Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 2/25/19

Dan Szymborski: internet come back, any kind of fool could see

Dan Szymborski: there was something in connecting to you

Dan Szymborski: baby come back, I’m sorry I-S-P

Dan Szymborski: I need downloads, I can’t just live without you

Dan Szymborski: (Doing this chat tethered to a laptop tethered to phone in a neighborhood in which EVERYBODY APPEARS TO BE DOING THIS)

Dan Szymborski: Big wind storms in OH yesterday! Lost power for 6 hours. All I had cellphone and sadness.

CamdenWarehouse: Dan, you now have a lifetime contract with FanGraphs. I don’t think I could take you leaving after all the departures over the last 18 months.

Dan Szymborski: I maintain I’m way too obnoxious for a team to want me as a co-worker full-time.

Matt: Aaron Hicks is to the Yankees as beans are to chili: ESSENTIAL

Dan Szymborski: So you think Hicks is meaningless? I think you’re underrating him severely

Gub Gub: What would be your best mascot dance?

Dan Szymborski: Has left shark ever signed with a team?

Matt: Over/Under 1.5 more Yankees extensions handed out before opening day?

Dan Szymborski: Under. Maybe 1 more

LFC Mike: Happy Monday and belated 20th Birthday Greetings to Galileo! If he blew out the candles on the Arby’s birthday sandwich we would really be impressed.

Dan Szymborski: That he did not. He just sat there looking at it until I did something about the fire, with a couple of mournful meows about his lack of access to the roast beef.

Gub Gub: I’m about to smash a wooden chair over a co-worker’s back.  I’m going to need you to play some old-timey saloon brawl music on the piano or the whole thing will fizzle out before I can sneak away.

Dan Szymborski: THe problem with old timey 19th century saloon piany, is that you need the piano to be really out of tune. My real piano is in tune and my digital piano doesn’t get out of tune

Dan Szymborski: (And given the digital piano cost as much as mid-tier upright, it better not!)

Number20: Why did Goldschmidt’s projections for 2019, go from 3.7 WAR in November (Arizona elegy) to 4.4 in January (Cards projections)?  Devil Magic?

Dan Szymborski: Prelims, I believe that was before 2019 park effects and the newer model were in play

Dan Szymborski: With changes in Arizona, that would be a larger change than usua

Dan Szymborski: l

Not Rick: If you could change the baseball world (with or without backing from Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds), what are the first steps you would take?

Dan Szymborski: 1% of revenue sharing goes to me.

Don Von Handburger: Who will have a better year, Adalberto Mondesi or Victor Robles?

Dan Szymborski: I think Mondesi

Dan Szymborski: but i like Robles, dont’ get me wrong

Dan Szymborski: But he may not be a day one starter and may be worked in with Taylor ABs

YMD: When will the sortable ZiPS projections be posted on here?

Dan Szymborski: Pretty near as soon as I can do final updates. Really need internet on my desktop

robertobeers: A Dan. A plan. A canal. Panada.

Matt: Dan, I’ll be running out to grab lunch promptly at 11. I’d appreciate if you postpone the start of the chat. 11:10 should be sufficient.

Dan Szymborski: You should naturally assume I’ll forget or be distracted and be 5 minutes late

Don Von Handburger: Does Brock Holt make your ____ jolt?

Dan Szymborski: ___ fingers when I accidentally touch the 220V outlet that the dryer is plugged into___

Dan Szymborski: Brock Holt! cannot change how electricity work.

Tim Tebow’s Thunder Thighs: Spring Training is here, and so are Tebow’s Thunder Thighs

oldmannearthesea: What hasn’t happened yet that surprises you most?

Dan Szymborski: Indians doing nothing about OF

Don Von Handburger: Once you decided to name your projection system after a racial slur, what other names were considered?

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS is a racial slur?

Syndergaardians of the Galaxy : Now that Jeff is gone, who’ll be taking over the Willians Astudillo beat?

Dan Szymborski: Everybody

Don Von Handburger: Do baseball reporters consider Jon Heyman a joke?

Dan Szymborski: Why are you guys always trying to troll him into blocking me! I’m still unblocked!

Dan Szymborski: Jon is a very good reporter but a very poor analyst.

Gub Gub: When is the last time you were on a Slip-N-Slide?

Dan Szymborski: I think at my friend’s brother’s 10th birthday party

Dan Szymborski: he was about 12 years older than his little brother, so we were loaded and slip n’ sliding

Dan Szymborski: it was the one with the splash pool at the end

Dan Szymborski: they actually had a hill in their yard (this was in ruxton, md, which is very hilly)

Dan Szymborski: so it was essentially DOWNHILL slip n’ slide so you’d get some wicked speed

Syndergaardians of the Galaxy : It seems like Keith Hernandez has to have some part of his body surgically repaired every six months or so. Is baseball such a harsh way to earn a living that most ex-MLBers have to go through something like this?

Dan Szymborski: Some do some don’t. Still better than football

robertobeers: I really only play arena and casual at this point, I don’t know if Hearthstone has much more staying power in the current formats/meta churn. What deck do you play that still sparks joy?

Dan Szymborski: In standard, I have little joy right now.

Dan Szymborski: Too many unbalanced combo decks out there

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think combo decks are bad per se, but combo decks shouldn’t simply be “get these cards and just win the game.”

Dan Szymborski: Like Mecha’Thun or (in the past) Jade Druid

Dan Szymborski: the thing about old Miracle Rogue and even Patron Warrior is that you had to balance using your combo tools to survive with executing the combo.

Dan Szymborski: Now, not so much. And there are limited tools to mess up a combo deck’s deck, which is needed for ocunterplay

LFC Mike: How much has Zips love for Michael Chavis gone up in 2 whole spring training games. 2.400 OPS! Let the hype begin.  Does he project a possible 1B for Boston? The production last year from that position was not stellar…and they still won over 100 games.

Dan Szymborski: If i answer April for things, you shoudl assume that Feburary is also an answer

Tim Tebow’s Thunder Thighs: If Kershaw’s arm really is dead, should he try reviving himself as a left knuckler?

Dan Szymborski: Righty knuckler! Preserve that left arm for high leverage situations.

Dan Szymborski: Here’s how I think that could work

Dan Szymborski: Normal situations: Kershaw is a righty knuckler

Dan Szymborski: But when that leverage index hit 1.5

Dan Szymborski: an orchestra that the Dodgers pay to be in the crowd year round plays some tense music

Dan Szymborski: and then sunglasses are automatically lowered from his cap with some kind of mechanism to be designed for this purpose

Dan Szymborski: Then it’s THE CLAW TIME

Syndergaardians of the Galaxy : I know a lot of people are down on spring training games, but I love seeing prospects, especially guys I don’t know, play. See any unknowns do anything special yet this spring?

Dan Szymborski: Too early.

Dan Szymborski: Also hampered that because of issues with a bulging disc in my back, I may not be there at all

Todd: Bucs look to do nothing more this spring. Fans not happy with owners b-s statements…comment?!

Dan Szymborski: I’m disappointed with Pirates. The argument for having $60 million payrolls in down times is that it OUGHT to enable you to have at least $100 million payrolls when your team can win

Yanks fan: If you are the Yankees, you do the Hicks deal 100 times out of 100, right? Seems too good to be true, but I suppose given his career, he wants security.

Dan Szymborski: It’s perfectly reasonable.

Ichiro for CEO: If Harper really wanted to sign with Philadelphia, don’t you think they would’ve worked something out by now?

Dan Szymborski: Wouldn’t be as dramatic

Dan Szymborski: I think they’re hoping to get the Phillies to bid against themselves like Hicks did

Dan Szymborski: but I feel they will be disappointed.

Gub Gub: Why hasn’t anyone made a real-life Spy Hunter track for people to live out their fantasies yet?

John: How much money would it take for the Dodgers to sign Harper for 2 years? 3 years?

Dan Szymborski: I think 3 is hard because of the age he will be

Dan Szymborski: I think you’d probably need to offer $50 million per for one or two

CamdenWarehouse: Do you think that MiLB players eventually making a decent living will be the result of one team deciding it’s in their interest to pay them?

Dan Szymborski: I hope so

Bread Gardner: Aaron Hicks is locked up.  The trend of team-friendly, long(ish)-term extensions continues.  I have to imagine that both Hicks, like Severino, and the Yankees are individually immensely pleased; the MLBPA must be furious, and rightly so.

Dan Szymborski: It’s unfair to make the players without leverage take on all the risk for the broken system..

Miller Park (RIP): How do you think Braun plays this year after a few slight adjustments to his swing? Up and down last year but was crushing the ball

Dan Szymborski: I think he’s going to continue his decline. Adjustments or not, he’s at the age where time has an excellent win-loss record

billsaints: As a Canadian I’m not totally familiar with US tax. I appreciate different states do different amounts, but after agent fees, tax etc.. if I earned 5/100, what would actually end up in my bank account. Feel free to get another reader to answer this.

Dan Szymborski: It depends, states vary WIDELY

Dan Szymborski: And there are all sorts of different structures

Dan Szymborski: state-to-state is a very big deal. Some states don’t have income tax at all.

Dan Szymborski: Some stats have a flat tax, some have it graduated

Dan Szymborski: ANd the rules for athletes make it even more confusing as states fight to tax athletes that pay taxes elsewhere

Dan Szymborski: THis is more a question for an accountant

Rueben: Should Indians fans be getting Bieber Fever?

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS thinks so

Kevin: When will the full ZiPs projections be available on the site for exporting purposes?

Dan Szymborski: As noted, I need internet back on my desktop to get all this work completed.

tb.25: did you have any oscars chili yesterday? https://www.cookscountry.com/articles/1019-what-does-chili-have-to-do-…

Dan Szymborski: I haven’t had any chili in a while

Don Von Handburger: Why don’t spring training parks in Florida have live alligators?

Dan Szymborski: THey should

Gub Gub: Without looking any up, do you know any Klingon words?

Dan Szymborski: qapla

The Old Buccaneer: What are the chances both Tyler Glasnow and Austin Meadows have better seasons than Chris Archer?

Dan Szymborski: 30% maybe?

DT: All I ever wanted in a FG chat was Jeff to respond to my “Hello, friend.” Now, it’ll never happen. I am sad. Now I must settle for you. Hello, friend.

Dan Szymborski: Greetings and salutations, good sir!

Dan Szymborski: or madam

Dan Szymborski: but considering the demographics, sir

Dan Szymborski: Twitter analytics said my followers were 94% male, 6% female.

pelkey: How does zips assign playing time?

Dan Szymborski: awkwardly

pelkey: In general terms, obviously

Dan Szymborski: history, age, specific injuries

Dan Szymborski: quality

Dan Szymborski: though that’s longer-term

James: Do you think Kimbrel ends up settling for a 1/2 year deal, or does he eventually get the 4/5/6 year deal he’s looking for?

Dan Szymborski: I think he’ll get a reasonable non-exorbitant three-year deal

The Old Buccaneer: Is it strange the Yankees didn’t want to give 10 year deals to Machado or Harper but just gave a 7 year deal to Hicks, who is 3 years older?

Dan Szymborski: Well, they’re paying him a lot less.

Mandy Is Still 91% Fresh: Forget Harper and Machado.  What has been your favorite minor league deal this offseason?

Dan Szymborski: Xavier Cedeño

Dan Szymborski: or was that a non-guaranteed major league deal? I forget

Dan Szymborski: if that doens’t work, maybe Luis Avilan

Dan Szymborski: though FAVORITE is Matt Davidson as I want a DH-slash-eephus-pitcher

Tim: In a fantasy league which list is most important Wrc or ops

Dan Szymborski: probably ops since at least OBP is frequently a category

aka22: Do you think Nimmo is given or plays his way into everyday ABs, or will he end up being part of a rotation with McNeil, Lagares, Broxton (and eventually Cespedes)? Are you a Nimmo fan?

Dan Szymborski: I think he’ll squeeze out 500 PA or so. I hope

Dan Szymborski: if he doesn’t get 500 PA and he isn’t losing a foot or something, everyone there should be fired probably

Mandy Is Still 91% Fresh: What is the current Top 3 in fan bases that you hate?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t hate fan bases.

Dan Szymborski: Now, if we flip that around

Dan Szymborski: and just the fan bases that hate me the most, it’s probably Rockies, Royals, and the Marlins fan.

Mandy Is Still 91% Fresh: What would, say, the Dodgers look like if Dayton Moore was in charge?

Dan Szymborski: Probably like the pre-Friedman Yankees. Winning, but old, expensive, inefficient

The Old Buccaneer: Thank you for not leaving us.

Dan Szymborski: See, me being terrible worked out for you guys!

Fermanny Tatichado: In your opinion, is Machado worth $300M over 10 years and was this is a good move for San Diego?

Dan Szymborski: Yes, yes

SadSoxFan: What does ZiPS think of 2019 Ervin Santana?

Dan Szymborski: “Pass.”

SadSoxFan: Bad news aside, great job on the SoxMachine podcast!

Dan Szymborski: I admit in my heart I’m always surprised when people enjoy my podcasts/radio appearances.

Dan Szymborski: I really hate my voice.

Dan Szymborski: It sounds like Ira Glass talking while eating a bagel

Mark: What kind of year statistically do you expect from Machado? 30 HR, 350 OB%, 4 WAR?

Dan Szymborski: Guys the ZIPS were right there in Jeff’s piece!

oneforthree: Peter Lambert v. Justus Sheffield. What do you think?They faced each other yesterday.

Dan Szymborski: I didn’t see it so I don’t have impressions of the starts

Don Von Handburger: Do you think we’ll see a Juggalo in major league baseball within the next 5 years?

Dan Szymborski: We might already. I believe disclosing your cosplay-clown-metal affinites are against HIPAA

Mandy Is Still 91% Fresh: In a superhero sandlot baseball game, who would be first pick?

Dan Szymborski: Superman

Dan Szymborski: It’s really unfair

Dan Szymborski: they never really retro-balanced superpowers

Dan Szymborski: Superman is the Naxx-era pre-nerf Deathrattle Hunter of superheros

Dan Szymborski: (phrases so about 2 people understand that)

tb.25: Your love affair with downloads is as compelling as Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga

HappyFunBall: ZIPS is done! ZIPS is done! Goes looks for full ZIPS projections, see’s Appleman’s face laughing back at me …

Mandy Is Still 91% Fresh: Have you tried turning it on and off?

Dan Szymborski: Don’t make me ban you.

Dan Szymborski: Whole area is out

Dan Szymborski: something like 50,000 people were without power last night and thi sisn’t a big area, it’s suburban dayton

oneforthreewithawalk: Peter Lambert v. Justus Sheffield. They faced each other yesterday, and it got me thinking – aside from Sheffield being a lefty, they’re pretty similar (low-mid 90s, three plus pitches), but Sheffield consistently gets ranked a lot higher. Thoughts?

Dan Szymborski: I like Lambert

Dan Szymborski: but he’s perceived as a high-floor, low-ceiling guy and scouting types dont’ usually get the tingle over those

Dan Szymborski: I think teams, especially competitive ones, need those guys

Dan Szymborski: but there’s nothing MAGICAL about those guys

Dan Szymborski: Like imagine Harry Potter world if Hogwart’s was a school for mechanical engineering.

Dan Szymborski: Societies need mechanical engineering more than mirrors of dead people’s ghosts or live candy frogs

Dan Szymborski: but it’s not as frigging MAGICAL

Dan Szymborski: Nobody would go to the movies if Voldemort’s design was to make composite materials that were less prone to weathering.

Bearry: So the Rays ZIPS have been released and something immediately became very clear to me: they are SO heavily relying on prospects and players with less than two years of major league experience. Do you think they probably have the largest standard deviation of any team due their young core?

Dan Szymborski: Not really because the thing is, they have a LOT of those guys

Dan Szymborski: They’ve got a billion 1.8 WAR types. One falls flat, they have another

Dan Szymborski: The Rays are essentially a team designed by Eli Whitney.

Mandy Is Still 91% Fresh: Too obnoxious?  It sounds like the Mariners have found their new assistant general manager!

Bigfoot Erotica: ZiPS seems a bit less optimistic on Corey Seager’s offense than other systems this year. How concerned are you by the string of surgeries and the familial relation to a guy who turned into a pumpkin at a relatively young age?

Dan Szymborski: Missing time: bit concerned. Familial relations: not so much

Lasorda’s Gullet: Hi Dan! Do you know how salaries for players on the 60 Day DL work with respect to the CBT? Does compensation for insurance factor in? I was thinking if Kershaw is broke (::DOES SPECIAL RITUAL TO NOT HEX HIM::) and LAD decides to sign Harper, could they try to balance that out to avoid paying a penalty? (not that it should matter, but, the world and whatnot)

Dan Szymborski: They’re just like regular ol’ salaries

Name: Did you see Nate Silver’s proposal to cap a team to 10 pitchers on the 25 man roster? Any thoughts?

Dan Szymborski: I’d probably go 11 and you’d need to figure out some kind of mechanism to allow true two-way players without making an easy exploit “Jerry Blevins is a hitter, we TOTALLY think of him as one wink wink”

Bring Back Jeff: I’m done with Harper rumors. Wake me up when baseball starts

Kevin: How do you feel about the Aaron Hicks extension? Seems great to me, even if he’s injury prone and regresses a bit. $10m/yr AAV is pocket change for the Yankees.

Dan Szymborski: I think it’s fine

Mandy Is Still 91% Fresh: Who is your best guess for the O’s, Marlins’, and Tigers’ All-Star representative?

Dan Szymborski: Givens, Anderson, Miggy

Dan Szymborski: not that I think Miggy will be a deserving all-star, but he could have a 98 OPS+ in July and just enough homers to get a nod

Scotty B: What do Hick’s projections look like when he is 33, 34, 35? How long can he stay in CF?

Dan Szymborski: Mister Jaffe has those projections!

Matt: I’m back, Dan. The chat may commence

Dan Szymborski: OH GOD WE WENT ON WITHOUT YOU

Jim Broni: I think we need to bring back the term Mamaluke

tb.25: Anything is a racial slur, depending on who you ask.

Dan Szymborski: I liked Aziz Ansari’s bit where he tried to invent a racial slur

Dan Szymborski: “Shut up, kitkat!”

Don Von Handburger: “The only thing we have to smell, is smell itself” – Franklin Delano Nosevelt

976: The Yankees might be fine playing Andujar at 3B, but my sim team is not.  Except we can’t DH him cuz we’re in the NL.  Do I need to trade him or are we getting an OF rating on the future outfielder?

Dan Szymborski: He has 0 professional games in OF.

Dan Szymborski: He ain’t getting a DMB rating

CamdenWarehouse: Don’t sell yourself short. Your chat record has been pretty good since Carson left.

Dan Szymborski: I’ve been better since I joined FanGraphs!~

Dan Szymborski: THe simple fact is that before, I had a primary employer and things they wanted me to do took priority over my cameos at FanGraphs

Dan Szymborski: Now, tis’ not an issue!

Dan Szymborski: Whether more Dan chats is a benefit to you or a detremit, that’s up to you!

Dan Szymborski: detremit?

Dan Szymborski: wtf/

Dan Szymborski: detriment

Luigi: Orioles traded away international bonus slot money to the Rangers.  Do the Orioles no longer intend to sign any big international free agents?  Who are the Rangers eyeing?

Dan Szymborski: I think the O’s just liked the guy

Jim Broni: Your eternal resting place will be adorned with a solid gold plaque that says, The World’s Greatest ________

Dan Szymborski: Dan Szymborski. Screw Michigan Dan Szymborski.

976: Is Jake Lamb a legit 1B or did you just slot him in there because the D-Backs didn’t have plans there at the time.  Does he have a viable position still?

Dan Szymborski: I think he’s just stuffed there because they have Escobar and traded Goldy

LFC Mike: Vlad Jr. did a face plant head first slide yesterday that had all of Toronto making pee pee in their collective pants. Tatis Jr. broke his thumb last year on head first slide….etc etc etc WHEN WILL THE MADNESS  STOP? No head first slides!!!!! Teach it…. Now back to your regularly scheduled chat about baseball and nothingness…and not in that order.

Jeff: Zips is definitely a weed term but I’ve never heard it used as any kind of slur?

Dan Szymborski: Unless you don’t like Zip’s burgers in Cincinnati

Dan Szymborski: or you have some weird bias against these generic Ritz crackers sold at Kroger

Jim Broni: Have you ever farted and blamed a cat?

Dan Szymborski: I have not

Guest: You mentioned in the Dodgers ZiPS that ZiPS is high on Muncy. But it still only gives him 385 PA. Does ZiPS project PA based on prior years’ plate appearances, or does it take into account other things? It seems like if his skills are truly that good, he should be getting more PA than 385 and there’s been chatter the Dodgers will platoon less this year.

Dan Szymborski: Prior playing time, age, injury, quality

Fangraphs: Dan! You’re still here!

greg: Cat update please

Dan Szymborski: Since I’m upstairs (better phone reception for tethering

Dan Szymborski: Galileo is asleep on the couch next to the big living room window

Dan Szymborski: Cassiopeia is on the windowsill looking at the wind blowing things around

Dan Szymborski: While Mercutio heard a plane overhead and is hiding

Dan Szymborski:

Matt: ZiPS projections Michael Conforto and George Spring as essentially the same player (same top comp, even). Please comment further.

976: When are we getting the missed and fictional players from ZiPS?  The Jandel Gustaves of the world.

Khaki Segura: It would be a stunning and wonderful surprise if it was suddenly announced that Bryce Harper has signed a 10-year deal with the Indians.  I mean … narratives!

Dan Szymborski: It would be awesome

Dan Szymborski: The Rays could give Harper *40* million a year and still rank like 24th in payroll

Jim Broni: Patron Warrior was my nickname in college

Chuncey Wiggins: Is it too outlandish to consider Harper as overrated?

Dan Szymborski: Depends on who is doing the rating

Hello: Have you played RDR2?  If so, thoughts?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t have a PS4. I will happily play it if they release it on PC

PiratePete: Josh Bell poised for an offensive breakout this year? Could you see 20 HR, .290 avg, .825 ops?

Dan Szymborski: A little rich for my blood

isaacmeep: Would you rather have late-career Billy Butler on 2nd base or Billy Hamilton on 1st?

Dan Szymborski: Steamed Hams for sure

Roger: I played around with the outcome distributions on the top 100 prospects and noticed that, while the odds of a Braves pitching  prospect reaching a 70 FV doesn’t top 10% for any of them individually, doing a distribution that at least one of them reaches a 70 FV yields a result in the 40% range (38.5% IIRC).  While what Kiley and Eric do is obviously very different from projection systems like ZIPs, do you see a similar compounding effect from all of this high-end pitching depth in a system like the Braves or Padres?

Dan Szymborski: Well yeah, quantity has a quality of its own

Jimbo: Dan, is there a reason you guys stopped doing year-in-review batted ball profiles? Can those make a comeback?

Dan Szymborski: Dunno, I was never involved in those and I’ve never seen a discussion

BigChief: An an American, I’m not totally familiar with US tax.

Matt: How did the Pirates go from being one of the most progressive organizations to seemingly stale so quickly?

Dan Szymborski: The lack of over-the-top oomph

Swordless Mimetown: What strides are R&D departments making to ensure they’re staying ahead of the other 29 teams? It must be hard to stay ahead of the curve since Moneyball is  the new standard

Dan Szymborski: I have *ideas* what teams are working on, but nothing concrete

robertobeers: California: $20mil – Agent takes 7% = $18.6mil – ~$6.8mil fed income – ~$2.2 mil state income – ~$300k ss/medicare = ~$9mil per year

Ray: So how long do we have before Mike Elias calls you up and says Dan…we’d like to hire you to come help remake the Baltimore Orioles in the image you see fit?

Dan Szymborski: “We’re designing our team around baseball memes and jokes that come from an aging gen-xer”

Jim Broni: What was your High School hard liquor of choice?

Dan Szymborski: gin

Dan Szymborski: From 17-20 or so, gin and tonic was my go-to non-beer drink

Dan Szymborski: then it was bourbon for a long time

Dan Szymborski: and in recent years, mostly rum and sherry

Matt: Marlins fans hate you? How can something that doesn’t exist hate you?

Dan Szymborski: There’s like one guy who is always mad at me and that’ slike 10 percente of the fanbase right there

Chaos is a laddah: Myers and a mid level prospect to Orioles for Dylan Bundy to clear salary for harper who says no

Dan Szymborski: O’s

976: What is the digital piano?  I have a Nord Electro 4 that I love, but I play more rock organ on it so the 76 keys and semi-weightedness is actually a plus for me.

Dan Szymborski: It’s a kawai ca-78

Dan Szymborski: http://kawaius.com/product/ca78/#ca78

Dan Szymborski: I have the rosewood one. I don’t like shiny ones because then I get fingerprints

Mike: Everybody hates their voice. Every dude sounds like James Earl Jones to himself.

Dan Szymborski: I’d give a year of my life to have Geoffrey Holder’s voice

Dan Szymborski: Ian Desmond, the UN-hitter “ha ha ha”

BenZ: Does any data from Spring Training (stats, velocities, playing time, etc) figure into Zips?

Dan Szymborski: No

Davis: Dan- I’m being serious here, everyone hates their own voices. Yours is completely fine!

Dan Szymborski: Complicating it is that I’m an excitable fellow and as I get excited, my voice gets higher and higher and faster and faster.

Dan Szymborski: Like Judge Doom

fangraphs reader: Do you feel unusual usage patterns for player (ie tandem starters) cause your system to overrate/underrate players, or is the error bars on the projections so big it’s a non-isssue?

Dan Szymborski: It’s possible. I’m not sure if I have to or how to deal with openers

Dorf on Foosball: What makes Dan sad?

Dan Szymborski: Incompetence

Dan Szymborski: Partially a product of how I was raised

Dan Szymborski: The golden trait that pretty much everyone in my family appreciates above all others is being *smart*

Dan Szymborski: If I murdered someone and got caught, my family would probably look down on me more for the INCOMPETENCE than the murder itself.

Dan Szymborski: It’s quite possible that my entire family consists of high-functioning low-grade sociopaths. Myself included.

kevinthecomic: The union shouldn’t be mad at the players for taking *below* market value extensions, the players should be mad at the union for sleeping through the last contract negotiations and sidling them with a system where they are cheap when young/productive and can’t get paid when old/less useful.

Dan Szymborski: The trophy is from me

YKnotDisco?!: If I had the talent I would paint you a picture of your cats looking out the window at the Skyline TM of your city on a cold Chili winters day. Each snowflake would be in the shape of a bean. Different beans, of course. Unrelated — if Jeff would have left FG after his last Friday chat (two Friday’s ago) his post count would have equaled Babe Ruth’s hit total. Much like Ruth falling short of 3000 (2873), I can see Jeff having no problem be elected in by his voters.

Mike: Fangraphs rule change: 20-second clock on Fangraphs chats?

Dan Szymborski: That mostly benefits me, because unlike those other writers wedded to concepts of “intelligent” and “answering the question,” I just type in whatever flows out of my giant head

Gub Gub: If you stacked a taco salad bowl on top of another taco salad bowl, so where the top bowl is resting inside the bottom bowl, and filled the area in-between with a delicious brown gravy….is that a sandwich?

Dan Szymborski: Yes.

Alex: In his rankings, Derek Carty had the Yankees with the 2nd best rotation in baseball (only after CLE). Too aggressive considering Paxton’s injury history or do you like it?

Dan Szymborski: Probalby a little aggressive but not much

Slew: Dan, please rank in order of descending insufferability: music snobs, alcohol snobs, art snobs, food snobs

Dan Szymborski: alcoholsnobs, art snobs, food snobs, music snobs

kevinthecomic: Dan, don’t sweat all 3 Marlins fans hating you

Matt: What do you think about Manfred’s proposal to include nunchucks in baseball?

Dan Szymborski: just as long as both the catcher and the runner get them

LFC Mike: If you leave Fangraphs we will kidnap your cats, make you use dial up internet and for the final threat…force you eat Sky Line Chili for lunch everyday for the rest of your then miserable life.

Dan Szymborski: This is cruel

John: Prediction for how Blizz will nerf Baku and Genn?

Dan Szymborski: THey won’t

The Franchy(ze): Also Hanley Ramirez is still listed at SS!?!?! on his FB player page

Dan Szymborski: I think SS!?!?!?! is the best description of what his position is

Matt: Don’t listen to CamdenWarehouse, Dan. Feel free to sell yourself short.

Dave: Hermione Granger would have been a fantastic engineer.

The Franchy(ze): ‘zip’ can be an insult in italian circles referring to more recent immigrants

Michigan Dan Szymborski: What did you say, mate?

Dan Szymborski: YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE MAKE YOUR TIME

Coach Warble: DAN! STAY HYDRATED! ITS IMPORTANT TO STAY HYDRATED!

LFC Mike: For educational purposes only…”Zips” were what U.S. Soldiers called the enemy in the Vietnam War….short for zipperhead…again  for educational purposes only….

Dan Szymborski: In this case, I don’t think anyone would confuse it

Shirtless Bartolo on a Darkhorse: I farted twice and blamed it on the dog both times over one dinner. The second time they took the dog outside – I felt bad. Before you get mad, I was meeting my wife’s (then girlfriend) family for the first time, it was a make or break moment

Dan Szymborski: Did you compensate the dog?

Dan Szymborski: When I had to lock Galileo in a room because he kept trying to hang out with the plumber installing a new hot water heater (he was very interested in what the guy was doing), I gave him some smoked turkey

Alex: Odds that Alcides ends up breaking Ripken’s consecutive games streak?

Dan Szymborski: some things you don’t joke about

Matt: If you were to measure “oomph”, do you think it would be a volume metric, or an area metric?

Dan Szymborski: a measure of angular momentum tangential to the win curve

snow1991: hello does this work?

976: You didn’t actually answer the missed zips question.

Dan Szymborski: which one is that

Matt: Dan, the law did not allow for high school aged youts to consume alcohol anywhere near the time you were a high school aged yout. Are you admitting to committing crimes?

Dan Szymborski: Sure.

Dan Szymborski: Could I invoke EU citizenship? I have german citizenship through my mom

Dan Szymborski: The story that used to make my grandmother furious

Dan Szymborski: was when my mom’s dad and my dad took two of my cousins from Germany out drinking. They were 13 and 15 at the time.

Dan Szymborski: I was only 8, so too young

Dan Szymborski: coming back, my dad passed out in the driveway with the car door open, my cousins in the Japanese garden at my grandparents, and my grandfather sitting backwards on one of the kitchen chairs draped over the back of the chair (he was a spry 75 or so at the time)

Dan Szymborski: Apparently nobody cared about drunk driving in 1985

Dan Szymborski: my grandmother didn’t talk to my grandfather for a MONTH and my dad for years.

Dan Szymborski: I guess second cousins since they were my grandmother’s nephews

Gub Gub: Cheez-Its or Goldfish?

Dan Szymborski: goldfish

Danny Ruskin: When did I become the guy in the office that everyone pawns the leftover sweets on to?

CamdenWarehouse: are you the new cohost for Effectively Wild?

Dan Szymborski: I am not

YKnotDisco?!: Who is FG longest tenured employee? (minus Dark Lord)

Dan Szymborski: hmkm

Dan Szymborski: Paul Sporer maybe?

HappyFunBall: Not for nothing, but if the O’s designed their team around baseball memes and jokes that come from an aging gen-xer that might be an improvement!

Name: Who would you give a bigger contract to Harper or Manny?

Dan Szymborski: Manny

Matt: If you were going to murder someone, why wouldn’t you just have ZiPS project where the police would be looking for you so you could stay away from there?

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS is kinda more focused on projecting baseball things

ke’bryan mays hayes: What was your favorite article by another writer spawned by your ZiPS projections this year

Dan Szymborski: I think the Royals writer who based a whole article around my tweets about the royals

Danny Ruskin: We may have reached Peak Sandwich Questions there

Josh R: When you chat, I picture Taxi era Judd Hirsch.  How do you feel about that?

Dan Szymborski: Someone once sent me an email to tell me that I looked like a cross between Shrek and Hermann Göring. It’s not that wrong

Cathedral_of_Beisbol: They totally knew.  Her dad just appreciated your…. testicular fortitude… in farting over dinner.

CamdenWarehouse: I bet Dan would even admit to speeding

Dan Szymborski: I drive under the speed limit if there’s a lot of snow

Guest: You may have broken the law by drinking alcohol too young, but you didn’t caught at the time – so at least no claims of incompetence.

Dan Szymborski: We grew up drinking – it was considered normal in my family

Dan Szymborski: My grandfather used to make this wicked punch for their gigantic 75-person christmas parties

Dan Szymborski: I gotta figure out how to make it

Dan Szymborski: My grandmother would preserve tons of fruit in these pots

Dan Szymborski: (look up rumtopf)

Dan Szymborski: And my grandfather would make this giant vat of an entire pot of rum-preserved raspberries, wtih champagne and brandy and other stuff

DT: Will we one day have the technology to allow cats to read and comprehend FanGraphs? The crew is shrinking, Dan. Now is your time to strike

robertobeers: The only fun deck anymore is tesspionage and it truly is the most fun. Every game is either 3 minutes (losing to some aggro nonsense) or 30 (outlasting control warrior/mage).

The Franchy(ze): gotta be Laurila

Bill: Drunk driving to goldfish is about as 100 to 0 as I’m going to see today

Dan Szymborski: Now, I *don’t* drunk drive

Dan Szymborski: I’m all for doing crazy crap, but you do it at your OWN risk.

Dan Szymborski: I feel it’s different when you risk the lives of others

LFC Mike: Was Reuben Kincaid of the Partridge Family your favorite TV character with a sandwich for a first name?

Dan Szymborski: I think an honorable mention for the Count of Monte Cristo

Kosch: Gross $100,000,000
Minus 10% Agent Fee $90,000,000
Fed Tax (37%) $33,300,000
High State Tax (13%) $11,700,000
Low State Tax (0%) $0

Low End Salary $45,000,000
High End Salary $56,700,000

Cathedral_of_Beisbol: That may be the *best* story I’ve ever read on Fangraphs.  Hope your grandfather had a comfy couch!

Dan Szymborski: The house was terrific. I would’ve liked to have kept it in the family, but it really needed a lot of work and it was better to sell it to someone who could do upkeep

Dan Szymborski: When my mom was in college, they’d all get stoned in my grandparent’s basement

Dan Szymborski: and my grandfather would go out and pick them all up breakfast

Dan Szymborski: My grandfather was a lawyer for the army and pretty much followed laws to the extent he felt like it.

Dan Szymborski: It wasn’t always nice riding with him, because he felt that any manuever at any time was OK as long as he wanted to do it.

Dan Szymborski: You’ve never seen anybody abuse turn lanes like he did

Dan Szymborski: Until he ran a stop sign bringing my sister to elementary school in 5th grade and she injured her spine and almost ruptured her spleen

Dan Szymborski: He was 83 at this point, but it wasn’t senility, it was just doing what he wanted

Dan Szymborski: It was really sad, he was so distraught that his legs were mauled and covered with blood and instead of seeking treatment, he just changed into anotehr pair of pants to nobody at the hospital saw

Dan Szymborski: until someone saw him in a chair in the emergency room with a puddle of blood under his chair

Gub Gub: Next week we should have a contest on who can run up the most unread emails during the duration of a Dan Chat

Dan Szymborski: Sorry, I’m in a storytelling mood.

Dan Szymborski: Also of concern was that we found out when he was about 92 that he was completely blind in one eye

Dan Szymborski: and apparently had been for TEN YEARS without telling anyone.

Dan Szymborski: Even worse, he apparently renewed his license at least once during this period.

The Franchy(ze): don’t apologize: I am in a less than productive at work mood!

BoBtheMule: Is it crazy talk by the MLB Network for them to say Trout could get half a billion when he becomes a FA?  Surely no one will pay that for the back end of a Hall of Fame career, right?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think he gets 500 million. His inherent awesomeness will be tempered somewhat by being older than Machado or Harper are now

Dan Szymborski: My grandfather did stop driving about 93. He had a full-time housekeeper who he infuriated endlessly

Dan Szymborski: Once there was like a foot of snow and Maggie couldn’t make it over to his house and she called me “Daniel, tell your grandfather that if I can’t get over there, I also can’t buy him beer.”

Dan Szymborski: After my grandmother died in 2002, he resolved to live out his remaining years essentially living on chocolate ice cream and beer

Dan Szymborski: and his vile coffee. He refused to clean out the coffee maker. He’d pour the leftover coffee back where the water goes, so he had this endlessly circulating forever coffee, each cup with enough caffeine to kill an 8-year-old

Dan Szymborski: And on that note, I will end the chat for this week!

Dan Szymborski: Thanks for joining me everyone, see you next week!

Alex: It’s truly a travesty that Heyman’s bitmoji isnt one of the available emoticons in this chat.

BoBtheMule: Oi… that remind me of riding around the Tennessee mountains with my partial blind grandfather (cataracts).  I was scared

The Franchy(ze): later Daniel!