Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 9/12/22

Ben Clemens: Hello everyone, and welcome to a Monday baseball chat

Ben Clemens: A lot has happened since the last time I chatted (thanks, Labor Day), and there are both some fun playoff races and some fun milestone chases going on in the last month-ish of the season. Let’s talk about it (plus whatever else comes to mind, of course)

Appa Yip Yip: Did Bo Bichette make the adjustment?

Ben Clemens: Starting to look like it. Someone here is going to be writing about him in the next week or so, not to spoil anything

Who’s Fabio?: Ben – do you think that with Statcast there could be such a thing as measuring ‘clutch’ performance.  I am thinking about Matt Chapman on a run scoring play from second where he was clocked running over 1MPH hour faster than his season average sprint speed.  Is that clutch?

Ben Clemens: I guess so, but I guess I’m not sure that’s clutch. I bet you every batter runs harder than their season average on plays like that. I feel like the clutch I actually want to measure comes at the plate, and I stlil have no idea how to get that

Bruce in 2023: Time to drop Luis Robert? Especially  if he doesn’t start tomorrow. Redraft mixed roto

Ben Clemens: Yeah… I think he’s still a good keeper but there just aren’t a lot of weeks left and he’s not healthy

Derek: What postseason will be the next with fewer than 3 AL East Teams? 2029? (/s, kind of.)  Yankees & Red Sox can basically always contend if they choose to spend the money they have available to them, Blue Jays don’t appear to be going anywhere, O’s on the upswing, Rays always Rays-ing. And the new balanced schedules are probably only going to make things easier for them! Meanwhile we have the AL Central…

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I’m trying to do the math

Ben Clemens: Ha, not really! I’m trying to pick a number for shock value

Ben Clemens: I’ll say 2023 b/c that’d be funny but yes, the AL East looks extremely good top-to-bottom and the balanced schedule is gonna be a huge tailwind

Nathan: Sean Murphy is trending towards a 5 Win season. How does that affect his trade value projection (referring to the Trade Value series) going into the offseason?

Ben Clemens: I mean, he’ll still be one of the top few catchers in baseball there, just like he was at mid-season. I think he’s raised his stock somewhat, but there’s also less time until free agency, so it nets out

Nas: I recently noticed Eduardo Escobar is third in batter fWar for the month of September(behind only Bichette and Judge). Does his hot streak move the needle with how other teams will gameplan the Mets lineup in October?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think so, b/c the kind of hitter Escobar is hasn’t changed. He’s really aggressive, he wants to spray the ball, and he’s gonna hit the ball in the air

Ben Clemens: Your plan against Escobar: make him chase or make weak contact up in the zone, b/c he’s an excellent low ball hitter, particularly when he’s batting lefty

blondie: Enjoyed the recent Aaron Judge piece! Any chance you’ve run the math on Pujols’ shot to get to 700?

Ben Clemens: I thought about it, but I haven’t come up with a great way to do it yet b/c of his playing time being less consistent than Judge’s. He’s still part of a platoon for the most part, even if they’re giving him some extra starts to chase the record

Ben Clemens: I think if it gets down to a homer or two and the Cards sew the division up (and also fall just a little further behind the NLE for the 2 seed), I’ll start doing that, b/c at that point why not just play him every day

CoryMC: In the AL Wild Card round, what incentive is there to finish in the 2nd wild card slot? Finish 1st and you play at home. 3rd and you face the weakest team in the AL playoffs (Guardians). 2nd, most likely, leads to playing the Rays on the road.

Ben Clemens: The biggest incentive is that if you’re in second and then fall off the pace, you finish third

Ben Clemens: If you’re in third and then fall off the pace, oof

Ben Clemens: It could definitely lead to some chicanery on the last day of the regular season, though

Ben Clemens: It used to be that finishing as the top overall seed was kinda bad b/c you generally played a better opponent in the DS than if you were the second overall seed (the average WC winner is better than the worst division winner)

Ben Clemens: so they’ve just moved the weirdness

Tim: Liked the Karinchak piece, but more importantly, can we get a lip reader for that first clip? I NEED to know what Hedges is nonchalantly chatting with the ump about while he caresses those silky locks.

Ben Clemens: “Good technique, Ted!” is my guess

Insert Witty Name Here: Of course we’re going to talk rule changes for next year, how much of their ‘stuff’ do you think RPs will lose because they have less time to recover between pitches?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think my guess has any useful information in it, because I haven’t been a major league reliever and it’s a tough thing to study with correlational data

Ben Clemens: “some”

lou harrison bader: I was wondering what your thoughts are on how a team might take advantage of the new shifting rule by dramatically increasing or decreasing the size of their infield?

Ben Clemens: You can’t, as far as I know

Ben Clemens: so uh…. I don’t think any team will try

Keith: The Royals have had a few young players come up with mixed results.  What should their first priority be this off-season?

Ben Clemens: GM

Travis: I have a dumb question. How come, despite hitting the ball significantly harder and hitting way less grounders, Julio Rodriguez has significantly lower expected stats than Michael Harris?

Ben Clemens: it’s because of the way expected stats work, essentially

Ben Clemens: they’re not trying to measure what the most valuable hitting profile going forward will be

Ben Clemens: They’re just measuring how each batted ball does on average. It looks to me just from a quick check that Harris has done pretty well at flares and such that generally produce hits, but aren’t particularly stable year-to-year

Ben Clemens: That said, Harris is no slouch. Being worse than Julio in terms of hard hit rate isn’t so bd

Ben Clemens: bad*

Ken: What’s your general outlook on Brujan? This season has really been dampening my excitement, so curious where you’re at on expectations at this point.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I’m down on him. I don’t think he’s a lost cause or anything, but time’s running out for him on the Rays. He’s gonna get low on options, and it’s just hard to be a major league caliber hitter if you’re not making impact contact more frequently than he does. Particularly if you swing so aggressively

Ben Clemens: I think he might end up as a reclamation project somewhere else. I basically don’t think the profile plays unless he can add power

Robert: Looking at the timing of the M’s turnaround this year do you credit the Santana addition and his veteran leadership or Winker trying to fight the Angels alone and pulling together the team?

Ben Clemens: Wait, it has to be one of those two things?

Leland: Why is Jesse Winker just…bad? Is it more lingering health concerns or did his approach crater overnight?

Ben Clemens: He just took on too much of a leadership role. Bit of a Peter Principle, he kept getting promoted until he was the heart and soul of the team

Ben Clemens: No, I don’t have an obvious answer here. I don’t think he’s as bad as you make him out to be, but he’s definitely lost some pop which really hurts given the rest of his profile

Ben Clemens: He’s had occasional flashes, but for the most part he’s just having more downs in hard hit rate than ever before. To me that sounds like injury, particularly given that he’s remained disciplined at the plate, but it’s hard to know if injury is affecting him b/c I’m not sure even he knows

Benny: Who does your crystal ball have winning the NL East and AL Central? More importantly, are the O’s gonna do this thing?

Ben Clemens: Mets and Guardians

Ben Clemens: And uh, definitely not sadly

Ben Clemens: I’d love to see it, it would be really fun and I get to claim hereditary O’s fan status b/c my mom is a lifelong fan

Ben Clemens: (my family is from the DC area)

Ben Clemens: (the family that isn’t from St. Louis)

CB: Re: trying to pick your playoff seed, you don’t mess with it because the Baseball GodsTM will come back and smite you, like the time USA Today picked “Detroit in 3 games” in the ’06 Series.

Ben Clemens: Right, whether or not that’s true, it probably wouldn’t feel great to the players in the clubhouse

Kwanbelievable: I have a theory now (thanks Karinchak) that pitchers should theoretically get better as the temperature heats up and they sweat more to mix with rosin. Is there any way to measure if that’s real by comparing to the expected effect of increased batted ball distance in the summer? Or am I totally off my rocker?

Ben Clemens: I think a much easier way would be to just find a major league caliber pitcher to throw some pitches with sweat and rosin in different conditions

Ben Clemens: trying to infer it from expected batted ball distance, with new humidors and confusing weather and baseball actively goofing with the ball, seems like a tough way to handle it

Jeff in Jersey: Not that I expect you to know the Mets bullpen in & out, but apparently the brass is telling Tylor Megill that he has to earn his way back. He’s been dominant in rehab. Can’t you see him as a top arm in that pen? Surely better than Tommy Hunter?

Ben Clemens: maybe they mean as a starter? Hey, Tommy Hunter has a 2.75 ERA (though meh peripherals)

Ben Clemens: I don’t think it’d be crazy to say they want him as a starter, so he’ll either be a fifth starter or a long man

Ben Clemens: trying to convert him into high-leverage relief and then back out of it next year sounds too cute to me

Lineups/Injuries: Even if only some return, is there precedent for a (very likely) first place team having what will be such a different lineup between whatever Judge and co was about a week ago to what the team may run out there in early October? Aside from  the old version of Sept callups.

Ben Clemens: Yeah I briefly tried to research whether the lineup for one of the Twins doubleheader games would be the worst ever lineup that included an MVP assuming Judge wins it

Ben Clemens: it has been….. wow

Jack: Winker, Benintendi, Kirilloff. How would you rank them for 2023?

Ben Clemens: for real baseball, I’d go KBW. For fantasy baseball, kinda depends on the categories

Dancing dan: does Correa opt out?

Ben Clemens: I think yes, but it’s gonna come down to whether he wants to run it back with Minnesota

Ben Clemens: if he does, why not take another one year yo?

Rokwn Bat: McCarthy of Snakes is a former #1 first round pick. Rated #25 on Prpsect list of deep Farm. Per EL he changed his batting approach and now has more power. Obvious speed. His performance so far.., SSS or is he this good?

Ben Clemens: I do not think he’s as good as his last month or so, b/c there just aren’t that many plyaers of that caliber

Ben Clemens: But I tihnk he’s a completely real major league player, and you could easily talk me into him being an average hitter. An average hitter with his speed is a really valuable player

Dancing dan mcgraw: How good does Hader have to be for the Yankees to feel good about this trade?

Ben Clemens: Good enough to knock the Dodgers out of the playoffs so the Yankees don’t have to face them in the WS

Ben Clemens: but as for Bader, I think he needs to be an average hitter with GG-caliber CF defense

Ben Clemens: that would go a LONG way towards fixing the Yankees’ offensive grossness. Getting to run an outfield of Beni/Bader/Judge gives you elite defensive prowess out there

Ben Clemens: With no bad bats. It’s a big step up from Hicks/Judge/Florial or whatever

Guest: If you ultimate goal as a manager is to max out Pujols home runs do you actually start him every day or does sitting verse a eighty rest him enough for future days to out homer the potential from the missed ABs?

Ben Clemens: He needs rest days for sure

Ben Clemens: I dunno how many

Ben Clemens: But having him DH a ton would help as well

Jay: What are the best stats to predict future home runs?

Ben Clemens: barrel rate, ground ball rate (lower is better), hard hit rate would be my top 3

Ben Clemens: oh, chase rate, lower being better

Ben Clemens: b/c we care not just about what fraction of batted balls become homers, but what fraction of PA’s end with a ball in play, and if you chase a ton that’s no good

John: A lot of talk about which hitters (LH pull hitters, stolen base guys) are likely to benefit most from rules changes. Is there a certain type of pitcher you think is likely to benefit most/ be adversely affected least?

Ben Clemens: fly ball pitchers

Ben Clemens: and strikeout guys

Ben Clemens: but I don’t think there’ll be a huge spread

lou harrison bader: I was under the impression that there is no standard infield size…. This has been brought up in dodger broadcasts in reference to trea turners positioning struggles earlier in the season due to his unfamiliarity with the larger infield in Los Angeles (he apparently always used the outfield grass as a reference point).

Ben Clemens: That’s definitely possible. I haven’t thought about it too much. Still think teams aren’t gonna change their infield dimensions to mess around with shifting

David: Is there some sort of rule-of-thumb for comparing the value of a great but frequently injured player vs. a good, consistently healthy player? I’m wondering how to weight the value of someone like DeGrom, who can put the team on his back but can never be relied on.

Ben Clemens: well, WAR does a pretty good job of this

Ben Clemens: it maybe doesn’t work at the deGrom level, though, b/c playoffs really favor guys like him over steady eddies

Bob: Mike Trout is just the best. I was thinking he was having a “down” year with the higher K rate but nope just the usual 177 WRC+

Ben Clemens: What a guy, right?

Ben Clemens: To be fair, he’d been having a down year until going nova in the last week, but yeah: Mike Trout is great and we don’t talk about it enough anymore

Ben Clemens: He’s a victim of his own success. He’s been so good for so long that it feels expected, even though his skill continues to be otherworldly

Ben Clemens: Okay, I’m gonna quickly get some rice going in the rice cooker for lunch, brb

Ben Clemens: and back!

Insert Witty Name Here: Ooh look at Mr. Fancy with a rice cooker! Kidding of course, what’s been your favorite kitchen appliance lately? We got a bread machine and love it so much it may be in our Christmas family photo.

Ben Clemens: Oh yeah, that was a tailor-made transition.

Ben Clemens: I love a rice cooker, I think that’d be number one. I’m not a big kitchen appliance guy, to be honest: we have really nice knives and cutting boards and that’s my number one splurge

Zachary: Aaron Judge is hitting .370/.507/.838 (1.345 OPS/268 wRC+) in his last 50 games. Who was the last guy you remember to put up a 50-game stretch like that?

Ben Clemens: Bryce Harper

tots: Mark McGwire’s last year was Pujols’ first.  I feel like I need to take an old man walk.

Romorr: Conforto to the Orioles makes a lot of sense? Santander to DH, or he could replace an up and down Hays in LF. Or would you prefer someone who played in 2022.

Ben Clemens: It makes sense to me, it’s just going to depend heavily on what teams see in workouts or medical checks or whatnot. I am a big Santander fan, but yeah, maybe he’s better as a most-of-the-time DH

Didace: “WAR does a pretty good job of this” What would you rather have? A pitcher that puts up 5WAR in half a season, but will miss the other half randomly and if it’s at the end no playoffs and the replacement is 1WAR for a full season? Or two 3WAR guys who are available 100%?

Ben Clemens: Right – I think the answer there is nuanced and depends on your team makeup, how you’d feel about the playoffs with the two guys, who that laster roster spot gets taken up by in guy 1’s case, etc.

Ben Clemens: So when it’s close like that, you consider all the contextual things

Ben Clemens: If it’s one guy producing 7 WAR or two producing 2 apiece, hey, WAR works great

Brian: Did you see that Showalter said that the 3 relievers he has trusted most in his managerial career are: 1. Givens 2. Hunter 3. Mariano

Ben Clemens: I sure didn’t, and that is indeed amazing

Ben Clemens: Zack Britton in shambles

Curious George: Baseball writers talk about it being hard to judge the value that field managers add or detract. What about baseball ops leadership? Given differing dictates from ownership (the details of which the public may or may not know), popular expectations, contention windows, etc., how should we compare and contrast folks like Bloom, Ng, and Moore?

Ben Clemens: I think it’s phenomenally difficult to judge, which probably gives baseball ops groups more job security

Ben Clemens: The whole ‘comparing it to the moves you didn’t make’ thing is just hard

Brian: (that was a joke from a frustrated Mets fan that watches Hunter and Givens turn every 1 run game into a 5 run game)

Ben Clemens: aw man, that’s sad

Ben Clemens: I’d believe Givens, he feels like a trustworthy guy to me and was on the O’s

Jay: Thank you. Would you look at those stats for opposing pitchers also?

Ben Clemens: Callback to the earlier HR question. I’d honestly look a lot at HR/9 for pitchers, and strikeout rate too. Pitchers have less control over what happens after contact than batters (makes sense, batters are the ones doing the swinging) so the best thing they can do is just strike guys out

Benny Baseball: Loved your article on hard hit rate and had me thinking about Benny… Does he get rewarded for what should have been a 3.5 WAR season or do teams discount given the high BABIP and low hard hit rate? Seems like he’ll be a tricky one to evaluate

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I’m glad I am not trying to figure out which free agent outfielder to target this offseason. I think I buy maybe half of his production on contact? His hard-hit rate isn’t that low in the context of Andrew Benintendi, he’s always been a gap-to-gap type, and I could see him hitting more homers next year out of Kaufman for a full season

Ben Clemens: Another good sign: his plate discipline took a step forward this year and that tends to be stalb

Ben Clemens: stable*

Ben Clemens: I’d be generally interested in him if people are picturing him as an average player, b/c I think there’s upside. If he’s making All Star money then you start limiting how great the deal can go for you as a team

Didace: “the best thing they can do is just strike guys out” Explain Josiah Gray. Then please let the Nats know what the issue is. Thank you in advance.

Ben Clemens: Well, Josiah Gray doesn’t actually strike THAT many guys out (per batter faced). He strikes a ton out b/c he walks a ton and gives up a ton of hard aerial contact and hence homers. I’m not saying that rule is the only rule that matters… but for a one-line rule, “focus on K% and HR/9” is a good one

Jeff S.: Who do you think has the better career. Strider or Kirby? Strider has the better stuff but Kirby has the better command I think.

Ben Clemens: I have to take Strider here, though I really do enjoy watching Kirby pitch

Ben Clemens: Strider’s stuff is obviously elite, but so is his work ethic and ability to improve. He’s completely changed his pitch mix since college and that’s very impressive to me. I dunno how to quantify this but I’d expect him to continue changing and improving

The guy who asks the lunch question: What’s for lunch?

Ben Clemens: Leftovers of some chinese food we ordered last night plus rice. It’s not a fancy meal but we had a busy Sunday and didn’t feel like cooking. Tonight’s dinner should be fun though: pasta and broccoli pesto

Ry: Why so long between DeGrom’s starts?

Ben Clemens: I think the Mets are just being cautious, as well as keeping their pitchers ‘in order’

Ben Clemens: Bassitt and deGrom both pitched last Wednesday in a doubleheader, Bassitt first. So it’s not crazy to have Bassitt go today and dG tomorrow

Dubs In 6: Do you expect much from Flaherty and Jon Gray ROS – enough to roster?

Ben Clemens: Mmmmm…. no but if you’re desperate yes

Service Time Impingement Syndrome: Saw the earlier question about Luis Robert. Here’s mine: Is it time to think this is what he is? Talented hitter, but forever unable to stay in the lineup long enough to really enjoy a true breakout?

Ben Clemens: Definitely a worry with him. There’s a bit of a Byron Buxton vibe: feels like if he ever puts together a healthy season where everything clicks he’ll be an MVP candidate, but whether he does it is tough to handicap

Guest: What’s the most WAR someone has earned in a single week? An intelligent guess is fine if it’s not easy to look up.

Ben Clemens: Gonna go with a guess b/c we don’t do defensive value game-by-game, it’s kinda batched and uploaded

Ben Clemens: Here is a fun article by Sam Miller about Trout’s day-to-day WAR during a hot streak

Ben Clemens: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/19338735/death-taxes-mike-trout-wa…

Derek: Isn’t the most WAR in a week almost certainly from Ohtani at some point?

Ben Clemens: That’s a good point. Ohtani always goofs these things up

Ben Clemens: It’s probably some week where he had two good starts, yeah

john maynor: I know the Guardians are the weakest team overall currently in a spot, but I wouldn’t much want to have to win 2/3 on the road vs Bieber, McKenzie, Quantrill + the bullpen. Or if CHW comes back, Cease/Lynn/Cueto

Ben Clemens: Well sure. Would you want to try to win 2/3 on the road against Gausman, Manoah, and the Jays lineup?

Ben Clemens: or the Rays’ many-headed bullpen hydra plus recuperating hitting?

Ben Clemens: It’s not like any of these teams suck

i read fangraphs: What do you think of the jWAR methodology where it differs from fWAR, bWAR, or WARP? Better/Worse/Inconsequential?

Ben Clemens: Haven’t read that much about it yet tbh, but this is a good excuse to go figure it out

Paul: Dude, to this day I can’t see Britton and not start laughing to myself about 2016 (in case not obvious already, not a Baltimore fan). I know this is likely way too hyperbolic having spent like two minutes thinking about it, but has there ever been a more obviously bad managerial decision?

Ben Clemens: I think leaving Kershaw in against Juan Soto in the 2019 playoffs wasn’t great, but yeah, off the top of my head it’s the Britton thing

Ben Clemens: so jWAR does something I like, splitting RA9 and FIP down the middle

Ben Clemens: I’ll read more about it after this chat but yeah, that’s great

Senior Spivey: It seems as if the D-backs upward trajectory is promising, but how far out are they in terms of (1. time) and (2. pieces).

Ben Clemens: I’m feeling pretty good about the DBacks, but that’s happened to me before. Pieces-wise, I think they need more middle infielders (sorry, Geraldo Perdomo), and their best guys there are probably more 2024 propositions than 2023

Ben Clemens: they need more pitching, too, but MadBum is on the books for a while yet and they don’t seem like the kind of team to cut losses and go after someone new, so I wonder if they’ll just wait for that to improve from within

JK: The pitcher has used his allotted pick off attempts.  How far are you stretching your lead?

Ben Clemens: I’m VERY excited for this cat-and-mouse game. I think I’d take a slightly exaggerated lead, not absurd but aggressive, and then just go on first movement

Ramos: How excited should I about about Michael Harris as a fantasy prospect

Ben Clemens: Oh, quite excited. I have questions about his approach, and he hits more grounders than I’d like, but he makes solid contact and will play everyday given his defense. He should get you some steals, too, which are more valuable in fantasy than IRL. There’s a lot to like here

speegal: Over/under: Next 4 years Seiya Suzuki 115 WRC+?

Ben Clemens: Ooh, that’s a close one. I think I’ll take over but good line

The Ghost of Bobby Thigpen: Is Brandon Nimmo kind of being undervalued as a potential Free Agent? Lefty Bat, average to above average CF (now), high on-base, decent pop? Could he actually get a 9-figure deal?

Ben Clemens: I’m starting to think this way a bit more. I thought he’d get something in the 4/60 (or 4/70), etc) range and feel underpaid, but I’m starting to think he’ll just get more

Ben Clemens: For me, it basically comes down to how teams discount the defense

Brewers Hopeful: Please tell me there’s enough time for a comeback, the Cards aren’t actually good right? RIGHT?!

Ben Clemens: nah, it’s WC or bust at this point I think

Ben Clemens: Team quality is nice and all, but being down 8 games is just too many

John b: Pujols coming back next year?

Ben Clemens: Nope. I totally buy his assertion that this is his last year. What a way to go out, too. Why mess with it?

Kwanbelievable: Re: Trout, I have friends that are nominally baseball fans who have no idea who Mike Trout is. This has to be an outlier for a surefire 1st-ballot hall of famer not to have name recognition during his own generation, right?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, it’s a mix of him being a low-key dude, the team being bad, and baseball becoming less popular nationally

Ben Clemens: Still a great regional game, but if you live on the east coast, you’re not watching much Trout

Guest: I want to see someone with 50 steals by the all star break as pitchers get used to the new rules.

Ben Clemens: Sadly I don’t think this is gonna happen

Ben Clemens: It’d be great, I’m rooting for it. But it didn’t really happen in the minors, and plenty of the pitchers in the majors next year will hvae been in the minors with the experimental stealing rules

Ben Clemens: Steals will go up I think

Ben Clemens: but not THAT much

HappyFunBall: If you don’t know who Mike Trout is, you’re not nominally a baseball fan.

I’m not nominally a college football fan. I used to be, but now I really only follow my alma mater. This is who your friends ae

Ben Clemens: Just depends on what nominally means imo

Ben Clemens: Alright everyone, I’m losing steam here, so I’m gonna call it a day and regroup for next week. The rice cooker just beeped, which is as good a sign as any. Have a wonderful time watching sweet home run chases, everyone, and I’ll tlak to you again soon