JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 1/5/26

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Ben Clemens

2:41

obviously, the average aaron judge PA was more valuable than the average Elly PA. Good! And for the record, wRC+ isn't additive that way. Judge had a .463 wOBA, Elly .333, so it's more like 1/3 more valuable

Sonny

2:41

This round of posting windows should convince the MLBPA to fight like hell to reject a FA deadline

Ben Clemens

2:42

Yeah. An end date just seems both contentious and hard to enforce

whereas a dead period is probably in everyone's interest and might increase fan engagement

Guest

2:42

Speaking of Ernie Clement, this is why teams go "dumpster diving" every offseason. Idk I get irrationally annoyed when fans complain about "dumpster diving" not every move is a blockbuster and every team wants to try and strike gold. Ernie is at like 6 fWAR as a blue jay lmao.

Ben Clemens

2:42

well, a) yes

totally

b)I think that what's frustrating to fans is teams who ONLY do that

2:44

like yeah, the Jays acquired Ernie Clement in the '22/'23 offseason, but they also acquired Daulton Varsho, Chris Bassitt, Kevin Kiermaier, Chad Green

if they'd just acquired Clement, then sure, he would have been a good outcome, but the offseason would have been less good

2:45

like, no one's gonna be mad if the Pirates go sign this year's equivalents of Adam Frazier and Caleb Ferguson

and Ferguson was a 'dumpster dive' who worked out, he was good and returned value at the deadline

but fans were annoyed that they did only that. and this year, they're doing other stuff

speaking of which

bosoxforlife

2:45

Brandon Lowe and Ryan O'Hearn are significant upgrades to the Pirates lineup. I could see them contending in the NL Central especially if the Password is able to contribute.

Ben Clemens

2:45

Totally!

the NLC is really weird this year

2:46

I am not ready to predict the brewers falling off, b/c I'm not a dummy

but surely they're always at least a little volatile. The Cubs aren't exactly building to a fever pitch the way we all thought they might. THe Cards are pretty squarely arrow down. The Reds... yeah I mean, they might be good, but volatile as well

I think this is the most the Pirates have tried to put a currently good team on the field in like a decade

GBS42

2:46

Ben, I hope you and your loved ones enjoyed the holidays. Thanks for several years of excellent baseball (+ food & board games) content, and I look forward to a 2026 filled with more of the same. Also, Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails can be stressful! (Four of us played it this weekend, and I felt a bit drained afterwards.)

Ben Clemens

2:47

same to you - this was a wonderful holiday season

That sounds fun, I've never played that one. I got my wife an interactive puzzle for Christmas and we've been doing that

it was pretty cool! The company is called odd pieces, they basically make puzzles where the scene has changed between teh box and the puzzle, so that you can't just perfectly pattern match. Really fun

Cheaters in the Hall

2:47

Isn’t it unfair to not put roid users in but put the commissioner who benefited from the increased revenue and attention those users brought?

Ben Clemens

2:47

I mean, I sure think so

Thank you for the chat!

2:48

Are teams valuing players to similarly now? Seems like elite gets paid, then the next tier is like 4-5 years at 30mm, then its just 1-2 year deals for whatever.

Ben Clemens

2:48

I think that you are right

I think that that's a major reason my models have been, generally, improving over time

it's partially that I'm getting better but partially also that team thinking is homogenizing around some accepted rules of valuation

2:49

it's not PERFECTLY like that, there are still some teams I struggle with and teams are always trying to find new structures for whatever reason, but generally speaking yes, valuation has become much more similar across the league

Big Buxton

2:49

On Dumpster Diving: As a Twins fan, the number of "fringe of the roster" moves with a lack of move to acquire really any credible major leaguers (with apologies to Josh Bell) gets at the feeling Ben is talking about I think. It's just really hard to get pumped up about DFA'ing Ryan Fitzgerald for Orlando Arcia with the state of the rest of the roster, it just feels like deck chairs on the Titanic

Ben Clemens

2:49

Yeah, good way of putting it

like... Arcia isn't the problem. But he's an easy point of frustration if nothing else happened all offseason

2:50

good teams succeed in signing guys for cheap and having them outperform expectations. It's irrational to get mad at any team, even a cheap team, for having them try that. The pain is just that when it's ALL you do, those guys are the face of inaction

wrights_back

2:50

Not a question, but a statement - as a Mets fan who watched a few games last year, Alonso, Nimmo, Vientos and Soto all failed the eye test in the field quite easily. One way to improve a team is to field one who fields (pun intended).

This is probably one reason the Brewers always 'outperform' sabremetric predictions.

Ben Clemens

2:50

Oh 100%. I can't remember exatly when, but I've written about this a lot of times in the past in discussing hte Brewers

2:51

we very clearly over-regress fielding in our projections. Dan has talked about this before, that ZiPS is getting more aggressive at defensive projections, but generally speaking models regress them heavily

the Brewers are a classic average hit average pitch team who then runs the bases and fields really well

they have their good batting years and their bad batting yeras, but consistently we're too conservative on BsR and Def

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