JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 2/2/2026

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 2/2/2026

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Ben Clemens

2:57

I'd like to suggest women's tennis to you, then

2:58

I agree that the men's game has a lack of Tier 2 stars right now. The women's game is lousy with them. Like, Sabalenka and Swiatek are pretty clearly the class of the sport in terms of aggregate results, but they get beaten a lot, and the top 10 has a big mix of styles

Dan

2:58

Picture two 1yr $10M contracts, but one is structured as a $9M signing bonus with a $1M salary and the other as a $1M salary and a $9M buyout of a mutual option.

if the player is traded mid-season who gets the luxury tax hit?

Ben Clemens

2:58

okay, so with the caveats that I know the rules pretty well but not by heart, and that if I were a team, I'd have a lawyer read through first to make sure I'm getting this right:

2:59

the buyouts accrue in future years, so the guy with the 1m/9mbuyout would mostly hit his new team in tax

Bill Dewallet

2:59

As a Cardinals fan how worried are you that the team is gonna run sub 100 million dollar payrolls going forward? Because I am at an 8/10.

Ben Clemens

2:59

oh yeah, very serious worry here

like.... I imagine that if you told him 'hey Chaim, go nuts, you have a 300 million dollar budget' he'd go nuts

3:00

but he clearly has a predisposition to play the surplus value game, build for the future, clean house

and so if that's what ownership is saying they'd prefer, I bet it's a situation where his tendencies and theirs self-reinforce

and ownership is like 'hey we're doing well with this low budget' and so he's like 'oh, you want some other low budget but high performance ideas? here's some I've had'

3:01

like speaking to an LLM who starts egging you on without your knowledge, owners who ask questions to Bloom might be getting back a response that self-perpetuates towards financial austerity

Ice Cream Helmet

3:01

Which will we see again first: A knuckleballer win 10 games, or a one-handed backhand in a major semis?
(The correct answer is probably 'never' to both and it bums me out)

Ben Clemens

3:02

oh, one-handed backhand in a major semi. We would have had one last week if Musetti didn't get hurt

Steve O

3:02

If you were a GM of a large market team would you typically speaking try to sign all your young players like the Red Sox, or play things out year to year like the Dodgers/Yankees and benefit from the small luxury tax hits?

Ben Clemens

3:02

ehhhhh... depends on my initial conditions

I think that the Dodgers have a pretty clever idea, which is that they do long-term deals with galactic megastars and then play the flexibility game for the rest of the rsoter

the Sox and Braves are doing different things

3:03

I do think that if the DOdgers develop another mega-talent, they'll lock him up forever

3:04

but I think it's contextual to what else is on your roster. the Dodgers plan is a lot more palatable when you have Ohtani and Betts and Freeman, and likewise the Sox pushing their AAV up now is a lot more palatable when they don't have many veterans making big bucks

maaaaaaaaaatt

3:04

ben....please....tell me the cardinals aren't going to hold on to Brendan Donovan too long like they always do (see: Arenado, Goldschmidt, O'Neill, Carlson, etc. etc.)

Guest

3:04

How likely do you think it is that STL doesn't trade Donovan this year?

Ben Clemens

3:04

I'm gonna say it's 30% likely they don't trade him

Blomo has never had a 'not willing to capitalize on value' problem

bosoxforlife

3:04

I am on the Red Sox side in the Hicks and Sandlin for a bag of balls and $17M giveaway? Hicks just couldn't show up in a Red Sox uniform again.

Ben Clemens

3:04

me too, me too

3:05

I don't think you were a part of this group, but I got many Red Sox fans in my mentions and comments last year, after I'd written up the Devers deal, saying that I was clearyl biased against the Sox because I coudln't see the truth that Hicks was the team's next closer

hell, he closed a game out within a week of his debut in Boston, the Sox might have thought the same

but like, no! I've watched him pitch a LOT

3:06

I was at his major league debut, randomly (Mets season opener)

his deal came back to Boston as a salary offset to Devers, and now they're biting the bullet and taking that off the books. That was always the case, and if the alternative was to give him meaningful high-leverage playing time this year, I like what they did quite a lot

wrights_Back

3:07

Are the A's becoming.a leader in signing rookies to modest, long term contracts? And is necessity the mother of invention?

Seems a good value play: you might whiff totally on a rookie, but there are loads of "stud dud" signings as well (eg, 30yr+ stars who age out or decline preciptiously).

Ben Clemens

3:07

I mean, I think they're trend following, but nothing wrong with that

it's definitely very good!

3:08

the idea of basically acting as an insurance company by writing a ton of your young players deals that pay them 90% of their expected payout, but with 100% certainty, is just good

the players should be accepting these deals a lot, and the team shoudl be offering them. good to see theory and practice align

2131, 1312

3:08

Do the orioles have some kind of very different alternative defensive metrics, or is Mike Elias super desperate? Jackson Holliday and Jordan Westburg are ostensibly the backup options at short if Gunnar were to go down, and they also have Cowser in center

Ben Clemens

3:09

the plan is very clearyl for Gunnar to not get hurt

I don't see what's so controversial about this :)

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