Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 2/9/26

Ben Clemens: Hey everybody, welcome to the chat. Let’s get going.

Caleb Durbin’s here, guys: Seems like a sneaky-good, albeit unsexy, signing for Boston. If you were Alex Cora, how would you best sort out the Durbin/Mayer/overall infield situation for the Red Sox now?

Ben Clemens: Oh yeah, I’m really into this trade for the Sox. Like, is it Alex Bregman? It is not. But I’ve been saying ‘sign an infielder’ over and over again about the Sox for the entire winter

Ben Clemens: what, I’m gonna be mad when they do it?

Ben Clemens: I think I’d start with Durbin at third, Mayer at second, but I don’t feel strongly that I know better than the Sox who should play where

Well-Beered Englishman: Are the Brewers fathomable? How far can you get with five or six No. 4 starters and zero 3Bs?

Tacoby Bellsbury: Durbin and Monasterio feels like a lot to give away to get Kyle Harrison, who seems to have plateaued, but the Brewers are so good at these sorts of transactions. What are your initial thoughts on the Brewers-Red Sox trade?

Guest: Who the heck is playing third base for the brewers now? Any chance they teach Jett third and he’s solid there? Another move coming?

Ben Clemens: You get the idea

Ben Clemens: We’re writing something up for tomorrow, but the way I look at it, the Brewers aren’t really bought in on the Durbin experience. I concur with them! He has a little David Fletcher to him, in my opinion, and I’d be afraid of his game collapsing if pitchers just commit to bullying him in the zone. I’m not saying that’s a base outcome but when you have 6th percentile bat speed, 4th percentile exit velo, 4th percentile hard hit… it’s an unstable profile

Ben Clemens: so I think they’re trying to cash that in by acquiring some guys they think are relatively undervalued, while Durbin is at the height of his value

Ben Clemens: Given that we’re a year removed from him being worth 50% of one year of Devin Williams, selling high makes sense to me

Ben Clemens: that said, I’m on the record as being very down on Kyle Harrison’s potential as a starter, so I’m not exactly in love with the return

Ben Clemens: I’m interested in reading what Davy writes about it, but for me, I think I somehow don’t like either side?

DJ: Do you think MLB will evolve into having more 6-man rotations over the next decade?

Ben Clemens: Oh, 100%

DJ: With the Brewers trading away their top three 3B candidates all in the same trade, do you think another external move is imminent? …or will the Brewers just be the Brewers and make it work with what they have.

Ben Clemens: Oh yeah, one last point: the Brewers churn out versatile infielders like Durbin. I think they’re probably pretty sure they can assemble another Durbin in the aggregate, whether it’s with Jett Williams or some other way.

Guest: seems hard to believe but do they like Made or Pena for the spot?

Ben Clemens: maybe they just want to preserve flexibility for those guys

Ben Clemens: Harrison was a top 100 prospect not all that long ago, Drohan is interesting, Monasterio is not exactly a big loss – I can make it all make sense

Ben Clemens: I just…. I don’ tlike Harrison that much, what can I say?

Josh: Trevor Megill for Isaac Paredes.  Who says no?

Ben Clemens: The Astros

Baleb Curbin: What to make of Isaiah Kiner Falefa’s role and workload with the Sox in light of today’s Durbin trade? In years past he has played 100-120 games with low 400 plate appearances. If Mayer is playing every day did they really just spend $6MM on a bench piece?

Ben Clemens: so maybe…. but also, do you think Trevor Story is gonna play the whole season? Are you 100% certain that Mayer is a bona fide major league batter?

Ben Clemens: heck, are you 100% certain that by August, Durbin won’t have turned into a pumpkin?

Ben Clemens: depth is very important. The Red sox should absolutely be willing to spend a few percetn of their payroll to massively increase their floor

Half Street: Just wanted to say how awesome the Washington Post’s nats coverage has been, recently with Andrew Golden and Spencer Nusbaum as well as for my entire life, and how sad it is that it’s gone. Also, Mark Zuckerman (longtime beat writer for MASN who was laid off) will be covering the team independently on Substack, so every nats fan should support! He’ll be the only beat writer besides mlb dot com.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, man, it’s all so sad

Ben Clemens: I really recommend Bryan Curtis’s obituary for the post sports section:
https://www.theringer.com/2026/02/04/media/washington-post-sports-depa…

Ben Clemens: my grandparents are from northern Virginia and I grew up reading cut-outs of Tony Kornheiser that my grandpa saved for me, I feel this loss keenly

Michael – FG since 2016: Can you explain to us how the challenge system will work this year and can you make your guess which type of players will benefit from it?

Ben Clemens: If you’ve seen the minor league implementation for it or are a tennis fan, it’ll be intuitive: batter, catcher, pitcher can challenge a call if they do it promptly. You get 3 misses per game, I believe

Ben Clemens: I suppose we’ll have to see but my initial assumption is that while players with incredible batting eyes (and senses of the zone, say as a catcher) will be moderately favored, the noise will be huge

Ben Clemens: and that mostly, we’ll just have fewer bad calls and be pretty fine with it

PinstripedPride: Which (or how many) of the unsigned quality starters do you think signs before the start of the season? What does it say about the state of baseball that Bassit, Gallen etc. remain unsigned?

Ben Clemens: mmmmm…. I think they’ll all be signed before the start of the regula season

Ben Clemens: and honestly I don’t think it says a ton about the state of baseball, so much as the state of these particular pitchers

Ben Clemens: free agency spending this winter has been totally normal

Ben Clemens: Looking at both my predictions and the crowd’s predictions for contracts, I was slightly high ($2m/player after adjusting for contract length) and the crowd was slightly low ($3m/player)

Ben Clemens: in other words, the way that we’ve predicted based on the past seems pretty good still

Mateo: do you have any winter Olympics events you’re keen on following?

Ben Clemens: all of them

Ben Clemens: I’m a huge Olympics guy

Ben Clemens: woke up to watch Lindsay Vonn (oof), but then I spent a while watching women’s hockey and the normal hill ski jump

Ben Clemens: who doesn’t want to see the best athletes in the world play weird sports?

Ben Clemens: the mixed biathlon relay was amazing too

Naylor Sailor: Not a question, but I feel so much better about the Mariners roster now that they have Donovan onboard. Feels like the most complete team they’ve had to start a season in forever.

Ben Clemens: completely agree. I feel like the Mariners made a bunch of moves where I was like ‘and one more…’

Ben Clemens: and then the Donovan move was the one more

Ben Clemens: I really like how things are shaping up there at the moment

Sanford: Aside from the Cards & Giants (& Dodgers naturally), which team(s) do you think you’ll most actively watch on MLB.tv this year?

Ben Clemens: so a more honest ranking is something like 1)Giants 2)A’s 3)other west coast teams 4)Mets 5)Cards

Ben Clemens: don’t tell my family, but the Cardinals fandom has subsided to just a general appreciation, and eh, they’re gonna be bad this year

Ben Clemens: the Mets are up there b/c I just love the broadcast booth, the GIants and A’s are up there b/c I get them on regular TV and my wife is a Giants fan. Everything else, I try to just watch as much baseball as possible for Five Things, and I try to watch every team at least somewhat equally and also default to the home broadcast booth

Sandwich: Not a question, but a note: 3 of the 4 players Boston acquired for Devers are already out of the system.

Ben Clemens: yeah, let me tell you, my view that the players they acquired for Devers were unimportant and the deal was just a straight salary dump is feeling very correct in retrospect

Ben Clemens: Subjectively, I feel that i got far too much pushback for that opinion in my writeup of the trade and subsequent writing

Ben Clemens: but also, maybe I just feel grievance easily

Ben Clemens: the point is, the Sox clearly didn’t do the deal for guys they HAD TO HAVE

Ben Clemens: given that they were willing to trade away prospects just to dump some of Hicks’s salary, and also traded Tibbs for a reliever rental, it’s not like they had huge grades on these dudes

Dave Kerwin: Sanity check: Is there actually any chance PIT acquires Paredes? Do they have the pieces to do this without meaningfully subtracting from the current roster?

Ben Clemens: I’m gonna say no, for a few reasons

Ben Clemens: first, this would be one of the worst imaginable fits of player and park

Ben Clemens: Statcast has a little ‘how many homers would you have in each park’ type deal. Paredes has 92 career homers, he’d have 57 if he played all his games in PNC. That’s because it’s death to righty hitters and while he pulls his balls NEAR the line, it’s not like every one hits the foul pole. The cavernous left field expanse is still a disaster for someone with his batted ball profile

Ben Clemens: second, I think they’re done after signing Ozuna

Ben Clemens: like, surely they COULD trade some prospects for Paredes, and they have enough that they could make it happen without getting rid of guys expected to contribute in 2026. But it would just be a weird and inefficient way to add offense, in my opinion

bosoxforlife: Devers had totally worn out his welcome with Red Sox management and it was seen as getting rid of a problem child and a contract that is going to be very ugly, possibly sooner than people think..

Ben Clemens: well right, that’s what happened here

Ben Clemens: and then for about 3 months you had a lot of Boston-based writers, and national writers too, writing about how this was all about the talent acquired

Ben Clemens: and eh, it just wasn’t

Ben Clemens: it was entirely about subtraction

Carlitoooos: Oh man, loved the tennis chat last week and was sad to miss it. Appelman realllllly should get into tennis stats. The state of play there is absolutely atrocious and it would be SO cool to bring FG-level analysis to tennis

Ben Clemens: I’d like to recommend tennis abstract if you’re into tennis stats

Ben Clemens: their blog, heavy topspin, is somewhat of FanGraphs for tennis. there was an awesome one recently about Alcaraz’s ridiculous combination of putting returns into play, and hten winning in-play-return points at a silly rate

wheelhouse: T/f: the yankees are nowhere near as bad as you’d think they are for how moribund everyone is when talking about their offseason

Ben Clemens: very true

Ben Clemens: I think they look pretty good! I love the deal for Goldy, as I just wrote about today

cutch22: Hi Ben, question about projection system and projected records. Big Pirates fan and love the ranking at 14, but questioning how the projection model can spit out a better record for the Bucs when they have lower projected staff WAR and lineup WAR than a team like the Reds. Writing an article right now about the ranking for a PIrates blog and wanted to get a better handle on this. THank you!

Ben Clemens: So, if you take a look at our playoff odds page, you can see that we have an option to do our odds based on our WAR numbers specifically, and in that one, as you mentioned, the Reds are slightly ahead of the Pirates

Ben Clemens: the difference comes because we don’t just make team projections out of WAR. We take individual projections, on a per-outcome basis (so number of K’s, BB’s, steals, HR’s, etc), and aggregate them up into runs scored and runs allowed numbers via the BaseRuns formula, which you can read about here:
https://library.fangraphs.com/features/baseruns/

Ben Clemens: WAR is a pretty big dimension reduction, turning everything into some context-neutral ‘wins’. BaseRuns does a better job of putting the team together and seeing how those outcomes often translate into run scoring. so by modeling a little more specifically than just WAR, we think it does a better job

Ben Clemens: the two generally track with each other, but you can imagine interactions where that isn’t the case, or at least not perfectly the case

Ben Clemens: and what happened here is that we think the Pirates combine better than the Reds, more or less

Carlitoooos: Sackman is awesome and TA is good (certainly better than the black box stuff at Tennis insights) but a far cry from what tennis could do!

Ben Clemens: oh for sure

Ben Clemens: no argument htere. I’m just glad there’s something

Steve O: Well… The Red Sox created the problem with Devers, no? Also the Sox alienated their franchise player, and a top 10ish bat in MLB, for what exactly? To let go of Bregman in free agency? Then preaching the need for power bats and not getting any? Lots of questions, few answers that make any sense.

Ben Clemens: You’re preaching to the choir here a bit, but I guess my thinking is that they really did have some knid of organizational disagreement with Devers that made them decide they’d prefer to have him not on the team to on the team

Ben Clemens: I don’t actually think that I’m qualified to know if that makes sense at the team level, because I wasn’t in the room. I certainly wouldn’t have done it with the information I have, sitting at home today

omar moreno: I really dislike the Ozuna signing. Having Lowe at second and now O’Hearn to left makes the defense worse and won’t help the pitchers any. All this for an over-the-hill DH (with a history of domestic assault, no less).

Ben Clemens: I have to say taht I like it a lot less given their roster construction

Ben Clemens: this could be a very bad defense

Ben Clemens: and god, O’Hearn in left in a park where they used to play Gregory Polanco because “left is like another center here”?

bosoxforlife: For the Pirates to actually contend for a playoff spot they will have to ride their group of starters very hard. Do you think it is possible to see Skenes throw 225 innings?

Ben Clemens: I don’t, because I think that the math is just too hard there. I think we could see him exceeding 210 but 225 is really a lot. that’d be the most innings anyone has thrown since 2022

RH: Where do Verlander and Scherzer end up?

RH: I was just thinking about Scherzer and Verlander but now I see that the top 12 free agents by projected 2026 WAR are starting pitchers and I’m wondering what is going on

Ben Clemens: I think that has to do with the divergence between pitcher and hitter age

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/hitters-keep-getting-younger-pitchers-stay…

Ben Clemens: this is just the way the league has been heading

cutch22: I think that adding depth for the Pirates is a huge step forward. In the previous years we have seen guys like Ji-Hwan Bae, Josh Palacios, and Cal Mitchell get heavy at bats because someone gets hurt and suddenly they are a starter. having options feels new for the Bucs and I think adding offense by any means can be seen as a win.

Ben Clemens: so yeah, this isthe counterpoint, and I think it’s a reasonable one

Ben Clemens: I wish the depth was multi-positional, in that O’Hearn isn’t actually much of a utility player

Ben Clemens: if Lowe gets hurt, it’s not like O’Hearn and Ozuna are covering

Ben Clemens: but yes, in general, I think that teams should be thinking about the totality of possible options, not just what the lineup looks like on opening day

Ben Clemens: in the same way that I like the IKF signing for the Sox even though they hope not to need him much, I like signing more hitters than you need

Ben Clemens: just…. why are they all DH’s??

Carl: Biathlon and Curling are genuinely great sports to watch. The way they’re structured just maintains tension and excitement throughout the events.

Ben Clemens: I’m gonna steal ‘chess on ice’ from my friend to describe curling

Ben Clemens: it’s truly great, and also very easy to understand for the uninitiated and yet fun to watch

Ben Clemens: my wife had never watched an entire biathlon race before and she could not stop laughing at the penalty laps

Ben Clemens: the US missed three shots in a row in the relay and she was just aghast at the fact that they make them do actual penalty laps

El Tim: I’m very confused by the Skubal arbitration situation. Unless I’m missing something, for the Tigers to win, ostensibly they had to prove that Skubal wasn’t worth $32m a year. Yet, in the middle of the hearing, they sign a lesser pitcher on the open market for $38m? How could they possibly square that and why bother putting your franchise player through a hearing for no good reason when you’re clearly going to lose?

Ben Clemens: no no no, they waited until after the conclusion of the hearing to announce the signing as I understood it

Ben Clemens: but um…. yeah, look, I think that they miscalculated badly and deserve to pay the price for it

Ben Clemens: embarrassing behavior by them

Potato: Wait, you don’t like either side, but you’re super into the trade for the Sox? What the heck, Ben!

Ben Clemens: allow me to rephrase

Ben Clemens: I am down, relative to consensus, on the players on each side

Ben Clemens: but the Red Sox spent the entire winter maknig moves that screamed ‘get me an infielder’

Ben Clemens: and put themselves in a situation where if they didn’t get an infielder, they were going to severely hurt their postseason chances

Ben Clemens: so now, even if I don’t love the deal tactically, it’s made their overall team look much better

El Tim: Sure, but Skubal had to put that together, right?

Ben Clemens: um yes, clearly this is bad for the Tigers/Skubal relationship

Ben Clemens: and also I think it’s bad in general for the MLBPA/MLB relationship in that the labor relations division is heavily involved with teams in arb strategy

Ben Clemens: I think that the Tigers timing everything the way they did makes it even worse, though, so I think you and I agree on that

War2D2: Where does Gallen wind up? Sure seems like AZ is the only team that makes sense—they’re the only one that doesn’t have to give up a pick, and they’re (at least) one starter short. He looked rough last year, and I can’t imagine too many teams are willing to give up even a lottery ticket pick for what might wind up being an August mop-up guy. That said, the DBacks probably know better than anyone why he was bad.

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I guess so at this point. I think I’d be interested in a reunion if I were Gallen, so I don’t know why this hasn’t happened yet

Ben from DC: Speaking of Scherzer and Verlander. Why don’t we see more pitchers later in their career switch over to the bullpen like Smoltz to be closers and hopefully preserve their arms. I always thought Max would be a great closer

Ben Clemens: I don’t know and I wonder this too

Ben Clemens: I was at the Scherzer-closes-out-the-NLDS game against the Giants and it was pretty great, his intensity really matched the moment

Sid the Astro Kid: Hello hello, Given that teams who were said to be interested in Paredes are signing alternatives, do you think the best path forward for the Astros using Walker as a bench bat and Paredes at 1st? Or rotating Alvarez in left field/dh and Paredes at DH. We have so many infield players I don’t really know what we plan on doing right now

Ben Clemens: I think it’s some combination of this, but maybe Paredes as like a home/road platoon almost?

Ben Clemens: i mean he has the second-highest projected wRC+ on the team

Ben Clemens: and for good reason, like, he just keeps producing

Ben Clemens: I understand that the Astros are now overloaded on infielders thanks to trading for Correa last year. but c’mon, you can’t tell me that you’d prefer Zach Cole and Jesus Sanchez’s bats to Paredes

Ben Clemens: or Walker’s, though at least there’s defensive value there

Ben Clemens: the team just has to find a way to get him in the lineup, and so they will. I think it’ll be at the expense of Walker if he doesn’t hit right away though

Fred: Do you see the Cards relegated to the lower class of the league with an inability to spend based on lower TV revenue and cratering attendance figures?

Ben Clemens: let’s see what happens when they build their next good team. I don’t think it’s at all obvious that attendance will stay down

Ben Clemens: they packed the fans in for a very long time, and if they weren’t so lackadaisical and stuck int he mud in recent years, I think they might continue to do so

Baron Oone: The whole deal with the Yankees is that they didn’t give the (often blindly insane) fanbase shiny new guys to dream on. They have to be OK just having a bunch of guys be very good to great in a relatively predictable way. There’s not even a New Ben Rice to surprise with a breakout. Therefore: Everyone loses their damn minds with doom and gloom because of a couple bad games against Toronto. And so it goes.

Ben Clemens: I tend to think people give Yankees fans too hard of a time for their high expectations

Ben Clemens: the Yankees should have high expectations

Ben Clemens: but yes, in this case, last year’s team was really good and they did a good job of replicating some of the good parts of it

Potato: Okay now I understand your Durbin reaction better. Thank you for the clarification! (I’d really love the trade if they’d *also* signed Bregman…)

Ben Clemens: ha yeah it’s complex and I didn’t explain it well

Skubal: It’s funny how some fans are mad at Boras for shutting down negotiations, when the Tigers’ offer was so bad that Boras immediately realized he could demand the highest arb salary ever and still easily win

Ben Clemens: it’s hard to know how easily they won but yeah, this is only maknig Boras look  better and more reasonable

Ben Clemens: what in the world were the Tigers thinking?

Ben Clemens: if they offered a reasonable number, I think this would have gone differently

Guest: What’s the highest average number of wins a division has been projected to win preseason? The answer may need to be a recent division since the change to the balanced schedule reduced divisional games. The AL East feels brutal this year but maybe I’m forgetting another recent example.

Ben Clemens: Let me introduce you to…. last year’s ALE. I didn’t do all the math but that’s the highest projection I quickly saw

BuntSingles: Looking at the Red Sox/Brewers deal and I think I actually like the Brewers side more with Drohan being my favorite/most interesting player in the trade. Is that nuts?

Ben Clemens: not at all. I don’t have a strong view on him but if you do, that should absolutely change your evalaution of it

Dan: Is there any world where Kristian Campbell holds down a significant role on this Red Sox team post-Durbin deal? Feels like another sign they don’t buy into him at 2B and the OF is well-publicized overloaded.

Ben Clemens: I think that it’s quite reasonable for them to keep him around and try to develop him as an outfielder, expecting something (injury, trade, underperformance) to free up some MLB at-bats

Ben Clemens: only because uh, what else are they doing here

Ben Clemens: salary dump the guy you just signed to a ‘team-friendly’ pre-debut extension?

Josh: are the Diamondbacks going to completely waste a (relatively cheap) Marte/Carroll/Perdomo core? I know a lot of that has to do with injuries, but man, what a bummer

Ben Clemens: well, they did make teh WS recently

Ben Clemens: but yeah, they needed to win that one. playing in the same division as the Dodgers is rough

Ben Clemens: alright guys, I gotta run. Prospect week starts tomorrow, so there is going to be a ton of good stuff on FG in the coming days. And next Thursday, I have a big announcement of my own coming. There is some awesome stuff in the pipeline. So have a wonderful day, and let’s chat again soon.