Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 8/17/26

Aug 17, 2026 745 views

2:00
Ben Clemens: Hey everyone, welcome to the chat
2:01
Ben Clemens: I don’t really have any clever intro stuff to start with today. Let’s just take some questions
2:01
fanoftheman: Inspired by Josh Baez’ historic debut, two questions about legendary performances:
2:01
fanoftheman: 1- what’s the best performance you’ve seen in person?
2:01
fanoftheman: 2- for your money, what’s the most impressive single day performance in big league history?
2:02
Ben Clemens: good ones. I was at Roger Clemens’ 300th win in person, which was really cool. Just totally at random, I was visiting some colleges in the northeast as a high school student and my dad turned it into a trip to Fenway + Yankee Stadium becuase I’d never been to eitehr

2:02
Ben Clemens: but the most legendary game I’ve been to was probably the Cardinals coming back from WAY down in G5 of the 2012 Wild Card series against the Nats. Legendary performance by Pete Kozma, which is of course very difficult
2:02
Ben Clemens: or rather, which is very high degree of difficulty
2:03
Ben Clemens: as to the best single day performance, I think it was Ohtani’s two-way game last playoffs
2:03
Ragbrai: Sort of a fantasy question. I missed out on Baez for ROS, though who to cut would have been a tough cut. Are we assuming he is the OD roster and what are expectations for him in 27?
2:03
Ben Clemens: Lots of Josh Baez questions today. I’d say that these are great ones for the prospect team. I haven’t changed my opinion of him much in his nine big league plate appearances
2:04
Ben Clemens: which is to say – it’s a small sample size and i’m interested in seeing him play more
2:04
aglossman: Red Sox go on that crazy run, then lose 3 consecutive series to 3 last place teams. Can’t predict baseball, Suzyn.
2:04
Ben Clemens: it’s kind of amazing, right?
2:05
Nathaniel: TUGBOAT IS COMING
2:05
Ben Clemens: Very excited to see him pitch
2:05
Ben Clemens: Or well, pitch in the big leagues
2:05
Ben Clemens: He was super fun in the WBC
2:06
InsertWittyNameHere: Did you watch the Field of Dreams game? Two comments: Netflix tried too hard to wash Bonds from his cheating history. Him and Rose should have never been allowed to be a part of TV programming. 2) Why would they allow a minute long ad for Call of Duty a website literally named war.gov? Shouldn’t MLB nix both of those?
2:06
Ben Clemens: I did watch it. I’m not really into Field of Dreams in general? Like, that movie just didn’t do it for me. I thought the broadcast was too corny (pun intended) as a result
2:07
Ben Clemens: I don’t really have an issue with Bonds though
2:07
Ben Clemens: Pete Rose got banned. That’s a pretty different thing, no?
2:08
Ben Clemens: as to the league greenlighting that silly ad, put aside how you feel about it personally and think about whether this MLB administration would be interested in picking a fight with an administration of either political party
2:08
Ben Clemens: is it dumb? sure
2:08
Ben Clemens: is it the dumbest thing the league has done in pursuit of not rocking the boat when it comes to powerful politicians? not even close imo
2:08
fantasynut03: Who is tugboat and why?
2:08
Ben Clemens: Matt Wilkinson, Giants prospect who came over in the Patrick Bailey trade
2:09
Ben Clemens: as to why – I’d say watch him pitch
2:09
SPArn: Wasn’t expecting to see Pete Kozma’s name today. Now I’m mad at Drew Storen all over again. Thanks, Ben
2:09
Ben Clemens: poor Storen
2:09
Ben Clemens: great pitcher who just did NOT have it in big spots thorughout his career
2:09
daml91: After this weekend, you buying the Brewers as the biggest threat to a Dodger threepeat?
2:09
Ben Clemens: I guess I am, but I don’t feel all that differently than I did before this weekend, if that makes sense
2:09
Ben Clemens: like, am I buying the Brewers as the second-best team in baseball? I am
2:09
Ben Clemens: is that because of four games they played against the Dodgers? It is not
2:10
watertexas8445: Why doesn’t WPA sum to 0?
2:10
Ben Clemens: wonderful question that I don’t know the answer to. I guess I’ll be looking into this later
2:10
oaktownblues: Are you a believer in Zack Gelof’s 2026 results? Slash line is nearly identical to his 2023 breakout, but xwOBA isn’t buying it
2:10
Ben Clemens: Okay, so for tomorrow, I am writing about someone who is not Zack Gelof
2:11
Ben Clemens: but in doing so, I came up with a pocket model for whether someone’s good. Do they:
1)pull the ball more than average when they elevate
2)hit the ball harder than average when they elevate
3)pull the ball less than average when they hit grounders
4)swing at pitches over the heart of the plate more than average
5)swing at chase/waste pitches less than average
2:12
Ben Clemens: I did some z scoring and weighting and found a top 6 that includes my mystery player, plus Murakami, Kurtz, James Wood, Soto, and Judge. Good list!
2:12
Ben Clemens: but the point is that Gelof is one of only four players to check every box
2:12
Ben Clemens: along with Matt Olson, Tyler Soderstrom, and for some reason Tim Tawa
2:13
Ben Clemens: so you know, does that prove that this is a great stat and that gelof deserves his batting line? no
2:13
Ben Clemens: but does it suggest taht he’s doing some good stuff? definitely
2:13
dirtypuer: They should do a Moneyball game at the coliseum if they really want to move the needle
2:13
Ben Clemens: oh man
2:13
Ben Clemens: what a great idea
2:13
watertexas8445: RE: WPA summing to 0. It does sum to 0, I was dumb. It is +57.08 for pitching and -57.08 for hitting.
2:14
Ben Clemens: oh, there we go. so yeah, my guess for this is that we aren’t zeroing it to the exact run environment
2:14
Ben Clemens: you can imagine either way being right. but that makes a lot of sense. negative hitting WPA means fewer runs scoring than we expect, sure
2:15
Davy Andrews: Hi Ben!
2:15
Ben Clemens: well hello there Davy
2:15
theonlynolan: Austin Riley has been ok in the second half but a brutal first half, but what’s going on there, did the Braves buy in too much to something that wasn’t there
2:15
Ben Clemens: Them and me too. I bought in on his defense early, and I think that was right. But I don’t really know what happened to his hitting. I don’t think it’s fair to say that it was never there; he posted a 2500 PA stretch with a 132 wRC+
2:15
Ben Clemens: that’s pretty freaking good
2:15
Ben Clemens: but he has collapsed in the past two years, really the past 2.5
2:16
Ben Clemens: it’s a good reminder that you can’t predict the future
2:16
Davy Andrews: Ok, gotta go. Baby crying.
2:16
Ben Clemens: farewell Davy. And Derek Jr.!
2:16
millvillemeltdown: my tim tawa for mvp pitch grows by the day
2:16
InsertWittyNameHere: Re: rocking the boat, I agree, still dumb.  But man, as a father, I hate having to explain what gambling and that other stuff is.  I also can’t believe I’m turning into Maude Flanders from the Simpsons “won’t anyone think of the children!”
2:16
Ben Clemens: yeah to be honest, the Polymarket odds get to me more than anything else
2:16
Ben Clemens: those are just shocking
2:17
Ben Clemens: ‘the betting doesn’t have to start when the game begins’
2:17
Ben Clemens: okay but like, maybe it should
2:17
Philip Christy: Hello Ben, re: your Tarik Skubal article last week, and my comment that you replied to: I find it really interesting to look at deadline trades in terms of the math on future World Series odds. Is it possible to put together a model for figuring out the odds on every trade like that? Or are there too many variables?
2:17
Ben Clemens: so, I am trying to build one. But there are a lot of variables, and yeah, it requires a ton of care, to the point that it’s extremely manual
2:20
Ben Clemens: I think that it’s probably just going to remain as a bespoke thing I break out for big trades, because trying to cuff replacement level designed for individual teams is really had
2:20
Jeremy Fox: How about a “Major League” game in Cleveland?
2:20
aglossman: Can we get an “A League of Their Own” game? Geena Davis and Lori Petty each manage a WPBL team for a day. Tom Hanks throws out the first pitch, maybe hangs out in the broadcast booth with Rosie and Madonna for awhile. Proceeds go to charity. Bing bang boom.
2:20
Ben Clemens: I mean, a League of their own game seems very doable honestly
2:20
Ben Clemens: I’d be super in for a Sandlot game in LA too
2:20
grandbranyan: Which of the seven teams between two and seven games under .500 in the AL is your current pick for the #6 seed? Which of PHI/SDP/ARI do you like for the last two NL Wild Cards?
2:21
Ben Clemens: I think I’ll take ARi and PHI for the last two NL Wild Card spots but I don’t have a super strong view there. it’s such a tossup. I picked teams in different divisions just to maximize the joint odds, but truthfully, your guess is as good as mine. lots of flawed and similar teams
2:22
Ben Clemens: in the AL, hmmmm…. I mean there are so many good stories here. I guess give me the Jays because I think they are the best team
2:22
Ben Clemens: but the O’s in the playoffs after trading Adley? THe Tigers post Skubal? The Twins just in general? This could be fun
2:22
theonlynolan: What do you think the Mets do with centerfield this coming offseason? Personally I’d like to see them pick up Robert’s option because I’m not totally convinced by AJ Ewing yet. Carson Benge seems legit though.
2:22
Ben Clemens: been talking about this one with a Mets fan friend of mine
2:23
Ben Clemens: I hear you on not being convinced by Ewing yet. How do you feel about this take though? I’m not convinced by Robert yet
2:23
Ben Clemens: like, his wRC+ the last three years: 84, 84, 82
2:23
Ben Clemens: over 1000 PA
2:23
Ben Clemens: i don’t watch him and go ‘well this guy is an obvious star’ anymore
2:24
Ben Clemens: i think i would probably just let him go and be sad it didn’t work out. Totally agree with you on being convinced by Benge, that guy is the real deal
2:24
Person: G5 in 2012? man, and I was feeling ok today too
2:24
Ben Clemens: sorry. if it makes you feel any better, my whole family are Nats fans and I basically am unless they’re playing the Cardinals. Nats have won the WS more recently than the Cards too
2:25
pbenshaw: Moneyball game broadcast cuts away from the team’s best pitchers and MVP shortstop
2:25
Ben Clemens: Moneyball game just focuses on four players who, in the aggregate, hit like Aaron Judge
2:25
Jeremy Fox: How much of what we see as unpredictable streakiness is due to players dealing with nagging injuries that aren’t serious enough to land them on the IL? Thinking for instance of Schwarber’s recent cold stretch, which Phillies announcers speculate might be due to a recurrence of the back issue he’s dealt with for a while now.
2:25
Ben Clemens: I thikn LOTS
2:25
Ben Clemens: this is one of those things that’s basically impossible to prove
2:26
Ben Clemens: but one thing you’ll never convince me is that player true talent is perfectly stationary and hot and cold streaks are just luck. that’s nonsense
2:26
Ben Clemens: so players are definitely better or worse at various points in time. sometimes they’re ‘on’, sometimes they’re not
2:26
Ben Clemens: and nagging injuries seems like a very likely culprit to me
2:27
Jeremy Fox: The NHL plays one-off games in outdoor stadiums that don’t ordinarily host hockey. What stadium that doesn’t ordinarily host baseball would you like to see a MLB game played in?
2:27
Ben Clemens: oh, this is a fun one
2:27
Ben Clemens: those hockey games are amazing
2:27
Ben Clemens: maybe the Rose Bowl? If we’re limiting it to the US
2:28
Ben Clemens: if we’re not, the actual Coliseum (impossible) or perhaps a new London series in Wembley
2:28
aldrinbatistarocks: Been watching Jordan Hicks and smiling now that he’s pretty good again. Any favorite NBA-style straight salary dumps where the bloated contract guy thrives on the new team?
2:28
Ben Clemens: Jordan Hicks being good is so delightful to me. I have seen a LOT of Hicks live, probably the pitcher I’ve seen most live, and I have also been fooled by him many times in a row, to put it lightly
2:29
Ben Clemens: I think that Verlander getting traded after passing through waivers, and then turning into a legendary Astro, has to be up there
2:29
Ben Clemens: Robbie Ray returning from years in the wilderness after the salary-dump-swap trade was also fun
2:30
nochalkgang: When taking a player for homeruns does the pull air matter more than the pull%
2:30
Ben Clemens: yeah
2:30
Ben Clemens: pull% is kind of tricky bc rolling over groundres isn’t good
2:30
Ben Clemens: and also, groundballs have a higher pull% than fly balls
2:30
Ben Clemens: (witness how defenses line up as proof of this)
2:30
Ben Clemens: so you really want to isolate what you’re looking for
2:30
D-Wiz: Video game recommendation for any STEM nerds out there (presumably most of this chat): The Message from Deep Space. It’s incredible!
2:30
Ben Clemens: ooh, that’s me, that’s me!
2:31
Swings Low: Is it just me or does Kyle Tucker look like he cashed in and checked out? How often do guys get their first big pay day and immediately have their worst season on record?
2:31
Ben Clemens: he certainly looks that way, but I think that’s pretty unlikely to be what actually happened
2:31
Ben Clemens: maybe he’s like, less motivated on the margin?
2:31
Ben Clemens: but the kind of person who excels at baseball is not the kind of person to just give up
2:31
Ben Clemens: or like, completely slack off
2:31
Ben Clemens: I can imagine the hunger not being there to the same degree. but it’s not like ‘oh I checked out’
2:32
Ben Clemens: it’s like ‘that extra 1.5% is a little tougher to squeeze out’
2:32
Ben Clemens: i still think he’s gonna be perfectly reasonable in the end
2:32
Sonny L: Will the AL East produce the 5 best records in the league?
2:32
Ben Clemens: oh man I sure hope so
2:32
Ben Clemens: but no, I do not think so. I think the math makes it too tough, the fact that they play each other will push the worst-of record down, while the fact that the other divisions play each other might push their best-of record up.
2:33
bosoxforlife: I have to give Breslow some credit. Picking up Erik Miller for Mayer, who I predicted was leaving Boston, looks like clairvoyance with Whitlock going down. I didn’t know much about Miller but he looks solid.
2:33
Ben Clemens: yeah I am willing to believe that I just odn’t have the latest facts on the ground on Mayer to know what his value was
2:34
Ben Clemens: I do think Miller is a nice reliever, legit strikeout stuff
2:34
Ben Clemens: and I appreciate Breslow realizing that if he’s going for it this year (which he should be), he should get more relief help, because it’s way better to have one too many relievers than one too few
2:34
SPArn: I’m excited to read your article on Jake Bauers
2:35
grandbranyan: Are we past the point of Jake Bauers accepting a qualifying offer and into the three years for forty some million dollars range now?
2:35
Ben Clemens: Ryan Blake just wrote a nice article about him last month:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jake-bauers-gets-to-the-heart-of-it/
2:36
Ben Clemens: Um, I don’t think we’re at rejecting QO range yet. I think that corner-only bats in their 30s are not exactly a boom market, and also that 2026-2027 projects to not be a boom offseason because of the impending lockout
2:37
Ben Clemens: I actually wonder if the Brewers will duck giving him a QO. My view is that they were unlucky (and likely unhappy if they were being honest with you in private) that Woodruff accepted the QO last year
2:37
Ben Clemens: just from a salary/roster flexibility standpoint
2:37
Ben Clemens: but the counter to that is that woodruff is coming off the books!
2:38
Ben Clemens: I kind of think that they will opt not to risk spending resources on something that htey have been pretty good at creating on the open market, in aggregate
2:38
Ben Clemens: but I agree that the outlook for Bauers is much better now. He’s having a career year for sure
2:38
Jimmy: Tbf Tucker looked this way last year too. People just assumed it was to preserve himself for a big contract. (Though certainly I did not expect after last year that he’d be below former teammate Willi Castro in WAR on 8/17)
2:39
Swings Low: Yeah by “checked out” I suppose I meant “maybe putting in 80-90% of the work he used to”. I feel like that is a big reason why building super teams can go terribly wrong
2:39
Ben Clemens: yeah. I dunno, we’ll probably never learn the truth here. But obviously pretty rough start to his Dodgers career, to put it lightly
2:39
Jeremy Fox: Do the Brewers underperform in the playoffs, compared to what projection systems expect, because the Brewers’ secret sauce for beating the projections is to do with how they allocate playing time, which is an edge that accumulates slowly over the course of a long regular season?
2:40
Ben Clemens: Well, this is a tricky one. I’d argue that they actually perform about as well as our projection systems think in the playoffs, and that our problem is that we are under-predicting them in the regular season
2:40
Ben Clemens: That said, I kind of do think that, yes. They and the Rays squeeze out so much value from the whole roster
2:40
Ben Clemens: but there’s less ability to do so in the plyaoffs
2:40
Ben Clemens: so Dan wrote a thing about the Brewers earlier this year:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/why-does-zips-hate-the-milwaukee-brewers/
2:41
Ben Clemens: and I wrote something about how having WAR concentrated at the top of your roster matters more in October:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/yes-having-stars-matters-in-october/
2:42
Ben Clemens: basically it’s a really hard question to answer because you can’t test it experimentally. But my lean is that a lot of the juice that makes the Brewers beat naive projection systems has to do with how good they are at the little things that are tough to model. and that in short series with lots of rest, most of those things matter meaningfully less
2:42
Sanford: Seems like there are a few guys coming up on the are-you-Jordan-Walker-or-are-you-Anthony-Volpe development precipice next year, including Jackson Holliday and Dylan Crews. Any post-prospect guys you’re most optimistic about putting something together? (And as a Mets fan, should I be out on Brett Baty?)
2:43
Ben Clemens: yeah. I’m cautiously optimistic about both Holliday and Crews, but in both cases, it’s because I recognize that being regarded as highly as they were as prospects has real signal
2:43
Ben Clemens: not because I’m looking at their major league numbers and seeing how it’s gonna turn around
2:44
Ben Clemens: I guess for Holliday you can already see it a little, if he walks enough he can be a solid contributor with no further changes, but if you’re dreaming on more, the hope here is that he just gets better, because we saw these traits in him when he was a minor leaguer and just because they haven’t shown up in his first few years against grown men doesn’t mean they won’t appear eventually
2:44
bosoxforlife: “The little things that are tough to model.” Isn’t that statement a confirmation that the eye test still has a place in predicting baseball?
2:44
Ben Clemens: probably. I mean, if I didn’t think the eye test mattered to some extent, I wouldn’t be here
2:44
Ben Clemens: ‘top 50 trade value’ isn’t just a spreadsheet, that kinda thing
2:45
Ben Clemens: I think that the idealized version of the FanGraphs ethos is that we’re trying to use numbers to describe baseball as much as we can, while recognizing the inherent limits of our approach, and being reasonable about the stuff we haven’t measured
2:45
Ben Clemens: I think I’ve talked some about metric blindness, where once you create a metric you ignore everything that isn’t in that metric
2:47
Smith_Brickner: Hello old friend. OOTP calls your name, specifically MEB :/
2:47
Ben Clemens: Hey Smith!
2:47
Ben Clemens: Lot of friends in the chat today
2:48
Ben Clemens: I didn’t download OOTP this year, I needed a break. I’m gonna pick it up again at some point but probably not for MEB. Hope the league has been reset a billion times and yet all the same unexpected players are still dominating
2:48
Baseball Learner: How would you feel if a losing team makes the playoffs? Happens in football sometimes but football is not as random even in a single game so the risk of a losing team winning it’s conference is lower than a losing team winning the pennant. I’m oscillating between aghast and feeling it is worth it so that the dodgers could get knocked off.
2:48
Baseball Learner: Meaning the dodgers knocked off in a 3 game wild card series
2:48
Ben Clemens: Yeah, I think it’s fine. I’m not in love with it, like I think I enjoyed the playoff formats with fewer teams more, but I accept that more teams in the playoffs is a net good for hte league, and that this structure isn’t a bad way of handling the risk/reward
2:49
Ben Clemens: I don’t have a huge problem with losing-record teams in the playoffs, because for me, the playoffs are just a tournament, albeit a really fun one I watch the entirety of
2:49
Ben Clemens: I can’t get too mad about changing how many teams get into the tournament. Even if I would prefer rules that ensure it’s the teams with the best records more frequently
2:50
Jeremy Fox: Should MLB send a couple of teams to play a regular season series in South Korea? How about the Dominican Republic? Puerto Rico?
2:50
Ben Clemens: They did the whole PR thing with the Expos/Nats, and generally speaking, yes, I think that more international series like this would be great
2:50
tdmoc: Think Maikel Garcia will come back strong to finish the year?
2:51
Ben Clemens: I’m in the tank for Maikel Garcia, huge fan. That said, he has a hand injury, it’s generally not a good idea to expect guys with hurt hands to come back and hit well right away
2:51
mr. burrito: Dumb but honest question: Lots of teams that were frankly so-so during the regular season have won the WS. But those teams generally were overperforming in the playoffs. Can you think of an example of the opposite; of a team that clearly underperformed its expected production during the regular season, only to turn it on in the playoffs and win the WS? Asking as a nervous Dodger fan.
2:51
Ben Clemens: Nats in 2019
2:52
Ben Clemens: we actually had them favored against the Dodgers in that NLDS, even though they had to play a one-game wild card to get there
2:53
clemlibby: Go Nats!  2019 was an exciting year!
2:53
Jeremy Fox: Are teams with reputations for good pitching development good at teaching the same organization-wide pitching approach to all their pitchers (and maybe also drafting guys who fit that approach)? Or are teams that are good at pitching development taking a different customized approach to developing every pitcher?
2:53
Ben Clemens: i think it varies
2:53
Ben Clemens: and that Eric and Brendan would probably be able to give you a better answer than me here, because the minors are where you see this
2:54
Ben Clemens: But i think of the Astros being early on the four-seamer train and teaching all their minor leaguers to throw it, or the Guardians clearly having a plan to teach guys velo
2:54
Ben Clemens: for a while the Yankees taught everyone a ‘whirly’ (sweeper), that kinda thing
2:54
Ben Clemens: but generally speaking the ones who stay good at it for a long time are far more individualized
2:55
Ben Clemens: because if you can only make one style of change, you’re skipping a lot of pitchers who might be very interesting if you could work with them to make a different style of change
2:55
Tony Plush: I’m gonna come clean and admit I like ‘Field of Dreams,’ just posting b/c it’s such an unpopular opinion among FG literati
2:55
Ben Clemens: yeah I mean, I don’t think we’re in the majority here, haha
2:56
Ben Clemens: I can’t really tell you why. I know lots of people love it. But I watched The Sandlot many m ore times as a kid and I have basically memorized that entire movie, whereas Field of Dreams just doesn’t grab me the same way
2:56
bosoxforlife: The projection systems are actually having a very good year. The general consensus was that there would be a melee around the .500 line and that has been like nothing I can remember. It’s too bad that there isn’t a potential tie breaking playoff system in place any more.
2:56
Ben Clemens: I think that the league would tell you that they wish there were still tiebreaker games
2:56
Ben Clemens: but that the schedule won’t allow it because we’ve already expanded it so much
2:56
Ben Clemens: in any case yes, good year for projections (sorry Mets)
2:57
Swings Low: Outside of the unicorn when he’s pitching gems and blasting dingers in the same game, who’s the individual you enjoy watching play baseball the most?
2:57
Ben Clemens: so my two favorite players to watch all time are Ozzie Smith and Andrelton Simmons
2:57
Ben Clemens: I guess that will probably tell you the kind of guys I like
2:58
Ben Clemens: but in terms of modern players? I like Masyn Winn (Simmons vibes) and Ezequiel Tovar (Smith vibes)
2:58
Ben Clemens: just in terms of their style, not their skill level, to be clear: Winn with the big arm and Tovar with the smooth actions
2:58
Ben Clemens: Ceddanne Rafaela is way up there
2:58
Ben Clemens: Juan Soto and Yordan Alvarez at the plate, I like thinking along with the guy
2:59
Ben Clemens: and then Tyler Rogers as a pitcher, because c’mon, it’s hilarious
2:59
didace: “Nats in 2019” After their 19-31 start, they were a dominate team.
2:59
Ben Clemens: maybe I misunderstood the question, but yeah, agreed
2:59
Ben Clemens: they were basically a very good team with a so-so record because of that abysmal start
3:00
grandbranyan: The old adage is something like if you don’t hit for power you won’t walk much because they’ll just throw you strikes then. But the Brewers are at a 9.8 BB% (2nd) and .147 ISO (25th) going all the way back to 2023. Is this more a testament to the Brewers approach or an increasing number of pitchers with terrible command that simply can’t throw strikes consistently?
3:00
Ben Clemens: I think it’s more a credit to the Brewers than anything else
3:00
Ben Clemens: you know, there are plenty of other teams and hitters that don’t have power, and thus don’t walk
3:00
HVC: and the opposite to Tucker’s start in LA is Pete in Baltimore. My Met fan in-laws lamented him leaving…and to be honest paying $150m for a 1B didn’t excite me this past offseason. But dude is going to produce another 4 win season and has immediately become the heart and soul of the team. Plays everyday. Takes accountability above and beyond for what has gone wrong in Baltimore this season. Who knows how the next 4 years go but he is “someone to root for”.
3:01
Ben Clemens: yeah, I think Mets fans would tell you that Pete is a very fun player to have on your team
3:01
Ben Clemens: will he be great for four years? will it be a ‘good deal’? I dunno
3:01
Ben Clemens: but from a fan perspective, yeah, he’s fun
3:02
Ben Clemens: that counts for something, but I am not sure it should really affect front office decision making
3:02
Ben Clemens: unless the accountability is making the team better – which maybe it is
3:02
alexinrichmond: griffin conine or garrett mitchell rest of season?
3:03
Ben Clemens: huh. I guess Conine because I’ve just been convinced that this is Mithcell’s year too many times
3:03
Ben Clemens: but Mitchell is very talented. It’s cool that he’s having his healthiest year and doing well
3:04
Ben Clemens: alright everyone, I have to run and get going on some work for tomorrow. New Lab tool coming out probably next week that we’re just putting the finishing touches on, regular article schedule, and a fun site architecture project (fun for me, at least) in the wings
3:05
Ben Clemens: oh and Saber Seminar is coming up! It’s a sweet event, I’m very excited
3:05
Ben Clemens: have a wonderful week everyone

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Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat – 8/17/26