Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 9/21/20

Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, and welcome to a Monday FanGraphs chat.

Ben Clemens: Today will probably mostly be about the NL playoff race, because that’s what is most exciting in the game at the moment.

Ben Clemens: If you’d prefer to read about Ryan Helsley recording a save against hte woeful Pirates, I wrote about that today:

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/ryan-helsley-records-a-save/

Ben Clemens: And of course, everyone loves to argue about whether expanded playoffs should stay, so we can do some of that too.

jimbo: You’re thoughts on who gets in, in the NL?

Derek: Who ya got for the NL wildcard spots?

Ben Clemens: I had been skeptical of the Cardinals’ chances, because they just have to play so many games in such a short time.

Ben Clemens: They have depth, because they’re the Cardinals and that’s their main skill, but it’s just a lot of games in a short window and a lot of backups getting meaningful minutes. Those players must all be gassed.

Ben Clemens: I think that being a game ahead of the riffraff helps a ton, though

Ben Clemens: So I guess I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt now

Ben Clemens: That leaves the Marlins, Phillies, Brewers, Reds, and Giants for three spots

Ben Clemens: I’d say Marlins/Phillies/Reds for me, but I truly have no idea

Ben Clemens: They’re all .500!

Guest: I have been keeping an eye on FanGraphs playoff odds and noticed something weird. How is it that the Cardinals’ playoff chances are over 20% better than the Brewers, yet the Brewers chances of winning the World Series are about double that of the Cardinals? The Reds also are more likely to win it all than the Cardinals despite being almost 30% less likely to make the playoffs. How does that make sense??

Ben Clemens: So, the way our playoff odds work is that they come up with a team’s win percentage against neutral teams, then apply that to their schedule

Ben Clemens: The Cardinals, for example, have an ROS win percentage of .498 against neutral teams, they’re roughly a .500 team to us. The Brewers check in at .545 against neutral teams, the Reds at .540.

Ben Clemens: Then we look at their schedule…. and the Cards have three against the Royals and five against the Brewers, while the Brewers have the Reds and the Cards and the Reds get the Brewers and Twins

Ben Clemens: The Cards have a game in hand and the easiest schedule, so we like them to make the playoffs

Ben Clemens: But we think they’re the worst team of the three by a fair margin

Ben Clemens: I’m not convinced that we handle this perfectly, but that’s the thinking

Armadillofury: Hidden behind the 4.68 ERA and the Pirates being awful, has Musgrove taken a step forward this season?

Ben Clemens: Ohhhh man I keep getting pulled back in on Musgrove

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/joe-musgrove-is-sneaky-good/

Ben Clemens: I dunno, yeah, fine, I’m in

Ben Clemens: I think he’s better than people give him credit for but he doesn’t make it easy!

Guest: Changing the playoff rules pushes for more parity. Is it just me or is that misreading what appeals to fans? MLS pushes for it by suppressing spending across the league when the most popular league in the US is the Premier League which has a few teams that truly compete for the top spot. Those teams are incentivized to improve every year, leading to a transfer season that is often as enticing as the games themselves. I know this is a long question, but extra playoff teams make the league less appealing overall, right?

Derek: Expanded playoffs (beyond 2020) are bad. I’ve been open to being convinced otherwise but have yet to hear a remotely compelling argument.

Ben Clemens: It’s just not about ‘appealing more to fans’ I don’t think

Ben Clemens: There’s extra money in more playoff teams

Ben Clemens: Appealing more to fans is one way to indirectly make money

Ben Clemens: Because you get more attendance, and your ratings on TV are better which means that ad rates on those broadcasts are higher which means that future rights sales are bigger

Ben Clemens: But you could also, you know, just make more games and sell those

Ben Clemens: It’s a supply-side/demand-side thing

Ben Clemens: Owners are focusing on increasing the supply of baseball rather than the demand for baseball

Ben Clemens: I’m not a fan of them, and I’ve written about how I’m not

Ben Clemens: But it’s not about appealing to fans, no matter what hte owners say. It’s about long-term profit maximization for the people who own teams.

SF: Pst. Your socialism is showing.

Ben Clemens: Ha I hope this is about my article on the expanded playoffs

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/expanded-playoffs-discourage-greatness/

Ben Clemens: B/c, uh, I’m arguing that we should reward excellence

Ben Clemens: And encourage teams to try to stand out from the crowd

Ben Clemens: It’s wild what passes for socialism these days

2-D: Did you catch Garrett Crochet’s debut?

The Ghost of Bobby Thigpen: How ballsy would it be to add Crochet to the postseason roster?  I know the experience is non-existent…but, damn the stuff will play…

Ben Clemens: I did not catch it, but I watched most of it later

Ben Clemens: I think it would be defensible, but the White Sox have a really high octane bullpen as it is

Ben Clemens: Looks like he’d push one of the lefties out? Gio or Detwiler

Ben Clemens: Yeah I’d do it

Also Ben: Seems like the Cubs should be pretty concerned about their prospects next year and on, no? Although they do manage to keep doing well regardless of the offensive struggles

Ben Clemens: I mean, I’d be worried, but if there are expanded playoffs next year, it’s no biggie

Ben Clemens: The NL Central will be very competitive next year, but yeah, the Cubs have given signs that they’re a little bit worried about the pipeline

Ben Clemens: It’s no surprise that they’re disappointed in the way things have developed

Ben Clemens: THough obviously they would redo the last six years in a heartbeat

Boo Expanded Playoffs: Since there are no built-in off days before the WS this year, do you like how teams will be rewarded with extra rest days for winning a series quickly? Do you think that will serve as a meaningful incentive for teams to be more aggressive in pitcher deployment in order to avoid long series?

Ben Clemens: Eh… it’s a nice talking point, but I don’t really think so.

Ben Clemens: There’s not enough flexibility in pitcher deployment

Ben Clemens: I guess you could go to your bullpen more aggressively? But optimal strategy is already pretty close to that

Ben Clemens: You already should be using your best four starters, in order, in the first four games

Ben Clemens: Like, the massively more important reason to be aggressive with pitcher deployment is that losing a game in the playoffs is really bad

Ben Clemens: Losing a game in a 5-game series is like losing 32.4 games in a 162-game series

Ben Clemens: (to use a realllllly stupid analogy)

Charlie: How are the in-game WRC+ calculated? I noticed that someone who had 1 hit, 1 walk, and 2 outs in 4 PAs had a higher WRC+ than someone who had 1 hit, 2 walks, and 2 outs in 5 PAs. Seems like the latter is a better offensive performance (and unless there are some really important adjustments behind the scenes, should also give a higher WRC+).

Ben Clemens: Depends on the hits, right?

Ben Clemens: As best as I understand it, they’re calculated in a pretty straightforward way: wOBA, park factors, and league average

Charlie: (both had hits for 1 base)

Ben Clemens: That shouldn’t happen unless there was a glitch in the code or there was an HBP or something

Ben Clemens: an HBP is more valuable in wRC+ and wOBA terms than a walk so maybe that’s what it was?

Ben Clemens: But I guess that’s PA’s

Ben Clemens: Anyway, that shouldn’t be the case, so that’s weird

Ben Clemens: If you have the exact details I can dig into it

Aaron: The Red Sox are on pace to have the least valuable pitching staff of all time. In fact, no team has EVER finished an entire season with negative pitching WAR. The Rangers are on pace to have the least valuable lineup of all time by a wide margin. These are happening in the same season. Might be worthy of a piece. You’re welcome.

Ben Clemens: Oh Red Sox

Ben Clemens: Turns out not trying is a great way to be terrible

Bearry: Now I’m a Rays fan, and while I realize they’re a good team, there’s no way they’re the cream of the AL… right? Seems like the short-season favored them even with all their pitching injuries.

Ben Clemens: I’m not so sure

Ben Clemens: The short season favored them via how compressed it is, which lets their depth shine

Ben Clemens: But they’re also really good. They won a ton of games last year and got better this year

Larry Jones: If you had to vote today, who gets your MVP vote(s)

Ryan: Picks for NL MVP/Cy Young?

Ben Clemens: We at FanGraphs are going to do some end-of-season awards, but I’m hopeful that they’ll be weirder than this

Ben Clemens: So, let me do the straightforward ones now

Ben Clemens: NL Cy: Darvish by a hair

Ben Clemens: AL Cy: Bieber by a lot of hair

Ben Clemens: NL MVP: Tatis for me, though could easily be Freeman by week’s end

Ben Clemens: AL MVP: uhhhhhh

Ben Clemens: Jose Abreu? HOnestly I have no idea here

Beeks: Why is a HBP more valuable than a walk when it comes to wRC+ and wOBA?

Ben Clemens: This is one of my favorite ‘hey that’s weird’ details

Ben Clemens: The way that wRC+ and wOBA work out run values is by averaging all the situations where a thing happens

Ben Clemens: Walks disproportionately happen in situations where it’s not THAT bad for the pitcher

Ben Clemens: As in, pitchers issue more walks, proportionately, with bases open

Ben Clemens: And less, proportionately, in spots where a walk is awful

Ben Clemens: Like bases loaded, or two on no one out

Ben Clemens: Whereas HBP are randomly distributed

Ben Clemens: So the average HBP adds more runs than the average walk

Ben Clemens: Even though they’re both one base

Ben Clemens: Because of where they tend to happen

FunFella13: Why Tatis over Machado?

Ben Clemens: Because their value is super close and I have had more of a blast watching Tatis

Ben Clemens: You can’t really parse WAR and pick your MVP this season (at least iwth a straight face) because the error bars are way larger than the gaps between players

Ben Clemens: So it’s kind of a taste thing

Ben Clemens: I wouldn’t fault anyone for picking Machado

Derek: Bieber should be AL MVP imo. No position player has really had enough of a standout season to beat him out, even with the societal “pitchers shouldn’t win MVPs” penalty.

Ben Clemens: I’d be happy with that as well

Sam: Other than a team like the Mets where new ownership could drive front office changes, do you think this will be a relatively quiet offseason in terms of front office/coaching changes due to the atypical nature of this season? Or would you still expect roughly the same amount of change?

Ben Clemens: I think it will be very quiet

Ben Clemens: Tigers/Gardenhire obviously, but it would be really weird to care TOO much about on-field results this season from a process standpoint

mmddyyyy: Is there anywhere we can see a division’s WS odds?

Ben Clemens: I think you’d just have to add everything up, which is a pain

Derek: How often do players go MLB -> independent league -> MLB? The mention of Ross Detwiler, who made a pit stop in York, PA to play for the Revolution, made me think of this. Not sure I would even be aware Detwiler was in the Atlantic League if I didn’t happen to see him in a random game while he was there. Rich Hill is probably the most famous example of this but I don’t think I know of any more off the top of my head… Is this a relatively common path that usually just goes under the radar or is it as rare as it seems to me?

Ben Clemens: As far as I know it’s super rare

Ben Clemens: Rich Hill is my favorite as well

Ben Clemens: This is a lower-tier version of that but John Brebbia was a Yankees farmhand, then a Laredo Lemur, and now a good major league reliever

FunFella13: Is there a strong argument for Robert over Lewis besides  60 games worth of defensive metrics and #narrative?

Ben Clemens: I’d say there are two, though I’d vote Lewis. One, it’s not like Robert is having a flukishly good defensive season. Dan wrote about how ZiPS wanted to call Robert one of the best defenders in baseball before the season:

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-white-sox-playoff-road-is-parallel-to-…

Ben Clemens: He was actually expected to be this great

Ben Clemens: If you don’t regress his coordinate-based minor league fielding data

Ben Clemens: The other is a foundational disagreement about whether ROY should reward the best player that year or the best prospect who had a good season, and I think no one would straight-facedly take Lewis over Robert for the rest of their career

Ben Clemens: That said, I’d vote Lewis if I had a vote because I think his season was more impressive

Derek: Have you kept playing OOTP (specifically Perfect Team) throughout the season? I thought that once real baseball started I’d lose some interest but it’s so fun (and discovering random players from bygone eras never gets old) that I’ve stuck with it!

Ben Clemens: I’ve kept playing Perfect Team for basically this reason

Ben Clemens: Also becaues the chase for Face of the Franchise (collect all of a team’s old players, and you get the best player in team history)

Ben Clemens: has been so fun

Ben Clemens: I’m spending less time on it for sure though.

Stats leaders: Any (traditional) stats leaders you are surprised about even in a short season? Voit and home runs?

Ben Clemens: Bieber’s 8 trillion strikeouts (I’m approximating)

Ben Clemens: But yeah Voit

Ben Clemens: That’s deifnitely the craziest one

Larry Jones: What are your thoughts on Jurikson Profar and the Padres LF/DH situation. Should they bench Pham against RHP in the playoffs?

Guest: If everyone is healthy, who should start for the Padres in LF, 1B and DH between Morland, Hosmer, Pham and Profar?

Ben Clemens: I’d probably split RHP about 50/50 between Pham and Profar to keep Pham fresh

Ben Clemens: in left, to be clear

Ben Clemens: Going Moreland/Hosmer in DH/1B

Ben Clemens: I’d still expect Pham to outperform Profar against RHP, but not by enough to outweigh the benefits of a little rest

Ben Clemens: And then I’d go Pham for sure against lefties

Ben Clemens: And one of Profar/Moreland at DH

mmddyyyy: Which stats would you recommend to a relative looking to go beyond ba/obp/slg?

Ben Clemens: Strikeout and walk rates are an easy one

Ben Clemens: And swinging strike rate

Ben Clemens: Because they are really grokkable

Ben Clemens: You tell someone what they are, and they go ohhhhhh I can watch for that

Ben Clemens: And they’re also really important and really stable

Ben Clemens: As a bonus, you can pretty easily show the weird ‘strikeouts are good for pitchers but not necessarily bad for hitters’ thing

Ben Clemens: Where you look at the strikeout rates of the best pitchers

Ben Clemens: And they’re all high

Ben Clemens: And then you look at the strikeout rates of the top hitters and they’re all over the place

Ben Clemens: Neat little baseball thing there

Ben Clemens: And then swinging strike rate is just a raw obvious way a pitcher can be great

Ben Clemens: And anyone who watches baseball understands how good it is when a batter swings and misses at your pitch

Kw: Should the Cubs bring up potential ace Brailyn Marquez as a potential bullpen weapon for the playoffs? Or are their odds to win the WS so low that they should opt to keep him down and increase the length of their team control over him?

Ben Clemens: Bring him up!

Ben Clemens: The team control aspect of this is MINISCULE

Ben Clemens: it’s a slightly discounted rate on a pitching prospect six years in the future if it pans out and he’s not hurt that year

Ben Clemens: And they might suck then

Ben Clemens: Jam it now, figure the rest out later

Ben Clemens: Particularly with pitchers

TKDC: Is it starting to get weird how allergic to fun the American League seems to be in Septembers?

Ben Clemens: On one hand: it’s super lame!

Ben Clemens: On the other hand: there are so many teams in the AL actively not trying that it’s not that surprising

Ben Clemens: The Angels were our best hope this year

Ben Clemens: And I dunno what happened to them

Marko from Tropoja: Is it fair to say Seager has a higher floor but Bellinger has a higher ceiling? Do you think LAD extends the former?

Ben Clemens: Hm

Ben Clemens: I’m not good at floors and ceilings

Ben Clemens: To me they’re both high-floor

Ben Clemens: Because they both play premium defensive positions

Ben Clemens: I’d argue that Bellinger’s production would be lumpier b/c it’s more whiffs and more homers

Ben Clemens: But Seager has more homers this year and almost as many strikeouts soooooo

Ben Clemens: But yes, I think they’ll extend Seager

Ben Clemens: I’d try to if I were them, at least

Beeks: Josh Hader’s sub-par performance in 2020: a hiccup in a weird, shortened season or cause for concern going forward?

Ben Clemens: Can it be both?

Ben Clemens: It’s definitely very hiccup-y

Ben Clemens: for a while he hadn’t allowed any hits!

Ben Clemens: But if I were the Brewers, I’d always have been concerned about Hader’s walks. Last year was his only year with a good walk rate

Ben Clemens: That’s not a death sentence or anything

Ben Clemens: But if there’s any concern with Hader it’s just his control

Ben Clemens: His zone rate this year is way down and that’s scary

Ben Clemens: But also, something you sign up for when you have Hader on your team

Derek: Astudillo is forever going to have a double digit strikeout rate on his stats page if the Twins don’t call him back up this week 🙁

Ben Clemens: Eh

Ben Clemens: That’s true, but he’d also have his first 0.0% walk rate

Ben Clemens: And I’d argue that that’s a truer representation of the Astudillo life than the strikeouts

Ben Clemens: Astudillo is a contact standout, but where he’s REALLY a standout is swing rate

Ben Clemens: And 0 walks makes that clear

Ben Clemens: I just wish he had a single HBP

Ben Clemens: To really highlight the absurdity

Ben Clemens: (it’s only 16 PA so it’s absurd either way but whatever)

LeMahieu: They’re gonna keep me, right? They have to.

Ben Clemens: I think so actually

Ben Clemens: It sounds weird but he seems like a key part of the team now

Ben Clemens: And it’s not like they have no money

Appa Yip Yip: Alejandro Kirk is here to fulfil the promise of Williams Astudillo

Ben Clemens: I mean, yeah, but nahhhhhh

Ben Clemens: He’s David Fletcher, not Astudillo

Ben Clemens: That’s probably a better promise, btw

Ben Clemens: Fletcher is a much better plyaer than Astudillo I think

Ben Clemens: But Kirk is patient and good at contact

Ben Clemens: Astudillo is about never taking

Ben Clemens: Kirk has taken 10 of the 11 first pitches he’s seen

Chris: Your thoughts on NL Rookie of the Year?

Ben Clemens: My thoughts are that I need to come up with some better Sixto puns

Ben Clemens: Because he’s ROY for me and I want a snappy headline

Curtis: What was the most unusual individual game stat or stat line you can remember from this year?

Ben Clemens: I’m writing about this one for tomorrow, but maybe Rafael Marchan hitting a homer

Ben Clemens: After not ever hitting one before

Appa Yip Yip: Are we sleeping on Lourdes Gurriel Jr a little bit because he gets forgotten behind Bo, Vlad, Biggio, and the ascendant Teoscar? He’s a top 30 outfielder by WAR this year with a 120 wrc+ in the big leagues.

Ben Clemens: Now this is a take I can get behind. I’d take Lourdes over Teoscar right now, and I think he’s closer to the next tier up than people think

Ben Clemens: His skillset is a classic underrated profile

Ben Clemens: Good at everything

Ben Clemens: without a carrying tool

Ben Clemens: But hey, he just performs

Derek: Idk how to make it baseball-y but 25 or Sixto 4 is right there

Ben Clemens: Or a list of seven pitchers doing interesting things, Sixto One, Half Dozen of the Others

Ben Clemens: There are options

Ben Clemens: I just haven’t settled on one to love yet

Larry Jones: Can you expand on Sixto over Croenenworth?

Ben Clemens: I wouldn’t fault anyone for picking Cronenworth, and I love seeing him do so well, he’s a Lourdes type as well

Ben Clemens: Though I wish he would pitch in a big league game!

Ben Clemens: I just think that Sixto’s level beats Cronenworth’s accumulation of stats. Sixto has had 6 starts, Cronenworth 175 PA

Ben Clemens: If Sixto had made 8 starts, I think we’d think he was ahead

Ben Clemens: And for this weird super-short season I care more about level than duration

Ben Clemens: if that makes sense

Ben Clemens: Just personal preference on the vote

Flappy Cheeks: Will Realmuto and Harper play enough games this week to warrant being in my championship week lineup?  Sure would be nice to know before lineups lock.

Ben Clemens: I’d be scared about Realmuto

Ben Clemens: I’m less clear on Harper

Ben Clemens: But uh, yeah, that’s rough!

No longer 2016: Are the days of elite Kris Bryant over? It’s been a while since he’s had anything approaching an MVP season.

Ben Clemens: More to come on this (from someone else, not me) later in the week

Ben Clemens: But I’m worried

Marko from Tropoja: Is 3/75 with incentives a realistic extension for Kershaw this offseason? Thinking that could be light given what Strasburg got.

Ben Clemens: Too light imo

Ben Clemens: I think he’ll get closer to 4/110 or something

Ben Clemens: He’s really good and not as old as we think

Curtis: Are there any fantasy leagues that you’re aware of where you draft the Team’s position i.e Dodgers SS, Twins 1B and you get the stats from whoever plays that position during the week, etc.? or is it too hard to compile for those that play multiple positions (or is it just lame?)

Ben Clemens: I did this in fantasy football one year and honestly it was just silly

Ben Clemens: The injury aspect of fantasy is super lame

Ben Clemens: But the variance actually makes it more fun

I’m Len, not Ben: Would you take a chance on Skubal’s 2 start this week?

Ben Clemens: Eh….. no?

Ben Clemens: Really hurts that one is @MIN

Ben Clemens: Otherwise I’d be more interested

Derek: It’s crazy to me how this feels like such an unexpected, bounce back kind of year for Kershaw when, like, the dude’s ERA was basically exactly 3 last season which counted as “bad” for him. He’s so good!

Ben Clemens: Yeah it’s wild

Ben Clemens: He was just so good at peak that him merely being a top 20 pitcher feels like a disaster

Ben Clemens: I think the postseason struggles also make it feel like a disaster

Guest: Is there anything more emblematic of the White Sox OF defense than Jimenez standing perfectly still while Roberts runs over to left field to catch a fly ball?

Ben Clemens: There is!

Ben Clemens: It’s Eloy falling into a net to allow an inside-the-parker to Christian Yelich

Ben Clemens:

A Potato: When would you expect MLB to make decisions on how stuff like draft order and service time will be handled (if they haven’t already)?

Ben Clemens: Service time is done, it’s being prorated

Ben Clemens: So if you were in the bigs for 50/70 days, you’d just multiply 50/70 times the normal 189(I think) day year

Ben Clemens: To figure out how many days of service time you get for this year

Ben Clemens: Draft order, I think they’ll just use the standings

Ben Clemens: If this season didn’ go 60 games I was less sure

Ben Clemens: But that seems like a fine compromise to me

Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: The Rays having 12 different players record a save is the wildest short season counting stat.

Ben Clemens: That’s a really good one

Ben Clemens: I forgot about that but like, jeeeeez

Tanaka: What do I get on the market or as an extension?

Ben Clemens: Maybe 3/60?

Ben Clemens: It’s a weird profile

Ben Clemens: Tanaka is 31, and he’s been consistently okay

Ben Clemens: There are teams who could use that

John Levin: I for one look forward to decades of conversation about every HOF candidate having been stripped of 2-5 WAR by the pandemic season. Same for any and all milestones. Really don’t think I’ve quite wrapped my head around how much this will change the history and how we evaluate careers.

Ben Clemens: As Jay Jaffe pointed out to me, more players than you think throughout history have missed time

Ben Clemens: There was a strike in 94, a strike in 81, various wars

Ben Clemens: I think it will matter less than you think

Ben Clemens: And we’ll forget about it in 20 years

I’m Len, not Ben: If Verlander doesn’t come back, is he a surefire HOFer?

Ben Clemens: Actual person who thinks about the Hall of Fame in a smart way Jay Jaffe wrote about this (kind of) today:

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/justin-verlanders-tommy-john-surgery-throw…

Flappy Cheeks: So if no on Realmuto, who do you stream out of Knapp, Barnhart, Gomes, Romine, etc….?

Ben Clemens: This is not my area of expertise, but I’ll say Romine, I like him

John Levin: Is TJS a medically necessary procedure, or only if you plan on being an MLB pitcher again? Like if Verlander were just going to retire now, would he still get it?

Ben Clemens: Unlikely

Ben Clemens: He might, but it’s not like you can’t use your arm without a UCL

Ben Clemens: He certainly wouldn’t rehab it as exhaustively if he weren’t coming back

Oh no Gallo: Do you have thoughts on Joey Gallo’s season and outlook? I loved your article on him in January and thought you might have great insights into what has happened

Ben Clemens: I haven’t done a deep dive on him but I wouldn’t be overly worried

Ben Clemens: It’s a short season and guys with his profile are prone to some slumps that look like this

Ben Clemens: Here’s his 15-game rolling ISO for his career:

Ben Clemens: https://www.fangraphs.com/players/joey-gallo/14128/graphs?statArr=40&l…

Ben Clemens: Nothing looks tremendously out of place to me

2-D: Did the Nationals winning the World Series the season directly after losing Harper get talked about too little, too much, or just enough?

Ben Clemens: I’d say too much, but only specifically because too many people drew causal links

Ben Clemens: People are SO quick to assume cause and effect in baseball

Ben Clemens: If people were saying ‘here are two interesting things that happened to the Nats’ then sure

Ben Clemens: But there were more ‘Harper isn’t a winner’ takes than I think make sense

Ben Clemens: Becaues to be clear I think the right number of those takes is near 0

Ben Clemens: The team-building ones are fine

Ben Clemens: The Nats had to let Harper go b/c of the emergence of Soto, and it paid off, that kind of thing

Derek: Also injuries happen all the time. Some HOF candidates (Sale, Verlander) would have missed this season regardless of its length, for others it’ll basically be like they just had an extra extended injury this year.

Ben Clemens: This too, but even position players miss time. I just don’t think it will be THAT big of a deal in the broad sweep of baseball history

Ben Clemens: If you’re a JAWS person, heck, there used to be less WAR because there used to be fewer games per season

Larry Jones: I know offseason moves matter a lot for this, but who do you believe will be 2021’s Padres/White Sox?

Ben Clemens: I love some wildly early speculation, so I’ll say the Padres will be 2021’s Padres

Ben Clemens: Oh, I can’t do that?

Ben Clemens: In that case, I’ll take the Tigers, because maybe all their pitchers can take a leap forward at once

Ben Clemens: But I feel super awful about that pick

I’m Len, not Ben: If Arenado is not playing this week, does Hampson play everyday and win someone their league like he finished last year?

Ben Clemens: Hampson’s eternal lot in life is to only be used to his full potential in meaningless games, it seems

mmddyyyy: How has it been writing for Fangraphs this season?

Ben Clemens: Taking an old question, but it’s been great!

Ben Clemens: It was kind of crappy during the no-sports summer

Ben Clemens: But that was my first offseason as a full-time baseball writer, and so I had really been leaning into goofy research and 2019 stories, so I just kept it going

Ben Clemens: But with the season going on it’s as fun as ever, even if the circumstances are odd

Ben Clemens: There’s just so much to talk about

Ben Clemens: All the time

Ben Clemens: I’m gonna wrap this chat up here, after self-servingly picking a question that lets me talk about myself, because I need to start working on some playoff stuff

Ben Clemens: Thanks for chatting with me today, everyone, and I’ll talk to you next week, on the eve of these wild 3-game series that promise to be so much fun.

Ben Clemens: Unfair to good teams, but fun!