Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 6/28/21

Ben Clemens: Hey everybody, welcome to a baseball chat. Let’s take some baseball questions… and, of course, whatever non-baseball topics you actually want my opinion on

The Ghost of Bobby Thigpen: How bad will MLB look if Santiago really only had rosin on his glove?

Ben Clemens: I mean, they certainly won’t look great!

bob: The Cardinals have absolutely imploded.  *If* the decide cut bait on the year, retool and sell, what sort of returns do you think they could get for their tradable players?

Ben Clemens: I’m gonna be honest with you: not a lot

Ben Clemens: As we start to put together the trade value list (hooray!), there aren’t exactly a lot of Cardinals who jump out

Ben Clemens: If they’re doing a shallow rebuild, they also don’t have a lot of impending free agents with value unless you think they’re trading Molina and Wainwright (and they’re just not going to)

Ben Clemens: Kim and Carlos Martinez are options (and some team might pick up Martinez’s options if things get really weird), and that’s basically it

Ben Clemens: So I think they’ll get organizational depth if they try to do a shallow one-year reload

Ben Clemens: And not much more

Jason Giambini: Why is there a difference between the Projected Standings and Playoff Odds tabs in terms of win totals? Different projection systems?  For example, the Orioles are expected to win 60 games in Projected Standings, but only 58.3 in Playoff Odds.

Ben Clemens: This should probably be explained more clearly on the site, but ‘projected standings’ is a page that completely ignores the rest of a team’s schedule and gives them wins and losses based on how many runs we expect their lineup to score and allow against neutral competition

Ben Clemens: Whereas the playoff odds tab runs them through their schedule, so takes opposing team schedules into account

Ben Clemens: Er, sorry, opposing team strength

ROGELIO: Giants batting lines are crazy this year. Any chance Oracle is playing more like a hitters park since the re-configuration but park factors are still treating it as the pitcher’s park it has historically been?

Ben Clemens: Yes, a very good chance. Our park factors are designed to be slow-moving and look back a lot of years, but that doesn’t work well when stadiums change quickly

Ben Clemens: Oracle seems to me like a FAR hitter-friendlier park than it did five years ago

Ben Clemens: This is a tough thing to capture the way we do park factors

Ben Clemens: This is paywalled, but an interesting look at fancier park factors from Jonathan Judge at BP:

Ben Clemens: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/64534/an-updated-syste…

Dalton Wilcox: Have you ever met a sports fan before the 2010s who considered losing a viable strategy towards winning? What’s happening to us?

Ben Clemens: Meet the 1996-97 San Antonio Spurs

Ben Clemens: But yes, it’s weird

Anj: What’s a return package for Mancini look like? Couple top ten org prospects? Any consensus top 100 guys?

Ben Clemens: I’d guess no on consensus top 100 guys, but yes on top ten org prospects

Ben Clemens: Teams are getting very grabby about consensus top 100 types, and doing more Padres-type trades

Ben Clemens: I expect that to continue in deadline action this eyar

Derek: Re Cards: The Brewers’ Kolten Wong seems like a useful player that would fit well on the Cardinals’ current roster! Oh…

Ben Clemens: Hey-o!

Ben Clemens: I’m Team Kolten and have been for a long time

Ben Clemens: I truly don’t understand why the Cards declined his option

kevinthecomic: I thought it was TOOTBLAN not NOOTBAAR

T(win)s: Twins look more likely to reload rather than rebuild for 2022/2023.  Do they actually try to move a Buxton/Berrios/Donaldson type player for a prospect package?

Ben Clemens: I don’t see them dealing Buxton, because it’s hard to trade players when injured and Buxton is so valuable when healthy but so oft-injured that they wouldn’t secure a fair return

Ben Clemens: I think that a Berrios move makes a ton of sense

Ben Clemens: I have no inside information on this whatsoever, I just think he’s the ideal type of player to move this deadline

Ben Clemens: Great pitcher, not a true ace

Ben Clemens: Controllable next year, which teams will covet, but it doesn’t torpedo the Twins’ long-term plans to trade him

BringBackDeSpanielHair: Is Rizzo droppable? 10 team, points redraft, with Voit as my main 1B?

Ben Clemens: I’m a sucker for holding on too long, but I’d hold on (just barely)

Ben Clemens: He’s not peak Rizzo, so it depends on the league…. like in Ottoneu I’d drop him and try to re-auction him probably?

Ben Clemens: But he’s still a good hitter

Ben Clemens: Even if the shape isn’t really what you want from your fantasy 1B

Appa Yip Yip: Are teams on the west coast actually going to play games in this liquid fire stew?

Ben Clemens: I mean, they had an open-roof stadium in Texas for many years

Ben Clemens: It got absurdly hot there

Ben Clemens: I don’t think they’re going to play many day games, but I don’t think they will just write everything off

Ben Clemens: The Mariners are on the road until July 2, by which point the high is only supposed to be 82

Ben Clemens: And it’s a nice chilly 56 in my neighborhood of SF right now, though the microclimates are weird

Ben Clemens: So it hasn’t spread down the coast

Ben Clemens: Now minor league teams, yeah

Ben Clemens: They might cancel games

ralphd627: Conforto for Berrios straight up, who says no?

Ben Clemens: The Twins, b/c they don’ want to acquire someone who will leave after this year

Ben Clemens: When they’re explicitly trying to punt the year for future returns

Twins Fan: What do you think about a Berrios for Pearson/Gore/Baz swap? Are those 3 about equivalent for you or would you prefer one over the other 2?

Ben Clemens: I think Berrios for Pearson makes a lot of sense, don’t think the Rays would be interested in moving Baz, ditto for the Padres and Gore

Ben Clemens: I would order them Gore/Baz/(drop)/Pearson

Ben Clemens: But I think Pearson is probably a fair return

Mitch: Rank the following teams in order of who SHOULD be buying at the deadline (basically which current rosters you believe in the most): Cardinals, Reds, Phillies, Nationals

Ben Clemens: Reds, Nats, Phillies, Cards

Ben Clemens: The Cardinals needed their pitching to be good this year and it’s been a tire fire

Ben Clemens: This is just not a fixable thing

Ben Clemens: Their offense is not good enough to make up for bad pitching. The offense has been underperforming too, but I dunno…. even if they’re good, they won’t be THAT good

skwalla: is there any thought by teams to possibly zig while others zag and focus on contact defense and more traditional pitching? seems the way most teams are set up now an “old school” team could give them fits

Ben Clemens: This is something that gets looked at from time to time, but I basically think no? Fielders are SO good right now

Ben Clemens: Contact on the ground, and soft/medium contact, is less valuable than ever

Ben Clemens: Avoiding walks, which i would say is a tenet of traditional pitching, is as solid as ever

Ben Clemens: But ‘letting them put the ball in play’ seems like a bad plan when you can strike guys out

Ben Clemens: So I’d basically say no

Safety Stegosaurus: Say there’s a runner on first and a liner is hit to right field. The right fielder comes up short and traps it, but is still able to get the force out at second. As far as amount of defensive value credited, what would be the difference between that play vs just making the catch?

Ben Clemens: I actually don’t know the answer to this, but in an ideal system they’d count the same

Ben Clemens: You might see credit in arm runs vs range runs, or something like that, but the base/out state is the same in each case

Ben Clemens: That said, it’s such a weird corner case that I’ve never looked up how each defensive system treats it

namiki: Shohei Ohtani aggressively tries to bunt for singles, but is it reasonable for a hitter with a high wOBA like his to try to bunt for singles?

Ben Clemens: Depends how successful they are, but if you’re a good bunter with good speed, generally yes

Ben Clemens: The ancillary benefits matter too; if you’re bunting for hits at a 90% clip, the defense has to stop shifting, and then you just hit regularly

diadem: Which of Yajure, G. Santos or J Oviedo has the highest ceiling? Floor?

Ben Clemens: I’m partial to Oviedo b/c the breaking stuff is so good

Ben Clemens: But he also has the lowest floor, as we’ve seen this year!

ralphd627: Are we seeing the “real” Lindor or does he regain former status?

Ben Clemens: I think this is just who Lindor is

Ben Clemens: Mike Petriello wrote a good article about his recent surge here:

Ben Clemens: https://www.mlb.com/news/francisco-lindor-offensive-improvements

Ben Clemens: And I looked at it earlier here

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/whats-eating-francisco-lindor/

Twins Fan: How much money do you think the Twins have to kick in to trade Donaldson at/by the trade deadline? Would it just be a salary dump or could they get something of value for him?

Ben Clemens: They’d definitely need to chip in money, because teams don’t like trading for contracts like that for old players at the deadline

Ben Clemens: That said, he’d be a useful piece, and the Twins have already budgeted for the contract, so they m ight eat some of it, and if they do they could get real value in return imo

Ben Clemens: He’s stlil a good player

Ben Clemens: The big problem would be finding a fit

ihateerichosmer: is hosmer +$10M + a mid-level prospect a fair offer for bumgarner? im assuming dbacks want to get out completely rather than just save. hosmer has partial no-trade but i can’t find which teams.

Ben Clemens: Definitely not

Ben Clemens: Why would the DBacks want Hosmer?

Ben Clemens: He’s arguably a worse contract than Bumgarner

Ben Clemens: So basically you’re asking them to trade financial flexibility for a mid-level prospect

Ben Clemens: I do not see teams heading in that direction

skwalla: what percent of the time would a player have to beat the shift for teams to begin playing them straight up?

Ben Clemens: Kind of depends on what you mean by beating the shift

Ben Clemens: If you bunt for a hit, say, 50% of the times you try to bunt

Ben Clemens: Miss 40%

Ben Clemens: and make an out 10%

Ben Clemens: that would already cross the threshold

Ben Clemens: If you’re making more outs, you need more success

Ben Clemens: It’s a tricky balance

Base Ball: Do you think Andrew Heaney has some untapped potential that could be accessed by the right trading team, or is he just who he’s been at this point?

Ben Clemens: I’m going to perpetually think that

Ben Clemens: I’ve just always been too high on Heaney

Ben Clemens: But I do think that pitching even more than hitting is a place where it’s worth trading for a guy with stuff but without results

Ben Clemens: And hoping your pitching coach/team can get something to click

DJ: Is it my imagination, or are there fewer elite hitting first baseman than we’ve had in the past?

Ben Clemens: Not your imagination

Ben Clemens: This year is a bump up b/c Olson and Vlad are mashing (in my eyes at least)

Ben Clemens: But in 2019, for example, there were no 1B with a wRC+ over 150

Ben Clemens: and 2 over 140

Ben Clemens: IN 1999, there were 3 at 150 or higher and another 2 at 140 or higher

Ben Clemens: I htink we’re in a bit of a lull, but Vlad goes a long way towards fixing that

Ben Clemens: And Freddie Freeman was doing it last year, though he’s scuffling this year

Ben Clemens: I think we’ll get back to the same level of elite 1B’s, but hte overall position is definitely worse at offense than it’s been in past eras

Guest: Trey Mancini or JD Martinez for AL comeback player of the year?  Mancini obviously has the better narrative, but Martinez has seen the bigger overall improvement from 2020 to 2021.

Ben Clemens: I think it’s Mancini

Ben Clemens: The comeback player award doesn’t tell you to rely only on stats

Ben Clemens: J.D. Martinez was a major league hitter last year

Ben Clemens: Mancini was fighting cancer

Ben Clemens: That’s more of a comeback

Jarren Duran: Is it unpatriotic of me to want be called up to the show?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think so. If the Olympics were a bigger deal I’d be less sure… like if they were a World Cup type event

Nate: I’m trying to learn more about advanced statistics.  What is the best statistic to use to differentiate between the value of a walk and a single?  Ignoring the power component, how much more valuable is Xander Bogaerts’ .391 OBP with a .330 BA than Joey Gallo’s .385 OBP with a .224 BA?

Ben Clemens: So, the first thing I would suggest is reading our glossary entry on wOBA

Ben Clemens: https://library.fangraphs.com/offense/woba/

Ben Clemens: This is the general driver behind wRC+, and basically it works by taking what happens, on average, when you get each result in a given base/out state

Ben Clemens: Then weighting that by how often each base/out state occurs

Ben Clemens: So, sometimes a single and a walk are worth the same

Ben Clemens: Sometimes a single is way better

Ben Clemens: If you look at wOBA values, singles have always been worth more than walks in aggregate

Ben Clemens: https://www.fangraphs.com/guts.aspx?type=cn

Ben Clemens: And as an interesting aside, HBP’s are always worth more than walks

Ben Clemens: Why? B/c walks disproportionately occur with first base open

Ben Clemens: Which we account for in the ‘weighting by how often each base/out state occurs’

Ben Clemens: So even though they’re both worth a base and only advance runners if forced

Ben Clemens: HBP’s more often come at a time when that baserunner isn’t something the defense wanted to concede

Appa Yip Yip: Vlad, Tatis, and Ohtani are all on pace to hit 50 bombs. Who makes it? Any of the dudes just behind them you’d make a spec bet on to kick it up in the second half?

Appa Yip Yip: Also lol baseball is so good right now

Ben Clemens: Baseball is REALLY good right now

Ben Clemens: It’s amazing

Ben Clemens: As for people behind them, I always like Acuna’s chances

Ben Clemens: Finding it hard to completely buy into Matt Olson

Ben Clemens: But he’s another one

ROGELIO: Singles = more valuable/less predictable. Walks = less valuable /more predictable. Is that the crux of why analytics tend to prefer BBs over 1Bs?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, this is a good way to put it

Ben Clemens: Walks are less valuable, but getting on base via a walk is, in general, more of a skill than getting on base via a single

Ben Clemens: That’s not to say that there aren’t people with the skill of getting on base via a single, just that most players dn’t have it

Nick: Doesn’t treating HBP as more valuable artificially inflate a hitter’s apparent value?  The hitter doesn’t control whether first base is open.

Ben Clemens: Some players have skill at being hit

Ben Clemens: Also, it’s a realllly small difference

Ben Clemens: More of a fun thing to point out

Ben Clemens: Than actually something to drive value

Ben Clemens: If you got hit by a pitch 100 times

Ben Clemens: well, you’d need an ice pack

Ben Clemens: But also, the increased value we assign to HBP’s would be worth 2.5 more runs than if they had the same value as walks

Ben Clemens: So, it’s extremely small

Ben Clemens: Mark Canha leads baseball with 13 HBP this year

Base Ball: Do you think we see a female player in your lifetime?

Ben Clemens: Hm

Ben Clemens: I think the odds are probably below 50% if you’re talking about a major leaguer, but certainly non-zero

Ben Clemens: But uh, I’m not doing this with some scientific process

Ben Clemens: It’s just a guess

Chungus Khan: If there were a leading website on analytics for professional fishing, would it be called FinGraphs?

Ben Clemens: It would actually be called TroutGraphs, as we’ve been longing to rebrand the website in Mike Trout’s honor

DJ: You mentioned working on the trade value series, what are some of the biggest challenges with drafting that list? I’ve enjoyed previous iterations, but imagine a lot of time is required.

Ben Clemens: I’ll let you know when I get there!

Ben Clemens: It’s been really fun so far but lots of talking about ‘hey would you take this player or tihs similarly good but totally different player’

Ben Clemens: Can lead to insular thinking

Ben Clemens: So I hope we’re doing a good job with it

RedsoxManiac Original: Is Taylor Trammell or Akil Baddoo for you ROS? Does Trammell become a star easier by trimming his SO rate vs Akil adding some velocity to his BIP? Or should I stay safe with Captain Nimmo?

Ben Clemens: I think Baddoo is likely to produce the better fantasy line, I think trimming SO rate in-season is really hard

Ben Clemens: That said, I’d just keep Nimmo for sure

Ben Clemens: And Captain Nimmo is a great nickname

Matt: Looking at spray charts, it seems like Tatis pretty much never hits shallow ground balls to the opposite field versus lefties. Do you think a team could try and take advantage of this via a shift or is it just noise?

Ben Clemens: Honestly, it’s probably just noise, and that’s a hard thing to shift against anyway

Ben Clemens: Shifting against righties is just generally less effective

Ben Clemens: And everyone mostly pulls when they hit grounders

Matt Damon: MATT. DAMON.

Ben Clewomans: Should the Phillies trade or sign Trevor Story or do you think Stott will be the first prospect to pan out in what seems like a hundred years?

Ben Clemens: If they have the appetite for it, Story would make perfect sense

Ben Clemens: Propsects are never a sure bet to pan out

Leland: The Mariners are 41-38, but clearly not playoff material. They have a full farm system but few tradeable pieces on the Major League team. What do they do?

Ben Clemens: I think it makes sense for them to stand pat

Ben Clemens: It’s not exciting, but like you said, they don’t have anything obvious they can do to make the team better this yera at a reasonable cost, or make the team meaningfully better in future years

Ben Clemens: Standing pat doesn’t SOUND cool, but they are definitely in ‘spike a wild card’ range and winning is good! Winning is valuable for players on the team

Ben Clemens: Everyone likes winning. Fans like winning too

Guest: Whose performance has most surprised you this year?

Ben Clemens: Adolis Garcia

Ben Clemens: He is not hte player who I’ve changed my opinion on the most

Ben Clemens: I think that would be Cedric Mullins, or maybe Jesse Winker

Ben Clemens: But Garcia has 20 bombs!

Ben Clemens: He had 0 before this year

HollywoodSox: Brighter future: Bryson Stott or Brice Turang?

Ben Clemens: Turang for me, and not (exclusively) because he’s been great in my OOTP crowd-sourced sim

Ben Clemens: I’m a little worried that Turang hasn’t been walking more at AA this year but he’s still hitting

Ben Clemens: And scouts like Turang’s defense more

Ben Clemens: (I myself have not watched enough of either to know)

Jacques Pederson: When a team seems as lost as the Cardinals do, what can you do? I don’t see how they can go into games right now feeling like they can win.

Ben Clemens: Fire their hitting coach?

Ben Clemens: I think that the team should do something to change the mindset

Ben Clemens: Like, mathematically I’m not sure it matters

Ben Clemens: But just make your employees happier, make them believe in themselves more, etc

Ben Clemens: Heck, maybe announce a partnership with Wainwright (who has been donating money to minor leaguers) where you up the minor league compensation, make a big deal out of it, try to rally the team around that

Ben Clemens: Just do something

Appa Yip Yip: Why is shifting against righties less effective than shifting against lefties?

Ben Clemens: The obvious reason is b/c batters run the bases counter-clockwise

Ben Clemens: So you can’t use the same types of shifts

Ben Clemens: Also, having that short fielder is meaningless in left

Ben Clemens: I don’t care how good your arm is, you’re not throwing someone out at first

Frank: Oh good, it only took until the very first question for you to begin an answer with “I mean”

Ben Clemens: I mean, at some point it is what it is

Ben Clemens: One of my favorite meaningless sports-isms

Guest: Does “change of scenery” apply to coaching as well? Say the hitting coaches of like, the Brewers, Cardinals, Yankees, and Mets all switched teams (just to pick a few teams with offense issues). Would they suddenly be better?

Ben Clemens: I think so

Ben Clemens: Just think of your own job

Ben Clemens: When I worked for a big company, I had bosses I tuned out from time to time

Ben Clemens: Not b/c I hated them or anything

Ben Clemens: Just b/c the idiosyncracies of their management style worked better when they were novel

Ben Clemens: And over time I just stopped listening as much b/c they generally gave the same guidance

Ben Clemens: Also, sometimes I just didn’t like a given boss, or they weren’t effective at communicating with me

Ben Clemens: Regardless of their overall talent level at the job

Ben Clemens: I think hitting coaches are the same

ralphd627: Who do the Mets acquire 1st at the deadline?

Ben Clemens: A back-end starter, b/c their rotation needs help until Carrasco and Thor return

Ben Clemens: Preferably one who can also pitch out of the bullpen when they DO return

Ben Clemens: (if, etc)

Ben Clemens: So, Merrill Kelly maybe?

Ben Clemens: Kwang-Hyun Kim if the Cards are dealing

Joshua: If the Nats become sellers, what type of return do you think they could get for their two impending free agent relievers, Hand and Hudson? Thanks.

Ben Clemens: Decent org depth pieces for both

Ben Clemens: Which is a valuable thing given the Nats’ current farm system

Jacques Pederson: Ben I was going to tag “And don’t say fire the hitting coach” on the end of that question

Ben Clemens: 🙂

Ben Clemens: In that case, they should do what they’re doing. Swap the lineup around like crazy, give guys rest days, call up random minor leaguers to give them a shot

Ben Clemens: They didn’t call up Nootbaar b/c he’s the best right fielder in the org

Ben Clemens: They did it to shake things up

Adam: Is the league at all concerned about teams like Rockies with totally dysfunctional front offices?

Ben Clemens: Depends on what you mean by dysfunctional

Ben Clemens: If you mean that they evaluate players differently, not at all

Ben Clemens: Who cares?

Ben Clemens: They spend a reasonable amount of money, not too much or too little for the league’s taste, and have a solid fanbase

Ben Clemens: If you mean the GM publicly feuding with the team’s star and actually making the product less popular in that market, absolutely yes they’re concerned

Joshua: As an example could you throw out a realistic prospect for a Brad Hand return? Thanks.

Ben Clemens: I have no ide aif the Astros would be interested in Hand. If they were, and the Nats wanted a longer-term type, what about Colin Barber (Hi-A CF, 20 years old, Eric put a 45 on him) or Freudis Nova (Hi-A infielder, 21, having a miserable season but Eric put a 40+ on him)

Mustaches: Re: “change of scenery” for coaches.. I suspect an equal responsibility lies in the buy-in of players (or lack thereof). Makes me think of the Blue Jays front office having no interest in bringing Stroman or Donaldson back because the players’ training habits/philosophies didn’t jive with the team’s. At that point there’s nothing a coach/trainer/manager can do.

Ben Clemens: Absolutely

Ben Clemens: Sometimes you have a great hitting coach who just can’t reach the players you have b/c their teaching and learning styles don’t mesh

Ben Clemens: At that point, you have to decide whether you want to move the player or the coach

EC: Seriously though, what could POSSIBLY be the reason for the lack of Jarren Duran callup? There’s no way the team actually cares that much about the Olympics…

Ben Clemens: Yeah I really don’t know

Ben Clemens: It does not make much sense to me either

Ben Clemens: He’s not on the 40, but he needs to be this year

Ben Clemens: So it’s not really a roster crunch

Ben Clemens: and in my eyes he doesn’t have anything else to prove at AAA

ralphd627: Coke or Pepsi?

Ben Clemens: Diet Coke, but kind of neither tbh

ihateerichosmer: reasonable 1b trade options for SD? i know hosmer is a low bar to clear, but is aiming for c.j. cron too low?

Ben Clemens: No, I think that’s reasonable. Cron is a good fit b/c he could both short-side platoon and spot start for Hosmer, and when he isn’t doing that could be a valuable pinch hitter

Dalton Wilcox: Who is your favorite FA this offseason?

Ben Clemens: Favorite is a tricky one to think about, but I’ll say Tommy Pham

Ben Clemens: He’s one of my favorite players, period

Ben Clemens: Best free agent? Seager, I guess

John B: Are the white Sox on the verge of falling apart ?  You can’t lose this many good players and still win, can you ?

Ben Clemens: Ask the Mets

Ben Clemens: I don’t think they are, though. Their depth is not incredible but they’re a trade or two away from looking fine in my eyes

IV Thoughts: Any plans for an OOTP league update soon?

Ben Clemens: Probably next week, because (trade secret) those articles are easy to write and I have some project stuff that will keep me busy

Ben Clemens: We’re below .500

Ben Clemens: But barely

Giant Gonzales: How soon is too soon for a promotion in the minors? I know Casas only has a few months at AA, but with a lost year and a need at the MLB level, is a mid-season AAA assignment detrimental? I’m sure it’s player by player aspects of development, but does a prospect need to destroy a certain level to force a team’s hand or do orgs have a set timeline for how they want a player to progress?

Ben Clemens: This is probably a better question for Kevin, but I’ll endeavor to answer it anyway

Ben Clemens: I do not think that a mid-season AAA assignment would be too soon for Casas. I do think, however, that the team is unlikely to call him up this year. He doesn’t need to be on the 40-man roster yet, and Casas isn’t going full Jarren Duran and demanding a call-up

Ben Clemens: Call him up to the majors, I should say. I expect he’ll get some AAA time this year so that the team can get a better handle on their 1B position for next year

Eva: Temperature check: how are you feeling about Dylan Carlson so far? Thoughts on his future changed at all this year?

Ben Clemens: Not really

Ben Clemens: I picked him for Rookie of the Year in our preseason polling, and that doesn’t look likely at this point, but his bat has been as advertised, and I feel very good about his plate discipline

Ben Clemens: His WAR total doesn’t look great b/c of his defense, and I think he’s miscast in center, but I don’t hate that he can fake center in a pinch

Tati: Are there some guys who still haven’t recovered from the weird Covid schedule of 2020? I am thinking of a guy like Max Kepler who consistently improved through 2019 – tanked in last year’s short season and still has not returned to his pre-Covid form.

Ben Clemens: There definitely are

Ben Clemens: It will be difficult to know which are those types of players and which are just players whose skills hvae declined

Ben Clemens: But the COVID season was such a huge outlier to the usually regimented life of a professional athlete that it would be crazy to think it didn’t affect some players

Ben Clemens: It certainly affected my motivation at times

Ben Clemens: And the bar between success and failure is quite thin

Ben Clewomans: Do you look at the chatters names at all? If so, which ones do you find the cleaverest/funniest?

Ben Clemens: I do, but I can’t pick. Everyone’s comical nickname is my favorite

Ben Clemens: I laugh easily, good news!

Giant Gonzales: On the flip side, even though Downs is not lighting it up at the plate at AAA, he’s not going to move Bogaerts off of SS. Do you move him to 2B now and hope that an easier defensive position helps the rest, or do you wait for the bat and then start giving reps at another position?

Ben Clemens: This is a great question that I don’t have a strong answer to

Ben Clemens: I’d probably move him now, but the Sox haven’t, and they’ve clearly thought about it

Ben Clemens: It does increasingly feel like continuing to play the more demanding infield position as long as possible is the best way to make people good defenders

Ben Clemens: Because you’ll shift all around at the big league level anyway

DeGrom: Is he one of the ultimate underdog stories? 9th Round Draft Pick, TJ survivor, a career Met (thus far)…

Ben Clemens: For sure!

Ben Clemens: He didn’t really pitch in college

Ben Clemens: He’s an absolutely great story

Ben Clemens: I think it gets a little lost in the weeds b/c he’s so good you don’t really need another story

Ben Clemens: ‘jake degrom is great, more at 11’ is all you really need when someone is THIS good

Ben Clemens: but yes, what a tremendous career and against long odds

Mustaches: Not a good weekend for Canadian big leaguers. That Naylor injury was truly awful. And Soroka.. ugh. Do you think back-to-back achilles tendon tears could be career-threatening?

Ben Clemens: Sadly, I do

Ben Clemens: I know Dan is writin about SOroka

Ben Clemens: I love seeing him pitch, and I’m quite grumpy that I won’t get to for a long time now

Ben Clewomans: I haven’t read your OOTP articles (sorry!) but how do you adjust the settings to make it realistic? I’ve played it on the hardest difficulty but still got some trade offers which would be absolutely laughable IRL. Like some would put the Shelby Miller/Dansby Swanson trade to shame.

Ben Clemens: Ah, I play in an online league run by Brad Johnson with 30 real owners

Ben Clemens: I too have found that making your sims realistic is tough

Ben Clemens: You can do whatever you’d like with the AI, you’re just goin to get some easy trades

brad penny for your thoughts: give us your homerish take, if you were in StL front office right now, would you be leaning towards next year/future or try to make 2021 work?

Ben Clemens: I’d try to make 2021 work

Ben Clemens: There’s just not much to do in terms of a shallow sell-off

Ben Clemens: You wouldn’t get meaningful value back, imo

Ben Clemens: Don’t sell the farm, but the NLC is winnable

Ben Clemens: I’d shuffle deck chairs and hope something works

Ben Clemens: You don’t always have to take drastic actoin

ihateerichosmer: since you mentioned pham: what do you think he gets in FA assuming the cba talks don’t muddle the offseason? late bloomer but i feel like his skillset should age very well. 3/50 + club/mutual option?

Ben Clemens: Sadly not, as I don’t think teams are paying that kind of money for corner outfielders of his ilk these days

Ben Clemens: I agree with you that he has a skillset that looks likely to age well, but there are injury and keratoconus (degenerative eye disease) concerns

Ben Clemens: If he gets, say, 2/25 with a third year team optoin for 15

Ben Clemens: I think that’d be reasonable

Ben Clemens: And I think the team would get good value in exchange for taking a bit of injury risk

Padres458: Anything specific that is resulting in Grisham’s defense not being as good as last years?

Ben Clemens: I hadn’t noticed that it was worse

Ben Clemens: Went to look, and I’m not convinced that it is

Ben Clemens: DRS thinks he’s slightly worse per inning, UZR thinks he’s way worse, OAA thinks he’s about the same

Ben Clemens: (he’s definitely above average, whatever you think)

KCBbq: Where are you on the concern level with the drop in spin rates for pitchers such as Cole? He’s been hit harder and given up more runs at a higher rate since June 3rd.

Ben Clemens: Let’s say Yellow Alert, to use the Star Trek alert system arbitrarily

Ben Clemens: It’s going to be more of an adjustment for pitchers who were, shall we say, habitual tackers

Ben Clemens: But I wouldn’t bet against Gerrit Cole making that adjustment

Ben Clemens: His talent level is absolutely not a question. I do worry that he can’t go to the ‘just use more sinkers’ plan as much as everyone else, but his stuff is still elite even with less psin

Ben Clemens: spin*

Eva: Thanks for the great chat/responses. Follow-up (if this isn’t too much Carlson for one chat): am I overreacting to think that Carlson’s been too passive? The plate discipline has been nice to see, but it feels like he’s not capitalizing on the opportunities he DOES get, or maybe that he isn’t hitting the ball hard enough. Is that just normal rookie growing pains and I should calm down?

Ben Clemens: I’d say basically yes. There will always be growing pains for a young switch hitter, and I agree with you that he’s letting drivable pitches go by

Ben Clemens: I’d rather have that, though, than the reverse, and there’s no reason to question his raw power — it’s not going to be elite, but that’s not really the kind of player he is

Padres458: To me he has looked great, I asked because his defensive WAR is significantly lower.

Ben Clemens: Ah yeah, totally makes sense

Ben Clemens: We use UZR to feed our defensive WAR and it thinks the worst of him

Ben Clemens: But eh, watch this space, I’ll just say

KCBbq: Is Trammell the most likely odd man out when Kelenic returns?

Ben Clemens: Yes, I think so

Ben Clemens: Raw deal for him, but someone has to go

Ben Clemens: He’s been good this time up

Ben Clemens: But I don’ think they’re sending Shed Long down, so I guess it’s him or Jake Fraley?

Ben Clemens: And I think they’d rather have Trammell get everyday reps

Ben Clemens: Even if it’s in AAA

Guest: is it possible for a player to buy into a team philosophy too much? What if a team is wrong? For example, a bunch of Yankees walking way more this year, but it’s like the only good thing they’re doing. Everything else is cratering.

Ben Clemens: Yes, for sure

Ben Clemens: Not just what if the team is wrong, but what if that philosophy just doesn’t work for that kind of player

Ben Clemens: If you want a lazy example, read anything ever written about Pirates pitchers

Ben Clemens: But generally speaking, it’s possible to buy in too much, b/c some philosophies are too cookie-cutter

Ben Clemens: I can’t say whether NYY’s is — in fact, I doubt it

Ben Clemens: But figuring out the right teahcing style for a given player is not always easy

Ben Clemens: Or the cues that will help them play best

Brian: Isn’t “the Marcus Stroman package from 2019” the answer to every Berrios question?

Ben Clemens: Something of that rough equivalent value, yes

Dalton Wilcox: Who’s winning the NL Central?

Ben Clemens: I think the Brewers will

mike sixel: I’d think Buxton isn’t signing any kind of deal until he is healthy next year, at which point the Twins probably won’t pay him what he wants…..what do you do with Buxton? I know you said you can’t trade him for value…..but you also can’t sign him long term (as he’ll want to be paid like an elite player)….

Ben Clemens: I think I’d just let him play out the string, if he mashes great, and keep trying to convince him to stay

Ben Clemens: If he’s the MVP (or something near that) next year, you got your value

Ben Clemens: If not, well, you probably still got as much value as you could have traded him for

Ben Clemens: It’s always nice to perpetual-motion-machine it like the Rays, but it’s not always possible

Appa Yip Yip: Re: coaching philosophy, Pete Walker is developing a big reputation north of the border and one of the things players say about him is that for like, the whole first month he just watches them pitch and asks them questions about what they like to do before he even begins to suggest stuff so he can get a feel for who they are as pitchers and people.

Ben Clemens: This sounds like a great ideA!

Ben Clemens: My best bosses have all been like this

Guest: Hiura turned it around?  I mean, I know it’s way too early to make an actual judgement, but what does your gut say?

Ben Clemens: My gut says no, but my heart says yes

Ben Clemens: And they’re near each other, so that’s confusing

Ben Clemens: I haven’ watched much of him since he’s been back up though

Guest: re: Yankee philosophy being too cookie cutter/one size fits all, it def sounded like that was the case at least a few years ago with Sonny Gray “being told to pitch like Tanaka”. He was quite good when he got there and then the next year he fell off a cliff due to what he felt was the Yankees tinkering with his pitch mix too much. I can fully believe the Yankees are perhaps too big, and org changes are like turning a cruise liner around. The Rays are a speedboat.

Ben Clemens: I could totally see that

Ben Clemens: And with that, like a small row boat, I’m going to quietly slip away in the night

Ben Clemens: Thanks for chatting, everyone, and I hope I managed to answer at least some of your questions. See you the week after next, as I’m traveling next Monday. Have a great day, and week, and so on!