Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 9/19/2019

Gub Gub: Dan, how do I get gum out of my hair?

Dan Szymborski: Peanut butter?

Dan Szymborski: All I know about gum removal is that episode of the Simpsons where Lisa has gum in her hair and everyone lines up to “help”

Going Over the Hill: In your ZiPS projections, do you have an age at which you tend to assume players will start to get worse every year? Does this vary by position? Or otherwise how do you separate the young Lucas Giolitos, the middle-aged Gerrit Coles, and the spry Justin Verlanders of the world in your projections?

Dan Szymborski: Generally speaking, hitters age, pitchers break.

Dan Szymborski: You don’t really get into a pitcher aging *curve* (apart from the normal risks for a pitcher) until the late 30s.

Ken Rosenthal: SOURCES: Dan Szymborski sleeps nude in an oxygen tent which he believes gives him sexual powers

Dan Szymborski: False

DJ: I’m pretty new to the game and not aware of MLB’s suspension culture. Was Michael Pineda aware of what he was doing or was he being truthful when he said he didn’t know? I guess I’m asking if most of the time people know or if it is truly an accident.

Dan Szymborski: There’s this kind of kabuki were everyone seems to have to give the boilerplate didn’t know and everyone pretends that *someone* out there believes them.

Dan Szymborski: I’m sure there have been cases where a player has unknowing used

Dan Szymborski: but that’s so tricky that the rules are strictly constructed

John: Do the Marlins look to sign someone to a long-term deal this off season, like the Padres did with Hosmer?

Dan Szymborski: I suspect no

David: May I ask for your projections on Cavan Biggio going forward

Dan Szymborski: Cheater!

Magic Kingdome: Best Rankin-Bass Holiday Special?

Dan Szymborski: Year Without a Santa Claus because you get the sweet Heat Miser and Snow Miser

PadreFan: Dinelson Lamet struck out 14 Brewers in six innings last night. How optimistic should I be about a rotation that includes Lamet, Paddack, and Garret Richards as its top three starters?

Dan Szymborski: I’d be very

Derek Smalls: Is the two-word review of the album Shark Sandwich an actual sandwich?

Dan Szymborski: Only if reviewed through the medium of bread.

Philip: Is there a date for the zips prospect rankings?

Dan Szymborski: I’m still rethinking how to fit it in without riding the coattails of Eric/Kiley and where it makes sense. Since it was so late in the season, it just didn’t make sense to do it right before official ZiPS

Magic Kingdome: How should the A’s. Rays, and Cleveland plan to use pitchers in the wild card game?  Who should start? And if they should go with an opener, who should be their opener and bulk guy?

Dan Szymborski: Depends! I think you have to plan for your best pitcher in the wild card game. It’s the only game you KNOW ahead of time is going to be extraordinarily high leverage.

Magic Kingdome: Should the Mariners go the Texas route and sign some discount free agents like the Rangers did with Mike Minor and Lance Lynn, or should they sit free agency out except for maybe a few league minimum depth guys?

Dan Szymborski: I think you look for opportunities, especially with a vp/gm who loves trading, but I don’t think you go into the offseason with the plan to say, sign X number of starters or X position.

tslammer: Assuming a successful TJS, is Hunter Greene a future 60 or greater FV? What’s your take on his talent?

Dan Szymborski: I avoid going in strict FV fashion if I can avoid it. Let’s say he’s highly promising, but there are the normal caveats when dealing with a highly promising player with little professional experience, all in the low minors, with a major injury.

Stefan: Zips projections seem fairly optimistic about Royce Lewis being an above average major league player, yet, he has spent the last two years being barley above average in single A (2018) and below average in A and AA in 2019.  Are projections accounting for something else? He just kind doesn’t seem that good

Dan Szymborski: Let’s not forget he’s very young and just turned 20 and his power is developing (and without the benefit of being in AAA and using the wacky ball)

JupiterBrando: People use the phrase “worst contract” to refer to overpays and bad outcomes, but I prefer to look at them in terms of just how dumb they are. And in that case, is there any contract worse than Ian Desmond’s? The Rockies gave him 5 years and 70 million to play first base. In Coors!

Dan Szymborski: In terms of pure projection, Cabrera was certainly worse.

Dan Szymborski: But since there was an actual non-crazy argument there, Desmond’s deal is dumber.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t agree with Detroit’s reasoning for extending Cabrera; I thought his FA matched nicely with the end of Detroit’s window

Dan Szymborski: But I can’t describe “He’s our franchise player and a future Hall of Famer. We really, really want to keep him and he’s not coming out of any kind of budget, so it doesn’t affect how we treat other players” as a lunatic argument.

Dan Szymborski: Now “Hey, let’s sign Ian Desmond to play first base for five years. But don’t worry, he can play outfield TOO!,” is nucking futs.

Dan Szymborski: You could say the Ian Kennedy signing was worse.

Dan Szymborski: In some respects.

Dan Szymborski: There was a lot of “he’ll just take the opt out so it’s a short term deal” from the hardcore Royals apologists and while that’s very bad reasoning since it didn’t envision Kennedy sucking, at least Kennedy didn’t block the team’s best MLB-ready prospect.

Dan Szymborski: And while Ryan McMahon has disappointed, that doesn’t mean he *wasn’t* the best MLB-ready prospect on the team at the time or should not have gotten the job.

Mercado with a Mouth: Do you have any opinion on the entire minor leagues switching to the major league ball next season?

Dan Szymborski: Let me see if I can find the emote for that.

stever20: how much fun has the AL Cy Young race been?  These 2 guys the best 1-2 pitching punch we’ve seen in how long?  Are they better than Johnson/Schilling?

Dan Szymborski: Not better than Unit/Schilling, that’s damn hard.

Marc: Now that Rendon is in the MVP conversation, do you know of any other MVPs who didn’t even make it to the All-Star game in recent years?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think Jimmy Rollins made the AS game his year

Dan Szymborski: And Chipper Jones I think did it

Dan Szymborski: I don’t have an easy way to check offhand

gashouse gorilla : Which returning from injury (or departing to injured list) players you think might have the greatest impact on the playoffs?

Dan Szymborski: SEVERINO

narvain: Machado is finishing off his worst full season to date.  Is San Diego cursed to never have a good offense?

Dan Szymborski: No, I think they’ll be fine

Kretin: Do you think Gerrit Cole will be worth whatever investment is made in him?

Dan Szymborski: Yes

Phil: How do you think the Nationals pitch the wildcard game?  Is that what you would do?

Dan Szymborski: You gotta go with Scherzer any time he’s healthy

Austin Meadows: I… am not upset to be out of Pittsburgh.

Magic Kingdome: Favorite Disney ride?

Dan Szymborski: never been to Disney

Kyle Crick: So…. whatever we were fighting about, I was probably on the morally correct side.

David Price is Right: Where does Marcus Semien finish in MVP voting?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure he gets as much consideration as he ought to

National Emergency: With Rendon probably leaving, Strasburg maybe leaving, and a crappy farm system, but a big market and rich owners, should the Nats rebuild or what?

Dan Szymborski: If you lose both Rendon/Strasburg, I don’t know how you make good on those losses.

Dan Szymborski: Even with all the money in the world because if you had all int he money in the world, the optimal strategy in the winter is…signing Rendon/Strasburg

Dan Szymborski: Cole can’t make it up singlehandedlhy

Kristen: Will CLE move Kluber this offseason?  Could use the freed-up dough on a much-needed bat.

Dan Szymborski: I would have been about 80% sure before Bauer move, now I’m more 50/50.

Magic Kingdome: What would Hosmer get as a free agent this offseason?

Dan Szymborski: Maybe 3/40

Guest: For a sandwich: is a pita bread?  Is an english muffin bread?  Are ritz crackers bread?  Is gluten-free bread bread? Is matza bread?

Dan Szymborski: If they’re used in breadlike fashion, I think they can be

PD: Is there a more disappointing song than The Final Countdown? Such a kick ass intro, then, bleh. Kinda like Kevin Maas’s career.

Adam: Should it matter if PED use was intentional?  If the drugs truly enhanced performance, it was an unfair advantage, however they got into the player’s system.

Dan Szymborski: Honestly, my position is that in a perfect world, it *should* be the mens rea; I consider it far more a safety issue than a performance one.

Dan Szymborski: I’ve spend the last decade trying to find any use for a drug suspension in a more accurate projection and I’ve found *zero* use for it as a dummy variable, in any manner short or long term or anything from a career standpoint.

Dan Szymborski: I think the most compelling argument for drug testing is to prevent players from having to feel pressured to use drugs.

Fangraph’s Lurker: Big thank you to the fangraph’s community for helping me get through law school and studying! I PASSED THE FLORIDA BAR EXAM!

Dan Szymborski: Congrats

Dan Szymborski: Although it’s a mixed blessing as Florida Man may be your client.

kd: Benintendi really hasn’t progressed at all this season and, in fact, his second half has been underwhelming.  Were we too optomistic?

Dan Szymborski: Depends how optimistic you were to begin with!

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think 115-120 OPS+ or wRC+ was all that greedy.

Dan Szymborski: If you thought he’d be a superstar, yeah, that was probably unreasoanble even without the benefit of hindsight.

Dan Szymborski: I think most years, Benintendi ought to be somewhere between 2.5 and 4 WAR

PD: Dan, what did you promise Carson, and why won’t Meg let us know?

Dan Szymborski: Wait, what is this?

PD: Re: worst contract. Can we call these best player contracts?

Dan Szymborski: I think it can be tricky because realistically, you look at contracts from the point-of-view of teams, simply because the team’s benefit is baseball wins while the player’s benefit may be great houses and investments and maybe starting up their own business

Dan Szymborski: We have more of a vested interest in, say, Chris Paddack winning games for the Padres, then how Chris Paddack’s startup, which is, I don’t know, Uber but like for pickpockets, is doing.

Dan Szymborski: (I made up that startup)

Dan Szymborski: I dont’ think it’s inconsistent for me to both praise a team for spending efficiently *and* wanting to see players win more.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think teams have an ethical duty to spend more than they have to in any financial system. The solution isn’t to get teams wanting to spend more, but a better *CBA* that’s designed to incentivize investing in talent more than their pockets.

Al Gone Quinn: I may be butchering the conclusions of Voros McCracken’s research of many years ago, but he seemed to say k’s and bb’s are highly controllable by a pitcher while hr’s are somewhat controllable. Given the quantity of hr’s given up this year, not to mention the cumulative #’s for the last few years, are zips and other projection systems saying hr’s are even more controllable by a pitcher or less controllable since Voros’ time?

Dan Szymborski: Depends how you look at it.

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS projects HR way better than actual HR does, but Voros didn’t have the tools at the time.

Dan Szymborski: It ain’t V man’s fault we didn’t have exit velocity data or even good pitch velocity data in 1999.

Durability: Pujols will have played more games than Trout the last three years as soon as he plays tonight’s game. Does this concern for Trout’s gradual counting stats (incl chances to pass Bonds/Mays/etc in a decade)?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think it’s enough to cause concern

Dan Szymborski: Pujols is getting quite a lot more playing time than his play has deserved for years!

Dan Szymborski: I think Cabrera more likely to happen

Dan Szymborski: I like the idea of Cabrera re-finding one last power season than Pujols hanging on for 44 more

stever20: which HR comes first, Pujols #700 or Cabrera #500?  Right now Pujols is at 656, Cabrera 475.

Dan Szymborski: Sorry, I didn’t post the question, I wasn’t just on a weird tangent

BenZ: If the AL Wild Card has a better record than the NL Central winner and they meet in the World Series, does the wild card team get home field advantage?

Dan Szymborski: I believe so, yes.

rebuild season: Is Chris Davis on the O’s roster come mid-season 2020?

Dan Szymborski: I think they finally pull the plug before that

Dan Szymborski: It’s really getting kinda sad.

White Sox Fan: Buying Eloy last few weeks?  Really barreling and laying off crap sliders while punishing anything in the zone.

Dan Szymborski: Yes

CamdenWarehouse: I forgot about Thursday Dan!

Dan Szymborski: BUT YOU’RE HERE

Guest: How do the Indians replace Kipnis next year?

Dan Szymborski: At this point? Quite easily.

CamdenWarehouse: Did you get another cat? I saw a kitten post at some point

Dan Szymborski: Yes, I adopted two bonded kittens from the same litter so that they didn’t have to be broken apart.

Dan Szymborski: I’m up to three housepanthers now.

Dan Szymborski: These two I’ve named Constantine and Justinian.

JustCurious: Machado’s wRC+ this year is 106. His career road wRC+ (best proxy I can get quickly to production outside Camden) is also 106. A lot of people flagged this as a concern in the offseason.

Dan Szymborski: I think he’ll be fine long-term

Dan Szymborski: It’s dangerous to use road performance

Magic Kingdome: Jimmy Rollins won an MVP?!?

Dan Szymborski: He did!

Dan Szymborski: Unless I’ve lost my mind

Guest: Did you play Strat O Matic as a kid? It’s a lit game

Dan Szymborski: Slightly too young for it’s peak years but I had Dynasty League Baseball in the mid-90s.

billie flyballish: are you a fan of Pliny the Elder?

Dan Szymborski: LORD PALMERSTON

Dan Szymborski: Wait, that’s Pitt

Geust: What % of questions do you answer?

Dan Szymborski: About a third. You guys ask a LOT of questions

Peanut butter haircut: Just read that Michael Chavis has “not responded well to baseball activities.” Does that mean he’s cryptic in his email correspondence with baseball activities or that he gave baseball activities the finger?

Dan Szymborski: I always liked baseball activities as a term.

Dan Szymborski: “Hey should we say Rick is healthy again?”

Dan Szymborski: “No, let’s just say he’s resumed his daily constitutional of activities of a baseballiary nature, as is his wont.”

mikecws91: Really enjoyed your White Sox elegy. How many free agent SP do you think they should be looking to add this winter? I’m thinking two, since Giolito/Lopez/Kopech/Cease is a young and talented group, but it seems foolish to count on all 4 to be MLB caliber AND healthy in 2020.

Dan Szymborski: Hard to say. I don’t like rigid planning

Dan Szymborski: There are lots of scenarios and contract lengths at which it would make sense and not make sense.

Pat’s Bat: Why don’t we just let players use performance enhancing drugs off a predetermined list under medical supervision?  Get some actual science in there rather than a flat ban.  I’m worried that a lot of today’s superstars will have shorter careers because they can’t keep training or recovering from injury as they age.

Dan Szymborski: Because East German women’s swimming team.

Guest: For a sandwich, can anything used in a bread-like fashion be bread?  Bacon?  Honeydew?  Fruit Rollups?

Dan Szymborski: Well, a sandwich like.

ben: Would you consider sharing your chili recipe with the world, or is it a secret?

Dan Szymborski: Meat, chili peppers, seasoning.

Dan Szymborski: You can go anywhere you want from that

Dan Szymborski: You guys never use the peanut gallery!

Geust: How much of player development is playing time and how much is growing into one’s athletic prime?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure you can compartmentalize.

Jim Leyland Palmer: Corned beef or pastrami?

Dan Szymborski: Pastrami

stever20: what do you make of Pujols 2nd half this year?  He’s got a OPS over .800 and a wRC+ of 111.  Is this just a fluke?

Dan Szymborski: Yeah

CamdenWarehouse: Three? I thought you had four. Or does Mercutio not count as a housepanther?

Dan Szymborski: Tuxedo cats don’t count as housepanthers.

Dan Szymborski: Maybe a housepanda.

Joe: Does ZiPS give percentile chances of a player’s projection?  As in, what is the percentile that Acuña could go 50/50 next season?

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS gives all sorts of things! But I have to run it

Kiley DcManiel: The Cards playing the cubs 7 more times before the end of the season is just wild to me

Dan Szymborski: It’s going to be a lot of fun!

OddBall Herrera: I’m still waiting for one of our presidential candidates to champion a *real* social justice initiative – that as long as you don’t have smelly feet, it’s totally ok to walk around the office and attend meetings without shoes on.

Dan Szymborski: I tend to sweat but my feet don’t

Dan Szymborski: I *rarely* wear socks.

Dan Szymborski: Benetti/Petriello/Perez

Adam: Who’s your favorite current broadcast team?

Dave: Guac or Hummus?

Dan Szymborski: Hummus seven days a week and twice on Sunday

Dan Szymborski: I dont’ like the mouthfeel of avocado generally.

Dan Szymborski: It feels way meatier than it ought to, if that makes sense.

J: I think that we should keep the ban on PEDs for players but enforce mandatory PEDs for umps. Make the players think twice before they argue with Macho Man Angel Hernandez.

Dan Szymborski: Well, we KNOW Angel Hernandez isn’t use a performance-enhancing dcrug

Overbearing Padre: If J.D. Martinez opts out, would it be wise for the Padres to offer him, say, four years and 80 MM? Understand he’s an outfield liability, but no more than Josh Naylor, except J.D. can mash.

Dan Szymborski: I honestly dont’ think he’s the best fit

Dan Szymborski: and you can’t ignore the defense.

CamdenWarehouse: uh, no. Keep your shoes on in the office and on airplanes

Dan Szymborski: I do wear socks at the airport because they make you take off your shoes

Al Gone Quinn: PED’s that cause umps to make better calls should be mandatory.

Guest: I have a moral dilemma.  There is a prohibition themed dress-up event at a so-called ‘speakeasy’ bar that people are for some reason trying to get me to attend.  Do I or do I not show up in a giant t-rex costume and pretend I misunderstood the instructions?

Dan Szymborski: Dress up as a police officer, rent a U-Haul van, and arrest and fill up the fan with drunks. Then turn them into U-Haul with everyone inside.

Alby: Lasik surgery for umps would be a good investment.

Z Man: What have you learned over the years in how ZiPs translates to RL results, and how has your system evolved over time?

Dan Szymborski: That’s a very large question to answer in a chat

Dan Szymborski: https://tht.fangraphs.com/10-lessons-i-have-learned-about-creating-a-p…

Dan Szymborski: There have been more lessons since then, of course

Z Man: Do you see Nick Castellanos getting a big contract this offseason after such a hot run with the Cubs, yet a very limited skill set (DH type)?

Dan Szymborski: No. I think the idea that he’s added tens of millions in value is crazy.

Justsomeguy: I listened to your podcast on bless you boys the other day. Beforehand, I had found you to be a bit snarky in some of these chats but  I came away from the podcast understanding your humor better & read some past chats. I now thoroughly enjoy your insights. Sorry for being a tool & not giving you a better chance

Dan Szymborski: I think the trick to “getting” me (though not everyone will because you can’t account for taste) is understanding the fact that I’m not actually angry about nearly anything ever.

Dan Szymborski: I live ina  constant state of amusement. The most I get is exasperated.

Dan Szymborski: And on that note, time to leave you guys for another week!

Dan Szymborski: Thanks for coming everyone, I’ll see you next week for the season finale!