JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 5/4/26

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Guest

2:49

thoughts on yankees optioning volpe in favor of caballero ? Also not relegating him to bench where they had an opening (Max Schuemann is on the active roster?). Also weird timing with promoting Lombard last week right ?

Ben Clemens

2:49

we talked about this last week and I was in favor of moving Caballero to third and having Volpe play short

2:50

I'm a bit surprised by their move but we'll see!

2:50

Is overall pitcher strike percentage a stat you ever pay attention to? From what I can tell it seems like the sweet spot is somewhere in the 65-to-67% range. Would you agree?

Ben Clemens

2:50

my old boss (in a non-baseball field) loved strike percentage

I think it's good! I think that if you're just looking at top line, result-level statistics, it's one fo the best at describing pitchers who are effective

I think you can do better by adding fancier process stuff, but it is a very underrated measure of how good someone is

2:51

basically if you have bad stuff and a high strike rate you will not survive in the amjors

and if you have good stuff but a low strike rate, your command is holding you back

and so you can kind of use it as a proxy, even htough it's not measuring EXACTLY what we want b/c it counts balls in play in the 'strikes' part

Idiotic Failson

2:51

As an avid Yankee fan who's listened to many John Sterling games I can understand why people got annoyed with his schtick. However, there was something immensely charming in a world where everything feels like it's going sideways to hear a completely wholesome broadcast where you could disappear into the frivolity of baseball for a couple hours.

Ben Clemens

2:51

100% concur

2:52

like I said, his calls often annoyed me, and yet they felt like part of the fabric of New York and I couldn't imagine it any other way

bosoxforlife

2:52

I can't believe I am giving up on the season on May 3rd, but this past weekend was the nadir of my fandom. Not only are the Red Sox shockingly bad but they are unwatchably boring. The bright side is that I can go to watch Franklin Arias and the Sea Dogs next week at the Taj Mahal of Double-A parks in Hartford next week without missing anything.

Ben Clemens

2:52

oooh, see, I'm partial to the Greenville stadium, although I guess they're Hi-A

(my dad lived there for a while, it's fun)

but yeah, man, the Sox ARE boring to watch so far this year

2:53

that's a first for me. Their downswings are usually VERY entertaining

HOF'er Dave Veres

2:53

Between the Mets and Red Sox, who do you think is more likely to make the playoffs?

Ben Clemens

2:53

Mets, just because their schedule is a hair easier and I can imagine the Phillies falling apart

but it's close! and our odds say it's close too

2:54

they also say that the Twins are about as likely to make the plyaoffs as either, just to set expectations

Sonny

2:54

Manoah poked the NYY bear. Royce Lewis claimed he doesn’t slump and has an OPS that starts with a 6 since, and Devin Williams sacrificed the airbender to kill off the beard ban. Ball players tend to be a superstitious lot and I’m sure these events have done nothing to dissuade that notion.

Ben Clemens

2:54

100%

Tim Tebow's Thunder Thighs

2:54

RE: Striger

Given the circumstances (first start of the season, coming off the IL, and in Colorado) it was difficult to evaluate him yesterday. Location, movement, whatever. But he only touched 97 a couple times in the first and was sitting 93 in the 4th. I'm afraid - especially after last year - that he'll never be what he once was.

Legit concern or the new normal?

Ben Clemens

2:55

I'm gonna give him a few more starts before I start to get too worried, but my key Strider metric is not velo but fastball shape

the big issue with him has been that when he isn't getting on top of the ball and doing the whole drop and drive thing to produce these outlier approach angles (low release point, steep arm angle, pure backspin), his fastball plays down

whereas he jneeds it to play up

Okra

2:55

Do you a light is about to go off for Cam Smith? Elite bat speed and foot speed. Barrel rate improving. Feels like he's so close to figuring it out

Ben Clemens

2:55

yes but to be fair I've thought this for most of a calendar year now

Tim Tebow's Thunder Thighs

2:56

The Mets are "fascinating" like Anya Taylor Joy's peripheral vision

Ben Clemens

2:56

always here for some chess references

lukacs

2:56

is Gunnar Henderson still a back-up-the-Brinks-Truck type of guy? Three consecutive years of declining OPS and now a nasty K rate of 31.4 coupled with middling defense.

Ben Clemens

2:58

He is for me. He's 25 and I feel alright that the strikeouts in 2026 aren't gonna stick around. I think that this is actually an exmaple of a mental skill that's hard to measure; I feel that he's pressing a little bit b/c he started hot while the O's started cold

he's striking out a lot more in the last few weeks, basically

Oaktown Blues

2:58

Your old boss talked baseball that in depth with you? Jealous

Ben Clemens

2:58

I was always 'the baseball guy' at every job I had. That's how you end up going from portfolio management to baseball writing

Surprised Pale Hose fan

2:59

on april 29, 2025 the white sox sent colson montgomery back to extended spring trainging to rehaul his swing/approach. He returned and made his debut on july 4th last year.

since that time hes been the third best SS in all of the mlb.

no question; just admiring the total turnaround

Ben Clemens

3:00

great reason to keep giving people chances, right?

like, this guy was hyped, and then he started slow

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