JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 9/11/23

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Ben Clemens

2:49

but really, two starts and one of them being against the Giants sounds quite enticing

bosoxforlife

2:50

Acuna's arm is as good as his bat.

Ben Clemens

2:50

It's true

Also, he's not that good of a fielder?

very funny

Mike Petriello had a good twitter thread on that today

https://twitter.com/mike_petriello/status/1701286425319112714

darb

2:50

Cardinals fan is PCA hater, eh? Just kidding, hope you're wrong though!

Ben Clemens

2:50

Here's a PCA comp for you

Harrison Bader

2:51

basically I don't love the strikeout rate, and so he's going to need to really smash the ball when he connects to run a good offensive line against big league pitching

but man, that glove

2:52

He has a really voracious approach at the plate

and I do think he has plus power

2:53

but I can totally see a 35% strikeout rate, 6% walk rate, runs into some home runs but still a below average offensive player kind of future for him

SouthernDandy

2:53

Any thoughts about players transitioning to playing some 1B. I'd like to see the Astros give Yanier Diaz and possibly Michael Brantley(assuming Astros resign him, which they should) some time there next year. Even if Abreu rebounds some, he's not getting any younger

Ben Clemens

2:54

Yeah, those both make sense to me. I'd probably keep giving Yainer as much time behind the plate as he can handle, because it's really valuable to have a catcher who can hit and that also means they can play Maldonado less

but rotating him in there? Sure

and Brantley is not really an outfielder these days, I'm with you

v2micca

2:54

Acuna just put up HR number 36. I think he may want to join that 40-40 club.

Ben Clemens

2:54

That guy is good, I've heard

HappyFunBall

2:54

IMHO, if the LAAs are willing to trade Trout that signals full rebuild. At that point they can immediately shift into the mode where they disconnect cost and winning. In other words, if I'm the LAAs and trading Trout, I'm willing to eat some of his contract in order to bring some real talent into the farm system. That brings more than just the big spenders to the table.

Ben Clemens

2:54

I guess I could see that?

2:55

I don't quite picture Arte Moreno as the type to eat a bunch of money, though

2:56

Maybe I'm wrong. This is the kind of thing that I find it impossible to have valuable insight on without a source

Appa Yip Yip

2:56

Fans love to try and find someone to blame for injuries because "bad luck" is a fundamentally unsatisfying answer but like. Injuries are just bad luck your team's training staff are not incompetent.

Ben Clemens

2:56

Oh it can totally be both

2:57

But I agree that it's very hard to figure out, and that a good default assumption is 'bad luck'

The Mets truly had incompetent trainers for years in the mid-2010's

you'll never convince me otherwise

bosoxforlife

2:57

I have seen a disproportionate number of misplayed flies this year. Do you think today's players have so much trouble with the sun in day games because they don't play many day games? and Harris just one over the CF fence, then Acuna made up for his misplay with a next pitch dinger

Ben Clemens

2:57

Hm, I haven't really noticed that, and it sounds like a hard thing to research

2:59

That said, I can at least buy the pitch. It's true that there are fewer day games in general. But my null hypothesis is that no, baseball players are just pretty good, and sometimes the sun is bright

Chloe

2:59

Should JP France be an Astros playoff starter over Hunter Brown? How do you anticipate future performance from guys who come out of nowhere like this?

Ben Clemens

2:59

I would not start him over Hunter Brown, but I'd start him over Cristian Javier

3:00

That said, Brown has been abysmal in his last 4 starts so I wouldn't hate giving him a rest start or something to let him regroup

Appa Yip Yip

3:01

What team would you put Trout on, if you could force a trade by fiat?

Ben Clemens

3:01

Oh, the Giants

I'd like to see Trout play a lot