JotCast | Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat

Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 6/2/22

Dan Szymborski

12:02

Welcome to the start of the Dan Szymborski Birthday season.

Rachel

12:03

Fantasy question - Start Strider in Colorado? He has the swing and miss potential? No? Thanks!

Dan Szymborski

12:03

I'd personally avoid unless the next option is really poor - Coors is still Coors.

12:03

Padres Offense gonna be the reason they miss the playoffs?

Dan Szymborski

12:03

Possible, but I'm still optimistic on some of those guys turning it around

12:06

What's kinda awkward is that Profar and Hosmer have been steadily fading but the guys struggling aren't really bouncing back

Like Hosmer has a .610 OPS since May 1st, but neither Grisham or Cronenworth have had better months to compensate

12:07

And most of Profar's damage was done in first couple weeks

Nick Krall

12:07

Should I trade Castillo and Mahle? If so where and for whom?

Dan Szymborski

12:07

I'm doing a mini-deadline preview tomorrow!

Oddball Herrera

12:07

Was thinking about the Mazara call up - how high does a veteran player’s wRC in AAA have to be for you to think they may have figured something out vs they’re just dominating lower competition? We will call this the Keston Hiura line

Dan Szymborski

12:07

It really just depends on who they're replacing

Jesse Winker

12:07

Dan, has the dead ball completely broken me? Am I a mere shadow of the stud I pretended to be in 2020-21? Should I resign myself to being a plate-discipline-first, singles-and-walks-only kinda guy from now on?

Dan Szymborski

12:07

The weird ball seems to have had an unequal effect on player types

12:08

Usually, ZiPS misses are random (unfortunately, since that would provide an area for improvement)

But so far at least, there's a statistically significant difference in how non-elite power hitters are faring compared to their projections

And there's no change in projection process that would explain that.

GBS42

12:08

Following up on last week's question/comment about vintage base ball, here's one team's schedule. I recommend July 9 (my team will be visiting that day). If you can make it, ask for Southpaw.

http://www.1869reds.com/schedule

Dan Szymborski

12:09

Bah, it's too bad that you're not in the game at Carillon!

There's beer inside and it's a short drive for me

12:10

I may be in Baltimore that week

The Great Giambino

12:10

How long does it take BABIP to stabilize? Through 200 IP in his career, Triston McKenzie has a .218 BABIP allowed. Real or mirage?

Dan Szymborski

12:10

A long time.

12:11

Hold on lemme open something

12:13

Let's assume that you only have two things to evaluate a pitcher by: their actual BABIP (B) and the expected BABIP for a pitcher on that team in that ballpark (T)

12:14

For season to season, historically, the formula that best projects regression amount of B towards T is TBF/(TBF+2412)

Excuse me that's in-season

12:16

Season to season is 3185

12:17

so you'd expect him to go about 94% of the way towards team with 193 BF, if that's all your looking at

12:18

By the same token, if Tom Glavine returned and was suddenly back in his prime and we were projecting based on career, only 15%

(BABIP over team seems to be more a player characteristic than something that ages)

Sum

12:18

Dan, greetings from the suburbs between Baltimore and Annapolis. a pitcher I have never heard of before - Fred Kahaulua - was mentioned in David Laurila's most recent dispatch. that anecdote plus his player page are wild - besting Fernando at the height of the mania, 0.5 WAR in just 29 innings that year, and he only made appearances in MLB in one other season. I've got a soft spot for Hawaiian MLBers - I thought of you with ZiPS might-have-beens, but this isn't quite apropos of that - anyone on staff care to write up that guy's story and what happened next? thanks as always!

Dan Szymborski

12:19

Interesting, he's actually a player I don't know much about!

Matt

12:19

Did you see Cabrera yesterday in Coors? Can he succeed long term with that 96mph change?

Dan Szymborski

12:19

If it moves like that he may be!

Remember, there's more than one way to fool a batter

12:20

The importnat part of the change is the tunneling part, how it LOOKS like it could be a fastball