Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 9/17/26
| 12:01 |
 Dan Szymborski: The appointed time has arrived.
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| 12:01 |
: A man, a Dan, a chat, odds of two losing records in the playoffs? sffoyalpethinsdrocergnisolowtfosddotahcanadanama
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| 12:01 |
Dan Szymborski: It’s getting into low single digits now. There are enough contenders in the AL hovering around .500 that it’s likely that both the ALC and wild cards will now be marginally winning teams
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| 12:03 |
: What prospect has made the biggest ZIPs jump this season?
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| 12:03 |
Dan Szymborski: Luis Lara I believe
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| 12:03 |
Dan Szymborski: if he had had had a 2026 projection, Eric Hartman would be up there too
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| 12:03 |
: Carroll’s odds of getting 4 triples in the last 9 games can’t be good, just on general difficulty, even for him, yeah? fortunately 6 of the games are at Chase and Coors, but Petco is one of the worst
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| 12:04 |
Dan Szymborski: Quite low, though I haven’t run the numbers. But you know they’re quite low and I do too!
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| 12:04 |
Dan Szymborski: He was looking good to get to 20, but he’s gone nearly a whole month without a triple
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| 12:04 |
: Will the Orioles exercise Luis Robert Jr.’s option, or did they just basically throw several million dollars out the window for a dozen at bats?
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| 12:05 |
Dan Szymborski: I don’t *think* they’re going to pick up the option, but I don’t think it’s super unlikely
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| 12:05 |
Dan Szymborski: 1/20 isn’t really bad for a team that hasn’t been crazy about their CF options this year
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| 12:06 |
: The Mets fans’ trolling of their team by giving standing ovations to Alonso on two straight nights (!) was incredible. When you’ve booed your team for months, all you have left to do is cheer the other team. Amazing.
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| 12:06 |
Dan Szymborski: Trolling is always fun
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| 12:06 |
Dan Szymborski: I don’t think the problem for the Mets on a move standpoint was so much not moving Alonso, which was defensible, but not really have a good idea
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| 12:06 |
Dan Szymborski: Now, he’s been terrible lately, but I liked Murakami a lot more than Polanco coming into the season
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| 12:07 |
Dan Szymborski: And as I said in the Mets preview, I think given where the mets were, I’d rather have Alonso at his deal than Polanco at his in the Mets position
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| 12:07 |
: A White Sox collapse, falling out of the playoffs, would be sad. But feels kind of inevitable. Are you taking the under on their playoff odds (70%)?
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| 12:07 |
Dan Szymborski: No, I think they’re still pretty decent
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| 12:07 |
: What to make of the 2026 Bucs? Underperformed their base runs, they had a ton of hitter injuries and Skenes regression. For 27 they return just about everyone minus Lowe, is there hope?
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| 12:07 |
Dan Szymborski: I think there’s hope for the future, but they can’t do it entirely from within and cheap FAs.
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| 12:07 |
: If this were a normal offseason, would you think the O’s would pick up Robert’s option?
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| 12:08 |
Dan Szymborski: I’m really on the fence. I think on balance, no, but again, yes is not far off
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| 12:08 |
: Would it be feasible for MLB to either create their own sports book, or to tax the current ones to where a majority of the net profit the books make be spent towards youth leagues? If they’re going to allow gambling, they should at least redirect the funds to something moral to balance the scales. Instead of yelling at players for losing their parlay, they could say “hey, at least it’s for the kids!”
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| 12:09 |
Dan Szymborski: Feasible? Yes, though it’s not that straightforward to “tax the current ones”
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| 12:10 |
Dan Szymborski: They can’t really stop most of it. They can offer licensing arrangement to incentivize sportsbook partnerships and state regulators can throw a monkeywrench in the works for sportsbooks
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| 12:11 |
Dan Szymborski: Probalby not really on MLB’s horizon as they have enough to worry about at the moment
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| 12:11 |
: Jacob Lopez is an interesting case because his ERA, FIP, and xFIP are all over 5, but his xERA is 3.52. Does ZiPS believe at all in his ability to play closer to his xERA in the future?
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| 12:11 |
Dan Szymborski: ZiPS is kind of in the middle
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| 12:11 |
Dan Szymborski: he’s not as good in the ZiPS version of xERA
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| 12:11 |
Dan Szymborski: but it does have him better than his current straightup numbers
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| 12:11 |
: How do you tend to think about an entire unit – let’s say, the Mariners’ pitching staff – all having a bad year at the same time? Shrug and say “coaching”? Is there some contagion effect to being bad, or at least worse than expected?
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| 12:11 |
Dan Szymborski: One thing I’ve found is that misses are still not predictive, even on teams that cluster team (whether good or bad)
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| 12:12 |
Dan Szymborski: Whether it’s coaching or not is the hundred million dollar question of coruse
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| 12:12 |
: My favorite “AL West is terrible” stat: the A’s, 3rd worst team in baseball, currently have a winning record against every other AL West team this year
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| 12:13 |
Dan Szymborski: Are people having an especially difficult time getting in here today? Really low reader number compared to usual and a very blank question queue
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| 12:13 |
Dan Szymborski: usually I have questions coming out of my butt at this poitn
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| 12:13 |
: Pre-season ZIPS had Jordan Walker’s 80th percentile outcome as 256/321/415 with a 105 wRC+. Currently he’s at 278/336/482 with a 125 wRC+. Does ZIPS think the breakout is real? Is this season a building block for greater things? Or should we expect horrific regression back to his earlier seasons?
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| 12:14 |
Dan Szymborski: To an extent, he’s real-ish. ZiPS is still seeing him as a 105-110 wRC+ guy
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| 12:14 |
Dan Szymborski: now
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| 12:14 |
Dan Szymborski: Because there’s a lot of REALLY awful play in his history, as solid as he’s been this eyar
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| 12:14 |
: Football has begun and fantasy baseball is almost over, are what I suspect are the reasons why this chat is quiet.
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| 12:14 |
Dan Szymborski: hmm, lemme check last year’s data
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| 12:14 |
: Similar question like the one about Jacob Lopez, but for Ryan Johnson. And maybe a larger question about if you can tell if the changes in coaching can be visible this quickly in the Angels’ performance as a rotation.
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| 12:15 |
Dan Szymborski: It can be, if there is a very specific thing that is corrected
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| 12:15 |
Dan Szymborski: approach, motion, new pitch, those things
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| 12:15 |
Dan Szymborski: maybe tipping pitches
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| 12:16 |
: Is there any reason to believe in Donovan Walton as a plus hitter? I keep expecting him to come back to Earth but he hasn’t really
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| 12:16 |
Dan Szymborski: I’m kinda skeptical, though you can’t deny that his outlook has at least gotten beter+
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| 12:16 |
Dan Szymborski: But he’s also a 32 year old
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| 12:16 |
Dan Szymborski: and even his minor league line this year wasn’t *Crazy*
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| 12:16 |
: Is the hand wringing over potentially having losing record teams in the playoffs overblown in your opinion? And is it a problem that needs addressed or just passing variance?
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| 12:16 |
Dan Szymborski: I don’t think so. You want the regular season to matter
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| 12:17 |
Dan Szymborski: MLB’s season is a bigger deal than, say, the NBA’s regular season
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| 12:17 |
Dan Szymborski: it doesn’t take much for a .500 team to go on a deep run in MLB compared to other sports
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| 12:18 |
Dan Szymborski: Someone either on Reddit or Something Awful Sports Argument Stadium recently noted that in recent years, MLB’s six seed has the best shot at advancing
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| 12:18 |
: What are your thoughts on minor league x stats?
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| 12:18 |
Dan Szymborski: They’re fairly decent
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| 12:18 |
: Dan, how does ZIPS see a player like Jake Bauer’s, MLW, who at an older age has a full on break out season?
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| 12:18 |
Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure there’ san easy answer to that. It weighs the new data more strongly than the older data, and it knows certain things are more predictive (fundamental changes in contact rate and stuff like that) than other things (BABIP)
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| 12:19 |
: If you had to choose one young pitcher to break out next season from Troy Melton, Kade Anderson, or Emerson Hancock, who do you like the most?
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| 12:19 |
Dan Szymborski: Kade
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| 12:19 |
: Dan, thank you for the chat. Given the Tigers’ strong run differential and promising breakout performances from McGonigle, Max Clark, Eduardo Valencia, et al. – plus the fact that generally a team’s prior year ZIPS projection has greater predictive value going forward than the team’s actual won-loss record…seems like there’s a good chance the Tigers will be favorites in the AL Central for 2027?
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| 12:19 |
Dan Szymborski: I think the Tigers will be fine
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| 12:19 |
Dan Szymborski: and there will be the usual handwringing in the offseason HOW CAN YOU PREDICT THEM TO WIN THE DIVISION THEY WERE BELOW .500 AND LOST SKUBAL
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| 12:19 |
: Since Dan hates the White Sox (he doesn’t), do you feel that their collapse (season is not over) reinforces projections and feeds your hate?
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| 12:19 |
Dan Szymborski: I like to believe that my hate is fed for non-projection systems. My PC isn’t the boss of me!
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| 12:19 |
Dan Szymborski: non-projection reasons
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| 12:20 |
: If you are the Padres, are you putting Salas on the playoff roster? Their LHH options are bleak
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| 12:20 |
Dan Szymborski: I absolutely wood
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| 12:20 |
: “usually I have questions coming out of my butt at this poitn” Bad place for questions to come out.
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| 12:20 |
Dan Szymborski: WHAT IF I NEED A COLONOSCOPY SMART GUY
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| 12:22 |
Dan Szymborski: I just checked, last year there was no september chat dropoff
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| 12:23 |
Dan Szymborski: I mean, maybe people just decided I suck over the last couple weeks, but I’ve been around long enough that this seems rather late in the day to suddenly come to that conclusion
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| 12:23 |
: Do contact rate and SwStr% measure different things? I know they literally do, but like, do you think they tell you meaningfully different things about a player?
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| 12:23 |
Dan Szymborski: not SO much
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| 12:23 |
Dan Szymborski: they’re correlated
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| 12:23 |
: In a putrid giants season, really happy about how Eldridge has looked. Has this season moved the needle on his projections?
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| 12:23 |
Dan Szymborski: Yup
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| 12:23 |
: colonoscopies are definitely the funniest part of aging.
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| 12:23 |
Dan Szymborski: The SNL Cologuard commercial parody still makes me laugh
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| 12:23 |
Dan Szymborski: Let’s all watch it together!
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| 12:23 |
Dan Szymborski:
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| 12:27 |
: Victor Mesa Jr: small sample size or is there something here to build on for next season?
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| 12:28 |
Dan Szymborski: Something to build on, I think! The power is probably real
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| 12:28 |
: Re: Questions coming out of your butt – have you considered seeking medical advice? I don’t think that’s supposed to come from there
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| 12:28 |
Dan Szymborski: THEN WHAT HAPPENS TO WHAT YOUR BODY CANT USE AFTER YOU EAT QUESTIONS SMART GUY
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| 12:28 |
: Sorry for the lack of questions, Dan. We’ll step it up
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| 12:28 |
: Thoughts on ketamine therapy?
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| 12:28 |
Dan Szymborski: Uh, I think there were some reviews showing it had some effects for anti-depression treatment, and less so for chronic pain?
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| 12:28 |
Dan Szymborski: But I might be making that up?
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| 12:29 |
: Any plans to revive the elegy series? I was a big fan of your team recaps and (especially) thoughts on a best path forward to improve.
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| 12:29 |
Dan Szymborski: We’re supposed to talk after the season about various kinds of things, since news will likely be slow for at least a while during the lockout
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| 12:29 |
Dan Szymborski: But as a group thing, not as just something *I* write
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| 12:29 |
Dan Szymborski: I’m going to pitch that when we have our staff meeting on the topic
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| 12:30 |
Dan Szymborski: The Elegies are fun, but they also slowed down the ZiPS rollouts
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| 12:30 |
Dan Szymborski: and people *really* want the ZiPS rollouts
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| 12:30 |
Dan Szymborski: And since most of our revenue is subscriber based, the subscribers are kings and queens!
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| 12:30 |
Dan Szymborski: Or chancellors or something
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| 12:30 |
: Which of the young/youngish stars having down hitting seasons (JRod, Cal, Gunnar, Vlad Jr., Acuña, arguably Witt Jr. and Carroll) are you most optimistic and most pessimistic about returning to form next year?
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| 12:31 |
Dan Szymborski: most optimistic about JRod and Gunnar, less so on Acuña
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| 12:31 |
: Dan- as a follow-up/corollary: since the Tigers’ real weakness this year (as in most years) is the lack of an effective bullpen, driving a horrific record in one run games – what do they have to do to cobble together a decent ‘pen? Seems like going back to Jim Leyland days, this has always been the achilles heel for them. Is there a particular ceremony or sacrifice that you would recommend? Note that circa 2008 or so, I already tried burning a Jason Grilli baseball card, which did *not* work…
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| 12:31 |
Dan Szymborski: You could sacrifice Rob Manfred!
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| 12:31 |
Dan Szymborski: I mean, not fatally, but symbolically?
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| 12:33 |
Dan Szymborski: Can it be a ceremony that gives me more Detroit pizza?
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| 12:33 |
Dan Szymborski: Detroit pizza needs more awareness generally
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| 12:33 |
: What does zips thinks are the odds that PCA ends up the leader in both offensive and defensive runs created
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| 12:33 |
Dan Szymborski: Unfortunately, I don’t have ZiPS that specific
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| 12:35 |
: Max Clark has good bat speed! 😱
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| 12:35 |
Dan Szymborski: Plus he’s a maxwell, so maybe Silver Hammer could be a nickname where it never erally got to be for Scherzer
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| 12:35 |
Dan Szymborski: I’m not influential enough to force a nickname
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| 12:36 |
Dan Szymborski: and it’s probably a good thing since my headspace canon nickname for the old pitcher Bob Milacki is Milacki boom boom down
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| 12:36 |
: Are there any players you’d tab to break out next year not because of data but because it would be fun for you personally?
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| 12:36 |
Dan Szymborski: Orioles!
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| 12:36 |
Dan Szymborski: let’s get the goddamn jackson holliday breakout finally
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| 12:37 |
: Have you heard of the music genre vapor soul?
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| 12:37 |
Dan Szymborski: I have not
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| 12:37 |
Dan Szymborski: Assuming it’s some blend of jazz and soul (not sure what the vapor is, vaping? Is there such a thing as stoner jazz soul?)
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| 12:37 |
Dan Szymborski: that’s not really my preferred genre
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| 12:38 |
Dan Szymborski: I tend to mostly listen to classical music and nerdy indie rock/indie folk
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| 12:38 |
: Cam Smith: more likely to break out next season or a case of raw skills not translating into actual production?
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| 12:38 |
Dan Szymborski: I think there’s breakout potential, but I think people overrate it
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| 12:38 |
: If you were hired as the A’s GM this offseason, what’s your plan to fix the pitching? Try to entice FAs? Trade from the position players? Just overhaul pitching dev and hope for the best?
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| 12:39 |
Dan Szymborski: Honestly, they’re still in a place of throwing shit against the wall and seeing what sticks
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| 12:39 |
: Is JRod’s rookie year gonna end up being his best batting line in his career?
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| 12:39 |
Dan Szymborski: It COULD be — and people underrate how often this happens — but I think he has enough years left that he could have a crazy yea ror two in there
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| 12:39 |
: ZiPS Rollouts…how does ZiPS handle long lay-offs and unknown timelines. (It seems that pitchers not knowing when to ramp up and shortened “spring trainings” impact pitchers more than hitters. Mostly based on Covid and last CBA negotiations).
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| 12:39 |
Dan Szymborski: Poorly! lol
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| 12:40 |
Dan Szymborski: ZiPS knows about layoffs and has a general idea about injuries, but there are a lot of unknowns
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| 12:40 |
Dan Szymborski: and honestly, that same question applies to non-projection based projections
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| 12:40 |
Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure if the second sentence makes sense. But not everyhing needs to!
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| 12:40 |
: ZIPS sooner rather than later
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| 12:40 |
: HAVE YOU CONSIDERED NOT EATING QUESTIONS SMART DAN?
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| 12:40 |
Dan Szymborski: They’re zero calories unless you’re eating loaded questions
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| 12:40 |
: Update on the senior cat who kept just missing the litter box (giving a new meaning to the “waste zone”): I rotated the litterbox 180 degrees in the exact same location and now the problem is solved. Cats, man.
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| 12:40 |
Dan Szymborski: Geez
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| 12:41 |
Dan Szymborski: is there a difference? Is there an exit that got rotated in the box?
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| 12:41 |
Dan Szymborski: Or is it just one of the many cases of a cat being randomly obnoxious?
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| 12:41 |
Dan Szymborski: Like Justinian doesn’t like salmon, but now if he smells the salmon fancy feast, he won’t just not eat, he’ll run away and HIDE for an hour
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| 12:41 |
: This is apropos of nothing, but as the real questions are apparently few, I was watching the recent Brewers-Reds series and I’ve never seen a middle infielder talk to baserunners (and the second base umpire if the bases were empty) as much as Elly de la Cruz. I mean at one point he walked over to first to chat with Cooper Pratt, then continued the conversation when Pratt reached second, then walked all the way over to third to keep it up when Pratt advanced. Crazy entertaining. He needs to be mic’ed up.
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| 12:42 |
Dan Szymborski: If mic’ed up he might be less talkative
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| 12:42 |
Dan Szymborski: get a lip reader!
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| 12:42 |
: Elly de la Cruz is certainly on a real heater. Sad to say that the Reds will have to look at trading him for a haul in 2028. He was quoted as saying LA is my town. I love Elly, so explosive and fun. I hate the Dodgers though but it makes too much sense
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| 12:42 |
Dan Szymborski: Yup, they’re going to trade him
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| 12:42 |
: Roman Anthony since he came back has a .326 BABIP, a 15% barrel rate, and 11% swinging strike rate, a 24% chase rate, and a low but passable 61% zone-swing rate. Somehow, he’s turning that into a 104 wRC+. Just bad sequencing of whiffs and takes, right? The 8% walk rate and 31% strikeout rate aren’t supported by this data.
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| 12:42 |
Dan Szymborski: I think he’ll be OK long runs
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| 12:42 |
: Dan, sorry to be so dense, but how is xERA calculated? Seems like voodoo math to me, based on perceived defensive strengths? there are huge gaps for some pitchers between actual ERA and xERA.
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| 12:43 |
Dan Szymborski: It’s basically just xwOBA, which is pitch-by-pitch exit velocity and launch angle and in grounders, sprint speed
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| 12:43 |
: Here’s a PCA question that ZiPS is built for: how much does this season change his projections going forward? Probably not a TON given the floor was high to begin with, but what a season!
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| 12:43 |
Dan Szymborski: Oh, very much so!
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| 12:43 |
Dan Szymborski: I mean, ZiPS loved him plenty at the start of the year
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| 12:44 |
Dan Szymborski: He was sixth in five-year WAR among htiters coming into the season
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| 12:44 |
Dan Szymborski: now he’s #1
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| 12:44 |
: If the elegies are too labor intensive to do each team, perhaps an abbreviated version grouped by division. I think quite a few fangraphs readers/subscribers like to play armchair GM, and (a) find your take on the best path forward interesting, and (b) use it as a jumping off point to discuss with others in the comments. Thx for considering.
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| 12:45 |
Dan Szymborski: There are a number of things that I’m planning on pitching for us to do over the lockout
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| 12:45 |
Dan Szymborski: with some things involving fangraphs readers/subscribers
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| 12:46 |
Dan Szymborski: I haven’t even pitched it to Ben, but I’d love to do a podcast where we rotate in subscribers to shoot the shit with us on baseball topics
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| 12:46 |
: It’s like atmospheric alt rock
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| 12:46 |
Dan Szymborski: So I guessed very poorly!
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| 12:46 |
: Do you think Elly has a PCA-style leap to a 10-win season in him?
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| 12:47 |
Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure he has the crazy defensive season that PCA needed
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| 12:47 |
Dan Szymborski: because if you don’t have that, you have to hit like Aaron Judge
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| 12:47 |
: Who are the Browns of MLB?
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| 12:47 |
Dan Szymborski: Angels?
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| 12:47 |
: JDP can realistically only make the Dodgers playoff roster as a replacement for Rushing given his call up timing. Its not even been a week but does that feel like a very real possibility?
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| 12:48 |
Dan Szymborski: I think ti’s very possible. The dodgers aren’t going to have a lot of lefties in reserve and Rushing elbow has to be a question
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| 12:49 |
Dan Szymborski: I know they’ve ruled out catching, but it could affect him as a hitter and maybe even have long-term csonequences
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| 12:50 |
Dan Szymborski: Also: What do you call a multi-year contract to a Dodgers backup catcher?
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| 12:50 |
Dan Szymborski: A: A Feducciary responsibility
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| 12:50 |
: I’d love to read an obit on the Giants season. Exhumation. Postmortem. Elegy. So please mark me down as a yea vote.
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| 12:50 |
: Do you have any framework that you use to try to find breakouts?
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| 12:50 |
Dan Szymborski: No, I try not to fall too much into template thinking. First, I’m not organized, and if you look for X, Y, and Z, specifically, all of a sudden you’re focusing on the X, Y, and Z rather than what it means
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| 12:51 |
: Which would be funnier to witness? Mo Vaughn with 99 speed or Chandler Simpson with 99 power
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| 12:51 |
Dan Szymborski: Vaughn of course
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| 12:51 |
Dan Szymborski: Have we forgotten the lessons of Clarence Beeftank already?
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| 12:52 |
: What are Elly’s updated career projections? Is it fair to say he’s on a hall of fame pace? Nearly 20 WAR through age 24…
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| 12:52 |
Dan Szymborski: Right now, ZiPS has him in the 50-60 range
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| 12:52 |
: BEEFTANK
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| 12:52 |
: Have you found any correlation or data in the first x number of at bats for a prospect (whether good or bad) where it is not indicative of their true talent? Like the first 100 at bats he was crushing and the league has now adjusted, or the first 100 at bats were putrid and he has adjusted or calmed down.
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| 12:52 |
Dan Szymborski: I haven’t found any value for that
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| 12:53 |
Dan Szymborski: It’s one of those things where a small sample size is a small sample size, even if we want that particular small sample size to be meaningful
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| 12:53 |
: If your the Dodgers, this feels like an off season to empty some of the farm for a young SS. Elly seems to be campaigning for it but is there a world where the Dodgers could put enough on the table for Witt to be in play?
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| 12:53 |
Dan Szymborski: Witt? No.
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| 12:53 |
Dan Szymborski: EDLC yes
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| 12:53 |
Dan Szymborski: Witt can be kept all the way to 2037 at a really good price. The Royals see him as their Ripken or their Trammell
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| 12:54 |
Dan Szymborski: Oops, accidentally deleted q eustion about what I’m playing
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| 12:54 |
Dan Szymborski: Trails in the Sky Second Chapter, naturally
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| 12:54 |
: Wow, SNL has done some good colon-related humor over the years. Didn’t they also have a “Colon Blow” cereal commercial?
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| 12:55 |
Dan Szymborski: Yes
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| 12:55 |
Dan Szymborski: Just for me personally, SNL’s strong point has always been their commercial/TV parodies
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| 12:55 |
Dan Szymborski: I’m not as crazy about their character-based skits
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| 12:56 |
Dan Szymborski: but their commercials, like Heroin AM or GE Big Boys or Old Glory Robot Insurance are great
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| 12:56 |
: if the angels and stan kroenke go crazy this winter and sign a few big names (skubal, a japanese star, seiya) do their ZIPS projections improve enough to win the weak AL West?
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| 12:56 |
Dan Szymborski: I’im actually doing something along those lines next week! \ |
| 12:58 |
: If the Royals spend like the Ripken-years Orioles did, proportionate to the league, great for the Witt Era! They feel more likely to spend like that in raw dollars.
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| 12:58 |
: If we’re randomly giving improbable skills to players, I would love for Kyle Schwarber to be standing out in left and suddenly out of nowhere be an 80-grade defender for like, maybe a week.
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| 12:58 |
Dan Szymborski: that would be cool
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| 12:58 |
Dan Szymborski: especially because if Schwarber became a great defensive player, he’ll have a better Hall case
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| 12:59 |
Dan Szymborski: and I really want him to be a Hall of Famer!
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| 12:59 |
Dan Szymborski: I can’t vote for him on his current trajectory and I REALLY WANT TO
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| 12:59 |
Dan Szymborski: because man hit ball hard go far is a good thing
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| 1:00 |
Dan Szymborski: and he’s a lot more likable than Kingman
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| 1:00 |
: A proper colonoscopy should have answers coming out of your butt, FWIW.
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| 1:00 |
Dan Szymborski: Answers without questions are just soliloquys
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| 1:00 |
Dan Szymborski: soliloquies?
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| 1:00 |
: What would happen if the Miz magically learned great feel for a knuckleball that he threw with his standard arm speed?
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| 1:00 |
Dan Szymborski: He’d easily be the most fun player in MLB the Show!
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| 1:00 |
: Wow, Elly in Los Angeles? He’d own the town. He makes the outgoing and effervescent Teo Hernandez look like Rain Man.
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| 1:00 |
: I’m now imagining the Denzel Clarke play but it’s Kyle Schwarber and it makes me happy
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| 1:00 |
: good idea/bad idea: good idea: sending a question. bad idea: sending a question before reading the whole chat
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| 1:00 |
: o/u 1 Cam Smith season of a 2026 Jordan Walker caliber by the end of the decade?
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| 1:01 |
Dan Szymborski: We’re not here to judge!
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| 1:01 |
Dan Szymborski: Maybe 40%?
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| 1:01 |
: Cololliloquies.
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| 1:01 |
: A barrel cactus is more likeable than Kingman.
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| 1:01 |
: barrel cacti are beautiful though, so not a fair comparison
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| 1:02 |
Dan Szymborski: Now THIS sounds like a job for AI
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| 1:02 |
: Cam-Smith-a-palooza. how is he looking compared to a Carrigg Bolte or Heriberto next year
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| 1:02 |
Dan Szymborski: I think I rather prefer all three
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| 1:02 |
: Thsy a typo. I meant to type ” timber wolf.”
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| 1:05 |
Dan Szymborski: 
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| 1:06 |
: Seems like Gunnar’s season ended up in a bit of an overreaction-to-skills-decline death spiral, where he seems to have tried to become a different hitter and turned out to not be particularly good at being that guy. Is this a good read? Is this kind of thing more fixable over the offseason than regular season, or is it just up to player idiosyncracy how/if they pull out of it?
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| 1:06 |
: (I think of it a little bit like getting turned down at a bar a couple times in a row so deciding to become a Hat Guy. Is it easier to stop being a Hat Guy again if you just embrace going to movies by yourself for a bit?)
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| 1:07 |
Dan Szymborski: I actually think there’s a lot of truth in what you say
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| 1:07 |
Dan Szymborski: I don’t know what coaching staff is telling him, but one of the important jobs of a coach is to arrest these kinds of death spirals
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| 1:07 |
Dan Szymborski: avoid the galloping gertie effect
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| 1:07 |
: Tigers need to sweep White Sox this weekend to make it interesting for them, right? If they do, it’ll be a wild week next week in the AL.
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| 1:07 |
Dan Szymborski: Yes
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| 1:07 |
Dan Szymborski: I actually run the numbers for someone’s reddit post a few days ago
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| 1:08 |
Dan Szymborski: Nobody asked, but I had 20 minutes to goof around while waiting for something else, so I fired up the ZiPS season simulator. ZiPS has the Tigers with 1.0% playoff odds as of the afternoon. If the Tigers sweep the series against the Jays and White Sox, then they have a 29.8% chance of making the playoffs. If the Tigers win three-of-four against the White Sox and two-of-three against the Tigers, the playoff odds only go up to 2.2%. If, however, the Tigers go 1-3 against the White Sox and 1-2 against the Jays, the probability goes under 0.05%, and rounds to zero since I express the probabilities with the one decimal place. In other words, it’s *really* sensitive to a few wins at this point, which is, of course, not unexpected. |
| 1:08 |
Dan Szymborski: oops, i meant two-of-three against hte Jays
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| 1:08 |
Dan Szymborski: but they really needed to sweep all seven
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| 1:08 |
Dan Szymborski: I think sweeping the White Sox is a must
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| 1:09 |
Dan Szymborski: And on that note it’s time for me to depart
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| 1:09 |
Dan Szymborski: thanks for coming all!
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| 1:09 |
Dan Szymborski: And if you have ideas for stuff that *you* want to see that we’re not doing, please speak up!
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Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
Congrats to ZiPS for keeping the Kwan faith this season, when every one else wrote him off, including us fans.
InsertWittyNameHere: Would it be feasible for MLB to either create their own sports book, or to tax the current ones to where a majority of the net profit the books make be spent towards youth leagues? If they’re going to allow gambling, they should at least redirect the funds to something moral to balance the scales. Instead of yelling at players for losing their parlay, they could say “hey, at least it’s for the kids!”
Billionaires, famously known for their unerring moral compasses.
They’d spend that money smashing Fabergé eggs between the hulls of their yachts for fun.
Can ZIPS estimate my White Sox panic level? Thx
Cubs fan here… you guys got this!
Now I feel like a bad Tigers fan because I didn’t even think about what they need to do against the White Sox. Hopefully AJ Hinch’s pep talk to the team tonight mentions dragging the Chisox down to our level…I mean, let’s sweep ’em!
The Pirates are the Browns of MLB. Clueless owner that keeps hiring bad front office employees. The bad front office usually select the wrong player in the draft. When they select the correct player, they end up letting them leave town.
I used to wonder how anyone could root for the Browns, then I realized that I root for the Pirates.
At least the Pirates built a beautiful stadium in a great spot. The Browns are building theirs adjacent to a Ford engine plant and the airport, when downtown was fully available to them. And the Browns have, unerringly in the Haslam era, made not just the wrong decision but the worst possible player moves. You wouldn’t think it possible, but they have a perfect 100% wrong record.
“Are people having an especially difficult time getting in here today?”
All season, actually.
The Jotcast embeds on the majority of FG chats this year have been giving me a prompt to login (even though I’m a member and logged in) and are in read-only mode. It’s been a bummer that it hasn’t gotten fixed yet 🙁
You’re a delight to read, Dan, for fantasy and personal reasons. The subscriber pod seems really cool. Bet it would attract some listeners
Wouldn’t (Dave) Mlicki boom boom down work better?