Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 8/16/22

Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, welcome to the chat.

Ben Clemens: I’ll be intermittently scrambling here thanks to some technical problems on the computer end, but hoping to make up for it by being SUPER insightful when I’m here

James: Yesterday Dusty had a hitter with a .256 OBP lead off, and he made the final out as the go-ahead run. How does that happen in 2022?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, that one does not make a ton of sense to me?

Ben Clemens: Dubon just shouldn’t be leading off for these Astros. In fairness to them, they were running a lighter-offense squad, but still, put Bregman there or something

Dave: Would you give Ohtani 6/300 as of now?

Ben Clemens: Was thinking about this awhile before I started the chat

Ben Clemens: I think that I would, even if I’m not sure whether he’ll merit it in on-field production; it’s just so hard to guess what Ohtani will look like in three years

Ben Clemens: But I think the marketing value and the sheer irreplaceable Ohtani-ness of it all is worth a ton

Ben Clemens: So yeah, I would if it came down to it

Champdo: How worried should we be about Riley Greene?

Ben Clemens: As worried as we are about all prospects not panning out. It can definitely happen, and it’s hard to foresee who is more likely to bust or not

Ben Clemens: I don’t think we’ve learned anything about him from his first 235 PA’s, though; his contact quality seems completely reasonable, he’s striking out too much but doesn’t have a horrid approach or anything, and we’ll just need to see more to know

Braydon: Any thoughts on the start of Nolan Gorman’s MLB career?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, he seems largely like what I thought he’d be, strikeouts and power in a guy who at best is stretched as a second baseman

Ben Clemens: Would have packaged him up in a Soto deal so fast it’d make your head spin, but I think he’s still got plenty of hitting upside if he can adjust a bit to how he’s being pitched

Ben Clemens: He still has no defensive home, but the universal DH makes that less of an issue, particularly given that he’s being used in a platoon mostly

171: Before the season, I asked you if you thought that adding Adley to the O’s would result in the team ERA being 1 run lower than 2021. Turns out the team ERA is almost 2 runs lower and we were both wrong especially considering John Means made 1.5 starts, Grayson hasn’t thrown an MLB pitch and DL Hall barely made a cameo. I guess my question is, how could you possibly have not seen this coming???

Ben Clemens: Lack of foresigh, inexcusable!

Fernando Tatis-Buck Jr.: Rengifo breakout real? Fringe fiver to official building block?

Ben Clemens: Are we talking about the same Luis Rengifo? Like yes, I understand he’s been better in the second half, but I think he’s just a serviceable hitter with doubles pop

Ben Clemens: I’m not seeing a lot that would make me say he’s suddenly turned a corner. Now, a 2 win player on the Angels is rare (they mostly have MVP’s and scrubs), so maybe he’s a building block for them, but that’s grading on an extreme curve

Jacques Pederson: How much does the Josh Hader trade help the Cardinals psychologically?

Ben Clemens: A lot, but I’m guessing a bit less because Hader’s indomitable reputation got all messy already

The Real Ben Clemens: have there been any more recent developments in quantifying seam-shifted wake that you’ve seen? Feel like I saw a bunch of articles on it a year or so ago and then it just kind of dropped out of the public sphere

Ben Clemens: Not a ton, no

Bardo Bill: Seems tricky to predict Bogaerts’ contract, given that he’s been very consistent overall for the last 5 years, but the batted ball metrics are a little worrying this season and it’s not clear how long he can stay at SS. Do you think there’s a chance he could be held to a Story/Baez type deal (6/140), or will someone give him 7+ years?

Ben Clemens: I think he’ll get 7+, but maybe as a third baseman?

Jon: “Even if he doesn’t stick at short, it won’t matter because it bat will play anywhere.” Well of course it matters. He could still be valuable but he’ll be less valuable.

Ben Clemens: Isn’t that kinda implied? I don’t know who wrote that (probably me), but I read that as saying the fail cases are more limited because he’s not a shortstop-only bat

Ben Clemens: I also don’t know who he is, but hey, that sounds like a good player!

Guest: Ohtani-related thought experiment: As a GM of a generic playoff competitive team you are offered an extra roster spot for the season. The cost is tying the injury risk of your best hitter and best pitcher together (i.e. if one goes on IL the other has to). Do you take the roster spot? Is it close?

Ben Clemens: Iiiiiinteresting

Ben Clemens: I think it depends on whether those injury risks stack. Like, let’s say in a generic season each one has a 5% chance of getting hurt. Does this linkage mean they have a 10% chance of both getting hurt? That’d be a pretty big hit

Ben Clemens: If it was instead a 5% chance of losing both, far more palatable

Al Avila: How do you change the broadcast on MLB TV? It’s a new set up this year.

Ben Clemens: That weird antenna thing has a bunch of options, and you can switch the team broadcast th ere

Zach: I’ve seen Jackson Chourio ranked as high as #3 in the league on a recent prospect list, which is pretty crazy for an 18-year old. Should I be leaping out of my chair for this prospect?

Ben Clemens: I have legitimately no idea. I get involved in prospect hype from time to time, but for guys that far away, I have no idea how to think about it even

Ben Clemens: It sounds like people think he’s awesome! He’s also 18 and has less than 100 Pa’s in full season ball

Ben Clemens: I’ve seen videos of him, he looks legit. I don’t know how to extrapolate from that to where he should be ranked as a prospect

Joe: I’m pretty sure NYY will be fine…. right?

Ben Clemens: I think so. Weird offensive funk can happen to anyone, and it’s not like they necessarily need to win a ton right now

Ben Clemens: home field advantage throughout the playoffs is nice, but it’s honestly not a huge deal, and I don’t think they need to be worried about the ALE anytime soon

Ben Clemens: Definitely funny how well Gallo is playing in LA though

Ben Clemens: ‘Joey Gallo is a better hitter than Andrew Benintendi’ is not a controversial take

RTJ: Tony crowd-sourcing managerial decisions is what MLB could use to spice up their broadcasts:

AJ: TLR taking suggestions from fans now ?

Ben Clemens: So, I don’t think he’s actually taking a suggestion from a fan here

Ben Clemens: Funny to think of it that way but let’s be realistic

Ben Clemens: I think he was just gonna do it anyway

James: Assuming Verlander opts out, how long of a contract does he get? Will 2/70 get it done?

Ben Clemens: I think it might be more like 2/80, a mini-Scherzer deal, but I wonder if he’d just want to sign a similar deal to what he did this year with the player option contingent on IP

Ben Clemens: I can’t imagine he’s interested in leaving Houston at this point but I dunno, I said that last year and plenty of Astros fans said I didn’t understand the internal team dynamics etc. etc.

Ben Clemens: seems to me like he’s happy there is all I’ll say

Matt Damon: MATT. DAMON.

Sean: What do you make of AJ Preller’s comments re: Tatis? On the one hand, I appreciate the candor relative to the usual non-answers. On the other hand, people in glass houses, etc.

Ben Clemens: Yeah…. It’s a really fraught situation

Ben Clemens: I’d be really upset with Tatis if I were Preller

Ben Clemens: I’d be really upset with Tatis if I were one of his teammates

Ben Clemens: But stuff like that usually gets handled internally, and it’s definitely weird to see it out in the open

Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: In light of his ringworm problem, how would you change Tatis’ place on the trade value rankings?

Ben Clemens: Well, let’s just say I’m glad I hedged by calling it a provisional ranking and saying that I’d want to see a healthy month before making him the actual #3

Ben Clemens: No one is going to trade for him until he has a full season now

Ben Clemens: So I guess he’s just not on the list?

David: What do you make of Triston Mckenzie? He’s been quite good this year, but I can’t help but feel the rug is going to be pulled out from underneath it all.

Ben Clemens: I think he’s going to continue to deliver really high highs, but he’s so fastball-dominant that I think he’s gonna be really streaky. I’d love to see him develop a more consistent extra secondary so that he doesn’t have to just live on the fastball. I know his curve is a great pitch but you need more than one

Ben Clemens: That said, it’s a great fastball! One of the best in the majors imo, it just has that sneaky ride that hitters never adjust to

Some Guy: How in the world is Cal Quantrill keeping such a large difference between his ERA, and his FIP and xStats?

Ben Clemens: Because baseball

Ben Clemens: is this even that large of a gap? pitchers do this all the time

Ben Clemens: Look at Dakota Hudson’s career, for example

wingedbeater: I’ve seen some arguments that Ohtani must be the MVP that turn on the value of the extra roster spot he opens up for his team by virtue of being two-way player. These arguments generally start with his WAR, which is in the upper echelon of AL players. They next add some undefined amount to that total, under the assumption that the extra roster spot Ohtani grants his team vaults his value far beyond those who have similar or even higher WARs. What do you think of arguments that proceed in this way? How much is an extra roster spot worth?

Ben Clemens: I dunno, but I think that it’s close enough to negligible that I don’t really care

Ben Clemens: I also don’t love WAR-based arguments if people are close, because it’s a rounding error

Ben Clemens: I’m okay just voting for the player I think had the best season without doing some mental gymnastics to account for what would happen in that player’s absence or whatnot

Matthew: What’s up with the playoff odds loving the NL? Eyeballing the world series vs lcs odds, it looks like all of the NL teams are overrated. For instance, the Mets are favored to win the lcs 27% of the time and the ws 17% (i.e. 60% favorites to win the WS if they make it), the Phillies are at 6.2% and 3.1%, the Yankees are at 25% and 10%, and the Rays are at 5.9% and 2.1%

Ben Clemens: It’s because any NL team that wins the CS won’t have to play the Dodgers in the WS, while AL teams have to play the Dodgers most of the time

Ben Clemens: I think it’s just fine? The odds aren’t perfectly precise or anything, they’re not trying to be. Dan runs his separate series-by-series odds in the playoffs to account for hte way the rosters work then. As a rough ballpark, the NL being likelier to win the WS seems fine to me

JK: Is it useful to take endpoint statistic snapshots (i.e. since July 1st Player X has hit .300/.400/.500) if it coinsides with a specific event (returning from injury, getting called back up from the minors, adopting a swing change) or is it always dangerous to take specific selections of data since it might just be a hot/cold streak and natural variance of, you know, the fact that these are human beings

Ben Clemens: I mean, it’s more useful than if the endpoints are completely arbitrary

Ben Clemens: I’d still take it with a grain of salt, but your priors matter

Weekend Hack: So, the Fernando Tatis news – what if he was just doing it to get back healthy. How much do we care? We want to watch him

Ben Clemens: Yeah honestly I don’t care that much about the PED usage

Ben Clemens: I care a bit more about the absurd ringworm excuse, and really the whole snow job going on of a bunch of excuses for ‘yeah I took this because I wanted to get back to the field and didn’t think I’d get caught’

Kosch: Does WPA track fielding plays?  or just hitters and pitchers?  if not, when can we expect that?  I am thinking Game 6 ’86 WS as the example of a big mover….

Ben Clemens: Only pitchers and hitters. I think we’ll probably keep that as-is for the indefinite future, it’s just not feasible given the way we collect fielding data to handle that, and to disambiguate pitcher and fielder and hitter WPA values for a given play

B613: What will it take for the NYY to move on from Cashman and Boone? As a lifelong Yankee fan, I have very little faith left in either of them.

Ben Clemens: Oh man, it’s funny because all the trade deadline takes were about how Cashman is the ur-GM who understands the game perfectly

Ben Clemens: I think Cashman does a great job. I have little opinion of Boone

The Real Ben Clemens: What is your concern level about BWJ’s defense? Started the season looking solid-to-above average but has absolutely cratered the last month or two

Ben Clemens: It’s pretty close to zero

Ben Clemens: I dunno, when you’re slicing up already-iffy sample sizes of defensive metrics to be even smaller for a rookie who switched positions mid-season, I think it’s reasonable to take a breath

Topical Pun: If we’re limited to the greater STL area, Goldy or Arenado for MVP?

Ben Clemens: Arenado for me

Ben Clemens: I just love Arenado’s all-around game. Not that Goldschmidt isn’t also great, obviously

Ben Clemens: This is just a tour de force from Arenado, his best season as a pro at a time when people thought he’d be declining

Mets fan: Assuming Degrom stays healthy and continues to perform for the rest of the season, how much do the last two partial seasons contribute to his HOF candidacy?

Ben Clemens: If deGrom finishes this season at this health level, has one more Cy-ish season, and reaches 10 ML seasons, I think he’s a slam dunk

Ben Clemens: He’s modern-day Sandy Koufax, with different problems but the same wildly electric peak

Jay: Hey Ben. Not really a question but something that has bugged me for a while: Since Molina became their starting catcher in 2005, Fangraphs has the Cardinals’ pitching staff being worth 77 runs in the rSB stat, which is far and away tops in MLB (almost a full standard deviation higher than the 2nd place Royals) and quite a bit more than Yadi himself has been worth. This just feels wrong. What are the the odds that the 100s of different Cards’ pitchers over 17 years have collectively dominated every other team in this one stat? Seems far more likely that Yadi is the reason for the Cards’ success preventing SBs over that time period, no? If so this is potentially a big chunk of missing WAR in Yadi’s career.

Ben Clemens: Who knows! If you ask anyone involved in the running game, they’ll tell you that runners steal on the pitcher, not the catcher. What if Molina is just really good at telling his pitchres to be quick to the plate? I don’t think that’s incredibly likely, but it’s definitely possible, or it could be an organizational philosophy

Ben Clemens: If you wanna tack on half of that value, 3 wins or whatever, to his career, fine. Defensive WAR is inherently really volatile and I wouldn’t use WAR as a way of saying whether Yadi should be a hall of famer. To me, he’s just obviously one

David: Re Tatis and PEDs: the ringworm excuse more than anything showed the lack of accountability he is taking for his actions. It is what disappointed me more than the PED usage itself.

Ben Clemens: Yep, this is where I am

Chuck: If I can ask a fantasy question, should I gamble on dropping Gleyber, a meh solid option on my bench, to pick up Vaughn Grissom? I’m competing for first in my redraft H2h league.

Ben Clemens: I think I’d do it. I love yolo’ing on some random prospects, because if they don’t work you just try the same thing again, I feel like it really pays off to use those marginal bench spots on shot-taking rather than blah production if it’s at all possible

Alby: Baltimore is playing nearly .600 ball since Adley was promoted. He has always been credited with “intangibles” about leadership. Is this evidence that they exist?

Ben Clemens: Nope!

Vinny: Is Joey Votto a HOF candidate?

Ben Clemens: Yeah. He’d be in my personal Hall, but I’m both a big hall guy and someone who really values OBP in a way the HOF voting class doesn’t

Ben Clemens: I htink he’ll have a tough time making it though I think he deserves it

Didace: “What will it take for the NYY to move on from…” New York fans always crack me up. “We aren’t winning 80% of our games in the last two weeks. What in the world is wrong with this team?!”

Ben Clemens: Plenty of fanbases have fans like that. The Yankees just have a lot of fans

Vin: is degrom worth $50 million a year if he’s only going max 90 pitches?

Ben Clemens: Iiiiiinteresting

Ben Clemens: If I could guarantee he’d make 25 starts, I think so

Ben Clemens: He’s just soooooooo good

Michael Conforto: Am i going to play baseball this year?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think so

Ben Clemens: quite surprising

Ben Clemens: I bet you teams are lining up to offer him a pillow deal for next year, though

Cat Latos: Do you have cats?

Ben Clemens: I do not, just a dog who would be very upset if she knew someone was asking about cats

Vinny: Given McClanahan’s recent struggles and youth, do you think the Rays shut him down and save him for a playoff run?

Ben Clemens: Mmmmmm…. I don’t think they will

Ben Clemens: His recent bad stretch still comes with a 3.71 FIP over his last four starts, though in fairness it’s been against a mixed bag of offenses (BAL, CLE, DET, BAL)

Ben Clemens: But they’re in a playoff race, he’s their best pitcher, that doesn’t sound like a time to shut him down

Ben Clemens: Also he’s a Cy Young frontrunner and that’d be messed up

Al: Given every hitter has an OBP < .500, is every hitter more likely than not to get out in indivdual at bat? For anyone with a >.400 OBP would this BVP dependent at all where you could theoretically ~expect~ him to reach base?

Ben Clemens: Situationally dependent, too

Ben Clemens: Like, your odds of reaching base go up quite a bit if first base is open but there are runners in scoring position, assuming you’re a great hitter

Ben Clemens: there are definitely situations where you’d expect someone to reach base, but they’re rare

Ben Clemens: and are mostly situations where you think the pitching team is going to soft-walk someone or at least be extremely careful with a patient hitter

Ben Clemens: It has to involve a high likelihood of walking, basically

Some Guy: The Blue Jays got stolen on a lot on the 14th by the Guardians, with Kirk behind the plate, and it cost them. Does his inability to stop the run game reduce his value as a catcher by much?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think it’s clear that he’s a bad catcher when it comes to stopping the run game

Ben Clemens: He has 10 CS already

Ben Clemens: He throws runners out at a league-average rate

Ben Clemens: per 100 innings behind the dish, teams are attempting an extra two steals against him, basically

Ben Clemens: so it’s just not much of a difference, particularly if you think he’s roughly average when it comes to throwing people out

Ben Clemens: Heck, DRS has him with positive rSB on the season, which surprised me

Baseball fan: Is Andres Gimenez actually an MVP type of player? 153 WRC+ and can play a gold glove level short stop

Ben Clemens: I do not think he is, but I think he’s quite good

Ben Clemens: I think it’s reasonable to project some power regression, I’ve been caught with these ‘oh this guy who didn’t show power before suddenly has it, let’s assume it will stay forever’ type deals

Dan: So while wrist injuries are obviously tricky, but do you find the Kirilloff injury dialogue strange? He gets surgery, says it still hurts, MIN tells him it’s his new normal and to go to AAA to feel it out, he rakes at AAA, hits well for a short period in MLB  upon being recalled, wrist hurts again, team agrees he needs another surgery.

Ben Clemens: I assume they’re getting medical advice somewhere in there. I agree that from the outside it doesn’t make much sense to me. I was definitely confused that he kept hitting after saying it hurts though

Smokey’s Bandit: Is Josh Lowe going to get it together? The K rate is scary and it seems like the Rays have maybe given up on him. Thoughts on him long-term?

Ben Clemens: I’m not a believer, just b/c I think the contact issues are more likely to stick than not. He already has a reasonable approach at the plate and is still striking out all the time. I’d rather take my chances with someone who could maybe improve their approach by just coming up with a different thought, versus a guy who seems to have a solid approach and just can’t hit the ball anyway

Ben Clemens: It’d be one thing if he hadn’t run high strikeout numbers all the way up the minor league ladder, but I think he’s just going to be one of those boom-bust power and k’s guys, and I’m not sold on him having THAT kind of power

Jacob deGrom: What deal will I sign as a free agent after I (presumably) opt out? Will I stay with the Mets or go elsewhere?

Ben Clemens: You’ve said you plan on remaining with the Mets. Who am I to doubt deGoat?

John Olerud’s Helmet: Im not one of those to blame all the White Sox problems on La Russa but the man needs to be fired simply for continuing to bat Grandal 5th!!

Ben Clemens: Grandal has really not looked himself so far this year

Ben Clemens: I worry that he’s cooked

Ben Clemens: His batted ball metrics are not great. His offensive game makes a lot more sense when he has a solid barrel rate, b/c if pitchers can come after him a bit more, his walk value goes away

Chris Woodward: I was fired as a scapegoat.  I did the best with what I was given.

Ben Clemens: And?

Ben Clemens: Managers are scapegoats

Ben Clemens: That’s the job

Nic Stone: If told after 2017 that Aaron Judge would have this type of season, one better than his 2017 one, would you have believed them? I remember lots of people saying that would be his best season ever.

Ben Clemens: I think it would depend on whether I knew you were a time traveler

Ben Clemens: Like, if you just said ‘trust me, this is true’, I probably wouldn’t have believed you

Ben Clemens: But it wasn’t 0% to happen, obviously

Ben Clemens: I think the odds were good, in 2017, that 2017 would be his best season ever, just b/c it was so out of nowhere

Ben Clemens: but they absolutely weren’t 100%

Sizzle baby!: Grandal doesn’t even swing at pitches anymore.  He walks or he strikes out.  He’s such a boring plate appearance.

Ben Clemens: Imagine if Juan Soto just never swung

Vaughn Grissom: Why am I not a top 100 prospect…

Ben Clemens: Part of a long-term, systematic plan to ever-so-slightly neg Braves prospects as a way of convincing the fan base we hate them

Ben Clemens: or more likely because the boundary between 45 and 50 FV is pretty nebulous and trusting a report to be a definitive description of exactly how well every one of thousands of minor leaguers rates when it comes to future production is an inherently impossible task

Ben Clemens: I think it’s the first one, personally

Alby: And yet Baltimore is clearly a much better team since Rutschman’s promotion. How to explain?

Ben Clemens: all baseball teams get better and worse, all the time

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

Ben Clemens: I certainly don’t know how to predict what will happen going forward

Ben Clemens: I don’t need to explain it, though. Explanations are fun, but they’re also overrated sometimes

Ben Clemens: Sometimes it’s fun to just watch baseball

squall: Who do you think wins the AL & NL ROTY races?

Ben Clemens: Hm…. Harris and Julio

The Real Ben Clemens: who would you hire to be the Tigers next GM

Ben Clemens: I’d hire me

Ben Clemens: Like, not close. If they give me hiring authority I’m picking me

Ben Clemens: Hit me up, Ilitches, I’m on twitter @_ben_clemens

Ben Clemens: DM’s are open

odds: I get why NL teams other than the Dodgers have better odds to win the WS than the LCS because they aren’t facing the Dodgers, but I’m not sure I understand why they are almost all over 50% to win the WS? Playoff odds is saying the Mets, Braves, Phillies, Brewers, and Padres are ALL better than their average WS opponent, right?

Ben Clemens: yeah basically? I’m not sure I believe it, and I think our odds do weird things at the playoff series level for sure, but we think that the Braves, Dodgers, and Mets are the best three teams ROS

Ben Clemens: https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=Standings

Ben Clemens: followed by the Astros, but hten the Padres

Dan: How much would you pay yourself as a gm? You don’t get a golden parachute and you can pick any number that you’ll get fired if you’re wildly overpayed.

Ben Clemens: not a ton

Ben Clemens: Now, I’d want a contract that could be renegotiated after only two years, or a GM opt-out or something

Ben Clemens: but I’m obviously unproven, and I don’t even know where I’d live in Detroit, so that would take a while to figure out

Kevin: Do you think Castellanos is concealing an injury or has he just totally lost his approach at the plate?

Ben Clemens: I think it’s likely a bit of both, honestly

Ben Clemens: His recent approach has not been good, but I find it hard to believe he isn’t a little hurt

Chilly: Michael harris is doing crazy stuff at just 21.  Aside from roy u think he can be a legit 30/30 threat annually?   I’d like ur take on him pls

Ben Clemens: I’m a little down on the approach; it’s really hard to sustain his level of production when your chase rate is that high (44.2%)

Ben Clemens: I think he’s gonna be a low-obp kinda guy

Ben Clemens: But that won’t necessarily stop him from 30/30. I think a legit threat annually sounds about right, I don’t think he’s gonna average 30/30 by any means

Ben Clemens: a center fielder with some speed and some pop but on-base issues is still a wonderful player, particularly if he’s as good as he’s looked defensively so far

Dan: Has there been any research conducted that shows if there is a long-term effect to calling up a prospect early (say what Atlanta has done this year with Harris II and Grissom) and then sending them back down if they struggle? I’m sure this is something that is difficult to study since we don’t know how their careers would’ve panned out otherwise

Ben Clemens: I’ve never seen any, but it sure sounds interesting

Chilly: Re: harris dumb question but whats an avg chase rate?   Also the league is geared for high fastballs, try and get one by him.   Also 0 cs.

Ben Clemens: Average is about 31%

Ben Clemens: he has the 15th-highest rate among hitters with 200 or more PA

Ben Clemens: no one ahead of him has a better batting line. Only four of the 14 have even an average batting line: Francisco Mejia, Luis Robert, Jorge Alfaro, Tim Anderson

your name: hall is looking pretty excellent for the phillies. seems to me like this means hoskins wont get resigned. but in general, they’ve nearly replaced bryce’s production. they are a good team!

Ben Clemens: Hoskins has felt like surplus since the team signed Schwarber and Castellanos,

Ben Clemens: I thought that Bohm getting much better at third might be a reprieve for Hoskins b/c neither Castellanos nor Schwarber is a lock to play a good first base (not that Hoskins is either)

Ben Clemens: But Hall looks like the real deal so far. The error bars are huge, of course, but he’s getting to tremendous power in games

Ben Clemens: I’d give him every chance to fail until he actually does

brad penny for your thoughts: what are your thoughts on flaherty?  can/does he make an impact this season?  future seasons?

Ben Clemens: I’d bet against him making an impact this season, he looked kinda scattershot  and rusty in his brief ML time

Ben Clemens: So getting back to his great form quickly seems hard. That said, I would count on him as someone in the #2 starter area for them for next year, as much as you can count on any pitcher

Guest: Could things be going any better for the Guardians right now? And is trading Amed Rosario really going to be the best option for the team this winter? He’s been terrific and if they really want to compete next year I don’t think they can expect Arias/Rocchio/Freeman to replicate what he’s done this year.

Ben Clemens: I personally would not trade Rosario, I think that average-hitting shortstops are really useful, and that as a bonus he’s probably their second-best outfielder too despite not being a very good outfielder

Ben Clemens: I think that the Guardians will trade him, though. They love to trade

Ben Clemens: Particularly to keep jamming the 40 man full of fringe contributors

Ben Clemens: and there will be a real market for someone who hits that well and can credibly play up the middle

Jon: Are Tim Anderson and Luis Robert the same hitter?

Ben Clemens: no, they’re quite different despite looking kinda similar on the surface

Ben Clemens: fun article by Robert Orr on BP about Anderson’s strike zone approach:

Ben Clemens: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/74813/the-crooked-inni…

Ben Clemens: but basically Anderson might ‘chase’ a lot but he’s swinging at balls where he likes them, where he does the most damage, quite often

Ben Clemens: his swing decisions look much better in the context of his swingn

Ben Clemens: Robert is just a voracious hitter, his approach is maximally aggressive

Ben Clemens: not quite the same thing

Ben Clemens: Also Robert has the kind of raw power you mostly see from first baseman

Bob: O/U 1.5 batting titles for Steven Kwan

Ben Clemens: U

Ben Clemens: U is just so safe, that’s a lot of batting titles

Rip Calkin: Is there any reason to believe that The Wall is being disproportionately helpful to O’s pitchers vs visiting pitchers?

Ben Clemens: Not that I’ve seen, I’m not gonna say never but there’s no clear evidence in my opinion

James: Which version of Alex Bregman is the real one, the one from April and May, or the June thru today version?

Ben Clemens: porque no los dos?

Mr. Redlegs: Thoughts on Jose Barrero? Seems like he’s never going to hit the slider and his defense is shaky, but he’s got crazy tools.

Ben Clemens: I think the defense will stabilize, and that he’ll hit enough bombs to stomach the breaking ball issues

Ben Clemens: alright, thanks for chatting today everyone, and sorry if I didn’t get to your question; there were just a ton of really good ones today, including one person who pretended to be a LOT of different GM’s while asking me how I went to the bathroom during chats (I don’t? I just go before or after like a reasonable person)

Ben Clemens: have a great week everyone, and let’s do this again next week