Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 8/25/25

Ben Clemens: Hey everybody, let’s get the chat started. I’m aiming for a longer, more relaxed vibe today. I’ve got the US Open on in the background, no games until the afternoon, doing some random research that I’m happy to take a break from, let’s talk baseball

Mike: Probably a user-error, but how do I access Ohtani’s pitcher player page? I can’t find any link to it from his main batter page

Ben Clemens: So, there should be a batting/pitching toggle at the top left, just below the search bar, on desktop

Ben Clemens: If not, um, ping me again?

Todd: This is pedantic, but: BWJr went 1-4 with a walk yesterday, giving him an OBP of .400 and a slug of .250. His game log shows a wRC+ of just 33. I can’t see how that would be accurate?

Ben Clemens: No, we live for pedantry here~

Ben Clemens: The reason is that Witt was intentionally walked. wOBA and wRC+ treat IBB’s as non-PA’s, so his wRC+ is calculated only on the four PA that didn’t end in IBB’s

Lars: It’s the first inning. Runner on first, your second batter – and best hitter on the team – is up. You’re facing a starter (not an opener). If you could guarantee X number of pitches for the at bat in exchange for a strikeout, at what point would it be worth it? Example: a 25 pitch strikeout is a positive outcome (I think) because it adds so much to the pitch count.

Ben Clemens: This is a fun question, and honestly I don’t know the answer to it at all. I’d guess that it’s a high number, yeah, probably at least higher than 15. The tradeoff is not amazing but honestly, the most likely outcome is that your guy makes an out anyway, so why not get some ptiches guaranteed?

Guest: The Medvedev outburst last night was insane. No idea how he didn’t get a point penalty

Ben Clemens: We were channel surfing and happened to see that, and we were like “okay we have to watch this match until the end now”

Ben Clemens: if you haven’t seen this, everyone, go check it out. Medvedev got in an argument iwth the umpire (reasonable argument imo) and kind of egged the crowd on to boo the umpire for his decision. but the booing got out of hand and actually paused the match for 7 minutes because it was so loud that Medvedev’s opponent wouldn’t serve

Oaktown Blues: Re: The IBB not counting as a PA in wRC+ or wOBA: They still get WAR credit for the PA, right? Just counted as an additional PA at their normal wRC+, not as a walk?

Ben Clemens: That’s correct. We basically go back and credit the PA to their WAR at their seasonal wRC+

Insert Witty Name Here: Who ya got for the US Open? Going chalk to Sinner/Sabalenka. What are your thoughts on how the finals in tennis are usually the same 3-4 people?

Ben Clemens: I’m on Mirra Andreeva on the women’s side, but I can’t tell you whether that’s because it’s a measured opinion or b/c I went to Indian Wells this year and she was on fire then

Ben Clemens: I’m okay with it. I actually watch more tennis, like sheer hours watched, early in the slams, because it’s so fun to watch all these marginal players trying to get to the top of the heap

Ben Clemens: but at the end of the day, yeah, gimme a Sinner/Alcaraz slugfest as a final over Taylor Fritz getting absolutely steamrolled every day of the week

El Tim: Hey Ben, I stumbled back upon a 5 Things from May where you wrote about the Tyler Soderstrom left field experiment. Very prescient to predict that he’d have more OAA than Steven Kwan at this point in the season. Okay, you didn’t actually do that, but still… it seems like you were right to like it and that he’s holding his own out there.

Ben Clemens: Ha, I’ll happily take credit for that even if I didn’t predict him being a positive out there

Necco Wafer: Skubal is running an 80+% strand rate for two years now.  Is it possible he’s tougher to hit or steal on due to the lefty factor?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, also higher-K pitchers run higher strand rates

The Terminator: How long before you are replaced by AI?

What aspect of your job will take the longest for AI to learn?

Do you know where I can find Sarah Connor? She’s a friend of mine.

Ben Clemens: I’m hoping not, and honestly, I don’t think it’s all that likely

Ben Clemens: the idea generation and weeding out garbage from signal part is still pretty tough for AI to do

Ben Clemens: I know because I am constantly trying to use GenAI to come up with article ideas, help me parse data in more ways

Ben Clemens: the hardest aspect isn’t the actual analysis, it’s determining which analysis is interesting

Crashed Scion: The Brewers were projected for 81 wins preseason by Playoff Odds. They have 81 wins today. They are already an MLB best +71 wins versus the FGPO preseason win totals for the eight completed full seasons in the database, this will (presumably) be their fifth season with a +12 or greater margin. Any thought for recalibration in the offseason? Even manually adjusting their ERA-FIP to like -0.25 or -0.33 versus the -0.10 it is at now would buy some extra wins. Last three years they’ve run a -0.48, since 2016 its -0.26.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, no way

Ben Clemens: We’re not gonna start recalibrating specific adjustments for teams, that seems like a very bad way of doing this

Ben Clemens: If we’re talking a bigger overhaul of the model, that’s a definite maybe

Ben Clemens: or at least, a goal

Ben Clemens: one thing we really like about it is how lightweight it is, though

Ben Clemens: it runs a LOT, like all day every day

Mariners Fan: The Mariners are 20-7 while I’m traveling internationally this year and 49-54 while I’m state side. How do I break it to the guys that I don’t have any more trips planned and they’re going to fade down the stretch?

Ben Clemens: I mean I think the obvious conclusion is that you need to schedule more trips

Ben Clemens: you call yourself a fan? find a way to get sent to Paris next week

Jeremy: We tend to draw a line between true talent and luck/noise. Hard to figure out where to draw the line, especially with small samples, but we assume there’s a line to be drawn even if we don’t know exactly where to draw it. But in a world where players are constantly adjusting (especially in response  to adjustments from other players), maybe it would be better to see “true talent” and “noise” as two ends of a continuum that vary on different timescales? Like, maybe “true talent” is something that only changes with age, if it changes at all? But maybe there’s also “current adjustment-dependent talent” that changes on a timescale of weeks to months? And then there’s “luck/noise” that varies from pitch to pitch or day to day?

Ben Clemens: Oh man, I’ve been thinking about stuff like this in general of late and yeah, I tend to agree

Ben Clemens: there’s like long-term baseline talent

Ben Clemens: but obviously people get hot and cold, and not just in ‘batted ball bounces’ ways

Ben Clemens: as we speak, I’m looking at hot streaks for a prospective article, believe it or not

Oaktown Blues: I think Darell Hernaiz is likely to be a better SS defender than Jacob Wilson – any chance the A’s would bump Wilson to 3B (where they already have a hole) to fit Hernaiz at SS? Or is that getting too cute?

Ben Clemens: Probably not. They seem very committed to Wilson there. I think it would make sense if they’re pretty confident Hernaiz is part of the future, but…. I don’t think they are. And if there’s some chance you’re optioning him or otherwise taking him off the roster, then keeping Wilson at SS gives you more flexibility

CFH: Longshot, but if Cal Raleigh hits 60 bombs does that get him the MVP?

Ben Clemens: surely, right?

Opifijikl: Do you or do any teams do much Bayesian analysis when it comes to player analysis?

Ben Clemens: I mean, I’m guessing teams do

Ben Clemens: I am coding some Bayesian stuff in my hot streak model right now, for example

Ben Clemens: I think it’s a really powerful way to think about the world

bringbackpologrounds: FONSECA IS NEXT

Ben Clemens: exciting

Guest: Sam Miller has written a lot this year about true talent & variation & these thoughts on Pebble Hunting

Ben Clemens: Yeah, a good reminder to read Sam Miller if you aren’t

Joe: The Twins the last 2 years have at times alternated Ryan Jeffers and Christian Vazquez day by day.    Adley and Basallo different tiers of player, but do you like that in theory for those two players and the Orioles?

Ben Clemens: I do, yeah

Ben Clemens: when they both hit well, it seems like a pretty good plan to me

Mariners Fan: ZIPS has Cal Raleigh hitting 28 homers next year. I’m not expecting 50+ again (or 155 games, for that matter), but that seems way low. That’s less than 2023 and 2024, and surely he’s shown improvement this year. Is this just a case of the models being way too conservative, or do they not buy his improvement?

Ben Clemens: oh, that’s just because our ‘zips 3 year projections’ run in the preseason and don’t update during the year

Ben Clemens: but also yeah models being conservative

AL Central Casting: I’m definitely on the side of labor, but let’s say the owners were willing to ensure a specific percentage of revenue goes to players – larger than what they get now – in exchange for a cap/floor system. (This would presumably require verification of the revenue numbers, so set aside skepticism about that and similar issues for now.) What is the argument against it? If the players as a whole get more than they get now, and there is less payroll disparity between teams, is that a net benefit for the league?

Ben Clemens: I mean, I think that system would be the platonic ideal

Ben Clemens: I think that revenue verification is very difficult for a sport like baseball with so much local revenue, but if basketball (and their very similar RSN network) was able to make it work, maybe baseball can

Ben Clemens: I’d love a cap/floor system, it’s just an excellent way to handle salaries in my opinion

Jeremy: Follow-up to the talent vs. luck/timescale thing: is the distribution of hot/cold streaks for individual players any different than you would expect if everybody’s true talent was constant within the season? If in fact “true talent” actually goes up and down on a timescale of weeks or months, then you should see more, and longer, hot and cold streaks then you’d expect in a world where everybody’s true talent is constant within a season.

Ben Clemens: So I’ve been approaching this from ‘hot streak persistence’ as in whether players who are ‘hot’ are just more talented and thus stay hot in the next sample

Ben Clemens: or like, they’re locally more talented, they’re on a hot streak!

Ben Clemens: the answer is….. i dunno man, still doing the analysis. I have to think more about what the distribution “should” look like if there’s no change in talent

Insert Witty Name Here: I’m a man of reasonable intelligence, and I agree that Bayesian stuff is super powerful how we think about the world, a phrase I heard about our brains is that it’s simply a Bayesian Prediction Machine that never turns off. Curious to know more about how you think of it?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I think I agree with that

Ben Clemens: if you’re just working off the cuff in generalities, obviously you are being Bayesian. If you thought your team sucked yesterday and they played well, you’re updating your prior about them today, not starting fresh

Ben Clemens: I’d more say that I like to give some empirical weight to prior expectations when I model stuff, because I think that when I’m doing predictions it’s too easy for me to forget what I thought I knew in the past and get obsessed with ‘starting fresh’

Dirt: Wait so do Barry Bonds’ wRC+ numbers not include his IBBs? Or is that just since the new rule?

Ben Clemens: yeah, correct. Although his WAR is still great b/c he gets credit for those PA’s at his seasonal wRC+, which was always comically high at that point

Colton: At what point does a hitter’s passivity at the plate become a detriment? Someone like Nootbaar who is a very solid in zone hitter seems to put an inherent cap on his potential offensive production because he’s too passive. Have you ever looked into a way to categorize this type of issue guys will have?

Ben Clemens: BP’s SEAGER method is pretty good at this, I think

Ben Clemens: it basically just rates swing decisions as good or bad based on count/production

Ben Clemens: Nootbaar never does all that well there because he gives up too many good swings in pursuit of avoiding bad swings

Ben Clemens: so yes, it’s definitely quantifiable, I haven’t looked into it recently

Todd: Why are IBB’s excluded from wRC+? I guess the assumption is that they don’t have much predictive value? Feels like only good hitters get IBB’d, thus it’s a “skill”. Not to mention, you can work a 3-0 count before they decide to IBB you, and it still gets recorded as such

Ben Clemens: So, I do buy that second argument as a reason to wonder about htem, and maybe we could manually handle no-pitch IBB”s (as in IBB’ed right away) vs. ones where the at-bat started normally

Ben Clemens: I think the main reason is actually from the pitcher hitting era

Ben Clemens: like, your 8 hitter getting walked intentionally says very littel about his skill, if you give him credit for working a walk you’re doing something wrong

Ben Clemens: Because IBB’s are so situational (is first base open?) and also because they are definitely, on average, less valuable to the batting team than a regular walk, I agree with the idea to exclude them

Ben Clemens: I’d exclude them from FIP as well, tbh

Ben Clemens: difficult question though

JK: For the high K high BB or low K low BB guys, do you have a minimum ratio that either, you have found through analytics, or is just a personal preference, that is acceptable to change their one rate to improve the other? For example, a 1/1.5 ratio where their BB rate improves but their K gets worse (in the case of the low both) or where their K improves but their BB gets worse (in the case of the high both). Obviously we want both to improve, and 1:1 would be amazing

Ben Clemens: I like to use K-BB here, actually, because a 1:1 ratio is about what I want

Phil: FanGraphs Auction Calendar had Betts at 7ish for YTD (FG Points League) and I utilized it to trade that amount of value for playoff run.  That being said any thoughts of him finishing closer to norm this year?

Ben Clemens: yeah I tried to bid on him in Ottoneu b/c he got cut in our league from a super high salary, and missed

Ben Clemens: I’m interested in betting on a return to form, basically

tortycraig: curious to get your perspective – rank in order of trade value this offseason: Noot, Gorman, Walker

Ben Clemens: For me it’s that order, and like, each step has a huge gap

Ben Clemens: look, I really wanted to be in on Jordan Walker

Ben Clemens: but this is not working

Ben Clemens: he’s batted 1000 times in the majors at this point

Ben Clemens: and he’s hitting .248/.308/.390

Ben Clemens: Gorman is kinda similar but has both more interesting positional versatility and a bit more demonstrated MLB power

Ben Clemens: Nootbaar is, you know, a productive big leaguer who gets hurt too much. a cut above the other two imo

Guest: I hate cap/floor because of dead contract moving in the NBA – it’s such a lame oart

Ben Clemens: ooh, now that is true

Ben Clemens: I do dislike that particular part

Ben Clemens: I dunno, I think that it would be good overall because the low-payroll teams in baseball are such an eyesore

Ben Clemens: and I’m happy to rein in the high spenders in exchange if we’re getting a true raising of the bar

the person who asks the lunch question: what’s for lunch?

Ben Clemens: we had a greek meal kit kinda deal last night with some excess tzatziki, so chicken/arugula/tzatziki bowls

drplantwrench: im sad about trout regression from superstar to just really really good.  whats the likelihood he goes back to a 170 wRC+ guy? has that happened before?

Ben Clemens: I don’t have any examples off the top of my head, and I agree, it’s kind of sad to watch

Ben Clemens: doesn’t detract from his incredible career, but I think at some poitn guys who are good-or-hurt always end up declining a little b/c of all the injuries, and that seems to have happened here

Mike: But will low spenders actually add talent, or just pay mediocre / young players more (which is good!, but not improving the product)?

Ben Clemens: well, the talent is probably constant-ish across the majors, or at least that’s a good assumption to make for a study

Ben Clemens: so if the distribution of who’s spending the money changes (i.e. the percdentage of the salary pie spent by the Pirates/A’s/Rays normalizes relative to the chunk spent by the Mets/Yankees/Dodgers) you’d expect the talent distribution to match that

Ben Clemens: will it work in practice? no idea

D: I’ve been trying to give the Red Sox the benefit of the doubt when they’ve played Rafaela at 2B, assuming that they believe Duran’s preference for CF and the additional decent bat is enough to compensate. But last night they played Eaton in CF and Rafaela at 2B. I give up.

Ben Clemens: I really don’t have a good asnwer for you here

Ben Clemens: It’s maddening to me too

Ben Clemens: like I really thought that last year’s shortstop saga meant the end of Rafaela in the infield, but they’ve leaned into it HARD in the last month

Backstops: How would you rank these young catchers in future value? H. Goodman, A. Kirk, L. O’Hoppe

Ben Clemens: Kirk (big big gap) (another big big gap) (another big gap) Goodman (gap) O’Hoppe

Ben Clemens: I thought O’Hoppe might hit enough to offset the rough defense but uh, nope

Ben Clemens: Goodman is interesting, but basically I’m skeptical of the defense and I don’t have nearly enough track record to think he’ll continue to hit well in the majors

Ben Clemens: I’d be very happy to have him on my team. But Kirk has been better this year, has a longer offensive and defensive track record, is basically the same age, and is on a hell of a good contract

Ben Clemens: like, I think the gap is pretty large

Guest: US Open has the highest ratio of “intriguing sports event” to “but I would never attend” for me.

Ben Clemens: iiiinteresting

Ben Clemens: you should go!

Ben Clemens: I went every year when I lived in NYC and it’s one of my favorite in-person events

Ben Clemens: the grounds pass experience where you can walk around and watch one of the best 100 tennis players in the world from like 25 feet away is so cool

Ozzie: I get your argument for excluding IBBs, but it doesn’t apply to Barry Bonds. By excluding IBBs, you are really just penalizing him for being the most feared hitter in baseball.

Ben Clemens: are we, though? Like, in 2004, he had 120 IBB’s

Ben Clemens: so we credited him with 120 PA of a 233 wRC+

Ben Clemens: that’s not a huge punishment

Ben Clemens: if we just stripped it from WAR completely, sure

Ben Clemens: but we’re saying ‘you deprived him of a chance to hit like he normally would, so instead we just credit him with his normal batting line’

J: For anyone who’s never seen live tennis, I highly recommend just getting the cheapest possible ticket to the US Open and seeing whoever happens to be there. It’s just so so much more impressive in person (and I got to see Naomi Osaka in the first round this way before she was really known widely).

Ben Clemens: doesn’t even have to be the US Open tbh

Ben Clemens: if you live near Cincy, Miami, Indian Wells, Toronto, Montreal, honestly even one of the lower level tournies, just go check it out

Ben Clemens: world class athletes up close are just incredibly impressive

DeeBo: Does George Springer’s resurgence this year change how you think about the aging curve? I usually think of the curve as immutable — once you start declining, there’s no turning back the clock. But so far at age 35 springer has put together a .900 OPS over 450 PAs after not even sniffing within 150 points of that the previous two years. How is he doing it?!

Ben Clemens: I think that it makes me think about it in terms of probability rather than certainty, but yeah, it’s pretty freaking impressive

RANDAL GRICHUK: Rainiel Rodriguez: future star?

Ben Clemens: already in our top 100!

Ben Clemens: honestly I’m a scout the statline guy for DSL/complex stuff and he was giving me Malcom Nunez vibes, which I mean in a complimentary way

Ben Clemens: wow, Malcom Nunez is in Triple-A for the Pirates now

Ben Clemens: that DSL summer for him was a thing to behold

tortycraig: I’ve asked a more verbose version of this before, and the answer might be ‘it’s all baked in and prospect rankings evolve quickly’ but are pitching prospect rankings a fools errand now? Something something injuries/player development/evolutions in pitcher & innings usage at MLB etc.

Ben Clemens: I don’t want to say that categorically, but I’d say this: I’m far less confident in pitching rankings than hitting rankings because pitchers tend to be inherently more volatile

Ben Clemens: I looked into this question for Prospect Week this year:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/how-do-prospect-grades-translate-to-future…

Ben Clemens: and found that as hitter grades increase, their eventual outcomes increase more or less linearly. pitchers, on the other hand, show huge dispersion in future outcomes across the board

Ben Clemens: it’s not quite TINSTAAPP, it’s more like ‘volatility bands are much wider for pitchers, so 45’s turn into 55’s and vice versa more frequently’

Mr. Burrito: Re. Trout comeback…. Here’s how much WAR these three players generated between ages 34 and 38: Tris Speaker, 32.6; Hank Aaron 30.9; Ted Williams, 32.2….  In other words, it’s possible.

Ben Clemens: oh totally. but from 30-33, Trout 11.4, Aaron 28.5, Speaker 25.6, Williams 21.6

Ben Clemens: it’s more about the shape to me

Guest: re: US open attendance, isn’t it SUPER packed and rowdy now though, to where some of the intimacy is gone?

Ben Clemens: I’ll let you know after I go!

Ben Clemens: I have Saturday grounds passes (well, last row of Ashe, whatever)

Ben Clemens: i haven’t been since like 2016

Colton: Was last year a blip for Lawrence Butler? Weird year so far from him but the talent is still very good it seems. Does he get back to around the 130 wRC+ he finished with last year or settle in closer to league average moving forward in your opinion?

Ben Clemens: so maybe this is a Bayesian thing?

Ben Clemens: but my prior on Butler was that last year was better than a mean outcome

Ben Clemens: just b/c like, seems like a good prior!

Ben Clemens: which makes this year’s performancde track. I think he’s a better hitter than he has displayed in 2025, but like, 5-10% above average, not 30%

Ben Clemens: I saw him as more ‘nice role player on good deal’ than top 50 trade value guy, which maybe biased my rankings

Ben Clemens: but like, right now I don’t feel bad about that!

Justin: Is there a stat that announcers love more than batting average with runners in scoring position

Ben Clemens: oooh

Ben Clemens: um, batting average in this series

Ozzie: Speaking of Lawrence Butler, Mark Vientos seems to be going through a similar year. Heating up lately though. What is your take on him?

Ben Clemens: oh man, great comp

Ben Clemens: yeah like, you should not look at Vientos’s 2024 and go ‘yep, this guy willi be 30% above average offensively)

Ben Clemens: I was kinda down on him as a prospect and the reasons for it haven’t matierally changed, so I kinda shaded my view down. I’ve been shaded high on Baty too, so I was looking PRETTY stupid last year for a while. The real answer is liekly somewhere in between, of course

Ben Clemens: but it’s easy to look at 2024 outcomes and get over your skis for guys who massively diverged from their previous established career norms

Guest: Not strictly batting average but they love to say how many hits a player has against a starter they’ve faced like three times in five years

Ben Clemens: oh yeah another great one

Ben Clemens: 3-7 against him, with a homer

Ben Clemens: 2-8, a walk and four strikeouts

Ben Clemens: like, no, don’t care, let’s just keep moving on

Okra: When the league expands by 2 teams, where do you see the the bigger drop off in talent with the players coming in … hitters or pitchers?

Ben Clemens: pitchers

Ben Clemens: or at least, I’m hoping

Ben Clemens: i think that teams have too many unhittable pitchers right now

Okra: Does being a switch hitter really matter?  Switch hitters still have a more dominant side and splits.  so assuming a static +/- 20 wRC+ vs LHP and RHP for a switch hitter and a non switch hitter … does it really matter?

Ben Clemens: the splits tend to be smaller

Ben Clemens: also, you can infer that the guys who end up switch hitting might have had EVEN LARGER splits

Ben Clemens: but yes, in general, I think that people probably overrate the value of switch hitting

Ben Clemens: few guys are TRUE switch hitters

Bob T: Re IBB not sure how much things have changed over the last 20 years but in 2024 IBBs were worth about 0.20 runs (uBB tends to hover around 0.32 runs). So they are comparable to a SB in terms of linear weights. Personally, I’m fine with excluding them from context neutral WAR. I can always check RE24 WAR if I want something that’s more context sensitive

Ben Clemens: Yeah, this makes sense to me in general, I also think they’re just not a great measure of player talent, and ‘replace them with the average talent that player has otherwise displayed’ seems like a great compromise to me

Kevin: When you attend a game in person, to what degree do you watch as an analyst and to what degree do you watch as a fan in other ways? In other words, what makes watching a game in person most enjoyable for you?

Ben Clemens: Ooh, fun question

Ben Clemens: I think writing 5 Things has changed this around a bit for me, actually

Ben Clemens: because now a good portion of my job is looking for non-statistical things that can be turned into article segments

Ben Clemens: that little stuff is what I’ve loved about baseball for a long time, it’s why I liked the sport as a kid, so doing 5 things has been a green light for me to focus on whatever little nonsense I want to

Ben Clemens: I’ve contacted Giants PR to get the script of a between-innings scoreboard thing they did, that’s pretty far from what I used to do in my attendance/analysis

Ben Clemens: I like watching for little things, basically. Whether mathematical or otherwise

tortycraig: batting lines against a certain team lol

Ben Clemens: another classic!

Ben Clemens: “He just kills the Mets”

J: Do you buy that the Dodgers’ WS odds are nearly as high as the 17% on the playoffs odds page right now? For a team that more than likely will not get a bye (by the odds’ reckoning), and that might have to win a 3 game series on the road at Wrigley if they don’t win the division, that feels like an awfully rosy projection.

Ben Clemens: Yeah I’m skeptical

Ben Clemens: I think the 40% chance of the bye is doing some work, but also we’re surely a little low on the Brewers

Ben Clemens: Like we have the Dodgers as around 60% to win a given round of the playoffs

Ben Clemens: that’s, uh, high

TKDC: The IBB penalty actually only really seems like it punishes bad hitters that are IBB for some reason. Congrats, here’s another PA credited to you at below replacement level!

Ben Clemens: yes, and absolutely hilarious

Ben Clemens: to be fair, you know what that bad hitter was doing with his other PA’s, though? hitting below replacement level

Ben Clemens: so it’s not THAT punishing

Matt: Everyone kills the Mets!

Ben Clemens: oh man, I wasn’t expecting this but what a delightful comment

Guest: lunch tip I just figured out: at the beginning of the week, make chicken stock out of a whole chicken. Freeze the stock and use instead of buying store bought, and then you have chicken to add to sandwiches, soups, ramen, salads, etc all week!

Ben Clemens: I’ve heard this! I don’t do it b/c I don’t eat a lot of chicken but if you do, go for it

Crashed Scion: Speaking of probability versus certainty…where does Adley Rutschmann as Matt Wieters 2: Electric Boogaloo land on the continuum?

Ben Clemens: This is a thing we don’t mention because we don’t want to speak it into existence

Ben Clemens: the longer Adley goes without hitting, the more likely this gets

Ben Clemens: catchers, man

Paul H: Starting Pitchers – Curious about Zips methodology – I have good SPs this year in one of my AL only leagues, but J Soriano is the most frustrating – Zips has him ranked #31, which is next to last of my starters (only Mize is lower). Other rankers, e.g., Depth Charts and Steamer have Soriano as 2nd to bes of my starters.  What is going on if you have time?

Ben Clemens: it basically looks like ZiPS is projecting a pretty big ERA/FIP gap, while Steamer is doing so in the opposite direction

Ben Clemens: I have to say, I don’t get ZiPS’s, maybe it’s comparing him to some archetype of pitchers? his career doesn’t show big splits

Guest: Rafaela also said on the broadcast last night CF is where he’s most comfortable

Ben Clemens: I mean…. you could also just watch him play to see that

Ben Clemens: he looks very unceratin at second, and like a dolphin in a cove in the outfield

Ben Clemens: it’s so confusing!

Ikl: Hi Ben can u explain a players War vs the eyball test? Pete Alonso has a WAR now of 2.7 Soto’s is above 4…is Soto more valuble to the team than Alonso this year despite not hitting for a high average with risp?

Ben Clemens: so, this is a funny one, because Soto has actually produced more WPA than Alonso despite being very un-clutch

Ben Clemens: you can think of WPA as pretty simple. for every tiem they bat, we look at how likely the mets were to win before the AB, then after the AB

Ben Clemens: the difference is how much win probability they added with that at-bat

Ben Clemens: even though Soto has been poor in high-leverage spots relative to Alonso, he’s been a LOT better in mid and low leverage spots

Ben Clemens: so we have this stat “clutch”

Ben Clemens: Soto is -1.9 wins worth of clutch. Alonso is +1.16 wins worht of clutch. And despite that, Alonso has added 2.86 wins worth of value this year per WPA, while Soto has added 3.21

Ben Clemens: another stat, RE24, tries to look at how a hitter has done at adding runs GIVEN THE BASE/OUT SITUATION WHEN HE BATS

Ben Clemens: via that one, Soto has been a much better hitter than Alonso

Ben Clemens: so basically I’d say that yes, Soto has been more valuable to the team despite not hitting for a higih average with RISP, because there are a ton of other things you can do to be valuable

Ben Clemens: like, get on base

Ben Clemens: also, for his career, Alonso has been -3 wins of clutch. “clutch” isn’t very sticky

21127: The early comment on how many pitches to get off the starter with the second hitter. The max number is around 40 when the manager has to lift the starter for too many pitches in the inning, right?

Ben Clemens: yeah there’s some top end where it’s obviously valuable

Ben Clemens: but I don’t know what that exact limit is

Hunter: Does Trea Turner have an outside shot at NL MVP? He’s not far behind Ohtani in fWAR but I have heard his name discussed far less than PCA or even Schwarber.

Ben Clemens: honestly I don’t think so

Ben Clemens: so much of his value is being driven by his huge defensive season, which is a Statcast Fielding Runs Value phenomenon

Ben Clemens: Like he’s batting at almost his exact career line, elite baserunning like always

Ben Clemens: but do you really think he’s multiple WINS better defensively this year? i definitely do not

Greg: I wonder if some of the “he just kills team X” announcer patter stems from before modern pitching development; where there was a wider spread in pitching philosophy team by team, a guy who lifted sinkers could kill the mid-aughts Twins or 2013-2016 Pirates, for example.

Ben Clemens: I mean, I think it’s because the stats are available

QTRF: Have you given your thoughts on the DBacks shopping Marte (a few weeks after the trade value list)?

Ben Clemens: Eh, I read those rumors and I think they’re BS basically

Ben Clemens: here’s what Nick Piecoro, who I t hink is very plugged in, said:

Ben Clemens: And some have even wondered how the Diamondbacks would look without him, pondering the idea of an offseason trade. That, to be clear, appears extremely unlikely

Guest: as a padres fan, would it be better to face the Mets as the third place division winner or face the cubs as the 4 seed WC host? (assuming they actually get to host a WC round)

Ben Clemens: I’d rather face the Cubs but I do not feel strongly

Ben Clemens: I don’t think there are any easy outs in the NL field this year

Jake: Tbh I kind of like the “random announcer anecdotes”. I already know most of a hitter’s main stats, especially by the 3rd trip thru the order. “BA with RISP” or “OPS vs X Pitcher” isn’t super predictive, but it’s definitely relevant to the situation!

Ben Clemens: I greatly dislike the ‘he’s hitting lefties well this year’ stuff

Ben Clemens: it feels anti-useful

fanoftheman: Every time I think of the 2013-2016 Pirates I feel bad for them. Second most wins in MLB 13-15, and all they got out of it was one divisional series and two wild card losses (Bumgarner and Arrietta) – because they had the misfortune of being in the same division as the Cardinals (most wins in MLB 13-15). Tough luck for the team and the fans

Ben Clemens: the 2015 season where the Cards won 100, the Cubs won 98(?) and the Pirates won 97(?) was really ridic

Bloomin Onion: do you think StL payroll will be under 100million next year?

Ben Clemens: nah, I don’t think so looking through Roster Resource. They’re at $80 million just with Arenado/Gray/Contreras

Ben Clemens: figure they have 8 arb guys next year earning an average of $4 million (this year they had 5 arb guys earning around $3 million, but things should go up), that’s another $32 million, plus another 15*.75 or 12 million in min salaries

Ben Clemens: so 124 million, even if they trade Arenado and sign almost no one they’ll be right near $100 million

Mike: Isn’t every thing 99% of announcers say not useful? I don’t know, I listen to music most of the time while they inanely talk….

Ben Clemens: oh man, I don’t think that at all, I actually love to listen to announcers

Ben Clemens: they greatly shape my enjoyment of the game, and I think a lot of their qualitative observations are incredible

Ben Clemens: I learn a lot about baseball by listening to announcers who have seen way more games than I ever have

Ben Clemens: you just have to know when some of their opinions are shaped by observational biases

Guest: team more likely to enter tank mode next 2 seasons: Dbacks, Giants, Rangers, Braves

Ben Clemens: Rangers I think

Ben Clemens: but not super strongly

Ben Clemens: I guess I’d say that the Giants are least likely

Ben Clemens: and that’s even if they should; you don’t bring in Posey to POBO, trade for Devers, and then rebuild

Ben Clemens: similarly the Braves have a great model going where they always compete and make a ton of money at the ballpark, why break that up?

Ozzie: Going off the Butler, Vientos conversation from earlier, do you think Kyle Stowers will have a similar down year next season? Or is his improvements sustainable?

Ben Clemens: I’m more optimistic about Stowers because he has much better underlying minor league numbers

Ben Clemens: but like…. I’m still expecting regression. 27-year-olds who break out are often worse at 28

Insert Witty Name Here: If you don’t like listening to announcers, Google John Oliver’s segment on John Kruk.

Ben Clemens: agree

TigersFan1: Are the Phillies’s WS chances gone if they don’t win it this year?

Ben Clemens: no but I’d say that probably 50% of their odds of WS in the next 4 years will come this year

Ben Clemens: they have a very front-loaded window

Ben Clemens: it’s time to get the job done

victoria: is someone going to give Aroldis 2/30 this winter? How do teams determine how to value that guy?

Ben Clemens: i mean, probalby right?

Ben Clemens: you close your eyes, live with the wildness and the chance that he’s just going to eventually be too old, and say that every year he’s one of the best relievers so why not keep rolling the dice?

Ben Rice: Am I major league worthy catcher? Or are the Yanks just kinda desperate

Ben Clemens: remains to be seen, but I think they’re very smart to try to find out

DeWallet: Do you think Stl will bring up Wetherholt in the last month for the proverbial cup of coffee?

Ben Clemens: they should

Ben Clemens: I think it’ sjust a good organizational move, honestly

Ben Clemens: you never know when the transition to the big leagues will be particularly jarring, so why not get it out of the way in a low-stakes time?

Alec: re: announcers, can certainly say as a Tigers fan the combo of Benetti/Dirks paired with Dickerson on the radio greatly enhances the broadcast experience compared to previous announcers

Ben Clemens: oh man, I was watching the Tigers this weekend and after an Andy Ibanez homer, Benetti dropped “AI just keeps getting better! So lifelike”

Ben Clemens: i just about spit out my soda

Ben Clemens: everyone is different, of course, but I couldn’t imagine watching baseball without announcers

Re: Cap/Floor: I feel like it’s gotta be a nonstarter. Pirates/A’s type owners won’t accept having to pay double their current payroll with no additional handouts, Dodgers/Yankees/even Cubs/Phillies type owners won’t pay more tens of millions of dollars of handouts to lose any big-market advantage they have.

Ben Clemens: oh I concur sadly

Ben Clemens: I think it’s a great ideal system. I think it’s almost certainly unworkable because of the ownership divisions and because of the difficulty of revenue verification

Ben Clemens: the PA would be divided about this too, for sure

Ben Clemens: b/c of the visceral negative reaction to a salary cap

Alec: my personal favorite was dropping an Arrested Development reference after Jackson Jobe ended the inning with a strikeout with “an illusion by Jobe!”

Ben Clemens: oh  man, I didn’t hear that one but c’mon

Ben Clemens: so good

Kirk: I am a Mariners fan with a close friend that travels a lot and the Mariners are absurdly good when he travels. I just asked if he wrote into this chat and he did not. So there are two Mariners fans who need to get out of the country ASAP.

Ben Clemens: let’s rent them a cabin in Canada

Ben Clemens: alright, this has been a nice leisurely hour and a half, and we talked some great baseball, but I have to go get the stove hot

Ben Clemens: my actual stove, no trades, don’t worry

Ben Clemens: have a great day everyone. no chat next week because it’ll be labor day, so instead of my semi-informed opinions, ask the nearest person to you what they think instead. how much worse could it be?

Ben Clemens: but seriously, thank you so much for chatting, I always have a great time doing this. Let’s do it again sometime soon.