JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 5/18/26

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 5/18/26

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Ben Clemens

2:17

I think that you should basically treat contention as a bonus this year and focus on the Fun part of it all still

2:18

like, don't let yourself get hedonic treadmilled out of enjoying that the White Sox went 41-121 a few years ago and are now fun

they could play at a 70-win pace the rest of this season and I'd still consider it a big success. They're fun, they have done a really good job of looking for good players in unexpected places and they're letting the kids play

Daniel Bergman

2:19

Is is just me or has Aaron Judge not actually gotten hot yet?

Ben Clemens

2:19

oh totally

2:20

the guy is so good that we just take him for granted

he's just playing normal aaron judge baseball

and it's ludicrous

wheelhouse

2:20

when was the last time you saw a loss so bad it made you dread ever watching the team play baseball again? asking for a friend

Ben Clemens

2:20

I'm not sure this qualifies because I'm not really a big fan of any team anymore, but I went to what has to be one of the most soul-crushing losses a team can endure a few years ago

2:21

Josh Hader's last season on the Brewers, they were in SF and my wife is a Giants/Brewers fan so we went with other Wisconsin people we know

2:22

Hader came in with a three-run lead in the bottom of the ninth and went HR, out, HR, 1B, HBP, 1B, grand slam

it was like, oh, what did we watch the first eight innings of this game for?

toshi

2:22

Ben, thank you for having a chat. I suspect the ABS challenge system affects very tall and very short batters most, as umpires used to either over-correct or not correct enough for their deviation from average player's height. If so, which directions does it affect (strike zone shrink or enlarge) for them?

Ben Clemens

2:23

only three batters saw their strike zones enlarged this year per the official Statcast definitions that are in Baseball Savant files, and those batters by miniscule amounts

basically everyone's is shrinking

Theodore

2:23

I see that the Washington Nationals have the highest runs/game to date, but ROS projections on here have them at the absolute bottom of the league. Any particular reasons why the ROS projections hate their offense so much?

Ben Clemens

2:23

I'm curious about this too. Some of it is just that we compress the projections a ton. THere's only a quarter run's difference between 30th and 10th

2:24

but I think a bigger issue is that I just am higher than our projections on a lot of these guys, and also think that the Nats are now sufficiently 'deep' (as in they have more than just a few good hitters) that they have a little bit more room for someone to underperform and lose their job

filter2

2:25

when is Ben's annual Orioles article bc woof. there's a lot to go over

Ben Clemens

2:25

I got tired of writing those because of the feedback, if I'm being totally honest with you

like I don't really have a lot new to say about it, and eveyr time I write them I dread reading the comments

now, have I been right? on balance, absolutely

2:26

but eh, I'm not made of stone. I read the comments. It's not so fun for eveyrone to tell you you're a complete dummy and don't understand baseball. And that annual article got me those comments more than pretty much any other single topic

jb1205

2:26

The Mets might actually have the makings of a good outfield with Benge and Ewing. So, maybe everything doesn't completely suck.

Ben Clemens

2:26

Ewing is just a delight in the early going, huh?

Sid the Astros Kid

2:27

Ben semi baseball related question, what do you think is the best food to eat at a baseball game? I'm putting forth funnel cake cause I like something sweet/crunchy but always open to other arguments

Ben Clemens

2:27

I like sandwiches of various types. When Fuku debuted at Citi Field back when I lived in NY that was the peak

I feel like its quality has declined now that it's all over the country - I had a Fuku sandwich in SF last year and wasn't blown away - but something like that is gonna be my food of choice at most places

2:28

in SF, that means the crab sandwich, which is incredible, but I like a lot of similar regional options elsehwere

cool

1

Mon Dattingly

2:28

Are we sure Cam Schlittler is not a top-3 pitcher?

Ben Clemens

2:28

definitely not

what would make us sure of that?

Gunnar Henderson

2:28

I know I just had a great game last night, but I've been hovering around the Mendoza line for much of the season. Is there something wrong with me? Am I still going to be a top-20ish dynasty asset moving forward?

Ben Clemens

2:29

see comments on Austin Riley, but now peel back the 'he hasn't been all that good in the two years before this one' and replace it with 'he was a freaking 5-win player in 2025, and that was a down year'

I'm not losing any sleep over Gunnar. People have bad stretches sometimes

you'll have a better quality of life if you don't worry about them too much, in my opinion

Surplus Valuez = Profits = Stolen Wages

2:30

“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”…Its funny intuitively this makes sense to me. How much of this is born from players basically needing to be a Good Employee 24/7/365 these days or its your reputation and earning potential?

Ben Clemens

2:30

oh, I have no real clue honestly, but it's just one of those "I feel it even if I can't math it" kinda things

I think that because I've worked at places that just aren't fun, and they kinda drag on you a little bit. It's still fun when times are good, but less so, and the bad times are even less fun

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