ben Clemens: That would work better if they drew better

Ben Clemens: Sorry, unfair Tampa Bay slander

Ben Clemens: I don’t think they’re going to ridiculously low-ball him or anything

Ben Clemens: Just feels like a strange match

Ben Clemens: Or rather, a match that won’t work if he wants four or five years

Dan: I’m assuming someone currently in the minors will at one point be the best player in baseball. When we look back will it be more true to say they where a lot better than we thought they where or they improved a lot more than we expected them to?

Ben Clemens: I think that we’ll say the first but mean the second

Ben Clemens: Because the skill that is perhaps most valuable in prospects is their ability to improve

Ben Clemens: So it’s a six of one half dozen of the other thing

Ben Clemens: It’s not liek they were secretly Barry Bonds in A ball, most likely

Ben Clemens: The skills that we thought would improve just improved by more

Jon: In case you missed it, Rays made an offer to Freddie

Ben Clemens: I… what… that was up above?

Ben Clemens: We talked about it for a while!

Brandon: Where would you put Seiya Suzuki if you were including him on a top 100 prospects rankings? (Not saying you should, just hypothetically)

Ben Clemens: I think I’m probably the wrong person to ask about this. I’m not sure he makes sense as a prospect though

Ben Clemens: He’s mostly a finished product

Ben Clemens: I’m kind of skeptical the bat will play but I think I’m the low man on him

A cat: With the non baseball related investment in real estate development dwarfing stadium costs (see OAK terminal site), isn’t it time to re-examine the anti-trust exemption? Teams are used as tools to further other economic ends, particularly when management refuses or limits investment in the team.

Ben Clemens: It’s just a non-starter

Nate: Personally, would you like to see the shift banned (or reduced)?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think the anti-trust exemption is going away and I also don’t think it has a huge impact on day-to-day baseball

Ben Clemens: Whoops sorry got those out of order

Ben Clemens: I think I’d like to see the shift reduced… keep two infielders on both sides

Greg: The players have been pushing hard for a higher CBT threshold, but doesn’t that incentivize small-market teams to spend less? Why bother spending even modest amounts if you’ll just be wiped out in your efforts to compete by the bigger-spending clubs (that are now unrestrained by a CBT)?

Ben Clemens: I mean, they don’t need any incentives to spend less

Ben Clemens: The ones who are competing for the playoffs regularly would probably try to keep doing so

Ben Clemens: And it’s not like the Pirates are spending any money they could stop spending if the Dodgers spent more

Jesse: If they do ban the shift, dont you think infielders are just going to try and get a running start to the other side of diamond? seeing how the ball is likely going to be hit there anyway?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, and that sounds great!

Ben Clemens: More people running around sounds like exactly what I want out of baseball

Tacoby Bellsbury: Speaking of non-starters, have your prospecting excursions put any relief-only arms on your radar that were under it before? If so, whom?

Ben Clemens: A)nice segue!

Ben Clemens: b)no, but that’s largely because I have no idea how to think of relievers and haven’t been able to build a screener I’m comfortable with

Guest: Does the relative failure of Akiyama dissuade the Reds from investing in NPB/KBO type of guys? Given that Akiyama was the first foray into Japan for the Reds, this investment, must make it harder for ownership to consider it again right? Not to say that it would be correct, but espically given the lack of willingness to spend by their front office, it has to make it less likely.

Ben Clemens: Yes, I think so

Ben Clemens: I’m not saying it’s logical or anything like that

Ben Clemens: But that’s a natural inclination

Ben Clemens: Alright, I’m going to call it quits slightly early today because I need to go start preparing lunch, had a more active morning than I planned on and want to eat something

Ben Clemens: Everyone have a great day, and I’ll see you same time next week in the same place as always