Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 10/19/26
by Ben Clemens
October 19, 2026
FanGraphs Baseball
Job Posting: St. Louis Cardinals – Major League Strategy Fellow
Direct link to application (please see job details below):
Major League Strategy Fellow
Job Summary:
This role will support the St. Louis Cardinals Major League team through baseball research, statistical analysis, strategic modeling, and the development of analytical tools and reports. Working closely with the Manager of Major League Strategy, this position will help identify opportunities to improve baseball decision-making, evaluate existing strategies, and develop new analytical capabilities supporting the Major League club. This role will collaborate with Major League Strategy personnel, coaches, and Baseball Development staff to translate research and data into practical baseball applications. The position will be based primarily in St. Louis and will be expected to work on the Major League team’s schedule throughout the season, including Spring Training, evenings, weekends, and holidays as needed.
Job Duties:
- Conduct baseball research and statistical analysis to support Major League game preparation, in-game strategy, player evaluation, and broader baseball decision-making
- Develop, maintain, and improve analytical models and tools that inform Major League game strategy and baseball operations
- Work with the Manager of Major League Strategy to identify, prioritize, and investigate research questions with potential Major League applications
- Analyze player and team performance trends to identify actionable insights, evaluate strategic opportunities, and support continuous improvement
- Develop and improve automated reports, data visualizations, and analytical applications that support Major League coaches, players, and staff
- Collaborate with Major League Strategy personnel to integrate analytical findings into advance scouting, game preparation, and player support workflows
- Design and conduct rigorous analyses to evaluate baseball strategies, validate analytical models, and assess the effectiveness of implemented initiatives
- Collaborate with Baseball Development and other baseball operations personnel on research, modeling, technology, and analytical initiatives supporting the Major League club
- Learn and operate certain baseball technology and video systems as necessary
Experience Required:
- Strong analytical and quantitative problem-solving skills, with the ability to independently investigate complex baseball questions
- Proficiency in SQL and at least one analytical programming language, such as Python or R, with experience developing reproducible analyses and statistical models
- Strong understanding of statistical inference, model validation, and the limitations of observational baseball data
- Experience with statistical analysis, predictive modeling, and research methodology
- Strong ability to communicate clearly and concisely in written, verbal, and visual formats
- Ability to translate complex analytical findings into practical recommendations for baseball decisionmakers
- Strong understanding of baseball decision-making and the ability to frame baseball questions as rigorous analytical problems
- Experience working with modern baseball data, including ball-tracking and player-tracking information
- Ability to develop clear, accessible data visualizations, reports, and analytical tools
- Strong attention to detail, intellectual curiosity, sound judgment, and a willingness to challenge and refine existing assumptions
- Ability to manage independent research projects while responding effectively to time-sensitive Major League requests
- Ability to collaborate productively with coaches, analysts, and baseball operations personnel
- Ability to handle sensitive baseball information with professionalism and confidentiality
- Experience conducting original baseball research or developing statistical models is preferred
- Experience developing analytical applications, automated reporting systems, or decision-support tools is preferred
- Familiarity with machine learning, optimization, and advanced statistical methods is preferred
- Experience in professional or collegiate baseball operations, research, or analytics is a plus
To Apply
To apply, please follow this link.
The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the St. Louis Cardinals.
How I Voted for the 2026 Fielding Bible Awards: Infield
by Ben Clemens
October 19, 2026
For the third consecutive year, I voted for the Fielding Bible Awards, Sports Info Solutions’ annual recognition of the best defenders in major league baseball. They’re a Gold Glove equivalent for the majors as a whole, created by SIS and John Dewan in 2006. A panel of video scouts and baseball experts vote for five players at each spot; there are also awards for the best multi-position defender, the defensive player of the year, and the defensive team of the year. The awards will be released this Thursday, October 22, and this article will be updated to note the winners once they’re announced. Update: the winners have been announced, and are denoted by asterisks below.
Voting for any award is a prestigious honor, and voting on this panel has great personal import to me. Over the years, the panelists have included basically every writer who got me into baseball statistics when I was younger. Bill James, Peter Gammons, the founder of Strat-o-Matic – you get the idea. It’s a group I’m honored to be a part of, and I take my voting responsibilities very seriously. To that end, I spent some time this year updating my previous voting methods. Let me walk you through it.
Earlier this year, MLB Senior Data Architect Tom Tango did some work on blending multiple defensive systems together. I had actually landed on a similar method after discussing my inaugural ballot with Tom two years ago, but there’s never a bad time for a refresh. I started with Tom’s approach, added in Baseball Prospectus’ DRP as an additional number, and created blends for each position group based on how well each metric tracked itself year-to-year, as well as how well it predicted other metrics from one year to the next. Of note, I moved around my infield weights a bit, increasing the importance of DRS; it has narrowly been the best metric in the post-shift-ban world, a change in defensive rules meaningful enough for me to strongly prefer sampling from it for my initial rankings. Read the rest of this entry »
After Forcing Messick Into an Early Exit, Rays Take 3-2 ALCS Lead
The Tampa Bay Rays are one win away from their third trip to the World Series. After pulling away from the Cleveland Guardians late in Game 4 for a 7-3 victory, the Rays scored a run in each of the first three innings of Game 5. While they left six men on base over that span, they forced Guardians ace Parker Messick to work so hard that he lasted just two innings, and because the game remained within reach, Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt called upon four of his best relievers to record four outs or more. Meanwhile, Drew Rasmussen stifled the Guardians, holding them to one run on four hits over seven innings, and a trio of relievers shut the door for a 3-1 victory and a three-games-to-two series lead. The series now heads back to St. Petersburg, and because the travel day was erased by Friday night’s rainout, the Rays will have the opportunity to clinch the pennant at home on Monday night.
For as great a rookie season as Messick had, the 25-year-old lefty has been anything but dominant during the postseason. He lasted five innings in just one of his three previous starts while putting up a 4.13 FIP and 5.25 xERA to go with a comparatively tidy 3.09 ERA in 11.2 innings. If a 15.1% walk rate, more than double his regular season mark of 6.6%, has been the primary culprit, his previous workload may be a contributing factor as well. Messick ranked fourth in the American League with 186.1 innings — the most of any rookie since 2012 — and with his postseason work prior to Sunday, he had pushed his odometer to 198 frames, up from a combined 138.1 innings between Triple-A and the majors in 2025.
After pairing Messick with backup catcher Austin Hedges for all but one of his starts in 2026 — David Fry caught the first three innings of his September 27 outing — Vogt called upon Patrick Bailey instead… on the basis of his offense. That’s an odd thing to say about a catcher with a career 75 wRC+, and an anemic .146/.213/.183 line when he was traded from the Giants in May, but the 27-year-old backstop has been a credible threat at the plate since joining the Guardians, and he entered Sunday having hit .333/.379/.556 (163 wRC+) during the postseason, with a homer and a single off Rasmussen in Game 1. Said Vogt before the game, “With the way Patty is swinging the bat, [I] just wanted to keep his bat in the lineup, and you know, obviously there is some risk. There’s some concern with Patty never having caught Parker. But you know what? If I’m going to trust two human beings to go out and navigate a game, it’s Parker and Patty.” Read the rest of this entry »
Members-Only Game Thread: ALCS – Oct 18, 2026
Welcome to our Open Game Thread for the ALCS game today. Only Members can participate, and unlike our usual staff Q&A chats, your messages will be posted immediately.
Our Member community is made up of thousands of incredibly knowledgable baseball fans, and we think this is a great way to follow a game with like-minded baseball enthusiasts. We might even have some FanGraphs Staff drop in and join the fun. Please be courteous to your fellow Members, or you may find your chat privileges revoked.
Hey! Everyone, we got a dinner-time game today, so we won't be up late, but we do have NFL football to compete with. Though the Tampa Bay game just ended. And the Browns already won.
What are you guys talking about?
Baseballs?
Terrible challenge
It’s still way too early for this.
I feel like in the regular season, you load the bases like that and 3 plus runs score. Postseason you get dinged one run, and no one scores again until the 7th inning.
We also don’t get an outfielder running over the parabolic mic guy in the regular season either.
people have ask for a "Neither" option in the polls, but that was more for the Yankees games.
Hi everyone!
That's how they train them in broadcasting school.
Rays are going to score 1 run every inning to win 9-0.
We should have Jeff and August face off against each in podcast before the WS starts.
* said with the caveat, I have no power to make this happen.
All the time, and Saberseminar. Though team employees have more restrictive schedules during Winter Meetings.
I did not think Kwan had a chance in the world there
The one-run-per-inning thing looks to be in jeopardy.
oh well.
Cleveland really needs a baserunner. It's been a too long.
the challenge furthered the stated goal.
I've been getting some other work done, and I swear every time I looked up the Rays were on base.
That's a good challenge.
I like that they are bringing back the yellow packaging.
Now we need more solariums.
I've used the word feckless a lot in the last 30 minutes talking about Cleveland's offense.
On the broadcast the other day, they compared Rasmussen to Doc Halladay… feels apt after this postseason
Another TB baserunner…I looked up at the TV.
🥱
two more ABs for cleveland though… Vogt betting on his bats
4D Chess
I think I want JoRam up to lead off the 9th if I'm Vogt
Unless I want the seattle job I guess
This is correct.
Yep
I take that back. We are in need of health care.
Wondering what happens if the Guards come back and we go to extras without Yandy and Junior.
Not the ball-catching kind. A different kind.
Poor guy.
That catch sounded weird, right? Like the double tap of a foul tip.
Ohhhh. It bounced off the wall — but THROUGH his glove.
Kwan is the defensive replacement
what a giant glove
He's the new Lily. Prepare to see him even more during the NCAA tournament.
i thought lowe tattooed that
may cost them tomorrow if the Rays get to Sabrowski, Gaddis or Cade…
But it may not!
Alright everyone. We got at least one more LCS game tomorrow. See you then!
Sunday Notes: NYY Prospect Dax Kilby is Debuting New Mechanics in the Desert
Dax Kilby is among the higher-profile prospects currently honing his skills in the Arizona Fall League. A 19-year-old shortstop whom the New York Yankees drafted 39th overall last year out of a Georgia high school, he ranks third in the Bombers system and No. 103 on The Board. Making up for missed time is part of why Kilby is in the desert. As Eric Longenhagen explained in his AFL preview, the 50 FV prospect dealt with a severe hamstring injury for much of 2026. He has shown promise with when healthy. This season, Kilby slashed a solid .242/.427/.403 with a 143 wRC+ over 154 plate appearances with Low-A Tampa.
How does the youngster view his early-career acclimation to pro ball?
“As I didn’t go to college, I’m seeing a lot better pitching,” Kilby told me on AFL media day. “I think that reveals a lot about who you are as a hitter. My first year, I was hitting a lot of ground balls [a 54.4% rate across 58 PAs] and using my speed to my advantage. That was definitely a change from high school, where the pitching isn’t as good and you can get into balls more often, for more power.”
Longenhagen and Brendan Gawlowski are both bullish on Kilby’s potential to do damage going forward. Addressing the 6-foot-2, 190-pound lefty swinger’s quick hands in his recent scouting notebook, Gawlowski wrote that “the way he’s able to pull them in and turn around velocity is in a class with the Max Clarks and Kevin McGonigles of the world.”
Kilby worked on mechanical changes in the weeks leading up to the AFL season. As he explained, the Yankees have him starting narrower and more open, the objective being two-fold: (1) allowing him to be more adjustable to different pitches, and (2) getting him more into his back hip, increasing the number of balls he is driving in the air. While his 40.2 GB% this year was an improvement from 2025’s pro-debut, it was still far from optimal.
Radically alternating his stroke isn’t part of the equation. Read the rest of this entry »
Who Needs a Dome? Rays Even ALCS in Frigid Game 4
If you’re keeping score at home, the ALCS has now gone back and forth twice. On a frigid Saturday night in Cleveland, Tampa Bay’s big bats finally woke up. The Rays beat the Guardians, 7-3, to win Game 4 and even the series at 2-2. The game was originally scheduled for Friday night, but pouring rain destroyed that plan. The low temperature and a light west-southwest breeze kept multiple would-be homers in the ballpark, and the rain-soaked grass slowed down balls in the outfield. However, it didn’t stop the Rays from scoring more than three runs for the first time in the series. The Rays were more aggressive than the Guardians in terms of asking their best arms to get big outs. They countered a Cleveland bullpen game with a surprising amount of starting pitching, and they got big performances from Yandy Díaz, Junior Caminero, and Jonathan Aranda. The series is now guaranteed to end in St. Petersburg.
Both teams had the option to adjust their pitching plans after the rain banged Friday night’s game. The Rays could have thrown their ace, Drew Rasmussen on regular rest, rather than scheduled starter Nick Martinez. However, they knew they still would have needed Martinez later in the series, and it made sense for manager Kevin Cash to stick with his plan. Things were more complicated for Guardians manager Stephen Vogt.
With none of his most trusted starters available on normal rest on Friday, Vogt had no choice but to plan on a bullpen game, even though his bullpen was overworked. The postponement gave his relievers a much-needed game of rest. It also gave him the opportunity to hand the ball back to Game 1 starter Foster Griffin. Getting some length from Griffin would have been huge, because the postponement meant that if the series went seven games, the teams would play four games in a row, once again taxing the bullpen. However, Vogt stuck with opener Shawn Armstrong, and was cagey with reporters before the game when asked whether Griffin would pitch. It seemed like his plan for cobbling together nine innings was very contingent on how the game unfolded. Read the rest of this entry »
Members-Only Game Thread: ALCS – Oct 17, 2026
Welcome to our Open Game Thread for the ALCS game today. Only Members can participate, and unlike our usual staff Q&A chats, your messages will be posted immediately.
Our Member community is made up of thousands of incredibly knowledgable baseball fans, and we think this is a great way to follow a game with like-minded baseball enthusiasts. We might even have some FanGraphs Staff drop in and join the fun. Please be courteous to your fellow Members, or you may find your chat privileges revoked.
Hi everyone! The weather looks clear though cold in Cleveland tonight. https://www.wunderground.com/hourly/us/oh/cleveland
Poll is the same as yesterday, since we didn't play that game.
I broke mine out again this morning.
Hello, Sean.
Hi!
Sweatshirt weather is the best weather.
Hopefully this is more fun. Though, any analytics conference sounds fun to me right now, too.
It would be a great idea to do an article about a sloppy defensive game from the point of view of Tom Emanski. I'm writing that down.
The “hit a homer”? Yeah, that’s pretty awesome.
Hello all!
Pretty fantastic stuff from Griffin that inning
Is nine pitches and two strikeouts good?
My most dad quality is reflexively saying "Nice block" whenever I'm watching baseball, even if I'm alone in my apartment.
Also, hi
I thought DeLauter probably should've caught that
Yandy is so committed to the never challenging bit
OH NO
HE GRISHAM'D IT
Patty barrels makes way for Pummelin' Petey
Jk Pummelin' Petey is getting pinch-hit for
My Guardians fan friend has taken to calling Angel Martinez "Devil" because of his recent struggles
Oof this game was interesting for a bit.
Series is tied! We might get 7 games here.
Alright everyone! Let's do this again tomorrow around 5PM ET.
FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: October 17, 2026
One of the great underrated joys of baseball is a competitive best-of-seven series that ends in five games. Think the 2024 World Series, when the only game the Dodgers lost was also the only game that was decided by more than three runs. The series scoreboard suggests that it was lopsided, but the individual games were absolutely riveting.
Even more overlooked is the enthralling four-game sweep, which is so rare that we are morally obligated to appreciate it when we see one. For that reason, it is my duty as a baseball writer to marvel at the NLCS that just transpired, when the Brewers came from behind in each of the four games to topple the dynastic Dodgers. Michael Baumann covered the series in Milwaukee and Los Angeles, and you should definitely check out his writing on the action if you haven’t already.
In this week’s mailbag, we’re putting together the best all-time roster of players who’ve never played in the World Series, and considering whether they’d beat an All-Star team from the clubs in this year’s Championship Series. We’re also answering your questions on what would happen if hit-by-pitches were treated as regular balls, and 1-0 games that feature a first-pitch home run. But first, I’d like to remind you that this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »
Effectively Wild Episode 2545: Dodgered a Bullet
October 17, 2026
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, please visit our Patreon.
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley talk primarily (though not exclusively) about the Brewers’ NLCS sweep of the Dodgers: how it happened, the highs and lows, and what the outcome of the rematch does and doesn’t mean for the perception of the sport, the reality of the league and its labor outlook, the future of the Dodgers, and more.
Audio intro: Xavier LeBlanc, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Daniel Leckie, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Link to NLCS stats
Link to Ben on the sweep
Link to Ben on predicting sweeps
Link to Ringer art
Link to Caravaggio original
Link to Bobblehead character
Link to Bobblehead article
Link to Dol Guldur wiki
Link to Ohtani homer
Link to Ohtani on 2027
Link to gamers quote
Link to roster breakdowns
Link to BP on Snell’s command
Link to Baumann on Snell and Cash
Link to three-inning-save query
Link to Pages double
Link to market-size ranking
Link to Lucas quote
Link to Andrew Norton site
Sponsor Us on Patreon
Give a Gift Subscription
Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com
Effectively Wild Subreddit
Effectively Wild Wiki
Apple Podcasts Feed
Spotify Feed
YouTube Playlist
Facebook Group
Bluesky Account
Twitter Account
Get Our Merch!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
