JotCast | Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat 3/13/25

Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat 3/13/25

Dan Szymborski

12:02

It's a chat!

PCA

12:02

PCA breakout potential? This year's Elly De La Cruz?

Dan Szymborski

12:02

ZiPS at least loves him

PCA

12:03

Savant shows both slurve and sweeper as unique pitches. This is MADNESS.

Dan Szymborski

12:03

I think there's serious daylight between them

Datt Mamon

12:03

This season and long-term: Westburg or Vientos?

Dan Szymborski

12:03

I mildly prefer Westburg, but I've always liked him and there may be some mild favoritism

Pope Formosus

12:03

Assuming that I’m correct in understanding WPA as an essentially a random product of sequencing, what were the odds of the White Sox offense and bullpen both putting up the worst single season collective unit WPAs in known MLB history (since 1974)? Like they have to be near infinitesimal, right? Even if it seems logical that bad teams would experience more negative WPA events, the bullpen wasn’t even the worst unit in the league.

Dan Szymborski

12:04

I mean, it's not TOTALLY random. It's just that the randomness creaets a lot of noise

If ALL you had was WPA to evaluate teams and players, you wouldn't really do an awful job

12:05

Ohtani-Judge-Soto were top three in 2024. Brandon Drury, Tim Anderson, Orlando Arcia were bottom three

David Stearns

12:05

How many games have the Mets dropped in their projections due to all the injuries? Same question for the Yankees.

Dan Szymborski

12:05

The Yankees dropped 2.7 wins in ZiPS after Cole injury

12:06

(the Stanton effect is relatively small)

I haven't measured the Mets specifically, but Alvarez-->Torrens is a killer

Crates

12:07

How does ZiPS project context-dependent stats like R and RBI? Is it just performance in previous years by similar players, or does ZiPS know something about the lineup quality? I'm assuming it doesn't know specific things like "Soto bats in front of Alonso" and so we should mentally bump up Alonso's RBI projection, yes?

Dan Szymborski

12:07

ZiPS know vaguely the lineup quality, and your assumption is correct

12:09

RBI is quite a model-able thing

12:10

If you can project HR, AVG, SLG, and AB with RoB, you can model RBI quite well

(that's an r^2 of 0.914)

12:11

ZiPS RBI *ought* to be improved this year as I'm explicitly projecting AB with RoB roughly now

RAGBRAI

12:11

After the big jump in SB in 2023, it somewhat leveled off with an increase of just over 100 last year. Do you seeing it stay at about the same level as last year, an increase or a market correction to lower levels?

Dan Szymborski

12:11

I think about the same

Adam

12:11

The Rays just officially pulled out of their stadium deal. What happens now?

Dan Szymborski

12:12

they try and re-push to pay less and broadly make veiled threats. The usual stadium shit

Wrights_Back

12:12

McNeil down for a time. Met fans are learning the value of Stearn's "flexible rosters.'

Jack's Back?

12:12

Zips seems bullish on Jack Suwinski. Are you?

Dan Szymborski

12:12

Decently so

mmddyyyy

12:13

Player height measurements are better now, are weights better too?

Dan Szymborski

12:13

Probably, but I'm not sure

Kruk was listed for a long time during his career at 5-10, 170, which is some funny crap

Well-Beered Englishman

12:13

If you had to take an MLB GM job tomorrow, which jobs would you most and least want to step into?

Dan Szymborski

12:13

Reds because I wouldn't have to move

12:14

Athletics because I simply would not work with John Fisher

Not that anyone's asked me to be their GM

dfpfromchicago

12:15

Hi - total newbee here. I'm kind of excited about Jack Leiter in my mixed 10 team pts league. Is it smart to drop Robbie Ray for him? Walker Buehler?

Dan Szymborski

12:15

That's a bit premature unless you have keepers

Insert Witty Name Here

12:15

Does anyone know why Elly stopped his torrid SB pace in the 2H last year?

Dan Szymborski

12:16

I don't remember specifically, but there's a common pattern in which once guys are crushing the ball, teams will pull back on the stolen bases a bit

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