Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 8/24/20

Ben Clemens: Hey everybody, and welcome to the chat.

Ben Clemens: Today, I wrote about David Fletcher being goofy:

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/david-fletcher-made-a-bad-swing-decision/

Ben Clemens: And as we speak, I am ignoring actual baseball to simulate baseball for an article tomorrow

Ben Clemens: But let’s go away from the simulation, and talk real baseball for a while

Ben Clemens: Plus board games or food or whatever, I’m flexible

James: With the success the Padres have shown this week why don’t more teams employ the strategy of hitting grand slams in every game?

Ben Clemens: It’s an excellent question, because it clearly works well

Ben Clemens: I think there are unwritten rules against it, though.

Ben Clemens: That’s why you don’t see the Rangers doing it, for example.

Ben Clemens: They prefer to focus on dropping pop ups to hunt statistical milestones

Please Talk About Max Fried: Is there evidence that Max Fried has really turned a corner and developed into a #1-type starting pitcher? His peripherals indicate some regression, but still demonstrate high-caliber expected results.

Ben Clemens: This is a tricky one, because I think the right answer could be that it happened last year and we just didn’t notice

Ben Clemens: He’s getting pretty lucky on home run rate at the moment, and you have to assume that he won’t keep allowing literal zero dingers, but yeah, I buy Fried as a front-of-the-rotation type

Nick: what are your thoughts on Brady Singer and Kris Bubic for the Royals? They both started strong and now hitters are adjusting to them. Do you think they can adjust back or could that take a while?

Ben Clemens: I haven’t actually watched any of Singer yet, but I’ve seen parts of two starts for Bubic

Ben Clemens: I think he might take a bit to adjust back, because he doesn’t seem to be able to get swings at his putaway stuff

Ben Clemens: That’s a huge issue

Ben Clemens: With two strikes, batters are only chasing pitches out of the zone a third of the time for him

Ben Clemens: And they’re making contact a lot when they do

Ben Clemens: League average is up closer to 40% with way less contact

Ben Clemens: This might be a refine the breaking ball kind of situation, and I think you do that in the offseason

Scotty: I haven’t been able to watch any of his outings, but what is your first impression of Kwang Hyun Kim?

Ben Clemens: I buy him as an overqualified swingman in the Kenta Maeda/Ross Stripling mold

Ben Clemens: Or heck, Carlos Martinez if we’re staying on the Cardinals

Ben Clemens: Has the stuff to miss bats, but I don’ think he’s quite ace level, and he relies a lot on his slider so it’s not shocking that the Cardinals are interested in seeing how he’d work as a reliever

Ben Clemens: Both because it gets him better platoon matchups on average and because it limits the number of looks batters get at the slider

konondrum: Kyle’s Lewis’ first 200 PA ~ 6.5 WAR pace. How common is that for a rookie debut?

Ben Clemens: Sadly I don’t have this handy, but it’s not common. He’s fallen off a little from the insane pace he was on at the very start of the season (looks like defense may have played a role, though, so maybe take that with a grain of salt)

Ben Clemens: But that’s why everyone is so excited about him — putting up this kind of performance, even with a .444 BABIP tailwind, is just not something you see every year

Ben Clemens: (Yordan last year and Soto the year before aside)

pss: The playoffs still have normal extra innings rules, right? I like the runner on second for regular season but not for playoffs

Ben Clemens: They do indeed

Ben Clemens: I’m actually liking the runner more than I thought I would

Ben Clemens: but I think I still want the playoffs to be old style

Ben Clemens: So I’m glad baseball recognized that

Appa Yip Yip: The Jays have identified Beefcakes as the new market inefficiency and I, for one, am here for their 800 pounds worth of first basemen.

Ben Clemens: So many DH’s

Ben Clemens: soooooo many

Ben Clemens: I trade for Vogelbach a lot when I simulate seasons in OOTP or whatever, so yeah, sign me up

Govtman: Did the Jays front office drop the ball on the question of Vlad’s conditioning and weight problem..it was obvious last year and even in the minor leagues that he has a issue with his weight, yet he came into this year heavier than ever…you would think the Jays would be more concerned

Ben Clemens: Similar question, or at least in the same vein

Ben Clemens: And here I honestly don’t think so

Ben Clemens: There’s this Orwellian view of teams that they could just tell their players to be in better shape

Ben Clemens: But presumably the Jays weren’t blindsided by the fact that Vlad probably didn’t have the body type to stick at third

Ben Clemens: I would assume that in internal conversations, they’re concerned

Ben Clemens: And I’d also assume that they’ve mentioned it to him, probably in the context of ‘if you stay healthy, you’ll get paid more and produce more’

Ben Clemens: But they can’t exaclty control body type, I don’t think?

Guest: Which one is more likely to bring my family together as opposed to rip it apart:  Settler of Catan or Pandemic?

Ben Clemens: I just played three games of Catan last week, the first time I’d played in quite a wihle

Ben Clemens: (with two friends who don’t play board games often but had bought a copy of it)

Ben Clemens: It held up wayyyyy better than I expected

Ben Clemens: I would sya that Settlers is more likely to bring your family together without knowing the exact composition of your family

Ben Clemens: Pandemic suffers from the bossy coop player problem: if one member of your family is prone to bossing people around, then they’ll be doing that on everyone’s turn and it gets annoying

bighen: Would the Mets adjust the rotation so that deGrom starts their first game back?  I assume it would be stupid not to but not sure if they want to keep guys on the same track or something.  Basically mets should be hoping to have him take as many turns as he can.

Ben Clemens: They should. The Yankees are doing the same with Cole. The only reason not to would be if dG says he wants to stick to a schedule because of his neck

Guest: Ports in Settlers are way underbalanced.  Also, Longest Road decides 90% of competitive games.  Change my mind!

Ben Clemens: Yeah I don’t think it holds up if you’re playing it with a room full of min-maxers who want to crush everyone in their path

Ben Clemens: Games have become far better balanced in the intervening 20 years

Jkim: Mets’ playoffs rotation should be:

1. Degrom
2. “Amed, go lick the 7 train”
3. DeGrom after a few days of COVID-related postponement

Ben Clemens: Boy I laughed more than I should have

Ben Clemens: But gross!

Ben Clemens: Ugh just imagining licking a subway seat is giving me anxiety

Warren: In retrospect, do the Padres regret the Brad Hand/Francisco Mejia swap?  Pads could sure use a hand in the bullpen right about now…

Ben Clemens: heyyyyyyy

Ben Clemens: But no, I don’t think so

Ben Clemens: It’s one of those trades where it didn’t play out as well as they hoped and yet if you told them today they could trade a great closer for a top 50 position player prospect they’d probably do it again

Ben Clemens: Particularly given that they weren’t going to get much out of the first 1.5 years of Hand’s team control remaining

Guest: Is David Fletcher rich man’s Nick Madrigal or is Nick Madrigal rich man’s David Fletcher?

Ben Clemens: Wonderful question, and I think the answer is that David Fletcher is a totally acceptable outcome for Madrigal

Ben Clemens: If Madrigal is a league average hitter with plus defense, that’s a nice player right there

Ben Clemens: Fletcher is probably above the median outcome for Madrigal if he’s as good as he’s looked in the past two years

Ben Clemens: Largely because of the glove, but that really matters

Mike Hawk: I’m seeing Fraley projecting as a platoon but his splits say otherwise.  Can you clarify?

Ben Clemens: Um, I don’t have minor league splits handy sadly

Ben Clemens: Let me see if I can pull them up

Ben Clemens: Yeah, if you have them, please post them, because I’m not going to be able to generate them real-time here, but basically, it’s decent practice to assume lefty hitters are far better against righty pitching unless you have either a)a huge sample of success against LHP, like more than 1000 PA against lefties or b)a very specific, non-outcome-based reason to think they should do well

Ben Clemens: Say that they happen to pick up lefty sliders really well; then you should be able to see it in granular stuff like chase rate and contact rate

Inaccessible Rail: I disagree about Mets playoff strategy, as Mets seem to forget how to score with deGrom pitching. Unbelievably, their winning percentage is lower in his starts than average over the last couple of years.

Ben Clemens: What a lovely statistic

Jimbo: What do you make of early season changes to exit velocity? Is that something that needs a bigger sample to level out?

Ben Clemens: Be super careful with these, because Hawkeye is picking up more batted balls than Statcast did

Ben Clemens: Or sorry, than the radar did, I forget its name at the moment

Ben Clemens: And the ones they’re picking up are largely pop ups and topped grounders

Ben Clemens: So you’d want to do something like isolate launch angles between 10 and 30 degrees to do a like for like check

Joshua: If the Angels attached Brandon Marsh to Justin Upton and his awful remaining two years of his contract, would that make sense for the Angels and for the team receiving this trade?

Ben Clemens: I think it would, but I don’t think teams are going to be taking on cash this year

Ben Clemens: It just seems sooooo unlikely given the economic climate

Ben Clemens: And Jimbo, on balls hit between 10 and 30 degrees, average EV was 92.8mph last year and 92.6mph this year

Don: If there are ever robot umps, do you think the league would still adjust it so pitches are still called balls if they are those silly breaking balls that clip like a millimeter of the upper part of the zone?

Ben Clemens: I think they’d have to redefine the strike zone

Ben Clemens: I’m not exactly sure how

Don: Is Lance Lynn the biggest name traded at the deadline?

Lukas: What (if anything) should the Padres try to acquire before the trade deadline?

Ben Clemens: I’ve been trying to figure out what I think the deadline will look like, and I’m still kind of stumped

Ben Clemens: I could see it being a bunch of Phils/Sox trades where teams fill in small holes

Ben Clemens: I’m not really sure which way I lean yet. Lynn would make a lot of sense as a trade, though, or maybe Kyle Seager if some contender thinks they really want a third baseman, though his contract is tricky stlil

Ben Clemens: I’d like to see the Padres go get a reliever, but they could justify standing pat as well. Pagan is fine as the back of your pen

Jkim: Re: robot umps – The starting point should be by % strike called on a particular pitch on that location I would think, i.e. based on historical data of how pitches were called and not the letter of the law

Ben Clemens: It should probably be something along those lines, but there’s also the question of probability

Ben Clemens: It would be weird to just draw a line at 50% and call everything over a strike and everything under a ball

Ben Clemens: I’m not sure how they could handle it, but doing a black/white thing would be very unpopular

Jkim: A potentially hilarious and fun idea would be that both teams decide on the percentage beforehand lmao

Ben Clemens: Oh I like this!

Joshua: What could the Giants get in return for Yaz? He’s already 30 and is definitely at a peak value right now. Dealing him for some prospects who align with better with Joey Bart’s time frame and all the money they have coming off the books in the next 2 years (Cueto, Crawford, Belt, Posey, etc), it could make sense for them to deal him now.

Not Evan: The internet website baseballtradevalues dot com (has everyone already seen this? actually pretty cool!) says that Mike Yastrzemski is about as valuable as Andrew Vaughn or Sixto Sanchez. What say you, is that about a fair prospect return for the Giants?

Ben Clemens: Lot of questions about Yaz getting traded

Ben Clemens: I’m on the record, I think, as saying he’ll be better than league average going forward

Ben Clemens: And I do think that the Giants will be looking to trade him, though this offseason rather than right now

Ben Clemens: I’m not exactly sure how this site generates their trade values (they keep it purposefully opaque)

Ben Clemens: But put Sixto on a contending team, and I do not think they’d be willing to trade him for Yastrzemski

Ben Clemens: I think that the discussion would probably start around that range, though

Ben Clemens: We have Vaughn higher than Sanchez, for exmaple, and I’d be more willing to trade him than Sixto for Yastrzemski

Ben Clemens: Something in the 50-55 prospect range makes sense to me, though it’s maybe a better question for Craig or Eric

Guest: Mike Clevinger will make ___ more starts for Cleveland in 2020

Ben Clemens: Um, I’m going to say 4

Ben Clemens: (who knows)

Ben Clemens: I’m less convinced that they’ll trade him than I was last week

Daniel: Which board game is the Fernando Tatis Jr of board games?

Ben Clemens: I’ve been thikning about this one in the background for a while

Ben Clemens: My pick: Clank Legacy

Ben Clemens: It’s really exciting and fast-paced, and it feels dynamic — it’s theoretically a deck-building game, but it feels like every turn is really important and there’s a big press-your-luck feel

Ben Clemens: It’s new and hyped

Ben Clemens: Won a ton of Game of the Year awards

Ben Clemens: And it has good bloodlines; Clank is a hit and the Penny Arcade brand name that they added for the legacy version is huge

Padres Fan: How excited should I let myself be about the future of Jake Cronenworth?

Ben Clemens: Oh, very excited!

Ben Clemens: Eric wrote about him today:

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/prospect-roundup-cronenworth-mckenzie-skub…

Ben Clemens: And honestly, he probably should have been more of a name prospect already

Ben Clemens: When I evaluated the Pham/Renfroe trade in the offseason (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/rays-padres-act-to-type-in-tommy-pham-trad…) I was very confused why Cronenworth wasn’t more highly regarded

Ben Clemens: I thought he was probably major league ready, and it looks like that’s the case

Ben Clemens: Don’t expect him to keep hitting like this, but just a liiiiiittle bit of power plus a good batting eye is a good combination

Jimbo: Dave Cameron deserves a lot of respect for the Padres appearing to get the best of the Rays in two trades (although too early to determine)

Ben Clemens: I would say that Preller should get the credit and Cameron should get some of it, but yeah, the Padres look like savvy traders at the moment. It’s too early to say but I think both of those trades were the rare win-win

Gunther Centralperk: Since the Dodgers are almost certainly out on Lindor, will/should they try to extend Seager ASAP? I say yes.

Ben Clemens: I am not sure if they will, but I absolutely think they should

Ben Clemens: The biggest downside is that the price might be a bit higher than they like given his recent form

Ben Clemens: But it would be really helpful to lock up shortstop for a while

Sweetie Pie: What are your thoughts on Ryan Mountcastle? Also, will he play only OF or maybe some 1B?

Ben Clemens: I think he absolutely should be playing some first base

Ben Clemens: There are plenty of future configurations of the future Orioles where they find three good outfielders and need him at first

Ben Clemens: As to what I think about him, I don’t see any reason to disagree with Eric, who has him as a 50 FV guy, who will almost certainly be able to hit enough to handle the majors, so position is the key thing

Western Dave: “if one member of your family is prone to bossing people around, then they’ll be doing that on everyone’s turn and it gets annoying”  – You’ve met my teenage daughter, I assume.  

Is Hunter Renfroe ever going to break out?

Ben Clemens: Callback because I forgot to post this earlier

Ben Clemens: And eh, I’m not a believer

Ben Clemens: I thikn too much has to go right with him

Inaccessible Rail: Are teams hurt by playing many doubleheader in a short time span? Or are winning percentages about the same either way?

Ben Clemens: There simply won’t be enough data to tell, even by the end of the season, but I think the answer is definitely yes

Ben Clemens: Look at some of the rosters the Cardinals and Marlins ran out in their heaviest doubleheader days

Ben Clemens: The hit to pitching is really extreme, and it carries over; if you face a team for your third doubleheader in five days and they have played, say, three games in the time you’ve played six

Ben Clemens: That’s a big disadvantage before you even get into position player rest

Stevil: Two questions! Which popular board game would be better/funner with a change in rules, and should Atlanta be looking for 3B & rotation help, or focus on pitching and see if Riley’s recent stretch of success sticks?

Ben Clemens: Another question I’ve been pondering for a bit. I’m not exactly sure what you mean by popular, so I’ll give two different answers. One would be Risk but with hidden objectives — I think Risk is a pretty bad game overall, but if you could make it a little asymmetric so that there was more uncertainty about what people were trying to do I’d like that

Ben Clemens: If you’re talking about more modern games, I’d go with Seven Wonders played as a team game

Ben Clemens: You play with four players, the person across from you is on your team, and you add up points at the end

Depressed Reds Fan: Do you expect the Reds to sell at the deadline? How much of their lack of success do you attribute to poor luck(BABIP)?

Ben Clemens: Nah, I think they’ll be buyers

Ben Clemens: Or more likely, stand-patt-ers

Ben Clemens: We still have them as about a coin flip to make the playoffs

Ben Clemens: Despite their recent run of poor luck

Derek: Risk definitely needs a rules change to be good. Honestly a terrible game – I’d rather play craps or something instead. Or just roll a die a bunch of times and add the numbers until I get bored.

Ben Clemens: The guy who made Pandemic Legacy also made Risk Legacy, though I haven’t played it

Ben Clemens: That might be good

Ben Clemens: But yeah Risk is not a great game. There’s a reason that people didn’t always love board games as kids; board games when I was a kid were mostly terrible

Ben Clemens: Risk, Life, Sorry

Ben Clemens: They’re not great games

Ben Clemens: I was lucky that one of my friends picked up a (very) early copy of Settllers of Catan at a gaming convention in the mid 90s

Ben Clemens: So I plyaed a lot of that and a lot of Magic, and now I love games

Dave: If you’re Detroit, do you trade Boyd for pennies on the (2019) dollar, or hang on to him and figure maybe you can fix him (again)?

Ben Clemens: So I’m probably the low internet analyst on Boyd

Ben Clemens: I never really got it

Ben Clemens: I’d trade him

Ben Clemens: But I always thought he was a breakdown candidate, so if you believed in him before, I’d probably try to fix him

Ed: You k,ow real baseball is back? You’re better than simulated baseball sir. Hope you’re being paid and these are all advetorials.

Ben Clemens: Haha I’m simulating something about this season, don’t worry

Ben Clemens: A friend of mine asked me whether it makes sense to save your closer for extra innings with a runner now starting on second

Ben Clemens: So I’m constructing some fake players so that I can test that

Ben Clemens: In a more controlled setting

guest: Can I choose to believe that 7 inning doubleheaders will help my team that tends to blow leads in the 8th/9th?

Ben Clemens: You should absolutely choose to believe that

Ben Clemens: There’s actually a bit of truth to it as well, I think

Ben Clemens: Teams that blow leads more often tend to have worse bullpens

Ben Clemens: And seven inning games feature less bullpen time

Derek: Has 1B defense become undervalued at this point? Craig Edwards’ Trade Value blurb on Olson and his perceived value around the league seems to suggest that it is, and I really can’t even think of any noteworthy defensive first basemen beyond Olson and mayyyybe Rizzo at this point (and good lord there are some bad ones…). Even guys like Moreland or Brandon Belt or whomever with good defensive reputations are past their primes by now.

Ben Clemens: I definitely think so

Ben Clemens: Perhaps not by teams

Ben Clemens: But by the public analysis side

Ben Clemens: Part of that, though, is because first base defense is harder to measure

Freddie Freeman: I am a noteworthy defensive first baseman

Ben Clemens: Goldschmidt as well I think?

Ben Clemens: But yeah, I think that first base defense is probably more important t han we give it crdit for, though it’s easy to overrated it

Ben Clemens: overrate*

Ben Clemens: I’d rather err on the low side to be safe, basically

Ben Clemens: But I’m pretty sure that I am too low

Derek: Hasn’t Freeman declined significantly on defense over the past couple seasons? Or am I imagining that?

Ben Clemens: He had a really terrible UZR last year but it’s too soon to tell

canofcorn: What’s the fewest number of B+/A- starting pitchers a team needs to win a World Series if the manager is a very good bullpen strategist?

Ben Clemens: It depends on what a B+/A- pitcher is but the Red Sox won the WS two years ago with Chris Sale, David Price, and some randos

Chris: Fyi Taylor Williams has 6 saves

Ben Clemens: Maybe they’ll pull a Roenis Elias and swap him for someone interesting because of the saves

Ben Clemens: Lol wow Hunter Strickland was in that trade too

Ben Clemens: Because when you’re looking for postseason relievers, why not add someone synonymous with postseason relief appearances

Ben Clemens: Sure, he’s always allowing dingers in those appearances, but at that price, you have to accept some blemishes

Those Damn Yankees: Are you on board with a free Mike Ford campaign? Vomit has been beast but with all their injuries I felt like Ford should’ve gotten more of a shot.

Ben Clemens: Including this one because of the lovely autocorrect

Ben Clemens: But yeah, I’d like to see more of Ford

Billy Beane: How’s your air right now? I’ve been sitting AQI of 150+. Related question, what % of people outside California know what an AQI is?

Ben Clemens: Yikes-a

Ben Clemens: That is not great

Ben Clemens: I learned what it was only recently, because I only moved here last year and fires were not bad last summer (or well, they were bad, but not on a relative scale)

Ben Clemens: I drove home from southern CA yesterday (Big Bear Lake, to be specific) and the amount of smoke I saw from the highway was ludicrous

Ben Clemens: We also got rerouted because of evacuations

Ben Clemens: These fires are seriously bad

Chris: Ben can we talk about Kyle Lewis!!

Ben Clemens: We already did earlier

Ben Clemens: But here’s more

Ben Clemens: He’s awesome I want to see more of him

big mac: #Freebrendanrodgers!

Ben Clemens: #free(genericrockiesprospect) is always true

Ben Clemens: But yeah guys what the heck

Ben Clemens: I’m reminded of the only rule is it has to work

Ben Clemens: When Ben and Sam were trying to change something about the team

Ben Clemens: And when they were winning, the manager didn’t want to do it because it was messing with success

Ben Clemens: And when they were losing, he didn’t wnat to do it becaues it was admitting defeat

Ben Clemens: That’s the Rockies with giving playing time to their best players

Derek: I really wanted Dick Monfort to prove us all to be idiots for not interpolating enough 🙁

Ben Clemens: Me too!

Those Damn Yankees: Any surprises on the swinging strike leader list? I was initially surprised by Dobnak and Freeland until I realized they’re half that of Bieber and deGrom at the top and there could very well only be 50 qualified pitchers this year.

Ben Clemens: I’m not sure about surprises, but I love seeing Gausman on there

Ben Clemens: I’m happy he seems to have found a way to make things work

MB: Re: WS pitchers: Cleveland made it to extras of game 7 with Josh Tomlin as their second-best healthy starter (their best one was Corey Kluber but still)

Derek: Royals had maybe 1 B+/A- pitcher when they won!

Go Astros: Hi Ben, I know you’re not an MD, but are you optimistic about Yordan’s long term performance outlook after surgery and recovery? I believe Cargo and Machado had patellar tendon injuries and bounced back ok

Ben Clemens: I am optimistic for sure

Ben Clemens: I don’t see any reason to lower your long-term outlook on him

Joe: Dustin May has been great, the stuff is elite, but is there any particular reason he doesn’t get more whiffs?

Ben Clemens: I think a lot of it just comes down to the pitch mix

Ben Clemens: He was never a huge strikeout guy in the minors either

Ben Clemens: Pitches that move vertically seem to miss bats more than pitches that move horizontally

Ben Clemens: Be right back, gonna make a sparkling water

Big W: Make a sparkling water? Soda stream? How environmentally friendly of you, but does it work and does it taste ok?

Ben Clemens: Oh yeah it’s fine

Ben Clemens: I make mine unflavored, I haven’t experimented with flavoring it

Ben Clemens: Although my wife sometimes puts a drop of vinegar in it, I think? And says it’s great

Ben Clemens: I’m more of a texture drinker than taste, and the carbonation isn’t really distinguishable from fancier sparkling water

Dave: Regarding defense, a catcher gets credit for framing even on pitches that don’t result in an outcome for that AB.  So, should pitchers get credit for strikes/foul balls that don’t result in an outcome for that AB.  Why or why not?

Ben Clemens: I’d say yes, though with a pitcher it’s tricker

Ben Clemens: Because if you throw two great pitches to get to 0-2, and then allow a single

Ben Clemens: You start with a league average outcome, get it to a very favorable scenario with the two strikes

Ben Clemens: Then you go from that super favorable scenario to a bad one (a single)

Ben Clemens: and your total distance moved (from league average to a single)

Ben Clemens: Is the same whether you first give credit for the strikes or don’t

Big W: Vinegar? Is your wife a monster or something? Also, don’t answer that?

Ben Clemens: So it doesn’t taste like vinegar apparently, it gives it a hint of ginger or something?

Ben Clemens: I haven’t tried it!

Ben Clemens: I agree with you that it sounds ridiculous

jake: re: horizontal/vertical movement and whiffs: my theory on why pitchers w/ horizontal movement get less whiffs then vertical is because the bat is longer in the horizontal direction then vertical direction… lol

Ben Clemens: That is my guess as well

Ben Clemens: Until people start swinging cricket bats or tennis racquets or something

jake: why does nobody talk about Jared Hughes? The guy has had an ERA below 3.05 6 of the last 7 years, including 1.80 this year

Ben Clemens: I think a lot of it is b/c he has outperformed his peripherals by a lot and only pitched 500 innings

Ben Clemens: But even if he’s just a 4-ish ERA reliever that’s not a bad thing

Ben Clemens: And you have to think *some* of the FIP-beating is real

Ben Clemens: Important vinegar update

Ben Clemens: You’re supposed to use *flavored* vinegar

Ben Clemens: Because the vinegar taste almost completely disappears

Ben Clemens: But the flavoring in it apparently does a good job making the whole water taste like that

Ben Clemens: So she uses coconut-infused vinegar

Ben Clemens: to make coconut sparkling water

Ben Clemens: This makes soooooo much more sense

Ben Clemens: (I was bothering her about it in the background)

Chamaco: While this is a SSS season, are there any players whose performance so far makes you think they have considerably improved? For example, is Dom Smith having a good couple of weeks, or is this for real?

big mac: Has glasnow turned a corner?  I want to believe so badly…

Ben Clemens: When questions like this come up — performance in small samples — I like to look for things that have changed and whether it seems like they’re under that person’s control for hte most part

Ben Clemens: With Glasnow, I’m optimistic, because it looks like he’s getting his fastball to move more like he wants it

Ben Clemens: With a tiny bit of cut but mostly straight vertical ride

Ben Clemens: So I am hopeful he can keep that up

Ben Clemens: When it moves more side-to-side it’s worse

Ben Clemens: But I mean, I’m reaching, I’m a big Glasnow fan

Ben Clemens: With Smith I’m not sure anything has changed, but he was already mashing last year

Ben Clemens: This is one of those fake breakout type deals

Jonesy Wales: Javy Baez is finally being less aggressive and is…worse?

Ben Clemens: Oh yeah I’m super into this because I wrote an article about how he should be *more* aggressive last year lol

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/javier-baez-is-incomparable/

Ben Clemens: I don’t think being less aggressive really works for him

Ben Clemens: Becuase he’d need to get *so* much less aggressive

Ben Clemens: And he’s a really good bad-ball hitter

Gene: Which NL team is best positioned to beat the Dodgers in the playoffs?

Ben Clemens: The D-Backs, because they’re the team most likely to end up in the 8 seed

Ben Clemens: So they’ll get the first crack at the Dodgers. Everyone else has to win their first round series and have the Dodgers survive

Ben Clemens: If you mean which team is the second-best team in the NL, then I suppose I’ll say the Braves

Derek: Angels fun:quality of results ratio has to be an all-time record. Trout, Simmons, Fletcher, Bundy, Adell, (even a one-way) Ohtani… Why can’t they be good!? (After typing this I suspect it’s because only one of those names is currently a pitcher…)

Ben Clemens: You didn’t even list Rendon!

Ben Clemens: It’s really wild

Ben Clemens: But yeah, a lot of it comes down to just not having enough pitching

Joshua: Carter Kieboom and Adam Eaton for Mike Yaz and Evan Longoria……who says no? I actually think this trade makes a ton of sense for both teams.

Ben Clemens: Oh, I kind of like this without doing too much digging on it

Ben Clemens: I think that might work if the Giants were interested in Eaton. I don’t know how you make it work if they don’t want him, but if they do, why not? Yastrzemski is a great fit for the Nats’ contention window, he should be good as long as Scherzer and Strasburg are

YardGoat: How’s it going Ben? Any predictions at this time for a surprising team that will make it to the League Semifinals?

Ben Clemens: I’m going to say the Mets. They’ve had some rough injury luck this year but they’re a really dangerous short-series team and they’re actually in playoff position right now

Gene: Follow-up question, who would you pick in the NL: The Dodgers or the field.

Ben Clemens: Field

Ben Clemens: These first-round coin flips are wild

Ben Clemens: Our odds have the Dodgers at 27.5% to win the NL

the487: Hi Ben, if a postseason bubble were implemented, would Manfred change the playoff format again to incentivize being a top seed? Would seem like as is, with no HFA, there would be little incentive

Ben Clemens: I totally agree that they *should* change something

Ben Clemens: I don’t know if they will

Ben Clemens: They could make it like the NBA play-in game, lower seed needs to win two straight

Ben Clemens: But I kind of think they’ll just go with it and say, hey, this was a weird season

Ben Clemens: HFA in an empty stadium was already kinda weird

K-Rock: In a dynasty league where Kris Bryant is in the last year of his contract, is he worth holding on to?  Dude looked lost before he got hurt.

Ben Clemens: I’m worried

Ben Clemens: Not long-term, because he’s really talented and has shown he’s capable of adjusting his approach

Ben Clemens: But this year? Very worried

Ben Clemens: It can take time to do that and he doesn’t have it

the487: Fair enough, though I’d think ballpark familiarity at least provides a small advantage theoretically (sorry Blue Jays lol)

Ben Clemens: I think so too

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/home-field-advantage-is-dead-long-live-hom…

Ben Clemens: (sorry for talking myself up so much but hey, I’m very self-indulgent)

Ben Clemens: It’s so weird to not have home field in a three-game baseball series where theoretically one team is way better than the other

Ben Clemens: So okay, maybe they should do the one I’m talking about, lower seed needs to win two straight

Ben Clemens: That would be a WAY more lopsided series than three games with homefield but I hate how even 1-8 matchups are anyway

guest: Re: Dom Smith- he’s played part of 4 seasons and still has only 550 career AB. And 31 HR, and 37 2B, for a guy who didn’t have enough power for the position.

Ben Clemens: Yeah he’s just been much better, over his career, than prospect evaluators thought

Ben Clemens: Despite limited opportunities to shine

Derek: MLB(PA) has given no indication of keeping this playoff format beyond this season right?

Ben Clemens: None I’ve seen, at least

Ben Clemens: I hope that’s the case

Jon: Nationals easily say no to that. Yaz is not on that level

Ben Clemens: I think I’d trade Kieboom for him straight up, but I could see people not doing that. Yaz gives more value right now, less value in the future

Ben Clemens: He’s under team control a long time despite being 30

Ben Clemens: But I could just be valuing the hot hand too much

Ben Clemens: I just think it’s not a hot hand, that he’s truly chnaged his projections

jake: marcus semien… what happened to him? was last year a fluke?

Ben Clemens: Well, yeah kind of

Ben Clemens: He’s not that good I don’t think?

Ben Clemens: But I don’t think he’s this bad either

Ben Clemens: Projection systems thought he’d have a .344 wOBA before the season, already pretty far back toward the mean from 2019

Ben Clemens: They’ve lowered their rest-of-season projections even more now

Ben Clemens: To the mid 320’s it looks like

Ben Clemens: But I think expecting him to repeat 2019 was way too optimistic

Scott: What do you think the FA market will be like for Kirby Yates this year? He went from being arguably the best reliever in baseball last year to absolutely lost for 4.1 innings before losing the rest of his season to injury. I feel bad for him, this was his chance at a big pay day and I think he might have lost it.

Ben Clemens: Yeah it’s gonna be rough

Ben Clemens: He might be on a Blake Treinen deal next year

Ben Clemens: It doesn’t help that every team is going to be a skinflint this offseason

Ben Clemens: Spending money is never popular but it’s going to be especially unfashionable after a year without fans

Ben Clemens: On that note, I’m going to call it a day and go back to figuring out whether you’d rather save your closer for the tenth inning now

BASEBALL SZN: Joining the chat very late so this may have been answered already, but what’s new in Bens’ Land of Board Games?

Ben Clemens: Ooh

Ben Clemens: One last answer here first, then

Ben Clemens: Got Wingspan a few weeks ago

Ben Clemens: Love it

Ben Clemens: And with that, I’m out

Ben Clemens: Have a great day, everyone