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Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 5/18/26

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Ben Clemens

2:00

Hey everybody, let's chat

Alex Remington

2:00

Let's say you were looking for reasons to either be optimistic or pessimistic about Austin Riley. What would you look for to persuade yourself that, after a couple of injury-plagued years of diminished performance, he a) had no fundamental alteration to his core talent level beyond normal aging, or b) he is fundamentally less than the player he once was?

Ben Clemens

2:00

Let's start this off with a discussion of one of the players who I've struggled most with in Trade Value series past

I'm not quite in TV mode yet but we're heading that way, and a good discussion of Riley is always worth having because he's really had to pin down

2:01

okay, the pessimism is an easy case at this point. In his last 1111 PA, he has a 106 wRC+ and has been worth 4.6 WAR

that's a nice everyday player, nothing more

2:03

It's not like he has wildly underperformed his expected numbers in that time. He's still hitting the ball hard. He's still putting it in the air fairly often. Three seasons of an HR/FB around 13% aren't screaming out for weird batted ball luck regression

2:04

so some kind of Marcel-ish lookback at this point is going to say hey, we've gotten a lot of evidence taht this guy is an average-ish hitter, SLG over OBP, who plays scratch-ish defense at third

so that's an easy case. But the counterpoint is that yeah, the three years before that, He averaged a 136 wRC+ and put up 16 WAR over 2070 PA

as a good defender, to boot

2:05

The bull case is that he's been hurt. He might still be hurt. He hit the IL 0 times from 21-23, and 3 times including a 60-day placement subsequently

He hasn't topped 110 games played since 2023

2:06

I think you have to look at this and say that until you see some green shoots, the correct approximation of Riley's talent is the 'solid everyday player nothing more' side. But you shade up from there, of course, because he's been an MVP candidate type before, and it's reasonable to assume there's some delta of him doing it again

2:07

COindicentally, that's what our projection systems seem to be doing. They have him down for a 112 wRC+, which is better than his recent form, but nowhere near his peak. And they have him down as an above average regula the rest of the year even though he's been a below average regular so far this year

I guess the short answer of this very long discussion is that you should believe what players' recent form tells you. But you should think about what might make you change that belief, too?

dirtypuer

2:07

do the giants have enough *thrust" to get back into the WC race?

Ben Clemens

2:08

watching the escalating Giants OF celebrations was delightful last week

one of my strongly held baseball beliefs is that guys like Drew Gilbert are a bit more valuable than we say they are, because the energy is infectious and it's hard to stay juiced up and engaged for a long baseball season

2:09

I mean, they definitely have a shot. We have them at 10%, that doesn't seem wild to me. Their start was SO bad but they've looked pretty much acceptable since the slow start

2:11

Devers has sneakily been one of the best hitters in baseball in May. Luis Arraez is on fire too. The pitching staff is not great, but I feel like it's pretty well-suited to the home environment at least. And I 100% believe that Arraez's defense is better than our models have it, particularly our projections, and that that will accrue to the team

but like.... they're 7 games below .500 in May. We think they're just okay. It's still a difficult road

Oaktown Blues

2:11

Is Zack Gelof back to being good? It's still a small sample and I'm skeptical, but his 75.6% contact rate is easily the best of his career, even including the minor leagues

Ben Clemens

2:12

Maybe this is just a problem with the way I watch baseball and equate it to the future, but I watched him play third base in the I-80 series this weekend and man, he looks so rough out there

it's making it hard for me to be rational and unbiased about his hitting

2:13

I think I'm still a seller, for this reason: like you said, this is as much contact as he's ever made. And uh, he's barely above average and still has a .297 OBP

Oaktown Blues

2:13

If you had to guess, Shea Langeliers over/under 6 fWAR for full season 2026?

Ben Clemens

2:13

under

he's a catcher

good bet in general, even if he's on 'pace' to eclipse it

didace

2:13

The Nationals are now... good? Maybe not good, but perhaps they are interesting? Add a couple of average starting pitchers and all of a sudden they'd be winning lots of games.

Ben Clemens

2:13

Yeah, interesting

2:14

Their years and years of rebuilding have led to a lot of hitters who at the very least interest me. oh, and James Wood is a star

There are still a lot of weaknesses in this team. I think they need more than just a couple of average starting pitchers; they're allowing 5.7 runs per game!

2:16

But they're very fun to watch and I think that the offense is at least a little bit real. Like, will this keep being the best offense in baseball? I don't think so. Will it be a top-10 offense the rest of the way? I do think so

Sid the Astros Kid

2:16

Heya Ben, kinda crazy how after TOS Zack Wheeler is right back where he was last season? I thought it was a career ender type of injury. Is it the dark arts, did he send away his injury and in the process manifest these loose bodies in every other pitcher known to mankind?

Ben Clemens

2:16

Thinking about injuries is just so hard

some people come back just fine. some are done forever. we never know the true severity

2:17

but yeah, isn't this great? I'm a big Wheeler fan and I was extremely bummed to see him get hurt right towards the end of his prime

so if he gets a few more years of dominance, that'd be AOK with me

richwp01

2:17

White Sox have moved from "Fun Bad" to Fun. West Coast trip upcoming. Then AL Central and a tougher slate. How much should we brace ourselves for the letdown from now until the All Star Break?

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