JotCast | Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat

Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 6/27/24

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Dan Szymborski

12:56

And believe it or not, I spend a lot of time doing my job!

Nate

12:56

which MLB player could eat the most brats in one sitting

Dan Szymborski

12:56

Chris Sale I bet

12:57

I know he had the cheesesteak record at one point

He doesn't look like it, but he eats things like a Katamari Damacy ball

Kvn

12:57

It seems like a crazy thing to say but it almost feels like Gunnar is going under the radar a bit. He's on a 12 WAR pace!

Dan Szymborski

12:57

He's actually now #1 in ZiPS five-year WAR

Adam

12:57

Which happens first, a back-to-back World Series champ, or expansion?

Dan Szymborski

12:57

expansion

would have said back to back 15 years ago

12:58

but I think we're inching towards expansion

there have been murmurs about it and teams like cash infusions

And they'll want to use it as an excuse to expand playoffs again, to eight division winners (barf) and six wild cards (barf)

Adam

12:59

What % would scoring increase if each team had a 28th out every game that they could deploy on offense in the inning of their choosing?

Dan Szymborski

12:59

Wait, can they choose IN an inning?

Cause you'll add at least a run per game just getting an extra out with the bases loaded or something

1:00

or do they have to choose befroe the inning?

Half Mast Stat Blast

1:00

Pitch sequencing seems like a big deal. There are rock paper scissors algorithms that learn tendencies and then consistently beat human players. How much is a similar system used by baseball teams? And how much just boils down to catchers calling for a pitch again cause the last one looked good. Or calling a different one so the hitter won't expect it. Rather than something more data-driven and concrete.

Dan Szymborski

1:00

This is one bit I'm not so sure about as I haven't talked with a front office about it and I don't really tinker much on the issue

1:01

I've wanted a pitcher to try and pitch by random selection as an experiment, but nobody has as far as I know

bobbles

1:01

Hi! It seems like Jordan Westburg has pretty dramatically exceeded expectations this year—seemed like he was projected as a part time infielder/more of a bit player than a major contributor. Do you think he keeps this up? Regresses to

Dan Szymborski

1:01

He'll regress some, but there were always reasons to like him

1:03

Oh, ZiPS would offer 4/110 for Harper if he were a FA, which would absolutely not land him

1:04

Oops read wrong line, that's three years

4/140

still wouldn't land him

1:05

Going back to Westburg, he's at a 144 OPS+

in his PA so far, that would only be the 88th percentile projection!