2:01 Ben Clemens: Hey everybody, welcome to the chat
2:01 Ben Clemens: Let’s just dive right in
2:02 Scratch: What major change to baseball will have taken place 50 years from now that we aren’t even talking about as a possibility right now (e.g. robo umps, etc)?
2:02 Ben Clemens: Number of fielders, maybe? Assuming there’s still baseball, of course
2:02 Guest: Who would you rather bet on panning out? A prospect who needs to lower his K rate by 5-10% or a prospect who needs to lower his GB rate by 5-10%?
2:03 Ben Clemens: It depends on other factors. If we’re talking a prospect far from the majors, like A ball, I’d definitely prefer the guy who hits too many grounders. Study after study shows that hitters who are striking out a ton in the low minors just cannot play at the major league level in general
2:03 Ben Clemens: The closer you get to the majors, the more I’m interested in the one with the higher strikeout rate. But honestly, it’s one of those questions where ‘all else being equal’ depends on what level all else is equal at
2:03 Mike: If London came to MLB and said “We have an ownership group ready to pay billions for an expansion team AND the city is willing to spring for for a new stadium,” would the league go for it?
2:03 Ben Clemens: surprisingly, I don’t think so
2:04 Ben Clemens: I just think the travel would be too onerous
2:05 Ben Clemens: They clearly understand how tough it is the way they schedule off days and such around travel and make sure to only play short series. But I just can’t imagine a 6-hour minimum flight for every series could be worked into the schedule without more teams in Europe forming another division of some type
2:05 Ben Clemens: So for me, it’s way more about advertising the game to sell TV broadcasts than about actually putting a team there permanently
2:05 Teaberry: Seems safe to assume the Phillies are a playoff team this year. What outfield are they rolling out for their first playoff game vs a right-handed pitcher?
2:06 Ben Clemens: I guess I’m assuming everyone’s healthy. So Marsh, Rojas, Dahl
2:07 Ben Clemens: I cannot imagine Castellanos in the field given how he’s playing
2:07 Ben Clemens: I know that they’re talking about playing Sosa in the outfield too at times, so maybe you can have him over Dahl or Rojas?
2:08 Braves: What do you think is causing the Braves’ YOY home run decline? Their barrel rate/hard hit is still excellent but they’re only 14th in HR to FB. Does some of this level out or is there something systemic?
2:08 Ben Clemens: I think some of it is gonna level out, though some of it is that they were unsustainably hot last year
2:08 Ben Clemens: also it doesn’t help that Acuna is out for the year
2:08 Brian: Have you seen data about how heavy-sellers perform after the deadline compared to before? I think we overstate the impact a few subtractions will make over two months of play. Anecdotally I can think of several teams who sold but played better afterwards – because regression and variance have a bigger impact than individual players.
2:09 Ben Clemens: So, this isn’t quite the same thing:
2:09 Ben Clemens: But I looked into how teams who are out of the playoff race perform, and they perform worse than you’d expect based on a Depth Charts rendering of their skill level
2:10 Brian: How would you think a Gunnar extension would compare to Witt’s or Riley’s?
2:10 Ben Clemens: I think it’d be pretty similar, but I haven’t done a deep dive to get more precise than that
2:10 Guest: Bichette, Guerrero, Verlander, Bregman, Bassitt, Jimenez, Robert, etc.–could this be the most star power we see traded at the deadline in recent memory?
2:11 Ben Clemens: Well, if all of these guys go (and sorry Chris Bassitt, but even if you don’t), yes
2:11 Ben Clemens: particularly Robert, Bichette, Bregman
2:11 Ben Clemens: We’re not too far removed from Juan Soto getting traded, and he’s a bigger star than anyone listed here
2:11 Ben Clemens: but if all these guys went, sure
2:11 Ben Clemens: I do think that the Jays are gonna have a lot to say about how the trade deadline goes
2:12 Ben Clemens: and the White Sox maybe too? The rumor is that they’re asking for a package bigger than what WAS got for Soto if they trade Robert, which in my opinion makes him unlikely to get dealt at all
2:12 Ben Clemens: but I can see why.
3.5 years of him sounds excellent
2:13 Ben Clemens: On the other hand…. he’s never hit 600 PA in a season, never hit 130 wRC+ in a full season, and since his debut he has 12 WAR to Soto’s 23
2:13 Ben Clemens: So it’s definitely a longshot that a team would offer that much
2:13 Derek: How has David Fry not yet earned an everyday role?
2:14 Ben Clemens: I’d argue that he almost has, just that his everyday role is ‘wherever someone else has a rest’
2:15 Ben Clemens: if you look at his last few weeks, he’s playing some mix of left and catcher, with the very occasional DH, but the only people getting meaningfully more PT are Ramirez and Josh Naylor
2:15 Ben Clemens: he’s getting the same PT as dudes I’d call regulars like Freeman, Kwan, Gimenez, Brennan
2:16 Ben Clemens: it’s just split all over the place
2:16 Insert Witty Name Here: A few chats ago someone asked what other sports you enjoy watching, and you said, IIRC, tennis because of the drama between two individuals for four hours. I watched a lot of Roland Garros these last two weeks and agree. My question is, if you could watch a pitcher/hitter match up as if it were a tennis match, meaning one pitcher and one hitter for 100 pitches (specifics can be discussed later), who would you like to see? My vote: DeGrom v Bonds which seems chalky.
2:16 Ben Clemens: Oh man, what a match yesterday
2:16 Ben Clemens: I missed the women’s final, but it turns out that was fine b/c Swiatek is just too good
2:16 Ben Clemens: but the men’s final was great
2:17 Ben Clemens: deGrom is half of mine for sure
2:17 Ben Clemens: Bonds is pretty exciting as a foil
2:17 Ben Clemens: I never got to see Willie Mays play so he’s probably my pick though
2:17 Ben Clemens: or maybe you do one per era
2:17 Ben Clemens: imagine Koufax/Mays on one channel, Maddux/Bonds on another, deGrom/Soto on a third
2:17 Nick Gonzales: Am I on a hot streak or have I figured some things out?
2:17 Ben Clemens: por que no los dos?
2:18 Ben Clemens: I’m forever gonna be a Gonzales truther b/c the first college baseball model I ever made thought he was the best hitter in a generation (yes, my park factors might have been off)
2:20 Ben Clemens: I think that he’s on an unsustainable contact hot streak, but that his approach of elevating to maximize his contact is gonna work great
2:20 Ben Clemens: and that there’s room for him to improve his chase rate a little, which makes me think a tailwind in walks and favorable counts could offset a BABIP slide
2:20 Nate: Fantastic improvements to the player pages – pass along the praise to the rest of the staff!
2:20 Ben Clemens: I’ve let them know
2:21 Ben Clemens: and yeah it’s great!
2:21 Princess Leia: help us Obi-Wan Clemonobi, you’re our only hope! Well, except for Aaron Judge… I traded Berrios and M. Harris for him when he was still in that slump.
2:21 Jeremy: Seems like teams that are winning often stick with replacement-level veterans for a long time. I’m thinking of Nick Castellanos on the Phillies for instance, or Martin Maldonado with the Astros. Should winning teams be quicker to cut bait on replacement-level…
