JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 4/28/25

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Ben Clemens

2:17

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

2:17

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

2:17

Nope, I tend to agree

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

Shaq_Diesel

2:17

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

2:17

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

2:18

I do think that he could end up in the high 300's though

2:19

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

2:19

I'm starting to get a little bit worried

by the approach, essentially, like you said

2:20

That said, he's been getting brutally unlucky this year

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

he's hitting into tons of unlucky outs

2:21

I think that I've lowered my top end forecast for him, but like, he's still a star

Baltimore Astros

2:21

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

2:21

Oh that's what I think too

it's so hard!

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

Guest

2:22

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

Ben Clemens

2:24

Probably Liberatore, but largely because he wasn't doing it before

overly blasé mike elias

2:24

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

2:24

ah yes, "when Kyle Gibson is ready we'll be saved"

the last resort of scoundrels

Ben

2:24

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

Ben Clemens

2:24

yeah, totally a roster issue

2:24

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

2:25

I mean.... I'm a big Wilmer Flores fan, and that is not how I'd describe him

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

2:26

love Wilmer, and he's a fan favorite. But like, platoon 1B's don't get paid

Jamey

2:26

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

2:27

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

I think it's excellent and a great sign

Jamey

2:27

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

Ben Clemens

2:27

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

2:27

Why has everyone suddenly gone from "can't miss prospect" to, "look at all those flaws?"

Ben Clemens

2:27

This is the natural arc of prospects

people look a lot better hitting against minor leaguers

Monopoly Moneyball

2:29

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

Ben Clemens

2:29