Ben Clemens’ Trade Value Series Chat – 7/26/24

Ben Clemens: Hey everybody, welcome

Ben Clemens: For today’s chat, I’m going to be going deeper on every question than normal. I imagine a lot of the questions are similar (what about player x, why was player y ranked like that, etc) so I’m going to try to go a little bit more in depth on each one, so expect longer answers and a little more evidence than normal. I’m gonna try to pack this with content as much as I can for the next hour and a half or so

Ben Clemens: Let’s get started

Nate: No mention of Devers seemed a bit surprising to me. Under team control for a decade, still only 27, consistently posting batting lines 20-40% better than average. Not a fantastic defender but not a total butcher. What was your reasoning there

Ben Clemens: Yeah, plenty of Devers questions, so I’ll go here first

Ben Clemens: I can tell you specifically why he’s not on the list in the 40’s near some other stars: I compared him to Harper and Seager and that comparison was not that close to me. I’d prefer both of their offensive lines to his, I don’t think he has more defensive value, the contract isn’t better. So like…. he can’t be ahead of those guys

Ben Clemens: I’m not saying he’s a bad hitter but I think he’s a touch overrated. Like in 2024, he’s the 12th-best hitter in baseball, in his best year

Ben Clemens: Over the past 2 years, 18th, 3 years 13th, 4 years 15th

Ben Clemens: really nice player, absolutely, but he’s, like you said, 20-40% above average

Ben Clemens: On the Harper point specifically, I don’t think Devers has more defensive value than Harper. He’s a below-average third baseman, probably a 30 on the scouting scale, consistently big negative grades on every metric and the eye test agrees.

Ben Clemens: We’ve talked a lot about how first base and DH are probably over-penalized by positional adjustments, and I definitely take that into account in my rankings, I’m not just looking at WAR

Ben Clemens: and if Harper is over-penalized, a hitter like Devers is the kind of guy who’s over-rewarded. A minus defender at a not-super-challenging spot. Realistically I think he’s similarly useful defensively. But he’s seven runs better than Harper in DEF over the lats two years. So I applied a bit of a hit there to true everything up

Ben Clemens: As for why he wasn’t in the honorable mentions section, he easily could have been, I just had to draw the line somewhere. He had the largest contract and lowest projections so I just lopped him off hte list

Ben Clemens: He was definitely considered

Kenshin Kawakami: Is this going to be a 1 hour EDLC victory lap? Well deserved imo

Ben Clemens: Nah, I feel good about Elly’s ranking and eh, I think my work there is done

Kenshin Kawakami: Does Michael Harris fall down the list last year if there’s no improvement in either his plate discipline or his ground ball rate? Floor is still so high but the bay simultaneously feels quite shaky but also not near its ceiling

Ben Clemens: 100% yes. Harris was a really hard player to place, and while Robert produced the strongest disagreements because he’s a polarizing player, I think that people’s disagreements on Harris might have been greater in terms of absolute value

Ben Clemens: I’m always trying to manage my own biases in this exercise because that’s really an easy way to look silly, and I definitely tend to like defensive players on cost-controlled deals a lot, even if their hitting is inconsistent. Look at where i had Ke’Bryan Hayes all these years

Ben Clemens: Not all teams value the same things but plenty of teams think that way as well, and Harris is just a really great combination of a ton of things that are good in isolation

Ben Clemens: It’s also one of these cases where the projections aren’t worried about him hitting, or at least they think he’s probably still a 3.5-4 win player even if he doesn’t completely come back offensively, and then you have to ask yourself how much you trust the projections

Ben Clemens: I think that if it’s 2025 and he’s still hitting below league average b/c he can’t lift the ball, those projections won’t still be there

Ben Clemens: so this problem is going to take care of itself

Orange Fire: Self-centered question by this Astros fan:  Why didn’t Yainer Diaz make the list, even as a HM?

Ben Clemens: He was on my list, but pretty far down. I’m not a believer in the defense at all, and I don’t really think the Astros are either

Ben Clemens: That puts a LOT of pressure on his bat, because I’m just skeptical that he can stay behind the plate in the long run

Ben Clemens: I didn’t think he cleared the bar for me there

Ben Clemens: I think that Logan O’Hoppe is probably a more interesting catcher name I left off, and that one was pretty cuspy for me. Similar issues to Diaz where I’m worried that he might not be able to stay at catcher in the long run. He looks below average kind of across the board behind the plate. But I like his bat better

Eli: Re:Volpe’s ranking – are you factoring in the Cashman regime’s skill in breaking young hitters (Bird, Frazier, Sanchez, Torres, Andujar, etc.)?

Ben Clemens: Haha no, I did not factor that in. I actually found Volpe to be really interesting because I was surprised how many people really like him. I’m not super sold, I consistently rank good-glove shortstops highly in this list because I think that matches their real-world evaluations but I am not a believer in Volpe’s bat

Ben Clemens: I think that the industry is, at least more than I am

Ben Clemens: One thing that is really tricky to weight is that sometimes prospects just don’t hit for a year or two because they’re bad, and sometimes they don’t hit for a year or two and then they just fix it

Ben Clemens: obviously you want to make some kind of probabilistic estimation and keep changing it as you get more evidence, but that’s what the projection systems do, and they sure seem to still like Volpe. I weight recent performance a bit more heavily than the models do, I’d say, but certainly lots of teams still think he’ll hit

Phil: Any consideration to Houck? Another ongoing breakout, but I feel like I’d take him over most pitchers with fewer years of team control remaining.

Ben Clemens: Yeah he was #51

Ben Clemens: I think he is essentially indistinguishable from the pitchers at the bottom of the list in terms of value. Someone had to be the first out and this was my best guess at an ordering, I don’t feel confident in it at all

Dan: If you tried to trade a player on the list 1 for 1 for another player on the list how likely would both teams say no since you take a bigger risk trading away the star you know?

Ben Clemens: Gary Wise asked me this question on Twitter and I thought it was really good

Ben Clemens: I think both teams would probably say no almost all of the time (he asked specifically about Skubal for Gilbert)

Ben Clemens: There’s some real ‘the problem with lemons’ effect here where if they’re trading their guy, what do they know about him that you don’t?

Ben Clemens: and likewise, there’s some endowment effect: you love your guy, you’ve seen him in team meetings, he’s in the cage at 6 am after a loss, gotta round up on his value b/c of that

Ben Clemens: I think that really keeps challenge trades from happening more

Harry: To have Tatis at 6, which it seems I find far more reasonable than others, that means you think he’s minimum top 10, but probably a top 5 position player in the game, right?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I do on a go-forward basis. Probably….. fifth? Right around there at least

Johny5Alive: Should lindor have been higher? He’s been the best player in the NL since May. I know there was given about defensive regression, but I dunno. The man might end up in the list of top 10 SS ever to play.

Ben Clemens: I think that you could feasibly move that group of Harper/Lindor/Seager/Marte around quite a bit on here. One thing that is implied in these is that I’m guessing, and I’m trying to put myself in people’s shoes because I’m certainly not talking to every team, and even if I did it’s not like I’m sneaking into their offices and taking a snapshot of the big ‘trade value’ board they keep

Ben Clemens: Where teams actually value players like this is not simple to peg, though I think there’s plenty of evidence that they do treat concentration of WAR as valuable independent of surplus value

Ben Clemens: Just look at both times Juan Soto got traded, or Mookie Betts getting traded with one year left on his deal, etc.

Ben Clemens: That said, there’s no formula, you know? I tried to calibrate but I could be off 15 spots in either direction easily

Ozzie: The Orioles have 5 players on the list, and 4 more in the “promising youth” section of the Honorable Mention. Does any team compare to that combination  of strength and depth?

Ben Clemens: No, right now they are head and shoulders ahead of everyone else in this

Ben Clemens: I think that makes for an interesting task for the front office. They’ve racked up the most theoretical value in the game. Can they find a way to turn it into on-field success?

Dan: Is Skenes already so good he can’t possibly rank higher on this list in future years? He can only improve so much but can’t reduce his injury risk and won’t give more cheap years of control.

Ben Clemens: I think he’d have to do something historic to move any higher

Ben Clemens: But like I said, that’s not a consensus opinion. I think he’s a consensus top 5 guy, and I mean, not getting traded so the exact placement isn’t all that meaningful. Some people have him #1 already I’d say

Simon: Garrett Crochet’s entire innings workload/injury history has so many red flags on paper, but when I actually watch him pitch it looks like a guy that could be the league’s best LHP quickly. Was there any divide between how traditional scouts vs.  front office execs felt about him?

Ben Clemens: You know, it didn’t really come up because the group of pitchers I have around him in talent just all had one more year of team control

Ben Clemens: I think that if this was a top 70 or something, I would have had a lot more discussions about Crochet

Ben Clemens: But basically I never had him in the top 50 and people were just like ‘yeah this makes sense, he’s probably just off’

Air Yordan: Does doing this list change how you would approach the draft if you were a GM? Which side do you fall on: pitching prospects break so focus on college bats OR pitching is so valuable when it’s developed that it’s worth emphasizing in the draft. I’ve changed my mind on this numerous times but usually end up thinking it just makes way more sense to focus on bats

Ben Clemens: I think it would depend a lot on where I felt my specialties were

Ben Clemens: Like, theory’s all well and good, but if I’m the Mariners or Guardians, I probably want to lean pitching where I can b/c I know my team can develop them

Ben Clemens: In a vacuum, I think I’d lean towards hitting. The O’s (and Cubs 2016, etc) model still feels very solid to me

Ben Clemens: but I would have taken Crews over Skenes last year and look how that’s panned out

Ben Clemens: You can’t just reflexively be only one or the other

Guest: Does Witt’s contract make him more or less valuable than if he hadn’t signed it?

Ben Clemens: Ooh, more I’d say

Ben Clemens: at minimum two extra years, and two years where he’ll be at peak age, and at reasonable rates

Ben Clemens: Okay, there were a bunch of Jarren Duran questions but I couldn’t find a good representative one that covered him broadly, so let’s just talk about him

Ben Clemens: I definitely had Duran in the top 50 at various point

Ben Clemens: On the last call I did, he was in the 51-60 range, I forget exactly where, and when we had finished going over the guys I liked more than my contact and the guys he liked more than I did (Skenes, it’s always Skenes), I was asking him for some names just off of it

Ben Clemens: “hey, will I feel dumb for not having x guy in”

Ben Clemens: I brought up Duran and he basically said eh, you could go either way and I’d be fine

Ben Clemens: That’s pretty much how I feel

Ben Clemens: I mention every year that there’s far less gradation that far down the list

Ben Clemens: I’m hyper aware of Duran’s season b/c he’s basically single-handedly carrying my fantasy team, and it’s been really fun to watch, I was shocked in 21 and 22 when he just couldn’t break in

Ben Clemens: I think that projections are rightly skeptical of him because of the inconsistent PT and long time to break out, I definitely had him higher on the list than a raw ranking would

Ben Clemens: the initial formula I used to start working off of blends projected surplus value, projected WAR under team control (with some adjustments for position and replacement level), and peak WAR

Ben Clemens: and Duran checked in right around Spencer Steer (shout out to sadtrombone), Sal Frelick, Yainer Diaz, names like that

Ben Clemens: I don’t agree with that, I think he’s better, though I think he’s more like a 120 wRC+ hitter with 55 LF defense than what he’s doing this year

Ben Clemens: you know, here’s a good comparison for you: Bryan Reynolds

Ben Clemens: 2021 was the year Kevin Goldstein and I did these rankings together and we left Reynolds off

Ben Clemens: he absolutely shoved that year, .302/.390/.522 and plus defense in center, 6.3 WAR

Ben Clemens: he’s been a 120 wRC+ hitter with minus defense in left since then, worth 7.2 WAR in three years and 1700 PA

Ben Clemens: I don’t feel particularly bad about leaving Reynolds off the list, though he definitely could have been on the tail end

Well-Beered Englishman: I guess Robert and Skubal are the highest guys who we might actually see traded in the next 1-2 years? Unless something goes catastrophically wrong somewhere?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I think I agree with that sentiment looking through the names. The only other consideration is one of the two Mariners SP’s in a trade for a big bat

Ben Clemens: like Gilbert for Vlad, Bo, and Yimi Garcia to really go for it this year, who says no

Ben Clemens: (probably the Mariners)

Hunter: Riley Greene has basically only played any Center because Parker Meadows couldn’t stick in the big leagues, how much does being left field only in the future change things for him? I do think he could stick in center in a park with a smaller outfield.

Ben Clemens: This is something I thought about a good bit in working out Greene’s value

Ben Clemens: I think that being center field capable really helps him. I agree with you that he’s probably left field only given the Tigers’ circumstances but being able to stand in center when necessary, and having the corner outfield defense consistent with that (as in he’s a plus corner guy) helps out a lot for me

Ben Clemens: I feel like if you’re average or below in a corner, well, that basically works out to zero defensive value

RetireNutting: If Skenes does win ROY how far back does he fall on the list when the Pirates lose a year?

Ben Clemens: I think I mentioned this in the blurb, but I’m assuming that year is gonna go away

Ben Clemens: Doesn’t really affect my ranking, because it’s basically priced in already

Ben Clemens: brb, gonna grab some coffee

Guest: Is there anything a reliever could do to make it into the top. 50?

Ben Clemens: Honestly, not with the way baseball works not

birds: A majority of last year’s list didn’t make this year’s list.  So player value, even that of the ~5% most valuable players in the sport, is that fleeting?

If the asset itself is going to depreciate that fast, then the only reason to trade for a top player is if you think it’s going to provide an external benefit, e.g. a championship and marketing?

Ben Clemens: Well, yes and no

Ben Clemens: I have last year’s list up, and out of the top 25, here are the players who missed this year

Ben Clemens: Wander Franco (yup), Sean Murphy (weird circumstances), the 4 TJ pitchers, Bo Bichette, Framber Valdez

Ben Clemens: oh and Zac Gallen, sneaking in at the end there

Ben Clemens: so some of those are just the value getting realized

Ben Clemens: Bichette and Gallen specifically, hey they were 2.5 years to free agency so 40% of their juice was in the lats year

Ben Clemens: sorry, my dog’s medication won’t give itself

Ben Clemens: anyway, yeah, the bottom of the list is gonna be pretty choppy I think

Ben Clemens: And the top is fairly stable, excluding injuries

Ben Clemens: I think that’ll probably always be the case. The weird cases are the Juan Soto types where they’re so good they should be near the top but so close to free agency that in a year the picture will be very different

Conor: Wondering about how close Nimmo was to honorable mention status, he’s been worth 4-5+ WAR for the past 3 years (on pace for this year). His contract isn’t a behemoth either and he has team control through 2030.

Ben Clemens: Easily could have been on there

Ben Clemens: The HM list was nearly as long as the actual list so I had to draw the line somewhere

Ben Clemens: but I think of trade value and MLB value generally as normally distributed… there are a lot of people in the Nimmo/Devers range

Ben Clemens: good player, this guy on this deal can be on your next championship team

Ben Clemens: but probably not the make-or-break trade chip

Cards fan: Does Dylan Cease make your list now:)

Ben Clemens: Haha nope, even though I have a soft spot for Cease because he’s one of my early article targets

Ben Clemens: I remember writing about his bizarre lack of fastball results in 2020, and it seems like he agreed b/c he’s changed his fastball shape around a lot

Ben Clemens: always rooting for him to succeed, even if I thought his slider poem was a little over the top

Ben Clemens: But yeah, just not enough time left

Oddball Herrera: You’re more bullish on Carroll than I am…when you talked to people, was there any concern that, as we’ve seen this year, fringe power guys become way less valuable when MLB messes with the baseball?  If MLB keeps tinkering god knows what you’re getting out of these types year to year

Ben Clemens: I didn’t hear that concern specifically, I think b/c Carroll would be awesome as a doubles hitter. I think the injury concerns and the big process-related slump worried people a lot more

Ben Clemens: Like it’d be one thing if his batted ball quality was exactly the same and things just weren’t leaving the park

Ben Clemens: But that’s not really what’s going on here

Jordan: Hi Ben – to what extent do you value players with a higher floor but lower ceiling (like Zach Neto) as compared to players with more clear flaws, but a higher ceiling if they can figure it out (like Oneil Cruz)?

Ben Clemens: I think it’s clear from my cross-checking that I value ceiling more highly than the industry as a whole

Ben Clemens: every year the stable defense guys are consistently flagged by people I talk to as needing to go up some

Ben Clemens: If I had a one-line way to explain how this works, I’d definitely give it to you. Part of the “art” of it, and honestly I’m not sure I’m great at it b/c there’s no objective way to judge, is that I just have the one tool at the end of the day

Ben Clemens: to show how I think about these guys

Ben Clemens: but I can use whatever I want in getting to that value

Oaktown Blues: If you had made a version of this list this past off-season, would Zack Gelof have made the cut? Obviously his value has taken a major hit this year.

Ben Clemens: Probably an honorable mention. I had him in the first cut on here in terms of ‘let’s throw a bunch of names at the wall, run the numbers, and see what sticks’

Ben Clemens: he didn’t stick

Ben Clemens: But it’s not like he missed by miles

Ben Clemens: in the raw formula he’s not a ton different than, say, Cal Raleigh or Brice Turang

Dan: Do you ever get feedback that makes you think the person youre talking to knows something significant about the player that isn’t publicly known?

Ben Clemens: Yes. It’s from people who trust me not to put that in these rankings, of course, and I wouldn’t

Ben Clemens: but yeah, that’s happened

Jeff: How much does the market play when factoring in these rankings?  For example, Almost every team could use an upgrade at SP, but not every team needs a SS, therefor, with more competition, the value would inflate.

Ben Clemens: Definitely matters

Ben Clemens: I think that singular talents kind of break that rule, like everyone wants Yordan Alvarez

Ben Clemens: but it still matters on the margin, for peopel like Skenes, everyone needs an ace badly

Ben Clemens: and it matters a little bit more at the bottom of the list, like you better be a pretty good COF/1B to get on here

Ben Clemens: b/c tehre’s constant supply of those types

Guest: Who’s someone off the list who you think could make a jump on next year?

Ben Clemens: Ooh, fun one. I’m gonna exclude honorable mention types b/c that kinda defeats the purpose, I think

Ben Clemens: I’m surprised I didn’t get more flak for leaving him off of last year’s list, but that appears to have been merited

Ben Clemens: I still really believe in his potential, though

Wrights_Back: How can you possibly rate Skenes so high after such a short body of work?     Granted, he’s been superlative, but so have many others in times past.     
I guess another way of asking this question is – how do you correct for the risk of underperformance?   Eg, with players that have more than a few years of experience, the range of future outcomes is more defined.  
Skenes feels like more of a lottery ticket at this point.

Ben Clemens: I just disagree with this premise

Ben Clemens: Like yes, in terms of performance track record, I’m with you

Ben Clemens: but you have to watch the games with Skenes

Ben Clemens: if a clone of Mike Trout from 2012 started playing tomorrow with no track record, we’d be like hm, I dunno, small sample size, maybe this won’t work

Ben Clemens: but well, he’d be a clone of Mike Trout

Ben Clemens: it feels more evident to me in pitching

Ben Clemens: like Skenes’s stuff is just that good, you don’t need to see 100 of his splinkers to know it’s great

Ben Clemens: it’s certainly a thing, range of outcomes is huge

Ben Clemens: but I think for pitchers in particular, and for pitchers who succeed in pretty obvious ways even more so, you can make judgments quickly

Ben Clemens: I definitely take your point, I just think that in this specific case it doesn’t track

Nate: I would not argue that Austin wells should be included, but I can easily see him progressing to where he is on the list next year. Do you agree?

Ben Clemens: Last cut from the ‘youths’ section of HM’s because there were just too many names

Ben Clemens: actually I just counted, there were more than 50 HM’s

Ben Clemens: we’re gonna have to do something about that for next year

Darb: If PCA puts up an 80 wrc+ over the next year is he in contention for this list?

Ben Clemens: no. I am willing to be swayed by data but I don’t see PCA hitting

Ben Clemens: and playing full time in the majors for a year and adding an 80 wRC+ to his existing lackluster batting line is not gonna push his projected outcomes higher

Oaktown Blues: Anyone have a superlative recent stretch (in either direction) that made you reconsider their placement last minute? Thinking Gore’s string of bad starts, or Rooker’s 262 wRC+ in July

Ben Clemens: yeah I definitely wasn’t thrilled that Gore got blown up on Sunday afternoon before my Monday morning article

Ben Clemens: To be honest, that’s one of the holes in this analysis. I take some time doing the numbers and talking to people, and well, time passes

Ben Clemens: I try not to be too swayed by a few weeks of games b/c I think this should endeavor to be a stable list

Ben Clemens: but things really can change a lot in a month

Oddball Herrera: Following on Skenes.  I don’t think there is a ton of daylight between Skenes and Jobe in terms of scouting and skills, yet one is an honorable mention and the other a top 10.  Do 12 starts in the majors really change your value THAT much?

Ben Clemens: I disagree with you on that, and I think that talent evaluators would too

Ben Clemens: I’ll give you an example, Steamer projects Skenes for a 1.6 lower ERA

Ben Clemens: I mean, how good are those in-season projections? no idea

Ben Clemens: but I don’t think it’s like ‘oh these are the same’

Okra: Can you share any feedback you got from industry peeps on Strider?  I think he would fetch a ton if the Braves traded him.

Ben Clemens: Yeah good question

Ben Clemens: I put all the TJ pitchers together and asked peopel what they thought

Ben Clemens: and they basically said yeah, no one’s getting traded when they’re in the middle of rehab, even in a world where everyone was getting traded

Ben Clemens: they’ll surely resume their places on the list once they’ve made one start at the major league level

Ben Clemens: but the information asymmetry is just way too big

Ben Clemens: Trade for a guy where Braves doctors have been handling his rehab for a year, and then the Braves are like ‘oh we want to trade him, give me your best offer’?

Ben Clemens: I mean, not a year in Strider’s case right now, but you get the idea

birds: in 2022, 1.5 years of Hader brought back two 45-grade prospects and major leaguers.  in 2018, three years of Diaz brought back a 60-grade and a 35+, even with Cano as baggage.  In 2016, a half season of Chapman brought back a 60-grade, a 40+, and stuff.

Those returns seem good compared to what I imagine the back end of the top 50 would return.  Are you really sure Miller or Clase wouldn’t return a 50-grade guy or more?

Ben Clemens: I wouldn’t trade Jared Jones for Mason Miller, and I think that if Jared Jones were on the market, teams would offer mroe than they would for Miller

Ben Clemens: so yeah, I feel like I’m right in that assessment. Also the Diaz trade was pretty bizarre, but I think calling Kelenic a 60 is generous if you look at the overall industry view

Ben Clemens: maybe a 55+ or whatever, and eh, I don’t think deals like that are happening anymore

Ben Clemens: the Hader trade is a good example, if someone in the top 50 got traded for that I’d be like, oh, dang, I think I misjudged

JDawg: Which 1 player did your evaluation change the most on in either direction due to team intel?

Ben Clemens: I’m not sure he moved the most places on the list, but my estimation of his value moved the most

Ben Clemens: I have a general idea what kind of feedback I’m getting

Ben Clemens: like, I’m not gonna name any specific teams obviously, but teams behave certain ways, their feedback is similar to the way they behave

Ben Clemens: the more analytically inclined, smaller-market teams like the big contracts less, so on and so forth

Ben Clemens: everyone, on both sides, was like ‘why are you low on Skenes?’

Ben Clemens: and that made me really sit up and take stock of what my process was missing that two people whose views I usually use to balance each other saw the same flaw

Okra: re TJS pitchers & Strider, how do you square the feedback of them being untradable vs the industry standard 2yr contract for TJS rehabbers?  Clearly teams see value here.  I understand the information asymmetry but you get to review medicals before completing a trade.

Ben Clemens: eh, show me a TJ trade and I’ll maybe reconsider. But also, I myself don’t have good information there, and I definitely don’t get to see the medicals (why would I)

Ben Clemens: and it’s a case where the medicals could be extremely scary or benign

Ben Clemens: Lot of Stras comps on Skenes, that’s for sure

Cody: I’m really interested in how a player like Wilyer Abreu is valued. Good pop, good eye at the plate, good outfielder with a cannon arm, solid baserunner, can’t hit lefties and strikes out too much. Seems like a guy with a pretty high chance of giving you 10 WAR over the next five years, even only getting 450 plate appearances each year, but the platoon split seems pretty insurmountable. I guess this is a long-winded way to ask if 1) being an all-around contributor can mitigate the value hit that big platoon splits will give, and 2) if big platoon splits are less of an issue for lefties, since they can still be extremely productive while getting the lion’s share of playing time at a position

Ben Clemens: I’ve moved players in this general mold down in recent years

Ben Clemens: Honestly that’s been one thing I’ve demonstrably gotten better at as I’ve repeated the exercise

Ben Clemens: all-around contributors without high ceilings just don’t have the value that a naive model would expect

Ben Clemens: good teams, the kind who are in playoff chases and thus looking to make trades to concentrate value in the present, are good at getting higher-than-replacement value out of their roster spots

Ben Clemens: so being a 2 WAR part-time corner guy, eh, teams are betting that they can make a 1.5 WAR part-time corner guy out of spare parts

Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: How closely does the return for Randy match your evaluation (HM, luxury semi-rental) of him this year?

Ben Clemens: Honestly I haven’t dug into these prospects that much

Ben Clemens: I was absolutely exhausted yday after finishing the writing for this

Ben Clemens: The writing is sneaky hard, I think it was like 18000 words or so in a week

Trey: I just cannot imagine a scenario where A Riley, L Webb, M Harris, C Carroll, and R Greene have a higher trade value than M Betts.  If you are aiming to win a title in 5 years… sure. But for 2025, Id trade 2 of any of any of those guys for Betts yesterday.  Is the philosophy here to place heavy emphasis on a down-the-road dynasty approach?

Ben Clemens: Yeah balancing the now and the future is obviously not easy

Ben Clemens: and I’m not sure I did a good job of it at all

Ben Clemens: but one thing that makes me think I did is that peopel are very convinced that Judge should either a)not be on the list or b)be higher

Ben Clemens: if everyone was one way, I’d feel worse

Ben Clemens: I think you’re underrating Logan Webb, I definitely was

Ben Clemens: I remember I ran the raw numbers and he came out as the top pitcher by a mile

Ben Clemens: and I was like huh, f4, there must be some cell that is sticking and not calculating right

Ben Clemens: but no, he’s just actually raelly great?

Ben Clemens: and yeah, ‘if you are aiming to win a title in 5 years’ seems to be the way front offices are operating, which feels smart to me

Ben Clemens: that’s what I’d be trying to maximize, five-year winning percentage or whatever

Ben Clemens: 5-year expected playoff spots weighted by byes

Ben Clemens: I think there’s evidence to say that teams behave that way, and it’s also what I’d do, so that’s the way I lean in the rankings

Guest: I’m gonna take a crack at two guys I think could sneak on next year : Wells & Langeliers

Ben Clemens: Yeah, certainly in range

Ben Clemens: the truth is, player skill varies a ton, it’s hard to predict, there are definitely tons of reasonable answers her

Okra: Any changes you would make to the list now after hearing all the reader feedback?

Ben Clemens: Oh good question. Mmmmm, maybe I’d swap in one Red Sox guy, either Duran or Houck, to the top 50 somewhere for optics’ sake

Ben Clemens: Like, I certainly don’t think I’m wrong in treating them in that mass of players who could easily be on or off the list

Ben Clemens: but I could do better in calibrating who, in that group of people I’m picking between, I pick as a tiebreaker

Ben Clemens: other than that… maybe I’d have Mookie a little bit higher?

Ben Clemens: I might have Bailey and Contreras a bit higher too. I ranked them where I did and thought to myself ‘i bet people will be skeptical’ and no one is so maybe I didn’t push the envelope enough

Tyler: Not trade value, but if the contracts are the same, would you rather sign Ha-Seong Kim or Willy Adames for the next 8 years?

Ben Clemens: quick hitter: Adames I think but it’s close

Ben Clemens: Adames is underrated, he’s like 95% of Francisco Lindor. 5% is a lot at the top end but a great defender with an above average bat at short is a really nice player

Ben Clemens: I’m less convinced by Kim’s hitting, they’re the same age, and I don’t think he’s necessarily a better defender

rtjr: what about mitch keller

Ben Clemens: Just pulling up my initial rankings here to give you an idea

Ben Clemens: Keller was around #100 for me

Ben Clemens: and never really entered the discussion for that group of pitchers at the end of the list

Ben Clemens: i don’t think he’s hugely different than a lot of the 40-100 range, like I think he’s right in there overall

Ben Clemens: the long doldrums times, and the fact that I don’t exactly know what his carrying tool is still, are why I didn’t put him on here

Mike Trout: I see this idea a lot that Ohtani is hitting better because he isn’t pitching, but his wRC+ last year was 180 vs. 185 this year. Is it really that significant?

Ben Clemens: I think he looks better process wise

Ben Clemens: his statcast numbers generally agree

Ben Clemens: also he was shut down from pitching for part of last year

Ben Clemens: but more than that…. most people who put up a 180 wRC+ season are lucky and see it fall off the next year. he didn’t. maybe I’m reading too much into it but eh, you have to read things into it

Murray: If Gunner signs 12yr for 600mil tomorrow, w/ no opt outs, How does that affect the ranking?

Ben Clemens: I mean, he would not be number one anymore, but I’d 100% still have him ranked

gman: how much do you factor in the potential of ABS radically changing catcher value in the next couple years

Ben Clemens: Honestly I thought about it a little bit

Ben Clemens: vis a vis Bailey vs. Contreras, and like Gab Moreno vs. O’Hoppe/Diaz

Ben Clemens: I htink it’s far enough off, and the challenge system will leave enough value to  receiving still, that I didn’t work too hard on it

Guest: I wanna note that this is probably one of the better written Trade Value series in terms of insights into your process. Really felt like you pulled back the curtain. Stuff like Adley DHing vs Catching, Catching Framing variability, the deviations from industry consensus. Appreciate these notes a lot

Ben Clemens: Thanks very much

Ben Clemens: It’s always a struggle what to write in these blurbs

Ben Clemens: on one hand, it’s my chance to encapsulate a player that everyone’s gonna read

Ben Clemens: on the other hand, most people just want the list

Ben Clemens: so I’m trying to lean a little bit more into what made them end up here and being a bit more stick-to-the-facts when it comes to the player’s skills

Ben Clemens: mostly if you’re reading about your guy in a top 50 trade value article, you know the guy’s skills

Guest: Thoughts on Taj Bradley for this list next year?

Ben Clemens: feels 100% resaonable

Ben Clemens: two straight years as an HM should tell you that I really don’t know what to do with him

Cody: Appreciate you answering my platoon splits question. My read is that those guys are super valuable in their pre-arb years, when they’re functionally spare parts, but not very valuable at all once they get into Arb2 money. Abreu stuck out to me as an extreme example bc he’s played at a ~4 WAR/600 pace so far in his career, running something like a 140 wRC+ against righties and a 15 wRC+ against lefties—not sure I’ve ever seen bigger platoon splits than that. It’s not the point of this exercise, but I’m always curious how valuations for weird outliers like that differ across the league.

Ben Clemens: Every year, I start with Paredes on the list, and every year, people are like ‘ehhhhhhh’

Ben Clemens: so that should give you some insight on how teams value weird outliers

Guest: Has Julio’s inconsistency lowered your opinion of his ceiling? Do you think he still has the ability to make an adjustment to tap that ‘perennial MVP candidate’ potential?

Ben Clemens: I mean, yeah

Ben Clemens: if I didn’t I don’t think I’d have him fifth

Ben Clemens: odds are probably a bit lower now? but I don’t think it’s a meaningful change

Ben Clemens: I know ‘look at the projections’ is kind of a cop-out here but I do think it’s a nice blanket way of looking at things

Ben Clemens: and he’s the 8th-highest projection over the next 5 years (Gunnar, Witt, Ohtani, Yordan, Tatis, Acuna, Elly, Julio in order)

Guest: Do you think we’ll ever have 2 DHs in the top 10 again ?

Ben Clemens: Three! Gotta count Adley

Ben Clemens: or like, count Adley plus Will Smith as one

Ben Clemens: I think Yordan is a fair bet to be on next year’s list depending on what goes down in the next year

Ben Clemens: every year I run the numbers and I’m like oh look, Yordan Alvarez is great still, who knew!

Ben Clemens: Ohtani isn’t really a DH, you know?

Ben Clemens: but yeah, golden era of truly titanic DH batting lines

Ben Clemens: did you know that David Ortiz only had two SEASONS where his wRC+ was higher than Yordan’s career mark?

Ben Clemens: and one of those was an abbreviated 2012

Tyler: Asking for a peek behind the curtain here, but do you really do most / all of the writing for this in a week? It seems like you could be pretty confident in at least 30 names on the list by April or so and pre-write those blurbs. Not meant as criticism in any way (these lists are great!), just curious.

Ben Clemens: Oh yeah I write it all in a week

Ben Clemens: obviously there are some names who would definitely been on there, but a lot of the blurbs on those guys are less ‘this guy is good’ and more ‘here’s how I thought about their final ranking’

Ben Clemens: I suck at pre-writing, too

Ben Clemens: I always wrote my essays in english class the day before they were due

J: I think you should’ve overruled the industry on the Neto/Tovar/Volpe tier in the same way you did on Tatis, but in the opposite direction. To me it seems clear that those guys should be lower than the Harper/Seager/Marte/Lindor tier

Ben Clemens: I mean, I kind of did, just so we’re clear

Ben Clemens: I guess I could have gone even further

Ben Clemens: but those guys, and also Masyn Winn and CJ Abrams, I was a little lower than the consensus of people I talked ot

Well-Beered Englishman: Almost thought Ohtani would come in #1 because of the business side of the contract paying for itself. But – in a world where Ohtani could be traded – are the Dodgers getting profits/benefits from his presence there that most teams  would not be getting? Like would the Ohtani advertising money be flowing into Cincy or Miami, too?

Ben Clemens: Unknowable, but probable that the Dodgers are getting the most out of him

Ben Clemens: I mean the Dodgers just aren’t trading Ohtani, it’s unthinkable

Ben Clemens: Alright everyone, thanks a ton for chatting with me, I think I’ve given this about all I have

Ben Clemens: I’m gonna go… well, I’m gonna go have a coffee, then do a radio show, then get ready to talk to Ben and Meg on EW

Guest: Are you gonna do a celebratory lunch ? If so what ?

Ben Clemens: going out to a fun restaurant in a neighborhood I like tonight

Ben Clemens: oh and I’m playing tennis this afternoon, can’t wait

Ben Clemens: Have a wonderful day, everyone, and I hope to talk to you all again soon. Oh and sorry I hate your favorite team and player.