Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 9/29/22

Dan Szymborski: And we are here! There’s no queue, so feel free to ask anything off the top of your head.

Dan Szymborski: I had some technical difficulties.

Champdo: What are your thoughts on Kerry Carpenter and Ryan Kreidler

Dan Szymborski: Definitely curious to see Carpenter’s ZiPS this year. His improvement in power this year has been insane, more than can be explained by the big bump in offense in the minors

Dan Szymborski: He’s in the right organization to continue to get opportunities.

Dan Szymborski: Would be funny if he turned out to be Spencer Torkelson instead of Spencer Torkelson

Appa Yip Yip: Which of your cats is most likely to conspire against you?

Dan Szymborski: Constantine

Dan Szymborski: He’s the moodiest of the quartet and will nip a little if you thwart him too much

Appa Yip Yip: If your cats formed an adventuring party what class would each of them be?

Dan Szymborski: Constantine would be thief, Mercutio would be a fighter, Cassiopeia would be a black mage, and Justinian would be a monk

Wiz: As a fan (who also understands long term consequences), what would your ideal Orioles off-season be?

Dan Szymborski: Signing Rodon

Dan Szymborski: Dont’ get obsessed with overpaying on third-tier role players like some teams to do when they approach contention

Dan Szymborski: Don’t fall too much in love with players who happened to be here this year but aren’t part of the core talent

Angelus Novus: Are the Orioles just gonna be one of those organizations (Rays, Hou) who are on the cutting edge from now on?

Dan Szymborski: I certainly hope so!

Slapshot: What’s the best stadium food you’ve ever eaten?

Dan Szymborski: Well, I did one of those steamed crabs days at Camden around 1997 or 1998 so that obviously!

Dan Szymborski: Hmm, actually probably a year or two later since I was buying beer

Tim: Biggest prospect surprises of ‘22?

Dan Szymborski: Gunnar Henderson going from a good prospect to elite tier was a big one

Mike Elias: Which Os infield prospect do you think will break out between westburg, ortiz, and norby? Could they trade one for pitching?

Dan Szymborski: J-West

Wilson: Can the cubs compete next year?

Dan Szymborski: They *can*. The division just isn’t good

Cabrera: Do you think he starts again? Thx!

Dan Szymborski: Wait, Rodon?

Dan Szymborski: He’s starting today, no?

Dan Szymborski: Which should leave him with a second start

Dan Szymborski: Oh no, there isn’t a very recent injury I’m not aware of yet, is there?

Dan Szymborski: I was up goofing around on ZiPS too late and didn’t wake up until 10:45

baseballenjoyer: any performance justifications for James Click not currently having a contract after this year?

Dan Szymborski: Not really, no

Dan Szymborski: Jim Crane’s call. Word has been he’s demanding

Guest: Thank you for all your work over the years! A question that’s been bugging me for ages: do you think there’s any chance we’ll get a totally backwards-facing, contextualized, retrospective version of WAR any time?

How do you think it’d work? Something like swapping in RE24 for RBat and doing a similar adjustment for SB? Maybe something like OpenWAR? What do you think? IIRC, BaseballGauge used to have a customizable WAR engine that could get kinda close to this?

Dan Szymborski: While someone may do something like this, I’m not sure that it will be *here*

Dan Szymborski: There comes a point at which the increased confusion isn’t worth the gains of having another WAR around that does something else.

Dan Szymborski: That’s why the ZiPS WAR (zWAR) is only really used for the projections on my end

Sirras: How do you see the NYM-ATL series playing out? Who wins the series and who wins the division?

Dan Szymborski: The Mets fate is *very* Scherzer/deGrom health dependent.

Dan Szymborski: With a somewhat sunny optimism about them, ZiPS like the Mets more than any team in baseball right now.

Dan Szymborski: But they drop way down without them.

STL STAN: Has anyone ever done an indepth look at the difference Yadi makes in a pitcher. Thinking specifically of Monty this season, but I would imagine that his career has been long enough that looking at pitchers pitching to him vs other catchers would be interesting.

Dan Szymborski: Not that I’m aware of, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been done

Warren: Do you think Danny jansen breakout for real?

Dan Szymborski: The power at least should stick as it’s hard to fake that. The  Jays have an interesting conundrum at catcher because Kirk and Jansen are very different player, and it may not make sense from a resource standpoint to keep employing both of them. And Gabriel Moreno makes it even more complicated

Slapshot: If Justin Verlander doesn’t exercise his player option for 2023, what kind of contract do you think he gets after his remarkable TJ comeback season?

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS says 2/48 for him. I can imagine him agreeing with the Astros on 2/55 or 2/60 or something

Sirras: How much sym could a Symborski borski if a Symborski could borski sym?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t know; my expertise is in szymming.

Wilson: Is Hayden Wesneski starting for the Cubs next year?

Dan Szymborski: I think it’s very likely

cm: Odds Gunnar is better than Witt, Jr. over the course of his career?

Dan Szymborski: Sorry, was checking this out. About 60%.

BZ: When you’re creating simulations and allocating IP, how do you value the additional inning that a starter can save the bullpen? Most bullpen arms are better than starter arms at a rate basis, which would make it seem like the “optimal” gameplan would be to throw your start for 2-3 innings and let the bullpen take over, but there’s clearly some amount of value added from a worse (starter) arm throwing some additional innings.

Dan Szymborski: It’s generally done with depth charts. ZiPS has to “fill in” the depth charts and it doesn’t just backfill the same innings to whoever’s hanging out

Dan Szymborski: The good thing is that the variance between pitcher outing length isn’t really that high

Dan Szymborski: *everyone* basically throws less now

John: Early 2023 AL east predictions? Seems all over the place / any team has a legit shot…

Dan Szymborski: Chaos!

Guest: also just as importantly (and hopefully okay for chat?): who should be the one to dethrone Roman Reigns?

Dan Szymborski: Gunther!

Dan Szymborski: Id’ really be happy if the world belts and the tag belts stayed unified

Dan Szymborski: I think having two top-end awards for each is kinda dumb. I think the WWE title storylines should be cross-show

5 Run Homer: quick, give me your major award picks for this season

Dan Szymborski: AL: Rodriguez by a hair, Judge, Verlander, Hyde

Dan Szymborski: NL: No comment, Arenado, not sure yet who I’d take between Alcantara/Rodon/Nola, Roberts

Dan Szymborski: (I’m an NL ROY and we agree to not say our vote)

AA: What should my top three priorities be this offseason assuming we re-ink Swanson.

Dan Szymborski: I’d love to see them add another pitcher. Most of the moves the Braves need to make are likely low key ones

Scotty: what’s for lunch today, Dan?

Dan Szymborski: I had some honey-vanilla yogurt, a couple mini-krackles, and a glass of milk

Sirras: Which playoff bound team is most likely to turn into a (metaphorical) pumpkin next year?

Dan Szymborski: Honestly, I’m not sure any are likely.

Dan Szymborski: The team projections didn’t turn horribly wrong except for the O’s

Dan Szymborski: I do think the Cards have some long-term pitching questions they need to answer

Dan Szymborski: but even a pumpkin makes you royalty i nthe NL Central

Sirras: Are you able to tell which player most dramatically shifted their longer term forecast based on this year? Let’s call longer term 3+ year

Dan Szymborski: I can of course! If there’s interest, after the projections run this year, I can run a piece about the biggest diffs in long-term outlook from the year before

Ben: Can the Brewers keep competing next year with their elite pitching staff? Or is it time for a mini rebuild (maybe trading one of their starters)? They never seem to have the bats…

Dan Szymborski: I think they *can* if they do a bit better job investing in offense

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think they’re deep enough that they can keep winging it

Evil Dan Szymborski: How many would have to be eliminated so that *I* can become the best baseball player.

Dan Szymborski: Well, I don’t know how your baseball skills are relative to mine

Dan Szymborski: Since my teenage years, it’s my defense that’s likely declined the most

Dan Szymborski: I peaked in travel little league lol

Dan Szymborski: My fastball is probably worse now, but I never could regularly throw over 70, so it’s not like it was good

MilwaukeeBeerJays: Ever play Final Fantasy 5? I wish more of the final fantasy series had the job system

Dan Szymborski: I’ve played all of them of course!

Dan Szymborski: Just had a playthrough recently when the pixel remaster came out

Dan Szymborski: I played it in the 90s in that fan translation for SNES emulator

Dan Szymborski: Still have some work to do

Dan Szymborski:

Joe: NYY first 104 games, .673 winning %, next 29 .310, last 22 .773: Are we underrating NYY going into October ?

Dan Szymborski: Some are!

Dan Szymborski: it’s weird how quickly people went from overrating them to underrating them

Dan Szymborski: RECENCY BIAS YIKES!!!1111oneoneone

Golden Baron Frog Board: Thoughts on how people will look back on Judge’s season? The anti-steroids crowd seems to still look at Maris, does that now change to Judge? Just seeing news reporting on it there definitely is a lot of weasel sentences coming from MLB such as “most homeruns in a single season… for the american league).

Dan Szymborski: I hope there’s some perspective over time

Dan Szymborski: Judge has had a wonderful season, one of the greatest offensive seasons ever by a player, in a year in which offense is down, and he’s even played respectable CF to boot on top of it

Dan Szymborski: He doesn’t *need* people to find loopholes to lawyer him into being the HR king. It *cheapens* his accomplishments when people do that, IMO

James: Assuming that Jim Crane pays Verlander, what is the Astros 2023 rotation?

Dan Szymborski: I think it will look a lot like this years

Appa Yip Yip: What happened to Mitch White? He was good in Dodger blue and has been quite bad in Blue Jay blue.

Dan Szymborski: There’s some misfortune in there too!

Warren: Do you see byran reynolds getting traded this off-season?

Dan Szymborski: I think *next* deadline/offseason far more likely

Farhandrew Zaidman: Ian Happ brought up a very good point on his podcast last week. How is the defensive component of WAR calculated for players 70, 80, 90 plus years ago? Can we really say with any precision what Rogers Hornsby’s value in the field was?

Dan Szymborski: We can’t, and we will never be able to

Dan Szymborski: And we compensate that by some fairly low magnitudes

Dan Szymborski: Or at least conservatism

Pahbs: Maybe you’ve mentioned it before, and sorry if I missed it, but do you incorporate hawkeye data or any sort of batted ball data into ZIPs projections for minor leaguers?

Dan Szymborski: Where I have it — more than is available to public — less than teams — ZiPS uses it when establishing a baseline

Dan Szymborski: I’ve set up ZiPS to calculate things differently depending on what data are available

Max: Which player (who stayed mostly healthy) most absurdly underperformed his ZiPS this year?

Dan Szymborski: Hmm

Dan Szymborski: Does Grandal account? He’s been injured, but lousy when healthy

Dan Szymborski: He’s the biggest hitter underperformer

Dan Szymborski: 4.6 vs. -0.4

Dan Szymborski: of healthy players, Juan Soto’s there

Dan Szymborski: then India missed time

Dan Szymborski: so did Meadows

Dan Szymborski: Then you get Torkelson

Dan Szymborski: Franmil Reyes

Dan Szymborski: Lowe was injured

Dan Szymborski: thten Candelario and Gallo

Dan Szymborski: Pitchers

Dan Szymborski: Buehler and E-Rod have missed time

Dan Szymborski: Eovaldi

Dan Szymborski: Giolito

Dan Szymborski: Cole

Dan Szymborski: Kikuchi

Dan Szymborski: Marquez

Dan Szymborski: Flaherty and Stras injured

Dan Szymborski: Berrios next healthy looks like

Dave: Do the Mariners have a reasonable chance to win the division next year?

Dan Szymborski: Yes

Jack: I didn’t know this was an O’s chat (sweet!).  Call me crazy, but I see the Orioles dealing Santander for a pitcher in the offseason (looking at you Marlins).  Then going in and signing Rodon, and signing whichever shortstop is last to sign and runs out of suitors (Swanson, Correa, Bogaerts, etc.) to a short term contract (like Correa’s with MIN).  Go into next year with Rodon, whoever they traded Santander for, Gray Rod, Bradish and Means.  Then you have the other 4/5ths of this years rotation as fill in’s when need be.  I also see them addressing LF, possibly signing a RH batter to complement Stowers and using him in a platoon role.

Marshall: Have the Dodgers really “underperformed” in the postseason over Dave Roberts’ tenure? They’ve won one out of 6 WS, which is probably a little better than the expected value even if they were the best team in the league each year.

Dan Szymborski: Not really, no

Judge: I feel like the resolution of this story has a pretty big impact on standing projections

Dan Szymborski: Wait, what?

Devil Ray Jay Johnson: It this is the last chat of the year, thanks for doing these. Chili talk and Rockies jokes always brighten the day.

Dan Szymborski: I mean, it’s the last chat of the regular season

Dan Szymborski: and last SzymChat for awhile as there will be playoff chats

Kim Ng: How do I fix this mess?

Dan Szymborski: Need better ownership more willing to invest in team. So you probably don’t, unfortunately

Chrono Triggered: What is your level of excitement for BOTW2/Tears of the Kingdom? Only worry is exploration. One of the great joys of BOTW is wandering around and finding new things. If they’re reusing most of the original map that’s gone.

Dan Szymborski: Certainly quite interested!

Dan Szymborski: Though I’ve never been as hardcore a Zelda fan as some because I didn’t have a Nintendo console between N64 and Switch

Dave: How much do you value results vs expected stats for awards?

Dan Szymborski: It depends

161: What percentile is this years O’s season on the ZiPS scale? gotta be over 90% right?

Dan Szymborski: Way up there

Dan Szymborski: It’s in high high 90s category

Michael Scott: at the time of the trade, Matt Olson = Freeman.  Given the bad year/good year, how do the next few play out per zips?

Dan Szymborski: Last I checked, Freeman’s slight edge now. Age is working against him

Decadent Moose: I’m in a newish relationship.  We’re traveling in October to participate in a chili cook-off.  It’s pretty serious.  She’s insisting on beans.  Is this a hill with dying on as I’m refusing?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure you want to ask me for relationship advice

Tstats: My college recently had Cincinnati chili during the lunch hour, that night at dinner I told my friends I had a craving for chili and they innocently told me about the said chili and I informed them that that is in fact not chili. Thank you for enlightening the world.

Ump Show: Were those 3 balk calls nuts, or what? Bleier was set on all 3 pitches according to my eyeballs.

Dan Szymborski: I was really confused by the whole thing

Dan Szymborski: That’s as set as pitchers really get

Appa Yip Yip: Also I don’t think it gets brought up enough that in FF4 they’re just like Hey Cecil u r from the moon u r a moon baby

Billy Beane: Dan, you planning on grabbing a 40 series card?

Dan Szymborski: Honestly, I don’t have any need to

Dan Szymborski: My 2080 Super was still meeting my needs when the RTX 3080 came out, but I got the 3080 for retail ($730 plus tax) and I could sell my 2080 Super for $600 at the time, so it made sense to do that

Dan Szymborski: But I play at 1440p. The 3080 doesn’t sweat any of that. And if I get a 40 series card, I’m going to have to replace my PSU  aswell and that’s a hassle

Dan Szymborski: (I never *ever* use an adapter)

Kwanbelievable: Can we really say with any precision what anybody’s value in the field is today? The 3 major defensive metrics constantly disagree with each other, so the error bars on true defensive skill have to be huge

Dan Szymborski: With precision? No

Dan Szymborski: But we have a better idea how Rougned Odor plays second than Rogers Hornsby

Guest: Are the Phillies choking, or is their poor play just random variance?

Dan Szymborski: I think it’ sjust the normal ups and downs

Dan Szymborski: I’m not a big believer in the whole choking thing at the MLB level

Greasy Nick: Let’s say the Cubs go get Rodon and Correa. Where do you think that puts them in the NL Central?

Dan Szymborski: I think it’s makes them serious contenders

szakyl: With 3 major defensive metrics (OAA, UZR, DRS), which version is ZiPS actually trying to project?

Dan Szymborski: Some mystery truth that ends up somewhere in the middle!

Giant Gonzales: Congrats on your last chat of the year, but I understand that your planet needs you. Please do not die on the way back to your home planet.

Dan Szymborski: OH NO IM FANGRAPHS POOCHIE

Dc in nova: Queen or Rush?

Dan Szymborski: I tell myself I slightly prefer Rush, but I probably listen to more Queen than Rush

Dan Szymborski: Though these days I’m mostly nerdy indie pop/indie folk stuff. I’ve become a music hipster by accident

Dan Szymborski: At least with popular music

GrandyisaSadist: When will my friend Jim stop rooting for the Angels?

Dan Szymborski: GODDAMIT JIM STOP ENABLING THEM

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

Dan Szymborski: Thanks for coming everyone!