Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 4/13/26

Ben Clemens: Hey everybody, welcome to the chat

Ben Clemens: Let’s get going right away; I don’t really have any agenda today, so it’ll be a regular hodgepodge of baseball and miscellaneous questions

RH: Are you leaving FG to start for the Astros?

Ben Clemens: If they make me an offer, I’d have to consider it. How do you think a lefty fastball that sits in the mid-50s would play on their staff?

I Care About Rox Pitching: Tomoyuki Sugano’s sweeper doesn’t sweep anymore, but is still labeled a sweeper on Savant. What’s up with that? Is it a new pitch? How does pitch classification work?

Ben Clemens: My understanding is that it’s largely down to what the pitchers say they’re throwing, and that MLB checks, but you’d have to ask Petriello or Tango or something for more than that. I generically know that what a pitcher calls their breaking ball and their primary fastball matters, just not exactly how they do it

Big Buckston: The ENTIRE American league has 6 to 9 wins right now! I’m loving the early chaos!

Ben Clemens: totally, it’s very delightful

Ben Clemens: obviously it won’t stay that way forever

Ben Clemens: but the longer it does, the more fun

Mike Trout Mask Replica: Greetings Ben, thanks for the chat! I think this Kevin McGonigle kid may be alright. Absolutely looks like he belongs so far!

The Actor for Al Pacino: Rookie debut you’ve been most impressed with to start the season? A lot of good ones to choose from!

Ben Clemens: McGonigle for me, but there are indeed a lot of names to choose from. Debut rules out McLean andEarly, two guys I’ve been very impressed with

Your Name: Can MLB do anything to encourage more knuckleballers?

Ben Clemens: I don’t really think so. I think that the more people optimize and try to squeeze every little last edge out of pitch design, the less appealing a knuckleball is, at least until there’s a step change in people’s ability to improve their knuckleballs

Ben Clemens: b/c right now it feels like you can train pretty much everything else

BobNuttingSucks: Brutal game for the Pirates at Wrigley yesterday. 88% odds to win in the bottom of the 8th and Jose Urquidy who 29 other teams wouldn’t have on the 26 man blows it. Are the Pirates an elite bullpen arm and a 3B away from being a reasonable contender?

Ben Clemens: counterpoint: brutal game for the Cubs at Wrigley on Saturday

Ben Clemens: and the Pirates bullpen skated through that adequately for a 4-3 win that included an extra inning where neither team scored, and also one where the Cubs had second and third with no out and didn’t score

Ben Clemens: The Pirates bullpen is second in teh majors in WPA!

Ben Clemens: whoops, that’s overall pitching staff

Ben Clemens: their bullpen is fourth in WPA

Ben Clemens: I guess I’m saying they’re already a ‘reasonable contender’ and that if I were them, I’d definitely still be looking to upgrade

John B: how good is Masynn Winn compared to other SS in MLB?    Was expecting him to be the next big thing, but he seems to be morphing into bottom of the pack defensive-only SS.

Ben Clemens: I…. what?

Ben Clemens: I guess I don’t quite understand the question, but Winn is one of the best defensive shortstops in baseball

Ben Clemens: and he’s kind of like an average bat?

Ben Clemens: I don’t quite understand what bottom-of-the-pack means here but I don’t know how exactly it’d apply

TOOTBLAN: No question here, just pain.

JJ: Is Arenado just flat out cooked in AZ? His underlying metrics look brutal

Ben Clemens: it’s looking BAD early

Ben Clemens: it’s weird, I’ve watched some DBacks games and he still looks the part to me defensively

Ben Clemens: but he just cannot hit

Ben Clemens: like, he’s swinging and missing a lot. and that is just not Arenado

Jays: Lenyn Sosa to the Jays. I’m not seeing the fit, are you? Doesn’t have options. Not good defensively and isn’t the type of contact oriented bat they typically prioritize. Maybe they see untapped potential, but how is he going to get ABs?

Ben Clemens: we’re going to have a writeup of this tomorrow, I believe. Um, I haven’t had a lot of time to think about it but I assume it comes down to ‘Lenyn Sosa is currently healthy’

Ben Clemens: the Jays have four hitters on the IL and are often starting Jesus Sanchez, Nathan Lukes, Eloy Jimenez, and Branden Valenzuela on the same day

Ben Clemens: I think they are just worried that they might not otherwise have sufficient major league caliber players to play baseball

Sperts Valuez: Is Randy V (Padres) a great example of how you can’t just wish SP strength and conditioning into being esp post pandemic?

Ben Clemens: we just wrote about him today!

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/randy-vasquez-is-ready-now/

Ben Clemens: that’s pretty neat

Baseball learner: Yankees lose 5 out of 6 almost entirely because of the bats (and by very small margins). There is a voice in my head that says that good pitching is more consistent than good hitting which will always run hot-cold. But that can’t make sense can it?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think it actually works that way, but only b/c of the portfolio effect. You get nine different hitters on your team, and they slump/get hot in mostly uncorrelated ways

mike: Maybe those 4% of Twins fans were right? Nah….but it has at least been a nice week!

Kwanbelievable: Are you a believer in the Twins yet? FG preseason playoff odds were more bullish on them than anybody but their own mothers, but 10% of the way into the season they’re leading the AL (!!!)

Ben Clemens: I also thought the Twins were a lot better than popular consensus

Ben Clemens: but like, not a playoff team, to be clear

Ben Clemens: I just think that they have enough solid players that they were unlikely to put out truly horrid rosters

Ben Clemens: I don’t think they’re going to contend for the plyaoffs but they have more exciting players than expected, and I’ve been enjoying watching Twins games so far

TOOTBLAN: Biggest instantaneous mood swing from your team’s play-by-play guy: “…and Harper takes a big turn around first he’s trying for two”

Ben Clemens: can’t argue with that at all

Ben Clemens: I feel like some of the best announcers let their opinoin of how good of a baserunning decision it is color their tone too

Ben Clemens: and that is very fun

Kwanbelievable: I believe bottom of the pack SS refers to whatever the Guardians have been rolling out for the last 3 years *gestures sadly at Arias/Rocchio/Schneemann*

Ben Clemens: hard to argue with that

Ben Clemens: it’s funny that for seemingly forever, the Guardians had eight trillion shortstop prospets and kept shipping them off to play other positions

Ben Clemens: and now they have no shortstop

BobNuttingSucks: McGonigle looks great but Griffin looks like Cole Tucker reincarnated. Should Pirates fans be even a little worried?

Ben Clemens: I do not think so. To be fair, they probably shouldn’t have been as hyped for immediate performance as they were

Ben Clemens: it’s had

Ben Clemens: hard*

Ben Clemens: dude’s a teenager. the major leagues are very good. his star is still bright

Ben Clemens: but when I was writing about Mason Miller I watched some video of Griffin against him. Just think about that. Mason Miller isn’t exactly old, but he’s been working for years learning to throw 100, command it, have a nasty slider, dominating pros who get paid a ton of money

Ben Clemens: now Konnor Griffin has to face him? when he’s previously been facing minor leaguers and high schoolers?

Ben Clemens: give him a few months to adjust

mike: Does Mason Miller have a chance to break the top 50 in the trade value series? Normally I would think that any reliever couldn’t come close, but between how much he was already worth in the trade market, combined with this incredible start, and I could see a case

Ben Clemens: I mean, I guess I’ll consider him. But since I’m the one making the series, I’ll level with you: it’s not likely

Ben Clemens: we’ll see. and it’s obviously theoretically possible, and I’m truly very curious to see what teams think

Ben Clemens: but my initial opinion is that it probably won’t happen

Scott: Most of the time when I see discussion around FIP vs ERA, it centers around how responsible pitchers are for the results of balls in play. But to me one of the most important differences, especially for relievers, is that a player’s FIP isn’t affected by any PAs where someone else is pitching. Do you agree that “adj ERA” where the run expectancy matrix is used to account for the game state when a pitcher enters or leaves a game would be useful? And, if so, would there be capacity at FG to create it?

Ben Clemens: 100% and I’ve messed around with two things like this in the past: adjusted ERA and adjusted box scores

Ben Clemens: I should really find a way to put those in the lab

Ben Clemens: I definitely think that accounting for inherited runners in an intelligent way is a great idea

bosoxforlife: Early season shocks include Jordan Walker and Oneil Cruz. I know you aren’t buying Cruz but I tend to think you are buying Walker. Am I right?

Ben Clemens: Lots of questions about Jordan Walker today, too many to include all of them, so I hcose this one so I can talk about two people at once

Ben Clemens: yeah, I’m sure we’ll cover Walker before long, he’s made a big change to plate discipline in a way that looks somewhat real to me. He’s obviously not going to keep posting a .745 SLG, but “Hey Jordan you have the fastest swing in the majors, can you hit some fly balls?” has been obvious for years and he’s finally doing it

Ben Clemens: the risk there is that the process could fall apart, like, it has before

Ben Clemens: but he’s getting to good results via good process right now, and that’s very exciting

Ben Clemens: I’m definitely a little less excited about Cruz, largely because a lot of what’s going right is that he’s just killing it on balls in play. He’s chasing more, swinging at in-zone pitches less, whiffing more…

Ben Clemens: I get most excited when process stats and results line up, and Walker definitely has that story going for him right now

J Hench: Follow-on to the Miller trade value question – it possible that Miller’s trade value has gone up since last deadline?  If the Padres are out of it, could they get an equivalent or better value than DeVries for him?

Ben Clemens: definitely possible. I think that he’s a few more months of results away from getting unicorn closer status, whereas I feel like last summer there was still at least some concern around ‘well he was great in ’24 but he’s come back to earth a little in ’25”

Ben Clemens: so uh, that was wrong…

Josh: Are you going to be checking out Noah Schultz’ debut tomorrow? He lost a lot of shine last year while battling knee issues and control problems, but he was unhittable so far in Charlotte with a new cutter and increased velo, seems like there’s a chance he’s closer to the pitcher that was the top lhp prospect in the game going into last year

Ben Clemens: for sure. love watching debuts

HalosSelfHater: What are your thoughts on Jose Soriano’s start? Obviously some regression given underlying metrics, but is he finally an ace

Laurel and JJ Hardy: Jose Soriano has got to be the current Cy Young frontrunner in the AL right?

Ben Clemens: Great news, Michael Baumann just wrote about him!

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/gimme-the-heat-boys-and-free-my-soul-no-on…

didace: A week ago, James Wood had an OPS of .572 and had 17 SOs in 40 ABs. Some fans were saying he should be sent to AAA to join Crews. Today his OPS is 1.005. I love early swings in stats and fans that live and die by them.

Ben Clemens: I like that for these chats, too

Ben Clemens: I get a lot of questions that are like ‘explain to me why (insert Yankee here) is now awful and should never play again’

Ben Clemens: and it’s like, well, he went 0-4 yesterday, so I hear where you’re coming from….

Ben Clemens: it’s really hard to not overreact to early-season numbers!

Ben Clemens: I do it too

Farhandrew Zaidman: What are the Rockies doing right now with their rotation? Dollander’s been getting follower/bulk innings, and Lorenzen randomly threw 1 IP in relief on Saturday.

Ben Clemens: The Dollander thing will never make sense to me

Ben Clemens: they signed Sugano to move Dollander to the bullpen, it seems like?! LIke, what? And then why is Lorenzen relieving? Who knos

blackjack: Given the chance, could Alex Call be a decent regular?  Or is his ceiling a part time player?

Ben Clemens: for me, he’s an incredible fourth outfielder who would be stretched as an everyday guy

Ben Clemens: but that’s pretty dang good

Dombrowski: Worse roster construction-Phillies/Red Sox?

Ben Clemens: huh. I think I’d actually say the Phillies. I know that the Red Sox have famously held on to too many outfielders. And their infield is a weakness. But I like how much depth they’ve managed to acquire, and I’m not there yet on the Phillies

Farhandrew Zaidman: Would you pull the rip cord on O’Neil Cruz in CF? Maybe a move to RF? Reps at 3B?

Ben Clemens: I am so, so glad that I don’t have to make this decision

Ben Clemens: I would probably just keep running him out there because I don’t know what else to do. But I’d be talking to him a lot about it, looking into more metrics than I can get on my couch at home, etc.

Ben Clemens: it’s been so, so ugly so far, though

Craig Stammen: Thoughts on Tatis playing 2b?

Ben Clemens: man, I didn’t realize this had happened until you said this

Ben Clemens: I…. I think I like it? It feels like a roster limitation thing, in that I’m looking at their bench and none of those people are legit back up infielders

Ben Clemens: I am sure they’d prefer not to make a habit of it, but it’s nice to have versatile superstars I guess

Guest: What could MacKenzie Gore do in the first half of this year to give you any confidence he won’t just fall off late in the year again?

Ben Clemens: I think pitching deeper into games, maintaining velo, performing well the third time through the order, things that are procedurally related to stamina, would all increase my confidence

Ben Clemens: but on the other hand, of course I’m not going to be confident. Regardless of what happens in the first half, the pattern is pretty severe, I am going to have to see it to believe that he’s changed

Ben Clemens: Like he’s been nasty to start the year, no doubt. But he’s gone 5.1, 6, 5. And topped out at 90 pitches. He’s still pitching like a short-burst dude, scares me for his stamina

Guest: Which contender’s roster do you think is best/worst suited for an improvement at the deadline? Red Sox seem to be poised for an infield add

Ben Clemens: I wrote a very extensive article about this last week:

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/let-me-upgrade-you-small-improvements-with…

April Showers Bring Mey Flowers: How much longer do the Reds let Luis Mey fire bullets in AAA when he seems like he could really help their bullpen?

Ben Clemens: I’m really fascinated by the Reds’ bullpen. I talked with Ken Broo (hey Ken, if you’re reading this) about Ashcraft this weekend, and I’m really into Santillan and even Connor Phillips as well. I think that they should probably bring Mey up, but also, I think this bullpen is really good and that as they figure out roles, they could get even better

JRod: Is it fair to say that my being a slow starter (and that the slow starts aren’t much to worry about long-term) is something with real signal in the noise at this point in my career?

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/fun-with-meaningless-splits-half-edition/

Ben Clemens: Davy Andrews just wrote about this!

Mickey: If David Stearns misses the playoffs two straight years with payrolls well above $300 million, would it be reasonable to replace him? I’m not saying it would happen–just would it be reasonable?

Ben Clemens: I do not think it would be, but look, I’m not Steve Cohen

Ben Clemens: I don’t think it’d be wise to bring in someone with multi-year planning as a reason and then have a really short fuse to change it up

War2D2: Ben! So kind of a weird question that probably fits better in an offseason chat: I know there’s no chance this happens, but my preferred realignment when expansion eventually happens would be to kill interleague and go back to NL and AL only playing against each other at the All-Star game and World Series. What would you put the chances of that at? Like 5%? 2%? My argument is that it makes the All-Star game more special, it makes the World Series seem like a bigger deal, and it allows more inter-division series so that we get more jockeying for position late in the season. Four divisions in each league, no wildcards, let chaos reign. That’s my pitch.

Ben Clemens: I’d put the odds at 0%, honestly. Interleague play is great for getting Shohei Ohtani into more stadiums

TOOTBLAN: I’m always rooting for greatness (provided greatness isn’t currently playing my team), and it was sad last year to see what Yordan was doing. The start he’s had … I like his chances at being a Top 5 MLB Hitter again, and that’s great for the game!

Ben Clemens: 100%. I’ve always had a soft spot for Yordan because he was one of my first big analyst calls (Yordan good, a hotter take in 2019 than 2026)

Ben Clemens: and also, have thought that he’s going to be one of the best hitters of all time when all is said and done

Ben Clemens: I’m super into it, in any case. I think he’s really fun to analyze, too

J Hench: I get that as fans, we shouldn’t overreact to small samples.  But if you are a team watching a guy take atrocious at bats day after day, when is too soon to react?  I’m thinking the Reds with Noelvis, or the Cubs with Busch – you can’t just hope they start hitting because it’s early still, right?

Ben Clemens: the good news is that if your’e teh team, you’re allowed to talk to them

Ben Clemens: but I guess I’d say that process statistics — and ‘take atrocious at-bats’ is going to show up in process stats, that’s what you’re talking about basically

Ben Clemens: those are already somewhat meaningful. Like, I’m quite certain that Trevor Story’s 46.1% chase rate, miles higher than any previous year, means he’s performing poorly and could use a reset

Ben Clemens: and Vinnie Pasquantino, who has a similar wRC+, has lost 3 mph of bat speed: also bad!

Ben Clemens: but Josh Naylor’s cold start? I bet he’s just fine

HappyFunBall: CIN just sent Marte down. That’s a reaction.

Of course they brought up Reece Hinds who’s basically the same guy?

Ben Clemens: wow, now that is a reaction

Ben Clemens: I imagine he has a somewhat shorter leash in that org due to, shall we say, past indiscrtions

Ben Clemens: indiscretions*

Ben Clemens: but yeah

Doug: How soon can Giolito’s agent start giving daily calls to SD and Preller? Would calling right after Pivetta was taken out be seen as discourteous?

War2D2: Speaking of good announcing, Orsillo’s call of Sheets’ walkoff the other day was a masterclass. And I had no dog in that fight, I was just watching because, next to the Phillies’ when Kruk is on a roll, the Padres’ booth is the most fun for an unbiased observer.

Ben Clemens: oh boy, you should’ve seen the walk off grand slam the night before

dylan: thank you for 5 things. always love it, but Friday’s brought extra smiles

Ben Clemens: why thank you. I’m going to be writing Five Things somewhat less frequently this year because I just don’t have the bandwidth to do it plus all the other stuff I do, but I really love the column and I’m glad peopel still like it

Ben Clemens: it’s probably going to end up somewhere between every other week and two on one off, whereas last year it was closer to every week with the occasional gap

Ben Clemens: Those stories just take a lot longer to put together than a single article, so can’t keep cranking out all the FG content you’ve come to expect and love while also spending that much time hunting for silly stuff and then gifing it

Guest: I’ve been keeping a list of little, but specific aesthetically pleasing things so far this season. Some of them include Murakami’s load and explode, Burns’s follow through, Misiorowski’s K spin. I have a feeling you have a couple similar? Would love to hear them if so. Thanks for always giving me new things to look out for as I watch. Felt like we were all in a little inside club during the infield pop up(s) last night for Bibee

Ben Clemens: oh man, the Bibee infield pop ups last night were so delightful

Ben Clemens: my friend sent me a video of them and was like ‘do you think he read your column?’

Ben Clemens: like, no way. but what a delight

Ben Clemens: Murakami is fun to watch. I love drop and drive pitchers, and Yamamoto has been a must-watch for me but especially after last season’s WS heroics. You should be watching every Mason Miller appearance right now

Ben Clemens: Oh, I like watching Tyler Rogers quite a bit

Ben Clemens: this one isn’t team specific but I love emphatic challenges that are wrong

SPArn: And one other thing, since I just read your Mason Miller article. I was trying to explain his dominance to friends at a wedding Saturday, and off handily mentioned that he had a negative FIP. They asked me to explain it in layman’s terms, and I struggled to do it so sufficiently, that they were like “well that sounds fake.” I was like “It is, but you don’t get it!” Can you help out with the layman terms, besides “Miller has broken containment.”?

Ben Clemens: Hmmmmm. I guess I’d say that it’s basically a linear guess: how many strikeouts, walks, and home runs do you give up, and what does that mean for how many runs you allow

Ben Clemens: that works pretty well when you add one strikeout, or whatnot

Ben Clemens: but miller just doesn’t have an amount of strikeouts that anyone should have. and since it’s a linear approximation, we don’t stop at zero

Ben Clemens: i dunno, it’s very hard to comprehend, no argument

War2D2: Speaking of the Padres, how broken is Tatis right now, and how likely is it that this is just what he is now? He looked completely lost the other night.

Ben Clemens: I mean…. I’m going to say that he’s probably okay. He posted a 133 wRC+ over 1100 PA over the last two years, so I’ll give his 73 PA of 85 wRC+ a grace period.

Ben Clemens: not that xwOBA is the end all be all, but his xwOBA is basically the same as last year’s

Ben Clemens: max exit velo already higher in 2026 than in 2025. super high hard-hit and barrel rates. I think he’ll survive, and is just slumping

Sperts Valuez: The Mariners seem well set up to move Logan Gilbert next offseason? What does he idk “command” or whatever in a trade?

Ben Clemens: a lot. I had him top 50 trade value last year and I think he’ll be in the mix this year too. less remaining team control, but new intriguing strikeout upside

Farhandrew Zaidman: Fernando Tatis pre-suspension – 160 OPS+. Post-suspension – 119 OPS+. It’s impossible to ignore.

Ben Clemens: well, sure. but that is a very good hitter, the post-suspension guy

Ben Clemens: do you think that he’s a true-talent 85 wRC+ guy now? is 2026 just who he is? I still think not

Gunnar: Am I the AL MVP? Where are  the O’s without me?

Ben Clemens: I mean, so far, surely

Ben Clemens: what a start to the season

Ben Clemens: and I mean, probably out of the playoff hunt. not having your best player, who is one of the best players in baseball, is never good

Taj Bradley: Am I for real?

Ben Clemens: I sure hope so, because I’ve thought you would be for years now

B. Hyde: O’s, like much of the AL, are treading water so far. Any signs of life or progress for their cadre of youngsters who haven’t yet lived up to the hype: Adley, Cowser, Mayo, Basallo, etc?

Ben Clemens: Adley is 28, which kinda shocked me

Ben Clemens: Having looked through quickly, I don’t know about Cowser or Mayo, Basallo is off to a slow start but I’m okay because I feel like a lot of his tools (bat speed) still look good

Ben Clemens: and I mean, Adley has a 150 wrC+

Ben Clemens: and is on the IL

Farhandrew Zaidman: Per Adam Ottavino’s show today, DeGrom is tipping his slider. Something to monitor I think.

Farhandrew Zaidman: sorry DeGrom is tipping the change up, not the slider.

Ben Clemens: I wonder if that’s because he almost never needed a changeup

Ben Clemens: I always thought the whole ‘deGrom has the five best pitches in baseball and he only uses two’ thing was very funny

Ben Clemens: maybe he’s just not good at hiding it becuase he spent a decade perfecting his slider and never needed a change

War2D2: Getting strong Jonah Heim vibes from Adley, not gonna lie.

Ben Clemens: boy, I hope not but it’s been a WHILE and he’s been hurt a lot

danny: from a read of relative team quality, if a team wins by like 5 runs in extras, should that be interpreted as close to a 5 run in a 9 inning game, close to a tie, or somewhere in the middle?

Ben Clemens: somewhere in the middle, I think, but I’d need to do more digging to give you a more concrete answer like that

Ghost of Wade Boggs: In regards to Mason Miller having a negative FIP: The reason FIP looks like an ERA style number is due to a chocolate candy mathematical coating we put over the top of it to deliberately make it look like an ERA style number. A better way to comprehend it is by Miller’s FIP- number, which is still a ridiculous -45, but it implies that his performance is 145% better than the average pitcher.

Ben Clemens: very good way of putting this

Ben Clemens: sorry guys, had a little hiccup because the site is getting bumpy, a few timeout errors

Ben Clemens: looks like we’re back now?

Sal”s Mom: How worried should I be about Andrew Abbot?

Ben Clemens: Hm. I’m guessing not too much, but that kind of depends on what your expectations for him were coming into the year. I just looked at ZiPS, for example, and its 2026 projection for FIP has moved from 3.85 to 3.90

Ben Clemens: he’s been getting babip’ed/lob’ed to death so far, and while the low strikeout rate worries me, that has always bene the case with him

Ben Clemens: basically don’t buy the ERA. But do wonder whether a guy with Abbott’s combo of not a ton of K’s/not too many grounders(changing this year!)/middling control is ever going to be a true ace

didace: FIP, while descriptive, is a bad stat. It assumes balls in play are equal and the pitcher has no control over them.

Ben Clemens: sure

Ben Clemens: just like every other stat

Ben Clemens: stats make assumptions

Ben Clemens: FIP’s assumption is meh. ERA’s assumptions are pretty bad too

Ben Clemens: I think that the argument I’d make is that FIP is a useful part of a collage of statistics that you can use to evaluate a pitcher’s contributions to their team’s victories

Ben Clemens: if you only use it? You’re probably not doing a good job. If you only use one stat, you’re probably not doing a good job

Junior Caminero Jr.: It’s tiring how national articles about how the Rays just swept the Yankees have been focusing solely on how the Yankees didn’t play well instead how the Rays may be better than the predictions stated preseason. SSS of games of course, but give the Rays their flowers.

Ben Clemens: yeah…. and I’m sure there’s extra energy to that series b/c of the ‘yankees fans traveling to/living in florida’ storyline

Matt: Are you seeing a fall off for Luis Castillo or more of an early blip? He’s getting absolutely knocked around so far, but his FIP, K% and BB% are holding pretty steady

Ben Clemens: too soon to say, for me, but two straight starts not making it out of the fourth inning feels really bad

Ben Clemens: I want to see more. but he looks pretty different on a rate stat basis so far, and I wonder how much of that is b/c he gave up 10 hits in a game and it’s just hard to pitch when that’s happening

Ben Clemens: alright guys, short-ish chat today but I’ve gotta run and make lunch. Have a great week, and let’s talk again next Monday