JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/29/26

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/29/26

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Ben Clemens

2:47

that's a very hard thing to convey in 15 seconds with a former athlete who spent 20 years learning how to hit a baseball, though

g4

2:48

I struggle to believe in the sustainability of Casey Schmitt's first half power parade, but there are exactly zero decent 3B on the (blatant) trade market. Whereabouts do you estimate the level of return required to grab him midseason?

Ben Clemens

2:48

a good but not top 100 prospect, plus a lottery ticket or two

cool

1

Sir Nerdlington

2:48

Does having a high spin fastball reduce the amount of backspin hitters can put on it when hitting? In my head it seems like it would, but I'm only 100% right about half the time.

Ben Clemens

2:48

I was pondering this one a while

2:49

I think that the answer is that yes, you can reduce the maximum amoutn of backspin that a hitter could put on a ball -- your spin flips sign when they hit it, and so the batter has to overcome more angular momentum to impart a ton of backspin. But that's not necessarily good? Studies have shown that hitting hte ball with TOO MUCH backspin kills distance. There's a goldilocks zone. so this isn't really a straightforward relationship, basically

njwr

2:49

How many plate appearances would it take for a high school player to rack up the amount of negative WAR Rob Refsnyder has? You can let them swing freely or tell them they are never allowed to swing, your choice. Also up to you if they play OF or just DH.

Ben Clemens

2:49

I'd have them play outfield, where they'd surely be awful

2:50

he's a win below replacement. I think a high school player could do that in a week

maybe fater

faster*

springer

2:50

In Saturday’s game, the Nats put Jacob Young in for James Wood for defense in the bottom of the 8th up 2. After they blew the lead, Wood’s spot came up with two men on in the 10th and Young flew out. Do you think this was overly aggressive to pull your best player for defense?

Ben Clemens

2:50

with their bullpen, yes

Nate

2:51

Does Cole Ragans ever pitch on a major league mound again? This will be his 3rd major elbow surgery.

Ben Clemens

2:51

ughhhhhh

what a bummer

I just don't know. And like I said, what a bummer

Ragans has been SUCH a fun series

er, sorry, story

but yeah, the track record of guys with this many injuries is not great and I'm worried about the future

Phillip Denny

2:51

The LAD-SD series featured a pitcher-hitter matchup of Dreyer-Sheets. Any other fun name match ups you can remember or want to wishcast? Another fun one was Barney-Fife between LAD-CHC in like 2014 or something.

Ben Clemens

2:52

Dreyer-Sheets is incredible, wow

um, nothing's coming to mind, but that doesn't mean it won't for other people in the chat, so I published this anyway

tigersfan1

2:52

Burger-King was a great one I've seen before

Phillip Denny

2:53

Where would Austin Riley rank on the inverse-trade value (most underwater?) series. He hasn't been a >120 wRC+ dude since 2023 and the savant page looks bluer by the year.

Ben Clemens

2:54

I don't do an inverse trade value series b/c man, what a bummer, also who cares? But yeah, he'd be down there. it's been arrow straight down for a few years. I'm still hopeful that he'll turn things around to being more of a solid regular, but it's a long deal and most of the best years of it are in the past

InsertWittyNameHere

2:54

Holding-Johnson. The annoucer said "The pitchers Holding, the batter's Johnson..."

warpath

2:54

Finally, after a half season of utter chaos, is the Twins' bullpen hierarchy starting to coalesce? Yoendrys Gómez as the primary closer, Andrew Morris and Anthony Banda as the primary leverage guys, everybody else mid to low leverage? This is the most stable I've seen this bullpen all year

Ben Clemens

2:54

until the deadline, haha

springer

2:55

Do you think the impeding lockout will affect the trade deadline in any way?

Ben Clemens

2:55

not really

I think that teams generally think about the now at the deadline. and if they aren't, they think about the distant future with prospects. neither of which is affected THAT much by what might happen around missing games next season

tigersfan1

2:56

If there really is a salary cap, does that change anything about the market for Skubal in free agency?

Ben Clemens

2:56

i mean, it sure would!

but given that the league has so far not actually described anything about a workable cap structure, and that their proposals so far have basically been unrealistic and meant to antagonize players (cut the lenght of deals! cut the amount of deals! limit the draft! ban young players!)

we have no clue what a cap would even look like

ajake57

2:57

The league's proposals are revenge for Skubal winning arbitration

Ben Clemens

2:57

right, I mean, they sure feel like they're to make a point

look at all the bad things we could think of doing to player comp

comply before we keep naming worse ones

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