Howdy and welcome to the Three True Outcomes podcast, presented by Baseball Perspectives.
I'm your host, Ian Leftqwitz and joining me as always from suburban Michigan.
It's Ben Murphy. Ben. How are you doing? Oh far, well,
Mama, I blame Okay, it's a good bet good Okay, I'm
doing Willie, And how are you? Yeah, No, we're doing well.
We're exploring some cookie noises and some some mouth sounds for podcast listeners.
Will uh just wipe that in later, I guess. Um. Meanwhile,
from our nation's capitals, Jared Wise dared, how are you doing? Sadly
devoid of cookies? Other than that, I'm doing well though. Um did
you guys see the the Sesame Street meme? Which good job to the sesame
Street content creator of being abandoned on deserted island? Who do you keep with
you? Oscar Grover Elmo or cookie Monster? Just in case you missed that,
I saw that, But then I saw that the replies were starting to
get pretty dark, and I don't want that. Yeah, well, okay,
so two things. One like Twitter has to be deleted, right,
because yeah, that's like it's sesame Street asking about like cookie and you don't.
You don't need to take this into cannibalism. That's fine. Um number
two, we decided the answer has to be Grover. Um. I don't
know, I don't know where you all landed, but why Grover Um?
Because I can deal with anxiety, but everyone else is like gonna be too
much for an island, like almost too perky, and cookie Monsters too cookie
and Oscars too crutchy. Yeah, and I think Paula Popkins had a right
opinion about cookie Monster, which is like if he cut off the cookies,
what what's sobere cookie Monster? Like, I don't know. Did you read
Cookie monsters ama on Reddit? He seems like a pretty good dude. Okay,
okay, Well that's uh a lot to think about. So So in
today's focused episode, um, we have we have some so of exciting stories
coming up. We are interested in talking about the new rules like everybody else,
but maybe thinking about them with the score sheet perspective. Um, we
will little Uh yeah, didn't you hear do a lipis on? No?
I mean that's a that's a two percenter? Yeah? Yeah, sorry,
I should know my audience a little better. Um. We also have h
well, our version of a National League preview, which is like the others
but worse, and uh then we'll get out of our hair. Mail back,
captain. Is today a quiet week for for us? It's a super
quiet week. It's said, I'm lonely. Do you feel like cookie monster
without cookies? Actually? Yeah, that's probably an aped analogy. Okay,
so how how can you how can we best remedy the situation? You can
also send me cookies, that'd be okay, or you can send an email
to scoresheet at Baseball Perspectives dot com. All right, Oh, and before
I forget some site news, I guess we have ads now, yeah,
we have ads. We should have definitely definitely warned you about that. Holy
holy cats, they're loud. We're looking at it, at it, and
we want to kind of figure out I think if it is worth it for
us and particularly Ben, if it is paying for itself. So we'll find
out. So I will be strangely cut off mid sentence a little later in
this podcast, and we'll figure that out later. Thank you for joining us
on this journey. If any of the listeners are audio engineers and want to
help out, that would be wonderful. Yes, Oh, for sure.
Yeah, I don't know lead like casual tips for like I just usually throw
stuff in audacity and I'm sure it's got some kind of audio leveling in there,
but I don't know how to find it, and I'm too lazy to
search for it myself. What is it Every third person has a podcast at
this point. Maybe you're one of them. Let us know. Um oh,
and I have I have one more note. Um, So, I
don't know if you've been looking through the Baseball Perspective slack channel, but one
of the things that they have put together that I was just reading because I
am an exciting person right before this podcast, they have they shared the twenty
nineteen Player Name and Pronunciation Guide MLB. Oh that's good, which is super
fascinating. Yeah, you should probably have it for like life. Yeah yeah,
good for talking about baseball players. Um. The thing that strikes me
as very apparent, and we may get to this later in the nationally preview
as well. Um boy, they are really counting on people to have English
as their first language, is Spanish as a second. Just Elby is like,
um, you know, they don't have like Sharber in the pronunciation guide,
but they have like Perez or Panis or like hayeseus, like I know
how Louise is pronounced. At this point, it is twenty nineteen, I've
experienced that name. Um. The one that got me was like right up
early on. Um, so Stefan Crichton. Um. They do a pronunciation
guide for his name, formerly of the Baltimore Reals now Arizona Diamondbacks. Um,
but only Stefan. So I was just wondering, do they think that
everybody in baseball has read Jurassic Park? Seems plausible? I buy it.
So yeah, definitely, um, definitely the most exciting document I read today.
Oh yeah, that's pretty good. I like this. Um, so
we can we can continue throughout throughout the podcast with that. But before we
do that, let's, uh, let's move on to the rules. So
everyone like, we're not breaking news for anyone, right, Uh. I
totally didn't just be we're probably breaking I definitely didn't look them up while you
were just ranting about whatever the pronunciation thing was. I was MLB cut for
summary. Uh that's not open on my browser right now. So for right
audience of one, I like to think I'm the every man here. Yeah,
that's that's fair that I think you provide right, you provide the every
man perspective that this podcast is sorely lacking. Um yes, uh okay,
So I guess we should introduce the rules, the role changes. I think
everyone knows, but UM do we just want to like quickly talk about our
feelings about them. So just the extremely quick breakdown, right, is that
UM. In twenty nineteen, so aning breaks are going to be shortened,
the waiver tread deadline is eliminated. UM all starting home in Derby nonsense.
Mountain visits are reduced from six to five, which you know will change everything.
Twenty twenty there will be bigger changes. So the active roster is going
to grow from twenty five to twenty six. The September roster is going to
go down from forty to twenty eight. Players are going to have to be
fielders or pitchers, and a certain amount of pitchers are going to be capped
as an assigned to the roster. The injured list which is the former DL,
and the option period is going from ten days to fifteen, so you
can't screw around with options in the same way, and the three batter minimum,
so relievers are going to be forced to either complete inning or finished three
batters. Um. So, Jared, you have time. You've had time
to digest this, so while Ben is having time to digest cookies. What
was your take when you first heard these rules coming down the pike. Um,
I guess it, generally speaking, I was kind of surprises, to
be honest, I don't know. I think in the sense that baseball tends
to not have rule changes much less like that other significant but like notable ones
all at once. So I guess I was surprised to see him. I
don't know that it moves the needle or anything that much, but I was
surprised to see baseball taking any sort of action. Yeah, you mean other
than like forming exploratory committees right for the next decade, right, Yeah?
Yeah, we will see if stepping out of the box is okay, and
we'll study that for fifteen years. Yeah. You know, I'm of two
minds about this. As we talked about I guess you know past podcast is
I am probably a little less precious about the rules than most and more into
the burn it down and fix everything territory, move fast break things. Yeah,
but like to me, this feels like fiddling in search of an answer.
It doesn't seem like the fixing the thing that is actually broken. You
know, I didn't hear you mentioned, but in the thing that I was
totally not just reading, they said that as part of the active roster going
up from twenty five to twenty sixth, there is an um as yet undecided
cap on the number of pictures that each team can carry. He mentioned that,
Okay, okay, yeah, and there are there are some scoresheet implications
behind that, so you know, we can get into that briefly. Um,
I think we should finish with the MLB level implications. Yeah, I
guess. I was also surprised at how um they at least seem on the
surface like they might be like meaningful changes, right. I think some people
have quantified some of them and said like, oh, that's probably not going
to impact as many situations as you think. But um, like Jared,
I was a little surprised at how um more, how much more they were
than I'm used to baseball being as like an institution or whatever. The other
thing I was wondering, And I guess I don't know if you guys are
familiar or not. Had they done anything to try to themselves quantify or prospectively
like as these things come up, like try to measure and evaluate the impact
of these changes, or is it like as as much as it seems just
sort of like shooting in the dark. I don't know exactly how to answer
that, but I think the one the answer I have off the top of
mind is yes, they have basically entered into a partnership with the Atlantic League
and forced the Atlantic League to start doing more severe changes and are going to
use it as a test kitchen for them going forward, Which is not to
say that these changes have been evaluated, but yeah, I think any in
the future will be. It seems weird to say, oh, you need
to have a place where we can test some of these things before implementing them.
But oh, by the way, here's like eight real changes that we
haven't tested yet that we're going to implement in the next two years. And
it's very fascinating because like, um, you know, as a effectively wild
a podcast you should probably be listening to in addition to Slash instead of this
one mentioned some of the language on this is like a little slippery and I
haven't quite like locked down like some of the what they mean, like you
know, there will be pictures. Some of the players will be pictures.
There will be a cap on them, and we'll talk about the cap later,
like, okay, well what's a picture? Yeah. I do sort
of wonder if that's intentional, though, Yeah, it says on this one
that so again I'm reading the MLB cut for so many teams will have to
designate players as either fielders or pitchers or if there's someone like Shahiotani a two
way player, otherwise their rules and when a fielder can enter the game as
a picture. So they're basically trying to make sure that pictures are less specialized,
basically like less effective as a US. Right. Well, it's interesting
to me because I don't I don't quite see the point of it yet other
than there was like a scourge of position player pitching uh last season, which
is, you know, awesome. Yeah, I was gonna say, it's
so entertaining. So I guess the interest is in making baseball like slightly less
awesome by adding twenty game arbitrary rules. And I mean I may have talked
once or twice on this podcast about how I feel about arbitrary twenty game requirements,
So I don't yeah, I wasn't like a super fan of that that
particular distinction. I think it like it makes more sense and concert if they
are going to try to ratchet down the number of pitchers who have spots and
maybe force more two way players, which seems exciting. But a number of
two way players, then like, why wouldn't you just designate the like for
position players that are your best garbage time pitchers as two way players or whatever?
Right, So this is saying they have to actually pitch. You can't
just destignate them. Yeah, that's fine. So you just make sure they
get in some kind of garbage time at some point so that they keep their
designation. But they would have to be in twenty games, I suppose.
Okay, So it's it's a chald right. It's one of those things that
like it's hard for me to understand how Shoheo Tani ever becomes a two way
player again, because it seems like there's a lot of pressure for him not
to be once he has become like a DH this year, because then he'll
will have to be designated as a a field or a pitcher next year,
and then you know, based on that there will be restrictions on when he
can come in or play. Is it possible that baseball hates fun? I
think I think the love and hate of fun is tangential to the rule.
It's like not a consideration one way or the other. Yeah, Or they
are trying to think about fun in the sense of maximizing like play per minute
as opposed to like, you know, cool stuff happening during the game,
which is a little longer. So you know, that's definitely an angle.
But they are I think laser focused on pace of play. I for me,
you know, I think some of the manipulation around pitching is interesting,
but I feel like they are just going to be a little less dra conient
about it than I want, and it's actually going to cause some negative repercussions.
Like I think I have a feeling they are going to force every team
to have thirteen pictures from now on, and it doesn't feel like that's the
answer. That's what Nate Silver thought we should do, like not thirteen specifically,
but right it wasn't that thing that he run on five thirty years about.
Yeah, Well, I think they should restrict pictures or the number of
pictures in a game as well, or well, I think they shouldn't actually
restrict number of pictures in a game, which I haven't seen people talking a
lot. But to me, it seems like the actual problem, and it
seems like the answer to a number of related problems, which is too many
one pictures, which I think is more insidious than too many one batter pictures.
I think too many breaks, too many anonymous relievers. I think if
we are more restrictive of pictures per game, that seems to get more at
the answer. But I think they're more interested in pictures on the roster at
one time. Do you think I was thinking five or six, with maybe
the other pictures designated for um like extra endings. If a game goes extra
endings, you can the rest of the roster can play. What if it's
like a blowout and dudes are just getting shelect okay, yeah, but like
okay, you need some kind of like exception for that, just like for
extra endings, yeah, or some negative like what is the negative consequence if
they have to blow the well, like I think at some point you get
an allowance for more pictures available if a single picture has like pitched a certain
number of pitches without getting outs or maybe just a number of pitches in total,
but like or batter's faced or whatever. Yeah, yeah, they're not
going to do it. It's it's interesting, but to me, that feels
more like the thing that they are trying to maximize and like putting pressure on
the roster to be like we're going to force thirteen or eleven or ten pitchers.
Just it doesn't seem to quite get at it or a little more tangentially,
and I feel like the twenty six man roster with thirteen pitchers is going
to be actively bad in some ways because not every team has thirteen pitchers now
and it's just bringing in bringing in room for one more like one inning pitcher,
which again, these are generally like anonymous players who are striking out everybody.
And I do think that is kind of the scourge of the game.
And I think that wasn't the NME slver article. I kind of agree with
that, and you know, I think we could pivot to the scoreshet implications
soon too, and it is it's interesting there as well. I don't know
if anyone has any other thoughts about the rules as they stand. No,
Yeah, so you know, I think thinking about this from a score sheet
perspective, it's the roster stuff is really the most interesting to me because it
does it is going to change the game that we play, maybe somewhat imperceptibly,
but probably a little bit more than than even in real baseball, just
because again, real baseball, they have the option lists, and they have
minor league and farm systems and independent leagues, and they can get an infinite
supply of players and we can't. So as the active roster grows, it's
going to change the game a little bit, I think certain in certain ways,
probably ways that we would like. In certain ways, it'll make things
a little harder. So you know, I think, first of all,
moving from twenty five players to twenty six means obviously that more innings and at
bats are going to be leached out in the system, right, which is
kind of already a problem. Like if you look at the way, what
is it like a third more pitchers have pitched in two thousand nineteen than like
twenty years ago. It like this, I don't have the study in front
of me, but it's spiked pretty significantly even recently, and so you have
all of these innings like just leaving the system and in the meantime, you
have benches shortening and shortening, and you have at bats leaving the system,
and you know, like we were looking today at drafting a second baseman in
one of our leagues, and there were no second basement left. You know
that there just aren't like backups at any position, so you just like draft
the guy in triple A and hope the starter gets hurt. I guess.
So I think in that sense, moving from twenty five to twenty six may
help. You know, are we going to see more? I guess the
question is what are we going to see out of that twenty six man?
Right? Like, as benches grow by one player, because most teams I
think have thirteen pitchers at this point, which is depressing but true. So
if the benches themselves grow by one player, does that mean we are going
to see more defined roles? I guess, Like will we go back to
infielder, outfielder, catcher, person who can hit, or will teams just
take you know, like every day's gonna go Yeah, I get to keep
my third emergency catcher and then call it a day. I think it's going
to be a mix of stuff, depending on the players that are available and
the teams. Yeah, it's gonna say. I think this savvy of the
front office is going to play a factor there, and you're gonna see some
differentiation early on and then probably some conformity after you know, season yeah two.
Yeah, And you know, I think there's an aspect to this that
is exciting. Like it has gotten more and more difficult to find platoon partners
for your left handed hitting players, you know, especially in fielders, but
also outfielders, you know it, it's more difficult to do some of that
eighty style roster management with the team these with teams these days, and maybe
carrying an extra position player is going to allow you should be a little more
artful about taking players out, about having pinch hitting, you know, like
it's the things on the margins that are like extremely impactful to a game,
like score sheet, you know, which is kind of based on I'm not
sure if I agree with it, but I don't have any evidence to back
it up. It doesn't feel like pinch hitters and like lead any defensive replacements
have that much of an impact. But I no, I think that's fair.
I think it's more I would say, more impact on your roster construction
than impact on the game like you can as a manager. I think you
will be able to make more choices in season. I think that would be
true if the in game controls allowed that sort of flexibility. I think the
problem is that like in game controls don't allow you to really have like finite
control over like give you enough specificity in those different situations to be able to
like use those extra assets in a way that's that impactful, like so that
it wouldn't the fact that you can't make those in game tactical decisions in real
time means that it's much harder to leverage the value that those like roster construction,
flexibility, whatever would give you. And like, I don't think.
I don't think that would be like the place where it changes. I think,
like I agree with what you're saying about like playing time and the other
opportunities, but I think, you know, in terms of the like more
nuanced stuff, I don't. I don't know. My hunch would be that
I wouldn't have that big of an impact, Like I said, I have
no evidence for that. Yeah, none of us do, including all By,
So I don't know. So there's also you know, moving the minimum
injured list an optional list, which is happening now from ten days to fifteen.
Again, I think like by restricting the set of relievers a little bit
more and trying to rain that in a little bit, I do think it
will make scoresheet a little better. I don't like, I think the game
works better if there are fewer relievers getting innings per season. Yeah. I
don't know if this is going to have a big impact on that, but
you know, every little bit helps. I guess it's part of the decrease
of the forty person arrester to make it so that it's harder to use the
injured list as like a shuttle taxi squad type of thing. I think they're
unrelated, but I do think, yes, I think by and large,
yeah, the twenty cutting the forty man roster to twenty eight is only four
September, and that's only the major leagues. Um yeah, but yeah,
I think gets to prevent the Los Angeles Dodgers from using their team like using
their farm system like a Texas squad, and maybe other teams as well,
but really the Dodgers. Yeah, Um, cutting from forty to twenty eight
in September is to me a mild bummer but they are not playing. They
like MLB does not really care about like my love of seeing like a Koy
Dixon and John Lindsay get three at bats in September and finally make the major
leagues. That's not like other other than me, and like the families of
those players. I guess no one is really caring. But I like I
do like cups of coffee. I thought it was fun. Um, I
didn't think it was a big packed on the game, but yeah, I
mean I agree, I think it is fun to heather, there's that,
but I don't know. I think it's It's always been crazy to me that
the September Rusters are just so different. I think from a game perspective,
it doesn't make sense. That's fair, that's fair by September. I'm like,
bring on the thing that is different. But sure, yes, I
can see if you actually care about a team that is in contention back getting
annoying. Fortunately none of us have. That's too much experience in that matter.
So the three batter minimum I think has gotten the most the most play,
even though I don't think it's the most impactful of these by far.
But I guess it's the one that will have the most impact on an individual
game. And there are a couple of questions here about how scoresheet is going
to handle us, Like one, you know, do we think the real
life rule is going to affect score sheet? And to how do we think
scores sheets should implement the real life rule? Um? So just to take
them out a time? Um? So do you do either of you think
this will change scores sheet anyway? Moving by team scores sheet? Um,
do you think like fewer lugi's is going to impact roster construction? I don't
think materially it will. I think to find the best relievers that Yeah.
Yeah, I kind of agree, And I kind of think this is true
even in real life. I don't think that many players are going to like
lose their jobs or have their jobs change. This seems like a very mild
um position to me, especially since you know, if there are two outs,
you can put in your lugie. Right. Yeah, the part of
the role seems weird to me, But I mean, you're good all teams
are going to have the left in the bullpen or like the second length the
bullpen. I don't Yeah, I don't think this changes that much. Yeah,
right, And I don't think mid ating pitching changes were really like the
You know, I guess right, just because something is not at the biggest
problem doesn't mean you can't fix it. But sure, I didn't really see
the sense of problem at all, to be perfectly honest, No, I
agree. Now let me ask, So, I've heard some people talk about
liking it because it adds additional strategy to the game in terms of managers.
Now I'm making having to make more or different decisions about pitchers. Do you
agree that, and does that impact your view of this change? I guess
I haven't actually thought of it that hard. I suppose it is. Maybe
it will. I guess what is the implication that they're managers are going to
have to decide whether going that putting in a player is worth it if they're
facing two lefties and the third righty. Yeah, or you know, there's
two outs and you put your lefty in, but he doesn't get that out
and then stable for the manager to have to consider. Yeah, yeah,
I could see that. I right, it's probably a different set of constraints,
right, it's not like a better one, but maybe it is.
I think it'll make like top tier lefties marginally better, or lefty hitters marginally
better, which is good. I guess many of the best hitters, or
like a disproportionate number of the best hitters, are left handed, so it's
probably better for MLB to get their numbers slightly higher and to have them,
you know, have more impact in big situations. But you're probably still gonna
like angle things to have the left handed hitter face Jim Tommy, if you
know what I mean. It also seems likely that amongst the managers, it's
not going to change how we differentiate them, Like the savvy managers are going
to be able to handle it, and the Mike Matheinis are going to bungle
it, just like you would expect. And it's just another maybe data point
in how you would build evidence about whether a manager was competent and you know,
capable of handling the strategic opportunities in front of him. But it doesn't
seem to me like it's gonna drastically change some of that math for people,
right, It's true, I guess we have a different set of managers now
like the managers are ten years ago. Like a couple that would lars out
there and two outs, just like walking to the mound without like before realizing
m Yeah, Like, I don't know. I think this is one that's
a little wait and see. So I guess my next question is, should
scores sheet do this? Yes, scores sheet should do this, okay because
you think it would mirror real life baseball. Yes, because that's scores sheets
if not stated at least implied intention. Yeah, but would you really put
this ahead of other things on the list of things that you would want to
have scoresheet implement. I mean, I guess it depends what else is on
the list, but it seems pretty important based on what scores Sheet is now,
right, So you're saying it's probably more important than even some of the
changes we'd like to see scores She'd make, just because it's a fork from
the rules of baseball. Yes, that's less fun than other changes, don't
get me wrong, and parting we would rather would have more fun with similar
stuff. But I think so long as scores sheet is going to be attempting
to murror baseball, then it should attempt to murror baseball. Okay, And
like to you, having the ability to hook at point two five is just
not like it's not worth the m that advantage, or I guess the hook
at point two five could just end after three batters, right, yeah,
that no matter what? Or three batters at the end of the half ending?
Yeah? Um. Does it feel like you would have less control?
As Ben said, like the control you have over your in game decisions is
a little bit like second order, right, Like you don't have immediate tactical
control over the team, but you can set preferences that the simulation then kind
of implements. I think second orders agree we describing that. I like that,
Thank you m right. Do you do you feel like this will add
another constraint, like distorting the impact that you can have setting the lineup sheet?
Sure? Yeah, maybe a little bit, but I mean that's that's
how the system is set up right now, right, So that's just the
way it is. Yes, it doesn't mean I'm happy about it, but
some things will never change. Do you think it's just a difference in how
you set your hooks or do you think it's like an actual, like new
parameter about like does this picture enter an ending with you know, less than
two outs or whatever? This reliever? Jared, I think the way you
were saying it was a parameter, right, Yeah, that rather rather than
like put the control on the user's side and like force the user to have
minimum point seventy five, just like create a rule that even if the hook
is point two five, even a zero, if the picture comes in they're
facing three batters or until that into the happening. Yeah, I meant more
that it would change how you think about setting the hook numbers because you know
that the picture has to face the minimum of three batters, like you might
hook oh pictures lower when you're entering the hook numbers because the assumption is that
they're probably gonna end up facing more batters in general than you would really want
them to. Yeah, that's a good point. I would do that.
Yeah. Yeah, that sounds like a really good idea. Free advice,
all right, Hot tips for twenty twenty. Just have to implement it in
scoresheet and then we've got some great advice for you to have to play the
three edible game that does not quite exist yet. That's what I'm here for.
That sounds like sounds like my calling. Yeah, it sounds like a
good idea. Yeah. So anything else about well, yeah, I mean
I think we don't talk about too much. You can say for anything.
But I think to me this raises a couple of interesting questions. Is one
of which is, you know, what what do we or what do people
want out of a sim? Do they wanted to mirror Baseball exactly? Or
do you want the option of playing around with your own changes like this um?
Or are the ones you know, UM subtle or large? Because you
can imagine sim where you have the option of changing this rule not or changing
whatever other rules? So this should you know? Do you do people want
a sim exactly like baseball or do you want the ability to play around with
stuff? Right? And I guess the example would be in particular, Out
of the Park seems to be the like dominant simulation in this sphere, being
able to change a bunch of rules off and on both I guess in terms
of like lineup and roster construction, and also um, you know, I
think rules about how the game is played. If I recall, they have
a pretty experience setting screen that is filled with a lot of I was gonna
say, I tried to get into Out of the Park and it was kind
of overwhelming. So I think my best case scenario for something like this is
that there's options for customization, but the defaults are available to let it just
run like MLB, and there's like some depth to how the different parameters are
defined in the different options for customizing how it works, so that there's like
a you know, like beginner sort of level of like here are some of
the tweaks that you might want to make at first, and there's like a
spectrum that starts there at the beginning of level, then goes to something more
complicated or sophisticated, you know, at the other end of the spectrum,
and that you know, the sims should sort of guide somebody through the fact
that not all of these options are created equal and it should be easy for
somebody who wants to have it be as close to Major League a small as
possible to just sort of dive in and have that experience. Right. I
think one of the things to think about is that I think every customer,
every customization that you add, means you have to like test the range of
customization, so it like it's a simple choice that makes the ultimate algorithm much
more complex and then also provides humans a the possibility of gaming the system a
little bit more easily. Yeah, I think developing something like that would be
very onerous, right, like what I described, Sorry, developing the thing
that I described would be very time consuming. But yeah, Jared's question was,
like, what do you want to some of them? Because like right,
well, because like Out of the Park is heavily on customization side.
Yeah, but um, I can also like destroy the computer in that game
over probably like you know, a season or two and I'm winning one hundred
ten games a year. It was just smarty pants over here. Yeah,
it was the last time you had a squashy team in that mini games.
Maybe we should start a different podcast two seventeen, right, our Murphy team
won one hundred and eight. Gonna hang out to that, okay, right,
yeah, my points. Yeah, it's my second question though, do
you think um so you talked about how MLB is using the Atlantic League for
testing out some of these changes. Do you think for something like say the
the three better rule that MLB has a sim or tested out in something like
and out of the Park or something related or in do you think that is
something that is worth considering for a way to test some of the stuff out.
That seems amazing and I want to play it. I think that's a
good idea. And it comes from like the business side of your head,
not the like baseball fan side of your head, because the baseball fan side
of your head would realize that, like that's not how they rule. But
yeah, I think I think it makes a lot of sense. I would
be surprised if they had taken the time or been able to find something that
allowed them to like look at the confluence of all these things, because I
think I think the thing that makes it difficult is not that any one of
these things is a challenge to quantify or understand. Right, you can look
and see, like how many pictures face fewer than three batters. That's very
trivial. The thing that's difficult is looking at when you do that and you
change the roster size, and you change the cap on number of pictures on
the roster, and you change you know, whatever else. It is like
as those things accumulate and like start interest secting, that's where it becomes complicated,
and that's where like the unintended consequences happened. I don't think I guess
I say this without knowing exactly what you can do and outside the park,
but like I'd be a little bit surprised if Emily be Head gone to that,
to that like that's a good idea. Yeah, Like maybe they might
have done it just the way you would like create a situation and AlSi because
it seems to me less like simulating the game of baseball than more like just
thinking about the ramifications. So I am just imagining a whiteboard and a lot
of post it notes. Is it one of those like actual white boards or
is it one of the like clear glass boards like the people in Numbers had
like fifteen years ago numb three years numbers. Yeah, the television show.
Um, yeah, great question. I think it's probably more sophisticated than post
it notes on a whiteboard. But you know, I don't think it would
have been easy to look at the confluence of all things. I think they
probably did quantify what they think the impact of each of the things would be,
and they sort of held their thumb up and we're like, Okay,
that looks like it's going to be about enough of an adjustment for what we
want and not too much, and like we're not worried about them, you
know, creating some kind of unintended situation. But that's just my hunch.
Okay, Yeah, I mean it's interesting. There's a lot to come,
and you know, I look forward to seeing how these changes affect both the
real baseball game and our fake baseball game, both of which we left.
Yeah, before we move on, just one note. I did scroll down
in the Cut four to the featured headlines, and the top headline currently on
Cut four is Greg bird homeward off Jalen Beaks in True Avian Showdown. So
I just wanted to give cut fuller props for for that headline, which may
be the headline of the year and it's only March. Yeah. Sorry,
you just bring that up because you want to us to talk about fantasy birding.
Oh sure, Um, where did I see this? I sent this
to you and I forgot already where we found it. Oh dead Spin,
Yes, dead Spin. If you missed this, Google go to dead Spin
and search for fantasy burdening, which is a thing. Um. I don't
know if it's quite as strange as a Fantasy SNL league, which we are
in, but definitely fantasy birding is is a pretty close approximation of my work
life and home life. So it's confusing to me. Um, I will
say, uh, and yeah, if you're if fantasy birding sounds like a
thing to you. It does sound like about the best game fantasy birding that
you can possibly make. So yeah, God bless um. So meanwhile,
I think we wanted to briefly do season previews over the next couple of weeks.
UM. But because we are you know, probably not your first option
for season previews, we will probably be a little quicker and a little more
loose about it. Um. And And to start, I think we wanted
to go by league this week. We want to talk about the nationally because,
as I say, saved the best for last UM, So we wanted
to just briefly talk about you know, what have you, what we're looking
forward to? UM, what we think have we think the season's gonna go.
Um. And to start kick us off, I think we're gonna go
to our man on the street, the average the average fan's opinion himself.
What are you? What is your Nation league preview? UM? So when
I look into a season preview, I like to keep it at a high
level. I'm not a fan of anyone particular team, but as much as
I'm a fan of baseball, I like drama and excitement, So I'm looking
for situations where there's gonna be, especially like late in this season, really
exciting pennant races or you know, divisional wildcard races. And that's why I
think the National League is so fun. Um. I know, last year
it was like super intense and at least at times and then obviously resolves by
the end of the season, but also like a lot of unexpected things can
happen. And one of the things that I've noticed is that the projected standings
depending on where you go, very pretty wildly in a lot of situations.
I think almost everybody has the Dodgers in the West, but you know,
in the Central and the East, projection and systems are sort of all over
the place in terms of who they think is going to be the best team
and how good they're going to be. And you know, I think there's
sort of a consensus that the whatever team wins each division, it's going to
be somewhere between you know, like eighty six and ninety wins or something like
that. But you know, depending on where you look, you'll see,
you know, in the Central either Cubs or Cardinals or Brewers obviously in the
East, Phillies or Nationals. I even saw Braves in a couple of places.
So I just think, like, from the highest level perspective, the
National League will be pretty exciting to see how all those different teams shake out.
And you know, whether the Cubs end up proving pacoda or wrong.
Uh, you know how the Phillies, um, you know free agent rebuild
went, how the youth coming up for the Nationals ends up doing all those
kinds of things. I think, um, you know, I'd be interesting
to see it. And that's that's sort of the extent of my National League
preview. And I think that's that's a good sort of one minute take for
the casual almost fan used to be fan, has has has been fan.
We need to amalgamate that into something more clever. But you get what I'm
saying. That was a surprisingly upeat. Well you expected it to be more
sour and cynical. I don't know what I expected. But the world is
ending in the National League is trash. The Dodgers are gonna win. Yeah,
Dared just thought I was going to be more down on things. That's
how I feel. Um, yeah, no, that I think that's true.
I think there's a lot too. Uh, there's lots like about the
National League, which leads me to my first question. I think you were
talking about different protection systems. Um, what would like annoy Cubs fans the
most this season? Like, do you think they should end the season?
I'm thinking last day of the season, like they have seventy nine wins and
they should like actually have to figure out whether they want to win eighty and
then they can go like see told you so, which I feel like would
be really so many jokes some on Yeah. I mean. The other thing
that's interesting is like a lot of these projection systems have the gap between the
best team and the worst team except for the Marlins. I guess, um,
maybe like the worst team in the West, you know, especially in
the Central like five teams all pretty close together. If it ends up being
that, like five teams are separated by ten games at the end of the
season, that's going to feel like, I think, a pretty exciting run
right down to the finish. So right, I think you can like fourteen
teams are currently going for it, yeah, which is um which is probably
on the part of some teams, but yeah, totally um So, Jared,
any high level thoughts do you want to start going division by division?
H yeah, I mean we can just I mean, the only division thing
is I don't even I was gonna say this is a warm take, but
I don't even know if it is. And maybe I'm just it's because I'm
in the uh the Naly's territory. But I sort of going to say that
the Central is going to be more exciting than the East. Yeah, I
think the ESSENTI will be more exciting than the East. Two. Um,
it's interesting. I don't know that I agree with that. I think it's
going to be probably tighter race. I feel like, wait, what do
we mean by exciting then? To me, well, to me, it's
not just the race. I think the NALY East has the more fascinating teams.
To me, the better teams, like the more talented teams, more
talented and perhaps more flawed, um, and easier to troll fan basis,
So in that sense, like somebody is going to be miserable, so somebody's
easier to troll than Cubs fans. Those kids are not that easy to troll
because they have expected losing for a very long time and now they expect winning
for a very long time, and it's just it's hard. I think I
believe in you. Yeah, you've got a lot of practice trolling baseball fans.
Thank you, Jared. With any particular storylines that you thought of for
the NL Eastern Central um that made you decide that, like your warm take
was that the Central would be more exciting, Um, I mean, I
don't. I don't know about the storylines in general. Just I guess I've
been hearing a lot of how any team can win the in the least,
but I think that Marlins can. But any team could win the inal Central.
H Wait, the Reds could win the Innal Central. Yeah, I'm
not saying they will, but I think I could build a reasonable case for
it without like I think able the reason the case for it that that's not
totally insane. Yeah, I think it's easier for me to build a case
for the Reds and the Pirates at this point. Actually, that's fair.
I'm seeing a couple of people have the Pirates worse than the Reds, but
like a bunch of a bunch of places have like all of like both of
them in the well and whatever the other that third place team is like right
around five hundred. Yeah, I think the Pirates probably have a higher four
than the Reds do, but maybe a lower ceiling. So I think I
could see a way that the Reds break out basically if they're pitching just all
comes together at once, um, which does not seem likely. But you
know, no, But I mean that's why sometimes I think it's it's more
useful to think of these things instead of even looking at just projected when the
losses is like the distribution of possible outcomes, and something like the Reds I
think has a much much more variation. You know, it's got a wider
distribution than some of these other teams are. Yeah, are there any teams
that you like more or less than let's say your standard projection system or consensus?
I have some in the chamber. Yeah, if that works. Um,
I don't think the Rockies are going to be very good this year,
and I think I don't know that that's such a what is your barometer for
very good? Yeah? I think I think there are. I put it
this way, I think there are a lot more ways that things go wrong
and right for them, because if you look at what the Rockies are fundamentally
is just like a team based around the success of young pitching. And to
me, that does not seem like a super long term strategy for success,
particularly course fields. But you do it because it Colorado, because it's young
pitches, because I mean a lot of people are high on Marquees and Freeland
was you know good. So why do you think that I just remember the
Mets from twenty fifteen or even the Bravest from a couple of years. It's
just, you know, if you have strength and young pitching, that like
the thing the simulation can't really project is like how many arms get shredded in
a season? Oh? I good? But yeah, yeah, like it
I'm short, right, Like if you do Monte carl like you can,
and I'm sure there's more variability in the Rockies performance. But you know,
I like, I think the arms in general, and I think these arms
in particular. It it seems worrying to me. I think I kind of
like the Diamonbacks better. Um, the Diamondbacks who have like essentially forgotten to
fill a couple positions. But um, but I don't see the NLST as
being super competitive. To be honest, I don't know if there's on the
Diamondbacks though, right It's it's a good question. I think, Um,
we will talk about that a little bit. But like in terms of breakout
players, I think could tell Marte might be a player that I like.
Um, I think I could see David pral To holding his games. Um
it's you know, it's hard to imagine like a really great experience for them,
But I think they have enough players who I think are interesting enough.
I could see Weaver and John Duplantier coming up perhaps being interesting. I think
they are kind of volatile players with some skills. I think Robbie Ray could
be great. You know, he struck out I think the most players in
spring training. I think he's walked among the most players in spring training as
well. So maybe it's the full Robbie Ray experience, but I think he
was, you know, severely under valued last year. I don't know.
I'm not gonna talk myself into the Diamonbacks so much as I think both teams
are gonna be about five hundred and I think people have more hope for the
Rockies than that the Diamondbacks got a pretty great new outfielder. Uh oh yeah,
no, that took me a second. I don't know if I'm going
to get used to that yet. Um, So that that is Adam Jones,
formerly of the Baltimore Orioles. Always at the Baltimore, always in the
Baltimore Orioles. Yeah, formerly of the Seattle Mariners. That's very get out
of here. Um. And in terms of like teams that I see outperforming
their projection is it is a ghost to say the Cubs depends on which projection.
Um. Yeah, what about the Cardinals. Um, it's a good
question. Like if their young pitching stays healthy, it seems like their offense
is gonna be good. Right, Yeah, I agree, And there's like
there's a lot that's good about their offense. And the Cardinals as always have
like forty players waiting the wings who are just like sixteenth round picks from like
Iowa State, who are like twenty six and ready to hit like thirty home
runs. I don't know exactly how that happens, but I do. Like
I saw Edmundo Sosa it spring training. I was like, oh, you
know, I like him a little bit. Oh god, they just have
a thousand of these players or like Gyramunho is sitting around like too deep and
like, yeah, he could be a starter. M Tyler O'Neill. Right,
they are just like a bunch of players who are good, good,
and deep. Um. I don't love Miles Michelis. I don't really love
Adam Wayne, right. I think Carls Martinez is kind of hurt. I
think Mike Waca is on the way to being hurt. Um. You know,
I don't think that's a surprise. I think that's why the Cardinals aren't
like locks to win this. But it does seem like I was gonna say
house to Cards, what's a what is the thing I should say? Instead?
Okay, it doesn't seem great for them to kind of hold that pitching
depth through the season, and we may see a lot more picture to play
than we want out of this team. It's been a few years since I
paid real attention to baseball, and I was pretty shocked that Adam Wainwright was
still in the rotation for the Cardinals. I was shocked, and I have
you could have got got me a bead decent of sum of money that he
was not pitching anymore. He's thirty seven now, yeah, thirty seven yeah,
And I mean he's probably there, you know, for some of the
season for like leadership, because the end of his season was not as bad
as the beginning. Um, you know, I don't think he's going to
necessarily end the season on the team. But you know, they I don't
think they have as much depth as I might expect. But obviously we haven't
talked about Jack Flaherty, who is I think everyone's favorite breakout pick and third
round Uh you know Fantasy Baseball pick. You hit at him too, You
just like killed the rest of the rotation. No, I mean I agree
with everyone else, like he's very exciting to watch, but yeah, the
rest of the occasion is not really Guys who I am tracking or enjoyable,
find enjoyable, um, anything else. I you know, one thing I
wanted to do is go around the league quickly. I worked out some players
that I feel like are my players for each team? Oh boy, Yeah,
and just just to go team by team and like a quick team preview
for each um and what we think of them. The Brave maybe just me
crushing their announcing teams because I have now finally watched every team in spring training
announcing. It's just it's just bad this year. I do need to talk
about this somehow. Um, the Braves are I you know, I don't
think the Braves set themselves up very well this offseason. But um, I
I think they're young. Pitching is has been looking good so far in spring,
so much as that means anything, But you know, they have so
much depth and a lot of players who I'm who I'm liking. I think
Kyle Wright has looked better than I thought he was. Um. I have
been tracking Bryce Wilson all spring. I think he might actually be the best
of the Braves young starters at this point. I'm looking forward to him.
The Marlins have a really interesting rotation, and I think I'm going to end
up liking about four fits of their rotation by the end of the season.
I know, well, but there is something to it. I don't think
they are a dismal team. We will get to those tomorrow or next week.
Um, there's like the offense is just a train wre It is just
a real nightmare. I don't think there's anything worth talking about there. But
um, you know, I do like Trevor Richards quite a bit, and
I you know, we drafted Caleb Smith in the mock and I think there's
some potential upside there. I have really liked what I've seen from Pablo Lopez,
who it looks like he's going to win a spot of spring training perhaps,
you know, I think that could be three fists of an interesting rotation.
I think Nick Nidert is a player who have been tracking pretty closely since
he came over, kind of a control type pitcher who I think has actually
performed at the upper levels, who I'm pretty excited by. You know,
again, like I said with the Rockies, you're not going to do great
if the strength the core of your team is in young pitching. But I
do think they have a bunch of like number three starters that might prevent them
from being like truly horrible this year. The Mets are I don't know what
to say about the Mets right that that has been a strange team. They
they they do not strike me as a team that has put together all that
well. But you know, like a kind of a fantasy version of like
let's just accumulate assets and see what happens. M So, you know,
I think there's a lot of players playing the same position, players who are
going to be out of position. Um very bizarre. I am curious about
I'm at Rosaria, who I have been down on, but I will track
him very closely. Uh, this season. You know, I think there
is um some breakout power potential. Um. You know, he's not a
very good defender in score sheet, but maybe that will go up a little
bit as well. Um. You know, and I think he's one of
the few Mets with like a solid job and position at this point. So
uh, you know it's interesting. I would be, um, I'm curious
if he breaks out, and you know, I would kind of bet the
under on it, um, but I'm willing to be wrong. Uh.
The Nationals. What do you think of the Nationals as a nearby resident?
Or it doesn't seem like anyone is thrilled about them this year? The Nats
fans are, Um are they Do they feel like they have lost her?
Like I know we did talk about that a little while. Guys. Do
they still feel confident like we got this division? Yeah? Well I don't
know about confident, but yeah, I don't think I think they're they're they
would generally say they're cautiously optimistic, okay, always always the state you'd like
to get their pant bais into its right. It's the pitching for them,
I think, yeah, not the offense necessarily. Yeah, I mean it's
interesting because they have like the top end pitchers as as always, and they've
kind of filled the back end this year with like Jeremy Hellickson Annibal Sanchos.
According to this um, there's something interesting about Adimal Sachas. He had he
had like a sneaky good year last year, and I guess anyone could be
good now is the lesson I went into a hyperbaric chamber. I looked at
whatever it is that like Steve Rodder looked at in Captain America, and now
I'm like a number two starter. Great, Okay, cool? Um.
I feel like for me, like a lot of this team is riding on
Victor robe Less being good, and I'm very curious to see if that is
the case. I feel like we'll finally have a season with him, and
he's the player who I would be tracking from the nationals. Um. You
know, like I think some of again what the MLB stack Cast podcast people
were saying about kind of poor exit velocities, like does he truly have any
power whatsoever? Um, you know, that could definitely put a limit on
his ability. He's he looked in spring when he hit with some power,
but I'm curious what he would do with like a solid three hundred fifty of
bats. Yeah. Um, the Phillies, Um, you know, they
some big players who I am curious about how they're gonna do. But I
like, basically know how Bryce Harper is gonna He's gonna be good, right,
He's Bryce Harper. It'll be good. Bold statement. Yeah. Um,
you know, I feel like Nick Pavetta is the hipster pick. Everyone's
talking about Nick. Everyone loves Nick Pavetta. I like him too. I'm
gonna so I'm gonna say, like tracking him, but I'm curious about I
feel like this is a real make or break season for Vince Velasquez as well.
And um, I I have always liked him a little more than consensus,
but you know, my hopes have been fading. I feel like,
you know, this is the year where getting side once and for all.
If he is like a playoff caliber starter, or if he is just like
a setup guy who is you know, clockey innings for a while, or
Daniel Cabrera. Um, you know, I think I feel like there's more
there, but it just hasn't been. Um. I had totally forgotten about
Daniel Cabrera. I was like I was, I had my microphone music because
I've been coughing. But I did like a whole like head explode moment when
you said Daniel I don't remember. Oh yeah, he's alive. That was
from like when I used to pay attention. So he's gonna put it together
one of these seasons. Um, the in the central I you know,
the Milwaukee Brewers are I don't know, you know, I think the hitting
is obviously going to be pretty solid. Um. I don't feel like there
are a lot of players who like I have particularly been drafting on a lot
of teams in scoreesheet from the Brewers. UM. On the pitching side,
I feel like there's a little bit more action going on year. I feel
like Brandon Woodruff has ended up on our teams. I think Corbyn Burns hasn't.
But is interesting. I am curious to see, uh, you know,
if the starters take a step forward. UM. I saw Adrian Houser
was sent to Triple A to be a starter. I'm curious about his future.
I could see the Brewers having like five different starters by the end of
the season than they do right now. Um. The Cardinals we just talked
about, I don't none of their players have ended up on our teams really
or are players who I think we are that interested in? Um, I
guess Tyler O'Neil is somebody who is. So I was muted. Um I
was gonna ask you about Jimmy Neilson on the Brewers. It seems like,
yeah, he's coming back on an UFN of his before. Do you think
we're gonna see a return to form there as he looked in this spring?
He's behind, but I think he just started pitching. I think he got
into a game last week and he's going to be a week or two behind.
I do like him as a pick this year again, like I feel
like for four starters you want, you wanted enough of them that you're you
had don't have picture triple A, right, so sometimes you have to take
like your potted plant like Dan Stralis of the world. But I you know,
I think I also like some home run picks, and I feel like
Jimmy Nelson would be a pretty good one at this point. But so sorry,
so the Cardinals again, like Tyler Neil Harrison Bader, I'm interested in
if he can keep this up for a season. I always liked the cut
of his jib, But you know it's a veteran team. We know what
they are, and like I said, I'm fading almost all of their starters,
so I don't know. I think they will probably win the division and
bore me the Cubs. Speaking of boring teams, at this point, I
don't think there's a lot of mystery left to the Cubs. You know,
like they are not super exciting anymore, and I guess they're still young.
They still have fun players, but I don't think they have a lot of
surprising players left. I am mostly curious about their rotation and if you Darvish
in particular, who's ended up on a lot of our team has bounces back
the spring has not been particularly hopeful. I think he had one bad start
where he like walked the park, which is always concern of his, but
I feel like that was one before. I feel like from what I've been
hearing some of the velocities back, I'm I feel like he's somewhat undervalued.
I feel like Anatana has been somewhat undervalued, and maybe even Cole Hammils,
And obviously that means I am probably closer to other projection systems than Pacoda,
which is unfortunate because obviously I would like the Cups too poorly. The Pirates
have become like a deeply boring team as well. This is what I was
talking about with them. With the Central Division, I feel like the teams
are less interesting, probably except for the Reds, because they've just stayed in
stasis for a while, and teams that Saint Stasis don't interest me quite as
much. I am curious about Chris Archer. I feel like he's been a
player that we've been targeting, and I feel, you know, I guess
the question is whether like he's had a couple of seasons in a row where
he's kind of severely underhit his FIP and you know, like when a player
does it three times a row, sometimes they were like, well that's who
he is now, but sometimes it might actually be just rolled tales three times
in a row. I do think he has probably a bad fastball, But
you know, also maybe getting out of that Fuddy Duddy Rays organization and into
the Pirates Progressive organization is really gonna change things for him. Is that a
control? I don't know. The Reds have been the most fun in the
mission by far, just they've been the team I've been interested in, you
know, exciting young players everywhere they have. Their pitching is not so hot,
but I feel like they have a wave of pitchers coming behind this one.
You know, I think a lot of players who haven't been on the
stage for a while. I don't really think it's going to work out for
them the way they think it is, but I'm I'm glad to see that
they're actually going for it. It feels fun and different. The player I
marked for them, obviously is Jesse Winker, whom we have been tracking for
a breakout for some time, and I think that'll do it. Not Queak,
Yeah, hel Pueak is great. He is fun. I have not
gotten used to seeing him in Red yet, and I don't know that I
ever will. Yeah, especially since I think there's like a seventy percent chance
the Reds are gonna be like threey and thirty five and he's gonna be traded
by June. But you know, he's a person who deserves a bigger stage.
But I don't think he's like as unknowable as a player. I think
there is a version of Jesse Winker that just like the power finally comes and
he's a superstar. I wish I'd be excited to see diving backs we talked
about. I do think could tell Marte is a breakout pick. I like
leek Weaver in the rotation, and like a few other players. I think
they have some upside again, like probably upside from a lower base in the
card, and the Rockies have more downside from a higher start. So I
do think they'll end up in roughly the same place. But I would rather
be the Diamonbacks organization at the moment. The Rockies are. They're they're fun.
I'm looking forward to seeing Harmon Marquez pitch, but I don't feel like
that is one of our players necessarily. I would like to see what Ryan
McMahon does with a series of at bats, and I don't know if he's
going to get them because Garrett Hampson is running for his job. Literally,
he's very fast, and Brendan Rodgers is coming up behind him. Obviously,
then you'll still have room at first if Daniel Murphy gets hurt again. But
I just want to see what Ryan McMahon is and I feel like this year
will go a long way towards plaining it. And I have just thought like
the millennial version of Kelly Johnson. H yeah, which would be a fun
player. I've always liked Kelly Johnson much more than consensus. The Dodgers are
always fun, right yeah. Um their best player is a triple a claim
that they had this year. Who's gonna come up mid season and hit like
forty home runs or strike out thirty and like, well, I didn't think
Felix pa was good, but I guess I guess that's just how it happens
now. Um. You know, other than the obvious things, like you
know, Walker Bueler is going to be fun to watch for however many games?
Um, And you know, I would like to see what most of
these players are. I think they have a lot of exciting stories. Um.
I am curious about Ross trip playing in particular who Um I think friend
of the Pod Night Stevens has been drafting steadily in every league I see unate.
Um. I you know he ruster Play made the All Star team last
year, so I guess that's not quite a breakout. But um, I
do think there is an aspect where he has been underdrafted because he's kind of
a swing man. But he probably could have a job by the end of
the year. You know, it's always hard to say. It's always hard
to say whether being a starting pitcher for the Dodgers is like a good thing
or not, because they'll just throw you into like the sixth inning in the
playoffs. Anyways, Like, oh, well, the world has changed.
The Giants are so depressing. Yeah, I feel like they are the most
depressing team in baseball. Uh, it's okay. You guys won three World
Series. You you can have a boring team for a few years. But
there's just like, at least at least the Orioles are like hilariously dismal,
Like this team is just like old and bad, and like maybe there's a
way in which they like pull it, like they don't have you know,
I could see a world where like Buster Posey and brand Crawford and Evan Longoria
stay healthy for a year and like they surprise a little bit, but then
they're just like old and good or old and Okay, I don't see I
don't see a world where they're like exciting. Who is that is that a
ghost of Evan Longoria? Yeah, well you're talking about how they won a
bunch of World Series. I was like, yeah, but Evan evn't didn't
win any World Series. Oh boy. Um. Yeah, so I had
a really hard time finding a player that we've been drafting a lot of leagues
from them. I like Brandon Crawford. He's he is our backup shortstop at
a bunch of leagues, just because, um, you know, Scorre sheet
over values or perhaps correctly values his defense. I think over values his defense
in particular. But um, you know, I like he is a starter
who still has maybe some ability. Um, We've been ending up with Drew
Pomerans in a bunch of leagues, um or at least one that I know
of, and I think target him in a couple others. Uh. I
Again, that's just kind of the innings and like a little bit of upside.
There's just not a lot going on that I'm excited about here. But
that brings us to our last team, the Padres. Uh. And I
just had as my notes for this team, um, the San Diego Padres.
I am excited and all I plan on watching them a bunch of this
year. This is it's a fun team. They have so many, um,
talented and young and exciting players. I don't know that they're good yet,
Um you know, they could be a year away. They could be
the Cubs. There's of twenty fifteen, you know what I mean, or
the Astroid Like there there's a lot to look at, and you know,
I think we're gonna learn a lot about you know it, Frenchie Cordero,
is it, fronmil Reyes, is it? Areas? You know? Who
is going to break out? I think Francisco Mahia is a player who we
kind of bashed a little bit in the mock draft and then he just hit
the terror out of the ball the spring. I don't know, there is
a version of him that's really good. And the pitching side like they're like,
I don't know, Like obviously no one else has seen Chris Paddock the
spring, but he's so fun. He's so fun. Master Rama is really
good. This is gonna be a really good team. And they just have
like players out there. Ear do you remember to Nelson Lamet, Yes,
he's back. He's just gonna be pitching for them again and like maybe a
number two starter. Who knows they have like eight of them. Um,
there's a lot going on. There's even more beneath the surface. And if
they ever get boring, like Fernando Tatiste Junior is like a couple months away.
I'm not, like, I don't think I'm a biggest fan, but
like, you know, so you're gonna have the best player at that point
in the miners come up mid season. That's always exciting, very much.
Looking forward to the season. I can't wait until they get the brown and
mustard uniforms back. Padres Forever, Padres for life. That's it. Oh
yeah, what a quick whip around. Yeah, so hopefully. I don't
know if that's a good analysis, but it certainly filled time. Any other
remaining thoughts, I have exhausted my notebook. No, thank you. I
think it was good. Okay. I think, after all, the Padres
are the team that I'm most excited to watch. Yeah, I think that's
fair. It's not because I was born there. I think like all the
like, it sounds like there's a wide variety of possible outcomes for them.
That's exciting, right, And there's a version of them that wins like sixty
games too, which is exciting. Well, yeah, there's a lot of
ways to be exciting. Or a version that wins forty seven games and that's
exciting in its own life. Yeah, there's no version that wins forty seven
games. It's unfathomable. Yeah, you have to be trying to be that
bad. We'll get there next week. We just have to figure out how
we're going to remember to preview the other fourteen teams as well, do an
hour just on the Orioles deep looking. Um. But with that, UM,
what is the best thing you saw this week? I feel like we
could all answer this roughly the same way since the last time we recorded.
It's possible. I would say there's one thing that almost made it for me.
Okay that I want to mention. Um. So, as I was
poking around as you do, doing what i'll loosely called research, I found
this story. This is uncut for with a clip of each Row. I
don't know if you've seen this clip or heard of it. So he's forty
five years old now, and basically the clip is just of him throwing a
laser beam from right field. I think it's, you know, into third
base. It looks like on a runner, this like trying to tag in
advance. And as like, as far back as my baseball fandom goes,
I was like rooting for the Mariners for a long time as a kid,
and Ichi was always really exciting and he was the kind of player that was
super easy to root for. So it's kind of sad that his like major
league career is over, but it's really amazing to see him still out there
like doing awesome stuff. And yeah, I will concur I've been watching the
Mariners a lot more than I expected to this spring, just because like,
I don't want to let it go, you know, um, and you're
now I I am definitely gonna watch at least the second game in the series
just in case. Um, you know, I think there have been better
players than Cho in our lifetimes, but I don't. I don't know that
there's been one more fun. Yeah, that's a good way to say.
Um, so I am, um, you know, sorry to see him
go. Uh we assume. Yeah. Part of it also thinks he'll just
play until sixty five somewhere. But um, but you know, I'm excited
to see the next couple of games, and I hope it's a tribute to
one of the greatest and most extraordinary players of our lifetime, the reason why
baseball is good. Yeah, it's like, uh, I was gonna going
around about baseball being fun again, but I'll save it. You can imagine
what I was gonna yeah, um yeah, so anything else I can.
I can talk about the best thing that I saw this week. Yeah,
it might be the same thing, like, yeah, yeah it was you
guys. Oh I was gonna say in New York. Oh no, yeah,
I mean you guys were cool. Yeah. We record, we record
together, but we don't, you know, see each other. That's why
we do a podcast, Um, scheduled time to talk, but um,
you know, it's occasionally good to see each other. We do it around
a score sheet draft, of course, which is at once the best and
worst reason to be together because it is a It is a seven and a
half hour live draft that used to be longer. Thank you to everyone for
shortening it. Um. It is like a sweet pain, and it is
something that I'm glad to be able to do with friends. So it is
also a great reminder as to why we don't draft scoresheet teams live. Usually
you all should be very happy for the draft feature. There are just so
many players. There's so many players, and so many of them are bad.
And then you're in like the thirteenth round and you're like, oh my
god, there's twenty two rounds more of this, and we just took like
orgieslair, like where you know it is. It gets dismal and you're like,
oh, we're just gonna be here for six more hours looking through depth
charts of the Chicago White Sox middle relief. It's not great. Yeah,
that was totally thing I did. I took a nap during this draft job
because it was so clear that I was going to be worthless, and like,
let's be honest, I was tired. I don't sleep enough. Yeah.
I set up like the spreadsheet that allowed Ian to feel like he was
informed or informed enough, and then past out on the couch for a little
while. And I only missed two draft picks. I only missed two draft
picks in like I don't know, yeah, yeah, something like that.
It's it's it can be rough sledding, but I was glad y'all were there,
So I don't know if that's the best thing you Also this week,
I think it's worth shouting out like some of the stuff we did in New
York because I had a specific thing. But what was your um? I
guess it was probably the video game exhibit at the US moviming picture. I
mean, I figured that was, um gonna overlap with yours, so I
was hesitant to user. But um, you know, the one thing I
would say is like it was basically just like a giant trip of nostalgia.
So it wasn't necessarily that I'm saying, like the exhibit itself was amazing.
I thought it was like solid, not amazing. UM, But you know,
it's basically just like they took a bunch of video game systems that they
bought of eBay and like put them down so everybody could play on them.
And that's that's fine. Every museum do this exactly, It's like, and
there were so many more people interested in that exhibit as a result. Right,
they could have very easily botched that by making it I'd say, more
museum, but instead they didn't, and I think that was part of the
brilliance of it. Um. The met has so many rooms and all of
them are filled with art. Full of them, not even one of them
to save for sports games from the nineteen nineties and late eighties, Okay,
can we speaking of that? The huge like oversight was that there was no
RBI baseball at this ye and I think we should set up the exhibit for
a second, just so everybody, um it is they were doing it and
it was the last day was of the exhibit was the day we were there.
So check to see I don't know where it's going next, but check
to see if it travels. It's something like sports the history sports video games,
um and oh boy, there were so many of them except oh,
there's also no Techmo right well, there was no playable Techno. I guess
there was like a shout out to Techmo on the wall, but I would
have played nothing else in Techmo super Bowl. Some people like Techmobo Bowl and
Techmobo Tacks and that was like before by time. I think Techno super Bowl
was where it really shined. You could pick every team. They had eight
plays instead of four. I wish they had ice hockey for a tari Ice
hockey was a great game, Like what do you have an ice hockey lineup?
So nothing nothing Nintendo's Nintendoom Sceny guys are the fat chevy guys are the
guys in between you were playing with you as kids, Jared, Yeah,
no, I mean that's a fantastic game that should have been there. Two
game me wrong. I suck you for Atari was I think two v two
but it was Atari, so there were there were no attributes to the players.
It was just TV two. It was amazing. Um yeah, so
you do you all have a game that you were most nostalgic for, perhaps
that you saw there I think out of ones that I saw so he didn't
actually get to play it, But NBA Jam was there. I thought that
was a good a good catch, like it would have been a huge oversight
if that hadn't been there. Um. And I also really liked NFL Blitz.
NFL Blitz was always like like I think all my friends preferred Madden and
I was like, no, like I don't need any of that. NFL
Blitz was exactly the football game that I wanted, and it was just as
fun as I remember. That's great. It feels like sports games have gotten
away from that so severely, and like just there is something to like tech
siber Ball or NFL, but just like you know, and maybe there is
like some lesson for our for like a sim to just like pare it down
to the essentials and just like crush it make it fun. Yeah. Yeah,
I feel like Rocket League did that. Yeah, that's yeah, that's
a good point. Um, Jared, did you have a favorite or most
nostalgia game? Uh? Well, might have been a Gritski sixty four.
I put a lot like going. Uh there's also that handheld baseball game with
the buttons by your left and right thumbs. What is it? I feel
that's called as my mantel? Right, Yeah, it was it the the
yeah electronic baseball let. Yeah, um, yes, it's I don't know,
like I can't say you were excited, but I can say you were
as excited as I see you to see that it was really No, it
was like a special moment because I didn't have that connection you just I just
I was like, oh wow, it was like something visceral yet that I
hadn't seen it. I mean it must have been man, you know,
like twenty five years at least more. Yeah, exciting. Um for me,
definitely NHL ninety four the game that cemented my bizarre and um inexplicable Vancouver
Canucks fandom. Babel Burret was so good, Trevor Lindon, Courton Hall bro
it was. It was good. What a good team. Um. And
I will also give a shout out to base Wars certainly my favorite baseball game
of the Nintendo era. Um oh and sorry, yeah I was. I
was. It turns out I was no longer good at the game, but
when I was six, I was really great at it because I didn't play
it as a baseball game. I played it as essentially Mortal Kombat, where
I got a So the caceed of base Wars. If you haven't played it,
it is bonkers. I suggest you get an emulator just for it.
It is a game where robots play baseball and if they ever end up,
tags have been outlawed. Instead of tags, the teams, the players just
I don't know, like shoot each other, as though Rugnette Odor had taken
over the league and had decided, like, this is how we're doing it
from now on, We're just going to yeah, no tags, just like
violence. So you have like different types of players, and I forget what
it was. There was one like there was one of the types of robots
where you could just I think it was like a sword or you could just
like corner a player and just get him into the corner and like just defeat
them. And so what I would do as a six year old is I
would get a team of that type of player eventually and just like get into
rundowns until I defeated all of the other robots enough that the other team exploded,
which again like, maybe not great for pace of play, but I
do think rob Manfred should form and explained that that. Sorry, there's one
other thing I remembered those goes my own in the middle of your thing.
Was no King Grify Junior pssess Major League Baseball. I was disappointed about that
too. I felt like, maybe it's just me because I was like the
peak of my Mariners fandom. Um, but yeah, I was like,
no, not having that game was very very sad, very sad. So
yeah, so sadness your favorite sports video game in memory. If this is
setting you down to stout delaying and you made it this far, God bless
um squirrels, exhibit like you're saying, and check out the exhibit if you
can. It is the best thing you can do other than see each other.
So we won't keep you any longer. We'll be back soon next week
with an American League preview where we cover fourteen teams in some detail and fifteen
teams and just a great amount of thing. Until then, I'm Leftwood's on
behalf of Ben Murphy and Jared Wise. Thanks again for listening and have a
great day.