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Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 9/11/25

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Dan Szymborski

12:15

WHY the fricking hell do people think Jack Morris should be a Hall of Famer

Jacob

12:15

Hi Dan! You mentioned yesterday in your Connelly Early article that ZiPS has a "playoff mode" for assessing the way rotations shorten up in the postseason. Do you know yet if you'll write up a more detailed playoff mode ranking for October, and how does the Phillies' ranking react to losing Wheeler for the year?

Dan Szymborski

12:16

(The answer to the last one is "people have bad ideas")

I don't usually do the playoff ranking, since you see it in the playoff projections!

Guest

12:16

Good afternoon, Dan! Being a Mets fan, it seems like I'd been hearing about how talented Sproat was for years. It surprised me this year when it appeared he took a step back and got leapfrogged by first McLean and then Tong. Now that he's up and looking pretty good, might he wind up being as as good or better than the other two? What's your rank for the three ROS, as well as 2026 and beyond? Thanks!

Dan Szymborski

12:17

I think they all have a pretty good chance of being good long term. There's a lot of taking a step forward and maybe taking a step back before you take a few more forward in prospect development

Bob Loblaw's Law Blog

12:17

Hi Dan, pretend that you're Chaim Bloom. What would you do this winter?

Dan Szymborski

12:18

Calling the now Dan Szymborski housing Chaim Bloom's soul and apologizing to him for the weight gain he just endured with the swtich

12:19

I really want to try and flesh out what the infield looks like. This was kind of the play it by ear year, and I don't want another winter where I'm improvising mid-winter

Unabashed Cubs Fan

12:20

Hey Dan, who do you think starts for Cubs next year between 3 OF spots and DH?

Dan Szymborski

12:20

I think it'll look much like this year, but Caissie out there instead of Tucker

Smokin' Jim Leyland

12:20

Dan - can we expect that the Playoff Tigers will play more like the team that has terrorized the Yankees' bullpen the past two nights than the team of imposters that lost 2 of 3 against the White Sox and was recently swept by the Oakland-Sacramento Athletics of Las Vegas?

Dan Szymborski

12:20

Like most things, in the middle!

Kristen

12:20

Are you buying the Rangers? Their road record is horrendous and the hitting lineup is dotted with no-names, but they just swept the team with the best record in MLB and the rotation is still solid without Evo,

Dan Szymborski

12:20

I'm not. the offense just scares me

Insert Witty Name Here

12:20

What's the best/worst thing about this season that you enjoyed/hated?

Dan Szymborski

12:21

Well, I've most hated the Orioles kind of sucking

but I love Cal Raleigh going nuts

Bardo Bill

12:21

In your article on opt-out candidates you projected a pretty big bump for Bregman in ZiPS, from a 2026 projectioin of 2.4 WAR in the pre-season ZiPS to 3.7 WAR now. But since coming back from injury he's at only 0.8 WAR with a 99 wRC+. How does ZiPS deal with that sort of pre-/post-injury split? Does the big bump in his projection still feel right to you?

Dan Szymborski

12:22

I think what I wrote was taken more literally than I intended. Bregman has a better projection for 2026 than he did coming into 2025, but I think his *general trajectory* and the perception of his talent level is about the same

12:23

He's a star, not a superstar, on the wrong side of 30, and he can stick at 3B for quite a while

I don't think he's change how any thinks about him. Most felt already positive

The full ZiPS model has all the injury stuff; in season is a big simpler

bit

War2D2

12:23

Re: catchers being weird: take a look at Rick Wilkins’ career sometime.

Dan Szymborski

12:23

Ben Davis

Ben Petrick

12:24

Mickey Tettleton as a prospect was a GLOVE FIRST prospect in the minors

Charles Johnson had a weird ass career

Guest

12:25

Is there anyway to track expected fWar, that is based on expected stats as opposed to real-life results?

Dan Szymborski

12:25

to track, no, but you coudl do something yourself if you were creative

12:25

When you vote for ROY I'll know that you're responding to me personally, at least.

Dan Szymborski

12:25

I'll vote for an eligible candidate!

Jerry

12:25

Dan, just wanted to say well done on that Mayo article. Really impressive insight.

Dan Szymborski

12:26

Thanks. I like when I get compliments for things I didn't do :-)

Ben wrote the piece!

So please direct your plaudits at Mr. Clemens

12:27

If Samuel Clemens is Mark Twain, should baseball writer Ben Clemens be Park Twain?

johnboy

12:27

What does Jazz get on the open market?

Dan Szymborski

12:28

I think jazz, like classical, will sells best when it's one of the old school names or a crossover, than for anything new :-)

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