JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 3/2/26

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Ben Clemens

2:01

Hey everybody, welcome to the chat. I've got a busy writing schedule this week so I'd like to keep this to a tight 60 minutes. I'll try to answer a lot in that hour, though. So let's get started right away.

The person who asks the lunch question

2:01

what's for lunch?

Ben Clemens

2:01

I'll probably duck out to the restaurant on my block for a rotisserie chicken sandwich. Just got back from a nice set of skiing vacations so there's not much food at home, and like I said, I'm kinda busy today

sam

2:01

Who ends up being the white sox most valuable player this year? I'm going with Teel, slightly worried about Montgomery's contact rate and possible regression.

Ben Clemens

2:01

I mean, maybe I'm crazy but I think this should be Murakami by a lot

2:02

Like you, I'm worried by Montgomery's contact rate, and I think that there's plenty of ways that he can have a bad season and still be a great long-term player. Just plenty of space for the natural development process to involve a dip while the arrow still points upward

2:03

I think that Murakami's contact rates obviously raise the same questions, but for whatever reason I just feel more comfortable with that

or, with his ability to solve them

I don't have a great mathematical reason for why, it's just kind of a gut feel

Tony

2:03

Hey Ben! I have been working my way through your back catalogue to really understand more of your team building philosophies! Loved the articles on the Mets and Red Sox. Would you say that the Coherence, Option/Liquid, Championship Probability mostly informs how you think about rosters/transactions? Anymore thoughts on this and do you mind pointing out any other articles you would consider required reading!

Ben Clemens

2:03

Hey Tony, thanks for calling it a back catalog, that sounds really cool.

2:04

Um, generally speaking that is a good distillation of how I think about things. Breaking it out into categories and naming them was a big step forward for me, because I feel like I was falling into some logical traps around misweighting the categories before

but really, the coherence and optionality/liquidity ones are really important in team-building and I think that even if you don't say it explicitly, when you think about 'how's the front office doing?' those are the natural things to consider

splendid

2:04

Why do authors at Fangraphs so often compare Juan Soto to Ted Williams? The two of them have played 22 seasons with more than 400 PAs. By wRC+ Williams has 13 of the top 14 seasons (including the top 8). Soto has 6 of the bottom 8 (including the bottom 4). Soto is great but there are levels to this, and surely there is a more reasonable comp.

Ben Clemens

2:05

I'd say the main reason is that ZiPS kept spitting out Ted Williams comps

and also like.... you got a better baseball comparison for a walks-and-homers guy who has pristine bat control and is trying to launch it?

you can think 'he's like ted williams, only not as good because ted williams' stats will obviously never be matched' if that makes it better for you

GBS42

2:06

Hey, Ben, I hope you had a great weekend! Live baseball is back! Sadly, the Cardinals are likely to be in rough shape in the standings for a while. When do you see them competing for a playoff spot again? How about for the division title?

Ben Clemens

2:07

I think that the answer to those two questions is probably the same. And I think it's like.... 2028?

2:08

Let me put it this way: it's hard to imagine a median projection for the Cards that puts them in the playoff mix butdoesn't have at least a puncher's chance of also winning the divisin

the Brewers and Cubs are good, no doubt, but these aren't the Dodgers. It's not like there are 15 wins of daylight between a wild card and the division title here

Oaktown Blues

2:08

It's pretty crazy that Nick Kurtz was drafted 4th, then put up a 170 wRC+ after playing like 30 minor league games, yet if you did a redraft today, he still might go 4th. Hell of a draft

Ben Clemens

2:09

You got me thinking about this for a while and I don't think I could get Kurtz lower than third. I'd probably take him second

2:10

like Griffin would go first, I get it

2:11

but Kurtz just had one of the best rookie seasons of the 21st century. Am I really taking JJ Wetherholt, Chase Burns, or Trey Yesavage over that?

I'd be tempted to take Kurtz over Griffin even

Mas Datos, Por Favor

2:12

In FG Labs, could we get a feature for player cards that show Current Value and various prospect tool grades? We break prospects down to FV and grades, but for a visual comparison to see what a 55 Value player looks like would be nice.

Ben Clemens

2:12

it's an interesting idea - I'll bat it around in my brain for a bit and think of how it might look

I am cooking up a few new Lab ideas already, and I believe we have a few other ones in the pipeline, but this sounds kinda fun

there are some improvements to player cards on the way, incidentally, courtesy of Sean and Keaton, that I bet you'll be very excited about. Stay tuned!

Crabcakes

2:13

Does tennis have development labs the way baseball does these days? Like, we’re gonna track every part of your body and racket to help you maximize power on your serve or spin on your backhand? Seems like an obvious fit to me

Ben Clemens

2:13

I'm not nearly as in the weeds when it comes to tennis as I am with baseball. Also, I don't think it quite works the same way with labs, because everyone's an independent contractor and you'd probably just have your own 'data guy' because you don't want other top competitors stealing your edge

that said absolutely there's a ton of biometric analysis and people are rebuilding their serves with computers helping out

Baseball Learner

2:15

Are you going to write an off-season review for the Blue Jays? Some additions, some subtractions. Do you see them as potentially better than last year?

Ben Clemens

2:16

I'm probably going to. I have a curse of having too many ideas and not enough time. That's how you end up juggling two new lab tools, after spending a month building lab tools, while it's almost positional power ranking time

2:17

But I do think they're potentially better than last year and i do think their offseason was really interesting

They're on my list. The O's and Giants are on my list. Tell me others, too

Oaktown Blues

2:17

My thought was most teams would take Burns/Yesavage over Kurtz because he's relegated to 1B and good pitching is so expensive

Ben Clemens

2:17

Yeah, maybe? I mean, I wouldn't. I believe in TINSTAAPP too much, and Kurtz was just too good

Jesse

2:18

I know most stats in spring training don't matter, but a player setting a new max EV seems notable. What else should we be taking away from the spring training data?

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