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Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat - 9/25/25

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Dan Szymborski

12:14

and if it works out poorly, then it's likely those players dropped in value!

John

12:15

Who is your AL MVP this year?

Dan Szymborski

12:15

Judge. But I'm an NL ROY, so my vote here doesn't matter!

Guest

12:15

why do you think LLMs are so bad at humor-- is it because most of us aren't funny (the dataset they're trained on) or because of the nature of humor (it has to be something surprising or a twist, which LLMs are explicitly designed to avoid)

Dan Szymborski

12:16

They actually can be pretty funny at times if you brute force it and know how to squeeze things out of it. But the problem is that public chatbots tend to take the middlest ground, and that usually kills humor

12:17

I know most people don't like AI, but I do -- I was using it way before it was a big thing and training my own datasets to get fun specific things (like my band names or player nicknames). Suffice it to say, a lot of this falls under the umbrella of prediction algorithms, so it shouldn't be surprising that I'm interested. But I'm interested out of my own intellectual curiosity and amusement, not automating my own tasks or replacing my employees (not that I have any)

12:18

Most I *actually* use AI for is to double-check visual basic code for me

12:19

And done right, you CAN get some humor out of it. It's still very hit or miss, but I once asked it for some mean Dan Szymborski insults and there were a number of jabs that were surprisingly competent

12:20

"Dan’s legacy will be this: Bill James revolutionized baseball, Nate Silver revolutionized politics, and Dan Szymborski revolutionized the “close tab” button."

"Dan has the build of a man who considers “walking to the mailbox” cardio."

"Dan looks like the kind of guy who asks for the Wi-Fi password before saying hello."

12:21

"He looks like a guy who corrects your grammar while getting rejected on dating apps."

Adam

12:21

Will Andrew Friedman basically never sign a FA reliever again after this?

Dan Szymborski

12:21

lol, he might not!

matt w

12:21

So the PIrates and Blue Jays are not going to meet at .500 all-time franchise record this year. I think they were both one game below at one point this season, and they could've both wound up at .500 if Skenes had won his Sept. 16 start, but that didn't happen. However, with the Pirates currently exactly .500 and the Jays 5 below, there's a chance they could do it early next season if the schedule lines up, without even making any heroic assumptions about the Pirates getting good.

So my question is, how are the cats?

Dan Szymborski

12:21

It could have! It was fun running the numbers for the mailbag question though

12:22

Cats I believe are good. I'm away for the week and mom's been feeding them and she said she saw the three boys, but today, not Cassie, but the two sibling cats were brawling and hyper and Cassie usually finds a quiet hiding place when the catlets are active

Billy

12:22

Did you know that, as of like a month ago, Sandy Alcantara and German Marquez had the same career xFIP-

Dan Szymborski

12:22

I did not. Though Marquez did have a good run

Billy

12:22

What is usually the explanation for a drop off like the one Austin Riley has had the last couple years, where his bat speed, barrel rates, and whiff/chase are basically the same but he’s producing at a far lower level? Is it mostly luck or something else?

Dan Szymborski

12:23

If there's a good explanation, it's not one I know

Goddamn PED era

12:23

Let Cal have his award. I think the problem I have is that the fact that Judge is only the 4th to ever have 50x4, EVER, and is about to be only the 3rd person EVER to win a batting title with 50 hr is being obscured by the fact that most of us remember the PED era where 50hr seemed normal, and averages were Walker/Coors, etc. I bet if this happened when not everyone remembered Greg Vaughn putting up 50 or Brady Anderson his run here would be more appreciated. (And honestly, if Altuve hadn't benefited from his teammates stealing info, no one would care as much, as 3 MVPs feels BIGGER.) With all this said, I don't have any reason to think he won't simply go up there next year and put up another 3/4/6

Dan Szymborski

12:23

It certainly doesn't help that batting titles just aren't as big a deal as they used to be

Lars

12:23

Another Cal Raleigh question! There’s been a lot made of Cal hitting the most switch hit home runs ever and how it’s so difficult because you have to prepare from both sides of the plate. Isn’t it very clearly an advantage and people wouldn’t switch hit if it weren’t?

Dan Szymborski

12:23

Yeah, that's my position

12:24

It's not like it's a handicap that he chose to take on

Adam

12:25

Does Soto prove that anyone can learn to become a good basestealer? Or does he just prove that Juan Soto can do anything he sets his mind to?

Dan Szymborski

12:25

Honestly the former, though at the very slow portion of the scale, there's a limit

12:27

Like me as a teenager. Even in better shape, I was ALWAYS godawful slow, in large part due to the fact I have a hip that doesn't rotate quite correctly from birth, and it would have been a traumatic fix at the time

12:28

Funny note, my parents were supposed to WATCH the hip issue, which they totally forgot about. Then my mom remember when I was in my late 30s and I was all "goddamit mom, this would have been useful to know decades ago"

12:29

And I secretly wonder if I'm going to drop dead at 50 because there was a hard to detect congenital heart defect I was supposed to keep an eye on

12:30

I was quick enough to play second when not pitching simply because I reacted quickly, triangulated quickly, and since I'm absurdly competitive when motivated, I would charge at every ball at the risk of life and limb. I took SO many bad hops into the face as a kid

Matt VW

12:30

Tangentially related to the Judge question: one of my favorite stats ever is that in '99 Pedro gave up 9 home runs all year and they were all solo shots.

Dan Szymborski

12:31

I wouldn't be that surprised, he didn't allow many baseurnners!

TameImp

12:31

Did no one want DJ Lemehaiu or did he just not want to play?

Dan Szymborski

12:31

Both to an extent?

12:32

I've gotten the impression that LeMahieu's on the edge of retirement unless he has JUST the right opportunity

Talfred

12:32

How likely do you think it is that PEDs are widely used in MLB but the masking agents are far superior to the testing protocols?

Dan Szymborski

12:32

I think there's a decent chance, though I don't think it's THAT wide

12:33

I have trouble caring too much about PEDs, honestly; I see it mostly as a player health issue, which is definitely a "their business" and not a "my business" thing.

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