JotCast | Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 7/23/20

Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 7/23/20

Dan Szymborski

12:04

Greetings and hello!

Chris

12:04

Are you on the Kyle Lewis hype train yet?

Dan Szymborski

12:04

July.

12:06

More seriously, he's been a lot of fun so far, but the threshold for me greatly changing my view of a player in a positive direction is quite high when just the season before, they struggled against Double-A pitchers. At least relative to how prospects typically fare.

Peter Thomas

12:06

Dan. How should we evaluate catcher defense? And if a team has one of the few top catchers, and they should be considered MVP candidates for their defense, doesn't that automatically downgrade the value of the pitchers on his staff?

Dan Szymborski

12:06

It's tricky. We do try to assign framing credit to the pitcher and hitter. And there's stuff like passed balls, errors, stolen bases, etc.

But there are likely some things that are hard to capture.

12:07

And that's from an overall evaluation standpoint too, not just stats. Catching defense is tricky.

Friend

12:07

Good morning (where I live) Dan!

Dan Szymborski

12:07

Dzień dobry!

LFC Mike

12:07

Great effort on the opening day chats Dan.

Dan Szymborski

12:07

BUT NOT GREAT RESULTS?

12:08

I hope you all enjoyed our Opening Day chats last Thursday and Friday.

I tried to tone down the weirdness a bit, to make it easier for my colleagues to deal with me.

12:10

It wouldn't have been appreciated if I turned the chat into a whole SzymChat Wacky Shack.

Josh

12:10

What’s the plan for the “Fangraphs Live!“ streams? Are they done? If so, are the results of that season known?

Dan Szymborski

12:10

I believe we're still doing them!

We're doing the Home Run Derby next.

12:11

Though I'm supposed to take my mom downtown for a COVID test at some point in the next few days, as ordered by her doctor.

(She's only 65, but she has the sense of direction of Jeff Francoeur facing a slider)

Sodo Mojo

12:12

So as a Mariners fan I'm mostly looking at development this year. I know Kyle Lewis can't keep this up and only has 100 MLB at bats but is it reasonable to say that he is a little better than his projections peg him at going forward?

Dan Szymborski

12:12

Well, naturally! One should only think of a projection as the center point of an array of possibilities, captured a specific moment of time.

Every good and bad at-bat subtly moves the mass to the left or the right

Chris

12:12

As fans should we commend the royals for playing singer and now bubic or should we call them idiots for not using service time rules correctly

Dan Szymborski

12:14

I think in a year like this, you can't worry about service time. Even with the team's obvious interest in illegally manipulating service clocks, there are no minor leagues this year, so service time is the only way you're going to actually have these guys playing baseball.

It's July

12:14

In early March, I drafted Syndergaard, Verlander, Kopech, Alex Wolf, and Stroman to name few for my fantasy team. Other than changing my team name to "Skyline Chili with Extra Beans"..any recommendations?

Dan Szymborski

12:14

WHY HAVE YOU, MAD SCIENTIST, COMPRESSED ALEX WOOD AND RANDY WOLF INTO ONE HORRIFYING AMALGAM?

Morbo

12:14

Hi Dan

Dan Szymborski

12:14

Friend

12:14

Last night showed that the man-on-second rule doesn't always work. Any thoughts, besides the correct opinion that you hate the rule?

Dan Szymborski

12:15

It's certainly exciting and can lead to some interesting decision.

But I still feel it goes against one of the basic, foundational concepts of baseball the game: you don't get bases for free unless the defense allows them.

12:16

So there are a lot of wacky rules I'd be interested in, but this is a foundational thing, and should remain constant.

Guest

12:16

Nate Pearson looked pretty good last night. What do you think he’ll be like for the rest of the season?

Dan Szymborski

12:16

I think he'll be solid, though I don't expect him to go deep in to many (if any) games.

12:17

Plus, it appears that the extra time he needed to sit and watch people playing baseball was precisely the amount of time he needed to become a real major leaguer! How fortunate for the Blue Jays!

Jim Leyland Palmer

12:17

The most shocking thing to me about your Marlins twitter spat, is that there is even a "Marlins twitter" at all to begin with. Figured it would be a few dozen enthusiasts, not the full knee jerk reactions for the bottom of the bucket that fill the twitter comment section of most teams posts

Dan Szymborski

12:17

They finally had a common enemy!

BeefLoaf108

12:18

What Arby's sandwich has the highest fWAR?

Dan Szymborski

12:18

Plain Jane roast beef. Go with the classic.