Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 4/27/20

Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, and welcome to the chat.

Ben Clemens: Today I wrote about the OOTP Brewers and their continuing bad luck on the injury front:

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/ootp-brewers-if-it-aint-broke-break-it/

Ben Clemens: But that is by no means the only thing I’m interested in talking about, or even what I’m most interested in talking about.

Rays Fan in Boston: Was the Rays offseason covered on Effectively Wild or was it held back once the postponement of the season was announced?

Ben Clemens: It’s my understanding that the EW season previews got paused indefinitely along with the season.

Ben Clemens: They’ve been going middle out, potentially inspired by Silicon Valley, which means the Rays should be one of the later teams covered.

Ben Clemens: So, whenever the season gets re-announced, maybe a few weeks after that?

WilponsAreTheWorst: What do you think about Yoenis Cespedes’ slash line would be going into a contract year 2020? Obv adjusted for less games.

Ben Clemens: He looked pretty good in the spring! I’d say a slightly lower-OBP version of his career line, so like .265/.315/.490 or something?

Ben Clemens: That’s like a 110 wRC+ give or take, not too bad.

Gio: Hey, Ben! Looks like we may see baseball on ESPN through the KBO. As a Mets fan, I’m looking for a team to follow. Any suggestions?

Ben Clemens: First, I’ll tell you that I’m just going to be a Lotte Giants fan. Two of my former coworkers, Sung Min Kim and Josh Herzenberg, work for them now.

Ben Clemens: So that’s a strong incentive for me to root for them, and then I watched some of their streamed scrimmages as well.

Ben Clemens: But Jay Jaffe recently wrote a primer for the KBO, based on interviews with those two as well as other team employees:

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/half-a-world-away-the-korea-baseball-organ…

John: What were your thoughts that led you to ranking Heston Kjerstad at #7?   He makes sense for the Pirates given the need for power and their lack of spending in free agency to acquire any power bats but what are the thoughts that the Pirates draft him over a college arm?

Ben Clemens: Normally, I’d just say that this is a question for Eric and move on, because I am just not all that up on draft stuff.

Ben Clemens: But Heston Kjerstad is a great name. Heston as a first name is pretty cool. So I’ll also note that before saying yeah, honestly, I have no clue, but Eric (and also to a lesser extent Meg) are your go-tos for this.

Kim Wexler’s T-shirt: Is it wrong to root for the World Cup-style tournament that Passan mentioned in his article?

Ben Clemens: Not at all! I’d love to see a tournament-style season this year if we have a short season.

Ben Clemens: Like if the season is going to be 50 games or something wildly abbreviated

Ben Clemens: I’d much rather see a tournament.

Ben Clemens: I just find tournaments to be a great sports experience.

Ben Clemens: The magic of baseball is how much space to explore weirdness the regular season gives.

Ben Clemens: Without that, I’d rather have a tourney.

Sam: Overall, how have the OOTP Brewers matched up to your preseason expectations of them, both from a standings and performance perspective?

Derek: OOTP Brewers!

Ben Clemens: Well, performance wise, I’m not shocked by being .500, but I am shocked by having a -50 run differential 28 games into the season…. losing a game 26-1 will do that though I guess.

Ben Clemens: OOTP has really impressed me though.

Ben Clemens: There’s a lot going on, it’s really fun actually to micromanage your team, and while it seems to have more extreme performances than real life, it at least mirrors baseball in a close enough way that I feel like I’m getting my fix.

Ben Clemens: Managing reliever fatigue is way more interesting than I had expected.

Ben Clemens: I’m going full early-2010s Rays when it comes to the bullpen shuttle.

Matt: What does Bryce Harper need to do to make the Hall of Fame?

Ben Clemens: Was actually talking about this with my wife over the weekend. I think he needs to produce like a down-ballot MVP candidate for 5 or so more years.

Ben Clemens: Not consecutive years, mind you.

Ben Clemens: And I think a single MVP season tips him over the edge assuming he plays until his late 30s

Ben Clemens: But if he puts up 4 5 WAR seasons as a thumping corner outfielder

Ben Clemens: Like, repeats of his 2019 almost, .260/.372/.510, maybe with a little more batting average

Ben Clemens: Then he’s almost certainly in, because that’ll get him way over the JAWS thresholds and he’ll have a good shot at 500 homers as well.

Ben Clemens: If he ages more poorly and is like a 3 WAR dude, an above average regular but not a superstar, I think his path is a little more difficult, because his peak would then just be so short.

Ben Clemens: But basically more years of contending for an MVP will do it for me.

WilponsAreTheWorst: Do you think Pete Alonso will repeat his rookie performance, regress, or surpass it?

Ben Clemens: I mean, this is a coward’s answer, but regress.

Ben Clemens: Always bet on regress.

Ben Clemens: He did a lot of things right that make me think he could have a shot at repeating it.

Ben Clemens: He didn’t strike out way too much or anything, he didn’t show a poor batting eye, nothing like that.

Ben Clemens: But he just hit 53 home runs! And was nearly as good, in the majors, as he was in freaking Las Vegas in 2018.

Kim Wexler’s T-shirt: What is the best case yet semi-reasonable scenario for the Royals over the next three years? Most of the pitching prospects hit, they sign a few cheaper veterans who outperform their contracts, the existing major leaguers hold serve, and they compete for the division in Year 3?

Ben Clemens: That’s an aggressive path, but something like this is how a quick rebuild happens.

Ben Clemens: I think you’d have to add that Bobby Witt develops more quickly than expected, and comes up as a 21 or 22 year old.

Ben Clemens: If that happens, and Singer and Bubic both work out, that’s a big head start. Maybe they trade Merrifield for some close-to-the-majors guys who happen to pan out as well; something like the Travis Shaw acquisition for the Brewers, only a few guys, since Merrifield is stlil valuable in trade.

Ben Clemens: That’s a lot of things going right, and I’d add that they probably need Mondesi to hit at least okay.

Ben Clemens: But yeah, something like that.

Roast Turkey Stearnes: Between the Astros and the Dodgers, which team feels more likely to become a dynasty, if they haven’t already?  I feel like we are several years away from a legitimate challenger for the NL West crown, but the A’s could make some noise in the AL West soon, especially if some Astros prospects don’t pan out.

Ben Clemens: I think the Dodgers are already a dynasty, though I think I probably define it differently than you do.

Ben Clemens: The last time they lost the NL West, the Iron Curtain hadn’t fallen

Ben Clemens: Or at least, it feels like it.

Ben Clemens: But yeah, I definitely agree that if I had to pick one team to lose the division first, I’d pick the Astros.

Ben Clemens: The Dodgers have shown to me that they can do the whole perpetual motion machine thing in a way the Astros haven’t.

Ben Clemens: The Astros are an innovative team, and they do pitching development stuff…. and also they have a really solid core that they’ve mostly supplemented by trading prospects for stars. The Dodgers seem to be a lot better at manufacturing good players, and that makes them more sustainable to me.

Jeff: What’s a reasonable return for Francisco Lindor post-COVID19, if there is one? To pick a team out of a hat…say the Cubs for Nico Hoerner, consensus top 100 prospect Brailyn Marquez, and nonconsensus top 100 Brennen Davis? Picked randomly out of a hat

Ben Clemens: This seems too light to me by a decent amount.

Ben Clemens: Compare it to the Mookie trade, which people mostly thought was too light of a return for the Red Sox.

Ben Clemens: I’d take Verdugo over Hoerner easily, Downs over Marquez. Davis beats out Conner Wong, but not by enough to offset the Verdugo and Downs ones.

Ben Clemens: It seems that both teams considered Price essentially a wash at his contract valuation, for whatever reason.

Ben Clemens: So I don’t know, maybe the Cubs would also have to take a contract the Indians don’t like or something?

Ben Clemens: But the problem is, the Cubs aren’t willing to add money.

Ben Clemens: They said over the offseason they couldn’t sign a single player without cutting salary at one point.

Ben Clemens: And Lindor should make over 20 million next year, so that’s also tough.

Ben Clemens: This also assumes it’s only for 2021, which I think is a reasonable assumption at this point.

Ben Clemens: I think the Cubs are just a tough fit.

Ben Clemens: If they are willing to increase their payroll a lot, maybe yeah.

Ben Clemens: But I’ll believe that when I see it.

Jeff: Will the Cardinals be awarded a draft pick by the MLB post-COVID19, if there is such a thing?

Ben Clemens: Just for like, general Cardinals-ness?

Jeff: Yes

Ben Clemens: Sure, why not. Baseball seems to overly favor them with weird compensatory picks at times.

Ben Clemens: (Realistically haha no, but they do seem to do better in comp balance than you’d expect given their revenue)

Guest: How would a shortened season affect WAR calculations? Would replacement-level baseline stay the same, and so the amount of league-wide WAR is just reduced based on the total number of games played? Or is there an additional component that would vary based on any league changes to roster size, gameplay adjustments, league / divisional / schedule realignments, or other factors?

Ben Clemens: So the total amount of WAR we award is formulaic, so it would be pro-rated down based on games played. There are also other things that would matter a little; we have a league adjustment so that would be in there.

Ben Clemens: Roster size, nah, there’s a set amount of WAR and it gets allocated. Roster size shouldn’t affect that.

Ben Clemens: I think that the shorter season and the different leagues are all that would need to change, though there’s some chance I’m forgetting something.

Steeve: How are you today?

Ben Clemens: I’m doing pretty well! We had some dog issues over the weekend, namely that Ruby is very scared of noises sometimes, which were frustrating.

Ben Clemens: But that’s hardly enough to qualify as a rough weekend in these trying times, and the rest of my life is going pretty well I think.

Ben Clemens: Had a few family zoom game nights, which was fun, taught my wife hearts, and made some good meals.

Ben Clemens: It’s always weird to feel okay when the world is messed up but yeah, I think things are going alright

Kawasaki Home Run: If MLB were to restart this summer, do you think that they should use hand sanitizer on the ball after each pitch? If so, where should this be located? On the mound? One of those standalone office dispensers by the catcher? Shouldn’t the outfield also be supplied? How would this affect the juiced ball?

Ben Clemens: Oh you joke, but I think one of the pitching science types has already done a study on this! Though I’m struggling to find this.

Ben Clemens: Mainly as a joke basically, but the gist is that if you rub it in, there’s no effect on spin.

Ben Clemens: I think that they’d just go the quarantine route, though. No need to sanitize the ball every time if you test everyone to make sure they aren’t sick first.

Matt: Do you think the Phillies get an extension done with Realmuto?

Ben Clemens: This is, at this point, only a hunch.

Ben Clemens: But I think that there’s going to be an adjustment period where players still think of league financial constraints in the before times.

Ben Clemens: But total payrolls are extremely likely to go down next year.

Ben Clemens: Between the revenue shortfall teams are facing this year and the likely attendance problems.

Ben Clemens: So if you’re crunching the numbers on the Phillies’ side and before this season you wanted to pay JTR 20 million a season

Ben Clemens: And you still value his production the same

Ben Clemens: You might offer him 17/season now

Ben Clemens: I never quite figured out an article around this, though I may at some point, but I could see total salaries and total revenue both coming down quite a bit next year. And additionally, many teams have debt burdens, so they’re less than treading water at the moment. I don’t think that’s a big long-term issue, but I do think it will make the contract market slower for stars for a while.

Ben Clemens: As a side note, I always include a term in my contract modeling that makes the cost of a win in free agency vary randomly.

Ben Clemens: Worth doing if you’re looking into that kind of thing.

Dom: Of the different SQL Programs (SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, MC Access, etc.) which do you find the most beneficial / most used in MLB front offices?

Ben Clemens: I can’t speak to the second one really at all.

Ben Clemens: I used MySQL for a bit, and I’m using SQLYog now.

Ben Clemens: Honestly, a lot of what I’m doing is just downloading a set of data, so I think both are overly powerful for what I want, but I’ve liked SQLYog more.

Ben Clemens: It just feels more intuitive to me.

Tom G: I think I remember in one of your chats you saying you were a board gamer? What are your go-to games? I would definitely watch some Baseball Highlights 2045 on Twitch…

Ben Clemens: Yes indeed.

Ben Clemens: My go-to games of late have been Sushi Go! and Seven Wonders, because you can play both on board game arena, which is awesome.

Ben Clemens: My wife and I are in the middle of playing through Pandemic Legacy at the moment, which is also fun.

Ben Clemens: Meg and I have discussed talking board games on FG in one way or another; seems like readers are, at least occasionally, interested in hearing about them.

Ben Clemens: If people have suggestions for what they’d like to hear, please let me know, we’d love feedback.

Ben Clemens: And in the meantime, playing games on Twitch is definitely a thing we’re looking into doing. I’m going to stream some OOTP tomorrow at noon ET.

Ben Clemens: And Dan, Paul, and I have been streaming the Show once a week recently. I wouldn’t mind getting some other baseball sims into it as well.

Jeff: How many more rings does Theo Epstein need to catch up to Andrew Friedman’s historic reputation? Should he put more focus on $/WAR and realize no ones cares about winning really?

Ben Clemens: So it’s interesting… if you asked me which GM I’d rather have, right now, I’d say Friedman.

Ben Clemens: But I also think that Theo will rightly be considered the more important/successful GM when we talk legacy later on in life.

Ben Clemens: Unless the Dodgers go on some insane streak.

Ben Clemens: The playoffs are a crapshoot, and all, blah blah blah, but look, the rings matter.

Ben Clemens: It would be one thing if Theo had just stumbled into a historically great team and been like, whoops, guess we win!

Ben Clemens: But he’s clearly also really good at what he does. I do think that the strategies he used seem to have lost a tiny amount of edge over the years, but that’s life.

Ben Clemens: I think it’s entirely reasonable to prefer Friedman right now while taking Theo’s overall career.

Steeve: If it were easily feasible would you support moving the fences back at most parks

Ben Clemens: Yes! I’d support moving them out as far as possible if it didn’t mess with attendance and watchability issues.

Ben Clemens: I like balls in play and outfield defense a lot.

Ben Clemens: And more doubles and triples would be super fun.

Ben Clemens: You might want to also do something about the resulting drop in offense, but there are things that you could work out to counteract that.

Ben Clemens: And generally yeah, fences further back = more fun

Curtis: Is a triple the most exciting play in baseball?

Ben Clemens: It’s definitely up there.

Ben Clemens: I was thinking about this…. I think I have a triple first, but I also like a weird one.

Ben Clemens: A really close infield single/out.

Ben Clemens: With a slow runner.

Ben Clemens: It’s one of those plays wehre you’re like, oh he couldn’t possibly make it

Ben Clemens: Oh, wait, wow, that ball is hit to just the right spot.

Ben Clemens: Maybe he will!

Ben Clemens: The third baseman is really going to have to rush this throw!

Ben Clemens: It’s fine with a fast runner, too, but I enjoy the extra drama from having the runner lumber down the line.

Guest: Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective… a good zoom game?

Ben Clemens: Oh wow, I hadn’t thought about that, but 100% yes.

Ben Clemens: It’s a great game overall, too.

Ben Clemens: If you have someone who doesn’t mind reading all the clues (we like to alternate), it would work really well.

Ben Clemens: I guess potentially minus the newspapers and map, but if you have two people in the apartment that has the copy of the game, or multiple people have copies, that’s probably fine.

Ben Clemens: Those two components aren’t make or break if you have someone reallllly pore over the papers.

Jeff: Yu Darvish’s chances of a Curt Schilling (on field) finish to his career from 34 on? I’d say at least 25% right? Probably

Ben Clemens: Boy, I just looked this up, and post-34 Schilling was incredible (I did 2001 onwards).

Ben Clemens: He had four seasons where he put up more WAR than Darvish ever has in a single season.

Derek: I love Yu

Derek: Darvish, that is.

Ben Clemens: I have Darvish as a top 10 starter in baseball right now.

Ben Clemens: Potentially top 5

Ben Clemens: If all we care about is 2020.

Ben Clemens: And even then, I’m going to say like…. 10%? It’s just so hard to hvae one of these seasons like 2002 Schilling, 2.4 FIP 3.23 ERA at altitude

Ben Clemens: 31.1% strikeout rate in 2002, just bonkers.

Ben Clemens: I think the question almost boils down to will Darvish win two Cy Youngs the rest of his career.

Ben Clemens: And you have to bet no, even though he’s awesome.

Ben Clemens: I would absolutely love for it to happen though. Who’s more fun to watch than Darvish when he’s on?

Dad: Why is Cashman not in the same conversation as Friedman and Epstein? The guy has 4 rings and 0 losing seasons. It feels like people forget that the Red Sox would’ve been in shambles if the Dodgers didn’t bail them out.

Ben Clemens: I’m not convinced about the shambles part, but I think he’s a great GM too.

Ben Clemens: I think the reason he doesn’t get included in the discussion is because he hasn’t always been the kind of franchise-altering, build something out of nothing guy that those two are, or at least isn’t perceived that way.

Ben Clemens: If you think earlier Cashman is more about financial muscle, maybe you can discount him; and then later Cashman has been really good at assembling teams, but the Yankees had that dip period where they were constructing 85 win teams instead of juggernauts that I think still moves him lower in my mind.

Ben Clemens: But he probably doesn’t get enough credit, because it’s the yankees, of course they’ll be good.

Joseph: Will the Rangers ever win a World Series

Ben Clemens: Yeah! On a long enough timeline, everyone will.

Ben Clemens: But also, I like what they’re doing there in general. Obviously Jon Daniels and co have built good teams before.

Ben Clemens: But I generally like where they’re set up now, and I think that having a closed roof stadium is going to help out a lot longterm.

Ben Clemens: It sounds silly but I can’t imagine all those long hot games are awesome for their players longterm.

Ben Clemens: Plus, they’ve been willing to spend when they’re contending, and they seem to have a knack for pitching acquisitions. Baseball is competitive but I mean, I think they are doing well.

I miss baseball: Ben, what’s your least favorite rule in baseball?

Ben Clemens: Hm.

Ben Clemens: How about foul bunts being strike three?

Ben Clemens: That seems silly to me.

Ben Clemens: It’s not a big secret that I think bunts are fun, and this one was made for when bunting was super valuable, not now.

Ben Clemens: Failing that, I’d like to see check swings codified.

Ben Clemens: The way they actually work is always frustrating.

Derek: In your opinion, is there ever an argument that MVP should be someone other than the WAR leader? (Maybe other than unequal playing time if WAR is close?)

Ben Clemens: Yeah, for sure. I actually look at WPA a decent amount, because I interpret the award as caring about that.

Ben Clemens: If you had a guy who, for the sake of argument, hit 50 homers but all 50 came in 8 run games somehow.

Ben Clemens: I’d say he’s likely to be really valuable going forwrad.

Ben Clemens: And he’s a great player

Ben Clemens: But maybe he wasn’t actually THAT valuable to his team that year.

Ben Clemens: I also care more about offensive numbers than defensive numbers b/c of the error bands on single season defense

Ben Clemens: If players are within 1 WAR, WAR isn’t telling you with much certainty who’s better anyway.

I miss baseball: Related to Jeff’s question: Will the Dodgers get a draft pick due to their loss of the All Star Game?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think so.

Ben Clemens: They might get the World Series hosted there as a neutral location if there is one this year, or they might get a future All Star game.

Ben Clemens: But I think porting it into a draft pick would be unpopular with other teams and out of line with the way the league generally awards or strips draft picks.

Tel: Your talk of zoom games and teaching your wife hearts made me wonder about playing cards over zoom.  Seems like playing hearts or whatever with everyone using their own deck would make for some interesting games – everyone could have the queen of spades.  You would need to have a rule for breaking ties of course, maybe first to play the card wins.  But the strategies would be so completely different when you have no idea what cards are in each player’s hand.

Ben Clemens: Ooh, this isn’t necessarily what you’re talking about, but have you heard of cancellation hearts?

Ben Clemens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancellation_Hearts

Ben Clemens: I highly recommend it.

Ben Clemens: It’s hearts with two decks, but if two of the same card is played, that card can’t win the hand.

Ben Clemens: So you can do things like open lead the queen of spades hoping the other queen will play on yours.

Ben Clemens: I’m not really sure how the strategy works, because I haven’t played it all that often, but it’s really fun.

Ben Clemens: And the feeling of thinking you’re going to take a trick and then getting canceled is awesome.

Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: Outfield assists at home are the most exciting play in baseball to watch. Triples are up there as well, but triple plays and strike-em-out-throw-em-outs are above them, in my opinion.

Ben Clemens: Another excellent choice.

Ben Clemens: Outfield assists at almost any base really.

Ben Clemens: Well, third mainly I guess. I can’t think of any dramatic outfield assists to second.

Ben Clemens: Seems like a baserunner being in play, either safe or out by a narrow margin, is important.

Ben Clemens: And defense in motion, as well.

Jeff: Maybe wrong chat but why do people prefer dogs to cats? Is it the need to be needed? My only problem with cars is the same as all animals in that they smell bad

Ben Clemens: I’m a dog person, but I like cats as well.

Ben Clemens: I think that dogs constantly being so happy to see you is a really nice upside.

Ben Clemens: Like if I’m feeling down, a dog is more likely to cheer me up than a cat.

Ben Clemens: But cats are also fun for different reasons — they’re just amusing to watch, you know?

Ben Clemens: I’m just pro-animal

Cliff on baseball: Did you collect baseball cards growing up and did you have a favorite?

Ben Clemens: Oh yes. In fact, one of the reasons I’ve enjoyed OOTP so much is because perfect team really replicates the feeling of cracking open a pack.

Ben Clemens: My favorite card as a kid? Probably an Ozzie Smith Padres card (from before I was born) that I got signed by him.

Ben Clemens: But second to that, a Carlos Delgado future star card that came out when he was just coming up with the Blue Jays.

Ben Clemens: He played a season in Double-A Knoxville and I probably went to 30 games.

Ben Clemens: He picked me up once! I was a little kid, and the players would chill and sign autographs for players before games.

Ben Clemens: I knew a little Spanish (took immersion classes), so I asked him for an autograph in crappy Spanish and he thought it was awesome.

Ben Clemens: I still have both of those cards, actually. The Ozzie card is in my office, the Delgado one is in a protective case at my mom’s house.

David: Do you think there is a ‘compromise stat’ that traditionalists and advanced metrics types can agree on?

Ben Clemens: OPS basically

Ben Clemens: I think OPS is a really good stat

Ben Clemens: One of the hard things about coming up with metrics is how to balance accessibility, descriptive power, and reliability.

Ben Clemens: OPS is just a great blend of the three — OBP and SLG are easy enough to calculate, and ‘hey add up numbers you’d see on a baseball card’ is pretty accessible.

Ben Clemens: It’s not as good as wOBA or wRC+ for descriptive power but it’s close, same with predictive.

Ben Clemens: It’s the kind of stat you can show on a screen, and your dad will get it but it will also tell you something.

Ben Clemens: (no offense dad! just a generic dad)

Ben Clemens: I still prefer wOBA for analysis because it’s more cleanly doing what I want, but OPS is awesome and I think it should be on every scoreboard.

Steeve: Why is the value of a stolen base always 0.2 in wSB and previously in wOBA? Shouldnt it change with the run envieonment?

Ben Clemens: It should! I wasn’t aware that it didn’t.

Ben Clemens: I’ll talk to Appelman about that at some point; that’s weird.

Hey hey we want some Posey: Sorry but to be a dynasty you actually have to win a championship or two.  How can the Dodgers be a dynasty when they had an actual dynasty in their own division just a few years ago?

Ben Clemens: Eh, we probably disagree on the meaning of dynasty, and in fairness I’d be happy saying that no teams in baseball right now are dynasties.

Ben Clemens: I’m not even really sure if the Giants count, because I value regular season success really highly.

Ben Clemens: But if the Giants don’t count the Dodgers also don’t.

Ben Clemens: The last clearly dynastic team in baseball was the late-90s Yankees, in my opinion.

Ben Clemens: The Cardinals at various points have come close but they were never consistently great.

Ben Clemens: I think that you probably need both regular season and postseason success to really be a dynasty.

Sam: As baseball has gotten more homogeneous from a front office and gameplay perspective, do you think that reduces the likelihood of dynasties?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, totally.

Ben Clemens: I think it also ‘helps’ that revenue is less coupled to winning than ever before.

Ben Clemens: Quotes extremely intended.

Ben Clemens: The positive feedback loop of be great, get rich, spend money to get better, be great, repeat

Ben Clemens: Is not so clean as it was in the past.

Ben Clemens: It’s more make the playoffs, be great, there’s revenue sharing, you keep targeting a payroll below the CBT, you don’ really want to go out on a limb and spend all that much more since you know the postseason is a crapshoot and going from 105 to 110 wins or whatever is not that valuable.

Ben Clemens: I don’t love it, but that’s just how it feels.

Ben Clemens: On that note, I’m going to call it a day.

Ben Clemens: Try not to underspend on your dynasty due to CBT concerns.

Ben Clemens: Come hang out tomorrow for our OOTP stream, or later this week for the show, or read the wonderful coverage at FanGraphs in general.

Ben Clemens: Great talking to everyone.

Ben Clemens: Be safe!