Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 5/17/21

Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, let’s get chatting. No clever intro today because I’ve been knee-deep in slider run values all morning and that sapped the comedy right out of me.

Old Timer: What is up with Oscar Mercado.  How can a player go from promising to seemingly lost so quickly?  thanks.

Ben Clemens: I was incredibly surprised to see Mercado start off hot in 2019

Ben Clemens: Maybe it’s just my inner Cards fan coming out, but his generally blah minor league performances in StL made me think that he wasn’t anything more than a fourth outfielder, and then he exploded onto the scene there

Ben Clemens: That said, I think that his problems are the same problems that you would have expected from his time as a prospect. He doesn’t have the power to punish pitchers for mistakes, so they just slam the zone

Ben Clemens: I know he had a big power uptick in 2019, but like…. not buying it

Ben Clemens: I thikn he’s still a nice fourth outfielder, 2021 performance notwithstanding, but I don’ think you want him as a starter

Cueto’s Shimmy: Does the times through the order penalty vary with the number of pitches a batter saw? Is there a penalty for pitchers who’ve seen, say division opponents, multiple times in the same year? Like hypothetically Kershaw having a penalty for seeing Posey the 3rd time in a season? Or the 114th time in a career?

Ben Clemens: As for the second one, here’s an interesting article from Ben Lindbergh

Ben Clemens: https://www.theringer.com/2016/10/21/16043096/mlb-playoff-familiarity-…

Ben Clemens: As for the first one, an old BP article about various permutations of TTO

Ben Clemens: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/22156/baseball-progues…

Jason: The A’s ROS RP WAR is currently ranked 24th. But they’re forecasted to have the 11th best ERA, 14th best FIP, while pitching the 11th most innings. How can I better understand this? What factors could be causing the discrepancy?

Ben Clemens: It’s the park, basically

Ben Clemens: That’s an oversimplification, but per our numbers it’s the fourth-friendliest stadium for pitchers

Ben Clemens: All that foul ground and space

Ben Clemens: FIP and ERA aren’t park-adjusted, WAR is, etc

Ben Clemens: There’s more to it than that, but I think that’s a good starting point

Travis: When doing analytics/data research, what tools do you use? (I’m compiling these for everyone to use, so amateurs can get started with baseball analysis)

Ben Clemens: Great question

Ben Clemens: I’ll break it down into a few categories

Ben Clemens: For data acquisition, I use Baseball Savant and FanGraphs

Ben Clemens: They’re both quite friendly to data downloads

Ben Clemens: I also access some of our data that we have stored on a database via SQL, and SQL is generally worth learning

Ben Clemens: Regardless of whether you’re downloading data with it, it’s really good for sorting and querying. Savant is essentially a pile of data in the background, and a fancy skin for SQL that lets you choose which pitches to query

Ben Clemens: From there, I tend to analyze data in Excel or Google Sheets

Ben Clemens: Nothing too complex usually

Ben Clemens: That said, for some of the more complex projects I’ve attempted, I’ll use Python as well

Ben Clemens: I’m sure R would do the same thing, and I bet you can even do some of it in pre-processing in SQL, I’m just most comfortable with Python

Ben Clemens: But Excel/Sheets will get you al ot of the way

Derek: SQL + Excel + R will generally get you pretty far when analyzing any kind of data!

Ben Clemens: Yeah totally agree with this. You can also substitute in Sheets for Excel and Python + pandas for R without much loss

MarinersSource: WIll Jarred Kelenic win ROTY?

Ben Clemens: I’m going to stick with my preseason prediction of Andrew Vaughn. Despite wonky early-season PT he’s been pretty good!

Ben Clemens: And he’s now basically playing every day

Guest: I learned the other day that Statcast has Outs Above Average data that measures the quality of the defense played behind each pitcher.  Have you played around with this data at all?  Is there hope for someone like Luis Castillo, who seems to have been seriously victimized by poor defense?

Ben Clemens: I’m literally digging through some of this in my spare time today

Ben Clemens: I’m not ready to say anything definitive yet but I think it has promise for doing a little more than shrugging our shoulders about batted ball results

Greg: Is this the least valuable year in recent memory to have the 1-1 pick?

Ben Clemens: This feels more like a question for Eric and Kevin, but I don’t think so. Maybe I’m just an unconnected dope but Leiter seems pretty good to me

Travis: What’s up with the Giants SP, besides their defense?  Alex Wood, 60% GB rate.  They turned Gausman into a top player.  Desclafani is rolling.  Their components all seem legit, and I’m buying their rotation as a top 10 in MLB.  Agree or no?

Ben Clemens: Eh, I don’t really agree sadly. Gausman is great, Desclafani is solid, but as much as I’ve been an Alex Wood fanboy my whole life, listen to the slate of teams he has faced so far

Ben Clemens: Miami, Miami, Colorado, Colorado (at Coors), Texas, Pittsburgh

Ben Clemens: For those of you keeping score at home, that’s the 25th-best offense twice, 29th-best offense twice, 12th-best offense (but projected to be kinda bad going forward), and 27th-best offense

Ben Clemens: Those are the opponents he’s faced, and all he can do is beat the guys in front of him, but take it with a grain of salt is all I’m saying

Callup question: I read something about it being harder for people to be promoted from AA to the Majors. How will that impact guys like Bobby Witt and others?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, this is a COVID protocol thing

Ben Clemens: I don’t think it’s going to be a huge deal for Witt, b/c I just don’t think that the Royals will call him up, but generally it means that teams who have a prospect they’re considering calling up soon are going to stash them in Triple-A, which has the same protocols as the majors

Ben Clemens: I do think this means that teams with interesting potential callups will lean towards AAA for those assignments

Ben Clemens: Wander Franco skipped AA, and I bet that’s at least partially b/c the Rays want flexibility around calling him up

Just appreciation: I really appreciate how long and detailed your responses are with chat – I’m learning a lot about questions I didn’t have! Thanks a ton for showing up this way

Ben Clemens: Just wait until we get to the speed round or someone brings up food opinions, you might change your mind then 🙂

Guest: Why did the Dodgers put a center fielder and shortstop on the IL and then acquire Albert Pujols and Yoshi Tsutsugo?  They seem like awkward fits for that roster.

Ben Clemens: I’m not the Dodgers, but my thinking about this is that they’re basically cashing in their positional versatility

Ben Clemens: Muncy and Lux being multi-positional was neat but not particularly useful before

Ben Clemens: B/c they were going to get the PT at 1st and 2nd

Ben Clemens: now that they need a shortstop and Lux can fake short, they’re making Muncy a 2B

Ben Clemens: But with Rios on the IL, they don’t have a ton of other great 1B options, so they created a single solid 1B by combining Tsutsugo vR and Pujols vL

Ben Clemens: Then Chris Taylor, the other multi-positional guy they have, can play center

Ben Clemens: And if Muncy is going to be a 2B most days, they don’t need Taylor there

Ben Clemens: It actually works, though it is really funny to see them lose two premium defenders and replace them with two DH’s

NetworkAir: Ben,
With the context of the new CBA, are teams going to potentially operate under the assumption for long term pick ups that there will be an universal DH? Ex. Are the reds more likely to chase an outfielder under the assumption that Winker will primarily DH in the future?

Ben Clemens: Very likely, but with a grain of salt: no one is going to be doing much long-term business this offseason until there’s a new CBA

Ben Clemens: I think that in-season trades wlil likely assume a long-term DH, but there just aren’t going to be pre-CBA signings

Mitch: Willy Adames is going to hit arbitration next year and the Rays have some great middle infield prospects. Do you think he will be shopped at the deadline? Might be hard to deal him next winter with all the great FA SS

Ben Clemens: Oh yeah, I think he’s being shopped as we speak

Ben Clemens: The Rays aren’t known for NOT maximizing their roster, and probably the best way to handle that is trade Adames for help somewhere they need it

Ben Clemens: Rotation? Outfield?

YardGoat: Olive oil or butter with your bread?

Ben Clemens: Olive oil, not particularly close

Ben Clemens: There’s a really nice olive oil shop near where my wife is from, and her mom sends us some every year for Christmas

Ben Clemens: This place: https://orodioliva.com/

Ben Clemens: They have some cool flavored oils and vinegars, and we order these a lot and use them on bread

Ben Clemens: The Christmas gifts no longer last us all year

Kevin Platinumstein: Does FGs ignore the Marlins? I’ve asked about Sandy Alcantara the last couple chats and no one answered? I usually get my questions answered which is why I ask? I mean, I wouldn’t want to watch the Marlins either, but I’m forced to since my team is in the NL East.

Ben Clemens: I would not say that Sandy is a pitcher who tremendously interests me, through no fault of his own

Ben Clemens: I’m probably a little wrong on him, but I just have decided I need to see it longer before I buy in

Ben Clemens: He just never gets enough strikeouts for how hellacious his stuff looks, and I wnat to see a clean break to something better before I upgrade from ‘nice mid-rotation guy’ to better than that

Ben Clemens: Aside from that though, I think we have covered all the Marlins I’d be interested in writing about. Jesus Aguilar, Trevor Rogers, Jazz

Ben Clemens: Maybe that isn’t ALL the interesting Marlins, I think Rojas is intriguing, but yeah

Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: Oh, to be a fly on the wall when Andrew Friedman woke up this morning nursing a killer hangover only to find Pujols and Tsutsugo on his porch.

Ben Clemens: This is a very enjoyable thing to imagine

Ben Clemens: his lieutenants screaming ‘no we have enough power already’ as he goes wild

Derek: How late is too late for the Twins? Are we there already?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think we’re there yet, but we’re quickly headed that way

Ben Clemens: They have an entire outfield on the IL, too, so it’s not as though they’re likely to suddenly catch fire

Ben Clemens: I still feel fine about their team going forward, but this is just a BIG hill to climb

Ben Clemens: if they go, say, 3-7 in their next 10, it starts to be difficult mathematically

Dan: When you link other people’s work in chat is that from a quick Google search or do you a collection of saved links to article you expect to want to reference?

Ben Clemens: This is maybe a little inside baseball, but it’s a mixture of both

Ben Clemens: I keep a list of articles I frequently reference in my bookmarks

Ben Clemens: And frequently, that’s what I suggest to people

Ben Clemens: Also, though, I have a pretty good memory for who wrote what

Ben Clemens: The two that I cited on times through the order aren’t linked, I just remember them well

Ben Clemens: So I googled author + rough title

Aaron Judge: Everyone’s striking out more but even with that one bad week, Judge’s K rate is actually down pretty far compared to his career. Is he someone that the fact that more pitchers are throwing more strikes (with the new ball) might help?

Ben Clemens: I’m not sure if it’s the new ball or not, but pitchers throwing more strikes is definitely good for Judge

Ben Clemens: I don’t know if you’ve ever seen him, but he’s strong

Is anything real: curious about your take on SSS. Take Williams Contreras. Little over 30 BIP but 7 barrels. Can you assume some barreling floor? 7 out of 50 (14%)?

Ben Clemens: I should do more work on reliability of barrel rates and such. It definitely becomes reliable quickly, but batters’ true talent also seems to move around a lot, which makes it complicated

Ben Clemens: That’s not a great answer for you, obviously

Ben Clemens: I don’t think that assuming a barreling floor makes a ton of sense

Ben Clemens: Basically I just need to do more research before answering

Derek: Adames to the Reds seems to make a ton sense, no?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, Story and Adames have been and should continue to be linked to the Reds

Ben Clemens: Now that the Suarez at third experiment is mostly over (8 straight games at 3rd before playin short yday)

Ben Clemens: I think they will accept that Kyle Farmer is not the answer there

Ben Clemens: A bigger question is whether they act now, or wait until July to see if they’re in the hunt

Ben Clemens: I’d argue in favor of acting now, and the Reds have been aggressive about trying to win now in recent years

Guest: Re: Story and Adames: Has the Reds’ performance so far this season been encouraging enough to think they would actually be buyers at the deadline?

Ben Clemens: Right, exactly

Ben Clemens: I think it has been, honestly. But if they play Kyle Framer at short for two months while they wait and see, it might not be anymore!

Ben Clemens: Farmer*

Bart: what does SSS ?

Ben Clemens: oh, small sample size

BringBackDeSpanielHair: Ben!!! WTF do I do with Luis Castillo this week? 2 starts, in a points league, and against middling offenses, and I’m scared to death of the downside.

Ben Clemens: I think you have to ride with him even though it does not feel great at the moment

Ben Clemens: I don’t really understsand what’s going on with him, his sinker is just getting absolutely obliterated

Ben Clemens: It’s not like he’s faced great offenses either

Ben Clemens: 92.1% contact rate against the sinker, that’s awwwwwwful

Clem Benens: a snake also does SSS

Ben Clemens: Hard to argue with such an eloquently phrased argument

Jed Gyorko: As I prepare to manage in the MLB Draft League, am I looking at the Pujols signing and thinking damn, had I been patient I could have been the right handed 1B bench guy they signed…..  or not?  I hit 9 HR and had a 119 wRC+ in 43 games last year.

Ben Clemens: I’m a Jedd fan, and the Dodgers have recently acquired him!

Ben Clemens: (2019, so your mileage may very on recently)

Ben Clemens: I have to think that he wasn’t interested in hanging on as an up-and-down bench guy who crushes lefties, because I think if he wanted to do that he could have found a job SOMEWHERE

SF Lindor: Lindor over/under:  99.5 wRC+ for the season

Ben Clemens: I’ll take the over

Ben Clemens: Someone asked a Mets question up above that I didn’t have a chance to get to, but I’ll try to cover that here as well

Ben Clemens: I’m not terribly worried about Lindor’s performance so far, his batted ball results have been putrid but his batted ball quality suggests that he should be okay there

Ben Clemens: It’s interesting that he’s swinging a lot less, and he’s taking far more strikes this year than he has before, but for someone who’s so good at making contact and taking walks, I don’t hate that approach

Ben Clemens: I’d be more worried about McCann and Dom Smith, personally

Ben Clemens: McCann seems to have lost a TON of power on contact; 1 barrel this year in 67 batted balls is not great!

Ben Clemens: Given that he was an average performer when he had average power, seeing a loss of power doesn’t feel good at all

Ben Clemens: Especially when you consider his history of not hitting for power, lol

Ben Clemens: Now, that’s not the end of the world for a catcher and I thikn he’s better than what he’s shown so far, but I think warning lights should be flashing there

Ben Clemens: As for Dom, I’m more confident that his power will come back, but this year is a good reminder that someone who strikes out as often as he does without good walk rates has a narrow margin of error

Ben Clemens: When he’s not taking extra bases, the whole package is meh

Victor Robles: How do you feel I compare to Pache? I had a 65 FV before my callup while hes sat at 60. Would you still put me over Pache for the next 5 years?

Ben Clemens: Boy, this is not an easy one, because I think both players’ stars have faded

Ben Clemens: I think I’d take Pache, but it’s by an extremely narrow margin

Ben Clemens: Both of them are glove-first guys, and I think that Robles is likely to end up better with the bat

Ben Clemens: In limited looks, Pache has looked transcendent to me in the outfield, though, whereas Robles has looked merely excellent

Chip: Looking for a Conforto replacement. Are you on Zimmerman’s Bader bandwagon?

Ben Clemens: I think so, as long as that’s ‘competent at-bats and maybe the occasional OBP bump when he bats in front of the pitcher’

Ben Clemens: I too am looking for a Conforto replacement in Ottoneu

Ben Clemens: Also an Alex Kirilloff replacement, Colin Moran replacement, Wil Myers fill-in, Marco Gonzales replacement

Ben Clemens: If you have any names!

Nido Fan: I wish they hadnt paid so much for McCann cuz I want Nido to get more PT

Ben Clemens: The Mets lead the league in names that would work as finding Nemo puns

Ben Clemens: But I am not overly intrigued by Nido. I thikn he’s a competent backup, which is something the Mets have excelled at producing

Chip: I have to drop Luzardo because of a roster crunch and that makes me feel sad. I won’t miss him, right?

Ben Clemens: Depends on league context and so on. I don’ think he’s going to suddenly be an ace but he’s a good pitcher and he benefits from pitching in Oakland

John b: Machado’s “slide” trending as dirty.  What day you ?

Ben Clemens: If it were someone other than Machado, I’d give it less thought

Ben Clemens: It looked very dirty to me at full speed, but I’m somewhat sympathetic to the fact that he didn’t necessarily have an easy way out

Ben Clemens: I’m gonna say not dirty, but that I’m not confident in that opinion at all and that I reserve the right to change my mind about it

Ben Clemens: If you haven’t seen it, jomboy cut an excellent closeup:

Ben Clemens:

Taylor: Would Jonathan India be asking for too much in exchange for Adames? Rays really don’t have a long term option at 3B

Ben Clemens: I’d say yes. I’m not really sure why the Reds would make that trade given that India is already contributing-ish on the ML roster

Trea Turner: I’m just stuffing cash into bags every time I step up to the plate this season right? Feels like I should be getting top market as a legit superstar on an extension.

Ben Clemens: Oh yes

Ben Clemens: The biggest issue is that this is a crappy year for extensions, what team wants to sign that before this looming CBA

Ben Clemens: As an aside, a friend of mine and I made a bet on Trea Turner’s WAR vs. Tommy Pham’s WAR in 2018

Ben Clemens: This was after Pham’s breakout 2017 and Turner having a down year

Ben Clemens: Pham was awwwwwful in STL so I gave up on it, then he put up 2.6 WAR in 39 games in Tampa and almost won it for me

Ben Clemens: So I probably still overrate Turner b/c of the sting of losing that one

Ben Clemens: The stakes? A night of drinks in New York, so colossally high

Derek: The Rays have like, 14 long term options at SS, which I think means they have at a long term option at 3B by default!

Ben Clemens: Yeah, if the Rays are trying to call up Franco and Brujan this year, one of them is probably playing third

Ben Clemens: If you think that Brandon Lowe is going to get converted into parts, b/c Tampa, then I suppose you could say that they don’t have an obvious third baseman after this year

Ben Clemens: But I like Kevin Padlo quite a bit, and I also like the way they manufacture 3B in general

Ben Cherington: I see Golf Digest did a piece on the Machado slide.

Ben Clemens: I can’t tell if this is a joke I’m not getting, but I sure hope it’s not and they’re just covering it unironically

Ryan Zimmerman: What position player do you think would be a reasonable add for the Nats? Doesn’t feel like they have any huge holes if Bell rebounds to acceptable, but also they don’t really have anyone GOOD besides Soto and Turner.

Ben Clemens: The Nats have a specific problem: they have a huge pile of blah hitters

Ben Clemens: Also they’re limited defensively in a lot of cases

Ben Clemens: Makes it hard to upgrade and also the pieces don’t work that well together

Ben Clemens: I’m down on the Nats this year, in case you couldn’t tell by that answer

jj: You don’t think Yandi can move back to 3B?

Ben Clemens: I do think he can, which is why I don’t consider 3B a hole. I think they consider him more of a platoon guy there, the defense isn’t stellar, but there’s nothing wrong with that

Derek: lol it’s real Manny Machado, now sliding into guys 20 feet from base, officially confirmed as dirty player | This is the Loop | GolfDigest.com

Ben Clemens: lol

Ben Clemens: what

jj: Ohtani and Al Reyes, both getting by with lots of walks, Ks and somehow very few hits.  John Gant trying to be them without as good of stuff and you can see it coming off the rails for him. Do you think Ohtani and/or Reyes will figure out how not to walk batters and still be able to keep hits down and Ks up?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, Ohtani and Reyes are making it work b/c they’re unhittable

Ben Clemens: If John Gant can become unhittable, he should strongly consider doing it ASAP

Ben Clemens: Incidentally, John Gant is the subject of my favorite article I’ve ever written

Ben Clemens: https://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2018/7/30/17628794/john-gants-descent-int…

Ben Clemens: But I do think that Reyes and Ohtani will lower their walk rates. Reyes in particular is doing a bit of a Driveline short-arm now and I can imagine it taking a while to re-calibrate

Ben Cherington: Ben Cherington knows Golf Digest.

Aaron: The Machado stuff is a little gross. Chase Utley was admired for his tough, gritty play that contributed to team’s success, even though his actions on slides fairly often crossed the line and could be considered against the rules (using forearms to hit fielders trying to complete the DP turn at the bad). Machado didn’t break any rules and was at worst doing an Utley impression. No one says tough for Machado. They say dirty. Ridiculous.

Ben Clemens: I kind of agree with this point, with limits

Ben Clemens: I think that Chase Utley was pretty widely recognized to be right on the border of dirty

Ben Clemens: I don’ think he would show his face at Citi Field, for example

Ben Clemens: There’s literally a rule named after his dirty slide

Ben Clemens: Machado has gotten a worse rap than he deserves, I have no argument with that part of it

BringBackDeSpanielHair: Machado didn’t have anywhere to go on that play, and he didn’t want to take a throw to the face. Give him a break I say.

Ben Clemens: Yeah if this wasn’t specifically Manny Machado I don’t think it be a point of discussion ,but the play just LOOKED jarring

Ben Clemens: no one slides halfway between first and second like that, and particularly not into someone’s legs

Ben Clemens: He’s lucky Edman wasn’t hurt

Ben Clemens: But that was a realllllly tough situation

Life after COL: How should we evaluate pitchers that COL should trade away. Marquez, Gray, Gomber, and  Freeland…

Next COL GM: Taking stock on what I can sell. Story = top 80-100 player

Ben Clemens: Story is higher than that, but his pending free agency means the return will be light

Ben Clemens: I think that Freeland, Gray, and Marquez will be sought after in trade

Ben Clemens: In the opposite order I just named them, whoops

Ben Clemens: Gomber would return not much of anything. I like the guy a lot, but fifth starters don’t yield much in trade generally

Scherzer: You say your out on the Nats. What do you think Scherzer, Hand, Hudson, and the other belvy of FAs would bring back in trades? They have something like 14(!!) expiring contracts that could be moved if they were out of it.

Ben Clemens: I wouldn’t trade Scherzer. I hate these trades of pending FA’s when they’re absolute team legends for teams that have been successful

Ben Clemens: Let him pitch the rest of the season in Nats Park and sell tickets

Ben Clemens: And they’ll do the crazy graphic of his two eyes every time there are two strikes, etc. etc., it’s a great time

Ben Clemens: The other guys would all return interesting prospects. Hudson looks rejuvenated in limited innings this year. Hand’s velo has rebounded from last year’s dire numbers, but it’s still low. I’m not a buyer but I’m sure several teams would be.

Aaron: While I agree with your take on Scherzer, it seems inevitable that he’ll be traded. The Nats stink and other teams will want him to the degree the Nats will likely pull the trigger on a deal. Scherzer must be at 10/5 though, right?

Ben Clemens: He is

Ben Clemens: I hope they keep him, I agree with you t hat they might not

bighen: I thought the Mets needed to add a bat before all of this but now it seems pretty certain, how just how early can they start to look?  They are running out AAA lineup at this point.

Ben Clemens: They can look literally right this minute

Ben Clemens: Teams wait too long to acquire replacements

Ben Clemens: The Mets have been ravaged by injury

Ben Clemens: Despite their actually good depth for the first time in a while, it’s looking dire

Ben Clemens: They should be out asking on everyone right now

Derek: Played any good board/video games lately?

Ben Clemens: Oh yes yes yes

Ben Clemens: I have a game that I badly want to recommend to anyone who likes history

Ben Clemens: Watergate, a two-player asymmetrical board game

Ben Clemens: One of you plays Nixon, the other plays the WaPo editorial board

Ben Clemens: Nixon tries to silence sources and destroy evidence, the editors try to flip sources and get to the evidence first

Ben Clemens: It’s a blast

Ben Clemens: Also, Point Salad

Ben Clemens: It’s a really quick-playing draft game that plays like 2-5 maybe?

Ben Clemens: You either draft salad ingredients or salad recipes

Ben Clemens: The recipes let you score points for the ingredients, the ingredients let you complete recipes

Ben Clemens: I love drafting games and it’s an excellent example

I dunno: Good luck with the comments on that game recommendation

Ben Clemens: Haha look, I’m definitely not saying “Go become Richard Nixon”

Ben Clemens: But it’s a fun game

Ben Clemens: In the same vein as Twilight Struggle but far lighter

BringBackDeSpanielHair: Love the Gant article. Did he set the record?

Ben Clemens: Oh goodness, I got into that story at the perfect time

Ben Clemens: He set the record

Ben Clemens: Then! He hit a dinger for his first ML hit

Ben Clemens: Then! He hit another dinger for his second hit

Ben Clemens: He has no other hits in the majors

Guest: Doesn’t Joey Wendle mainly play 3rd for the Rays? He’s pretty good

Ben Clemens: Yeah look, I don’t get the “rays have no long-term solution at 3B either”

Ben Clemens: to be fair I don’t know if Wendle qualifies as long-term

Ben Clemens: But I didn’t say it! I think they are set in the infield

Ben Clemens: That’s why when I listed potential areas of return for Adames I said outfield and rotation

Underrated Pitchers: Tyler Anderson and Christian Jaiver top 30 SPs?

Ben Clemens: Gonna say Anderson yes, Javier no for now

Ben Clemens: I am really leery of the control

Ben Clemens: I think that Javier has a chance to be HUGE

Ben Clemens: He just hasn’t dialed it in yet

Ben Clemens: He only has a 9.3% walk rate this year, so you’d think it’s all good, but if you watch him pitch it does not feel that way, and he doesn’t draw enough chases or throw in the zone enough to make me think I should trust the small-sample rate over my eyes and his history

Pitchers: Don’t look now, but the pitchers seem like they are really pro DH with their performance so far this year. Maybe they all agreed “Hey if we suck extra this year that’ll really put the final nail in the coffin.”

Ben Clemens: It’s gonna happen

Ben Clemens: All these guys trying to get one last dinger in are taking AWFUL hacks, too

Ben Clemens: Alright guys, on this note, I’m going to do a quick lightning round and then head out

Ben Clemens: Gotta get back to writing, and I’m gonna grab coffee with a friend in a few as well

Lord Hugginton: What happened at the end of March which caused the spike/dip in Fangraphs’ membership?

Ben Clemens: That’s largely b/c we did our first membership drive last March

Ben Clemens: So there are a lot of up/downs in there, people letting theirs expire for a day and then re-upping, or us getting new members as old ones drop out

Houzer: T or F- Tigers should extend Mazara to a 3 year 5.25M contract and consider him a high upside, low dollar project

Ben Clemens: F

MIke: What are the Diamondbacks doing with Varsho? I suppose now with Kelly down for a while, he’ll get more playing time. Up to now, though, he mostly was on the bench. Would think he’d be better off in AAA gettings AB’s every day.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, with Kelly out it solves the hproblem

Sticky Situation 😉: Thor must be in the lightning round! SYNDERGAARD

Chris: Kikuchi or Alzolay as a streamer and/or long term?

Ben Clemens: Yes to both to both

Family tie(s) game: Watergate sounds exactly like a game Alex P. Keaton would love and teach kids when babysitting.

AJ: unrelated to anything, but I can’t stop myself from confusing John Gant with John Gast and John Gaub even though Gant is the only one of the three with any sort of success in the majors

Astro’s fan: Will Myles Straw become an average CF?

Ben Clemens: Yeha, I think so

Dan: Why do the team I want to miss the playoffs keep rostering players I want to do well?

Ben Clemens: Ah, that endless question

Ben Clemens: Thanks everyone, have a great week, and Kiermaier’s piercing green eyes, I made a delicious fermented bean sauce that I can’t wait to tell you about next week, I just ran out of time.

Ben Clemens: The rest of you: you can hear about it too. Have a great one!