Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 11/29/17

Dan Szymborski: It begins.

The Average Sports Fan: Is Piscotty a real trade piece?  Does his contract help or hurt?

Dan Szymborski: After his 2017, it probably hurts a bit.  I don’t think he’s a real trade piece at this moment.

Nate: Give us a hypothetical return if the Giants trade Bumgarner this winter, pretty please?

Dan Szymborski: Given two years, I think he’d land a top 20 prospect and a second somewhere in the top 100 and some lotto tickets.

Ubaldo Jimenez: Should the Orioles resign me to a 100 million dollar contract?

Dan Szymborski: No, but as an Oriole fan, I endorse one of the Red Sox, Blue Jays, Rays, or Yankees doing so.

Larry Biggersby: Steamer and Depth are nearly identical on Byron Buxton (PAs aside) – do you think Zips will believe?

Dan Szymborski: Projecting projections is a little too Inception for me.

Andrew: I just want to put this out there, Mike Moustakas and Luis Valbuena are incredibly similar players, both by numbers and profile. Valbuena is making 7.5 mil a year

Dan Szymborski: I prefer Moustakas, but it’s not an enormous amount

Andrew: so I wouldn’t pay Moose more than 10 mil a year.

Vic Romano: How many AB’s do you think Braun will get this year?  Back up to the 500’s, or does his increasingly old and injured body fail him even more in 2018?

Dan Szymborski: Probably 400-500.  There has obvious risk.

Dimpledore: If I wanted to conduct a statistical witch hunt of probable PED users through time, do we know enough about a) causes of intra-individual variation generally (pre-PED era) or b) how PEDs influence performance (for position players and pitchers, for position players with natural power/batspeed and those without, etc)?

Dan Szymborski: No and no.

Dan Szymborski: I have spent *years* trying to find some use of steroids, whether it’s projeting players or a pattern of exceeding performance sometime before the best and falling off after, for years or chunks of careers or entire careers.

Dan Szymborski: I cannot come up with a single statistical pattern of performance against expectation that singles out players that have been suspended for a PED.

CamdenWarehouse: Dan’s actually chatting during the day for the first time in two months.  Yay!

CamdenWarehouse: too bad I have to go to a meeting

Dan Szymborski: Not my fault you have a job and like paying for goods and services.

Slapshot: Welcome back!  Did Cistulli make you chat today in exchange for all the ZiPS projection articles he’s publishing?

Dan Szymborski: Nah, this is usually where I start chats back up after the postseason chaos.

CamdenWarehouse: ZiPS obviously doesn’t believe that Robert Stephenson found himself after his demotion.  Do you agree or could he actually turn into the pitcher he was once thought to be?

Dan Szymborski: Pitchers are tricky.  WHY ARE YOU NOT AT YOUR MEETING YOU ARE FIRED
–

ECinDC: How much longer can Scherzer keep it up? Going on his age 33 season, but just had his best ever. Will he be worth his contract?

Dan Szymborski: I think so.  Unti you get to the late 30s, ptichers don’t really age, they break.

Mark: Is David Dahl going to get a good projection this year, or does last years missed season hurt him?

Dan Szymborski: Ok guys:  NO ZIPS META PROJECTIONATING

GP: How does ZiPS account for pitchers that haven’t been assigned to rotation vs. bullpen? Does it automatically assume the same pitcher will strike out more batters out of the bullpen, for example?

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS uses historical usage, very heavily weighting the most recent season for usage issues.  Unless I tell it differently (I can instruct 100% rotation or 100% bullpen)

Dimpledore: How common is it that players have a single season power spike (a home run peak) that is 2 standard deviations greater than their career average (e.g. Boggs’ 24 in 1987; Brady Anderson’s 50 in 1996; Ellsbury’s 32 in 2011)?  Is there typically an easy explanation?

Dan Szymborski: Comes up about as often as you’d expect from the degree of outlier!

Hannah Hochevar: Was surprised to see Fister sign for so little given the options out there. Does it imply extra injury concern or just the usual old people injury concern?

Dan Szymborski: It’s been a few years since he was both healthy AND good for a whole season

Dan Szymborski: Not a lot of biters for a longer-term deal and he does hvae some significant incentive options

Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe: What player, if traded to [insert favorite team] at the trade deadline and and guaranteed to only play for your team through the end of the season, would you be most inclined to buy a jersey? Assume an incredible story out of the postseason run, if not a World Series title.

Dan Szymborski: I mostly buy jerseys based on the player and not specifically because they’re Orioles.

Dan Szymborski: I also occasionally buy jerseys to troll, like my Rick Wise Cardinals jersey.

sigh: Please breath some life into the dark and soul crushing abyss that has been this offseason.  I’m usually so excited to sit by the stove.

Dan Szymborski: Don’t worry, we all die.

AD: Hello Daniel, what should we do with Syndergaard in fantasy leagues? So much risk, so much reward

Dan Szymborski: I’m not super worried.

Dan Szymborski: Though its the Mets, so you shoudl always be worried that Syndergaard’s rotator cuff gets cut by highwaymen and the Mets pitch him through it

Clay Davenport Translations: Can you explain to me the Clay Davenport stat translations? And which one to use(between peak adjusted and whatnot)?

Dan Szymborski: I believe peak adjusted is the implied peak for the player down the road.  But you’d have to ask Clay.

SMITTY: thoughts on Jordan Montgomery next year?

Dan Szymborski: Jordan Montgomery is a pitcher.  He throws baseballs.  He throws with his left hand.  He is employed by the New York Yankees Baseball Club.

ECinDC: Where might Daniel Murphy fit after this year?

Dan Szymborski: I think I’d wait to see what his season is before we talk about specifidc 2019 teams!

Jackie: Is Judge going to perform closer to his 2017 year, or his 2018 projections?

Dan Szymborski: I would expect the projections.

Anon: Whose zips surprised you the most after you ran the numbers?

Dan Szymborski: Still running all the finals with the most up-to-date data.

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS loving Dom Smith is surprising so far.

Pie: Can the Marlins declare that if Ohtani doesn’t decide soon, he’ll be forced to play on a stripped down team? Seems like a ubiquitous strategy

Dan Szymborski: The Marlins are only interested in bidding if he goes by Otani.  Those “h” letters on jerseys don’t pay for themselves!

Anon: What do you think of other projection systems? Particularly CAIRO?

Dan Szymborski: Most of the big ones do a good job.  I prefer ZiPS for obvious reasons.

Zwak: What would Otani make this offseason if he were an unrestricted free agent?

Dan Szymborski: Talked about it in my ESP piece!

ECinDC: WHY DON’T THE O’S TRADE MACHADO

Dan Szymborski: They h aven’t given up yet.

Post Malone: How many turkeys did you eat last week?

Dan Szymborski: Me personally?  Less than one turkey.

Estevao: Hey Dan, i wrote an article on the Hosmer FA scenario, recognizing a pattern in FA, would love to hear your opinion on it https://maximustake23.blogspot.com.br/2017/11/a-false-premise.html

Dan Szymborski: I will bookmark it, I’m behind on reading and definitely can’t right now!

Post Malone: Do you like to eat sardines?

Dan Szymborski: Yes

Post Malone: Do you do backtesting on your projections?

Dan Szymborski: I do extensive testing, it’s the only way I can improve the model.

Chavez McDuckets: Chances Kershaw opts out >100%?  What do you think his next contract looks like?  It has to be the Dodgers, right?

Dan Szymborski: It can’t be over 100%.  But it’s very high probability.  He can do better than 3/98 unless Something Very Bad Happens.

Chad: How was your Thanksgiving?

Dan Szymborski: Just fine.

Hannah Hochevar: Was hoping the O’s would snag Fister. Which scrapheap arm is next on the list? (Chatwood seems to be gaining too much hype to count…)

Dan Szymborski: The O’s should throw in the towel of the Tyler Chatwood Sweepstakes is too intense for them.

Bryce Harper: Do you agree with ZiPS that Harvey is toast?

Dan Szymborski: On average he’s toast, but he still has a chance, hopefully.

Dan Szymborski: I mean RICH HILL came back.

Dimpledore: Let’s say people didn’t keep statistics in baseball (hahahaha, but okay, let’s say that).  Would we think differently of player performance?  Would we memorialize players differently?

Dan Szymborski: Would probably be more tools-based.  LIke a bad 1997 GM.

Anon: I miss sabermetrics before WAR was invented. Discussions are settled too easily now.

Dan Szymborski: We settle discussions easily?

Pie: My understanding of the DRA stat is that it essentially uses a hierarchical model to include fixed/random effects. Are there any hitting stats that incorporates this method? If not, I may have found my holiday project

Dan Szymborski: I don’t believe so.

Post Malone: Where does ESPN get their WAR figures? They don’t agree to FG or BBR. For instance, ESPN has Chase Headley as replacement level in 2017, whereas fWAR has him at 1.9 and rWAR 1.8.

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure, I don’t do anything with Stats & Info.

Vic Romano: I think 30+ HRs are a given….but on a scale of .175 to .275, where does Schwarber’s AVG land next year?

Dan Szymborski: I CAN SMELL A BACKDOOR PROJECTION REQUEST

Dan Szymborski: <blockquote class=”twitter-video” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>This was my favorite bit of goofiness from last year's FA period, when the Rockies were talking with Mark Trumbo. <a href=”https://t.co/plYNA9OSAg”>pic.twitter.com/plYNA9OSAg</a></p… Dan Szymborski (@DSzymborski) <a href=”

9, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

Jeff Bridich: After the Parra and Desmon disasters, how can I possibly sign a free agent this year to top that?  Hosmer come on down?

Dimpledore: Joe Morgan aside, to what degree does the fact that people don’t/didn’t like Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and Clemens make it easier for them to reject them from the Hall?  Will a player like Ortiz put that to the test to a greater degree?

Dan Szymborski: It’s getting better, but slowly.  Still too many legacy voters that have little connection with the game of the last couple decades.

Wolf: Any idea why a player’s offensive and defensive values would dramatically flip like Lindor’s year compared to last?

Dan Szymborski: Well, if they played better at one aspect and worse in another…

Post Malone: Do you think Kershaw is a Dodger for his entire playing career?

Dan Szymborski: I think in the end, he stays a Dodger for at least the vast majority of his career.  You cant’ dismiss him going 1-4, 5.77 in a couple months in Texas in 2032 or something.

YKnotDisco?!: I’d love to see you karate-chop someone! Better yet, perform the ‘flying crane’ maneuver. I really, really hope Carson wasn’t   just making empty threats.

D.B. Sweeney as Shoeless Joe: Are you excited for the return of Jersey Shore?

Dan Szymborski: It’s helpful to have as many terrible people filmed so you know to avoid them.

D.B. Sweeney as Shoeless Joe: What size jersey do you wear?\

Dan Szymborski: XL mostly.  I drink too much and exercise too little.

AK: The chat description describes you as a “monstrous creator of ZiPS.”  Does that mean you’re a monster, or ZiPS is the monster?

Dan Szymborski: Both.  Monsters can create monsters.

Jay: If Otani is serious about wanting to get a chance to hit, shouldn’t he shy away from top tier AL teams like the Yankees and Red Sox? If those teams get into a tight pennant race and Otani isn’t hitting there will be media/fan pressure to bench him. With a lesser team (or an NL team) he’d be given more opportunities to adjust to MLB pitching.

Dan Szymborski: That’s why the questionnaires!

Dimpledore: There are a number of different ways people have tried to retrospectively assess what should predict an impending breakout season.  In your experience what are the single (or few) best indicators?   Walk rate and barrels?  Other?

Dan Szymborski: It’s nowhere near that easy, simply becuase these things all shade the probabilities, not making them slam dunks

D.B. Sweeney as Shoeless Joe: Gleyber for ROY?

Dan Szymborski: He’s a contender if he gets the time

Daniel: How does an injury and age of the player affect the ZIPS projection?

Dan Szymborski: Well, depends on what we’re talking about.  ZiPS does take both into consideration.

Dan Szymborski: Though there’s obviously only so much specificity you can give a projection system about an injury.

Ampersand: If Austin Romine was allowed to use an aluminum bat, would he hit more home runs than Aaron Judge?

Dan Szymborski: Probably not that much.

Trumbo Jumbo: I feel a bounce back year coming up, would anybody be interested in trading for me?

Dan Szymborski: No.

Dimpledore: Let’s say for the sake of argument that a six man rotation would put less stress/wear and tear on an individual pitcher (particularly late in the season) and would allow you to maximize the performance and health of each pitcher at the cost of having your best pitchers pitch fewer games.  If you had six good starters (e.g. Astros), would this be a strategy worth pursuing?

Dan Szymborski: It might be.  As you suggest, it’s very situation dependent.

Jonathan: Question re: Diamond Mind defensive ratings.  You’ve often (IMO correctly) argued that you shouldn’t be fudging projections from ZiPS.  Why not take the same approach here, and just have a formula that relies on the range, arm, and error projections produced by ZiPS?

Dan Szymborski: Diamond Mind’s projections are awkward becuase of the five range tiers.

Dan Szymborski: The initial projections are given, but I still check them over.

Jeff: Not that I’m questioning the inner machinations of ZiPS, but Seth Lugo is coming off a 1.7 WAR season in just over 100 innings with a 3.95 FIP (with a 4.33 FIP in 2016). Why is he now projected to run a 4.7 FIP and be barely above replacement level? His K and BB rates are projected to be about the same, and if anything he was unlucky in terms of LOB% and BABIP last year.

Dan Szymborski: Now tell me:  Is the entirety of Seth Lugo’s resumé his pitching with the Mets?

gump: Does ZiPS output WAR projections as probability distributions? IE, could you say Stanton’s projected WAR is normally distributed with a mean of 5.X and a SD of Y? If so, do you ever publish the SD, or just the means?

Dan Szymborski: It does, but it’s not a normal distribution.

Dan Szymborski: I usually post what I need for the article I’m writing!  I like to hoard stuff for my own nefarious purposes.

Chad: Just took a look at Ohtani’s ZIPS projection, and it’s about what I thought it might be. Because virtually no MLB pitcher has faced him before, how likely do you think it is that he’ll put up an OPS above .850? The projection has him at .794 OPS.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think it’s that much more likely than the average .794 OPS player.  Major League pitchers are pretty good at adjusting quickly

AK: Lightning round:  Thoughts on the “Hearthstone is too expensive” debate and/or the loot box model for games in general?

Dan Szymborski: (Not doing an official lightning round since I have to go at 3)

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think the problem with Hearthstone is that the costs are directly too high, but that dust value is too low.

Dan Szymborski: As for loot boxes, I don’t like the Battlefront approach of squeezing people who shelled out $60 for the game.

Dan Szymborski: I feel that for a full-priced game, loot boxes that aren’t something purely cosmetic ought to not be a thing.

Jay: Given his unprecedented poor performance in 2017 and the flooded market for 2B, would it be better for the Tigers to deal Kinsler now or hang onto him until the deadline?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think the market’s likely to get better.

D.B. Sweeney as Shoeless Joe: Those are facts about Jordan Montgomery. Why insult the reader for asking a simple question? If you don’t have a productive take on him as a player then just move along.

Dan Szymborski: “Thoughts for Jordan Montgomery” isn’t exactly a specific question.

Dan Szymborski: Thoughts about the Crimean War?

Dan Szymborski: Thoughts about math?

Dan Szymborski: Thoughts about existence?

Dan Szymborski: What about cars?

Moltar: Egads that Mets ZiPS projection looks ugly. Should the Mets be starting to rebuild sooner than later? Why was their window of contention so short?

Dan Szymborski: Simply put, one of their biggest foundational strengths, a young, excellent pitching staff, has gone to crap quickly.

ECinDC: Is Jeter maybe not a good executive

Dan Szymborski: It’s certainly a possibility.

Gleyber Torres: Why is it that projections almost NEVER! Predict a player getting better? Even young studs who have good seasons are projected to regress.

Dan Szymborski: They do all the time.  You’re focusing too much on a mean projection.

Dan Szymborski: And mean projections are what they are because they work.

Dan Szymborski: People drastically overrate the odds that even a good young players will improve.

Bobby Portis: What is your favorite cereal?

Dan Szymborski: Honey Bunches of Oats.

Wolf: Do you expect to see improvement from Julio Teheran in the future or is he all he can be?

Dan Szymborski: He’ll have better seasons (probably) but I think he’s essentially what he is.

Dimpledore: How close are the Angels to being a really dangerous team?  Are they near the luxury tax, or should they be big players in Arrieta/Darvish market?

Dan Szymborski: I think they’re still a 75-win team that has Mike Trout.  But Mike Trout is pretty decent.

Dan Szymborski: They OUGHT to overspend.

Yousadumoss: See how easy it is to just answer a question? If the guy asked for your “thoughts on sardines” you would have given some b.s. “sardines are fish, typically packed in oil are water, etc…”.

Dan Szymborski: I answer questions that are asked.

Dan Szymborski: This chat is not your comfort dog.

D.B. Sweeney as Shoeless Joe: White, wheat or rye?

Dan Szymborski: Rye.

Zwak: Who is the next mediocre hitter to become a solid reliever?

Dan Szymborski: I’m rooting for Hernan Iribarren!

LegallyEagle: PUBG or Fortnite?

Dan Szymborski: PUBG

Jonathan: What’s the projected probability of you answering a meta-projection question in this chat?

Dan Szymborski: MET META

Post Malone: Can you give more input on your model testing? Is it as simple as comparing output to actuals??

Dan Szymborski: The basic issue you run into is that you have a very limited amount of test data.  We only get one season a year.

Dan Szymborski: The fundamental issue is that since history is essentially training data, there’s only so much I can do.

Dan Szymborski: Which is why I implement new things slowly

Skip: I need a good minor league hat as a gift for my weird brother-in-law.  Suggestions?

Dan Szymborski: Ironpigs bacon hat

Roger Ebert: Bang the Drum Slowly” is the ultimate baseball movie — and, despite what a plot summary might suggest, I think it’s more about baseball than death.

Eric: Who do you like better for next year, Luke Weaver or Snell?

Dan Szymborski: I think Weaver

Estevao: thank u, really appreciate it, any thoughts on this fact, Chase Utley 64.5 Career WAR on 1850 Games, Craig Biggio 65.8 Career WAR on 2850 Games

Dan Szymborski: It’s going to make me furious when Utley gets nearly one-and-outed.

LegallyEagle: Are the questionnaires Ohtani’s way of memorializing a team’s promise to let him hit, etc.?

Dan Szymborski: Ohtani’s problem is that he can’t differentiate based on money, so he has to look at other things.

Dan Szymborski: Nothing promised will be contractually guaranteed, but it does let him see how open a team is.

AK: Dansby Swanson and Ozzie Albies portmanteau nickname:  Swalbies?  Ozzby?  Danzie?  Albson?

Dan Szymborski: Dansbies

D.B. Sweeney as Shoeless Joe: Who’s got the worst contract besides Pujols?

Dan Szymborski: Cabrera

Jack: Could we ever see something similar to what happened this week in Tennessee? A front office makes a hire so unpopular that the fanbase mobilizes in a couple hours and shuts the hire down?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think it’s likely in baseball.  Simply put, coaches and managers aren’t THE ORGANIZATION the way a college football head coach is.

Buck Showalter: Who do we have landing on our roster to fill out the rotation in 2018. How will Double D do?

Dan Szymborski: I am not optimsitic

Capt’n Canada: I don’t like projection systems, because they always project a player to decline, unless they have no mlb experience or a tiny sample size

Dan Szymborski: Well, they don’t.

Luke: I’m generally a connoisseur of home run nomenclature and an Orioles fan.  However, I despise the Trumbo Jumbo moniker.

My name’s not Steve: Does Chris Tillman don the O’s uni this year?

Dan Szymborski: No

Dimpledore: Do we have a strong sense for which aspects of advanced catching metrics do the best job of capturing aggregate catcher value?  Are the runs saved metrics doing a good job of capturing how a catcher helps a team and what teams should value (defensively), or is there a lack of consensus?

Dan Szymborski: I think we’re still not anywhere near catcher defense that we are for other positions

Eminor3rd: When are you going to start playing Dark Souls? Just do it.

Dan Szymborski: I’m getting too old to punish myself.

Dimpledore: Let’s look back in time for a moment.  When the Braves, Rays, and Mariners swapped Gohara/Yarbrough/Burroughs to Braves, Mallex Smith to Rays, Drew Smyly to Mariners would you have said that the trade was fair?  In hindsight, the Braves come out far ahead on this deal, but had Smyly been healthy, this might have been seen as a win now for Mariners, a salary dump for the Rays, and dealing prospects from surplus for the Braves, correct?

Dan Szymborski: It’s about right.  I dont’ think the trade was really fundamentally unfair for anyone.

Sandy Ravage: The Ohtani questionnaires: First and foremost, do you think he’s looking for 1) outside the box answers 2) which teams are the most knowledgeable (indicating research) or 3) where he can have the biggest impact? Obviously all, but which first?

Jeff: A year ago you projected Lugo for a 4.58 FIP, this year he’s projected for a 4.7 FIP. In between he posted a 3.95 FIP. I mean, he’s a fairly inconsequential player either way, but you can see why I’m confused, right?

Dan Szymborski: I projected a much better offensive league last year.

Dan Szymborski: errr

Dan Szymborski: worse

Dan Szymborski: And the hit location/velocity data I have did not reflect well on Lugo’s 2017.

Yeezy: LOL @ someone coming into your chat and telling you how to run your chat.

Dan Szymborski: There’s no Unsafer Space than Szymborski Chat.

Ray Liotta as Shoeless Joe: D.B. Sweeney as Shoeless Joe needs a new name and to get back to that one time he guest-starred on CSI: Miami.

v2micca: To answer your questions:
It sucked.
It sucks more.
It sucks, then you die.
They mostly suck.

Pie: Thoughts on thoughts?

Pat: I saw a Twitter account called “Bill James Online” tweet that Nomar Mazara could be a potential MVP candidate? What does he need to do to reach that point? Bring the average up, hit more dingers, run more?

Dan Szymborski: a LOT more homers.

Dan Szymborski: I’m not seeing it.

Slamboni: When projecting players with league experience from all other leagues, how much do you take previous workload into account? For example, when projecting Yu Darvish for 2018, are you bringing in all the mileage that he put on his arm in Japan/WBC before coming to the US?

Dan Szymborski: WBC is one thing ZiPS does not consider.

Dan Szymborski: Pitchers coming over don’t tend to be worked as hard per game as in Japan

Bryce Harper: Is the Mets ZiPS projection really that bleak? It looks pretty optimistic at SS, 1B and catcher. Their three best players aren’t projected for a ton of playing time, so it comes down to health like always, right?

Dan Szymborski: You’re missing one of the key cultural elements of being a Mets fan.

Dan Szymborski: Some people see glasses half-full.  Some half-empty.  New York Mets see a glass and assume someone’s going to smash the glass, hide powdered glass in your dinner, steal your kidney while you sleep, and then the Mets doctors will diagnose your problems as whooping cough.

Daniel: What are your thoughts about Peter Angelos?

Dan Szymborski: SMASH THE WORLD

Zipster: Who has the best chance of contributing to the O’s roster in 2018 from their Bowie roster?

Dan Szymborski: Tanner Scott or Austin Hays.

Jonathan: Re: paucity of testing data, there’s always cross-validation.

Dan Szymborski: Cue me naked on a magazine cover hiding my unmentionables with the title K-FOLD THE INTERNET, DAN SZYMBORSKI

RSO: An article on River Ave Blues suggested the Yankees trade for Christian Yelich this offseason. I thought the proposed package the Yankees were giving up seemed a little light.  What kind of package do you think it would take for the Yanks to pry him for the Marlins?

Dan Szymborski: You’d have to give up at least one major prospect to get the Marlins even talking.  I don’t know if they’re at a realistic place yet (the Marlins)

Ampersand: How often should I wash a jar that I only use to drink water out of every day? I just scrubbed it for the first time in… a while… and I’m dismayed at how much clearer the glass is now

Dan Szymborski: I wouldn’t worry.  Build up your immune system.

Bobby Portis: Not Heyward?

Dan Szymborski: Heyward’s young enough that he can bumble 1.5-3 WAR a year for a long time.  Cabrera has big clifftential.

teufelshuffle: Steamer has Dominic Smith as a replacement level scrub next year, hitting .254/.309.417, ZiPS has him as a solid regular at .272/.324/.430.  Is there something about Smith falling on his face in his MLB cup of coffee that makes them project him so differently?

Dan Szymborski: It’s hard to tell without knowing the precise innards of Steamer.  But from the advanced hit data, ZiPS did not think his MLB BABIP was even close to warranted.

Rick C: Does ZiPS prefer Albies or Swanson?

Dan Szymborski: Albies now.

Re: Hat: The Hartford Yard Goats!

Ciscoskid: could you see a team trading for dee gordon and moving him to CF to add in surplus value to his contract.

Dan Szymborski: Meh

Derek: Any links to your steroid work?

Dan Szymborski: Only published one, which is hard to find because ESPN’s artlce archive is really screwed up at the moment.

Magic 8 Ball: Stanton plus $100 million to LA for Verdugo and Stewart. Thoughts?

Dan Szymborski: That’s probably about what the Dodgers would need as a trade to be interested.

Daniel: Austin Hays Future starter? or just a guy?

Dan Szymborski: May just be a guy, but given the O’s system, worth finding out.

Desperate, confused Marlins fan: What is wrong with Piscotty? He has a great feel for hitting, is he just too boring? doesnt do enough of anything?

Dan Szymborski: Can’t just waive away 2017.

Fat Matt: I used to think that  “Dan Szymborksi” was some made up name that was referenced all the time.  Glad to see you are (seemingly) real

RSO: Gleyber Torres for Manny Machado? Who says no?

Dan Szymborski: O’s because O’s aren’t very well run these days.

Dean Machine: How does ZIPS account for the home run spike the last year and a half in projecting players for next year?

Dan Szymborski: It’s hard to predict where the league will be.  ZiPS simply weighs the most recent season more heavily when projecting environment.

D.B. Sweeney as Shoeless Joe: Why would the Yankees give up resources for Yelich when they’re probably gonna get Harper next yera

Dan Szymborski:

Monsignor Martinez: Lightning round:  Thoughts on Bitcoin?

Dan Szymborski: Really annoyed that cryptocoins have been driving up the cost of GPUs for everyone.

Dan Szymborski: Though not so much Bitcoin as GPU mining that is a losers game.

Desperate, confused Marlins fan: Re: absolutely, but injuries and his mothers death couldve been factors, no?

Dan Szymborski: No doubt, but it’s still out there.

Uther: Thoughts on ending today’s chat?

Dan Szymborski: It is time.

Dan Szymborski: I’m late for a semi-important date!  No time to say hello goodbye I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!

Dan Szymborski: Well, technically this good bye

Dan Szymborski: Or we’ll just peter ou