Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 9/11/23

Ben Clemens: Hey everybody

Ben Clemens: Sorry I’m late, just got back from a dog walk, but let’s kick things off right away

Mike: …and there goes the last reason to tune into Yankee games this year.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, what a bummer. I wouldn’t go quite that far, I’m still really enjoying watching Volpe and Judge, but yeah, what a sad ending to a sad season

TroubleDad: Hi Ben!  Long-time listener, first time caller.  With the news that Mike Trout might be on the block, what are your thoughts on his trade value?  With a chronic back injury and a history of getting into only 100-110 games per season as he enters his decline phase, his contract is upside down (7 years, $248M remaining).  An optimistic ZIPS projection has Trout as ~20 WAR over the next seven years (though a single 8 WAR Troutian season will change the math), so is this a situation where a single 45 FV player gets it done?  Or do you think that Moreno will eat a chunk of the contract to get back some prospect capital?

Mike M: Who trades for Mike Trout?

Ben Clemens: There are going to be a lot of Trout trade questions today I’m sure, so I’ll just give you my general thoughts

Ben Clemens: I think that there are teams who would give up a decent amount for Trout with nothing coming back on the contract.

Ben Clemens: It’s seven years at 35 million a year, which is obviously a huge commitment, particularly if you worry about his skills declining in addition to the injury risk

Ben Clemens: but it’s just hard to get a hitter like that, so I can imagine teams that are happy to run high payrolls but don’t have a lot to spend that on at the moment being interested. This is like the Giants, Yankees, maybe Red Sox

Ben Clemens: I think it’d probably be a bad deal from a pure baseball operations side, to be honest. I’m all for consolidating up for stars and being willing to accept a ‘surplus value hit’, but I’m really afraid of Trout’s trajectory

Ben Clemens: Ignore the money; he’s 31, just had his worst rate stat year, and also might not crack 400 PA this year

Ben Clemens: that’s scary

Ben Clemens: But he’s freaking Mike Trout, if this was just a down year and he’s, say, a 5-6 WAR RF for the next half-decade, it’s a huge coup

Ben Clemens: so I think that the Angels will probably trade him with the whole contract if they move him, get back not a ton, and call it a day. I didn’t really think this for Ohtani — I thought they’d prioritize big names coming back rather than moving Rendon’s deal — but it’s different with Trout b/c we’re talking about his own contract, not tacking on a bad one

Appa Yip Yip: Davis Schneider is obviously not going to keep hitting like Barry Bonds on steroids, but it sure seems like he’s going to be better than unranked org guy, where do you think reasonable expectations fall for him?

Ben Clemens: Stay tuned

Ben Clemens: Specifically, until tomorrow

Ben Clemens: Actually, maybe don’t, because I’m not exactly looking into the long-term view, but I’m writing about him tomorrow is the point

J: Loved your Suzuki article, but one note: it feels unfair to describe his defense as middling. SSS but all of his metrics are above average and improved since last season.

Ben Clemens: if Statcast is right thyis year, he’s a +2 RF

Ben Clemens: that sounds pretty middling to me

Ben Clemens: like sure, they’re above average, but not really by much

Princess Leia: Help us Obi-Wan Clemon-Obi, you’re our only hope…

Except for Acuna. He’s pretty awesome too.

KC Pain: Better Star Wars name, Dylan Lesko or Quinn Priester?

Ben Clemens: man, I love the Star Wars name part of this chat

Ben Clemens: I’m going with Akil Baddoo, personally, but I think Quinn Priester is slightly better between these two

Insert Witty Name Here: Last year in your 11/7/22 chat, I was gushing about Bryson Stott saying my eye test was better than the projections and you replied basically that you didn’t think he was a transcendental hitter, but you still liked him and gave a money quote of “Stott is the kind of player who looks better offensively than he is.” 10 months later, he almost doubled his preseason WAR projection. I’m not taking a full victory lap here because it’s not like he’s getting MVP votes and it’s not like he’s blown away his projections (even though he’s surpassed them with one month left to play). But I’m curious to follow up on your thoughts of Bryce’s Son Bryson Stott with this season almost wrapped up.

Ben Clemens: I would say that I’m reallllly impressed with his defense

Ben Clemens: what a monster season at second

Ben Clemens: I really didn’t see that coming

Ben Clemens: hitting-wise, I feel like I was on the right track, as were you

Ben Clemens: He’s an above average hitter this year, and it’s largely because he doesn’t strike out very much

Ben Clemens: a player you’d love to have on your team

Ben Clemens: I still do think his offensive game looks better than it is; I’ve watched a fair number of Phillies games this year and I’m surprised he only has a .337 OBP with middling power

Ben Clemens: but man, if he can play defense like this, that’s an awesome everyday starter

Derek: Mid-day dog walks are the #1 benefit of working from home imo

Ben Clemens: Oh 100%

Ben Clemens: I go out between 9:30 and 10 most days, so after I’ve submitted a morning article

Ben Clemens: My dog is a sensitive soul, she’s a bit reactive to other dogs, and it’s much calmer this time of day

Appa Yip Yip: Blue Jays vs Rangers this feels tense I think it’s gonna be a tense series

Ben Clemens: Oh yeah, definitely the series I’m most excited for this week

Derek: (I promise I’m not a dog)

MilwaukeeBeerJays: If you could start a franchise with any current player, who would it be and why is it Davis Schneider?

Ben Clemens: I’d start it with Spencer Strider b/c he seems like a cool dude to hang out with

Guest: What kind of dog do you have? I bet it’s a good boy (or girl).

Ben Clemens: She is, of course, a very good girl. She’s a retriever/pit mix of some type, a nice large lady (75 lb), and has some anxiety issues that we are working through

Jake Marogersnik: *eyes emoji* Spencer Torkelson currently leads AL 1B in home runs

Ben Clemens: Wow, that’s kind of amazing

Ben Clemens: I don’t think it’s completely true, because Anthony Santander has played 11 games at first and is tied with Tork ,but man no first basemen are hitting homers this year huh?

Ben Clemens: in the AL at least

Ben Clemens: If you don’t count Santander, there are three first basemen in the top 30 AL HR hitters

Ben Clemens: Torkelson, Casas, Vlad

Noodles Hahn: Blake Snell’s Cy Young case seems to really revolve around how his walk issues are viewed. At what point do the results just outweigh the peripherals? On the flip side, when I look at Striders numbers, I can’t justify him being close with a 3.83 ERA. I get the underlying metrics suggest he’s been unlucky, but am I wrong for mostly not caring about xStats or FIP that much in Cy voting?

Ben Clemens: I’m kind of off Strider at the moment

Ben Clemens: I do think that ‘what happened’ is an overused way of thinking about it, because plenty of stuff that goes into ERA is out of a pitcher’s control

Ben Clemens: but this isn’t a Corbin Burnes case, where his ERA was a little higher than his FIP but he was lapping the league in FIP and not far off in ERA

Ben Clemens: I mean, Burnes literally led the league in ERA that year

Ben Clemens: and had a 1.63 FIP

Ben Clemens: Strider is getting tagged for way too many homers, in my book. 20 this year

Ben Clemens: I think I might vote for Justin Steele tbh

Ben Clemens: luckily the season doesn’t end today

TomBruno23: Help us Won-Bin Cho?

Princess Leia: Has anyone suggested Taijan Walker yet?

Ben Clemens: Excellent choices

Derek: If (obviously huge “if”) he gets traded: Trout to the Phillies seems almost too perfect. Dombrowski isn’t afraid to empty the farm, Phillies can (and have show the willingness to) afford at least some non-trivial portion of his contract, Trout is closer to home, Harper + Trout on the same team (!!!)… And perhaps most importantly, Trout gets to experience what seem to be his two favorite things in the world – actual weather, and the Philadelphia Eagles!

Ben Clemens: Honestly, I don’t see it. It’s just too much of a logjam with their existing long contracts

Ben Clemens: And you can take whatever kind of rich people transportation you use from NY to see the Eagles 8 games a year

Ben Clemens: it’s not like Trout will only buy a house in Philly if he gets traded there

v2micca: Do you have copy editors on staff to proof-read articles.  I ask because in spite of the amount of datapoints and sometimes difficult to spell names, I rarely find any grammatical or spelling errors in your articles.  So, massive props to whoever handles your proof-reading.

Ben Clemens: Oh yeah, huge shout out to Meg

Ben Clemens: and Jon Tayler

Ben Clemens: They handle the copy-editing and also the factual stuff, which is far harder given how many baseball players exist and how many statistics we’re using in every article

Ben Clemens: I am pretty good at spelling and I’d say middling at grammar, and then they polish it up to perfect

Giant Gonzales: Now that they’re down to 1% playoff odds, Boston should have plenty of money to spend in the offseason. After trading Verdugo, what two starting pitchers should they target? I know the owners are too cheap to go for Ohtani, but what about big contracts for Yamamoto and one of the Nola/Snell/Montgomery number 2 types?

Ben Clemens: Yeha, Yamamoto and Monty sounds like a nice pair for me

re: AL 1B: Don’t forget Justin turner.  More homers and just a generally way better season than Vlad Jr.

Ben Clemens: That’s just a miss by me, I didn’t realize how many games he’d played at first

Ben Clemens: In my head he was a DH

JK: What’s your take on the Farhan regime? I don’t think I realized how bad the situation was that he took over, but the results have also been middling.

Ben Clemens: I think it’s a case of penny wise pound foolish, but the pound foolish part comes down to some big swings they’ve missed on and I’m not sure if it’s fair to knock them for not signing, say, Aaron Judge

Ben Clemens: the Giants seem incredibly good at turning a nickel into a 7 cent coin or whatever

Ben Clemens: really impressive ability to both help their own prospects improve and also find non-prospect guys elsewhere that can contribute

Ben Clemens: They just continue to build a team that looks like it needs some star upside, and not sign stars

Ben Clemens: like, I kind of assume that the front office is not happy with the current composition of the roster

Ben Clemens: not b/c they’re sad about Yaz and J.D. Davis and Thairo and so on, but because the obvious move has been to spend a metric ton of money to add a star and they keep not doing it

Kwantifying: Pitchers are biased towards not throwing the same pitch twice in a row. You think that’s an inefficiency?

Ben Clemens: I’ve tried to measure this so many times

Ben Clemens: I truly can’t tell you what the ‘right’ answer is

Ben Clemens: it doesn’t *seem* like going back-to-back with the same pitch delivers excess returns

Ben Clemens: but I’m not a great statistician and I’m certainly not confident in my controls

Pads Fan: Despite their on-field results this year, shouldn’t the Padres be an appealing organization from a TV broadcasting standpoint? Especially since ownership has shown a willingness to financially commit long-term.

Ben Clemens: Yeah

Ben Clemens: I think they are

Ben Clemens: San Diego is a good market, too

Ben Clemens: being the one team in a pretty large metro area works well

v2micca: Regarding the Strider Homeruns this year.  Do you think part of it is just the league getting more video on him and understanding how better to adjust to him.  He’s getting his K’s and has lowered his walk rate.  But I feel that when he misses with his pitches this year, teams are punishing it more consistently.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I dunno about the whole ‘when he misses’ thing because I do think that mistakes get punished at a fairly consistent rate

Ben Clemens: but I do think that there’s more video on him, and that teams are trying hard to not get eaten alive by high fastballs

bosoxforlife: I look at the Braves and actually am surprised that their record isn’t closer to 110-30. Michael Harris, who bats 9th, would be the best hitter on a number teams and they role out two aces and two solid starters behind them.

Ben Clemens: yeah the Braves are ridiculous

Ben Clemens: I’m a huge Harris fan, though I do think they’re batting him ninth despite knowing he’s not the worst hitter on the team

Ben Clemens: I think he’s probably closer to fifth-best or so, maybe sixth?

Ben Clemens: it’s just an outrageous offense though

Ben Clemens: The pitching side is more stars and scrubs, in my opinion

Ben Clemens: I”m kinda down on Elder and Morton, though yeah they’re completely reasonable as 3/4 options

Ben Clemens: but there’s a reason we project htem for the best rest-of-season record by a mile

Ben Clemens: projected .612 winning percentage, that’s pretty nuts

Ben Clemens: and a 31% chance of winning the world series jeez!

C-low: Not excited for Os-Rays?

Ben Clemens: Oh I am too

Ben Clemens: but the Rangers/Jays thing feels more urgent because the race is closer and because one of the teams will miss the playoffs entirely

bb: I’ve been hearing that Jordan Walker’s defense has been improving (Dad’s eye test, not all that reliable) are statcast defensive splits a thing?

Ben Clemens: They are, and it’s true!

Ben Clemens: https://twitter.com/AdamAkbani/status/1700874013554221199

Ben Clemens: Adam Akbani has the deets

darb: You and Lowe trading Friday columns would be a hilarious bit one week

Ben Clemens: If I could do that I would

Ben Clemens: He’s a biiiiiit more famous than me

Ben Clemens: Also, I’d do a tennis column if I could

Ben Clemens: quite frankly, I watched an irresponsible amount of tennis in the past two weeks for someone whose job is a baseball writer

SouthernDandy: The Myles Straw for Phil Maton and Yanier Diaz trade is looking pretty one-sided at this point. Especially given Cleveland’s lack of power.  Since May 31st Yanier is 2nd in the AL in HR/ABs behind only Ohtani!

Ben Clemens: Yeah, that one stung

Ben Clemens: perhaps this is a Myles Straw man argument, but he seems like an exact proxy for the kinds of things the Guardians get wrong

Ben Clemens: to be clear, they get a LOT right

Brian: Speaking of throwing the same pitch back to back…for as long as I have watched baseball (and probably for as long as their have been announcers) it has be said that a pitch up and in sets up a pitch low and away. By the time a hitter reaches the big leagues they have probably seen tens of thousands of pitches. Would 1 pitch up and in really make you lose all recognition of down and away?

Ben Clemens: Haha right?

Ben Clemens: ‘oh man, he got me again! Every time I see a high fastball I forget that other zones exist’

SouthernDandy: Tennis is awesome. Very mental sport as there is nowhere to hide and you must regroup and alter strategy on the fly

Ben Clemens: Totally

Ben Clemens: plus because of the way the points work, it sets up a lot of exciting moments

Ben Clemens: every time someone comes in to net, there’s a potential highlight

Ben Clemens: but then also yeah, it’s just you out there

Ben Clemens: I loved watching Aryna Sabalenka and Daniil Medvedev in this US Open because you could see them struggling with conditions, confidence, their shot, everything

Ben Clemens: in real time

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

Ben Clemens: so here’s a life hack my mom taught me

Ben Clemens: buy the costco rotisserie chicken in a shrink wrapped bag ,shred it up, and freeze it in small baggies

Ben Clemens: make the baggies two servings each if you generally make meals for two, but you know, that part is flexible

Ben Clemens: then you can just thaw a bag out and have pre-cooked rotisserie chicken very easily for any meal

Ben Clemens: so today for lunch we’re making an avocado chicken and tomato salad with balsamic

Ben Clemens: but it’s gonna take no time at all b/c we took out a rotisserie chicken bag yesterday

Dan: Crow-Armstrong about to be called up. Any thoughts about how he will be used, the impact he might have?

Ben Clemens: I’m very skeptical of his profile if I’m being honest

Ben Clemens: I’m happy to be proven wrong, I hope I’m proven wrong because he’s the kind of player I like, speedy center fielder with tools

KC Pain: Did Yainer Diaz slip through cracks?  He didnt seem to be touted that highly when he was moved.  I think you guys had top 3 for Houston coming into this season so props.  What kept you guys high on him and why did others whiff?

Ben Clemens: This is more of a question for Eric, but yeah, he was not particularly highly touted coming into the year

Ben Clemens: I was kind of surprised, to be honest, but I’m always a sucker for catchers who acn both hit and don’t look like disasters behind the plate

Ben Clemens: I overrate catching prospects consistently, it’s a hole in my evaluation skills that I know I have

Ben Clemens: Emphasis on don’t look like disasters, I’m not saying Diaz is a great catcher

Princess Leia: Got an old fashioned shootout brewing in Philly today. Are you watching while we chat?

bosoxforlife: Did you just see the play in the Braves-Phillies game? Remarkable

Ben Clemens: I haven’t turned it on yet, I’m a little bit behind on getting tomorrow’s article on tap and I was feeling slightly under-baseball-knowledged for this chat so I’m basically scanning leaderboards and box scores on my second monitor

Mac: At this point after dominguez’s UCL tear, it doesn’t pass the smell test to say that the yankees’ injury problems are all bad luck or older players, does it?

Ben Clemens: it kind of does to me, but injury analysis is absoutely not something I specialize in

Guest: Fantasy Championship this week which 3 do you pick:

Guest: Keller(WSN), Skubal(@LAA), Williams(@SF,TEX), or Wicks(@COL,@ARI). Sorry hit send too early!

Ben Clemens: Ooh, good question. I think I’d just go with Williams (two starts, none in Coors) because I’m not overwhelmed by the other options

Ben Clemens: So I’m just going back to general principles

Ben Clemens: I think Skubal is the runner up for me

Ben Clemens: but really, two starts and one of them being against the Giants sounds quite enticing

bosoxforlife: Acuna’s arm is as good as his bat.

Ben Clemens: It’s true

Ben Clemens: Also, he’s not that good of a fielder?

Ben Clemens: very funny

Ben Clemens: Mike Petriello had a good twitter thread on that today

Ben Clemens: https://twitter.com/mike_petriello/status/1701286425319112714

darb: Cardinals fan is PCA hater, eh? Just kidding, hope you’re wrong though!

Ben Clemens: Here’s a PCA comp for you

Ben Clemens: Harrison Bader

Ben Clemens: basically I don’t love the strikeout rate, and so he’s going to need to really smash the ball when he connects to run a good offensive line against big league pitching

Ben Clemens: but man, that glove

Ben Clemens: He has a really voracious approach at the plate

Ben Clemens: and I do think he has plus power

Ben Clemens: but I can totally see a 35% strikeout rate, 6% walk rate, runs into some home runs but still a below average offensive player kind of future for him

SouthernDandy: Any thoughts about players transitioning to playing some 1B.  I’d like to see the Astros give Yanier Diaz and possibly Michael Brantley(assuming Astros resign him, which they should) some time there next year.  Even if Abreu rebounds some, he’s not getting any younger

Ben Clemens: Yeah, those both make sense to me. I’d probably keep giving Yainer as much time behind the plate as he can handle, because it’s really valuable to have a catcher who can hit and that also means they can play Maldonado less

Ben Clemens: but rotating him in there? Sure

Ben Clemens: and Brantley is not really an outfielder these days, I’m with you

v2micca: Acuna just put up HR number 36.  I think he may want to join that 40-40 club.

Ben Clemens: That guy is good, I’ve heard

HappyFunBall: IMHO, if the LAAs are willing to trade Trout that signals full rebuild. At that point they can immediately shift into the mode where they disconnect cost and winning. In other words, if I’m the LAAs and trading Trout, I’m willing to eat some of his contract in order to bring some real talent into the farm system. That brings more than just the big spenders to the table.

Ben Clemens: I guess I could see that?

Ben Clemens: I don’t quite picture Arte Moreno as the type to eat a bunch of money, though

Ben Clemens: Maybe I’m wrong. This is the kind of thing that I find it impossible to have valuable insight on without a source

Appa Yip Yip: Fans love to try and find someone to blame for injuries because “bad luck” is a fundamentally unsatisfying answer but like. Injuries are just bad luck your team’s training staff are not incompetent.

Ben Clemens: Oh it can totally be both

Ben Clemens: But I agree that it’s very hard to figure out, and that a good default assumption is ‘bad luck’

Ben Clemens: The Mets truly had incompetent trainers for years in the mid-2010’s

Ben Clemens: you’ll never convince me otherwise

bosoxforlife: I have seen a disproportionate number of misplayed flies this year. Do you think today’s players have so much trouble with the sun in day games because they don’t play many day games? and Harris just one over the CF fence, then Acuna made up for his misplay with a next pitch dinger

Ben Clemens: Hm, I haven’t really noticed that, and it sounds like a hard thing to research

Ben Clemens: That said, I can at least buy the pitch. It’s true that there are fewer day games in general. But my null hypothesis is that no, baseball players are just pretty good, and sometimes the sun is bright

Chloe: Should JP France be an Astros playoff starter over Hunter Brown? How do you anticipate future performance from guys who come out of nowhere like this?

Ben Clemens: I would not start him over Hunter Brown, but I’d start him over Cristian Javier

Ben Clemens: That said, Brown has been abysmal in his last 4 starts so I wouldn’t hate giving him a rest start or something to let him regroup

Appa Yip Yip: What team would you put Trout on, if you could force a trade by fiat?

Ben Clemens: Oh, the Giants

Ben Clemens: I’d like to see Trout play a lot

Ben Clemens: and I attend way more Giants games than any other team

G4: Counsell your NL manager of the year? Snitker is good but doesn’t seem to have to work as hard for wins.

Ben Clemens: I think I’d vote for Torey Lovullo tbh

Ben Clemens: I don’t really know how manager of the year voting SHOULD work

Ben Clemens: but c’mon, the Diamondbacks are a playoff team, who saw that coming?

Ben Clemens: Craig Counsell has done a great job of having Devin Williams and playing in the NL Central, and I do think he’s an excellent manager

Ben Clemens: I can’t get very worked up over manager of the year votes, though

Ben Clemens: so pick who you want, I’d say

bosoxforlife: Who is your choice for NL MVP? Mookie is great but does 40-70 clinch it for Acuna?

Ben Clemens: I’d go with Mookie right now but I think it’s gonna be hard to deny Acuna

Ben Clemens: if he hits all these milestone round numbers

SouthernDandy: JP France has looked solid but a bit fortunate results wise to me

Ben Clemens: Concur

A Boy Named Yu: Who you got for NL Cy Young?

Ben Clemens: I have Steele right now, but really I have whoever pitches best in their last 4 starts

ZackAttack: When Cole wins the CY this year will Wheeler be the new “best active pitcher never to win the award”, who else are candidates?

Ben Clemens: I was gonna laugh at ‘when’ but man, it really does look that way

Ben Clemens: Castillo is the only person really within shouting distance I think

Ben Clemens: hmmmm…. other candidates. Max Fried, Adam Wainwright, Kevin Gausman

Ben Clemens: Ohtani

Ben Clemens: Brandon Woodruff deserves a nod

Ben Clemens: Wainwright is a funny one because woof, he’s bad now, but he was awesome for quite a while

darb: Is Cole, not Waino, the best active pitcher not to win one?

Ben Clemens: I think I’d marginally give it to Cole because of the absurd peak, but they’re probably the top two

darb: Lance Lynn!

darb: Cueto

Ben Clemens: Hyun JIn Ryu

SouthernDandy: The AL West looks like a 3 team race for the next several seasons.  Who do you think is best set up for the next 3-5 years, starting next season between: Astros, Mariners, and Rangers?

Ben Clemens: Gimme the Mariners, which is always a scary thing to say

Ben Clemens: I really like their pitching core, and I think that ‘find some dudes around Julio’ works

darb: Sale

Ben Clemens: Wow I realllly thought Sale won in either 2014 or 2017

Ben Clemens: yeah, he’s ahead of Wheeler for me

Ben Clemens: probably still behind Wainwright? but it’s close

MilwaukeeBeerJays: Which 1 would you choose: you get to grab a hotdogs with babe Ruth, you get to have dinner with Shohei Ohtani at Tokyo’s best sushi restaurant or you get to drink 74 beers with Wade Boggs on a helicopter?

Ben Clemens: Ohtani for me. I do think that he has the best activity, too

Ben Clemens: plus I love sushi and also love Tokyo

KC Pain: What about Darvish?  I know he had some stud years but I dont think he ever won one either.  Mind blown about Sale. Thought he had one.

Ben Clemens: up there as well

Ben Clemens: Darvish is one of my favorite pitchers

Ben Clemens: he also has two second place finishes

Ghost of Wade Boggs: Nolan Ryan probably deserves some contention in the Cy Youngless leaderboards (unless he’s already been mentioned and I missed it)

Ben Clemens: oh, it’s just active players

Ghost of Wade Boggs: I’ll see myself out then

Ben Clemens: But he’d obviously be very high on the list if we were doing all players

Ben Clemens: him and a bunch of guys who pitched before the award existed

Ben Clemens: Cy Young is probably the best pitcher to never win a Cy Young award

bosoxforlife: Sadly Sale is turning into what Wainwright has become. It is not fun watching the greats go out this way.

Ben Clemens: I’m especially bummed about Waino because last year was so great

Ben Clemens: shocking revival, playoff team with fun retiring veterans

Ben Clemens: The 2022 Cards season was one of my favorites

Ben Clemens: Seeing the Pujols renaissance was amazilng

Dave: Do you think MLB will introduce any new rules this offseason to discourage doing what the Angels did by dumping so many players via waivers?

Ben Clemens: hmmmmm

Ben Clemens: No, not really

Ben Clemens: for all the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth, like, so what?

Ben Clemens: are we upset that the Reds got two rotation outfielders?

Ben Clemens: or that the Guardians got 10 IP and 13 ER out of Lucas Giolito so far?

Ben Clemens: Giolito even lost to the Angels, woof

Ben Clemens: people acted like this was the end of baseball legitimacy

Ben Clemens: and like, c’mon

Ghost of Wade Boggs: Ok, on the opposite end of the spectrum, who would you say are the worst pitchers to have won a Cy Young?

Ben Clemens: Rick Porcello, haha

Ben Clemens: I’m sure there are some from before my time

Ben Clemens: I see that a reliever named Mark Davis won the NL Cy Young in 1989, that was presumably not a great decision

Ben Clemens: yeah okay I think the answer might be Mark Davis

Ben Clemens: he’s a reliever with a career 4.17 ERA

Ben Clemens: ooh, maybe LaMarr Hoyt?

Ben Clemens: there were some really bad cy young winners

Ben Clemens: LaMarr Hoyt won with a 3.53 ERA, so I’m not even sure what the joke was here

Ben Clemens: Jack Morris had a lower ERA and pitched more innings, and even cracked the 20 win plateau

Ben Clemens: 3.66 ERA, my apologies

Ben Clemens: for Hoyt

Zach: Steve Bedrosian, reliever who won in 1987

Ben Clemens: Yeah, another option

Farhandrew Zaidman: Booting the A’s out of Vegas (and reportedly letting them keep the name) to immediately declare what a great Expansion site Oakland is…. what are we doing here?

Ben Clemens: Yeah….

Ben Clemens: look, this stuff has not gone over well

Ben Clemens: It’s gone over especially poorly in the bay

Farhandrew Zaidman: Speaking of not passing the smell test, apparently Forbes got its hands on the A’s financials and confirmed the whole “losing $40 mil per year” thing.

Ben Clemens: I’m very interested to get my hands on these reports

Ben Clemens: I was talking about them with Meg this morning

Ben Clemens: so the A’s have around $220mm in costs every year apparently

Ben Clemens: and their $20 million increase from last year was attributed to non-baseball personnel hiring

Ben Clemens: but by my math, they employ around 250 people (listed on their mlb page) aside from players

Ben Clemens: so I can’t quite figure out how the math adds up

Ben Clemens: just in general

Ben Clemens: I’d love to actually get to look at those numbers

Ben Clemens: like I don’t actually have a great idea for where all those expenses are coming from off the field

KC Pain: Poor Phil Niekro never got a Cy Young. Studs years had someone beat him out w stats very similar.  ☹️

HappyFunBall: Comparing the 1989 NL Cy Young voting results to FG’s pitching leaderboard for the same cohort is … kind of shocking really. It’s a bit amazing how far we’ve come

CAL: An injury like Rengifo’s (Bicep Tendon Rupture), does that have a large negative impact on what we should expect next season? It sounds bad but there’s also a whole offseason to recover.

Ben Clemens: Let’s just say I’m worried

Ben Clemens: I am, again, not an injury expert

Ben Clemens: But yes that sounds awful

Ben Clemens: Sorry, I’m looking through the Braves financials right now tryihng to reconcile them with the A’s

Ben Clemens: and got too caught up

Ben Clemens: that’s a job for after this chat

Farhandrew Zaidman: Pour one out for George Kirby, who was absolutely raked over the coals by every 40 something or 50 something retired SP with a twitter account this weekend.

Ben Clemens: Oh yeah, remember, players shouldn’t be honest

Ben Clemens: very important that you’re not honest about ever feeling tired or down

Ben Clemens: (this is not real advice, please do not follow it)

Ben Clemens: Alright, on that note, I’m going to go look at financial statements and make lunch

Ben Clemens: Have a great week everyone, and I’ll talk to you again next Monday