JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/16/25

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/16/25

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Ben Clemens

2:16

lol

love it

Bosoxforlife

2:16

It was pretty clear that the Red sox were going to have to move someone after Anthony and Mayer were called up. It was assumed it would be Rafaela or Abreu but this move helps alleviate the logjam. I would be a fool to say that it doesn't weaken the team as it stands now but Anthony will get ample opportunity on a regular basis instead of the in and out of the lineup stuff which hinders anyone's play.

Ben Clemens

2:16

I mean.... yeah, fine

watch this, we took Shohei off the Dodgers, now it's easier to find PT for Max Muncy

2:17

it's not the same thing, but like, we're worried that Devers is blocking Roman Anthony? No, that's not how it works. Your bad starters are blocking him

if Jarren Duran is actually a plus centerfielder, what the hell is he doing in left?

Abreu is a platoon guy and he's on the IL

Anthony is probably just as likely as Devers to be able to pick up first base, where freaking Abraham Toro is playing

2:18

Trevor Story is a shell of his former self

ah ha, we'll just subtract Rafael Devers, our best hitter, from this mix, THAT'S why we were blocked

trophy

2

Opifijikl

2:18

Is the site running into more 502 errors this week?

Ben Clemens

2:18

an absolute ton, unfortunately

we're doing our best on the back end to fix it

2:19

cloudflare has been a freaking nightmare of late, writing 5 things last Thursday in the midst of the outage was awful

Oaktown Blues

2:19

Jacob Wilson is the clear frontrunner for AL ROY. I read a comment somewhere that, even though he was rookie eligible, on multiple prospects lists, and on the roster on opening day, he's not eligible for a PPI pick. What gives?

Ben Clemens

2:20

I randomly know the answer to this one because I did some research for an article. It's b/c PPI defines eligibility by days on a major league roster

and RoY eligibility stems from days on an ACTIVE roster

Wilson came into the year with 73 days of service time but more than a month of that was on the IL

Schmegs

2:20

How is a guy like Harrison, who's best pitch is supposed to be his fastball, mesh with and org like Boston that doesn't throw many fastballs?

Ben Clemens

2:20

Honestly, I could see it working

2:21

first, get him back together with Andrew Bailey, don't hate that. Second, Harrison's fastball is his best pitch, but his ability to throw it that well suggests to me that he has the ability to manipulate a baseball better than he is now. and the threat of that scary fastball means that even if he uses it less, people will fear it. so he probably has the talent, raw physical talent, to develop secondaries. and they'll play up if he manages it

Bosoxforlife

2:21

The Red Sox were 110% correct in passing on Bogaerts who is already barely above replacement level. You can pencil me in to say that this move is also going to turn out to be a good one for the Red Sox. It isn't hard to see Devers washing up in a short time.

Ben Clemens

2:23

I agree on Bogaerts. That deal was a real eye opener. I am trying to look back at what I wrote about him heading into that winter but, 502 errors, lol

also did you know that he was FOUR years older than Devers when he signed that deal? Kinda wild, Devers is just younger than I think

Harrison <--> Bailey

2:24

Do you think the same benefits Harrison will get out of Andrew Bailey's pitching dev/philosophy will also get more out of Jordan Hicks?

Ben Clemens

2:24

mmmmm... as one of the world's most pre-eminent Jordan Hicks opinion havers, you're going to get more than you bargained for here

2:25

Is Bailey going to say "Hey Jordan, you're a reliever?"

because if so, oh yeah, magic wand waved

I really wanted to believe in Hicks as a starter, and mayyyyyybe the Red Sox can make it work. But his issues weren't like, oh, suboptimal pitch mix, oh, I need to learn a new breaking ball

they were like oh, sometimes I'm sitting 91-92 in the third inning, sometimes my fastball command jsut isn't there, I absolutely crumble facing batters a second time

2:26

Is this a fixable thing over time? Perhaps. But the big holdup with him becoming a starter didn't seem, to me, to be that he didn't get enough opportunities or didn't have three viable pitches (the changeup is eh, but.... it's at least eh). It's just that he isn't a starter; he seems to work a lot better in high effort short stints

G

2:27

500 errors stopped me from getting here before the flood of Devers questions (and presumably the "Aaron Judge is really good, will he be bad" questions that flooded last week) but Ketel Marte is walking 15%!! More than he's striking out!! I just feel like it needs to be talked about somewhere

Ben Clemens

2:27

Yeah

here's one for you

I'm doing a ton of backchecking and re-grading of my past trade value series, same thing I do every year when I'm setting up for this year's edition

and Ketel has been too low

2:28

I re-ranked 2022 by a blend of accrued WAR + projected WAR, modified surplus value off of that, peak WAR -- I think it does a good job of roughly mimicking how I think about value in a formulaic way

2:29

by that metric, the top 5 from the 2022 list, in terms of retrospecdtive trade value if I knew how the world would play out for the next three years:

Bobby WItt
Jose Ramirez
Ketel Marte
Julio Rodriguez
Mookie Betts

HappyFunBall

2:29

For years we've wondered what it would be like if a team with resources ran themselves like Tampa. Now we know...it is underwhelming

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