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Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 3/9/26

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Dodgers Blue

2:13

How much have you moved Mick Abel up your rankings based on what we are seeing this spring? I assume the Twins will cap him around 130 IPs, if he holds a starting job all season?

Ben Clemens

2:13

Me personally? Zero

what with him having thrown 10 innings across 3 starts and all

2:14

honestly if you're coming here looking for spring training takes, you're going to be disappointed, I'm sorry. I just don't think it matters that much. I spend a lot of time watching spring games, but not b/c I'm scouting the stat lines

I just like watching baseball

Woodrow

2:14

All time NBA starting five with each player from a different decade??

Ben Clemens

2:15

I'm not sure I'm good enough at the NBA to do this but depending on how you define decades, I'm guessing you could get something like Magic/Jordan/Lebron/Russell/someone

and like.... cool, neat, don't need to do much more work than that

Woodrow

2:15

All time batting lineup with each player from a different decade??

Ben Clemens

2:15

similarly, without putting TOO much work into this, you can get Williams/Ruth/Mays/A Rod/Schmidt/Hornsby/some other dudes

2:16

let Bonds DH, or maybe Ted, or hell, plant one of those dudes at first and get one of Judge or Ohtani in too

Dodgers Blue

2:16

What does your crystal ball predict will happen with the glut of quality IFs in Seattle over the next 2 years: Donovan, Cole Young, Michael Arroyo, Crawford, Colt Emerson.

Jerry Dipoto

2:16

Given our competitive window and where we’re at with Julio/Cal/Naylor… should I extend Brendan Donovan? Passan put out a tweet stacking him up to Bo after the trade and I feel like now would be the time to pounce before he’s a year away from FA….

Ben Clemens

2:17

I think the M's will make a bona fide attempt to extend Donovan. I don't know if he'll take it, though I expect he's motivated to given his relatively light career earnings

2:18

Crawford is surely on the way out. The Col's are going to have a shot at two infield spots, let's say their median expectation is one. That means Donovan is gonna have a job almost no matter what

and the M's have done a good job laying down some anchor contracts in Julio and Cal, but they could use more controllable above average players. I think this makes a lot of sense and I expect them to try pretty hard to find something

Guest

2:18

Tim Duncan can finish out your starting 5 if you like- Russell 60s, Magic 80s, Jordan 90s, Timmy aughts, LeBron the past 23 years.

Ben Clemens

2:19

Perfect. I couldn't really squeeze Shaq in there but Duncan is a great compormise

WBC enjoyer

2:19

Am I crazy for thinking the Cardinals will have a much better rotation than their 27 ranked projection. They just have like 10-12 really intriguing upper minors arms now. They were 25th in fWAR last year and that was with Fedde, Mikolas, and Pallante throwing 500 absolutely terrible innings.

Ben Clemens

2:19

I actuallyw as on the Viva El Birdos podcast last night talking about a similar thing

I mean, the Cards have some intriguing arms. So do most teams in baseball

2:20

Also like... Pallante is in this year's rotation!

2:21

I think they'll probably be better than last year. But we're projecting Dustin May for more innings than he's ever thrown before, McGreevy to be league average in a big chunk of innings, Pallante to improve a ton.... and we still think they'll be bad

2:22

it's not so much that none of the minor leaguers can surprise. It's that they need like three of them to surprise, or to get way better than the past performance from multiple guys on their big league rotation

like, sure. that can all happen. But it's not the path of least resistance

Sam

2:22

Is there a baseball equivalent of Lebron? Somebody who was a super heralded prospect, came up and was almost immediately a top 5-10 player in the game, then stayed at that level for over 2 decades.

Ben Clemens

2:22

A Rod? Bonds? borderline Bryce Harper?

Cal

2:22

Os fan here. Was thinking about Os super-prospects who have graduated. It seems like folks have been high on several Os players and the consensus is coming back to earth some. Thinking of Holliday as the #1 overall prospect, Gunnar as 1a/1b in the trade value series, Adley high up in the trade value and picked preseason as top catcher, Westburg high up in the trade value series. Feels like things havent panned out like those evaluations would have implied. Anything to worry about with Os process? Or just bad luck? Or me catastrophizing?

Ben Clemens

2:23

I think it's probably a mix of a few things. I'm still pretty high on Gunnar, for example, and wouldn't lump him in with the rest

and Westburg's biggest issue has been that he can't stay healthy. He's played at an All Star level when available, surprisingly enough

2:24

the Adley thing - yeah, look, this didn't pan out the way I expected. I really don't know what to make of it, especially since the ceiling is clearly there

I don't have a good answer for that aside from catching prospects are inherently risky b/c catching is hard

Lastly, HOlliday, and:

Houzer

2:24

What are you expecting from Jackson Holliday this season- given the pedigree; but with the injury

Ben Clemens

2:25

I mean, I've been the low man on Holliday for a long time, so you have to bake that into your evaluation

but like.... I think he's gonna be just okay

league average hitter with weirdly-shaped production. maybe below that this year b/c of his injury

2:26

I mean the guy had a fully healthy year, played 149 games, improved his strikeout an walk rates, beat his xwOBA, and was worth 1.2 WAR

let's be realistic. you can hope for the best but the pedigree is less of a meaningful input after seeing his MLB struggles

Surplus Valuez = Stolen Wages

2:26

Henderson is going to be a monster FA

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