Howdy and welcome to the Three Truckos podcast, presented by Baseball Perspectives. I'm
your host Ian left Wuiz and joining me as always from suburban Michigan, it
is Ben Murphy. Ben. How are you doing? I'm doing well?
Ian? How are you? I'm doing well. Delighted to be here and
uh back in um in May where we're baseball starting account. It's very exciting
starting to count just now. Yeah, yeah, you know, you know
what they say, after three weeks you shouldn't panic, and after four weeks
everything matters. Yeah, traditional folk wisdom. Um. Joining me as always,
also from the nation's capital, it is Jared Wis Jared, how are
you doing? I'm doing well. Oriels are staging and comeback as we speak.
Um. What I like is that people listen to this. Uh you
know with schedule, Yeah, Oriels are going to be losing some game.
They're gonna get one base runner and everybody knows that. For Jared, that's
staging a comeback. I guess you could think of the Orioles as staging a
comeback in the cosmic sense, you know, with the astronomical version of time.
All right, yeah, all right, aren't we all in the long
run. Um, but uh no, we have no time for Oriols jokes
because we have a great podcast, probably honestly filled with a bunch of oriol
jokes. But before that, but those are funny. Yeah, Before that,
we have baseball content. We're gonna try to talk a little real baseball.
Um. We are going to answer some questions. We're going to dip
into the scorcy Talk forums for some hot, hot takes. This is gonna
be the PTI of Scorcy Talk. Really my highest, highest and best aspiration
for myself. Um de yeah. But before we do that, this is
probably not going to be the longest of episodes. Um, which I realized
saying that that you actually can see the runtime in front of you. So
I either just told you the truth or a really good joke. We'll see
either way. They're happy. Um, yeah, but we'll get we'll get
right into it. Um. We actually got a few questions this week,
so I am delighted as always to turn it over to our mailback, Captain,
mailback, captain, how's it going? Fantastic? We get letters,
they're great. Who's Who's Tony? And who's Wilbon? That's it? Did
you immediately stack by yourself. That is very tough. Um. True.
Fact, I have never seen an episode of part in the Interruption and falling.
Oh really wow? Yeah, from end to end. I used to
listen to the podcast, just like keep up with Sporting Curni events, And
then when High Noons started coming on, I stopped listening to PTI because well
I should have stopped a while ago. But Bemani Jones and Paula Toia do
a much better job of not sounding old and curmudgeon and generally wrong about things
that sees extremely accurate. Yeah, also describing a large percentage of the damning
with faint praise. Perhaps, Yeah, it's interesting like Kornheiser isn't doing the
one that irritated me. Um, yeah, as much. But Wilbon had
a lot of like elier than now, old person and get off my lawn
kinds of takes that got really omnoxious. Again, I aspire to that one
day, maybe maybe even a few minutes. Oh maybe I am a Wilbon.
All right, this is exciting. Yeah, all right, if you
can get on here, I mean that, listeners, if you want to,
if you want to weigh in, please squorcheet at baseball perspective? Is
this like Eric Moyer's question about which one of us is each outcome is like
which one of us is each person? On PTI, we will answer any
of three things. I let me be honest. That is a really evergreen
question. I kind of love it. Yeah, yeah, we should start
doing that, all right, but we gotta go move on because the im
promises is going to be a short run times. Yeah, that's um.
So the first question comes from Michael, who claims to be a regu their
listener enjoy our shows but didn't like our discussion of the theater um last podcast.
I think at least one of those clauses is not true. And if
it's the one about theater, we could talk about the Tonys. I'm gonna
talk about the Tonys. Talk about the Tonys, do you feel Yeah,
let's talk about the Tony. Your boy Aaron Sarkin got robbed, you got
Well, he's not a he's not a Broadway kind of guy. Like I
mean, let's face it, he's not one of them, and they're it
just it should have happened, but it didn't. But that's okay. He
doesn't need it. He doesn't need it. It's fine, he's just gonna
be an EO for the rest of his life. Huh um, yeah,
all right, yeah, okay. So again, the person who said like
everything about our podcast except the theater context delivered straight theater contest to you anger
on the pulse of listener dum. Anyway, Michael is in m al Keating.
He's Team eight if anyone wants to follow along, which is a third
thirteen keep al only league that's been around since the mid eighties. That's pretty
cool that he's nice, he says, in that time, he only has
one championship, But we haven't been potting since the mid eighties, and don't
understand and as in the second year ever rebuild, and has some questions for
our team. He's at time of this recording, he's at four hundred,
sorry, at five hundred, four games out of his division. So his
first question to us is whether we think he should try to compete this year.
He has some guys from who are injured, like Lindor, Judge,
Dickerson, Givaldi, but he doesn't think he has the depth or the talent
to compete this year. Would you agree? Um? So in times like
these, what I have enjoyed doing, and which I've been recommending every couple
of weeks, is going to Rob MCN's well score Baseball perspectus is But you
know, we know the brains behind this. That's the Taken Players Report,
which you can find on the Scoresheet Draft aid tab, which kind of put
lines up your keepers along a number of axes and tells you about I would
say this is a really rough estimate of you know, how good your team
is based upon projected SSIM, the value that Baseball Perspectives uses for scoresheetum.
According to that, I you know, I would tend to agree that the
team is sort of punching above its weight. And I think I think that's
true to some extent even looking at the team. You know, this is
am for a ten team league. You know that a little it's a little
shallow. We played a lot of I think twelve and twenty four teen leagues,
so sometimes it's a little tough for us to adjust. But you probably
want like two or three stars to be like a competitive team. And you
know, especially when it comes to the pitching, this isn't something I see
from his team. So you know, I think if you look at the
top five, top thirteen keepers. Again, this is something I recommend for
everybody as an exercise. In this case, I see like a lack of
top end talent that I think is going to make it really difficult to compete
in the long run this year. Yeah, so it looks like teammate is
second to last in top five, second to last in top eight, second
to last in top ten, etc. So you're better than team seven woo.
Yeah, and which you know, it's like it might be the person
in the league's named after or is related to the person anyway. Sorry,
you're sending in your questions, please send in your entire league history. You
know, we we demand context. Um No, you know, I think
it's been some canny drafting, probably some lucky drafting this year. You know,
hunterd Dozier's broken out. I like Shane Bieber. I don't know that
he can front a playoff winning rotation, but I don't think he's that far
off, you know. I think there are a couple of good breaks,
some bad breaks. Like an average team, I think it's probably punching a
little bit above its weight. And I would, you know, if it
continues to do so for three more months, right, But you know,
I don't think I would plan for that. I think we all agree here
that it's yeah, punching above its weight, probably unlikely to be competitive.
Doesn't mean you have to throw away the entire team right the second. But
but yeah, it's not one who projected to be a winner. But this
leads into his second question because I think that deep down Michael knew that,
and he knew that. One of the reasons that his team is called over
performing, if you want, is because of hundred Dojer who you mentioned.
Did you guys see his triple slash in this league? Because it's insane.
No hunter Dojer in this league is triple slashing three fifty five, four sixty
two, seven sixty three. Because he's slugging seven sixty three the next highest
guys under six hundred. He's one hundred fifty point higher than anyone else.
Um, that's not right. It takes a lot to get chared that exasperated
about Remember when we saw a Hunter Dojer in Idaho Falls. I can tell
you he doesn't. I remember, I remember the game in Idaho Falls.
I don't remember hundred. Yeah, do you remember anything about the game in
Idaho Pap, I sure do, Yet was there a no hitter in the
game? Well, you know, if the team scores a run but they
haven't had any hits, is it still count as a no hitter? Is
it a no hitter? I'm not sure, but I remember talking about this
game. Yeah, yeah, for those who haven't, Um, Jared is
this might surprise you as Nora's fan of the superstitious sort, also of the
doomed sort, you know, and I would say, believes a little bit
in the no hitter jinks any kind Yeah, any jinks. Um. It's
not like Jared is discerning about his chinks and the people behind us at at
this game that we were at in Idaho Falls, Idaho a lovely place,
um, although more falls Um whatcob nation for Idaho falls more falls? Um?
But I would say the better part of three innings describe asking each other
what a no hitter was in like brand detail, just saying the words no
hitter over and over and over again. As this picture Yander Carmo uh carried
a no hitter into the ninth inning, which neither of us have seen before
in our lives. And it's the one thing, oh sorry, I had
seen no hit. The Orioles that's fair, is my white whale. And
you know, is the most exciting thing to see in baseball the absence or
something, which is what makes me small special um so, and just the
idea of watching Jared visibly cringe next to me every time the word no hitter
was said, which is like several, like about twenty to thirty times,
and like is that but do they have an error? Does an error count
a no hitter? Does that mean they don't have any hits? Is that
a no hitter? So what what does no hitter? No hitter, no
hitter, no hitter? And then like every time you just see like this
galvanic reaction, just like horrible like shrieking pain coming next to me, which
is obviously what they look for even more than a no hitter in life.
Anyway, provides me that one hundred was really good in that game, and
I see a breakout half a decade later. So get back to the question,
Yeah, we've got hundred doser. And then Adelberto Mondessi, who is
also an a little like crazy and he wants to know what to do with
Mondasy and Dozer? Are there people? Are they guys you would consider trying
to trade now? Do you do you think they're long term keepers that it's
not worth investigating. Do you have any thoughts in them? Yeah, I
mean I keep my options open. I think you could certainly offer Hunter Tosher
around to any team in need for what you perceive his equivalent value and lock
it in. Um. I think it's hard to say. You know,
we live in the stadcast world where everything kind of has the explanation behind it,
right, And I haven't fully bored down one hundred doser. But you
know, I was listening to Mike Petriolo talk about this last week, and
you know, just looking at him there there's an aspect to this that feels
realm Despite that, like, I think you could also still, you know,
he might still be better off on another team than yours. Even if
that is true, you think should be looking for like younger or longer run
value instead of older guys that are less likely to hold it. Yeah,
Hunter Dozer is already twenty seven. Is a thing that you should know about
him if you're not like immediately familiar with him so far. He was a
college prospect, I believe, and you know has been circling the miners for
a while, you know, and again, like because of swing pass change,
he's I think pulling the ball much more than he used to. Um.
You know, it's hard to say that changes like these are completely out
of the realm of possibility anymore. But I guess, like with Max Munsey
last year, I guess you count your blessings. But I think you may
want to shop him and see if you can get something that's a little more
stable or a little more future oriented. Even if that's true, I don't
bear Demondasy is really interesting. He's not a player who I know what to
make of. Really, I think he has He's not a player who I
had been particularly high on because I tend to like performance a little more than
projection. And you know, the power has come to a degree that I
didn't really expect. But you know, even if it's not like a form
that is ideal or you know, the pure platonic like moneyball through Chilcolm's style.
But you know, he's still super young. I don't think you have
to trade him right away. I think he'd have value. I think he'd
have value at the end of the year. I think he'd have value at
the end of next year, even if he has a down year, people
will still remember its power. Yeah, that pedigree is going to stick for
the people that like him. Yeah. So I mean again, like if
you get a good deal, and if not, he's on your team and
pushing you forward. So I don't know. I guess the answer as always
depends but fair enough, right, it depends on what you get back,
but I wouldn't force anything. He's probably be more inclined to trade Dojer if
you get a good deal back. That's fair Ben in like the abschect sense,
someone like Dojer who's hitting the crap out of the ball in a way
that I think everyone acknowledged this probably is going to last for the rest of
the season, but he still has some value. Is there is there still
a way to trade someone like that? It just as long as they're want
to just their expectations, or is there just it's unrealistic to expect a trade
to happen? Do you think I think Ian's advice about shopping him around is
how you're gonna figure out if you can get a good deal or not,
and you're looking for somebody that's just you know, more willing to pay something
close to present value instead of like some kind of discounted future value, but
he's hitting well enough that he'll definitely be able to move him. So yeah,
I don't know that. I guess it depends on what Mike thinks it's
going to happen to Dojer in the future, and whether he thinks that Dozier
is going to be part of Mike's next team that's competing or not. Yeah,
because yeah, twenty seven is not so old that you couldn't see contending
with him on the roster right right, and I think he's kind of played
himself into at least being I don't know Yander orlans Will left, which is
doesn't sound exceptional. But to be clear, Hunter Dozer a month ago was
projected to be one of the worst hitters in baseball, so to have even
a third number thirteen keeper out of him is great and I think there's potential
for more um HUNTERD. Dojer, who was hit slogging six eighty eight in
real life. By the way, m one other fact about HUNTERD. Dozer
that I forgot about, but I did flag for this podcast. So Hunter
Dozer, I was looking up his stats and pancrafts and there's an recent article
about him by Craig Edwards. That says a lot of what I was saying,
but better and with charts and you know, supporting facts. But the
one upshot at the end of it is that Hunter Dozer's plate discipline shows he
swings a few pitches and doesn't make contact on pitches outside the zone. He
doesn't have a ton of close comps, but the closest might be Tommy pham.
Um, he's fairly patient and out of the zone, and when he
makes contact, he hits all hard. Um, so as everyone knows,
I am a big fan, and it's just as painful every time. He
never gets less painfreing Yeah, and if that is hundred's best comp I guess
you hold on to him forever. Okay, that cool. Yeah, let's
move on and maybe let's grab it up. Michael also asked him about go
ahead. Sorry, I was just gonna say it. Um. My sense
is that if you're wondering, like whether it's time to compete or like play
for next year, that almost always means play for next year, right,
Because like I think our at least most of us anyway, are like inherent
biases to overestimate our team, and so if you think they might not be
good enough to contend they're probably not good enough, right, Yeah, I
think I think that's fair stude observation, not that like, and I think,
um, Jared, you pointed out earlier like Mike sort of asked his
question in a leading enough way that we had a sense that he was going
down that path anyway. But I guess for everybody that's out there listening that
maybe nothing about Mike's team specifically sounded applicable to them. Maybe that will help,
Like, if you're not sure, that's very true. And you know,
I think something that you ben say a lot too, is like compete
for what, like compete for the playoffs? Yeah, or compete to be
the best team. Yeah, and maybe the playoffs is something that people want
to compete for. I'm not saying that you should, but we compete for
championships. So trust the process, okay, yeah cool? Um, So,
yeah, Michael had asked about starting pitchers, but I think we agreed
that that was the source of weakness for him. So unless you guys object,
let's just talk about the prospects he considers. Wander Franco Adele and Royce
Lewis is untouchable, Ian is it offensive to put Wander Franco in the same
sentences of their prospects other than these other prospects are not as good as wander
Franco. Look, the thing is, we just luck boxed into getting Wander
Franco in our league, and then all of a sudden, in the you
know you love your own prospects the most, he is now the lord and
savior of our team. Um. I think Joe adell Is is a very
strong prospect. I am not convinced on Royce Lewis yet, but you know,
uh like, I think the upside is there, so sure. Cool.
But and then he talks about a bunch of other prospects. I don't
think you list him off. Do you have any thoughts on McKay or Kyle
Tucker or um any other prospects on his team? Um, so what to
do with I wouldn't even say these are second tier prospects. I think these
are pretty clear, um, you know, solid, especially in traditional heart
thirteen league keeper or heart thirteen keeper leagues. These are I think very solid
prospects. I would hold on to anyone who I consider too there. Let's
say average outcome being a plus keeper, and I wouldn't really concern myself with
having too many of them, especially this year. Is there anyone on his
team he wouldn't suggest keeping or you try to get rid of. Well,
I wouldn't what he said. I would probably not package them into a starting
pitcher, because again, that's something that depreciates pretty quickly. That's a question
that he was asking, and that probably appreciates even quicker than a prospect.
Like if he has Nate Piriston on his team, If Nate Pearson has Tommy
John surgery next year or this month, I think you could potentially still get
something for him next year. And if that happens with a major league pitcher,
I think you're out of luck. I don't immediately see players who I
would get rid of. I would probably look to trade Ryan mount Castle he
gets to the major leagues. Yeah everything o jain Yeah, no, doing
great, stub your toe. Why would you training ry trade Ryan mountain Castle
because he can't hit or field? You know, he's having he's having a
much better you know, April than I expected, and I'm probaly gonna end
up having to eat some crow. But like I still don't understand, like
I think he he is a player, and there are a bunch of players
of this type, you know, the tweener players who are like, well,
he was once a shortstop prospect and he would be a great hitter for
a shortstop prospect, and now he's a first based prospect and he still hits
about the same. Um. I don't really trust the Oriel development staff yet,
but they're the asters now, I know. Um. But I think
one thing in general to think of is like, I think some prospects may
have as much value as possible, Like their maximal value might be the day
they get called up to the big leagues. Yeah, so you know,
if you're if there's a player like that, I think he has Griff Canning
on his team. I think that's another potential tradeable candidate. Like, uh,
you know, these are players with potentially having kind of the bloom is
not off the rose. If there's something you're getting in return that you think
is more stable, or you're getting a keeper back or a good deal.
You know, it all depends. Again it's the four what question, But
those might be players I look to move the high triple A players for contending
teams the day they get to the majors or whereabouts? Cool? That's fair?
Um, shall we move on? Absolutely? Thanks for writing Michael from
We're gonna go. From Michael, who has been playing score sheets since at
least the mid eighties, it sounds like to Mike, who has been playing
score sheet for over twenty five years. Were questions right? Little Mike support
groupment anyway? Um? So Mike's question is about where to play outfielders defensively.
He always puts his top defensive outfielder in center field. But what do
you do about left field and red field? Is it better to list one
a better or worst defender than the other or just put away from let scores
sheet decide? How do you decide what to do with left field and right
field? We did a little research here. I don't know if we did
enough research here. We did. We did some research, and but probably
not into the answer to this question, which is that's fair? We did
we did? We did a lot of research. Yeah, yeah, we
learned a lot about Josh Walland's career, Josh William who is mentioned in the
official scorreesheet rules. But we did also look into the fielding rules and although
I can't say for sure, I think the implication of this question is right
that if, as you guys know, because you have been playing score sheet
for a very long time, the sporting news and the official stats did not
split the outfield positions for a very long time, and I Scoresheet was built
in that era, and so I don't believe there are chain differences between left
field and right field for that reason. Yeah, Mike, you I think
so. I remember we talked about this a while ago, whenever it was,
But there's nothing that I've ever seen where Scoresheet differentiates between any part of
the lineup card the sim or the range factors based on like left field and
right field. So you know, like theoretically, in a normal baseball game,
right fielders like arms play a bigger factor than left fielders. But it's
not like there's an arm rating in scores sheet or anything like that. So
I think that helps corroborate the idea that left and right or sort of interchangeable
as far as Scoresheet lineup cards go. Yeah, there is one way I
do use left and right field and break them out online of card. If
I ever want a defensive replacement to replace one guy but not the other,
I will use left and right for that the guy you want replaced in one
of the two or like always in left field. Yeah, the guy I
want replaced in left field, and then the replacement in left field as well.
And did you just pick left randomly or do you think it matters which
one you pick? I mean I picked it because, damn it, left
field is an easier position to play that, right, But yeah it's random,
like okay, not because you thought scores she cared. No, be
a human recognizes that right correct way. That's somebody that's watched baseball for more
than ten minutes in your life. You know that. Yeah. Yeah,
I haven't seen anything to suggest otherwise. Yeah, but that doesn't Just to
clarify, that does not mean the three of us are right if we're wrong.
And you were yelling at the podcast right now scoresheet at Baseball Perspectives dot
com. Yes please, And since you mentioned, since you mentioned the arm
bend and Mike wrote in about if arm matters and scuores sheet, would you
want that rolled into a defensive metric, either a SEP one or some sort
of overall defensive thing in your ideal world or is it not worth the hassle?
I mean, oh, I think like the sim that I want to
play a personally doesn't get you to that level of detail, but certainly a
realistic sim should is that. I don't know if that's enough. It's like,
I don't I don't personally really care, but I think if the goal
was realism, then that's definitely something that should be included. Yeah, but
I would say I care. I mean not like obviously it's not a deal
breaker either way, but it would be cool if I drafted Roman Lagano to
see him, you know, casually toss people out at third base. Don't
you care more about other aspects of defense in terms of like the sim being
able to account for playing players out of position with a little bit more flexibility
and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, it's not that it's not number
one right, right exactly. Think I'm nailing to the wall, but you
know it's on there, right. That's why there were ninety three. They
weren't all like, you know, Protestantism is awesome. I'm sure one of
them was like, you should have a throwing arm. I don't know.
I wasn't a religious study adventure. Yeah, I think I'm more on the
bedside, just because it's fun to everyone Loriano, but I think I don't
know if I personally think it's worth the hassle of dealing with people are all
roughly the same of the fun of one Loriano. Sure cool, Um,
And those are the questions, thanks squarescy to Baseball Perspectives dot com. Really
questions, Um, did you want to talk about the squoreshy talk questions?
Yeah. So there there were a few more questions this week, which you
know, we didn't responded directly because there's kind of been a back and forth
in the last couple of days from when we're recording this about a couple of
points which I think dovetail into what we've sort of been talking about in this
conversation of late. Um, you know, the little bit about the way
in which a sim is made, the way this sim is made, the
way we like sins. I thought these were at least interesting topic starters.
So there are two two email chains. This is the scoresheet Talk forum on
Yahoo. Turns out you can't google it look for it on Yahoo groups,
but I assume many of you are subscribe to it already. The first email,
I'll just read the initial email, which is that somebody said that I
have a starting pitcher that for the past week gave a five runs in the
majors. In scoresheet, he gave up seventeen. Something doesn't seem right.
His era in the week for MLB was four point seven. He pitched four
point two innings and scoresheet over two games. For the same two games,
my team was assessed nine errors, but in MLB the same players only committed
three. So and the subject line, which I think sums it up well,
is I don't understand. I just don't understand how this works. Um
So, when you guys hear that sort of thing, I guess my first
question is how do you feel about? Um? I get how do you
feel about that concept? Do you feel like players giving up four runs in
score sheet and seventeen runs in real life? Is I mean something has gone
wrong in the system. Let me chime in first, real quick, just
the interest of fairness. Esteemed leader Jeff Barton chimed in on the thread and
said that according to him, he got seven errors instead of nine ers and
thirteen total runs instead of seventeen runs. Sure, okay, um yeah,
so, I guess doesn't change your point necessarily. Also, when you go
on till Yeah, but um right, I think it's fair to say that
it probably felt it worse than it was. But does that bother you the
way it bothers the initial right for those of us that haven't read the thread
was their context given about the season to date and how the season to date
compares between real life and the sim For these folks, um no, But
I think Garth Hewitt in particular responded with that exact point. Okay, yeah,
because I know that the sim has some internal like machinations that use like
the season to date as a guide post sometimes. Yeah, and there.
So there was a follow up from another writer who said that he has Walker
Bueller headed for a twenty last season and scoresheet. He's o and six with
six ninety in real life he's three and now with a five twenty two ERA,
and he's going to lose twenty twenty games. And he said maybe if
he was a Giant pitcher, he may have changed. Um, I don't.
I don't know that the scoresheet simulation has a punish the Dodgers support the
Giants module in its seems like a surprising one. But I like it conspiracy
theory, you know, it's interesting because I feel like one of the things
that we have learned in our time doing this is that not everybody sees the
world the same way we do and use the same statistics that we do,
you know, And here you have somebody looking to match up wind totals,
which you know, I think to be fair is in scoresheet, right,
Yeah, I'm just seeing the roles. They d emphasize it, but they
say winds do matter. Yeah, yeah, And you know, I think
that's one of those things that the three of us would not look to match
at all or to pack towards Noah. But even the run thing, like
giving them five runs versus in the majors for the week versus thirteen or whatever
ends up being I think this is a tough one because there's always going to
be outliers, right, and there's always some weird situation where you don't have
a defense or whatever. But I get the point, like that feels a
little off to me. I'm not saying it is off, but it feels
it feels off. There's something that would make me want to investigate or complain
or whine, Like I'll totally get that reaction if the season to date like
runs aloud. Let's assume the innings match, just for the sake of simplicity.
If the season to date runs Alloud was notably lower in the score sheet
performance for whatever reason, it seems to me like that's something that maybe not
every score sheet player, but like a score sheet player that's on scoresheet talking
is reading those foreign posts should be like relatively well aware of, right,
I guess not like quote unquote balancing is news. No, no, I
get that, but still feels off. It still feels like too much balancing.
Yeah, And I think that's a little bit. Why brought this up
is that, you know, even I looked at the numbers and was like,
well, you know, it's not like something and it maybe not went
wrong, but like I could see where you would feel that way. And
I think all the more so because you have people saying, like, you
know later in the thread, like E R is the key trigger you know
that, or that the SIM targets R a M. And you had Jeff
Barton pushing back on that, saying sim's not only target R a UM but
using bold end cap letters. It was yes, um, you know,
but I feel like there is an expectation on some level that the sim targets
ra for pictures, and if it does not do that, then there is
at least some subset of the customer, you know, the customers who feel
a strong sense of dissonance. And you know, Ben I was wondering,
as somebody who, let's say, is interested in how sims work and making
sims, how to resolve that sort of dissonance for people who may not be
where you are. Yeah, I mean, it's one of the fundamental questions
you have to resolve when you think about how you're going to create something,
because I think a lot of times the appeal of a simulation is that it's
not deterministic like normal roto would be. But most of the time people want
their sim team to perform something like their major league counterparts, because that's how
people are drafting those players for their sim team. So they're you know,
using major league stats and major league projections, and they're going to judge how
well the players are doing by their major league performance. And so if your
sim team is performing drastically different from the rage of the regular like real life
team or like players would be, then I think people would be at least
uncomfortable with that. In certain situations. It also strikes me as the kind
of thing where people are not going to ever notice or at least call out
the situations where their players are much better in the sim than in real life.
But as soon as they're like much worse in the sim than in real
life, people are gonna, you know, start posting on social media and
all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I know that when we've talked about
it before, we feel like there's at least some cohort of the player base
that says they want something that is random, but they really just wanted to
feel random. They don't want it to actually be random. And the other
folks that say that they want something that's actually random are probably a little bit
more amenable to seeing some differentiation or at least divergence between the fantasy performance and
the real life performance. And I don't know how you would really figure out
how many or like what percentage of people fit into those two groups, if
you could like formulate those in a way that they're like mutually exclusive of each
other, or think of it like a spectrum or something, you know,
I don't know without doing some kind of robust survey or something like that,
how we would figure out how people actually feel about it. Yeah, And
one of the things I was interesting was that you said, like the feeling
of randomness or you know, wanting things to look like ye, wanting things
to look like reality. But it's interesting because again they're like, not to
turns into my postmodernism class, but like reality means different things to different people,
and so you know when but you know, when we're saying he gave
up six runs in scores shot seventeen real life, we're like, actually sounds
a little weird. And when someone says he's oh and six when he's three
and no in real life, I think all three of us immediately go,
nah, you know that's that's not a thing. But you know that but
that is somebody's reality. I don't mean to like blindly dismiss it. Um.
You know, there are people who use there are people who use EARRA.
I don't really look at the ra A column anymore, but a lot
of people use that there and there are still people who are using wins and
losses. And you know, I think all three of us don't. So
where do you peg reality? I guess is but those are just different descriptions
of the same reality. And I don't think what I was describing is invalidated
by having different descriptors of reality for everybody. They're like still looking at what
happened in the sim and what happened in real life. So however you want
to miss are those things. You're still going to have some people that want
them to track and some people that are okay with them not always tracking together.
Right, And then yes, from there, it's important to also look
at what you were saying. I think, like, do we really care
about wins and losses? Is it even going to show up on the website
versus like runs allowed, earned runs that sort of thing. Yeah, And
in this case, if somebody, let's say, if a picture gave up
five doubles, you know, six triples, eight home runs in the seventeen
runs or like five runs and seventeen runs, and he allows five runs in
real life because it was you know, clustered pretty well, and seventeen runs
in the SAM. Yeah, if they're looking at plate appearance outcome matching,
then it's a little bit easier to understand, right, Like how much does
sequencing matter? Yeah? And then right, not everyone is going to get
there, And I think That's part of why I think the most elegant solution
is to have something that feels a little bit stochastic but actually tracts pretty closely
to real life, because people don't really want it to be that much different
from reality. Like, think of it too, if you're approaching it from
the Barton's perspective, it's a way a better thing for them to deal with
having to justify the feelings of randomness or whatever you want to call it,
the simulatedness than to have to deal with people constantly complaining about how the sim
is doing them some kind of injustice. But just to push back on this
for a second again, like I think you're saying real life, But let's
say there's a picture. We'll call him Dylan Bundy. He gives up five
home runs, five doubles, five triples, and five runs in seventeen innings.
Should he give up five runs or seventeen runs? And which is real
life? You're saying for his hypothetical major league team, he only gave up
the five runs on the home runs, yes, and all of the triples
and doubles were stranded. I mean, I think a ser Alberto is it's
amazing or whatever. I don't know. I think everything we know about like
sequencing and stuff like that, seventeen feels more like the right answer than five.
Yeah, but I don't think either one of them are the wrong answer.
It's just like, which one do you prefer? And if he went
three and oh in real life? Would you want to reflect that? Why
don't? I don't know how he's going to go three and oh? I
guess if he's scattering trade man. Yeah, how many games has his team
won overall? I guess. I'm not trying to discard the point that you're
trying to make about like which metrics matter, and like does our understanding of
the finer minutia of how the game works have a bearing on like what we
think the sims should do. I just think there's always going to be some
stratification in the fantasy player base, and you're going to see some people answer
the question a certain way and other people answer it the other way. And
if you really want to know, like what the quote unquote right answer is,
you need to know what percentage of people are in each camp, because
unless you're just doing it as a thought experiment, the goal has to be
to figure out how many people are going to make happy and how many people
are going to make frustrated based on which decision you make, right, Because
the point of build the sim could be to be able to like actually predict
what's going to happen in real life, in which case you wanted to adhere
as close as you can to all of the minutia of physics and lunch angle
and sequencing and all that kind of stuff. But most of the time that
we talk about building a sim, it's not in that context, right,
It's in the like fantasy game context. Yeah, right, it's right.
So it's interesting. It is that like fun factor versus yeah, realism that
we keep I you know, I think we keep circling around this point.
But I think there is something fundamental to the point, you know, I
think it's really the fundamental question of simulation. Right. Well, if I
was in the baseball Pops department for a major league team and I'm building a
sim, it's for a fundamentally different reason than if I'm sitting at my desk
at home and saying, like, score, she doesn't seem realistic enough to
me. Right, Do you think they in the Baseball office department, what
range rating do you think, um, the second basement has well, first
they have to have played ten games. Yeah, well I guess that's true.
Do they write, you know, de lete all the data until they
played twenty games? Last, we're like, bumber, Steve, we got
to a lot of stackcast data into the shredder. They're just stick it on
the pile until the pile gets big enough, and then they're like, Okay,
now you've got a meaningful, simple size. That's fair. Recycling is
good. Um, sorry, Jared, any thoughts on this? I don't
want to. Um, Hey, yeah, I think it's a good discussion.
Half. I don't think there's one right answer, right hypothetical unless here
the orioles um. Just to complicate this a little bit further so, one
of the things that I thought was interesting about this was like you were saying
luck balancing, and I think a couple of people pointed out to the original
scores sheet talker that there's a chance he just had his hook super high and
the player got blasted, you know, that his pitchers just got hit hard.
And I thought there was another related comment on scores she talk someone was
asking like why Triple A players were pitching before bullpen arms, And the answer
to that is likely that the inning to come into the game was set incorrectly,
or maybe not not incorrectly, but not to what the player was expecting
to happen, right, not love enough to get that player into the game
in scores sheet as early as he would like, right? Yeah. Is
it also possible that it's about like the number of appearances that they've had and
so like they still had innings left, but they had already appeared in so
many games in scoresheet that like they'd used up all of their quote unquote like
appearances for the week. I don't know how closely those things track. I
feel like there's some sort of rule around that, but again, none of
us are like scoresheet scholars, unfortunately. Yeah, So please, I'm sure
there's somebody listening that knows. So just write it and let us know and
we'll update next week, or have you on the podcast to tell everybody and
make it clear that we need Yeah, if you are a person who thinks
you can answer that question, you have a standing invite to come on the
pot just to know. But so, my other question, when looking at
these two things back to back was like, let's say, you give a
player tools to affect the outcome of the game, and in so doing they
hurt their team's performance. But isn't that what it's all about? Like,
right, is that is that fundamental the game? Or do people have right
to be angry and say this no longer reflects reality? And I don't want
to like dismiss that, but you know, I think there was an aspect
of that that was going on as well, Like, you know, should
reality trump your own management of the game or in game tactics separate from like
who you're playing? I guess, and this ties back to a conversation you're
having NF it was last time or not. It's hard for me to believe
in this day and age. I guess that the managerial levers you can pull
are gonna have a big enough impact that you'd expect to see the sort of
difference, Like I would expect the changes that you can make to make a
difference on the fringes, but not to have such a dramatic impact on your
team. It's interesting, you know, I I definitely see that point um,
But there is this tension between how much player control you want to add
to in game management and then like, if the outcomes are your fault,
I think it's clearly clearly addressing what that means, right, Yeah, yeah,
I agree, And I think I think that's a little bit of it.
Is, like, I think some of the pushback here in this case
is the black boxing nature of scoresheet, the simulation, yeah stuff, because
if you give too much away, then it takes some of the fun out
of it, right, right, But if you don't give any information,
then people are like, what the heck's going on? Yeah? Yeah,
um, yeah, I think that's it's an interesting challenge. So, you
know, I think it's something that we will probably return to you again and
again as we kind of refine our philosophical discussion of scores sheet. Yeah.
I think the other thing that I always come away with or try to remind
myself about when we have these kinds of discussions is it's very easy for us
to sort of sit here and ponder the hypothetical, or you know, for
people on scoresheet talk to point out specific instances where things didn't really happen the
way they expected. But it's very difficult to go through and resolve all these
questions and take a stance on which way you think it should work and then
set something up. And I think we probably would do well to remember that.
And I at least give like the Barton some credit for you know,
I think you can tell like they've been fairly thoughtful about most of these things,
regardless of whether you agree with the decision they came to the thought process
that got them there. Like, there are very few of these things that
happen where they're just sort of like, oh yeah, we just sort of
whimsically chose something, right. They usually have like some kind of thought process
or there's something that was happening in like the mid eighties that I inspired them.
But um, right, even what I see as for calcit Trens sometimes
is it like you're right, like it spawned from you know, like making
a decision on this on a topic that has to apply to everyone, and
doing what they thought would be the best thing given all of the factors that
they needed to consider, right, and the factor of actually building and maintaining
ASSIST, which is extremely extremely challenging. Right, So yeah, yeah,
I completelygue that, And I mean, to their credit, you know,
whenever stuff like this comes up on scores you talk, they chime in with
with the what the reasons are, and it's never oh, this just felt
right, or it's almost never this just felt right. There's always some something
behind it, even even here, um Jeff Chimpsen, and this one for
anyone who didn't see so he gave three reasons for why the Chiple pitchers might
be coming in before other people the woll Pin, and one of them was
what you were saying before Ian about them the early Sennings to be as the
reliever. There's two other ones that I thought, um, just to say
what they were. One was, there's a limit of eight real pictures that
can be used in a single game, So an picture, it's a picture.
Triple adn't know that either, Yeah either, Um your hooks to point
to five. Yeah, yeah, so that's yeah. Interesting. But again,
I mean to your point that there was a choice that they made,
and I'm sure we you know, they have some reasons behind it, but
they didn't arbiture it. Jist. I'm pretty sure. I'm India, Sorry,
I have sorry, I'm gonna interrupt you. Uh. I wonder how
that's going to impact situations where like the roster construction continues to change, or
like some of the things that we had talked about before. Yeah, like
earlier on when we were talking about like major league roster requirements and how they
might impact the sim. But like if the sim had already had a limit
on number of pictures per game, maybe we over blew the magnitude of the
shift or whatever. Anyway, sorry, go ahead, j yeah, no,
and any other one. And this is one I think we didn't know.
But it's new as of twenty twelve that short relievers can't come in before
the fourth inning. They can only be used um after so um, just
another reason why ripley picture may come in right. And as as starting pictures
pitch fewer and fewer innings, you may see more and more situations like that.
M Um. Yeah, all right, Well that was comprehensive. Also
comprehensive the best things we see each week. That's a segue covering all the
best things that we see each week. Um. So with that in mind,
man, what is the best thing you saw this week? Avengers endgame?
Actually, U, so I won't spoil it for anybody. Actually saw
it twice, once with my wife, which was lovely, and once with
some friends, which was also fun. You know, it wasn't I saw
it within like two days of each other, due to some unfortunate timing.
But it wasn't the kind of a movie where like two days later there's like
a whole bunch of things that you noticed. But it was good. I
think I enjoy all of the like Marvel Cinematic Universe stuff, probably because it
reminds me of like childhood and comic books and trading cards and stuff that maybe
Jared will remember too, because that was right around when we were sort of
getting to know each other. But I'll just say, without like spoiling anything
that there, I thought the movie did an awesome job of balancing plot,
action and comic relief and then also like genuinely emotional moments and true to everything.
It becomes like the best thing that I saw. I realized too,
that watching these movies now as a father totally shifts, like the things that
get to me, or like the way that I perceive certain scenes, or
like something like that. It's like anytime something dramatic happens, basically like I
can tell that I'm thinking about it differently, You're looking at differently or whatever
based on this, like totally a different perspective on the world. So no
appreciation for Fatherhood through of all things, a Marvel movie, So that's good.
I recommend it. If you've seen the other movies, or like enough
of some of the other movies to think that they'd be entertaining, then I
think you'll like it. Even though it's some Even though its a little bit
long, it definitely moves pretty quickly. There's always like stuff going on.
It's not like you come out of there and you're like it should have been
half an hour shorter. Even though it's like a three hour movie or something
like that. It's good, much different than any NBA basketball game I've seen
recently. Yeah, the whole matter. So um, I haven't seen the
second movie yet, but um, just no spoilers, but um, everyone
from who died in the first movie stays dead for the entire movie, right,
and they never come back and nothing ever there half the universe remains dead
at the end of the second movie. I assume that's what happens. I
don't know. Don't tell me, don't tell me, adam On, No,
I don't want to know. Sorry. I can't even think of anything
clever to stray to that, because it wasn't clever in the first place,
Jared, what is the best thing you saw this week? UM? I
was at I guess, the equivalent of a conference UM, and there was
a speaker, and I'm I guess that's it. I'm generally pretty cynical of
UM speakers and convers of this sort of thing, but this was UM.
I don't know if you or anyone's familiar with Not Impossible labs, Yeah,
yeah, Mick Eberling was there. Ebling, I getting there wrong. I
think UM was there speaking and UM it obviously was a UM talk that he's
given before. I was reading I don't know, I don't know if you
know, given online. I was reading like a Forbes article that was basically
the same essence of the talk. But UM, it was just so inspiring
and uh just I mean, an absolute pleasure to sit through. And and
sometimes I almost felt badly for the organizers of the conference because it was for
a very specific thing and this talk just overshadowed anything else. Like So,
this this converence went for like two and a half days, and I talked
to people afterwards and to when everyone was like, the best thing was this
talk that the Not Impossible as guy gave and it wasn't even close, like
and some stuff just everything else was forgotten because the talk was so inspiring.
And you know, I won't go into the details. The work that he
does is inspiring, and I can't speak to it's effectiveness or anything like that,
but just it was. It was a really good talk to sit there,
and it's it's very infrequently that I think I personally am sitting through a
talk like that and feel inspired or feel like, wow, I really really
got something out of it. So yeah, so look looking it up on
YouTube, it's not or were I to do that later? Not impossible?
Yeah, yeah, the company's non impossible labs. I think the website's not
impossible. And yeah it helped that he was a designer for movie titles,
including a Bond movie, so that's sort of drew me in in the fresh
place. But from their point, he's an interesting dude. I saw him
speak at a SaaS conference, and I agree with everything you said that like
inspiring and interesting and one of us like uh in my also cynical like view.
It's all of those things that is like, it is inspiring, but
like the flip side of that is like, man, I am really wasting
my time here. Yeah, this guy is out here doing some like really
like phenomenal, fantastic things and I'm like, uh, yeah, I took
two naps. Yes, you're like you always got a pre nap. Um,
so jared no spoilers for the speech. But did he threaten to kill
half the world with a snap of his fingers because there were too many resources
being used? It was implied. Okay, okay, again, no spoiler,
don't tell me, don't tell me myself later. Um so, yeah,
I did not watch him enders in Portunate. I've been The best thing
I saw this week was probably a basketball game, and it was probably probably
a four overtime basketball game, but never Nuggets and Portland Trailblazers wanted to get
where like by the end, like Nicola Jokish had melted into the earth like
great and like it like players were just like it did feel like the Western
Front just like this fascinating, fascinating game. I've really enjoyed these playoffs.
Um, you know, I would say the least interesting series of the four
is the one with the ostensible two best teams in basketball right now, so
none of them the Rockets and Warriors of the Bucks Rockets and Warriors. Yeah,
you think that's the least interesting one to me personally, But I feel
like that one got real exciting when when the Rockets tied up. Yeah,
but well that's what I mean. All four of them, I think have
been great and I'm looking forward to great endings. So I've been a little
bit distracted from baseball, but I do have at least one baseball best thing
I saw this week. Um, so I did watch. I've been watching
a few games. I did watch a Cincinnati Reds game a couple of days
ago. I don't know if you have been tracking the one hundred and fifty
year anniversary and Cincinnati Reds. It's pretty cool they have. They've been doing,
you know, a number of like different activities for one hundred and fifth
anniversary professional baseball and of the franchise, and it's really cool to have all
these generations. One of the things they've been doing is that they're going to
be doing is uniforms throughout the years, and that started on the May fourth
game. I think with the uniforms from nineteen O two and the uniform nactin
O two are the best thing I saw this week. They are just it
looked so refreshing. And by the way, to everyone who hasn't read this
some baseball perspectives yet, I recommend highly without reservation Jinny sars article about how
boring baseball uniforms have gotten. And I know I've said it a bunch of
times on this, but it's not just the Patres, It's not just the
Brewers, it's not just the Nationals, the Marlins. They've all of these
teams have moved to like this new insomnia style of like blue, red and
white in different shades and a teal, you know, like the Tampa bay
Rays look like a business card, and there's just no one pushing this game
forward in the way that again, like you see in the NBA. Not
to compare and contrast and say how how exciting the NBA is, but they
are right on the edge on a bunch of things. And one of those
things is, you know, the city uniforms are really exciting. The way
they change the courts is really exciting. I think it lends excitement and interest
to the game to have the teams be a little bit more creative. And
then seeing these players step out and you know, nineteen o two is obviously
freighted in baseball in a lot of ways, because in a lot of ways,
baseball and society is much better than it was then. So when I
say that, you know a few players looked out of place in nineteen o
two uniforms, it's generally for a good reason that they're allowed to wear them
now. But you know, I would say players of all races like they
look like modern players in older uniforms. But the older uniforms look crisp,
and I love the three quarter piping, and they had these nice buttons and
like pockets, and the Cincinnati was actually really good. I would change the
hats a little bit. I would not use nineteen o two hats. But
what I want to point out, because I'm saying all these players looked really
modern, and then you have Joey Vado. I'm going to send this image
to you of Joey Vado in a nineteen o two Cincinnati Reds uniform. Proved
to me that Joey Vado is not, in fact a player from nineteen o
two time traveling to the modern era. I defy. That's the photo of
Tris Speaker, Am I right? It does fit him quite well? Like
right, like Joey Vato died of tuberculosis in nineteen twenty seven. Um No,
it's just like the collars. I would say, everything was really on
point. I think Cincinnati should move to those as the Sunday uniforms. Apparently
they're made out of the same fabric as modern uniforms. It just looks great
and so different and hearkens back to the Red's tradition of being one hundred and
fifty years old. I think it's terrific for them. It's on point,
and I would institute it almost right away. I would consider even making it
the standard home uniform. I'm not a crackpot, I mean the kind of
are but they sure. But yeah, uniforms should be more exciting. I
think we do need to get back to more experimentation. So and if we
to do that by harkening back to the past, then that's the only way
we will be able to go back to the future. M m mm hmm.
That's where we're gonna leave that. Huh yeah. On that note,
any final thoughts, I think you right, absolutely so we would again love
to hear from you at Squoresheet at Baseball Respects dot com. We'll be back
in a couple of weeks, but until then on behalf of Ben Murphy and
Jared Wise. I'm me in left Witz. Thanks again and have a great day.