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Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 3/2/26

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Baseball Learner

2:54

You missed Trent Grisham as a top center fielder. You don't buy him repeating last year's performance?

Ben Clemens

2:54

he's in that mix between 7th and 20th

2:55

I didn't happen to isolate him by name. I think he's in the Marsee camp. Not in my personal top 5 but if he finishes 5th or 17th, I'd be equally unsurprised

bosoxforlife

2:55

I have been thinking a lot about Naylor and Soto stealing, almost at will, last year and wonder if stealing is going to increase dramatically this year. It almost seems like it is a free base if these plow horses can do it so easily.

Ben Clemens

2:55

I think we're going to find out one way or another this year

Like, I predict far more 'big dude looks like a cow on ice skates while getting thrown out by five feet' moments, and also more free steals

Dunkies

2:55

What impact will the new 48oz DUNKIN BUCKETS have on the Red Sox, or their fans, The Home Whites (per Meg and Ben on EW)?

Ben Clemens

2:56

comment presented without reply

EccentricATLFan

2:56

Fun with 2025 Rafael Montero through PitchingBot Visualizer: You'd think that the guy who had one of the worst walk rates in the majors would be terrible in the WasteMiss% and Squandered% categories...except it turns out that he was slightly better than average in those departments if you look across all counts, as well as grading out well in command. That being said, when you hone in on two-strike counts that weren't a full count, while command still graded fine, he graded out worse than average in WasteMiss% and Squandered%. which definitely wouldn't have helped him get his strikeouts. Just interesting food for thought that came from noodling around on the new toys!

Ben Clemens

2:57

fascinating. I haven't looked at Montero yet but maybe I should. He gets great command marks in every pitch modeling system I can find. Also, he has a bottom-five zone rate

so it's like he's throwing it off the plate on purpose

2:58

anyway, more on this alter maybe? It's too complicated for me to work through live here because man, what weird numbers

369

2:59

Why is there so much resistance to a salary cap/floor system? Wouldn't guaranteeing that the players get a certain percentage of revenue be a reasonable thing?

Ben Clemens

2:59

I think it's because the systems that have been floated so far are just caps

and also, players are pretty distrustful of the owners about revenue given all the weird revenue sharing agreements and ownership stakes in RSN's

it's a weird time to link your pay to an official designation of 'league revenue', basically

when the league is very quickly remaking the rules of that

3:00

on the other hand, I think that a cap/floor system, IN GENERAL, is claerly good

I think it would come with changes that let players reach free agency faster, because i don't think the money can be reasonably distributed otherwise

3:01

it's one of these things that would be good if the system were designed from scratch. But I don't really trust anyone involved to design that system, and the tone of the ownership description is definitely 'take money out of the players' hands' because it's not focused even a little on how embarrassing it is that the Pirates don't try

it's entirely about how the Dodgers spend too much. Get Rob Manfred railing on how fans don't liek when their owners are cheap and we'll talk

jojonel1

3:01

hi ben when i look up a pitcher and next to his name it says ST what does ST mean ?

Ben Clemens

3:02

spring training. it denotes that he's on the ML roster for spring training

Don Van Vliet

3:02

No question, just admiring whomever is commenting as "Mike Trout Mask Replica"

Baseball Learner

3:02

Do you think Mike trout can really be a good CF again? Sounds like he wants to try

Ben Clemens

3:02

sadly I do not. That said, Trout has proved me wrong before

369

3:02

How hard is it to throw 2 innings instead of 1? I can't help but think that having a bunch of multi inning guys instead of a 5th starter and single inning bullpen fluff might be better.

Ben Clemens

3:02

It's hard. Getting cold between innings is a bigger issue than the pitch count

on/off/on stress on your arm can be weird. on/off/on adrenaline can be weird. I think that's the big holdup, not the raw effort

Guardian of the Ephemeral

3:03

Did the White Sox figure something out over the past few years with pitcher dev? They've suddenly got a little pipeline going...

Ben Clemens

3:03

feels that way for sure

let's keep tracking, but yeah

alright, i gotta run. Talk to you again next week, same time, same place. And the WBC will be going on!

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