JotCast | Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat

Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 5/30/24

Dan Szymborski

12:01

It's a chat!

Red

12:01

hey Dan! Can you put in a good word with the site team to add a date range function for minor league stats? Would be an awesome QOL improvement!

Dan Szymborski

12:02

I keep a bit of a list of things to bring up when we talk stuff at staff meetings, I could add it

I'm pretty sure from the raw data we have, we at least have the ability

John M.

12:02

Have you ever tried to make any kind of projections about how Negro League players would fare if they were in an integrated MLB? Or how MLB players would fare if the leagues were integrated then?

Dan Szymborski

12:02

I've tinkered a little, but nothing substantive

12:03

Naturally, stats for all players would go down in a much more competitive league.

12:04

MLB would never do it because of the players it pushes off the leaderboards, but on a fundamental level, segregation-era records should probably all be considered sketchy, similar to a lot of 19th century stats

12:06

My personally preferred leaderboard change -- which would have pleased exactly nobody and displeased nearly everybody -- would have been for 1961 to be considered the start of the modern era, not 1901

12:07

The fact is, segregating players in baseball wasn't just a horrible evil, it was bad for the baseball ITSELF. That's a definite secondary thing, but it is a thing; both leagues were basically high level minor leagues because of the dilution of talent

12:08

There's a very real argument that Tony Gwynn is the all-time major league BA leader at .338

Billy

12:08

Real talk - are the Royals contenders or not?

Dan Szymborski

12:09

In terms of beign really really good? Not really. But they have lots of wins banked and a .500ish team with a bunch of extra wins banked is a contender

Because anyone who makes the playoffs is a contender

If MLB added two playoff spots for the two worst teams in baseball, then the Rockies and White Sox are contenders

Key Flaw

12:09

If pitchers and hitters don't really have an effect on BABiP (to simlify at least), but batting average goes up each time a batter sees a pitcher in a game, and batting average is related to count on the batter, how does that work? Is it that there are definite things that are related to BABiP, but when you sum them all up it is too much noise to predict based on individuals?

Dan Szymborski

12:10

There are a whole bunch of key flaws here, largely missing the differences between BABIP and average

BABIP is a *driver* of BA, but there's other stuff too. Homers are part of batting average. And when talking about BABIP/BA interaction, so is strikeout rate

Let's given an example from last year

12:11

First time through order last year, the league hit .246. The third time through order, .267

12:12

But BABIP was only two points higher. from first to third time

12:13

But there were 20% more strikeouts, meaning that a whole bunch of .000 BA plays became .290ish plays

Also, that pitchers have a higher BABIP across the board when fatigued doesn't mean that it's an ability

12:14

When the league hits .292 BABIP, that's the average for all fatigue states. But if the difference is driven by fatigue, that's a fatigue ability, not a BABIP

And there still is a *slight* pitcher BABIP, usually involving numbers of this that you can count on your figners

ALSO

12:15

Nobody has said hitters don't have an effect on BABIP. Hitters have a substantial, repeatable BABIP skill

But it's still quite volatile.

Joe

12:15

The Orioles have the fifth lowest team BABIP in baseball but the second highest hard hit rate. Which of these are likely to continue?

Dan Szymborski

12:15

Last I checked, the O's had a zBABIP a good bit higher than their actual BABIP, so the latter

Bres-VERY low

12:15

Where does Sale-Grissom rank on the Betts for Verdugo/Wong/Downs scale of worst trades?

Dan Szymborski

12:16

Well off. I consider trades based on the typical reasonable results expected at the time.

12:17

And there was certainly upside in Sale, but if you looked at every alternate universe where this happened, I'm pretty sure this isn't the *average* result

Guest

12:18

the fact that FIP has a denominator of IP kind of is against the point of the statistic right? If a pitcher has a better defense, they make more outs, and the pitcher pitches more innings

I get no statistic is perfect but this seems like an oversight for the purpose of what FIP is supposed to measure. why not use something similar based on K%, BB%, HR%, etc?

Dan Szymborski

12:18

It's probably not ideal, but I've run numbers on this before and there really aren't consequences of note

Guest

12:18

We take it as a given that all teams should go around .500 in 1-run games, but is that really true? For example a hypothetical team that allowed 0 runs all year would be expected to win 100% of their 1-run games, while a team that allows infinite runs would win 0%. Is there a correlation between how few runs a team gives up & how good their record in 1-run games is?

Dan Szymborski

12:19

The no-infinite/no-negatives thing is an edge case that doesn't make a real difference

Nick

12:19

Gunnar Henderson is on pace for the 3rd 50 HR season by a SS of all time. Outside of Ernie Banks and Arod there have only been 2 other seasons of even 40 HRs by a SS. Does Gunnar get to 40?! 50?!

Dan Szymborski

12:20

I don't think he gets to 50

I'd coinflip 40

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