JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/15/26

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/15/26

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Ben Clemens

2:27

I think that they'll explore a trade, but not too hard, thinking that injury might resolve things for them anyway

Sonny L

2:27

Who is the most interesting bad team this season?

Ben Clemens

2:27

My vote is for the Nats

they just score SO many runs

2:28

if you're going to say that they don't count as bad because they

re above .500, well: that's fair

in that case, I say the A's

they're really fun to watch

oaktownblues

2:28

You definitely have to squint to see it, but am I crazy to think the A's pitching staff is starting to look improved? Between Ginn/Jump/Perkins in the rotation and Barnett/Alvarado/Sterner in the bullpen, feels like a higher upside group than even a month ago

Ben Clemens

2:28

yeah I mean, I'd say that they're starting to find the nucleus of a good future pitching staff

arendakessian

2:30

is Nathan Eovaldi just experiencing some tough HR/FB luck with otherwise encouraging peripherals that is due to regress, or did something change that makes you think the homer issue might stick?

Ben Clemens

2:30

man, I had this question up for a while trying to come up with a good answer for you

and I basically can't decide?

2:31

Like, xERA is not super predictive

but it does do a good job of explaining whether a pitcher is getting blooped to death or actually giving up hard contact. and eovaldi is giving up hard contact for sure

2:32

so like, maybe he should have an ERA higher than his xFIP, but lower than his FIP. something like a 4 flat?

I'm probably more worried that our models think his fastball has gotten meaningfully worse

2:33

because that explains a bit of why he's giving up harder contact

I'm not saying he's cooked, or anything close to it. but I think 'a little worse than recent' is reasonable, even though I do think he's a really good pitchability guy who will continue to exceed his raw stuff/command expectation

Philip Christy

2:33

It bugs me when people vote for whoever's having a good first half for the All Star Game. If I'm gonna watch the game, I wanna see the best players - not Jimmy Nobody at age 31 who hit well for 2 months. We should see the future Hall Of Famers in the game, all of them, unless they're way past their prime.

Ben Clemens

2:33

Oh, I love this question

2:34

I've never decided on a good rule of thumb here either

I feel like i vote for the true outlier performances first

then the stars

then if there's neither, then I'll go for a good year from a rando

Alex Remington

2:34

Atlanta – I get it, sometimes you have a bad week and can't overreact. BUT the rotation certainly looks a lot shakier now, however long Strider is out. Should they a) stick to their strategy of internal options like Waldrep plus relatively low-key role player acquisitions – guys like Martin Perez who wouldn't start a playoff game? OR should they try to go out and spend a lot of prospect capital on a game-changing starter?

Fangraphs Man

2:35

is there a controllable, nidrotation starting pitcher that would make sense for the White Sox to target? Obvious don't want to skip steps in the rebuild and trade for Skubes but given the state of the ALC it seems like they could be a meaningful playoff contender if they shored up their rotation

Ben Clemens

2:35

Similar questions, I think, about very different teams

but the truth is that I don't think it's going to be all that attractive or even possible to trade for a controllable starter who can appear in playoff games for you

er, possible, sure

2:36

but Reid Detmers, Joe Ryan, maybe Gore? I'm looking through the top pitchers this year and wondering who's going to be available

and I'm thinking they'll all have high prices set, which seems reasonable

ankoalec

2:36

I have the complete opposite perspective as Philip on the ASG - being mid-year to me implies we should be rewarding specifically the performances that year, ESPECIALLY considering nobody really seems to take All-Star appearances into consideration when voting for the Hall anymore. Let the one-hit wonders have their moment and assume the true stars can rack up their appearances in future years when they don't have a slower start

Ben Clemens

2:37

I love that the audience has two different opinions

and like, the exact opposite

kind of delightful

Jeremy Fox

2:39

Aaron Nola's just toast, right? Some combination of losing a bit of command and the league getting better at handling velocity means his 92 mph fastball is no longer viable, right?

Ben Clemens

2:39

You have to hope that he's like the other cromulent pitchers we're talking about, a guy who can make it happen despite not having the raw juice to

2:40

but yeah, that's not a given, and it always feels a little dangerous to assume someone will figure that out

sometimes you're just cooked

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