Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 9/14/26

Ben Clemens: Hey everybody, welcome to the chat

Ben Clemens: Let’s just get going right away

leoneforthird: In a bad year for the Mariners Randy Arozarena has been a bight spot currently 5th in wRC+ and Top 20 by WAR.  Given that can he crack 9 digits in free agency or will his age and defensive limitations keep him under a $100M guarantee?

Ben Clemens: 100!

Ben Clemens: um, I don’t think so

Ben Clemens: Obviously he’s having a legit incredible season

Ben Clemens: and I think it’s reasonable to say that I’m a big Arozarena fan, too

Ben Clemens: I think pelnty of FG commentators would specifically say that I am a bad analyst b/c I’m biased by him

Ben Clemens: many have said that, in fact

Ben Clemens: but like, he’s gonna be 32, there’s a lockout coming, I do not expect people to pony up $100 million in that context

Ben Clemens: guys in this position – positionless bats over 30 – tend to go year-to-year, or two-year-to-two-year

scottsjunk1981: You touched on this a week or two ago in the context of players who are playing through injuries and therefore have a local true talent worse than they’d otherwise be projected to have, but I’m very curious about ways in which the presumed IID-ness of each plate appearance breaks down. Injuries, sure. But also adjustments and counter-adjustments to approach and pitch mix and location. And perhaps even true periods of being “in the zone” or whatever (my prior is that these don’t exist, but I would be happy to be wrong!). Have you ever tested sequences of PAs for patterns of interdependence? I’m a little worried that the statistical tools won’t have enough precision, but it’s something I’ve long thought was missing from the model of baseball described by analytics.

Ben Clemens: yeah, if you could solve this in a way that’s actionable, you’d never publish it, because some team would pay you millions of dollars and make you vanish

Ben Clemens: if you can solve it in a way that doesn’t make predictions, then it’s not worth your time – it’d be a crazy amount of research to say ‘yeah sometimes hitters do worse or better’

Ben Clemens: so I think this is a problem that we simply won’t see solved in the public sphere

Ben Clemens: and truthfully, I’m skeptical that we’d have the statistical power to say anything, period

Bacterun: After finally hitting his first HR at home this season Vlad Jr said afterwards that he felt ‘no pressure’ about it and I’m not sure how i feel about that attitude as a fan. Can you care about the job without feeling any pressure to perform when your doing bad for such a long stretch? The positive spin is that hes not letting the (lack of) pressure affect him.

Ben Clemens: I feel very good about that from a fan perspective, but perhaps I’m not the right person to ask

Ben Clemens: I know that everyone works very differently, but I have done some high stakes jobs before, and feeling pressure never once made me perform better

Ben Clemens: I think that having a rational idea of your own shortcomings, when you’re not doing well, is very good

Ben Clemens: and that it’s good to understand that things aren’t going well, that a chnage is probably necessary, etc.

Ben Clemens: but ‘feeling pressure’ is in my opinion not something that tends to increase performance

Ben Clemens: and if I had my players saying “I felt a lot of pressure to do x” the first thing I’d think is ‘boy, if X isn’t aligned with winning, or if they think X is aligned with winning but it’s not, that seems bad”

JasonT: If the Diamondbacks are unable to catch the Padres these next 2 weeks, do you anticipate a managerial change in Arizona?

Ben Clemens: I’m definitely the wrong person to ask about this, tbh

Ben Clemens: no sources

Ben Clemens: and this is entirely a ‘what are sources saying’ thing

Swings Low: Hey Ben, loved the MVPete article! You mention your perception changing since the trade value series, you clocking any unofficial movement in the top 3 since then?

Ben Clemens: eh, you could shift PCA ahead of Witt if you wanted

Ben Clemens: wasn’t that much of a gap before

daml91: Always going to be a tough climb in a league with Ohtani and now PCA, but thoughts on Jackson Chourio as a darkhorse MVP candidate next season (assuming there is one)? He’s quietly putting it together offensively and defensively the last couple months.

Ben Clemens: sure

Ben Clemens: the bar to be a dark horse mvp candidate is low, haha

Ben Clemens: it’s like, plausible mvp, but not favorite

Ben Clemens: I think he definitely fits that bill

daml91: Do you think the Brewers should give Jake Bauers the QO offer at this point before the lockout commences? I would imagine he beats out Ryan O’Hearn’s deal at this point.

Ben Clemens: interesting one

Ben Clemens: I think it’s cuspy. I imagine that they will not after their experience with Woodruff accepting the offer

Ben Clemens: I’ve been low on Bauers throughout the year, and I’m cognizant of that in trying to update my views here

Ben Clemens: but I think he’s kind of in the Arozarena bucket of corner bat coming off a career year and over 30. those guys don’t generally get big deals. and in advance of a lockout, they might say ‘hey, 20 million dollars? that sounds great’

Ben Clemens: and if you’re Milwaukee, on Milwaukee’s budget plus the uncertainty of next season (obviously ownership has had many m eetings about each team’s willingness to punt the entire season to get a salary cap, they’d be crazy if they weren’t polling their constituents)

Ben Clemens: are you really doing this for what feels like a marginal gain? the risk-reward doesn’t seem amazing to me

mike sixel: Ryan Jeffers gets the QO, right?

Ben Clemens: Again, I’d be surprised

Ben Clemens: we’ll see, and I imagine we’ll get WAY more info and rumblings about this before I have to make all these predictions in like two months

Ben Clemens: but the Twins don’t act like a team that doesn’t care if they give out 20 million dollar contracts

bosoxforlife: Tolle’s antics are some of the most fun things I have seen in stodgy old baseball in a long time. The hug when tagging the runner was great and then his smirk before completing his immaculate inning was just plain cool.

Ben Clemens: 100%

Ben Clemens: I don’t really know what else to say about that

Ben Clemens: I love athletes that are having light-hearted fun out there

Ben Clemens: and he definitely qualifies for me

Jeremy Fox: Have Murakami and others shown that the minimum viable zone contact rate actually much lower than we used to think? If you swing hard enough, hit the ball in the air enough, and make good enough swing decisions, maybe you can get away with swinging and missing at 1/3 of the strikes you swing at?

Ben Clemens: I think so

Ben Clemens: I think it’s kind of metagame-dependent. I’m not sure you could make this work in a different kind of league (this is a tricky question, I dunno how to make a bunch of counterfactual leagues to test)

Ben Clemens: but OBP isn’t that high and contact rate isn’t that high ANYWAY

Ben Clemens: so why not sacrifice more for some power

Ben Clemens: I’ve been bouncing around an article about how a lot of analytical views of baseball lead to less fun baseball, and that we analytics people don’t WANT that, we’re just good at counting

Ben Clemens: and I think this is a great example

Ben Clemens: I’m not even that big of a fan of homers, personally

Ben Clemens: but like, the game has evolved in a way where hunting them has the most reward

Ben Clemens: so what, we want our teams to be willfully dumb?

colecards: What would you put the odds at that the AL representative in the world series will come from the AL East? Personally, I really like the Yankees and Red Sox to make it. Meanwhile in the NL, I could buy any division making it to the world series, or winning

Ben Clemens: our odds have it at 64%

Ben Clemens: that honestly sounds about right to me. they’ll have half the representatives or more, and half the byes

Ben Clemens: but they’ll bounce each other out some percentage of the time

Ben Clemens: and it sure looks like yankees-sox winner will face the Rays

Ben Clemens: so one way of looking at this is:
a)what are the odds the Jays get the last wild card, beat either the ALC or ALW representative in the WC series, and beat the other in the ALDS

Ben Clemens: b)what odds do you give the Yanks/Rays/Sox winner against an unknown ALCS opp

Ben Clemens: hard for the odds to be much below 60% or above 70% in my head, so I like our model

Auswan_Kletin: Is steven kwan officially the most underrated player in baseball? He’s once again an above average contributor on offense and has continued to play great defense. feels like all the talk about him during the 1st half was how he finally appeared to be cooked (which was fair at that point)

Ben Clemens: The four-time gold glove, two-time all star who everyone’s dad says is the best player in baseball?

Ben Clemens: i’m gonna say no

Ben Clemens: I’m not sure who is

Ben Clemens: because I’m underrating him, presumably

Ben Clemens: but I’m fairly certain it’s not Kwan

David: In an alternate universe, would Ohtani have had more career value/durability if he played the outfield instead of pitching several hundred innings? With his skill set, he probably could have been an elite center fielder.

Ben Clemens: Babe Ruth is an interesting parallel

Ben Clemens: he gave up pitching because it was hard on his body, and turned into a defensive outfielder who at least our best defensive estimates of the era THINK was a decent corner outfield defender

Ben Clemens: and got to play more, too

Ben Clemens: I could totally see Ohtani doing the same in an alternate universe

Nate: Re: Bauers, do you think teams tend to be a little more gung-ho about handing out deals/the QO to guys like that if it’s at a position that’s traditionally/recently been a weakness for the team (Brewers at 1st), or do they tend to still be pretty rational about that stuff

Ben Clemens: I don’t have a strong opinion on this and I do not think that you could measure it with data

Ben Clemens: I think you’d have to talk to team insiders. and honestly, they might say one thing and unconsciously do another

PC1970: So, the Tigers have obviously had a bad year (though STILL a better run-differential than TB, despite being 20 games behind them) but, the group of Dingler-McGonigle-Clark-Hao Yu & Melton-Jobe in the rotation feels like a really fun group to have the next 6-7 years (or more).

Ben Clemens: hard to argue with this, the Tigers have been kinda sneaky fun for years and McGonigle is gonna be awesome for a long time

bosoxforlife: On the “Tis an ill wind that blows nobody good” theme, the injury to Yoshida forced the Red Sox to bring up Babe Gasper. I can’t even think about what next years roster of outfielders and DH’s is going to be.

Ben Clemens: the Red Sox are like a version of the Sisyphus story where the ball is made of bat-first corner outfielders

canderson20: This is definitely fueled in large part by my personal bias and fandom of the A’s, but Lawrence Butler’s season turnaround hasn’t been talked about enough it feels like. Coming out of the first half he was the 4th worst player in baseball by fWAR and he’s almost back to even on the year now. Baseball is definitely a funny sport in the way that happens with guys, but this turnaround is remarkable in comparison to 1st and 2nd half numbers.

Ben Clemens: I noticed this when I was writing about the A’s and was like ‘hey butler has only been bad, not awful’

Ben Clemens: it’s a very remarkable turnaround. I think the reason it’s not being talked about more is a)the A’s stink

Ben Clemens: b)he’s a career 100 wRC+ player who I wasn’t enthused about before teh year, so I’m letting my priors work here

Ben Clemens: but yeah, he has a 131 wRC+ in the second half

Ben Clemens: and it’s not some babip goof either

Ben Clemens: I really don’t see a long-term great hitter here, but a nice corner outfielder? sure. He was a trade value honorable mention a few years ago in the tradition of me just throwing a ton of names out to cover my butt from snarky commenters

Ben Clemens: and I think he’s probably fin ein that range for me

Ben Clemens: nice role player, big error bands on his possible outcomes, even within a season

abyers: Bryce Eldridge seems to be flying under the radar. Hitting .270 w/ 25 HR pace at 21 in that lineup, in that ballpark – isn’t that a pretty killer debut? Dark red statcast and pedigree all makes it look pretty legit.

Ben Clemens: perhaps the most underrated player in baseball

Ben Clemens: (perhaps)

Ben Clemens: yeah great debut. I considered him for top 50 trade value and had at least one team source say they would definitely have him on there

Ben Clemens: or great rookie year I guess, he debuted late last year (I went to his first home game b/c the Cards were in town)

Anon21: I know you’re doing a free agent list later, but…can you remember a worse free agent class than this? No offense to any of the guys hitting the market this year, but the pickings are extremely slim.

Ben Clemens: nah it’s really bad

Ben Clemens: worst since I’ve been doing the list for sure

bosoxforlife: I don’t know what to call it, funny, bizarre, perhaps ridiculous but there is a reasonable possibility that 2 of the divisions in the AL have a “champion” with a less than .500 record. I do know that it is embarrassing for the AL.

Ben Clemens: it’s pretty shocking

Ben Clemens: makes me want to allow extra NL playoff teams and fewer AL ones

SEAN OVERBECK: What went wrong with the Mariners this year?  Almost everyone besides Canzone and Randy regressed!!  Pitching staff included!

Ben Clemens: if I knew, they’d hire me

Ben Clemens: they’ve had decent health, so I wouldn’t say it’s that

Ben Clemens: I was a little skeptical of their offense last year, I suppose, but I didn’t think THIS would happen

Ben Clemens: and as to the pitching, I really can’t figure out what went wrong but it really does kinda feel systemic

Ben Clemens: so many pitchers doing worse all at once

Ben Clemens: if I had something better, I’d tell you. but I dunno. pretty shocking!

bosoxforlife: The upcoming series between the White Sox and the Guardians is the Series of the Year but not exactly the teams that were expected to be playing in the most important series. Who do ya’ got?

Ben Clemens: Guardians. The White Sox story is fun but like, I just don’t trust them

sprechs: Certainly not the biggest issue for the (a?) new CBA, but given the disparity in divisions, why should playoff seeding be linked to division finish?

Ben Clemens: because it was a long time ago

Ben Clemens: I’m absolutely sure that we’ll have enough time for ‘how would I make baseball’s playoff system different’ articdles during the lockout

Ben Clemens: and that’s 100% going to be one of mine

oaktownblues: A couple weeks ago I noticed that the SHP park factor had been adjusted to consider the stadium more hitter friendly – all A’s hitters 2025-2026 lost 5-6 points of wRC+ overnight (with commensurate changes in the opposite direction for the pitchers). For any individual player, that doesn’t feel like a huge change, but in the aggregate, it feels significant that the A’s whole offense was 5-6% worse than we thought (and the pitchers 5-6% better). Did this affect your view of the team at all? Like maybe the pitching situation isn’t quite as dire, while the position player core isn’t as solid?

Ben Clemens: I don’t update these internal perceptions in my head every day or anything

Ben Clemens: but yeah, I have had a ‘downgrade A’s hitters/upgrade A’s pitchers’ and likewise ‘upgrade M’s hitters/downgrade M’s pitchers’ lean in constructing rankings

Ben Clemens: because i just didn’t believe the park factors for either of thoes

Ben Clemens: I imagine we’ll look into these in more depth this winter (again, we’re trying to do LOTS of fun stuff when we have the time)

Ben Clemens: but yes, I think that it’s reasonable to have adjustments like this, and I’m glad we do it. Especially for a place like SHP that’s new to the majors somewhat recently, more data is always better. we’re inherently conservative about park factors when we don’t have much info

jtrichey: Let’s say Ohtani and Freeman are healthy and DePaula rakes over these next 2 weeks.  Who sits in the playoffs? Tucker-Teo platoon?  DePaula already looks like one of their best 4 or 5 hitters.

Ben Clemens: I think De Paula would still sit, at least the majority of the time, but I guess I’d say that I’m not super confident in that view

Ben Clemens: and I think that Tucker would have to be the one who lost playing time to accomodate him, Teo is both more tenured with the team and white hot right now

wheelhouse: Cam Schlittler MVP campaign justifiable or no

Ben Clemens: it’s definitely justifiable. I wouldn’t vote for him. I’d vote for Yordan

bosoxforlife: I am completely puzzled by Toboni’s moves at the deadline. He absolutely wrecked a great offense with his strange trades of Mead and Garcia, Jr. Since I am totally satisfied with Sogard as the 2027 Red Sox 2nd baseman they should offer Mead, Monasterio and Olds for Early.

Ben Clemens: I don’t think it’s fair to say that he wrecked the offense. particularly given that Mead has played one game since the deadline

Ben Clemens: Luis Garcia is still raking, no doubt

Ben Clemens: but they basically gave his job to Andres Chaparro, and he’s been awesome

Ben Clemens: feels to me like a bigger part of what’s ailing them is that CJ Abrams has a 32 wRC+ in the last month

Ben Clemens: which is gonna be tough to fix

Ben Clemens: Nas Nunez has a -36 wRC+ in the past month!

Ben Clemens: I am not sure I’ve seen one that low for a mostly everyday player

scottsjunk1981: the Nats gave luis garcia’s job to ortiz, not chaparro, and he’s been meh

Ben Clemens: I’d call it a split, since Chaparro is playing a lot more now than he was before the deadline, but fair

Ben Clemens: Ortiz has been meh

Ben Clemens: but like…. let’s not act like those two guys were the thing holding the Nats offense together, nothing else has changed, and the lack of them made the offense bad

Ben Clemens: i mean, if Mead and Garcia had combined for an extra FIVE wins in the last 45 days

Ben Clemens: I think that is a LOT

Ben Clemens: then they’d still be seven games back of the third wild card

Ben Clemens: meanwhile Foster Griffin has a 6 ERA in Cleveland

Ben Clemens: shoiuld we give Toboni credit for getting that off the Nats’ books? surely not

Petey Bienel: Does it make sense to send to the AFL pitchers who have some MLB experience but who have missed much of the season? I’m thinking specifically of Early and Herz for the Nats. As near as I can tell, there’s no prohibition

Ben Clemens: Yeah, makes sense and ‘rehabbers’ is definitely part of the AFL contingent in genearl

Ben Clemens: this is probably more of a question for Eric but I would be interested in doing so if I were the Nats. Great way to get extra reps against good competition

Ben Clemens: particularly given that if you’re the team, you should have at least a reasonable expectation that these guys might not get to work with your trainers and pitching coaches this winter

Ben Clemens: I think that for young players in particular, I’d be interested in front-loading some teaching moments

tdouglas: Do you think STL knows who they want to build around at catcher, or will they let it simmer for another 12 months to see how everyone grows?

Ben Clemens: yeah, I think your second conjecture is correct. I like a lot of their guys! I don’t think it’s gonna be Herrera, because I think he’ll play first or DH longterm. But past that, I think they’ll be happy to let it be a competition, more or less

kingharbaugh: Do you think there is a chance that the Mariners are projected for a bounce back next year? It just seems so strange that all their pieces fell apart at the same time. The pitching being so bad in the second half is perplexing, as is the bullpen’s complete collapse. As a Mariners fan, it seems like a confluence of bad, low probability outcomes took them out this year. Am I just coping?

Ben Clemens: oh definitely

Ben Clemens: I can pretty much guarantee we’ll project their pitchers and Cal for better outcomes than this year

Ben Clemens: because of how projections work

ajake57: These might be better questions for Tom Tango, but he’s not in the chat! For statcast OAA, flyball catch rate is a pretty easy thing to understand. Distance and time to cover = catch %. But that’s not granular enough for me because it’s reducing a 3-dimensional ball flight to 2-dimensional coordinates. The tracking technology is sophisticated enough to give the full range of coordinates where a ball is catchable (probably at some height above the surface until it hits the ground). In an environment where we’re gleaning every last scrap of data we can isn’t that valuable information? I’m imagining this being a way to help quantify route efficiency but that might be another statistical leap or two. Following that thought, I don’t really understand why groundballs for infielders aren’t as easy to roll into an easy percentage. We have the batted ball information and the fielder’s starting position, so why does that not translate into, “that was a 50/50 ground ball” the same way fly balls do?

Ben Clemens: so, as to the first thing, I’m imagining that it probably doesn’t make much of a difference

Ben Clemens: like, sure, they could do that. but since it’s probably pretty close to the same for fielders on average, it’s gonna fall out in the wash

Ben Clemens: and individual-play catch/out probabilities are kind of nonsense anyway

Ben Clemens: sorry Tom

Ben Clemens: not really nonsense, but like…. if a statistic works in the aggregate, and it’s made to be an aggregate statistic, cool. acting like it’s exactly right on every single play, perfectly?

Ben Clemens: that’s not really how modeling works

Ben Clemens: as for the second thing, my guess is that they DO have that ‘this was a 50/50 grounder’ internally

Ben Clemens: but because of my previous point about how this stuff is tricky to analyze and leads to counterintuitive readings on single plays that come out in the wash, they’ve looked at this data and decided that it’s not worth publishing

InsertWittyNameHere: How funny was it that Zverev didn’t realize he won? Didn’t get to watch much this year but I did see the finals of the Boys Championship. If you didn’t see or read about it, highly recommend you do. At least the ending.

Ben Clemens: i missed the end of the match b/c of opening sunday of the NFL

Ben Clemens: I watched highlights of hte boys championship b/c someone else told me to

Ben Clemens: also I really enjoyed the women’s final, I had somehow not watched enough of Rybakina this year before this tourney but with no Sinner around to watch, she feels like the next best thing

Ben Clemens: enjoyable, and I’m a big flat-affect guy myself so seeing champions not celebrate too much tickles me

mr. burrito: Re De Paula… I love the guy, but he’s had 11 ABs in MLB. So it might be a tad early to consider who he’ll replace in the post season. That said, there’s a bigger issue here: De Paula’s HR Sunday was off a 95 mph fastball. Dunno how many Dodgers have done that this year. Muncy still hit heat, but even Ohtani (probably because of injury) can’t hit a fastball this year. Is this team age or fluke?

Ben Clemens: haha yes, implied but unsaid in my answer

Ben Clemens: as to the fastball thing, let’s do an in-chat query for fun

Ben Clemens: Dodgers hitters, vs 95+ velo, 2026, run value, barrel/bip, hard hit rate, whiff rate

Ben Clemens: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfGT=R%7C&hfSea=2026%7C…

Ben Clemens: that’s the query, and let’s see. Muncy is tattooing fast pitches. Will Smith is too (when healthy). Ohtani’s not that bad

Ben Clemens: for context: league average barrel/bbe vs 95+ is 7.7%

Ben Clemens: kinda makes sense to me

Ben Clemens: and league average whiff rate 22%

Ben Clemens: Smith is at 31% barrels/15% whiffs

Ben Clemens: Muncy 20% barrels/23% whiffs

Ben Clemens: Ohtani 14% barrels/26% whiffs

Ben Clemens: Mookie is at 8% barrels 6% whiffs, lol

Ben Clemens: I’d basically say that Freeman and Pages have had big power outages against fast pitches

Ben Clemens: but that overall, the Dodgers issues aren’t so simple to diagnose as a single pitch type

didace: “why should playoff seeding be linked to division finish?” Winning a division needs to have a good reward because it’s easier to sell teams to fans when they have a chance to benefit from it. We don’t want a league where 30 teams are between 78 and 84 wins, but we need to keep all fan bases engaged as long as possible.

Ben Clemens: let’s just say that I’d try to come up with OTHER things to incentivize teams and fans

Ben Clemens: yes, if you got rid of it and isntead replaced it with punching you in the stomach if you live in the midwest, this deal will not appeal

Ben Clemens: but let’s imagine replacing it with a new incentive. I concur that you need incentives to try

Sanford: Every time I’m about to give up on Francisco Alvarez, I remember how young he still is (24). He’s in his 5th year in the majors while guys like Adley, Raleigh, Baldwin and Rushing all *debuted* at this age.

The flip side of this coin is that we have such a large of sample of him being mid (or fluctuating between awesome, bad, and hurt).

Do you think he can make a leap or is this who he is? (And generally, I’m curious how you square age vs. performance sample when evaluating guys who debuted so young?)

Ben Clemens: buddy, you and me both

Ben Clemens: he’s one of the players I’m least confident (and most variable) in evaluating

Ben Clemens: I think that generally speaking this is who he is but that I’m willing to accept him getting healthier, and I think that some of his badness has to do with health

war2d2: This may have changed since last I checked, but at sometime in the last five days the Cubs had both the most position-player fWAR and the least pitcher fWAR. They’re probably gonna get bumped in the first round, assuming they even make it, on Shota Imanaga being pushed one inning too long and giving up a go-ahead homer. I’ll go out on a limb and say it’ll be to Schwarber. Get your Kalshi™ prop bets in now.

Ben Clemens: minor rant that you invited with your Kalshi joke, and the TM was delightful btw

Ben Clemens: I hate this crap. And I’m a markets-oriented person, I do think of the world in probabilities and whatnot

Ben Clemens: but treating it as basically just gambling is a betrayal of the concept of prediction markets, to me, or at least the promise

Ben Clemens: this is just sports betting with extra steps

Ben Clemens: whatever, baseball is clearly cool with it (although they shacked up with Polymarket, definitely don’t google Polymarket controversies if you want to feel okay about this)

Ben Clemens: but yes, the Cubs are fascinating in a ‘wait how did it end up like htis’ way

Ben Clemens: I’m more optimistic than you are, because basically I just don’t have as long of a memory with pitchers

Ben Clemens: and I like Boyd/Holmes/Imanaga/Gausman as a top 4 even though they’re not pitching well now and haven’t much this season

Ben Clemens: the bullpen? less sold

Ben Clemens: meaningfully less sold

Ben Clemens: but I think that good hit/bad pitch teams always have a shot in the playoffs b/c you never know when someone’s gonna go full Michael Wacha or whatever

Baseball Learner: I think it’s absurd that there are only 3 decently good teams in the AL and they will all be on the same side of the bracket. If we have to do playoffs by league and division can’t we at least reseed?

Ben Clemens: yep, agreed

mr. burrito: Thanks for that answer, re Dodgers. That’s interesting and, as a fan, oddly encouraging. Has anybody (a team, perhaps) looked at how velo affects whiff rates, etc., based simply on a player’s age? In other words, do we have data for how the average 34 year old MLB player fares against velo vs., say, the average 24 year old?

Ben Clemens: Haven’t seen that study in particular, but Tom Tango has done some stuff with swing speed aging curves

Ben Clemens: bat speed predictably declines. surely that’s correlated with performance against fast fastballs

scottsjunk1981: Re – developing actionable local vs global true talent projections – why do you think the economics around it would be different from any other aspect of baseball analytics – for example, pitch stuff modeling? I mean, I guess what I’m hearing is that a fully-formed, nearly-total solution would be such a leap beyond current table stakes that the incentives would keep it out of the public view, but that seems like it would have been true for almost all baseball insights at one point (and, fwiw, is also I think a bit too optimistic about what the first non-null result of this kind would look like).

Ben Clemens: basically because I think that the amount of noise in this is really high, relative to the other questions that are hitting the public side first

Ben Clemens: but who knows

Ben Clemens: I’m not gonna spend too much time on pondering it because i can tell you that I will not be the one developing it, though

war2d2: Yeah, I’m probably slightly pessimistic by nature, and I’ve watched like 100 Cubs games in whole or in part this season, so that’s playing into my prediction. Also: the existence of Caleb Theilbar contributes to that. And in case it wasn’t obvious from the ™, you and I are in agreement on “all this crap.”

Ben Clemens: 100%

Domingo Ayala: Next year’s breakouts… Is this list more Jordan Walker or Christopher Morel? Colson Montgomery
Cam Smith
Crews
Bolte
Heriberto Hernandez

Ben Clemens: I mean, I like Montgomery a lot, but obviously the past two months are not making me feel BETTER about that view

Ben Clemens: I think if I had to rank these guys I’d go….
Montgomery
Crews
Bolte
Hernandez
Smith

Ben Clemens: my reasoning is:
-Montgomery is a shortstop with power, and I’ve liked him for quite a while, I can shade down my expectations based on recent results while maintianing my bias towards him succeeding
-Crews, the pedigree, man
-Bolte has enough carrying tools that I like his floor, and the ceiling is exciting though unlikely to be reached
-Hernandez looks like a nice corner outfield type
-no idea what’s going on with Smith but this does not feel like a dip I want to buy

Domingo Ayala: Why low on Smith? Bat speed, no real ground ball problem, strikeout and walk rates are passable

Ben Clemens: i mean

Ben Clemens: I’m not saying he’s unplayable

Ben Clemens: but if you believe he’s getting a little unlucky, he’s an average bat who plays a corner outfield pretty well

Ben Clemens: whereas if you believe his results are about right, he’s a below average bat who plays a corner outfield pretty well

Ben Clemens: i’m not saying don’t dream on the potential. but he’s up to 1000 PA of swinging super hard and getting results that look roughly like this

Ben Clemens: all five of those players have upside. If I had to pick I’d have him last

kriscolic: Has AJ shown enough to be penciled in as the opening day ’27 starter, or should the Mets be looking to add a qualified depth piece over the winter just in case?

Ben Clemens: I think that they should either be looking to add a depth piece or at the very least think that htey have a plan for center if he does not pan out

Ben Clemens: not like I have strong reason to doubt him in particular

Ben Clemens: but it feels a little suboptimal to have one plan for center, and to have it be a guy who I think it’s fair to say has some hit tool questions

Ben Clemens: surely it’s at least a tiny bit worrisome that he’s striking out so much given what his prospect profile looks like

Justin Krupp: Would you shop Logan Webb this offseason?

Ben Clemens: oof

Ben Clemens: I don’t think I would, because people would be giving me dip buying offers

Ben Clemens: both because he’s had a clunker of a year and because no one’s looking to add salary into financial structure uncertainty

Ben Clemens: I understand the idea behind it, which is like, these Giants kinda stink and they should be pivoting to a youth movement with the much improved farm, but it’ll be too hard to trade the three hitters on big contracts

Ben Clemens: but for me, that’s just sunk cost. trading them now would be a PR move

bosoxforlife: One of the biggest surprises this year has been the startling hot streak that Rafael Devers has put together. I have been expecting a gradual decline followed by a precipitous one. It seems nearly impossible that he won’t become an albatross contract around the Giants neck sooner rather than later.

Ben Clemens: yeah, he’s been one of the best hitters in baseball this year, period – 14th among qualifiers in wRC+

Ben Clemens: and he had a 47 (!!) wRC+ in his first 31 games

Ben Clemens: 3rd in wRC+ since May 1

Ben Clemens: and second in baseball in homers

Ben Clemens: I just think Devers is a nice first baseman and that he’ll continue to play like htat, but what a funny way to get to basically his projection

sliderinthedirt: Do you have any idea why CJ Abrams keeps fading in the second half? He has a 58 wRC+ after the first 9 games (which were against the A’s, Nats and Dbacks)

Ben Clemens: no – and there are a number of guys like this with really strong 1h/2h splits that I really have no idea about

Ben Clemens: I’m not saying it’s definitely statistical noise

Ben Clemens: or even that it’s likely statistical noise

Ben Clemens: I do feel fine saying that we, from the outside, cannot distinguish between noise and process

Ben Clemens: maybe CJ can

Ben Clemens: maybe the Nats can

Ben Clemens: we’d need a lot more info than just the stats, though. if you do the math on the stats, the answer is just that things like this happen to people sometimes

Ben Clemens: which I understand is not helpful at all

fincampbell05: Would the Red Sox be a projected playoff team in 2027 if they let all pending free agents walk, signed zero free agents, and made zero trades? Yes, right?

Ben Clemens: let’s see. that looks like:
-Sonny Gray
-Aroldis Chapman (nope, his vested, n/m)
-Patrick Sandoval
-IKF

Ben Clemens: so uh, yes? they just don’t have much coming off the books

Ben Clemens: their cliff is more the year after that, when they have 8 contributors falling off the books

Greg Simons: I almost want a sub-.500 team to make the playoffs to drive home the point that 12 playoff teams is (more than) enough? Do you think 14 is inevitable in the new CBA?

Ben Clemens: i don’t think it’s inevitable, but I think it’s a likely point of agreement between the two sides, when those are thin on the ground

Ben Clemens: it’s good to remember that neither side is interested in the welfare of fans, any more so than they are interested in the fans putting more money into the baseball machine

Ben Clemens: I think it’s pretty clear that 14 team playoffs are kinda silly

Ben Clemens: but i mean, they probably put more money into the machien

booneyO: It’s pretty impressive how the Padres have stayed competitive despite all of the win now moves they’ve made in years prior and the amount of money tied up in aging stars who aren’t performing. All of King, Pivetta, Ray, and Mize are or may walk next year. Can they continue to make this work?

Ben Clemens: yeah, it really is impressive

Ben Clemens: AJ Preller is clearly very good at some aspects of GM’ing that you miss if you just look at the process

Ben Clemens: because yeah the process feels like it can’t possibly keep working given the amount of prospects they’ve sent out

Ben Clemens: and yeah, the money tied up in aging stars

Ben Clemens: and yet

Ben Clemens: I think that they cannot continue to make this work

Ben Clemens: full disclosure, that was my prediction for this year

Ben Clemens: but it’s just a VERY thin eye of the needle to thread

InsertWittyNameHere: Maybe an odd question, but what happens to the economy when a large chunk of it gets lost to gambling? I’m thinking of the 18-30 demographic, and if they lose even just 5% of their income to the bookies, that’s losing date money that could have gone to local establishments.   Is this effect marginal or is it like a hidden problem that we’re only going to realize in a few more years?

Ben Clemens: hidden problem that we’re only going to realize in a few years

Ben Clemens: but the good news is that in the long run, I think the odds of AI either a)killing us all or b)sufficiently changing productivity so that scarcity is meaningfully lower and we all have better lives is pretty high

Ben Clemens: so even though gambling is causing a ton of ills around bankruptcy and such, and that it’s definitely doing some damage to people who don’t have marginal income to lose, it’s just gonna come out in the wash of bigger changes

Ben Clemens: I hope I’m right, at least

Ben Clemens: also, we’ve gotten far enough from baseball that I am now pleased with how the chat has gone

Ben Clemens: not a single lunch question, but that’s okay, we’re still rounding back into chat form after I took some of the summer off for various projects

Ben Clemens: let’s do it again next week!