JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 5/11/26

This chat is available to members only. Please log in to participate.

Ben Clemens

2:01

Let's get started right away and get some baseball talk in while I do some further investigation on the increased walk rate in the background

WagnerCrystal

2:01

I'm a giants fan, and looking at all the pieces that are coming out, it does seem Bailey was traded more due to Posey's specific vision of what a catcher should do well. In the large picture it does seem like this FO doesn't have a process or framework for analysis and largely shoots from the hip. Is this overreacting? Or am I correct in this FO being very much like the Padres 2.0 (old school gunslinger)?

Ben Clemens

2:01

I think the Athletic article was pretty interesting, and I think I agree with your first part - Posey has a vision for what a catcher should do well and Bailey doesn't fit it

I'm less sure of the second. I think it's probably too early to say. But i do think that 'old school gunslinger' in general probably is what the Giants were going for with Posey, really

Alex

2:02

Atlanta's 2026 resurgence has been fuelled by better-than-expected performance from a lot of players – some less unsurprising (Matt Olson, Drake Baldwin, Chris Sale, the Lee-Suarez-Iglesias pen) and some much more so (Dom Smith, Mauricio Dubon, Bryce Elder, Martin Perez, and, to an extent, Ozzie Albies). Who's doing it with smoke and mirrors, and who's really playing better?

Ben Clemens

2:02

Well that's a really broad question!

Like, ten articles worth of question

I feel like we've written about it quite a bit this year. The Braves are pretty fascinating, you know? I'd say that a big contributor is health, though

2:03

The Braves at full strength have been a good team for years. They're not at full strength so much, or guys are playing hurt, or something

and I feel like they're both getting the good side of injury variance and performance variance right now

Jay

2:03

Would Jordan Walker crack the Trade Value series if it came out right now?

Ben Clemens

2:03

definitely not, but that's because no one would be on it

I'm not sitting here recalculating it every week

surely he's in the broad group of players that is not a slam dunk to be on but who I'll have to consider nonetheless

2:05

The tricky part here is that the actual numbers in 2026 are great but the projections are quite reasonably looking at all the bad results he's produced in the past and hedging

Like, who do you like to have a better batting line the rest of the year, Walker or Brendan Donovan? Just to pick a former Cards example

models say Donovan by a good deal

I think I agree.... which makes it hard to have Walker super high

Tacoby Bellsbury

2:06

Has there ever been a bigger gap between a trade's importance and its fantasy ramifications than the Patrick Bailey trade?

Ben Clemens

2:06

probably, just because there have been trades with more real-world importance, like prospect swaps and stuff

but yeah, Bailey is up there for the best real-world player with absolutely no fantasy relevance

Wethead

2:06

Since 1919 in AL+NL history, 2366 players have 2000+ PA. The highest career BABIP is, obviously, Brandon Marsh at .375, followed by 4 Hall of Famers. I have no question, just inarticulate noises of confusion. Please discuss.

Ben Clemens

2:07

believe it or not, someone at FG is writing about this very thing at this moment

(not me)

Empty Kegs

2:07

We know the Brewers have been "making their own luck" on the run prevention side by running out top end defenses and consistently beating their FIP to the tune of an extra 35 RA9 wins since 2016. Now since Matt Arnold took over in 2023 they have a middling 101 wRC+ (17th) but have scored the 7th most runs in MLB with some help from +43.2 BsR (1st) and a 118 wRC+ with RISP (2nd). Over their last 524 games they are around +0.20 actual runs per game over their BaseRuns estimates. Are we starting to have enough evidence mounting up that the Brewers are gaming sequencing for wins similarly to how they've been gaming FIP?

Ben Clemens

2:07

I think the baserunning runs juice is much more likely to be the culprit here

and yeah, as I think we've discussed, BaseRuns has a specific weakness there

2:08

I don't quite buy the sequencing thing. It's just very noisy and hard to measure, and also why wouldn't they just tell those players to hit better more of the time

but I absolutely buy the baserunning thing

2:09

and I can buy that there's some kind of secondary effect of contact playing up with runners on base because it forces the defense into unfamiliar/unfavored alignments

Bob Valdez

2:09

Trevor Story looks like he's toast. When will the Red Sox try something else?

Fin

2:09

I try to avoid small-sample overreactions early in the season. Trevor Story is walking 4.2% of the time, striking out 33.3% of the time, and has a 39 wRC+ despite a league-average .290 BABIP. When is it time for a DFA, assuming no one will take any of his money along with a prospect?

Ben Clemens

2:10

I'd be more willing to declare it totally over if he hadn't done this exact thing as a Red Sock already

but like.... yes, it's very worrisome, and if the Sox aren't seriously considering making a chnage, that is strange

we were writing about how the left side of their infield was a weak point LAST YEAR

this is not some unexpected development

2:11

no one is likely to trade for him at the moment, because he's not really startable for a playoff contender.... which is kind of the Sox's problem here

I think that given the way their roster looks, they don't have a lot of great options, but surely they're thinking their way through some kind of phantom IL/Mayer to short scenario

Oaktown Blues

2:11

There are rumblings in the A's fan community that Lawrence Butler should be sent down, either to free up playing time for Carlos Cortes or to open a spot for Henry Bolte. I personally think this would be too hasty of a decision; Butler's been pretty unlucky this year. What say you?

Ben Clemens

2:12

yeah, too early for a change like that, if you did the amount of due diligence on Butler that they did and handed him a big contract extension, it follows that you can't receive enough evidence in a month of 2026 play to override that

Load More Messages

Connecting…

Message History

On Off

Your current subscriptions

None

E-mail Address	Chat Owner	Status	Remove

Enter your email address to be notified when Ben Clemens hosts a chat