JotCast | Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat

Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 1/19/23

Dan Szymborski

12:00

The appointed time in the prophecy has been reached.

Nick

12:00

What would a Gleyber Torres extension look like?

Dan Szymborski

12:01

They'd offer him a set number of dollars in return for a set number or seasons!

(Sorry, it's opening)

12:04

ZiPS would offer 5/119 or 6/138

Rizz

12:04

Does ZiPS just not care about exit velo/barrel data much? Carlson’s statcast numbers were about as bad as you can get last year, yet ZiPS isn’t forecasting much of a regression. Nootbaar is essentially the inverse, yet ZIPS didn’t think his performance was sustainable. Two of many instances I’ve pinpointed over the last few weeks

Dan Szymborski

12:04

ZiPS does, but it doesn't *only* care about that

12:05

Let me put it this way, if that was the overriding thing to look at at the expense of other stuff, Statcast's x numbers would be more predictive than they actually are

12:07

If not for that hard hit/barrel etc. numbers, his projection would be worse; ZiPS is basically projecting him to have his second-best professional season

(More in a minute)

Derek

12:07

I actually agree with your Teoscar take - he's a *good* (not great) hitter with the defensive abilities of a DH. On most WS-caliber teams he's probably the 7th-9th best position player (while obviously hitting higher in the lineup than that).

Dan Szymborski

12:08

I probably could have worded it better. My general point stands, I feel - a top team should ideally not go into a season with Plan As -- multiple in the case of the M's -- that are worse than Hernandez is projected.

He's got a very good one dimension, but he's a one-dimensional player with little defensive value entering his 30s. Those guys do not age well or gradefully or gradually in most cases.

12:10

(And he's also moving into a park less conducive to his skillset)

12:11

Just to illustrate on the former, of the top 400 player-baselines in his comp cohort

281 of 400 players saw their homers per contact decline from their baseline.

The next season

Derek

12:12

Please explain wtf is going on with the Angelos family.

Dan Szymborski

12:12

You can only ask them important information on days that are not holidays for anyone in the world.

12:14

They'd love to give you MASN revenue data for example. But today is Orthodox Epiphany.

And tomorrow is Inauguration Day

Guest

12:15

Will Tigers sign any more bats, or could they be done on MLB deals?

Dan Szymborski

12:15

Done on anything that will move the needle

Because there's not just much there

Morbo

12:15

Dan, I told you on Twitter I was going to come to your chat and ask for Pujols'projection. So here I am. Can I get Pujols' projection? I NEED IT!

Dan Szymborski

12:15

Dangit, I can't - I just hit go on the Marlins pitching projection batch

NYBaseballNerd

12:15

I've always wondered if ZiPS is a series of gigantic Excel spreadsheets or if you wrote code for it. Also, what hardware does it run on?

Dan Szymborski

12:15

It is at its core, but there's also a lot of Visual Basic involved.

12:16

I run it on my main PC if I'm not doing anything else, which is a Ryzen 5950X

if I'm playing a game or something while I wait, I'll run it on an Intel i7-8700K.

Appa Yip Yip

12:16

Have you ever tried to have ZiPS come up with trade values, or is that too subjective for the computer to be good at?

Dan Szymborski

12:16

I'm not really a fan of doing it that way because the considerations of teams can be fairly complex.

12:18

Oh, on Pujols, I haven't re-run it to make sure nothing screwed up, but his initial projection was .249/.309/.441, 107 OPS+, 0.8 WAR as a DH in like 350 PA

Ben

12:18

How do you think AI will impact baseball over the next few decades, if at all?

Dan Szymborski

12:18

It's certainly possible

I wonder if AI will eventually do things like help predictd injuries

Though I expect printed body parts to eventually be a larger impact there

12:19

I can see someday that implanting an artificial UCL made of graphene or whatever becomes a standard procedure.

Appa Yip Yip

12:22

The Jays need a 4th outfielder, but Robbie Grossman probably wants a starting job. Are they just gonna end up rolling with Whit Merrifield filling that role?

Dan Szymborski

12:22

I suspect so

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