Dan Szymborski FanGraphs Chat – 2/20/25

Dan Szymborski: And away we go!

Wrights_Back: What would the Mets have to give up to get Cease – if he is available?

Dan Szymborski: I think the closer we get to the season, the more the Padres will hang onto him.

Dan Szymborski: The Mets would certainly have to give up something real. YOu can probably fatten the offer a bit with guys the Padres have more reason to like than the Mets.

Dan Szymborski: Like Clifford, who is probably more useful to San Diego, but you’re not going to land him with JUST Clifford

Dan Szymborski: I kinda get the idea that the mets are happyw ith their rotation, and not likely to meet a rich price

Klubot3000: Top 500 ZiPS, Top 500 ZiPS, Top 500 ZiPS!

It’s all the people are clamoring for, Dan! (but for real, thanks as always for the ZiPS view into prospects). It would be cool to break down the offensive vs defensive split between the WAR for the players on the top 100. Or even better, doing a ‘tools’ breakdown where we can see how the ZiPS creator thinks each prospect will earn his stripes in a similar manner to the scouting breakdowns (Hit/power/speed/defense).

Cheers!

Dan Szymborski: I don’t like doing the whole 500 because the farther down you go, the less meaningful the differences are abetween the prospects

Dan Szymborski: And just from a projection standpoint, I don’t like using ZiPS for things that I don’t think ZiPS provides value for

Klubot3000: Looking at some pitching prospects that missed your top 100 but seem to project well by ZiPS 26/27: why did Lucas Braun, Noah Cameron, Joe Rock, Braxton Ashcroft, Thomas Harrington, Chad Patrick, Logan Henderson, and KC Hunt miss? How far down the list are they and could you see any of them pushing into top 100 territory this year?

Dan Szymborski: I can’t speak for each player! It’s usually a function of the upside/downside projections

Dan Szymborski: I think it was 2020, I started using 80/20 average instead of 50, since I felt the list was *too* happy with lower ceiling, high floor guys

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS may be math, but defining what a “top prospect” *means* is philosophical

Guest: Hey Dan! Thanks for these chats, they’re awesome. In an auction keeper league (3 year keepers), is it generally okay to keep guys at cost or a little higher? Do I retain a $36 Lindor (projections say he’ll be worth $33), or do I throw him back and hope to use that cap space to draft a bargain (maybe even Lindor again at a cheaper price)? How firm should I stick to my preseason projected values?! Thanks!

Dan Szymborski: It really depends on who actually you’d realistically be able to get under your keeper rules

Dan Szymborski: But just speaking so generically, given the talent at the top and the depth of shortstop, I might be inclined to re-use that cap space

Dan Szymborski: especially if it didn’t look like my team was strong enough to compete

Dan Szymborski: Like, would McLain at half the price give you enough money to get someone you need?

Dan Szymborski: That’s something you have to consider

Blue: There are a few players like Hyeseong Kim who appear in the ZiPS DC projection, but not the regular ZiPS. Is there much of a difference in the projections in those areas and/or is there an update coming?

Dan Szymborski: If the player doesn’t have regular ZiPS projection, the DC one is an odd database error

Dan Szymborski: I have to look into it more; I accidentally didn’t give Sasaki and Kim, and they had weird ZiPS DC projections that didn’t affect the depth chart proejctions at all

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski: that’s kim

nwidman13: Hi Dan, do you have a favorite snack food?

Dan Szymborski: I tend to not be a snacker

Dan Szymborski: but my favorite snacks would be Cool Ranch Doritos and either Utz Crab or Salt & Vinegar chips

Dan Szymborski: candy, mostly just Sour Patch Kids

Dan Szymborski: but I mostly don’t treat myself. I’m a fatass WITH a reasonably healthy diet

Pumpsie Green: Could you give a quick explanation of the differences between Zips & Zips DC? Thanks.

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS DC is just ZiPS pro-rated to whateve’rs on the depth charts at the time

Smiling Politely: Dan, thx for the great work as always. Any easy-to-share thoughts on the back half of the top 100 SS? What makes Nachoooooooooooooooo so exciting to zips? Does it find Freeland’s rise to be a bit too sudden?

Dan Szymborski: For one, ZiPS doesn’t share the belief around the league that he’s not a good defensive SS

MannyBeingManny: With Horowitz out for probably the first month or 2 of the season for the Pirates, who gets the majority of the playing time at 1B?

Dan Szymborski: Since it doesn’t seem to be REynolds, they probably just throw Triolo or someone there early

Rice Age Scholar: Do you know why exactly Ben Rice has the worst defensive projection of all players in baseball? Is it just because he’s new to 1B or is there something based in his play there that ZiPS doesn’t like

Dan Szymborski: The probability/coordinate method I use in the minors REALLY hates his defense

Chris: I was surprised to see Drake Baldwin outside of ZIPs top 200 prospects when he’s FGs 11 ranked prospect. Is there some red flag with his profile the computer is seeing?

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS just doesn’t see his UPSIDE as high. He’d rank a lot higher just doing 50th percentile

Dan Szymborski: And like all the catchers, he takes a hit from being a catcher

Dan Szymborski: Because catchers have a LOT of blow-up potential

Guest: Is ZiPS a bit behind on Drake Baldwin? Seems like the consensus is much higher than projections

Dan Szymborski: It might, it might not be. Only time can tell

Lowetide: Colt Keith over Spencer Torkelson at 1B for Detroit based on Zips production (for my points league) but how vulnerable is Keith to an in-season upgrade via trade iyo?

Dan Szymborski: I think he’s fairly solvable

Bumper: Have you ever looked into how BaseballTradeValues does player values? It looks like they take a very similar approach to ZiPS, but they also seem to get more heat than ZiPS does.

Dan Szymborski: They get more heat becuase they have a one size fits all tool that everyone digs apart!

Dan Szymborski: I only do a trade piece like once a year, and that edefinitely gets people mad at me

Bumper: Do you plan to use/currently use stuff+ in ZiPS pitcher projections? If not, would you rather build your own or just include an external model?

Dan Szymborski: I have my own thing I use because it’s easier for me to test projection interactions

Dan Szymborski: Basically any model in ZiPS is one I’ve put together. It feels like cheating to use the input of others

Dan Szymborski: And when I control the model for something, I can also calibrate it myself

Dan Szymborski: I don’t publish my own stuff numbers (I internally call it Ztuff), since I think the confusion of yet another number out there outweighs the possible gain

Dan Szymborski: which is why I only use zWAR for internal and the ZiPS rudnowns

CFH: Hello – you’ve mentioned in the past chats that median projections are mostly solved / there’s not a huge amount of variance. Reading the zips top 100, I’m wondering does this go for prospect projections as well (and KBO/NPB)? Or is there more variance there?

Dan Szymborski: That’s hard to say simply because I don’t think other projectioniers are doing their own top 100!

Rafael: Why aren’t more teams interested in Yoshida? It would solve a lot of Red Sox lineup problems.

Dan Szymborski: DH only tends to scare away teams unless they’re CERTAIN about the offense

War2d2: Hey Dan! The Cubs just DFA’d Canario, and I’m unreasonably upset about it (mainly because I’m angry all over again that Ross didn’t play him in 2023 to see what he could be). I get that he’s a 40-45fv guy, but I’d rather roster a 24yo power guy than the smoldering corpse of Justin Turner. What do you (and ZiPS) think?

Dan Szymborski: It’s not so much Turner that bothers me

Dan Szymborski: But do you REALLY need Hollowell, when the alternative is losing Canario?

Reds Enjoyer: If you were the White Sox, would you trade Luis Robert right now or would you take the risk that he’ll be back to form and you might get a better package at the trade deadline?

Dan Szymborski: It’s hard to say since I don’t know what the specific offers ARE

DJ Tofu: What statistics does ZiPS optimize for? e.g. is it more accurate for PA, BA, HR, etc.? And how does it create the 20/80 percentile results?

Dan Szymborski: I most care about getting the OPS+/wRC+ and the ERA+/FIP right

Dan Szymborski: plus D

Mariners Fan: Does ZiPS use strikeout park factors, BIP splits (lefty/right/HR/triple/double/single/outs), or something even more fine? Has T-Mobile made you consider adding more park factors?

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS uses the BIP splits lefty and righty but it also has an algorithm for park factor/pull-spray tendency interactions

Bumper: Fun projection idea: in your season simulation, halfway through the simulation, re-project players, and re-weight playing time by the new projection. In theory, this would boost teams with more depth (though I imagine it would take a while to run)

Dan Szymborski: I kinda hope that the methodology I use hits depth pretty well and that’s already quite workload intensive!

Johnny5Alive: With your zips prospect list, with a guy like Caissie for example, when zips has him pretty high in the top 100 but fan graphs has him off their list, what’s the big difference? Zips looking at his power production in the minors while Eric is using traditional scouting that has him scared about the swing and miss?

Dan Szymborski: It would be quite presumptuous for me to speculate on exactly how Eric feels! ZiPS is probably a fan of the hulk smash guys than most scouting guys are

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS was the highest on Judge and Alonso and also Bryce Eldridge

Arenado: Do you think he gets moved at the deadline? As a yankees fan I can’t stop hoping he might want to join Goldschmidt

Dan Szymborski: Depends on the situation. It’s a possibility

Guest: Does the Zips projection change much for Pivetta with him moving to SD?  Last year SD allowed quite a few HRs and he’s a flyball guy…

Dan Szymborski: A bit. His projection in there should be SD!

Tacoby Bellsbury: If you ever get back to doing ZiPS Time Warps, can you please what-if Chuck Knoblauch never leaving Minnesota or getting the YiPS?

Guest: How do you balance your writing obligations with life? Like when there are holidays do you “take off” and just decide you’re not going to think about baseball or ideas? Or is it much more fluid and you’ve come to peace with knowing some days you’ll have it and some days you won’t and just being fine with it?

Dan Szymborski: Question one? Pretty poorly actually.

Dan Szymborski: The fact is, baseball has been one of my primary interests since I was four

Dan Szymborski: In kindergarten and first grade, I use to fill otu those black and white composition books with stats

Dan Szymborski: So the truth is, I’m never really FULLY off

Dan Szymborski: That’s one reason video games are a good casual activity for me, because it’s something that’s REALLY hard for me to multitask unless it’s an RPG

Dan Szymborski: Like most of my TV watching will end with me doing work and kinda listening to the TV

Guest: I, like you, have a pretty internet-dependent job. Do you ever think about what you’d do in the case of a worldwide internet outage? I think I’d have to get like, a job stocking shelves or something.

Dan Szymborski: Depends how long this internet outage is!

Dan Szymborski: If we’re talking more than a few years, I’d have to change fields

oldDude: I for one would love to read about zstuff, particularly if you can calculate it in excel!

Dan Szymborski: I might write some this winter

John: Since a team that scores 700 runs and allows 600 has a higher projected winning % than one that scores 800 and allows 700, aren’t runs prevented a tiny bit more valuable than runs scored? Does that make enough of a difference to change how we view pitchers versus batters value?

Dan Szymborski: It’s not enough of a difference; it’s mostly just a quirk in a simple model rather than anything helpful

bumper: How does ZiPS evaluate first basemen in the minors? Is there receiving credit?

Dan Szymborski: Something like scoops is out of ZiPS ken. It’s hard enough to do in the majors (and even then, only a few runs one way or the other and quite volatile)

Dan Szymborski: But for instance, on grounders, I know the direction of every ball hit

Dan Szymborski: For example, the grounds most likely to become outs, in MLB and hte minors

Dan Szymborski: are those hit (with straight up through second base as 0 degrees) 16 degrees (90.1%), 15 degrees (89.9%)`, 17 degrees (89.7%), 14 degrees (89.5%), -17 degrees (89.4%), -16 degrees (89.3%), and so on

Dan Szymborski: whiel the grounders with the lowest chance of being outs are the three degrees closest to first, the three degrees closest to third, then 0 and one degree on either sice of second

Dan Szymborski:

Buldak: Hey Dan, it’s Joe from BlueSky, the one pestering you with all the ramen content. Anyways, ZiPS seems to have a crush on Owen Caissie and would just like to get some context on that. Caissie doesn’t seem to have the caliber glove (per existing reports) that your model loves, so I take it the model is more bullish on him cutting his k rate and actualizing his peak? Thanks for everything you do Dan, as always.

Dan Szymborski: K rate is overrate for good offensive players

Dan Szymborski: in the minors

Dan Szymborski: I call this the Kris Bryant Rule

Dan Szymborski: Now, Caissie’s not projected to be anywhere as good as Bryant

Dan Szymborski: but the principle is the same

Dan Szymborski: One of the biggest risks for an offense-first prospect is *passivity*

Dan Szymborski: Good offensive prospects are hitting well against minor league pitchers (or they wouldn’t be good offensive prospects)

Dan Szymborski: they’re *incentivized* to put the ball in play and minor league pitchers are giving them more hittable crap than MLB ones would

Dan Szymborski: I use Bryant because after the aggressive projections, a lot of people in chat pointed out that he struck out a lot in the minors

Dan Szymborski: Now, you want guys making contact

Dan Szymborski: but it’s just LESS of a big deal for good hitters

Dan Szymborski: And whether or not Caissie tightens things up against MLB pitchers, that’s one of the things that will determine what he ends up being

Trader Joe: When can we expect Fangraphs to have an equivalent BaseballTradeValues type tool?

Dan Szymborski: Not anytime soon, if ever, I don’t imagine

Dan Szymborski: I dont’ think that’s a priority and we have a lot of other stuff to work on

Quarantino Martinez: My cat has taken to nibbling on any textile that has a glimmer of food: tea towels, tablecloths, sweater sleeves. What is her Zips MLB GM comp? Is she an Elias, nibbling on the edges, ensuring that the final object is still good but not suitable for the World Series? A Brian O’Halloran, opportunistically getting hers even if it means taking on some linen-based bloat? Or a Friedman, who just thinks everything out there belongs to her?

Dan Szymborski: Preller maybe? He’s always doing SOMETHING even if not always good

Oddball Herrera: Who is your pick for the yearly “guy who runs a 1.000 OPS in spring training and then brutally stabs his unrealistic fantasy owners in the back when real games start” award? Well call this the Akil Baddoo Switcheroo

Dan Szymborski: Ah, but if we could predict the spring guy, then he woudln’t be the spring guy!

Tiger Fan: Just curious, does ZiPs use AFL data with prospects? Or purely minor league regular season?

Dan Szymborski: As with college data, only when it really HAS TO

Bob Loblaw: Should the Cubs sign Trevor Bauer?

Dan Szymborski: No

Carson: Is it embarrassing I am hoping I believe that Michael McGreevy can be a Kyle Gibson type? I see room for him to be a solid 5 in the majors. Thoughts?

Dan Szymborski: Nothing wrong with eating innings

Dan Szymborski: Most baseball players aren’t great ones

Dan Szymborski: I’m not going to win a BBWAA lifetime achievement award

Dan Szymborski: Most of the restaurants you love near you aren’t getting Michelin stars

Bob Loblaw: What does ZiPS look like? Anything like WOPR from War Games?

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski: Unless I’m making the backup server crunch numbers (which I frequently do)

Dan Szymborski:

$$$$$$: NOMB…is ZIPS your main source of income?  REALLY NOMB…..is your annual income> $100K.

Dan Szymborski: Not going into detail, but FanGraphs is my primary employer.

Dan Szymborski: I write a lot too!

Matt VW: How would you sort the Red Sox’s emerging positional farrago?

Dan Szymborski: In a way that would make Rafael Devers really pissed at me

Klubot3000: Do you know if we’ll get college leaderboards now that some of those college data are on FG?

Dan Szymborski: Not sure, I can ask

Guest: what odds would you have to get to put $100 on yourself winning a BBWAA liftime achivement award? I believe in you, I’d do it for 10,000 to 1!

Dan Szymborski: 300-to-1

Aaron: Loved seeing ZiPS so high on Cole Young. His production over his last 46 games age 20 in AA was very similar to Jackson Merrill’s 46 game production a year before at the same age in the same league. (323/.433/.437/.870 for Young; .273/.338/.444/.782 for Merrill).  Does ZiPS factor in that recent of a comp?

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS will find the comp, but if there’s limited or no data after the comp year, it won’t use the player

Buldak: If you could build a player that ZiPS would be absolutely in love with while still being “under the radar” by more traditional assessments, what would that player’s skillset look like?

Dan Szymborski: slightly older, better defensive numbers than you’d expect from their athleticism,

mmddyyyy: With 2023, 2024, prospective 2025 free agents, when their stats come up in an article most authors include a caveat for the 60 game 2020 season. Do you think that caveat will stop appearing in our lifetimes?

Dan Szymborski: It’ll fade away, except when a guy is close to a milestone

Dan Szymborski: and it makes a difference

Richard: Would you be willing to share a ZIPS projection for Tucker or Vlad’s next contract?

Dan Szymborski: I’m doing a Vlad piece for MOnday!

mmddyyyy: do baseball teams do the Wonderlic test?

Dan Szymborski: I haven’t heard of them doing it, but that’s not really a side that I get involved in

Guest: another q about how you work… when you do consulting for teams, are you just like, “sure! beep boop beep!” and then you print out what zips gives you? Or are you making significant algorithmic / output decisions that are considerably more work than your day to day?

Dan Szymborski: It’s a very tricky situation, so 20 years ago, I had to make the decision to be very strict with confidentiality wall

Dan Szymborski: I simply report the specific thing that is asked and provide the report. I don’t offer any opinions or advice or even any advising of what data someone *should* get, every team gets the same rate as every other team with all requests accepted, every player-agent gets the same rate as every other player-agent

Dan Szymborski: I don’t make sales pitches, and everything I do, except for the required IRS reporting, I take to the grave.

Dan Szymborski: And this has worked out well over the years. I’ve sold *something* to more than half the teams. My ideal would be to do everything completely blind, but people in front offices want to talk to me, not a middleman representative

Dan Szymborski: One exception on the same rate: I don’t charge players who are not on a 40-man roster or an MLB free agent for basic long-term projections.

Okra: Sox should have had made sure Devers was okay with move to 1B before signing Bregman, right?  Unless they trade from their position player surplus the team is best with Bregman at third.

Dan Szymborski: I’d definitely like to have been a fly on the wall and see what discussions are

Guest: Have you ever compared ZIPS projections against real world numbers and if so, how were the results?

Dan Szymborski: All the time!

Dan Szymborski:

Dan Szymborski: Hey, rightclicking an image in Twitter actually goes to the image now, not the tweet!

Guest: I have uncovered that a large number of the baseball players in your database are actually over 100 years old.  Some are even 150 years old.  You guys better tighten things up

Big Fan: You said earlier that ZiPS becomes less useful the farther down you go.  Could you do a ZiPs Top 5 Prospect by team?

Dan Szymborski: I COULD. I might do top 200 last year since so many people want them

Guest: Nolan Ryan pitched 332 innings of sub 3 ERA and FIP in 1974 but is only credited with 6.3 WAR. What gives?

Dan Szymborski: remember, 1974 was a 3.63 FIP league

Dan Szymborski: And Angels Stadium was a pitchers park in that era

Guest: Why are pulled barrels better than sprayed barrels? Isn’t the point of a barrel that it’s the same EV and angle regardless? I heard this from Eno

Dan Szymborski: I erally have to see the context

Buldak: Ever played OOTP?

Dan Szymborski: Yes’

Dan Szymborski: And they build the ratings off the ZiPS projections!

Hi: Is there any benefit to Bluesky or is it just a political preference?

Dan Szymborski: I use both Twitter and Bluesky

Dan Szymborski: I’m hoping all the left-wingers and right-wingers sort themselves out among Blue Sky and Twitter efficiently to make it easier to ignore

mmddyyyy: How do you communicate with the other Fangraphs folks?

Dan Szymborski: The same way most people do?

Dan Szymborski: I don’t do telepathy

John: Really like the Nats Soroka signing thinking it could be the 25 version of Sale,R Lopez thoughts?

Dan Szymborski: Meh

Dan Szymborski: But if it is, you can come back here and crow about it for sure!

Guest: So the Nolan Ryan this is just because relative to his piers it wasn’t as impressive as it would be today?

Dan Szymborski: It was just a lower offensive environment

Alan: I was surprised to not see JJ Wetherholt in the ZiPS 100. He seems to be a consensus top 50-ish propspect across rankings. What does your computer see differently?

Dan Szymborski: Guys with little professional experience take a big hit in projections

Dan Szymborski: ZiPS was unusually positive last year about Langford

Dan Szymborski: Crews took a big similar hit last year

QQ: The Orioles are spending $75M this year on their bench, 4/5 starters, three middle relievers, and AAA depth.  I don’t know what to say, it’s just so dumb compared after being too poor to keep Burnes or Santander or extend literally anyone

Dan Szymborski: I would not have kept Santander, but I sure woudl have gone after Burnes

Bob Loblaw: FYI – The new Adam Sandler movie “Spaceman” is absolutely terrible. Do not waste your time.

Guest: Nolan Ryan: Yeah, but the innings

Dan Szymborski: WAR takes into consideration innings

Jordan: Could MLB or the other owners ever force or “convince” Bob Nutting to sell the Pirates? He’s always been cheap and unpopular, but it feels like both have reached new heights, especially given the talent on the roster.

Dan Szymborski: I mean they COULD but they won’t

Dan Szymborski: Even Wilpons weren’t actually forced by MLB

Dan Szymborski: They let Jeff Loria have a SECOND team

Dan Szymborski: On that note, it’s time for me to head out for another week

Dan Szymborski: Thanks for coming everyone!