JotCast | Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat

Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 5/30/24

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Dan Szymborski

12:20

(without looking)

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12:20

Marcell Ozuna to the 15 day IL with back strain from carrying an entire offense for 2 months.

AL Central Casting

12:20

Is there any way for ZiPS (or any other system) to project how a player would bat from the opposite side of the plate (i.e., Ohtani batting RH)? What about for a switch-hitter who gives up switch-hitting?

Dan Szymborski

12:20

The former? No

12:21

The latter, switch-hitters who go one side tend to have split differentials that regress toward typical L/R splits for their new choice

Connor Norby

12:21

Is there any scenario where I get playing time in Baltimore? Is my best hope to be traded this deadline? And is my friend (and 2B competitor) Jackson okay?? I'm worried about him! Debut seems to have messed him up, but maybe Elias and his cadre of scientists are just tinkering with their latest highly-touted prospect with luscious locks...

Dan Szymborski

12:21

Holliday will be fine

36 PA is nothing

12:22

If the Orioles weren't in a dogfight to be the AL East winner, Holliday probably doesn't even get sent down

And if the Orioles had worse depth, he probably doesn't get sent down

As for Norby, it's hard to see him fitting in the lineup long term unless there are some trades

Zach

12:23

What's with everyone's overreaction of the Dodgers recent lull? They're still on pace for 100 win season and lead baseball in oWAR and wRC+.

Dan Szymborski

12:23

Because everyone overreacts to unusually good or unusually poor stretches of play

Dmytro

12:24

Volpe is 8th overall by WAR. Is this sustainable, can he really be a top 10 player in baseball going forward?

Dan Szymborski

12:25

He's playing Gold Glove level defense at short and a .800ish OPS line. You can wring out a lot of BABIP and he's still awesome

12:26

Top 10? That's trickier as the competition is brutal

12:27

But per 600 PA, ZIPS has him 14th in WAR for 2025, so it's not preposterous

(among hitters)

Sig Mejdal

12:27

Who will have a better 2025: Jordan Westburg or Jackson Holliday?

Dan Szymborski

12:27

I agree with ZiPS that Westburg's improvement happening in the majors puts him a few runs over Holliday

AL Central Casting

12:27

Do you think we'll ever see fully automated umpiring? Not just for balls and strikes, but also boundary calls and safe/out on the bases?

Dan Szymborski

12:28

I think MAYBE? But WAY after balls and strikes

Bufffy, the umpire slayer

12:28

How often are ZiPS (update) actually updated? It appears that the underlying numbers in ZiPS (ROS) or ZiPS DC RoS) have not changed. I base his on Jose Abreu's wRC+ which is still at pre-season levels in the two later Projections but, correctly, much much lower in the ZiPS (updated) version. Also, can there be some type of indicator when these RoS projections are updated?

Dan Szymborski

12:29

I think there's some weirdness in wRC+ RoS because of the offensive environment changing

12:30

Abreu's RoS OPS in ZiPS has dropped nearly 50 points, which ought to be more than a wRC+ drop of four points

How Bout Dem O's

12:31

What's your projection for the *key* year for this Orioles core? Like when would you truly go all in? Maybe next year... Jackson gets his sea legs, one more year of Grayson development, sorting out/improvement of the Heston/Cowser/Mayo jumble. But no Burnes...

Dan Szymborski

12:31

2025 IF they replace Burnes

If not, this might be THE biggest year

Guest

12:31

you guys have meetings?

Dan Szymborski

12:31

We have Slack meetings on Mondays when we have a lot of issues to bring up

12:32

But things tend to run pretty smoothly. FanGraphs has about a dozen full-time employees, each with their own specific role they know well and have been doing for a long time, and we communicate quite a lot on Slack

12:33

Now, for all I know, there's a slack channel in which everyone is pissed at me and trying to get David to fire that goddamn Dan Szymborski, but if there is, I don't know about it

O's on the Interstate

12:33

As an o's fan, should I be worried about Mullins and Santander starting slowly? Will/should they get replaced in the lineup?

Dan Szymborski

12:33

Not so much. I mean, they've already probably SURVIVED the worst stretch of Mullins season

And if Santander struggles, the O's have lots of depth in corners

Insert Witty Name Here

12:34

Im tired of the chilli/beans/hot dog convos. Yay or nay on scooping mashed potatoes and applesauce together?

Dan Szymborski

12:34

OH dear god no

Ners luvver boy

12:34

Howdy! I always wonder what the process is for prospect rankings at Fangraphs. No shade, I would just love to see how my beloved mariners stack up and I wonder why the roll out is so gradual. Do the rankings account for current play given we're well into the minor league season?

Dan Szymborski

12:34

You'd have to talk to Eric for the exact process! The rollout is because generally speaking, we don't consider a team's overall top prospects to be something that freezes on X day every year. Think of it as an ongoing, rolling covnersation

Plato

12:35

Projection systems like ZIPS seem to focus on being not wrong rather than right and are very conservative on estimates. Even 1/3rd into the season, the highest projected win total is 95. I think the median output of a team is different from maybe the realistic/ expected output as a median takes thousands of sims to find the teams expectations, but the season only happens once. Vegas odds for team win totals are higher for the best teams and lower for the best teams. ZIPs still has a lot of value and thank you for the great work, just a random person thinking of how to be right more than necessarilt being wrong less.

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