JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 7/6/26

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Ben Clemens

2:21

how big of a failure? I mean, medium

we had them at 42% to win the division before the year, and Aaron Judge got hurt

2:22

if your'e taking the pitchforks out now, you should probably fire 24 managers out of 30 a year

SPArn

2:22

"Life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards." Thanks for all the work on prospect valuation. Appreciate your attempt to make baseball work in the context of that Kierkegaard quote

Ben Clemens

2:22

haha yes that's a good way of putting it

the prospect stuff was fun, albeit much more tiring than expected

2:23

the amount of cross-checking to make sure the numbers made sense, double-checking methods, grabbing data, bothering sources and friends to look at it.... it was great, not planning on doing this again anytime soon

pepper69fun

2:23

I have both Baldwin and Basallo in a 15 team roto dynasty with no round or salary restrictions. If I move one of them, could you give me a couple of OF examples that would be even swap? Thanks

Ben Clemens

2:24

honestly, no, I don't really know how to think about roto dynasty. sorry. just to head off future questions about niche formats. I kiiiiind of get ottoneu and a standard 5x5, but I'm kinda useless the more exotic the format gets

Fangraphs Man

2:24

I think I tepidly believe in the White Sox, especially their offense (esp with Teel just coming back now and Mune by the end of the week). But they really could use upgrades in the rotation and bullpen, but I just dont think it makes sense for them to spend prospect capital on that this season, whereas I'd think Cleveland would be much more primed to upgrade because of where they are in the contention cycle

Ben Clemens

2:25

yeah, i can agree with this. I think what I said about the Cardinals applies here too. I definitely don't want to see them sell, but doing a lot of buying is kidn of weird too. if this group is a magical group, let them be magical

but don't mortgage the future just yet, let's see how they develop

Cheeknbut

2:25

Sorry, don’t mean Boone should be fired because of his failure (injuries obviously at play here), but more cuz Yankees blowing another division lead might lead to a shake up

Ben Clemens

2:25

oh yeah. I mean, if you agree that it's all outside of his control but heck, we just want to do something, then sure

then they just want to do something

but I can't really handicap that. I have no clue how much Hal Steinbrenner wants to do a shake up, not because boone is bad but just because he likes shaking things

dirtypuer

2:26

If baseball suddenly vanished from the Earth, what sport would you enjoy writing about in it's absence?

Ben Clemens

2:26

ooh, good question. Maybe tennis?

I can tell you it's not soccer. I have a great time watching the world cup, and my heartrate during England/Mexico was borderline scary, but I feel like the central frustration I have with officiating and acting in soccer is just too muich

2:27

tennis is just really a good combination for me of fun to watch and analysis that seems like it'd be cool

Phillip Denny

2:27

over the next 4.5 years, Hunter Goodman will be a top __ Catcher in the league?

Ben Clemens

2:27

so, I've been looking at catchres quite a bit in trade value

and like, I dunno, 10? one thing that is VERY clear is that catchers don't stay great for long

2:28

like, where am I gonna put Dillon Dingler this year? Or Raleigh for that matter? The best catchers from a few years ago aren't even top 10 dudes anymore

catcher in particular is SO hard to handicap

I think I wrote about this in last year's trade value intro ("the catcher vortex") and then basically every catcher I ranked last year should probably be off the list this year except Cal and maybe Kirk

2:29

so, who knows man

SPArn

2:29

Miami above the Braves in today's power rankings. Do you believe?

Ben Clemens

2:29

I personally do not

but I mean, who knows

HappyFunBall

2:29

Very Important Update: Our long Nationals nightmare is finally at an end. With a solid pitching series against the Red Sox last week, the pitching staff has FINALLY accumulated enough WAR to pass Joey Wiemer, who has been back in the minors since the middle of May

Ben Clemens

2:30

um, amazing

the Joey Wiemer pitching (and ridiculous, short-lived hitting hot streak) month was fun

war2d2

2:30

Bennnnnnnnn! <taun taun sounds> PCA is currently sitting at .292/.383/.527. He’s hit over .400 for almost a month and a half. He’s at 5.2 bWAR, almost a full bWAR up on the second place guy. What do you think the chances are this winds up being the best Cubs position-player season in history? Current record is 10.3 bWAR by Sosa in 2001. He’s off that pace, but also he was sitting at 87 OPS+ at the beginning of May so he had a slow start.

Ben Clemens

2:31

oh man. I think it's gonna be hard to catch up to Sosa because it's just hard to play well for that long. BUt I think bWAR is the place for it, because DRS is less regressed than OAA as best as I can tell, and since PCA gets a ton of value from defense, he's a threat to spike something truly ridiculous there

aldrinbatistarocks

2:31

Now that I root for an okay team, I find it harder to be an enlightened "I don't care about the ASG" guy. But it's downright unpatriotic that we the proud voting public have risked adding a second name to the list of primary SS with 40 homers to not play in that most time honored midsummer tradition. Would a cool nickname have gotten Colson Montgomery to Philadelphia?

Ben Clemens

2:31

I think he'll get there

2:32

Like, it's hard to argue with McGonigle as SS2, and Witt as SS1. But spots will open up

drewsylvania

2:32

Will the 2026 season be considered a season with one of the highest variances in player output from the previous season, or is that just recency bias?

Ben Clemens

2:32

probably recency bias, but this sounds like a fun thing to write about during the lockout

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