JotCast | Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 9/21/23

Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 9/21/23

powered by

Dan Szymborski

12:03

It's a chat!

Guest

12:03

Has this season increased or decreased Justin Verlander's odds of reaching 300 wins? This season feels like a median outcome to me, but curious if Zips sees something different.

Dan Szymborski

12:04

I don't have ZiPS open, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's dropped a little bit

Verlander matched his projections, but remember, he wasn't at 50% to win 300 games

He kinda needs to beat his win projections by a bit

Guest

12:05

Enjoyed the milestone article looking 3,000 hits. Any other milestones that you're planning to look at soon?

Dan Szymborski

12:05

Probably! I was originally just going to do multiple milestones, but as I wrote the piece, I really wanted to talk more specifically about Freddie Freeman so it became about hits

Jason N

12:05

Update on Padres playoff chances if they win out?

Dan Szymborski

12:06

Yeah, let me open

12:07

But I'll have to get back to it as it'll take 15 mins

WhatMonster

12:07

The recent articles about Freddie Freeman had me looking at his player page. I was surprised to see he had a negative "Def" component in every season of his career. "Didn't he win a gold glove?", I thought. "Surely he has been an above-average defender at least once.".

Dan Szymborski

12:08

Def contains the positional adjustment

Travis

12:08

Has Soto vs Acuna rest of career changed after this season?

Dan Szymborski

12:08

Acuna's back in tops with ZiPS

Braves Homer

12:08

Acuna's 3 year ZIPS projections stealing no more than 28 bases over the next three seasons. Does Zips currently not consider the new SB-relevant rule changes when considering SB projections?

Dan Szymborski

12:08

Those are done preseason

WhatMonster

12:09

Damn, it cut off my previous question. Continued - So I looked at all first basemen from 2020-2023: out of 15 qualified 1B over those 4 seasons, not a single one has a positive "Def" score. Christian Walker "leads" at -7.8. Help me make sense of this. If the "Def" score is "Fielding and Positional Adjustment Combined (above average)" shouldn't someone be above average by definition? It seems like right now it's comparing first basemen to shortstops, and penalizing them for it. Someone has to play first - and some of those 1B will be better at it than others, right?

Dan Szymborski

12:09

It's just putting the positional adjustment into the DEF

I'll reverse the question: how can a 1B *ever* have as much pure defensive value as an average SS?

peanut-gallery

1

12:12

Year BA OBP SLG G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO HP SB CS + DR WAR 2024 .304 .398 .555 152 578 125 176 33 2 36 101 82 107 10 49 11 153 1 6.8

that's acuna

SpicyBoy

12:15

Cody Bellinger has had a great season despite declining statcast data. However, looking closer, his barrel% and hardhit% are actually about the same as his post 2020 seasons if you look at them on a per AB basis instead of per batted ball. In this sense, his data is punishing him for making a lot more contact than he has in previous years. I don't think he's back to 2019 form, but is instead a much better version of the hitter he was in 2020-2022. How much of his performance is sustainable and does statcast need to adjust the way they present data?

Dan Szymborski

12:15

I'm a Bellinger skeptic in that he's not really hitting the ball all that hard

12:16

I mean yeah, it's not perfect

but his velocity numbers are still really low

12:17

but even with better contact, it's not really sustainable to have this big a diff

Outraged Twitter User

12:17

Stop pretending you have access to non-Public ZiPS projections. /s

Dan Szymborski

12:17

heh

It's one of my favorite genres of tweet

12:18

For those who are confused, there's a certain, fairly obscure, type of social media user who is outraged that I keep claiming to have access to ZiPS projections that other people don't. These people will occasionally try and explain to me how ZiPS works. Admittedly, when that starts, I will frequently egg them on.

Braves Homer

12:19

In 2022, Acuna stole 29 bases in 40 attempts (~73% success) and was credited with 4.8 BsR. This year, he's at 67 SBs in 80 attempts (~84% success) and is at 5.0 BsR. The description that come sup when you mouse over BsR only explictly mentions SBs and CS, but I assume other baserunning events (pickoffs?) are considered. Has his baserunning really been so bad outside of the SB game that it more or less negates 38 SBs? Or would you say that there are pretty large error bars around that 4.8 BsR for 2023?

Dan Szymborski

12:19

BsR looks at other baserunning events

12:22

It definitely hurts that he has the most pickoffs + baserunning outs this year, with 15

(that's not including CS)

12:23

And it's not from volume, he's taken an extra base successfully this season less often than Carlos Santana or Austin Riley

12:24

BR has him at 51% XBT.

12:25

Carroll leads the league at 71%

Gold Star

12:25

What does the future hold for James Outman? He's an "old" rookie (26) but 3.9 fWAR ain't too shabby.

Dan Szymborski

12:25

Should be a solid player for quite a while

He just doesn't have the as likely dizzying upside as some of the others

Load More Messages

Connecting…

Register

Message History

On Off

On Off

On Off

On Off

Your current subscriptions

None

Register now to continue managing your subscriptions

E-mail Address	Chat Owner	Status	Remove

Enter your email address to be notified when Dan Szymborski hosts a chat