JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 11/7/22

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Ben Clemens

3:04

But signing Diaz is more valuable for teams higher on the win curve, basically

i read fangraphs

3:04

How much of Maldonado's perceived value by the Astros is true intangibles he brings to the team versus the front office going "eh, they like him and our offense is good enough, not worth pushing back"?

Ben Clemens

3:05

I think there's a decent amount of the second

Cal

3:05

Max Kepler on the move this offseason? What kind of return would he garner?

Ben Clemens

3:06

Legitimately no idea if he's on the move. He's on the books for two more years at reasonable dollar values, but I think he falls into that pool of mid-tier corner outfielders that will depress his trade value

Would you prefer 2/18.5 for Kepler or the same deal for, say, Joc Pederson?

Probably Kepler. But how much would you TRADE to get Kepler instead of Joc? Not a ton

Air Yordan

3:07

Do you believe there is still a ton of room for growth for organizations in their methods of distilling data into understandable nuggets for players and coaches to absorb? Or has there been significant improvement in that area lately

Ben Clemens

3:07

Yes to both

There's been a TON of improvement in this, and I think that this is the biggest growth area in front office value

3:08

And yet, I also believe there's a ton of room for growth

Pat

3:08

Bogaerts to Philly seems so logical given how they've punted most other defensive positions, right? They just seem to value offense more then defense.

Ben Clemens

3:09

I really don't think so. My read, which borrows a lot from Dan Szymborski's take, is that the Phillies realized they needed to get better last offseason, and the available options were Schwarber and Castellanos, so that's what they did

They cut Didi and traded for Sosa, it's not like they don't understand defense. It's just the guys they've added aren't great at it, despite being good fits for the win curve

Myles

3:09

What’s a somewhat impressive but not too difficult meal to whip up for an early stages date? Later on, what’s a fun meal to make together?

Ben Clemens

3:10

Oh, I've got a great one for you that we like to make

It's a creamy red pasta sauce, basically

Take a jar of Rao's tomato sauce that you get at the store

Make some cashew cream -- to do this, you let cashews soak in a bowl full of hot water for about an hour and then toss them in a blender of some type

3:11

mix those two together on the stove, cook your favorite pasta (our favorite has been cascatelle), and it's this lovely creamy red sauce that tastes luxurious but is very easy to make

Lou Perltzman

3:11

Store bought sauce? Oof Madone

Ben Clemens

3:11

He asked for not difficult!

3:12

I think my favorite meal for us to make together is kung pao chickpeas, which I got from a Myers+Chang cookbook

there's a ton of knife work, some fun sauteing on the stove, and the sauce is delicious

Kung Pao anything is great, and doing something where one person does a lot of chopping and one person does a lot of sauce-making is an optimal division of labor

3:13

alright, I hvae to get moving to eat some lunch before podcasting about the top 50 free agents, so I'm going to head out. Thanks a lot everyone for chatting today, and thanks also for indulging my desire to talk about food

Have a great week, and I'll see you next week, same place same time

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