JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 3/23/26

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Ben Clemens

2:54

Also, his entire career earnings until the QO had been 18.5m

take 22m, get set for life, relax for the winter instead of fretting contract offers? oh, and you get to play for the Yankees, and they let you have facial hair now

Farhandrew Zaidman

2:54

Could also do some version of NBA Bird rights where a team can go over the cap to re-sign a home grown player.

Ben Clemens

2:54

yeah, reasonable

yoiu could figure it out, is my point

Dan'l

2:54

Have you heard how the revenue is working out for teams who's broadcast rights were taken over by MLB network? Are they making substantially less or close to their most recent network deal?

Ben Clemens

2:55

I haven't heard specifics, but: less, across the board, but how much less seems to vary

Yojimbo

2:55

Last off season the Yankees wouldn’t include Luis Gil in a trade for Kyle Tucker. Now he’s getting squeezed out for Will Warren and Ryan Weathers. That’s an interesting turn of events

Ben Clemens

2:55

I've talked some in recent weeks about how you can both give players too much opportunity too early (and tank their value), or hold onto them too long without enough opportunity (and tank their value)

2:56

and that the good teams do a good job, in the aggregate, of avoiding prospect faceplants, but also avoiding letting guys wither on the vine

think about the Dodgers cashing out on any number of prospects (Keibert Ruiz comes to mind for me),b ut then also the White Sox calling up Andrew Vaughn too early to play LF when he was a first baseman

2:57

I was just never that high on Gil in the first place, so I was shocked by reports that they wouldn't include him in a trade for Tucker, but I think that they thought that the rising tide of pithcing prospect valuation would lift all boats

but yeah, then you have a season where you miss ab unch of time and don't strike anyone out, and it's over. life comes at you pretty fast

Mr. Burrito

2:58

One question, one comment. Question: Will Tibbs or any of the Dodgers minor league outfielders get a sniff this season? Comment: When America generates a salary capped industry that allows you to make enough money to buy a major league baseball team, the players should consider saying yes to a salary cap. Until then, it's kinda odd for a hedge fund titan or real estate guy or whatever to make tens of billions of dollars in their industry and then demand that major league players adhere to a salary cap. The fact that major league players are way less White than the general population has something to do with the brazen gall of this particular ask, imo.

Ben Clemens

2:59

I think that some Dodgers OF in the minors will get significant run. Probably in some kind of time share situation that requires them to be good at defense

3:00

I've been high on Tibbs for a while, so I guess I'll say he will get the PT. But raelly, I'm not sure who it is, I just know that the Dodgers always seem to have some PT to fill out there thanks to the age of their starters and the fact that they're rarely pressed in the divisional race and thus can give their vets some rest

If the Richard Fitts

3:00

Is this the year that Liberatore becomes a good MLB starter?

Ben Clemens

3:01

I'd like to ask you a question I asked on a Cards podcast earlier this month: can you imagine a world where Liberatore is not considered the team's staff ace at year's end?

i think the answer is no. And that's despite agreeing with you that he has not yet become a good MLB starter

basically I think he is what he is at this point, an average innings eater, which is valuable

Farhandrew Zaidman

3:01

Dustin May is back up to 97 and has two breaking ball shapes....this time it's real, right? Right??

Ben Clemens

3:02

another popular Cards podcast topic

he looks electric. he's beein in the majors since 2019 and has thrown 324 innings

I buy in every time, and the guy is just electric when he's on the mound. But man, he's made of glass unfortunately

3:03

I love what the Cardinals did by signing him. If he does put it all together, he's either an extension candidate (mayyyybe) or a great trade chip. and seriously, if you watch him pitch, it's quickly clear that the talent is there

I sure hope he stays healthy, he's fun to watch

3:03

Just curious, why are you lower than the consensus on Luzardo? Interested to hear...

Ben Clemens

3:04

well, because he's got a long history of inconsistent, up-and-down stuff and results. so it's hard for me to think of him as a no-doubt top of rotation guy. dude got traded for not very much one year ago, it's easy to forget

so my base assumption is 'talented guy with a TON of volatility and availablility concerns'

3:05

whereas I think the industry consensus is closer to 'talented guy in the middle of putting it together'

Nolan Gorman

3:05

So.......is this the year?

Matthew Liberatore

3:05

So........is this the year?

Ben Clemens

3:05

maybe!

I think more likely for Libby than Gorman (two high school teammates)

noah lowry appreciator

3:05

RE: Rockies - I do not have a solution, but I wanted to acknowledge it :) . If I were a fan of them I would feel pretty hopeless at the inability to attract talent outside of the draft. I think the stadium has more to do with that inability more than the FO, maybe you disagree with that (or the premise that they are disadvantaged).

Ben Clemens

3:05

oh yeah. I don't see a way to measure it. and I don't think it matters

3:06

so like, very hard problem to measure it, little utility to producing that measurement, so I am just not gonna try

I wouldn't argue about whether a disadvantage exists. I don't really know how to disambiguate it. and eh, it'll probably still exist next year if it existed last year

3:07

Not sure where I end up based on that, but basically I think that if you have "There will be a team in Denver" as a constraint, it doesn't really matter if Denver's environs provide a disadvantage. There's gonna be a team there

vin scully's inner voice

3:07

not to beleaguer the salary cap discussion but candidly it seems as though the poor owners in this sport are what keeps the payroll disparity in place over time. They use their teams as cash flow mechanisms, rather than taking profits and investing back into teams for equity appreciation. As more of those families sell teams to rich guy billionaires, perhaps we get to a majority of 'rich guy billionaires' that can effectively force the legacy families to sell to other 'rich guy billionaires' /institutions that will actually deploy capital into those enterprises. Is that too simplistic a view of ownership?

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