JotCast | Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 6/5/25

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Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 6/5/25

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Dan Szymborski

12:02

Greetings, FanGrapheteers!

Harshil Jani

12:02

Hi Dan. I would like to know what the accuracy of the Fangraphs pre-game win probabilities under the 'live scoreboard' section. Thanks.

Dan Szymborski

12:06

I don't actually know; there's a lot of data on our proejction probabilities, but I don't have access to our historical numbers of game vs. game.

I imagine they're best when the teams are closely matched, since they're game state based.

At some point, we'll have a ZiPS in-game version of this installed (you may have seen the beta in the playoffs), and that will know more about the relative strengths of the team

John

12:06

I know you're the ZiPS guy, so if there is someone better to ask let me know, but how does Devers have such an elite batted ball profile despite pretty middling bat tracking metrics? Average bat speed and poor squared up %, but elite in avg exit velo, barrels and hard hit %.

Dan Szymborski

12:07

Devers using a fairly heavy bat, doesn't he? I"m not sure how to check that out really quickly though. It's certainly likely if his contact was more consistent that his hard-hit % would be even crazier

Matt

12:07

Hey Dan what does Zips say is a good contract offer for PCA a la Corbin Carroll or Jackson Merrill, buying out arb years and first few of free agency?

Dan Szymborski

12:08

ZiPS would suggest $225/10

Snid

12:08

Any word on Jobe? Do you think we are looking at TJS?

Dan Szymborski

12:10

I don't think I've heard anything you haven't heard. Hearing flexor strain isn't exactly the happiest injury to hear about, and it's natural that TJ surgery will pop into heads

Alex

12:11

What is wrong with Atlanta's offense? Why are they so bad?

Dan Szymborski

12:11

I"m not sure there's a magic answer beyond the obvious; a bunch of their players are hitting like crap

Taylor Walls Can't Hear

12:11

I've been thinking lately about the concept of context independent stats. I understand their utility, but do you think they're overused in the sabermetric community? I understand FIP is useful, but players do have defenses behind them, so why dock a player who doesn't get strikeouts but keeps runs off the board when that guy is still super valuable? Sure, that homer may have only been a homer in Yankee Stadium, but he does play in Yankee stadium!

Dan Szymborski

12:11

Because the idea is to give credit to the players who create the value.

12:12

If you give more credit to a pitcher for what the defense does, you necessarily have to reduce credit to the defense for what the defense does.

12:13

Meg and Matt fix my shitty run-on sentences, I'm not sure that I should get more credit for the fixing of them simply because at the end of the day, the run-on sentences are eliminated

Kevin

12:13

What’s something you know about baseball now that you didn’t know even a few years ago?

Dan Szymborski

12:14

Until I looked a few years ago, I didn't realize that preseason projections actually predicted next year's team record better than the team's record in the intervening year

RJS

12:14

Just curious - why do you build a setup to run ZiPS at home instead of running it in the cloud? Seems like you could gain a lot of flexibility in speed and cost.

Dan Szymborski

12:16

For one, it creates additional coding challenges that I'm unskilled in. Second, I take care of my own security and if something happens, then I'm responsible.

and frankly, I don't want additional complexities when I'm tinkering

drplantwrench

12:17

i've been thinking a lot about Ryan Johnson - he's got good stuff certainly, but i feel like a lot of his value is from how wacky and weird his delivery is. How does ZiPS/you approach the value of a pitcher being weird and unexpected?

Dan Szymborski

12:17

I personally like being weird and unexpected, but the question does come up "what happens when people are used to this"

12:18

The only reason I ever got anyone out as a pitcher as a kid is that I threw sidearm and that was unusual. But once you get well into your teenage years, batters get more comfortable with oddness and crushing your pathetic 70 mph fastball or your crappy little palmball thingy.

ZiPS of course doesn't really address 'weirdness' as a cateogry

Justin

12:19

Hi Dan. Just read Ben's article on Luis Torrens. Has Zips bought into his hot start? Thanks

Dan Szymborski

12:19

A bit mroe than the simplified in-season model.

the simpler models has his wRC+ going forward as 99, the more robust model 103

Insert Witty Name Here

12:19

Is Cal Ripken, Jr rolling in his grave with how bad the O’s are messing up their golden opportunity?

Dan Szymborski

12:19

He's still alive!

12:20

Though it's weird how old he is

matt w

12:20

Do you have an estimate of the chances that Aaron Judge will have more career WAR than Mike Trout? (Thinking of the most WAR for a single team in the first part of the 20th century, and they may be the only contenders unless Bobby Witt sticks with the Royals.)

Dan Szymborski

12:21

I don't offhand, but Trout's definitely the stronger favorite

12:22

Judge is unbelievable of course, but a 30 WAR shortfall is HARD to make up when you're already 33

12:23

And a run of injuries can bring things down *quickly*

Coolidge

12:23

Are the Braves just.....bad? They can't use the injury excuse anymore. Everyone's regressed 2 years in a row now. It's almost like....this is just who they are.

Dan Szymborski

12:23

Not *bad*, but they've had so many disappointments that it's hard to call them the class of tne NL East anymore

Hi Dan

12:23

Hi Dan

Dan Szymborski

12:26

Cassiopeia is sleeping in her cat cave, Justinian's sitting next to me on the pillow on one of my left desks. Last I saw Constantine was sleeping on an ottoman in the living room. Don't know what Mercutio's doing, but I gave him his kidney food right before chat (the SDMA test in his senior blood panel showed very early kidney disease, not enough for medicine, but enough for me to immediately start him on kidney diet)

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