Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 4/3/25

Dan Szymborski: And awaaaaaay we go!

Guest: Given his past performance, and what you’ve seen from him so far this season, when do you expect Lindor’s slow start will end?

Dan Szymborski: April 🙂

Houzer: More excited this year for Jack Leiter or McKenzie Gore?

Dan Szymborski: Maybe Gore slightly? The nats pitching holding up and a Gore breakout is their playoff path, and that intrigues me. Though I get more of a benefit with Leiter since he was on his breakouts list

Bubbles: Is there any research on how many pitches to a hitter it takes for swing metrics like O-Zone Swing % to start becoming signal over noise of small samples?

Dan Szymborski: I’ve done some work and this stuff is quite important in just a few dozen PA

Houzer: Tigers call the Pirates and offer Matt Manning for David Bednar. Fair deal?

Dan Szymborski: At this point, probably, but I’m not sure that’s the Tigers need

John: During the opening day chat you said that Devers’ career WAR projection is identical even if he plays DH for the rest of his career.  Can you explain that more?  Even with his poor defense he has always graded out much better than a DH – just compare his ZiPS ROS depth chart projection to his normal ROS projection – there is a full win of difference.  Is his defense worse than I think, the DH positional adjustment less than I think, or some mix of both?

Dan Szymborski: Well, for one, ZiPS projects his defense to decline over time. Second, I use a 1B penalty for DH

Dreamin: The NL west is already a bloodbath

Alex A.: Without knowing precisely what the problem is with the Braves, would you say it’s time for our fans to crack each other’s heads open and feast on the goo inside?

Dan Szymborski: Yes

Dan Szymborski: errr, I think it is, Kent

RTJ: Thoughts on the contract extension run? Did Merrill get a fair shake?

Dan Szymborski: Decently so. ZiPS had it a bit higher, but he’s a ways away from FA

Mickey: What pitcher Statcast metrics are currently incorporated? Is it pitch level data like spin rates or using expected outcomes like xWOBA?

When a new Statcast metric like swing speed comes out, what’s your threshold for incorporating it into ZIPS?

Any analysis you can share of ZIPS’s accuracy pre-statcast data versus today?

Dan Szymborski: Plate discipline, quality of contact, velocity, zips has its own expected outcome

Dan Szymborski: I have a stuff model, but I’m not yet confident enough to move it into the main model

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS has incrementally improved. This stuff, when we talk about median projections, only really shades it a little

Galen: How soon will you incorporate new data into the Zips projections for rest of season.  Example higher max EV , bat speed, etc. for a hitter.  Or velocity increase / decrease for pitching; pitch mix changes, etc.

Dan Szymborski: When I figure out how to work it into a simplified in-season model

Guest: We’ve had a “State of Fangraphs” post today so I think it’s fitting to get a “State of Dan” update. What are the two or three most important updates you want to share from the past year?

Dan Szymborski: I’ve lost 53 pounds!

Dan Szymborski: Still have more to lose. I have too sedentary a lifestyle and my back problems made that worse

Dan Szymborski: Though my blood pressure/glucose were always fine and my heartrate middling

eatbug: Garret Crochet is a top __ starter in baseball?

Dan Szymborski: 5

Bubbles: Level of excitement for Tommy Two Bags Edman small sample size of growing up to Tommy HR Machine Edman?

Dan Szymborski: it ruins a good nickname

RTJ: more surprising week: Braves slow start or padres hot start?

Dan Szymborski: Braves being THIS bad

Phil: Are you planning to write up the Campbell extension? It looks really team-friendly to me, but it’s hard to judge these super early ones. He has the feel of a star in the making but I know it’s not like you can bank on feel.

Dan Szymborski: Jay has it, though I ran projections from him

Bob Loblaw: In May 2024, an Indiana judge ruled that tacos and burritos are “Mexican-style sandwiches.”

Dan Szymborski: for the purposes of legal recognition and for the purposes of use in speech are two very different things

Key Flaw: What game could have the largest effect on predictions? Not counting injuries, but how extreme does a game have to be to effect a team’s or a player’s predictions? A perfect game? Five strikeouts? Four errors? Four home runs?

Dan Szymborski: really, any extreme performance, and one game is really small in any indication

Guest: Miles Mikolas vs Sean Newcomb on Sunday Night Baseball this week is probably a recession indicator

Guest: Who is winning the NL Central? (pls say my cubbies)

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS has hitched itself to the Cubs this year

Nathan: Just as expected, the Cardinals have not yet trailed at the end of the 9th inning in 2025. We’re definitely getting the “Is this team…good?” headlines starting. So if a good 2025 is going to happen…which Cardinal’s overperformance (say 90th percentile outcome or something along those lines) would be most impactful on their 2025 outcome?

Dan Szymborski: Walker since ZiPS really hates him

Lowetide: I know you’re going to say too soon to know, but is Jordan Walker real?

Dan Szymborski: Nto convinced yet, but happy to see

Caleb Durbin: Will I be starting 3b for the Brewers by May 1st?

Dan Szymborski: No

Ross: Logged in here specifically hoping to see “April” as the first response.  Thank you for your service!

Guest: Is it now safe to throw out all of our preconceived notions about every player? I feel like we are past due now.

Dan Szymborski: April!

Barry: Who is the best player getting traded at the deadline this year?

Dan Szymborski: I’ll say Brandon Lwoe

Dan Szymborski: Lowe

appa yip yip: have the rumours of george springer’s demise been slightly just a little bit maybe exaggerated?

Dan Szymborski: don’t make me tap the calendar

Guest: Which of the three 100 mil + extensions was closest to Zips predictions? Which extension would you (not Zips)  most like to have as a team?

Dan Szymborski: Crochet was really close

Dan Szymborski: I haven’t even run Marte

Dan Szymborski: I think I’d like Crochet the best

Dan Szymborski: especially since I’m an Orioles fan

Allan: Braves playoff odds dropping nearly 25% at FanGraphs after the 0-7 start is pretty devestating

Dan Szymborski: 0-7 is a pretty big deal. Lots of fans think that there’s some preordained number of streaks and slumps, but that ain’t so

Fred: Does ZIPs consider exact birth date or just “baseball age”?

Dan Szymborski: No; I haven’t found much of a benefit

Bubbles: Regarding the swing metrics question, I’ve been doing some work on minors statcast and trying to find a cutoff of statcast pitch events to avoid noise. I originally had 400, but it sounds like a few dozen PA may be more like 150-200 pitches for a good cutoff?

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, though I always encourage people to try and test things themselves. A lot of times when you’re doing research, you find something unexpected

Dan Szymborski: Until I actually started working with the data, I hadn’t really thought how useful first-strike percentage is as a leading indicator of future walk rate

Guest: Tony Two Bags Rendon hit 34 homers in his walk year and we saw what happened after that, maybe these nicknames serve a real purpose

Dan Szymborski: Tony One Hip

Reuben: Hypothetical (motivated by an analogue from another field): Your task is to project major league viability. You have all minor league data but no major league data. The only other information you have to train on is a pre-promotion scouting grade like Longenhagen’s FV. Does the fact that we’re now looking for fairly high-outcome performance change the nature of how you would go about your projections?

Dan Szymborski: Not quite sure how to answer this question! A projection is always going to be data-based. If I’m looking for high-end, I might change how I look at the percentiles

Barry: Who do you think projects the best in the next 3 years.. James Wood or Dylan Crews?

Dan Szymborski: Wood, but I really like both

Sidd: Jason Foley has been solid for the MudHens 2 appearances. Punishment??

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think it’s punishment

Dan Szymborski: They have concerns about his mechanics. I would not have demoted him, but again, I’m not a mechanics expert

Esteban: Ignoring the possibility of future injuries, how long do you wait before thinking a team is actually good? and i don’t mean looking at the record, since early season records can fluctuate and not represent true talent level. like- ok i’ve seen the rotation 4-5 times now, we have enough data to see that some players are performing above expectations, etc

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think that’s a bright line thing

Cromulent: You should have had a chat on Monday so you could say: March!

Ketel Marte: Am I the most underrated superstar in baseball?

Dan Szymborski: I STILL think it’s Ramirez

Dan Szymborski: I actually think Yordan Alvarez STILL isn’t appreciated as much as his bat demands he be

appa yip yip: when should we start believing batted ball metrics if there’s been a noticeable change in hard hit rate/barrel rate/max ev?

Dan Szymborski: As ntoed, very quickly

Dan Szymborski: https://files.slack.com/files-pri/T03FTMT1N-F06USDJ60V9/image.png This suggests 36 hit balls for batters makes regression half towards league average already

Dan Szymborski: oh, i guess that won’t link

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski: top is hitters, bottom is pitchers

Guest: April, but that’s all we have for Matt Shaw as an MLB hitter. up all year? .206/.308/.324 isn’t the worst it could be going, but 81.7 avg/101 max ev ain’t great either

Dan Szymborski: This is still very early

Mike: do you share Pete Walker’s excitement over Easton Lucas’ potential ?

Dan Szymborski: meh

boggspuckett: Any concern about the start to the year from Crews?  SSS, but the strikeouts are concerning.

Dan Szymborski: Five games is just too few

BC26: What percentile do the Dodgers have to hit to win 117

Dan Szymborski: I had the 1% at 114 going into the season. It is PROBABLY at 117 now

BC26: If the Yankees want to get in on the extension fun, what would ZiPS offer Volpe or Chisholm?

Dan Szymborski: Hey, I’ve got my May extension piece to do! Don’t take away dudes! lol

Tiger Fan: I’m curious how much a week(ish) of games can change projections. What player/team has changed their season projections the most from pre season?

Dan Szymborski: Well, Braves

April: Odds the Braves break the White Sox record from last year?

Dan Szymborski: heh. approaching zero

Dan Szymborski: only because nothing’s truly zero

Mark Prior: Tanner Scott’s gotten off to a weird start this year and his velo is down a tick from the last four years — should I be worried?

The God of April: Who can I get to panic next?

Dan Szymborski: Mark Prior 🙂

Torpedo Bat: Will MLB make me a real bat? Or will I be remembered as just another Pinocchio?

Dan Szymborski: Wait, real bat?

Dan Szymborski: Torpedo bats have been kinda around for a while, but people only lost their shit last week

Michael: I know it’s April 3rd, I know I shouldn’t be thinking the season is over, but when you are 0-7 with the only offseason addition missing the next 80 games and one of your better SP’s having exploratory shoulder surgery it certainly feels bad.  How much does ZIPs have this stuff impacting the Braves division chances and playoff chances?

Dan Szymborski: BOth of these are extmerely significant

Guest: Vladdy Jr has 0 homers and Andres Gimenez has 3

Is it time to update our priors and declare Gimenez to be a better power hitter

appa yip yip: can you be a superstar if you’re underrated? doesn’t the name itself imply that you are very well known and lauded for your accomplishments?

Dan Szymborski: You can be a underrated or overrated superstar

Dan Szymborski: since there’s more granularity

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think that the general public truly gets that Jose Ramirez is one of the absolute best players of this generation

Guest: April, but barrel rate is a good deal higher than in year’s past. Too early to make anything of it?

Dan Szymborski: Not more than being mildly interesting

dancing daniel mcdawg: What does Zips think Brandon Belt could do this year? always surprised me he was forced into retirement

Dan Szymborski: Well, it’s less crazy than the occasional Barry Bonds request

Dan Szymborski: He was projected to a 115 wRC+ in ZiPS in a neutral park last year

Dan Szymborski: That’s down to 103 now

Christian: Cags can’t be any worse in the outfield than Renfroe/Melendez, right? RIGHT!?!???

Dan Szymborski: Things can ALWYAS get worse

Guest: perhaps a nonsense question, but does max ev stabilize the same way most stats do, or is it more “if you max at 110 in the first 2 weeks, you might hit one 111 down the road, but you’re already roughly in the peak area”?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t really work with max EV

Guest: what percentile were 116 and 114 for those mariners and yankees teams, or have you never back-calculated it?

Dan Szymborski: Never actually done it, since I didn’t run projections back then

Adam: Where does Luis Robert Jr end up come the trade deadline?

Dan Szymborski: I could see him ending up in Atlanta if they’re still somewhere around the race

Guest: Why would Merrill settle for such a team friendly extension this early? I’m sure the security of signing that means more than we can imagine, but it feels like he’s leaving a ton on the table.

Dan Szymborski: A lot can happen in four years

Dan Szymborski: Teams have a lot of leverage pre-arb and some people are more risk-averse than others

Dan Szymborski: If he gets a few nasty concussions with consequences, all of a sudden he may be out life-changing money

SC: Are you at all inclined to tweak ZiPS to account for an emerging consensus that minor league contraction has substantially widened the gap between the high minors and the majors, or is that just something that will correct itself over time as more player seasons get added to the dataset?

Dan Szymborski: No, and I haven’t seen evidence for a significant change.

Dan Szymborski: Remember, I’m the guy who in public MOST tracks AAA-MLB performance

Dan Szymborski: Ben L. just wrote about this and I provided data

Dan Szymborski: https://www.theringer.com/2025/03/26/mlb/mlb-prospect-promotions-minor…

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski: That’s the park/league neutral ratio for hitters from AAA to majors, >200 PA both in AAA and majors, either year 0 —> Year 0  or year 0—>Year 1

Dan Szymborski: it’s SLIGHTLY down, but not anything that ought to change hwo you feel about any player

Dan Szymborski: I maintained then and still do now that a lot of the perception is the gigantic, sudden reversal of the MLB/minor offensive environments

Dan Szymborski: PCL ERA was 5.25 in 2024 and 5.69 in 2023.

Dan Szymborski: I even asked ZiPS to go back and project all players for their initial stint in the majors for 2022-2024 with different ratios of AAA to MLB translation compared to what I actually used. The optimal for projections was to knock 1% off RC/27

appa yip yip: the difference between 100 million and 300 million when it comes to the quality of life you will lead is zero. bigger numbers are just because players like them and want to make more than each other and also why should the billionaires keep that money instead? merrill made a choice to set himself up forever.

Tim: Who will be higher rated Thai year and going forward? Austin Wells or Hunter Goodman? As is, they look like a fun platoon if on the same team

Dan Szymborski: Wells

Dan Szymborski: unless I’m not understanding the Thai year reference!

Dan Szymborski: I’m getting old, not only do I understand fewer and fewer pop culture things, there are a lot of things I’ve never even heard of I’m sure

Guest: Do you think our brains generate consciousness or do you think that we’re consciousness that is experiencing personhood?

Dan Szymborski: It bums me out, but I suspect the former. I can’t conclude anything because we still have a great deal of problem with consciousness.

Dan Szymborski: I’ll have to find out for myself at some point in the next 0 to 40 years

appa yip yip: if you hit a homerun you are still taking two bags you’re just taking them twice. two bags two times.

Dan Szymborski: I wanted Ian Desmond to take jersey number 22 so that he would be Desmond Two-Two

Rufus IX: If the Dodgers go undefeated, but get swept in their first playoff series, would the season be considered a success?

Dan Szymborski: after a 162-0 season, probably not

Guest: I just looked at the AL Central standings. Shocked to see the Twins tied for first.

Logan: Obviously we don’t know the inner workings of the player’s mind, but approximately how many teams do you trust would have gotten an extension done with Elly at some point during the past 24 months?

Dan Szymborski: 12 maybe?

J: How worried should we be about Sasaki?

Dan Szymborski: Not yet. He was always less developed and “complete” than Yamamoto, so an adjustment period being needed was a real thing

SC: Are you inclined to make any tweaks to ZiPS’ treatment of prospects to account for do anything to account for things like the overwhelming consne

Dan Szymborski: no

Dan Szymborski: I don’t like external things being in ZiPS. I feel it’s cheating to include any work that isn’t mine

Dan Szymborski: which is why I developed my own zstats version of xstats

Dan Szymborski: Voros’ DIPS work was the impetus for me seriously looking at projections, but all the work was done by me

Zebra1: How is Fangraphs treating the Rays and A’s for park-adjusted stats? Neutral park factor; last year’s stadiums? Trying to figure out the mental adjustment I should be making to those stats.

Dan Szymborski: I’m honestly not sure. I assumed neutral

Jason: What’s your estimation of the diamondbacks? Do you feel like they have a legitimate chance to contend this season, or is LA just too dominant?

Dan Szymborski: I think they contend, but the NL West is tough

J: People get too caught up in total dollars when looking at extensions and don’t consider that Merrill is making $809K this year and now gets a $10M signing bonus and a ton of guaranteed cash. That’s life changing money at an age when he would otherwise not have gotten it, and he previously had a downside risk of a career-ending injury leaving him with a few million dollars in career earnings.

appa yip yip: you have lost your calendar. you no longer know it is april. what are you getting most excited about in baseball this past week?

Dan Szymborski: I’m thinking this feels like the year Wheeler gets the Cy Young cred that he should have last few years

David: Is there a way to see Prospect ZIPs updates throughout the season or is that purely a preseason exercise

Dan Szymborski: purely preaseason

Brosius: Also, is the Dan picture before the weight loss, or after? Don’t take this the wrong way, but if it’s the after, you definitely needed to lose that weight brother!  Congrats

Dan Szymborski: Middle. I’m definitely a fatass!

Dan Szymborski: oh no, this avatar? before

Dan Szymborski: but my face hasn’t really slimmed down, but I’m working on my impressive beer belly

Dan Szymborski: it helps that I’m rarely drinking alcohol now; it just too upsets my GERD these days

Brosius: Hey Dan, thanks for the chat! Are you planning on doing a futures game ZIPS article again this year around the All-Star break?

Dan Szymborski: As with a prospects update, it kinda depends on what other pies I have my fingers in at the time

Phil: It’s not unreasonable though to think about contracts in comparative terms, even if all of these guys are comfortably rich. For complicated reasons a guy who reports to me is about to get a promotion and raise that will surpass my salary, even though he’ll still be reporting to me. I can’t say I wouldn’t prefer that that weren’t the case, even though I’m doing OK with my current salary.

Allan 2.0: Will any team realistically threaten 117 wins? I understand the plethora of talent the Dodgers have, but if things are looking that good 100ish games in and the roster is relatively healthy, you have to think load management starts to become more significant?

Dan Szymborski: 117 wins is hard because you have to be amazing AND really fortunate

Dan Szymborski: There comes a point of diminishing marginal returns, where you struggle to get all the value you want on the field

Dan Szymborski: and at that point, additions are mostly improving your downside, not your upside

Stu: Those AI food images are very calorie dense.  It’s tough out there.  Happy for you, though.

Dan Szymborski: Still gotta lose a lot of weight!

Dan Szymborski: I’ve always been a fatass even when I played sports, but for decades, I was a fatass in the 220-250 pound range. But going over 300 was too much fatass, and that’s what happened after I started having significant back issues in 2017

Dan Szymborski: Like before, i was fat, but need to walk five miles? No problem. But my back has made that really hard

Dan Szymborski: The silver lining is that my measurables haven’t gotten noticeably worse (as reference above), though that doesn’t temper my doctor’s displeasure

Yeah Well Hiura Towel: Don’t you hate pants?

Dan Szymborski: I do! I’ve always been the guy who prefers shorts until it gets down into the 50s

Dan Szymborski: and since I work from home, I wear a lot of gym shorts

Dan Szymborski: I only have one long gym pants, and I didn’t wear that until we got below zero here

Dan Szymborski: (inside, of course I had long pants outside)

Boog’s: Who’s most likely to finish the season in the Orioles rotation: Morton, Sugano, Gibson, or some other 40+ year old I haven’t thought of?

Dan Szymborski: Gibson

Dan Szymborski: Not because he’s the best, but he’s extremely durable

Guest: at 6′, 10 years ago i went from 215lb to 185, but then at some point I got back up to 225. Then lost two chunks of 30, one over 5 years (more exercise and fewer sweets), the next over about 5 mos. (concerted effort and calorie counting). been holding about 165 for 11 months now. you got this!

Guest: Dan this may be a noob question but what rate does wOBA represent? I understand the math that goes into it and I know that it’s an accurate indicator of how good a player is at producing runs, but it’s a rate stat. The denominator reflects the number of plate appearances (ABs?) that a player gets. Is it the rate of “run” creation per plate appearance?

Dan Szymborski: think of it as a wRC rate state scaled to look like it’s OBP

Dan Szymborski: There’s no real unit there

zips enjoyer: you don’t think limiting yourself to only what you can replicate  (maybe less effectively in places) hurts the project, even if it maintains some sort of “purity”.I guess then is the goal of the project to be maximally yours or maximally accurate

Dan Szymborski: We’re talkign slivers of accuracy. I just don’t like profiting on the work of others

Dan Szymborski: and I wager that most things that anyone can put in a statistical projection, I get there sooner or later

Dan Szymborski: Because doing this also answers WHY questions, that I wouldn’t get

Dan Szymborski: I want data to CAPTURE WHY someone is a 55 FV prospect in a scout’s eyes

Dan Szymborski: and every bit of new data we get gets us slightly closer to that goal

Dan Szymborski: If I just threw Eno’s work into ZiPS, I believe ZiPS would be *slightly* more accurate, but not in a meaningful sense, because we’re measuring breadcrumbs with rulers in improvements now

Dan Szymborski: And when a model requires the inputs of others to function…what happens when you lose that input? Or it becomes less accurate in a way you cannot detect?

Tiger Fan: I fully respect wanting to know the why. Too many kids be cheating through homeworks without knowing why their stuff works 🫡

Dan Szymborski: There’s a reason I GENERALLY prefer supervised to unsupervised learning in modeling. Know the WHY is extremely important to me and a transparent why that has slight accuracy losses from on opaque one is a tradeoff that I’ll take

Dan Szymborski: I think this compulsion comes from the way I was raised. There’s an almost pathological knowledge über alles vein in my family, no doubt from my maternal grandfather’s influence. Learning stuff was always more important growing up than being nice, or being successful, or anything else. I read very early not because anyone in my family pushed me, but because even as a little kid, I had this programmed compulsion to know EVERYTHING before I die

Dan Szymborski: Doing projections wasn’t some plan for commercial success or even a career. I just wanted to KNOW things. I have a lot of weird veins of knowledge in my head; I subscribe to five academic journals, I’ve read every SCOTUS decision since 1973, I still read about 150 books a year.

Dan Szymborski: So there’s probably some screw loose inside my brain!

Guest: can any of these learning principles help me with my basketball jump shot lol

War2d2: Catching up to the beginning of the chat, re: the Q about best player to be traded: Do you think Sandy Alcantara won’t be traded, or do you think Brandon Lowe is/will be better than Alcantara?

Dan Szymborski: actually totally forgot Alcantara, who would be the correct answer lol

Logan: As a lawyer, I have to say that subjecting yourself to full-text SCOTUS opinions is a character red flag, Dan…

Dan Szymborski: Lots of my family has been lawyers. I have way far too much knowledge that I will do absolutely nothing useful with lol

Guest: If you had to make a living gambling using only ZiPS and baseball could you do it?

Dan Szymborski: I suspect so, but you have to eke out a lot of small gains over a LOT of bets becuase the house take is a pretty big deal

Dan Szymborski: If I had to make a living gambling, I’d want to do it on the side of the house!

md: is it just me or are we having some real catcher batting success early this season? it’s more fun when they are fresh and less so when their knees grind to dust and they’re flailing around in september 🙁

J: Everyone understandably has been on Devers’ case in this small sample, but your being down on Casas looks awfully prescient in the early going.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t remember if I talked about it, but I find Fenway a poor environment for Casas

Dan Szymborski: A lefty slugger has to either absolutely CRUSH pitches or be metahuman and dinking it around to the RF jut

Dan Szymborski: And playing in Fenway incentivizes contact hitting. It’s a really solid BABIP park

cat latos: What do my cat friends to?

Dan Szymborski: Justinian is sitting on my office couch half asleep. Mercutio and Constantine were awkwardly sharing the heating pad upstairs when I came back downstairs for chat

Dan Szymborski: Cassiopeia/Cassie is in the little cat cave that I picked up last night, which has pretty exclusively been her base of operations.

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski: I put it in a place where she could see me going to the kitchen, which was a good tactical location for her

victoria: i had st louis toasted ravioli for the first time – they were ok

Dan Szymborski: That was my impression. They were good, but I wouldn’t seek them out or anything

Profar’s dealer: Who are the players that would benefit from PEDs the most?

Dan Szymborski: Crappier ones

Guest: Cat Cave – Our cats won’t use them, but put out a tiny box and they’ll squeeze themselves in no matter what.

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, that’s usually a problem.

Dan Szymborski: Other cats steer clear of something once Cassie claims it. She’s half the size of the boys, but she’s the one who will go out of her way to give them a smack

Dan Szymborski: Once, when one of the catlets was investigating her hedgehog toy, she cornered them both behind the toilet in the upstairs corner bathroom

crystal ball time: the all-seeing dan, who comes out with the closer role in detroit, cincinnati, and pittsburgh. (and Miami when tinoco returns)

guest: ok mr sir know everything before i die. who wins the closer jobs in detroit, pittsburgh, and cincinnati

Dan Szymborski: Hey, I was asked my philosophy about projections!

Dan Szymborski: I know it’s weird, but I still kinda feel like Foley’s eventually going to take that job back

Dan Szymborski: It’s very possible they don’t even end up wtih a real CLOSER

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure Tinoco is going to be THE guy this year

Dan Szymborski: The marlisn aren’t super aggressive with these things usually

Dan Szymborski: So I’m thinking Faucher might end up getting the most for the full season

Dan Szymborski: I think Bednar does get the job back because Pirates probably want to trade him

Dan Szymborski: if not him, Holderman

Dan Szymborski: I think Ashcraft becomes the closer sometime this year

Tim: Is Tinoco a stash? I have him on IL, which I don’t usually do for relievers

Dan Szymborski: He’s certainly worth a stash given uncertainty

guest: thanks for answering, and thoughtful response to the projection philosophy stuff. you’re a good sport

Guest: is “Eugenio” having four 1-letter syllables some sort of record?

Dan Szymborski: Homer Simpson

Dan Szymborski: In the episode with Linguo

Dan Szymborski: Ha-o-em-eh-er

Dan Szymborski: That was Run Lisa Run, right?

Dan Szymborski: it’s past the peak era of Simpsons

Birdboy: With every passing extension signed by every team but the Orioles I become further embittered.  I’m pretty sure at this point I blame Elias more than Rubenstein (though I’m sure he’s not blameless).  What do you think?  Do you suffer from GOSTOM (Goddammit Orioles, Spend The Obvious Money) too?

Dan Szymborski: If Rubenstein wants to spent the money, I suspect Elias would have

victoria: Eugenio Suarez is an amazing Pat Hughes pronunciation

Dan Szymborski: There are so many names I have in my mind “I wish I could have heard the Harry Caray version”

Insert Witty Name Here: Would you rather be the know it all you are now saddled with all the weight of not knowing everything (quite a paradox) or would you rather live the ignorance is bliss life?

Dan Szymborski: know it all for sure

Dan Szymborski: Kat calls it “Dansplaining”

victoria: “Eugenio? Backwards that’s Oinegue!”

emanredsfan: Still mad Reds traded Suarez to “save money” then sign candelario for bsaically the same money

Dan Szymborski: “Up at bat for the Reds, Jamer Candolio” – Caray probably

emanredsfan: Odds Matt McLain has the highest 2B 2026 WAR projection by years end?

Dan Szymborski: hmm

victoria: Harry would have Pete Crow-Armstrong

Guest: “With every passing extension signed by every team but the Orioles I become further embittered.”
now imagine Nats fans who have spent 15 years having all their best young players be Scott Boras clients…

Birdboy: Jack Leiter has walked 1 guy in 10 innings.  What do I look at to try and figure out if he actually learned control or just a fluke?

Dan Szymborski: probably not THIS good, and first-strike percentage is meh

small e: The 2018 Red Sox were definitely coasting/load managing by the end of the season and had their worst stretch in the second half of September. Finished 108-54 instead of pushing for 110+. I think the Dodgers would probably do the same if the division/pennant was locked up

Dan Szymborski: I dunno, there might be some internal feeling of “we’re 108-40, we’re not going to be some 112-win simps”

Dan Szymborski: ON that note, it’s time for me to hit the dusty ol’ trail