Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 6/17/24

Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, welcome to the chat

Miguel Vargas: This is it, right? It’s my time to shine by living up to my prospect pedigree and saving the world from all of these terrible ABs by Taylor, Kike, and Biggio, right!?!? Infield, outfield, I can do it all! (Except shortstop.)

Ben Clemens: As a longtime Vargas-head, I sure hope so. He’s absolutely tearing up Triple-A this year, and going into the season without a broken hand is definitely going to help

Ben Clemens: I do think that the Dodgers would be well-served to give him a ton of chances to impress them

Ben Clemens: Just from a team-building perspective, it doesn’t matter THAT much how the old guys who will be gone soon do, but if Vargas is an impact hitter, that’s a big deal for their roster flexibility and lineup for years to come

Morton’s Curve: Broadly speaking, how would you attack this deadline if you were the Braves? Lost the reigning MVP and the Cy Young favorite for the year. Likely locked into a wild card spot. Weak farm. Are you cashing in chips to marginally improve your odds without 2 of your best players, or are you riding it out this year and hoping the window doesn’t close sooner than expected?

Ben Clemens: I think I’d approach it the way they did last time they lost Acuna, really

Ben Clemens: look for bat-only corner OF’s who you can get for essentially nothing

Ben Clemens: if the last few years of trade deadlines have shown us anything, it’s that you can almost always find some players like that who don’t need a big prospect return

Ben Clemens: but I do not think that it makes sense for them to take a big swing here. Like you said, the farm system is great and it’s not like this is a put up or shut up year for them

J: Does Volpe’s shuffling off 1st seem like a terrible idea to you?  I’m always surprised it doesn’t lead to more pickoffs.

Ben Clemens: Esteban Rivera wrote a really good piece on this early in Volpe’s rookie season:

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/anthony-volpe-brings-the-vault-lead-to-mlb…

Ben Clemens: It’s definitely a product of the limit on pickoff throws

Ben Clemens: As Esteban noted, it’s weak to pickoff throws for one particular reason: if the pitcher throws over when Volpe is mid-hop, he’s a lot slower returning to the base

Ben Clemens: but that’s just a pure random timing thing. if you could throw over 8, 9 times an AB, I think he’d eventually get caught

Ben Clemens: but it’s tough when you only get a few

Ben Clemens: I’m surprised more runners don’t do it, to be honest

Plato: Which of the Cards SP has been the biggest surprise for you? Gibson and Mikolas have pitched well lately and are lowering their FIP. I recall you had Gibson on your Stock Falling article.

Ben Clemens: I’m still only lukewarm on Gibson

Ben Clemens: He’s walking more batters, not striking many out, I don’t think this is some sustainable path to success

Ben Clemens: I guess I’d say Lynn is the biggest surprise to me? But I dunno, Sonny Gray is shoving and the Cards are 15th in rotation WAR

Ben Clemens: 21st by RA9

Ben Clemens: I’m not particularly surprised by any of this

Zach: Is there anything to indicate Arenado or Goldy stopping the aging curve (or at least slowing it down)? I’m hopeful Arenado’s defensive value keeps him aging somewhat gracefully, even if he’s never going to bop 30+ homers again.

Ben Clemens: No, haha

Ben Clemens: aging is not predestined, but there’s nothing in particular about either of them that looks completely immune to age

BBFan63: I know the purpose of the 40-man roster and how it prevents teams from hiding players to the damage of their careers. But given current pitching usage, is there value in considering expanding this number?

Ben Clemens: Oh, I’d say the opposite

Ben Clemens: if you expand the 40, teams will just use more up and down releivers

camelcase: Mr. Burns Clemens,
your campaign The Guardians seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular good?

Ben Clemens: I think you meant to cross out you for they, but: they’re good at suppressing offense, just like always

Ben Clemens: and their offense is cashing in runners in high leverage situations at a wild rate

Ben Clemens: the differential between what you’d expect them to score based on their baserunning and offense and what they’ve actually scored is a half a run a game

Ben Clemens: that’s the biggest gap in baseball by a mile

Ben Clemens: I think they’ll cool off offensively, as in even if people keep hitting as well as they have been, they’ll score less

Ben Clemens: but their defense and pitching remain the real deal and I think that will let them coast to the playoffs

Rick Asadoorian: Would a GM in a weak draft ever consider throwing a college senior $10k in the top of the first round, so that they could offer preposterous over-slot deals in rounds 2-10?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think so, because I don’t think there are enough over-slot players to make this make sense generally

Ben Clemens: on the other hand, teams do a half-version of this fairly often

Ben Clemens: make a signability pick and use the savings to go overslot elsewhere once or twice

Ben Clemens: I jsut can’t imagine a situation where it makes sense to so thoroughly punt one; there are never that many overslot options to make it worth it

Guest: Which player for you right now is most “must-see” viewing?  I’d go Paul Skenes or Elly de la Cruz, personally.

Ben Clemens: Skenes, with a close runner up to the Yankee duo

Ben Clemens: Oh, and Mason Miller

Ben Clemens: Jared Jones has been replaced for the next little bit

Ben Clemens: I do love Elly, obviously, and he’s up there, but not at the very top

Trevor: Bryan Woo was scratched from a start with arm soreness. Looking back at his minor league career he’s never thrown more than 120 innings in a season. A couple thoughts:

1. Why do we talk about pitcher innings and not pitches? We have that data and it seems more relevant
2. I can’t help but observe that as injuries are at an all time high, pitching prospects are throwing less and less. Obviuosly nobody knows how to keep pitchers healthy, but, do you think that throwing less might be counterproductive?

Ben Clemens: I think a major reason for number one is inertia, but I think that teams probably manage both. They’re pretty linked, obviously

Ben Clemens: Also not all pitches and not all innings are created equal

Ben Clemens: so it’s like, why improve to a still-flawed different metric that people will have trouble adapting to

Ben Clemens: as for two, I completely agree that no one knows how to keep healthy, and that it’s entirely possible that putting everyone in bubble wrap is a bad plan

Ben Clemens: I’m not a biomechanics expert, and I do think that teams have those, so I’ll defer to those guys when it comes to actual causes and effects

Ben Clemens: but surely this is worthy of study

Guest: In both 2006 (White Sox and Astros) and 2007 (Tigers and Cardinals), the two teams from the previous year’s World Series missed the playoffs.  Will we see that happen again this year (Rangers and Diamondbacks)?

Ben Clemens: Yes

boggspuckett: Jake Irvin, Mitchell Parker, DJ Herz:  are any of them for real (as in, solid rotational piece.  not “out of nowhere front-end starter)?

Ben Clemens: I am in on Parker against my better judgment

Drew: Who is the worst current team you still find interesting to watch?

Ben Clemens: The A’s

Ben Clemens: they’re so bad

Ben Clemens: and yet

Ben Clemens: fascinating

Ben Clemens: sorry guys, need to take a quick break, back in 5 or so

Ben Clemens: alright, back

Hunter: Riley Greene is looking like the best homegrown player the Tigers have produced since Castellanos, maybe even before that (Granderson?). What kind of extension would you be willing to give him?

Ben Clemens: This is more of a question for Dan than for me, he has the nice robot projection estimates

Ben Clemens: but I’d be looking at a deal to lock him up, no doubt

Ben Clemens: I think something along the lines of buying out all of his arb years, at roughly what you’d expect for arb payouts, plus buying out a free agent year at 20 million

Ben Clemens: and hten two team options for 25 apiece with some buyouts?

Ben Clemens: so I guess I’d start by offering 5/55 with team options

Princess Leia: help us Obi-Wan Clemonobi! You’re our only hope!

Lil Kelenicky: Who’s the one stud prospect that hasn’t panned out yet that you’d most want to see live up to their fullest potential?

Ben Clemens: Jarred Kelenic, maybe?

Didace: I was too late to respond last week about how to raise OPS. I see two fixes that would help. Liberalize the check swing interpretation so that fewer strikes are called. And implement ABS full time. I know they have some things to still work out, but it seems to me (I know there’s data that I don’t have so I may be wrong) that most erroneous ball/strike calls favor the pitcher.

Ben Clemens: I actually think that ABS might be a bad plan. it certaintly needs more study

Ben Clemens: there are some breaking balls that are not called strikes today that ABS would mess with

Ben Clemens: as for check swing reform, I 100% agree

Ben Clemens: just put it in the rulebook

deBride: Many teams hardly use their 13th position player and arms are exploding everywhere…maybe time to allow 14 pitchers and 12 position players on the roster again?

Ben Clemens: It’s very unclear that this would lead to fewer injuries

Ben Clemens: in fact, if I had to guess, I’d bet more injuries?

Ben Clemens: that would incentivize teams to go even harder on the reliever train which is specifically what the league is trying to avoid

Nate: Think Vinnie is going to break out at some point? Underperforming his xwOBA by 43 points, his zOPS by .162 points, one of (along with Salvy and Bobby!) the biggest zHR underachievers, still good walk and strikeout numbers

Ben Clemens: I do. He just continues to be great at crushing the ball

Ben Clemens: that tends to pay off in the long run

George Santos: Has anyone else been paying attention to Tyler Soderstrom lately?

Ben Clemens: I was looking for a topic today and Meg suggested either Josh Rojas or Soderstrom

Ben Clemens: so I’d say, yes

Ben Clemens: (I picked Rojas b/c it’s fun to bash your head against defensive metrics sometimes)

Broken Bat: How worried re you? The bottom of Dodgers lineup is a crap shoot, and now Mookie out. Pitching is a large question with so guys coming off injury and now adding Yamamoto to tht list. I think Snakes were getting to bring Lawler up prior to injury. He actually started at 3b. Perdomo a quiet, solid player up and I think Snakes with Carroll waking up can challenge for division. Your thoughts?

Ben Clemens: I’m…. not worried if I’m the Dodgers

Ben Clemens: yes, fine, there are some good players on the team

Ben Clemens: they’re below 500!

Ben Clemens: they’re 8.5 back in June

Ben Clemens: could definitely challenge the dodgers. the odds are extremely against them

onomatopoeia: You’ve been tasked with picking the AL and NL starting pitchers for the all star game. Who are you picking?

Ben Clemens: I feel like I’d pick Skenes

Ben Clemens: like, it’s the All Star game

Ben Clemens: gimme Skenes

Ben Clemens: and for the AL… I’d pick Skubal but I think that plenty of pitchers have a good argument for being in the spot

Guest: Who is anyone is to blame for the Yankees surrendering so many steals last night?  We’re the Sox stealing off the pitchers?  Is Trevino that bad?  Just a fluke?

Ben Clemens: I’d say it’s all three but honestly I’ve seen about as much about it as you have. It just looked like everyone was getting crushed

SP: Following up on boggs’ question – What keeps you from buying in on Irvin? He now has more of a track record than Parker and has arguably been the Nats’ best (currently healthy) starter this year

Ben Clemens: well, I saw Irvin pitch last year

Ben Clemens: it’s basically just that

Jordan: Do you see anything going on with Jack Suwinski? He’s been terrible this year and striking out way top much. Any reason to think he can right the ship?

Ben Clemens: I have done a little bit of research on this without getting to the point of an article

Ben Clemens: yeah, uh, I don’t see a lot of positives here

tortycraig: I was intrigued by jimmy bowden’s proposal of Hjerpe and Graceffo for Fedde. Am I overrating Hjerpe cause he’s cool or is that an overpay for the Cardinals?

Ben Clemens: overpay by the Cardinals, I think

Ben Clemens: I think one of those guys plus another lower-level prospect is probably closer?

Ben Clemens: I’m a big Fedde fan

Ben Clemens: but he’s only around for a year after this

Ben Clemens: and he’s not a true ace

Phil: I know this gets mentioned all the time… but with Bradish looking more likely to be on the shelf this year AND next with TJ looming, there is no excuse at this point for the O’s to not go in for a starter with multiple years of control, no? Whether it is Crochet, Fedde or Luzardo… the fanbase is right to demand they use some of these positional players, some of which are becoming redundant, and look to win now, yes?

Ben Clemens: yeah, I would be very surprised if they aren’t doing just that behind the scenees right now

Ben Clemens: Like, why would you not

Save the Elbows: It’s time end the 13 pitcher limit, the pitch clock makes it irrelevant

Ben Clemens: Again, w hat?

Ben Clemens: apparently a ton of people have come up with a coordinated plan to call for this

Ben Clemens: b/c after not seeing anything like this in my chats before there ahve been about 10 today

Ben Clemens: pitching injuries were rapidly skyrocketing when the 13-pitcher max went into effect

Ben Clemens: since then, nothing has changed

Sir Nerdlington: Let’s eliminate the balk. A) it’s a stupid rule, poorly enforced B) we’ve limited pick off moves so let’s spice it up and let pitchers get a little funky

Ben Clemens: Not that I completely hate this idea

Ben Clemens: but I’m not sure that it does anything I really want to do

Ben Clemens: like, do we want more pickoffs?

Ben Clemens: i don’t

Guest: Correa’s resurgence real or just a hot streak?

Ben Clemens: I’m saying real, but more what I’m saying is that Correa has always been a great hitter

Ben Clemens: and that things are just coming back to him somewhat, as it were

Harmon Ripkowski: A question and answer in one of Dan’s chats implied C. Carroll’s career year might have been his first, that being last season. Are there other positions players who historically have maxed out in their rookie season, seems rare. Kevin Seitzer comes to mind, any others?

Ben Clemens: hmmmmmmmm

Ben Clemens: Hal Trosky Sr. is one of my favorite examples of this

Ben Clemens: that’s all I’ve got

GauchoMountaineer: Heliot Ramos is the #1 NL OF by bWar, 4th by fWar. The Giants have not had a homegrown OF All-Star since Chili Davis in 1984. Is this the year the streak ends?

Ben Clemens: I think it is, though as a reserve not a starter obviously

Ben Clemens: NL OF is thin particularly with injuries. give the fun young kids some run

A potentially optimistic Mariners fan: What sort of moves could you seen the M’s making as we close in on the deadline? Are they really going to push all the chips in for a big run at the WS or do you think it will be more of the Dipoto style trades to sand down rough edges?

Ben Clemens: I think they’re going to sand down rough edges

Ben Clemens: I don’t think it makes THAT much sense to go completely all in because like, how do you do that here?

Ben Clemens: a lot of the big targets this year are pitchers but they don’t need those

Ben Clemens: I think it makes more sense to trim the edges

Joe: Gunnar Henderson does not think your ranking of exciting players is complete.

Ben Clemens: I think that Gunnar is great

Ben Clemens: Just, I’m not watching every AB

Ben Clemens: okay, I have to run and get going on Rojas’s defense

Ben Clemens: have a great week, everyone, and let’s chat next week