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Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/29/26

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Ben Clemens

2:00

Hey everyone. Let's get chatting. I'm gonna aim for a furious hour of frequent questions before calling it here, as I have another project to get back into. Keep your eyes peeled for some cool big stuff later this week on the prospect front

warpath

2:00

Hey Ben, site question for today. Do you know if there's anywhere I can find up-to-date service time numbers? I can only find pre-current season values on player pages and within RosterResource

Ben Clemens

2:00

We don't actually have them. No one really does. It's a big pain

Service time is not the same as days on active roster, so we can't keep it updated. It's one of the great frustrations of my life as a data wrangler

Phillip Denny

2:00

Hey Ben! Which ROS projected Win % are you most (and/or least) convicted in? Mets .538, Tigers .523, Red Sox .514, Orioles .507, Giants .504, Marlins .473, White Sox .448, Nationals .441? Thanks!

Ben Clemens

2:01

Oh fun one. I think I"m least convinced by the Mets of course. But the White Sox are up there too. I really do think we're slow to update on teams we thought were bad more so than on good teams, but the Mets are a special case where they're gonna blow it up I think

Sonic

2:01

Is Skenes washed? What's going on with him?

Ben Clemens

2:01

man, our standards are so high these days

2:02

I think he's just having a slight down stretch. He's still really good. If you only take his last 8 starts (the bad ones), he has a 3.03 FIP, 3.11 xFIP, 12 K/9. He's just giving up a .370 babip

and that's the BAD starts

the last two starts before that were both 8 inning gems

war2d2

2:02

I counted three separate “we’re adding, we’re going to be getting some pitching” stories from the weekend (Cubs, Pirates, Orioles). There’s probably another 5-10 teams that think they’re in it and want to “target pitching.” With so much demand can a team like the Twins afford to _not_ move a guy like Joe Ryan even if they wanted to keep him? Feels like they could restock their entire system on one trade. (same could be said for Sandy, even Skubal)

Ben Clemens

2:02

Jays had that story last week during the week

2:03

I don't think the demand for Ryan will be THAT high, but I do think that pitching will be in predictable demand this deadline

The Skubal sweepstakes is going to be fascinating. I'm also really curious from a trade value lense

lens*

because last season I put him WAY up the list, and this season I'm considering whether he could still be a top 50 trade value guy even with so little service time left

wild

SPArn

2:03

Luis Garcia? Luis Garcia! Three lefties above 130 wRC+. Helps hit LHPs well when your three best bats are lefties who can hit anyone. Feel like this was a make or break year for Garcia, and he's firmly making. Started the year in a platoon with Chaparro!

Ben Clemens

2:04

yeah, one benefit of being bad at present is that you can give guys like Garcia plenty of playing time to see if they'll figure it out

he's clearly very talented, he just hadn't quite assembled it all at one time yet

I'm not saying this is him now. But giving guys more time to figure things out is a nice benefit, and I think that the Nats have shown that with a few players over the years

SPArn

2:04

Did you catch the highlights of Joe Mack's snap throw yesterday? His nonchalant defense is my newest example of aesthetic bliss on the diamond. Thought of you when I saw Dansby's successful deke this weekend too

Ben Clemens

2:05

I didn't, and honestly this is a low point for me in baseball watching, between vacation, trade value pre-work, and the world cup being on. I'm watching fewer games per week to have enough time to do all the other sports stuff I want to (mostly baseball analysis, but I definitely am watching world cup in the background where I'd have some random game on otherwise at the moment)

muenstertruck

2:05

If you had a player that was league average defense but guaranteed to strike out 100% of the time, but would also see a minimum of X number of pitches per plate appearance, what would you have to set X to be to put them in the line up every day?

Ben Clemens

2:06

it's a lot. like, 15? I dunno, it's so fake of a situation that it begs many other questions. Like, could the pitcher just roll those pitches to home?

InsertWittyNameHere

2:06

Welcome back! I have to explain to my boss why I was so productive last monday...How can the Phillies realistically improve? Their farm is in shambles, their major league roster is old and expensive, this is pretty much what they have to play with right?

Ben Clemens

2:06

haha well your boss is welcome for my service

yeah. They should go for it, with this plus any small depth additions they want to make

and then probably tear down after they've decided this core isn't doing it anymore

but not before then

mlommler

2:06

PCA is taking more pitches. A lot of that is taking more strikes (and he is striking out a little more), but he's also now running a 10%-ish walk rate. Sustainable or exploitable?

Ben Clemens

2:06

sustainable, or at least, this direction is sustainable

2:07

it's totally fine to take more strikes if you're a guy like PCA, because that incentivizes pitchers to throw him more strikes

didace

2:07

How about that Nationals 4-game sweep of the Phillies last week? I don't understand why the last three games only went six innings, though. (In a non-delirium world, the bull pen, ugh.)

Ben Clemens

2:07

the Nats bullpen is both awful, and overexposed because the rotation is also quite bad

2:08

I think I said the Nats were one of my favorite teams to watch this year early in the season, and honestly, the pitching continuing to melt down is only adding to that

every game is a blast, guaranteed

Rick

2:08

Hi Ben, With your fellow Ben (Ben Brown) on the IL with his second Neck Stress Reaction in the past 3 years, sounds like it could be season ending. Since this is second time it's happened in his young career, sure seems like it's a recurring type of injury. What are your thoughts long-term? He was really looking good, but now too risky going forward as a keeper?

Ben Clemens

2:08

I think that I'd be very worried for his future health just because like you said, things that happen many times feel like they might be recurring, very scary

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