Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 4/12/21

Ben Clemens: Hey everyone

Ben Clemens: Someone asked a question that I feel very passionately about, and it seems like a perfect thing to start the chat on. This one is going to be participatory — if you come up with any ideas, let me know, and I’ll keep talking about it throughout the chat

Guest: What actions should teams be taking to discourage wooing in the ballpark?

Ben Clemens: I hadn’t thought about this until now, but it’s of GREAT import to me as a baseball watcher

Ben Clemens: What the HECK makes people want to woo?

Dee Arby: If it’s in Philly, throw a battery at them.

Appa Yip Yip: Have you ever thought about doing historical comparisons of stuff and velocity between great pitchers of bygone eras and their closest modern counterparts? It would be interesting to see like, ah yes, Sandy Koufax’s closest comp is … Jaime Garcia. Baseball be hard.

Ben Clemens: Yikes

Ben Clemens: Yeah, the comparisons aren’t really 1:1 right? Koufax would have much better access to training and recovery in modern day

Ben Clemens: But yes, it’s always remarkable how much bigger/faster/stronger/etc athletes of today rae

Sad, Confused Marlins Fan: I have heard for it seems like my whole life that baseball is 70% mental, but then when it comes to positions change it shouldnt affect your hitting. Cant it be said that part of Kingery and Senzel (I know hes hitting now) struggles be from not having a position every day you know you are going to play?

Ben Clemens: Oh, I think that it for sure matters

Ben Clemens: I think that the mental aspect of the game is a place with a big “sabermetric” blindspot and something that good managers excel at

Ben Clemens: And of course constantly switching positions is tough on you as a player if you’re not feeling confident as is

CI lover: we know baseball stats are random, why aren’t confidence intervals used widely? It’s weird that we accept that small samples aren’t trustworthy but then don’t take that far enough and actually figure out how trustworthy it is

Ben Clemens: Excellent question. I think they should be reported more for sure. I cite this a lot, but

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-new-way-to-look-at-sample-size/

Ben Clemens: This thing displays stats with confidence intervals and I love it

Plutarch: Give people actually songs to sing (as in European football). Much more unifying experience and nimrods don’t feel the need to woop

Ben Clemens: I like the idea of this a lot

Jason: I think Josh Reddick is partly to blame for this – at least, that’s what brought on a bunch of woo-ing in Houston, because of his ties to wrestling and Ric Flair

David: What is wooing?

Ben Clemens: Wooing is that sharp ‘woooo!!!!’ that you’ll hear in the background of some games

Ben Clemens: Seems to happen more in Midwestern games, th ough that could be confirmation bias on my part, b/c I first noticed it at Reds games

Appa Yip Yip: How is wooing any worse than any other kind of cheering?

Ben Clemens: The sound drives me crazy

Ben Clemens: It’s so constant… the woo-ers seem to woo totally disconnected from the flow of the game, they’re just wooing

Ben Clemens: and b/c of the pitch it really pops relative to most crowd noise

JC: Trout is leading MLB in WAR, so stats now officially matter, correct?

Ben Clemens: Sam Miller’s Rule is an excellent one

Ben Clemens: That said, haha, no, it’s supposed to take Trout longer to get in front!

Guest: My first trip out of San Diego (got the J&J a month ago) in a year was to see my Padres in Arlington.  I highly recommend seeing your team throw their first no-hitter.  Also, the ballpark sucks.  Old Arlington was way better (also the opinion of the Ranger fans behind us).

Ben Clemens: Amazing on both counts

Ben Clemens: Congrats, and congrats

Ben Clemens: As a Musgrove stock owner, I’m into it too

James: Is Cronenworth better than we thought? He has swung and missed only 2 times on over 180 pitches so far. His at bats looked super quality on all of the broadcast I’ve seen.

Ben Clemens: If there’s something I wasn’t worried about translating to the majors in his game, it’s the hit tool

Ben Clemens: His minor league k/bb numbers and whiff rates really popped

Ben Clemens: I don’t think he’s going to continue his current 0.5% swinging strike rate (lol!) but I do think he’ll continue making a ton of contact with good plate discipline

Appa Yip Yip: Okay so to stop wooing you should give everyone vuvezelas problem solved

Ben Clemens: I think of wooing as manual vuvuzelas

Matt: No questions, just saying I got to be on tv after harper’s hr last night and was very happy to be back at a baseball stadium

Ben Clemens: Congrats

Ben Clemens: Baseball is great

Micah: How many live games do you plan to attend this season?

Ben Clemens: I hope a lot, like 10-20. I live pretty close to Oracle and it’s really fun to watch games there

Marko from Tropoja: Have to disagree with the guy claiming the new GLF in Arlington sucks. The sight lines are pretty good. And this is coming from an LA native now living in Dallas.

Ben Clemens: I’m a really big fan of sightlines, I think they’re the most underrated part of parks

Ben Clemens: Do they have clean lines to the field all the way around the lower concourse? I wish more stadiums did that

Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: How many pitchers do you think will hit 200 IP this season coming off the shortened season? And how many IP will lead MLB?

Ben Clemens: Hm…. I think that 2 pitchers will top 200 IP this year

Ben Clemens: Gerrit Cole and Jacob deGrom

Ben Clemens: I’m far more likely to be low than high on that, but I think teams will just be super cautious

Bernie: Is there a better 1-2 in baseball than Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes?

Ben Clemens: I’m a really big buyer in the Burnes stay-broken-out hype

Ben Clemens: I think he might be better than Woodruff

Ben Clemens: That said, I’ll take deGrom and whoever you want to call the Mets’ #2 over them for sure

Ben Clemens: deGrom is ludicrous

Tom: Should the Cardinals worry? About pitching, hitting, the Brewers?

Ben Clemens: Let’s take these one at a time

Ben Clemens: Pitching, yeah

Ben Clemens: Their plan of coming into the season with an unsettled starting rotation has gone roughly how you’d expect

Ben Clemens: I really like Oviedo, but you can’t be thrilled that he’s looked like the second-best starter so far despite not making a start

Ben Clemens: But the broader problem is that they’re using swingmen as their 3-5 starters due to injury

Ben Clemens: Maybe 4-5 depending on how you feel about Martinez

Ben Clemens: Hitting, nah, looks fine. The Brewers? Eh, they’ll be good, but maybe not more of a threat than the other good NLC teams

Guest: Ha.  Terrible food (not local at all, generic Tex-Mex), the view is the old stadium, surrounding area is a parking lot, nothing Texas about the park itself.  Two great screens, but one is only usable by 40% of the park and the smaller one is too small for most.

Guest: Also, beer it is terrible.  Hopadillo and that is about it.

Ben Clemens: Now these things sound not great

Ben Clemens: Food and beer are right up there as well for me

Ben Clemens: Beside sight lines

Cool Papa Bell: Corey Knebel: Taking Jensen’s job this season?

Ben Clemens: Yes. Why did the Brewers trade him??

Ben Clemens: I just don’t quite get why they needed to give up a reliever of that caliber, but hey, the Dodgers get richer

Ben Clemens: I’m kinda out on Kenley at this point, and Knebel looks like as good of a bet as any to take over the role

Ben Clemens: Another Kenley question from earlier:

BettsBellingerCaruso: Kenley jansen just baffles me

Against A’s he averaged like 89 mph on the cutter

yesterday he averaged 93.5 mph and his vertical movement on the cutter was basically the same as his 2017 version, average spin ont he cutter going from 2553 on the year to 2856 that day

He was averaging 90.9 mph on the cutter this year. yesterday he averaged 93.5 mph just like his 2012-17 self.

I honestly just don’t get it.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, this is why I think he’s going to lose the job

Ben Clemens: That’s just too hrad to rely on

BringBackDeSpanielHair: I flipped Ohtani for L. Castillo after his brutal first start. Odds that Shohei the pitcher makes me regret that?

Ben Clemens: Not too high, I don’t think. Castillo is a house, and Ohtani’s real life value outstrips his fantasy value

Ben Clemens: Just for workload reasons

True Submariners: The other day (yesterday woah time) on SNLA with Hersh and Joe Davis, the pair compared Trea Turner to Mookie Betts (in between talking/gushing about Valuenzuela). I looked at it with a friend and if Trea develops a *tad* more power he very well could be the shortstop Mookie. Thoughts?

Ben Clemens: First, the Valenzuela stuff was awesome

Ben Clemens: Second, I don’t really think so?

Ben Clemens: In his career, Turner has struck out 18.1% of the time and walked 7.6% of the time

Ben Clemens: Betts is at 12.9% and 10.2%

Ben Clemens: Those are HUGELY different

Ben Clemens: That’s not to say Turner can’t be a really good player

Ben Clemens: He IS a really good player

Ben Clemens: But Mookie’s greatness comes from the fact that he does everything so well, and Turner would need to improve in several categories to start looking similar

LFC Mike: Appa Yip Yip  if I hear one vuvezela I will hold you personally accountable. That noise is still in my head from the WC in South Africa. A horrible idea.

Ben Clemens: You’ve heard it here, a grudge match between two chatters

Knebel: The Brewers were going to non-tender Knebel. Not that they should of, but they didn’t want to pay him Arb $ coming off that injury and bad 2020.

Ben Clemens: They shouldn’t have been planning on NT’ing him!

Ben Clemens: Clearly he had value, based on the fact that they received value for trading him, but I think they sold too low

Ben Clemens: I guess if it was that or JBJ

Ben Clemens: I mean I’d probably take JBJ? It’s close I think

Guest: I don’t mean to be a jerk, but I am trying to see the Padres in every park.  Up to 24 or 25. Five factors: 1) Food (how good and how local); 2) Beer (same); 3) View from behind home plate up high; 4) Surrounding area; 5) Cool stuff at the park

Ben Clemens: My factors are: 1)food 2)sightlines 3)beer 4)views

Ben Clemens: Weather is an overriding factor but that’s harder to control

BringBackDeSpanielHair: Is Travis Shaw back to being good now?

Ben Clemens: It kinda feels that way

Ben Clemens: I never quite understood why he got bad?

Ben Clemens: And I’m not saying he’ll stay this good

Ben Clemens: But he just suddenly couldn’t hit anything, and now his contact rate went way back up

Sad, Confused Marlins Fan: Knebel is nasty but isnt he always a pitch away from losing control or getting hurt? Dodgers have the money to afford to make those mistakes. Brewers dont right?

Ben Clemens: So, I hear this argument a lot about small-market teams (the Brewers payroll is around $100mm)

Ben Clemens: I basically don’t agree with it? Like, sure, the Dodgers can afford to sign many injury risks and see who shakes out because of their budget

Ben Clemens: But if you can pick between 90% dominant reliever 10% hurt

Ben Clemens: and 100% decent fourth outfielder

Ben Clemens: I’d argue that if you’re a small market team, you SHOULD be embracing the risk

Ben Clemens: If you smooth away all the variance, you’re making it harder on yourself

Ben Clemens: Because you can’t spike a good season out of someone

Ben Clemens: Now, maybe they just thought that Knebel wasn’t 90%/10% but instead 50% good 50% washed

Ben Clemens: But I don’t like the idea of small teams avoiding risk

LFC Mike: Ben, vuvezales apart…..has the closer job in Cleveland gone firmly to Clase..or will it take a few more saves to get him 100% entrenched….

Ben Clemens: I think it’ll take a few more saves to get him entrenched, but I think he’ll end up winning the job

Ben Clemens: I am regretting trading him in an Ottoneu league

cortezthakillah: Is there any hope for Keston Hiura?  I fear he will begin losing time to Vogelbach.

Ben Clemens: I’m down on Hiura, and think that the Brewers should be considering Big Dan over him against righties

Ben Clemens: There’s definitely hope for him, he produces really loud contact when he hits the ball

Ben Clemens: But the whiff rate is just totally unsustainable

Ben Clemens: You can’t be an average hitter when you miss that often

Ben Clemens: I dunno what they need to do to get him right again, but there’s a reason I predicted Wong to out-wRC+ him

Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: Hot take: crowd noises are bad, being able to hear the players yell and the sounds of the game is better. No woos, no boos, let alone the wave or heckling. Advantage amateur, minor league, and low-turnout MLB games. I’ll allow playoff crowd noises for atmosphere, but peak baseball is quiet summer evenings where the only loud noises are the crack of the bat and the PA system operated by some guy whose been doing it since before you were born.

Ben Clemens: Hm, I don’t really agree with that

Ben Clemens: I do love hearing the players yell, but I also love the reaction of the crowd, and I enjoy the occasional heckle

Ben Clemens: Harper correcting a heckler’s pronunciation was awesome, for example

Ben Clemens: That said, I really like the crack of the bat and hearing players talk

T: Let’s get the obvious question out if the way, what the hell was that safe call at home last night?

Scott: I’d love the MLB replay guy in NY to explain exactly when Bohm touched home plate in the 9th inning last night.  It’s mind blowing that they got it so wrong.  Shouldn’t the Braves protest the game?

Ben Clemens: Better calls have been made

Ben Clemens: I see why they had trouble overturning the call on the field, b/c every angle had a different problem with it

Ben Clemens: It was like 5 angles that were each 95% conclusive, or whatever

Ben Clemens: But yes, clearly the wrong call, and if replay isn’t for handling situations like that, maybe we should have less replay

Moose_Bolton: Any of the early season player developments you’re buying? I think J.D. Martinez is going to actually bounce back, and I’m also buying the Vlad Jr. breakout. Obviously both not to this extent necessarily, but in general.

Ben Clemens: In on Martinez, last year was a weird short blip and while he’s aging, he’s still a great hitter

Ben Clemens: As for Vlad

Moonlight Graham: Both Vladdy’s launch angle and walk rate numbers are up to start the season. Which do you think he’s more likely to sustain over a whole season and which would you prefer he maintains?

Ben Clemens: I think he’s more likely to sustain the walk rate, but I’d be more encouraged if he holds the angle

Ben Clemens: If he sustains the high launch angle, he’ll draw the walks by himself

Roger: I wooed my then-girlfriend, now-wife, at a Braves game and we ended up on kiss cam.  no regrets.  I see no reason to discourage wooing at games as long as it remains PG.

Ben Clemens: Haha that style of wooing is fine

Bucfan: Cubs starting pitching is dreadful.  I don’t think they have a starter that deals above 90 mph, and their last two starts, their pitchers gave up 15 runs – TO THE PIRATES.  Chances that Bryant is with the team in four months?

Ben Clemens: It’s low. Their pitching outside of Hendricks feels rickety

Ben Clemens: I’ll put the odds at 35%. The rest of the Central is also trash, which is their best hope

FK: Someone in my Ottoneu league just cut Javier Baez at $19. I already have Lindor as my primary SS but lack some MI depth and could afford him. Is he worth it? (Sorry for change of topic)

Ben Clemens: I’d like to know this too. I kind of think no? I own him at about the same price

Ben Clemens: Can’t bring myself to cut bait, though

Cambodian Creamsicle: We’re at that point of the season where fantasy owners are having to decide between Jed Lowrie and Donovan Solano.  All is right in the world.

Ben Clemens: That eternal rite of spring

Matt Damon: MATT. DAMON.

Ben Clemens: Ah, regular season form

Ben Clemens: I consider you to have made at least one great movie

Micah: Red Sox-Twins today postponed?

Ben Clemens: Sounds that way

BringBackDeSpanielHair: Excited to see what Robby Ray can do with some extra velo (and apparently decent command this spring)

Ben Clemens: I am feeling good about Ray this year

Ben Clemens: In looking back at our offseason coverage, I wrote about him a lot — SP rankings, his signing with the Jays, and the top 50 free agents post

Ben Clemens: I like the fact that he went back to the old delivery. I don’t think he’s going to suddenly be an ace, but I do think he’ll be back to what he was at his peak in AZ… a guy who we all say “he could be an ace!” about

Angels is the playoffs?: It could happen.

Ben Clemens: Above 50% in our playoff odds, and I think they have an okay shot at taking down the Astros, who are thin

Ben Clemens: I remain very down on the A’s

Ben Clemens: And they have also been unlucky so far, Rosenthal getting hurt is brutal

Ben Affleck: BEN.AFFLECK.

Ben Clemens: Equal representation

v2micca: I’m a Braves fan.  So, I’m ridiculously biased.  But after seeing this story, I’m wondering how anyone could hate Freddie Freeman:  https://www.mlb.com/news/fans-signed-ball-freddie-freeman-bryce-harper

Ben Clemens: There are people who hate Freddie Freeman?

Ben Clemens: That’s shocking to me

Ben Clemens: Totally agree with you, though

He’s a Jolly Good Oberkfellow: Are you buying into the Byron Buxton breakout?

Ben Clemens: Blah

Ben Clemens: I don’t like being a downer about Buxton

Ben Clemens: But I don’t think he’s a ton different than a 110 wRC+ hitter (roughly where our projectoins were) going forward

Ben Clemens: He’s obviously having an insane start

Ben Clemens: But I don’t think he’s going to keep barreling up a third of his batted balls nad hitting homers on 50% of his fly balls

Ben Clemens: He’s still SO aggressive at the plate, chase rate in the 40s

Ben Clemens: This is the hottest he’s ever been, and maybe I’m guilty of putting too much weight on the past, but I just don’t think he can keep up the insane batted ball quality

LFC Mike: Do you think Rougned Odor will be a knockout acquisition by the Yankees or a swing and miss?

Ben Clemens: I’d say he has a puncher’s chance of sticking on the roster

Ben Clemens: Don’t think he’s there after Voit returns, but I like the idea, and they really did need one more person to cover MI if they want LeMahieu to get time at 3B and 1B

Jeff: Craig Kimbrel or Kris Bryant: who is more back?

Ben Clemens: I’ll be honest – I haven’t seen any of Kimbrel’s appearances yet this year

Ben Clemens: So I’m extremely scouting the stat line, which is never great in such a small sample

Ben Clemens: That said, I like his plan — throw something in the zone on 0-0

Ben Clemens: And then throw only curves until the end of time

FK: What pitcher has surprised you most this year? I know it’s early days.

Ben Clemens: Definitely Glasnow. I really didn’t expect a third pitch to appear out of nowhere

Ben Clemens: If we’re talking performance rather than the underlying building blocks, I’ll say Sandy Alcantara

Ben Clemens: I never quite got the hype around Alcantara, but he’s looked quite solid so far this year

Lunch Angle: Reds post-hype pitchers: Jeff Hoffman and Jose De Leon have been intriguing in their first two starts. Do you think either of them have much of a chance of breaking out?

Ben Clemens: I’m more interested in Hoffman, but only b/c I’m suffering from De Leon fatigue

Ben Clemens: I read about him as a pick to click so many times that I’ve switched into prove-it-to-me mode

Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: How could anyone hate Freddie?
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-DeVpEhHNB/

Bucfan: My nominee for FA candidate – Phillip Evans.  Multi-position, very low K rate his entire career, hard-hit rate high, looks like he will produce BA, OBP, R, some HR, RBI, decent slugging, good BB rate.  Any interest in him as a free agent nobody or $1 auction pick-up who winds up producing?

Ben Clemens: I think he makes a lot of sense that way, if he’s good I think it’ll be in a fantasy-friendly way. Probably going to be batting at the top of the lineup, solid average, get a few homers in there

matty: Would you rather have Fletcher or Croneworth going forward>

Ben Clemens: Fletcher, but I’d be happy to have both

Ben Clemens: Cronenworth is a really awesome player, but Fletcher is a premium defender with a league average bat

Fernando Tatis-Buck Jr.: Clase now solidified as primary closer?

Ben Clemens: We have him that way on Roster Resource. I kind of think it will be some blend of him and Karinchak, but Jason is great at this stuff

Emmanuel Clase: I’m the man.  Clase closed!

Ben Clemens: I have an irrational attachment to any player who I wrote up early in their career

Ben Clemens: Clase, Nick Anderson, Jonathan Hernandez

Ben Clemens: And that cutter is FUN

Ben Clemens: Clase has the added benefit of easy puns

BringBackDeSpanielHair: I hate roto. There… I said it. I love points leagues, and weekly H2H matchups. AmI crazy?

Ben Clemens: I like H2H quite a bit

Confused: I am a little confused by the projected standings page. The YTD run differential and the ROS run differential sum to the Full Season run differential. However, the YTD RS/G and the ROS RS/G do not ciombine in any way for the Full Season RS/G. For example, Brewers have 4.22 RS/G project for 4.60, but then the full season is 4.85. What is going on there?

Ben Clemens: Hm, I’m honestly not sure. I’ll ask around

Cambodian Creamsicle: H2H Roto is awesome!

David: Agreed, refuse to play roto

Ben Clemens: I think that’s one of my favorite parts of fantasy football, the H2H nature

Ben Clemens: And so I’m definitely in favor of baseball picking it up

Wild Thing Vaughn: Hey Ben, any logic to how the White Sox are handling Andrew Vaughn right now? Feels like they’re doing their best Rockies impersonation while also losing a year of service time.

Ben Clemens: Um… Yeah, I am kinda hoping he had a minor injury. He was playing everyday-ish and then had three straight days off before playing again yesterday. Not sure why the layoff but he’s looked fine so far

Ben Clemens: Weird TLR stuff maybe? He had an issue playing young players in StL

Dee Arby: The case against H2H is easy. Players are streaky.  Therefore the H2H aspect is fluky compared to roto.

Ben Clemens: Sure, but that’s why you don’t play only one week to settle the season

Ben Clemens: There’s more inherent variance for sure, but that’s kind of fun

Ben Clemens: We’re not out here playing chess

Matt: Should the Rays think about trying Meadows at 1B next year? He’s DH’ing more than Yoshi and Yandy so I guess they don’t seem to trust him in the outfield.

Ben Clemens: Yes, I think they should

Ben Clemens: They seemed like they were trying to protect Arozarena from fielding last year, and this year Meadows has taken over that role

H2H: In my H2H league, we play 12 categories H2H, but then the standings are the categories. So this week I am 5-7 after week 1, rather than 0 wins and 1 loss. It seems this is normal in Fantasy Baseball, but I don’t like it. If we are playing H2H, I want to either win or lose (or tie) that week. Am I crazy?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I’m a bigger fan of the win/lose/tie per week style

Jeff: As a hardcore MLB fan, can I consider myself something of a business man? I know all the buzzwords and buzz strategies…Rebuildz…Controlz…Finger on the pulse!

Ben Clemens: You need to scream ‘efficiency’ more often

Ben Clemens: and ‘synergize’

Jeff: Nothing pisses me off more than inefficiency in sports

Jeff: Nothing

Ben Clemens: Now you’re getting it!

Bucfan: “Years of control”

Dan: Can you shed some insight on how minor league rosters work? Like they must get sent pitchers who need to rest not throw for a day. How do they balance coving 9 innings but also leaving enough people fresh? if their catcher gets called up to the majors well you still need two catchers to start your game right? What if the hot prospect and the rehabing vet both play the same position?

Ben Clemens: This sounds like an excellent question for Kevin, or maybe Eric. I’m in the dark on it as well, and I think it would be REALLY interesting to learn about

Guest: Any thoughts on Drew Smyly after last night’s start? Have some back end starters in him, Peralta, Rodon, Kikuchi, Minor all based on spring velo that are holding roster spots until Sale and Severino come back. Can you rank them ROS?

Ben Clemens: Last night didn’t really change my view of Smyly, which is that he’s probably not someone you’re overjoyed to be counting on but that baseball is hard and requires a lot of pitchers

Ben Clemens: For fantasy, I’ve got Peralta/Minor/Kikuchi in a tier by themselves ahead of the other two

Ben Clemens: I’m a big long-term Peralta believer so I’d have him first

Bucfan: “We hope to efficiently utilize the years of control,and develop synergy between our AAA roster and major league team.”

Jake: Is Luke Weaver going to be a good pitcher, solid, or barely hold onto his spot in the roation?

Ben Clemens: Solid

Ben Clemens: Another guy who I constnatly think will be better than his results

Ben Clemens: When his changeup is working, he’s really really good

Ben Clemens: The lack of a breaking pitch that he can both command and miss bats with is going to make it really hard for him to be an ace

Ben Clemens: But his fastball plays better than you’d think and it works really well with the change. I think that’s enough to be a 3rd starter type

Dee Arby: Speaking of chess, do you play chess? I challenged Symborski years ago but he got busy cleaning up cat puke or something.

Ben Clemens: I played chess as a kid, but I stopped in 6th grade

Ben Clemens: I’m at the level where I know enough about openings to go “ooooh!” when they use them in Queen’s Gambit, but I don’t exactly remember the point of them or the specific moves, just hte names

Bucfan: I remember when Spassky-Fisher was almost canceled when a cat got sick.

BringBackDeSpanielHair: I really am sad I missed out on Vladdy this year. Trying to figure out a trade for him, but I just don’t see it being worth a big name pitcher to try and get him in my format.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, trading for a guy like Vlad when he’s starting to do the thing we all want him to do is near-impossible

Ben Clemens: Whoever ended up with him did so b/c they were hoping for this

Ben Clemens: So they get it right, and then you’re gonna go try to trade for him? Their brain is going to rebel at the thought of it

Ben Clemens: It’s not like he’s some mid-tier guy putting up better than expected numbers

Ben Clemens: Anyone who got Vlad this year knew that he was elevation-challenged but could be a star if he fixed that

BringBackDeSpanielHair: so… that Jazz Chisholm home run off deGrom… That’s the type of AB that makes me irrational about a player

Ben Clemens: Oh totally

Ben Clemens: deGrom is the one pitcher in baseball who I religiously watch

Ben Clemens: And whenever ANY hitter gets one over on him, it feels momentous

Sad, Confused Marlins Fan: Should I be worried about Sixto Sanchez?

Ben Clemens: Ugh, maybe

Ben Clemens: Shoulders, yikes!

Jeff: Otoh, how excited should we be about Trevor Rogers?

Ben Clemens: A few people have asked this todya, and I was always answering somethin else, so everyone looking for Rogers content, here it is

Ben Clemens: His ceiling is super high!

Ben Clemens: If he’s right, he’ll be awesome

Ben Clemens: In that Mets start, he had command of the zone, and when he knows where that slider is going, it’s lethal with the fastball

Ben Clemens: By pure happenstance, I also watched his start against the Cards, and he looked lost

Ben Clemens: Couldn’t command the thing to save his life

David – Clapping @ Salesforce: Which food do you like at Oracle? Feel like it’s not *that* great considering what’s around/outside the park.

David – Clapping @ Salesforce: A follow-up, do you consider Public House as a food & beer option for the park itself? Is that cheating?

Ben Clemens: The food at Oracle is definitely underwhelming compared to in-area options

Ben Clemens: I really like the Ghirardelli sundaes, though, so I’m willing to give it a pass

Ben Clemens: Definitely count Public House as a plus of goin there, but I wouldn’t consider it in-game dining

Ben Clemens: The beer list there is spectacular, and from what I’ve heard there are more breweries coming to the area — Ballast Point and New Belgium are opening up soon I think

David – Clapping @ Salesforce: Lol, the SUNDAES?! How do you eat that AND drink beer?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, it requires eating very healthy the day before. I’ve only had one once, but it was excellent

asnbrv: I’ve always thought having a pitch count column in fangraphs gamelog page would be helpful. Who do I ask if this is possible? Meg?

Ben Clemens: It’s something I’ve asked about from time to time, I’ll run it up the flagpole again this week. It’d be nice, totally agree

Bucfan: Gallo’s chase rate and K rate down to manageable levels, BABIP has to normalize, are you convinced?

Ben Clemens: I’m in!

Ben Clemens: Always looking for a reason to believe in Gallo, so it’s not exactly hard to get me to believe

Ben Clemens: But I believe!

A cat: When do the Sox decide that they need to move on from Dalbec? He’s barely above 50% zone contact, and can’t hit 94 in the heart of the plate.

Ben Clemens: Dalbec’s swinging strike rate worries me — his zone contact definitely plays a role in that. But given that it’s only 28 PA, I’ll give him some time to even it out — he does hit the crap out of the ball when he connects

Ben Clemens: I’m a little skeptical of xwOBA style numbers given the new ball, but he definitely seems like he’s hittin the ball harder than you’d guess from his results

Chaim Bloom: How good will this Benny trade make me look by the end of 2023?

Ben Clemens: Eh… I don’t think it’ll be a very big part of our estimation of Chaim Bloom

Ben Clemens: That said, if it does work out, it’ll be due to the PTBNL’s in the deal, and it’s way too seeon to tell on them

Ben Clemens: soon*

Farhandrew Zaidman: Is Zack McKinstry the way-too-early NL ROY?

Ben Clemens: Haha, I guess so

Ben Clemens: I don’t think he’ll end the season as RoY, b/c he won’t get enough run

Ben Clemens: But what a gem

Ben Clemens: The Dodgers are hot right now

Guest: Thanks for the chat. Buying Peralta’s transformation? Seems like he will always throw balls but the shift from FB/SL to CB/CH makes his FB even more dangerous. Ceiling?

Ben Clemens: Ceiling is one of those inconsistent but unhittable demi-aces

Ben Clemens: Healthy James Paxton, let’s say

Ben Clemens: righty, obv

Ben Clemens: Full disclosure: I am a huge buyer of both Burnes and Peralta and constantly overrate them

twinmh: You know, for us geezers wooing used to mean courting, or sparking.  I was ready to blame the kiss-cam.

Ben Clemens: More romantic wooing, less high-pitched woo’ing

Dave: Nate Lowe vs. CJ Cron– who do you prefer for 2021?

Ben Clemens: Presumably this is for fantasy, and I’d just take Cron and bank the Coors effect

Ben Clemens: He’s off to a rough start, but it’s so few games, I’d just wait it out

Guest: If you had to pick one statistical category in determining hitters and pitchers to take for DFS purposes, what would that be?

Ben Clemens: Hm…. some kinda linear weight for hitters, normalized by cost?

Ben Clemens: Opponent for pitchers

Ben Clemens: I don’t really play any DFS though

LFC Mike: A Yoeman’s effort today Ben.  90 minutes and not tiring.

Ben Clemens: Chatters these days, throw 70 minutes of gas and hit the showers

Ben Clemens: Back in my day, we went through the queue 4 times and didn’t ask about it

Ben Clemens: When managing editors came to get the keyboard from us, we insulted them and refused to leave

Eric: On the team pages, it shows AL pitchers under the “batting stats leaders” even though they have zero plate appearances. It really clogs up things, is there a way to address that?

Ben Clemens: I think the correct way to do this is to have a 1 PA filter, which is something I can ask Sean about, but the way we get our stats I don’t think we can auto-exclude them

Farhandrew Zaidman: re: McKinstry: Insert Dodgers “they can’t keep getting away with this meme.” Seriously though, doesn’t look like they’re going to miss Kiké orJoc at all this year.

Ben Clemens: points for the accent, my friend

Ben Clemens: And totally agree

Ben Clemens: They do keep getting away with it

Rich: Vladdy, Jr…top 5 in MLB ranks in a bunch of categories. thoughts?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, we talked about it a little earlier on, I want to believe

Ben Clemens: Need to do a deeper dive to be sure, feels good so far though

Ben Clemens: He has to be the hardest-to-acquire player in fantasy right now

Guest: Is Akil Baddoo a legitimate fantasy asset this year?

Ben Clemens: I’m actually gonna say yes, largely on the hope that he’ll get some steals

Guest: Best part of the Harper incident was how could anyone think not being as good as Acuna is an insult? Like telling Wheeler he’ll never be as good as Maddux.

Ben Clemens: Yeah I don’t even think Harper was all that upset by the heckling lol

Harry: Cubs had a guy in the bleachers for many years called Johnny Woo-Woo. Want to guess why? I think he started the whole thing back in the 70s.

Ben Clemens: My midwestern theory confirmed!

Maggie25: Let’s also remove wooing in the sense of romance from stadiums. No more jumbotron engagements!

David: As a keeper league Vlady owner, this offseason I basically told the guy wanting to trade for him that Acuna was the only way to get him. He said no. Cool by me.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, basically this

Ben Clemens: I wouldn’t give up Vladdy either! If I got him and then he did the thing I wanted, bam, I did it

Babyfarts: How legit is Plesac? Top 25 dynasty arm?

Ben Clemens: Boy, 25 is high. Top 40, 25 might be a bridge too far for me

Billy: Brent Honeywell looked great and immediately gets sent down. I ‘think’ I kind of get why, but really I don’t. Even if you are being careful with his arm, your seriously telling me the Rays have better 8/9 options than him throwing a couple of innings twice a week in the bullpen?

Ben Clemens: I think they  must just have needed the arm (they activated Trevor Richards)

BringBackDeSpanielHair: is Domonic Smith a better hitter than Polar Bear Pete?

Ben Clemens: Yes

Ben Clemens: Worse nickname, though, by default

Biscuit Pants: How do I find Ohtani’s pitching stats on his playing stats?

Ben Clemens: Just below where it says ‘season stats’, there are toggles for batting or pitching

Ben Clemens: It defaults to batting being in green, click on pitching and his stats should show up

BB: It might be confirmation bias, but I feel like hitters are less patient on getaway days. Have you seen any research on this?

Ben Clemens: No but sounds like fun if you could get a good filter for getaway days

Appa Yip Yip: If you look at Vlad’s swing decisions right now they are absurd. He’s spitting on everything out of the zone.

Ben Clemens: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/visuals/swing-take?playerId=665489&play…

Ben Clemens: Per Savant, he’s great in the chase zone, acceptable in shadow

Ben Clemens: But that chase zone swing rate is amazing

Ben Clemens: Alright, on this note

Ben Clemens: I’m gonna call it a chat

Ben Clemens: I’m super hungry, and I can smell the chicken sausage and veggies I’m cooking

Ben Clemens: too delicious to ignore

Ben Clemens: Thanks very much for hanging out with me today everyone, and I’ll catch you next week