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Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 9/1/26

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Ben Clemens

2:32

I think that's probably okay. I don't tihnk Skubal doesn't know how to pitch on four days' rest or anything. But I'm not a biomechanics expert, I defer to them on how this plays into rest, habit, that kinda stuff

Swings Low

2:32

Oh man sorry for all the Cubs comments, didn't realize you were a Cards fan. Is PCA your MVP?

Ben Clemens

2:33

eh, not really a specific team's fan for quite some time at this point. PCA is surely the MVP, though. Who else?

David Wiers

2:33

McGonigle is kind of doing it all, and given his pedigree, yeah that scans. But have you seen any of his baserunning? A modest 12 SB to 2 CS, but StatCast has him at +5 (tied for third best in baseball) for baserunning runs and his six Advances is tied for 2nd most.

Ben Clemens

2:35

tied for 7th-best in baseball, to be fair, but yeah, it's impressive. His baserunning hasn't jumped out to me this year but that's the kind of thing you don't easily notice watching a game

ajleff

2:35

AJ Ewing legit?

Ben Clemens

2:35

hoenstly I still have no idea

2:36

it's clear that the building blocks of a very good outfielder are tehre

i'm a little bit worried by how much he's striking out relative to how much power he's hitting for

I'm encouraged by the fact that they seem to just be whiff strikeouts more than chase strikeouts, though

as in it's not like he's just waving at everything by a long shot

sliderinthedirt

2:37

Genuinely crazy how quickly PCA went from a center fielder clone of Javier Baez to literally peak Mike Trout

Ben Clemens

2:37

it's nuts, right?

I changed my tune on him pretty heavily from last year's trade value to this year's

2:38

there's definitely some 'once is an accident twice is a trend' there but like

how did last year's second half portend this year's season? it kinda didn't

he just is much better than i expected, by a lot

Vee

2:38

Is Clay Holmes an extension candidate on the north side? He's a great fit and vice versa.

Ben Clemens

2:39

yeah, I think that would make sense, with the standard caveat that things are tougher to judge around the lockout

like perhaps the cubs jsut feel like extending zero guaranteed offers, period, until they learn the new lay of the land

2:40

but yes, a pitching-needy team with a pitcher currently throwing well for them who has a player option feels like a great fit. tear up the option (which he wasn't going to exercise anyway), write a new deal for 3/60 or whatever, announce it before the playoffs start

feels like a win/win to me for a team that clearly intends to compete indefinitely and also clearly needs some rotation help

jtrichey

2:42

Gotta say I was on the other end around here in that I didn't think Wetherholt should be rookie of the year. Now it seems like a moot point, but if I had a vote it definitely would have gone to Spencer or McLean. I just don't trust the defensive numbers enough for that to be the edge.

Ben Clemens

2:42

I don't have a rookie of the year vote

I odn't have any BBWAA votes, to be clear. I'm not a BBWAA member

but if I did, I would be voting for Wetherholt

2:43

My view is that it's fine to discount the defensive numbesr. Even by a good amount if you want. But you shouldn't ignore them totally, you should jsut weight everything by how sure you are it matters

or is accurately reflecting things

and even if you lop off quite a bit of the defensive value, I still think he a)comes out the best b)has a very bright future, top prospect who clicked immediately in the majors

2:44

whether to consider a player's long-term potential in RoY voting is a philosophical question, it's not clearly answered by the criteria of the award, but I would use it as a tiebreaker

if you made me vote today, my ballot would be 1. Wetherholt 2. McLean 3. Benge but I haven't dived incredibly deeply

what with not having a vote and all

blackcubeofdarkness

2:44

where do you rank the current cubs outfield (PCA, happ, suzuki + conforto/shaw) in recent memory? in WAR, at the pace they're going at they would end up the 6th best outfield of the century between 2012 LAA and 2016 CHC

Ben Clemens

2:44

this is giving me most home runs by a father/son duo vibe

2:45

no disrespect to Suzuki, who's having an awesome year and is a guy I've liked (and probably over-hyped) for a long time

2:46

I think my first year of bold prediction contests on Effectively Wild, I had 'suzuki leads the NLC in wRC+' and I've just stayed bullish since

it's very impressive. having a 10 win outfielder makes it a lot easier to have an elite historical outfield, though

canderson20

2:46

Report came out this weekend that James Click is considered to be the frontrunner for the A's open GM position going into the offseason. How excited should I be as an A's fan compared to the last decade+ with Forst at the helm? I'm struggling to contextualize how much of the Astros dynasty success was due to his wins as the GM. Thanks!

Ben Clemens

2:47

I think the cleanest read is that we don't know how much his stewardship mattered, but that it sure seems like he was doing some stuff right that wasn't refreshed after his departure

2:48

you'll never know. we'll never know. the inputs are very obscured from the outputs. But I don't get the ick from his tenure in Houston, at the very least

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