Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 2/16/23

Dan Szymborski: SzymChat is *back* now that I’m firmly in the domain of the living.

Greg: As a Braves fan with very little to complain about, I’ve thought of something that is driving me nuts. Why is Ozzie Albies continuing to switch hit? He’s bad left handed and much better right handed. Are players stubborn about this? Do front offices not suggest this? I feel like I’m missing something obvious because it seems like such a no brainer.

Dan Szymborski: Players tend to be stubborn about dropping pinch-hitting.

Dan Szymborski: And with Albies, he isn’t *so* bad left-handed that the issue is likely to be forced.

Dan Szymborski: I mean, he’s still at around a .750 OPS left-handed

Keefths: Dan !!! Can you please please please tell us when Prospect Week is ?!??!
We don’t know how much longer we can last without it !!

Dan Szymborski: Next week, I believe.

Cole: How does ZiPS perform H2H sims in your model. Does it run through actual 9 inning games for each matchup, or does it generate single game WAR scores for each players and compare to determine a winner?

Dan Szymborski: For simming entire seasons, I don’t find getting too in the weed H2H is all that useful. I just do probability for odds ratio (plus home/road adjustment) based on whatever roster strengths ZiPS has for the teams that year

Farhandrew Zaidman: What were your major takeaways from Evan Drellich’s book?

Dan Szymborski: I haven’t read it yet!

Aj: Clarke, German or not on roster to replace Montas?

Dan Szymborski: Pretty sure it’s going to be German

Joey Votto: What uncertainty margins do ZIPS projections typically have?

Dan Szymborski: Depends what you’re talking about

Dan Szymborski: it’s a more complex q than what is your shoe size!

quinn: Dan, what is the correct ratio of bacon to lettuce to tomato on a BLT?

Dan Szymborski: Fill up a sandwich with as much bacon as it will hold. Then take out only enough bacon to put in a slice of tomato and/or a lettuce leaf.

Keefths: How worried should we be about Aaron Ashby ?

Dan Szymborski: Some, but I wouldn’t panic unless something more substantial is announced.

Allan: If baseball were played with 27 consecutive outs instead of 3, which types of players would become more/less valuable?

Dan Szymborski: I would imagine ball in play people would be because you’ll have a much higher percentage of at-bats with runners on base

Oddball Herrara: Is the Bally bankruptcy the first sign of the long predicted (by yours truly at least) burst of the MLB broadcast $ bubble?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think it’s going to be a massive burst, but there will be some adjustment.

Old Prospector: You’ve noted before that ZiPS does not attempt to project playing time. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say why that is the case though. Why is that?

Dan Szymborski: A hammer is for nails, not for cleaning glass.

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS *does* actually do a pretty good job if you’re *only* looking at established players

Dan Szymborski: Since age, history, position, specific injury info, is a good predictor

Dan Szymborski: But ZiPS doesn’t do “team decisions.” I don’t see the use of a projection system that decides when the Cubs will start using Matt Mervis.

Dan Szymborski: Now, I have to do that for seasons, but my philosophy is as little human intervention as possible.

Dan Szymborski: And frankly, I’m more interesting in using a projection system to estimate how good, say, Miles Mastrobuoni *would* be rather than using a projection system to estimate how much the Cubs like Mastrobuoni.

Dan Szymborski: .000/.000/.000 in 0 PA conveys no useful information in the context of a projection system

The 6ix: Will ZiPS DC be adjusted to account for recent injuries and trades? Thinking Montas and AJ Puk etc.

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS DC is automatically adjusted by the depth charts

Torre adore: Ranger Kyle Cody seems to have been left out of the ZIPS projections both on the team page and his player page.

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, he’s on the to do list for the next submission

tnst3b: The ZiPS projections for Masataka Yoshida and Zoilo Almonte are awfully similar…

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, that’s an error. Zoilo Almonte shouldn’t actually have a projection

Dan Szymborski: I’ve already submitted that to be fixed.

Dan Szymborski: Basically, I first projected Yoshida before an MLBAM ID was ready and with changes to how it was mapped, I didn’t see it assigned him the last MLBAM ID for a name alphabetically for a player projected over the last five years (Zoilo Almonte). So there were two Yoshida projections, one with Almonte’s MLBAM ID and one with Yoshida’s.

Angelus Novus: What Orioles will surprise people the most (in a good way) this year?

Dan Szymborski: I’m certainly hoping Kremer because ZiPS has a fetish for him

Dan Szymborski: I still think DL Hall could break out very quickly if things go the right way

Dan Szymborski: Do we have to call him IL Hall now?

Teddy Westside: How much can a player getting a cup of coffee in the big leagues affect their projection for the next season? For example, how much better is G. Henderson’s projection given his performance in 132 ABs?

Dan Szymborski: It’s not really a big difference given how good his translations were

Punk in drublic: Why do you think ZIPs is down on Tony Gonsolin comparing to his results LY. Was last year really a career year for him?

Dan Szymborski: I mean, he already was a run better than his FIP last year and didn’t have a history of being this good

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS is the *kindest* to him!

Dan Szymborski: 3.54 ERA in ZiPS vs. 4.25 THEBAT and 4.38 Steamer

Old Prospector: What do you think is the best way (or a way many haven’t thought of) for a dynasty/fantasy baseball enthusiast to use your projection system to clean useful info?

Dan Szymborski: Well, ZiPS DC.

Baseball fan: Harold Baines had a 4.3 BWAR (4.8 FWAR) in 1984. Did any HOF’er  have a worse best season than this?

Dan Szymborski: If you hang on, I can get the worst best fWAR for HOFers.

Dan Szymborski: I’m just going to do hitters because reliever and stuff

Oaktown Blues: During Drew Rucinski’s 4 years in the KBO he had BB/9s of 2.28, 2.80, 2.77, and 1.52, but ZiPS projects him for a 3.73 BB/9. Is this due to his age, the fact that he put up those numbers in a lesser league, or his previous MLB experience being weighted more heavily than I expect?

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS thinks of the KBO as an AA 1/2 league, so there’s a translation hit

Chris: How does ZIPS account for Eddie Rosario’s mid season eye injury and surgery? Is there an adjustment for specific injury types when trying to project future seasons?

Dan Szymborski: There is, but it’s not granular enough to capture something like this

Farhandrew Zaidman: I can’t believe Zips predicted the 2023 Phillies to miss the playoffs? /s

Dan Szymborski: Punches!

Derek: What player or team projection does Dan the human disagree with ZiPS on the most?

Dan Szymborski: I haven’t really sat down and thought about it. My brain’s basically been fried for three weeks.

Dan Szymborski: The last couple team of ZiPS was a race against the clock because both my mom and sister were violently ill and I could feel my lungs start to get cloudy

Dan Szymborski: It’s why you haven’t seen as much of me as normal last few weeks.

Dan Szymborski: Mom eventually was in the hospital for three days with double pneumonia

Farhandrew Zaidman: Re: Drellich’s book. Take a shot each time he describes Kevin Goldstein as “punk rock”

Dan Szymborski: I *do* have Kevin in WWE2K

Dan Szymborski:

Liz: I hope you’re feeling better! Do you watch spring training games in a typical year, and do the rules changes make you any more or less likely to watch any this year?

Dan Szymborski: I do, though I most follow individual players *within* games than really the game itself.

Dan Szymborski: More likely to watch spring training because I’m curious about the effects

Dan Szymborski: I don’t have a problem with the rule changes except for zombie runners becoming permanent.

Dan Szymborski: I think it is a bit of a problem — though overrated by many — that MLB offense is basically “solved” so I don’t mind them altering the meta to possibly incentivize other styles of offense

Smiling Politely: Many of us are probably wondering about the Giants projections in ZiPS. Were you surprised by how the NL West looked wrt to SF?

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, Giants about 3 wins higher than expected

Cave Dameron: What’s the most impressive baseball play that you witnessed live on television? Thank you Dan, very cool!

Dan Szymborski: Devon White’s WS catch maybe?

Appa Yip Yip: When will you be re-running the Yusei Kikuchi ZiPS projections? He has a beard now and I don’t think ZiPS knew that when you ran them before.

Dan Szymborski: heh

Peter: Do you think that Austin Riley will maintain the gains he had last season or slide back to more of his career norm? I’m not sure there is another level he can get to.

Dan Szymborski: I think he’ll regress slightly and then improve from there

Carl: Why is ZiPS right to be higher on the Cardinals than most other projections systems? Why is it wrong to?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t know yet if ZiPS is right to be higher!

Dan Szymborski: Though my methodology for seasonal play tends to make Cards/Rays look better than others since I try to estimate the value of depth

The 6ix: Bally bankruptcy is a case of corporate malpractice, not anything to do with MLB or sports broadcasting viability.

Zac Lowther of the Hill People: Are playoff odds called “odds” because it is odd the O’s have a 10% chance of making the playoffs?

Dan Szymborski: It’s because we’re all sometimes a little sloppy with terminology

Mitchell: Hi Dan, you’re indeed the man. My question concerns the playoff odds, in which I know your involvement ends at the handing over of your projections. However, I thought you might still have insight into them. I’m curious about the difference between projected WAR and win totals, especially with a more balanced schedule. For instance, Cleveland is projected to be worth more wins above replacement than SF, Milwaukee, and Seattle, but fewer team wins. I’m curious how to grapple with this. Thanks!

Dan Szymborski: I honestly don’t know.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t play with the innards in there at all.

Mike: The Twins seemingly solved their biggest issue from last year, depth. Am I just a homer thinking they could win 90?

Dan Szymborski: They COULD, it’s just not their mean projection.

Zac Lowther of the Hill People: What was the ZiPS projection this year where you went “oh, that can’t be right” but then it was?

Dan Szymborski: Addison Barger. He popped up at the very start when I was doing test runs

Worm Turner: Is it just me, or does it seem like little rule changes that no one has asked for (mound visits? really?) seem to now be annual feature of MLB. If so, shouldn’t the fans be able to submit/ vote on proposals—that would be a “better game” IMHO.

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure fans are particularly well equipped to evaluate the consequences of rule changes

Dan Szymborski: For instance, some of the stuff that’s cut down doesn’t save a lot in pure time

Dan Szymborski: but it saves a lot in time in which nothing is happening.

Dan Szymborski: It’s not the length of games that’s a problem, it’s the dead time within the games.

Dan Szymborski: And quite frankly, in the same way I find blitz chess more compelling to watch than standard timings, I think time pressure is a good function to have in most sports.

Zac Lowther of the Hill People: Like those AI sites, are you teaching ZiPS how to draw pictures of, oh, I don’t know, Rob Manfred in “Land of the Lost”?

Dan Szymborski: Ha, integrating GPT-3 into ZiPS is beyond my skillset

Dan Szymborski: But I did think my Manfred ones were fine AI work!

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski:

Zac Lowther of the Hill People: Avocado on a BLT to make it a BLAT?

Dan Szymborski: Meh

Dan Szymborski: I’m not a huge avocado guy

Dan Szymborski: the mouthfeel never is quite right for me

Dan Szymborski: I like guac in certain applications

Ben: Does ZIPS take into account the Statcast data or the quality of pitching a batter faces? For example, it has Kim repeating last year despite bad EVs and barrels. And he absolutely demolished position players pitching (2 HRs and 1 2B).

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS does take this kind of data into account

Craig: Any NL SP that you found to have better ZiPs projections than you expected? Pfaadt, Flaherty, Drey Jameson, DeSclafani, Elder all come to mind for me.

Dan Szymborski: That’s a pretty good list actually

Dan: If Judge has several more seasons like last year and then a career ending injury for what number of seasons would the Yankees be happy they signed him? Do they have injury insurance on him to make the real answer less than one even if they can’t admit that?

Dan Szymborski: Depends how many they get!

Dan Szymborski: I’m honestly not sure the current status on injuries. Some years back, teams were having trouble getting insurance at reasonable rates as insurers were becoming more wary. I’m not sure what the current status is around baseball; I simply haven’t given it much thought in a long time.

Kevin: This morning a friend and I were debating the percent likelihood the Rockies would finish at .500 or better this year. What would ZIPS say?

Dan Szymborski: 6%

Guest: Between PECOTA / Steamer / The Bat / Zips, Zips is the only projection with a higher WAR (5.8) for Adley Rutschman than for Julio Rodriguez (5.4).

Reasons for Zips relative exuberance for Rutschman?

Dan Szymborski: It’s hard to say because I don’t run the other systems.

Big dan mcgraw:

1. 
2. 

Dan: The giants were projected to win 88 games and the padres 91. Aaron Judge should be 5 wins better than their current corner outfielders. Would the giants be favorites in the west with judge or would they have not signed a couple good players the real giants signed because they already spent the money on judge?

Dan Szymborski: It does seem like this would be the case

Colton: On the topic of switch hitters, can ZiPS do projections for guys if they didn’t switch hit? I’m assuming this would just mean a projection where they only face one side for a full season, but would it be able to use ratios to see what to possible expect if someone gave it up like Mullins did?

Dan Szymborski: It can, but it’s not “stock” so I have to do some extra work

J!mmer: Eric Thames retired this morning
man was that guy fun to watch for a while

Green Thumb: Any gardening in store this year Dan? I’ve managed to grow a ginkgo sapling from a seed that I collected from a neighbor; I’m quite proud of it.

Dan Szymborski: I’m not outdoorsy

Dan Szymborski: I basically have grass and trees.

Guest: why is everyone down on a barely 23 year old Tucupita Marcano who has hit FAR FAR better than a 24YO Jarred Kelenic and has much more versatility and still the ability to hit 12-15 hrs and steals and nowhere near his peak?

Dan Szymborski: That’s extremely speculative too

Dan Szymborski: Neither have hit in the majors but Kelenic has the better minor league record

Twinkie: Do you think Carlos Correa will hit 30+ home runs this year or ever?  The kind of money he is getting seems to project that his best years are yet to come.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think he needs to hit 30

Dan Szymborski: H’ell probably hit 30 *some* year

Guest: Going through the remaining free agents, I was surprised to see Rougned Odor projected for a 101 wRC+ by ZiPS.  Any idea what it sees in him specifically?

Dan Szymborski: I believe ZiPS simply thinks he has more power upside than Steamer does

John: If a team’s players played at an average of their 60th percentile projection, how far higher than its 60th percentile projection would the team’s result be? I’m trying to get my mind around the level Rockies players would have to play at for the team to achieve the .500 record the owner said is possible.

Dan Szymborski: I’m not actually sure off-hand

Alex: You’ve got Vaughn Grissom as a 2-win player, which I found surprising (though as a Braves fan it was a pleasant surprise!) — and with Alan Trammell and Tony Fernandez as comparable players, my head is kind of spinning. What is the system picking up on in Grissom that is pointing towards a Hall of Very Good/Hall of Fame-type career?

Dan Szymborski: I mean, dude’s got an >.850 minor league OPS through age 21 and he was really good in his cup of coffee

ZiPity doo-dah: While running teams’ projections do you just play noises of zippers in the background?

Dan Szymborski: dear god no

SH, Jr.: How long do you think it will be until we have a full sense of how consolidation of the minors affected age-level adjustments in models? Or are we there already?

Dan Szymborski: Between this and the COVID season it’ll be hard to separate. I think we’ll have something really interesting to look back on at the end of the decade.

Nate: Are you sold at all on Chas McCormick as a legit starting CF now? I love the guy…but keep eyeing what the A’s are going to do with Laureano thinking he might be a nicer fit for the Astros in CF. Especially since it sounds like Brantley may not even be a lock to be back by opening day

Dan Szymborski: As a decent starter, I’m sold. But he’s not a long-term piece.

Pedro: Aren’t people underselling the White Sox?  They had a huge number of injuries last year (Grandal, Anderson, Eloy, Robert, Moncada, Lynn), and if just half of those players are healthy, the team will do considerably better.  Beni signing also allows Vaughn to move to 1B and improves the defense.

Dan Szymborski: It’s possible, but how many White Sox players do you feel better about than last year at this time?

Dan Szymborski: Because injuries *will* happen

Dan Szymborski: And the Sox depth is not good

TomBruno23: A Tink Hence ZiPS would pair real nice with MILB.tv coming to MLB.tv for 2023.

Dan Szymborski: He only gets a projection for the purpose of ZiPS Top Prospects

fraser: vidal brujan – nothing more than reserve pick for roto leagues, right?

Dan Szymborski: That’s probably accurate

SH, Jr.: A take I’ve seen: Rule changes are mere tinkering, the core issue is that pitchers are too awesome, everything that isn’t lowering the mound is asinine if the goal is more on-base action. Agree?

Dan Szymborski: It’s possible, but there’s nothing wrong with being gradual with changes

Dan: Would 360 million be a good price for 3 straight 10 WAR seasons?

Dan Szymborski: No

Colton: Does ZiPS ever run projections for draft prospects?

Dan Szymborski: I only run college-only players if I really have to

MilwaukeeBeerJays: Good morning Dan. You ever mess around with sous-vide? It’s a GAME CHANGER.

Dan Szymborski: I actually haven’t

Pedant Pete: Please tell the owners of the site to stop calling it a ‘ghost runner’. The runner in extra innings is very real, has corporeal form, and thus is not ghostly in any way.

Dan Szymborski: Well, idiotic rule runner would be most accurate

Dan Szymborski:

Dan: I was playing what and gave myself the benefit of hindsight and convinced my hypothetical employer to give me a 233 million budget. I figure signing one of the big 4 SS instead of Brandon Dury, a second tier starter and signing the other people the same way the real life Angels did is the best case scenario and that still leaves them as a lower end wild card being their most likely result.

Dan Szymborski: I think Correa gets them fairly close to the Astros

SH, Jr.: I’ve long thought that there seems to be a positive bump in long-term outlook for a guy who gets called up and doesn’t completely self-immolate, on-field and off. Do you evaluate “non-disastrous call up” as a factor independent of actual production during MLB playing time?

Dan Szymborski: No, I do not.

Jay: How much do you expect the new rules to inflate SB totals? Last year Jon Berti led the league with 41 SBs. Do you think someone gets to 50 this year? 60?

Dan Szymborski: I think it will be more muted than in the minor leagues

Dan Szymborski: But we’ll have an uptick

Joe: How heretical is it for me to say I like the corporeal runner rule?

SH, Jr.: Could ZiPS suggest a reasonable lower standings effect for a Manfred Man extra-inning win? Like, that’s only really 1/3rd as good as a 9-inning win?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure I’m following

Guest: Do you think ashby gets a starting gig when healthy?

Dan Szymborski: Yes

Keefths: Any particular thoughts on Miguel Vargas, ceiling seems a bit low for him. I don’t how much to believe his ISO numbers from the PCL

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, we have to take minor league hitter numbers with a larger grain of salt than through the 2000-2020 period

big dan mcgraw: Can the Yankees cut Montas and save money?

Dan Szymborski: Well, they could save the MLB minimum if another team signed him

Dan Szymborski: otherwise no

Dan Szymborski: In the past, contracts for MLB arbitration-eligible players that agreed on contracts to avoid arbitration weren’t guaranteed until opening day

Dan Szymborski: and teams would only have to pay 30 days or 45 days termination pay depending in timing of release

Dan Szymborski: but that changed in new CBA

Dan Szymborski: Yankees/Montas agreed on a deal to avoid arbitration hearing

Dan Szymborski: so that became guaranteed right there and then.

SH, Jr.: Follow up – I’m thinking of a corollary to some hockey leagues that award fewer standings points for overtime wins versus regulation wins. Could a projection system be used to do something comparable in baseball — an extra innings win being a fractional “win” in the standings?

Dan Szymborski: Meh, I don’t like the system but I don’t see this as an improvement

Joe: Odds the Orioles leaving Grayson Rodriguez off the OD roster?

Dan Szymborski: I think it’s fairly likely

Dan Szymborski: though he’ll be up fairly quickly

Evan Carter Believer: do you ever refer to running a projection on a player using ZIPS as “zipping” them?

Dan Szymborski: Heh, I have not

Dan Szymborski: OK, worst best season for HoF hitters by fWAR

Dan Szymborski: Schalk (3.0, 1915)

Dan Szymborski: Ferrell (3.1, 1932)

Dan Szymborski: Waner (4.0, 1929)

robertobeers: A man a dan a healthful recovered chat, ahcderevocerlufhtleahanadanama

Pedant Pete: Seeing the updated numbers for guys like Willie Wells (dude was basically Giancarlo Stanton at SS in terms of career offensive production) was really cool. Well done.

Dan Szymborski: I didn’t have anything to do with it, but I’m happy that you’fe found it useful

Jay: Do your projections for 2023 factor in any impact of rules changes this year?

Dan Szymborski: No, it’s pure guesswork. I’d rather people know that the projections don’t include rule changes rather than people having to guess how much of a projection is the Szymborski Arbitrary Rule Change Effect

JT: I feel like you’re the most likely FG chatter to have a friend group who bombards these chats with silliness to make you laugh.

Dan Szymborski: It’s likely. I admittedly do things in life because they entertain me

JMcMillan: So worst HOF seasons … how accurately does WAR measure the defensive contribution of a catcher in the dead-ball era (Schalk?)

Dan Szymborski: Probably not very

Dan Szymborski: But it goes both ways; it’s a problem of accuracy not bias

mike: cutting an injured player to save money. What an awful thing to do, so I wouldn’t put it past billionaires to try.

Dan Szymborski: I mean NFL

mike: Non-Twins question….those 70s dinners were “interesting”. Have you asked the AI to make hearthstone cards like you used to do in the day?

Dan Szymborski: I still make Hearthstone cards!

Dan Szymborski: Unfortunately, text on AI stuff tends to be demonic confusing words, so it doesn’t sim word heavy things very well

Dan Szymborski: I’d love if they could mash together the art and text AI

Dan Szymborski: I have tried though

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski: That was for Ragnaros the Ice Cream Lord

MilwaukeeBeerJays: Okay let’s say you have a pork tender loin.

MilwaukeeBeerJays: Microwave – -1.0WAR Baked in oven 0.5WAR pan sear 1.0WAR Smoked 2.0WAR BBQ 2.5WAR Sous-vide 6.0WAR

Dan Szymborski: See, I’d probably smoke it

Dan Szymborski: In any case, it’s time for me to depart for another week.

Dan Szymborski: Thanks ofr coming everyone!