JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 5/13/24

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 5/13/24

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Ben Clemens

2:17

I think I'd take Witt

2:18

I've been too low on him, and I'm consciously trying to correct for that

It's a great problem to have, obviously. Henderson has been even better than advertised. But so has Witt and in the end I think I trust him to be a defensive difference maker more. But there are no wrong answers here

Dan’l

2:18

Shouldn’t the Cards make Helsley & Romero available now? Do those two have comparable value (upside with H., longer control with JJ)?

Ben Clemens

2:21

uhhhh, they definitely do not have comparable value. Romero has never topped 40 innings in a season and Helsley has a much lower ERA/FIP/whatever rate you care about, with more strikeouts and stuff that grades out better by pretty much any model, over meaningfully more innings

no one's gonna pay for an extra year of a maybe good reliever in 2026

so I'd say Helsley would fetch far more in trade. Also I don't think the Cards are going to trade him, if they're a disaster this year the odds of a regime change are pretty high and that doesn't lineup very well

The guy WHo makes Trades

2:22

OAK/STL OAK trade: Esteury Ruiz, Hogan Harris, and a PTBNL for STL trade: Victor Scott II, Jordan Walker, P Tink Hence, and RP Andrew Kitteridge

vomit

1

Ben Clemens

2:22

I mean, STL says no to this so fast

2:23

and why is Oakland trading for an RP?

Mary Kate Olsen

2:23

MARY. KATE. OLSEN.

George

2:23

Very interesting thing that I would be interested in someone doing some work into is how park factors influence player development. I'm not sure how you'd isolate it, but its been a big discussion with Crews and other Nats hitting prospects this year. Both Wilmington and Harrisburg are difficult parks to hit in. A ton of Nats prospects have struggled to hit for power in Wilmington and have had a K rate spike in Harrisburg, reportedly due to the weird batters eye there. Is that meaningfully impacting development?

Ben Clemens

2:23

Yeah anecdotally this seems like a thing. Empirically I have never seen data to that effect, and honestly it sounds like too heavy of a lift for someone like me writing 4-5 articles a week

2:24

gotta be a pain to collect enough data to say anything at all meaningful about this

dave

2:24

do you ever worry that too much of baseball is being quantified? both from a taking away the mystery perspective but also a distilling players down to solely numbers perspective and forgetting they're humans too?

Ben Clemens

2:24

Oh yeah 100%

2:25

That's a large reason I started writing 5 things in the first place, to be honest. I feel like baseball analysis can get too mathy at times these days and man, it's a fun sport! The fun is the reason we like it

Guest

2:25

It's my birthday, could you say something to make a Mets fan feel optimistic?

Ben Clemens

2:25

Christian Scott looks like a plus major league starter already

Tacoby Bellsbury

2:25

If you're the Giants, snakebit with injuries and struggling, what do you do from here?

Ben Clemens

2:26

I think in the short term you just keep playing, but man they've been unlucky with injuries and a lot of their offseason acquisitions have been bad to boot. If you're doing a selloff type thing this year as the Giants, I think it has to be a short-term one where you flip vets with expiring contracts for small returns

2:27

I don't think they have any exciting pieces to sell off for big returns aside from Webb and Bailey, who are untouchable

Colton

2:27

I challenge you to a speed typing competition, it took me all of 5 seconds to type this message!

Ben Clemens

2:27

Competition is only open to FG staff because I would definitely not win if we opened it to the broader public. Also, I think I have typing force more so than speed, I hit my keys harder than I need to

RH

2:28

How has your thinking on who will make the playoffs out of the NL changed since Opening Day?

Ben Clemens

2:29

Okay so my initial NL predictions were: ATL/MIL/LAD win the divisions, PHI/SFG/STL take the wild cards. I think I wrote that the STL pick was a placeholder and that one of my hot takes was that the NLC was going to put two teams in the playoffs

2:30

Feeling pretty good about the division winners, though I suppose they weren't particularly hard to predict. The Giants pick looks bad in retrospect, and yeah, I think I overvalued their FA pickups

2:31

I guess the main thing that has changed for me is that I thought the NLC was a wide open race where pretty much any team could win the division. and now it's a two team race b/c the other three have been pretty bad of late. i think that any of those other three could still challenge for a wild card, but the division gap is really big and hard to make up

bosoxforlife

2:31

Do you see any way to increase balls in play as long as the distance between the rubber and the plate remains at 60'6"?

Ben Clemens

2:31

yeah, basically no

Victoria

2:31

So would you replace SFG/STL with SDP/CHC?

Ben Clemens

2:31

yeah

2:32

I was a little worried I'd made the homer pick of Cards over Brewers even though I was quite high on the Brewers heading into the year

glad I didn't!

Elias

2:32

cowser and kjerstad need to start getting more playing time than mullins. It's the move at this point to make, or am I crazy?

Ben Clemens

2:33

I think you're crazy, but only b/c Mullins remains such an excellent defender

Ripken Fan

2:34

What should the Orioles do at the deadline?

Ben Clemens

2:35

I think they should do one of two things: trade for a very interesting semi-rental player, or do some 4th of/bullpen shore ups

Joe

2:35

Kjerstad just got sent down

Ben Clemens

2:35

yeah I mean, they weren't using him! Makes sense

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