Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 3/20/23

Ben Clemens: Hey everybody, welcome to the chat.

Ben Clemens: There’s a lot of baseball content coming out at FanGraphs this week, highlighted by the positional power rankings that we’ve all been churning away at over the past week or two. I find it a tiring but fun exercise every year, and I hope you’ll enjoy my shortstop and starting pitching blurbs.

Ben Clemens: Preview: the guys who teams gave giant boatloads of money over the past two years are mostly very good

Ben Clemens: So is Wander Franco

Ben Clemens: There’s also the WBC semifinal tonight and final tomorrow, both of which should be great. I wrote some WBC content that will be coming out tomorrow

Ben Clemens: So a quick word of warning: I’m going to avoid treading on my PPR colleagues’ toes today, so if you want to know whether I like x first baseman over y first baseman, bad luck, you’ll have to wait for Jay Jaffe to tell you tomorrow

Ben Clemens: Let’s begin!

Will: Will Brett Baty make the team? Should he?

Ben Clemens: I think he’s going to start the season in the minors, but I’m a lot less sure of that than I was before ST

Ben Clemens: I also don’t think it matters *that* much. He’s gonna end up playing a lot in the majors this year whether he breaks camp with the team or not

Ben Clemens: I just think they’ll roll with Guillorme as the backup infielder to start; it’s hard to squeeze in Guillorme, Escobar, and Baty unless they let go of Darin Ruf

Ben Clemens: That’s where push will come to shove, and I think it’ll happen, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see him start in Triple-A

CP: Not a question, but I’ve really enjoyed binge listening to FanGraphs Backstories lately. Really cool hearing about everyone’s different experiences.

Ben Clemens: Oh man, they’re extremely fun to record as well.

Ben Clemens: We’re taking a hiatus to get production sorted out with Dylan leaving, but I’m excited to continue the series when we start FG Audio back up again

Ben Clemens: My colleagues are fascinating

Hampton: Do you think Yankees SS Volpe will make the team come opening day? If not, why?

Ben Clemens: I think he will

Mr Met: Who would you rather have on your team for the next three years (especially in a OBP fantasy league): Wander Franco or Gunnar Henderson?

Wander: is Wander Franco better than peak Jean Segura?

Ben Clemens: Lot of Wander questions today, so I’ll try to blend these two together

Ben Clemens: I think that Wander is already better than peak Segura, though it’s a good shape-of-production comp in broad strokes

Ben Clemens: Franco walks more and hits for more power, but has similar swing-a-lot-never-miss tendencies at the plate

Ben Clemens: And I’d take Franco for the next three years. I think he’s a better real life player than fantasy player, but I’m also less worried about both his playing time and whether it’ll take him a year to adjust to the majors

Ben Clemens: Not that Henderson is particularly blocked, but I think you have to bake in some risk of him starting slow and getting a quick MiLB assignment to shake off the rust

Ben Clemens: plenty of rookies work out and just jam from day one but it’s not a given. I don’t think it’ll happen to Henderson, but if you’re being responsible, you have to bake in more risk

bosoxforlife: Do the Rockies have an opening for a closer?

Ben Clemens: Ever heard of this guy Daniel Bard?

Ben Clemens: Oh, you have and that’s why you’re asking?

Ben Clemens: I like Pierce Johnson’s upside, so I think he has a shot at taking over the closer role if Bard continues to have 20 command

Sonny: I believe tonight’s semifinal game has a great chance to be the best professional baseball game played until September. More WBC please!

Ben Clemens: I’m very excited for this game. I haven’t seen Sasaki pitch aside from highlights

Ben Clemens: It’s gonna be good. What about tomorrow’s game though??

NOOOOTTTT: I’ve heard that Nootbaar might be up for a platoon role with Walker’s strong showing.  It’d be a shame to see him not get close to 550+ PAs this year

Ben Clemens: I would be extremely shocked if this were the case. Is the idea that he’d sit in favor of Yepez against lefties? I’d rather sit Carlson than Nootbaar

Oaktown Blues: The A’s looking at Vegas is just one giant bluff by Fisher/Manfred to put pressure on the city of Oakland, right? If Manfred wants to expand, why would he move a team from a viable locale (which Oakland absolutely is) to one of the more desirable expansion sites?

Ben Clemens: That’s my guess, but Fisher has consistently managed the team into the ground in Oakland, and may have poisoned the well, so to speak

Guest: What am I missing about Alek Manoah? A basic look at his stats suggests he’s a decent pitcher who had very good luck last year.

Ben Clemens: I think you’re missing his durability and the fact that his fastball is really good. It’s one of those fastballs that just works thanks to shape, and workhorses like that are valuable at least partially because of their rarity

Planet Dust: In a piece on US-Cuba Passan referred to Japan as “still the favorite” in WBC and it was sort of an aside but–he’s wrong, isn’t he?

Ben Clemens: Not after accounting for matchups

Ben Clemens: Mexico is much better than Cuba, and then also the US has already won, so obviously the US is the favorite even if they’re worse than Japan

Ben Clemens: I would have made the US and Japan even going into the elimination rounds, though

Oaktown Blues: Am I foolish to bet the over on the A’s this year? They’re not gonna be good but sportsbooks think they won’t clear 60 wins, which seems overly pessimistic

Ben Clemens: I don’t think you’re foolish. I think there’s some expectation that they’re going to keep trying to tear down baked in there

Ben Clemens: But really, what else is there to tear dowN??

Dave: If the Yankees made O.Cabrera their full time left fielder he would be the ___th best LF in the game.

Ben Clemens: Spitballing here: 13th

JJ: Any thoughts on the game terrraforming mars? You a fan?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, love it. It’s a bit heavy for frequent play, but I find the engines really satisfying to spin, and I love the flavor

Ben Clemens: Trees -> oxygen -> points -> trees ->cities, you just keep spinning and spinning and I enjoy games with loops like that

Grant: Have you played Blood on the Clocktower? and do you generally enjoy social deduction games?

Ben Clemens: Never played, I generally like them but don’t get much chance to play b/c I don’t have a big group to play them with

Liz: How much does bad defense *actually* hurt a team, compared to how agonizing it is to watch? The Red Sox have made three errors and a couple non-error misplays in four innings of today’s ST game and it is excruciating.

Ben Clemens: Oh bad defense hurts, but errors hurt disproportionately much to how much they matter

Ben Clemens: I completely sympathize, though

Ben Clemens: There’s nothing more frustrating to watch (or enjoyable if it’s gifting your team baserunners) than a flubbed defensive play

Ben Clemens: The ones where they don’t get to the ball? You either don’t notice them or forget them. But when the ball hits their glove and then doesn’t turn into an out? Ooooooh it’s maddening

Ed: Hey Ben. How many ABs this season for Josh Lowe and TJ Friedl? Any guesstimate on their respective OPS and stolen base numbers? Thanks.

Ben Clemens: Roster Resource and our depth charts are the place to go for playing time projections

Ben Clemens: It’d be foolish of me to think I can beat those

John: Who delivers more WAR this year: Byron Buxton – perpetually hurt but awesome when he plays; or Jarred Kelenic – post-hype, top 5 prospect who’s only disappointed, thus far but by all accounts looks great at the moment?

Ben Clemens: EZ Buxton for me

Ben Clemens: If he plays half a season, I think that’ll be enough

Ben Clemens: Not that Kelenic is bad, but Buxton is one of the best players in baseball when he’s healthy

bosoxforlife: I have asked this of other Fangraphs contributors? The Braves have clearly embarrassed the other front offices with their early signings and the rest of the game is playing catchup. When do you think is the optimal time to get a young “probable” star and, of course every player is unique, but  do you have any thoughts on length and amount?

Ben Clemens: I think that’s a really broad question that is absolutely beyond the scope of a tossed-off chat answer

Ben Clemens: But generally speaking, I think that the more budget constrained you are, the more you should look into going the JRod/Carroll/Franco route

Ben Clemens: that’s assuming you develop someone like that, obv

Ben Clemens: and the more budget you have, the more you should try the Braves’ breadth-based approach

RTJ: I’m excited to watch WBC tonight with all this hype for Roki Sasaki. Are you buying the hype?

Ben Clemens: So far I am!

Ben Clemens: 17 perfect innings in a row, he’s gonna be fun to watch

Brett: As a Yankee fan am I right to be extremely worried about the rotation injuries and depth? Outside of Cole it’s a lot of hopeful wishing right now.

Ben Clemens: Let me just say this: The Yankees have our best projected rotation

Ben Clemens: so like, you’re a Yankees fan, you should worry that it’s only the third-best team money can buy instead of the best, that’s what you do

Ben Clemens: But they have enviable depth, it’s really hard to have enough pitching for EVERYONE, not just the Yankees

Ben Clemens: They go pretty deep with viable pitchres, which really helps

Hampton: Luis Arráez surprised me in the WBC as to how well he hits & hits for some pop. I’m a little surprised the Twins traded him.

Ben Clemens: I mean, he doesn’t actually hit for that much pop historically

Ben Clemens: He had two homers in the game against hte US, which I’m sure is what you’re referring to… but no other homers in the WBC, and only 8 in 600 PA last year

Ben Clemens: I think Arraez is a really fun player, the batting average is real, he hits a ton of line drives

Ben Clemens: But like… he is what he is, and that’s a nice positionless bat

Ben Clemens: Tremendously fun to watch, to be clear

Wireless Joe Jackson: Remember when Trea Turner hit that go-ahead grand slam?  I bet that was cool to watch.  Too bad Fox had cut back to commercial and everyone missed the WHOLE AT-BAT.

Ben Clemens: Oh really? I somehow was able to watch it

Ben Clemens: I wonder if I was on a different broadcast or something

Big Fan: Any thoughts on Braden Shewmake, dark horse candidate for the Braves SS job?

Sharp: In a surprising turn in Braves camp, Braden Shewmake is making a strong case to be the opening day SS.

Ben Clemens: Boy, this specific camp battle has been stressing me out

Ben Clemens: I am trying to figure out the Braves blurb at shortstop and it’s just so confusing

Morbo: Follow up to my last question: Why are the Cardinals seemingly incapable of fixing failing hitters, like Matt Carpenter and Paul DeJong, and why doesn’t Mozeliak seem incapable admitting his mistakes and moving on from those players (and Dexter Fowler as another example)?

Ben Clemens: (the previous question was about Paul DeJong)

Ben Clemens: I think it’s availability heuristic, though. The Cardinals HAVE fixed guys who weren’t doing well. Think Kolten Wong and even Tommy Edman. Heck, think Tyler O’Neill

Ben Clemens: I’ll give you the moving on thing, but I think the Cardinals are generally slow-moving in roster decisions as a franchise for better or worse

Ben Clemens: That’s just an organizational thing. I think it might be worth it overall, but it definitely leads to some ‘get that bum out of here’ moments

bosoxforlife: The WBC has exceeded my expectations by miles. The passion and excitement of the fans in Japan and the Latin American countries is fun to watch and adds so much excitement. If baseball really wants to grow this should be a biennial event.

Ben Clemens: Heck yeah, I’ve loved it

Ben Clemens: I didn’t know how much I would like it b/c I haven’t followed it before, but it’s awesome and the combination of single elimination stakes and how much the teams care is amazing

Ben Clemens: even Mike Trout is going nuts

Sharp: “In a piece on US-Cuba Passan referred to Japan as “still the favorite” in WBC and it was sort of an aside but–he’s wrong, isn’t he?” I know it’s been popular to pick against the USA, but they’ve always been the favorites. People just think it’s cute to be a contrarian.

Ben Clemens: the DR was the gambling favorite going into the tourney

Colton: As a person who thinks Dylan Carlson should probably stop switch hitting. Is there any reason that hasn’t been brought up? They’ve done it with Edman in the past and the splits are not nearly as ghastly for him

Ben Clemens: b/c I think there’s less reason to believe that Carlson’s is a true talent issue hitting righties

Ben Clemens: maybe I’m wrong, I just think it’s more fluky than this is who he is

Air Yordan: Give me 3 guesses on who leads mlb in innings pitched this year

Ben Clemens: Sandy, Manoah, dark horse Corbin Burnes

Farhandrew Zaidman: Was Waino’s velo down this much last year? Call me skeptical, but I’m not sold on your ability to get MLB dudes out with a sub-87 FB unless your name is Neikro or Moyer.

Ben Clemens: This much? No

Ben Clemens: I’m worried!

Dave: PBRASAP  What do you make of Luke Voit pushing his opt out back a week for the Brewers?  Is it because he doesn’t have any other offers or the Brewers trying to make room for him?

Ben Clemens: My guess is that it’s some of column A, some of column B

Ben Clemens: If he had an awesome offer, he’d jump on it. If the Brewers told him it was a complete no-go, I think he’d leave and go hunt for something. He seems to be in the middle, so seems like a reasonable decision to defer that opt out

RTJ: Do you like old western movies? What’s your favorite?

Ben Clemens: I absolutely loved For a Fistful of Dollars

Ben Clemens: it’s basically an entire movie about vibes, and Clint Eastwood is great at giving off cool guy vibes

Dan: Which players hit/pitched the best in the WBC so far? I tried to look this up but didn’t find a good source of consolidated stats.

Ben Clemens: It’s super annoying, right? On the US side, Turner and Goldschmidt have been standouts, with Realmuto up there as well in part-time play

Ben Clemens: Other standouts: Edouard Julien was outright ridiculous for Canada, how does a 1.821 OPS sound to you?

Ben Clemens: Randy Arozarena has been lighting it up, Juan Soto hit .400/.500/1.000 lol

Ben Clemens: Euji Yang, one of my favorite players who will absolutely never play in MLB, was a bright spot for Korea

Ben Clemens: Ohtani has been bopping, Moncada got scalding hot for a bit there

Ben Clemens: pitching wise, uh, maybe no one? The WBC is not really about pitching

Ben Clemens: Ohtani looked good, Yoshinobu Yamamoto was unconscious in his four innings, Roki Sasaki too (3.2 instead of 4 for him)

Ben Clemens: Luis Garcia had that epic performance against the US

Crone Zone: Let’s say everything works out swimmingly for the Cardinals. What position player do they end up trading from their surplus? Gorman, Donovan, Edman, Carlson? Walker feels like the only sure bet to stay

Ben Clemens: Gorman, I think. I think they’d have a hard time getting what they consider to be fair value for Donovan, Edman feels like a really good fit for the way they like to build their infield, and they’d be trading Carlson low right now

New UK fan: Just wanted to say thank for the options article – very much enjoyed it. Next up, Black-Scholes for baseball contracts?

Ben Clemens: Haha, no. I think one of the benefits of analyzing real-world options like this instead of derivatives-market ones is that you don’t need a Black Scholes like formula with implied volatility and all that

Ben Clemens: You can just Monte Carlo it out without the need for fancy math

Ben Clemens: Let’s just say I considered it at length when coming up with how I wanted to build my options models

tortycraig: most underrated benefit of the pitch clock is reducing the amount of time I ever have to listen to John Smoltz talk about the pitch clock in a game without a pitch clock

Ben Clemens:

Pat: I’m a Tigers fan, I love fans of successful teams like STL complaining that they can’t fix “broken” hitters..Hell, we can never get a hitter good enough to see what they look like “unbroken”

Ben Clemens: Yeah, Cardinals fans agonize over the team’s inability to fix broken hitters. Other teams agonize over how the hell these guys on the Cardinals they’ve never heard of are just BOPPING

Ben Clemens: Brendan Donovan? c’mon, man, that’s a create-a-player, or maybe one of the MLB The Show devs sneaking himself into the game

Lucas/DBITLefty: Hey Ben, hope all is well. I know there was a Volpe question in here earlier, so I’ll frame it this way – if the Yankees end up making him the Opening Day shortstop, which at this point I think they will, what happens to Oswald Peraza? Taking it a step further, if they chose to trade Peraza prior to the start of the season, what would they realistically be getting in return? (I think it’s much more likely they trade IKF.)

Ben Clemens: Yeah I think they’d trade IKF. I imagine they’d option Peraza rather than trade him, because it’s hard to get fair value for a near-majors ready prospect type when teams are already mostly set for the regular season

Ben Clemens: My guess is that their ideal long-term consideration involves Volpe and Peraza up the middle in some configuration

RTJ: “even Mike Trout is going nuts” – well he must enjoy playing in a real competition for once.

Ben Clemens: Harsh, but fair

Ben Clemens: I have an article that covers this thought more in depth coming out tomorrow, but I really love the immediacy of the WBC

Ben Clemens: a lot of these guys have never played in a tournament like this since becoming professionals

Ben Clemens: Trout conducts himself all year like he knows he’s trying to play hundreds of baseball games in a year

Ben Clemens: That’s fair — he’s trying to play hundreds of baseball games in a year!

Ben Clemens: But when it’s win tonight or stop playing, and you could legitimately lose to Fairleigh Dickinson or UMBC or Team Great Britain, the emotions flow a little more freely

Dan: Josh Donaldson has a ___ week leash with the Yankees before losing his starting job.

Ben Clemens: Myabe I’m just too down on him

Ben Clemens: But as Lucas mentioned up above, they have a really complicated infield situation, and Donaldson is the weak link in my eyes

Dave: Hayden Wesneski and Javier Assad are battling for the 5th spot in the Cubs rotation. Are they both already top 5 pitchers in the org?

Ben Clemens: I was really impressed by what Assad looked like in the WBC when he was geared up for relief

Ben Clemens: I think there’s research to be done, maybe by teams maybe public side, on figuring out which pitchers will most benefit from a velo boost

Ben Clemens: or from a spin boost, or whatnot; from throwing harder in shorter intervals

Insert Witty Name Here: No questions about Soto’s injury yet? How many bags do you think he’ll steal this year?

Ben Clemens: Doesn’t seem that bad? I guess we’ll have to monitor it, but he looked fine in the WBC and it sounds like this was just precautionary since he hadn’t done a normal spring ramp-up with SD

Ben Clemens: no clue how that translates into steals, I’m not a projection system sadly

Kevin: A friend told me baseball has too many TLAs (three letter acronyms).

Ben Clemens: they aren’t wrong

Morbo: Brendan Donovan is the best argument for MLB expansion followed shortly by Willians Astudillo. Both are everyday players in a 36 team league and one is a borderline star

Ben Clemens: Teams are just bursting at the seams with good players these days, particularly pitchers

Ben Clemens: The bullpen shuttle is full of guys who are probably too good to be on the bullpen shuttle, but hwat can you do

Mr. Burrito: Hey, am I crazy for liking the Dodgers strategy this year? All I seem to hear is they’re taking too big a gamble by infusing the lineup with various doses of Outman and Vargas and probably Pepiot. But, at some point, don’t you have to see what the farm really has?

Ben Clemens: I like it a little bit less since they didn’t manage to reset cap penalties, but I think people are overrating how bad it is to just be excellent instead of unstoppable for a year

Ben Clemens: I like the idea of concentrating a lot of it at once, I think the Miguels are both underrated and that Rojas will be a perfectly acceptable shortstop stopgap, and I’m obviously Team Vargas

Ben Clemens: Change is scary, and this isn’t quite the Dodgers of recent vintage, but I think it’s a cleverly managed transition. The real question is whether they are willing to pivot depending on how the year starts

Wireless Joe Jackson: They’d be fools to trade Edman.

Ben Clemens: That’s the wrong way to go about dealing with surplus

Morbo: Making children’s toys that have non-captive screws for battery covers should be a crime punishable by death.

Ben Clemens: End (most) capital punishment

Steve O: Have you watched Volpe this spring? Thoughts on if you think he has the arm to play 3B in case a certain Yankees 3B is cooked?

Ben Clemens: I haven’t watched a lot of him, but I assume they’d prefer him at second just based on what I’ve read

Dan’l: PPI!! Do you think teams actually feel at all incentivized to aggressively promote a star prospect, with the prospect promotion incentive? i.e., are the Cards even 10% more likely to get Jordan Walker on the ML roster to start the season with the chance he gets in the top 2 for rookies, and they get a draft pick?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I think it’s a tiebreaker that actually matters

Ben Clemens: But for the most part, I think it matters more earlier in the offseason, in the planning how the team is going to look phase

Ben Clemens: Like, in previous years the O’s might have built their team around having Henderson start in the minors, grab some additional veteran depth or something

Chip: Mark Appel was released. No question, but just pointing out that baseball is hard and there’s no such thing as a ‘can’t miss prospect’.

Ben Clemens: He had a really wonderful Twitter thread basically about just this

Ben Clemens: I’m gonna dig it up really quickly

Ben Clemens:

Ben Clemens: Little late today. Out buying a zoo, perhaps?

Dylan Carlson: Do you think it’s too early to give up on him in the roto world? The Walker hype has somewhat coincided with his downfall on draft boards. He’s still young and could lead off against lefties in a stacked lineup.

Ben Clemens: I don’t pay a ton of attention to changing ADP’s or anything like that, but I think that his eventual value is still up in the air

Jfast: Thoughts on David Hensley, assuming he gets the majority of reps at 2B while Altuve is out?

Ben Clemens: The odds are stacked against him, and I think our projections are probably reasonable there, league average ish hitter

Ben Clemens: He has a career 194 major league wRC+ right now, that’s amazing

Ben Clemens: Nice guy to have around, don’t think he will keep a starting job after Altuve gets back, he’ll just be nice infield depth

Joe Don: Just for the record, some of us don’t think of Fistful Of

Joe Don: dollars as “old.”

Ben Clemens: Haha well I don’t know any westerns older than that but I suppose it’s all relative

Steve O: I’m sure Volpe is a better fit a 2B, but he’s not better than Gleyber Torres I don’t think.

Ben Clemens: Can Gleyber play third?

Ben Clemens: I guess he’s also not a big arm strength guy

Ben Clemens: I dunno, some permutation of those three sounds good to me

Dennis: Esteury Ruiz stole 85 bases in the minors last year. How do you think that he will do in Oakland this year. All that speed would be fun to watch.

Ben Clemens: He was on my mid-tier hitters I like list

Ben Clemens: I used data to guess which hitters would be good

Ben Clemens: oooooh, data

The guy who asks the lunch question: What’s for lunch?

Ben Clemens: Today I’m having leftover lentils I made last night, originally from this cookbook “Small Victories” by Julia Turshen but modified by my wife to add some spice

Ben Clemens: Would recommend, lentils and bloomed spices are delicious

MyOhMy: Bref and Fangraphs have Marco Gonzales at about 9 war total for the mariners. They have O’Neill at a similar amount for stl. With the benefit of hindsight, Who won the trade? (Also baseball prospectus warp has Gonzalez as a significantly below replacement value pitcher for his career and I can’t figure out why such a strong disagreement between metrics. )

Ben Clemens: I think this is a rare case of both teams winning

Ben Clemens: Maybe not that rare, I don’t know. The Cardinals would not have been able to use that Marco Gonzales pitching depth because of team construction, and I think the Mariners were so busy shuffling through outfielders at the time that O’Neill’s slow progression wouldn’t have panned out

Ben Clemens: Like, I think the Cards got the better of it overall, I’m surprised they didn’t get at least some other considerations back in it. But I think that both teams are better off than if they had not made the trade

Jfast: Just got my first slow cooker / instant pot. Any recipe recs?

Ben Clemens: Ooh, I’m not sure which one I like the most, but I’d make buffalo chicken dip

Ben Clemens: There’s an NY Times one, plus seemingly a billion from other outlets

Ben Clemens: I also really like black bean chili, I’ve used this recipe before:

Ben Clemens: I modified it for more spice and more veggies and it was delicious

Dan: Who is likely to pitch for team USA? Is anyone unable to pitch because like Ohtani the finals is too close season start date?

Ben Clemens: Ha, that’d require teams to have opening day starters

Ben Clemens: I guess maybe that’s waino? I dunno

Ben Clemens: I guess it’ll probably be Merrill Kelly

Ben Clemens: With a parade of people available behind him to make it a semi-bullpen game

The guy who asks the lunch question: Team USA named Kelly for the final

Ben Clemens: sweet! I look smart now

Eh?: You are touring an open house that you are interested in buying when you discover a hole, 4 feet in diameter, in the basement floor. Do you:

a) Jump in the hole while saying “Geronimo”
b) Throw a glow stick in the hole to see how deep it is (you’d have to go to the store to buy one)
c) Buy the house anyway and just put a rug over the hole
d) Perform a dance ritual around the hole

Ben Clemens: Okay, time to stop and think about this one for a second

Ben Clemens: I mean, it’s pitch black? I can’t shine a flashlight down there?

Ben Clemens: If it somehow eats light and nothing cna get in, I’m out

Key Flaw: I’ve enjoyed the WBC that I’ve been able to see, but all the injuries to stars makes me not want my team to send anyone next time. How does baseball balance that?

Ben Clemens: I mean… guys get hurt in spring training

Ben Clemens: I just don’t see it as that much of an issue

Dan: If a prospect is your best choice (win now perspective) for a utility player how many days a week do you need to play him before you worry about hurting his long term potential by not getting enough reps?

Ben Clemens: I’d want to play him 5 days a week, let’s say

Ben Clemens: I think this is a real concern, and a much more reasonable one than a lot of the BS people make up to keep prospects down

Morbo: “I also really like black bean chili, I’ve used this recipe before” those are fighting words paging Dan Szymborski.

Ben Clemens: Yes, Dan and I clearly disagree on what chili is

Ben Clemens: I don’t eat very much red meat, though, so I have to pick my battles

MattyP: Healthy Miguel Vargas looks ready to outperform FG’s 2023 projections. Dodgers have babied his wrist through the Spring. NL ROY material?

Ben Clemens: I’m totally team Vargas, as I said

WBC in Winter?: I’m so tired of all the bad takes on injuries in the WBC. Spring training is just as likely for injuries. People drop weights on their toes training. Why isn’t anyone pushing the narrative to relocating the time the WBC is played instead of this lame narrative about injuries… Move it to December and players have time to recoup from minor injuries and play in spring training. Win-win. We get the WBC and haters can shut up about injuries.

Ben Clemens: I’m into that idea, the big problem is that I’m not sure pitchers really want to keep going that long

Ben Clemens: Another option would be to play it in summer as an extended all star break once every few years

Appa Yip Yip: Didn’t Blake Snell once hurt himself moving a statue in his bathroom? Athletes get hurt. It sucks but it’s not gonna change.

Ben Clemens: Yeah but presumably it was a nice statue

Steve O: I’m a Clarke Schmidt fan.. but Mike King might just be a mid rotation starter if the Yankees stretched him out. He’s got two plus pitches and two other solid pitches. I think he can be a #3. Too late for this year, but maybe next year if Severino and Montas leave.

Ben Clemens: Agreed on this. The Yankees have a lot of these borderline starter/borderline multi-inning reliever types

Tom: With the injury to Altuve, does Semien go up a few slots, since 2B is so shallow?

Ben Clemens: Probably? I haven’t given it enough thought to say for sure but I’d feel a bit worse waiting on 2b with one fewer otpion out there

Ben Clemens: Yes, and concur

Guest: How do you like Patrick Sandoval’s chances tonight against Japan’s lineup? Obviously Sandoval vs. Ohtani will be fun…

Ben Clemens: I have no idea!

Ben Clemens: I love that I have no idea

Ben Clemens: Japan has just salted the earth so far, but they haven’t played much MLB-caliber pitching

ryan: There was a line in the Profar article about his value being hurt relative to Brantley or Drury just because they each have one particular skill that makes them stand out more whereas Profar does everything well enough. Do you agree with this assessment?

Ben Clemens: Monetarily, yes

Ben Clemens: Value-wise, I don’t think so?

Ummmm: I know the glowstick seems like the safest option, but I’d be really worried what gets thrown back out afterwards…

Ben Clemens: Alright, it seems like it’s about time to wrap this one up before someone throws a glowstick at me

Ben Clemens: I hope everyone enjoys the PPR’s, and of course Roki Sasaki aka pitching unicorn

Ben Clemens: Have a great week, and next week MLB starts!!!!