Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 9/3/20

Dan Szymborski: It is a time to chat!

Dan Szymborski: The chat is now!

Dan Szymborski: Now is the chat.

Fan Graphs Suck Up: Where can I get my ” I Know Who Dan Szymborski is and I am a Better Person For It”   T- Shirt?

Dan Szymborski: I’m just happy that there’s a Dan Szymborski character on a TV show! (Young & the Restless). I don’t need a Dan Szymborski t-shirt empire.

B: There are few things I love more than daytime baseball

Dan Szymborski: There shoudl always be one!

Jim Leyland Palmer: What cigs does Jim Leyland smoke? Gotta be Reds, right?

Dan Szymborski: Leyland probably smokes some brand from the 1970s that doesn’t actually still exist but he bought a truck of them.

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski: Those still exist though

Mets Fan: RIP #41 –
And why do the Mets insist on killing themselves by using Diaz?

Dan Szymborski: Still reasons to be hopeful and besides, the Mets always have a *worse* idea on hand

ben: shoukd the Rockies been more aggressive at the trade deadline? Considering they won’t contend in 2021

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure honestly. I think the offseason is probably ab etter time for them

Blue Morpho: What does all the Padres’ action at the deadline centered around catchers mean for Mejia going forward?

Dan Szymborski: I think it’s TBD. Hedges gone is a help and Castro is a FA

Dan Szymborski: (I think)

Jerry Seinfeld: What’s the DEAL with baseballs? I mean we see record-setting homerun paces, RIGHT, and now we’re back to pre-2018 levels???

Dan Szymborski: And WHY is it baseball? You touch a plate not a base to score!

Guest: Is ZiPS for sale? Like if a team wanted to offer you enough money where you could retire on, but you could never use ZiPS publicly again would you consider it? If so, what would you do with your time?

Dan Szymborski: Not explicitly, but who knows.

Who’s Fabio?: Dan, years from now we will obviously remember that Cleveland won the Greg Allen trade right?  This is what history will say when my grand children look it up.  Curmudgeonly yours.

Adam: As a Dodger fan, which potential 8-seed should be dominating my small-sample nightmares over the next month?

Dan Szymborski: Any of ’em. ZiPS projects the Giants to have a 35% chance at winning a three-game series at Dodger Stadium.

Dan Szymborski: I think the rivals should bother more.

Dunning: Would you trade Gausman for Dunning in dynasty

Dan Szymborski: Depends on my team

rusty shackleford: dan what kind of music do you like

Dan Szymborski: Sadly, my tastes have tended towards the obnoxious hipster indie rock/pop bands of choice. I’m not really into harder stuff like I was 20 years ago

Dan Szymborski: and classical music

Dan Szymborski: I mean I’m into classical music not that I’m not really into it like I was 20 years ago

Guest: F/M/K: chili with beans, hot dog sandwich, ZiPS becoming sentient

Dan Szymborski: I will stand silent. You can’t make me!

Guest: When was the last time the Rays clearly lost a trade?

Dan Szymborski: Not sure it’s clearly, but I still rather have Solak than Fairbanks

Dan Szymborski: clearly, maybe Wil myers trade

Dan Szymborski: It still amazes me that in a Wil Myers trade, neither traded nor the team that acquired Myers looked the best, either in foresight or hindsight.

viceroy: JDM was complaining about not having access to video. Is there a way to see which players this change might have affected the most?

Dan Szymborski: No

Guest: I would 100% buy a “digital dandy” t shirt

Dan Szymborski: I need to pay someone to design that!

Luis Robert: Where is my career in 5 years?

Dan Szymborski: Celebrating the five-year anniversary of you asking that question!

Dan Szymborski: (I’ve written abotu Luis Robert)

Adam: Is it better to be the 3 seed than the 1 seed in the NL this year?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure I follow.

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure I’d prefer to face Phillies or Cardinals over Rockies or Giants

Dan Szymborski: Or whoever -t he races aren’t clear

rockies: what was the point of us calling up brendan rodgers?

Dan Szymborski: They want to get him acclimated to the Rockies big league experience of watching worse players get at-bats because they’re older.

Guest: Do you happen to have a copy of that cartoon gif of jim leyland smoking a cigarette and eating the smoke ring like a doughnut from a few years ago? I’ve tried to track it down to no avail

Dan Szymborski: I don’t

Dan Szymborski: Best I can do is my image from the WBC when he was playing Hosmer over Goldschmidt

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski: It’s too bad there are copyright restrictions, because I enjoy FanGraphael.

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski: I do a lot of things to amuse myself.

Guest: Sixto Sanchez, currently ranked 47th best prospect on the FanGraphs big board.  After his first 3 MLB starts are we thinking he should’ve been a little higher?

Dan Szymborski: Three starts should never really change how you feel about a guy drmatically

Guest: If we exclude the hernia period from last year, Luke Voit has put up 45 homers over 627 plate appearances with a batting average north of .300. Is this his true talent?

Dan Szymborski: A bit aggressive

Dan Szymborski: It’s a little blurry to select exact healthy areas for injury issues.

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, you know when it happened

Dan Szymborski: but inevitably, you don’t know when someone’s actually 100% and end up bookmarking based on what you expect to see.

Dan Szymborski: (that’s not a slight on you, it’s a natural inclination)

Adam: Is the new Will Smith legit?  Crazy low swing%, walking more than he strikes out, hitting the ball hard and in the air.  Traditional numbers suppressed but is this enough of a sample to reevaluate his ceiling?

Dan Szymborski: As a wholescale re-evaluation of his ceiling, it’s premature, though I think we *can* say the approach is different

Eyeless In Gaza: It is kind of amazing how Cleveland is able to develop starting pitchers eh?  Kind of like we are the Bizarro Orioles.  Or they are the Bizarro us.  Have you ever seen a team’s pitching staff lose (3) top-flight pitchers in so short a time span (Kluber, Bauer, Clevinger) and still dominate like the 2020 Tribe?  I know Tristan has fallen a bit out of favor the last few seasons because of injury but what does ZIPS think of him moving forward?

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS has always been a bit on the fence about him. I don’t have ZiPS open, so I can’t run an update right now

Adam: Framber Valdez figure something out this year?

Dan Szymborski: I’m of the opinion he has

Moose_Bolton: What is your favorite video game of all time?

Dan Szymborski: It probably varies depending on when you ask me the question, but probably Final Fantasy VI

Dan Szymborski: though I’ve probably played through Suikoden II the most.

Eric the Red: Injuries and Covid not withstanding, Nick Senzel hasn’t really shown that hes going to hit the future star ceiling that was projected. Too early? What do you think is a reasonable expectation for him?

Dan Szymborski: It’s just too early.

viceroy: are players still chewing tobacco?

Dan Szymborski: I’d probably guess that 20% of players are still.

Guest: Do you have an updated probability of a .400 hitter?

Dan Szymborski: I haven’t actually, maybe I’ll do an update for Monday?

Greg: How much of the light prospect returns were analytics vs Covid pressuring payrolls and raising the short term value of prospects

Dan Szymborski: I think prospects are slightly *less* valuable right now than normal, simply because the screwed up development year has increased the uncertainty around them and cost them real time

George Herman Ruth: Saw some terrible ball/strike calls last night. Does MLB grade and provide feedback to umpires on accuracy?  What technology are they using?

Dan Szymborski: I know they track it, but I’m not sure the exact process they interact with the umpires on this.

Harry Lime: Should Dylan Cease pitch from the stretch? His numbers are better in the stretch.

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure that’s actually the issue. Yes, his numbers are better, but a lot of that is BABIP. But the stuff that isn’t is control related.

Dan Szymborski: I haven’t dug deep into Cease, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find he’s over-nibbling

colorado rockies fan: i’m just waiting for a vac zeen

Sad Rangers Fan: Any hope for us next year? Or ever? Is Daniels on the hot seat?

Dan Szymborski: I think the offensive development is much behind schedule, to the extent that I don’t think they’ll be serious contenders in 2021.

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure Daniels needs to be updating his résumé or anything, but in his position, I’d be a little concerned

Dane Szymborski: Is Ty France worth losing your head over?

Dan Szymborski: ?

Dane Szymborski: Young and the Restless?  Pshaw!  Watch me on Ryan’s Hope.

Swinging Friar: They have to be the most fun/interesting team in baseball. Am I wrong?

Dan Szymborski: No

Chris: Dan, I’m sad that luis Robert is going to win mvp since Kyle Lewis is fantastic and is a deserving rookie of the year. Anyway Kyle Lewis is awesome, that’s all I got

Anonymous: why were teams so willing to make moves in this clown fiesta of a season?

Dan Szymborski: There are still benefits. And really the deadline wasn’t *that* big. Only a few really big things and most of the big things were things that help past this year.

extremely unemployed guy: have you ever endeavored into bbq youtubers? fascinating stuff and very comforting

Dan Szymborski: I have not.

LFC Mike: Hi Dan..Would you rank for the future  T McKenzie, Ian Anderson, Sixto Sanchez and D Dunning ..this would be for pitching …not fronting a band playing a flute

Dan Szymborski: Hmm, probably Sanchez a the top with the other three fairly close.

Dan Szymborski: I like how you add the proviso in order to forestall me from giving a weird answer

brad penny for your thoughts: what’s worse, a boring team or a bad team?  ’cause the cardinals are both

Dan Szymborski: I’ll take bad over boring any day

Jkim: This isn’t a baseball question: Are  you picking up the new RTX 3090?

Dan Szymborski: No.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t have the GPU compute needs.

Dan Szymborski: And a 2080 Super already more than adequately drives 1440p/144

Dan Szymborski: The top top Nvidia skus are usually extremely inefficient purchases

Swinging Friar: I am holding my breath, but Hosmer has actually been good this year… how much does this 30 game start impact Zips projections for the next few years?

Dan Szymborski: It’s certainly a bump! It’s nice to see after *years* he apparently is actually trying the launch angle stuff.

Dan Szymborski: We’ll see if this persists long-term.

Guest: If you had access to the sports betting book from Back to the Future 2, but only for 2021, would you tinker with ZiPS before releasing the projections to get closer to what happens?

Dan Szymborski: Why not! It’s a valid data source!

Niels: Was it the right decision for the Padres to go all-in at the deadline?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think they really went ALL in honestly.

Dan Szymborski: They only gave up one of their preseason top 10 FG prospects in the trades

Dan Szymborski: And they keep Clevinger for two more years.

Nathan: So is Dante Bichette a big Boba Fett fan since he named his kid Bo?

Dan Szymborski: CUE the image!

Dan Szymborski:

Travis: Does Ozuna get a big contract next season

Dan Szymborski: BIG contract? probably not. I don’t think baseball’s going to suddenly find corner outfielders sexy

Dan Szymborski: But his gamble to sign a one year looks good

Lefty: The expanded playoffs have me caring very little about the regular season & its only 60 games. I couldn’t imagine a full season with expanded playoffs

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, and you can see the care very little in the lack of actions of most of the top teams this deadline.

Dan Szymborski: First or second for the Dodgers just doesn’t matter.

Dan Szymborski: And they know it.

Guest: Dan can you please move your chat time from my toddler’s lunchtime (aka 12 pm eastern time) to my toddler’s naptime (aka 1pm eastern time) so that I can participate more regularly. Thanks in advance

Guest: If you grant my rescheduling request. I will teach him(my toddler) that a folded piece of bread is not a sandwich and that chili doesn’t have beans. If you refuse I will teach him that a taco is a type of sandwich and that skyline chili is the only true chili and all others are just soups.

Dan Szymborski: PROTECTIVE CHILI SERVICES IS COMING TO YOUR HOUSE

Fone Chiggins: The ZiPS projection for Josh Naylor in your article on The Greg Allen Trade is more optimistic than the 3 year projection on Naylor’s player page. Is going from SD to CLE that much of a boon for him?

Dan Szymborski: The 3 year projections aren’t updated like inseason onesa re

Cat Latos: Can i be friends with your cats?

Dan Szymborski: Sure

Lorenzo: RIP Tom Terrific.  Ironically, in his final season, he was traded to Boston in June 1986 and had 16 GS with 2.3 WAR.

LFC Mike: Who should get the worst of the punishment for the Rays Yanks scuffle the other night?

Dan Szymborski: Honestly, Cash for the veiled threat in his quote

Guest: On a more serious note. Zips was much higher on Kyle Lewis than any of the other projection systems. Why do you think that was? Kyle Lewis was one of my top two break out candidates (Edwin Rios is the other). If you’re interested in my methodology I’d be happy to share

Dan Szymborski: Was ZiPS much higher on Kyle Lewis? I remember ZiPS hating Lewis, were they even worse?

Numpty: Dan, I’m thinking of offering my services on one of those dog-walking apps. Any advice?

Numpty: I should add, I have a job. It would mostly be to get out of the house and meet some new dogs.

Dan Szymborski: It’s good to network, but they might get upset if you start keeping the dogs

Launch Angle™ Hosmer: Does either version of ZiPS (more robust offseason version or the inseason one) use exit velocity/other statcast batted ball data for its projectons?

Dan Szymborski: The former.

Dan Szymborski: In-season? Eventually.

Guest: When/how did you get the idea to create ZiPS?

Dan Szymborski: Chris Dial and I were shootiong the shit on AOLIM in 1998 or so. Then I did something in the early 2000s

.: Padres paid a sizable fee for Austin Nola. They wouldn’t do this just for him to be a part-timer, would they?

Dan Szymborski: I think they’ll appreciate a certain amount of flexibility

Guest: Projection had him at 105 wrc+ vs like 90 for the other projection systems

Guest: I looked yesterday so maybe it has updated.

Dan Szymborski: Ah, you mean now, not preseason.

Dan Szymborski: It’s hard to say. It’s possible ZiPS is being too sticky in a very weird season.

Dan Szymborski: The “why does ZiPS do X over Y projection system’s Z” is always hard to answer because I don’t know all the inner workiings of Steamer or PECOTA

LFC Mike: I fear “Guest” will feed his toddler Skyline Chili in a folded piece of bread. This could escalate quickly…..

LFC Mike: With every start by Zac Gallen, the bar for Jazz Chisholm goes up. He was fantastic  vs. the Dodgers last night. Hershiser said Gallen reminded him of Greg Maddux.  Will ZIPs be bumping him up given his results?

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS already loves Gallen!

Dan Szymborski: Did you not see the three-year ERA+ projections in the Clevinger trade piece I did?

Numpty: Marlins are going to do that thing where they win a World Series despite not being that great and then go back to being terrible, aren’t they?

Dan Szymborski: It does seem to be a case of history rhyming

Robb: Preller calls the Angels and offers Gore/Abrams/Campusano/4th lower level piece + Myers or Hosmer for Mike Trout, what’s the answer?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think the Angels trade him for any package worth considering.

George Herman Ruth: NL-only 5×5, all categories are very close.  Need saves desperately.  Do I trade Tatis, Almonte, Caratini, & Joyce (reserve) for his Segura, Workman, Contreras, & Dahl (reserve)?  Hate giving up best player but does help in saves & C overcome big drop Tatis->Segura?

Dan Szymborski: Not really crazy about that at all.

Dan Szymborski: If all categories are very close, there’s huge downside risk here

Andy: Re: Rays trades, the early results on Cronenworth/Pham for Renfroe and a slapdick prospect are not looking great. How are you evaluating that one?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure if we can say CLEARLY after a month though.

Anonymous: Is the switch-hitter dying? are millennials to blame?

Dan Szymborski: It’s been slowly fading since the 90s

not rockies: I’d imagine the rays want the German Marquez for Corey Dickerson deal back

john henry: sure the dodgers have mookie betts locked up, but the red sox have way more financial flexibility now, so it’s impossible to say who won that trade

Dan Szymborski: Heh

Dan Szymborski: The Red Sox twitter was a hilariously tone deaf tweet

Guest: I used ZiPS as my base to do projections for fantasy this year, and I somehow came up with Kyle Tucker as a top-30 player, so I snagged him in the 10th round. Looking pretty good now!

Dan Szymborski: Hope you didn’t take Robles based on this. Ouch!

Dan Szymborski: He’s really messing up my breakout piece! lol

E: Been awhile since i’ve attended a Dan Szymborski chat, is there still non-sense? Is the non-sense a sandwich?

Dan Szymborski: There’s a lot of nonsense because everything I do has an element of nonsense.

Morbo: It’s supposed to say “morbo” not “guest” and that is a good idea LFC Mike

mat: Was clevinger down long enough at the alternate site to gain another year of control? How many more days would he need to be down?

Dan Szymborski: I do not believe so.

Dan Szymborski: It’s like 10 or 11 days and I think, based on the prorating, that they would have had to keep him down for 20 days

Guest: Where did luis guillorme come from?? In the cosmic sense, was he on your radar

Dan Szymborski: Well, when a mommy guillorme and a daddy guillorme love each other very much…

Dan Szymborski: He’s probably over his head, though the Mets seem to not want to find out and give Frazier the nods

.: By that you mean you expect him (Nola) to get reps elsewhere on the diamond, yeah? That team is just filled out and I’m not sure where those reps would be

Dan Szymborski: There’s always playing time

Snowy: Any concern with Carlsons slow start?

Dan Szymborski: No

E: Is cheese and crackers lunch?

Dan Szymborski: It can be

David K:

Is Brodie Van Wagenen the worst gm in baseball? I can’t think oof anyone that is worse

Dan Szymborski: I would take the Mets FO over Rockies or Royals

Becoming sentient: What language is ZiPS programmed in? Does it have an interface, or does this Dan character just poke around in the code base?

Dan Szymborski: haha language

Dan’s Mom: Danny! Lunch is ready! Mincemeat pies!

Dan Szymborski: My mom doesn’t bake.

Fan Graphs Malcontent: Where can I get my  ” I Don’t Give a  %*!#  Who Dan Szymborski Is ”   T-Shirt?

Dan Szymborski: Now THAT is a t-shirt!

Dan Szymborski: I can sell something that bashes me way easier than something praiseworthy.

newbie: that vac zeen joke.. ahhh 2020.. i shoulda stayed in bed after new years…..

Morbo: I’d wear that shirt.

Morbo: If I were to try and build a legit projection system in the off season would you have any recommendations or suggestions on pitfalls to avoid? I’d probably try to use something like python but I don’t actually know any python

Dan Szymborski: Stay away from giant nets on my property or you’ll end up in the oubliette with the ZiPS creator

Guest: did you see Ben Clemens’ (real) mom actually came by to one of his chats? She answered questions and everything!

Dan Szymborski: lol, I did not see that

Dan Szymborski: My mom’s not that computer savvy

Guest: if you have kids someday, will you co-parent them with ZiPS?

Dan Szymborski: I would think the mother would object

Morbo: Follow up could we get a men’s shirt with just the fangraphs logo?

Dan Szymborski: Ask Apples!

Guest: re: Robles- I did take Robles! So, win some, lose some.

Dan Szymborski: Ima sorry

Mike Hawk: When this year is all said and done, Domingo German will still have 20 left on suspension.  Did I get that right?

Dan Szymborski: No, unless I missed a more recent change, suspensions wouldn’t carry over into 2021.

Dan Szymborski: OK, I didn’t make that up.

Dan Szymborski: “After two weeks of negotiations, Major League Baseball and the players union reached a deal on Thursday night on how to deal with salaries, service time and other issues if the season is shortened from 162 games.
German’s status was addressed by New York Post baseball writer Joel Sherman, who tweeted, “The way that the MLB/MLBPA agreement reads on domestic violence suspensions, Domingo German will have to serve the remaining 63 games of his ban, but if there is no season or a shortened season, it does not carry over to 2021.”

Morbo: How does one communicate with apples? Seance?

Dan Szymborski: Oranges

Blue Morpho: Indians’ asking price for Clevinger went from “ridiculous” to what it was in a matter of days. What one word description would you use to describe what it ended up being?

Dan Szymborski: Fine

Dan Szymborski: If you want more quantity than quality, that’s the kind of package you look for

Guest: have you played around with the ZiPS model to try and predict other stuff? how did it turn out?

Dan Szymborski: It’s not really directly applicable simply becuase it’s based on baseball-specific things

Dan Szymborski: I don’t have an easy framework I can just zip zop zoopity bop over to something else

Rick: Would you trade Paddack and Albies for Wander Franco in a dynasty league?

Dan Szymborski: Probably not. And I like Franco

Isolated Thinker: Speaking of video games, which arcade game or pinball machine did you spent the most quarters on in your youth?

Dan Szymborski: STREET FIGHTER II

Guest: do you collect any baseball memoribilia? I really want autographed baseballs but don’t know how to ensure they’re real

Dan Szymborski: I am not a collector.

simply a fact: middle eastern breakfast >>> american breakfast

Dan Szymborski: Depends on the country

Dan Szymborski: I do like an american breakfast though

Rick: Better outlook next year Clevinger or Bauer? Is Bauer going to experiment dropping his spin to zero?

Dan Szymborski: Knuckleball

Guest: how would you describe the overall decor of your home?

Dan Szymborski: “Whatever” plus cat toys.

LFC Mike: How is the toddler lunch situation panning out? I am concerned.

Dan Szymborski: On that note, it is time for me to scurry off for another week! Thanks for coming everyone!