Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 6/28/21

2:02
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

2:02
The Ghost of Bobby Thigpen: How bad will MLB look if Santiago really only had rosin on his glove?

2:02
Ben Clemens: I mean, they certainly won’t look great!

2:02
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?

2:02
Ben Clemens: I’m gonna be honest with you: not a lot

2:03
Ben Clemens: As we start to put together the trade value list (hooray!), there aren’t exactly a lot of Cardinals who jump out

2:03
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)

2:04
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

2:04
Ben Clemens: So I think they’ll get organizational depth if they try to do a shallow one-year reload

2:04
Ben Clemens: And not much more

2:04
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.

2:05
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

2:06
Ben Clemens: Whereas the playoff odds tab runs them through their schedule, so takes opposing team schedules into account

2:06
Ben Clemens: Er, sorry, opposing team strength

2:06
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?

2:07
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

2:07
Ben Clemens: Oracle seems to me like a FAR hitter-friendlier park than it did five years ago

2:07
Ben Clemens: This is a tough thing to capture the way we do park factors

2:08
Ben Clemens: This is paywalled, but an interesting look at fancier park factors from Jonathan Judge at BP:

2:08
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?

2:08
Ben Clemens: Meet the 1996-97 San Antonio Spurs

2:08
Ben Clemens: But yes, it’s weird

2:09
Anj: What’s a return package for Mancini look like? Couple top ten org prospects? Any consensus top 100 guys?

2:09
Ben Clemens: I’d guess no on consensus top 100 guys, but yes on top ten org prospects

2:09
Ben Clemens: Teams are getting very grabby about consensus top 100 types, and doing more Padres-type trades

2:09
Ben Clemens: I expect that to continue in deadline action this eyar

2:10
Derek: Re Cards: The Brewers’ Kolten Wong seems like a useful player that would fit well on the Cardinals’ current roster! Oh…

2:10
Ben Clemens: Hey-o!

2:10
Ben Clemens: I’m Team Kolten and have been for a long time

2:10
Ben Clemens: I truly don’t understand why the Cards declined his option

2:11
kevinthecomic: I thought it was TOOTBLAN not NOOTBAAR

2:11
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?

2:11
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

2:11
Ben Clemens: I think that a Berrios move makes a ton of sense

2:11
Ben Clemens: I have no inside information on this whatsoever, I just think he’s the ideal type of player to move this deadline

2:12
Ben Clemens: Great pitcher, not a true ace

2:12
Ben Clemens: Controllable next year, which teams will covet, but it doesn’t torpedo the Twins’ long-term plans to trade him

2:12
BringBackDeSpanielHair: Is Rizzo droppable? 10 team, points redraft, with Voit as my main 1B?

2:12
Ben Clemens: I’m a sucker for holding on too long, but I’d hold on (just barely)

2:13
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?

2:13
Ben Clemens: But he’s still a good hitter

2:13
Ben Clemens: Even if the shape isn’t really what you want from your fantasy 1B

2:13
Appa Yip Yip: Are teams on the west coast actually going to play games in this liquid fire stew?

2:14
Ben Clemens: I mean, they had an open-roof stadium in Texas for many years

2:14
Ben Clemens: It got absurdly hot there

2:15
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

2:15
Ben Clemens: The Mariners are on the road until July 2, by which point the high is only supposed to be 82

2:15
Ben Clemens: And it’s a nice chilly 56 in my neighborhood of SF right now, though the microclimates are weird

2:15
Ben Clemens: So it hasn’t spread down the coast

2:15
Ben Clemens: Now minor league teams, yeah

2:15
Ben Clemens: They might cancel games

2:16
ralphd627: Conforto for Berrios straight up, who says no?

2:16
Ben Clemens: The Twins, b/c they don’ want to acquire someone who will leave after this year

2:16
Ben Clemens: When they’re explicitly trying to punt the year for future returns

2:16
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?

2:16
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

2:17
Ben Clemens: I would order them Gore/Baz/(drop)/Pearson

2:17
Ben Clemens: But I think Pearson is probably a fair return

2:17
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

2:17
Ben Clemens: Reds, Nats, Phillies, Cards

2:18
Ben Clemens: The Cardinals needed their pitching to be good this year and it’s been a tire fire

2:18
Ben Clemens: This is just not a fixable thing

2:18
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

2:19
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

2:19
Ben Clemens: This is something that gets looked at from time to time, but I basically think no? Fielders are SO good right now

2:19
Ben Clemens: Contact on the ground, and soft/medium contact, is less valuable than ever

2:19
Ben Clemens: Avoiding walks, which i would say is a tenet of traditional pitching, is as solid as ever

2:20
Ben Clemens: But ‘letting them put the ball in play’ seems like a bad plan when you can strike guys out

2:20
Ben Clemens: So I’d basically say no

2:20
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?

2:20
Ben Clemens: I actually don’t know the answer to this, but in an ideal system they’d count the same

2:21
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

2:21
Ben Clemens: That said, it’s such a weird corner case that I’ve never looked up how each defensive system treats it

2:21
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?

2:21
Ben Clemens: Depends how successful they are, but if you’re a good bunter with good speed, generally yes

2:23
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

2:23
diadem: Which of Yajure, G. Santos or J Oviedo has the highest ceiling? Floor?

2:23
Ben Clemens: I’m partial to Oviedo b/c the breaking stuff is so good

2:23
Ben Clemens: But he also has the lowest floor, as we’ve seen this year!

2:23
ralphd627: Are we seeing the “real” Lindor or does he regain former status?

2:24
Ben Clemens: I think this is just who Lindor is

2:24
Ben Clemens: Mike Petriello wrote a good article about his recent surge here:

2:24
Ben Clemens: And I looked at it earlier here

2:25
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?

2:25
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

2:26
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

2:26
Ben Clemens: He’s stlil a good player

2:26
Ben Clemens: The big problem would be finding a fit

2:26
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.

2:26
Ben Clemens: Definitely not

2:26
Ben Clemens: Why would the DBacks want Hosmer?

2:27
Ben Clemens: He’s arguably a worse contract than Bumgarner

2:27
Ben Clemens: So basically you’re asking them to trade financial flexibility for a mid-level prospect

2:27
Ben Clemens: I do not see teams heading in that direction

2:27
skwalla: what percent of the time would a player have to beat the shift for teams to begin playing them straight up?

2:28
Ben Clemens: Kind of depends on what you mean by beating the shift

2:29
Ben Clemens: If you bunt for a hit, say, 50% of the times you try to bunt

2:29
Ben Clemens: Miss 40%

2:29
Ben Clemens: and make an out 10%

2:29
Ben Clemens: that would already cross the threshold

2:29
Ben Clemens: If you’re making more outs, you need more success

2:29
Ben Clemens: It’s a tricky balance

2:29
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?

2:29
Ben Clemens: I’m going to perpetually think that

2:30
Ben Clemens: I’ve just always been too high on Heaney

2:30
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

2:30
Ben Clemens: And hoping your pitching coach/team can get something to click

2:30
DJ: Is it my imagination, or are there fewer elite hitting first baseman than we’ve had in the past?

2:30
Ben Clemens: Not your imagination

2:31
Ben Clemens: This year is a bump up b/c Olson and Vlad are mashing (in my eyes at least)

2:31
Ben Clemens: But in 2019, for example, there were no 1B with a wRC+ over 150

2:31
Ben Clemens: and 2 over 140

2:32
Ben Clemens: IN 1999, there were 3 at 150 or higher and another 2 at 140 or higher

2:32
Ben Clemens: I htink we’re in a bit of a lull, but Vlad goes a long way towards fixing that

2:32
Ben Clemens: And Freddie Freeman was doing it last year, though he’s scuffling this year

2:32
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

2:33
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.

2:33
Ben Clemens: I think it’s Mancini

2:33
Ben Clemens: The comeback player award doesn’t tell you to rely only on stats

2:33
Ben Clemens: J.D. Martinez was a major league hitter last year

2:33
Ben Clemens: Mancini was fighting cancer

2:33
Ben Clemens: That’s more of a comeback

2:33
Jarren Duran: Is it unpatriotic of me to want be called up to the show?

2:34
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

2:34
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?

2:34
Ben Clemens: So, the first thing I would suggest is reading our glossary entry on wOBA

2:35
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

2:35
Ben Clemens: Then weighting that by how often each base/out state occurs

2:35
Ben Clemens: So, sometimes a single and a walk are worth the same

2:35
Ben Clemens: Sometimes a single is way better

2:36
Ben Clemens: If you look at wOBA values, singles have always been worth more than walks in aggregate

2:36
Ben Clemens: And as an interesting aside, HBP’s are always worth more than walks

2:36
Ben Clemens: Why? B/c walks disproportionately occur with first base open

2:36
Ben Clemens: Which we account for in the ‘weighting by how often each base/out state occurs’

2:37
Ben Clemens: So even though they’re both worth a base and only advance runners if forced

2:37
Ben Clemens: HBP’s more often come at a time when that baserunner isn’t something the defense wanted to concede

2:37
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?

2:37
Appa Yip Yip: Also lol baseball is so good right now

2:37
Ben Clemens: Baseball is REALLY good right now

2:37
Ben Clemens: It’s amazing

2:38
Ben Clemens: As for people behind them, I always like Acuna’s chances

2:38
Ben Clemens: Finding it hard to completely buy into Matt Olson

2:38
Ben Clemens: But he’s another one

2:38
ROGELIO: Singles = more valuable/less predictable. Walks = less valuable /more predictable. Is that the crux of why analytics tend to prefer BBs over 1Bs?

2:38
Ben Clemens: Yeah, this is a good way to put it

2:39
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

2:39
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

2:39
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.

2:39
Ben Clemens: Some players have skill at being hit

2:39
Ben Clemens: Also, it’s a realllly small difference

2:40
Ben Clemens: More of a fun thing to point out

2:40
Ben Clemens: Than actually something to drive value

2:40
Ben Clemens: If you got hit by a pitch 100 times

2:40
Ben Clemens: well, you’d need an ice pack

2:41
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

2:41
Ben Clemens: So, it’s extremely small

2:41
Ben Clemens: Mark Canha leads baseball with 13 HBP this year

2:42
Base Ball: Do you think we see a female player in your lifetime?

2:42
Ben Clemens: Hm

2:42
Ben Clemens: I think the odds are probably below 50% if you’re talking about a major leaguer, but certainly non-zero

2:42
Ben Clemens: But uh, I’m not doing this with some scientific process

2:42
Ben Clemens: It’s just a guess

2:43
Chungus Khan: If there were a leading website on analytics for professional fishing, would it be called FinGraphs?

2:43
Ben Clemens: It would actually be called TroutGraphs, as we’ve been longing to rebrand the website in Mike Trout’s honor

2:43
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.

2:43
Ben Clemens: I’ll let you know when I get there!

2:43
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’

2:43
Ben Clemens: Can lead to insular thinking

2:43
Ben Clemens: So I hope we’re doing a good job with it

2:43
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?

2:44
Ben Clemens: I think Baddoo is likely to produce the better fantasy line, I think trimming SO rate in-season is really hard

2:44
Ben Clemens: That said, I’d just keep Nimmo for sure

2:44
Ben Clemens: And Captain Nimmo is a great nickname

2:45
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?

2:45
Ben Clemens: Honestly, it’s probably just noise, and that’s a hard thing to shift against anyway

2:45
Ben Clemens: Shifting against righties is just generally less effective

2:45
Ben Clemens: And everyone mostly pulls when they hit grounders

2:45
Matt Damon: MATT. DAMON.

2:45
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?

2:45
Ben Clemens: If they have the appetite for it, Story would make perfect sense

2:45
Ben Clemens: Propsects are never a sure bet to pan out

2:46
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?

2:46
Ben Clemens: I think it makes sense for them to stand pat

2:46
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

2:48
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

2:48
Ben Clemens: Everyone likes winning. Fans like winning too

2:48
Guest: Whose performance has most surprised you this year?

2:48
Ben Clemens: Adolis Garcia

2:48
Ben Clemens: He is not hte player who I’ve changed my opinion on the most

2:49
Ben Clemens: I think that would be Cedric Mullins, or maybe Jesse Winker

2:49
Ben Clemens: But Garcia has 20 bombs!

2:49
Ben Clemens: He had 0 before this year

2:49
HollywoodSox: Brighter future: Bryson Stott or Brice Turang?

2:49
Ben Clemens: Turang for me, and not (exclusively) because he’s been great in my OOTP crowd-sourced sim

2:50
Ben Clemens: I’m a little worried that Turang hasn’t been walking more at AA this year but he’s still hitting

2:51
Ben Clemens: And scouts like Turang’s defense more

2:51
Ben Clemens: (I myself have not watched enough of either to know)

2:51
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.

2:51
Ben Clemens: Fire their hitting coach?

2:52
Ben Clemens: I think that the team should do something to change the mindset

2:52
Ben Clemens: Like, mathematically I’m not sure it matters

2:52
Ben Clemens: But just make your employees happier, make them believe in themselves more, etc

2:52
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

2:52
Ben Clemens: Just do something

2:53
Appa Yip Yip: Why is shifting against righties less effective than shifting against lefties?

2:53
Ben Clemens: The obvious reason is b/c batters run the bases counter-clockwise

2:53
Ben Clemens: So you can’t use the same types of shifts

2:53
Ben Clemens: Also, having that short fielder is meaningless in left

2:53
Ben Clemens: I don’t care how good your arm is, you’re not throwing someone out at first

2:53
Frank: Oh good, it only took until the very first question for you to begin an answer with “I mean”

2:54
Ben Clemens: I mean, at some point it is what it is

2:54
Ben Clemens: One of my favorite meaningless sports-isms

2:54
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?

2:54
Ben Clemens: I think so

2:54
Ben Clemens: Just think of your own job

2:54
Ben Clemens: When I worked for a big company, I had bosses I tuned out from time to time

2:54
Ben Clemens: Not b/c I hated them or anything

2:54
Ben Clemens: Just b/c the idiosyncracies of their management style worked better when they were novel

2:55
Ben Clemens: And over time I just stopped listening as much b/c they generally gave the same guidance

2:55
Ben Clemens: Also, sometimes I just didn’t like a given boss, or they weren’t effective at communicating with me

2:55
Ben Clemens: Regardless of their overall talent level at the job

2:55
Ben Clemens: I think hitting coaches are the same

2:55
ralphd627: Who do the Mets acquire 1st at the deadline?

2:56
Ben Clemens: A back-end starter, b/c their rotation needs help until Carrasco and Thor return

2:56
Ben Clemens: Preferably one who can also pitch out of the bullpen when they DO return

2:56
Ben Clemens: (if, etc)

2:56
Ben Clemens: So, Merrill Kelly maybe?

2:56
Ben Clemens: Kwang-Hyun Kim if the Cards are dealing

2:56
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.

2:56
Ben Clemens: Decent org depth pieces for both

2:57
Ben Clemens: Which is a valuable thing given the Nats’ current farm system

2:57
Jacques Pederson: Ben I was going to tag “And don’t say fire the hitting coach” on the end of that question

2:57
Ben Clemens: 🙂

2:57
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

2:58
Ben Clemens: They didn’t call up Nootbaar b/c he’s the best right fielder in the org

2:58
Ben Clemens: They did it to shake things up

2:58
Adam: Is the league at all concerned about teams like Rockies with totally dysfunctional front offices?

2:58
Ben Clemens: Depends on what you mean by dysfunctional

2:58
Ben Clemens: If you mean that they evaluate players differently, not at all

2:58
Ben Clemens: Who cares?

2:58
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

2:59
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

2:59
Joshua: As an example could you throw out a realistic prospect for a Brad Hand return? Thanks.

3:02
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)

3:02
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.

3:02
Ben Clemens: Absolutely

3:02
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

3:02
Ben Clemens: At that point, you have to decide whether you want to move the player or the coach

3:03
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…

3:03
Ben Clemens: Yeah I really don’t know

3:03
Ben Clemens: It does not make much sense to me either

3:03
Ben Clemens: He’s not on the 40, but he needs to be this year

3:03
Ben Clemens: So it’s not really a roster crunch

3:04
Ben Clemens: and in my eyes he doesn’t have anything else to prove at AAA

3:04
ralphd627: Coke or Pepsi?

3:04
Ben Clemens: Diet Coke, but kind of neither tbh

3:04
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?

3:05
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

3:05
Dalton Wilcox: Who is your favorite FA this offseason?

3:05
Ben Clemens: Favorite is a tricky one to think about, but I’ll say Tommy Pham

3:05
Ben Clemens: He’s one of my favorite players, period

3:06
Ben Clemens: Best free agent? Seager, I guess

3:06
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 ?

3:06
Ben Clemens: Ask the Mets

3:07
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

3:07
IV Thoughts: Any plans for an OOTP league update soon?

3:07
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

3:07
Ben Clemens: We’re below .500

3:07
Ben Clemens: But barely

3:07
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?

3:07
Ben Clemens: This is probably a better question for Kevin, but I’ll endeavor to answer it anyway

3:08
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

3:09
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

3:09
Eva: Temperature check: how are you feeling about Dylan Carlson so far? Thoughts on his future changed at all this year?

3:09
Ben Clemens: Not really

3:10
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

3:11
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

3:11
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.

3:11
Ben Clemens: There definitely are

3:12
Ben Clemens: It will be difficult to know which are those types of players and which are just players whose skills hvae declined

3:12
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

3:12
Ben Clemens: It certainly affected my motivation at times

3:12
Ben Clemens: And the bar between success and failure is quite thin

3:12
Ben Clewomans: Do you look at the chatters names at all? If so, which ones do you find the cleaverest/funniest?

3:13
Ben Clemens: I do, but I can’t pick. Everyone’s comical nickname is my favorite

3:13
Ben Clemens: I laugh easily, good news!

3:13
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?

3:13
Ben Clemens: This is a great question that I don’t have a strong answer to

3:13
Ben Clemens: I’d probably move him now, but the Sox haven’t, and they’ve clearly thought about it

3:14
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

3:14
Ben Clemens: Because you’ll shift all around at the big league level anyway

3:14
DeGrom: Is he one of the ultimate underdog stories? 9th Round Draft Pick, TJ survivor, a career Met (thus far)…

3:14
Ben Clemens: For sure!

3:14
Ben Clemens: He didn’t really pitch in college

3:15
Ben Clemens: He’s an absolutely great story

3:15
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

3:15
Ben Clemens: ‘jake degrom is great, more at 11’ is all you really need when someone is THIS good

3:15
Ben Clemens: but yes, what a tremendous career and against long odds

3:16
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?

3:16
Ben Clemens: Sadly, I do

3:16
Ben Clemens: I know Dan is writin about SOroka

3:16
Ben Clemens: I love seeing him pitch, and I’m quite grumpy that I won’t get to for a long time now

3:16
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.

3:17
Ben Clemens: Ah, I play in an online league run by Brad Johnson with 30 real owners

3:17
Ben Clemens: I too have found that making your sims realistic is tough

3:17
Ben Clemens: You can do whatever you’d like with the AI, you’re just goin to get some easy trades

3:17
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?

3:17
Ben Clemens: I’d try to make 2021 work

3:17
Ben Clemens: There’s just not much to do in terms of a shallow sell-off

3:17
Ben Clemens: You wouldn’t get meaningful value back, imo

3:18
Ben Clemens: Don’t sell the farm, but the NLC is winnable

3:18
Ben Clemens: I’d shuffle deck chairs and hope something works

3:19
Ben Clemens: You don’t always have to take drastic actoin

3:19
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?

3:19
Ben Clemens: Sadly not, as I don’t think teams are paying that kind of money for corner outfielders of his ilk these days

3:19
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

3:19
Ben Clemens: If he gets, say, 2/25 with a third year team optoin for 15

3:19
Ben Clemens: I think that’d be reasonable

3:20
Ben Clemens: And I think the team would get good value in exchange for taking a bit of injury risk

3:20
Padres458: Anything specific that is resulting in Grisham’s defense not being as good as last years?

3:20
Ben Clemens: I hadn’t noticed that it was worse

3:20
Ben Clemens: Went to look, and I’m not convinced that it is

3:21
Ben Clemens: DRS thinks he’s slightly worse per inning, UZR thinks he’s way worse, OAA thinks he’s about the same

3:21
Ben Clemens: (he’s definitely above average, whatever you think)

3:21
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.

3:22
Ben Clemens: Let’s say Yellow Alert, to use the Star Trek alert system arbitrarily

3:22
Ben Clemens: It’s going to be more of an adjustment for pitchers who were, shall we say, habitual tackers

3:22
Ben Clemens: But I wouldn’t bet against Gerrit Cole making that adjustment

3:23
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

3:23
Ben Clemens: spin*

3:23
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?

3:24
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

3:24
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

3:24
Padres458: To me he has looked great, I asked because his defensive WAR is significantly lower.

3:25
Ben Clemens: Ah yeah, totally makes sense

3:25
Ben Clemens: We use UZR to feed our defensive WAR and it thinks the worst of him

3:25
Ben Clemens: But eh, watch this space, I’ll just say

3:25
KCBbq: Is Trammell the most likely odd man out when Kelenic returns?

3:25
Ben Clemens: Yes, I think so

3:25
Ben Clemens: Raw deal for him, but someone has to go

3:26
Ben Clemens: He’s been good this time up

3:26
Ben Clemens: But I don’ think they’re sending Shed Long down, so I guess it’s him or Jake Fraley?

3:26
Ben Clemens: And I think they’d rather have Trammell get everyday reps

3:26
Ben Clemens: Even if it’s in AAA

3:27
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.

3:27
Ben Clemens: Yes, for sure

3:27
Ben Clemens: Not just what if the team is wrong, but what if that philosophy just doesn’t work for that kind of player

3:27
Ben Clemens: If you want a lazy example, read anything ever written about Pirates pitchers

3:28
Ben Clemens: But generally speaking, it’s possible to buy in too much, b/c some philosophies are too cookie-cutter

3:28
Ben Clemens: I can’t say whether NYY’s is — in fact, I doubt it

3:28
Ben Clemens: But figuring out the right teahcing style for a given player is not always easy

3:28
Ben Clemens: Or the cues that will help them play best

3:29
Brian: Isn’t “the Marcus Stroman package from 2019” the answer to every Berrios question?

3:29
Ben Clemens: Something of that rough equivalent value, yes

3:30
Dalton Wilcox: Who’s winning the NL Central?

3:30
Ben Clemens: I think the Brewers will

3:30
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)….

3:31
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

3:31
Ben Clemens: If he’s the MVP (or something near that) next year, you got your value

3:31
Ben Clemens: If not, well, you probably still got as much value as you could have traded him for

3:31
Ben Clemens: It’s always nice to perpetual-motion-machine it like the Rays, but it’s not always possible

3:31
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.

3:31
Ben Clemens: This sounds like a great ideA!

3:32
Ben Clemens: My best bosses have all been like this

3:33
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?

3:33
Ben Clemens: My gut says no, but my heart says yes

3:33
Ben Clemens: And they’re near each other, so that’s confusing

3:34
Ben Clemens: I haven’ watched much of him since he’s been back up though

3:34
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.

3:34
Ben Clemens: I could totally see that

3:34
Ben Clemens: And with that, like a small row boat, I’m going to quietly slip away in the night

3:34
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!





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

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