JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/1/20

Ben Clemens

2:00

Hey everybody, and welcome to a Monday baseball chat.

There's no baseball right now, but maybe there will be before too long? I'm honestly not super certain.

In the meantime, let's take some questions.

Big Tony

2:00

So for truncated 2020 and full 2020: Blake Snell or Luis Castillo?

Ben Clemens

2:00

I'm more of a Giolito guy, though I really do think that reasonable people could disagree here.

2:01

Like, Blake Snell is really good, and he still has room to improve on a few fronts.

That's amazing!

2:02

But I just really buy into Giolito's game being changed, and I think his upside is higher.

I'm totally fine with this take looking really silly in six months -- I think it's quite close

But I dunno, I just feel more comfortable that Giolito's gameplan will work

Guest

2:03

I'm so confused. Why did the Nationals reduce the minor league pay by $100 for one month? It feels like they are making savings by cutting out bagel Friday. Would love to have been a fly on the wall when they discussed that. The savings they made probably wouldn't have covered the one hour of salaries of the executive's in the time it took making that decision.

Ben Clemens

2:03

It's not immediately clear to me why they'd do this. It's just such a small move.

2:04

It just feels pointless and borderline malicious to achieve almost nothing.

Presumably there's something behind the scenes going on, but I'm struggling to understand what it is.

Could they be trying to force players to soak up these burdens in an attempt to divide the MLBPA?

2:05

Like, hoping that players will end up resenting having to pay for minor leaguers?

So far that hasn't happened at all.

Maybe they just don't care about the PR at all and wanted to save 10 grand or whatever.

It's reallllllllly odd though

Joe