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Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 4/9/26

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Dan Szymborski

12:02

And awaaaay we go!

Kyle Manzardo

12:03

I have the largest difference between xBA and real BA among qualified batters, is there hope for me or am I broken?

Dan Szymborski

12:03

I think you'll be fine

Guest

12:03

"more tools than can be found at a Florida spring break kegger" just give Dan the Pulitzer now

Dan Szymborski

12:03

Pulitzer Prize for B- Snark

Guest

12:04

it's April and it remains to be seen if he's replacement level, average, or better, but is it too early to say Jordan Walker is meaningfully better than he was 2024-25?

Dan Szymborski

12:04

Given how lousy he's been, I don't think saying he's meaningfully better is a stretch

12:05

His contact rate still sucks, but he's been legitimately better (though far from amazing) at not swinging at crap and he's hitting stuff pretty hard

Jake Jortles

12:06

Hey Dan, do you have a player that you enjoy watching even though the numbers in front of you say they're not that good, and that they're never likely to be good?

Dan Szymborski

12:06

Would it be trolling to say Jake Mangum? He's fun

I tend to like speedy, aggressive players way more than their value, and slop throwing pitchers, especially relievers.

Orioles are the Damned Yankees

12:07

In this grand simulation we call life, does the Guardians' rotation have the skills to be top 5 in the league, and please explain why their 'ace' is their worst starter?

Dan Szymborski

12:07

Top 5 is a real ask

12:08

Though Gavin Williams was one of my final cuts from my booms list. I couldn't figure out how to coherently express my feeling there

SCJH

12:08

How do you/should we approach defensive ZiPS projections for relatively inexperienced guys that differ wildly from what Statcast is telling us about a player? Thinking about Ben Williamson here specifically (who Statcast thought was just average in his time last year) but I know it pops up in other contexts too.

Dan Szymborski

12:08

Both the ZiPS and the small sample sizes should be taken with a grain of salt!

a LTO of grains

LOT

12:09

FRV is better than the probability based ball-by-ball methodology I use for minor leaguers

BUT a season of the ZiPS methodology is better than small sample size FRV

(I've looked at the first three months of seasons of FRV and the ZiPS minor league one and the ZiPS minor league one was more predictive, but it's not over full seasons)

Mike Lommler

12:10

Do you have a favorite absurd SSS stat of the season thus far?

Dan Szymborski

12:10

Dillon Dingler top 5 xSLG

Viper

12:12

How often do sites update the per plate appearance portion of their projections? PA/AB can change daily changing quantities but I am referring to the skills portion of the projections showing quality.

Dan Szymborski

12:12

I'm not quite sure how to answer that. Projections are generally updated as a whole and every day

Though ZiPS uses a simpler model in-season than season-to-season

12:13

for the simple fact that it takes more than a day to update ZiPS unless I use two computers

Guest

12:13

Is it time to give up on Kaz Okamoto and chalk it up to a longer, tougher transition than hoped? He looks lost and I have other options (like Andres Gimenez).

Dan Szymborski

12:13

I'm going to April this one

12:14

I mean, 109 wRC+ vs. 111 depth chart preseason, 119 ZiPS is a nothing difference over a dozen games

That's not even all that big a miss over a season!

Ken

12:14

Hi Dan, Thanks for chatting with us. I see that Diamond-Mind is using the ZiPS for a projection season again this year. Do they receive the after spring training version with updates?

Dan Szymborski

12:15

They do not as it's quite labor intensive to create the disk, so work has to be started on that from their end pretty early

Guest

12:15

I know April is usually pretty bad for hitters, but is this April worse than usual?

Dan Szymborski

12:16

I don't think so? April usually sucks, but we're also still early April, where the best pitchers have more of an IP gap than usual. 3 times through the rotation instead of 2 is a bigger diff than 30 times through compared to 28

12:17

And early April is colder than late April

Look At This Sotograph

12:18

I've got 3 cat tattoos ("cattoos"), how many you got?

Dan Szymborski

12:18

I have no tattoos

Yu like that

12:18

Whats up with Wyatt Langford is he still jealous Roman Anthony was getting all that WBC love?

Dan Szymborski