Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 6/3/26

Ben Clemens: Good morning and welcome to a Wednesday chat. I was feeling sick Monday. I’m also feeling sick today! But less so. So let’s talk about baseball. And honestly, probably plenty of non-baseball too, it feels like that kind of week

aviaries: rank these 5 sodas:
diet coke
coke
coke zero
pepsi
diet pepsi

Ben Clemens: great way to start the chat

Ben Clemens: I think I’m Coke Zero/Diet Coke/Diet Pepsi/Coke/Pepsi. But Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi are very close to me

Shauncore: If you were in charge of the Royals FO, what would you do at the deadline or even this winter? They surely aren’t making the playoffs this year and while they’ve got a good bit of the core still under control in 2027-2028, it’s not like they have four Bobby Witt’s, it’s mostly just 1-2ish WAR players (and Salvador Perez). If they sell at the deadline, 2027 seems a little sunk if they trade anyone that isn’t a pending FA. If they hold, it’s perhaps rolling the dice on 2027 being a good bit better (possible!). All this while the clock for competing with Witt Jr keeps ticking (presuming he opts out after 2030).

Ben Clemens: yeah, I think the plan is to sell the guys who are pending FA’s and try to re-roll in 2027

Ben Clemens: is it an amazing option? Not really. Like you said, it’s rolling the dice

Ben Clemens: but what are you going to do? Don’t waste Witt. THere aren’t many players like that. I think given the shape of the roster it makes sense to give a shot at 2027, like you said, it’s not exactly well set up to pivot to a quick rebuild

Ben Clemens: Caglianone hitting would really help everything work

SPArn: Can you just go stream of consciousness on the Nationals for a second? It’s so nice to finally have a fun team to root for again. First time since June 2021!

Ben Clemens: they’re very fun. Hugely entertaining, also huge (James Wood is a large human)

Ben Clemens: My mom goes to a Nats game for her birthday every year, and they got her a win this time. Hard to top that for good vibes

Ben Clemens: did someone tell the nats that you have to pitch in baseball? maybe not. But whatever, that’s 2027’s problem

AutomatedTeller: Whatever happened to the Matt Damon guy?  More seriously…  is Adolis Garcia cooked?  he seems cooked.

Ben Clemens: Sorry, do you mean Matt Damon? I assume that’s Matt Damon. And maybe he’s busy with Odyssey press junkets

Dan Haller: Hey Ben, trying this again since my last question was eaten, thanks for doing these chats! I guess this is a broad question with no real single answer, but do you have a sense of what’s gone wrong for the Giants this year? Seeing so many prospects leave and find success elsewhere, especially on the pitching side, is such a worrisome sign. For a couple years there they had such a good reputation for improving pitchers, and it seems like all those gains are gone (and then some). How is it that players, even the stars the team long coveted,  seem to actively get worse here now?

Ben Clemens: it’s hard to feel super strongly about the direction of the front office without more evidence, but let me say this: it is all feeling a little backwards to me

Ben Clemens: like, yes, I’m a stats-heavy guy, I getg it

Ben Clemens: but it kind of feels like they’re leaning TOO against that

Ben Clemens: just to do something

Ben Clemens: the pitching development thing, I don’t think that’s really been a strength since Andrew Bailey left, but I agree. I was pretty down on Kyle Harrison largely because I’d been to a bunch of games that he started and he just did not look good. but he looks like a totally different pitcher now and that’s hard to wrap my head around

Ben Clemens: to be fair I don’t draw the same conclusions about the stars that you did

Ben Clemens: I think it’s too soon to tell there

Ben Clemens: but it did seem like the plan was ‘get stars, then….’

Baseball Learner: For those who feel deprived, MATT DAMON!

fanoftheman: I love finding articles/books that really stick with me because I don’t think they’re totally right, but because they are highlighting something important in a compelling way.

fanoftheman: are there any baseball articles you can think of that fit that niche for you? Compelling, stuck with you, but you don’t think you fully agree?

Ben Clemens: I think a lot of Russell Carleton’s work is like this

Ben Clemens: I don’t always agree with the conclusions completely

Ben Clemens: sometimes I can’t even wrap my head around the whole of the argument

Ben Clemens: but I am always very happy to have read them, and they make me think a little more broadly

SPArn: Was reading an NBA article that talked about our tendency to overrate players because of certain “prestige zones.” This was re: Steph Castle in the Spurs system (which I disagree with, but that’s a digression). I was trying to think of MLB “prestige zones,” and came up with players the Rays trade for (we talked ourselves into Aaron Civale!) and Dodgers and Yankees prospects. Any jump to your mind?

Ben Clemens: oh, that’s fun. I don’t think I’d agree with Dodgers prospects necessarily, because all they ever do is get traded

Ben Clemens: but whoever the Rays trade for, for sure

Ben Clemens: mariners pitchers a little

Ben Clemens: i think park effects are kinda similar in baseball

AHume92: Everyone seems to have a favourite pitching prospect that didn’t pan out.  Sometimes the issue is skill, but health often gets in the way.  I don’t feel like we talk enough about position-player prospect busts (even ones who make MLB for a while).  Who is your favourite one of those?

Ben Clemens: oh man. Colby Rasmus. Because he was THE cards prospect when I was at peak fandom

Ben Clemens: and then they traded him, basically because TLR didn’t like his dad (weird team!), and then I was convinced he was going to be incredible with a change of scenery

oliverfox99: Any thoughts on if the MVP award should be exclusive to hitters? Ohtani feels like a shoe-in simply because he’s having such a great pitching season, but if pitching wasn’t counted Schwarber maybe would have a case.

Ben Clemens: um, no

Ben Clemens: is my thoughts

Ben Clemens: who’s the best baseball player? the mvp

JustinPBG: At what point does the extremely annoying “over .500” yankees discourse actually matter? As in it shows something meaningful because the standings have spread out, not that it’s predictive. September? If they win this Cleveland series and Cleveland tumbles for a bit, then Cleveland “doesn’t count.” When they lost a series to the A’s it counted, but this weekend’s series didn’t because they’d slipped. etc.

Ben Clemens: I have truly no idea what this discourse is so I would say….. never

Ben Clemens: it’s dumb

Ben Clemens: it’s a bad way to measure things

Ben Clemens: it’s good sports radio fodder, but that’s not how baseball works

Azizal: the FV system is great for individual players but it stinks as a method for measuring systems. We all know a 50 FV prospect with say, the Dodgers or Brewers, has a better chance of reaching their potential than a 50 FV with the Angels or Rockies.

It’s obvious and blatant but I’m not aware of anyone in the industry addressing it. Am I wrong here?

Ben Clemens: I’ve posted this not because I particularly agree with it, but becuase a PREVIOUS comment said we overrate Dodgers prospects, and this one says underrate

Ben Clemens: so…. opinions differ

Ben Clemens: I’m actually working on an enormous update to our prospect valuation numbesr right now. But I can tell you that it will not differentiate by system, because I don’t have any interest in trying to do that math, and I’m not sure it would even be a good idea to

jonathanpiech: Is Reid Detmers good? Should the Angels trade him?

Ben Clemens: I saw someone call Detmers a ‘reliever conversion’ earlier this year

Ben Clemens: and ooh, steam almost came out of my ears

Ben Clemens: anyway, um, should the Angels trade him? probably. They stink, pitchers get hurt all the time, he has kinda sneaky long team control given the fact that he debuted in 2021. I think they might get solid return and they need to do SOMETHING with this team

Zachhuston: What’s your take on this Roki breakout? Real or should I not get my hopes up?

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/roki-sasaki-is-putting-it-all-together/

Ben Clemens: I have no clue. But luckily one of my colleagues JUST wrote about him

Ben Clemens: oh! Late notice on this but

Ben Clemens: We’re trying out a new system where you’re required to log in to FanGraphs to ask a question. You don’t need to be a Member, but you do need to have an account, just like you need an account to comment on any article. We’ll see how it goes. If you have feedback, feel free to just leave it as a question, or you can send a note to support@fangraphs.com.

Ben Clemens: Sorry for not mentioning that earlier; I’m still a little off my game

sammysamsam: How long can Taylor Ward possibly keep this up? His walk rate is more than twice his ISO lol

Ben Clemens: I mean…. he’s not keeping it up

Ben Clemens: https://www.fangraphs.com/players/taylor-ward/17548/graphs?position=NP…

Ben Clemens: I held off on writing about Ward because I was like this is weird, this can’t possibly persist

Ben Clemens: I think it’s on him to make the next change. He’s just getting no respect from pitchers (with reason, he’s not trying to hit the ball hard)

Ben Clemens: 28% strikeout rate for the last month, he needs to try something else

4onejr: Is Bleday for real? Did the Reds somehow manage to actually find an outfielder?

Ben Clemens: I’m always gonna be skeptical of a guy who breaks out on his fourth or fifth shot at it

Ben Clemens: I do really like Bleday, I’ve been irrationally high on him a few times before

Ben Clemens: but like…. let’s let him do it for longer. We know that he’s capable of insanely hot streaks. He had similar spikes in 2024 (good!) and 2025 (bad!). I think the honest answer is that he’s probably a capable major leaguer (he has a career 105 wRC+), but not a perennial all star or anything. classic roster crunch outfielder

K’d Cavalli: Are you buying even more DJ Herz stock before he returns from TJS or are you going to be late?

Ben Clemens: Ha, I’m not a huge believer, even though I like the idea of the Jeimer Candelario trade tree

Ben Clemens: there are just so many blowout/surgery/rehab arcs these days that it’s really hard to get invested in any single one as ‘gonna be amazing’ etc. it’s sadly a numbers game. so many dudes are getting TJ now that some of them will be rusty coming back, some will be sharp, some will look totally different, and you just can’t know until they’re back ont he mount

Ben Clemens: mound*

johncarroll31: push back on MVP.  Value does not mean best.  And I hate that those terms get used interchangeably.  On value alone, someone like James Wood, for example, is more valuable than Ohtani.  Not only is he putting up better numbers to date, he also costs about 2% of what Ohtani costs.  THAT is VALUABLE.  And if we think of it in terms of roster construction, the dodgers could lose Ohtani and be fine for quite a while.  The roster is stacked.  If the nationals lose Wood, they go from being just bad to being the worst team in baseball. This is just an example.

Ben Clemens: so uh, ew

Ben Clemens: it’s not a money award

Ben Clemens: no thank you

Ben Clemens: sounds like we have a fundamental disagreement on what the award is for

Ben Clemens: here are the rules

Ben Clemens: 1. Actual value of a player to his team, that is, strength of offense and defense.
2. Number of games played.
3. General character, disposition, loyalty and effort.
4. Former winners are eligible.
5. Members of the committee may vote for more than one member of a team.

Ben Clemens: so I dunno, do what you want with that

InsertWittyNameHere: Fun (maybe true) fact, the MATT. DAMON. joke was started by Eno Sarris.  Or at least he was in on it in the beginning.

Ben Clemens: yeah, I think I knew that i was taking the bit over from Eno’s chats, now that I’m thinkign about it

Alastair: Something I think about more than I ever thought I would: I.n one of Kiley’s chats years ago, he closed and said he was going to designate a lamp for assignment. Do you have non-traditional baseballisms you use in everyday life?

Ben Clemens: I put scout scale grades on lots of non-baseball stuff

Ben Clemens: when I’m unsure of how to improve/change something I sometimes suggest ‘adding a cutter’ even if it’s nonsensical

Ben Clemens: when people stall in board games I try to get the other players to boo them like htey’re a pitcher throwing over to first

Auswan_Kletin: Have you paid attention to the Asheville Tourists this year? They’ve allowed 425 runs in 51 games for an average of 8 1/3 per game. Am I unaware of there being different ball physics in the South Atlantic League or would this be a significant outcome if they continue on this run allowing pace?

Auswan_Kletin: Another note on the Tourists: they have FOUR pitchers with at least 13 IP that currently have an ERA over 10. In fact, only two of their pitchers have an ERA under 5, and one of them has thrown one inning.

Ben Clemens: ha, jeez

Ben Clemens: I like that stadium!

steveo: Would you trade Will Warren or Ryan Weathers for 2 months + playoff run of Tarik Skubal? If that’s what it took?

Ben Clemens: easily

Ben Clemens: assuming he has returned to the mound and looks like Tarik Skubal

Ben Clemens: and I think that’s the consensus opinion in baseball too

Ben Clemens: like, baseball valuation has gone wrong if these don’t make sense to a contending team

Ben Clemens: is Will Warren good? maybe!

Ben Clemens: he looks awesome this year

Ben Clemens: Tarik Skubal is a lot better, and I don’t think the Warren cost savings are THAT big to the Yankees. It’d be different if I thought Warren had a really huge ceiling, but I kind of think that he’s gonna be a career 3rd-4th starter

Ben Clemens: nice! good value on a cost controlled deal! go get the star, please

Keith Hernandez’ cat: Feel better, Ben. Thanks for coming out

Ben Clemens: everyone should watch Jeff Passan interviewing Keith, btw

Ben Clemens: I loved it

InsertWittyNameHere: So Sinner losing early….what happened?  I’m way behind on my tennis watching this year.

Ben Clemens: the heat!

Ben Clemens: I don’t know if that was actually it, but he basically just wilted

Ben Clemens: this French Open has been so weird. There haven’t been any former winners left for a while now. I’m rooting for Andreeva and Mensik, or perhaps more accurately rooting for not-Zverev

Ben Clemens: my tennis-watching friend said this reminds him of what the French open was like pre-Nadal. I don’t have a great memory of that time but if so, that’s wild. so chaotic!

Matthew VanWinkle: Do you have a theory as to why the Red Sox have been particularly bad at home?

Ben Clemens: random variance

seattlefan68: Thoughts on the Mariners’ piggyback experiment? Should they have handled it differently, even though the results were quite good?

Ben Clemens: I liked it!

Ben Clemens: I think it makes sense to just pivot back to a six-man with a bunch of games coming up

Ben Clemens: I think the hard part about piggybacking is always managing player expectations and desires

Ben Clemens: and yeah, doing it with a veteran like Castillo is probably going to lead to some frustration

Ben Clemens: but I thought it was a clever solution to ‘we have six starters but only five slots and we wnat to use the best ones a lot’

Oliver: Is Payton Tolle the real deal? Seems like his fastball could be a legit super pitch

Ben Clemens: yeah, I’m into it

Ben Clemens: I also like the cutter he throws, it has a ton of funk, it’s almost like a swutter (sweeping cutter?)

Ben Clemens: anyway yes, big fan

formerly matt w: Colby Rasmus had 18 WAR! Around 8 with the Cards and 10 after the trade. If all my team’s prospect busts were like that I would be very happy.

Ben Clemens: that’s kind of amazing

Seuss2004: If MLB had no player awards and we were coming up with them NOW, I would make two: one for best position player and one for best pitcher (Ohtani is amazingly weird, let’s set him aside for this thought exercise). I think that would get rid of most of the anger people get over the meaning of the word ‘value’, and the sometimes perceived unfairness of a pitcher winning an MVP award when they got their ‘own’ award 25 years later, after enough time for precedent to set in. This would be so much fairer and more logical. So, please, tell me why this is trash.

Ben Clemens: oh sure. the reason we don’t do this is that we didn’t do this ever

Ben Clemens: another thing you could do would be to have a best offensive player, best pitcher, and then MVP, like football

Ben Clemens: with the tacit agreement that you can’t vote for the same guy for the top award and their category. Like in football, the second-best qb wins best offensive player, the best wins mvp

Ben Clemens: but I’m into it

jdankosky: Not sure if the Parrot costume is too snug for him, but Marcell Ozuna has become a $12mil mascot. Is he done? Is there anything to flip him for?

Ben Clemens: yeah, it’s looking pretty much done

Ben Clemens: you never know when someone’s run is going to end

Ben Clemens: but Ozuna’s 2026 looks like the end of the road. and while he’s had big down stretches like this before, the age argues that this one won’t be beatable

InsertWittyNameHere: Speaking of the heat…going to day games in the summer now feel more exhausting than in the past.  What can teams do to mitigate this?  More shade in the stands or even breakfast games @ 9 in the morning?

Ben Clemens: so hot

Ben Clemens: I dunno. I’ve always gotten that ‘tired sun’ feeling at day games

Ben Clemens: I just try to take it easy afterwards

Ben Clemens: more shade in the stands would be great, but it’s tough b/c it’s a moving target

Ben Clemens: honestly I don’t know how much of it is just heat, even. I get that feeling in SF, and it’s usually 60 degrees or whatever. just very sunny

oaktownblues: What is to be done about Lawrence Butler? Worst qualified player in baseball by WAR. Has been pretty unlucky per xwOBA, but said xwOBA is just .297. Not even starting regularly vs RHP thanks to the emergence of Cortes. Is a AAA stint in order?

Ben Clemens: like, probably

Ben Clemens: he’s been SO bad

Jasper Francisco: What happened to Lawrence Butler? Should he be sent to AAA rather than being a short-side platoon who is really miscast as a CF?

Ben Clemens: yeah

Ben Clemens: I feel like this is one where you have to know what’s going on with the player, you can’t just speculate externally

Ben Clemens: is he hurt? is he pressing and just in a bad spot mentally? is this just variance? have his skills declined? how much of 2025 was telling you that he was on a downward trajectory

Ben Clemens: it’s all complicated by the contract too

Ben Clemens: i dunno the answer, honestly. but I think I’d be talking to him about just getting a clean reset in AAA, with the understanding that he’d come back up as the starter, not as someone who needs to earn the spot

Ben Clemens: I want to bet on Butler over Cortes long-term, and clearly the A’s do too; they gave him that deal, etc.

Ben Clemens: but right now, Cortes is on and Butler is not

Ben Clemens: don’t just throw good money after bad, you know?

oaktownblues: How long is the leash for Brent Rooker? Give him another ~200 PAs to right the ship?

Ben Clemens: fascinating one

Ben Clemens: more than that I think

Ben Clemens: very similar shape to Butler in wRC+, but I’m more willing to let ROoker see if he can figure out how to strike out a little less while still having power b/c he’s done it before

Ben Clemens: also like…. here, there are fewer good replacement options

Ben Clemens: I do think it’s interesting that he and Butler were both popular ‘hey why wasn’t that guy ont he trade value list’ names last year, and both got consideration for real

Ben Clemens: and then whoops, melted

Ben Clemens: their profile (bat-only-ish) is definitely most susceptible to going from star to ‘crap do we need to put him in the minors?’

Azizal: My apologies but you got my question wrong. I pointed out Dodgers 50 FV prospects are more likely to make it vs. Angels. That is not overrating/underrating by grade, that is a fact of graduation rates. Something that varies significantly by system. How can you disagree that graduation rates don’t vary significantly by system? Or was I simply unclear?

Ben Clemens: I am saying that prospect valuation is difficult and contextual

Ben Clemens: and that people disagree on what prospect valuation even means

Ben Clemens: I think I’d argue that the fact that I answered your question in good faith and you responded with ‘how can you disagree with’ something that I didn’t even answer while trying very hard to answer your first one

Ben Clemens: shows that this isn’t so obvious, blatant, etc. as you think it is

Person: shaw on rehab, i’m sure he and ramirez are going to fight very hard to keep chicago’s “young guy who gets 5 PA a week” slot

Ben Clemens: lol

warpath: Royce Lewis is mashing in AAA after the demotion. What do you see in the future for him? Trade, given a chance to start again, left to hang in AAA for a while?

Ben Clemens: given a chance to start again

Ben Clemens: I think that they have to

Ben Clemens: what’s the downside here? we know the top-end talent is there, at least maybe

Robert Stewart: Is the ‘Story’ over in Boston?

Ben Clemens: yeah, I think this is it

Ben Clemens: the phantom/lingering IL placement is always a sign that things are coming to an end

Oliver: What do you think about The Miz carrying velo so late into games? Feels like I should be concerned but also he’s also throwing down numbers that put him in 2019 Cole/2020 Bieber range if he even somewhat keeps them up for the best season in 10 years

Ben Clemens: yeah, I don’t know. I’m just enjoying the ride for now

Ben Clemens: It’s tricky because I don’t have a lot of great comps to how he throws, what should be hard on him, etc.

Ben Clemens: he’s a pretty big outlier in more ways than one

Seuss2004: Sanchez won pitcher of the month over Miz. I don’t think there was a WRONG answer for this one, just disappointing that only one can win. Would you have done the same? The difference between 0 and 1 run is literally as small as it can get, and while I love Cristopher pitching deeper into games than anyone rn, the dominance and unhittability of Miz is a level up.

Ben Clemens: yeah I just can’t be moved to care

Ben Clemens: they’re both amazing

Ben Clemens: there’s enough baseball content without this fake controversy

Ben Clemens: I like watching them both!

Ben Clemens: hope they face off in the playoffs

Jeremy Fox: Odds that Sanchez breaks the consecutive scoreless innings record? Also, while people are definitely talking about Sanchez’s streak, I feel like they’re not talking about it enough? Hersheiser’s record isn’t quite DiMaggio’s hitting streak in terms of its place in baseball’s collective consciousness, but it’s a pretty famous record, and Sanchez has gotten most of the way to it.

Ben Clemens: yeah, under-discussed for sure

Ben Clemens: I think it’s because Joe Dimaggio is so famous, and baseball had a bigger place int he american consciousness when he did his

Ben Clemens: they made a Simon and Garfunkel song about him, you know?

Ben Clemens: “Oratin’ Orel has left and gone away” would probably make the record more popular

Azizal: I pointed out I may have been unclear, dude. You still haven’t actually answered the question, that’s why I asked again, and it was in good faith. It’s not bad faith to re-ask especially when suggesting I may have asked wrong, and I started with “my apologies”. I’m not criticizing, I’m clarifying.

Ben Clemens: in that case, I’ll say this

Ben Clemens: I don’t see a lot of evidence of prospect graduation rates and outcomes being super predictive from year to year, and certainly not from system to system

Ben Clemens: I think that asserting that would basically blow up any idea of valuation. if every single valuation is team context dependent, well, then there’s no valuation model. Or at least, you can’t throw a number on it, you know? No fungibility at that point.

Ben Clemens: Maybe that’s true?

Ben Clemens: It sounds incredibly mathematically difficult

Ben Clemens: I can tell you that it’s incredibly mathematically difficult to approximate the value of a 45 FV prospect, period

Ben Clemens: before you get into having 30 different curves for 30 different teams. what kind of data would you even build these on? should you change them as the situations above them change, or the situations of the farm system?

Ben Clemens: My view is that this question is really hard! and that stating that anything about it is obvious is probably wrong. because pretty much nothing about it is

Ben Clemens: I’ve actually been thinking about prospect valuation a ton recently, too, like I said. I just don’t see what you’re saying as a reasonable or even possible way to handle this

Jeremy Fox: Adolis Garcia is cooked, just like everyone predicted. What should the Phillies do? Maybe find a cheap defensive whiz outfielder? If you’re going to punt on a lineup spot, which is effectively what the Phillies are doing with Garcia, you should at least get great defense in exchange.

Ben Clemens: yeah, I think this is about right

Ben Clemens: the good news is, the trade deadline always has a lot of replacements like this available

K’d Cavalli: re:system variance – I think the “change of scenery” aspect of prospects panning out by system is much truer than one system being more adept than another. Curtis Mead is mashing with the Nats after failing with the Rays, but I don’t think anyone is calling the Nats development team “better” than Tampa. Some coaches see players better, some players find tweaks purely coincidentally in a new system.

Ben Clemens: this is definitely a thing, and I would argue that it’s what makes it hard to model things like Azizal is talking about

Ben Clemens: there’s so much variance, and also so much variance in how farm systems are run, needs up the pipeline, trades, whatever

Ben Clemens: that whatever you think you’re measuring is often nois

Ben Clemens: really difficult to know what to do with all of this. Honestly, it’s such a thorny question

Ben Clemens: I’m obviuosly mainly focused on the major league side, and I see how much work Eric and Brendan and co do in getting the proispect rankings right that it feels overwhelming to contribute a ton

Ben Clemens: but a valuation model? I can do that. And as it turns out, it’s a really cool system where also there is a big lack of data (historical rankings) and a long lag time on seeing how good you are

Ben Clemens: so fun problem to solve. but different per-team valuations? not gonna happen on my watch

HappyFunBall: re: Piggybacks. On the other hand, getting a senior vet like Luis Castillo on board makes it so much easier to execute the plan with literally everyone else

Ben Clemens: very true

Ben Clemens: although I’m sure he’s not ultra pleased with it, you know?

manowargs: Re Prospects: This is the sort of thing that I think player comments deal with a lot better than ordinal rankings/FV values.

Ben Clemens: yeah, this is probably a better way of saying what I was saying

Ben Clemens: quantifying this? essentially impossible

Ben Clemens: noting it? should be done

Ben Clemens: I feel like the ‘read the comments, don’t just skim the rankings’ warning that content creators the world over say before people skim their rankings is particularly true in baseball

Ben Clemens: but people do just skim the rankings anyway. which is why we are redoing prospect valuation, haha

K’d Cavalli: How long does Dylan Crews have to perform poorly before the Nationals stop giving him every-day opportunities? New regime, less ties, etc

Ben Clemens: oh man, this is a fascinating subplot to the Nats’ season

Ben Clemens: he hasn’t even been good in the minors!

Ben Clemens: I don’t have a good answer for you

Ben Clemens: Like, at least the rest of this year, I think

Ben Clemens: he’s a number two pick. still only 24. huge tools.

Ben Clemens: but yeah, boy, good thing they aren’t truly contending, he’s been killing them!

K’d Cavalli: Do you believe in Crews long-term still?

Ben Clemens: i mean, I don’t think it’s a binary yes/no

Ben Clemens: I think tehre’s still a decent chance he works out

Ben Clemens: obviously you have to lower your odds based on his poor performance so far. but you’d be crazy to not take the chance, imo

warpath: On the trade deadline: We’re getting to the point where clear buyers and sellers tend to start to emerge, but especially in the American League it seems like a lot of teams are still in the murky middle. Do you foresee a slower trade market because a lot of teams think they still have a shot?

Ben Clemens: yeah. I think we’ve been headed that way with expanded playoffs and this is a particularly muddled year

Ben Clemens: on the other hand, that might mean a ton of movement at the very end, which would be fun

Ben Clemens: be right back, gotta run to the door for a delivery

Ben Clemens: back

Aaron: I think basically regardless of how the next two months play out, the Cubs should stand pat. They don’t have any players who will net a meaningful return, and their holes would cost the entire farm and some of the MLB roster to fill. I get it’s an aging roster in a win-now window, but they are just … not a real WS threat. Thoughts?

Ben Clemens: I don’t really think I agree with ‘not a real WS threat’

Ben Clemens: lot of good players, just gotta see if they gel right

Ben Clemens: but yeah, I do agree that they should stand pat. also like, they’re half a game out of a playoff spot. it’s not like they’ve collapsed

Ben Clemens: they’ve had a crazy season! all those early pitching injuries, the hot streak, the cold streak

Ben Clemens: and eh, right at .500, funny

warpath: Re Cubs: I think they might make a move simply because Shaw and Ramirez are blocked long-term and they lose value wasting away on the bench/in AAA.

Ben Clemens: I guess that’s fair. Maybe an unblocking trade

Ben Clemens: but I don’t think that this is a ‘net a meaningful return’ or ‘need to fill a hole’ situation so much as just like, business as usual

Ben Clemens: I think that’s a good thing to do!

ajake57: Very excited about this propect valuation number update. You had a post in last year’s prospect week that referenced Craig Edwards’ seminal 2018 valuation piece, but used a different methodology. Are you now doing a secret new 3rd thing or revisiting one of those two?

Ben Clemens: more on this in the weeks to come, but think of it as running with Craig’s, I’d say

Ben Clemens: we talked about the different ways to present prospect value and I guess we’ll see what people like, but htere’s a reason Craig’s is considered seminal

Ben Clemens: it’s really good!

metties: You were quite high on both the Red Sox and Mets offseasons. Do their poor records make you rethink your take or do you just chalk it up to [injuries / underperformance / bad luck]

Ben Clemens: I mean, if I weren’t reconsidering it at all, I’d be a bad analyst

Ben Clemens: Definitely ascribing some of it to those three factors

Ben Clemens: maybe even a majority of it

Ben Clemens: but definitely not all

Ben Clemens: I think one thing that was worth focusing on in the Red Sox one was that I didn’t do a good job going from local/granular views like ‘I love their pitching redundancy’

Ben Clemens: to treating the whole roster holistically for whetehr it looks as good as it should for the resources expended

Ben Clemens: like I was talking about the Sox having a big problem in the left side of the infield

Ben Clemens: but since they upgraded with Durbin, I just said ‘oh that’s good’ instead of stepping back and saying ‘well it’s still very risky’

Ben Clemens: so that’s a point of learning for the future

Ben Clemens: another thing that I’m not sure how to deal with is whether to take my own idiosyncratic views of free agents into the pieces

Ben Clemens: like, should my view of Bo Bichette (and its differential from how his industry-wide view is) matter for the Mets writeup? Should I handle the fact that integrating a bunch of free agents makes the error bars wider? I dunno

Ben Clemens: I’ll probably do more post-morterms later. But hey, I got the Brewres right!

SPArn: Park effects is such a good one re: prestige zone. For every Cody Bellinger, there’s a Ke’Bryan Hayes.

Ben Clemens: I mean, sadly, Ke’Bryan’s problems on offense run a little deeper than that, but yeah

Ben Clemens: it’s a sneaky one, though

Ben Clemens: because we know it! we know that it’s hard to pitch some places and hard to hit others

Ben Clemens: but then I still look at who hit the most dingers, or who had the lowest ERA

HappyFunBall: How long does WAS have to float around .500 for them to consider buying pitching? Is this a world that exists?

Ben Clemens: this is a really interesting question

Ben Clemens: I’m definitely unsure of the answer

Ben Clemens: it’s tricky because pitching is EXPENSIVE at the deadline

Ben Clemens: I mean, look what the Nats got for Gore, haha

Ben Clemens: I think they might kick the tires on some very very cheap options, change of scenery fifth starters, and play the waiver wire

Ben Clemens: but I think that unless pitching is cheaper to acquire than I expect at this deadline, it’s hard to want to spend a ton to pry open a contention window slightly earlier with a rotation that’s so bad you’d need MANY upgrades to really make a run at this

InsertWittyNameHere: Do you know what exactly teams have done that allow pitchers to regularly throw 100? Listening to Nola pitching yesterday and he’s pumping 93 which would have been decent back in the day.  Is it mostly improving the kinetic chain?

Ben Clemens: On the advice of my sanity, I’m not going to answer this one because of the boomer contingent of ‘baseball players actually threw harder back in my day’

Ben Clemens: I do think that it’s about kinetic chains and max effort a lot

Ben Clemens: okay, speed round, gotta get out of here soon

Beano: Oops. I hit Send too soon – what do the Phils do with Painter? He was so hyped as the next great hurler and now he makes everyone hurl when he’s on the mound. He had a spate of good games and then…
Do they send him down to find his way back?

Ben Clemens: yeah, send him down, get him right. tough to come back after missing three years

Ben Clemens: whoops, two years

Ben Clemens: but be open to the chance that he’s just declined post injury. it happens sometimes, unfortunately

treenas27: What is contributing to the decline in right-handed hitting? There are 21 qualified RHH OFs in MLB, and they’re hitting almost 10 points worse by wRC+ than their LHH counterparts. Obviously lefties have the platoon advantage more but the difference can’t be that stark, can it?

Ben Clemens: no idea but that’s wild

Ben Clemens: probably sss

JustinPBG: Why mets so bad

Ben Clemens: putting a difficult question in simple words

Seuss2004: Brandon Marsh, BABIP God. HowDoesHeKeepGettingAwayWithIt.gif?

Person: remember when Crews was the presumptive first pick over Skenes?

Ben Clemens: I do! That’s nuts

Ben Clemens: I didn’t know enough to have an opinion either way

Ben Clemens: which might have saved me from a bad take

ajake57: Two of the most fascinating player developments this year are, in my opinion, PCA and Junior Caminero each having a signficantly increased BB% (PCA 4.5 to 8.7%, JC 6.3-14.1%). PCA hasn’t really gotten better results out of it (106 wRC+ vs 109 last year), but Caminero has (146 vs 129). But to me it looks like both have generated this out of just swinging less. How do you feel about that as a strategy for these two players? Do you think either of them are likely to find a happy medium on selectivity and take their game to another level?

Ben Clemens: I like it

Ben Clemens: for PCA, he is low-contact high-power; swinging less works well with that profile imo

Ben Clemens: within reason, but like, even if it gives up on some crushable pitches, pitchers try to hard not to give him those

Ben Clemens: it’s fine to let a few go, if it cuts out some awful chases

Ben Clemens: for Caminero, I dunno, the guy’s a superstar

Ben Clemens: he didn’t even strike out much last year, he just didn’t walk much because he was swing happy

Ben Clemens: but yeah, now he’s just swinging less, barely whiffing, what a monster

Ben Clemens: I’d basically analyze them separately. PCA is maxing out a limited but valuable offensive skillset to pair with his elite defense

Ben Clemens: Caminero might be the best hitter in baseball one day

HappyFunBall: counterpoint: the Nats pitching is SO BAD that even upgrading to mere competence on the back of the sttaff or in the bullpen would be a huge improvement

Ben Clemens: haha true!

Ben Clemens: maybe the cheap dudes would still be a big enough upgrade to do it

DEF: MLB already has a “best hitter” award, the Hank Aaron Award. Everything should count for MVP. If you can both hit and pitch at a high level in MLB, that should count.

ajake57: The Nats should trade for a couple controllable relievers. See if the offense can keep them close and then close em out. Would be fun to see the team that gave up the most runs make the playoffs. Let that starting rotation burn!

Azizal: re: Curtis Mead – he’s a great example of the change of scenery concept which I think there’s merit to. And yeah how could you track that?

but I would argue the Rays’ particular proficiency is pitching development. I don’t think they excel at developing hitters. I wouldn’t lump the two (hitting development and pitching development) together. But I see what you’re saying re: how hard this might be to quantify. Still, it seems like ranking systems over a 5 to 10 year period would have merit instead of only going year to year as we do now. I really do appreciate you engaging with this topic.

metsox1: Given potential labor disruption, do you think teams will be more hesitant to put players on the 40 man this year, esp if they aren’t a prime contender?  Say an Arias or a Salas ir

Ben Clemens: I didn’t have time to answer all of these but thought they were really fun/interesting so wanted to get them all out here before I head out

Ben Clemens: and on that note, I gotta run. Wonderful talking with you all as always, and I will be back at my regularly scheduled Monday slot next week