Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 9/8/14

Dan Szymborski: Firing this up a little early, but it doesn’t “really” start until noon. Need a little time to set up an experiment. No presidents today as a result.

Dan Szymborski: OK, let’s get ready to rock. As an experiment this week, I’m streaming this on twitch.tv as well, with voice and music (and you can ask questions there too)

Dan Szymborski: Twitch.tv/zimsmash

Comment From CuriousGeorge
“In FanGraphs’ version of WAR, a home run-robbing catch with two outs in the ninth inning of a one-run game counts the exact same as a catch 5 feet in front of the fence in the fifth inning of a game in which the outfielder’s team trails 11-0.” that is from the jeff passan article that is putting down war. what are you thoughts on that statement?

Dan Szymborski: Jeff makes some good points (as does Ol’ Dave) but I think that situational stuff in this way doesn’t enhance WAR, it simply adds a bunch of team information into a player stat.

Dan Szymborski: Now, if we had a reason to think that players at the MLB level had significantly different abilities in this situation that would be different, but we don’t

Comment From Guest
Will Santana have catcher eligibility next season at all?

Dan Szymborski: Depends on your league really.

Dan Szymborski: Yahoo does 10 games I think.

Dan Szymborski: Which would give him positional eligibility.

Dan Szymborski: You’d have to look up your league’s specific rules!

Dan Szymborski: (twitch.tv/zimsmash for livestream of this cat)

Dan Szymborski: chat!

Dan Szymborski: Though I bet if you just followed around live-streaming a cat, you’d get a lot of hits

Comment From jocephus
any particular thoughts on this brew crew collapse?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure it was a collapse, I always saw them as a slightly under.500 team. Which is kinda where they’ve been since the second week of teh season or so

Comment From Vslyke
If you were the Braves GM, would you be willing to spend more to lock up Justin Upton or Heyward? D peaks earlier but Heyward has shown the ability to be a great hitter at times.

Dan Szymborski: I think Heyward provides an interesting opportunity – I dont’ think he’ll be as valued by the market as WAR says

Dan Szymborski: Like with Alex Gordon, I dont’ think teams are willing to highly value corner outfield defense

Comment From Vic
What position do you see Posey getting most of his at bats in 2015? He’s about 100 points higher in OBP, SLG, and AVG when playing 1st this year.

Dan Szymborski: I think he’s still mostly a catcher. I think it’ll be a few more years until it happens seriously.

Comment From Jim
When do you see the Twins being truly competitive again?

Dan Szymborski: 2 years I think. They have so much talent.

Dan Szymborski: There was a Holdzkom question that CiL seemed to eat

Dan Szymborski: Fun story and he’s got great heat, though based on his very limited minor league data, I’d still be skeptical of his control

Comment From 20longyears
SSS doesn’t even begin to cover what we’ve seen so far, but based on the stuff, what do you think of John Holdzkom?

Dan Szymborski: Oh, now it appears.

Comment From Double Simcoe
Any largely disappointing players that you see changing people’s opinions of them with a strong last few weeks? Hosmer, Ackley, Myers?

Dan Szymborski: I’m never making predictions about Hosmer again, he drives me nuts.

Dan Szymborski: Well still the projections, honestly.

Dan Szymborski: twitch.tv/zimsmash for the weird chat stream I’m doing

Comment From Dark Blue
Scott Van Slyke for Roenis Elias. Who says no?

Dan Szymborski: I think the Dodgers do (I’m assuming we’re talking offseason?). Dodgers can buy better pitchers than Elias I think

Comment From George is Curious
Hi Dan. Hope you had a great weekend. What are you most excited to see in the final 3 weeks of the season?

Dan Szymborski: Curious to see if the Royals can hold on.

Comment From Northsider
Experiment?!? Is Dr. Szymborski sporting a white lab coat today?

Dan Szymborski: Never worn a lab coat!

Comment From Logan Davis
Without looking at the leaderboards, guess the top 10 position players by 2014 fWAR. Now look. How many did you get right? Who’d you miss?

Dan Szymborski: I got them all right, but that’s because I was referencing the list in the Passan debate on twitter.

Comment From Guest
If the Mets decide to go “all-in” for Stanton, what would a realistic trade look like? Thanks.

Dan Szymborski: Suffice it soay, it would be quite a lot

Dan Szymborski: I’m guessing Syndergaard + Herrera + Nimmo or Smith or something

Comment From Guest
Hello Mr. ZIPS

Dan Szymborski: Hi!

Comment From Guest
Which (currently successful) franchise has the most distinct team-building/player-development culture, top to bottom? In a word (or a few), how might you describe it?

Dan Szymborski: Man, you’re asking a question that’s hard to run off in a quick chat

Dan Szymborski: Probably the Rays – in that they’ll give anybody that performs a legitimate chance to advance, something that not all orgs do.

Dan Szymborski: But their drafts haven’t been as good lately

Comment From Dave
What do the Pirates do with Pedro Alvarez? He won’t get a raise in Arb this offseason, so do they hold on and hope he’s not completely useless next year?

Dan Szymborski: I think they have him one more year.

Comment From Bill
Joc Pederson, Joey Gallo, Bryan Buxton. I can keep two for next season, I’m leaning towards Pederson/Buxton, since it seems like Gallo is still far away.

Dan Szymborski: In fantasy, may be inclined to keep Gallo first – you’re not capturing CF defense in fantasy, so it’s something that you’re not getting value for

Comment From Skuggs
Re: collapses, is it the sabermetric position that it is random variation? So something like the Red Sox in ’11 or the Mets in ’07 is random? Or do you concede that once the ball gets rolling in those high pressure situations, there is something more at play?

Dan Szymborski: I hate to use the word random, but it’s something that at the MLB level *acts* as if it was random

Dan Szymborski: No more teams collapse than you would expect from rnadom chance.

Dan Szymborski: random

Dan Szymborski: It’s not that players dont’ feel pressure, but I expect that player that have significant issues in high-pressure situation are weeded out at much lower levels.

Dan Szymborski: Kinda like how the average American is pretty bad at calculus, but math professors that are bad at calculus were weeded out way earlier, before they became math professors

Comment From Guest 2.0
I think the issue with Passan’s article is that he only accomplishes negatives. He does nothing in terms of pointing out issues, since they are already well known by using it. He also does not truly speak about the positives of it, only in a vague way. So for the audience that was already uncertain about this stuff, you immediately get them going against it. He could have at least done a pros and cons, rather than just cons/opinion.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think it’s only negative. Not all of his audience will really know the ins and outs of WAR

Dan Szymborski: He’s writing for a more general audience remember.

Dan Szymborski: (twitch.tv/zimsmash for my weird live-stream experiment)

Comment From CatMan
I got so excited thinking there was a cat being livestreamed

Dan Szymborski: People would probably follow it, but you’d have to follow the cat around.

Comment From Guest
More surprising season this year, Jose Abreu or Josh Harrison. Follow up, do you think Abreu will win MVP?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think Abreu will win the MVP. I think Trout gets it, though I’m still scared he won’t

Dan Szymborski: Now, if he managed the Triple Crown, he’d get it

Comment From Dave
http://www.talkingchop.com/…

Dan Szymborski: The origin story of Barves

Comment From LarryA
Do you know if most of the non-pitchers who had TJ surgery were high-shool or college pitchers?

Dan Szymborski: Not sure I understand the question. Wouldn’t no non-pitchers be pitchers?

Comment From Munenoris Espresso Stand
On Saturday, Rangers/M’s rain-delayed 3 hours, played 9-inning game that ended by 1am local time, then played their regularly scheduled Sunday game, presumably being on-field by 10 or 11am that day for prep. Would it really have been worse to do a double-header on Sunday?

Dan Szymborski: I tend to prefer doubleheaders, but teams like to tough it out and the fans actually watching will tend to prefer they don’t reschedule

Comment From LarryA
How long would the cubs stick with Baez if he continues like this to start next season?

Dan Szymborski: He’s got a pretty long leash

Comment From Raz
Zips ROS takes into account strength of schedule, correct?

Dan Szymborski: The playoff probability projections I do do, but not the individual

Dan Szymborski: s

Comment From CuriousGeorge
I hate when people steal my name

Dan Szymborski: It wasn’t your name originally. You’re not a fictional monkey

Comment From LarryA
If the Royals make the postseason, does the shields for Myers trade become a Win for them?

Dan Szymborski: No

Dan Szymborski: If I sell my house to buy lottery tickets and win the lottery, it was still a bad choice.

Dan Szymborski: Now, obviously it’s nowhere near that level.

Comment From fats
i was arguing early that people don’t like the idea of non-static number for defense. People are fine with a 50 hitter having a wRC+ 130+ one year but not a 50 defender having a great defensive year. it happens, but people don’t get how a perceived 50 defender can have a great year. random variance is everywhere!

Dan Szymborski: It *is* more volatile though.

Comment From Uncle LEO
Hey Dan, I need your advice. Never ask for fantasy advice but Im in a dogfight for first in a deep NL league and just lost Castro. I need steals/runs/avg…best replacement from: Almonte, Bourjos, Vanable, Watkins, Valaika Grichuck or Snider? THANKS!

Dan Szymborski: Uggh, I’m not pleased with those choices

Dan Szymborski: I might go for Bourjos and give up on getting a good BA

Dan Szymborski: But those are pretty ugly choices

Comment From Oren
Jose Reyes has been pretty bad at shortstop. Should the Jays move him off the position? Is second base or third base the best spot for him, if so?

Dan Szymborski: Probably safer at 2B at this point – his defensive stats have been quite lousy

Dan Szymborski: Though it depends what they get on the market

Comment From Guest
Chris carter, has he proved the haters wrong? What are your thoughts?

Dan Szymborski: He is what he is, a decent slugger for several years, but probably won’t be a star as he’s fairly one-dimensional (but a good dimension!)

Comment From David
Brewers collapse = Not great pitching + Braun playing injured + Gomez hurt. Nothing hard to figure out there.

Comment From Jon
How many of the top-5 current worst contracts do the Tigers have?

Dan Szymborski: Well, they did dump the worst one

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS only has them with 1 of the top 10 worst.

Dan Szymborski: Cabrera. Still has another *year* to go before it starts and it will cover his entire decline.

Comment From Guest
I know it’s still early, but do you think anyone accepts a QO this year?

Dan Szymborski: I think we may get the first accepted one, in light of the Drew/Morales experiences.

Dan Szymborski: It’s easy to draw too strong of a lesson from Drew/Morales – they’ve played far worse than you expect from a layoff. Guys missing 3 months to injury and come back have less dropoff than they did

Comment From Jim
Thanks for the response. A followup question. Do the Twins need a new FO and new on field leadership to maximize the talent coming in? Or do you believe Ryan, Gardy and his coaches are still able to do that.

Dan Szymborski: I think some fresh on-field leadership would be useful.

Comment From Munenoris Espresso Stand
You had the wrong idea with your livestream on twitch. Instead of sharing your chat window (and thus enabling metacommentary by chatting on twitch about the chat you’re having on FG) you should have a camera on you, so we can see dismissive hand gestures and funny faces in response to the unanswered questions.

Dan Szymborski: I do need to get a web camera to do that! I don’t have one at the moment. And my upload speed kinda sucks.

Comment From Nick
What the hell has happened to Oakland? This is a pretty steep collapse, especially given the moves they made.

Dan Szymborski: It’s unsatisfying perhaps, but they’ve just played poorly.

Comment From Hamilton Porter
Based on your not picking Buxton for Bill, does that put him in the better in real life category?

Dan Szymborski: Yeah, I think Buxton will be better in real life than fantasy

Comment From Yung Joc
Does Ausmus survive if the Tigers miss the playoffs?

Dan Szymborski: No

Comment From Mooking for Love
It doesn’t look like the Tribe is going to give Lindor a shot in 2014. What do you think is odds are of getting the opening day start next year?

Dan Szymborski: I think pretty solid if he has a good spring. I think they’re being a little overconservative.

Comment From Guest #2
Favorite Naxx card?

Dan Szymborski: Favorite or best?

Dan Szymborski: My personal *favorite* is spectral knight because I’ve been playign some druid. If you can coin or innervate out spectral very early it can really be problematic.

Dan Szymborski: Druid of the Claw is a bit easier to remove.

Dan Szymborski: I think the best may in fact be Sludge Belcher, which has been a pain in the butt to remove.

Comment From Jim
like most articles that take shots at WAR and defensive metrics, the writers fail to offer up anything that’s better in place of the things it slams.

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think Jeff was unreasonable, though I think there are places his argument is too strong for the underlying facts

Dan Szymborski: He’s clearly not trolling – he’s not Chass or someone like that

Comment From CuriousGeorge
Does Passan have indepth saber knowledge or does he downplay it to appeal to the masses?

Dan Szymborski: From personal experience, he’s quite knowledgable about sabermetrics, though not to the level of a working sabermetrician may be.

Dan Szymborski: twitch.tv/zimsmash for my livechat experiment (last time for the link, I promise!)

Comment From CuriousGeorge
are the playoffs still a crapshoot for a team that is outperforming periphs? ex: orioles who are playing above baseruns, do they have same chance (once in playoffs) as a team that is playing very closely to expected baseruns

Dan Szymborski: Man, I’m answering a lot of your questions.

Dan Szymborski: I haven’t found any tendency for an outperforming team to outperform projections in playoffs.

Dan Szymborski: They tend to be clsoer to their underlying expectations.

Comment From Harry
Do you think if astros won some games altuve would be getting MVP consideration? GUY IS AMAZING!

Dan Szymborski: It’s hard to get consideration from a lot of the MVP voters without big HR/RBI numbers.

Comment From Tony
Do you know how many (if any) games at 3B that E5 has logged this year?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think he’s logged any.

Comment From LarryA
Can Kluber steal the Cy away from Felix?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think so, he hasnt’ gotten enough press I think

Comment From Michael
Do you think Soler ends up being a better player than Puig? Always more highly touted, and given similar skillsets, seems like injuries really all that’s in the way.

Dan Szymborski: Bird in the hand.

Comment From Spencer
Will you be contributing at TechGraphs? Seems like you could be an All Star over there…

Dan Szymborski: Haven’t talked about it. That it focuses on *sports* and tech would probably make it difficult for me. If it was more general tech, I’d probably have some leeway to be able to contribute, but ESPN gets first dibs on any sports stuff I do.

Comment From Bret
With Melky Cabrera’s season over, what do you predict he’ll land in free agency?

Dan Szymborski: 2/30

Dan Szymborski: Off the top of my head, no idea what ZiPS thinks

Comment From Daniel
How much of FG’s coolstandings is ZiPS? I want to ask something but not sure if you’re responsible: why are the Angels projected at 10-10 for the ROS? Depth charts/Garrett Richards? Are the bullpen days throwing things off due to hard to measure reliever WAR? Are they playing above their head?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not involved in the FG projected standings at all.

Dan Szymborski: The official ZiPS projected standings are the ones I do – they’re like George Lucas canon

Comment From LarryA
Is it just me or is Fantasy Fotball absolutely everywhere this season. I can go 10 minutes of my day without hearing some nerd talk about who he has on his stupid team this week.

Dan Szymborski: It’s the first week of the season!

Comment From Daniel
Are you going to be playing Destiny hard?

Dan Szymborski: On the fence.

Dan Szymborski: I’m not usually into apocalyptic/tech settings

Comment From CuriousGeorge
Why still no rusney Castillo player page?

Dan Szymborski: He’ll get one when he gets into a game

Comment From Rated Rookie
As Oscar Taveras’s BABIP/luck goes, so goes Matheny’s use of him. Will the Cardinals’ outfield still be crowded enough in 2015 to continue this pattern?

Dan Szymborski: I have no idea what Matheny is thinking half the time.

Comment From Ben
Do you think the Astros will make any significant moves this offseason? 3b maybe?

Dan Szymborski: I think we’ll see the Cubs make some big moves this year, but I think Astros at least a year off

Comment From mikecws91
Who are the offseason’s top starting pitchers that can be had on one-year deals?

Dan Szymborski: Morrow maybe?

Dan Szymborski: I think Peavy may end up being a good 1-year

Comment From Dave
What should the Pirates do about Martin this offseason? I don’t believe that they can’t afford him.

Dan Szymborski: It’s kind of tricky as he’s not a player that you want to lock up for a logn tiem

Dan Szymborski: They better give him a QO though.

Comment From Tom
As a Cards’ fan, Mike Matheny does many things that make me scratch my head. But after the way the team has stayed alive with major injuries (Molina, Wacha, Garcia) and a pitiful run differential and is now leading the NL Central, is it time to say Mike Matheny is a good manager?

Dan Szymborski: I’m not sure, considering they’ve underachieved their way to the NL Central.

Comment From Scott
What do you think the Orioles do with Markakis over the offseason? Decline the $17.5mm option ($2mm buyout) but extend a QO?

Dan Szymborski: I think that’s most likely.

Comment From Nick
Gut reaction pick for this year’s two world series teams – GO!

Dan Szymborski: Baltimore/Washington.

Dan Szymborski: The B-W Parkway Series!

Comment From Dr. Met
Dont you have FIOS speedmatch? Because your eyes match so should your internet upload and download speeds!

Dan Szymborski: I have Time Warner.

Comment From Rams
Do you think Morales lands on a major league roster next season?

Dan Szymborski: Yeah

Comment From STiVo
How can the Orioles screw this up and not make the playoffs?

Dan Szymborski: It would be an amazing feat to do it at this point.

Comment From Sam
Verlander not included in the worst contracts??

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS still projects Verlander to be a durable 110-115 guy in the long run, which still has value

Comment From Fowler
What kind of season do you think Danny Salazar will have next year?

Dan Szymborski: More like his 2013 performance nad his recent 2014 performance.

Comment From BigBird
Dan, should the baseball season be shortened or start a few weeks earlier as not to lose ratings to the NFL? Seems like Thursday-Tuesday is dominated by football this time of year.

Dan Szymborski: Nah, I don’t think you need to shorten the season

Dan Szymborski: NFL’s always going to get attention – there’s room for both

Comment From Dr. Met
Are we seeing Juan Lagares’ peak right now? How much has ZiPS changed his projections since start of the year because he’s suddenly fantasy serviceable?

Dan Szymborski: Projections haven’t change *that* much. Lagares looked like he was going to be a better IRL than fantasy. I still think he’s fairly marginal in fantasy.

Comment From Bryon
Are the A’s regretting the Cespedes trade as their woes continue?

Dan Szymborski: They shouldn’t and I don’t think the A’s front office is.

Dan Szymborski: But if the A’s miss the playoffs, there will be many stupid articles blaming the trade.

Comment From Munenoris Espresso Stand
A’s play a 3-game series at home against the Phillies later this month. Regardless of the Phillies’ level of competition, is it a bit weird / unfair to be playing interleague games with only a handful of regular season games to go? Or is it no different than e.g. the M’s going to Toronto for 4 games in the final full week of the regular season?

Dan Szymborski: I dont’ think ti’s that different – it’s inevitable if you have daily interleague

Comment From Bomok
Do you know anything about the Korean SS ung-Ho Kang?

Dan Szymborski: Well, he’s hit like a billion homers this year while playing SS

Comment From Guest
when will teams stop hiring their former players to be coaches?

Dan Szymborski: They won’t. Former players do have a communication advantage.

Comment From Guest
Any rumors to the reason for Washington’s resignation?

Dan Szymborski: Haven’t heard anything specific

Comment From Ben
What kind of future do you think Domingo Santana has? He really needs some ML success.

Dan Szymborski: I think he has a bright future, though probably not a star. The start is rough though, but you gotta overcome that stuff.

Comment From Guest
Is there anything about Jose Abreu’s defense that suggests the CWS would DH him regularly next year?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t think so.

Comment From Rahul
Could you see the Cubs as serious contenders for a playoff spot next year?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t know about *serious* but I think they’ll be at least moderatley interesting

Comment From Guest
Would Colby Rasmus be a good buy for the Yanks next year?

Dan Szymborski: He’s certainly a possibility. I think his lefty power bat would be a good fit.

Dan Szymborski: But I also thought that McCann would be a good fit.

Comment From Rams
do you think valbuena lands a regular job next season after his power surge this year?

Dan Szymborski: It’s going to be tough with the Cubs as they have a lot of IF candidates coming up the next year or so

Dan Szymborski: He’s got 2 seasons (I think) after this before FA.

Dan Szymborski: Now, I can see a team acquiring him in a trade to fill-in for a few years, but he won’t fetch a major prospect

Comment From Yo-Yo
How do the Cardinals upgrade their offense for 2015 and beyond? Would they be front-runners for Stanton, if he ever becomes available?

Dan Szymborski: You would hope so, that would be a really fun fit.

Comment From Zach
Does Nelson stay in Brewers rotation? If so, do they continue to go with 6?

Dan Szymborski: I think so. They Brewers ended up with a 6 man due to indecision and I think they remain indecisive.

Dan Szymborski: Last chance for random off-topic nonsense as we’re past 1 PM and will be wrappoing up in a few

Comment From Brett
Lots of talk about how the Red Sox and Phillies “match up really well” for a trade involving Hamels. That doesn’t seem like the best idea if the Sox are giving up multiple legit prospects, right?

Dan Szymborski: I dont’ think the Red Sox would pay what the Phils want for the privilege of paying Hamels market value

Comment From Rated Rookie
The visualizer for your music is really freaking sweet. Where can I get one just like it?

Dan Szymborski: It’s the MilkDrop plugin for Media Monkey

Comment From Northsider
Does Tanaka pitch again this year?

Dan Szymborski: I think in the end, they shut him down

Comment From Ben
Free agents should photoshop themselves bald and without facial hair before signing with the Yankees. You don’t want to look like Humpty Dumpty.

Dan Szymborski: Anyway, thanks for comign everyone! As usual, you can find my work at ESPN.com, projections and chats here at FanGraphs, and DSzymborski on Twitter and other stuff.

Comment From Guest
How did the experiment work i thought it was cool

Dan Szymborski: Not something I’d do every week!

Comment From Rated Rookie
Recently, Gerrit Cole’s pitching lines keep getting marred by attempts to pitch into the 7th inning, or much past 100 pitches. How many starts before this threshold seems like some more than a fluke?

Dan Szymborski: The Pirates have been very cautious with him

Dan Szymborski: They’ve used him so little past 100 that’s it’s hard to tell if it’s really something to worry about.

Comment From Dr. Met
You should live stream a MUDing session next!

Dan Szymborski: I think I’m going to livestream Destiny of an Emperor for NES when I’md one this chat.