Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 7/10/25

Dan Szymborski: Sorry, took me some time to get in!

Tacoby Bellsbury: What is your favorite portdanteau?

Dan Szymborski: Dang, I know I have some but I can’t think of them!

Dan Szymborski: I did once describe the feeling of getting mad at Hall of Fame voters for not voting for deserving players as Blylevengeance.

Dk: What do you see the Mets doing at the deadline?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think they’ll go CRAZY, but they may add some depth, especially to rotation

Dan Szymborski: Like I could see them going after Eflin

Half Street: Do you think the Nats new GM (DeBartolo or a new hire) might trade Gore in the offseason? Should they>

Dan Szymborski: I think no and no. Though it depends if they think the current path of rebuilding is sustainable or they ahve to start from square one

M’s Fan: Had Zips lowered its outlook on JRod? It seems like he peaked early and has now settled into above average defense and running with average offense.

Dan Szymborski: It has – his five-year WAR is down like 12% from where it was at the start of the season (for 2026-2030)

Melky Cabrera: Was Shane Smith the right all-star pick for the White Sox? Lots of love for Adrian Houser currently.

Dan Szymborski: I like the Smith pick. When he’s one, he’s really fun, and he’s mostly been solid this year. Houser’s been good, but he’s kinda a known quantity and he only had half the time

Beve Stalboni: …on second thought, maybe Sandy Alcantara is not coming around.

Dan Szymborski: It’s very dangerous for a writer to write about a player on the day they start!

Dan Szymborski: I shoudl have written it for Tuesday not yesterday

drplantwrench: what do you/ZiPS think of mickey moniak’s resurgence in Colorado?  hes been on fire recently but his home/away splits are pretty disastrous

Dan Szymborski: We are both meh.

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS does have him at 1.5 WAR in 425 PA next year, and having an averageish season is about as high as ZiPS has EVER been on him

A big dumb idiot: Which players have improved their ZiPS most in the first 3 months of the season?

Lance Biggerstaff: As an Orioles fan I’m going to be sad we can’t let Bryan Bake anymore, but a top 40 pick for a solid reliever (even one with team control) is too good to pass up right?

Dan Szymborski: I did an article on that afew weeks ago!

Dan Szymborski: Yes

Jerry Seinfeld voice: What’s the deeeal with Jackson Merrill?

Dan Szymborski: Liek Freeman, I think just a down period

kwabbit: After being cut from the 2024 White Sox, Romy Gonzalez now has the highest hard-hit% at 61%, among batters with 100 BBE. ZiPS is now projecting a wRC+ of 116 ROS, while Steamer has him at 96 ROS. Do you take the under or over on ZiPS?

Dan Szymborski: I think under because I’m a bet hedger!

Shandy Koufax: Is it time to crack each others heads and feast on the goo inside re Jacob Misiorowski? The control issues don’t seem to have cropped up by zone% or OOZ Swing%, and the pitching models love his location (compared to his scouting report) with 101 Location + and 59 botCmd

Dan Szymborski: I’ve just enough watching him!

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS keeps warning me he’s not Skenes

Dan Szymborski: but I’m all I HAVE DOMINION OVER YOU, DIGITAL BEAST

Pkpkpkpk: I know it’s only been a little bit more than a month. He’s a hall of fame and the all star starter. It’s probably fine. But what in the world is up with Freddie Freeman?

Dan Szymborski: Like Merrill, I’m not really worried

MilwaukeeBeerJays: Good Morrow sir. Hey did you ever see the cartoon called “The Raccoons” as a child? All the characters had these weird downward Tetris L shaped Fawcett noses and the intro theme ended with fireworks. Or am I an AI that’s hallucinating a person who hallucinated an odd cartoon from their “childhood”. Baseball.

Dan Szymborski: I did not, I may have been *slightly* too old to have seen it in the US?

Dan Szymborski: By the time I was like nine, I didn’t really watch many cartoons

Dan Szymborski: except TMNT

Dan Szymborski: I mostly saw the usual standbys and the USA Cartoon Express

Dan Szymborski: because fo the latter, I have an encyclopedic knowledge level of 1970s Hanna Barbera cartoons

Dan Szymborski: I could probably narrate every episode of Jabberjaw

Dan Szymborski: or Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch

Dan: Are the Blue Jays for real?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t thing being on a 90 win pace is too preposterous

Dan Szymborski: As I said last year about the Jays and the year before about the Yankees and the Mets, it’s foolish to take a team’s worst performance as the new baseline

ransofast: if Texas tries to steal the space shuttle from the Smithsonian, should Mike DeWine hijack it in the Gulf and float it up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to get it to Dayton where it belongs?

Dan Szymborski: Sounds like fun

Dan Szymborski: I like capers

Dan Szymborski: both culinary and shenanigan-driven

Guest: players never agree to a cap without a floor too (or…)? a team in freaking Chicago spending only $77 mil seems insane

Dan Szymborski: The proposals aired had ridiculously low floors.

Dan Szymborski: I *think* MLB would have to crush the players to get a cap; you’d need a lost season and players panicking I think

Dan Szymborski: They don’t ask me and I’m not a member, so I have no say, but I’m of the position that baseball’s de facto soft salary cap is of the same substance as an explicit salary cap, so it makes sense to get the best position you can

Phil: Here’s a question I’ve been wondering about for a while: how do playoff odds interact with the possibility of a team giving up and trading its best players. It seems to create some weird math for teams with playoff odds below 50% around this time of year, because if the odds go down the team will deliberately get worse, so it seems like it would be hard to maintain low but steady odds through July. Does this affect the accuracy of the listed odds, or is it already baked in? Or am I misunderstanding how math works?

Dan Szymborski: THey don’t really

Dan Szymborski: I’ve tried to doing a generalized model for likelihood a team trades their players, but the error bars are so large that I abandoned the idea

Kevin: I’ve read several statements saying the Rockies are ten years behind when it comes to analytics. I’m not asking this about the Rockies in particular, but what more specifically would it mean to be ten years behind when it comes to analytics? What are the biggest things analytics allow teams to accomplish today that couldn’t be accomplished ten years ago?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think it’s more the stuff they’re able to do rather than what they understand

Dan Szymborski: Behind here means more than they don’t have the resources that most teams have for analytics, either funding or size. And most seriously, they don’t have the same systems in place to integrate analytics with broader decision making

Dan Szymborski: I don’t know the current White Sox people, but for several years, I got the impression their analytics department was Matt Koenig having to handle like everything

Coolidge: Braves are in a real tough spot. No depth, bad farm system, long term extensions to core players are starting to backfire, not much payroll space. Is the future for Atlanta staring to look a little worrying?

Dan Szymborski: Worrying in that it’s uncertain. But the team still has a lot of assets, so they have freedom of movement

Dan Szymborski: But they do need to focus on their shrot and long term goals this winter

Guest: i cannot figure out how to sit at a desk with a computer anymore without something being distractingly uncomfortable. is it probably me, my desk, or my chair

Dan Szymborski: Chair?

Dan Szymborski: I sit parallel to my computer table in a large recliner with an ottoman. my right arm is on my desktop and my large monitor at an angle so that my head is usually pointed about 20 degrees to my right. I have another parallel desk to my left and another table behind me

Dan Szymborski: And I’m quite comfortable

Dan Szymborski: I think you need to audition some chairs!

mmddyyyy: As new stadiums enter the mix, is the size of the field of play increasing or decreasing

Dan Szymborski: ususually decreasing

mmddyyyy: When is a player in the union?

Dan Szymborski: Since they added minors leaguers, basically always now!

Dan Szymborski: including FA

Volpe: Does ZiPS still think Volpe is going to be a star. Will he improve much in the next year or two?

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS thinks Volpe’s more likely now to be a 2-3.5 WAR performer through his 20s

Dan Szymborski: Which means he’ll have *some* four-win seasons

Dan Szymborski: but his wRC+ projections are mostly high 90s now

Phil: Links to the improvers articles if you want to post them: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/which-hitters-have-seen-their-2026-project… https://blogs.fangraphs.com/which-pitchers-have-seen-their-2026-projec…

mmddyyyy: How many subscriptions do you carry?

Dan Szymborski: I subscribe to a ton of stuff really

Look At This Sotograph: Speaking of cartoons, did you ever watch The Oblongs starring Will Ferrell? I liked it at the time. Also I hear that guy’s a dickhead

Dan Szymborski: This is literally the first time I’ve heard of this

Dan Szymborski: And when I search for it, NOTHING rings a bell

Sal Bando: What’s the story with Onell Cruz?   I know he’s a wildly fluctuating hitter but this is getting dire.

Dan Szymborski: II think eh’s a volatile hitter

MilwaukeeBeerJays: Speaking of hallucinations, the Toronto Baseball Blue Jays are in first place thanks to *checks notes* Ernie Clement, Miles Straw, Addison Barger and 26 year old George Springer. This is REALITY though…..right?

Dan Szymborski: Life is strange

Guest: would you rather have real-life umpires signaling balls and strikes once it’s automated, or get creative and have, like, a hologram tupac making the signals?

Dan Szymborski: the latter

Dan Szymborski: for example, animatronic raccoons

Idiotic Failson: “I don’t think they’ll go CRAZY” – you said this about the Mets. Isn’t it true that this is probably the default answer to just about any team’s deadline plans? Additional question – what team do you think is going to go the most ‘CRAZY’?

Dan Szymborski: I can see the Dodgers doing something crazy and off the wall

Idiotic Failson: How do I know that we’re not chatting with a LLM pretending to be the actual Dan Szymborski?

Dan Szymborski: An LLM would accidentally try and make more sense

Walton Goggins: Who is a favorite childhood player of yours, and who is someone that you find comparable to them present-day?

Dan Szymborski: Every submarine pitcher!

Dan Szymborski: or sidearmer

Dan Szymborski: I may have been the only kid in Little League to have ever been inspired by Terry Leach

Dan Szymborski: It’s why I was an effective pitcher as a kid really. I find throwing sidearm far more comfortable than over the top or three quarters and I could get a little movement on pitches that I wouldn’t have gotten much on otherwise

Dan Szymborski: I didn’t throw hard or have great control or anything. Just having a weird pitching motion and some pitches that act atypically was helpful for me

Some kinda Mook: Dan, did you say a couple of weeks ago that you like musical theater? Any favorite shows?

Dan Szymborski: I’m a REAL sucker for Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812

Sal Bando: Who are your favorite classic and modern conductors?   As a Bruckner and Mahler fan I would think Bruno Walter would be up there.

Dan Szymborski: Ah, the thing about Walter is that he was always dependable and thoughtful but he would never be my number ONE choice in anything

Dan Szymborski: Kinda like Alfred Brendel (RIP)

Dan Szymborski: My favorite Mahler recordings are the old Bernstein NY recordings

Dan Szymborski: and the more modern Bertini cycle

Dan Szymborski: for Buckner, I really like the relative recent Tintner recordings and Jochum. Also tend to like Karajan here where I mostly find him a bit too self indulgent

Dan Szymborski: I wish Furtwangler had survived into the 60s/70s to record more!

Dan Szymborski: At my age, I tend to gravitate towards more extreme interpretations on either side for works that I know really well

Dan Szymborski: Like I have very little interest in hearing a middle of the road Beethoven 5th at this point

Is the Candlestick Maker Next!: Thoughts on the Baker to Tampa deal? Fair? Sign of a big sell-off looming?

Dan Szymborski: I like it, it’s fair for a decentinary pitcher

Is the Candlestick Maker Next!: Todd Frohwirth!

Dan Szymborski: Mark Eichhorn was a legend in 1986 and at eight, it was just the right age for me to become a huge fan

Dan Szymborski: I’m STILL excited the Orioles signed him

mmddyyyy: How hot is too hot for baseball?

Dan Szymborski: 90! But I hate hot weather

Dan Szymborski: I love being in a press box on a hot day

Syndergaardengnomes: We’re doing portdanteaus?  About time this user name paid off…

Don: Hey Dan, do you know a way that wouldn’t require hours of work to find QS by SP for the year, along with W/L/ND and possibly even run support by start?  I’m trying to gauge “lucky” and “unlucky” SP with this stuff.  Thank you!!

Dan Szymborski: I think you can do that on stathead pretty quickly

Dan Szymborski: Time me

Dan Szymborski: crap, it’s not taking my password, i need to reset

Coolidge: Nothings more extreme than Celebidache’s Bruckner.

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, but I have to do stuff and I don’t have two hours

Phil: Do you know Michael Gielen’s Mahler recordings? I find them really fascinating as a distinctive interpretation.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think I’ve heard them all. I remember liking a third from him and not so much a fourth

Dan Szymborski: I do like my Mahler kinda neurotic

bndj88: Who has the best crab cakes in Baltimore, and why is it Faidley’s?

Dan Szymborski: the best crab cake in Baltimore is one you make in your kitchen and using Barbara Mikulski’s old recipe

Dan Szymborski: Bah, I can’t get the totals

Dan Szymborski: https://stathead.com/baseball/player-pitching-game-finder.cgi?request=…

Dan Szymborski: I thoguth I could

Guest: the senator?!

Dan Szymborski: yeah

Dan Szymborski: though I put I mix in a tiny bit of horseradish when I mix in mustard

Dan Szymborski: and BROIL the crabcakes

Dan Szymborski: If crabcakes can be pan-fried without falling apart, you have too much filler

Don: appreciate you looking…stathead worth the price of admission?

Dan Szymborski: Yes

Leo: What do you see the Padres realistically doing before the deadline?

Dan Szymborski: I think they’ll be especially low key given they probably have the most financial constraints of any contender with a high payroll

Oaktown Blues: Do you think a trade structured around Tyler Soderstrom for Chase Dollander could be mutually beneficial? I assume Rockies would have to add a sweetener or two?

Insert Witty Name Here: What exactly makes a Beethoven 5th “middle of the road”?

Dan Szymborski: moderate tempos, moderate dynamics, no real interpretive stance, etc

Sal Bando: I do like the NY Bernstein Mahler—and his Beethoven 5th from that era—but his Vienna recordings of Mahler are mostly atrocious IMO.  For Furtwangler the Beethoven 9th from 1942 is my favorite.  Regal stuff.

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, I mostly like 50s/60s Bernstein

Dan Szymborski: The sad thing about Furtwangler recordings is that many of the best ones have pretty awful sound

Dan Szymborski: If I had a time machine and went back in time to kill Hitler, I’d probably discover that’s something that’s easier said then done, and would probably just go listen to concerts or something

Dan Szymborski: But then again, my German is nowhere near good enough to pass for a native

Insert Witty Name Here: Watching Wimbledon now, would you rather have baseball institute a rule that the crowd has to be quite before each pitch, or allow tennis fans to make noise during the whole match?

Dan Szymborski: I like noise related pressure

Dan Szymborski: Chess matches should be rowdier too

Dan Szymborski: AWWW BOOHOO CANT REMEMBER MAIN LINE OF NAJDORF SICILIAN WHILE DOUCHEBAG STEVE POURS A BEER OVER YOUR HEAD HUH?

Insert Witty Name Here: Furtwangler has to be a 9 year old boy’s superhero name.

Don: you could off nazis in your free time between shows

Dan Szymborski: The thing is, I’ve never actually killed anyone

Dan Szymborski: And if I had to kill someone, I’m not sure in a foreign country 40 years before I was born is the best time to get practice

Sal Bando: Did you ever see Manhunt?  It’s a classic Fritz Lang movie about a sportsman who lines up Hitler as a target but doesn’t pull the trigger.

Dan Szymborski: I haven’t!

Guest: they never let me pitch in kid rec league. my usual job was to drop the fly ball then throw the guy out trying for 2nd

Dan Szymborski: My little league career was weird. I *was* on our lousy travel team! I pitched and played second base. I sucked at catching flies, but I’m extremely competitive and charged at every grounder, no matter how hard hit. I used to get bloody noses a couple times a year from a ball bouncing into my face

David: Would it make any sense – even a scintilla – for a team that needs an additional left-handed bat in the lineup to try playing a left-handed mashing hitter at 2nd, 3rd, or short if all the other positions are already taken up by good players? Or is there no way a lefty could play those positions?

Dan Szymborski: I think the problem is the lefties won’t have any practical experience at the positions

Dan Szymborski: I’d like someone to do that as a test thing though

mmddyyyy: Are there any active players that project positively into their 40s?

Dan Szymborski: Aaron Judge has a 0.9 WAR projection at age 41!

Dan Szymborski: Carlos Santana has a 0.8 for next year

Guest: how much 2026 hope do you and/or ZiPS have for Matt Shaw now

Dan Szymborski: Still some.

mmddyyyy: Have you ever been there when a record was broken?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t believe so

Dan Szymborski: I was there for the first game of the O’s 21 game losing streak to start 1988 though!

Dan Szymborski: I was ALSO at the WWE Raw in Baltimore where they first showed the video of Big Boss Man stealing the casket of the Big Show’s dead dad at his funeral! lol

bndj88: I was at 2,130. And I’ve gone 30 years claiming that game was the real record-breaking game. Cal moved into first on 2,130; Gehrig moved into second on 2,131!

records!: You just need to define “record” narrowly enough — you were there the first time a Dan Szyborsk had a pulse on 7/10/2025 at 1:10 pm EDT!

Guest: what was Carlos Santana’s 2026 projection when he was Aaron Judge’s age
i assume less than 0

drplantwrench: how much do you think the angels should sell?  how much do you think they will?

Dan Szymborski: I think the Angels need to tear it all down. They won’t do any of it, I don’t think

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

Dan Szymborski: Thansk for coming all