Author Archive: Ben Clemens

For the third consecutive year, I voted for the Fielding Bible Awards, Sports Info Solutions’ annual recognition of the best defenders in major league baseball. They’re a Gold Glove equivalent for the majors as a whole, created by SIS and John Dewan in 2006. A panel of video scouts and baseball experts vote for five players at each spot; there are also awards for the best multi-position defender, the defensive player of the year, and the defensive team of the year. The awards will be released this Thursday, October 22, and this article will be updated to note the winners once they’re announced. Update: the winners have been announced, and are denoted by asterisks below.

Voting for any award is a prestigious honor, and voting on this panel has great personal import to me. Over the years, the panelists have included basically every writer who got me into baseball statistics when I was younger. Bill James, Peter Gammons, the founder of Strat-o-Matic – you get the idea. It’s a group I’m honored to be a part of, and I take my voting responsibilities very seriously. To that end, I spent some time this year updating my previous voting methods. Let me walk you through it.

Earlier this year, MLB Senior Data Architect Tom Tango did some work on blending multiple defensive systems together. I had actually landed on a similar method after discussing my inaugural ballot with Tom two years ago, but there’s never a bad time for a refresh. I started with Tom’s approach, added in Baseball Prospectus’ DRP as an additional number, and created blends for each position group based on how well each metric tracked itself year-to-year, as well as how well it predicted other metrics from one year to the next. Of note, I moved around my infield weights a bit, increasing the importance of DRS; it has narrowly been the best metric in the post-shift-ban world, a change in defensive rules meaningful enough for me to strongly prefer sampling from it for my initial rankings. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re searching for a metaphor for how differently the 2026 NLCS has gone than last year’s version, look no further than Blake Snell. In 2025, the two-time Cy Young winner humbled Milwaukee in the series opener, allowing one hit over eight strong innings, a prelude to the drubbing the Dodgers put on the Brewers in a sweep. This year, Snell got the start in Game 3, attempting to keep his team in the series after two Milwaukee victories, but the Brewers proved far more formidable this time around. Last year’s series was all about dominant Los Angeles pitching. The current edition has been about back-and-forth games and a resilient Milwaukee offense, and Wednesday’s contest — which the Brewers ultimately won 6-2 to pull within one win of their first World Series appearance since 1982 — delivered on both counts.

In last year’s NLCS start, Snell faced the minimum, erasing the only Brewers baserunner with a double play. This time, his brush with perfection lasted all of one pitch. Snell eased a fastball down the middle to Jackson Chourio to start things off, and Chourio tattooed it, a line drive missile that screamed out to right field, landing in the Dodger Stadium seats before many of the fans did. (This being Los Angeles just after 5 PM local time, only about a quarter of the spectators had arrived.) Snell recovered to retire the next three batters in order, but the tone was set: This iteration of the Brewers wasn’t going to go meekly into the L.A. night.

Snell has been spectacular when available since joining the Dodgers, and he had it all working in the early innings of Game 3. His curveball fizzed with menace, he located his changeup near perfectly, and playoff adrenaline had him up a few ticks on his fastball, which turned an already-good pitch into a monster. He used the curveball to clip the bottom of the zone and the fastball to bully the top of it, a combination that Milwaukee hitters had few answers for over his first six innings of work.

Snell’s counterpart, Robert Gasser, didn’t have the same dominant stuff, but he too gave the opposing lineup fits. He managed as many strikeouts in his five innings of work as Snell recorded in the first inning. He let the leadoff runner reach in three of those five innings. The Dodgers racked up a pile of loud contact; when Gasser departed, seven of the eight hardest-hit balls of the game had come against him. Read the rest of this entry »

Every October, FanGraphs grades each playoff manager. We focus on their in-game decisions, because a lot of the most important parts of the job – things like keeping players ready to go and making sure relievers understand their role so they know when they might be deployed – aren’t always visible to us from the outside looking in. A lot of what managers do never reaches the public eye, so these report cards instead key in on the remainder of their decisions, the ones that come when the lights are bright and the game is on the line.

We attempt to evaluate those decisions based on process, not results. A pitching change isn’t necessarily bad because the reliever who comes in gets shelled, or good because he gets out of a jam. That’s not to say it can’t be a bad decision – if you bring in your closer up eight, or let your worst reliever face Yordan Alvarez with the game on the line, you made the wrong call. But we’re interested in the before, in what we could expect to happen when a manager makes a pitching change or calls on a pinch-hitter. It isn’t good to completely ignore results, but it’s also bad to fixate on them, and it’s my hope that our report cards strike the right balance.

Earlier this month, Jon Becker wrote up the four managers who lost in the Wild Card round. This week, we’re adding the Division Series losers to the mix. Jon and I have already covered Craig Stammen and Aaron Boone. Next up: Will Venable and the White Sox. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Every October, FanGraphs grades each playoff manager. We focus on their in-game decisions, because a lot of the most important parts of the job – things like keeping players ready to go and making sure relievers understand their roles so they know when they might be deployed – aren’t always visible to us from the outside looking in. A lot of what managers do never reaches the public eye. These report cards focus on the remainder of their decisions, the ones that come when the lights are bright and the game is on the line.

We attempt to evaluate those decisions based on process, not results. A pitching change isn’t necessarily bad because the reliever who comes in gets shelled, or good because he gets out of a jam. That’s not to say it can’t be a bad decision – if you bring in a mop-up man in a high-leverage spot, or let your righty specialist face Ben Rice, you made the wrong call. But we’re interested in the before, in what we could expect to happen when a manager makes a pitching change or calls on a pinch-hitter. It isn’t good to completely ignore results, but it’s also bad to fixate on them, and it’s my hope that our report cards strike the right balance.

Earlier this month, Jon Becker wrote up the four managers who lost in the Wild Card round. This week, we’re adding the Division Series losers to the mix. First up: Aaron Boone and the Yankees. Read the rest of this entry »

You want your ace on the mound when all the marbles are in the fire. When the stakes are high, the big cheese needs to have his hands on the wheel. Are those real metaphors? No, but I bet you knew what I was talking about in each case, because the playoffs are a perfect time to discuss the importance of star pitchers. But do you want to deploy them as early in the series as possible? Or do you want them for the decisive game? Does it even matter?

In our game chats and article comments — across the internet really — it’s hard to find a consensus. When I wrote about Chris Sale earlier this week, there were comments to the effect of “It’s a bummer he pitched out of the ‘pen in the Wild Card, now he won’t get to pitch in NLDS Game 5,” as well as “Don’t save Sale for Game 7 of the NLCS, there might not be a Game 7!” Those are exact opposite opinions, and yet they both make a lot of sense when I hear them. But they can’t both be right, so let’s do some math. Even though there’s no real adage to prove or disprove here, this feels like a job for Mathemadage.

Here’s the question, as I see it: For a given set of pitchers making postseason starts, which way would you like those starts arranged in a seven-game series? In other words, if you have an ace, a second banana, and some bullpen games, would you prefer to have your ace for Games 1 and 5 or Games 3 and 7? There are good intuitive reasons to prefer either. Games 1 and 5 happen in almost every seven-game series; Game 7 is a much less frequent occurrence. More innings for my best guy, please! But the stakes can also never be higher than they are in a decisive game. In a big spot? Why wouldn’t I want my best guy in? Read the rest of this entry »

When the Padres put Mason Miller on the paternity list ahead of NLDS Game 3, it always had to be this way. It’s like Chekhov’s gun; if you show me a missing closer in the first act, you must show me a late-inning situation where he’d normally appear in the final one. The Padres beat the Brewers 4-3 to stay alive, narrowing their NLDS deficit to 2-1, in what has been easily the most entertaining series of the divisional round.

Right from the jump, the Brewers put pressure on the Padres. And right from the jump, the Padres minimized the damage. Jackson Chourio tattooed a line drive to the deep part of the ballpark to open the game. In response, Jackson Merrill took off on a perfect line and slid across the warning track to corral it.

Nick Pivetta couldn’t throw the ball past anybody; Milwaukee swung 37 times at his pitches and missed only twice. The Brewers peppered line drives left and right, making frequent loud contact. But they got less for their troubles than you’d expect, because Pivetta beguiled them and his defense stood tall behind him. Read the rest of this entry »

When I’m trying to ground myself in the present, I like to repeat a mantra: No past, no future. I don’t want to dictate personal philosophy to you, but it works great for me. It’s a reminder to focus on the now, that experiencing what’s happening right this instant is more important than whatever mental baggage I’m carrying or whatever I’m worried might take place next week. I wholeheartedly suggest some variation of this phrase when you’re feeling overwhelmed by things that aren’t happening to you in the moment.

Having said that, let me be clear: You can’t ignore the past and future when you’re managing postseason pitching assignments, Walt Weiss. The Braves are five games into the playoffs, and they’ve been living the “no past, no future” life the entire time. Now, I actually think that has some useful consequences. The present really does matter quite a bit in playoff baseball – more than the future, and certainly more than the past. But it’s also caused them plenty of problems. The clearest example is also the most notable move Weiss has made so far. The Braves deployed bullpen games in each of the first two games of the NLDS over the weekend. The first was unavoidable, a consequence of their injury-depleted rotation, but the second was the direct consequence of Weiss’ earlier actions.

I’m talking about Chris Sale, of course. Sale started the Wild Card opener against the Phillies last Tuesday and worked into the seventh, throwing 95 pitches before departing with two on, one out, and the bottom of the Philly lineup coming to the plate. After a little turbulence (Didier Fuentes allowed both inherited runners to score, giving the Phillies the lead), the Braves pulled it out. But after Philadelphia won the second game of the series, Weiss called on Sale to cover the final four outs of the decisive Game 3. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Chicago White Sox pushed aside the Houston Astros in a Wild Card sweep, they set up a tilt against a familiar opponent. The Cleveland Guardians are the hereditary rulers of the AL Central, and they nipped the Sox by a single game this year. But other than playing in the same division and having nearly the same record, the two teams present quite the clash in styles. The White Sox are a group of young guys who hit home runs. The Guardians are a group of veterans who play small ball. It’s so compelling that it’s hard to find any other way to look at the series.

The difference between the two teams was on display immediately in Game 1. The Guardians sent Parker Messick to the mound for his first playoff start. He’s one of the best starters in baseball, and he’d be the Rookie of the Year favorite if Kevin McGonigle weren’t from another planet. The White Sox countered with opener Hagen Smith, coming off of an electric three innings against Houston. The White Sox aren’t deploying a “rotation” in the way you’d normally think of one; they’re heavy on multi-inning relievers and light on true starters, so their games are mix-and-match, while the Guardians hope to run their starter out for a decent stretch, then turn the game over to a series of one-inning relievers.

That’s the kind of game plan you can execute against the White Sox if you’re sharp enough. Messick came out a bit scattershot, walking Miguel Vargas and surrendering a hard-hit single to Munetaka Murakami in the first. But he also posted six strikeouts through the first three scoreless innings, the exact kind of numbers you’d expect against the aggressive White Sox lineup. Messick leans on his fastball, and he works the edges. That mattered more today, because to put it charitably, home plate umpire Cory Blaser’s strike zone was uneven. Five of those six strikeouts came on called strike threes, though White Sox hitters were clearly under dugout orders not to challenge early. A particularly egregious pitch to Randal Grichuk – 3-2 count, two inches off the plate outside – got Messick out of the third, and quite frankly, the combination of stuff and zone looked incredibly inhospitable to the White Sox. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve written a lot of playoff series previews over the years. You can go about them in a number of ways. Highlight some key players from each team, perhaps, or touch on one particularly interesting matchup. If you’re feeling frisky, series previews can tell a narrative story, or even get experimental and weird. But one thing I don’t think I’ve ever tried before is looking at the series through the lens of failure.

That sounds negative, defeatist, not in keeping with the kind of escapism we come to baseball for. But that’s only if you don’t think about it too long – because one team’s failure is another team’s success. If the Padres get eliminated, the Brewers don’t, and vice versa. It’s a zero-sum game. So let’s figure out how things could go wrong for the San Diego Padres and the Milwaukee Brewers, and use that to shine a light on what each team will be trying to do to the other as they square off in the NLDS.

How the Brewers Might Fail
Milwaukee has the best starter in baseball in Jacob Misiorowski, and by virtue of earning a first-round bye, they’ll deploy him on full rest to open the series. That means he’ll also be available to pitch on five days’ rest in a potential Game 5. It’s a huge advantage right from the jump; Milwaukee’s ace is better than San Diego’s ace, Michael King, and King won’t appear until Game 2 of this series.

But when a single starter is a major reason for one team’s advantage, failure is always just around the corner. Misiorowski gets my vote for the best pitcher in baseball right now, and he’s going to win the NL Cy Young in a landslide. But even as he cruised to a 1.80 ERA, he was hardly perfect. He got tagged for five runs twice this year, and for three runs five more times. Read the rest of this entry »