Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 3/18/24

Ben Clemens: I’m gonna get this started a little early today

Ben Clemens: I’m cooking a bit for lunch so I’ll have to run around noon my time, so let’s get some extra questions in before the regular one hour run time

Insomniac69: How do you sleep?

Ben Clemens: Shockingly well

Sonny: Reports have Snell looking for $60M in a 2y bridge contract. That seems worse than the Yankees reported offer earlier in the offseason, but I can think of like 4 clubs immediately that should do this. You have a preferred destination for him now?

Ben Clemens: I think the Giants make a lot of sense

Ben Clemens: That rotation gets dicey fast and he feels like a good fit there

Nate: As you’ve been doing your research on team depth/positional power rankings, has any team’s depth at a particular position stood out/surprised you?

Ben Clemens: I am doing second base PPR and I was amazed by two teams in particular

Ben Clemens: The Pirates do not rank well (not much of a spoiler of course) but I love their huge amount of depth

Ben Clemens: It’s very difficult to predict who will end the season as their starting second baseman

Ben Clemens: the Blue Jays are even more this way

Ben Clemens: Like, they’re better, and also there are 5 players who seem like legit second basemen

Mike Truk: Has there ever been a spring training performance that drastically affected how you feel about a player’s upcoming season. Not like injuries or stuff, but like actual results? I love the hype that occurs during spring training but I know it often isn’t founded.

Ben Clemens: I guess maybe some pitching performances?

Ben Clemens: Jordan Hicks having a 103 mph fastball after no one had heard of him is a good example

Ben Clemens: That opening day the Cards happened to be in New York so I went to the game

Ben Clemens: And I knew who Hicks was, no one in the stands did, but I remember Todd Frazier just looking up at the board for the velo reading and laughing

BTinVT: Thoughts on Olivares-Pirates? Thank you.

Ben Clemens: I just wrote up the MAT trade, I think that he is gonna put a squeeze on Olivares’s playing time

Ben Clemens: This feels a bit like a situation where if Olivares is good, it’ll be fine

Ben Clemens: But if he struggles out of the gate, he might progressively get buried

Insert Witty Name Here: Where do you stand on the Elly De La Cruz fantasy question this year? He’s been a mid 2nd late 3rd rounder. Worth the gamble over more safer picks such as Lindor, J-Ram, Seager?

Ben Clemens: I’m a gambler

Ben Clemens: As a fantasy owner, in general

Ben Clemens: I’d definitely be in and hoping

Tigers fan: Are you worried about Acuna’s knee going forward?

Ben Clemens: I think I’m more than a baseline amount of worried, but not panicking

Ben Clemens: I think it’s more of a maintenance issue than anything else at this point

Jobu asks….: Terrible news for Daniel Espino. Hasn’t pitched since April 2022. Time to cut loose in a Dynasty League?

Ben Clemens: Yeah sadly

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

Ben Clemens: Ah! Glad you asked. We’ve been messing around with making tofu and chicken that has that American Chinese takeout food sticky quality

Ben Clemens: Basically using a good amount of corn starch

Ben Clemens: So we’re making black pepper tofu, and then doing a technique we like that I don’t have a great name for

Ben Clemens: but basically you microwave brocolli for a bit to pre-blanch it, and then cook it like regular

Ben Clemens: Always seems to turn out great

Ben Clemens: plus rice obv

Underdog Picks: My longshot picks to win the WS last year were the Diamondbacks and the Rangers (it’s a shame I’m not a betting man), and this year I’m going with the Marlins and Cleveland. What longshot team (bottom 15 of Vegas odds) do you like?

Ben Clemens: Just perusing the bottom 15 right now

Ben Clemens: I think the Brewers are a good pick here. And I guess the Reds? I think the NL Central teams are better than people think, basically

It’s not 2:00 EDT: The chat says Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 3/18/24 will begin on:
March 18, 2024 at 2:00 PM EDT

But the top line on the site says Ben Clemens will be chatting at 1 PM!

Ben Clemens: Oh that’s entirely my fault. I forgot how the auto-time-suggester works and posted the article that links to this chat too early

Insert Witty Name Here: Are you concerned with Corbin Carroll’s health profile?

Ben Clemens: Yes!

Ben Clemens: It’s just about the only thing I’m concerned about with him

RTJ: _________ will lead Milwaukee in saves in 2024 (inclusive of Devin Williams)

Ben Clemens: Abner Uriba

Ben Clemens: Uribe*

Made Wiley: What PPPs are you doing this year?

Ben Clemens: 2B, SP 16-30

Ben Clemens: I’m pretty excited to switch out of SP 1-15 to SP 16-30, I’ve been doing 1-15 for a while and it’s just always the same guys

Brian: Paul Skenes has now pitched to an official “smattering” of major leaguers.  He’s thrown 102 mph–and given up a homer to Amed Rosario.  Have we learned anything that influences expectations?  Anything in his performance in spring training 2024 v. end of his 2023 season that informs how to view the player?

Ben Clemens: I’d argue not really. He is what he is, which is a guy with tremendous stuff who we need to see against major leaguers b/c there’s not a ton of point in having him in the minors

RTJ: woah we have baseball this week!!!

Ben Clemens: Heck yeah!

SucramRenrut: Which of these boring outfielders (eligible) do you like most for this year? Conforto, Pederson, Yaz, Haniger, Wade, Canha Laureano. And do you like Raffaele and Doyle more than them.

Ben Clemens: I think I’d take Yaz first, Wade second, Raffaele third?

Ben Clemens: Like you said, boring

Bleeding black & orange: Colton Cowser has to make the opening day roster right?  He’s on fire – let’s go!!!!

Ben Clemens: We’re projecting him to make the roster

Ben Clemens: He truly is on fire

Josh: Dave Roberts indicated Shohei may play the field at some point this season. You buying it?

Ben Clemens: I think it makes sense as a long-term play. Reasonably speaking, the Dodgers have to assign a reasonable probability weight to Ohtani giving up pitching at some point

Ben Clemens: So doing it in a way that increases their defensive flexibility, and in a year where it won’t be impacting his rest on the pitching side, makes sense to me

Ben Clemens: He’s clearly a good enough athlete to do it

Marc: I think it was Jay who told me to ask you this question a while ago, but I kept checking into chats ten minutes after you wrapped up. Can you give a statistical guess of what Witt’s statline would have to look like for his option to be exercised? I can’t really fathom a scenario in which the royals would want to pay him an extra 100 million, but also in which he wouldn’t have exercised his opt out in any of the 4 years before.

Ben Clemens: This is a good reminder that I need to update the old opt out probability calculator to deal with these new fancy contracts

Ben Clemens: I think the way this happens is that he’s hurt before year 1 of the opt outs

Ben Clemens: er, player options, whatever, semantics

Ben Clemens: but he’s hurt coming in, and keeps getting better as those four years go on. I agree that it’s phenomenally unlikely

Ben Clemens: I think it’s entirely about trajectory

JP: Am I the only one who could see pretty tough year for the Phillies? Bohm is an average-ish player. Stott was boosted by defense last year, but overperformed his batted ball data and didn’t hit the ball any harder in Year 2 than Year 1 and probably isn’t a ~4 WAR player. Marsh way overperformed last year. Their OF looks like one of the worst in baseball. JTR is aging and clearly slowing down. Two great starters and a bunch of question marks in the rotation, and a good-not-great BP. They made no improvements from last year really unless you consider Merrifield an improvement.

Ben Clemens: I think that’s perfectly reasonable, I am reasonably down on Stott

Ben Clemens: That said, I don’t think the NL East is very good

Ben Clemens: it’s not like the Marlins or Mets got way better

Ben Clemens: and I think that Nola will probably be better than he was in 2023

Stats CEO: Hi I’m just back to let you know you ruined my life. My algorithm correctly predicted how left handers hit in monsoons on jupiter, in a 1-2 count with no runners on base but you just HAD to show me up???

Ben Clemens:

Green Egg$ and Elephants: Can someone like Langeliers or Noda Really step up this year?

Ben Clemens: Man, Noda already stepped up

BTinVT: Do you see Vientos reducing the strikeouts? Thanks

Ben Clemens: I don’t

Ben Clemens: There’s been a lot of discussion of this on Mets prospect Twitter, which I read b/c I read everything I can

Ben Clemens: He’s been really overhyped compared to both pedigree and production

Ben Clemens: and I don’t see a ton in the data that makes me think “oh this guy is just an adjustment away from a 15% k rate”

Ben Clemens: he struck out 29% of the time in Triple-A in 2022, 28% in AA in 2021

Ben Clemens: He’s run colossal swinging strike rates at every level of the minors

Ben Clemens: I think this is just who he is

Ben Clemens: I mean, I don’t think he’s gonna keep posting such low batting lines, my guess is he’ll hit for more power

Ben Clemens: but the strikeouts are just a core part of his profile

Well-Beered Englishman: Green beer. What other national celebration or holiday should have its own food coloring beer? Or is St Pat’s one too many already?

Ben Clemens: red white and blue beer for the fourth of july

Ben Clemens: I’d be in for orange halloween beer I guess

Zach: Gavin Stone’s changeup looked unhittable last night/this morning, albeit against a non-MLB professional team. Is he an average third-pitch away from being a middle-of-the-rotation starter? Reports claim he was tipping pitches last year too, which helps explain the drop in K rate at the big league level.

Ben Clemens: I think so

Ben Clemens: He looks pretty good to me and the whole ‘one third pitch away from dominance’ profile is one I’d like gambling on if I ran a team

Joe: NL only 5×5 roto final keeper spot mclain, suzuki or kim

Ben Clemens: McLain for me

Ben Clemens: I’m just a huge fan

b: Have your friends ever called you Ben Twain?

Ben Clemens: At the risk of getting mocked in the future, my middle name is Samuel and yes, people have definitely made jokes

Broseph: Who are this year’s under-the-radar setup/holds guys without a defined role but undeniable skills (a la Duran or Clase a few years ago) … ?

Ben Clemens: Phil Maton

Ben: Better fantasy shortstop this season: Bichette or Henderson? Next few years?

Ben Clemens: Gunnar

Ben Clemens: I think that people are underestimating the hit that Bichette’s fantasy profile took when he started running less

Robert: Is 2024 the year Arenado finally gets his MVP.

Ben Clemens: I’m not feeling it, no

Ben Clemens: I feel like it needed to be 2022 if it was going to be ever

Guest: are you going to get up super early or do anything special for the game on Wednesday? I’m farther east than you so it won’t be as big of a deal, but am planning to get up early and make chilaquiles!

Ben Clemens: I’m probably not gonna do anything special but I’ll definitely watch

Christian: Chances Cole Ragans ends the year top 10 in War for Pitchers?

Ben Clemens: ooh good one

Ben Clemens: 40%

bigredmach: is Jackson Jobe good enough to be a MLB SP5 right now?

Ben Clemens: I think so

Oakland Stroke: Do you think there exists any threshold of incompetence by Fisher & co. that would be impossible to spin/overcome, such that he would be pressured into selling the A’s by the league & fellow owners (in the near term, not post-Vegasish)? Certainly it would be difficult to imagine a worse job being done in the PR dept up until now, so given the already-damning facts working against them I wonder if you could envision any circumstance that would make it infeasible for the others to continue to back his ambitions?

Ben Clemens: I think it’d have to be a series of really publicly embarrassing things that include some on-field goofs

Ben Clemens: like the team has a spate of injuries, so they call up some players, only Fisher puts them on commercial flights that get delayed so Ryan Noda has to pitch six innings

Ben Clemens: I think if the A’s end up making a farce of the game on the field, the owners will have to change their tune

Guest: not mocking, that’s cool that that is your name! was it intentional with Mark Twain, or a coincidence?

Ben Clemens: definitely intentional, my parents had a sense of humor

Ben: What do you make of the rumors that Milwaukee might try out DL Hall in the starting rotation? A lot to ask of someone with his injury history, overall lack of innings, and pitch mix?

Ben Clemens: I guess I’d put it this wya

Ben Clemens: You don’t trade for DL Hall if you don’t think he has a decent chance at being a starter

Ben Clemens: if the Brewers thought he was relief-only they would have traded for a different prospect

Insert Witty Name Here: I’ve always had dreams that my son would become a pitcher. But after reading the article of how many injuries they really go through, I’m starting to have reservations like I do with him not playing football. Reasonable or no?

Ben Clemens: I don’t really think they’re comparable, tbh

Ben Clemens: the quality of life differences between people who had elbow surgery a bunch of times and people who played football a long time are big

Ben Clemens: like leaving the concussion issues aside, just your knees and ankles in football, dang

Made Wiley: Seiya Suzuki MVP vote getter this year?

Ben Clemens: I hope so! I’ve been team Seiya a long time and I was very encouraged by 2023

Ben Clemens: the guy can just flat out hit

J: Can I ask what you like about McClain? Obviously he plays in a band box, which helps for fantasy, but the peripherals really point more to a slightly above average hitter than a great one.

Ben Clemens: I think players like him who are fast risers just succeeding everywhere tend to make good adjustments in the bigs

Ben Clemens: I agree that he outperformed his peripherals but I like his odds of cutting his strikeout rate given his good sense of the zone in the minors, and I think that his floor is really high from a PT standpoint as well b/c he’s such a great defender

Ben Clemens: He’ll steal some bases, too

Ben Clemens: Better player in real life than fantasy, I think, but just a great player overall

Hunter: What do you think the Tigers rotation looks like by the middle of the season? Right now there are 6 guys (Skubal, Maeda, Flaherty, Manning, Mize, Olson) competing for 5 spots out of camp. And then Jobe looks like the real deal. I guess there are always injuries so that will really end up shaping it.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I think that Jobe is a long shot to be in the rotation on a permanent basis this year, and that one of those guys will go down with injury clearing things up

Ben Clemens: I’m feeling pretty hopeful about Flaherty turning his career around

Ben Clemens: He’s a very talented pitcher, and I could totally see the talent shining through after some rough years

Made Wiley: This super doesn’t matter but did Glasnow get the OD start because he’s actually pitcher in the majors before?

Ben Clemens: probably? I really don’t know why, but just a seniority thing makes sense to me

Mr. Met: Do you think the Mets are having some buyers remorse? They got Manaea and Bader for $24m a year when it seems they could’ve got Snell and Taylor for just over $30m and with the same length of deals.

Ben Clemens: On Bader, probably? I mean, I prefer Bader to MAT, and he’s a New York guy which should really help with marketing stuff

Ben Clemens: Maybe the Mets need that this year

Ben Clemens: I don’t really think so on Manaea though, like they can still go out and sign Snell if they want, it doesn’t make the Manaea deal any worse

Ben Clemens: or better, etc.

Victor Scott II: Am I legit and how do you see my 2024 unfolding?

Ben Clemens: I hope I’m wrong on this. I am really skeptical that your bat will play in the majors given the contact quality you’ve displayed in your career. I’d prefer to give you another year in the minors to focus more on development rather than throw you in the deep end in a playoff race right away

Ben Clemens: that said… you’re gonna play some gorgeous defense and I’m here for it

rjm: How comfortable are you with the use of park factors when we don’t have a super strong causal link for the clear trends we observe? I was listening to Rates and Barrels and Eno was speculating that the batting eye at Seattle is what causes their higher K rates, but wasn’t super sure, for example

Ben Clemens: I like regressing them a LOT

Made Wiley: 2nd base PPP – are you, a STL fan, in love with Nico Hoerner?

Ben Clemens: I think he’s quite good, I liked Tommy Edman at 2b and I think Hoerner has a similar vibe

Ben Clemens: good defensive shortstop whose biggest liability was probably arm, so 2b just plays perfectly

SucramRenrut: Moncada for a bounce back this year? Someone other than Robert has to do something in that line-up, right?

Ben Clemens: Boy, you’re asking the wrong person, I’ve been fading Moncada for years

Ben Clemens: We just have such a long sample of the passive approach not paying off for him, and he just sticks with it

Ben Clemens: Maybe at this point he just has bad strike zone recognition, I dunno

Ben Clemens: he just does not swing at enough strikes. And yet he has contact issues so he’s not walking a ton either

Rocky Top: Thoughts on KB in 2024?  Over the injuries, and serviceable in fantasy baseball???

Ben Clemens: Yeah I’m in!

Ben Clemens: I mean, I’ve been wrong this way before

Ben Clemens: And I think the Rockies are using him in a really strange way still, the whole Bryant excitement was his ability to shift around

Ben Clemens: But I think he’s gonna be a lot better than ’23 and that the Coors effect is gonna make him a legit player in fantasy

Insert Witty Name Here: Do you have any concerns of the first half of Trea Turner of last year? I know he finished in fire, but any reason to think he’ll decline this year?

Ben Clemens: I absolutely do

Ben Clemens: I’m much more steamer than zips on this one (steamer thinks he’s a 3.8 WAR player, ZiPS 5.1)

Ben Clemens: I just have a hard time projecting hte power surge to stay where it was, and I’m not in love with his defense, basically

Sonny: Colton Cowser or Jackson Merrill for this year? Does Merrill have a longer leash?

Ben Clemens: I think that Merrill has a long leash because there’s just not much behind him

Ben Clemens: WHy didn’t the Padres sign Michael A. Taylor or Adam Duvall? Great question!

Bruno Mars Roulette: I’m not a doctor, but realistic chance we get over 20 starts from Cole? The injury still concerns me

Ben Clemens: Yeah I think pretty unlikely. 15 seems like a more reasonable top end to me

Ben Clemens: Yeah looks like Roster Resource has him down for 16

Bruno Mars Roulette: Better breakout candidate, Cole Ragans or Bryan Woo?

Ben Clemens: I mean if you’re allowed to count Ragans as a breakout candidate, Ragans

Ben Clemens: He already broke out

Sir Nerdlington: How close are we nerds to quantifying the value of pitch calling/sequencing? 

We have one catcher on our 14U team who consistently gets strong performances from his pitchers while the other catcher is pretty predictable in how he calls pitches (e.g. first pitch FB). The latter’s pitchers tend to have blow up innings more often. 

There must be something there.

Ben Clemens: There’s definitely something there

Ben Clemens: I don’t need it to be quantified

Ben Clemens: I like there being some fuzzy factors in sports

Ben Clemens: And I think it’s one of those things where the effects are so complex, the quantification is gonna have huge error bars and be very player-specific anyway

Ben Clemens: correct game calling and sequencing depends heavily on context

KC Pain: Thoughts of Benson breaking out in Cincy w the extra PT?

Ben Clemens: I think it’s a smart bet

Ben Clemens: I’m not really a believer in the profile, but I like betting on playing time

bringbackpologrounds: With Cole injured, are there any future HOF pitchers in their prime playing this season?

Ben Clemens: I missed answering this one earlier but I wanted to come back to it

Ben Clemens: Your top contenders are: Wheeler, Strider, Yamamoto, Burnes, Valdez

Ben Clemens: then there are a bunch of people behind that, but those are the five whose trajectories seem HoF-adjacent to me

Ben Clemens: obviously none of them are anywhere near 50% to make the hall of fame

Ben Clemens: But those are my best bets

Jenny: Do you think Gavin Lux will have the breakout that was suspected before the ACL injury? And what does that look like? .270/15/10?

Ben Clemens: man, I understand why the Dodgers keep trying to make Lux happen, but at some point you have to accept that it won’t

Ben Clemens: I think that this is it, and I’m down on a breakout, I feel like his having the yips is just a really bad sign

Ben Clemens: it’s a freaking pressure cooker in LA, that’s not idea

Ben Clemens: ideal*

Ray Shoesmith: deep 20-team league , struggling for a CI/util type…would you prefer Jonathan Aranda or JD Davis? standard cats ,H2H

Ben Clemens: I think I’d prefer Davis for the likely higher playing time

Colton: Is Palacios the next in the long line of OFs the Cardinals gave up that explode? Or is Tyler O’Neill going to regain ’21 form instead?

Ben Clemens: Haha I think I like O’Neill’s odds more than Palacios’s

Ben Clemens: I don’t entirely count Palacios in this list, the Cardinals picked him up for nothing, he played well for them, and then they turned him into a reliever they needed

Ben Clemens: this isn’t like Arozarena, who they traded for less than his consensus prospect value, or Garcia who they just flat out cut

Made Wiley: Crazy that the worst case scenario for the Dodgers is just putting Miggy Ro at ss, Mookie back to 2nd and they still easily win the division

Ben Clemens: Oh yeah they’re good!

Sonny: Roberts didn’t specific where they’re testing Shohei in field. Get ready for the Ohtani x Betts double play combo!

nate: Do you think Jared Kelenic will stick at left feild

Ben Clemens: Eh…. no

Ben Clemens: I like the idea by the Braves, good to bet on volatility given that they have a good roster elsewhere, but I am pessimistic

nate: how much playing time do you think will Adam Duval get

Ben Clemens: I think our projections seem reasonable, around 50% PT, 300-350 PA

Geust: In regards to that ST breakout question: I think Judge (still a prospect) had a huge spring one year and it changed everyone from “he could be good, but k’s” to “wait, wut??”

Ben Clemens: There’s a good one

Greg: Chances of a Martin Perez bounce back year? Word is he fixed his release point and has now only allowed 5 hits in 11 ST IP with 3 walks and 12 K’s

Ben Clemens: Sure, why not. If we’re saying bounce back to somewhere just worse than league average, at least

Ben Clemens: It’s not like he was unplayable in 2023, the Rangers had more starters than they needed and he looked better int he bullpen so they jsut went with it

Ben Clemens: if you’re saying bounce back to his 2022 season, nah

danny: why are double plays included in war when it’s clearly context dependent in a stat that strives to be non-context dependent?

Ben Clemens: I mean, that’s true of baserunning and defense in general

Ben Clemens: I’m not sure what the right answer is there

Ben Clemens: but it’s not like double plays are the only thing. You can’t make the defensive plays you aren’t offered, you can only make the baserunning choices that you’re presented by what the people after you do, etc.

Made Wiley: I wanted to suggest Gallen but the volume just isn’t there

Ben Clemens: Yeah, there are a lot of guys where they have a good peak but not enough volume

Reds Enjoyer: o/u 1.5 qualified starters for the Reds at the end of the season? Feels like the answer to this question correlates heavily with whether they make the playoffs or not

Ben Clemens: under

bob: what valulation method do you use when assigning values in a roto league (i.e. z-scores, pvm, SGps etc.) ?

Ben Clemens: SGP’s, I’m a big fan of Jeff Z’s work

To the minors, dammit!: Regarding Skenes, I’d think control is the absolute #1 thing you COULD work on in the minors?

Ben Clemens: I suppose, but “hey Paul learn to throw strikes” doesn’t really seem liek a plan?

Greg: ONEIL CRUZ ALERT

Greg: HOME RUN NUMBER 7

Ben Clemens: Okay my lunch plans are heating up sooner than expected, so I’m gonna have to call it a day early today. Great chat everyone, and let’s run it back for a jumbo-length one next week