Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 5/2/24

Dan Szymborski: G’day!

Dan Szymborski: It is a time for chats.

seth: el-ly el-ly el-ly

Dan Szymborski: THATS A STATEMENT NOT A QUESATION

Champdo: If Riley Greene stays healthy do you think he’s a 4+ war player this season? Also what do you think a Greene extension would look like?

Dan Szymborski: I think so, it wasn’t even a stretch coming into the season either

Dan Szymborski: He’s been a lot better waiting for his pitch

Dan Szymborski: (Sorry, running ZiPS for Greene)

Dan Szymborski: For one, ZiPS does think he’s a four win player

Dan Szymborski: 4.1 WAR projected wins for 2025

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS suggests 6/124 if you’re going to extend him past his FA debut

Guest: When you’re making/updating projections do you regress to the league average mean or the player mean? Or both? If both how do you weight them?

Dan Szymborski: It’s complicated, depending on what you’re looking at

Dan Szymborski: in-season, ZiPS is regressing toward league

Dan Szymborski: but season to season, the regression toward the mean is “baked in” by the regression toward the mean of the large cohort of similar players

Phil: Nice job getting this chat in the hour before Kyle Bradish v. Carlos Rodon.    Which pitcher would you rather have?

Dan Szymborski: Even ignoring money, Bradish

Dan Szymborski: while Rodon came back from injury with velocity intact, his slider is really missing its bite and as such, he’s missing a lot fewer bats

Guest: Matt Olson in trouble?

Dan Szymborski: I can’t say April, so just no

Chooch: It’s no longer April, so that means Turnbull is for real right? What would you do wrt the bottom of the Phillies rotation. How do you view Turnbull vs. Walker?

Dan Szymborski: In teh sense of his FIP, sure, though not his current ERA

Dan Szymborski: He’s shown flashes in the past

Dan Szymborski: He was on a nice little run in Detroit before tommy john

Guest: Where were you last Thursday instead of doing your chat?

Dan Szymborski: I had done a full ZiPS run overnight and needed to write my Sox piece in the morning so it could be up before games started that day

Dan Szymborski: I didn’t file my piece until 12:45 on Thursday, and it was too late to do chat

Guest: ‘Sup Dan.  The other night (due to catchers interference on a ball in play) Mike Shildt had a choice to make:  1) runners at 1st and 2nd 2 outs and a run in or 2) bases loaded 1 out but take the run off the board.  Machado coming to bat.  He chose #2 and it worked out, but… what would you have done?

Dan Szymborski: I’ll be honest, I didn’t see it live so it’s hard for me to say outside an off the cuff guess

Dan Szymborski: I’d personally prefer the first, but I haven’t crunched the numbers

Guest: Have you noticed chats getting less weird over the years? Have a theory that more people have actual questions / urgency due to the proliferation of sports gambling. They don’t have time for chili or geoism or pretending to be your mom. Or maybe fangraphs has gone more mainstream?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t know, are they? I haven’t really noticed. My chat’s still pretty weird

Tacoby Bellsbury: Oof, you’re going to have to do a Mike Trout ZiPS Time Warp to 2019 or so, just so we can see what the numbers would have looked like at the end without a complete physical breakdown. (Relatedly, Anthony Rendon’s before-Anaheim projections would be interesting to look back on.)

Dan Szymborski: Maybe I’ll do that after the season

Dan Straily sighting: Last year at Camden Yards I spotted a guy in the front rows with an O’s “Straily” jersey. Name rang a bell. Google reminded me the O’s released him in 2019 after he gave up 22 HRs in 47 IP.
Question – was the man I saw actually Dan Straily, and if not, who was it?

Dan Szymborski: It would be weird for him to go around wearing the jersey from his worst stint in the majors which basically sent him overseas for good

Dan Szymborski: I’m sure Smoltz doesn’t sign autographs wearing his Red Sox jersey

Maddoning: Shota Imanaga….has more wins (5) than walks (4).  This is not sustainable of course, but can we expect more dominance like this?

Dan Szymborski: To THIS degree? probably not

Dan Szymborski: Thoug as I noted at the time, Yamamoto and Imanaga had identical ERA+ projections in ZiPS (117)

Dan Szymborski: I said I thought it was the steal of the winter and suffice it to say, 2024 certainly hasn’t made that opinion look ill-formed

Kwanbelievable: 4 straight extra innings games for the Guardians is ridiculous, what did ZiPS’ prognostications put the odds of that before the season?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t really model that!

Oaktown Blues: Who do you think wins the A’s shortstop job, long-ish term? Darell Hernaiz? Max Muncy the Younger? Jacob Wilson?

Dan Szymborski: Wilson strikes me as the most likely to seize it

Dan Szymborski: though I could be biased; I’ve used him a ton in my MLB the Show Diamond Dynasty teams

Happ-y to Be Here: Since June 20th of last year, the pitcher with the lowest ERA in baseball (min 100 innings) at 2.15 is……Javier Assad.  Mark Leiter Jr called Assad “The Best pitcher in baseball” with a straight face.  Is Leit-show actually more right than wrong?

Dan Szymborski: That’s a LITTLE too far for me

Jeff: Profar’s EV and Hard Hit % are significantly up from career numbers–sustainable?

Dan Szymborski: Generally speaking, hard-hit % has a really low number of balls in play for changes to be somewhat real

Dan Szymborski: especially since the numbers aren’t crazy. still a lot of babip to be wrung out

Spork: What are your current thoughts on Tork? Is he going to turn it around and be a good player?

Dan Szymborski: I’m on the fence. It’s only a month, but he’s taken a REAL step back in his peripheral numbers

Dan Szymborski: He’s just not hitting this very hard at all, especially compared to second half last year

Matt from Toronto: Can the Blue Jays hitters turn their season around? (Namely Vlad Jr, Bo Bichette and George Springer)

Dan Szymborski: I think so, but I’ve been saying this about Vladito for like a year and it’s getting exhausting

Coors Kutter: Is Kutter Crawford’s hot start just that, or does it portend a new level of performance?

Dan Szymborski: I think there’s a really good chance of the latter

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, BABIP is slightly on the low side, but there’s a lot to like in those periphs

Oaktown Blues: Mason Miller rightfully gets the lion’s share of coverage when talking about the A’s bullpen success. What I haven’t seen talked about much is how well the A’s have utilized long relievers in Mitch Spence and Kyle Muller to bridge the gap between a shaky rotation and the relief aces. Will this lead to other teams emulating the strategy of having multiple long relievers?

Dan Szymborski: I think long term, teams are incentivized to bring back long relief as a role

Dan Szymborski: Generally speaking, teams have been shoring up those missing innings from reduced starter workload by MORE relievers, not relievers pitching more

Dan Szymborski: but there are limits to that unless you’re position players are going to be nine starters and Jose Oquendo

Anonymous Coward: What’s the deal with the Braves offense? They’re scoring lots of runs while getting not-very-much out of their big three of Acuña, Riley, and Olson. What gives way first – does the top of their lineup start producing or does their bottom half fall to earth?

Dan Szymborski: I think they’ll get their shit together and score 15,000 runs or so

gatewayredbirds: The Cardinals are slugging .338 as a team.  As a point of reference, Aaron Miles’ career slugging percentage was .352.

Mitchell: What is going on with Corey seager? This seems like a prolonged slump, and he missed spring training and recently turned 30. Any idea on what is happening right now? Is it anything to worry about?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not worried…yet

Guest: Is Andrew Bailey the real Pitching Whisperer?

Dan Szymborski: Andrew Bailey’s delivered more splits than the waitress in Bill & Ted that brought Napoleon all that ice cream

Jolly Roger: Who does Gunnar remind you of?

Dan Szymborski:

Timmy Buttz: Did I miss an article announcing Eric’s departure? Or did I dream that I saw he’s joining a big league club?

Dan Szymborski: If he did, I totally missed it and feel like a schlub now

Dan Szymborski: I don’t see anything in slack!

Kevin: What types of data do teams have access to that you do not?

Dan Szymborski: Generally, very detailed things that they create themselves

Dan Szymborski: Most things that are baseball-wide are available somehow or somewhere, and I’ve always had ways of getting things that aren’t, if I need them

Dan Szymborski: But information that is locally proprietary, individual teams can leverage that stuff

TomBruno23: Nolan Arenado….any excess value left on that contract or do the Cardinals have to pay it down when and if it gets to be That Time…2024 35M, 2025 32M, 2026 27M, 2027 15M

Dan Szymborski: I think it is what it is at this point

Hal: What’s the appropriate level of worry regarding Acuña right now? No one would be surprised if he goes scorched earth for the next five months — but he’s never looked this lost at the plate, even during the 2022 season following his knee repair.

Dan Szymborski: Given how good he is, unless he’s nursing an injury, I’m not worried yet

Bighen: So should Alonso have been ruled safe? By the letter of the new silly plate blocking rule it seems as if it should have been illegal blocking.  Also maybe don’t slide head first.

Dan Szymborski: I haven’t really dissected every frame of the situation, but it looked like an illegal block to me

Dan Szymborski: If you have a rule, enforce the rule. If you don’t and it’s dumb, repeal the rule. A game in which people are competing against each other ought to have bright lines

Guest: I know this is one of those “good problems” to have, but Baltimore genuinely does have some real decisions to make in terms of which players to keep around for the foreseeable future. Mayo, Holliday, Norby, Stowers, Kjerstad all have little left to prove, and there isn’t an abundance of open spots in the starting 9. Who are you keeping?

Dan Szymborski: I’m writing a bit on this for tomorrow!

Timmy Buttz: Prime Dan Szymborski steps into the batters box for 2 ABs on a 1 day contract. Your 2 ABs against Imanaga and Jared jones (1 a piece). Who do you have the best chance of putting a ball in play against?

Dan Szymborski: Imanaga, but these are very low probaiblities

Dan Szymborski: just to be clear

Dan Szymborski: I was a slop throwing sidearmer as a pitcher in little league and as a teenager. I was never an amazing hitter, even on travel team.

Dan Szymborski: but I would never have been able to catch up with something 90 mph on my best day so I think I’d luck into Imanaga contact first

Oaktown Blues: I’ve been frustrated with A’s management routinely giving at bats to Tyler Nevin over Ruiz and Butler, but now he’s got a 156 wRC+ so joke’s on me! Do you think he’ll settle in as an above average hitter or is this just a hot streak?

Dan Szymborski: I’m skeptical

SeadubbinLV: Somewhat new to daily monitoring of Fangraphs data this season.  Left town for a few days and now notice that pitcher ROS WAR projections appear step-function down from last week (more than just games played progression).  As a relative newby … what am I missing?  Thanks.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think we’ve had any changes that would lead to that!

Dan Szymborski: I wish you had recorded them

Dan Szymborski: We don’t keep a daily record of the ROS WAR that’s passed, as far as I can tell

Louise: If Imanaga reached Free Agency today would he get 100 million?

Dan Szymborski: Yes

Dan Szymborski: I still think it was crayz he didn’t already

KG: Why do you think Vaughn and Torkelson have stagnated so much?  Both so highly touted RHH 1Bs, both rushed to the majors, both part of orgs that don’t seem to be the best at development.  Or was the scouting wrong on both?  I know it’s just a few years in for both, but they are not looking good, just interesting that both have failed so far.

Dan Szymborski: Torkelson is the more confusing one especially since he seemed to get it together last year

Dan Szymborski: Vaughn, his development was basically just skipped

Matt: What do the numbers say about Alek Manoah’s regression since his rookie year? Is there a career renaissance coming or was his All-Star season a flash in the pan?

Dan Szymborski: He was horrific last year, but he showed enough before that I think it’s a mistake for counting him out completely

Guest: Who would you take long term, Bobby Witt Jr. or Elly De La Cruz?

Dan Szymborski: Still Witt and I love watch EDLC

gatewayredbirds: did meg give you a demerit for missing the chat?

Dan Szymborski: It’s usually not minded if other things for FanGraphs are taking priority

Dan Szymborski: It’s not like I was playing Eiyuden or going out for brunch

Anon21: I kind of liked it better when it *was* April and there was a readymade explanation for all of the Braves’ best hitters being unable to make contact with fastballs in the zone.

Rodon: His slider has been rebounding (lots of whiffs vs a good offense in MIL).

Dan Szymborski: I hope so

Dan Szymborski: it didn’t look all that sharp when I’ve seen him

Dan Szymborski: But I didn’t see his last two starts

Chop: How does Zips estimate pitcher wins?  Regression based on some set of meaningful pitching stats?  Or does it know about how good the offense is?

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS has a simple estimate of the team quality

Dan Szymborski: A model of decision percentage both from rough estimates of bullpen/run support, historical usage, and the player’s historical decision %

Dan Szymborski: then it calculates an expected winning percentage from the RA and the roughly expected level of offense

Dan Szymborski: it uses a higher pythag exponents than on the team level as that’s more accurate

weird chat: remember when people called you Dave? those were the days of weird chats!

Dan Szymborski: Hey, I had editors at ESPN call me Dave!

Dan Szymborski: I got Daved a lot more then

Dan Szymborski: It seems that people have figured out my name is Dan

MilwaukeeBeerJays: Do you ever play tactical RPGs? I’m playing wasteland 3 right now. The writing is strong and the gameplay good.

Dan Szymborski: I do!

Dan Szymborski: Last I played were the Tactics Ogre remaster and Triangle Strategy

Dan Szymborski: then I did a full run of the Kiseki games (though just straight up JRPG, not tactical) because Reverie was coming out (and Kuro this summer).

Dan Szymborski: and I’ve been replaying the old Heroes of Might & Magic games

Dan Szymborski: and Eiyuden Chronicles

Guest: it is a real tragedy but it looks like the last 10 years of Mike Trout’s contract are going to look eerily similar to those of Albert Pujols as far as bang for the buck.

Dan Szymborski: 🙁

Matt: Orelvis Martinez has committed an error in about a third of innings played in his new defensive “home” at 2B. Where do you see him fitting in with the Jays long term?

Dan Szymborski: I would note that his minor league fielding percentage is better at 2B than SS or 3GB

Dan Szymborski: 3B

Dan Szymborski: That’ll simply improve naturally; fielding percentages go up at higher levels

GATES BROWN: Jo Adell.  Are the last few weeks a sign of more goodness to come  or is it just a mirage?

Dan Szymborski: I’m…not sure?

Dan Szymborski: There were legitimate reasons to really like him as a prospect

Dan Szymborski: and he JUST turned 25

Dan Szymborski: but he was mediocre for so long…

Tim Tebow’s Thunder Thighs: Do you ever go back and see how many players hit their 99th percentile ZiPS projection for each year?  Their 1st percentile (I feel like Tim Anderson may have been a candidate for this last year).

Dan Szymborski: I do!

Dan Szymborski: It’s pinned on my twitter IIRC

Dan Szymborski: https://twitter.com/DSzymborski/status/1730270466726883773

Dan Szymborski: <blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>How did ZiPS work in 2023? Here are the percent of players (min. 300 PA or 40 IP) who exceeded their Nth percentile projections for ERA+ and OPS+ in 2023. I'm very pleased, though always want to improve. <a href=”https://t.co/eLFpkWjWdz”>pic.twitter.com/eLFpkWjWdz</a></p… Dan Szymborski (@DSzymborski) <a href=”https://twitter.com/DSzymborski/status/1730270466726883773?ref_src=tws… 30, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

Dan Szymborski: ok THAT didn’t work

Dan Szymborski:

Tyler J: Weird thing I noticed, not sure how far up your alley this particular subject is – Dbacks prospect Cristofer Torin (who a lot of people really like) has probably the widest PV/FV split on his hit tool that I can recall seeing (25/70) via FanGraphs scouting. How is it possible that such a split could exist (for him, or maybe just in general)?

Dan Szymborski: That’s kind of an Eric question: I can’t go into his brain!

Tim Tebow’s Thunder Thighs: Somehow the FG projected standings have the White Sox winning 59 games.  59!  This looks like the worst team since the 2003 Tigers.  Do the pail hose have a chance to match them at 43?

Dan Szymborski: I did a piece ont hat last week!

Dan Szymborski: Though they had a better week

bringbackpologrounds: Which active pitcher has the most projected WAR for the rest of their career?

Dan Szymborski: Logan Webb

Dan Szymborski: then Strider (PRE injury)

Dan Szymborski: Kirby, Gilbert, Castillo, Framber, Gallen, Pablo Lopez, McClanahan, Yamamoto, Bobby Miller, Eury Perez (also pre injury), Cease, Burnes, Grayson, Bradish, Steele, Luzardo, Alcantara

JJ: Is Jurickson Profar the most confusing player of all time? Or is he just an SD vibes only player

Dan Szymborski: He could very well be up there

seth: how impactful will bat swing speed metrics be to public analysis of hitters?

Dan Szymborski: I think it’ll be quite useful once it’s fully available

KC Attention Seeker: Hey, we’re doing really well! Give us some of that sweet sweet analysis limelight while we’re still relevant!

Dan Szymborski: I did a Royals piece!

Dan Szymborski: and it wasn’t even mean!

Dan Szymborski: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/can-the-royals-pull-off-an-al-central-upse…

TomBruno23: What are some albums you consistently come back to? I spend 2x a year listening to INXS’s Kick for a week at a time.

Dan Szymborski: I assume not classical?

Dan Szymborski: according to media monkey, it looks like the album I’ve listened to the most over the last decade is The Decembrerists What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World

Dan Szymborski: Weirdly, the non-classical album I’ve listened to the most this year is a 2010 release, Woodpigeon’s Die Stadt Muzikanten

Dan Szymborski: Looking at all albums, the one I’ve listened to the most (22 times) is Kubelik’s 1990 recording of Smetana’s Ma Vlast with the Czech Philharmonic on Supraphon

Guest: Dan, the past few weeks FG has become almost unusable on my laptop. Crashes the browser almost every time. Not your department but wanted to pass along the feedback. (Sent from mobile after fg crashed on laptop for 3rd time today)

Dan Szymborski: Oh no, that’s weird

Dan Szymborski: have you tried other browsers?

Dan Szymborski: Not sure. We have an occasional bad ad

Dan Szymborski: Hit me up on twitter or bluesky

Nick: So when it gets reported that Jose Abreu agreed to go to AAA, the alternative would have been that he could refuse the assignment due to his service years, forcing the Astros to either keep him on the ML roster or DFA him, paying him in full either way?  Is that the correct understanding of the situation?

Also, do you know other examples of players with tons of remaining money and enough service time to refuse deciding to accept AAA? I would guess most just force the clubs to pay/cut them.

Dan Szymborski: As far as I can tell, yes

Dan Szymborski: as long as the player has option eligibility remaining, you can at least ASK them if they’re willing

Dan Szymborski: but if they aren’t, you have to either keep them or cut them, and the pay works like any other release

Dan Szymborski: I know it’s happened before but my dumb brain can’t think of a quick example

GA Blood: Bradish went from a UCL sprain to starting a game in less than 4 months. Can you recall any similar turn arounds? I don’t know how to research this but I’d be fascinated to see how it’s panned out for other pitchers.

Dan Szymborski: It’s hard to say since severity varies

Pallazzo: You are handed a magic hot dog. If/when you eat this hot dog you recieve 1 million dollars. But, for every day you don’t eat the hot dog you get to choose a player from history to join their current team. How many days you going and who are your top 5 you want to see?

Dan Szymborski: Oh man, for a million, I’m not sure I eat that hot dog for a long time

Dan Szymborski: does the hot dog stay good?

Dan Szymborski: I assume a magic hot dog has magic freshness?

Dan Szymborski: I’d probably work my way through most of the Hall of Famers and Hall of very good

Dan Szymborski: but when I get to the point where I’m, like bringing Chris Bosio back to the Brewers, I think I’ll eat the dog and take the million

Guest: You say you used to be a sidearm pitcher, Dan.  Forget getting a hit off Jared Jones, do you think you could get a win pitching against him?  Remember that he pitches for the Pirates.

Dan Szymborski: I doubt I ever threw a fastball much above 70. I have a better chance getting hit off him than winning a game as a pticher

Oneear: Which TOR pitcher is LEAST likely to get injured this year?

Dan Szymborski: Dave Stieb

GATES BROWN: Do you believe in this edition of Jack Flaherty?  The K/BB ratio is wonderful…but he’s been so bad for so long.

Dan Szymborski: It’s hard not to given the results. He’s not just BABIP meming

Dan: I also get called Dave, and sometimes Ben and Ann. Names are hard.

McGraw45: Waldron brought back the knuckleball, but who will bring back the screwball?

Dan Szymborski: Brent Honeywell’s ears are burning

Dan Szymborski: and I’m in the camp that Devin Williams changeup is basically a screwball

Dan Szymborski: I’m with Owen Watson’s old piece from like a decade ago

Dan Szymborski: circle changes are largely the modern screwball grip

David Wiers: Things have gotten less weird around here due to me being too busy. I’ll try harder to bring the weird.

I am the Apple: Dan Szymborski on a 10/10M deal to the Colorado Rockies. Who says no?

Dan Szymborski: Wait, do I have to go to an office every day and put on pants?

Dan Szymborski: $10 million is a good chunk of change though

Dan Szymborski: But Rockies aren’t offering me that! lol

Dan: Could you point to a player who reached their 99.9th percentile ZIPs projection or has that not happened yet?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t actually keep 0.999 percentile projections

Alan: I will second Guest’s browser complaints. FG on Edge (which I use because it plays nicest with outlook) routinely crashes the browser.

Dan Szymborski: hmm

Guest: Chrome on laptop, safari on mobile. I’ll try changing it up on the laptop. Thanks!

Dan Szymborski: At least just to pinpoint the problem

Mudders: What are your thoughts on fruit based salsa like pineapple or mango?

Dan Szymborski: I like it unless it gets too fruit forward and the fruit becomes the primary

GA Blood: re: magic hotdog… is it safe to assume that the magic powers of the dog keep the player’s talent level scaled as it was during their previous time? Cause 13 WAR 2024 Babe Ruth would be incredible, regular 13 WAR 1920 Babe Ruth would be sad

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, I don’t want to bring back Babe Ruth back to the Yankees

Dan Szymborski: but end up just created a Hall of Fame zombie apocalypse

KC Pain: Do you prefer the faster velo knuckball or the classic so slow you can see the batter twitching three times and still being early on it?

Dan Szymborski: I like the classic one where the hitter has to wonder if it’s going to stop and turn around and go back to the pitcher

the person who asks the lunch question: what’s for lunch?

Dan Szymborski: I had a late breakfast of some fried spam and a couple eggs over easy

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

Dan Szymborski: thanks for coming everyone!

Dan Szymborski: and I’ll see you next time

Dan Szymborski: unless I die or something, which I will at some point, though preferably not in the next week