Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 8/10/26

Ben Clemens: Hey everybody, welcome to the chat.

Ben Clemens: I’m really excited to basically just watch a bunch of baseball with no ulterior motive for a month; the last month has been filled with trades, valuation stuff, the ASB, home run derby, and so on. but now it’s just a bunch of games and no transactions. Can’t wait! Let’s chat

Okra: Extra rest is good for pitchers, right?  Shouldn’t the Mariners just go to a 6 man rotation and call up Kade Anderson?  Gotta find out how good he is and get him some experience before a potential playoff run.

Ben Clemens: I’d be tempted. Or, well, I’d probably just do it. I’m very high on Anderson

Ben Clemens: the tradeoff is that you’re getting your good guys slightly less frequently. But eh, everyone in the M’s rotation is good

Ben Clemens: I think that the teams that should most avoid 6-man rotations are the ones with spiky distribution of pitcher talent, which is not them

shandykoufax: Following the Kawhi Leonard saga at all? Baseball cap circumvention could never be this good, we’d probably just get Steve cohen backdating stock options inserted into player deals

Ben Clemens: it’s spectacular

Ben Clemens: I really want to see the fallout

Nickname (required): Do the Cardinals go for it next year, or will they continue the reset, runway, finding out who they are? How far off do you think they are from challenging Milwaukee for the NLC?

Ben Clemens: I think that they’ll basically continue building, but with more of an eye on the present

Ben Clemens: When we’ve talked about their strategic position this year, I think it’s generally been in the context of ‘there isn’t a whole team here, so let’s use 2026 to figure out which parts need to be addressed, while we keep accumulating’

Ben Clemens: if I were them, I’d be focused on pitching this winter, whether that’s via trade or free agency. I’m thinking kind of the same blueprint as a lot of teams that have followed a similar youth movement arc to the Cards; pitching is an easier place to start spending money b/c your pitchers are less likely to crowd out your ability to keep figuring out which minor leaguers you like

Ben Clemens: an ace doesn’t ‘block’ anyone else basically

Ben Clemens: so I expect them to do that. but the lockout makes it all very tricky

mlommler: If you were a POBO, how would the other POBOs react when you called/texted about potential trades? Would it be, “Ah, it’s Ben, this should be interesting and productive” or would it be, “Oh, this effing guy again”.

Ben Clemens: probably it would depend on their own style. I’m more of a ‘first price best price’ guy

Ben Clemens: not that every offer I make is my best

Ben Clemens: but in various bargaining situations, I hate the whole ‘start far away and gradually add’

Ben Clemens: so if a GM is one of those types, they’re going to be getting a lot of hangups

Ben Clemens: and if they’re the type that gets an offer, regardless of fairness, and starts their own counter WAY away

Ben Clemens: then they’d hate me

war2d2: Ben! I was a little surprised by the costs associated with the moves the Cubs made. They got Gausman essentially for free, but had to give up their top guy to get Holmes (and Taylor). I’m not complaining about the moves themselves, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if the returns were reversed. Gausman isn’t an ace or anything, but I’d prefer him to Holmes. What were your thoughts? Do you think it was a case of dwindling resources driving the price up for Holmes, or was Toronto not pushing hard enough for more?

Ben Clemens: yeah I was surprised a little bit. I wrote about this some in my winners/losers deadline piece

Ben Clemens: it kind of feels like prices went up as the deadline loomed, and that the Jays just settled too early

Ben Clemens: I do think that Holmes is more highly regarded than we in the public suspect, but yeah, prices went up later on in the process

Mr. Redlegs: Maybe a dumb question or a misunderstanding on my part but I’ve never understood the batting average against certain pitch types for a pitcher. Feels weird to attribute a specific result to 1 pitch when it might have been the many pitches in the sequence that actually led to the result.

Ben Clemens: you’re understanding it correctly. it’s a terrible statistic

Ben Clemens: the biggest issue with it is that any pitch that gets predominantly thrown in counts that can produce a strikeout looks silly

Ben Clemens: like, a 1-1 pitch can’t produce a strikeout even if it produces a strike

Ben Clemens: so BAA doesn’t handle that well at all

Ben Clemens: it’s just a very bad statistic

Ben Clemens: completely confounded by count leverage and the fact that at-bats aren’t one pitch long

marz: The ads the owners are running right now featuring supposed fans whose biggest concern with the game is that there isn’t a salary cap are straight-up embarrassing. That is all.

crew87: I’m firmly in the camp of “no salary cap,” but SOMETHING should be done about the imbalance of the Dodgers, right? I do believe owners should spend more money, but dont’ necessarily believe they could all spend what the Dodgers do, mostly because of LA’s sweetheart revenue sharing deal and their deferred contract setups. Would ending contract deferrments bring some of that spending back to the pack to a reasonable degree?

Ben Clemens: we’ll do just a little bit of lockout/bargaining talk

Ben Clemens: but not too much!

Ben Clemens: those ads are embarrassing, but eh, negotiating in public is just embarrassing in general. let’s not act like the union hasn’t said some ridiculous stuff at various points too

Ben Clemens: I’m just treating that as a non-event

Ben Clemens: as to the second question, deferments would do NOTHING. that’s a fan issue, not team

Ben Clemens: teams know that

Ben Clemens: the money gets put in escrow. it’s just not a big deal. the dodgers are paying Ohtani 46 mil a year between the money they send him directly and the money that they’re required to set aside. it’s a REALLY marignal change in finances, and these teams are surely not cashflow strapped, or if they were, they’d just do some debt management around it

Ben Clemens: now, revenue sharing, THAT is the big deal

Ben Clemens: for me, the number one issue that must be fixed in this CBA is a far more evenly split of TV revenues

Ben Clemens: far more even*

Ben Clemens: that is absolutely the biggest issue driving a divergence in spending, even among teams that truly do want to compete

Ben Clemens: look, the Pirates under Bob Nutting are probably going to be an embarrassment to the idea of trying to win regardless of what CBA we sign

Ben Clemens: but let’s make it easier for the Brewers by giving everyone a more even piece of the TV pie

Andre Mouchard: I’m NOT panicking. NOT NOT NOT… But, damn, the Dodgers suck right now. They can’t hit, run the bases, field… It’s ugly. Have many WS winners had losing streaks/stretches like the Dogs of the past two weeks or so? Again, NOT PANICKING… Also, while I do love the Skubal deal, I’ve been thinking all year that they need a bat. That’s become more clear as Teo has slipped, Mookie has aged, Tucker has flopped and Will Smith has been hurt. That’s half a lineup that’s either not good or unwell. Thoughts?

Ben Clemens: thoughts: boy, the hedonic treadmill sure is something

Ben Clemens: if DODGER fans think their team is bad, imagine how fans of other teams feel

Ben Clemens: baseball has a long season

Ben Clemens: teams have bad stretches

Ben Clemens: chill out, it’ll be fine

bosoxforlife: The Fangraphs fraternity is sharply divided on the Rutschman trade. Where do you come down on this?

Ben Clemens: I think that the Sox overpaid. And I probably would have overpaid in their place too

Ben Clemens: ironically, I think that they’re doing a good job of avoiding what I’ll call the Oriole Trap

Ben Clemens: that is, ‘hey, I like my core, let’s just keep in asset accumulation mode because we have an 8 year window and I don’t want to close those last years’

Ben Clemens: the future is unknown and unknowable. The Sox have a great shot at winning the World Series. Chuck some pitchers out the door, get an All Star for this year and next, try to win the 2026 world series

Ben Clemens: you can’t have EVERY trade be like this

Ben Clemens: but a healthy farm system isn’t only for developing your own players, it’s for shifting talent and wins to the times when you want them

Ben Clemens: and what kind of GM wouldn’t want to add talent to the 2026 red sox? This feels like a team that could win a ring

SPArn: The Dodgers will be fine… but MAN would them losing in the wild card be funny after all the hand wringing

Ben Clemens: i mean, that would be absolutely amazing

cosmichero: being an owner shill is embarrassing in general but it feels pretty out of touch to act like spending imbalance *isn’t* the top concern for many fans. and part of that is because a lot of low hanging fruit has already been fixed in the last decade

Ben Clemens: oh yeah. spending imbalance is

Ben Clemens: it’s the turning it into ‘we must have a salary cap like the owners decree’

Ben Clemens: clearly something needs to be done about the revenue streams

Ben Clemens: there’s just no question

Ice Cream Helmet: I’m finding it frustrating that baseball media folks I respect and baseball fans I know seem to be arguing past each other on the lockout/salary cap debate. To me, it seems to come down to:

• Media folks arguing that “small market” teams are gaming the system for profit and not spending what they could. Some come off a little smug when telling fans “your owner is the problem, they should spend more or sell the team”.
• Fans of said teams – while possibly even agreeing with the above – still coming out with the opinion that a cap would be the quickest/best/most likely way for their team’s odds of winning a WS to improve. Which very well may be true! If you don’t have any reason to believe that Castellini will sell the Reds to a much richer rich guy, then the idea of a cap becomes understandably appealing to someone whose fandom is “locked in.”

I can see both points of view. I’m more sympathetic to the fan perspective above, because, outside of a cap, I don’t think they’re being given better way to parity.

Ben Clemens: well, even the player proposal hugely overhauls revenue sharing of TV money, changes the way that a lot of revenue sharing works to incentivize winning, etc.

Ben Clemens: obviously what they want to do to the top bands of the CBT and stuff is silly

Ben Clemens: but I do think there’s some happy middle place here where we end up with a soft cap/soft floor shape

Ben Clemens: which is REALLY what people want, I think

Ben Clemens: plus way more redistribution of revenue

opifijikl: What’s your favorite traditional statistic? Do you pay attention to counting stats/totals much?

Ben Clemens: like this question quite a lot. I care about strike%, but largely because it’s a good proxy for stuff that I’d look at more granularly later

Ben Clemens: do OBP and slug count? I think they’re both good stats

Ben Clemens: i care about total HR, total SB – you can’t really ‘fake’ those all that well

Ben Clemens: getting high counting totals there is just great

Ben Clemens: IP

Cheeknbut: Just playing devil’s advocate but does revenue sharing disincentivize winning or trying to win / market your team ?

Ben Clemens: right, gotta work out a way to make you spend to get it, or increase the amount shared if you win, etc.

Cheeknbut: two SF questions ! Did you go to Outsidelands ? what’s for lunch ?

Ben Clemens: I didn’t, I took a much-needed short vacation this weekend

Ben Clemens: if I had gone, I was very excited to see the Clipse and Charli XCX

Ben Clemens: I drove out to outer sunset yday for an errand and man, the festival crowds were huge

Ben Clemens: looked like a fun time

Ben Clemens: what’s for lunch? I got some ravioli from costco that I probably need to cook soon so most likely that

lmb2020: Seems like there’s two pretty clear-cut ROY winners. Do you agree? I don’t necessarily default to WAR as the only way to choose (I think counting stats make sense as a factor) but is there an argument against the Wetherman or Professor McGonigle?

Ben Clemens: mayyyyyybe if McGonigle slows way down, the Tigers collapse, and Messick goes on a run, I could see him winning

Ben Clemens: but mostly no, they’re close to locked up

K’d Cavalli: Hey Ben I’m back with my bi-monthly Dylan Crews check-in. His hard hit balls are on the ground. His hard hit balls that he DOES elevate are to straightaway center. Is it swing mechanics? Is that something that can be fixed? I could take the chase and K% if he was doing damage otherwise, but as the president of the Dylan Crews fan club, I am rapidly losing hope in a prospect that I adored

Ben Clemens: ah, the Jordan Walker conundrum

Ben Clemens: I sympathize with you. Cardinals fans have gone through this before

Ben Clemens: if you play around with the Squared-Up Explorer, Crews’ 2026 looks almost exactly like Walker’s 2025

Ben Clemens: the best contact is scalded ground balls, not enough squared up stuff in the air

Ben Clemens: it’s a really hard thing to change, but not impossible, as Walker demonstrates

Ben Clemens: but also as Walker demonstrates with his recent extreme cold streak (.255/.298/.327 with 1 HR in the last month) you never quite get rid of the feeling of ‘oh this guy might just pound the ball into the ground’

illardfillmore: When I go to the team leaderboards and sort by DEF, only 4 teams are positive.  The average is -15.  How should I think about that?

Ben Clemens: with a confused, wry smile

Ben Clemens: it has to do with DH’s

Ben Clemens: we give them a ton of negative value, of course

Ben Clemens: we could maybe re-center that. Haven’t talked about it too much, but it’s an interesting idea. but yeah, it’s something about the way we make the 600 WAR to hitters/400 WAR to pitchers split work, I forget the exact mechanics, but I agree it’s confusing

bosoxforlife: The Brewers continue to baffle all the experts, that is everybody here including the commenters, Miz is a given and Harrison’s return was great. Do you think Henderson is enough for the post-season rotation?

Ben Clemens: I think May is a given too at this point, honestly

Ben Clemens: I would be happy running Henderson out there

Ben Clemens: obviously tons of uncertainty, but this feels like a risk I’d be interested in taking. Miz/May/Harrison/Henderson and a bunch of relievers to work big chunk innings if somebody has a short outing? seems good to me

Ben Clemens: it’s maybe not the Dodgers rotation but it’s still quite good

sliderinthedirt: Ohtani has a bum knee
Mookie looks cooked
Tucker also looks cooked
Will Smith is MIA
Muncy is slumping hard
Edwin Diaz is a cockfighter
Freddie has giant teeth

Is it over for the Dodgers?

Ben Clemens: it’s over

Ben Clemens: they should just quic

Ben Clemens: quit*

Ben Clemens: don’t even play the games, just head home and train for 2027

Barbaro Garbey: Ben, with the Tigers’ continued solid play post-deadline, should they now be considered maybe a slight favorite to sneak into the postseason again? We all thought 2024 might be a fluke, but maybe for the Tigers selling = buying when it comes to making a late playoff push…

TKDC: It won’t be as improbable as last year if it happens, but the Tigers making another postseason run would be objectively hilarious, wouldn’t it?

Ben Clemens: it’s a good reminder of the limited impact of one player, particularyl in the regular season

Ben Clemens: in the postseason when ace pitchers get a bigger share of the pie and rotations shorten, not having those guys sting more

Ben Clemens: in the regular season, it’s really hard for one player to be the difference between a good and bad team

crew87: is it survivorship bias that MLB never has day games on the days I MOST want to / have the availability to turn them on at work?

Ben Clemens: probably a little, but also baseball does not do a good enough job of this imo. some of it is that Monday, Thursday, and Friday are days where I really want day games

Ben Clemens: but Wednesday is the day that most reliably has them b/c of getaway days

Talfred: The Mariners’ rotation is excellent, but they’ve truly benefitted from pitchers not missing starts with injuries. This is the third year in a row where they’ve concentrated their starts in a small number of pitchers. It may be good health practices, but I have to think there’s a reversion to the mean coming. What do you think?

Ben Clemens: maybe a little, but on the other hand, they were maybe the team best set up to handle pitching injuries

Ben Clemens: and instead they’ve had hitting injuries

Ben Clemens: that’s kind of a bummer, on a relative basis

illardfillmore: On the DEF question, is the DH adjustment = ~ -15?  Everyone has a DH, and so that’s why its the average?  Does that represent runs?

Ben Clemens: yes to both

Ben Clemens: it’s -17.5

Ben Clemens: and the whole season’s not over, etc.

Ben Clemens: runs

K’d Cavalli: With the lack of league-wide catcher production, combined with high year-to-year variance and underwhelming prospect depth, do you think more teams are starting to accept a bit of a hole at the 2? With the state of the position right now, I have a hard time imagining teams are going to pay too much for a 2 war guy vs two 0.8 war guys behind the dish (BOS excluded)

Ben Clemens: yeah. I think in general, teams are more willing to try to develop homegrown stars at catcher for value, and if that doesn’t work, just punt it with some good-ish defenders who don’t cost much

cosmichero: I think a not insignificant part of the Dylan Crews angst is that his ability to play above average CF was like half his value and he’s blocked there by Jacob Young. Idk if that’ll change, but it’s something I’ve thought about

Ben Clemens: yeah, although I’d expect him to be grading out better defensively if he was going to live up to some of the rosiest reviews of his  defense

Ben Clemens: I just think the big worry here is that this guy was a top prospect because he hit the snot out of the ball with great bat speed/exit velo type numbers in college

Ben Clemens: and now he’s hitting the snot out of the ball right into the dirt in front of hte plate

drplantwrench: how much do you think the angels will regret not trading Zach Neto? i find myself wishing he was traded, even more common trade target reid detmers

Ben Clemens: I do

Ben Clemens: maybe there wasn’t enough market, maybe they’ll deal him in the offseason

Ben Clemens: but it just feels weird given the way they’re operating in generall

Grandpaboy: Quick and dirty: The odds that there’s a 2027 World Series are _____?

Ben Clemens: 98%

crew87: a non baseball fan asked me what I thought the odds were of a lockout next season. I said “75% the season is at least delayed, 80% that there’s at least SOME season though.” Would you go higher or lower on those?

Ben Clemens: yeah I’m way higher on there being some amount of season

cosmichero: i’ll admit i am pro-cap/floor for the sake of clear bias, but I just don’t see how targeting revenue is enough. the fact is some owners won’t spend unless you force them to, and some owners will spend beyond what is economically justifiable because they can. To me it stretches credibility that competitive balance should be reliant on magically finding 30 perfectly balanced owners, even if the revenue is itself matched

Ben Clemens: okay, last one

Ben Clemens: ‘you can’t trust owners to spend, so let’s lower the player revenue share massively and cut off the draft’

Ben Clemens: and revenue sharing being based on competitiveness and spending is a forcing function on spending

Ben Clemens: i don’t know what the right system is

Ben Clemens: I’m fairly certain it’s not either the union’s proposal or the league’s

Ben Clemens: but the league’s proposal is just brazenly full of lies about everything, whereas the union’s is unrealistic but in a way that isn’t so based on basically trying to hide the ball

Ben Clemens: that’s where I come down

Ben Clemens: I don’t know how this will all get fixed

Ben Clemens: but if you’re saying ‘we share tv money evenly and also you don’t get as much revenue sharing unless you spend and make the playoffs’ isn’t enough to get an owner to spend

Ben Clemens: well then uh, yeah, this might not be solvable

Ben Clemens: and what would a cap do to fix that? they’d just come in under or massively slack off on all other spending

Ben Clemens: like, oh, you think having a pitching coach and a nice clubhouse would be good?

Ben Clemens: well if an owner wants to spend 100 million dollars but he’s floored at 140 payroll

Ben Clemens: he’s just cutting 40 million somehwere else

Ben Clemens: this isn’t complicated

Ben Clemens: if you don’t trust the owners to spend, they’re not trustworthy regardless of system

Ben Clemens: if there’s a cap in the end, I think it’d have to be pretty different than the cap they’re proposing, and it’d have to start iwth a lot bigger share of player revenue

Ben Clemens: as in, the average of the last 15 years or something

Ben Clemens: when the league is saying ‘players have never had a lower share of revenue, a cap would be good for them’ and simultaneously trying to lock in that cap at a LOWER share of revenue than the current rate that the league admits is an alltime low

Ben Clemens: well, you can see what it’s actually about

Okra: Do you read the chats of other FG writers?

Ben Clemens: not never, but not frequently

Ben Clemens: i spend a lot of time watching and writing about baseball

Ben Clemens: and a lot of time reading baseball articles

Ben Clemens: and there’s just a limit, you know?

K’d Cavalli: Ben, I hope you are in a good spot professionally. So many people are using Claude to create nonsensical and unexplainable stuff+ models on twitter now! You may be out of a job soon! (Seriously guys stop making these, they’re unbearable)

Ben Clemens: haha I have Claude up in a different tab as we speak

Ben Clemens: for another lab tool

Ben Clemens: if there’s a long lockout, I might try to write a ‘here’s how not to use AI’ thing

Ben Clemens: because I find that for turning my ideas into driveable tools, AI is great

Ben Clemens: and if I try to have it come up with an idea? well, that’s not so good

Ben Clemens: I don’t know if you are in r/sabermetrics, but that subreddit is getting wrecked by these dummies with uninterpretable models

bosoxforlife: This game is just too cool. With all the flame-throwers blowing everybody away with their 100+ heat, the two leaders in called 3rd strikes are Martin Perez and Ranger Suarez, two of the softest tossers in the game.

Ben Clemens: i love that Martin Perez is still doing it

Ben Clemens: Suarez is one of those guys that we’ll study later, I tihnk

Ben Clemens: like, how was he so good like this for so long with really no obvious explanation

Ben Clemens: but he is!

cosmichero: as thanks for answering another annoying cap question, here’s an actual question about baseball: how excited should I be for jarlin susanna coming back tomorrow? i’m leaning towards very

Ben Clemens: like very very very

Ben Clemens: that trade just keeps coming up roses for the Nats, it’s incredible

drplantwrench: follow up on the neto talk but also generally –  i find it unlikely that neto and others will bet traded in the offseason due to the impending fight over the CBA/lockout concerns.  am i overthinking it?

Ben Clemens: I think that the most likely thing that’ll happen is no trade type stuff until the lockout ends, and then a burst

lmb2020: St. Louis also pretty blessed with pitcher health this year–up and down the org, really. They’ve probably found the bulk of their rotation for next year, like 4 #4/5 types (thought I am very concerned about Liberatore). They have talent percolating, but they need top-end guys next year

Ben Clemens: yeah, agreed

Ben Clemens: that’s kind of what I mean in terms of their big-budget item this winter being an ace pitcher type

Ben Clemens: lot of good stuff going on here

Ben Clemens: but yeah, the fact that they’ve had the least IL placements in baseball is masking the average outcome here

Ben Clemens: which would be worse

Rhetoric Flair: Would you have included Logan Henderson as part of a package for Skubal?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think I would have just because he was alreayd pitching well in the bigs

Ben Clemens: like on the day Skubal was traded, Henderson had posted a 2.57 ERA (3.23 FIP, better xNumbers) in his last four starts

Ben Clemens: and not that I expect him to keep doing that but the math of adding a Skubal isn’t so interesting if you’re subtracting a guy you’d like to pitch in October

bosoxforlife: Would you say the gap between the best catchers in the game and the poorest is larger than at any other position? I have been strongly opposed to the trade but I just walked back off the ledge and accepted that even a lesser version of Rutschman might be worth the price paid.

Ben Clemens: I definitely would

Ben Clemens: maybe like, left field?

Ben Clemens: where ther’s a group of players who are out there because they are specifcially put ther,e and hten a group who are out there because hey, they have to stand somewhere

Ben Clemens: but catcher seems like the most likely big-gap spot

Ben Clemens: and really, the reason I like that trade so much for the Sox isn’t JUST the fact that catcher has big variance – it’s the fact that they were getting nothing out of catcher, and it didn’t feel like they were likely to improve their lineup in a different way this deadline

Ben Clemens: so it’s kind of like a combination of things

oaktownblues: How did the A’s end up this bad? The pitching has been predictably awful, but this was supposed to be a good offense

oaktownblues: What a demoralizing trade deadline for the A’s. A couple months ago they were hoping to be buyers. By the time the deadline rolled around, they couldn’t even sell, because Langeliers and Leiter Jr both got hurt

Ben Clemens: yeah, it’s been a rough two months for the A’s

Ben Clemens: Butler turning back into a pumpkin is just a big problem

Ben Clemens: and having so little depth that Jeff McNeil is now playing first a lot of the time…. I mean, I love Jeff McNeil

Ben Clemens: one of my favorite players to root for, I loved that he put tons of cardboard cutouts of his dog up during COVID so he could always see her

Ben Clemens: but that’s not a serious first baseman

cosmichero: After trading Garcia and Mead, it seems like the Nats will be leaning even harder in platoons with how they use Ortiz and House. Platooning this hard is certainly the best way to score runs right now, but is it worse for developing those young guys? Does it matter?

Ben Clemens: ‘teams platoon too much’ is one of the themes of this chat most weeks

Ben Clemens: I completely agree with you

Ben Clemens: I think they’re being too cute by half

Ben Clemens: Tigers disease, if you will. although with the Tigers maybe it’s more pinch hitting too much to get platoon matchups?

Ben Clemens: but either way, I think it is worse for developing the young guys, and very out of sync with the trades they made

Ben Clemens: if you’re punting on 2026, or at least not prioritizing winning that highly, prioritize development

K’d Cavalli: I was (pleasantly) surprised to see my ERA is around a 3.5. I thought your article on me was quite intriguing. Has your analysis or projections on me changed at all since then? Any new thoughts?

Ben Clemens: truthfully, no new thoughts b/c I wrote that article, then wrote like 7 trade analyses, then winners/losers, then went on vacation

Ben Clemens: I’m excited to see what he becomes. I don’t have a ton of insight into whether he can keep doing it

Swings Low: Should we be worried about PCA considering cubs have put him at DH 3 times

Ben Clemens: I don’t think so. My view is that it’s resting him, but that he’s such a good hitter (and their other DH options are not amazing) that they just want to get his bat in there

Ben Clemens: like, the Cubs are almost certainly not catching the Brewers. And they’re almost certainly makign the playoffs

Ben Clemens: and PCA plays like his hair is on fire

Ben Clemens: so I like getting him off his feet slightly more

Ben Clemens: (if he’s actually hurt, they’re doing a good job of hiding it, at least)

sprechs: Do you have a heuristic as to what effect coaches (as opposed to managers) have on team play? The Yankees offense is atrocious and their hitters seem to always take a terrible approach at the plate. Can any outside fan assess the effect of hitting coach(es) or is it all dwarfed by other factors?

Ben Clemens: no heuristic. I’ve never been able to figure anything out that could even be falsified

Ben Clemens: and if something isnt’ falsifiable, then as far as I’m concerned, you can’t really ‘measure’ it

JasonT: Diamondbacks just went 4-3 against the Padres and Dodgers in a pretty important week for staying in the race. Soroka is back tonight. What do you make of their odds of making it to the postseason?

Ben Clemens: I think our odds (50%) do a pretty good job

Ben Clemens: which is to say, they’re kind of poised on the knife’s edge here

Ben Clemens: Pfaadt has been incredible of late, but they didn’t add enough at the deadline to be able to get by without some of the guys who were performing on the mound early in the season getting back and doing well

war2d2: PCA scored from second on a short single to LF yesterday that 09% of players would

Ben Clemens: good confirmation

Ben Clemens: yeah, I mean, if he starts playing WAY less center, that’s maybe worrisome

Ben Clemens: but I do not feel even close to that yet

Okra: Something tells me people aren’t prepared for how much money Jake Bauers gets this off-season.  Walks and barrels for days.  Elite bat speed.

Ben Clemens: perhaps? I think that people will be a little skeptical of the Brewers magic

Ben Clemens: but yeah, he’s been really good and looks the part

Ben Clemens: like, this isn’t just empty air stats

njwr: Speier was suspended the last two days, so the Mariners were down a bullpen arm (or, were at the same bullpen depth they willing went with while carrying their six man rotation for much of the year). Speier hasn’t pitched since August 5. Ferrer and Bazardo, on the other hand, pitched the game before Speier served his suspension. Does this fall more on Dan or Jerry, or is this not the bullpen mismanagement it seems like it is to me?

Ben Clemens: meant to answer this one earlier

Ben Clemens: but yeah, that seems bad!

Ben Clemens: it’s one of those communication issues that is hard to pin on someone directly without knowing the internal workings, but to me says that things aren’t operating as smoothly as they should be

bosoxforlife: You wrote an article on the year of the bunt earlier but the use of the bunt is absolutely returning to levels not seen in many years, maybe decades. Yesterday I even saw a real hit and run play. I find it fun to watch instead of the TTO game that the game has evolved into.

Ben Clemens: it’s great

Ben Clemens: it’s a great counter, too

Ben Clemens: I think that the best games, not limited to sports, involve multiple feasible strategies, not a singular dominant one

Ben Clemens: even if the correct weight of those alternative strategies is low

Ben Clemens: and yes, I also just love seeing athletic players doing athletic things

Ben Clemens: we’re never gonig to get away from the fact that TTO is the best mainline strategy

Ben Clemens: it’s just the way that pitching has evolved and hitting has evolved as a counter

Ben Clemens: but I appreciate that teams aren’t just brainlessly trying to do it 100% of the time anymore

war2d2: Sorry, crappy iPhone keyboard made me hit send too soon. I meant to say “99% of players wouldn’t have” or words to that effect. luckily my “09%” typo almost made it make sense!

Ben Clemens: yeah I figured I knew what you meant

whipstache: Hey Ben, there was an article today in the Baltimore Banner highlighting the Orioles’ struggles in 0 out situations. I looked it up and sure enough their 0 out numbers are well below their season averages.

I was trying to figure out if this is random noise or if there’s a possible coaching/approach angle that might cause this, and was thinking about looking at swing decision data, but I couldn’t figure out how to pull team swing decision data with Out Situation splits.

What’s your initial thought: coaching/approach problem or random noise?

Ben Clemens: my initial thought is that that’s noise

Ben Clemens: unless the team is yelling THERE ARE ZERO OUTS. REMEMBER TO SUCK

Ben Clemens: just seems like a thing that is noise

Ben Clemens: I dunno if you’ve heard of the idea of pre-registering in scientific papers, but the idea is that you come up with what you expect to see beforehand

Ben Clemens: and that prevents ‘p-hacking’, as in just finding something that looks like an outlier b/c if you look at enough stats, something willb e an outlier

Ben Clemens: is there a good reason to think that something the O’s do makes them bad in 0 outs but not bad other times? no

Ben Clemens: so the good prior, for me, is that it’s just noise

Alexander: What are your thoughts about Lombard Jr.? What do you think about his ceiling?

Ben Clemens: hoepfully it’s sufficiently tall, he’s a large gentleman

Ben Clemens: if he’s living in a house with like 7 foot ceilings, he’s going to be banging his arms into things constantly

whipstache: I just thought they might be taking too many really good pitches or swing too agressively at the start of an inning

Ben Clemens: maybe! I’m skeptical

whipstache: My gut was that it was noise also, but I couldn’t find a way to get the data to verify/disprove

Ben Clemens: yeah. that tends to mean noise

Ben Clemens: in my opinion

SPArn: There’s like a 20% chance that the 2028 Nats pitching staff features both Miguel Sime Jr and Jarlin Susana in some capacity, and holy hell would that be fun

Ben Clemens: I mean, the Nats are poised on the precipice of being very fun

Ben Clemens: I’m excited to see it

Ben Clemens: It’s not a given or anything. but I’m pretty into them of late

Ben Clemens: I think I’ve mentioned that they’re the official team of the year for five things or whatever, as in I’ve watched a ton of their games

Ben Clemens: alright guys this was an awesome chat but truthfullyk, I’ve barely started on my article for tomorrow, and we have some new lab tools coming out soon that I am working on as well, so I need to bounce, cook lunch, and then get moving on that

Ben Clemens: I hope you all have wonderful weeks