Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 7/14/25

Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, let’s get chatting

J: Hi Ben, How worried about Mookie should we be?  It looks like he hasn’t had a stretch at the plate this bad since before his breakout 2018 MVP season and he is on the wrong side of 30.

Ben Clemens: Boy, great question, and one I’ve been wondering about a lot too. I mean, I am still confident that he’s good. But I have to admit, I am less certain of the level of that ‘good’ than I’ve been for quite a while

Ben Clemens: I’ve been routinely moving him lower in rankings over the last week, and yeah, maybe I’m wrong! Mookie has proved a lot of people wrong in his career. But I’m trying to be cognizant of early signs of decline in stars, because it’s a lot riskier to trade for a guy once the signs of a decline are in, and I’m definitely feeling worried about his peripherals at hte moment

Sutro: Francisco Alvarez is hitting home runs (in the minors). Might we see a call-up next weekend? It feels like the Mets remain committed to him.

Ben Clemens: I mean, they should remain committed to him. And yes, I think they’ll call him back up soon

Ben Clemens: I like Torrens but he’s not exactly Cal Raleigh out there

King: Hiya Ben — seems like Matt Shaw is trending toward a AAA demotion. Feels like it’ll either come this week or when the Cubs trade for a third baseman. I’m at peace with it, but what’s the level of long-term concern?

Ben Clemens: I was never all that into Shaw, but I can’t really tell you why. I’d say that long-term concern should be higehr than it was before the season but not red alert

Ben Clemens: but yeah, he shouldn’t be getting everyday AB’s right now, I don’t think

drplantwrench: i feel like im the only angels fan not panicking up to my eyeballs about the Bremner pick – i think it wasnt my first choice but completely reasonable. am i crazy or is it children who are wrong?

Ben Clemens: I’m not really the draft guy, but yeah, I think that the amount of panic people get into over draft picks in MLB is wild

Ben Clemens: I think that it’ll be years and years before we really know

Ben Clemens: Eric had a good answer about this in his draft day chat when someone asked about re-drafting the 2024 draft

Ben Clemens: ‘has Caglianone showed enough that he would have been drafted ahead of Bazzana’ essentially

Ben Clemens: and it’s like, look, we’re gonna evaluate these dudes over a decade

Ben Clemens: and the uncertainty is massive

Tacoby Bellsbury: What draft pick has you most excited, and why?

Ben Clemens: Liam Doyle to the Cardinals b/c I read Michael’s article about him and I want to see him run through a brick wall now

Ham Fighter: If I told you the team with the 2nd best record in MLB since 2023 had a 100 wRC+ and 99 FIP- over those 420 games, would you believe me? Defense, base running, and hitting with RISP is a helluva drug.

Ben Clemens: the Brewers are the gift that keeps on giving

Half Street: I know Eric is the draft guy, but what are your thoughts on the Nats picking Willits?

Ben Clemens: I think it’s fine. I think it’s pretty reasonable if they didn’t want a)a pitcher or b)Ethan Holliday

Ben Clemens: and well, those don’t seem like crazy preferences to me. the pitcher thing I’m not sold on overall, but none of these guys are Skenesian, and cutting a decent deal and getting a top 5 talent seems fine to me

Ben Clemens: I generally don’t love the underslot/spread the pool move but this year’s top of the draft seems like a good time to try it. no obvious top pick, not even an obvious top duo

Oaktown Blues: With the draft underway, it feels like an appropriate time to marvel at Nick Kurtz. Drafted a year ago, and already has 200+ big league PAs with a 139 wRC+. Do you think this is close to his ceiling or will he get even better?

Ben Clemens: I hate ‘ceiling’ as a way of looking at guys. Mookie Betts exists. Jose Ramirez exists. For every young player, their ceiling is probably ‘multi-time MVP’ at a very low frequency.

Ben Clemens: but yeah, Kurtz looks great, I think that he’s probably not as good as he’s been playing right now, but that there’s also plenty of room for imporvement left

Ben Clemens: I think that he’s going to figure out how to strike out less because he really seems to have a good idea of the strike zone

Ben Clemens: the question is whether that improvement will be enough to offset the fact that he’s not gonna keep slugging THIS much

Ben Clemens: I’m gonna bet on him being an upper echelon first baseman going forward. I’m figuring out exactly what that means, in the background, right now, actually

Inaccessible Rail: With ABS and the challenge system both being based on player’s heights, will crouching no longer shrink the size of your strike zone?

Ben Clemens: that is correct

South Sider: Giolito has gone at least 6.0 IP in each of his last 6 starts, producing a 0.70 ERA. Obviously there will be some regression, but is he offically good again?

Ben Clemens: I think he is!

Ben Clemens: he’s a funny case, clearly premium talent, and just all over the place in terms of results over the years

Ben Clemens: I don’t think the strikeouts are ever coming back, so his upside is capped, but I dunno, I am predisposed to believe that he is capable of elite stretches

Ben Clemens: His command looks like it’s finally settling down, and so I like him as a mid rotation dude

Ben Clemens: accepting that he’s gonna have some big blowup games

RANDAL GRICHUK: HELL YEAH THE CARDINALS DRAFTED THEMSELVES A REAL REDASS. ANYWAY I’M GRATEFUL FOR THE ALL-STAR BREAK, ABOUT TO THROW SOME TILAPS ON THE GRILL.

Ben Clemens: oh man, good to see a fellow mid-2010’s VEB reader

Oaktown Blues: No worries if you’re unwilling to spoil this, but… over/under 3.5 A’s position players on your upcoming trade value list?

Ben Clemens: The list isn’t done yet!

Ben Clemens: But, you should probably be taking unders on things like this, because here’s one thing I’ve noticed this year

Ben Clemens: the top end talent of the league is at a local high

Ben Clemens: last year’s list was a lot easier to make, and I felt a lot more like ‘eh we could have had a top 45 and still have most of the guys I want’

Ben Clemens: this year a few things have happened: a lot of the top end pitchers who were hurt last year have come back, and a few already good players have taken a step forward

Ben Clemens: I’m wishing I could have a top 60 (I’m definitely not going to actually do this) and that’s not usually the case

Hal: How worried are you about Adley? He’s been a below-average hitter for a calendar year now

Ben Clemens: Like, so worried

Ben Clemens: I was building an initial screen of players to get projections for. One of the rules was ‘1.0 WAR in the last 365 days’

Ben Clemens: Adley did not make that list!

Ben Clemens: I think he might by now, I think it was an artifact of the exact day I chose, but yikes

Ben Clemens: I’ve really been struggling with where he goes. He’s been in the top 10 of trade value for years but like, c’mon, no

Cedanne Rafaela: At that low low price point he CAN hit

Ben Clemens: Uh yeah, absolute helium for him in the past little bit

Oaktown Blues: So we’re looking at a stacked honorable mentions section for the trade value list, then. Fun stuff!

Ben Clemens: Yeah. Actually I’ll give you an A’s example here. I don’t think Butler is gonna be in the top 50. And it’s not even because I don’t htink he’s awesome and a great value

Ben Clemens: guys with his resume often are in the top 50. Seems very reasonable, he’s young, team controlled, above average. But right now I have William Contreras and Ketel Marte in the mid 40s and I would not trade either of those guys for Butler almost regardless of what team I was acting for

Pokey Reese: Have the Red Sox turned into buyers / they could still probably get a great return for Chapman and move Hicks into closer role?

Ben Clemens: I think they might have turned into buyers, but probably only marginal buyers

Ben Clemens: and no, I don’t think that’s likely, those too cute by half trades where you add and subtract at the same time don’t come up very often in reality

Speaking of Adley: How little leash does Elias have left?

Ben Clemens: great question

Ben Clemens: i kind of think a lot, to be honest

Ben Clemens: he’s very convincing. and he does a great job of assembling surplus value and whatnot

Harvey’s Wallbangers: Are there any upgrade options for the Brewers at shortstop? Seems all the sellers have untouchable shortstops. Would they consider moving Brice back to short and shift Durbin to second if they can nab McMahon or is that not something they would want to do in-season? Love Ortiz’s glove but the bat is inconsistent at best.

Ben Clemens: yeah, I think Turang moving to SS is the way it’d go if they make an upgrade. Get Suarez or something, if he’s tradeable? I don’t think trading for Ryan McMahon, the nine-year vet who has never posted even a 100 wRC+, is really the big upside play here

Ben Clemens: and his salary is large enough to bother the Brewers given how penny pinching they are

Concerned Giants Fan: Anything Giants can do to curb the amount of Dodger fans taking over Oracle Park?

Ben Clemens: Nah, but like, it’s fine. Lots of Giants fans at Dodger Stadium when the shoe is on the other foot. Lots of peopel from LA live in SF and vice versa

Lord Thunder: Should Ohtani pitch? It seems like his offense has taken a hit since he returned to the mound. Is it a choice between having an MVP-caliber slugger and a good hitter/limited availability pitcher.

Ben Clemens: I think he should for at least long enough to convince HIM that it doesn’t work, if it even is the case that it doesn’t work

Ben Clemens: it’s not very clear to me that he’s worse when pitching

Mike: Hey Ben, what team’s hat do you wear in situations where you find yourself wearing a team’s hat.

Ben Clemens: Okay, great question. I mostly wear minor league hats because I feel weird showing affiliation when I’m supposed to be neutral

Ben Clemens: or at least, unbiased

Ben Clemens: but #1: Hudson Valley Renegades (got married here)
#2: Surprise Saguaros (love fall league)
#3: Savannah Bananas (obv)
#4: rotating cast of whatever the most recent cool one I saw was

Roger Roger: Is Trevor Rogers… good? Honestly I’m not really convinced. His stuff is still mediocre and 4/6 of his games were against some of the worst hitting teams this year in TEX/ATL/MIA

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I’m not a belieevr

Ben Clemens: I don’t exactly know how to explain it

Ben Clemens: it just doesn’t feel sustainable to me. I might end up being wrong but I’m at least gonna be consistent

Ben: What is your hot take on the Misiorowski all-star controversy?  Seems like the Phillies players shouldn’t have a complaint since their guys either turned it down or pitched yesterday

Ben Clemens: my take is that it’s absurd that Sanchez isn’t an all star

Ben Clemens: but Mis probably could be as well, there are plenty of spots

Ben Clemens: Sanchez is wildly underrated by the general public though

Ben Clemens: you’re gonna go ‘wait he’s how good?’ when you lay his stats out next to other pitchers over the last, say 3 years

Opifijikl: Who would your trade targets be for the Red Sox? I was thinking a pitcher from the Royals for an outfielder, but that might be a bit basic.

Ben Clemens: yeah, something like this

Ben Clemens: remove outfielders add arms

MyBloodyBallantine: Are the Red Sox better off trading Duran or Abreu or continuing to rotate them, Rafaela, Anthony, Yoshida, and Refsynder though the OF and DH spots? I think unless you can nab a quality starter or elite bullpen arm in addition to a couple good prospects they are better off keeping everyone (at least until the offseason).

Ben Clemens: on the subject: I think if you’re looking for a quality starter PLUS for those guys, you’re gonna be looking for a while. I think that they should bite the bullet and trade someone, you don’t get extra points for having extra unused players who are rough equivalents for each other, and if you’re benching a guy to give Rob Refsnyder more at-bats, you probably wouldn’t REALLY miss him if you traded him

Ben Clemens: no offense, Rob, I think you’re a wonderful rotational player

Ben Clemens: Rafaela and Anthony are too good to consider moving, of course

Ben Clemens: or well, I say of course: I am getting higher and higher on Rafaela the more I see, but I suppose he could be on the block

Ben Clemens: the reason I wouldn’t trade him is b/c he seems like a clear starter who complements Anthony well. The rest of the OF, less so

Mike Tyson: designated hitter: 15 team roto dynasty.  Guy wants to send me Merrill for de Vries and misiorowski.  I am not sure I would send misiorowski alone.  Am I crazy…..about this?

Ben Clemens: I think you’re a little crazy but I suppose it depends on the categories and roster construction

Ben Clemens: I really like Merrill. And I think that his early-season slow start is just a chance to buy low

Ben Clemens: I like Mis, but I am at least a little concerned about his ability to throw strikes

Ben Clemens: like, yes, he strikes the world out. but even in his insanely hot start, he has a 3.82 FIP.  He’s making it work thanks to a .160 BABIP and all the strikeouts but something is gonna give there

Ben Clemens: I think the bet with Mis is that he keeps refining his command and eventually is average on that front, b/c his stuff + average command is elite

CM: On the Fangraphs library page for WPA, it says that average is set to zero. But on the table later in the page, it says for regulars, 0 is below average and 1 is average.

Would we say something similar for WAR? When we say 2 is average, does that mean for all players or regular? If the former then what is above average for regulars?

Ben Clemens: So, the overall league is average. A regular is better than the average MLB player. that’s why they’re a regular

Ben Clemens: applied to WAR, the league average for hitters, counting all the hitters, is sometihng like 1.9 WAR per 600 PA

Ben Clemens: so I’d say if you’re a starter producing 2 WAR/600, you’re a little below average for a player good enough to start

Ben Clemens: but you’re in a good cohort already, there. ‘players good enough to start’ are a lot better than the average MLB player

Guest: When does the trade value list come out? I’m excited

Ben Clemens: next Monday

Ben Clemens: there will be an exciting auxiliary piece coming out this Wednesday, though, that will benefit from your participation. stay tuned

Bosoxforlife: Do you think the Marlins would take Rafaela for Alcantara now?

Ben Clemens: I do. I think I anchored too high on Alcantara and too low on Rafaela when you asked me before

Ben Clemens: and I have been trying to rid myself of biases like that a little, like trying to care a little lessa bout what I thought in July 2024

Ben Clemens: going from first principles, as it were, and trying to figure out what I’d want for Alcantara if I started valuing him from scratch

Ben Clemens: and like, eh…. risky! on the other hand, Rafaela is such a good defender that his floor ish high. it also doesn’t hurt that he’s been raking since we last talked about it

Hazmat Corntail: I’m 52, which happens first: Jose Soriano figures it out and finds consistency as a mid-3 ERA with a manageable WHIP, or I become eligible to collect Social Security?

Ben Clemens: lol

Ben Clemens: probably he figures it out

Ben Clemens: I think it’s gonna happen

LB: On the Red Sox point…in a hypothetical Andrew Abbott for Jarren Duran situation, which team is adding on their side of the equation, and is either team so against this off-hand to render that moot?

Ben Clemens: I have Abbott a little ahead but I think these guys are fairly close, and I’ve been giving thought to both of them in the general region of ‘these are good players who could conceivably be among the top 50 trade values in baseball but probably aren’t’

Ben Clemens: I think that either team would be happy doing this trade structurally. the Red Sox are definitely cognizant of their outfield logjam and the Reds surely know they need hitting. I think the Reds have less of a need to make a move than the Sox (pitchers break, you can never have enough starters, etc) but that both teams should be hahppy with the general shape of the trade

Opifijikl: My last q was about the Red Sox rebalancing their roster re Pitchers/Outfielders. Would you think about trying to rebalance a team’s pitching based on metrics, ie the SFG lowering their K% rank but raising their BB% rank by trading someone like Roupp who seems to walk a decent number of batters + a prospect for Nick Martinez who doesn’t seem to walk as many?

Ben Clemens: I wouldn’t really thikn of it that way, personally

Ben Clemens: that said, I do like the idea of finding pitchers who fit your style

Ben Clemens: the Brewers do this, right? play to their defense

Ben Clemens: the Giants can play to their park

George: I’m writing something about Mackenzie Gore’s arm angle decline and I’m stuck on something: When he throws his fastball at an arm angle above 45 degrees, it generates 15,4 IVB vs 16.7 IVB below at similar velos and spin. Maybe I misunderstand IVB, but wouldn’t a more vertical slot generally induce more vertical break even if he’s a natural supinator?

Ben Clemens: gotta be something weird with his hand applying cut when it gets that verticle

Ben Clemens: vertical*

Ben Clemens: but yeah, that’s not normal

Guest: Going to Norway next year (Oslo, Bergen, Alesund). Any recommendations? Hope you had a great trip

Ben Clemens: oh YES let’s talk about Norway

Ben Clemens: Oslo was incredible. Like, top 5 city I’ve been to

Ben Clemens: the food was awesome, the neighborhoods were really fun, I thought ‘dang why don’t I live here?’ more than once

Ben Clemens: strongly recommend doing one of the floating saunas and jumping in the fjord. the entire waterfront feels like something out of a futuristic paradise, and the Munch museum was really cool too

Ben Clemens: I went to the fjords area after that, and stayed at this really cool hotel, Juvet Landscape Hotel, that was definitely worth doing

Ben Clemens: absolutely beautiful location, very good food, the rooms were cool and had big glass windows to see the magnificent surroundings

Ben Clemens: had a blast and would do again in a heartbeat. it wasn’t even as expensive as I expected

Ben Clemens: that’s close-ish to Alesund, we went via train to Andalsnes and car (but the direct route was still closed to repair a road, so it wasn’t all that fast)

Ben Clemens: I’ve heard that the far north is cool too, particularly if you’re a northern lights person, but we couldn’t squeeze it in

GraphsMan: back to the mookie point- I think it’s reasonable to at least give him some grace given the way his year started. Dude is already undersized and lost a ton of weight right as the season started, and it’s generally really hard to gain weight during the throes of a 162 game schedule. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s begun his decline phase either but I’d hope he can get some bat back next year with a normal offseason program

Ben Clemens: Oh totally

Ben Clemens: I think you just have to change the weightings of each possibility in your mental model

Ben Clemens: just a little, not a ton

Ben Clemens: like I wouldn’t cut him, haha

Ben Clemens: I just would be a little less interested in trading a bunch for him. or, say, offering him a new big contract if he were a free agent

Didace: Norway – You’re not really getting northern lights in the summer, midnight sun and all that.

Ben Clemens: right, if I went there I’d go in winter

Guest: What do you think of a potential Mackenzie Gore trade?

Ben Clemens: I think it makes a lot of sense for the Nats, tbh. he’s very out of phase with the rest of what they’re hoping to do

Ben Clemens: in that like, his value will probably never be higher than it is right now

Ben Clemens: whereas if you think the Nats are on a good path, it involves the long-term duo of Crews and Wood

Sam: Also, regarding the Sox (I just scrolled up to see most of the questions are about them). Why does Fangraphs have their playoff odds so low? Is this a reflection of the stats not showing they are a legitimate playoff contender, the AL being very top-heavy or something else?

Ben Clemens: good question. looking through it, it looks like it’s a few things. 1)tough remaining strength of schedule, toughest in baseball per our methodology
2)we like the team a little less than most of the teams around them in the standings, which just comes from adding up our depth chart projections

Ben Clemens: I think 2) is probably the slightly more important one; we basically have C/1B/2B/SS as weaknesses and that’s a lot of weaknesses

Bosoxforlife: Was Devers such a clubhouse and organizational problem that just getting rid of him cleared the air and allowed them to play better?

Ben Clemens: i doubt it, but, it’s definitely a great narrative until the next losing streak

Ben Clemens: those stories are just so rarely true that I default to not believing them

RH: The 10th round just had a Maximus Martin and a Max Martin. No question, just enjoyed it.

Ben Clemens: ‘the hitmaker’

Dakota McKee: Pirates just drafted Jared Jones. How bad an org must they be if their players are abandoning ship and re-entering draft?

Ben Clemens: trying to get that team control back!

Guest: If the Nats are trading Gore, wouldn’t it also make sense to trade Abrams?

Ben Clemens: like…. probably?

Ben Clemens: but I think that a)pitcher value when they’re great right now is higher b)Abrams is more likely to hold value for longer from some combination of extension equity/position player stability
c)also I think they’d get lowballed for Abrams

Ben Clemens: c) is pretty weak, to be clear

Ben Clemens: and I’ve always been a little down on Abrams relative to consensus, so I’d probably ship him out if I thought I was getting a good deal

Ben Clemens: but he feels to me like he fits the core better, just in the sense that position players are more stable

sliptoad: does FG publically display predicted rest of season strength of schedule? this is always a stat that I find particularly interesting

Ben Clemens: we do!

Ben Clemens: it’s actually right on our playoff odds:https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds

Ben Clemens: the way it works is that we first rate each team based on what we project their win percentage to be against neutral opposition

Ben Clemens: then we average a team’s remaining opponents, that’s ‘strength of sched’

Ben Clemens: so it’s forward-looking, based on how well we expect each opponent to play the rest of the year, but doesn’t consider individual pitching matchups

Sam: Who are your midway-point Cy Young top 3 in each league?

Ben Clemens: AL

1. Skubal
2. Crochet
3. Brown

NL

1. Skenes
2. Wheeler
3. Webb

Ben Clemens: I’d basically say that the NL is quite close at the top

Ben Clemens: and honestly, you have to say the AL is close 1/2, even though I have a lot more faith in Skubal continuing to pitch at this level

Ben Clemens: so if I were doing odds, I’d have Skubal as #1 with a bullet in the AL. But based on how well they’ve played so far? It’s a tossup

last ride of the bowtie: Do you think Winn is still the SS for StL in 2 years?

Ben Clemens: yeah

Ben Clemens: in fact I’d be shocked if he weren’t

Ben Clemens: like, among primary shortstops, he’s certainly a first division starter already

Ben Clemens: so the odds of someone internally replacing him? basically 0. there’s just no one in the pipeline, and he could hit a LOT worse and still have enough defensive value to be useful

Ben Clemens: so then the question becomes does he get traded, and well, I don’t think so?

Ben Clemens: players like this (young, premium defensive position, value comes more from long-term surplus than from any superstar power) are classic assets taht don’t really get moved very often

Ben Clemens: b/c they’re really valuable…. and yet the team trading FOR them isn’t getting a huge one-season playoff odds boost

Ben Clemens: like, try to think of the last trade for a good-but-not-great player with tons of team control

Guest: wasn’t than winn question really a wetherholt question

Ben Clemens: I think pretty clearly he’d play second or third as currently constructed

red sox chat time: why the hell do you have more faith in skubal pitching at this level than crochet

Ben Clemens: because I’m rationally considering the fact that Skubal won the Cy Young while throwing 192 innings at this level last year and Crochet is already nearing a career high IP. He slowed down a TON in the second half last year

Ben Clemens: I expect him to slow down much less this year. but I think that if you polled 100 baseball analysts, 100 would project Skubal ahead of Crochet the rest of the way

Ben Clemens: not that Crochet CAN’T outperform Skubal

Ben Clemens: just that the odds are in Skubal’s favor

Sam: Who’s your pick to win the HR Derby tonight (asking the important questions for everyone).

Ben Clemens: ooh, I should first direct you to Davy Andrews’ preview:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/clash-in-cobb-county-previewing-the-2025-h…

Ben Clemens: but gimme James Wood

Ben Clemens: it would be so fun

Sam: I wanna see the Big Dumper win it, but I think Matt Olson will pressure for it. At home, biggest stage.

Ben Clemens: Olson is a good dark horse pick

Ben Clemens: I feel like his relatively simple swing helps too? I’m not really sure how to handicap this

Yeah Well Hiura Towel: Eury has been killing it for 3 starts in a row. How much can I depend on him rest of season on my fantasy team?

Ben Clemens: I’m one of the captains of the Irrational Eury Exuberance fan club

Ben Clemens: so, yes

Bosoxforlife: It was fun to be transported back to the 80’s and actually see the Red Sox throw 2 complete games in one week.

Ben Clemens: if the Red Sox end up being carried by their starting rotation with Giolito being a key part of it, that would be an absolutely delightful turn from last year when it was all randos throwing 90% secondaries. the Red Sox have some magical ability to be the most interesting team in baseball even when they aren’t the best

Mark: How many current members of the White Sox do you think will be on their next playoff team?

Ben Clemens: 0

Ben Clemens: this has ‘blow it up and then blow it up again’ written all over it to me

Guest: If you took the average fangraph reader all the advanced metrics available today (launch angle ,exit velo, spin rates, yada yada) what would be the most recent year they would be the best GM in the league? Would they be better an 2000s Theo / Billy Beane

Ben Clemens: so I actually get that data? and other people don’t have it?

Ben Clemens: I mean I”d still go way before 2000, to be honest

Ben Clemens: I get that having better tools is good, but I don’t think it replaces all the baseball knowledge those old GM’s had that I/a reader wouldn’t

Ben Clemens: now, could the average reader be an incredibly valuable consultant? definitely yes

white sox: i am fairly certain neither will be a column spoiler: higher trade value, grant taylor or luis robert

Ben Clemens: i mean honestly, Grant Taylor?

Stromile Swift: Apologies if this has been asked – how do you go about valuing Robert in a trade? Based on the last year and a half of results/salary/injury questions I’m not sure he has positive value, but the prospect of him clicking in new surroundings and going nuclear for a month or two could completely flip a season for someone like Philly, LA, San Fran, etc.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, let’s link these

Ben Clemens: and this’ll be my last answer for the day b/c I gotta go eat lunch

Ben Clemens: it’s so hard!

Ben Clemens: I think that teams looking at trading for Robert would have to treat him as a rental, with the two club options years being treated as unlikely kickers

Ben Clemens: it’s $18 million for 2026 (post buyout), that seems pretty hard to square with who he is right now but it’s clear that he COULD hit those highs again

Ben Clemens: I’d just say this: you can’t really trade for him planning on upgrading your lineup by doing so

Ben Clemens: he’s hitting .190/.275/.325 and striking out a third of the time

Ben Clemens: and this is his second straight year of not hitting

Ben Clemens: so I just have a hard time imagining more than nominal trade value. like, it’s not negative, I don’t think, because he just has club options, you can cut bait

Ben Clemens: but I think it’s lottery ticket plus throw ins territory, for me

Ben Clemens: it’s super difficult, though. Like, he really does have the juice to be your team’s best player, or one of the best few

Ben Clemens: alright, on that note, I’m gonna head out

Ben Clemens: thank you for all the wonderful questions

Ben Clemens: no Monday chat next week, doing a big Friday trade value chat instead