Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 9/24/20

Dan Szymborski: And we are LIVEISH

Guest: Dan Rather on Twitter: “I have heard others see the world differently, but here are two things you will not find on a Rather dinner table: beans in the chili or garlic in the guacamole.”

Dan Szymborski:

David K: Over or under 60% chance that Steve Cohen is approved by mlb owners?

Dan Szymborski: Over

John S.: Marlins are ice cold. Why are their odds of making the playoff so high?

Dan Szymborski: That’s a bit beyond the purview of projections

Dab: Watching the Cubs offense makes my eyes bleed

Sonny: Yoan Moncada has talked about not feeling 100% since his COVID diagnosis, is there any way to incorporate this information into future projections (assuming these symptoms hopefully abate over time) or will this be contextual info presented with updated projections for recover(ed/ing) players?

Dan Szymborski: Unfortunately, no.

lmb2020: Is there a particular baseball aesthetic you want to see more of?

Dan Szymborski: I do wish they’d deaden the ball a bit. If you want to see less three true outcomes, you have to incentivize putting the ball in play some way or another

Sonny: Minnesota v Cincinnati sounds like an incredibly fun WS. What are some of the biggest divides between Ratings Gold! and actual, exciting baseball in your view?

Dan Szymborski: Padres vs. Rays probably would not get great ratings

Dan Szymborski: and they’re fun

Matthew: Any chance a new metric outside of FIP will be developed and used to determine WAR using statcast data?

Dan Szymborski: There are always new metrics. The reason FIP persists is because it’s simple. And most times, a simple stat that tells you the same thing as a more complicated stat is more useful.

tommytoms: po-ta-to or po-tah-to?

Dan Szymborski: People say po-tah-to?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t know what weirdos the Gershwins hung out with

Dan Szymborski: I hear to-mah-to, but never po-tah-to

Zach: What kind of line does Corbin Burnes have to put up today to have a solid chance at the Cy Young

Dan Szymborski: I doubt it’s set. I don’t have a vote this year, but I would really agonize right now for NL Cy

S: Is there a team more cursed than the Pirates? Kang, Vasquez, and now Cruz.

Tom: If you had to choose one, would you choose 1) 4 more years of drumpf, or 2) 4 years without any baseball?

Dan Szymborski: See, unlike most theoretical questions between two bad things, that could never happen, you forgot to put the gun to my head, so I escaped.

Dan Szymborski: And you can’t take out the proverbial gun now because I’ve already gotten into my car and driven off

Moose_Bolton: Do you have any memorable comments from one of your articles or posts? Do you even read them? I find that 80% of the time internet comments are pointless memeing, 15% terrible awful no good very bad takes, and 5% genuinely good and interesting.

Dan Szymborski: I read them. Angry comments tend not to be super clever.

Dan Szymborski: And the FG angry comments tend to be very tame compared to the ESPN ones

BeefLoaf108: Does having only 2 starting pitchers materially hurt a teams chances in the MLB tournament aka the MLB playoffs that are upcoming? Asking for my White Sox

Dan Szymborski: heh

Blue Morpho: Did you read that Olney article from a couple days ago? He said that this is the worst baserunning, by far, he’s seen in 41 years. Have you noticed such a drop off?

Dan Szymborski: I really don’t trust visual things from this year because everything just looks and feels off

Guest: Scenario time. For a team like the Red Sox, that traditionally has the financial means to spend, but are facing a potential rebuild, could they do the following. Sign Bauer to a 1 yr/$30M, then immediately offer him up in trade, and be willing to eat the entire $30M. Eating the money would greatly up the level of prospects they could get, since teams would get a year of free Bauer. In essence, Boston pays $30M for a bunch of really good prospects. Makes sense to me!

Dan Szymborski: Can’t do that.

Dan Szymborski: (a) Any Club signing a contract with a Player under this Article XX(B) after the expiration of the Quiet Period described in subsection 2(b) above may not assign his contract until after the next June 15. However, notwithstanding the foregoing, such contract may be assigned for other Player contracts and/or cash consideration of $50,000 or less prior to the next June 16 if the Player gives written consent to such transaction.

Dan Szymborski: (Sorry, was finding the exact language for you)

Dan Szymborski: Now, I guess technically Bauer could agree, but why would he?

Tom: Is there an alternative online source to Wikipedia that is easy to access and close to as helpful that you are aware of?

Dan Szymborski: Not really. As long as it’s something non-controversial, wikipedia usually gives you the gist.

Parrot Stan: Can the Reds stay hot enough to take 2 out of 3 against the Twins

Dan Szymborski: Anyone can take 2 of 3 from anyone at any time

Tom: is it fitting that Bauer the Blowhard is going to win the Cy in 2020, the year from hell?

Dan Szymborski: Honestly, I rather a guy be a loudmouth and say interesting things than be boring and give all the dumb cliches

Tom: Your new(ish) twitter pic looks great. I’m partial to the spilled fries, but the new one is very professional.

Dan Szymborski: The pic can’t look great because it’s still a pic of me!

Dan Szymborski: Though if it seems professional, I may have to change it. I try not to come off as too professional, lest I set a standard for decorum, dress, or personal hygiene

Dan Szymborski: This is the referenced fries picture.

Dan Szymborski:

Nathan: Having read your piece on Altuve’s shot at 3000 hits and the article on his launch angle, I thought it would be cool to have another piece which would basically be an interview with someone like a former player or a hitting coach that could speak to possible causes and what corrections could be implemented for a player having such a problem.

Dan Szymborski: I think that’s more of a Laurila piece. I’m a good analyst but I’m not a great reporter.

Tom: These guys with the stat patent… was this a surprise to everybody else in the industry or was there some awareness they were working on it?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure, I was aware of the work foggily, but I hadn’t noticed the patent thing until Eno’s piece.

Dan Szymborski: Now, people I’ve talked to in baseball since then are very negative, but I never knew to ask about it until recently!

Dbo: Almost baseball bubble time!

Sodo Mojo: Has Dylan Moore done enough that he should be considered part of the longterm plan for Mariners or is his value still as a utility player?

Dan Szymborski: I still think he’s more of a really good role player

James: Been hearing a lot of doom and gloom since Tatis is hitting .200/.312/.338 in the month of September. This month he’s also K’ing at an all time low with an above average walk and his X stats/statcast data haven’t changed much from earlier in the year. I think he’ll be fine.

Dan Szymborski: He’ll be fine. Every player has to learn how to get through a slump

Jefferson: Adbert alzolay showed off a new slider/slurve kinda pitch the other day and dominated for 4 innings with it. Does zips take new pitches into account for changing projections? How much time do you need to see a new pitch before drawing conclusions about it?

Dan Szymborski: Unfortunately, ZiPS cannot do this kind of thing. I’m not sure how you’d integrate something like that.

Cynthia: The Brewers have routinely outperformed expectations since David Stearns took over, but now I’m questioning what their future looks like. They have a few great young pitchers but a weak farm system and merely average talent at the big league level. What do you think they should do to right their ship?

Dan Szymborski: This is a completely satisfying answer, but I’m not sure when it comes to the Brewers. Some teams have a very obvious path, but you can really go a number of ways with the Brewers.

Tom: Crap, the gun! Just grabbed it from my glovebox, and… wait, where did Dan go!?!

Dan Szymborski: That’s why crazy questions start with gun to your head. Once you let the questionee escape, it’s too late for threats.

Slapshot: For 2021 fantasy purposes, would you rather have Strasburg or Sale?

Dan Szymborski: Strasburg

Blue Morpho: He also said, “Too many of our answers come from a computer screen, a spreadsheet, a set of statistics rather that what is happening right in front of us on the field.” I’m wondering if there’s any areas/ teams specifically that you think are falling into this category?

Dan Szymborski: No, teams are pretty well balanced these days

Rodney: More Alejandro Kirk or ALL the Alejandro Kirk?

Guest: Does a fine gentleman such as yourself smoke meats? Your interest in slow-braising your chili makes me think it would be right up your alley.

Dan Szymborski: I’ve made pastrami before. Getting a real smoker is on my to do list

Dan, but from the future: DAN! I’ve only got a moment before the portal closes, but I need to warn you of an upcoming pandemic in 2020. Wait, is this the chat for September 2019, or did I accide

Dbo: It’s almost slow cooker season Dan! What are your top slow cooker recipes?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t generally use specific recipes, but I know stuff.

Dan Szymborski: Lamb stews are always amazing in slow cookers

Dan Szymborski: Really, you can just throw in lamb, garbanzo, some stock, a fruit like dried apricots, and ras el hanout into a slow cooker, forget about it, and come back 8 hours later

lmb2020: Is Carlos Martinez cooked?

Dan Szymborski: I wouldn’t say that

brad: Do you think anyone will reach 200 innings next season? Counting the postseason the most any arm will get in this year will be less than 100, most likely, so that’s a big gap to build back up to.

Dan Szymborski: I think someone will still

brad: Will anyone notice if Fried and/or Burnes manage to be the first ever ERA qualifiers to finish the season undefeated? I know how pointless pitcher w/l are, but it’s still going to be a record

Dan Szymborski: If we’re counting short seasons, then Ed Cushman already did that

Dan Szymborski: Best one-loss qualifier still Johnny Allen I believe at 15-1

Rodney: Why hasn’t there been a character named Szymborski on Fargo yet?

Dan Szymborski: Hey, we *just* got a Y&R cameo. Made me feel better for not getting ZiPS in that episode of Parks&Rec

Dan Szymborski: I should upload that

Ferris: Thoughts on Walker Buehler’s Return tonight? Any pitch count?

Dan Szymborski: I think conservative.

Dan Szymborski: No reason to push him too far

OddBall Herrera: When I first saw your initial post I read it as “We are LAVASH”, which struck me as an odd rallying cry

Dan Szymborski: We all truly are bread

timbo: Is the fact that the Reds have the 4th best odds of winning the World Series, among NL teams, attributable to their starting pitching?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t run that part so I’m not sure, but I think it likely since the Reds do well in ZiPS too

caesar_solid: Hi Dan! Do you know why league-wide pitcher BABIP and league-wide hitter BABIP are different each year (at least, on Fangraphs)? What am I missing? It’s not an issue of leaving out position players pitching or pitchers hitting, nor is it something to do with qualifying or not.

Dan Szymborski: It likely comes down to the calculation.

Dan Szymborski: But that’s outside my knowledge.

Dan Szymborski: We *did* iron out the Khris Davis issue

Dan Szymborski: http://baseballthinkfactory.org/szymborski/yrd.mp4

Scotty: I know his career isn’t over but a ZIPs time warp for Jason Heyward sure would be interesting.

Dan Szymborski: I may at some point!

Sonny: bowl of skyline to your head: pick the best KC and Det SP from their current crop of debuts/prospects

Dan Szymborski: I dunno, Singer/Manning/Mize/Skubal/Bubic?

TV: Any resource or website that you can point me to that will explain, in step-by-step detail, how to build a player statistical projection model for future years?

Dan Szymborski: Unfortunately no. I mostly had to figure things out as I went along and reconstructing a haphazard mess into a step by step will be hard.

Maddoning: Thank you for your article on the Cubs offensive woes.  You didn’t even have to mention Kyle Schwarber and his 90 wRC+, 0.3 WAR, but why pile on?  What’s your take on Schwarbs?

Dan Szymborski: This might be a mean gutpunch, but I was just looking at the struggling *stars*

Eric: How aggressively do you think that teams will push pitchers on short rest in this accelerated postseason? There may be pitchers like Gerrit Cole who would prefer to pitch as much as possible, but my guess is that teams will be hesitant to push the boundaries given the trend toward more rest and shorter outings.

Dan Szymborski: I think it will depend on the team and the situation

Dan’s Grandpa’s Borscht: Alex Gordon retiring makes me feel very old.

Dan Szymborski: I assumed he was going to just keep showing up in KC in April for $5 million for the next 25 years

Guest: How do you see the Central divisions finishing?

Dan Szymborski: They will finish on Sunday the 27th, which will end the 2020 regular season.

Guest: what’s your yard like?

Dan Szymborski: Had a bunch of growth removed, it’s a pretty boring yard

Dan Szymborski: It’s hilly.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t do flowers and stuff

Dab: 1 game to win, who do you trust more: Darvish or Hendricks? I know Yu has been better and has the higher ceiling on any given day, but I just trust Hendricks so much to go out and give you 6-7 competitive innings no matter what

Dan Szymborski: Here’s where I would note that Hendricks has two game scores this year below 40 and Darvish hasn’t had one since August 2019!

Dan Szymborski: And Darvish has only failed to complete six innings once this year (twice ofr Hendricks)

Dan Szymborski: Sorry, it’s yu

Dab: Tyler Herro is good at basketball

Guest: Have you been following Defector? Man that’s a great story and nice to know there’s an option for independent websites to exist

Dan Szymborski: I like independent websites existing

Dan Szymborski: Though it’s not really for me; they and the old Deadspin had an unbearable level of smugness that even I can’t take.

Blue Morpho: What course of action would you take with the Rockies this offseason and what do you think they’ll actually do?

Dan Szymborski: I’d start with the most important thing: clean house top to bottom like the Augean stables.

Dan Szymborski: What they’ll actually do, nothing.

Guest: Why did you get a cameo and what does it even mean?

Dan Szymborski: I didn’t, but my *name* did!

GSon: would you agree.. Sloppy Joes is chili on a bun?

Dan Szymborski: No, I’m not putting ketchup in chili

Jeff in T.O.: “Deaden the ball”. Yes please. League-wide Offensive numbers are down across the board, except homers/game which are tick behind last years record setting pace. It’s just not as exciting.

Gutbuster: Based on performance this year, do you prefer Lewis, Murphy, or Robert?  Based on expectation of future performance, who you got?  And, are you surprised that Lewis’ defense in CF has been good for +1 OAA?

Dan Szymborski: Robert

Ben: So most players who have had a very good or great 2020 (Betts/Trout/Machado/Rendon, etc.) still have considerably less WAR than they were projected for in a full season, meaning their career WAR totals will probably be lower than they would have been without a shortened season, but are there any players who have exceeded expectations so much this year that their projected career WAR is currently higher than it was circa January 2020? Could you write an article on those players?

Dan Szymborski: Probably Kyle Lewis for one

GSon: Can Francisco Lindor’s post season change the feeling that even though he is a good SS, he is not much of a clutch performer.?

Dan Szymborski: If I knew how to change dumb feelings, I’d be less frustrated.

OddBall Herrera: “I don’t do flowers and stuff” I tried that line on my most recent wedding anniversary and it didn’t go so well

Dan Szymborski: My seasonal allergies are a killer, so I don’t hang out in the backyard all that much.

Dan Szymborski: I just like the landscaper to kill stuff and keep everyting plain and low-maintenance

Ben: Why do people buy Macs?

Dan Szymborski: They use the software, they don’t want to do much with PCs, or they’re status-seeking.

Elliot: Wait, you put ketchup on a sloppy joe?

Dan Szymborski: Isn’t the sauce made with ketchup?

Dan Szymborski: I’ve never made sloppy joes and I don’t think I’ve had once since I was a little kid

Tom: @Dan – gotta get back to work. You’re great & I especially enjoy the twitter content. I appreciate your honesty and insightfulness.

Dan Szymborski: Thanks! I’m honest, though I don’t know how insightful

Guest: For the smoker, you should get a ceramic one. The big green egg is the gold standard but way overpriced, you’re more buying into a lifestyle brand. There are ripoffs that work just as well for like 60% of the price.

Dan Szymborski: I think I forgoet the question

Guest: also, you can usually find good deals for those ceramic bad boy smokers in January (after the holidays). It’s cold so nobody’s thinking about it, and the gift giving season has passed.

Dan Szymborski: OH SMOKERS

Dan Szymborski: I thought this was a gift for people who smoke

lmb2020: Are you going to become an 8k gamer?

Dan Szymborski: In a future year. It’s garbage righ tnow.

brad penny for your thoughts: is the fries pic the moment you thought how zips could work?

Dan Szymborski: Nah, I didn’t do ZiPS things until 5-6 years after that picture.

Dan Szymborski: That just the tragic moment I saw fries depart my belly forever

Guest: wait that Dan Szymborski thing was real? How did that happen?

Dan Szymborski: Hey, I didn’t make it up! Dan Szymborski is now a canon character on a soap opera.

Dan Szymborski: http://baseballthinkfactory.org/szymborski/yrd.mp4

Dbo: Kodos Or Kang?

Dan Szymborski: Kang. I do appreciate the choice between abortions and miniature American flags.

bighen: I’ve read about Bauer wanting to sign 1 year deals.  Doesn’t the QO kind of kill that – teams will be reluctant to sign him and give up a draft pick if/when the Reds slap a QO on him to have him for only 1 year.  He’s probably best off taking the QO and then trying that the following year when that can’t happen again.  I know there are different compensation terms now with the QO but it’s not going to be as simple as he thinks.

Dan Szymborski: He might just do it out of point making

GSon: HA HA HA !!..Dan has no idea how to make Sloppy Joes !!

Dan Szymborski: I just don’t!

GSon: Tom <== close relative?.. or paid influencer?

Dan Szymborski: Considering some of the uppers at ESPN used to forget that I existed, if I’m paying my influencers, I want some refunds!

Elliot: I don’t really have any constructive baseball things to say, so I’ll just say that Ronald Acuña is very fun to watch and is the closest thing to Griffey since Griffey and I think that’s neat.

Rich: Re Bauer, I’d note that he said the data showed he’d pitch better on three days’ rest, and then he went out and pitched 8 innings of one-run ball with 12 strikeouts on three days’ rest.  One outing doesn’t prove anything, but it’s a data point in his favor.

Guest: In follow up to my Bauer/Red Sox silly idea. He could agree because what if the Red Sox offer him $5M more than any other team. He gets more money in his one year deal, and then Red Sox work with him on who he gets sent to. He gets more money and heads to a contender. Win for Bauer, win for Red Sox

Dan Szymborski: But then why wouldn’t the team giving up prospects to acqure 1/30 Bauer not pay him 1/35 and keep the prospects?

Dan Szymborski: To make this work you need a situation in which either Bauer *really* wants to help out the Red Sox or Bauer is unable to communicate with any team but the Red Sox

brad penny for your thoughts: how much will team spending go down if the 16 team playoff is ratified for future seasons?

Dan Szymborski: Won’t go down suddenly, but it’ll be a long-term drag

Towel: Murphy leading MLB rookies in Bb%, SIS has him as a top defensive catcher, ~130 wrc+. Won’t win ROY, but probably should get more talk than he is currently considering position/team record.

greg: Cat update please.

Dan Szymborski: Last I saw, Mercutio was sleeping in upstairs hallway, Cassiopeia in the second bedroom on the right upstairs, Constantine was sleeping in the big spoon thing in the cat tree in the TV room

Dan Szymborski: And Justinian was thumping his tail in the kitchen because he was mad at me because I saw a trail of blood and thought he was bleeding after roughhousing with my brother but the blood turned out to be mine

Dan Szymborski: I have to actually go upstairs and clean up a trail of blood with hydrogen peroxide after this chat and put a bandaid on my toe

Dan Szymborski: It’s currently wrapped up in some random paper towel that was lying on one of my computer tables

GSon: Bauer is sly as a fox.. he knows any club can wager huge coin on a one year deal. There are no diminishing returns that are the most concerning issue with six plus year deals. For this reason, the wager Bauer will be signing for in 2021..will begin with a 4… not a 3.. Comment?

Dan Szymborski: I think the problem is that teams haven’t shown a huge willingness to do that yet and if playoffs are expanded, they have even less of a reason to

Larry Jones: Dan, I have a degree in statistics, and I’m hoping to get more into data analysis, specifically with sports. Any tips/recommendations?

Dan Szymborski: You probably know everything a book can tell you already!

Dan Szymborski: Most of those books hand hold you through stuff like probability data visualization etc.

Dan Szymborski: Probalby something more specialized like this would be better fo ryou.

Dan Szymborski: https://www.amazon.com/Analyzing-Baseball-Data-Second-Chapman/dp/08153…

Dan Szymborski: It’s an unsatsifying answer, but the best way to learn about data analysis in sports is to explore yourself!

Dan Szymborski: Ask yourself a question about sports and then figure out how to explore the answer.

Dan Szymborski: If you have any kind of math background, you’re well equipped to epxlore

Dan Szymborski: and possibly spell better than me

MilwaukeeBeerjays: Dan I recently read in the chat that do you like final fantasy six better than final fantasy seven? Have you experienced head trauma recently?

Dan Szymborski: Yes

Dan Szymborski: Final Fantasy VI *made* a bunch of modern JRPG tropes.

Dan Szymborski: And the best score of any Final Fantasy game. The use of leitmotif was extremely well done

Dan Szymborski: The whole opera sequence was a huge groundbreaker in terms of grand setpieces in the genre.

Elliot: Have you played the remake of FF 7? I thought it was pretty amazing

Dan Szymborski: I haven’t, will wait until it’s eventually on PC

Dan Szymborski: I dont’ want to play a FFVII remake until I can play the *whole game*

Dan Szymborski: I also prefer turn-based RPGs to action RPGs.

Dan Szymborski: I’ve never had an action RPG with a game sequence as engrossing as the best designed fights in turn based RPGs.

Dan Szymborski: Like in FFIV when adult Rydia comes back and you have to fight with a mostly dead party or the Luca Blight three-party battle in Suikoden II or the final Georg Weissmann fight in Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC on hard

Kiermaier’s Piercing Green Eyes: Isn’t FFVI>FFVII a fairly common opinion? They’re the peak of the 2D and 3D games, respectively. Much like the longstanding debate between ALTTP and OOT in the Zelda communities.
Now if you said FFVIII was the best, then we can suspect head trauma.

Dan Szymborski: HEY WE WERE ALL ORPHANS TOGETHER BUT WE JUST FORGOT

Dan Szymborski: OH, THAT SORCERESS WASN’T THE REAL BAD GUY, THERE WAS THIS OTHER SORCERESS IN A MAGICAL CASTLE OR SOMETHING

Elliot: Part 1 of the remake is a complete game in its own right, weirdly. And you can play it in a mode somewhat like a turn-based

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, but I KNOW there’s a rest of the story

Appa Yip Yip: Is someone out here disrespecting ff6? You know this fool didn’t wait for Shadow.

Dan Szymborski: I bet he didn’t even help Locke get Phoenix!

Guest: Because the team acquiring Bauer can’t afford $35M. They have prospects but Boston pays the full salary. So the contender gets Bauer for free.

Dan Szymborski: But why does Bauer do this?

Guest: I guess you hadn’t heard that RPGs should be cancelled because they promote the biological essentialist idea that different races have different inherent traits

Dan Szymborski: Not touching this one!

Sandy A: What’s wrong with Peter Alonso?  Was 2019 his peak season?

Dan Szymborski: I think he’ll be fine

Guest: For the money. His idea is to get as much possible money in 1 year deals.

Appa Yip Yip: Probably took the Ragnarok esper as opposed to the sword and didn’t fight 500 battles with the cursed shield to transform it into the paladin shield good God I wasted so much time as a kid

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

Dan Szymborski: Thanks for coming everyone!