Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 9/21/23

Dan Szymborski: It’s a chat!

Guest: Has this season increased or decreased Justin Verlander’s odds of reaching 300 wins?  This season feels like a median outcome to me, but curious if Zips sees something different.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t have ZiPS open, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s dropped a little bit

Dan Szymborski: Verlander matched his projections, but remember, he wasn’t at 50% to win 300 games

Dan Szymborski: He kinda needs to beat his win projections by a bit

Guest: Enjoyed the milestone article looking 3,000 hits.  Any other milestones that you’re planning to look at soon?

Dan Szymborski: Probably! I was originally just going to do multiple milestones, but as I wrote the piece, I really wanted to talk more specifically about Freddie Freeman so it became about hits

Jason N: Update on Padres playoff chances if they win out?

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, let me open

Dan Szymborski: But I’ll have to get back to it as it’ll take 15 mins

WhatMonster: The recent articles about Freddie Freeman had me looking at his player page. I was surprised to see he had a negative “Def” component in every season of his career. “Didn’t he win a gold glove?”, I thought. “Surely he has been an above-average defender at least once.”.

Dan Szymborski: Def contains the positional adjustment

Travis: Has Soto vs Acuna rest of career changed after this season?

Dan Szymborski: Acuna’s back in tops with ZiPS

Braves Homer: Acuna’s 3 year ZIPS projections stealing no more than 28 bases over the next three seasons. Does Zips currently not consider the new SB-relevant rule changes when considering SB projections?

Dan Szymborski: Those are done preseason

WhatMonster: Damn, it cut off my previous question. Continued – So I looked at all first basemen from 2020-2023: out of 15 qualified 1B over those 4 seasons, not a single one has a positive “Def” score. Christian Walker “leads” at -7.8. Help me make sense of this. If the “Def” score is “Fielding and Positional Adjustment Combined (above average)” shouldn’t someone be above average by definition? It seems like right now it’s comparing first basemen to shortstops, and penalizing them for it. Someone has to play first – and some of those 1B will be better at it than others, right?

Dan Szymborski: It’s just putting the positional adjustment into the DEF

Dan Szymborski: I’ll reverse the question: how can a 1B *ever* have as much pure defensive value as an average SS?

Dan Szymborski: Year BA OBP SLG G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO HP SB CS + DR WAR   2024 .304 .398 .555 152 578 125 176 33 2 36 101 82 107 10 49 11 153 1 6.8

Dan Szymborski: that’s acuna

SpicyBoy: Cody Bellinger has had a great season despite declining statcast data. However, looking closer, his barrel% and hardhit% are actually about the same as his post 2020 seasons if you look at them on a per AB basis instead of per batted ball. In this sense, his data is punishing him for making a lot more contact than he has in previous years. I don’t think he’s back to 2019 form, but is instead a much better version of the hitter he was in 2020-2022. How much of his performance is sustainable and does statcast need to adjust the way they present data?

Dan Szymborski: I’m a Bellinger skeptic in that he’s not really hitting the ball all that hard

Dan Szymborski: I mean yeah, it’s not perfect

Dan Szymborski: but his velocity numbers are still really low

Dan Szymborski: but even with better contact, it’s not really sustainable to have this big a diff

Outraged Twitter User: Stop pretending you have access to non-Public ZiPS projections. /s

Dan Szymborski: heh

Dan Szymborski: It’s one of my favorite genres of tweet

Dan Szymborski: For those who are confused, there’s a certain, fairly obscure, type of social media user who is outraged that I keep claiming to have access to ZiPS projections that other people don’t. These people will occasionally try and explain to me how ZiPS works. Admittedly, when that starts, I will frequently egg them on.

Braves Homer: In 2022, Acuna stole 29 bases in 40 attempts (~73% success) and was credited with 4.8 BsR.  This year, he’s at 67 SBs in 80 attempts (~84% success) and is at 5.0 BsR.  The description that come sup when you mouse over BsR only explictly mentions SBs and CS, but I assume other baserunning events (pickoffs?) are considered.  Has his baserunning really been so bad outside of the SB game that it more or less negates 38 SBs?  Or would you say that there are pretty large error bars around that 4.8 BsR for 2023?

Dan Szymborski: BsR looks at other baserunning events

Dan Szymborski: It definitely hurts that he has the most pickoffs + baserunning outs this year, with 15

Dan Szymborski: (that’s not including CS)

Dan Szymborski: And it’s not from volume, he’s taken an extra base successfully this season less often than Carlos Santana or Austin Riley

Dan Szymborski: BR has him at 51% XBT.

Dan Szymborski: Carroll leads the league at 71%

Gold Star: What does the future hold for James Outman? He’s an “old” rookie (26) but 3.9 fWAR ain’t too shabby.

Dan Szymborski: Should be a solid player for quite a while

Dan Szymborski: He just doesn’t have the as likely dizzying upside as some of the others

Dr. Neal ElAttrache: Did ZiPS change Shohei’s projection over 5 or 10 years with the latest injury? If he only pitches a 50% starter load, or none at all, what’s he worth on the market for offense alone over 3/5/10 years?

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, I did it in Jay’s piece like a week ago

Guest: Pads are 4.5 back with 9 to play, right?  Those have got to be some pretty long odds. Especially since the SFGs are the only team ahead of them they can directly take games from.

Dan Szymborski: Oh  yeah, it’s long

Dan Szymborski: If the Padres win out

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski: Just finished running

Wes: What’s wrong with the Cubs? Do you think their 45% playoff odds seems about right?

Dan Szymborski: If you hang on a sec, I can give you latest ZiPS update. I just have to remove the nine guarantee padres wins

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS says 47.5%

Dan Szymborski: That seems to be about right. It’s very coinflippy now

Tacoby Bellsbury: Does ZiPS do opt-outs for projected contracts? (Are they called zOptouts? Because that sounds cool.) If so, does the robot think should Shohei Ohtani have an opt-out in his next deal?

Dan Szymborski: It doesn’t necessarily do that, though I can *evaluate* the opt-outs

Dan Szymborski: Opt-outs aren’t inherently good or bad; there’s a price at which it’s a great idea for a player and a price at which it’s not

Woodcock: Fun fact I can’t use my last name in the show

mq: Do you see the yankees as having a systemic problem in player dev on the hitting side? I know most prospects don’t make it, but this many underperforming their projections based on translating minor league metrics raises an eyebrow

Dan Szymborski: I honeslty haven’t looked at this systemically

Dan Szymborski: a lot of guys like Bird and Austin didn’t exactly have wonderful projections

Krusty: As a Mets fan thinking about Senga’s success and Yamamoto potentially coming to MLB: what traits matter the most for translating success from Japan to MLB? Have they changed at all since the 90s?

Dan Szymborski: Generally speaking, the control pitchers that don’t strike guys out don’t turn out as well

Dan Szymborski: It’s no guarantee of course, but the pitchers who go more after hitters tend to do better

Guest: Doesn’t the term “chili con carne” imply that meat is optional?

Dan Szymborski: Same with assless chaps. It’s to help the deluded.

LeilaAP: Does ZIPS think Brett Baty is gonna be a bust? Or is this year a temporary blip? Has Mauricio moved the needle at all on his projection going forward?

Dan Szymborski: He’s lost about 0.8 WAR per year in his long-term ZiPS projection

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS still sees him as league-averageish, but the ceiling’s been lowered

Tacoby Bellsbury: What players are you most excited to see the next batch of ZiPS projections for? Why them?

Dan Szymborski: Hey, I do full runs monthly!

Dan Szymborski: Davis Schmidt is now up to 5th most 2024 WAR among Blue Jays hitters

Guest: What are the chances Michael King follows Jeffrey Springs’ career path – long time reliever stretched out into very solid starter?

Dan Szymborski: I think there’s a real chance

Dan Szymborski: But I think it depends how much injury risk the Yankees feel like

Dan Szymborski: He hasn’t had TJ, but he’s had a couple significant elbow injuries

Dan Szymborski: and I keep getting images of Tony Saunders

Nervous Flyball Pitcher: Has this season moved the needle on ZiPS’ 2024 projection for Kyle Bradish? His K% is fine (23rd among qualified starters), but his FIP is 9th, xFIP 10th.

What about Grayson’s second half?

Dan Szymborski: Slooowly. ZiPS is more optimistic about Rodriguez

Sammy So-so: Thank you for the computer images regarding my suggestion to elongate games by having the oddly aggressive Burger King mascot run on the field at arbitrary moments. That made me laugh. Does ZIPS think any of the Mets troika of Megill, Peterson and Butto can be a regular rotation option going forward?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t even remember the image!

Dan Szymborski: I do so many of those I forget the ones I do

Dan Szymborski: But here, have a new one

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski:

Didace: I can’t find the answer to this (or, I’m not smart enough to understand the explanations that I find) – If you total Outs Above Average for all players at a position, shouldn’t it equal zero?

Dan Szymborski: It should!

Dan Szymborski: In our WAR process, our system automatically recenters to 0

bringbackpologrounds: How will the ZiPs forecast for Altuve change after this year? He has defied his 2023 projections, but are his underlying numbers signaling a decline?

Dan Szymborski: still projects well, but ZiPS is worried about playing time

Tim Tebow’s Thunder Thighs: We all understand your relationship with beans in chili: remove it to improve the end result.  If you could remove one skillset from a current player to push them to the next level (e.g. force a switch hitter to hit from just one side, remove an awful pitch from someone’s repertoire, play DH instead of the field, etc), what and who would it be?

Dan Szymborski: I’m assuming I can’t remove a PERSONAL proclivity?

Dan Szymborski: Assuming so, I’d make Jordan Walker allergic to all baseball gloves so that he always DHs

Jonny: What is Zips saying about a reasonable contract for Pete Alonso?  His HRs and RBIs continue to be robust, but the batting average and age/body type should be cause for longer term concern…

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS hasn’t changed much since I did this piece!

Dan Szymborski: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/pondering-a-possible-pete-alonso-trade/

SpicyBoy: Hasn’t that always been the case Re: Bellinger tho? even in 2019 his exit velo and batted ball data was much less impressive than his surface level power. It feels like there’s something currently unexplained with his ability to pull airborne contact. Definitely think there’s regression coming (he’s had a lot of fluky hits this year) but he’s always felt like a statistical outlier in that his best performances don’t match the underlying data

Dan Szymborski: But it was a lot better than it was now!

Guest: Has this season made you more bullish or bearish on Elly DLC? Best moments were sensational, but day to day is troublesome

Dan Szymborski: About the same.

Vincent: Dusty dislikes Chas for being fat, yet he gifts him banana pudding (alongside bread pudding and rice pudding, the king of puddings)? Seems like dirty pool.

Guest: Given the larger sample size, what does ZIPS think about Elly De La Cruz going forward?

Dan Szymborski: Really hasn’t moved a ton

Colton: Is there a particular person that comes to mind the ZiPS just absolutely whiffed on their projections? Good or bad

Dan Szymborski: You mean year in year out?

Dan Szymborski: Nobody I can think of

Dan Szymborski: Though early ZiPS (pre 2010) was worse at figuring out who has a small weak contact inducement ability

Dan Szymborski: So it was really bad at Gryboski for awhile

the gambler: would you using zips to make bets be some sort of conflict of interest?

Dan Szymborski: Is it? It seems like we have the same interest

Dan Szymborski: and while I’ve sold data to books, it’s pretty much blind

Dan Szymborski: Now, I don’t do any betting on NL player awards anymore

Dan Szymborski: So that I’m not in a position where I have to abstain from participating in vote do to having a financial stake

Dan Szymborski: I hadn’t given it much thought since I’m not a heavy better, but Yelich’s breakout year, I had some decent sized bets on him being MVP and I would have had to turn down voting if I had been asked

Dan Szymborski: I think I was Cy that year

Zach: Since you don’t vote for NL MVP this year, you’re at liberty to let us know who you would vote for. So lets hear it!

Dan Szymborski: NFI

Dan Szymborski: Acuna/Betts is razor close

Dan Szymborski: I might break a tie right now, like GageEHC on twitter, in Betts favor due to the additional positional flexibility which has some small amount of value that’s really hard to capture

Guest: Have you had to update zips to allow for four digit wRCs to support Wyatt Langford’s updated projections?

Dan Szymborski: heh

Dan Szymborski: Wasn’t Wyatt Langford the name of that Bob Knepper character on an early episode of Star Trek TNG that was originally supposed to marry Troi as a child?

Dan Szymborski: Errr, Robert Knepper

Dan Szymborski: ZIPS actually translates his minor league line at 274/368/487, but that’s obviously NOT going to be the projection

Dan Szymborski: since we’re talkign 41 games

SpicyBoy: Can Rich Hill reach 300 wins?

Dan Szymborski: If he does, then does winning 300 wins become Climbing Dick Mountain?

Thomas: I think you meant Davis Schneider, not Schmidt, unless the Blue Jays have another Davis Sch who is going to come out of nowhere.

Dan Szymborski: wtf did I call him Schmidt?

Dan Szymborski: Besides me being stupid

Dan Szymborski: Especially since his name was right there and I’ve referred to him plenty of times

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski: I guess technically fourth best Jay since Chapman isn’t signed

Kyle: You have greatly offended and disrespected the Baltimore Orioles by your low preseason projection of their team. Obviously there is no need for a trial because you and ZiPS are guilty of this malicious crime. What should your punishment be?

Dan Szymborski: I can only eat crab cakes and pit beef for a year

LindaKN: Is MJ Melendez a bust? Should the royals already be thinking abt trading Bobby Witt Jr.?Should the royals just be contracted?

Dan Szymborski: Yes. No. Yes.

MNLakes: How crazy has Royce Lewis’ grand slam binge been?  He won’t continue that pace but it is amazing to finally get to see him play again, pending current injury status…

Guest: Wyatt Langford – poor murdered character from Ozark

Tng fact checker: Apparently it was wyatt Miller

Dan: I always assume when zips disagrees with me you are just fudging the numbers to drive bettors to push the line in one direction so you can bet the opposite way afterwards. <Sarcasm>

Dan Szymborski: That would be an amazing long con

Errorless: Is there any data out there that can confirm MLB actively ruling less fielding mistakes as errors? I am convinced this is all a ploy to raise batting average so they can say their rule changes are helping the game (as I sit here in my tinfoil hat eating lunch).

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure there’s a great way to do this

Dan Szymborski: because you basically have to track the “shoulda been errors”

Tim: FWIW, last time I checked statcast’s baserunning metric (which doesn’t take into account SBs but does take into account batted ball data) views Acuna as a good bit more valuable on the basepaths than the UBR and wGDP components of BsR suggest. No clue why fangraphs hasn’t made the switch over yet

Greg: Acuna is being penalized because he’s on base in front of Riley/Olson/etc who all have some of the highest hard hit %s in the league. Harder to take the extra base on a ball hit 100+mph than on one hit 80mph

Dan Szymborski: As noted, we still have GDP in there last I checked

Dan Szymborski: thing is, it should be in there somewhere, just not necessarily in BSR

Dan Szymborski: Unless you’re modeling the rate at which you’re turning shouldabeen GDPs into fielders choices

Fire Greg Walker: Do you have any words that can give Sox fan a glimmer of hope until Reinsdorf is no longer in the picture? Because it’s feeling pretty bleak right now on the south side.

Dan Szymborski: Bourbon

Dan Szymborski: It’s inexpensive AND delicious

Dan Szymborski: Until then, I have Reinsdorf next to an erupting volcano

Dan Szymborski:

Colton: No, I mean like the projection that they had for them was just completely wrong. Like they projected them to do well and they were terrible or vice versa.

Dan Szymborski: Oh, I get a ton of those every year!

Dan Szymborski: At the median

Dan Szymborski: because, of course, you expect two percent of players to beat their 99th percentile projection or fail to meet their 1st percentile projection

Dan Szymborski: so that’s like 35 hitters and 40 pitchers right there

Colton: And I’m asking more career than single season, but if there’s a standout in that I’d be interested as well haha

Dan Szymborski: I don’t actually have THAT tracked

Zips user: I have a question about how to use your team/player zips forecast data at beginning of year.  Is Zips a forecast of fWAR?  If not can I use bWAR or fWAR “actuals” to compare to your projections ?  Which WAR is best to use to compare ?

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS is kinda in the middle

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS already models a “weak contact ability” which it “gives” back to pitchers above or below their FIP-based WAR

Zips user: How do I port a statcast number into WAR?  If someone has a +10 OAA is that the same as 10 runs which is the same as 1 WAR?  Do all the statcast numbers work this way ?

Dan Szymborski: Well, use RAA for that!

Just Fowl: Will ZiPS break down when it gets to Yoshida, sputtering, grinding gears and sending up a plume of smoke as it stumbles along trying to reconcile his sudden collapse?

Dan Szymborski: WHY ARE THERE GEARS IN MY COMPUTER WTF POWER SUPPLY DID I PURCHASE FROM YOU CORSAIR

Tng fact checker: Hope for white Sox fans: even Fred Wilpon eventually sold the team

D: In a recent chat you suggested that voters might not be that excited by the 40/70 thing. Do you think there’s any chance Betts wins at this point? Are voters taking into account his playing SS/2B/RF and his WAR advantage?

Dan Szymborski: I think it really comes down to WHO is actually voting

Dan Szymborski: I could guess a lot of my colleagues ballots

Dan Szymborski: but I mean 40/70 is exciting because it’s good. But it’s not like an established club

mac: the yankees’ entire lineup of hitters has underperformed their preseason wRC+ zips projections dramatically. overestimating veterans is a known issue with projection systems, but the rookies are more concerning. volpe, peraza, cabrera, wells, and pereira are an average of 40.6 points of wRC+ below their projections.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t have a wRC+ error due to age, as far as I’ve seen

Dan Szymborski: A team having their 10th percentile projection is naturally going to have a lot of guys underperform

Dan Szymborski: Just like every team that wins 105 games will have a lot of guys overperform

Dan Szymborski: Lottery wins almost invariably are having the luckiest days of their lives

Zips user: How do you feel about DRS Vs statcast data? Is DRS obsolete in your mind ?

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS actually uses a mix

Dan Szymborski: which is mostly Statcast, some DRS, and a little bit of UZR. It actually projects Statcast a bit better than Statcast alone does

HappyFunBall: Good bourbon IS delicious, but between inflation and the relative increase in popularity in the past few years, it is decidedly less inexpensive than it once was.

Tom: AL West prediction please

Dan Szymborski: I predict there will be five teams in the AL West until such time as expansion saddles us unhappily with eight four-team divisions

SpicyBoy: I miss chicken wings not costing as much as luxury food like steak

Dan Szymborski: HEAR HEAR

Dan Szymborski: Padonia Station in Cockeysville used to have $9.99 all-you-can-eat wings during Monday Night Football, the Super Bowl, and WWE PPVs.

Dan Szymborski: for Super Bowl, we used to go there, eat about 50 wings over the day for $9.99, and fill up on beer.

Dan Szymborski: And there would be $2 pints of SOMETHING good

Dan Szymborski: And the Damon’s in Cockeysville that used to be there, near where the Sizzler is/was and near Andy Nelson’s would have all-you-can-eat ribs for MNF

Dan Szymborski: It was actually really late in the day on 9/11 that I knew 9/11 was happening, because of all-you-can-eat ribs

Dan Szymborski: There were like six or seven of us at Damon’s that night for the first MNF of the season

Dan Szymborski: it was the Broncos/Giants game where Ed McCaffrey shattered his leg and Rodney Williams had that 90 yard punt

Dan Szymborski: and I stayed at Damon’s until midnight drinking Cokes until I sobered up, they had Honey Brown as their beer of the day and I could really knock back a ton of those like they were nothing

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure that story had a point

Dan Szymborski: But I was thinking of it

Dan Szymborski: Mom tried to call me at 9 AM to tell me something important was happening but I angrily told her I was hungover and trying to sleep and basically hung up on her

SpicyBoy: does anything have a point?

Dan Szymborski: Not really

Dan Szymborski: She told me that someone had crashed their plane into the WTC, and I thought she meant some idiot in a Piper Cherokee was screwing around and I turned off my ringer so that she stopped bothering me while I was sleeping

Dan Szymborski: So I was basically one of the last people who didn’t live in a jungle to know something was going on that day

Bourbon: I bought a handle of Jim Beam on sale for less than the price of the fifths. That was inexpensive!

Dan Szymborski: On that note, I’m going to head off as I have a piece to finish and I’m sure you’re all bored by this story that didn’t actually have a punchline

Dan Szymborski: but spicyboy got me going with chicken wings for some reason

Dan Szymborski: I miss Padonia Station

Dan Szymborski: it closed down like five or six years ago

HappyFunBall: re: handle of Jim Beam … I said GOOD bourbon

Dan Szymborski: They surprisingly had really godo cream of crab soup too, which isn’t what you immediately think of with “sports bar”