Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 8/22/22

Ben Clemens: Hey everybody, and welcome to the chat

Ben Clemens: Slow start on my end today because I’m partway through a query that I’m really trying to finish quickly but I’ll get right to it now. Thank you for your patience

Jason: Nice piece on the Rangers cleaning house. How realistic is it for them to be in the WC hunt next year, considering their run differential this year (positive) and their ability to make adds in the offseason?

Ben Clemens: I think it’s extremely realistic

Ben Clemens: I’m not saying likely, that’s a different thing

Ben Clemens: But yeah, who would be surprised if a team with a positive run differential, some intriguing prospects, and a few major league studs added a bit in free agency and contended for the WC?

Ben Clemens: That’s what is really interesting to me about this situation. The plan they came up with worked pretty well, actually. They should be good next year

CB: How good/bad does the Montgomery/Bader trade look for each team right now? And how will we be talking about it by season’s end?

Ben Clemens: It definitely looks better for the Cardinals — to me, at least — than it did at the time of the trade

Ben Clemens: The early returns on Montgomery in St. Louis have been great, there’s no change in Bader’s situation, and the Yankees are probably a bit worried about Montas

Ben Clemens: I don’t think it changes the big picture, though. That is gonna depend on how the Yankees use Bader when he’s back

JK: Forgive me if I am missing something, but should batting average with runners in scoring position naturally skew higher than team average? If there is a runner in scoring position and no outs, and one of the next three hitters gets a hit, but it is the first hitter, than the average is 1-1, not one for three, or if the second guy, 1-2. Also, caught fly balls with a runner on third result in no change in batting average, instead of an 0-1. Also, thanks for the chats Ben, always enjoy your insights and inputs!

Ben Clemens: I’m not sure I understand the part about the 1-3, but the sacrifice fly part is definitely true

Ben Clemens: There’s also the fact that defenders have to stay near bases to hold runners on

Josh: How concerning are Jeremy Pena’s struggles the last few months? Plate discipline seems not great!

Ben Clemens: I’m worried, but there’s one really good thing about Pena that makes me less concerned: he’s really great defensively

Ben Clemens: It’s not like he just had crazy plate discipline and hitting stats early in the year and couldn’t field

Ben Clemens: Most of his value is coming defensively anyway, so I’m willing to give him some lenience

barney gumble: hey Ben. when projection systems give a prospect 1 PA, is that basically the system saying it doesn’t expect them to play in MLB for the season? if so, then what is the significance of the stats it populates? for example, Anthony Volpe projected for 1 PA with a .317 wOBA.

Ben Clemens: Yeha, that’s our way of putting in 1 PA so you can see the stats

Ben Clemens: It wouldn’t populate if there were 0 PA projected, naturally

Ben Clemens: So the wOBA is just what the projection systems see for him. The counting stats will probably all be gibberish though

jas: What’s your Pujols home run over/under line?

Ben Clemens: 5 more homers this year

Some Guy: How happy are you that Pujols is back on the Cards and having a vintage season on a scale of 1 to 2011 World Series?

Ben Clemens: Like 8?

Ben Clemens: I assume this scale goes to 11

Ben Clemens: It’s really fun, there are no two ways about it

Ben Clemens: It’s not quite up there with winning a World Series, but recapturing a little bit of that ‘oh right he was so dang good’ has been amazing

Sharp: Dodgers are loaded, Mets are loaded, Braves are loaded, Padres are really dangerous, Cardinals always dangerous, Phillies/Brewers dangerous. NL playoffs are going to be incredible.

Ben Clemens: I’m very excited for the playoffs this year.

Ben Clemens: In addition to just standard ‘lots of great players’ intrigue, there are some fun rivalries potentially in play

Ben Clemens: who wouldn’t want to see Brewers/Cards or Braves/Phillies as a wild card series?

Ben Clemens: What about Padres/Dodgers in the DS?

Jacob: How much of the Yankees’ slide this month do you think is just regression to the mean after a really hot start and how much actual issues the team should be concerned about?

Nicstone: Yankees panic level 1-10? It’s hard to comperhend how a team so good until mid July just became the worst team In baseball over night.

Ben Clemens: I’d have my panic level around a 3; if we were calling it a concern level instead of panic, I’d maybe go 6

Ben Clemens: basically, the relief corps is a problem

Ben Clemens: This is a lot of injuries to good pitchers they’re dealing with

Ben Clemens: They never satisfactorily replaced King or Green, really, and the bad breaks have continued to roll in

Ben Clemens: Trading for Effross and Trivino was a nice attempt to stem the tide, but it hasn’t been enough

Ben Clemens: I’m a little less worried about the hitting because I never expected it to keep going at the rate it started. Matt Carpenter isn’t suddenly Babe Ruth

Ben Clemens: Obviously Gleyber’s recent form is worrisome, I’ll admit to some worry there

Ben Clemens: But I dunno, did we think Hicks and Kiner-Falefa were supposed to be great hitters? I’m not super surprised they’ve struggled with Stanton out. They’ve also had a .270 BABIP as a team, that’ll normalize

Ben Clemens: They have an 8 game lead! It’ll be fine.

Belli Flop: Does Cody Bellinger have any chance of being even a league-average hitter again?  He’s had such a clear hole in his swing for 2 years now.

Ben Clemens: I don’t want to spoil things too much, but someone here is writing about him this week. I don’t know what their takeaway will be, but for my part, I’m not optimistic

Romorr: I know he’s not the most interesting dude out there, but Austin Voth has put together an impressive turnaround in Baltimore. Was this more, get out of Washington, or Chris Holt putting another feather in his cap?

Ben Clemens: Porque no los dos?

The Great Giambino: As a heads-up, youu got a shout-out for your article on Trevor Stephan by one of Cleveland’s long time newspaper beat writers! Said you lost him a little bit (presumably on the break explanation?), but always cool to see FanGraphs mentioned by other media outlets

Ben Clemens: I saw that, actually! One of my dad’s friends is a big Guardians fan and forwarded to me. It’s never gonna stop being cool seeing my name in a newspaper

The Real Ben Clemens: any thoughts on Hader’s struggles? seems like an oversimplification to diagnose it as a release point issue

Ben Clemens: I really think the release point has something to do with it. I don’t know that it’s all of it, but I think he’s just lost a lot of his usual Hader-ity, and that maybe that’s a sign of it

Ben Clemens: His command is not up to its usual level, which is resulting in some bad counts, he’s been a bit unlucky homer-wise, and he’s always been a feast-or-famine pitcher

Ben Clemens: But I think a lot of it comes down to that fastball not bullying people like it always did, and I think it’s clearly the case that some of his magic comes down to the wild release point

Porcho Villa: While it has been only a month, have the recent struggles of Bo Bichette and Brandon Lowe changed your perspective on them at all since the trade value series? Bichette perhaps just in an extended slump, albeit bad enough to get him dropped in the order. Lowe’s post-IL stint performance is more worrisome and it seems likely he is playing through injuries.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I’m not changing my opinion on Lowe too much because I agree, I’m pretty sure he’s hurt

Ben Clemens: I was worried I had him too high in the ranking, but I was more making a statement about how I think good-bat second basemen have value

Ben Clemens: I’m definitely very worried about Bichette!

Ben Clemens: That’s the one I lose the most sleep over (to be fair, it’s a many-way tie with 0 sleep lost)

James: Dusty has been batting Yuli 2nd, in front of Yordan, presumably hoping that he sees some better pitches. It hasn’t really gotten more production, but is there any validity to the idea? Or is it just old-school nonsense?

Ben Clemens: I’m not sure! It seems like something interesting to look into, and maybe something hard to isolate. I’m comfortable saying it’s a bad idea, though

Broken Bat: Pretend… you are GM and your owner says win it all in 3 years. You can have any prospect or current MLB players with less than 2 years of service time  on your team. You get the first 6 picks. Who are they?

Ben Clemens: Let’s assume salary isn’t an issue, and it can only be players with less than two years of service time. Gimme Adley, Julio, Witt, Wander, Kirk (not sure he’s quite there on service time, I’m counting it anyway), and Manoah

Ben Clemens: I didn’t put a ton of thought into this, so I might be missing someone obvious

Guest: Re: Yankees panic: the 2017 Dodgers had stretches where they won 15 or 16 and lost 15 of 16, and that season worked out okay for them (would have worked out even better perhaps if not for Astros shenanigans).  Slumps happen to good teams.

Ben Clemens: That’s my general feel for it, agreed

>this guy<: SInce the Angels DFA’d Pujols, he has pretty much mashed. And the Angels have a weak offense

Ben Clemens: You’re not wrong!

Appa Yip Yip: Is Alek Manoah’s propensity for beaning people an issue, or is it still a rare enough event that it doesn’t really matter? (Except to the dudes getting hit. It sucks for them)

Ben Clemens: I’m still on the doesn’t matter too much side of things, but take that with a grain of salt, b/c I didn’t realize this was an issue until you mentioned it

Matt (Oceanside): Thanks for the chat Ben! Love your stuff, appreciate you!

Ben Clemens: why thank YOU

Matt (Oceanside): Justin Choi wrote an interesting article for Fangraphs on Kimbrel’s underlying metrics being so solid, and it being a mystery outside of the high BABIP on why he has struggled so much. I have watched almost every game of his, and to me it’s obvious that the command and control are both rough, consistently rough. What is your opinion on him?

Ben Clemens: I haven’t really watched enough of his outings to have a strong eye test opinion

Ben Clemens: I totally buy that he’s struggling with command, that’s the kind of thing that happened to Kimbrel (in less-extreme fashion) even in his great years

Ben Clemens: you know, pitches are shaped the same, but they’re not really going where he wants, which puts him in some bad situations

A Jollly Good Oberkfellow: Are we maybe finally getting past some of the stodgy unwritten rules–no one seemed too perturbed, even in Philly, about Canha’s epic bat flip yesterday.

Ben Clemens: I sure hope so

Ben Clemens: Great bat flip, too

Mets fan: Should the Mets trade Jeff McNeil after this season? If so, what does he bring back?

Ben Clemens: No

EonADS: I honestly think Hader might be hurt. Having pitched through shoulder injuries in college and HS, I recognize they way he’s cutting the load on his arm, which is screwing his release point and feel. He’s tucked the arm in slightly, which makes him compensate with a slight vertical increase in release point. His extension is not as good horizontally, and the vertical increase is just throwing his command off.

Ben Clemens: I’m definitely not a mechanics guy, but something looks wrong

cm: Who is the better player going forward, Mateo or Pena?

Ben Clemens: Pena

Farhandrew Zaidman: What in the heck are the Marlins thinking putting Brian Anderson in RF? He looked completely lost out there this weekend and I don’t know that Wendle is a big defensive upgrade at 3B….

Ben Clemens: I feel like this is constantly happening with Brian Anderson

Ben Clemens: He’s a 3b

Ben Clemens: He’s played a lot of innings in the outfield for being a 3b

Ben Clemens: I guess 2018 was the last time it was a BIG problem, but they messed around with it in 2019 too, and again this year

Ben Clemens: Keep him in the infield imo

Finnegan’s Seam-shifted Wake: Any thoughts on Justin Steele or “cut/ride” fastballs in general?

Ben Clemens: Stay tuned for an article about him as well

Dodgers Fan: Yesterday, Kimbrel jogged out to “Let it Go” from Frozen for Women’s Day.  This needs to be a permanent change.

Ben Clemens: I don’t have kids. I LOVE that song

Ben Clemens: A lot of my friends who have kids hate it, because they’ve heard it 16000 times, but that’s an amazing closer song for me

Dodgers Fan: On that note, do you have an all-time favorite closer entrance music choice?

Ben Clemens: As much as I have hipster tendencies, I can’t go against Enter Sandman. I’ve been in Yankee Stadium before and it just transformed the place

Ben Clemens: Two honorable mentions: Edwin Diaz’s trumpets create a different but still spectacular atmosphere, and there was a year when Andrew Miller was closing for the Yankees and came in to “When the Man Comes Around”

re: Brian Anderson: They put him in the outfield because he keeps hurting his shoulder throwing from third, if I remember correctly.

Ben Clemens: Ah, this is helpful to know

Ben Clemens: That makes some sense; he was worth getting in the lineup for his bat even if they knew his defense was compromised, particularly for those Marlins

The Great Giambino: Speaking of kids songs, what are your thoughts on Oscar Gonzalez walking up to SpongeBob Squarepants theme?

Ben Clemens: Great; loved Baby Shark too

Thomas: Any thoughts on the weird season Matt Chapman is having? Big offensive bounce back, with a bigger defensive backslide. Is it just getting used to the turf at Rogers Centre or are his elite defensive days over?

Ben Clemens: Mike Petriello wrote about this and I loved it

Ben Clemens: https://www.mlb.com/news/how-contenders-improved-infield-defense

Blake Seams: Cristian Javier is pitching way to well for the Astros to relegate him to the bullpen come playoff time, right?

Ben Clemens: It’s a tough (but good) problem for the team. I think it’s one of him or Luis Garcia

Ben Clemens: Javier’s stuff has historically popped in the bullpen, but I could also see them doing some kind of semi-tandem deal between the two of them, and I’d love that

Some Guy: You have one pitcher you get to add to the Cardinals. Their contract situation doesn’t change, neither do their tendencies as a pitcher. Who do you pick?

Ben Clemens: Sandy Alcantara by a mile

Ben Clemens: that contract, wowwwwww

Ben Clemens: Second would be Manoah, then McClanahan

Matt (Oceanside): The Texas Rangers possibly competing next year seems plausible from the run differential and adding a hitter, but what do they do about the pitching. Bringing back Perez and pairing him with Gray sounds like a good start, but I feel like they need to sign a top-end pitcher and some depth, in addition to seeing results from the farm. Do you think pitching is the biggest mountain for them?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, they need more pitching. I’m assuming they are targeting some this offseason. Even mid-tier pitching would be a big upgrade

Guest: Which veteran would you most like to see win a World Series ring?  Greinke maybe?  Or is his the kind of personality that wouldn’t really care about it?

Ben Clemens: Greinke would be an excellent one. McCutchen is up there for me too

Ben Clemens: Votto

Romorr: Jorge Mateo is having an up and down year, he’s currently up. With his defense, would you pencil him in as a starter for 2023? Or, put him in a super utility role?

Ben Clemens: He’s a starter for me. The offense is, as you said, a perpetual roller coaster ride, but I really believe in the defense, and it’s not like the Orioles have 75 shortstops banging on the door

Edwin Díaz: If Alcántara falters a bit and I continue to dominate, do I deserve any first-place Cy Young votes?

Ben Clemens: This is an interesting question and I have no idea how to think about it

Ben Clemens: If you’re a WAR person, obviously no

Ben Clemens: If you’re a WPA person…. apparently still no? Daniel Bard has more WPA than Diaz, wth

Ben Clemens: If Corbin Burnes weren’t putting together another great season, then maybe? But Fried is looking excellent too. It’s really hard to have a seaon I’d consider Cy-worthy if you’re only throwing 60-70 innings. And if you want to go that route, is Diaz clearly more dominant than Ryan Helsley?

Ben Clemens: I DEFINITELY wouldn’t vote him for Cy, to be clear

The Real Ben Clemens: Rockies with the big brain (?) move of extending the closer with the highest WPA in the league

Ben Clemens: Yeah, they were playing 6d chess

Ben Clemens: Unfortunately, the 3 other dimensions are those loop dimensions predicted by some physics models that don’t matter at all for day-to-day life

Porcho Villa: At some point in his Yankee closing tenure Andrew Miller also came out to “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” by Johnny Cash– nothing will ever top Mo and Sandman but man, that was a good one

Ben Clemens: Something about Miller’s lankiness really lent itself to Cash entry songs

Ben Clemens: he looked like a gunslinger walking up to a duel

Some Guy: Not Framber Valdez given how good the Cards infield defense is?

Ben Clemens: I’m a huge Framber fan, absolutely shoved him on the trade value rankings, think he’d be a great fit for the Cardinals… but uh, have you seen Sandy Alcantara?

Ben Clemens: Fit is nice, but raw talent level has to win out at some point

CB: IF the Cardinals win the World Series, what will the season recap sound like?

Ben Clemens: I think it’ll focus on the peerless corner infielders, the Pujols resurgence, and the emergence of Helsley as a lockdown closer

Ben Clemens: they’ll gloss over Yadi’s intermittent absences, and probably spare a bit of time for Wainwright’s incredible longevity

jyokley: Which team will win the most World Series in the next decade?

Ben Clemens: I don’t see how you can have any honest prediction to this question that isn’t the Dodgers

jyokley: What is more likely? Cardinals WS win or Pujols 700 HR’s this season?

Ben Clemens: Ooh, tough one

Ben Clemens: I think Cards WS, but it really is close

Guest: Suppose deGrom continues pitching at the level he his pitching now (including the 37.0 K:BB rate!) for the rest of the year and finishes with about 80 innings pitched.  What kind of free agent deal does he get if he opts out?

Ben Clemens: I think about this exact question a lot. It’s a circumstance unlike any we’ve seen before. I’d give him 3/90 or something, and maybe even go higher?

Ben Clemens: But I really don’t know at all

clem bevins: ben, i have been thinking about this for years and am wondering if theres a way to quantify this: it seems like there are pitchers that either go 6 innings and give up no runs, or they to three innings and give up 7. so is the guy that is either feast or famine better than his numerical equivalent that consistently gives up 3 or 4 over 5? My gut reaction is that the guy who is a coinflip is better. at least, i’d rather have him on my team cuz maybe upside

Ben Clemens: I assume the coin flip guy is better. It’s really interesting, though, and probably something I should model and write an article about

Dalton Wilcox: The 2022 Cubs have the least velocity and hit the fewest flyballs. Seems like a relatively easy fix?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, just start throwing harder and hit more homers

Ben Clemens: I totally suggest this solution. I’ll get on the horn to Jed right now

Some Guy: In an alternate universe where Zack Greinke spent his time becoming a position player instead of a pitcher, what position(s) would he play, and how good would he be?

Ben Clemens: I guess I’d predict him as a third baseman?

Ben Clemens: Obviously the arm strength would play. I have absolutely no clue how good he’d be

Appa Yip Yip: Ben Clemens coming at u. In App form.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, the FanGraphs app is great. I’ve been beta testing it for a few months, and looking up player pages and playoff odds on my phone are two killer use cases

Ben Clemens: the mobile site just isn’t great for those. There are some cool features planned for the future but even if it were just those two things I’d love it

YorDaddy: Is Ha-Seong Kim a gold glover?

Ben Clemens: He doesn’t look it to me

Ben Clemens: He looks very good, don’t get me wrong

Ben Clemens: And maybe the crop is just weak enough this year at NL SS to steal one

Ben Clemens: But I have Lindor, Edman, Hoerner all comfortably ahead of him this year

Ben Clemens: He’s a great defender. Just, for me not a GG shortstop

Benjamin: If the division series started tomorrow, how would you expect the Yankees to line up their starting rotation (assuming Severino is healthy and pitching like he did earlier this season)?

Ben Clemens: Cole, Nestor, Sevy, Montas/Taillon, I think

Ben Clemens: I’m pretty worried Montas is hurt

Guest: This may be an odd question to ask given the sabermetric nature of this website, but who do you see as having the most hits by the end of the regular season? Freddie Freeman and Trea Turner have been 1-2 in that aspect for a while now, but Goldschmidt is also getting up there. Who do you think finishes with the most hits? And will anyone top 200 hits?

Ben Clemens: I’ll take Trea, and no one over 200

Ryan: A few months later, what are your thoughts of the playoffs being expanded? Would our playoff race be more interesting if the Rays and Phillies were on the outside looking in, or do you find it more fun as it is?

Ben Clemens: It’s interesting. I think the race would be more exciting with one fewer spot. But I still like the new format quite a bit, because punishing the central division winners for their records seems like a good move to me

Ben Clemens: I wish there were a way to both have great races and a playoff structure that encourages regular season excellence, but I like this way more than the 10-team way. Also, I’m pretty excited about the ALC race still, and the NLC/Phillies race where three teams get two spots

Ben Clemens: It’d be better with a bit more chaos, but it’s not like there’s NO uncertainty

Dalton Wilcox: Is Dansby Swanson an underrated FA to be? I notice he is best at hitting flyballs and playing defense among the SS group

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I think so. I assume teams will regress his 2022 a bit in their evaluation of him, and he suffers a bit because the shortstop class this year is deep, but that just means there are more teams losing good shortstops

Farhandrew Zaidman: Joey Gallo – unironically comeback player of the (second half of the) year?

Ben Clemens: oh yeah let’s go, all aboard the Joey Gallo bandwagon

Ben Clemens: I’m soooooo in on it

Ben Clemens: It was just so obvious that this would happen. Not to the extent that it has, he’s not gonna keep babiping this much or even slugging this much, but it was just so predictable

Dodgers Fan: Same as Benjamin’s NYY question, but for LAD?

Ben Clemens: I’d go Urias/Kershaw/Gonsolin/May, but not really care too much about the ordering. I thikn it’s a BIT too soon to say May is unhittable now but his first start was certainly very encouraging

Guest: How far down the trade value list does the PED suspension knock Tatis for you?

Ben Clemens: The best thing about the trade value list is that I don’t have to do it again until next year

Guest: 3/90 for deGrom seems a little light, considering Scherzer got 3/130 and Bauer got 3/102.  deGrom has obviously had more injury issues, but then, he’s also considerably younger than Scherzer and considerably better than Bauer.

Ben Clemens: Yeah… the injuries are definitely worrisome, though. Like, he’s been a LOT less healthy than Scherzer

CB: Is Goldy the MVP? I think it’s not a lock yet, but he’s getting close unless someone goes ’08 Manny Ramirez

Ben Clemens: I think his closest competition is Arenado

Ben Clemens: Arenado is just playing out of his MIND defensively at the moment, and it’s so fun to watch. He’s also produced a ton of signature moments offensively, not that Goldschmidt hasn’t. There’s still more than a month to play, so plenty can happen, but for me, oneo f those two is extremely likely to win

Ryan: I still can’t get over Tatis actually using steroids in the year 2022 when the steroid era is over and a few players still get busted every year. I don’t get how you take that risk. This isn’t a question–really just an astonished statement

Ben Clemens: Yeah, truly shocking to me

Ben Clemens: I don’t know what to believe about it, and I don’t even know if it affected his talent level when he was in the majors. Heck, he may not have taken anything until he was rehabbing. But just, what the heck, man

Florida Doctor: What would a healthy Franco do for the Rays chances in the playoffs?

Ben Clemens: It would increase them

Ben Clemens: I’m sure you’re looking for more than that, but I don’t really know how likely he is to come back 100% healthy. It’s like adding an All Star if he’s a full go, which is obviously great…. but well, still fractional improvements. The plyaoffs are just inherently a crap shoot

jas: What do you see with Tyler O’Neill? It seems like his swing decisions and BB%/K% are similar if not better than last year, but his BABIP has cratered and his hard hit rate is down quite a bit. Is he just a victim of bad luck?

Ben Clemens: I’ll have to dig in more to have a real opinion on this, because in my head he’s just getting unlucky, but it’s been a LONG time of being unlucky

James: There’s a lot of talk about how the extra inning ghost runner favors the visiting team, but does it also favor a team that has a left handed hitter lead off? They are more likely to get the runner over with a grounder, and the defense can’t fully shift with a man on 2nd. Perhaps not something that can be fully exploited, but something to think about?

Ben Clemens: Definitely worth thinking about!

Ben Clemens: Added to the articles to think about writing queue

Ben Clemens: Alright eveyone, this is gonna be a short chat today, because I managed to get behind on several projects and also not set lunch out before starting. Sorry for the brevity (although not that sorry, it was still 70 minutes), and truly sorry if I didn’t get to your good question, of which there were many

Ben Clemens: Let’s do this again next week!