Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 7/13/26

Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, welcome to the chat

Ben Clemens: It’s trade value preparation week, because that series starts next Monday, so my brain is absolutely overflowing with contract details, projections, staring at two players next to each other for 15 minutes to determine the order I’d want them in, etc. I’ll probably be a little light on good opinions on stuff that is far afield of that, but still, there’s plenty of baseball to talk about, and I’m sure we’ll come up with some off topic nonsense as well, everyone here is very good at that. Let’s begin

snakestl: Will there be a writeup on the Wetherholt contract? Need an easy, one link shopping, story to pass along to a Reds buddy who seems to think it is a massive overpay (why do fans care when players get paid?) and that Sal Stewart is having the better season.

Ben Clemens: There will, tomorrow. Not by me, but I’m going to be reading it as well

misterjohnny: Did Kyle Karros figure something out in the last two months?

Ben Clemens: I’m leaning towards no but I’m not positive or anything

Ben Clemens: I don’t know if you’ve tried it, but I threw him on the crowdsourced trade value list out of curiosity

Ben Clemens: https://www.fangraphs.com/tools/crowdsourced-trade-value

Ben Clemens: and sorry in advance if you haven’t tried it, goodbye to your productivity

Mon Dattingly: Austin Riley… medium cooked or extra crispy?

Ben Clemens: I’m on the medium cooked side because I think that there’s a bit more in the bat than we’ve seen, I think that he’s pretty clearly pressing at the moment

Ben Clemens: chase way up, in-zone swing rate not even up. it’s a reasonable idea to bet on mean reversion there. but that said, mean reversion to like…. average bat

Ben Clemens: with decent 3b defense

Ben Clemens: that’s an average player, maybe an above average regular if you squint, not a star

Ben Clemens: so that’s medium cooked for me

Ben Clemens: I don’t think he’s unplayable. But I do think that the elite hitting version has departed for good

triplesandtea: Lindor’s defense seems to have taken a step back. No question, just sad to see him aging

JustinPBG: “Oh the mets.” That Lindor faceplant was just…. it was Metsy. Who do you think they send away?

Ben Clemens: I’m not quite sure what the Mets are going to do at the deadline, but I generally see this as an opportunity to clear short-term stuff specifically

Ben Clemens: like, no one’s trading for Lindor with an uncertain CBA coming up during a down year

Ben Clemens: and I’m not sure the Mets want to trade him anyway

Ben Clemens: but basically attacking the fringes of the roster seems smart to me

InsertWittyNameHere: Poor Zverev, an intense emotional first set win, full of confidence, and then…just isn’t as perfect as Sinner. Thoroughly enjoyed that backyard tennis rally in the 3rd (?) set.
We disagree on our thoughts about Sasha (respectfully), but my question is when should/could public opinion soften their stance on a younger person for not being a flawless being?

Ben Clemens: so a)yeah great match

Ben Clemens: b)when they admit fault

Ben Clemens: I have very little trouble accepting that people can make mistakes

Ben Clemens: I have a lot less patience when they refuse to admit that they made a mistake and instead pull a persecution complex card

Ben Clemens: saying sorry and meaning it goes a long way in my book

InsertWittyNameHere: On the women’s side: did not see this final! No notes really, just really fun tennis to watch!

Ben Clemens: yeah I didn’t see the women’s final either, I was traveling. Watched highlights, fun, Noskova looks good!

rickdugo3000: How bout them Red Sox

bosoxforlife: Now that I am completely reeled back in and almost in the boat, should the Red Sox gamble on Franklin Arias and give him a opportunity to solve the SS hole?

Ben Clemens: what a strong run to get back into contention, the Sox have already delivered two years worth of entertainment in a half a season

Ben Clemens: man, I think I like the idea of giving Arias a try given how much he’s shredded AA this year but I think I’d also be trying to trade for some kind of blah veteran option

Ben Clemens: because one thing you don’t want is to bring Arias up, it’s not working (that happens! we don’t know the future, top prospects don’t always click right away, it’s not a moral failing), and then you have no backup plan

Ben Clemens: generally speaking, blah veteran options are not expensive at the deadline, so this seems like a nice barbell strategy to me. buy some cheap competence, also promote your phenom

oaktownblues: You don’t have to spoil it if you don’t want, but I imagine Tyler Soderstrom won’t quite crack the trade value list? Maybe a HM?

Ben Clemens: yeah I don’t think it’s spoiling to say that he’s not gonna crack the top 50, but I did consider him

Ben Clemens: I guess I’d basically say this. the biggest learning I’ve done about this project in my years doing it is that teams don’t value people with just plus but not overwhelming tools

Ben Clemens: like, Soderstrom is good and provides surplus value. But you can recreate Soderstrom in the aggregate a lot more easily than you can someone with more of a standout skill

Ben Clemens: increases in wRC+ are not linear. Teams like a 140 guy over a 120 guy by more than they like a 120 guy over a 100 guy, and with good reason

Sonny L: if the Red Sox need a stop gap veteran SS they can probably get Trevor Story for cheap. Oh wait

rickdugo3000: If Trevor story, coming off his weird but strong 2025 and then bad and injured 2026, was on like the angels he’d be a perfect “blah veteran option” to trade for

Ben Clemens: no, this is not who I mean

Ben Clemens: no one trades for a guy on the 60 day IL who’s had one good season in the past 4 and goes ‘okay this is my safe option’

Ben Clemens: I get it, Trevor Story is a veteran. It’s very clearly not what I’m talking about

lmb2020: Will Wetherholt’s extension get him on the top 50?

Ben Clemens: um, he’s a slam dunk either way

Matthew VanWinkle: I’m firmly in the get a vet rather than promoting Arias camp. The Sox have promoted some young infielders (Campbell, Mayer) way too quickly recently and it’s wrecked their development. Let Arias keep shredding rather than exposing him to a playoff chase in a challenging market before he’s old enough to drink legally.

Ben Clemens: right that’s why I wouldn’t want to do it without some air cover

Ben Clemens: I think that your consideration is very reasonable and that reasonable people can disagree on whether it makes sense to promote him

Ben Clemens: but I think doing it without a safety net would be definitely a bad idea

jmantell: Do you think people think about contract status too much when thinking about trade value? In an uncapped league, it seems to me that talent and future value should be the predominant variable (as opposed to NBA and NFL where contract status has to be considered because of the opportunity cost). I feel like people are trying to be too smart and win the value, without considering that getting the better player is just good

Ben Clemens: yes

Ben Clemens: but like…. I think taht’s kind of an ongoing argument on this site

Ben Clemens: every year I write the top 50 list and articles, and every year some of our commenters, including ones who I think are very sharp about baseball, are like ‘I’d prefer a punch in the face to having Fernando Tatis Jr. on my team’

Ben Clemens: well like, maybe…. but maybe not

Ben Clemens: now Tatis is a bad example this year, of course, and he’s WAY down the list because of it

Ben Clemens: but yes, there’s clear value to star-level production in the present, and teams act like there is every time there’s an opportunity to either trade for or sign a guy like that

Ben Clemens: so I think it would be silly to pretend that’s not a consideration

rickdugo3000: So then IKF is a blah veteran option?

Ben Clemens: if they’re sure IKF is going to be back soon taht’s fine

Ben Clemens: doesn’t sound like they’re very sure of that, but I’m not as plugged into that as you no doubt are

BooneyO: What should Breslow do at the deadline? Gut tells me they should still trade Chapman and gray. Those two could fetch real value in a sellers’ market and their offense is too bad to legitimately be a contender this year anyway. Tough pill to swallow but they’d be foolish to actually aggressively add this year

Ben Clemens: I don’t think I agree with this, but man, it’s a tough one

Ben Clemens: I don’t like the idea of selling when you’re in the race like they are, particularly when you have the kind of top end talent that makes you scary in the playoffs. who wants to face the Boston rotation in October?

Ben Clemens: and also, not that you can count on healthy returns for Crochet and Anthony, but man, there’s some very attractive contingent upside there

bosoxforlife: IKF and Monasterio, who looks like a hitter, already fill the role of mediocre, but playable utility infielders. Siegler is doing the job at 2nd and Arias might be the Bob Hazle that explodes. Mayer is clearly on the outs and I predict he isn’t in a Red Sox uniform on Aug, 4.

Ben Clemens: I don’t think Monasterio can handle short, personally. I know he’s played there a tiny bit with the Sox this year but the numbers haven’t been good and his teams have generally treated him like they think he’s not quite up to par defensively there

Ben Clemens: I’m not really sure how to read the tea leaves on Mayer, again, people who are maximally dialed in here are going ot know more than me. But he sure seems like a change of scenery option to me, and again, he’s hurt, so it’s tough to treat him as a for sure upgrade down teh stretch. I think that makes him a better fit as a trade chip, yeah

warpath: Any gut predictions on who ends up buying vs. selling from the mess in the middle of the AL this year?  So many teams at or just below 0.500…

Ben Clemens: I think the next two weeks are honestly going to be very important here

Ben Clemens: because if you go 1-7 or something, you should probably sel

Ben Clemens: it’s VERY crowded to get that third WC spot

bosoxforlife: In the past ten days we have seen two pitchers taken out of perfect games, several other no-hit bids, the Yankees get 3 hits in 3 consecutive games then strike out 17 times in back to back games. Am I the only one who fears this imbalance?

Ben Clemens: yeah, I’m not liking it but I don’t quite know what can be done about it. they keep trying to change things to make average go up and it just stays in the .240-.245 range

mlommler: What’s the over/under on # of guys on the 50 who get moved before the deadline?

Ben Clemens: let’s take a quick look

Ben Clemens: honestly, 0.5

Ben Clemens: b/c I don’t have Skubal on there right now, I’d have to make it at least 1 over/under if he were there

Ben Clemens: I think that this year in particular is going to lean away from trades of guys with long team control

Ben Clemens: there’s incredibly high uncertainty about the next CBA

Ben Clemens: so that makes both sides have wider error bars on their valuations, which encourages being conservative imo

BooneyO: Besides Bobby Witt Jr., is there a middle infielder with more trade value right now than Brice Turang? He’s not nearly the household name of an ELDC or Gunnar — or even McGonigle or Wetherholt — but he’s certainly in contention for that #2 spot if you ask me!

Ben Clemens: at the moment you have named all but one middle infielder I have ahead of Turang. And you also named one infielder I do not have above Turang

Ben Clemens: I can’t spoil more than that b/c it’s kinda fun to have some mystery but Turang rocks

Ben Clemens: I just kept sliding him up the list as I was like ‘wait I’d definitely rather have him than (whoever I was lookign at)

scottsjunk1981: I’m pretty sure that FG uses different replacement levels for starters and relievers. Assuming I’m right about that, I worry that openers and bulk relievers are skewing the calculations. I mean, my understanding of why relievers have better rate stats is that they can throw more max effort and they can be used situationally. It’s not about who throws the first pitch of a game. What do you think about replacing or supplementing the SP/RP split with something like pitchers would usually face fewer than 6 hitters, pitchers who usually go through the order about once, and pitchers who usually go through the order at least twice?

Ben Clemens: yeah, a consideration for sure, it’s sitting in the ‘things to do when there’s a lockout this winter’ project pool

Ben Clemens: baselining replacement level by role is a good idea and we’d like to do better

Siddharth Nair: Astros are in an interesting spot in that we’re in the hunt for a playoff spot but I wouldn’t mind us being a change of scenery candidate for Marcelo. I just don’t think we’re going to be making waves in October and I want us to reload the stockpiles to a degree

Ben Clemens: yeah, I think that’s a reasonable take for the Astros in particular. Their coffers are empty from years of being aggressive at the deadline, and I mean, would you argue that it’s been a good strategy by them? I would not

Ben Clemens: but this is probably one of their weaker shots at a ring in recent history, not a bad time to think towards the future

hyphenkee: Re: improving batting average, what are your favorite suggestions? I like the idea of making the foul lines wider (either in the outfield only or even from home plate)

Ben Clemens: yeah, bigger arc of fair territory is one of my favorites. I also like moving the mound back or deadening the ball and shrinking the zone

JCCfromDC: Just a suggestion for a possible research topic in the offseason (in case there’s, you know, a time period where nothing is going on for a while): do umpires seem to be aware of when a team is out of ABS challenges? Is their zone better when a team has challenges, or is there little/no difference?

Ben Clemens: what in the world are you talking about

Ben Clemens: no, it’s true, as I’ve mentioned a few times in teh past, we’re trying to have lots of ideas for if there’s suddenly not much baseball to write about

Ben Clemens: my guess is little/no but sure, we can mess around with it when we’re deep in the December/January doldrums

aglossman: sorry to pile on to the Red Sox talk early in this chat – but if they are hanging around here or better without faceplanting after the break, they gotta be buyers. Anything less would be a real slap in the face to the fans and the players on the team who have clawed their way back into it. Go get a bat and a bullpen arm. Maybe try calling up Arias, too, but I’m not married to that.

Ben Clemens: The Sox are probably the most interesting team in baseball right now, so don’t worry about it

Ben Clemens: I definitely do not think they should be selling if they hit the deadline in this position

Ben Clemens: I think it would be reasonable to do mostly minor upgrading, move some guys who you don’t think fit your current roster, and hope to get some of your stars back down the stretch

ado64: Say you’re a “repeatedly bad team, now on the WC fringe, but not a real WS threat,” and thinking about trading for upgrades to make the WC. I imagine you care about making the playoffs more than a team who’s exactly as good THIS season, but with a better recent history of playoffs. I’d be curious if you agree, and how big the gap is

Ben Clemens: so, I definitely think so

Ben Clemens: I don’t feel confident in saying how big the gap is, and I think it’s very contextual, like I can’t give you a generic answer b/c each team’s exact picture matters a lot

Ben Clemens: but yes. teams that are almost never in the playoffs derive more value from reaching the playoffs. I definitely think that

Ben Clemens: I also think that the state of your farm system and state of your ML roster matters, and generally speaking,t eh teams who have been in the playoffs more times recently have both a)more ML options already in the fold who might bounce back or get healthy or break out or whatnot and b)worse farms, because they’ve been buyers for years

Siddharth Nair: Lower the mound and have the pitchers pitch up at batters, follow me for more dumb ways to increase batting average

formerly matt w: Not a trade value thing, but the token All-Star representatives from the teams with the worst records at the break are… the leader in WAR for his league and the leader in active career WAR, who is having a great season. Can’t happen that often!

Ben Clemens: haha what a time for the al star rule to work

formerly matt w: Cal Raleigh is messing with my head on the rater. Gotta figure there’s an excellent chance he bounces back to at least a steady 3-win player, right?

Ben Clemens: buddy, he’s messing wiht my head in the article

Ben Clemens: I think there’s a VERY good chance he bounces back to steady state 3+ WAR

Ben Clemens: but catchers

Ben Clemens: what the heck do you do with catchers

Bacterun: For increasing the batting average, what do you think of limiting teams to 11 pitchers? or some other number below 13. Along with some increased regulations around options to prevent endless roster churn. I worry that doing this might increase batting average by increasing pitcher injuries leading to less talented pitchers occupying more innings, not how i would want batting average to improve but an idea I’ve seen bandied about.

Ben Clemens: yes, I like this one as well. I think I might do 12? But I think this is very unlikely to happen

Ben Clemens: because like you said, it could be a player safety issue

liljebbie10: How high will Konnor Griffin be in the Trade Value Series? Top 10?

Ben Clemens: I’m giving a lot of thought to where to put Griffin but I don’t think I’m spoiling anything to say he’s on there and not at the bottom

Ben Clemens: My mindset is generally to prefer players who are already doing it

Ben Clemens: I’m pretty consistently lower than the consensus on top prospects who have not yet done it in the majors

Ben Clemens: but ‘top prospects’ is a big tent and Griffin is not your average #1 overall prospect

Ben Clemens: I just did a big update to our prospect valuation numbers, and 70 FV hitters have been worth a LOT on average in the 21st century

Ben Clemens: like, way more than 65s, which is more of your average ‘top dude’

Ben Clemens: the extension’s good too. and 250 PA of above average ML play from a 20 year old is very impressive

Ben Clemens: so like, I’m probably going to put him somewhere that makes the surplus value focused set go “ew c’mon he’s THAT low?’

Ben Clemens: but that number is still going to be quite high

didace: Increase batting average: It’s been said a lot (at least by me) – Quit calling as many checked swings as strikes. Maybe even have the bat head need to cross an invisible line to the pitching rubber. Pitchers throw so hard now it is impossible to stop your swing by the current way of calling it.

Ben Clemens: another good one!

Ben Clemens: they’re actually testing this one, I should have mentioned it earlier probably

Ben Clemens: also this one is in keeping with past ways baseball has been called, which m akes this wonderful

bosoxforlife: Does the industries rather rapid move away from long-term ridiculous contracts to higher AAV and shorter deals affect your trade value analysis?

Ben Clemens: yeah 100%

Ben Clemens: for one thing, it makes guys who can contribute those top-end results a bit more valuable. Because they’ve become harder to acquire in free agency without paying a really premium amount

Ben Clemens: but largely, there just aren’t as many low-for-long deals on there anymore, and those types of deals where a guy signed a low-for-long extension and then broke out were almost always at the top of the list

Ben Clemens: so I think that the general composition is changing. Also this is a big transition year in terms of who the best players have been, lot of young names at the top of leaderboards

Swings Low: How does the Cubs preseason extension for PCA affect his standing in the trade value rankings? Does the increased money in the early years offset the extra two years they bought?

Ben Clemens: makes him more valuable for me

Ben Clemens: hard for me to imagine not wanting to employ him in those years. find the early year savings elsewhere, the late year value is a meaningful bump for me

Loubrock Shakur: Not sure if he’ll make the list, but I’m very curious about the trade value of a dude like Jordan Walker, who was trending towards being non-tendered, but now has half a season of all-star numbers and peripherals to back them up. Are folks fully in, or does one still have to bake in the terrible years into his trade value?

Ben Clemens: buddy so am I!

Ben Clemens: I have a lot of guys in a roughly similar area as Walker. Michael Busch, Ben Rice (probably the best of the bunch, to be clear), even Ivan Herrera. Soderstrom? Where it’s a plus bat, not a lot of ancillary value, and there are various question marks and possible upsides to consider

Ben Clemens: Like, you definitely have to bake in the terrible past years. But also, you have to consider the former top prospect status too

Ben Clemens: One thing that I think is fair to say is that Walker probably has higher value to the Cardinals than to a team trading for him

Ben Clemens: because if you’re trading for Walker, it has to look like a win when you do it

Ben Clemens: if you trade for him at his high value mark and then he regresses, that’s just a backbreaker

Ben Clemens: and that kind of stuff matters, in my opinion

Ben Clemens: it’s a really tough problem to square

Ben Clemens: but basically if Walker stays this good, he’s very valuable. If he regresses back a little, he’s still pretty valuable, but not really top 50 level

Ben Clemens: and how you weight those two odds is the whole ballgame

cosmichero: Am I an overly optimistic (/maybe pessimistic) Nats fan for thinking Wood is already basically impossible to extend? What kind of offer would it take to even bring him to the table?

Ben Clemens: yeah I kinda think he is at this point

Ben Clemens: Boras client, sky’s the limit for his deal in free agency

bosoxforlife: I have commented several times on the checked swing variable. The cynical side of me thinks it is the umpires way of showing their still the boss now that the ABS has taken away that power. Off to visit my cardiologist so I can enjoy many, many more of these chats.

Ben Clemens: best of luck. and agree with you

Andre Mouchard: I know this is the deadest of horses, but the idea that the Bosox should trade Chapman and Gray — and generally raise the white flag on the ’26 season — is a huge bummer. Will ticket prices come down to reflect the lack of front office effort? Will there be an ad campaign that says something along the lines of “Come watch the Red Sox sorta, kinda, maybe try to win, and be happy if they lose because it’ll boost their odds for next year!’?” Nope to both. What’s more, nobody will look down on Bosox management for what is, essentially, fraud. I don’t care much about the Bosox, specifically, and I’ve rooted for teams (the Lakers, the Rams, the Dodgers) that probably went for it, stupidly, when they should have tanked. So I understand the left-brain argument here; tanking is smart business. But I think, collectively, sports fans have decided it’s OK for the owners of their favorite teams to give up and, at the same time, get paid a tiny bit more in the process. Let me help: It’s not.

Ben Clemens: yeah generally concur. I’m not gonna add any more thoughts here, just wanted to post yours because I thought it was well said

cosmichero: It seems like trade value is just different to different teams right? Like the strasburg deal was a much bigger problem to the nats than say bogaerts will be to the padres

Ben Clemens: absolutely. I basically look at this as a best of. like waht’s the highest trade value that someone would have.

Ben Clemens: Like, if only one team wants to trade for you, eh, you’d probably get traded at a discount to fair value

Ben Clemens: but how big is the difference between five teams going for someone and 17?

Ben Clemens: probably not as much

Ben Clemens: so I think for me, the key is whetehr there are enough suitors to produce a reasonable bidding war that would prevent someone getting dealt below fair value

Ben Clemens: so like, Juan Soto? Not on the list. Clearly not going to be a bidding war for him

Ben Clemens: but Corbin Carroll/ Sure, he’s making 20 mil a year, but lots of teams would love to pay Corbin Carroll 20 mil a year to play for them

Broken Bat: I observed the Cubs pick of DeLaCruz with the 1st baseman playing off instead of holding him on. It was a timing play. Aasaad threw to Busch first pickoff. Why don’t more teams implement this? The runner would seemingly be potentially stepping back to first base on occasion when pitch is delivered. Hope I explained this….

Ben Clemens: yeah, I understand this, and I think I agree with you

Ben Clemens: it’s the daylight play, transposed, kinda

Ben Clemens: I think it’s a good idea .I’m not sure why more teams have not tried it. Maybe just b/c it feels weird and they don’t want to risk looking foolish?

WonderWall: re: Jordan Walker being most valuable to the Cards
That is why Duran is still on the Red Sox (I wanted to get in on the Red Sox trend and I’m not a fan of the team).  The team moving him wants peak value and the team acquiring him is worried about the risk/or believes that the one season was peak value.

Ben Clemens: yeah, similar case for sure

Ben Clemens: basically the guys who spike big years are always going ot have slightly lower trade value than you’d expect, or at least, that’s my view

Ben Clemens: I think there’s a general bias towards risk aversion, one that makes decent sense, in running a team

Ben Clemens: and that this is a case where that informs trade value

sliderinthedirt: How does the “extend every young guy” strategy work out if you’re not so smart about it? Like the Roman Anthony contract is good, the Bello and Campbell contracts, not so much. Does this trio as a collective have positive trade value?

Ben Clemens: it works out okay

Ben Clemens: like, thoes three do for sure

Ben Clemens: that’s why teams like this strategy

Ben Clemens: you don’t need to hit THAT often to make these deals work, and also to have them be a win-win

Ben Clemens: but of course, the more teams do this, the more they extend this strategy, the closer you get to it not working anymore

Ben Clemens: it’s like this. if 100% of your extensions work out for you, you’re not doing enough extensions

Ben Clemens: but you can’t just give EVERYONE an extension, you can’t take this too far. Teams are pushing the limits of how far to take it and I don’t know if we’ve seen the results yet

TeeSto11: On the guys with big spike years having lower trade value than peak- does this apply to the cases where some specific measurable change was enacted that teams may feel it’s more sustainable? I guess my example would be Emerson Hancock

Ben Clemens: applies less to them, but still does. Like, okay, Hancock is a good exmaple. strong improvement this year, some measurable change happened, it’s not just random numbers. but true talent levels aren’t stationary. I’m a lot less confident that this level (91 FIP-) is his true talent than I am that it’s, say, Michael King’s

Brian Reinhart: As a Nats fan, reading all the questions about “the league is imbalanced, too much pitching, limit number of pitchers” sure is a trip!

Ben Clemens: yeah maybe we should just let the Nats make pitching staffs for everyone

Ben Clemens: this is why they’re one of my favorite teams to watch – they buck a lot of the common trends in baseball at the moment. They’re scoring 5.32 runs a game! that’s wild

Ben Clemens: theyr’e allowing 5.25

thejack20: Does Trout have an equivalent in history to have such a peak but no postseason and cultural relevance? I know early in his career he was the poster child for sabermetrics and brought WAR into mainstream baseball conscience, but otherwise he’s been surpassed by Ohtani as the icon of the generation, and by Judge (imo) as the best hitter of the generation.

Ben Clemens: It’s had for me to go back in history to know exactly how these guys were perceived an everything

Ben Clemens: also baseball is a lot less culturally dominant now than it was when, say, Cap Anson played

Ben Clemens: like, I only know about Cap Anson from playing out of the park. I can’t really tell you how he was perceived. But probably he was famous because great baseball players were famous then

Ben Clemens: of somewhat modern players, Jeff Bagwell has 80 WAR and I think that would shock people

Ben Clemens: but mostly no, there aren’t a lot of Trouts

warpath: On extensions: We’ve seen a lot of really, really good young SP debut this year or last year. Do you think we start to see some early extensions for some of these guys? Teams are always going to be more wary of a pitcher’s arm exploding, but it feels like there may be room to exploit a market inefficiency here for an enterprising GM

Ben Clemens: I do think that, yes

Ben Clemens: especially because if I’m a pitcher, I don’t hate taking some certainty

Andre Mouchard: Is Andy Pages a top 50 trade value candidate? Generally, are players who generate a lot of WS via defense still undervalued, trade-wise?

Ben Clemens: well, I think I might argue that players who genearte a lot of their value via defense are properly valued lower, because it’s easier to find defense for cheap than it is to find transcendent offense for cheap

Ben Clemens: but also, Pages is in the 50

Bacterun: A request for next years trade value game. Give us a certain number of custom selectable matchups, as long as this wouldnt break the model. I’m pretty happy with my top 20 but would like to reorder some of it and its difficult to get the correct match ups to do this.

Ben Clemens: that’s fun, I’ll mention it, haven’t thought off the top of my head about how feasible that is

thaalderman: Re: the 1B daylight play. I’d guess that the perceived risk of messing it up plays into teams’ calculations. Airmail the throw to 2B and the CF is there to back it up, and the runner might not even take 3B since they’re moving back to the base. Airmail the throw to 1B, and the ball is bouncing around in RF foul territory while the runner moves into scoring position, or possibly even takes 3B too.

Ben Clemens: yeah good point

Ben Clemens: I tend to agree iwth this

bosoxforlife: It has been almost 100 games and the ABS system is firmly established. My number takeaway has been the dramatic improvement in the umpiring. I used to fear, and expect, to see a hitter getting rung up on a pitch well outside the zone and that isn’t the case this year and the 3-0 pitch isn’t an automatic strike anymore either. Now just add a couple more challenges.

Ben Clemens: concur, and missed this aerlier but just wanted to add it here now

Ben Clemens: Yeah, ABS turns out to be pretty much loved

Ben Clemens: I don’t think that’s particularly surprising. but i’m glad to see it

Ben Clemens: okay guys, this was a very dense hour of chatting but I have a lot of staring at player pages and tables of contract data to get done

Ben Clemens: and Roman Anthony

Ben Clemens: hoo boy, how do you rate Roman Anthony

Ben Clemens: anyway, I’m off to figure that out

Ben Clemens: have a wonderful week

Ben Clemens: oh, and world cup semis! and finals! what a time to be alive