Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 6/2/25

Ben Clemens: Hey everybody, welcome to the chat

Ben Clemens: I’ve been diving into two topics particularly recently: starting up some work for the trade value series and doing a research project on how our pitch model grades could be used to improve or give context to projections

Ben Clemens: so I have to be honest with you, I’ll be a little light on the “hot takes on a player I watched a lot of last week” front this week relative to normal

Ben Clemens: but heavier on answering process-based stuff, broad league questions, and food and board game questions if you’ve got em

Dallas: Oneil Cruz or EDLC? Which one would you take if you had to pick one to play for your team.

Ben Clemens: Yeah like here’s one. Come on, though, it’s Elly. He is three years younger. He plays a more valuable defensive position and has shown the chops to be very good there at peak. I like Oneil a lot, too, he’s a fixture on trade value lists. And Elly will probably be coming down on the list, since he didn’t back up last year’s offensive growth yet. But I’ve still got EDLC comfortably ahead

Bosoxforlife: The Royals just called up Jac Caglianone and the time has long since passed for the anemic Red Sox offense to inject  Roman Anthony into the lineup. How does a Rafaela for  Alcantara deal sound?

Ben Clemens: Sounds like a deal that you’d make 8 days a week as Boston, and 0-ish as the Marlins, at least to me

Ben Clemens: It’d be one thing if Alcantara had a ton of dead money, but his deal is preposterously affordable

Ben Clemens: If the Sox can find someone who values Rafaela as a first-division regular, they should hit the bid immediately

Ben Clemens: Like, the guy just can’t hit. He’s a great defender (an archetype I’ve traditionally overvalued, more on that later for sure), but we have a ton of evidence that he is not going to hit. If someone is willing to dream on the minor league numbers still, I think it would be malpractice by the Red Sox front office to not trade him to that team

Jb: Who do you like more Lawrence Butler or Colt Keith. Both got big extension and have been mediocre since then

Ben Clemens: I like Butler more, but with an asterisk I suppose. The thing I always liked about Keith was that I thought he could fake second base well enough to get his bat in the lineup there, a la Brandon Lowe

Ben Clemens: As a 1B/DH, I just don’t know that he has that kind of offensive juice. Like, I think he can be fine there, but not a difference maker

Ben Clemens: Whereas Butler seems like a better hitter to me, or at least a higher-upside hitter, and I think he’s more likely to provide peripheral value (baserunning) given their current positions

Lord Thunder: Corbin Carroll will have an .800-plus OPS in the second half of this season. Yes or no?

Ben Clemens: Yes

Nate: Time for the Jac Attack – is he ready or are the Royals desperate for offense?

Ben Clemens: Yes

Walton Dilcox: Just want to say the articles I read as a non-sub are absolute 🔥. Will subscribe when some windfall occurs!

Ben Clemens: Hey, that’s why we have the free ones

Ben Clemens: I’m very happy you are enjoying them

Ben Clemens: And come back when you can, the water’s always warm

El Coffee: Which righty gets more saves for the Dodgers: Diaz or Kopech? Is either over 3?

Ben Clemens: Jay wrote about this today:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/dodgers-hope-to-fix-alexis-diaz-and-bolste…

Ben Clemens: I think I’d take Kopech but honestly, no strong view

Darren: I was looking at an old box score of a game I went to (Blue Jays v. Mariners, June 30, 2008) and realized that despite these being two middling teams at the time, I watched four future Hall of Famers play in the same game (Halladay, Rolen, Beltre, Ichiro). That seemed like a lot, so I tried to figure out which regular season game in the last 30 years featured the most future HOFers in the lineup, but the research seemed intimidating (and multiple AI tools told me it would require too much box score research so they wouldn’t bother either).

Anyways, that brings me to my Q — can you think of a game you went to that had a notable number of future HOFers? Or want to take a stab in the dark at what non-All Star game might have had the most in recent memory?

Ben Clemens: This is fun, and I agree that the AI would not do this for you – the data acquisition is the challenge here. If you could feed it all the databases, I bet it could be solved, maybe this is a good fluff article for me in the future

Ben Clemens: Off the top of my head, though: I’d guess that it’s a game involving either the Yankees of the early 2000’s or Dodgers of recent vintage. Like, Kershaw started a game earlier this month and that’s 4 right there (Mookie, Shohei, Freddie, Kershaw)

Ben Clemens: or, I guess late last month, right

Oaktown Blues: This horrible stretch by the A’s has probably ended any notions of 2025 contention. That said, it feels like the position player core is largely in place. Do you think they can improve the pitching enough to be good in 2026?

Ben Clemens: mmmmm….. like, honestly, no

Ben Clemens: but, I agree with your diagnosis. The hitting is probably good enough

Ben Clemens: or at least, the core of it has several hits

Ben Clemens: Their pitching dev has not been good of late, which does not give me a ton of hope. But I do think that they are going about this the right way, particularly if they’re willing to spend on a few Wacha/Lugo types this offseason (ha ,the A’s spend, hilarious). The Royals now have a great pitching staff and they basically looked awful right up until they didn’t. It’s certainly in the realm of possibility, I just don’t think it’s likely

Some kinda Mook: Skubal about to cross 100 Ks with only 7 BBs. I remember being flabbergasted when Koji went 101/9 back in 2013. What a crazy thing.

Ben Clemens: Yeah uh

Ben Clemens: it’s outrageous

Guest: joys you find after discovering the granularity of statcast search:
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=91a6119f-e48a-3068…

Ben Clemens: Believe it or not, someone posted this to me on Bluesky when it happened as a potential 5 things play, and I watched it all. What in the world. Every swing in that at-bat was awful

jupiterbrando: hi Ben. Just want to say that as someone who can’t often be in the chats but loves reading them, I always appreciate how much you answer

Ben Clemens: hey thanks!

Ben Clemens: I’m sure it lowers the average quality of the answers a little to go so stream-of-consciousness instead of researching each, but I feel like that net serves more people?

Nate: Jacob Wilson – I’d love to know the last time a player’s BB% and K% *combined* to be below 12%

Ben Clemens: I’m assuming it was 2024

Ben Clemens: (Luis Arraez)

Ben Clemens: and before that, 2023 (Luis Arraez)

Ben Clemens: Also, Luis Arraez in 2025 is at a combined 6.8%, what the hellllll

Nate: Ever played Shipwreck Arcana? Extremely fun logic game

Ben Clemens: oh my god

Ben Clemens: my wife brought this home this weekend

Ben Clemens: we were going to crack it open tonight. What a coincidence

Scoreboard415: SF food question: Have you tried Sweet Glory on 9th Ave? Amazing date spot, but sadly closes at 6pm each day.

Ben Clemens: no but it just jumped to the top of my list. that area has some good options for sweets, though. I like hometown creamery and there’s a Home Coffee in the area

jupiterbrando: looking at Luis Torrent’s Baseball Savant page (and the eye test), at what point would (or should) the Mets consider him the long-term solution at catcher and Alvarez a luxury backup?

Ben Clemens: I’d be giving them a 50/50 split already, personally

Ben Clemens: My confidence in Alvarez hitting is declining very quickly. It’s just been too long since he has been able to impact the ball with authority. I’d be happy to give him time to figure it out if there weren’t a potentially very good option already on the team, or if he had a longer track record of success, but his best tool was supposed to be his power, and it’s hard to say he’s better than Torrens there

Ben Clemens: His archetype (young catcher, flashed a premium offensive tool) is probably getting decimated in the final trade value list this year, for what it’s worth

HoF: A lot of likely Hall of Famers have changed teams mid-career. Which cap do you think each of these players will go in wearing?

Mookie (LAD / BOS)
Freeman (LAD / ATL)
Harper (WSH / PHI)
Arenado (COL / STL)
Goldschmidt (ARI / STL)
Ohtani (LAA / LAD)
Lindor (CLE / NYM)

Ben Clemens: Oh, this is a fun one, and some of these are close. Here are the ones that feel solid to me: Mookie LAD (still got a lot of career left and seems very happy there), Arenado StL (the relationship in Colorado was v bad and he had some great years as a Card), Goldschmidt Arizona (best hitter in franchise history, never had a great postseason as a Cardinal to flip the balance). I’d put Harper Philly on there, tbh: his excellent performance after the huge free agent contract just lines up to me

Ben Clemens: Lindor I lean NYM b/c the relationship with ownership in Cleveland seemed bad. Ohtani I think it’s too soon to tell

Ben Clemens: But:

Ben Clemens:

Scoreboard415: Other than NYY and LAD, who from each of the AL East and the NL West are you buying as real contenders the rest of the way?

Ben Clemens: Hmmm…. I’ve got the Giants and Padres as real. I’m less confident in the ALE, not because I don’t think these teams are gonna make the playoffs, but because they’re all so similar to me and some of them are going to beat up on the others

Ben Clemens: The NLW teams certainly have their fair share of weaknesses, but I like the banked wins and I like the top-end talent on both squads

Orioles: What moves would you make for the Orioles? Sell O’Hearn/Mullins or try to buy?

Sodo mojo: if the Mariners sweep the O’s do they officially enter the sell pending free agents stage of the season and if so what does it take to get O’hearns as a rental?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, if I’m the O’s, I’m trying to reload for 2026 now

Ben Clemens: That said, O’Hearn can go easy, I’d be tempted to keep Mullins unless there was a very tempting offer. I want Mullins on the 2026 O’s if possible

Ben Clemens: that dude just makes the team go

Bosoxforlife: This has been beaten more than a rented mule but the eye test says the Rockies can’t possibly reach 40 wins. Do the number still stick to the belief that they can’t possibly as bad as they appear to be?

Ben Clemens: Right? Um…. I think they can maybe get to 40, but I don’t buy our numbers at all

comish4lif: Food question – I have some leftover grilled chicken breast. Made pork fried rice with the left over pork chops. What should I do with the chicken?

Ben Clemens: Oh, it’s already grilled? I made a grilled caesar wrap recently that was awesome using a similar leftover. Just chopped up the chicken, chopped up some romaine, and mixed in some cherry tomatoes and Caesar dressing. Wrapped it all up in a tortilla. Phenomenal

Jeff: Birdsong or Harrison—which Giants SP do you like ROS?

Ben Clemens: Birdsong

Ben Clemens: I am open to the possibility that I’m overrating him, but I just buy it

Ben Clemens: the changeup is nasty, I think he’s doing enough against same-handed batters that the combo can be really good

wingedbeater: How would you even go about valuing Jarren Duran in a trade? Feels like one of the hardest players to trade in that he has one unbelievable year on his resume that you can’t discount but also seems pretty clearly to be not something he’s going to repeat. I feel like that uncertainty alone makes him unlikely to be traded

Ben Clemens: This is a great question, and one I’ve been struggling with A TON

Ben Clemens: I left Duran off the trade value list last year, for example

Ben Clemens: and boy, that sure looked silly for the entirety of 2024. But it looks a lot better now

Ben Clemens: I’m struggling to see a 120 wRC+ hitter here, I just didn’t quite believe the power. And I don’t really think he’s a plus center fielder, standout 2024 defensive metrics notwithstanding. So he’s just in a really awkward in between state where like, he’s demonstrated many skills of an elite player, but all of them in ways wehre you go ‘eh can that keep going?’

Ben Clemens: and in each case, it hasn’t kept going

Ben Clemens: So yeah, this is a wildly difficult question and I don’t feel that I’ve gotten to the bottom of it yet

Ben Clemens: but don’t worry, you are gonig to get thousands of words about it over the next few months

Smokin’ Jim Leyland: Improbably, is Tarik Skubal pitching *even better* this year than his unanimous Cy Young winning season last year? 94 pitch Maddux hitting 103 MPH on his last pitch (and 13th Strikeout)? No clue how long it can last, but soaking this up while it does – most enjoyable Tigers pitcher since Verlander/Scherzer!

Ben Clemens: I couldn’t agree with you more. When I wrote about him recently, it was less of my usual “let’s find some standout corner case skill” and more “let’s all marvel at how this guy is pitching at the extreme top of the sport”

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-multifaceted-tarik-skubal/

HappyFunBall: Better A’s question: Will this pretty good hitting core last long enough for them to actually start playing in Vegas and, at least theoretically, have dollars to spend on pitching?

Ben Clemens: I mean…. no, right?\

Ben Clemens: The smart money is on no

Bosoxforlife: Returning to my previous comment would Abreu, power and great defense, be enough for Alcantara?

Ben Clemens: He would for me. I don’t have a strong idea of how the industry as a whole values him

Ben Clemens: But I’m quite high on him. Elite defense, controllable, chance for plus offensive tools. I love this kind of player

Bosoxforlife: Have you ever attended a game at PNC Park? I am going to the U.S. Open and on 6/10 I have a ticket to watch the Pirates play the Marlins. I was hoping to see a major league game but this was all that was available.

Ben Clemens:

Ben Clemens: I have, and it was amazing

Ben Clemens: If you can, get there early enough to walk over the Clemente bridge from downtown

Ben Clemens: I went to a crappy September game between teh Pirates and Brewers when neither team was in the playoff hunt, and it was still awesome

Insert Witty Name Here: is Chandler Simpson really that bad or is this some service time manipulation going on? If I have a comfortable lead in fantasy, should I hold on to him as a stash

Ben Clemens: I think the defense is just not there yet

Ben Clemens: I’ve been surprised that he hasn’t been making more plays in the outfield, though of course, very small sample size and whatnot

Ben Clemens: but I understand where they’re coming from. They’re in a spot where the wins are SUPER valuable, right on the fringes of the race, and this dude just isn’t getting it done right now

Ben Clemens: I really don’t think it’s service time manipulation. The Rays are’nt dummies. No one should be valuing year seven of Chandler Simpson team control more than improving right now in a tight playoff race

Oddball Herrera: Coors field is another stadium where going to a game is an excellent experience even if the quality of baseball isn’t

Ben Clemens: Yep. Both Coors and PNC are in my top 5. Honestly Coors might be number one. The Rock Pile elevated bar/party section is really well done, the views cannot be beat, they do cool giveaways, the tickets are affordable, it’s right downtown

Ben Clemens: if you just completely ignored their on-field record and how they get to it, I think the Rockies would be a model franchise. They spend. They do a good job in the community. They have a sweet City Connect and seem to get Denver as best as I can tell, based on my friends there and my times visiting.

Ben Clemens: They just cannot figure out how to make good baseball teams

Eli: One terrible game isn’t changing your enthusiasm for Will Warren, right? Riiiight?

Ben Clemens: Oh yeah, absolutely agree

Ben Clemens: I’m stubborn about giving up on dudes, but also, I don’t think this is me being stubborn, just reasonable

Ben Clemens: he looks awesome, on net, and pitching is tough

Didace: In their last 16 games, the Nationals are 11-5 against some pretty good competition. Is it a)that’s baseball, or b)hey, they might be getting good.

JCCinDC: No real comment except an observation that, as a Nats fan, it’s nice to have a bit of hope for the first time since the rebuild began nearly four years ago. They’re not good, mind you. Not yet. The defense is awful, and the starting pitching beyond Gore is, to be charitable, full of question marks. But the team is young, and it’s the young players that are doing the work. Jettisoning the vets for the kids has improved the bullpen (low bar there). And there’s more on the way. Even after Wood and Crews have “graduated” the farm system has some solid prospects (Sykora; House; Dickerson; Susana).

Ben Clemens: Even more Nats questions than this, I just picked the most recent ones

Ben Clemens: I think they might be getting good. I’ve been pretty high on this Nats core for a while, to be fair. I had a ton of these dudes on the trade value list last year, and if you can find a public-side analyst who’s been more in the tank for James Wood, I’m curious to hear who it is

Ben Clemens: But like…. this is how you’re supposed to do it. I like a lot of their trades. I think that in general, Mike Rizzo has done an excellent job in trade and a less good job in the draft, but the net is pretty good

Ben Clemens: They’re an interesting org: clearly, they’re behind the curve on some tech-y pitch modeling stuff, just based on who they trade for and all that. But they, and maybe specifically Rizzo, seem to have a good feel for seeing transcendent talent and making it work

Ben Clemens: also, you might argue with the way the process is built at a ‘which players to target and develop’ level, but Rizzo does a really good job on the margins

Ben Clemens: the Nathaniel Lowe trade, chef’s kiss, so easy, so profitable

Hunter: If you could swap two guys, regardless of feasibility of actually trading them for each other, who would you swap?

Ben Clemens: Judge and Ohtani

Ben Clemens: gotta see it

Dan: How many seasons does judge have to play for the Yankees to be glad they signed him to his contract? Assume they don’t have insurance so is he’s hurt they are eating the full amount left.

Thanks!: According to the player page, Judge may end up with 2 years of surplus value on his contract at the end of this year (3 of 9), meaning he’s banked 5 of 9 years in value. That’s crazy on his annual rate. No way they traded him, but what would his trade value be? Outside of competitive dynamics, from a pure value standpoint, seems like they are optimal timing wise after this season.

Ben Clemens: I mean…. like one more year?

Ben Clemens: since he signed the deal he’s been worth 21 WAR in 1400 PA, what the actual hell

Ben Clemens: give him another calendar year of health, call it 9 WAR, we’re at 30 WAR for $360 million over nine years, not amazing but I’m sure they’d accept it

Ben Clemens: with, oh, 5.5 years of free value left

Ben Clemens: I’m going to get absolutely ridiculed by some of my more value-focused contacts for how high I put Judge on the list this year, I’m sure of it

Bruce: Any easy to point to data that shows the oven mitts cut down on hand injuries?  Trying to win an argument quickly.

Ben Clemens: I don’t know of any, to be honest

Dan: In youth sports some leagues let you add a player from your opponents team when you advance to the next tournament. I think this is mostly done to avoid over taxing arms or running into a team advancing so much they can’t find a full roster since families may not have planned around the team having games the whole summer. Could the majors let’s teams employ someone from their division who didn’t make the playoffs? Would fans like that? Would owners hate it?

Ben Clemens: I believe Effectively WIld has tlaked about this one before

Ben Clemens: You couldn’t do it, haha. The injury and use questions are just too fraught

Ben Clemens: but in a world where everyone was truly altruistic, I’d love it

Smiling Politely: this is late, but people might not realize Freddie Freeman grew up in SoCal and his whole family still lives down here and his dad (somewhat famously since the WS) comes to the games while ATL basically dumped him; I think he’s wearing an LA cap or a blank one

Ben Clemens: Right so, the final tally was 66% Braves 34% Dodgers

Ben Clemens: I was closer to 50/50, which is why I asked. I agree with you that the fact that he grew up in SoCal really helps, and he won the WS there. But he also did with the Braves, and an MVP to boot. I think if the Dodgers never break through again and Freeman declines swiftly after this year, perhaps he’d go with ATL, but he’s going to have more future juice in LA

Chooch: The yearly move Trea to the OF crowd is starting to roar again in Philly. Any thoughts? Doing it now seems worse than over an off-season, who replaces him, is Sosa’s bat at SS really that much better than sitting presumably marsh/rojas.

Your defense isn’t getting better with a mid-season Trea move to CF, Sosa slot in at SS and sitting marsh/rojas who bring solid defense at least.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, offseason for me

Ben Clemens: if you want to do it, even, which I haven’t really thought about it

Ben Clemens: I agree with you that you aren’t really fixing the offense by doing this, so it just feels like a lot of risk for not much reward

War2d2: Part of the Cubs’ strong start has been getting more production out of the catcher spot than anyone reasonably expected. With Amaya down and Kelly lawn-darting back to earth, would you have brought Ballesteros back up to see if he was able to fill the gap? By all reports the bat is ready and the D really, really isn’t. At what point do the cost-benefit  numbers work for that to be an option?

Ben Clemens: I mean, I would, but I’m completely in the tank for Ballesteros. Love the dude

War2d2: The Judge question made me think of what the best “surplus value” FA contract ever signed was. The big one I can think of is the first Scherzer-Nats deal; my understanding is that with deferrals he basically signed for what Lester signed for, and Lester was a tire fire after year 3.

Ben Clemens: Matt Holliday Cardinals is up there, too

Ben Clemens: he was pretty awesome with them, .288/.377/.486, 139 wRC+ and 24 WAR in seven years, with most of it in the first 5

Ben Clemens: all that for $114m

Victoria: Ben, I miss Shota

Ben Clemens: Victoria, I do too

Houzer: Let’s say the Jays fall out – could the Tigers get Bichette and Berrios for Jace Jung and Keider Montero?

Ben Clemens: I think so. But I don’t really think the Jays will fall off?

Ben Clemens: or like, fall off to the extent where they’re trading Bo

Ben Clemens: feels like they’d prefer to let him leave in free agency after the arc of the kids of the stars is over

J-Rod: Loved the article you wrote about Cal’s new approach at the plate (swinging less). Do you think Julio would benefit from taking a similar approach?

Ben Clemens: I’ve thought about it, and I concluded “huh I’m not sure”

Dan: Would be fun (albeit unrealistic and difficult to find all of the examples) when thinking about the surplus value of deals if trades on that contract were included. My thought was Carlos Beltran’s deal with the Mets where they eventually traded him in the last year for Zack Wheeler

Ben Clemens: well then it’s the Rays trade tree, I assume, but yeah

Ben Clemens: that would be fun for sure

AL Central Casting: Was that Twins win on Friday night the comeback of the year so far? Down by three with two outs against Andres Munoz?!

Ben Clemens: It was thrilling

Ben Clemens: man, great closers are great, but I also love watching them get beaten

Ben Clemens: the difficulty of being a fan of baseball as a whole rather than a specific team

Scoreboard415: Apologies if you’ve done this already, but have you considered writing a piece about your transition to baseball writer from the corporate industry? As someone in tech, I would love to learn about the trade-offs you made.

Ben Clemens: ehhhh…. offseason fare maybe? or on a personal blog maybe? it feels too navel-gazey for FanGraphs

yankeesfan123: are there any glatring flaws with the yanks after the dodgers siers

Ben Clemens: yeah, they only have a single Aaron Judge

Ben Clemens: but I don’t really think so? I mean, they looked good

Ben Clemens: the Dodgers look good too

Ben Clemens: loving the current Trent Grisham, fwiw

spaceman: you can win an argument about literally anything with a red sox fan just by saying “mookie is going into the hall as a dodger” it might be cruel but it is devastatingly effective and they will forget everything they were just talking about.

Ben Clemens: Okay that made me laugh

12 to 6: kim’s performance so far is enabling the dodgers to be more optional with their infield defense, and maybe give mookie an extra few days on the il (and a couple more super size meals to put weight back on). given his near gold-glove level defense, you’d have to assume the pitching staff is pushing a bit for kim to be a fullish time mi, no?

Ben Clemens: I think so. You can see the Dodgers like dfense – look at how long Miguel Rojas has been around, on a team that has 75 MVP’s

Ben Clemens: and how much he’s played!

Ben Clemens: so I think that Kim taking over that role seems entirely believable

Ben Clemens: Alright everyone, thanks a lot for the chat, I’ve gotta go get to writing about the Diamondbacks now

Ben Clemens: and their….. unsettled rotation, let’s say

Ben Clemens: Have a wonderful week, and thanks for the great questions today