Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 4/28/25

Ben Clemens: Hey everyboyd, welcome to the chat. I’m going to give it about 3 minutes to let the queue fill up and then get started

Guest: HELIOT. RAMOS.

Ben Clemens: I was at yesterday’s game and let me tell you, a walkoff little league home run is electric

Still April: With only two days left in April, what’s the most “it’s still April” thing right now that you think will no longer apply in May?

Ben Clemens: I wrote about Victor Scott for tomorrow, so I’ll say: Victor Scott having a below league average zone rate

Farhandrew Zaidman: Bobby Miller and Dalton Rushing – one is a post-hype, stuff+ monster who can’t seem to land his secondaries. The other is a Michael Busch-esque “he can hit but doesn’t have a position and is blocked on this roster” prospect. Do either of these dudes play meaningful innings for the Dodgers in 2025, or are both trade bait?

Ben Clemens: I think Rushing has a reasonable chance as an injury replacement, more or less. If one of Ohtani, Smith, or Freeman misses time, I can see him getting rotated in. Miller feels like he could maybe use a change in scenery

David Stearns: whats wrong with Nimmo? He’s been terrible since the second half of last year and is now more aggressive than ever swinging at the first pitch 41.9% of the time. Might he be hurt, unlucky or an ugly decline?

Ben Clemens: Good discussion of this on the Mets broadcast last week, actually

Ben Clemens: Keith Hernandez surmised that the early-count aggression has been weighing on his late-count selectiveness enough that it’s a bad tradeoff

Ben Clemens: and that he’s just gotten into bad habits around that that need to be fixed

Ben Clemens: I can see it

Tim Tawa: Fun player with a recent debut. Not much prospect hype, but the underlying plate skills + power + speed seem legit. Is he gonna stick in ARI?

Ben Clemens: Nah, I think the reason they called up Tawa instead of giving Jordan Lawlar the reps is that they expect it to be a temporary opening with Ketel Marte coming back. Maybe he’ll settle into a rotational role as a multi position backup, but generally speaking, I think he’s just a nice role player

Zach: In light of Eugenio Suarez’s 4 HR game – would you rather hit 4 HR in a loss, or throw a no-hitter but lose?

Ben Clemens: throw a no hitter but lose

Ben Clemens: b/c man, that is wild

Jorge Polanco: It’s almost may, am I actually good?

Ben Clemens: article coming out about him soon, by Davy Andrews

Ben Clemens: so I’ll say: ask Davy

Why Always Mets: Juan Soto. He’s gonna be fine right? I think he’s gonna be fine but some Mets are already out

Endy Chavez: Mets fans shouldn’t be worried about Soto right? Because Mets fans are worried about Soto.

Ben Clemens: He’s gonna be fine

Ben Clemens: I’d say, take a breath

Ben Clemens: Imagine how good you have to be for a 121 wRC+ despite a bad BABIP to have fans freaking out

Rube: As you were running through your depth iterations, did you come to any conclusions about pitcher v hitter depth? I assume the likelihood of the complete zeros of best players are more likely to come from the pitching side.

Ben Clemens: honestly, not really, I think that the counterpoint is that most teams have more than 5 starters worth of starters, if that makes sense

Ben Clemens: I didn’t look at it in wild depth b/c I didn’t see anything obvious at first, but it felt like the big predictor was having a good player, not where that good player played

Guest: Does it make sense to add Clayton Kershaw as a stash pick?

Ben Clemens: If you have the space. I’m considering it in Ottoneu where I have a few too many starters at the moment

Smokin’ Jim Leyland: Not really a question, but the Tigers are playing some great baseball right now, no? Lots of quality at-bats on offense, where even Javy Baez and Tork look like different players from a year ago – with the same great pitching we’ve come to expect. Mix in aggressive baserunning that takes every advantage possible and fielding that turns balls in play into outs – and the end result is fun! I think they have a real shot to take the AL this year.

Ben Clemens: Totally, I think the Tigers are very fun, as we kind of expected

Ben Clemens: a Tork post-hype breakout would be incredible

Ben Clemens: and appears to be happening

Ben Clemens: CF Javy has been fun

Ben Clemens: love watching the Tigers

Oaktown Blues: Where would you peg Tyler Soderstrom’s true talent wRC+? Not much disagreement between his wOBA and xwOBA right now…

Ben Clemens: That’s not really how to use xwOBA

Ben Clemens: but like… 125-135 wRC+ or something? I like a lot of skills he has displayed

Ben Clemens: I’m most impressed by his plate discipline. He’s always been pretty good there but holding onto it even while hitting really well is great

Ben Clemens: what if he were tempted to swing out of his shoes b/c he’s hitting well. That’d be bad, but that hasn’t happened

danny: underlying stats (ridiculously low babip, great xwoba) suggest that Mike Trout is due to go on a huge run. is there anything that would lead you to think otherwise?

Ben Clemens: Nope, I tend to agree

Ben Clemens: Watched a bunch of him in the past few weeks and he looks very dangerous

Shaq_Diesel: Obviously Chandler Simpson won’t BABIP .460 all year. How doable is a crazy number like.420 though?  Kid’s a star already,

Ben Clemens: Probably not doable given that no one has ever had that high of a BABIP

Ben Clemens: I do think that he could end up in the high 300’s though

JT: Is Julio Rodriguez just not that good offensively? He can’t seem to pull any fastball over about 93. Approach varies wildly from AB to AB – sometimes spitting on nasty secondaries, sometimes flailing away in the dirt.  He’s easily beaten aside. None of this seems to have changed at all since his rookie year

Ben Clemens: I’m starting to get a little bit worried

Ben Clemens: by the approach, essentially, like you said

Ben Clemens: That said, he’s been getting brutally unlucky this year

Ben Clemens: it’s really hard for a guy like him, who hits the ball hard and is fast, to run a babip this low

Ben Clemens: he’s hitting into tons of unlucky outs

Ben Clemens: I think that I’ve lowered my top end forecast for him, but like, he’s still a star

Baltimore Astros: Hard for me not to see the Orioles situation and think: not as easy as the Astros made it look, huh?  OR – it is that easy, Elias is just jumping on rakes?

Ben Clemens: Oh that’s what I think too

Ben Clemens: it’s so hard!

Ben Clemens: if there were just some cheat code, everyone would do it

Guest: Have you been more impressed by Brendan Donovan or Matthew Liberatore up to this point?

Ben Clemens: Probably Liberatore, but largely because he wasn’t doing it before

overly blasé mike elias: With the Orioles’ rotation looking just as bad as it does, what options do they have to improve in the short-term? Gibson looks like he’ll be ready soon, and hopefully Rogers isn’t far behind, but are either of them enough of an improvement to staunch the bleeding? Shorter-term, are there any other internal depth options (is Brnovich even close to ready) to eat a few innings? And that’s not even touching how defeated the offense looks, at least right now.

Ben Clemens: ah yes, “when Kyle Gibson is ready we’ll be saved”

Ben Clemens: the last resort of scoundrels

Ben: What more can Roman Anthony do to get the call? Is it simply a roster issue at the moment?

Ben Clemens: yeah, totally a roster issue

D: What is it about Wilmer Flores and Jose Iglesias that, despite them reliably putting up good numbers year after year, they seem never to be able to secure market value for their services?

Ben Clemens: I mean…. I’m a big Wilmer Flores fan, and that is not how I’d describe him

Ben Clemens: In the past 5 seasons, he played 500 PA once. He’s had a 110 wRC+ as the short side of a platoon. He was quite bad last year

Ben Clemens: love Wilmer, and he’s a fan favorite. But like, platoon 1B’s don’t get paid

Jamey: It seems like the Cardinals hitters across the board have better approaches this year. Most of them have higher walk rates, lower K rates, and generally better batting lines.

Ben Clemens: Yeah. The hitters are just way more patient. There’s been a lot of talk about ‘damage counts/protect counts’ from Cards sources and it really tracks with how they’re hitting

Ben Clemens: I think it’s excellent and a great sign

Jamey: How much of that can be attributed to coaching changes and how much is random?

Ben Clemens: I would attribute it to coaching, but I’m not sure how much of it is like, use this one technique, and how much of it is vibes-based, things feel good so the training works better

Matt Shaw: Why has everyone suddenly gone from “can’t miss prospect” to, “look at all those flaws?”

Ben Clemens: This is the natural arc of prospects

Ben Clemens: people look a lot better hitting against minor leaguers

Monopoly Moneyball: How annoying is it going to be to have to footnote season stats at Sutter and Steinbrenner in every future article?

Ben Clemens: I don’t think Sutter will fit that bill

Ben Clemens: they’re going to play there for a while! and it plays pretty normal

Ben Clemens: honestly maybe coliseum stats should be footnoted

Ben Clemens: it plays way more offensively than the coliseum, and it’ll play even more so in the summer

Ben Clemens: but Steinbrenner is the weirdest, check out Michael Rosen’s look at it for more

Pitching Philosophy: It feels like every year we marvel at the amount of pitching talent and depth the Dodgers have, only for 60-80% of those pitchers to suffer major injuries.  Certainly some of this is a function of the team prioritizing talent over track record of health but could some of this be due to the way they build up their pitchers?

Ben Clemens: at least partially b/c of the way they build them up and partially b/c they draft and trade for this archetype

Kevinc2020: Im in desperate need for saves. Would you recommend Cruz or Leasure? If I had to get one

Ben Clemens: I’m a huge Cruz head

Ben Clemens: like, he might walk some dudes, but he is legit unhittable

Okra: NL West has 4 really good teams.  % chance the Rockies match or win fewer than White Sox 41 wins last year?  60%?  They are so bad

Ben Clemens: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/besting-the-2024-white-sox/

Ben Clemens: Dan Szymborski just wrote about this

Nate: minimum 30 PA, can you guess who the Royals’ 2nd best hitter by wRC+ is without looking at the leaderboard

Ben Clemens: oh man, this sounds hard

Ben Clemens: uhhhhh…. Massey?

Ben Clemens: nope, good old reliable Mark Canha

Henry Dodger: Is Brett Baty ultimately a starter on a second-division team?

Ben Clemens: Yes

Ben Clemens: That seems like the exact right spot for him

Monopoly Moneyball: forget about the record, what’s the worst MLB team you’ve ever seen?

Ben Clemens: the early 2000s Tigers

Ben Clemens: my grampa was a big fan and was constantly regaling me with tales of woe

Jonah: Last year we saw teams pay what seems like a premium for good-but-not-great relief pitching at the deadline (Estevez, Adam, even Gregory Soto).  Do you expect this trend to continue at this year’s deadline?

Ben Clemens: Yeah, I do

Ben Clemens: it just feels like the easiest place to upgrade is there

Ben Clemens: and teams are going to be very interested in upgrades that don’t cost them core long-term pieces

Ben Clemens: so paying a little over sticker price for relievers seems tempting as a result

Oaktown Blues: Can you explain what’s wrong with using xWOBA that way (Re: Soderstrom)? Isn’t it an easy way to check that he’s kind of “earned” his results so far?

Ben Clemens: I mean, it beats nothing. But while it’s less volatile than the outcome-based wOBA, at least in small samples, it’s still based on a lot of volatile stuff

Ben Clemens: line drive rate, how many flares you’re hitting, that kind of tihng

Ben Clemens: like I didn’t think that 138 PA of a .276 xwOBA in 2023 was his true talent either

Ben Clemens: xwOBA would say that when it comes to contact quality, it’s not like his results have been luck-driven

Ben Clemens: but simple logic would tell us that he’s probably not a true talent 171 wRC+ hitter. because there are very few of those, and yet 16 players have an xwOBA higher than Soderstrom’s this year

Kevin: Matt Olso is crushing the ball this year…but mostly into the ground.  Can groundball rate naturally regress or does that require a mechanical adjustment?

Ben Clemens: it’s a bit of both, which I know is annoying

RAGBRAI: Is N Marte finally living up to his hype? Maybe not this good but a viable contributor this season.

Ben Clemens: I’m cautiously optimistic. There’s no way he’s going to keep striking out so rarely while still swinging and missing so often

Ben Clemens: But I think that the promise of Marte was that he was fairly aggressive and yet wasn’t going to strike out a ton, so that his power could play

Ben Clemens: I understand why projectdions are slow to lower his strikeout rate, b/c the underlying numbers look less good than the headline. But I think it’s movement in the right direction and I’m more optimistic than they are

Guest: Do you foresee a Gold Glove for Austin Riley eventually or do you feel he wont surpass Hayes/Chapman/Arenado?

Ben Clemens: I like Riley’s defense but yeah, the NL is just tough

Sonny: Is this the year MLB will finally let Charlie Morton retire?

Ben Clemens: probably

Rob: You can force one trade right now with the goal of increasing your enjoyment of this season the most.  What deal are you making?

Ben Clemens: oh, I’d trade Elly to the Giants

Ben Clemens: and then go to more games

jimmy touchdown: AJ Smith-Shawver is ready for a 2 start next  week?

Ben Clemens: probably

Mateo: You’ve probably got the condolence already, but I felt really bad for you when the White Sox lost 1-0 in game 2 because that was likely your best shot to have them in sole possession of first place in the AL Central

Ben Clemens: oh yeah, that bet was very fun but it ended FAST

Ben Clemens: or rather, that prediction

Ben Clemens: I treally thought I might have it

Greg: Have you seen Oneil Cruz stealing bases? He hasn’t been thrown out in his last 30+ attempts, but it seems like the jumps he gets are atrocious. I get the sense he’s been lucky (of course he’s also very fast and good at sliding) and I imagine regression is soon to come.

Ben Clemens: I have watched a good amount of it

Ben Clemens: the top end speed just makes it work, which always looks weird

Ben Clemens: and i agree, bad little jumps but then bam he’s just too fast

Ben Clemens: so fun to watch

Dayn Perry Rock City: DAYN. PERRY.

Guest: Looking to sell Munoz for some offensive help, would Albies be worth the buy low? Or Hunter Greene? (Although a loss of ADP)

Ben Clemens: I’d prefer Greene to Albies but, he’s not a hitter

Ben Clemens: if you’re okay with that – look, Albies hasn’t even been good this year!

Ben Clemens: he’s a buy low with a 107 wRC+ over his last 2300 PA

Ben Clemens: I think that he’s a better real life player than fantasy player

Nate: Things aren’t going great when 36-year-old Mark Canha is your 2nd best hitter! (love him, he’s great)

Ben Clemens: It’s very true (sorry, too many messages, yhou guys are great)

Ben Clemens: Canha is really fun, but when a freely available minor league free agent castoff is your second best hitter, you built the team badly

Ben Clemens: this was the Royals’ problem last year too, to be clear

Ben Clemens: and they at least took some steps to fix it. Like Mark Canha!

Phil: The 2012 Red Sox were the worst genuinely talented team I ever saw–they had a HOFer and a near-HOFer (who put up 5 WAR that year), and several recently good pitchers, and they didn’t lose 100 games or anything, but the vibe was just. so. bad. Can’t think of any team like that recently. The Braves and Orioles aren’t close. . . yet.

Ben Clemens: Oh that’s a different question but fun

Ben Clemens: the Cards in 2023 are up there, those guys did not expect to be that bad

Ben Clemens: I think it’s one of these teams that is unexpectedly bad, basically

Ben Clemens: 2020 Nats?

Matt: McNeil in CF is fascinating to me as well as scary. Ever since the Mets traded for Acuna I thought he would move to center. The way McNeil plays balls in the corner OF position does not seem like something that will translate to CF. How long do you think this experiment lasts?

Ben Clemens: I truly don’t understand it

Ben Clemens: I’m gonna watch, for sure

Ben Clemens: but yeah, I don’t look at Jeff McNeil and think ‘oh, center fielder’

Hot Corna: Do you see any clubs in need of 3B help (Cubs, Blue Jays, Angels, Brewers, Dodgers) looking to Curtis Mead as a buy low? The prospect shine is off but he’s never been given a shot to play everyday in the big leagues and has enticing combo of bat speed and low whiff rates & is seemingly blocked by Caminero/Aranda/Diaz in Tampa.

Ben Clemens: I guess… but I don’t see the Rays itching to trade him

Ben Clemens: if they had some pressing need, then yes

JT: Yamamoto’s Stuff+ is already below average. How do you expect that contract to age?

Ben Clemens: just fine, and given that his stuff+ is exactly the same as last year’s, his location is great, his pitching+ is great, and his Bot Stuff has improved, I’m not sure that Stuff+ is the perfect encapsulation of what’s going on

Ben Clemens: Also I don’t THINK his splitter has gotten meaningfully worse this year

Ben Clemens: Stuff+ does, but I don’t really buy it. He’s throwing it harder but getting more horizontal movement while killing lift better. It’s missing more bats and drawing more grounders when opponents hit it

Royale with Cheese: Have you heard anything about Ragans and if he’s going to miss a turn or hit the IL? Have to decide between him and Castillo for a weekly league really soon but haven’t seen any update since Friday. Thanks!

Ben Clemens: Haven’t heard a word

Martin: Any thoughts on Hayden Birdsong

Ben Clemens: Should be starting

Ben Clemens: Jordan Hicks was sitting 92-93 yday, he is crying out for a return ot relieving

My Son Bort: Colt Keith launch angle is in the single digits. With Torres back, Tork resurgence and McKinstry playing anywhere, would it make sense to go down and regular swings to make adjustments?

Ben Clemens: ehhhhh…. I’d rather give him a chance in the majors, personally

Ben Clemens: BUT! That’s only if they can find a reasonable place for him to play, and right now they cannot

Ben Clemens: so if it’s between no chances at all or rebuilding in the minors, I’d make sure he’s okay with it and try the minors. There aren’t enough 1b/2b/3b/dh reps to go around on the team at the moment

Ben Clemens: and Kerry Carpenter is just the superior LHH option at the moment

NL Central: despite the actual results I still feel very unconfident about the Cubs; is there not tons of potential for likely regression with Busch + PCA + catchers overperforming, suspicious rotation depth with Justin Steele out, and a horrid bullpen? My gut tells me the Brewers pull another rabbit out of a hat and take the division by default

Ben Clemens: I’m NOT feeling good about the Brewers this year

Ben Clemens: this team feels scary thin to me. theyir offense is probably not going to keep getting such good contributions from hitters outside the Chourio/Contreras tier, and I don’t think Contreras will improve enough to offset that. And yeah,t he pitching is just kinda ugly, as expected

Ben Clemens: I have the Cubs with an edge even though they too have a weak rotation

Ben Clemens: The Reds are actually my dark horse

Ghost of Wade Boggs: 2008 Tigers were actually genuinely bad despite having: Miguel Cabrera, Justin Verlander, Magglio Ordonez, Carlos Guillen, Gary Sheffield, Curtis Granderson, Pudge Rodriguez

Ben Clemens: that was a weird team. not long after they went to the WS

Jg: can someone teach Bobby Witt and the rest of the royals how to actually steal a base the baserunning has been atrocious I can’t remember more tootblans

Ben Clemens: whoa what happened here?

Ben Clemens: ugly baserunning year from a good baserunning team

Nate: Yeah the only reason we’re not talking about the Royals in the same breath as the Orioles is that the pitching has continued to be good – though for how long is anyone’s guess (Lugo and Wacha have both showed their age to some extent, Ragans- recurring cramping issues)

Ben Clemens: totally agreed with this

Ben Clemens: but like…. the pitching is great!

Rest of season: What do you see from Pavin smith. He’s made some major changes over the last few years, and again with the k%. First borderline full-time opportunity. Ros opinion?

Ben Clemens: ehhhhh…. it’s 86 PA

Ben Clemens: he was good last year too, though

Ben Clemens: in limited time

Ben Clemens: I don’t think our projections are far off

Ben Clemens: they have him as a 114 wRC+ hitter, kinda nice but squarely in the first base dead zone

Ben Clemens: I don’t see anything to make me move off of that central projection

Farhandrew Zaidman: Any “talented team performing way under expectations” has to include 2021-2022 White Sox, imo. But I guess the 20/20 hindsight question with them of “but were they actually talented?” is fair, though.

Ben Clemens: haha right

Ben Clemens: playoff team in 2020, abysmal in 2021, but also maybe they were just bad all along

wheelhouse: odds that cedric mullins gets traded at the deadline whether or not the orioles are in the hunt?

Ben Clemens: 0%

Bosoxforlife: Masataka Yoshida’s presence on the Red Sox 40 man roster is a major stumbling block. He is virtually invisible and has completely disappeared from any and all Red Sox talk. They have to eat all his contract and ship him to Colorado, who can use any help they can get, for a low level lottery pick.

Ben Clemens: That seems reasonable to me. Any trade is going to involve the Sox eating all the money

Ben Clemens: but that is probably worth it at this point

DJ Tofu: Hicks’ velo yesterday fluctuated a bit. But in his last inning he was averaging 95-96.

Ben Clemens: look, here’s his daily sinker average velo this year:

Ben Clemens: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=SI%7C&hfAB=&hfGT=R…

Ben Clemens: 2 mph slower than his next-slowest game

Ben Clemens: he was popping a TON of 92’s and 93’s and hit the ‘oh my god i’m getting shelled just get me through this inning’ button late

Ben Clemens: but it was definitely a very concerning start for me

Batso Rizzo: Aaron Judge’s OPS is 1200+ with a 700+ SLG and he should probably have 2 or 3 more home runs. Just fun to think about.

Ben Clemens: he is just truly crazy

Bosoxforlife: Are you as stunned as I am that the Orioles are headed to the basement before their touted prospects ever really got their act together. To see that the top three fWAR players are Mullins, O’Hearn and Urias is shocking and the young guys are no where to be found.

Ben Clemens: absolutely shocking to me

Ben Clemens: Gunnar being hurt and then starting slow makes this stat marginally misleading, but yeah

Ben Clemens: look I’ve been saying that the O’s haven’t been making good use of their window for years

Ben Clemens: you’re going to have a year like this sometimes

Ben Clemens: and Adley’s clock is ticking

Ben Clemens: truly shocking

Krusty: What are the chances that we will see a context inclusive version of WAR any time soon? I’m hoping for one based on re24?

Ben Clemens: mmmmmm, I don’t think it’s towards the top of our priority list currently, we’re working on positional adjustments first

Ben Clemens: but I’ll do a little bit of talking about it in the background next time we do priorities

Ben Clemens: might be easier than I think to just fold it into what we already do, we’ll see

Farhandrew Zaidman: Are you surprised that Pages now somehow looks like the Dodgers’ best hitter after looking lost for the 3 weeks before that?

Ben Clemens: a little, only because I thought he’d look good but not like the best hitter b/c they have so many great ones

O’s: Do you think this season is the start of the downfall for the O’s?

Ben Clemens: I do not

Ben Clemens: I think they’ll be better in ’26 than ’25

Kelvin Cato: Orioles front office has mismanaged their pitching situation without a doubt, but they are a pretty clear “it’s still only April” candidate. Plenty of bad batted ball luck on a few of their more talented position players

Ben Clemens: agreed with this as well

Ben Clemens: these things happen

Ben Clemens: you will have down years of production, even from your good players

Carl: Over the last 8 or so years, baseball writers have never felt good about the Brewers. Hasn’t stopped the Brewers from being good. Offense isn’t looking amazing, but pitching has been perfectly fine after a rough opening weekend. Expected the Reds to be closer to last than 1st, and I don’t think some unsustainable small-sample performances on offense so far really changes my mind.

Ben Clemens: we’ll see!

Ben Clemens: I would argue that I’ve frequently been very high on the Brewers

Ben Clemens: but, our models have certainly underrated them

Ben Clemens: not that I frequently peruse season over/undres, but I’ve had a lot more of Brewers over than Brewers under in my life

MF Luder: What are your feelings on Quinn Priester?

Ben Clemens: there was a really cool article on BP about how Quinn Priester might, in an ideal world where pitchers can change their arsenal to best suit their natural talents, Priester could be a hidden find by the Brewers

Ben Clemens: I mean…. potentially true, but he has definitely not been able to do it yet

Ben Clemens: he’s walking as many as he strikes out and can’t miss a bat to save his life. if it weren’t for the fact that they’re so racked by injury, he’d be in the minors working on his fastball shapes

Jason: What do you think is the cause for a AAAA player?  Is it just the dramatic increase in quality of pitching in the majors or is it something different?

Ben Clemens: I think it’s largely that, but I think it’s also that many players have skills that are at their best against lower-level opposition

Ben Clemens: it’s very hard to see proactively, though perhaps teams are better at it than I am

Ben Clemens: but a guy who mostly punishes mistake sliders, that kinda thing

Guest: We refer to Pete Crow-Armstrong as PCA, Christian Encarnacion-Strand as CES… why don’t we use the same shorthand for AJ Smith-Shawver?

Ben Clemens: 🙂

Ben Clemens: Jason Martinez was talking to me about this in the preseason. “All of Braves Twitter is talking about Smith-Shawver but he needs a better acronym nickname”

Max: Bregman is having the best start to a season of his career, small sample size and he’s not going to maintain a .364 babip all year, but his hard hit rate is up and his iffb are way down. It’s not simply Fenway either, his road numbers are better than his home. How much of this do you think is sustainable?

Ben Clemens: I think that the BABIP is gonna come down but you have to be pleased that he’s swinging harder than ever without missing more

Ben Clemens: and catching the ball out front more than ever

Ben Clemens: all sounds amazing ot me

Ben Clemens: alright, on that note, I’m gonna go listen to my brother in law defend his PhD. Defense! Defense! I already have the cheers ready

Ben Clemens: have a great week, everyone