JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 3/9/26

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 3/9/26

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Ben Clemens

2:26

seeeeriously

Sad

2:26

Ben, thanks for doing these.
What is it with can’t-miss prospects that actually miss? For every Bryce Harper there’s a Dylan crews. There was nothing apparent that would show that he would be a b*st, but it’s looking more and more likely. What happened to him, and to you foresee him every becoming that 4-5 WAR guy he was promised to be?

Ben Clemens

2:27

I mean, I think that this is basically people not understanding uncertainty well enough

can't miss doesn't exist

and also, while in retrospect these things can be explained, a lot of it is unknowable ex ante

if eveyrone knew exactly how every player would turn out, baseball would suck

Phil

2:28

I had never seen Oviedo pitch before this spring and I'm impressed. Is he better than the fringe 5 role he's kind of structurally assigned to for now?

Ben Clemens

2:28

Hello. Welcome To Oviedo Central. Here's an article I wrote about how excited I was to see Oviedo start

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/finding-corbin/

It's from November, 2020

2:29

The stuff? It's great. You look at him throw and go oh yeah, this is what I'm talking about

the issue is consistency, or at least, it has been

I think that if he can start repeating his mechanics better, the stuff is unquestionably there

Russ

2:29

How do you think Grayson Rodriguez and Coby Mayo will fare this season? What would a successful season for each of them look like?

Ben Clemens

2:29

Rodriguez is easy. He just needs to be healthy

2:30

If he throws 125 innings, 2026 is a success

If I'm the Angels, I let him ramp up at whatever speed he needs, because the results just aren't as important as the ability to be back on the mound for a real amount of time

2:31

Mayo is trickier. I think that success for him means finding his way into the playing time rotation

2:32

he just wasn't quite able to do that in 2025. So I'm guessing it's like a hot start that gets him run at 3B, enough time spelling Alonso at 1B, and then he's like 25% above average offensively in June and they decide that he just has to play full time somehow

Sid the Astros Kid

2:32

went to the wbc on friday and saturday. I gotta say I love watching games in person the atmosphere is so good

Ben Clemens

2:33

I've only been to one game and it wasn't even good - Canada against GB last WBC. And it was still SO Fun

Guest

2:33

Is there a back of the envelope way to use your/rally's dollar per WAR framework for extensions or is that something you'd need to look at more closely?

Ben Clemens

2:33

probably something to look at more closely. But I'd basically say that teams should offer more friendly terms, options and escalators and stuff, to guys who might hit the top end outcomes

how that works exactly, I haven't worked out yet. but the direction makes sense

Oaktown Blues

2:33

How hyped can/should I get about superlative statcast results for prospects in Spring Training? This is the first year with Spring statcast, so we don't know exactly how it translates to regular season - would you expect it to have similar predictive power as regular season statcast results?

Ben Clemens

2:34

relative to sample size, sure. the sample sizes are REALLY tiny in spring, though

like, the bat speed numbers are real

but it's not liek bat speed translates all that cleanly to production

2:36

I think the Statcast numbers are great for establishing new levels for guys, that kind fo thing. I am never like 'oh this minor leaguer has to succeed because of his raw measurables' though

they're fun. It's fun to speculate on upside based on these numbers. But the old adage that you can't learn THAT much in spring is still true

Guest

2:36

I’m curious, have you had any interest in getting into machine learning? You feel like the writer at Fangraphs most likely to start learning PyTorch for some project

Ben Clemens

2:36

I have used some fancy regression techniques for various stuff in the past

including my fringe-y minor leaguers series ,which I've stepped away from a bit in recent years

2:37

thanks to realizing it was getting less valuable as the mainstream scouting community's fluency with data increased rapidly

I'm also knee deep in the guts of PitchingBot trying to understand it better, and I'd say it's basically an example of this

The only thing holding me back is that it's very dense and the results are not always all that fun to communicate in writing

2:39

balancing the 'learn new stuff' part of the job and the 'explain cool stuff to people so that they like reading it' part is not always easy

Idiotic Failson

2:39

So far I love the ABS system. How do you feel about it?

Ben Clemens

2:39

I'm into it. I also love bad challenges

just, so delightful

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