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Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/23/25

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Ben Clemens

3:01

guy*

3:02

maybe the Nats want a reunion with him backing up House and DH'ing (b/c Bell isn't working out?)

3:03

I think that a contender is unlikely to take a risk on him, but a non-contender might pick him up hoping he looks awesome the rest of the way, or perhaps looks SO good in the nextm onth that they can flip him for a lottery ticket after he kind of rebuilds his value

3:03

Hey now, re: the Reds-M's Suarez trade, that return busted, but it looked quite valuable at the time! A viable mid-level MLB platoon bat to directly replace Wink (Jake Fraley), a top 100 prospect with helium (Brandon Williamson), a super-helium guy who ended up as a top 100 guy soon thereafter (Connor Phillips), and a former 1st rounder reclamation project (Justin Dunn). All the pitchers busted for various reasons, but hindsight is 20/20 of course!

Ben Clemens

3:03

I agree, but reading through a lot of the coverage, it seems like WInker was the prize and Suarez was kind of a 'average player with too much $ owed' added to the deal

3:04

it definitely looks worse in retrospect than it did then, though

but Winker similarly busted. he was coming off of 3.2 WAR in 2/3 of a season when he got dealt

and he's been worth 1.1 WAR in the next four years combined

3:05

Suarez was not the focus of the return, coming off of a literally replacement level season with an 85 wRC+

Appa Yip Yip

3:05

Eugenio Suarez also has impeccable vibes between the hair and the smile and the beard. Everybody should want that guy on their team. I very specifically want the Dbacks to play themselves out of contention so my team can trade for him.

Ben Clemens

3:05

oh yeah

he seems like such a good dude too (never meet your heroes, I'm just guessing from what I can observe on TV)

the vibes are just immaculate

Smokin' Jim Leyland

3:06

Good afternoon Ben! This may be more of a Szym-Chat question, but why does Riley Greene show as having negative defensive value in his WAR calculation? Admittedly the eye test is imperfect, but when I watch him, I see a comfortably above-average LFer. I mean, just yesterday he made three great catches that were absolute bangers.

Ben Clemens

3:06

I'm answering this one b/c I'm writing about Riley Greene literally righ tnow

or, well, I guess I stopped to chat. But I'm in the process of writing about him

3:07

we basically just use OAA, and OAA sees him as a solid but not elite left fielder this year, 70th percentile

3:08

the thing is, left field is a very easy position int he grand scheme of things. Def is defensive value relative to average for your position plus a positional adjustment

so that positional adjustment (it's like -3 runs or so for how long he's played this year) is why his Def is negative

3:09

i think you can argue that the positional adjustment in the corners is a smidge too harsh, but honestly, I dno't think it's off by much. If positional adjustments are wrong, the ones that are on the top of my list for adjustment are 1B and DH

3:10

so basically what we're saying is 'he's a good defender for a left fielder, but an average left field defender is not as valuable as an average CF, 2B, SS'

I definitely agree that he's a plus fielder, though. It's good to remember that defensive statistics are unavoidably noisy and that Greene rated out better in 2024. I think he's almost certainly better than his 2025 statistics

Okra

3:10

Given all the trouble the A's and Rays are having building new stadiums, is it reasonable to expect 2 new expansion cities to help foot the bill and get it across the finish line? Feels like public opinion on this has kinda flipped. Seems to be a huge barrier to expansion no one talks about.

Ben Clemens

3:11

I think that's a very good point

I'm really curious, I bet you MLB is doing some polling on that question in possible expansion cities

Oaktown Blues

3:12

My guess is MLB will waive or lower expansion fees in exchange for the prospective owner paying for the new stadium

Ben Clemens

3:12

I'm curious about that. In the past, you could think of expansion fees as necessary, because you're slicing up the TV revenue more ways if you expand but it's unlikely that the national TV deals are gonna get much bigger

3:13

so if I'm, say, the Dodgers, why do I want an expansion team if I'm not getting fees?

but now that the future TV revenue picture is less certain, maybe the deal is a little different

3:14

maybe now it's about preserving baseball's interest across the country and juicing up the TV deals with more available games to try to make them more enticing to sellers

I think we are still a few unfavorable TV deals away from teams agreeing to waive expansion fees, because honestly, there's a lot of demand to have a baseball team among billionaires

but if they're struggling to attract true expansion bidders and the deal replacing the Sunday Night Baseball deal is bad, I could see it?

Bosoxforlife

3:14

You touched my 3rd rail when you bring up positional penalties, but as long as people actually think that a baseball starting lineup consists of 9 men rather the 10 that actually comprise the starting lineup then the DH will be unfairly penalized for no sane reason whatsoever.

Ben Clemens

3:15

i tend to agree. I think that DH and 1B projections that only look at WAR right now don't capture the actual value of having those players on your team

particularly for actual difference making hitters

Boeke

3:16

Who is a realistic trade target for the Yankees. I guess I should specify - someone that’s a better hitter than IKF. Or do you think it’ll mostly be players like him on the move this trade season?

Ben Clemens

3:16

can I interest you in JJ Bleday?

I have to imagine the A's would love to get something back for him now that they want to play Clarke plus the statues

3:17

(no offense to Tyler Soderstrom and Brent Rooker, they're statues with plus power, I'm into it)

Okra

3:17

also, 2 new expansion teams further erode future leverage for existing owners threatening to relocate if they don't get a new stadium

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