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| 2 2, 2024 7:6 PM | #1 |
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Points:30 Joined February 2024 |
Asking Dan Szymborski about the Guardians 2023 ZiPS projectionsIn case you missed it, FanGraphs posted the ZiPS projections for the Cleveland Guardians for 2023. Also, in case you missed it, those ZiPS projections are compiled by FanGraphs' writer, Dan Szymborski, who is an excellent baseball writer as well as one of the top baseball data analysts as the creator of ZiPS. If you're not familiar with how ZiPS works, I recommend checking out Dan's explanation of the process he goes through to produce the projections and his insights into how to interpret the results properly. Additionally, MLB provides a glossary entry with a helpful definition of ZiPS.Dan was kind enough to agree to answer some questions I had after reviewing what ZiPS has to say about the Cleveland Guardians for the upcoming season.Quincy: Dan https://www.cgteamstore.com/ramon-laureano-hoodie, first of all, thanks for the fun tool of ZiPS for us to have something to talk about in the long offseason and thank you so much for being willing to answer some questions about the projections just released for the Cleveland Guardians. My first question revolves around the shift was ZiPS asked to adjust for potential changes in outcomes for hitters, pitchers or defenders with the shift rule changes, or is that something that is somewhat impossible to predict going into this first season under the new rules? Guardians fans have speculated that players like Josh Naylor and Josh Bell may benefit as players who hit line drives and often face a shift while batting left-handed, is this kind of thinking faulty from your understanding?Dan: Everything I do in ZiPS is something that I can test and base on data that exists. New rules is kind of guesswork and the results of such changes aren't always obvious. And with something like the shift, I don't think we really have anything to compare to. I don't believe teams are going back to the traditional defensive positions; I expect them to shift as much as possible, with a fielder just on the left side of second base, and that's kind of a "mostly-shift" configuration that we don't have the direct data for.Quincy: In a related question, I think many Guardians' fans read your suggestion to move Gimnez to shortstop and nodded in vigorous agreement. However, a recent article from Travis Sawchik suggested that second-base defense might be more important than ever because of shift changes. Do you think it's possible that Gimnez playing second base might be an attempt by the Guardians to adjust to changes they expect to take place in terms of defensive opportunities for second basemen?Dan: I'm not convinced that second base becomes more important. After all, we have a lot of information from before shifts became as popular as they are now, and the data, both direct and implied, suggested that shortstop was the more crucial position and the one that teams moved players from to an easier one.Quincy: Are there general principles we should keep in mind when comparing projections from Steamer and ZiPS? For example, as a Guardians fan, I want to run with Oscar Gonzalez's and Trevor Stephan's numbers from Steamer and Mike Zunino's and Triston McKenzie's numbers from ZiPS. Just curious if you've seen any underlying reasons over the years as to why some of these projections can be so different between the two systems.Dan: This one is really hard to say simply because while I know what goes into ZiPS, I cannot say for sure what goes into Steamer. I think generally you should look at as many good systems as you can, but I'm not sure you'll find systemic differences everywhere; accuracy is tricky, but we can deal with bias for certain types of players Daniel Johnson T-Shirt, and I'm pretty sure most of the systems have picked that low-hanging fruit. |
