Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 6/23/25

Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, welcome to the chat

Davy Andrews: Hey Ben!

Ben Clemens: Hey Davy!

Hunter: After 2 starts, has Jacob Misiorowski cracked your list of must-see pitchers?

Ben Clemens: Yes indeed. He’s facing Skenes on Wednesday

Ben Clemens: you should watch

Zach: Cal Raleigh is currently .9 fWAR behind Aaron Judge. Am I crazy for thinking that if he finishes within about one win, and the Mariners make the playoffs, Cal will win MVP?

Ben Clemens: I mean, I kinda doubt it

Ben Clemens: because WAR is not exactly what people vote on

Ben Clemens: offensive stats still matter more, for sure

Ben Clemens: so I could see Raleigh passing Judge, and I could see it being like you said, finishing within a win, Mariners make the playoffs

Ben Clemens: but only if it’s similar to it is now where his WAR comes largely from hitting, not framing

Ben Clemens: like, if he has a 150 wRC+ second half but still posts 5 WAR, to where his season ending line is 175 wRC+ 10 WAR

Ben Clemens: and Judge has 11 WAR, 225 wRC+

Ben Clemens: I mean, the batting difference is just going to be too big

Ben Clemens: but if it’s all hitting, like if he ends up leading hte league in homers and posting a wRC+ near 200?

Ben Clemens: then I can see it

The Person who asks the lunch question: What’s for lunch?

Ben Clemens: We’ve been trying out a meal kit that is kind of disassembled pieces of things that you put together and cook — like, today’s is some sous vide chicken that I’ll heat in a pan plus sauteed veggies and a lemon pepper sauce

bad bad Ben Brown: has there ever been a viable starter with essentially 2 pitches?  what do the cubs do with me?  Am i destined to be an RP or is my change up getting good enough to throw in games over 5%?

Ben Clemens: Jacob deGrom was the best pitcher on the planet for like 4 years in a row with two pitches

Ben Clemens: but like, two REALLY good pitches, not two solid ones

Your Name: If you were the Padres, would you have thrown at Ohtani? If not, what would you have done?

Ben Clemens: I would not have. I’m not a ‘throw at people’ guy. Nothing is accomplished by this except angering everyone

Ben Clemens: I think I would have complained vigorously and mocked the Dodgers for their hilariously bad control

Ben Clemens: given a ton of quotes about how afraid they are of Tatis

Ben Clemens: shame them

Jett: Hey Ben! Appreciate the chat. Streaky Lars Nootbaar or leveling-off Tommy Edman this week? Thanks!

Ben Clemens: Okay, looked at the schedule, and I think I’d take Edman – three lefties this week

Ben Clemens: Edman just mashes lefties, I’d be willing to ride that

Ken: What does Denzel Clarke have to hit to be a solid regular, given his stellar defense?

Ben Clemens: like, 80 wRC+?

Ben Clemens: obviously his current .190/.218/.250 line is not gonna work

Ham Fighter: Are these recent Brewers teams among the best speed & defense squads of all time? Their 35.8 fWAR since 2023 is 20th but their 56.5 rWAR is 2nd, that’s like 20 extra wins. On offense their 97 wRC+ is 19th but they’ve scored the 10th most runs by being the best base running team (+37.6 BsR) and Top Five with RISP. All told their 228 wins since 2023 are tied with ATL for 3rd most in MLB…with a 97 wRC+ and 100 FIP-.

Ben Clemens: they’re certainly one of the best speed and defense teams of my memory

Ben Clemens: I hesitate to say of all time because man, there’s been a lot of baseball, and we haven’t measured all of them in the same way

Ben Clemens: but since we’ve been able to put numbers on it, they have my vote for the best

Lord Thunder: Does Ohtani get to 50 HRs this season? How much — if any — does his return to pitching jeopardize his offensive production?  Seems like a needless inury risk.

Ben Clemens: I think he will not, more so because I expect him to be more focused on pitching this year than before. I don’t feel comfortable putting a number on what % of his focus that takes or anything, but one thing we’ve seen with Ohtani is that he’s very good at deciding he wants to do something, focusing on it, and getting it done (50/50 last year, for example). I expect that focus to be solidly trained on pitching. He clearly values being a two-way player very highly

War2d2: Cubs beat reporters doing a radio hit this week said he was hearing that there Cubs were getting close on a deal for a starter and possibly a third baseman. Who’s your best guess, and why is it Gallen and Suarez.

Ben Clemens: why are the DBacks trading Gallen and Suarez?

Ben Clemens: they’re spending a crap ton of money trying to compete

Ben Clemens: they’re in playoff contention unless they have a big swoon

Ben Clemens: and surely you want the Cubs to flip them like, a lottery ticket and maybe some bubblegum since they’re both rentals, it’s not like Arizona would be acquiring guys who will help them win during their current competitive window (soon)

Ben Clemens: so I just don’t understand the motivation for this trade

Ben Clemens: a better fit would be like…. Miguel Vargas and Shane Smith or something similar

Ben Clemens: because at least the White Sox are trying to sell

Kevin: Strider also had (and still has) only 2 pitches.

Ben Clemens: Yep

Bosoxforlife: 101.6 on my Nat Geo thermometer. Only the 4th day since 1905 that it has reached 100 in June here near Hartford, CT. If i needed another reason  to chat today, which I don’t, that is more than enough. Question: I am still on the fence about Rafaela. If he can hold a 99 OPS + is that good enough?

Ben Clemens: oh my goodness, 100

Ben Clemens: I used to work in CT and I kind of can’t believe that. I remember June as a nice time to walk to the train in the afternoon, not a nice time to never leave air conditioning

Ben Clemens: If Rafaela is a league average hitter, he’s great, imo

Ben Clemens: like, best Red Sox outfielder great

Ben Clemens: he’s a special defender

Ben Clemens: I am very skeptical he can hit that level offensively, to be fair. His sense of the strike zone is just not very good yet. I think that needs to improve for him to make the overall package work, otherwise he’s kinda living on mistakes

War2d2: re: Gallen/Suarez, that was the implication from Bruce Levine’s report, but he didn’t name names. On the topic of Gallen, his Statcast is ice blue. At this point he just seems to be a bad pitcher. Is he A) possibly a “change of scenery” guy, B) hurt, C)  aging out of the league prematurely, or D) other? If that Cubs rumor is true, is he (and his 5+ ERA) even an upgrade at this point?

Ben Clemens: Yeah….. I think my best guess on Gallen is b) because I don’t see why a) would suddenly be the case after years of not needing one

Ben Clemens: d) also seems like an option

Ben Clemens: and yeah, trading for Gallen is weird right now

Ben Clemens: would you be pleased to get him? I think you would if it cost almost nothing

Ben Clemens: but then why would Arizona let him go for that?

Ben Clemens: maybe things change if they’re 5 under .500 in a month, though

Ben Clemens: for one thing, they’re not gonna let him go for less than the comp pick for a qualifying offer, he’s surely gonna get one

Reds fan battling the heat dome: Will I regret not going to see Chase Burns’ debut Tuesday night? Or will I regret sitting in the midwestern heat dome as I gaze through my binoculars in the outfield seats of GABP and say, “yep, he throws hard!”. Your counsel is needed.

Ben Clemens: I’d probably go if it’s below 80 at night, that’s kinda my limit for not feeling awful in heat (I can handle more during the day, but hot sticky nights are just miserable)

Ben Clemens: but I will say this: I’ve been to a lot of players’ debuts and also a lot of players’ rookie seasons. I don’t think the debut feels meaningfully more special than the rookie season unless they do something amazing that very day

Ben Clemens: so if it’s gonna be a hardship to go this time, don’t, but find another Chase Burns game to go to this year

Guest: If you asked GMs, would they rather have 1 year of a 10 war catcher or an 11 war outfielder?

Ben Clemens: I think they probably wouldn’t care much

Ben Clemens: those numbers are just gaudy enough that they could make either work

Ben Clemens: I guess on average they’d prefer the outfielder b/c what if they already had a good catcher? but you can always add an outfielder

Defensive metrics: Do you generally trust DRS or OAA more? Does it change by position? Personally I’m more skeptical of DRS because I feel like it produces a lot more weird outlier seasons.

Ben Clemens: I was gonna do a more specific breakdown of this after voting for Fielding Bible awards last year but I never got around to it

Ben Clemens: basically I like OAA most (on a relative basis) for the infield

Ben Clemens: where I think it is both more stable and more correlated to my attempts at creating a ‘defensive baseline’ based on conversion rate of opportunities into outs

Ben Clemens: in the outfield I like to use both

Rex Manning Day: intentional walks are an abomination. a team’s best hitter coming to the plate in a big moment is precisely the kind of moment we watch baseball for, and it’s absurd that the other team can just be like, “nah, next.” my proposal: eliminate the pitchless IBB, and require catchers to (1) be behind the plate and (2) not standing up when the pitch is thrown. so you can still pitch around a guy, you just have to throw 4 actual pitches that miss the zone to do it. thoughts?

Ben Clemens: this doesn’t really bother me very much, to be honest, though I see why you don’t like it

Ben Clemens: I think doing this would just lead to some bad outcomes, basically. more hit batters, more dangerous pitches, more chance of someone getting hurt, but the vast majority of the time no change in outcome

J: PCA lost nearly 3 OAA for balls getting caught in the sun and wind on a crazy day at Wrigley. Is there any way to even account for this? Seems unfair to dock him like a third of a win for balls that are definitely not 99% catch probability in reality.

Ben Clemens: well, do you think that the stats got EVERYTHING right every other time he’s caught one?

Ben Clemens: since the averages are based on all balls, some of his 95% catches are probably like (99% unless it’s a sun ball then 0)

Ben Clemens: so should we go devalue all of his non-sun-ball catches slightly?

Ben Clemens: the idea of these systems is that they’re good in aggregate, not that they’re a flawless accounting of the exact value provided by every player excluding all elements

Ben Clemens: like yeah, an ideal system would account for more stuff

Ben Clemens: but eh, it’s small potatoes to me

Oaktown Blues: Jacob Lopez only throws like 91, but he’s posting some gaudy K numbers recently. His fastball kinda reminds me of Rich Hill’s. Have you seen any of his starts? Is he maybe a mid rotation arm?

Ben Clemens: I’ve seen a little of him and I don’t feel comfortable with an opinion just yet

Ben Clemens: it doesn’t LOOK like it should work, but yeah, neither do lots of pitchers

Bosoxforlife: Of all the surprises that I have had during my long history of following this game, #1 is that Francisco Lindor emerged as a power hitter. After watching him in Double A I would have bet he wouldn’t hit 30 HR’s in his career, not 30 in one year 5 times in his career but seeing Eugenio Suarez just hit his 300th HR isn’t far behind and to think he was traded for a bag of balls by the Tigers many years ago.

Ben Clemens: Eugenio Suarez gets traded for a bag of balls like all the time

Ben Clemens: it’s so weird

Ben Clemens: Like, first the Tigers trade, then the Reds trade him to the Mariners (plus Jesse WInker, the headliner of the deal b/c he was a young cheap breakout candidate)

Ben Clemens: in that one, the Reds included Suarez seemingly to lower payroll

Ben Clemens: then the Mariners trade him to the DBacks for Carlos Vargas and Seby Zavala, to dump payroll basically

Ben Clemens: meanwhile he just keeps hitting, everywhere

Ben Clemens: he has to be one of the most surprising power hitters of all time

Lowe Distribution System: The death of the starting pitcher was supposed to coincide with the rise of 2-4 inning relievers, but I don’t think we’ve seen that happen essentially at all.  Instead, everyone has just used AAA roster spots to effectively grow the size of the bullpen.  Can we stop this, or do we even care about the aesthetic difference of 1 vs 3 inning relievers?

Ben Clemens: truthfully, I don’t think the league cares enough to stop it

Ben Clemens: I think they’re also worried about how that might affect injury risk

Talfred: Every day that goes by, it looks more and more to me like Jarren Duran’s 2024 season was a career year, offensively and defensively, and that his 2025 season is close to his true talent level. Would you agree?

Ben Clemens: mmmm, I think he’s better than he’s shown this year, but I think his true level is close to his career line (109 wRC+)

Ben Clemens: I spent a lot of time thinking about Duran’s value at various points last year and then a ton again this year, and it’s hard for me to look at his skillset and see an elite hitter. but average (or a little above) plus good D, the second coming of Benintendi (Red Sox era)? Sure

Oaktown Blues: Tbh when the Reds traded Suarez I thought he was pretty cooked. Impressive second wind

Ben Clemens: Oh, I did too!

Guest: I think you underestimate voter fatigue and the need for a new storyline.

Ben Clemens: i mean, could be. I’d feel more confident in that if Judge weren’t THIS good, or if he’d won three in a row, or if he werne’t a Yankee

LAD-PIT: Are Rushing, Freeland, Ferris, Hope, and De Paula a fairish/reasonable return for Skenes? This is coming from a Pads fan that decidedly doesn’t want to see this happen, just curious.

Ben Clemens: I don’t think so – it’s not as good of a return as the Soto deal, and Skenes has more years of team control

Ben Clemens: and additionally, it would probably end the Pirates to trade Paul Skenes for a bunch of maybes. you better be getting an elite elite prospect back

Judgement Day: I repeat, did the Red Sox break Judge?

Ben Clemens: Tell you what: I’m gonna guess no, you can guess yes

Ben Clemens: let’s reconvene in a few months and see

Talfred: Re: Duran, you refer to good D, but this season he has a negative Defense number on Fangraphs for the fourth time in five years.

Ben Clemens: well Def includes position, and he’s back in left field, which has a below average value. I think it’s fair to say that he’s a plus outfielder overall, and can handle center; he was definitely a LOT worse early in his career when he was seen as more of a multi-positional guy and was learning to be a full-time outfielder

Ben Clemens: I have a lower opinion of his defense than your average analyst, I think – he got a ton of votes for Fielding Bible in CF

Ben Clemens: but I think he’s clearly solid out there

Noah: What do you think is Bryan Reynolds hypothetical trade value in the midst of a down year? Assuredly “not good”, but would you consider the future value of his team team-friendly?

Ben Clemens: I would not

Ben Clemens: I mean, you’re hoping he’s an average player going forward

Ben Clemens: he’s been an average player in ’22, ’23, and ’24, much worse than that so far this year

Ben Clemens: teams don’t like paying 8 figures over long time periods for that kind of production

Ben Clemens: this is a very different deal than accepting an “overpay” relative to your model values for, say, Rafael Devers

Lowe Distribution System: The Orioles will surely aim to retool for next year at the deadline.  But can any of their trade pieces bring back anyone useful for next year?

Ben Clemens: I mean, I don’t think so

Ben Clemens: but, I’m not sure they need to, at least directly

Ben Clemens: we know that the Orioles like ‘winning’ trades in terms of surplus value, Elias has made several comments to that effecgt

Ben Clemens: so if they stack up a little value this year, maybe they can then expend some to trade for pieces that will help them win next year?

Ben Clemens: that’s the theory, at least. right now, the O’s have a nice long-term pipeline of talent, and they seem very afraid of dipping into it

Ben Clemens: but hey, if you make the pipeline better, maybe it can withstand more of a dip

Bosoxforlife: Very few recognize that Duran was very good in 2023 with an OPS+ of 121. 2024 was not a huge surprise to Red Sox fans but he has, most certainly, been a disappointment this year. I recall him dropping at least 3 fly balls while not providing the dynamic offense the fans expected.

Ben Clemens: yeah I thought ’23 was “good Duran”

Ben Clemens: and I kind of still do

Ben Clemens: sometimes people have career years

Ben Clemens: but Duran can be a good and valuable contributor without replicating his super high top end season

Chris: Would you rather have Andy Pages or Heliot Ramos — real life, not fantasy baseball?

Ben Clemens: I think I’d prefer Pages because of his defense

Ben Clemens: I don’t think their bats look all that different, really

Ben Clemens: I would give the slight edge to Ramos there

Ben Clemens: but I do not buy Ramos as a center fielder, I watched a lot of him out there last year and he was not good

Ben Clemens: and that’s more of a difference maker to me, given how close I expect them to be with the bat

Matt: Hey Ben, if someone asked you whether or not Cal Raleigh will hit 50 hrs this year, you’d have to take the under right? What he’s doing right now as a catcher is unprecedented, but logically you can’t count on him repeating his first half for another 75 games

Ben Clemens: yeah, agreed

Ben Clemens: that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see it, though

Ben Clemens: we have him RIGHT at 51 homers, so really cuspy

Ben Clemens: but that’s with 321 PA the rest of the way, which I think I’d take the under on, that’s just responsible

Josh: Speaking of Pages, do you foresee him as solidly in your trade value series?

Ben Clemens: he’s certainly in the mix. I gave a run of players to get extended projections on to Dan recently and he was on it. I know that I have, historically, overvalued “good defense, young, having good offensive season” hitters before, so I’m trying to take that into account, but yes, I think he’s probably going to be on it

Travis: Let’s say hypothetically Acuna plays a little over 100 games still hitting at his current pace, any chance he wins MVP?

Ben Clemens: mmmmmm…. honestly, maybe? feels like a relative down year in the NL right now, no meteoric first halves, so no one is running away with it

Half Street: Is James Wood’s improved defense this year (average by OAA, good by DRS) real?

Ben Clemens: I haven’t watched enough to say for SURE but I’ve upgraded his defense in my head. Partially, that’s because I always thought he’d figure it out. It’s Bayesian – I had him pegged as a future good defender because he’s a great athlete with plus speed.

Ben Clemens: so seeing something that I expected to happen raises my confidence that it’s a real improvement, not just noise

John: Hi Ben will G Taylor be the full time closer for the white Sox rest of this year and the foreseeable future?

Ben Clemens: I mean, unless he’s bad!

Ben Clemens: but he clearly has an easy inside track on it

Hunter: Reds DFA’d Candelario, where do you think he ends up?

Ben Clemens: I am really curious about this. Probably a bad team without a 3B, because I think he makes the most sense tehre

Ben Clemens: maybe the A’s send Max Muncy down or make him a utillity gy?

Ben Clemens: guy*

Ben Clemens: maybe the Nats want a reunion with him backing up House and DH’ing (b/c Bell isn’t working out?)

Ben Clemens: I think that a contender is unlikely to take a risk on him, but a non-contender might pick him up hoping he looks awesome the rest of the way, or perhaps looks SO good in the nextm onth that they can flip him for a lottery ticket after he kind of rebuilds his value

LB: Hey now, re: the Reds-M’s Suarez trade, that return busted, but it looked quite valuable at the time! A viable mid-level MLB platoon bat to directly replace Wink (Jake Fraley), a top 100 prospect with helium (Brandon Williamson), a super-helium guy who ended up as a top 100 guy soon thereafter (Connor Phillips), and a former 1st rounder reclamation project (Justin Dunn). All the pitchers busted for various reasons, but hindsight is 20/20 of course!

Ben Clemens: I agree, but reading through a lot of the coverage, it seems like WInker was the prize and Suarez was kind of a ‘average player with too much $ owed’ added to the deal

Ben Clemens: it definitely looks worse in retrospect than it did then, though

Ben Clemens: but Winker similarly busted. he was coming off of 3.2 WAR in 2/3 of a season when he got dealt

Ben Clemens: and he’s been worth 1.1 WAR in the next four years combined

Ben Clemens: Suarez was not the focus of the return, coming off of a literally replacement level season with an 85 wRC+

Appa Yip Yip: Eugenio Suarez also has impeccable vibes between the hair and the smile and the beard. Everybody should want that guy on their team. I very specifically want the Dbacks to play themselves out of contention so my team can trade for him.

Ben Clemens: oh yeah

Ben Clemens: he seems like such a good dude too (never meet your heroes, I’m just guessing from what I can observe on TV)

Ben Clemens: the vibes are just immaculate

Smokin’ Jim Leyland: Good afternoon Ben! This may be more of a Szym-Chat question, but why does Riley Greene show as having negative defensive value in his WAR calculation? Admittedly the eye test is imperfect, but when I watch him, I see a comfortably above-average LFer. I mean, just yesterday he made three great catches that were absolute bangers.

Ben Clemens: I’m answering this one b/c I’m writing about Riley Greene literally righ tnow

Ben Clemens: or, well, I guess I stopped to chat. But I’m in the process of writing about him

Ben Clemens: we basically just use OAA, and OAA sees him as a solid but not elite left fielder this year, 70th percentile

Ben Clemens: the thing is, left field is a very easy position int he grand scheme of things. Def is defensive value relative to average for your position plus a positional adjustment

Ben Clemens: so that positional adjustment (it’s like -3 runs or so for how long he’s played this year) is why his Def is negative

Ben Clemens: i think you can argue that the positional adjustment in the corners is a smidge too harsh, but honestly, I dno’t think it’s off by much. If positional adjustments are wrong, the ones that are on the top of my list for adjustment are 1B and DH

Ben Clemens: so basically what we’re saying is ‘he’s a good defender for a left fielder, but an average left field defender is not as valuable as an average CF, 2B, SS’

Ben Clemens: I definitely agree that he’s a plus fielder, though. It’s good to remember that defensive statistics are unavoidably noisy and that Greene rated out better in 2024. I think he’s almost certainly better than his 2025 statistics

Okra: Given all the trouble the A’s and Rays are having building new stadiums, is it reasonable to expect 2 new expansion cities to help foot the bill and get it across the finish line?  Feels like public opinion on this has kinda flipped.  Seems to be a huge barrier to expansion no one talks about.

Ben Clemens: I think that’s a very good point

Ben Clemens: I’m really curious, I bet you MLB is doing some polling on that question in possible expansion cities

Oaktown Blues: My guess is MLB will waive or lower expansion fees in exchange for the prospective owner paying for the new stadium

Ben Clemens: I’m curious about that. In the past, you could think of expansion fees as necessary, because you’re slicing up the TV revenue more ways if you expand but it’s unlikely that the national TV deals are gonna get much bigger

Ben Clemens: so if I’m, say, the Dodgers, why do I want an expansion team if I’m not getting fees?

Ben Clemens: but now that the future TV revenue picture is less certain, maybe the deal is a little different

Ben Clemens: maybe now it’s about preserving baseball’s interest across the country and juicing up the TV deals with more available games to try to make them more enticing to sellers

Ben Clemens: I think we are still a few unfavorable TV deals away from teams agreeing to waive expansion fees, because honestly, there’s a lot of demand to have a baseball team among billionaires

Ben Clemens: but if they’re struggling to attract true expansion bidders and the deal replacing the Sunday Night Baseball deal is bad, I could see it?

Bosoxforlife: You touched my 3rd rail when you bring up positional penalties, but as long as people actually think that a baseball starting lineup consists of 9 men rather the 10 that actually comprise the starting lineup then the DH will be unfairly penalized for no sane reason whatsoever.

Ben Clemens: i tend to agree. I think that DH and 1B projections that only look at WAR right now don’t capture the actual value of having those players on your team

Ben Clemens: particularly for actual difference making hitters

Boeke: Who is a realistic trade target for the Yankees. I guess I should specify – someone that’s a better hitter than IKF. Or do you think it’ll mostly be players like him on the move this trade season?

Ben Clemens: can I interest you in JJ Bleday?

Ben Clemens: I have to imagine the A’s would love to get something back for him now that they want to play Clarke plus the statues

Ben Clemens: (no offense to Tyler Soderstrom and Brent Rooker, they’re statues with plus power, I’m into it)

Okra: also, 2 new expansion teams further erode future leverage for existing owners threatening to relocate if they don’t get a new stadium

Ben Clemens: Yeah, which is why I definitely don’t think they’ll do it until the Vegas stadium is confirmed good (they broke ground, so looking better on this front) and the Rays situation is settled

Oaktown Blues: Not sure NYY positions of need but A’s will also have Andujar and Urias to sell

Ben Clemens: Urias is just not gonna have that much value after so many seasons of not hitting. And I say this as a huge Urias fan, one who’s consistently too high on him

Ben Clemens: and same deal with Andujar, he’s a career average hitter who has no defensive home, also he already had a pretty bad run in new york

Ben Clemens: they do need a second baseman, so mayyyyyybe Urias makes sense? But really, their roster isn’t that easy to improve, they’re kinda jam packed with hitters they’re trying to figure out how to play

Ben Clemens: like Bleday would even have a tough time finding playing time and I think he’s by far the best hitter of the A’s options

Ben Clemens: so maybe I should say like…. Suarez if the DBacks fall out?

Ben Clemens: an infielder would be better in NYY, but only if they’re actually a good hitter

GraphsMan: you mentioned the Smith and Vargas possibility for the Cubs, but what real incentive would the Sox have to do that? They’re controllable but not gonna get a massive return, at some point isn’t it worth just keeping competent players so that the on field product isn’t entirely miserable?

Ben Clemens: i mean, I agree with that

Ben Clemens: I would say that major league teams mostly seem not to when they are tanking

Ben Clemens: like last White Sox teardown, they blew it up pretty comprehensively

Ben Clemens: I guess they kept Tim Anderson around

Ben Clemens: and Jose Abrue

Ben Clemens: Abreu*

Ben Clemens: so okay maybe they do keep them, fine

JK: Are there any correlated tracking data easily available? I love in basketball, hockey, football, etc. you can track how a certain player does when playing with another player. Is that done as much here in baseball? I.e. when Judge is in the lineup, Jazz hits X, but when Judge is out, Jazz hits Y for a delta of D.

Ben Clemens: all that data exists

Ben Clemens: it’s all on Baseball Savant, if you feel like sorting through it. But when you look at historical splits like that, they’re all noise, very little correlation between one year and the next, so we mostly don’t bother quoting them

Ben Clemens: it’s kinda similar to the day game/night game split or something of that nature

Melky Cabrera (All-Star): Are there any current announcers you cannot stand?

Ben Clemens: yes, but I’m not saying who

Ben Clemens: I think Davy might have mentioned reviving the crowdsourced broadcaster rankings this year, man, I hope so

HappyFunBall: Luis Urias would probably work out well actually. He’s being paid nothing and wouldn’t cost much in trade. Also he can cover 3B during the inevitable next JAzz injury.  He’s hit better than DJLM for three seasons running…

Sig Mejdal: Do the O’s move anybody at the deadline besides O’Hearn? Mullins is really struggling at the plate and can’t play every day; Mountcastle is out for a while. I guess Zach Eflin has some value?

Dudhd: I’m also too high on Luis Urias! It seems the park and his suddenly high contact and high flyball rate SHOULD lead to lots of home park homers, but it seems like he’s been losing momentum. What are your thoughts on him and is he toast when Gelof returns?

Ben Clemens: Whoops, Sig, I’ll answer yours in a second. but first, let’s form the fan club!

Ben Clemens: yeah, um, I wouldn’t trade Mullins if I were them. I agree that the return might not be amazing, also, I like Mullins as an O and I think the hit to team confidence and fan approval would be enough that they’d need a real return for him

J: Jim Bowden proposed the Cubs trading Horton, Caissie, Alcantara, and Ronny Cruz for Sandy Alcantara. As a Cardinals fan, how happy would it make you if this man were the Cubs’ GM?

Ben Clemens: I mean, I don’t think that move would be outrageous if you think Sandy is an ace going forward

Ben Clemens: I just don’t. But gimme a few weeks of starts to see how much he’s able to keep his recent improvement, I keep up on Lance Brozdowski’s pitcher updates and I agree with Lance that he seems to be trending back up as he gets more reps under his belt

Ben Clemens: I’d basically just say that I wouldn’t make that deal without a little bit more understanding of how ‘back’ he is. Because the price is right, two more years at reasonable numbers, plus this year, for a Cy Young winner. Just…. the post-TJ stuff, eh

Mr red legs: You seemed to be taking a relative step back on Ellys trade value a couple weeks ago. How do you feel now after his multi week hot streak has him playing better than last year?

Ben Clemens: I mean, I’m trying not to be TOO affected by a few weeks of hot streaks

Ben Clemens: that’s actually the point of spreading out my analysis over a longer time period

Ben Clemens: I guess I would say that the chances of Elly turning into the greatest baseball player of our generation are lower now than they were last year

Ben Clemens: though his chances of being a bust are commensurately lower

Ben Clemens: and to me, enough of his value (in the trade value series, wehre I had him as a top 5 value in all of baseball) was about the chance of a truly ridiculous ceiling that another year in the books with good but not great production lowers the overall EV

Bosoxforlife: I would need a lot more evidence than has been shown before I would give any real players for Alcantara. He pitched the game I saw in Pittsburgh and was able to get the Pirate “hitters” out but so could you.

Ben Clemens:

Zach: “because WAR is not exactly what people vote on” – I think this is exactly what they do vote on (now), with maybe some squishiness when 2+ players are close in WAR. Certainly the last three seasons they have.

Ben Clemens: but like, we presupposed that they’re going to be close

Ben Clemens: I agree with you that if Raleigh had 13 WAR and Judge 10, it wouldn’t matter who hit better

Lance Biggerstaff: It’s very, very far down on the list of the Orioles’ problems, but where the heck has Gunnar Henderson’s power gone?

Ben Clemens: I dunno but like…. give it a little time

Ben Clemens: he started late thanks to injury, has played 70 games, and is getting pitched very cautiously b/c there’s no one else on his team hitting, leading to really high walk rates and low strikeout rates in June

Ben Clemens: alright, lovely chat today, but I gotta run and get started on lunch

Ben Clemens: I will be off the next two weeks for a vacation (Denmark and Norway, mostly Norway) before we sprint into the ASG/draft/trade value/trade deadline bonanza in the second half of July

Ben Clemens: have a wonderful week everyone, and I’m sure I’ll talk to you soon