JotCast | Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 1/11/24

Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 1/11/24

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Dan Szymborski

12:16

Pitchers are trickier and ZiPS isn't confident on a guy without a whole lot of IP

TomBruno23

12:16

We have the full 2024 NL Central ZiPS at this point...who are you betting on to get to 85 wins and take home the crown? Who is your favorite longer shot? Does it matter?

Dan Szymborski

12:16

Cardinals, though I imagine people will be annoyed with me since it's against the current popular feeling about them

cool

2

But I wouldn't be shocked by any team winning the NL Central. Even the Pirates.

Richard

12:16

For pitchers who had starts and relief appearances, do you think it makes more sense to project them as "Player X - SP" and "Player X - RP" than mash a combination together? I understand the blend projection is going to be closer to reality but it muddies the talent level when you're trying to parse the two.

Dan Szymborski

12:17

I'm still thinking of better ways to express that

For next year, I'm considering any pitcher with, say, three projected appearances in their non-primary role, to tack on another chart breaking down the ERAs/FIPs

Dan S.

12:17

Dylan Cease has had two very different recent years, making it hard to settle debates over his trade value. What does ZiPS think of him going forward?

Dan Szymborski

12:17

Don't take away one of the few reasons to people to look at White Sox ZiPS next week! lol

Drew

12:18

Is Grissom really the solution at 2B? The bat says yes, but the glove seems to scream NO.

Dan Szymborski

12:18

He *might* be. Remember, 2B is the easier position and defensive stats are volatile

Richard

12:20

If EDLC cut hit K rate to 20%, would he become a 7 WAR player according to ZiPS?

Dan Szymborski

12:20

That's a bit much. It would help of course

J

12:20

Any ZiPS projections on Imanaga? Was surprised to see none in the writeup on the signing.

Dan Szymborski

12:20

Cubs go tomorrow!

Mark

12:20

Tan you equate a team's total projected WAR to a number of wins? In other words, does 48 combined WAR equate to 97 Wins, etc? Related to the fancy projection charts you publish.

Dan Szymborski

12:20

Not REALLY since I use a method that attempts to deal with depth issues

TomBruno23

12:20

Journey/Def Leppard/Cheap Trick and Billy Joel/Sting as the big summer concerts at Busch fits so perfectly with that Cardinal Rotation.

Pistol Pete

12:20

Hi Dan, do you think that Brandon Pfaadt's growth during the postseason will carry into the 2024 season or is his arsenal too hittable to be trusted?

Dan Szymborski

12:20

I remain optimistic

Bob

12:21

What is a good way to evaluate the career of a pitcher? Is the bar set too high for WAR for pitchers? WAR is supposed to be an indicator of value over what a replacement player would bring. Pitchers like Drew Smyly and Ryne Nelson had a WAR of zero last year. The 10th best pitching WAR is equal to the 42nd best hitting WAR. Pitchers totaling 10,106 IP out of 43,087 total IP (23%) had a WAR of 0.0 or less last year. The best Team Bat WAR last year was around 40 but the best Team Pit WAR was around 33. And bullpens that accumulate 500-600 IP often have a team bullpen WAR less than of a single starting pitcher. Seems like using WAR as an indicator of overall value undervalues pitchers (especially relievers) and the calculation should be modified.

Dan Szymborski

12:21

I'm not quite sure

There's no rule that says pitchers have to equally be valuable as hitters

12:22

Imagine baseball set a rule that pitchers could only pitch three innings in a game

(individual ones)

That would serve to make pitchers less valuable.

12:23

And for bullpens, the fact remains that performance there has a much higher replacement level.

Perry

12:23

Is Zips able to make predictions about a pitcher’s performance but with an altered profile? For instance, as a Braves fan, I’m anxious about Strider’s effectiveness in the short term if he loses, say, 3mph on his fastball since he’s basically a two pitch pitcher.
If so, how would that loss in velocity be mitigated by him adding an effective 3rd pitch with X profile and Y usage rate?

Dan Szymborski

12:23

Yes, though it depends on the exact question

Devon

12:23

When do 3-year ZIPS projections push to player pages? Will that be when all team ZIPS profiles are finished?

Dan Szymborski

12:23

Yeah, when everything goes live

I send it to David in one big chunk

Marcos

12:23

Why do you like Imanaga for the Cubs so much?

Dan Szymborski

12:24

Yeah, he doesn't have a ton of velocity, but his fastball isn't a lifeless one

12:25

I think he's very Kodai Senga-y in value

and that contract is a steal for that

laxtonto

12:25

Has anyone done any text mining in baseball? It seems to generate less large textual segments (maybe outside of scouting reports) and large scale text topic classification doesn't seem like a real functional application. Maybe sentiment correlation within scouting reports to determine hedging by scouts....

Dan Szymborski

12:25

I've actually experimented with this in the past with good results, but I find that just using the data I have access to gets me most of the things that are useful for projections

TomBruno23

12:25

Do you (or whoever it is that runs ZiPS still trying to figure that one out...) put any stock in Winter League statistics? Wondering because new Cardinal acquisition Victor Santos is at the least showing he is healthy.

Dan Szymborski

12:25

I've found them too noisy for my use

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