Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 3/30/26

by Ben Clemens

March 30, 2026

2:00	Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, welcome to the chat

2:01	Ben Clemens: let’s get going now that there’s a season going on

2:01	War2D2: Every time this chat starts this is where my head goes:

2:01	Ben Clemens: I mean, amazing

2:02

Ben Clemens: i sure hope to be compared to Old Ben (or to have Luke call for me)

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2:02	didace: After one weekend of play, it is obvious Joey Wiemer is the best hitter in baseball. Small sample size/schmall sample size. Yes?

2:02	Ben Clemens: probabl

2:02	Ben Clemens: he’s certainly the most flowing-locked hitter having an incredible year

2:02

O: Hi Ben, what do you make of teams’ challenge strategies thus far? I think it’s felt quite different from spring now that there are real stakes to each game. Some players seem really scared to be the guy to burn a challenge, and I wonder how teams are addressing that culturally to make sure guys are comfortable challenging when it matters, particularly late in games.

2:02	Ben Clemens: I’m going to be writing about challenges for tomorrow

2:03	Ben Clemens: the truth is that I’m still really struggling to wrap my head around the data. there’s a lot of it. it’s really hard to think about optimal strategy. it’s really hard to even describe what a good or bad challenge is

2:04	Ben Clemens: so I’d say, throw a ton of questions at me about challenges if you’d like. I’m curious to know what people are wondering about. But for now, what I can say is that I am interested in seeing whether people are doing a good job of challenging but I don’t feel that I know

2:04	Sailor Mune: how long does Murakami need to mash before white sox fans can take a victory lap on the rest of the league (& baumann)

2:05	Ben Clemens: i mean, for me, 0 days. I think the validity of the experiment has already been proven. If he was completely overmatched/unable to play in the majors, which I feel like was some of the basic reasoning in the ‘this was not a great signing’ camp, we’d know

2:05	Ben Clemens: if he’s capable of doing what he did over the first three days, it was clearly at least worth taking a chance on him

2:05	War2D2: Small-sample theater, but I think it’s fun that Trout leads all batters in ABS challenges and, crucially, correct ABS challenges.

2:05	Naylor Sailor: First series takeaway: Brendan Donovan is awesome.

2:05	Judge: How washed am I? My career is even more over than it was after April of 2024, right?

2:06	Ben Clemens: love one-series-in takes. and like… the second one is just a true thing, regardless of sample size

2:06

Phil: I know it’s three games, I really do, and obviously Contreras and Durbin aren’t this bad, but it’s sure looks like the Sox could be exactly what we all feared, with most of the offense concentrated in too many outfielders. Are they stuck this way until July? They moved fast last year, granting that Yoshida is no Devers and is not going to have the same demand, even if he’s hitting on the rare occasions that he plays.

2:06	Ben Clemens: I mean…. they could move Yoshida tomorrow. All it takes is eating his entire contract and not asking for anything in return

2:06	Ben Clemens: I guess I’d say that I’m not quite sure what else they’d do. Like, they’re not trading Yoshida for a contributing infielder

2:07	Ben Clemens: they could free up some roster space by moving him, and maybe they’ll do that. but I think they built the roster this way and are just going to see what happens with it

2:07	Oaktown Blues: The A’s struck out 50 times in 3 games. Jacob Wilson already has 13% of his 2025 K total. Pretty demoralizing opening weekend

2:07	Ben Clemens: rough weekend for northern california

2:07	Ben from DC: It’s been three games and he did homer, but talk me off the ledge for James Wood strikeout concerns?

2:07	Ben Clemens: it’s been three games and he did homer

2:07	bndj88: I’ll join what I’m assuming to be a chorus in your chat saying I can’t wait for leaderboards related to ABS usage, and more tactical discussions, all of it. I’ve liked it so far!

2:08	Oaktown Blues: I’m pretty shocked how much I dislike the ABS challenge system so far. Now when a bad call goes against my team, I’m not only annoyed with the umpire, I’m also annoyed with the player who didn’t challenge. I expected to like this system but it’s just frustrating me instead

2:09	Ben Clemens: well that’s kind of amazing

2:09	Ben Clemens: I’m into it so far but I do understand that feeling

2:09	bndj88: A Gunnar extension is completely impossible, don’t even think about it? Is there anything you think could get it done?

2:09	Ben Clemens: I mean, basically no

2:09	Sirras: Ben, was the Lindor send overly aggressive or in line with the “stop being so conservative, third base coaches!” thinking that is gaining momentum in analytical circles?

2:09	Sirras: It certainly looked ugly

2:09	Ben Clemens: I thought it was bad

2:09	Ben Clemens: But because of a lack of consideration of game state, basically

2:10	Ben Clemens: I can’t tell you how likely he was to succeed there. But I don’t really see the profit in it

2:10	Kwanbelievable: CHASE. DELAUTER.

2:10	Ben Clemens: seriously

2:10	Ben Clemens: what a debut

2:10	Matt Shaw: With Nico Hoerner extended, what should happen to Matt Shaw? Trade, move to the OF, become a super utility guy?

2:10	Ben Clemens: boy are you in luck, I considered this at length in my article about the Hoerner extension that went up just this morning

2:10	Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cubs-nico-hoerner-keep-extension-train-goi…

2:11	Mom: Hi Ben

2:11	Ben Clemens: hi mom!

2:11

bosoxforlife: The ABS Challenge system took a hit on Saturday with C.B. Bucknor’s performance. I don’t know whether to call it awful or embarrassing, both for him and baseball, but what was clear is that he became vindictive as the game went on. With hitters now having a tool to fight back this could spiral out of control. This cannot happen and baseball has to look into getting calling balls and strikes out of umpires hands ASAP.

2:11	Ben Clemens: I mean, I’d argue that CB Bucknor took a hit

2:11	Ben Clemens: and that he’s going to be facing some very pointed questions from both his colleagues and the league

2:12	jupiterbrando: Is that clip of Salvador Perez correctly challenging Doug Eddings three times the best argument yet for his HoF case?

2:12	Ben Clemens: I’ll just say this. If that’s the best argument yet for putting him in the hall, he does not belong in the hall

2:12	Ben Clemens: because that’s not a very good argument for someone being a hall of famer

2:12	Ben Clemens: i personally think the WS title, all the homers, the longevity and whatnot, are enough to put him in

2:13	the person who asks the lunch question: what’s for lunch?

2:14	Ben Clemens: wonderful question. i actually don’t know. been pretty slammed this weekend and today. I’ll probably run out and grab something at the last minute

2:14	Sailor Mune: On a related note: it does feel insane that there were so many takes of “the guy who put up a 225 wRC+ in the 2nd best league in the world is totally hopeless in the best league”

2:14	Ben Clemens: I mean, I was surprised by them

2:14	Ben Clemens: I wouldn’t consider myself a scouting expert by any means

2:15	Ben Clemens: I’m kind of a numbers guy. And like, I just accept that the people who do a lot of close watching of baseball for scouting stuff know better than I do

2:15	Ben Clemens: but yeah… it seemed far-fetched to me that he just couldn’t play at all

2:15	Ben Clemens: I think that I’ve written a few times that he was one of my favorite signings of the winter just because the math doesn’t add up

2:15	Ben Clemens: like, you can’t be THAT certain he won’t hit

2:15

Challenge system: Does nobody watch minor league games? The challenge system has been exciting for years but some are calling for 100% robo umps based on the challenge system and robo umps were a horrible experience in the minors. A system of checks and balances like the challenges is more accurate than 100% human or robo.

2:16	Ben Clemens: i mean, on a relative basis, you’re right. No one watches minor league games

2:16	Ben Clemens: I think challenges are the better system, for sure

2:16	Insert Witty Name Here: I promised on the opening day chat, what were you doing in Saudi Arabia? Assuming the baseball infrastructure is sorely lacking.

2:16	Ben Clemens: well, I went to kindergarten

2:16	Ben Clemens: my dad did some kind of waste cleanup job, he used to work for the EPA, this was a very long time ago and all

2:17	jupiterbrando: re: the Lindor send, according to GameDay the Mets’ win probability actually went down from before and after Soto’s AB. Feel like you just can’t let that happen with 0 outs

2:17	Ben Clemens: yeah exactly. Without thinking about the actual likelihood of him being safe tehre, you as the base coach can’t actually know that number with certainty, and it needed to be like 99% for that send to make sense

2:17	Ben Clemens: so I think it’s a spot where you just can’t send him if there’s going to be a throw

2:17	Giants fan: Small sample size, but from what I saw Luis Arraez’s approach looked a bit more patient so far, like he was really hunting for his pitches. Do the numbers back this up?

2:17	Ben Clemens: they don’t because there aren’t enough numbers

2:18	Ben Clemens: Luis Arraez has seen 39 pitches this season

2:18	Ben Clemens: he saw 2,467 last season

2:18

bosoxforlife: It looks like the number challenges is, at least, a couple, too few. Before long teams will never allow a player to take a risk early and there won’t be a challenge before the 7th inning which I don’t think is the intention of the rule. There needs to be a mechanism that encourages usage throughout the game.

2:18	Ben Clemens: maybe! I’m curious to see what the data sayd

2:18	Ben Clemens: says*

2:19	Ben Clemens: if it works as I think it should, then you’ll see a very high success rate in low-importance spots, with relatively few challenges

2:19	Ben Clemens: i.e. ‘correct obviously wrong calls’

2:19	Ben Clemens: and then teams will just say ‘our hitters/catchers/pitchers have fallible vision because of the way the human eye works, so let’s just make sure we get teh call right in really important spots’

2:19	Oaktown Blues: I just find it really hard to believe that I wouldn’t like 100% robo calls

2:19	Ben Clemens: it’s likely that it will eventually work. the problem in the minors, when they tested it, was the speed of processing and likelihood of error

2:20	Ben Clemens: like, think about the delay between a hitter challenging and us getting the call. You wouldn’t want that on every pitch, right?

2:20	Guest: I gotta say, I hate that there’s any strategy / game theory involved in the challenge system. I just want the calls to be right. We have the tech, let’s just get them all right.

2:21	Ben Clemens: I generally agree with this. I think that coming at it from a tennis perspective, I want it to correct super bad calls, make sure that important calls are right, but I actually do like the strike zone being somewhat probabilistic

2:21	Ben Clemens: I guess I’d say that if the technology could actually perfectly call balls and strikes instantaneously, with no post-processing at all necessary, I think we could make this work. And probably eventually that will happen

2:22	Ben Clemens: but I think that the challenge system is a great gateway

2:22	Ben Clemens: and also that it’s super fun in person

2:22	Insert Witty Name Here: You know that book The Catcher was a Spy? Your dad was totally a spy.

2:22	Ben Clemens: not the first time I’ve heard that, haha

2:22

George: ABS question: It feels like we’re talking a lot about the rate of wins/losses when we should be talking about something like run value over expected? Even savant is showing net-challenges over expected as the “leaderboards” which I think gets away from the teams’ goal of adding runs not challenge wins.

2:22	Ben Clemens: I would say…. stay tuned for an article about how I, Ben Clemens, think about ABS challenge success

2:23	Ben Clemens: if I tell you who the best challenger is based on their win/loss record in challenges, you have my permission to follow me around booing me for the rest of my life

2:23	Robo umps: I’ve watched tons of games with robo umps and they just weren’t as accurate as the human/challenge system. It’s like saying our political system would be better with a dictator vs executive, legislative and judicial branches having checks and balances

2:23	Tacoby Bellsbury: The all-robot zone in the minors also gave a bunch of high curveballs and backdoor sliders as strikes in ways that pitchers were starting to game.

2:23	Ben Clemens: yeah I guess like, this’ll get fixed

2:23	small e: i’ve already heard people getting annoyed by the “it grazed the zone by 1 seam” overturns which i think is my biggest personal annoyance with full-ABS. any time you rely on technology you have to draw a precise hard line somewhere and it’s gonna annoy people wherever it is

2:23	Ben Clemens: this too

2:23	Ben Clemens: but I do not think that full ABS is ready for primetime yet

2:23	Ben Clemens: and extensive tests by the league in the minors seemed to say the same thing

2:24	Reds Enjoyer: I, for one, am glad that Wilyer Abreu is out of my stadium. Sox will be fine (Early looked really good yesterday). My question: does Eugenio Suarez have the most “that’s why we signed this guy” moment of the season so far? One swing won the Redlegs the game yesterday.

2:24	Ben Clemens: Brendan Donovan being one of the best hitters on the Mariners, and Murakami with three homers and a 30% walk rate ,also up there

2:24	Nate: Spit balling as an Astros fan…how bout something like Javier and Paredes (and maybe a prospect like Matthews) for Durran and Yoshida? Money matches almost perfectly the next two years…and we could even use Yoshida in LF at the moment

2:25	Ben Clemens: I mean, the awkward part about this is that the Sox went ahead and got an entire starting infield

2:25	Ben Clemens: so now they’d be crowding Durbin out

2:25	Ben Clemens: but yeah, I do think this is broadly in the realm of fair

2:25	Oaktown Blues: How is it possible that full ABS is less accurate? They talk about checks and balances but why would you need a check on a totally accurate system?

2:25	Ben Clemens: errors, basically

2:26	Ben Clemens: it didn’t go great when they tested it

2:26

bosoxforlife: I am all for more aggressive third base coaches. For years Carlos Febles held up every runner at 3rd for the Red Sox even with 2 outs and a .220 hitter coming up. He was too timid for fear of being wrong. Even on doubtful plays the odds on a poor throw are far better than expecting a weak hitter to deliver.

2:26	Ben Clemens: yeah. I think that’s generally the case. Russell Carleton has written some good stuff about how base coaches aren’t aggressive enough

2:26	Ben Clemens: but I think the bigger issue is that they aren’t context aware

2:26	Ben Clemens: like you said, bad hitter coming up next two outs

2:27	Ben Clemens: well, you need to have a laissez-faire attitude

2:27	Ben Clemens: no outs? be careful

2:27	Ben Clemens: there aren’t enough sends overall. But the Lindor send was down two, none out

2:27	Ben Clemens: you need to be sure it’ll work. there’s no hitter to expect to deliver. another runner needs to score

2:27

Sun Devilish: Going back to 2017 the Brewers have a +676 run differential over 1,360 games (+0.50 R/G). Since Pat Murphy took over they are at +327 runs in 327 games, easy math. Projected Standings has them down for +9 runs over their next 159 games. That seems a lot closer to a floor than any kind of reasonable median given their recent and long term demonstrated performance, no?

2:27	Ben Clemens: oh boy

2:28	Ben Clemens: that’s not how our odds work, I think it is probably reasonable to say that FanGraphs odds underestimate the Brewers

2:28	Ben Clemens: but we are not doing ad hoc ‘oh look at their records, figure out hte managers, do some bayesian weighting…’

2:28	Ben Clemens: like, we’re taking a formula that generaly speaking does a good job of approximating results

2:29	Ben Clemens: I think it’s fair to say that it hasn’t done a great job of getting the Brewres right. It definitely misses certain teams for certain eras

2:29	Ben Clemens: it’s not perfect

2:29	Ben Clemens: we haven’t found a good way to reduce bias in an algorithmic sense

2:29	Alan: Obviously drawing conclusions from a single series is a fools errand, but Jordan Walker’s O- and Z- swing% have been markedly improved upon, as has his GB rate. Even his already elite bat speed is up. How much data do we need before we can start wonder if he’s actually turning the corner?

2:29	Ben Clemens: let’s say 200 pitches

2:30	bosoxforlife: Actually down one because the previous runner was already across the plate.

2:30	Ben Clemens: ah yeah sorry, I was thinking ‘need two runs to score to win’

2:31	Ben Clemens: but like… the point is that was a send where it’s not in a vacuum, you really do need to consider that not sending him puts you in a good spot, sending him doesn’t materially improve your outcomes, and getting thrown out is a disater

2:31

Ghost of Ben Clemens Past: do you personally have any conviction in how much coaching effects players? Thinking Brewers hitting, Reds pitching etc. does a team like the Nationals have more hope in disappointing production (Dylan Crews) or increased consistency (Wood/Abrams) due to a new coaching staff and philosophy? How much effect would something like this have on a farm system?

2:31	Ben Clemens: I don’t feel strongly that I can measure it. particularly not before the fact

2:31	Ben Clemens: but I’m absolutely sure coaching affects players

2:32

Ben Clemens: now, differential coaching? like I said, super hard to measure. But I’m pretty sure that teams have different coaching staffs and philosophies and that those impact how good their players get. I think that generaly speaking, a lot of the way I look at the game (numbers) is downstream of that

2:33	Ben Clemens: I don’t need to know what coaching tip gets given to say that the Brewers are good at figuring out how to improve catcher defense

2:33	Ben Clemens: or you know, similar stuff

2:33	Arathorn: For me, the hard part of evaluating ABS challenges is that certain times call for 50-50 challenges to be smart. If a player misses 3, was he misjudging or just unlucky? Probably the latter but how do we tell/evaluate in anything less than a few full seasons’ of data?

2:33	Ben Clemens: indeed!

2:33	Ben Clemens: concur completely

2:33	Your Name: Thoughts on the error conventions? That a pop up can drop right next to a fielder and no error be called is silly. Just get rid of errors at that point.

2:34	Ben Clemens: i mean, for sure

2:34	Ben Clemens: ridiculous

2:34	Ben Clemens: that said…. I mostly look at RA9 over ERA for my actual analysis anyway

2:34	Ben Clemens: and advanced defensive metrics don’t care whether something was scored an error or now

2:34	Ben Clemens: not*

2:35	Ben Clemens: so i guess I’d say that I agree with you that it’s silly. But given that I’m not using it to do any analysis, it’s hard for me to get too worked up about changing it. there’s no way they could reformulate the error that would make it a ‘good stat’ in terms of handling all edge cases

2:35	Your Name: How can you have the opinion that full ABS isn’t ready for prime time, but partial is? Any call can be challenged, therefore there’s not a difference.

2:35	Ben Clemens: well, the calls don’t get made in real time

2:35	Ben Clemens: there’s time to do some kind of post-processing

2:35	Ben Clemens: cleraly not the same thing

2:36	Ben Clemens: i’m telling you that when they were testing these in the minors, the live instantaneous system didn’t work as well as the challenge system

2:36	Ben Clemens: people who watched these minor league games will concur

2:36	Oaktown Blues: So if ABS is prone to errors, will we eventually see a wacky challenge that gets it obviously wrong?

2:37	Ben Clemens: no b/c of the post-processing, is basically my understanding. but you’d have to ask someone a bit more technically in the weeds of those cameras to undersatnd

2:37

Pythagoras of Cascadia: In re: ABS. I’ve kinda backed off of this opinion a little bit since yesterday watching the O’s/Twins game, but I’ll state it anyway. Catchers with good eyes are going to be able to show up umpires on missed calls, and umpires aren’t going to want to be shown up, so they’re going to call more fringe pitches strikes when they know they’re behind a catcher with a good eye. (Batters aren’t going to be able to challenge/counter this because their view of the zone isn’t as good). Ergo the skill of stealing strikes as a catcher shifts a little from body (framing) to eye (knowing/seeing strike zone). But that essentially analogous skill should be essentially as valuable as it was before ABS. Highly simplified view of the world, but perhaps a good razor for prediction.

2:37	Ben Clemens: seems reasonable. My prior is that there will be very little actual effect on the game aside from decreasing missed calls

2:38	Ben Clemens: but I think that many priors have merit

2:38	Ben Clemens: that’s why this is going to be interesting

2:38	bosoxforlife: I was impressed that the Red Sox tore down their preseason rotation plan, used their eyes, and put Early into the #3 spot to begin the season. He has impressed in every start in a way that is rare to see.

2:38	Ben Clemens: yeah good work by them I agree