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Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 7/10/25

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Dan Szymborski

12:22

or Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch

Dan

12:22

Are the Blue Jays for real?

Dan Szymborski

12:23

I don't thing being on a 90 win pace is too preposterous

As I said last year about the Jays and the year before about the Yankees and the Mets, it's foolish to take a team's worst performance as the new baseline

ransofast

12:23

if Texas tries to steal the space shuttle from the Smithsonian, should Mike DeWine hijack it in the Gulf and float it up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to get it to Dayton where it belongs?

Dan Szymborski

12:23

Sounds like fun

I like capers

both culinary and shenanigan-driven

Guest

12:26

players never agree to a cap without a floor too (or...)? a team in freaking Chicago spending only $77 mil seems insane

Dan Szymborski

12:27

The proposals aired had ridiculously low floors.

12:28

I *think* MLB would have to crush the players to get a cap; you'd need a lost season and players panicking I think

12:29

They don't ask me and I'm not a member, so I have no say, but I'm of the position that baseball's de facto soft salary cap is of the same substance as an explicit salary cap, so it makes sense to get the best position you can

Phil

12:30

Here's a question I've been wondering about for a while: how do playoff odds interact with the possibility of a team giving up and trading its best players. It seems to create some weird math for teams with playoff odds below 50% around this time of year, because if the odds go down the team will deliberately get worse, so it seems like it would be hard to maintain low but steady odds through July. Does this affect the accuracy of the listed odds, or is it already baked in? Or am I misunderstanding how math works?

Dan Szymborski

12:30

THey don't really

I've tried to doing a generalized model for likelihood a team trades their players, but the error bars are so large that I abandoned the idea

Kevin

12:30

I’ve read several statements saying the Rockies are ten years behind when it comes to analytics. I’m not asking this about the Rockies in particular, but what more specifically would it mean to be ten years behind when it comes to analytics? What are the biggest things analytics allow teams to accomplish today that couldn’t be accomplished ten years ago?

Dan Szymborski

12:31

I don't think it's more the stuff they're able to do rather than what they understand

Behind here means more than they don't have the resources that most teams have for analytics, either funding or size. And most seriously, they don't have the same systems in place to integrate analytics with broader decision making

12:32

I don't know the current White Sox people, but for several years, I got the impression their analytics department was Matt Koenig having to handle like everything

Coolidge

12:32

Braves are in a real tough spot. No depth, bad farm system, long term extensions to core players are starting to backfire, not much payroll space. Is the future for Atlanta staring to look a little worrying?

Dan Szymborski

12:32

Worrying in that it's uncertain. But the team still has a lot of assets, so they have freedom of movement

But they do need to focus on their shrot and long term goals this winter

Guest

12:32

i cannot figure out how to sit at a desk with a computer anymore without something being distractingly uncomfortable. is it probably me, my desk, or my chair

Dan Szymborski

12:33

Chair?

12:34

I sit parallel to my computer table in a large recliner with an ottoman. my right arm is on my desktop and my large monitor at an angle so that my head is usually pointed about 20 degrees to my right. I have another parallel desk to my left and another table behind me

And I'm quite comfortable

I think you need to audition some chairs!

mmddyyyy

12:34

As new stadiums enter the mix, is the size of the field of play increasing or decreasing

Dan Szymborski

12:34

ususually decreasing

mmddyyyy

12:34

When is a player in the union?

Dan Szymborski

12:35

Since they added minors leaguers, basically always now!

including FA

Volpe

12:35

Does ZiPS still think Volpe is going to be a star. Will he improve much in the next year or two?

Dan Szymborski

12:36

ZiPS thinks Volpe's more likely now to be a 2-3.5 WAR performer through his 20s

Which means he'll have *some* four-win seasons

but his wRC+ projections are mostly high 90s now

Phil

12:37

Links to the improvers articles if you want to post them: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/which-hitters-have-seen-their-2026-project... https://blogs.fangraphs.com/which-pitchers-have-seen-their-2026-projec...

mmddyyyy

12:37

How many subscriptions do you carry?

Dan Szymborski

12:37

I subscribe to a ton of stuff really

Look At This Sotograph

12:37

Speaking of cartoons, did you ever watch The Oblongs starring Will Ferrell? I liked it at the time. Also I hear that guy's a dickhead

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