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Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 1/8/26

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Dan Szymborski

12:02

Greeting friends, enemies, and the possibly neutral who accidentally found their way here with a misclick somehow

12:02

What are your personal expectations for Alonso in Baltimore?

Dan Szymborski

12:04

I think he'll be quite awesome for the first few years. I expect the end won't be great, but it ought to be a better situation than Chris Davis, and I imagine the front office is realistic about what the abck end could like like

Lowetide

12:04

Hi Dan, I giggled about the 'refrigerate' pills tweet yesterday. I've done many similar things. Among Misiorowski, Mclean, Yesavage, Bubba and the rest of the young arms emerging now, is there one or two who shine beyond the rest for Zips?

Dan Szymborski

12:05

I mean, the drug seems to be working, but I should probably read things!

Bubba

12:05

I don't mean to be insensitive, as this is a genuine question, but what makes ZIPS projections worthy of an article per team in a way that Steamer or The Bat is not?

Dan Szymborski

12:06

I wouldn't say more worthy than Steamer or The Bat. But FanGraphs employs the ZiPS guy full time, so he can write 30 articles about ZiPS.

12:07

Before I did them, Carson did them. For whatever reason, people like the ZiPS team by teams, most likely because they're good discussion magnets at relatively slow news times.

12:08

And they're really good traffic magnets too. The main reason we haven't revisited the Elegy series in a while is because it delayed the ZiPS pieces, which were always the more popular ones. I stiill hope to revive that series, but more as a group effort, but I have nothing concrete to share

Freddie

12:08

Seeing a lot of Okamoto hype - what do you think are the realistic expectations?

Dan Szymborski

12:09

ZiPS at least has him pretty close to Steamer and The Bat, and that seems a realistic area to me (high two WAR near three)

Pat

12:09

Dan - are you hearing anything re a possible trade by Houston? Seems they have a glut of INF and really could benefit by shedding Walker’s contract or Paredes for prospects.

Dan Szymborski

12:11

I have not. While I talk to most front offices, I probably talk with them about *different* things than a Passan or Rosenthal. Mostly talk analytics and process and the like, rather than news.

Greg

12:11

When will the Pirates officially sign Ryan O'Hearn? It's now been 16 days since they agreed to the deal! Is something going on?

Dan Szymborski

12:12

IIRC, him and his wife just had a baby and he hadn't taken the physical yet

or maybe they're trying to hash out a dispute over a hidden clause in which half his salary is paid in Primanti coupons

Guest

12:12

Does moving to Wrigley adjust Cabrera's projection in any meaningful way?

Dan Szymborski

12:13

Nto really

Brett

12:13

Can we get a quick topline of Caissie's projection since the Cubs list hasn't published yet and Miami has already come and gone?

Dan Szymborski

12:14

Kip

12:14

What's something the elite front offices are doing that rest aren't?

Dan Szymborski

12:15

The best front offices are the ones that are most able to create *actionable* items from the analytics and communicate it effectively to staff and players

The vast majority of front offices have quite competent analysts

Look At This Sotograph

12:15

In honor of Tommy Pham, maybe you should label all your articles DanGraphs?

Dan Szymborski

12:15

I don't know if the Dan branding is all that strong

Frankie

12:15

If your NYY, does it maybe make sense to use the Bellinger $ on a top pitcher instead? Essentially what do you prefer Bellinger/SP Trade (with trading JD/Jones) OR Suarez/Valdez + Dominguez/Jones in LF

Dan Szymborski

12:16

I think it's a real pathway, but it should be noted that the money likely isn't equivalent

Worm Turner

12:16

Any idea what to expect from Matt Shaw in '26, seems like we had a tale of two seasons, hopefully we will get the latter part. 3rd base is quite dreary this year. Happy New Year!

Dan Szymborski

12:16

Now Caissie yes since he was traded, but the rest of the ZiPS are coming out soon!

Dr. Curvegood

12:16

You already ZiPPed Miami but not Chicago, so how do you typically handle the release for a guy like Owen Caissie?

Dan Szymborski

12:17

He doesn't get to play in any pretty graphics, but he gets a projection of course

kwabbit

12:18

Should positional adjustments for LF, CF, and RF be applied when using FRV, which evaluates all outfielders together? If I recall correctly, the vast majority of LF/RF had negative FRV in 2025 (as they are being compared to CF) and then had the negative -7.5 run adjustment applied. It feels like double-counting, vs. positional adjustment + DRS/UZR which evaluate relative to others at the position.

Dan Szymborski

12:18

Yes, which we do!

12:20

Notice that Rafaela was +22 FRV but only gets 16.7 fielding in his WAR. While in RF, Tatis was +9 FRV, but the fielding value for WAR was 12.0

12:21

Stuff like this that's supposedly pegged to zero we automatically balance to 0 automatically

Jeff

12:21

Did the Cabrera/Caissie trade free Kevin Alcantara?

Dan Szymborski

12:22

I wouldn't say FREE since their use is different due to different defense capabilities and offensive profile, but it certainly makes it less complicated

Bardo Bill

12:23

ZiPS is pretty low on Bregman - 3.1 WAR. His gimpy 2025 season has me feeling not *great* about how he'll age, and that a contract over $100 million or so would be an overpay. Yet the contract projections are all around $150-170 million. Think he'll end up getting way less than expected? Clubhouse Leader vibes only go so far...

Dan Szymborski

12:23

A lot of that is the PA difference - there's like a 17% diff between the ZiPS playing time and the DC palying time

I do think there's significant downside given his age

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