Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 6/1/23

Dan Szymborski: Greetings! I have a 1 PM appointment, so pretty strict on time today

CK: I noticed your Bengal reference and I appreciate it

Dan Szymborski: I made one?

Em: Do you think that first basemen would get fewer hamstring injuries, since they have to be flexible to receive throws from the other infielders?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure, I’m not expert enough on the human body to know why this effect, if it exists, might exist

Dan Szymborski: but it might be itneresting to study actual hamstring injuries by position

Dan Szymborski: Sorry, someone at door

Tacoby Bellsbury: Why has DJ LeMahieu’s strikeout rate skyrocketed? Is it fixable?

Dan Szymborski: OK, who figured out reaction icons?

Dan Szymborski: It’s skyrocketed, however, his fundamental plate discipline stats haven’t changed grossly

Dan Szymborski: His contact rate has gone down, but not “double the K rate” amount

Dan Szymborski: I’m running a set of zStat numbers tonight for the third of the season, so there will actually be some clarity there

Leland: Hunter Harvey 2 inning save after Finnegan worked 7th, Leiter Jr. also working high leverage, Alzolay looks like next in line for saves. Do you think Finnegan gets traded?

Dan Szymborski: You mean to the Cubs?

Dan Szymborski: I imagine the Nats would trade FInnegan this summer if someone’s interested

Dan Szymborski: I’m a bit confused, these are two questions right?

Wrights_Back: Thoughts on Mets pitching staff?   Do they need a starter or one or two relievers to have any shot at the playoffs?

Dan Szymborski: I think they still have a shot even without!

Dan Szymborski: But they do need better fortune there

Dan Szymborski: If no healthy+good Scherzer or Verlander, it’s going to be tough though

Bippity: Any hope Abreu remembers he was a very good hitter very recently?

Dan Szymborski: There’s still a shot, but as I wrote about back in April, the decline in his exit velocities are *very* worrisome

Dan Szymborski: As I noted at the time and peeved-at-me Astros fans did not, one of the characteristics of previous Abreu crap-Aprils *still* involved him hitting the ball hard (except 2016)

Dan Szymborski: It’s actually trended well in last couple of weeks

Dan Szymborski: but his plate discipline changes are also scary – he’s simultaneously swinging at fewer good pitches and more bad ones.

Dan Szymborski: You’ll see these numbers tend to be correlated when changes are approach based – a player being more aggressive, for example, will tend to see upticks in both, but hopefully a larger uptick in z-swing than o-swing

Dan Szymborski: but going the bad way in both is typically a bad sign

Dan Szymborski: and at Abreu’s age, especially concerning. I wish I had bat speed data

NL only: Should Gary Sanchez be rostered in two C NL only leagues at this point? Think he might actually hit?

Dan Szymborski: Depends how big the league is really!

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure he’ll actually hit though

Dan Szymborski: his BABIP finally got back to where it should have been last year and he still wasn’t very good

Dan Szymborski: and he wasn’t really even killing minor league pitchers

Guest: What does AI suggest for the amount of beans in a chili recipe?

Dan Szymborski: the AI learns from bad chili recipes!

Curious reader: Do the authors communicate each week about what it is they’ll be writing about; has there ever been a situation in which two writers basically wrote the same thing?

Dan Szymborski: We communicate in Slack channel what we’re thinking of writing about

Dan Szymborski: if I’m writing a similar subject to a piece a week or two before, Meg will double-check to make sure I’m doing something different enough to make it worthwhile

Dan Szymborski: Like, if Eric and I were both doing pieces on Gunnar Henderson, we’d take very different approaches

Dan Szymborski: So sometimes if my projected content is too close to something someone else is written, I’ll go back to the drawing board and think of an additional spin that I can do that nobody else has yet done

Dan Szymborski: It’s very important to us to *not* replicate content

Dan Szymborski: from ourselves or anyone else!

Dan Szymborski: Which is why I’ll make sure and include ZiPS things at times even if that’s not the focus of the article; it’s important to us to give you guys stuff that will have *something* new, be it an opinion or a fact or a projection or whatever

Dan Szymborski: It’s a small company and we all know each other very well, so there’s no friction in our slack discussions or dibs on topics

Dan Szymborski: As far as I know: there could be a rash of FUCKING SZYMBORSKI!!!!! private messages that I do not know about, but I don’t know about them!

Yeah Well Hiura Towel: Can the city of Oakland just use eminent domain on the A’s already?

Dan Szymborski: Meh

Dan Szymborski: Ignoring the legal questions, I personally find use of it in this sense to be fundamentally immoral. And I don’t approve doing fundamentally immoral things, even to crappy people.

Droopy Slider: Hi Dan!  How does a player’s actual season production impact ZIPS ROS projections over the course of the season?  How does the weight given to actual season production change as the season progresses (1/3, 1/2, & 2/3 marks)?  Many thanks.  Love your work.

Dan Szymborski: I can tell you how ZIPS does it, though not how Steamer and others do

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS derives it in-season projections empirically based on player stats at every date of every season

Dan Szymborski: For example, the first thing ZiPS does in making a projection is to establish a very basic baseline

Dan Szymborski: that differs based on stats – a hitter’s walk rate will contain a lot more season-to-date info than a hitter’s BABIP.

Dan Szymborski: and then ZiPS makes adjustments, in the full-fat model, based on the zStats

Zac: Trea Turner has been bad.  Is it enough to meaningfully shift his ZIPs projections yet?  That contract could be groin-grabbingly terrible if he forgot how to hit.

Dan Szymborski: It has already!

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS projected wRC+ has shiifted by like 19 points in the negative since preseason

Yeah Well Hiura Towel: Robo umps would eliminate catcher framing, making the skill worthless. This would probably see the rise of better throwing and hitting catchers. This is a good trade-off!

Dan Szymborski: I know people like catching framing being a thing, but I don’t like skillsets being based off of fooling the judges

Dan Szymborski: Even in the kindest description, catchers “making a positive case for a good pitch” I don’t think that the pitch should be part of what is a bright line judgment

12 to 6: with trading season rapidly approaching, would:

eddys leonard and landon knack for stroman; or

diego cartaya and eddys leonard for giolito and tim anderson

strike a chord for the respective teams?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think this would be enough

Dan Szymborski: Cartaya would likely be part of any big trade I think

Dan Szymborski: but I’m not sure the needle has moved *that* much for Knack around baseball

Dan Szymborski: and Leonard isn’t a centerpiece of any deal for a very good major leaguer

Guest: If you made a list of underrated pitches, Dauri Moreta’s slider has to be up there, right? Screwball movement + lots of whiffs makes it so interesting, but not many people are really talking about it.

Dan Szymborski: Moreta’s is neat because he’s got a few different spins on it

Dan Szymborski: I haven’t run it, but I’d bet he’s way up there in variance of horizontal and vertical movement

Dan Szymborski: sometimes it’s kinda used like a 12-6 curve and sometimes there’s a lot of horizontal movement

Curt: AL East shaping up to be a fun summer. Cavalry coming for NYY, Baltimore in the thick and TB creating a top tier offense out of thin air. Which way you see this going?

Dan Szymborski: I think the Rays cushion will hold

Guest: Alright is Rob Manfred THAT bad?

The juiced ball era is a pretty poor look. There is absolutely an argument that Astros players should’ve gotten suspended for their scandal. But besides that, I would argue that Manfred has had a moderately successful reign as commissioner. Avoided losing games during the lockout, managed to figure out some baseball in 2020. Some rule changes I’m not crazy about, but I can look past that

If he manages to change the RSN model and end blackouts, that would be awesome. Then again, he only does what owners want him to do, so maybe they deserve the credit

Dan Szymborski: Depends from what point of view

Dan Szymborski: from the owners POV he’s decent

Dan Szymborski: But I dont’ see what value he’s brought to the table to make the game overall better for fans

Cy Tanner: Who gets sent down, me or Logan?

Dan Szymborski: Neither ideally

Dan Szymborski: At this point, I’d be putting Quantrill in long relief/spot start duty when McKenzie returns

Dan Szymborski: he can’t just bleed 20-30% of his K rate every year

McGraw45: Padres media rights the first step to ending the anti-competitive insanity of RSNs?

Dan Szymborski: Probably. We’ll see how it shakes out money-wise

Krusty: NYC Pitcher questions:

• is Max Scherzer finding his stride? What do you expect going forward?
• Gerrit Cole looked like a CYA candidate in April and… um, not that in May because his homeritis acted up.  He’s obviously a front end starter, but I don’t think he can be an ace if he blows up this often (insofar as a distinction exists). What’s your #take?

Dan Szymborski: His last couple of starts have looked really good

Dan Szymborski: Mad Max

Dan Szymborski: Though it’s also against Guardians and Rockies, which you should look good against this year

Dan Szymborski: But I think he’s going the right direction, though I haven’t dug into the nuts and bolts of the last two starts

Dan Szymborski: I misread homeritis for a second

Dan Szymborski: and thought it was another medical thing I hadn’t heard of before, like E-Rod’s pulley

Dan Szymborski: Homers tend to be volatile

Dan Szymborski: I’m actually slightly more worried that his whiff rates are eroding

Dutch A’s fan: How can our pitching be this bad??

Dan Szymborski: I’m actually a bit surprised

Dan Szymborski: One things the A’s tend to do well, aided by park, is crank out mediocre fourth/fifth starters like they’re terrible Chuck Lorre sitcoms

Dan Szymborski: but they’re not finding those guys this year

Dan Szymborski: Normally, you could give the A’s a pile of cream of mushroom soup cans and it’ll have a 4.40 ERA or something and 1.1 WAR over a season

Dan Szymborski: But this season it’s like they’re just throwing the cans of soup into traffic at rush hour

Dan Szymborski: this analogy is getting out of hand

Dan Szymborski: SOUP IS EVERYWHERE

Dan Szymborski: CARS ARE CRASHING

Dan Szymborski: I DONT KNOW HOW I GOT HERE

Guest: Shockingly, Juan Soto was good at baseball this whole time. Who would’ve thought?

Jefferson: When does Dan Szymborski take over broadcast rights of an MLB team?

Dan Szymborski: I make a comfortable living, but I do not think anyone will extend me enough credit for that

Dan Szymborski: and since I do not have a station, I’m not sure I can really make money off the broadcast rights

Endangered Marlin Fan: Obviously Bryan De La Cruz is not this good, but he is actually a decent player, right? Are the Marlins actually allowed to have decent hitters like this?

Dan Szymborski: What kinda sucks is that the Marlins accidentally fell into him

Dan Szymborski: They entered the season with neither Sanchez or de la Cruz having full-time jobs

Dan Szymborski: Becasue Avisail Garcia makes money

Freeman/Olson: Is it now time to say the Olson/ATL trade was a mistake? Freddie Freeman now leads MLB WAR.  I think Alex Anthopoulos is a great GM, but it feels like he should have just given Freeman a sixth year and not overthought.  ZIPs has Freddie at 3.1 WAR in 2025; not exactly falling off a cliff.

Dan Szymborski: I wouldn’t go THAT far

Dan Szymborski: and Freeman’s still at ages where he’s risky year-to-year

Will: Was just going to ask a Gunnar question funny enough. He seems to be improving offensively a little and definitely looks more comfortable at 3rd. Is this just eye-test or is there anything real behind it?

Dan Szymborski: He’s certainly better at third than short. I just want him to get as much time at short as possible to see if he’s good enough

Dan Szymborski: Since that is the location with the highest upside

A Boy Named Yu: Can you please do a poll for me?  Based only on playability and not focusing on updated rosters, which one is better?  MLB The Show 22 or 23?  Trying to figure out which one to buy to upgrade from 16.

Dan Szymborski: I didn’t play MLB the Show 22!

Dan Szymborski: I can’t imagine 22 plays *better* as the changes tend to be incremental

Dan Szymborski: I only got the cloud gaming working well enough to get back into MLB the Show this year

Dan Szymborski: and thankfully, PS5s are now easy to snag, because I can’t frigging hit a fastball on xbox cloud gaming

Dan Szymborski: I thought that my reflexes had just slowed considerably since 2020!

Appa Yip Yip: What would be a worse fate: traded to the Athletics, or traded to the Rockies?

Dan Szymborski: the former

Cave Dameron: How much do you tip on takeout?

Dan Szymborski: 20%

A Boy Named Yu: Is lasagna a sandwich with cheese and sauce on top?

Dan Szymborski: only if you’re eating it with your hands

Dan Szymborski: I dont’ believe a sandwich you eat with a knife and fork is still a sandwich

Dan Szymborski: if you eat a grilled cheese with a knife and a fork, it’s a savory napoleon

Milwaukee BeerJays: you ever listen to the band Mastodon? Some of their stuff is like old metallica where it’s sort of classical music chops wise

Dan Szymborski: I was never really a metal guy and my tastes have gotten softer over the years

Yeah Well Hiura Towel: Fundamentally immoral to turn the plaything of a billionaire into a public good? Way better than turning poor people’s houses into a freeway.

Dan Szymborski: Yes. Using eminent domain to seize FRIGGING ENTERTAINMENT companies is an abomination

Dan Szymborski: it’s not either/or

Dan Szymborski: there’s zero coherent argument that a sports franchise is public infrastructure

Dan Szymborski: and my fellow Baltimore residents hate when I mention this, but Irsay would have been a gigantic goddamn idiot to NOT move out of the town the second Maryland started hinting about playing legal games with eminent domain.

A Boy Named Yu: Of the star 1B over the past decade or so, are you surprised Freeman has outlasted most of them?

Dan Szymborski: Not really, he’s generally projected at or near the top

Dan Szymborski: (also note that this is as far into politics as I’m willing to tread)

Dan Szymborski: Back to Freeman

Dan Szymborski: In 2017 at 27, Freeman had the second-best rest-of-career WAR projection among 1B (behind Bellinger OOPS)

Dan Szymborski: Even by 2020, Freeman had only slipped to fourth despite entering his age 30 season

Dan Szymborski: In 2020 it was Bellinger (56.4, age 24), Alonso (32.0, age 25), and Olson (28.0, age 26)

Dan Szymborski: On that note, time for me to head out for another wek!