Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 5/23/22

2:00
Ben Clemens: Hey everybody, running a few minutes late this morning, we’ll get started in about five minutes

2:04
Ben Clemens: And go!

2:04
Corn Pie: What Has Trevor Story changed?

2:04
Ben Clemens: Luck?

2:04
Ben Clemens: That’s too simplistic of course

2:05
Ben Clemens: It’s really difficult to pinpoint any one thing he’s done, though. He’s swinging at similar pitches. He’s hitting the ball a little harder — though he already had been since a very slow start

2:06
Ben Clemens: But I do think a lot of it is that he’s hot right now

2:06
Inaccessible Rail: Now that Roger Angell is gone, who is the greatest living baseball writer?

2:06
Ben Clemens: I don’t think that I’m the right audience for this, but I’m gonna go with a member of the internet generation: Sam Miller. Definitely my favorite baseball writer, at least

2:06
Steve: McClanahan or Skubal?

2:08
Ben Clemens: McClanahan for me. I like Skubal’s upside as well but I have an easier time seeing McClanahan’s carrying tools (wipeout secondaries, pure stuff in general) holding up

2:09
Ben Clemens: Skubal’s slider has been incredible this year, so that’s starting to change my mind a little; but as I look at it, I’m not entirely sure why it’s been quite so effective

2:09
Ben Clemens: It’s almost a cutter at this point, and I guess it pairs off of his fastball well. There’s definitely a chance I’m too low on him. I just look at McClanahan’s pitch mix and *get* it in a way I don’t yet with Skubal

2:10
Guest: With Langeliers mashing in AAA, do you think the As deal Murphy this year? Mets & Yankees gotta be big suitors. Would he draw a top 10 prospect?

2:10
Ben Clemens: I think he’d be right on that cusp, depending on whether the A’s want quality or quantity

2:11
Ben Clemens: You don’t really see players with Murphy’s combination of years of control and talent dealt. Teams just keep them! The A’s are just in a weird spot where they have good players but also don’t want to win baseball games in 2022 (or ’23 or ’24 seemingly)

2:11
Ben Clemens: But yeah, I could see him drawing a return headlined by a guy that the fans of the acquiring team are deeply uncomfortable about trading

2:12
Ben Clemens: Maybe not Volpe, but Oswald Peraza or something?

2:12
Guest: Is there any hope for JT Realmuto improving on his lackluster at best start to the season?

2:12
Ben Clemens: Nope he’s cooked forever

2:12
Ben Clemens: Probably should just retire

2:12
Ben Clemens: (Realmuto had a much worse 15 game stretch last season, when he was the most valuable catcher in baseball. I’m not worried yet)

2:13
Guest: Who would you guess pitches more innings the rest of the year: deGrom or Kershaw?

2:13
Ben Clemens: Ew

2:13
Ben Clemens: But, Kershaw. He seems to have the ‘be a little hurt, come back, pitch a little, be a little hurt’ game on lock

2:13
Ben Clemens: dG seems more boom/bust, and I’m afraid we’re in ‘bust’ at the moment

2:13
Big Joey: Is Ty France very similar to Freddie Freeman? Seems like both don’t strikeout much with great AVGs, with decent pop….am I overvaluing France?

2:13
Ben Clemens: If you think ‘eh they’re essentially the same hitter’ then yes you are

2:14
Ben Clemens: But if you think ‘Ty France is a top 10 first baseman, not a utility player like he was two years ago’ then I’m with you

2:16
Ben Clemens: I’m not quite bought in on where our in-season projections have him (146 wRC+) but he’s made real bat-to-ball improvements over the past two years. He makes incredible contact in the zone now, that wasn’t always the case. I think that his approach still holds him back somewhat, he’s just really aggressive in almost all counts, which is gonna keep his walks down. But if you asked me who I’d rather have for the length of Freeman’s contract, I’d lean France

2:16
Ben Clemens: And if you told someone that two years ago they’d laugh

2:16
⚾: __ is the new 30 HR.

2:16
Ben Clemens: 25

2:16
Sanford: Per Dan’s piece on Friday, ZiPS still believes in the Mets despite not having Scherzer/deGrom take the hill for at least another month. Do you agree they’re still in good shape or are you concerned?

2:17
Ben Clemens: I think it’s both. I still think they are the favorites to make the playoffs out of the NLE. They have the best offense, I think… it was easy to forget that Nimmo and McNeil are comfortably plus hitters due to 2021, but their track record is quite good, and they added a ton of juice to it

2:18
Ben Clemens: Their pitching staff is now not the best in the NLE. But they have a nice cushion in games, and it’s much-improved in terms of depth; Bassitt/Carrasco/Walker is a below-average but not bottom-barrel top 3

2:20
Ben Clemens: I don’t have David Peterson as a fourth starter; I’m not saying he’s a great major league pitcher but as a fill-in that seems totally reasonable. If Megill comes back in any reasonable amount of time, it’s not clear to me that they’re a TON worse than the Braves’ staff, where Morton’s decline offsets Wright’s rise

2:20
Ben Clemens: So if they can keep afloat (and again, I like their offense slightly more than ATL’s), they have some great reinforcements coming

2:21
Ben Clemens: Would I feel better about their chances if their top two pitchers weren’t on the IL? I definitely would

2:21
Guest: So you’re saying I should drop Jonah Heim for JT Realmuto in my fantasy league if another owner gave up on the latte?

2:21
Ben Clemens: yes

2:22
B’Ryce Hammer’s Luscious Locks: freakout time over… Is it time to cut A. Chapman in a 10 team? ClevDawg is on the wire right now, cause I keep waffling between him and M. Gore.

2:22
Ben Clemens: I do. I understand small sample stuff, I’m generally skeptical of ‘changed talent levels’ early in the season

2:22
Ben Clemens: But Chapman isn’t throwing hard, isn’t missing bats, and just doesn’t look like he can succeed when he’s sitting 95-98

2:23
Ben Clemens: I don’t think he’s long for the closer’s role given the talent NYY has in their ‘pen, and without that, I don’t think the rate stats are gonna do it for you

2:23
Juiced Ball: Jesse Winker.. that unlucky or does he need the juiced balls back

2:23
Ben Clemens: porque no los dos?

2:23
Oddball Herrera: At this point is Ian Anderson basically wysiwyg? The Ks are ok but he is perpetually suffering from WHIP issues

2:24
Ben Clemens: That is a great encapsulation of how I feel about him. He’s just always going to look breakout-ready and deliver kinda average performance

2:25
Ben Clemens: I’d be happy streaming him in fantasy, and happy having him as an inning-filling rotatoin member in real life baseball

2:26
bosoxforlife: More disappointing this year, The Blue Jays or the Red Sox?

2:27
Ben Clemens: I have to say the Jays, because of all the hype around them.

2:27
Ben Clemens: It’s early to write any obituaries for the season, but I think it’s fair to say we as a collective punditry were too high on Toronto’s pitching

2:27
Ben Clemens: And just willing to believe that breakouts would continue

2:28
Guest: Where are Pham, Mahle, and Castillo playing on August 1?

2:28
Ben Clemens: I’m gonna say: Chicago, New York, Milwaukee, respectively

2:29
Ben Clemens: My general idea here is that those teams need to make trades, but I don’t have any inside info or whatnot

2:29
Guest: so expected statcast numbers are no predictive….If you are digging into them though to try to discover breakouts vs hot streaks what would you supplement them with? I am looking at some of the leaders on expected stats (Naylor, Walker, Yazstztstzrmski) with a degree of “all statcast says is you had two good weeks” skepticism

2:29
Ben Clemens: I think barrel rate is really useful. I think swing decisions are relaly useful. Max exit velocity is nice, too

2:30
Ben Clemens: Just using xwOBA or whatever might miss the finer points, but looking at the things hitters do as building blocks of positive events (avoiding swinging and missing, hitting the ball very hard) is a good place to start

2:30
Guest: Can you see the IP address of the people submitting questions to determine whether questions ostensibly from two different people are actually from the same person?

2:30
Ben Clemens: I can… but I generally don’t take the time to

2:30
Derek: Tommy Edman has the 7th most (8th most including pitchers) WAR in MLB!

2:30
Ben Clemens: Pretty amazing, right? I have to say that I didn’t see it coming, particularly when he was messing around with abandoning switch hitting last year

2:31
B’Ryce Hammer’s Luscious Locks: what is wysiwyg?

2:31
Ben Clemens: what you see is what you get

2:31
Farhandrew Zaidman: Dodgers resigning Treinen for 2023 a tacit admission that he won’t be ready this year? They sure love those two year contracts on hurt bullpen arms.

2:31
Ben Clemens: If nothing else, it makes me lean in that direction more

2:32
Guest: So is Matt Chapman just basically not a great hitter anymore?  Is he basically post-30 Brooks Robinson?

2:33
Ben Clemens: I could be annoyingly smug and ask whether he was ever a great hitter, but I’ll skip that; he was at very least an above-average hitter for several years

2:33
Ben Clemens: But I don’t think anything he’s done since 2020 has made me think ‘oh this guy will be back to posting 120 wrC+’s soon’

2:34
Ben Clemens: I think he’ll do better than he’s done so far in Toronto, he’s not gonna keep babip’ing .228 and his strikeout rates are more ‘ew’ than ‘ewwwwwwwwwww’ this year, but he’s always gonna be a slug-over-obp kind of hitter, and I guess I’m not surprised that’s leading to a rough start

2:34
Ben Clemens: I’ll take the over on a 105 wRC+ the rest of the way, but his true value is his glove, not his bat

2:34
Derek: Toronto has the 9th most pitching WAR in the majors this season! Was the consensus really higher on them than that? Granted, Gausman has accounted for almost half of that…

2:35
Ben Clemens: Yeah it’s just the rest of the staff. The guys who aren’t Gausman were supposed to be good. I, for example, had Jose Berrios winning the Cy Young

2:35
Mario: You think MIL needs to add a SP? What about Ashby?

2:35
Ben Clemens: I think they’ll want Ashby in the bullpen, and I worry that someone will wear down

2:36
Matt (Costa Rica): Do you see signs that players are starting to come out of these offensive funks? Like Mookie is hitting better (still haven’t seen him tatoo a 95+ though)

2:37
Ben Clemens: Mookie is 6th in baseball in WAR and has a 153 wrC+. He’s sixth in baseball in homers. I think it’s okay to say that he’s not in a funk

2:37
McBain: If you’re the Padres, what do you prioritize? Do you plan for (positive) regression by Grisham, Myers, Nola, and (lesser extent) Cronenworth, plus the return of Tatis, to deepen the lineup, or do you go after outside reinforcements?

2:38
Ben Clemens: I think I’d do a little of both. I think there’s positive regression coming, but I’d be worried about the ongoing Hosmer cooldown

2:38
Ben Clemens: he’s been wooooooofbad in May, .250/.289/.319 for a 72 wRC+

2:38
Ben Clemens: and with a .283 BABIP, it’s not like he’s just wildly unlucky

2:39
B’Ryce Hammer’s Luscious Locks: Ashbey is stepping into the rotation right now with Peralta hitting the IL

2:39
Ben Clemens: I understand that… I just think that the team would like to have a more dedicated starter and make Ashby a dedicated reliever

2:39
Guest: Albert Pujols has accumulated more WAR with the Dodgers in 2021 and the Cardinals this year than he did in his last 7 seasons with the Angels.  Related question: Does he reach 700 HRs?

2:40
Ben Clemens: I don’t think he’s gonna make it to 700, but I would have given it a 1% chance (or arbitrary low number of your choice) before this season, and now I’m up to, I dunno, 10%

2:40
Ben Clemens: Still feels like this is his farewell tour, and 17 bombs the rest of the way is tough. He has four this year in more than a month of games

2:40
Cubbies: Do you think Morel has improved his Hit tool prospects? He was 35’d on the 2022 report but seems to have made some improvement this year. Intriguing tools if he isn’t K’ing 40%

2:42
Ben Clemens: I haven’t watched any video of him to see if much has changed, but I don’t see much reason to change priors yet He’s striking out 23.5% of the time in the majors (and 25% in AA), which is just a hair better than last year, give him a few more games to see what we have

2:42
Jason N: I haven’t been into games since my HS days playing Risk, D&D and Axis & Allies.  Kind of interested in getting back into this.  Are most games now just evolution from 30 years ago or do I need to learn all of these new game concepts from scratch?

2:42
Ben Clemens: It’s a mix of both. I think that a lot of games these days are takeoffs on D&D that try to turn it from an open-ended adventure with a lot of responsibility on one person to make up the story to everyone gets to play and the game does the story

2:43
Ben Clemens: But Risk, AA, those style of games are less popular. Euro games — basically engine games where you have to juggle a bunch of different resources and they all contribute to victory in different ways — are the dominant species these days. Settlers of Catan is the classic here, and honestly it’s pretty fun

2:43
Derek: Have you played Caper: Europe? It has a cool theme, fun drafting mechanics, and, imo best of all, doesn’t have much of the “gotcha”-type stuff that can potentially make 1v1 board games a negative experience

2:44
Ben Clemens: I sure haven’t, but now I’m going to look it up.

2:45
Ben Clemens: Oh yeah, competing with another crime boss to steal the most art in Europe, that sounds like something I’d be extremely into

2:45
Some Guy: Do you have any opinion on whether the Guardians should use Sam Hentges more often out of the bullpen? Right now, his numbers and underlying metrics make him look like the second coming of Andrew Miller.

2:46
Ben Clemens: I think they totally should. His numbers look excellent this year, and offhand to me it looks like he has a new or at least fairly modified slider that plays well

2:46
xyznottabot: Do you have anything insightful to say about Mike Trout this year, or is it just amazement/happiness/warm feelings?

2:46
Ben Clemens: Happiness!

2:47
Ben Clemens: Just, what great news for baseball. He’s very fun to watch, the Angels hvae been a pleasant surprise this year, and it’s nice to get to make the ‘sample size is big enough when Trout leads the league’ jokes again

2:48
Colton: Have we seen the best of Keston Hiura? Do you think there’s any way he can right the ship and get back to what he looked like in ’19 or has he been completely figured out?

2:49
Ben Clemens: I…. I dunno if I think he’s been figured out, but I do think that he’ll never replicate the heights of 2019

2:50
Ben Clemens: It really felt like a mirage, even at the time. Like, he wasn’t a 70 power prospect or anything and then he just started tearing the cover off the ball

2:50
Ben Clemens: I didn’ expect the fall to be this severe, but I don’ really know how that leg kick could work longterm in the majors, and it kind of seems like he doesn’t have enough power without it

2:51
Concerned Canadian: How real is what Espinal is doing? Do the Jays have their second baseman of the future?

2:52
Ben Clemens: Yeah

2:52
Ben Clemens: I’m in!

2:52
Ben Clemens: I have succumbed to a small sample

2:53
Ben Clemens: I don’t think he’s gonna keep slugging this much, but I’ve always thought his on-base skills could play, and trading in some stirkeouts for having reasonable power instead of 0-ish power is a nice change to his game that should keep pitchers honest. Then, of course, he’s a premium defender

2:53
Ben Clemens: I was banging the ‘don’t trade for a third baseman, Espinal is a first-division starter’ drum this winter, and I could still see him being better there than at second, but he looks like the real deal to me

2:53
bosoxforlife: The Dodgers lost a game yesterday in which they had a 95% Win Probably in the 9th then a 90% WP in the 10th and lost on a Max Muncy error, he of the .156/.331/.279 line, that I could have made. The Phillies had a .005 chance  of winning. Unbelievable! I haven’t seen many finishes like that in my many, many years of watching this great game.

2:54
Ben Clemens: What can you say about that game? It was bonkers and unbelievable, and isn’t baseball great?

2:54
Tacoby Bellsbury: What franchises do you think do best at minor-league pitching development, and why do you think they are successful? What can other teams do to catch up?

2:54
Ben Clemens: The Rays, Yankees, Dodgers, and Giants stand out in my mind. Cleveland is on there too

2:54
Ben Clemens: Milwaukee

2:55
Ben Clemens: I think that working with players and finding ways to make what they do individually best stand out is the way of the future for pitching development. Cookie-cutter approaches just don’t cut it when everyone can do that easily

2:55
Sharps: to Jason N’s point, there are a TON of good area control/conflict games…Root, Kemet, Pax Pamir, Inis, Smallworld…

2:55
Ben Clemens: That’s fair (I haven’t played Root, but I’ve heard I’m supposed to)

2:56
Ben Clemens: But I still don’t feel like those games are super tethered to Risk. One of the things I like about them (Inis is probably my favorite) is that it feels really asymmetrical as you play. But yeah, area control games are still around, definitely should have mentioned those

2:56
BaseballFan: Re: board games in the last 30 years: I think the changes have been revolutionary, not evolutionary. A number of new mechanisms (deck building, worker placement, tableau building, engine building, and others, plus the minimization of luck) make today’s games categorically different. Not everyone will like every mechanism, but there’s a good chance that there’s a mechanism out there for anyone.

2:56
Ben Clemens: Well said

2:57
Ben Clemens: Deck building games are a personal favorite, the idea of honing down your own deck and having it change the way you play the game is just really satisfying

2:57
Sharps: From Friday though Sunday I’m playing boardgames with my friends at a homemade con.  What can I do to sell them on Baseball while it is happening (assuming you don’t feel like coming to DC to help me convince them Baseball is awesome)

2:57
Ben Clemens: a)that’s really cool. b)at some point, introduce them to Strat-o-Matic

2:58
Ben Clemens: it’s such a good game, I can’t recommend it enough. You get the deck-building feel if you draft teams, you get the satisfaction of it being a dice chucker, you can pick an era of baseball that people like, there’s just a ton to recommend it

2:58
Logan: Is Nelson Cruz cooked? His statcast metrics look mostly the same to me, but all the results are really ugly so far

2:59
Ben Clemens: I have learned my lesson about declaring Nelson Cruz cooked, but I’m certainly worried. He’s the kind of hitter who couldn’t afford a huge dropoff, he needed every bit of his power numbers to be a good hitter in 2021 already

3:00
Ben Clemens: And hte ball has really kinda killed that. I think that he’ll be hard-pressed to be a 120 wRC+ hitter with this dead ball. He just won’t get on base enough. But I think he’s due a bit of positive regression. He’s still hitting the ball hard. Just, don’t expect it to be back to his peak numbers

3:00
T(win)s: Re: Minor league pitching development… How many seasons do you need to see to buy into an organization developing good pitching?  Example, the Twins look like their pipeline is starting to deliver and they have been good at unlocking pitchers who come in from other organizations.

3:00
T(win)s: By no means am I comparing them to the Yankees, Dodgers, etc… Just notice the past few seasons have been much improved

3:01
Ben Clemens: They have looked really good of late. I don’t think it’s too early to say that they’re clearly doing something right. I don’t know where I’d slot them in in the hierarchy of player dev, but the years of getting guys who don’t miss bats and then telling them not to miss bats are over

3:01
Liz: Is RBI a skill separate from other aspects of hitting? eg. – are there any players who are very good at timely singles/sac flies/squeeze bunts/etc without being particularly good hitters otherwise?

3:01
Ben Clemens: I think that’s basically just ‘contact’. There are players who are really good at avoiding strikeouts. When they bat in RBI situations, they have a tailwind

3:02
Appa Yip Yip: The thing about Espinal is that infield defense and doubles are two of the very best things in baseball

3:03
Concerned Canadian: What do you think of this baseball event approaching in London? To me it seems extremely gimmicky and disconnected from the sport itself.

3:03
Ben Clemens: I’m reading about this right now

3:04
Ben Clemens: oh, Home Run Derby X? I’m generally in favor of it, I don’t think it’s supposed to be a replacement for baseball or anything

3:04
Ben Clemens: But if my friends and I could play home run derby x at a batting cage, we totally would

3:04
Ben Clemens: If baseball thinks this is gonna create lifelong fans who previously had never heard of the sport, I think they are probably in for a rude awakening. If they think it might be kinda fun, I could see it being kinda fun

3:04
Bravos: William Contreras in LF tonight for Braves. The offense has been underperforming/performing pretty badly with meh defense in the OF. Where do they go from here?

3:05
Ben Clemens: I… William C… wow that seems strange to me

3:06
Ben Clemens: I guess you have to rest Duvall and Demeritte sometimes and they don’t really have a backup outfielder on the roster, but is he a better option in left than Ozuna?

3:06
Ben Clemens: That really surprises me

3:07
Cristian Javier: What happens to me when Odo/McCullers are healthy?

3:08
Ben Clemens: I think you’ll go back to being a sometime starter, sometime relieve.r I think the Astros might go 6-man rotation off and on, though, which will give you more times to start

3:08
Ben Clemens: also, McCullers isn’t exactly close to being ready yet. He threw off a mound for the first time yesterday

3:08
Alex: Do you think the Mariners have dug too deep a hole to get out of? The offseason looks like a total dumpster fire at this point.

3:09
Ben Clemens: I do. 10 games back is just a lot of games. It’d be one thing if they were 10 games back and .500…. but below .500, that many games back, I don’t see how they win either a WC or the divisoin

3:11
Jeremy Pena: Please overreact to the start of my career.

3:11
Ben Clemens: Best shortstop to come out of Houston ever

3:11
Ben Clemens: Best Astro since Neil Armstrong

3:11
The Real Ben Clemens: Does Dayton Moore still have his job at the end of July?

3:11
Ben Clemens: Yeah…. largely because we ask this question every year and he’s always there

3:11
Guest: I’m intrigued by some of the board games you mention, but don’t have space in my tiny apartment (DC rents, man) to set up and play board games; are there any good computer adaptations out there?

3:12
Ben Clemens: I’ve heard Root has an incredible online version on Steam

3:12
Some Guy: Carlos Correa just looked up and was like “I have no idea who Ben Clemens is, but he’s on the naughty list”.

3:12
Ben Clemens: I’d consider my day a success if Carlos Correa learned who I was

3:12
Optimistic Cards Fan: The Cardinals young hitters have looked really good so far this year. Do you think the Cardinals are potentially a top 5 hitting team with the infusion of these hitters plus there veteran hitters or is the team in a just played the Pirates and is actually pretty average at hitting spot?

3:12
Ben Clemens: I tihnk it’s a bit of both. The Pirates are really bad!

3:13
Ben Clemens: But Yepez and Gorman are good hitters. I really didn’t understand junking up the DH spot with veterans for a team with a lot of bat-first names near the majors. I get that it’s Pujols and the nostalgia is cool, and I’m even okay with that, but if it weren’t for the fact that he’s a living legend, I would have liked to see them sign no one and platoon rookies at DH

3:13
Concerned Canadian: I feel like MLB could do a lot more to grow baseball in Europe by promoting some Sunday afternoon games there. I live in Europe and they are the only ones I can watch, because I need sleep.

3:13
Ben Clemens: These new Peacock games are probably great then

3:13
Ben Clemens: It was on when I got out of bed on Sunday

3:14
Ted: Are you pro-Chas McCormick or Jake Meyers (when he returns) as starting CF?

3:14
Ben Clemens: Meyers, but it’s amazing to me that they’ve found two pretty good options in such short order

3:14
JP: Jesse Winker worry level at this point 1-10? He looks pretty awful so far.

3:15
Ben Clemens: I really don’t know what to make of him

3:15
Ben Clemens: He’s doin a lot of things right!

3:16
Ben Clemens: if you could only see his swing decisions, you’d be wondering if he was gonna be an All Star

3:16
Ben Clemens: Kinda seems to me like he’s a victim of trying to elevate more plus a ball that makes elevating the ball worse

3:17
Ben Clemens: I’m cautiously optimistic that he’s fine

3:17
Ben Clemens: It’s one thing to have a bad line after a month of baseball; it’s quite another to have really bad peripherals. Winker doesn’t have that. I think he’ll likely be able to figure things out, though I do worry that he’s gonna lose some OBP to the sheer number of fly balls he’s now hitting

3:18
Blake: Fill in the blank: By September the Brewers everyday CF will be _______________

3:18
Ben Clemens: Jace Peterson, and we’re all going to feel very uncertain about it

3:18
Ben Clemens: Time for a lightning round before I go get some lunch

3:18
Jake: Thoughts on Liberatore’s first outing?

3:19
Ben Clemens: Didn’t catch it, but watched some highlights. PItches looked good, hard to calibrate things given he was facing the Pirates. I’m a bit worried about his command though

3:19
Floyd: Christopher Morel is bringing the fun for the Cubbies.  Think he sticks and steals time from Madrigal, Heyward and Ortega?

3:19
Ben Clemens: Yes

3:19
Concerned Canadian: What’s for lunch?

3:19
Ben Clemens: I’m going out to get a burrito!

3:19
Ben Clemens: I usually make my own lunch but today feels like a burrito day

3:19
14343: Best “buy one get one free” baseball food

3:19
Ben Clemens: nachos if they’re bogo

3:19
Juiced Ball: Is tyler O’Neill’s season recoverable

3:19
Ben Clemens: yes

3:19
Buttcheex: Any chance that Dalbec becomes a useful regular? Another deadball victim?

3:20
Ben Clemens: deadball victim, but I think he is capable of adjusting

3:20
Ted: Current Cy Young leaders in each league!

3:20
Ben Clemens: Gausman and Burnes

3:20
BVW: Who says no – Mets gets Bogaerts and Eovaldi, Red Sox get Dom Smith, JD Davis and Mark Vientos

3:20
Ben Clemens: Red Sox say no

3:20
Ryan: Should Edwin Rios be starting everyday?

3:20
Ben Clemens: Until Muncy and Turner are right, yeah

3:21
Ben Clemens: Alright, time for me to head out. Thanks everyone for chatting with me today, and if I didn’t get to your question, I’ll try to next time. The questions were just too numerous and excellent today!

3:21
14343: favorite bay area summer activity?

3:21
Ben Clemens: fine one last one: it’s basic but hiking. Just so much good hiking here

3:21
Ben Clemens: Adios!





Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Twitter @_Ben_Clemens.

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hughduffy
1 year ago

The Braves played William Contreras in the outfield in two games in AAA this year, trying to give him some outfield experience and more at-bats. The reason you put William in the outfield rather than DH is because he’s the backup catcher. If something happens to Travis d’Arnaud, William can slot over from LF, and someone else can replace him in LF. If William was the DH, and something happened to Travis, the Braves would lose the DH.

HappyFunBallmember
1 year ago
Reply to  hughduffy

I feel like the answer to every tactical question that arises out of the worry about being stuck without a catcher or the DH is answerable with “Then you lose ONE game, and bring up someone from AAA tomorrow”.

Unless ATL knows something we don’t (they probably do), I’d expect the almost certain bad defensive consequences of Contreras clomping around in the outfield will outweigh the relatively small chance of an injury to d’Arnaud.

I think that the real takeaway from this lineup is that Marcell Ozuna can’t even play OF defense as well as a backup catcher any more.

hughduffy
1 year ago
Reply to  HappyFunBall

It’s always about choices. William is hitting the fastball well right now, and Zach Wheeler, who throws 38.1% 4-seam fastball/20.7% sinker, is pitching tonight.
Ozuna’s outfield defense is below average, but acceptable if he hits. His arm is neither fast nor accurate, but he makes most of the catches that he should. He’s only at -1 OAA.
Acuña was DH during the 3 game series in Miami they just played, so it is a good time to get Ozuna off his feet for a game.
The real takeaway is that they don’t think Arcia can play OF defense as well as a backup catcher.

formerly matt w
1 year ago
Reply to  HappyFunBall

Being stuck without a catcher is pretty bad, as the Pirates discovered. It probably messes with your pitching staff some as well as with whoever is the emergency catcher, as well as being pretty much a guaranteed loss.

(I’d be interested to see a comparison of emergency catchers to emergency pitchers. Position players pitching seem to give up about four runs an outing–when the Pirates were pitching to an emergency catcher they gave up seven, with one of the Pirates’ decent pitchers pitching. Maybe catching is harder than pitching.)

Losing the DH is… pretty much no big deal at all. It’s not even an automatic loss for the game, it means you either surrender an out or two when the pitcher bats, or you pinch-hit for him. It definitely wouldn’t outweigh having the wrong guy in the outfield.