Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 12/2/24

Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, welcome to the chat

Ben Clemens: I don’t have a ton of baseball-y stuff to talk about today, though I’m hoping that changes in a week’s time or so when winter meetings heat up

Ben Clemens: but let’s just get right into it and maybe get some grab bag topics in too

Doug: Do you think the Snell signing may make Sasaki less likely to go to Dodgers given they have enough rotation depth/talent to easily send him down if he struggles?

Ben Clemens: Eh… on the margin, yes. But ‘oh the Dodgers definitely have enough starting pitching’ has never been a good bet

Ben Clemens: I expect them to go six man rotation, I expect them to deal with a ton of injuries because they always do, there will be innings for him even if he struggles

Bob Loblaw, Esq.: Thoughts on the Boyd signing? Are the Cubs looking to flip him?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think that signing someone hoping to flip them makes a ton of sense, particularly for a team like the Cubs with playoff aspirations. I do think that they’re trying to get out in front of the market in much teh same way the Mets did with Montas

Ben Clemens: They need innings, and they probably didn’t want to be hunting for them in January or February

Ben Clemens: That said, the price tag is not nothing for a guy who was available for free last year. I think I would have looked elsewhere, personally, though I’m not wildly confident in that view

jaygray007: It seems like pitching is at least moderately more expensive than we thought it was going to be.   Do you anticipate this meaning that any sort of mlb-ready cost-controlled pitching could bring back more in trades than maybe we’re used to?

Ben Clemens: One thing that remains to be seen is whether it’s pitching or all free agents

Ben Clemens: The first few deals have been coming in above my estimates and the crowd as well

Ben Clemens: It’s interesting, I spent a long time trying to trim my estimates down to even lower than they ended up. I have some forcing functions in the background that try to limit the overall amount of spending per win, so that I don’t get too caught up in comps and market research and end up with a projection that is way off of what you’d expect from prior years

Ben Clemens: and that function kept telling me to cut estimates based on what we saw in the past few years. I ended up mostly ignoring it and coming in pretty far above what it would suggest. Guess I should have ignored it even more

Ben Clemens: I don’t think it’ll affect the trade market all that much because pitchers were already very valuable in trade, I think that’ll just continue

Idiotic Failson: I’m sure you’ve seen the ‘Yanks are topping out at $550mm for Soto and he already has several $600mm offers in hand’ report by now. Do you buy it, and will the Yankees regret (lol) letting Soto go to the Red Sox (for example) for $600mm?

Ben Clemens: I don’t buy it

Ben Clemens: Like I’m sure someone said that to a reporter, or something similar

Ben Clemens: but I doubt it is set in stone or even the current situation on the ground

Ben Clemens: like maybe they offered 10/550? but this feels like a deal they aren’t going to lose for money’s sake

Andre Thee Giant: Chaim Bloom’s 2021-23 drafts were amazing high-ceiling talent grabs followed by strong development. He won’t be there when the Red Sox ascend, but do you think the success they’ll likely have will soon get him another job at the top of an org? Gracias.

Ben Clemens: I do! Maybe, I dunno, the Cardinals? 🙂

Joe: 2025 Cardinals – one last wholehearted try for Mozeliak, or a year for Bloom to start enacting a retool?   Players wise thinking mostly if Arenado and Sonny Gray stay with the Club.

Ben Clemens: I am leaning more towards the retool. You don’t bring in Chaim Bloom to stick with the same old plan of trading for major league producers and whatnot

Ben Clemens: I’m not sure what that means for Arenado, it sure feels like he wants out but it feels like a tricky trade. Gray, on the other hand: I think he’ll be gone if they’re retooling because he’s on a short deal at a reasonable price

Ben Clemens: that’s the kind of trade package that every team is looking for

Thank you for the chat!: Do all (most) players have agents? Even the guys making minimum, Quad A, etc.?

Appa Yip Yip: Is it harder to pitch Aaron Judge up because in order to get the ball high enough you have to throw what is normally a waste pitch and that is just weird to do on purpose?

Ben Clemens: Just like it’s easier to pitch Altuve up

Ben Clemens: on the other hand, it’s a lot easier to attack Judge low for basically the same reason

Ben Clemens: and he gets too many strikes called on him low in the zone because umpires have the same issue

Def not Chris Getz: Im playing a game of chicken with teams on Garrett Crochet. Am I smart for waiting for the big SP and Soto to go off the board before I deal my ace or am I just limiting my options if the Dodgers/Red Sox/Orioles/etc sign pitchers in free agency instead?

Ben Clemens: I am generally a fan of setting a price and waiting to either have it hit or for someone to get desperate before changing tactics

Ben Clemens: there isn’t enough pitching to go around, particularly for teams who aren’t dropping 150 million on a free agent, so I think the market will remain robust no matter where the top guys sign

Bencle Mens: Let me start by saying I do not want a salary cap. BUT is there a way to inspire non-Dodger teams to get creative with their contract offers as well? Is it only the Dodgers’ desire to flout the luxury tax that inspires them?

Ben Clemens: The Nationals have been doing this for more than a decade

Ben Clemens: the A’s offered Marcus Semien the most insulting contract of all time but in a goofily structured way

Ben Clemens: one year, $10 million, but paid in 10 $1 million installments over 10 years

Ben Clemens: the Dodgers don’t have a monopoly on weird, deferred-y deals. but honestly, the deferred isn’t helping them out THAT much, it’s the fact that they’re willing to spend to win

Ben Clemens: like they’re still setting aside $46 million a year for Ohtani

drhotdog: do you think the Boyd and Montas signings make the Kikuchi deal look any better?

Ben Clemens: I think that every pitching deal has comein above ‘consensus’ and it’s entirely plossible that most deals do, now that the economic picture feels a little less unsettled than a year ago

2030s: Will the Dodgers be limited by all the deferred money they’ll be paying next decade? Or will the economic realities of baseball allow them to basically shrug it off?

Ben Clemens: I don’t, because of the way the escrow works

Ben Clemens: they don’t get to just not think about the money until the future, they’re required to set an NPV’ed amount aside in the year it’s earned

Ben Clemens: so they’re setting aside a bunch of money right now. I’m not 100% sure what investments are allowed with that money, but they have to pony it up now, which means they’re not going to suddenly need to pay out $100 million out of nowhere in 2030 or whatever

Kevin: it seems highly likely to me that due to declining media revenue offers to mid-range free agents are going to be fewer and smaller than players and agents have come to expect. What’s your view?

Ben Clemens: I thought that before the offeseason

Ben Clemens: that certainly was the case in the 2024 offseason

Ben Clemens: I suppose we’ll see. but Frankie Montas and Matt Boyd feel very mid-range to me, and they both got good deals

David: Shouldn’t the price begin to drop for starting pitching? They’re throwing fewer innings and turning it over sooner to the bullpen.

Ben Clemens: The price per WAR hasn’t changed much, so I suppose what you’re saying is already happening

Ben Clemens: but it’s tricky, because salary is as much about scarcity as value, and good starting pitching is scarce these days

David: Wouldn’t the Yankees be better off letting Soto walk and filling roster holes with other free agents so Judge can move over to a corner?

Ben Clemens: what free agents

Ben Clemens: like, they’re gonna go sign Alex Bregman and Gleyber Torres?

Ben Clemens: I think that would probably cost more per year than Soto will

Ben Clemens: do you actually think that offense would be better than one with Soto and a prospect? I sure don’t

Ben Clemens: why can’t Judge move to a corner even with Soto in town anyway?

Ben Clemens: I’d be trying Dominguez out in center for sure

Joe: Which FanGraphs festive light colours are you using?

Ben Clemens: I’m liking the classic ones

Ben Clemens: the A’s lights look kinda cool, but I just like regular christmas colors

Tacoby Bellsbury: There have been rumblings about the Phillies trying to get out from under the Nick Castellanos contract. Is there a damaged-goods trade that would line up for the Phillies and some other partner to move him out of town?

Adam: How do you see the Phillies “shaking up” their roster? I’ve heard Bohm tossed around as a trade piece, but other than him who could you see them moving?

Ben Clemens: I’m skeptical that the Phillies can make a Castellanos trade work, because most teams are valuing him at roughly 0

Ben Clemens: like, league average hitter with completely unplayable defense

Ben Clemens: so either they’re going to eat most of the money, at which point why are we doing this trade in the first place, or they’re going to send out a prospect with him, and that feels like it wouldn’t happen given the way Philly has operated in recent years

Ben Clemens: Bohm makes sense to me as a trade piece if they’re intent on shaking things up, but they could also just run things back. It was a pretty good team in 2024, you know?

Bencle Mens: Can an Arenado to the Phillies trade work?

Ben Clemens: I don’ think the Cardinals would be interested in Bohm, because the whole point of moving on from Arenado would be to take a step back for the next few years. Mayyyyybe you could get the Castellanos contract out the door, plus a prospect or two, for Arenado, but that would just be window dressing (i.e. you can choose between the Cardinals covering $30 million of Arenado’s deal and trading them Castellanos and the $40 million he’s owed)

Ben Clemens: So I’d say it’s not impossible but depends on finding value for Bohm elsewhere

Hunter: I’ve heard trade rumors for the Tigers (Arenado, Bohm), but is there any realistic trade that the Tigers could make that would make more sense than just signing Bregman or Christian Walker so they don’t have to bat Matt Vierling 3rd anymore?

Ben Clemens: yeah I like Walker there quite a bit

Ben Clemens: Not so into Bregman, to be honest, I feel like his swing and Comerica wouldn’t be friends

Buster: I want to do my best by the Giants, but I don’t have the Dodgers money and i don’t have their brain trust. Any way I can dislodge them from first in the next years?

Ben Clemens: I’m skeptical

Ben Clemens: I hope I’m wrong, SF is more fun when the Giants are good

Ben Clemens: we haven’t really seen much of the Posey regime yet, I’ll withhold judgment for a year or so until we see what their MO is, but the Giants have been pretty uninspired in recent years after whiffing on a few big free agents, and it feels tough to fix that quickly

New UK fan: How do the market dynamics vary between pitching (~everyone can use another pitcher, but there are many available) vs specific positions (maybe only a few teams need a catching upgrade but there are very few options available)

Ben Clemens: oh, good question. I think it makes for a first-one-in-wins mentality in the position player case, where there are meaningful differencdes in what someone will offer you based on when you sign and who’s still looking. Pitcher salaries are a lot more static/fungible, because if the Mets don’t sign you the Yankees might, or whatnot

Ben Clemens: that puts more pressure on the agents of the position players whose spots aren’t guaranteed but are potentially mnore valuable. Whereas being an agent for a starter is probably a lot about calling every team and showing that your guy is healthy/working hard

Hungry guy: What’s the best holiday dish?

Ben Clemens: I actually don’t think this is all that close

Ben Clemens: I like a lot of holiday dishes, but I crave stuffing

Ben Clemens: we made some this year and I devoured it in record time

Ben Clemens: it’s pretty fun to make, also

Bencle Mens: Over/under Brewers’ NL Central division wins in the next 3 years: 2.5?

Ben Clemens: easy under for me

Ben Clemens: not because I think they’re in a bad spot, but b/c 2.5 out of 3 is just too high

Ben Clemens: at 2 I’m torn, I think I’d probably still take the under but I’d feel bad about it

Kip: Is ATL kind of screwed? They have at least three holes to fill (LF/SP/RP) and maybe more if you don’t think Ozzie will bounce back (second basemen age horribly) or if Arcia doesn’t improve. They have money to spend but it’s not a huge amount if they want to avoid penalties (around $30 million). Their farm system isn’t particularly deep and many of their best prospects project to be back end starters or relief pitchers.

Ben Clemens: the Braves had a truly ridiculous number of injuries last year, including the reigning MVP and Cy Young favorite, not to mention several other All Stars. BP’s injury tracker has them down for 13 missing WAR last year, vs. a league average of around 5

Ben Clemens: so will they be as good as they were in 2023? probably not

Ben Clemens: but will we project them as the best team in the NLE again? almost certainly

Ben Clemens: Arcia is bad for a first division shortstop, and Albies might be more good than elite now (I’ve actually had him in that range for years, witness his slide down the trade value series)

Ben Clemens: but they just have a ton of good players still. I’d expect more in ’25 out of Riley and Harris, I really like Schwellenbach and I think AJSS has some juice

Idiotic Failson: I agreed with you a lot until you thought that stuffing was better than pecan pie. What a brutal take.

Ben Clemens: pecan pie is my favorite pie

Ben Clemens: I’m just a savory over sweet kind of person

drhotdog: angels need either a 3B or a 2B. any chance they can poach HSK from san diego?

Ben Clemens: yeah, this feels very reasonable to me

Ben Clemens: I think that Kim’s market is going to go one of two ways

Ben Clemens: one is that he picks a team where he’s comfortable to sign a pillow contract. Maybe the Giants? Something west coast probably

Ben Clemens: Angels aren’t out of the question here either

Ben Clemens: or: someone really wants him and so they offer him a nice five-year deal

Ben Clemens: and he just says eh, pillow contracts are overrated, let’s just secure the bag now

Ben Clemens: that second option, I think a team doing that would more or less guarantee signing him, whereas if he’s signing 2/40 with an opt out after the first year, a ton of teams would offer him that

Ben Clemens: so if you want to guarantee Kim’s services, you offer him a long-term deal. If you’re comfortable taking a risk that he’ll sign somehwere else based on fit, enter the pillow contract sweepstakes

John: “Any pie is a good pie”

Ben Clemens: oh man, has anyone had the frozen pies from Ace Hardware?

Ben Clemens: I didn’t know this was a thing and then I picked one up for this Thanksgiving because I was doing an Ace run (snow shovel, some random wrench) and remembered that they have a freezer near the checkout

Ben Clemens: I learned from my neighbor that this is a common thing at Ace locations, and the pie was absolutely amazing

Ben Clemens: like, maybe the best apple pie I’ve ever had

Lord Thunder: If Eric isn’t around and somebody asks you what Triple-A catcher, Agustin Ramirez or Drake Baldwin, you prefer. What do you say?

Ben Clemens: I’d probably make a Drake pun first

Ben Clemens: but I prefer Baldwin, I am a little more willing to believe his batting line given the peripherals and while I don’t have a ton of visibility into minor league catcher defense, they seem comparable there

Henry D.: Some reports today that the NYM are interested in Walker Buehler. I like gambling on him in a vacuum, but are they really going to hit on WB and Montas in the same season the way they did with Sevi and Manaea? Seems like too much risk.

Ben Clemens: I’d actually argue that it’s a risk mitigation strategy

Ben Clemens: sure, sometimes you can hit on every signing and things work out great, but generally speaking, signing more lottery tickets increases the chances of hitting on at least one

Ben Clemens: there’s obivously some contract amount where it switches to being downside risk because you’re paying him as if he’s going to be elite

Ben Clemens: but that’s tougher to judge, and I don’t think Buehler is gonna get that amount

Stuck on holidays guy: Have you ever given a gift that you’re still proud of?

Ben Clemens: I’m gonna mention a gift my wife gave first, because it was just that awesome: for her mom’s 70th, she got 70 people to write messages and put them all in a book together

Ben Clemens: that was a great one, I thought

Ben Clemens: not counting that: I got my wife a set of knives in 2015 that we still love today, and they’ve been incredibly useful the whole time, so I’ll say that

Plan B: If the Yankees lose out on Soto, how much would Bellinger help them?

Ben Clemens: not much, imo

Ben Clemens: I will say, I’m lower on Bellinger than consensus

Ben Clemens: he was in my top 50 provisionally when it seemed like he might opt out and I got a lot of comments that I had him too low

Ben Clemens: I think that plenty of people believe he’s a 20% above average bat who can play an excellent center field, whereas I think he’s an average bat and average outfield defender

Cohen: So if he DOESN’T get Soto after he’s spent several years talking up his spending, is that considered a real ding? (Obviously not on his overall tenure)

Ben Clemens: If it’s because of a lack of a serious offer, yes

Ben Clemens: if it’s because he and the Yankees both offer 13/700 and Soto wants to hang out with his buddy Aaron, well, I think it depends on how hard the Mets pitched him

Ben Clemens: but nothing about this pursuit, and his pursuit of free agents generally, has made me think that Cohen is unserious about getting the best players

Guest: RE: Sasaki to the Dodgers
I still think they have a shot, but it’s unquestionably harder to sell him on going there when, in a perfect world, he would look like the odd man out in the playoff rotation. I’d imagine he wouldn’t be in over Snell, Glasnow, Yamamoto, or Ohtani. So that brings me to my point, do you believe the Snell signing means they still very much believe they will get him? Or they didn’t belive they were going to get him in the first place?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, that’s fair. I think it’s more the second, that they weren’t sure if they would get him – how could they be? And they also weren’t sure if he’d be an impact arm in 2025. so they’re just trying to win a bunch now, because that seems smart

Ben Clemens: take the deal in front of you and deal with tomorrow tomorrow, that kidn of thing

Ben Clemens: hoenstly I think the Dodgers are so well-run that it’s almost un-fun

Ben Clemens: they make the decisions I would make on a strategic front plenty of the time, and when they do something I wouldn’t have done, I frequently find that I liked their choice after the fact

Judge and Soto: If Soto ends up staying partially because he likes playing with that big guy, on top of Judge just casually throwing up a second 11fWAR season, how not terrible is that Judge contract?

Ben Clemens: yeah the Judge deal is looking like quite a bargain so far, amazingly enough

Ben Clemens: he’s already cranked out 16 WAR since signing it, captured an MVP, dragged the team to an ALE win

Bencle Mens: How bad are the Yankees’ vibes going to be when Soto signs with the Mets or Red Sox?

Kave Dingman: Dodgers and escrow – I had not heard about this before. I know that the Dodgers get hit with an-NPV like hit to their luxury cap number. For Ohtani, is the escrow the same as that roughly $46 million cap hit?

Ben Clemens: yeah more or less. Here’s a nice little Gemini summary, shout out to Google

Ben Clemens:

• hen to set aside: Teams must start allocating the deferred money by the second July 1 after the season it was owed. For example, if a player is deferring $68 million in 2024, the team must fully fund the present value of that money by July 2026. 
• How to set aside: Teams can allocate the money in cash, stocks, or “unencumbered assets”. The league and union can also agree on an alternative form. 
• Who holds the money: The money is held on behalf of the player and cannot be accessed. 
• Interest: The team can earn interest on the money, which they can spend.

John: With the caveat that nobody really knows yet, can you say  which is more suspect in pitcher injuries: increased velocity or emphasis on spin rates?

Ben Clemens: i think it’s kind of a hybrid of these – it’s the velocity on the bendy pitches

Ben Clemens: 91 mph sliders are hard on the arm on multiple fronts

angels: You think the angels will go after any more starters? Based on Perry’s comments it sounds like Anderson or Detmers will be dealt and they’ll bring in another arm

Ben Clemens: I do – maybe someone in the Pivetta/Sevy tier?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think Anderson has much of a trade market. not that his contract is underwater, just that he’s more of a ‘trade this guy for a prospect at the deadline when a team has an injury problem’ option instead of a ‘swap him for immediate major league help in January’ option

Ben Clemens: Detmers could get them something helpful right away, so if they want to move him, they’d find takers

Appa Yip Yip: Or maybe it’s because Soto wants to spend time with his even better buddy Vlad did u think of that Ben??

Ben Clemens: living in Toronto does sound pretty n ice

Ben Clemens: I’d definitely be interested. I’d even accept less than Soto

Maddie: Is Thairo Estrada just done? Feels like the Giants gave up on him early.

Ben Clemens: I’m not sure he’s done, but: I have been a seller for years, I just don’t quite see how he can deliver above average value without something significant changing

Ben Clemens: I don’t think his defense is as good as it was graded in 2023, his offense is surely at least a little below average, I have him as a second division regular or nice utility guy

Ben Clemens: maybe the Giants gave up on that a little early but I don’t think he’ll get paid more than his arb award would have been, and he certainly didn’t feel like a long term solution to me, so I see why they moved on

Eric: Do you buy the Boras narrative that Chicago winds suppressed Bellinger last year and he would be a buy low if he was dealt somewhere?

Ben Clemens: one person who probably agrees with me: Cody Bellinger, who chose to remain on the Cubs instead of testing free agency

Badeball: Is plossible a combination of possible and plausible? If so, I like it

Ben Clemens: it wasn’t supposed to be but now I’m with you

Idiotic Failson: Is there a negotiating universe where Cohen just tells Boras ‘we’ll give Soto $600mm or match whatever the highest offer is’? It feels like that’s an Uncle Steve kind of move.

Ben Clemens: I think that’s fairly likely, in fact

Ben Clemens: that’s how the Ohtani and Judge negotiations apparently went down; the Giants offered those guys the exact deals they received elsewhere

Henry Dodger: There’s a narrative in NYC that says that Luisangel Acuna was “bored” in the minors and that’s why he didn’t perform better. I find it very difficult to believe. You?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I don’t buy it

Ben Clemens: or well, if that’s the case, we have a completely different problem

Ben Clemens: Occam’s razor here, for me, though

Alf: You’re GM Ben Clemens of the Yankees/Red Sox/Dodgers/Blue Jays/ other team serious about Soto. At what financial point do you just say it’s too much money and let him go somewhere else?

Ben Clemens: Probably depends more on ownership, to be honest, and how those teams construct budgets

Ben Clemens: I think that around 13/700 I’d be telling my owner that this deal doesn’t make financial sense, but I figure if I’m a GM I’m going to be frequently asking the owner to spend more and compete more frequently, so this would seem like a good time to push that message

Wyatt: Am I crazy to have Wyatt Langford as a top ten position player in fantasy next year?

Ben Clemens: Top ten seems a little aggressive

Ben Clemens: but higher than he finished this year by a good bit, for sure

Lord Thunder: Out of the Jays’ return for Kikuchi — Wagner, Loperfido, and Bloss — who will produce the most value in the near future … and beyond?

Ben Clemens: at this point I guess Wagner is looking pretty good. But gimme Bloss, I talked myself into him when he started hopping levels in Houston last year

Ben Clemens: the Wagner throw-in was a great move by Toronto

Matt: Regarding “we’ll match whatever the highest offer is”, do teams actually know what the highest offers are? Seems like they are all left in the dark to various degrees and only Soto’s team knows. I guess Soto’s team could tell you what their highest offer is, but would you believe them? Or are FA negotiations fairly transparent?

Ben Clemens: Truthfully, I’m not sure

Ben Clemens: My guess is that Boras and most agents are fairly truthful about this, though

Ben Clemens: It’s a repeated game, and if you get caught lying once, the costs in future rounds of negotiation are huoge

Ben Clemens: profit-maximizing behavior in a one-round negotiation might be to lie, but trust feels important to Boras’s ability to do his job well

SPArn: What do you mean that Nick Castellanos isn’t a good defender?! His fielding percentages are fantastic!

Ben Clemens: I’ve actually never committed an error in professional baseball

Ben Clemens: for what it’s worth

Dan: I recall a discussion of a relief pitcher who was out of options and this was put on waivers to let the team call up a fresher arm. The player was claimed by a second team who pitcher him for a few weeks before they did the same thing and a third team claimed him. It was mentioned the player was accruing service time but does a player at this level ever end up signing a free agent deal or do they tend to retire/sign a minor league do once they are no longer eligible for this kind of roster shuffling?

Ben Clemens: Oh yeah, the guys in this situation aren’t reaping free agency wealth

Ben Clemens: that said, the service time matters for things like pensions and arbitration

Ben Clemens: also, they’re getting paid a major league salary while they accrue service time, which is no joke

Ben Clemens: the Triple-A minimum this year was 35,800. MLB minimum was 740k

Wyatt: What kind of money changes hands of Arenado is traded? Does the Rockies money follow him?

Ben Clemens: oh hey I just noticed that Arenado had 50 million deferred in his deal

Ben Clemens: look, everyone is the Dodgers now

Ben Clemens: the Rockies money would follow him, though. the Rockies are paying $4 million of his salary each year, and they’d just continue to do that

Kave Dingman: Living in Toronto from April 1st thru October 31st seems like an ideal plan. And spend the winter somewhere much warmer.

Ben Clemens: I’m not a winter person, and I think it’s a good bet that Juan Soto isn’t either

Ben Clemens: Miami offseason home? easy

joe: Should MLB change the way the offseason works? pick up steam faster? Feels like the draft lottery should have happened already.

Ben Clemens: I think it’s set up reasonably well, but I do think there should be a transaction freeze for most of November so that things really start cooking around the winter meetings

Oneear: Yainer Diaz or Patrick Bailey?

Ben Clemens: for fantasy? Diaz. For real life? Bailey

Ben Clemens: I’m just a big sucker for catcher defense, and Bailey is the best there is there

Henry Dodger: Did the LAD make enough money on advertising and marketing deals with Japanese corporations that they’re essentially not paying Ohtani’s ~$45M out of the usual budget?

Michael G: If Soto signs with the Red Sox, Yankees sign Walker & Bregman, Jays sign Santander & Manaea. What is your ranking of the AL East teams?

Ben Clemens: I think I’d go Yankees/Sox/Jays, but with error bars bigger than the differences between teams

Drew: Are there enough upgrades on the trade and free agent markets to make the Nationals a contender in 2025?

Ben Clemens: I mean, sure

Ben Clemens: give them Soto, Bregman, Burnes, maybe Teo and two other starters, bam

Ben Clemens: realistically no, though?

Guest: do u think renting pretty much just always smarter than homeownership rn

Ben Clemens: Context-dependent

Ben Clemens: in big cities, almost certainly yes, though

Ben Clemens: rental yield is so low in SF, it would be pretty expensive to own my place instead of renting it

Dan: Is Pecan Pie pronounced pecan or pecan?

Ben Clemens: I’m a ‘peh-con’ guy

Ben Clemens: I think this is a regional deal, though I’m not 100% sure

J: Except you can be forced out of your apartment by rent increases every year if your apartment isn’t rent stabilized (source: live in NYC)

Ben Clemens: I mean, sure. but housing in NYC is fairly fungible, you can rent another place. that said, in my experience a huge amount of NYC housing is rent controlled, or at least several of the places I lived there were, even in newer buildings

Ben Clemens: rental yields in NY are in the 2-3% range from what I’ve seen, that’s wild

Guest: I know it’s mostly just noise, but has anyone done research into player success in even or odd years? Matt Olson’s yearly wRC+ graph looks like the Mammoth Mountain logo.

Ben Clemens: this sounds like a job for Dan, but I haven’t seen any effect and doubt it’s real

J: Housing is not fungible if you have a family, man. You can’t move your kids every year.

Ben Clemens: well sure, but rental increases of say 10% a year are not particularly common either, and you might be paying double to have a mortgage instead of rent for the same place. Obviously there are a ton of different factors, and a baseball writer isn’t going to solve the problem in his chat, but from a cost effectiveness standpoint, I’ve been happy renting in high cost of living cities

Bob Loblaw, Esq.: Josh Allen for Shohei Ohtani who says no?

Ben Clemens: throwing a touchdown pass to yourself does feel like an Ohtani-ish feat

Didace: Rent or buy is a math problem. Albeit with a lot of variables that are either unknown or very uncertain.

Henry Dodger: Will Soto’s contract be insured? Is it possible to insure a contract like that?

Ben Clemens: probably for injury and not for anything else

Badeball: How much would a team pay a guy who could cure any injury instantly? Is that worth $20 million  a year? Asking for a friend

Ben Clemens: easily, right?

Ben Clemens: the Dodgers would pay that for sure

Dan: If the team is depositing the present value and they are allowed to spend the interest then once the future becomes the present they will be short by the difference between the original present value and the paper value.

Ben Clemens: I don’t know the specifics of teh CBA, but I’d guess that it needs to be trued up to present value every so often

Ben Clemens: and that you can spend the difference

Ben Clemens: that’s how I’d do it, at least

Ben Clemens: alright, this was a fun chat and it ran a little longer than I expected

Ben Clemens: who knew everyone wnated to hear my housing hot takes?

Ben Clemens: that said, keep your eyes peeled for another article on lessons I learned in financial markets and how they apply to baseball

Ben Clemens: ETA tomorrow, I think

Ben Clemens: and have a wonderful week, everyone

Tyguy: On the housing front: I bought in 2021 at ~3% interest and would love to move, but feel golden handcuffed to my current low mortgage payment. Isn’t there some financial instrument that would allow someone to take on my EV+ low interest loan and let me recoup some of the costs of what would be a higher rent / mortgage payment?

Ben Clemens: ooh bonus last one

Ben Clemens: some scandinavian country has transferable mortgages

SPArn: Shoutout to Edwin Burton if so

Ben Clemens: i took his class!

Ben Clemens: cya later, everyone