JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 1/6/24 | 1/6/2025

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 1/6/24

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Ben Clemens

2:35

trading him would inevitably make hte team worse in the short run

b/c like... that's how trades of superstars work

even if you 'win' it, you win it in years of control, not year one WAR

2:36

and I don't think this front office would survive doing a re-teardown

when you aren't winning playoff games with the best player on your team doing incredibly well, getting rid of that dude does not signal 'we really care about winning playoff games'

maybe if they have more postseason success before then?

Phil

2:37

As a Red Sox fan and an English major, I can't believe I didn't know that Hanley Ramirez was originally supposed to be named Hamlet (per Jay). What a fabulous thing.

Ben Clemens

2:37

That is indeed excellent

I had no idea

Dan'l

2:37

Is the Arenado trade speculation the most talk ever about a pseudo-salary dump that never actually happens?

Ben Clemens

2:38

I still think it's gonna happen, but man, I'm not so sure that he wants it to happen

like, turning down the trade to the astros to 'let the market develop' dude you're not a free agent

J

2:39

I frequently see people say someone like Kyle Tucker or Vlad Jr. would be crazy not to go to free agency at this point. Am I myself crazy for thinking these people are not adequately accounting for risk? I would figure that the downside risk of having a year marked by injury or worse than average performance would at least incentivize trying to get the bag now.

Ben Clemens

2:39

I would never reach free agency

I would be hitting the bid so hard I'd create a gust of wind

2:40

now, I'd surely fight for a good bid first, but like.... at my level of risk aversion, I'd take an extension for sure

baseball players are not generally as risk averse as I am. they probably wouldn't be baseball players if they were

Idiotic Failson

2:40

Rhodium - rhodium and Luis Castillo are approximately the same value by weight. Luis Castillo's contract could pay for a lot of catalytic converters and is therefore more valuable than any measly baseball player.

Ben Clemens

2:40

man maybe the O's should just offer the Mariners some rhodium mining rights

wheelhouse

2:40

am I wrong to really not like the idea of Arraez to NYY like has floated around today? that's adding a ton of problems to your team to add a singles hitter in the worst ballpark in baseball for lefty singles hitters

Ben Clemens

2:41

I think that Arraez is a guy who's largely immune to park effects b/c of his wild batted ball distribution

but uh yeah, I think he's a really bad fit

Kiermaier's Piercing Green Eyes

2:41

Hang on, none of the math in this chat is mathing. Luis Castillo weighs 90 kg. The price of a KG of gold looks to be about $85,000. I don't know how he'd be worth only $500k. And the MSI GeForce RTX 4090 Gaming X Trio weighs a little over 2 KG and has an MSRP of $1700.
#BringBackNotGraphs

Idiotic Failson

2:41

No no. I'm bad at math. His weight in gold is $8 million. But still...

Ben Clemens

2:41

whoops, forgot to post that one

2:42

and yeah, I fairly quickly realized that GPU's are probably fairly heavy

Dan'l

2:42

If none of the Cardinal veterans had no-trade clauses, who do you think they would have moved this offseason?

Ben Clemens

2:42

I think just Arenado, honestly

if i'm them, I'm interested in dealing Gray at the deadline if the salary dump they're so into is already done

Bosoxforlife

2:43

Do the Red sox need another addition or is Walker Buehler going to be enough? There are question marks but Houck, Crochet, Buehler, Bello and something from Giolito could be very good.

Ben Clemens

2:43

I think I like the rotation enough as is

it's kind of defense in depth; I think bad outcomes on ALL these guys at the same time are unlikely

even if one or two are very likely to turn out badly

2:44

if I were the Sox and looking to improve, I'd care a lot more about the infield

2:45

I'm quite down on Story, and I really think they're setting themselves up to end up having to play Rafaela in the infield again

Polonius

2:45

Regarding the Vlad/Tucker about to hit free agency discussion...Are there insurance markets that they can tap into and get a payout in the event that they get injured or underperform, and can't secure a $100m plus contract, for example? I assume something like this must be utilized, when the likely future earnings are so great...

Ben Clemens

2:45

perhaps there are, but well, an extension is kind of like insurance too

so now we're just arguing over what type of insurance to take and which pays better

or, which is more cost-effective, rather

I don't know the answer to that... but my point is that I'd want insurance

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