Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 12/15/22

Dan Szymborski: And here we are!

Nolan F: Gotta ask cuz we are already hearing rumblings…do you think there’s gonna be another lockout in 2027? Small/mid market owners are going to demand a hard salary cap because of Cohen

Dan Szymborski: I don’t anticipate labor peace

Dan Szymborski: Especially if, with so many teams over the CBT and the CBT only growing at 1.5%, teams are quiet in subsequent offseasons

Josh: Other than a fantastic 2017 International Class, how have the Guardians failed to produce in the international waters. Recent drafts shows they can identify young talent in America, is it just bad luck?

Dan Szymborski: While I wouldn’t say it’s *just* bad luck, luck inevitably plays some role in these things

Dan Szymborski: Unless there’s a specific team approach that you can point to

Dan Szymborski: Like the O’s pretty much abandoning the international amateur market for years!

Nate: Think something like Garcia and one of Korey Lee/Yainer Diaz is enough foe

Dan Szymborski: No fair casting me enemies! I don’t even know them!

Eduardo: I kinda love the Diamondbacks young core. How do they take next stop to contending for a wildcard in a stacked National League? Keeping in mind that their owner is cheap as hell.

Dan Szymborski: If ZiPS isn’t crazy, they’re not that far off wild card contender status now. But there will be a time they’ll have to land big FAs or they’ll have to be better developing internally than the Dodgers and Padres and Giants and that’s a tall order

Jack: Dan, what would you say is the biggest weakness when it comes to ZIPS? I have solely used that projection system the last three years and have had success, but wondering if there are any pitfalls to turning a blind eye to other projection systems in conjunction with ZIPS.  Thanks!

Dan Szymborski: Accuracy!

Dan Szymborski: I’m not just being flippant, the easy-to-find fruit like X type player or Y age player is long kneaded out of all the projection systems

Dan Szymborski: And some of the problems in a data-based approach, such as dealing with injuries, is going to bedevil similar systems too

Dan Szymborski: Unless someone’s figured out to be more granular that way in a productive sense

D backs fan: Is Pfaadt the #1 pitching prospect for Zips?

Dan Szymborski: Not sure as I haven’t projected everyone yet who COULD be

D backs fan: Is Corbin Carrol Zips #1 prospect?

Dan Szymborski: That I’ll say probably no – I believe Gunnar Henderson, who I think still has ROY status, edges him

Guest: Petco was a terrible park for Bogaerts to choose with his declining power, correct?

Dan Szymborski: It depends what you mean by terrible

Dan Szymborski: It’ll make his career stats *look* worse

Dan Szymborski: but I don’t think it’ll make his relative stats worse than the average player there

Dan Szymborski: In fact, he’s not reliant on power the way some woudl be.

Dan Szymborski: There’s a curious quirk about Fenway in modern baseball that I’m still trying to dig down the consequences of

Dan Szymborski: I discovered some years ago while doing some exploratory data analysis

Dan Szymborski: Basically, stars tend to underperform OPS+ projections when moving to Fenway and overperform when leaving. But lesser players have tended to *over*perform the ZiPS OPS+ projections when moving to Fenway and underperform when they leave

Dan Szymborski: Which resulted in me having to add another factor I call SSB (star-scrub bifurcation)

Dan Szymborski: It appears that the exact quirks of Fenway narrow the differences between players somehwat, especially given the HR-heavy BA-light profile of modern players

Dan Szymborski: And I get nearly the opposite, though not the same magnitude, for Guaranteed Rate

Dan Szymborski: which isn’t surprising – that’s basically the opposite of Fenway, a big HR park that isn’t a hitters park for anything else

Pete: FanGraphs still covering prospects or nah?

Dan Szymborski: If ciyrse!

Dad, a Man Took Pictures of Me: So, who’s more pathetic – the Red Sox or Cubs? I lean Cubs since they’ve been there before as recently as like, 10 years ago. But Boston’s descent feels more substantial

Dan Szymborski: I think pathos is in the eye of the beholder

robertobeers: A man a Dan a silly chat, ahcyllis anadanama. That sounded like a winter desert fungus some second string Mets first baseman would get

Mike Trout: If the Mets trade Carrasco but pay the acquiring team his whole salary does that money still get taxed? If it doesn’t, would they be able to acquire a useful piece AND save money on the tax?

Dan Szymborski: Ah, they’ve thought of that loophole!

Dan Szymborski: (iii) Cash Consideration: An assignor Club that pays cash consideration to defray all or part of the salary obligation of the assignee Club for an assigned Player or Players shall include such cash consideration in its Actual Club Payroll on a pro-rata basis over the remaining Guaranteed Years of the assigned Contract(s). Cash consideration that is conditionally payable based on the Player’s earning of performance or award bonuses will be included in the Actual Club Payroll of the Club responsible for paying the bonus in the Contract Year in which the bonus is earned. Cash consideration that is conditionally payable based on the outcome of Club or Player Option decisions will be included in the pro-rata calculation described above if the consideration is contingent on the decline of a Club Option Year or the exercise of a Player Option Year, but will not be included if contingent on the exercise of a Club Option Year or the decline of a Player Option Year. If any cash consideration not originally included in

Dan Szymborski: ————————-+

Dan Szymborski: It would simply too easy to launder CBT payroll otherwise

Jays ZiPS: I was surprised to see Hayden Juenger get a Goose Gossage comp in your Blue Jays ZiPS piece. Besides being young for the level, nothing in Juenger’s profile really jumps out at me. Without giving too much of ZiPS away, what kind of inputs could lead to such a lofty comp?

Dan Szymborski: Lemme see

Dan Szymborski: (I will answer other questions in thne mean time)

Nate: Think something centered around Garcia and one of Korey Lee/Yainer Diaz might be close enough for the Astros to land Varsho from AZ? Or maybe Jansen from Toronto?

Dan Szymborski: Ah, so they weren’t one of my foes!

Dan Szymborski: Honestly, I don’t think they’re shopping Varsho

Dan Szymborski: And I don’t think that package woudl be enough

Dave: Brad Boxberger can play SS and hit a 135 wrc+, right?

Dan Szymborski: Well, it would be ideal

TomBruno23: Making that impossible slider stuffing again for Xmas, going to make it over this year?

Dan Szymborski: I’ll sadly have to bow out for a reason I’ll have to make up for later to not hurt your feelings about impossible slider stuffing!

TomBruno23: What do the Cardinals do the rest of the off-season, and what should they do?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not positive, but I think it’ll be low-key

Dan Szymborski: Someone like Kluber would be a lot of fun

Dan Szymborski: And of course Rodon in the sense that a contender getting the best pitcher available is usually a pretty sweet idea

robertobeers: What type of modifications are going into the next year’s ZiPS contract tool based on this year’s free agency?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure, I need to see how the whole winter turns out!

Sharp: If the Braves are unable to land Swanson how much confidence do you have in Vaughn Grissom/Orlando Arcia. Lots of Braves fans on social media that I’ve seen are talking themselves into Vaughn Grissom being the guy.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think Grissom is as good as Swanson right now, but I think he’s pretty good

Dan Szymborski: Arcia I have much less faith in

Dan Szymborski: For Gossage Juenger

Dan Szymborski: The baseline came closest to Gossage’s through 1972

Dan Szymborski: which would cover his short minor league career and his White Sox debut

Dan Szymborski: Both right-handed, a year apart in age, ZiPS thinks both were around 55th percentile of their times for velocity (obviously pre-2002 is more of a guess but a pretty decent one), and similar translations for all the three true outcomes, both had both started and relieved

Dan Szymborski: Individual names in comps are more fun than anything

Dan Szymborski: it’s the large group that matters, really

Dan Szymborski: but fun in a good value in and of itself

Adam: Dan, any hope for us beleaguered Dodger fans after this interminable stretch of multiple months without something great happening?

Dan Szymborski: There is of course hope

Dan Szymborski: the Dodgers for one, just one an absolute crapload of games!

Dan Szymborski: It’s a very creative organization, but not one that tends to let events bully them into doing something

Danny: Any idea why sasaki is only a 50 FV, top 60ish prospect, on the international board update? it seemed like in your article in September that he should be more in the top 10 to 15 range

Dan Szymborski: It’s not a ZiPS-derived rating!

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS is a useful tool, but I’m not going to demand an architect not also use a screwdriver

Dan Szymborski: I guess carpenter was a better choice in this muddled analogy

I’m so confused…: There have been numerous rumors linking teams to Varsho, but how valuable is a LHH that was a slightly above average bat, that’s an elite RF/CF glove with below average C defense, has above average running speed, and four years of team control through his athletic prime?

Dan Szymborski: I’m honestly not sure Arizona’ s *really* shopping him around

Gr: Could you please make sure the daily ZiPS articles are published by noon ET each day? I like to read them with my lunch.

Dan Szymborski: Ah, that’s editorial discretion. We have a lot of other content around ZiPS, much of it more time-sensitive

Dan Szymborski: Meg and Jon have to plan out what runs when and organize what pieces are coming in when from which full-timers, part-timers, or contributors

Adam: With the dust largely settled on the marquee free agents, do you think trades will pick up?

Dan Szymborski: For another week or so and then picking up closer to start of spring

Darrrrbo!: Next 5 years would you rather have Dansby Swanson or El Mago?

Dan Szymborski: Well Swanson

Insert Witty Name Here: Video game need to video game nerd: have you felt similar to pro athletes that the older you get the less good you are at stuff? I can’t tell if I’m just getting worse at gaming or the technology is getting way too advanced.

Dan Szymborski: Certain games absolutely.

Dan Szymborski: I no longer have the reaction time to be able to snipe competitive at anything but a very casual competitive environment

Dan Szymborski: And I do better in games in which teamwork and cooperation are helpful, like TF2 or Overwatch

Dan Szymborski: I dont’ think I’m even as precise in platformers as I used to be

Dan Szymborski: and some arthritis in my fingers has started to have an effect on my piano playing as well

Dan Szymborski: in a long run up or down the keyboard, I sometimes have a finger or two simply not cooperate halfway through

Dan Szymborski: I actually have my switch choices in my (PC) keyboard to reflect this change

Dan Szymborski: I use a heavy heavy linear switch in my spacebars because my thumbs just aren’t as fine as they used to be

Dan Szymborski: and I have lighter switches in keys exclusively used by my pinky fingers

Dan Szymborski: So I have lighter tactiles in P and L and lighter linears in enter, left shift

Alex: As a Padres fan, should I be worried about Bogaerts’ expected statcast numbers being so low in 2022?

Dan Szymborski: I wouldn’t

Dan Szymborski: Some of that is Fenway stuff which ZiPS is already “removing” from him

Cave Dameron: Dan, if you could only eat 1 type of bread for the rest of your life what type would it be?

Dan Szymborski: challah

Adam: Which of the Sox teams are you more pessimistic about for 2023?  What about over the next 5 years?

Dan Szymborski: White Sox simply because they have the more open fight

WherezMyMeatloaf?: Does Zips still see enough upside in JJ Bleday to think he’ll be a MLB regular at some point?

Dan Szymborski: Two WAR in 2023 is already down to about 15% for him in ZiPS

Dan Szymborski: so there’s still a *chance* but ZiPS is not bullish

Joseph: Did any of ZIPS’ preseason projections suprise you a lot? If so, did it make you revaluate your priors or revaluate ZIPS?

Dan Szymborski: Diamondbacks for sure!

Dan Szymborski: As I mentioned before, I was quite shocked how optimistic ZiPS was arbout them

Ceddanne: What inputs is ZiPS looking at when judging minor league defense?

Dan Szymborski: I have a probabilistic total zone measure that I use since I have every hit ball location

Dan Szymborski: It’s going to obviously be worse than OAA in the majors

Dan Szymborski: but using this method in the majors does have a pretty good relationship with OAA

Dan Szymborski: I’d love to have even better data to improve it of course

Darrrrbo!: Favorite band formed after 2010?

Dan Szymborski: God, looking at my plays in my music library, bands formed since 2010 are increasingly sparse!

Dan Szymborski: dang, Titus Andronicus has been around that long?

Dan Szymborski: In listens

Dan Szymborski: Of Monsters and Men, Lord Huron,

Dan Szymborski: There’s just not much sadly

Dan Szymborski: A great majority of the bands I listen to were formed between 1995 and 2005

Dan Szymborski: I just found like a dozen from 2007-2009

Dan Szymborski: I was going to say Right Away, Great Captain! but even that is kinda cheating since it was a solo *project* rather than a band and it was before 2010 anyway

Darrrrbo!: In a wood bat league shouldn’t the award be called the “sliver slugger”?

Dan Szymborski: heh

eff them O’s: Any news on the Orioles relocation to Nashville?
Any news on the sale of the Nationals?
They’re not going to sell this winter, are they?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think one happens at all or two and three this winter

M’s Fan: Mariners have a top ___ rotation in all of baseball?

Dan Szymborski: notch

Adam: What would be the most entertaining animal to delay a game by running out onto the field?

Dan Szymborski: As a cat enthusiast, cat

Dan Szymborski: An angry grizzy bear might be the most entertaining, in a horrifying tragic type of way

Libby: Speaking of Zips prospects, is Curtis Mead Top 5?

Dan Szymborski: You guys trying to make me spoil ALL of the top 100! lol

Farhandrew Zaidman: Do you think Bellinger (and to a lesser extent Syndergaard) cost themselves money by forgoing multi-year deals for one year pillow deals? I’m not optimistic that either will ever get close to their former production levels.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t honestly think so

Zabadoey: Dan, you put a lot of yourself out there on the interwebs across multiple platforms….and you always seem to be upbeat and positive, with an undertone of optimistic sarcasm.  It’s great – you have an excellent online presence. I guess I don’t really have a question, aside from letting you know how much your contributions to creating a fun & safe forum for baseball/ephemera conversation is appreciated.  You probably don’t hear it enough, and I thought you should know that this quirky little community thinks you are wonderful.

Dan Szymborski: I’m a jolly curmudgeon and I appreciate the kind words

Dan Szymborski: Especially as I was sad to see this on reddit earlier this week

Dan Szymborski: “For a stats guy he’s really defensive and throws out a ton of baseless conjecture and is extremely rude and dismissive to people (I didn’t comment, I just used to read the transcripts after until it was clear his personality trumped any real discussions).”

Joseph R: Of the three big shortstops that have signed already (Correa, Turner, Bogaerts), which signing do you think is the best for their respective team?

Dan Szymborski: Phillies

Dan Szymborski: I think they had the greatest need

Dan Szymborski: All three went to logical place sthough

romorr: Dan, Dan, Dan, can I call you Dan? What does ZiPS think of our pop up prospect Joey Ortiz? When a player has a poor 3 months, and then an amazing 3 months, does that confuse ZiPS at all?

Dan Szymborski: WHAT ELSE WILL YOU CALL ME

Dan Szymborski: IF YOU CALL ME MR. SZYMBORSKI I WILL IP BAN YOU FOREVER AND EVER

Dan Szymborski: Weirdly, I didn’t do Joey Ortiz in the original batch run

Dan Szymborski: Where I just throw about 3500 names into the vat

Dan Szymborski: Luckily, the shape within a season doesn’t appear to be *that* useful

Dan Szymborski: (I say appear to be because someone smarter than me may have found an approach better than me to make this true)

Larry: Dbacks ZiPS out after your chat today?  Who is tomorrow?

Dan Szymborski: Is out now!

Dan Szymborski: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2023-zips-projections-arizona-diamondbacks…

Dan Szymborski: Jesus you guys asked a lot of questions today, I really regret taking the time to give an extended answer to a few lol

Dan Szymborski: (I’m doing Ortiz right now, but it takes some time to fire up ZiPS)

Devil Ray Jay Johnson: Setting aside Rolen, which player on the HOF ballot are you rooting for the most?

Dan Szymborski: Helton and then Andruw I think

Bald Fraud: As a dodger fan honestly our run last few yrs is remarkably similar to that of Man City, in terms of roster construction, and of course, overthinking in tournaments/playoffs that led to failures there

Bald Fraud: Who is the Bald Fraud of the MLB?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure and I don’t quite understand the reference!

Devil Ray Jay Johnson: Do the Tigers or the Royals have a better situation? Or better plan if the situation depends on what you think they will do?

Dan Szymborski: I’d rather be the Tigers

Matt (Oceanside): Hi Dan, Quick question regarding Steamers and Zips that you might have answered already. When I look at the projection leader boards, and depth charts, I noticed that the same player can have different WAR values. For example, Steamer on the leader board has Mookie at 5.9 WAR next season, but on his player page it’s 5.7? Can you help me understand the difference?

Dan Szymborski: That I’m not sure about

Dan Szymborski: I wonder if there’s a disconnect in updating between the depth chart playing time and the leaderboards

Dan Szymborski: I may look into that when I have a moment

TomBruno23: I think Roster Resource and the Cardinals account for the 16M from the Rockies for Arenado differently in 2023. What do you think? From Derrick Goold’s stltoday story on 11/10/22, “That brings us to the money Colorado is sending to the Cardinals. And this is important when understanding the Cardinals’ view of their payroll headed into this offseason and 2023.
The Rockies agreed to send two guaranteed payments — $14.4 million in 2021 and $16 million in 2023. Both payments are related to his 2021 salary.

The first one paid part of his salary for that season.
The second pays the deferred part of his salary from that season.
That $16 million does not count as a rebate on Arenado’s 2023 salary with the Cardinals, per source.
That’s not how the trade was structured.
Remember the reports at the time of the trade about how the Cardinals were not going to pay any of Arenado’s 2021 salary, or that the Rockies were ultimately covering the entirety of it….

TomBruno23: “That is where this $16 million comes in and why it was not contingent on Arenado accepting his opt-out. I know: The layered deferred makes this confusing, and it’s one reason I’ve tried to write it as clearly as I could with what I could confirm. Now, with more understanding, I can explain even more.The Rockies, in an agreement with Arenado, deferred a substantial portion of his 2021 salary to make the trade happen. The $16 million coming in 2023 goes toward the money owed Arenado in the 2021 season and covered by the Rockies to make the deal possible for the Cardinals. This is one example of how deferred money helps a team. Again, it is not a subtraction from the coming year’s payroll for the Cardinals, per sources.”

Dan Szymborski: I’d have to look into this as I do not maintain those pages!

Dan Szymborski: The discrepancy is new to me as of this moment so I haven’t had time to react

Dan Szymborski: Generally speaking, guys, it’s best to DM me these things on Twitter so that I can have time to react

Christian Colón for Men: Best cheese to put on the Christmas cheese plate?

Dan Szymborski: Whatever you have the most of that I’m allowed to steal

Dan Szymborski: This was a conversation when my mom was over the other day

Dan Szymborski: “Danny what are you doing with all that cheese in your fridge?”

Dan Szymborski: “Eating it.”

Dan Szymborski: “I mean what are you making with it.”

Dan Szymborski: “Cheese”

Dan Szymborski: “No, I mean like if you’re using it for some recipe.”

Dan Szymborski: “I’m cutting it up and sticking it in my mouth.”

TomBruno23: Is Rodon looking at 7/200 in this market?

Dan Szymborski: He might be

Dan Szymborski: though I think I’d *still* take the under

Christian Colón for Men: What would be the most Rockies free agent signing this offseason?

Dan Szymborski: Andrew Benintendi 6/120

Dan Szymborski: Or is that too plausibly not horrible given this year’s spending?

Dan Szymborski: How about Craig Kimbrel 3/50?

Jeremy: Is there any new information or data source on the horizon that you look forward to incorporating into ZIPS, because it will materially improve the projections?

Dan Szymborski: I’m curious to see some of the bat data

Trea Turner Overdrive: Which relatively uncelebrated players from the 1980s would be considered stars now based on what we know now (e.g., OBP, statcast data, defensive metrics, non-ERA pitching metrics)?

Dan Szymborski: Lou Whitaker

Dan Szymborski: I know, I know, he was considered a star

Dan Szymborski: BUT HE WAS ONE AND OUTED

Dan Szymborski: While Jack “Kevin Appier with a whole bunch of horrible pitching tacked on” Morris is in the Hall

Dan Szymborski: Maybe Dwayne Murphy? Chet Lemon?

Dan Szymborski: Mike Witt is horribly underrated

Dan Szymborski: Mark Langston’s criminally underrated too

Dan Szymborski: and being traded for Randy Johnson doesn’t help that

MilwaukeeBeerJays: Daniel san: while ive played most of the ogre battle/tactics series, i just started let us cling together on PSP (emulator). You ever play that one?

Dan Szymborski: I haven’t played it on PSP

Dan Szymborski: I played the PS1 version

Dan Szymborski: or is that just the PS1 version?

Dan Szymborski: I know I jailbroke my PSP to play PS1 games a long time ago

Dan Szymborski: I do have to say I enjoy how that series likes to use Queen song names for titles

Dan Szymborski: Though if they get too obvious and start doing Tactics Ogre: Killer Queen or Ogre Battle: Bohemian Rhapsody, they’ll probably get noticed and sued

Dan Szymborski: I haven’t played the recent port

Trea Turner Overdrive: Can you answer my question so I can put on my resume that I had something published at Fangraphs?  I’m pretty sure that will at least get me in the door for an interview with the Rays.

Dan Szymborski: Uh oh, I think I missed it

Dan Szymborski: hang on

Trea Turner Overdrive: How many years did the Rockies and Diamondbacks play before you realized there was MLB baseball in Colorado and Arizona?

Dan Szymborski: Hey, I was super into the expansion draft!

Dan Szymborski: Baseball Weekly had a TON of coverage of it

Dan Szymborski: Now, if you got me at gunpoint, I’d still say the Brewers are in the AL East and the Astros in the NL West

MilwaukeeBeerJays: Also were you at the winter meetings and did you say hi to that curly haired foolish bailey nerd?

Dan Szymborski: My back is particularly rude lately so I did skipped it

Trea Turner Overdrive: Let’s say a 1B had to a play C (and not a converted catcher either).  Would the actual difference in defensive runs be roughly the same as the WAR positional adjustment between the 2 positions or would it be worse (or better)?

Dan Szymborski: Probably be worse

Josh: How much of your time these days is spent refining ZiPS? How long did it take you to get a version that you had some degree of faith in?

Dan Szymborski: Hard to guess the percentage because I upgrade in fits and starts

Dan Szymborski: I’m always tinkering with SOME question or another

SH, Jr.: Also — solo artists (and collaborations among them) are actually much more common than bands now. It’s believed to be a function of Pro Tools, etc, and the ability to be your own orchestra  in a garage.

Dan Szymborski: I was going to cheat and say Jenny Lewis or Tallest Man on Earth as bands, but they both were solo before 2010 too.

Guest: Speaking of cats, how about a Zcat update?

Dan Szymborski: Not much going on with them

Dan Szymborski: They’re all just sleeping one place or another at the moment

Dan Szymborski: Mercutio’s limp is better

Alby: Do you listen to holiday music? If you like orchestral pops, “The Glorious Sound of Christmas” by the Phila Orchestra under Ormandy is a good listen.

Dan Szymborski: Not really

Dan Szymborski: The best Christmas song is Parry Gripp’s Because It’s Christmastime

Dan Szymborski:

Farhandrew Zaidman: What was the true golden age of Pop Punk, 1998-2001 or 2002-2004?

Dan Szymborski: The earlier one fo rme, but that might reflect my age

Dan Szymborski: And pop-punk wasn’t precisely my favorite genre

Key Flaw: Have you tried the game Pentiment yet? It is intriguing.

Dan Szymborski: I have not

mmddyyyy: Which time zone do you live in?

Dan Szymborski: EST

Dan Szymborski: ET

Overwhelmed in Oakland: Am I wrong to be losing faith in the A’s FO? Is the Murphy trade just a huge bet on Ruiz? Why did they sign Aledmys Diaz? Can you talk me off the ledge?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not keen on them, I don’t know what the plan is

TomBruno23: Baseball Weekly, loved that. Starting to watch MLB in 1985 I remember being very excited for the idea of two new teams, expansion draft, etc.

Dan Szymborski: Baseball Weekly was awesome at the time, though the internet kinda killed its usefulness around 2000 or so

Jason: Do your chat previews sometimes make you chuckle too?  Also, are you able to say if you’ve ever been asked by a team to find similarities or trends in another team’s acquisitions or drafts?  Not sure of how valuable it would be, but was just curious how much others teams track each other.  But if so, I’ll just assume the team rhymes with Jockies.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t usually chuckle at my OWN jokes

Dan Szymborski: I usually only do thing that are specific requests that I can give a specific answer to

Dan Szymborski: Once things start involving my judgment, like exploring and *finding* a trend, are beyond my line.

I Am the Bald Fraud: Hello I’m Pep Guardiola, manager at Manchester City, despite having close to unlimited funds I still underperform with a world class roster.  I’m bald, not a fraud!

Dan Szymborski: Ah, that explains it. Soccer/association football is WAY out of my wheelhouse

Dan Szymborski: My brain doesn’t understand it.

Dan Szymborski: And my enjoyment of a sport tends to be correlated with how much I enjoyed playing it as a kid

Dan Szymborski: and there was nothing I hated playing as a kid like soccer. The ratio of running to doing stuff was just HORRIBLY high

Dan Szymborski: In baseball, you have a very low ratio of running to doing stuff

Dan Szymborski: In fact, you do very little running in baseball outside of backing up

Dan Szymborski: that isn’t connecting to directly doing stuff

Key Flaw: What common incorrect mathematical thing annoys you the most? For me it is etiher people saying “100th percentile”, when people say “normal” for “average (like “the normal temperature today is…”, or when people say that the percent chance of rain is really the percent area that is getting rain.

Dan Szymborski: Mostly people not understanding that 10% of players *should* hit their 90th percentile

Dan Szymborski: Or it’s not the 90th percentile

Dan Szymborski: the old WHY DO ONLY LIKE 4 PLAYERS GET A .300 BA PROJECTION query

Dan Szymborski: OK, I really gotta go or there will be no tomorrow ZiPS

Dan Szymborski: Thanks for coming everyone!