Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 2/1/24

Dan Szymborski: It’s a chat!

The person who asks the lunch question: What’s for lunch?

Dan Szymborski: Egg salad sandwich

Daniel: What kind of year do you expect from Corbin Burnes? Will we ever see a year from him again like his 2021?

Dan Szymborski: That’s not the *average* result, but the chance is certainly there

Dan Szymborski: I do think he’s slightly down from his highest peak

Joe: In terms of a fastballs vertical approach angle, a “flat” angle correlates to more whiffs/“ride”. Doesn’t this seem counterintuitive with the historical use of a “flat” fastball?

Dan Szymborski: Unfortunately, the vernacular changes a bit over the years

Dan Szymborski: So it’s hard to really test conventional wisdom in this manner

Charming Cads: I’m a little worried about M. Yoshida being productive this year in a Fangraphs points league, although the projection systems seem to think he’ll be better than last year. Is my worry misplaced?

Dan Szymborski: I’m still hopeful. The MLB season is a bit longer and he was solid most of the year. Some of the bad projection is defense

Bendix: Luzardo to Baltimore what makes it happen?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure there’s a match here. The Marlins are almost certainly asking for a ton

Dan Szymborski: And until new ownership eventually takes over (and assuming they’re superior), it’ll be a while before the front office is more willing to trade excellent prospects. As it is now, there’s basically no replacement of guys they trade from free agency

Eh?: When can we expect the Top 100 Zips prospects list?

Dan Szymborski: Same week as the rest of top 100 stuff!

Dan Szymborski: I believe it’s the week after super bowl

Eh?: Have you ever used “Zips” in place of cursing? For example, “I would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for you Zips-ing kids!”

Dan Szymborski: I have not.

Dan Szymborski: I actually curse quite a lot in private

War2D2: I’ll ask you the same Q I asked Eno in a chat last week: if you were in Jed’s position, what would your next step be? The Cubs seem “good” but definitely missing a couple pieces. Would you sign Bellinger? Chapman? Maybe Montgomery? Try to trade for Bregman? (Fwiw Eno thought Chapman was the obvious fit)

Dan Szymborski: I think I’d go for Montgomery

Dan Szymborski: or try to trade for Luzardo myself

Birdland: For the first time ever I am thrilled that a billionaire has purchased something that I love.  Hallelujah!  No questions, just over the moon that my team owner might be someone who will try to win.

BEEDLE: Who do you give the cubs 5th starter spot to? Wicks, Assad, Wesneski, Smyly, other?

Dan Szymborski: I think Wesneski first

Dan Szymborski: I want to see Wicks get a little better punching out batters and I’d be open to using him in relief

Dan Szymborski: I thinK Wesneski has more of a ceiling as a starter than Assad

Dan Szymborski: And I think you want some urgency because of the likely of Horton coming up behind him in the not too distant future

Birdland: Actually I do have questions!  Can ZiPS tell us what would be fair contract extensions for all the young O’s?  I want to know what to dream about.

Dan Szymborski: Hey, I can’t give away future articles in chat!

Takao: Hey Dan, I know you’ve been taking a beating and some harassment from Reds fans, and I just wanted to say that as a Reds fan I appreciate all the work you do. It’s frustrating that people don’t understand the difference between a projection system + an opinion on money spent/roster building vs. “hating on” a team.

That said, I’m slamming the over on ZIPS projections for Elly.

Dan Szymborski: Oh, fans of every team are mad at me sometime or another

Dan Szymborski: You think Braves fans love me after the Acuna and team projections?

Dan Szymborski: You should see what they said to me when I panned the Kemp trade

Dan Szymborski: One of my favorites of that era was this dude

Dan Szymborski: who spent a ton of time ripping me for not knowing, in June 2016, about a trade that happened, in July 2016.

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski: Despite this link, he went on like four or five rants about this

Dan Szymborski: (and I mean I panned Kemp as a player)

Marcos: ZiPS’ 2024 wRC+ projection for Matt Shaw is pretty fantastic considering he was facing the University of Delaware this time last year. Does it see him as a star player in a few years?

Dan Szymborski: A little prelim for that – depends on what position he sorts out eventually at and how the D is

Guest: Is AA done or does he have another truly out of left field move left in him? Multiple top FAs remain and quality depth pieces are lingering so prices might be falling. The Braves have a huge financial commitment in the pen with multiple closer-types on short term contracts. Would AA move one or more to add some position player prospect depth and/or free up cash for a FA signing on a short term contract?

Dan Szymborski: I suspect thet Braves don’t do anything major here

Dr. Mantis Toboggan, MD: Okay, you’re the Pirates. What moves do you make to stay afloat in the division? I say more good players (specifically batter and/or pitchers). They seem to disagree.

Dan Szymborski: It’s a litlte late now

Dan Szymborski: But pay one good free agent $24 million than spreading it out on three mediocre guys or relievers

Jacob: What is it about Adolis Garcia that scares off projection systems? It seems he would have enough track record to at least project as an above average player

Dan Szymborski: Can’t say about others

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS projects him about where he is with some downside risk. He’s not a young player

Dan Szymborski: (ZiPS has him at 3 WAR in the depth chat playing time)

Marcos: The Ohtani/injury projection threw me for a loop. Is ZiPS not considering the type of injury vis a vis the type of player? Clearly TJS is much more serious for a SP than a DH.

Dan Szymborski: Actually, ZiPS coded it correctly, I quoted it wrong

JRoth: In your 2019 article on Pedroia (before he announced retirement, but after his fate was pretty clear), you said you’d vote for him based on peak. Using B-R numbers, that’s reasonable, but I don’t see it in FG’s numbers at all.

Dan Szymborski: 31 WAR six-year peak is pretty big

Dan Szymborski: And I’m peak friendly

Dan Szymborski: I’d have vote dfor Santana too

Dan Szymborski: But I’m in the distinct minority

Dan Szymborski: And it’s not just stats vs. non-stats; I’m more peak friendly than probably 90% of the voters

baseball gods laugh: Any plans to do more hand drawn ZiPS team charts like you did for “Oakland?”

Dan Szymborski: Not unless I’m feeling mean

Dan Szymborski: I try not to reuse jokes TOO often

The Stranger: When you like a guy more/less than ZiPS, have you tracked what percent of the time you’re correct?

Dan Szymborski: I haven’t actually

Scrapper: Can you explain the difference between Bat and Bat X?  You included them both as data points in today’s article.

Dan Szymborski: The BAT X tends to be the upcoming versions

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS has upcoming versions too, but I don’t preview them – they just become ZiPS in a few years

T2: I hope this won’t happen, but if Ohtani won’t throw a single pich in MLB, and spend this year as a full time DH, followed by 9 years as an outfielder with league-average defense, how big of a contract would he be worth?  Thanks.

Dan Szymborski: I think it was 200-something when I ran the numbers for Jay?

Dan Szymborski: But that’s only performance-based value of course

Dan Szymborski: Ohtani’s a very rare player who has significant value to a team outside of the bottom line figures

Too Many Mooks: What are the odds that *every* single top 5 Mariners SP puts up more WAR than *any* single Red Sox SP?

Dan Szymborski: Oh god, I can’t calculate THAT on the fly

Dan Szymborski: but pretty long – projections are quite variable

Anthony L: Where do you see Grayson Rodriguez’s season? Was his July-September run too good to be true?

Dan Szymborski: I think the upside is massive, though you shouldn’t BANK on upside; I think you go in the season with the assumption that he’s a B or B+ starter and be happy if your roll a seven

Phil: I am sensing a bit of a split over Ceddanne Rafaela. Many in the Boston media seem to have moved on to Abreu and Anthony, but Rafaela still shows up on a lot of prospect lists. It seems like he doesn’t need to hit that spectactularly to have a decent, defense-first career–is that still reasonably likely?

Dan Szymborski: If ZiPS interpretation of the defensive data turns out to be accurate, then yes

Projection Fight Club: Why is ZIPs so much more optimistic about Richie Palacios’s defense than other projection systems? I also find it interesting Eric had him as a 20 fielding grade.

Dan Szymborski: There’s a gulf between scouting and my probabilistic model of minor league defense

JWR: It appears that most of the projection systems have St.Louis back over .500, despite their abysmal record last year.  It looks like the projection systems are mostly given the Cardinals a mulligan for last season?

Dan Szymborski: The problem was the gaping wound at pitcher

Dan Szymborski: starting

Dan Szymborski: and while the additions aren’t *exciting* beyond Gray, they ought to be much better here

Dan Szymborski: Teams are never as great as they appear in a great season or as lousy as they appear in a lousy one

JWR: Article idea–Dan vs. his Beast.  You could discuss 10 ZIP projections where you disagree with your creation.

Dan Szymborski: People suggest stuff like this from time to time, but I’m not sure there’s a huge market for something this meta

Dan Szymborski: Despite these team-by-team rundowns, I prefer writing about things that *use* projections (like the Colt Keith signing) more than writing about the projections themselves

tortycraig: really enjoyed the free agent placement article. any way to do that with trades? imagine maybe not so interesting either because 1) the results would pan out pretty similar in terms of where a Cease or someone should end up or 2) it’s pretty hard to run a program which accounts for the shape of the return package from the acquiring team and then adjust for the ramifications of that loss in the analysis (e.g., are they losing a young starting OF or are they losing 4 faraway prospects w/ little impact on current projections)

Dan Szymborski: I think the problem doing it with trades is making a list of trades

Dan S.: Do you think Edward Cabrera is worth the risk as an Orioles trade target? The ceiling is great, but will he have the durability and control to stick as a starter?

Dan Szymborski: Depends what they have to give up

Dan Szymborski: I’d be interested though

baseball gods laugh: I was surprised that Jorge Soler’s 3-yr. projection was worse than Mark Vientos’. Were you?

Dan Szymborski: Not really. Vientos isn’t a sure thing, but there’s still upside and Soler’s on the back end of his career

David: With the ZIPS reports being complete, which team came in higher or lower than you would have thought?

Dan Szymborski: First ZiPS standings should be Monday

Gold Star: If BBTF really is down for good — and it sure seems to be that way, going by Furtado’s “down for system maintenance” message from mid-December — what’s is its legacy?

Dan Szymborski: Dunno, really. It’s hard to determine legacy of things you’re involved in

Dan Szymborski: I doubt there’s a HUGE legacy

Dan Szymborski: But it was a nice place to hang out and talk baseball in the era between usenet and Twitter

Daniel: Is there a reason I should believe in ZiPS more than Steamer or The Bat?

Dan Szymborski: No. Most projection systems are quite close to each other in their bottom line projections

Dan Szymborski: Which is why my focus is largely on improving the OTHER things – calibrating percentile projections, careers, etc.

Dan Szymborski: For any of the competent projection systems, I think the biggest value is in *what* they’re providing

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski: (This was 2023)

Dan Szymborski: In wRC+ the RMSE was 20.9 points in ZiPS 21.90 in Steamer, 21.86 in THE BAT

Dan Szymborski: but who cares about a point?

Dan Szymborski: Nobody would make a different decision because X projection is one or two points of wRC+ less accurate

Dan Szymborski: So I get into stuff like refining injury projections and playing time (outside of team decision) and variance because that’s far more interesting to me

John: On the page for 2026 projections, Spencer Strider is the only pitcher that gets a projection over 4 WAR, but I would guess that the odds of there only being one pitcher to put up 4+ WAR in 2026 is actually pretty low, since there are usually a dozen or so guys who do it.  What’s the reason for this?  Is it just a result of ZiPS clustering guys toward their 50th percentile?

Dan Szymborski: There will certainly be a lot, but we less know who they are now than we will in two years

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS only projects two guys with a 50th percentile BA projection of .316

Dan Szymborski: err .300

Dan Szymborski: But it projects *16* players to actually do so in at least 400 PA

Dan Szymborski: And 51 players with at least a 20% chance to hit .300

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski: In official ZiPS canon, three pitchers have four-WAR projections in 2023

Dan Szymborski: But 24 have at least a 20% chance to!

Walton Dilcox: Is it too much to ask Michael Busch to be at least better than Travis Hafner if not Jason Giambi?

Dan Szymborski: Well, he is now

Phil: Do you expect the Padres to regret the Bogaerts contract? I’ve long been a big fan but last year made me wonder.

Dan Szymborski: I think eventually

JWR: What will the Orioles’ infield look like in two years?  Seems like they have a lot of options with Gunnar, Holliday and Mayo all projecting to be left side infielders.

Dan Szymborski: I suspect Gunnarday

JohnJaso JingleHeimerSchmidt: Michael Baumann wrote yesterday, re: Wandy Peralta, “Four years with three opt-outs isn’t a baseball contract, it’s being married to Larry King.”

Is this in the running for the best quip in Fangraphs history?

Dan Szymborski: Baumann’s really good at this

JWR: What would happen in a real Projection Fight Club?  You look scrappy and would probably fight dirty if you needed to, right?  You got a chance.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think fat guys are ever scrappy

John: Why does ZiPS seem to like Tyler O’Neill so much?  A 120 wRC+ is a really nice bounceback after his last few years.

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS sees his skill set as a good fit for fenway

Refugee: In the projection fight club article, it seems like The Bat is generally more bearish about younger hitting prospects. Do you know what’s causing them to weight things differently?

Dan Szymborski: I do not, you’d have to ask Derek!

Dan Szymborski: I don’t want to speculate TOO much on others work

Marlins Man: Since apparently we won’t sign a FA what are the chances we lock up Arraez and/or Burger this spring? Give us Marlins fans some good news Dan..

Dan Szymborski: Good news? I’m not magical

Mr Sir: Which Greek god would be the best baseball player? Ares can probably swing it pretty good, but Zeus literally throws lightning bolts. Hermes probably has plus plus speed.

Dan Szymborski: Lachesis. She determines the outcomes.

Mr Baseball: How did the Treaty of Westphalia affect Barry Bonds’ legacy?

Dan Szymborski: I’m going to answer that

Dan Szymborski: The Treaty of Westphalia established long-standing principles on territorial sovereignty, that influenced later things like the American Revolution

Dan Szymborski: If the US had stayed more affiliated with England, there might have been more of a long-term investment in cricket along with the other commonwealth states

Dan Szymborski: and in fact cricket was popular for a long time

Dan Szymborski: With a less individualistic America, the sports league development may not have gone the same way as it did

Dan Szymborski: and baseball is the most individualistic of the major sports

Dan Szymborski: Baseball’s a team sport, but it’s largely a set of individual battles

Dan Szymborski: most of the plays that require cooperation (like turning DPs) are mostly things of execution rather than planning

Darryl Vanilla: Is it significant that all four projection systems believe that Brett Baty and Mark Vientos are the same for 2024?

Dan Szymborski: PROBABLY not

JWR: What drug are you taking when you get your ideas for the AI visuals which you post on Twitter/X?  It must be a helluva drug.

Dan Szymborski: I’m just an odd person. I’m not wealthy enough to be eccentric

Willie Bombs: I had an interesting discussion with my dad the other day. Both of us are lifelong NYY fans. How many impactful free agents do you think they have missed out on over the years with their facial hair policy being one of the major factors?

Dan Szymborski: Give me enough money and I’ll walk around with a Hitler mustache

Stan Dzymborski: Should the Rangers go into the year with a Langdord/Carter/Garcia OF and look to deal Leody?

Dan Szymborski: Not necessarily. there are still plenty of DH at bats

Walton Dilcox: ZiPs basically sees Matt Mervis as the same player he was exiting 2022. Cubs fans have completely turned on this guy they anointed just last year. Great example of why prospecting sucks the more fans get involved? They’re mean spirited, reactionary, careless….

Dan Szymborski: I think he just overrated by a lot of fans entering 2023

Michael: Dan, what is going on with the free agency market right now? Seems like a lot of talented pitchers still on the board, when normally they should all be signed.

Dan Szymborski: It’s weirdly quiet

Dan Szymborski: Though it could just be the people I talk to

Dan Szymborski: I’d be lying if I said I was as connected with as broad a group as, say, Passan or Robothal

Walton Dilcox: How can sports reach younger fans? As far as I can tell the avg age of a sports fan nowadays is 50+. I feel “young” as a fan and am 36

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure

Dan Szymborski: The thing is, sports have a LOT of competing things for attention

Dan Szymborski: and there might not necessarily be a magical thing to bring in more fans

Dan Szymborski: Like, if a 20-year-old likes playing PUBG, it’s easier said than done to provide things that would lure them to sports

Dan Szymborski: Remember, watching sports is largely a passive exercise

Dan Szymborski: and a lot of popular things are things that you’re personally involved in

Dan Szymborski: My feeling on sports and younger fans

Dan Szymborski: Put your best, most dynamic and compelling product on the field

Dan Szymborski: and the people who are interested will give it a chance

Dan Szymborski: and the ones who don’t, probably won’t

Dan Szymborski: Now, remember, I’ve grown old in this industry. Cameron and I were once the young guys in the field

Dan Szymborski: I’ll be 46 in June. Just because I chill with others on Reddit and Discord doesn’t mean I really have any “youth credibility” or anything.

Dan Szymborski: I would avoid pandering though. I frigging hated that when *I* was in my 20s. I wanted the stuff I liked, I didn’t need stuff targeted to me, and in fact, targeting stuff towards me shamelessly made me less interested

Jurf: Hi Dan! I’ve got a friend who says Keith Law, the creator of ZIPS says people shouldn’t compare rosters via their ZIPS projections. I say you invented ZIPS and you said not to use the aggregates to try and guess Wins and Losses. Who’s right?

Dan Szymborski: There’s a lot of say here!

Dan Szymborski: What exactly did Keith say that I’m supposed to rebute?

Dan Szymborski: rebut

Trader Jerry’s: Does ZiPS take park factors into account, and does its WAR projections for hitters change when they move teams and by extension home parks? Asking in relation to Jorge Polanco moving from Target Field to T-Mobile.

Dan Szymborski: Yes, and of course!

Daniel –: Really bad defensive 3B’s tend to be kind of bad defensive 1B’s as well, but by war, kind of bad 1b’s are way less valuable than really bad 3b’s. I feel like really good defenders at non premium positions are undervalued and really bad defenders at premium positions are overvalued

Dan Szymborski: The thing is, the REALLY bad defenders tend to get moved down the spectrum

TomBruno23: This whole chat is a left wing conspiracy to get Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce to endorse Joe Biden and I will not stand for it anymore.

Dan Szymborski: Maybe I’m just getting old, but I don’t know why anyone cares what Taylor Swift does or does not do in her personal life.

Dan Szymborski: Listen to her music if you like it, don’t if you don’t. What else is there to care about?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t get celebrity pop culture at all and I don’t think I ever did

Dan Szymborski: I own ever Decemberists album, but I couldn’t tell you the first thing about Colin Meloy outside of the msuic

Dreamin: You ever just think about Brandon Webb and get sad? I know I do.

Dan Szymborski: I do

Dan Szymborski: I did a ZiPS time warp a few years ago from one of the Diamondbacks guys, I forget if it was Buchanan or Pecoro

Dan Szymborski: PIEcoro, sorry

Numpty: Given the inherent defensive advantage of lefty 1st-basemen, should righties consider wearing gloves on both hands when nobody’s on base and they don’t need to throw?

Dan Szymborski: Ah, there’s a rule that you can only wear one glove

Dan Szymborski: (I’ve pondered this before in terms of outfielders with nobody on base)

David: If the top free agents don’t sign by the beginning of spring training, do they start losing value because it’ll take them that much longer to ramp up/integrate with their new team?

Dan Szymborski: Not really

Lyle: Your ZiPS write ups the last couple years point out that the Mariners are continually thin on the offensive side of things. Have they made the right advances with the acquisitions this offseason? Or have they stay roughly the same?

Dan Szymborski: I think they’ve improved incrementally

Dan Szymborski: But really, they’re not lying about going .540

Dan Szymborski: MLB’s playoff system is basically designed to optimize that way

Dan Szymborski: If you want teams to go for broke, a 12-team playoffs is a poor way to do it in a sport as coinflippy as baseball

Birdland: Am I crazy to think that Detroit should be plotting a swoop for one or two of the remaining big free agents?  They’re already decent, full of upside, lots of payroll space, and the division is pretty winnable.

Dan Szymborski: No

Bighen: Mets o/u 80 wins.  Seems to be a serious divide amongst Mets fans if this team is garbage or a fringe playoff contender.

Dan Szymborski: Over

Johny5Alive: Based on your 6 year peak comment, you would vote for wright then?

Dan Szymborski: I go back and forth on him

Dan Szymborski: But I’m not far from yes

TomBruno23: Its legacy is the site I went to years ago when I need Dan’s Transaction Analysis.

Captain ACAB: BBTF turned into a political cesspool the last few years. A bunch of old white guys screaming at each other.

Judge: Sorry, mistype. “31 WAR six-year peak is pretty big” So Judge is basically in for you?

Dan Szymborski: Yes

TomBruno23: What is the best Green Day album?

Dan Szymborski: Insomniac

Insert Witty Name Here: So I know you’re a nerd, I mean, a classical music enjoyer, I’ve been using that genre to put my kid to sleep but I’ve been enjoying it as well. What are your favorites to recommend, preferably original recordings from the composers themselves (joking obvi, unless ZiPs has a Time Machine)

Dan Szymborski: There are 20th century composers with recordings of their own work

Dan Szymborski: Copland

Dan Szymborski: Bernstein

Dan Szymborski: and so on

Dan Szymborski: My recommendation would rely on the things you find compelling

Dan Szymborski: But you should email me at DSzymborski@gmail.com. I don’t really have ONE great recommendation that’s universal

Dan Szymborski: unless you’re looking for my favorite version of X work

Dan Szymborski: (like Kleiber for Beethoven 5/7, Bernstein/NY or Bertini for Mahler, etc)

Dalton Wilcox: As someone so entrenched in da analytics of a sport do you ever question who these numbers serve and for what purpose?

Dan Szymborski: Not really.

Dan Szymborski: The sad truth about me is that most everything I do in life is because it amuses me in some way

Dan Szymborski: That’s probably my grandfather’s influence.

Dan Szymborski: And I love baseball and I like answering questions about baseball, so I do that.

Dan Szymborski: And I’d continue doing that in my free time if I *weren’t* paid to do it

Dalton Wilcox: As a longtime writer in this sport, did you notice when suddenly you found it impossible to talk baseball without mentioning player salary?

Dan Szymborski: Never had a day

CFH: After reading about the Chris Correa case in Davy Andrew’s article yesterday, I thought – it should be allowed for teams to steal eachother’s proprietary data! Let’s see some teams hire burglars and hackers! It would really spice up this part of the offseason

Chip: What’s your most memorable Zips result that made you go back and double check your work, then ended up to be close to true?

Dan Szymborski: The Bieber breakout

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS was absolutely NUTS about him going into 2019

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski: It’s funny seeing those IP projections

TomBruno23: PSA to all we have live beisbol on ESPN+ starting today and every day through next Friday.

HappyFunBall: I see your Lachesis and raise you one Tyche. She’d BABIP 1.000, and as a pitcher every hit would find a defender’s glove

Jonathan: How would you potentially modify ZiPS if you had access to years of MLB and MiLB KinaTrax data?

Dan Szymborski: I’d have to work with the data to know for usre

War2D2: Grant Brisbee at the Athletic said that he thought career WAR for catchers shouldn’t be compared against other position players because catchers’ careers are so short, and should instead be compared against other catchers (he was trying to make an argument for Posey as a HoF candidate). My personal thought was that most catchers that can hit even a little are moved off the position if they’re not defensively great there (Zeile and Sandoval back in the day, eg) and that’s most of why catchers have historically lower career WAR totals. Do you think he’s making a reasonable argument, or is it fitting a homer’s argument to a guy the writer liked? I’m guessing if Posey was a Dodger he’d have had a different take.

Dan Szymborski: I mean, we DO already do that

Dan Szymborski: when we rank catchers

Dan Szymborski: nobody says “Joe Mauer should not be in the Hall because he has less WAR than random 1B with 55 career WAR”

Nick: On flipside of Chip’s question – which player did ZiPS absolutely love that never panned out? Maybe excluding anyone that was derailed by futures injuries…

Dan Szymborski: MILLEDGE

Dan Szymborski: or dear god that Milledge projection

Dan Szymborski: On that note, it’s time for me to head out for another week

Dan Szymborski: thanks for coming everyone!