Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 8/9/21

Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, let’s start the chat a minute early, because the questions are already piling up.

Ben Clemens: First, some Mariners content

Marco: Right now the Mariners have multiple prospective OF for next year: Haniger, Kelenic, JRod, Lewis, Fraley, and Trammell. Do you see them trading one or more of them for pitching or lineup help?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think this works as well as it sounds on paper

Ben Clemens: Maybe Haniger can be traded for solid value, but the team isn’t trading Kelenic of JRod, and the other three aren’t going to return huge value

Ben Clemens: But it’s not like any of the outfield spots are locks for next year, and I think the team might like to have too many options and figure out who the best ones are

Ben Clemens: It’s not like some team is going to ship out tremendous pitching value for Jake Fraley, good as his season has been so far

Ben Clemens: If they are, cool! But I just think the Mariners would rather keep these guys and figure out what they have

baseballenjoyer: Astros bench looking mighty thin. Did Click sell off too many ML players for rental relievers?

Ben Clemens: They sure could use Abraham Toro right about now

Ben Clemens: Graveman has been great in his four outings, but when your starting 1b and 3b are out, it’s not great that you traded a 1b/3b bat

Triston: Which Mariners outfielder do you see being the best overall player long-term: Lewis, Kelenic, Or Julio Rodriguez?

Ben Clemens: Gimme Julio, he looks to have the best tools of the bunch and I’ll bet on that when the numbers are also excellent

Weston: We’ve seen lots of prospects play and have success in the Olympics this year (Casas, JRod, etc.). Do you think playing in these games was more beneficial for their development vs playing more games in the minors?

Ben Clemens: Speaking of which!

Ben Clemens: Yes, I think that the Olympic games have been really helpful for development. I’m not sure it’s great for skills development, but it’s a great way to get a taste of high-stakes baseball, face a wider array of competition, and do it without either being put way over their head or feeling that the competition isn’ real

Ben Clemens: You can’t convince me that the pressure and prestige of the Olympics isn’t making these guys want to try harder

Ben Clemens: Long-term, even

AD: Why can’t the Cardinals throw strikes with bases loaded?

Ben Clemens: I was at Thursday’s game!

Ben Clemens: It was such a downer seeing ball after blal

Ben Clemens: I thought Shildt’s decision to bring in Gallegos was really bad, but Reyes didn’t have it that night either, so it hardly mattered

Buzz: The Giants performed the rare Septuple-switch against the Diamondbacks in the bottom of the 9th on Thursday after a slew of pinch-runners and hitters helped them score 4 to tie. Surprisingly they improved defensively at nearly every position but 1b while doing so.

What type of value do teams assign to positional flexibility like we’re seeing from the Giants lately and do you think most front offices have systems in place to help quantify that value in today’s game?

Ben Clemens: Teams definitely have systems in place to put a number on that value, but I’m not sure how precise the quantification is

Ben Clemens: It’s really difficult to put one number on it because it depends on the manager, depends on the situations the team finds itself in, and you have to consider what they would have done in the absence of flexibility

Ben Clemens: The Angels just put Adam Eaton at first base yesterday with no issue whatsoever, for example

Guest: Do park adjusted stats account for the Jays 3 homes this year or does it just assume they were always in Canada?

Ben Clemens: My understanding is that it doesn’ think about the park at all — it looks at home production and away production (then away production for the teams who played there vs their home production)

Ben Clemens: so it’s thinking of it as some kind of crazy Dunedin/Buffalo/Toronto hybrid

Ben Clemens: Is that a reasonable way to do it? I dunno

Ben Clemens: But it definitely doesn’t just use some number we have in the system for Toronto and stick with that

Oleksandr: What are the criteria for a sport to be represented at the Olympics? Is there any reason why baseball is an Olympic sport some years and not others?

Ben Clemens: I don’t know the exact criteria, but baseball is not an Olympic sport anymore. The IOC just brought back baseball and softball at Japan’s request for these Olympics only

BringBackDeSpanielHair: Ben! What’s up? H2H points league, W/QS both score points. Do you start Sale (BAL) over Carrasco(Was, LAD) or Giolito (@MIN, NYY)?

Reason I ask is Carrasco isn’t stretched out, and I just don’t trust Giolito’s changeup heavy approach against the Yankees wait it out lineup style. But Sale is a lefty, and BAL = Death to lefty’s

Ben Clemens: I think I’d just start Giolito, tbh

Ben Clemens: Two starts is hard to turn down, and he can throw the change for strikes

Ben Clemens: Those are two tough offenses to face, no doubt

Ben Clemens: But I agree with you on Carrasco, rather wait a week and see what his pitch counts look like

Vincent: Abraham Toro has been great since being traded to Seattle. Do you think he can be a long term part of their infield, whether at second or third base?

Ben Clemens: I do!

Ben Clemens: I think Toro is great, and have been hoping he’d find a place to start for quite a while

sdz: Which of the 2021 caller dwellers contends first?

Ben Clemens: Twins

Ben Clemens: Back to Toro: I dunno if I buy him defensively at second, but if they don’t feel they have to play Dylan Moore vR, he has to get into the lineup somewhere

Ben Clemens: And yeah, he’s probably better than Ty France at second

mick donfort: what is your take on E Montero long term Ben?  Strikeouts are too high but dude has power

Ben Clemens: I like Montero, and seeing him bounce back from his injury-plagued 2019 season is a realllllly good sign

Ben Clemens: Am I a little worried that his strikeouts are this high? Sure

Ben Clemens: But if he’s wlaking 10% of the time for real, that’s a huge development

Ben Clemens: None of those are even intentional!

Ben Clemens: If I’m the Rockies, I’m more happy about that development than sad about the strikeouts

Ben Clemens: His total lack of walks in ’18-’19 were a red flag for me, and why I thought the Cardinals were okay trading him

Ben Clemens: Big solid improvement for him this year, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s making people’s top 100s next year

DakotaMcKee: Might the Mets be able to upgrade at closer and salvage Edwin Diaz’ remaining value over the winter for an underachieving ex-prospect like Jered kelenic?

Ben Clemens: Just leaving this here so Mets fans can be sad, sorry guys

Byrdette: what is the 1st stat you look at for hitters ? and pitchers?

Ben Clemens: For hitters, it’s lazy, but I look at wRC+

Ben Clemens: For pitchers, finding one number is really hard

Ben Clemens: But if I had only one, I’d look at swinging strike rate

Ben Clemens: I have a lot more trouble finding a holistic number I love for pitchers, though, so I look at a ton of stuff

BettsBellingerCaruso: If you had to extend one of them now: Seager or Trea Turner?

Ben Clemens: Trea for me if I had to pick only one, but largely just for health reasons

Ben Clemens: I’m just worried that Seager is gonna keep missing ~50 games a year and that really caps his value. I think he’s better when healthy

Tacoby Bellsbury: What is your problem, buddy? And why?

Ben Clemens: Soooooo many things

Ben Clemens: Why? Because I want to

Henry Marks: I’ve done some research about wPA, and based on those values, a home run is worth far more than the wOBA formula claims, what is the source of those values?

Ben Clemens: Not completely sure what you mean by this, but I can roughly explain how wOBA works. It looks at the change in run expectancy from each event

Ben Clemens: And averages it over the base/out states that the event occurs in on average

Max: You’re the Mets new GM this off season. What do you do?

Ben Clemens: Spend a ton of money building out my front office

Ben Clemens: Trying to come up with player-based solutions is all well and good, but if I’m the Mets, what I want is a more sustainable system

Ben Clemens: Trade JD Davis for pitching, and you can eat for the day. Learn to develop pitchers better, and you can eat for a lifetime

BettsBellingerCaruso: w/ Trea and Seager, what do the Dodgers do w/ Lux from now on?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think both Trea and Seager are sticking around long-term, but yeah, Lux is increasingly likely to leave in trade if they have something they want for that reason. Otherwise, if there’s a universal DH next year (65%, let’s say), they can DH Turner, move Seager to third, and make it work that way

Tom: What happened to Paul DeJong offensively?

Ben Clemens: He’s getting unlucky this year (.219 BABIP could tell you that, and he’s hitting a bunch of barrels for someone batting .189/.288/.377)

Ben Clemens: But mostly, this is kind of who he is as a hitter. Average underlying skills which means that he’s prone to cold stretches. Over his last 1200 or so PA he’s running a 94 wRC+ with a .260 BABIP. If you told me his true offensive talent was a 100 WRC+ I would believe you

Ben Clemens: That’s a fine hitter, but I think his first season (and his improved walk rate since then) makes people want more out of him

Ben Clemens: I don’ think he’s this bad but I don’t think he’s a plus hitter by any means

Chamaco: Kevin typically ended his chats by saying he had to make room for you…did you force him out of Mondays all together?

Ben Clemens: Yes!

Ben Clemens: (he’s on vaca)

Appa Yip Yip: How wealthy is Robbie Ray going to be in a few months time? He was bad very recently but he’s good now and only 29. 4/70?

Ben Clemens: I think he might beat that!

Dan: Fan graph writers take vacation? I though meg chained you to your desks.

Ben Clemens: I was just on vacation last week!

Ben Clemens: (also sorry, my internet gave out for a second

mike: Vlad Jr is having an unreal offensive year but some local media think he is gold glove material at 1B. Stats say he’s barely league average defensively correct?

Ben Clemens: Yes, but first base defense is not the easiest thing to judge with advanced stats

Ben Clemens: Everyone clusters near 0 and the variance is high

Ben Clemens: I haven’t watched enough of Vlad to say for sure, but I would sya to take local media with a grain of salt in general

Cambodian Creamsicle: Dayton Moore recently told Bob Fesco in an interview that the Royals, this off-season, “on paper, don’t have many moves to make.”  He stated that all they need is some bullpen help, but that they would be transitioning a couple position players (Witt, Pratto) and have plenty of pitching.  How delusional is this man, and how does he still have a job as a major league GM?

Ben Clemens: Well, they need to make the moves on the field

Ben Clemens: Bobby Witt Jr. would break right through a sheet of paper, he’s quite heavy compared to paper’s strength

Ben Clemens: But uh yeah, what??

Ben Clemens: Sorry everyone, bear with me, internet is in and out

Ben Clemens: Alright sorry everyone, I’m gonna have to call this a chat, I am having some internet isues that I can’t seem to troubleshoot

Ben Clemens: Sorry for the abbreviated chat, and I’ll try to get a longer one in next week to make up for it.

Ben Clemens: Have a great week, everyone!