JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 12/7/20

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Ben Clemens

3:04

He'll probably be chepa given that he retired ten years ago

Glass-Bottom Boat

3:04

Do you think that having/not having a universal DH plays into decisions of free agent pitchers and where they sign? Obviously, it affects hitters like Schwarber, Cruz, Franimal, but wondered if pitchers care whether or not they have to pitch to another professional hitter over a pitcher.

Ben Clemens

3:05

Eh, it might be a tiebreaker. I think they'd probably take $1mm/year over it, though

So probably a pretty small tiebreaker

Like, far lower than comfort with a city or pitching coach

Moose_Bolton

3:05

You mentioned a couple of weeks ago that you play Magic: The Gathering. Do you use Arena, or Magic Online? What formats do you play?

Ben Clemens

3:06

Yes to both (Arena is a nice way to goof off for 15 minutes to reset my brain), but I'm playing again b/c I met someone in SF who built a proxied Vintage Cube

So we would just meet in person once a week or so and draft it

Obviously COVID has thrown a wrench in that

But someday!

Mr. Fister

3:06

Does Michael A. Taylor get a full season's at bats, or is it a Taylor/Franchy platoon? Also, wouldn't Dahl make a ton of sense for KC?

Ben Clemens

3:07

Dahl would as well. I think Dahl will have a lot of suitors

And yeah, I see a Franchy/MAT platoon personally

Frah

3:07

Do you make anything of Franchy Cordero's crazy improved 93% Z-Contact% and 81% Contact% with outstanding xAVG and xSLG in a small sample in 2020? I think he's an underrated breakout candidate

Ben Clemens

3:07

Speaking of Franchy:

3:08

Definitely not readin too much in to his 2020, he had 34 batted balls all year

He actually had his lowest xwOBACON (delicious bacon)

He just struck out 9.5% of the tie instead of 40% of the time

3:09

But not really in enough PA's to feel very confident in it

I'm still in on Franchy if he can improve the K%, but nothing in 2020 says much either way

To be clear, I'd totally give him a lot of PT to find out, though

Appa Yip Yip

3:10

Springer makes more sense for the Jays because they can just slide him into the outfield, but Realmuto is more fun because suddenly there will be TrAdEs. 6 catchers on the 40 man? Too many.

Let's say the Jays do sign Realmuto, what would they be able to get with all that surplus catching?

Ben Clemens

3:11

Trading catching prospects is hard, b/c of their high failure rate. I've been interested in doing a study on this, but never quite found the time to, but I tihnk catching prospects command too little in trade