Death of the single base hit?

TTO goes through a new plan for managing our Scoresheet teams, checks in on a couple of them, and banters about the changes in how baseball is played and how it impacts a simulated fantasy game. We talk through how a simulation might best adjust and adapt to certain types of outcomes occuring far less often, and we wrap with the best things we saw this week.

Leagues we discuss:
http://www.scoresheet.com/FOR_WWW/BL_Kings.htm
http://www.scoresheet.com/FOR_WWW/BL_DwMurphy.htm

Videos mentioned:
https://www.mlb.com/news/bryce-harper-first-phillies-homer

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Howdy and welcome to the Three twoOutcomes podcast presented by Baseball Perspectives. I'm
your host, Ian Leftwitz, andjoining me as always from suburban Michigan,
it is Ben Murphy. Ben,how are you doing. I'm doing well.
Ian. It's good to hear fromyou. Thank you, you too.
Um it is baseball season. Doyou get a baseball fever? I've

(00:22):
had a couple of fevers so farin the last month, but none of
them were related to baseball. Heyfever? Oh no, okay, muskrat
love. Well, we'll work onthat until then. Joining us from our
nation's capital as always is Jared Wise. Jared, how are you doing?
Is muskrat love of fever? Iassumed that it was like a scratch of

(00:47):
some stort. I never feel likemaybe I should check this like genius dot
com and see if they annotated thelyrics with some behind the scenes one would
assume. I guess the fever thatI had doesn't have a name except for
fever. When you have a littlekid, you just get sick a lot.

(01:08):
So I've only had a fever twicein twenty nineteen, So doing great.
That's good. Yeah, Jared,how is your baseball fever. Baseball
started only for some of the teams. Jared, No, it's been it's

(01:32):
yeah, it's really high, superhigh. Do you think we did not
record last week because the Orioles werein first place and I ran out of
material? I'm recently certain. Yes, I was waiting for the call and
you guys just to show no interestin I assumed. Yeah, there's a
room on those bandwagon still if youguys want to Japan. Yeah. Yeah,

(01:57):
I could think of a couple ofplayers who like thrown out of a
bad wagon. We'll get to thatthough. Uh certainly saved groom. Um
so yeah, any any impressions ofof the first week as as a baseball
fan from your end, I'm gladit's back. Glad it's back. Yeah,

(02:20):
uh, right in a way.And and that first so that you
you did have the first series againstthe Yankees as as uh an o glorious.
Oh that was so good. Probablyisn't there? Yeah, yeah,
feeling pretty confident that's going to bethe highlight of twenty nineteen. But it
was, it was worth it.Uh. Yeah, I've been watching I've

(02:42):
been watching a lot of baseball.I've been watched Um, I know shocker.
UM. So far I've seen UM, I've seen about uh seven right
games, and UH, I havesome thoughts we'll get We'll get to that
in a second, because I havea couple of overall impressions. But first
I wanted to obviously lead off bytalking about UM. The top. The

(03:07):
number one topic that I think,UM, I think audiences love more than
anything is us talking about our ownfantasy teams. So we are going to
get to that before we start.UM. Mailback, Captain, I have
a question for you. Yes,did you write into scoresheet a Baseball perspectives

(03:29):
dot com to ask your question?No? I didn't. Did anyone else
know? That's bad news. We'llanswer questions no matter how silly. Probably
probably better chance if they are sillier. Gotta be honest. So, uh
baseball or not, we are.We are looking for feedback and love.

(03:52):
It's the only thing gives us validation. Please scoresheet at Baseball Perspectives dot com
feel free to send us a question. Happy to talk on or off air.
UM. So before we UM,before we dive into the season.
So we we came up with astrategy, let's say, UM not entirely

(04:13):
for content development for this podcast,but not not for content development for this
podcast before the season, Um,where we would do something different. Um,
do you want to do do youwant to introduce the concept? Um?
Yes, we So we run abunch of teams together, and we

(04:34):
decided that we are going to eachseparately own a team, or Ben and
I at least will each separately ownslash run a team. Yeah. I
think in our collective names that wewill take control. I guess, I
don't know. This is our opportunityto be very explicit about the fact that
Ian does everything, like literally everythingfor all these teams. And that's why

(04:57):
you agreed, so that realize andappreciate just how much he does reach one
of the teams. Yeah, atleast. And I think part of my
motivation was because I would like tohave an opportunity to be a little bit
more connected to baseball and I thinkdo something to alleviate a little bit of
my guilt that Ian does everything forus. I think it's also a little
bit exciting just to have a littlebit more flexibility. So one of the

(05:21):
things that we've always done for allthe teams that we've run together is like
check with each other on stuff,and that includes you know, any trade
offers and things like that. AndI think sometimes, well almost all the
time, that leads to like betterdecisions for us because we balance each other
well and we have a variety ofperspectives on things. But sometimes we're a

(05:41):
little bit too thoughtful or at leastlike it takes us a while to get
back to people when we're tossing aroundthe relative merits of different options. And
I think, you know the otherpart of this is, you know,
Jared and I each have one team, They're still a handful of other teams
where Ian's doing literally everything and it'ssort of like a little sandbox for a

(06:03):
yard tonight to try to make asandcastle or keep the neighborhood cat from peeing
in it. So yeah, andI would not say I do literally everything.
Like any decision that we make thatI think would be fun to discuss,
we discuss in just about every league. Like like I said in the

(06:23):
past, I think we enjoy runningteams together because it gives us a chance
to talk to one another about athing. But you know, this is
our We just wanted to change thingsup a little bit, and you know,
I think give you all, Ithink a little bit more hands on

(06:44):
work with at least some teams.So we have chosen a couple of teams
in leagues that we feel are closestto one year leagues. Actually that I'm
thinking about it, yep. Itmitigates our opportunity to really running into the
ground from Yes, well they're alsothey were also our lower performing teams at

(07:11):
the time that we made the decision, UM, which you know, so
I I think for each of theseleagues we want to go into it and
UM check in throughout the season onthese leagues and just see, you know,
you can tell you can tell usas the season goes on, what

(07:32):
your strategies are, UM, howyou're planning to kind of attack what you
see is the problems of the team, or UM build upon successes. UM.
But let's let's get into specifics.And I think this is the point
at which anyone listening can follow alongby either I think clicking perhaps on a

(07:55):
link that we will provide in thenotes to the leagues, or UM you
can probably just google it as well. So one of our teams is in
the league bl kings UM. Andthen we will start with you, because
this is your team. We actuallyhave talked about this team on the draft
on this podcast before. Yeah,during the draft, so we expansion draft

(08:20):
of this team. Uh. Andfor for anyone who wasn't listening, maybe
recap that draft process and our decisionthat went into it. Mike Trap,
Mike Trout, Mike Troup. Uh. We went into a dispersal draft so
that we could get Mike Trout,and we did that, and then we

(08:41):
renamed the team to three true troutcomes and we haven't looked back day.
In the process of doing that,we gave up a bunch of draft picks
this year, so we're sort ofpunting this year. UM. So the
strategy is pretty straightforward Mike Trout andtwenty twenty. So we traded down a

(09:03):
bunch of times in the spring draft. We drafted young guys or guys for
upside. Well, we ian draftedyoung guys guys for upside, guys that
are hurt this year but might becoming back and be useful next year.
UM. We've tried to pursue tradetargets that fit similar criteria and it's perfect

(09:24):
for me because I don't really haveto do anything. Um. We were
joking before we started that like Ianstill went in and set up our lineup
cards for US. Jared and Iboth um and so I was looking at
the lineup card that Ian set up. An Ian, I have to give
you a quick shout out. Everythingis the same versus lefties and righties,
except for Conforto and or US swapbetween the five and six spots in the

(09:48):
lineup like what like they both batagainst both handedness, but apparently Confortos at
a little bit better against righties.Um, that's not going to this team.
This team is gonna lose so manygames, so many games. We
have so far gone zero and nineand we have an eight twenty five er.

(10:11):
This is a team with Mike Trouton. With Mike Trout on it,
we are hitting two twenty two,three, eighteen, three fifty six.
So yeah, it's bad. It'sa bad team. Uh, and
we hope it's less bad next yearwhen we have a full compliment of draft
picks and you know, maybe healthyLance mc colors or something like that.

(10:33):
Right. So, UM, justto be like a little more specific about
what's happened to the team since theexpansion draft, Um, we have we've
taken a team that I would saydid not just have Mike Trout, to
be clear. So we took MikeTrout, we got Gia Carlos Stanton back.

(10:56):
I think we uh we redrafted AdamEaton. Was that true? Um,
Michael, I think Eaton came fromthe other team, but we picked
him up in the dispersonal Okay.Um, so we have Wander Franco,
who I actually saw last week,which is very exciting. I know I'll

(11:18):
get to that later. Um,Sander Brogards during the draft too, I
should have mentioned that. Yeah,so we took a couple of players and
then um turn them into Xander Brogarts. Right, I'm trying to pull up
that trade as well. So Ithink if we're talking about that, so

(11:39):
our strategy behind getting Xander Brogarts,I think pretty clear for rebuilding team.
Um. You know, positional needsare not important, um, and we're
just trying to get I think,literally the best players we can, right
and if we move, Um,I have the trade up. If you
want me to read it, Yeah, go for it. Joe must Grove,

(12:03):
Jake Lamb Adam Eaton around twelve pickand around nineteen pick for Xander Bogarts.
Yeah. So which definitely like losingJoe Musgrove, a fan favorite of
this fan that definitely hurt. Youknow. I think Adam Eaton I still
liked Jake Lamb, I think wasa player we drafted. Yeah, we

(12:26):
had drafted him really early. Ithink our first draft pick in the pre
it's like a soft ten, andwe drafted him in like the eighth round
or something like that. Yeah.I think we did a very good job
of pressing the aboard button at exactlythe right time on Jake Lamb. But
you know, I think we seeXander Bogarts as a first round talent.

(12:48):
We were willing to crush our teameven more in order to go for it.
But yeah, that leads us withone pick, sure, which is
probably not a great sign for oursuccess this year. Uh. And then
we drafted a couple of players likeLensmo Collars that you said, like Seanmanaiah,

(13:11):
who I think are potentially coming backmid season. Well, we also
traded for d D. Glorious.Oh, we did trade for Ddy Gregorius,
right, So uh, you know, I think this is probably going
to become clear because we did tradefor d D. Gregories before Xander Brogart.
But now that we have both.I think there's a very strong chance

(13:35):
we will nurse D. D.Gregorious back to health and then looked to
flip him almost immediately, right,Yeah, as soon as we had a
local maximum for his value. Ithink, yeah. Um. And you
know, I I do feel likethis team is in pretty solid shape for
UM fenty twenty, which is um. You know, I don't think we

(14:00):
are. I don't think we wantto stay in and rebuild forever. I
think we want to be competitive itsince next year. Yeah, I think
we just sort of felt like missingten of the well ten draft picks off
the top basically eleven through twenty one, made it so that it was basically
impossible to compete this year anyway,and it was very foolish to attempt to

(14:24):
compete in the face of such longodds. Much better to do everything we
can for twenty twenty, when we'llhave that full complimented draft picks and hopefully
even more talent. Right. Andyou know, something that we've kind of
said often on this podcast, bothin the current incarnation in the past,
drafting with a goal in mind isa great way to you know, it's

(14:48):
a great way to see it evenin competitive leagues, if you could just
vary the time window off where otherpeople are, you know, I think
you have something. I think youhave a better chance of success drafting.
Mike Trout. Also, it definitelyhelps accelerate your mic trout Mike Trout.

(15:13):
Um, Yeah, what I'm reallyexcited to listen back to is how the
sound balance manages to take care ofthat. Yeahing quick anecdote. So we
got a tip from front of thepod Eric Moyer that like the volumes a
little low, so I try toboost the volume. And I was like
listening to it to see how wellit went. And I've been sick basically

(15:37):
NonStop, and my already nasily voiceis like super nasily now that I'm sick,
and I will never listen to thepodcast over again. I'm sorry.
So if you want me to tryto fix it, I can, but
I'm not ever going to check tosee how well it went. Hopefully the
volumes a little higher though. Umwe're working on Yeah. We don't want

(15:58):
to be terrible. We just don'twant to have to work to not be
terrible. I have made it tothe point where I could actually listen to
the podcast again and not hate myself. It's been a challenge, it's been
a real ride trying to do that. So thank you for going on that

(16:18):
journey. But I did want toI do want to point something out just
because this is a This is auseful feature that I think maybe not everyone
has seen, but friends of thePod, Rob mccun if, for those
of you who are Baseball Perspective subscribersyou may have you may be familiar with
the Scorcy Draft Aid, which wehave highly recommended and the Scoresy Team Tracker,

(16:45):
which we also highly recommend as greatScorcy tools. This year, he
has added a taken Players report onthe Draft Aid And I think this is
just like an incredibly useful benchmark thatI've been looking at repeatedly throughout the season.

(17:06):
What is that It's a very simpleconcept. I mean there are a
number of different um, there area number of different concepts, different panels
on this report, including um,you know, projections for all players on
your team versus righties versus lefties.That helps you build and set a lineup.

(17:27):
There's the list of top prospects takenthe mock draft list as well,
so you can see who has takenwhom. The section that I find the
most valuable is league ss SIM totals, where you can measure at different keeper
levels the amount of talent that's onyour roster for this year versus other teams.

(17:52):
And so with Kings, you know, I think what I've been looking
at is something that I should havesaid about half hour ago. Kings is
a soft, soft ten league,so that means there you can keep up
to ten players, but you donot have to keep ten players, which
means that the value of your topkeepers are really the most important things,

(18:14):
the very top keepers, because youcan kind of fill in the rest later.
So I've been looking at the topfive keepers where we are third in
the league, top eight, weare sixth in the league, and we
were in there. We were inthe twenties of the twenty fourteen league before
the draft, so before we theexpansion draft. So I've I think this

(18:38):
has been a real win for us, the ninety nine keeper version. We
are not in first place. We'renot a second place. No, no,
no, I would keep going,I would keep doing the happy birthday
thing, but but we are deadlast on the twenty four teams. So

(19:00):
but you know, I think that'sone of those ways where you can say,
um, Okay, here is thishorrible, horrible team that is going
to win I think like an extraordinarilyfew amount of games, and yet there
is a sleeping giant here there.The top five keepers are about as strong

(19:21):
as anyone in the league, andthere are a number of ways to get
there. This way, you canjust kind of ballpark it with your eyes.
So I think that's an interesting Uh, it's interesting. I think we're
gonna use it if we get questionsabout your league. It's something that I'm
definitely going to look at to tryto quickly figure out where your team is

(19:44):
in relation to others. I suggestat everyone again, if you if you
like having scores sheet tools, Ithink having a scoresheet a baseball perspective,
fantasy fantasy membership is really valuable.Saying that, not just as a or
not even as as all perspective play, just as a person. It's a

(20:07):
really helpful for a score sheet inparticular. Um, I think that's enough
about Kings. Let's pivot to Jareduh So. Your league is bl d
W. Murphy or Dwayne Murphy.I guess in the car and severer times.
This is a venerable league that hasbeen around for a very long time,

(20:33):
and it is a soft eight league. We've talked about it on the
podcast Off and on, so verysimilar lineup. M Jared, Do you
want to introduce the team to us? Um? Yes, by name?
Sure, we'll start there by reputation, but I would say by major concept

(21:00):
and if not, I'm happy totake that part and magic. We want
to win. We want to win, yeah, okay, yeah, I
think that's fair. So we wantto win this year. So it's a
little bit of a different situation.Yeah. Well, I mean you already
introduced it as mostly a one yearleague, which is sort of kind of
right, right, A soft dateleague in many ways functions as a one

(21:25):
year league. In a few keyways it does not, and we'll go
into that and how it affected ourstrategy. But yeah, I think mostly
we've been looking for immediate success.Yeah, it's hard to play like this
for three years down the line.It's hard to do that. So yeah,

(21:47):
So what do you see as akind of your goals for this team
as the owner? Other than winning? Winning is the only goal that is
okay, I needs life, thatis everything. Um, how will you
how will you achieve that? Goal. I have to say, whatever I'm
doing is working out really great becausewe have the second best record in the

(22:08):
league at the twenty four teams.So I'm doing so many things right that
why would I change anything? Reasonable? Reasonable answer? Thank you? Just
the steady hand on the tails.Yes, yeah, you don't have to
do too much is the key infantasy baseball. I I feel like we

(22:33):
have to spoil this that like tenminutes before we were starting to record,
Jared's like, which league is myleague? So good work, good work?
All right? My plan for thisleague is great? Is have you

(22:53):
continue to all the work. Wejust take credit for it explicitly. I
think it's a brilliant plan. Everyoneshould do it. M Yeah. So
I think this is an interesting team, and I think it's a team that
has a lot m really a lotin common with some of the most difficult
questions we get because it is itis really a team where the choice is

(23:18):
between going for it and rebuilding,and it's kind of stuck in the middle
a little bit. Yeah, youknow, I think we've had a strong
core that has, um you know, helped us win some regular season record

(23:38):
winning team a couple of years agoand obviously, Like who cares about the
playoffs? Right? Those are randomanyway, Like I don't bother looking that
up. But yeah, we've wona couple of regular season you know,
most wins. But now now thecore itself is aging. So we have

(24:02):
players like Buster Posey, you know, Andrew McCutchen, who are within a
couple of years of being out ofprobably out of let's say eight soft eight
keeper status. I think Steven Strasburgfor instance, fits there as well,
and we don't have those younger playersbehind them. And yet, you know,

(24:25):
I don't think when you hear ateam in twenty nineteen based around Buster
Posey, and Andrew mccutcheen and StreevenStrasburg, that you're thinking, well,
that's going to win the league.So you know it, we're kind of
caught between two masters here, andso it's it's going to be very interesting
to see how we make it andwhether we can either guide this team to

(24:52):
win or you know, if wewere build and how we were build in
this league one that is exceedingly toughto rebuild in. Um So I would
say one of the things we didduring the draft, because this is a
one year league, because this isa twenty four team league. As with
the other this is also a blumWe did concentrate a lot on up the

(25:18):
middle talent. You know, wedrafted should we keep Travishaw? We may
have kept Travisshaw, but we alsodrafted Marcus semi and early. We drafted
Chad Pinder early. We have BusterPosey. We drafted Jeff McNeil relatively early.

(25:41):
And I think it leaves us witha very interesting team because it's it's
a team that feels like ours becausebasically it has nine players who are like
roughly equivalent in offensive talent, sowe don't have like stars, but everybody

(26:02):
is like, yeah, pretty goodhitter. I think our pitching rotation is
theoretically a little more shaky, butwe may have We may have hit Drew
Pomerands, who I was looking at, who kind of picked up velocity in
the offseason, who I'm interested in. I think Trevor Richards has looked pretty

(26:23):
good early on. I'm hoping TylerSkaggs is a breakout. I'm hoping Mike
Minor is a breakout. This doesn'tsound like any sort of Pennant winning team.
I have to be honest, sayingthe name is back. But you
know, with a twenty four teamleague, sometimes you have to recalibrate expectations
a little bit. You just don'thave the same kind of talent base that

(26:45):
you might in a ten team.Al Right now, and I've got those
draft results up, it looks likewe did keep Shaw. We took McNeil
in the ninth round, Skaggs inthe tenth, Richards in the thirteenth.
I'm not sure if there's another playeryou wanted me to check. Yeah,

(27:06):
I think we took Wilmore Flora's relativelyearly. Yeah, second base. Yeah,
so again, like I you know, maybe Jeff McNeill will turn into
a keeper. Certainly he's looked verygood in the early going. And some
of it was like looking at aplayer like Jeff McNeil whose challenge is really
finding playing time on the roster ona very deep Mets roster and saying,

(27:30):
Okay, you know, maybe thething that is de valuing him is that
he doesn't have enough playing time andhis um and he may not be able
to, you know, provide ninthround value this year. But given a
year, given an offseason, maybeyou'll be able to get that in a

(27:53):
future year and so while still gettingvalue this year. I think we tried
the same thing with fran Bille Reyes, who so far this season, very
early, it's just not looked likedoes not look like that it's going to
be paying off super well for us. But again, you know, get
a player in a crowded situation,see if just the innate talent is going
to help us in a year tocome, and then just pretty swing pretty

(28:18):
wildly on some breakout picks. Youknow, I think chat easy Chad Pender
in this league. We have JackieBradley junior in this league. Those are
a couple of just straight stat castdarlings, I guess of the moment and
just to see if they kind ofbreak out. You know, we had
our April We had our April draft. So far we have it a little

(28:44):
earlier in this league than in others. In this league, we uh kind
of looked to shore up the offensea little bit. So we had Chris
Owings batting as our platoon third baseman, which is probably not ideal to have

(29:08):
Chris Owings in your starting lineup.So we ended up drafting let me just
check to make sure we drafted OhMark Reynolds to replace him. Oh,
we had Chris Owings as the DH, which was really not good. We
still have Chris Owings in our lineup, at least now he's in the field,

(29:30):
which is a little better. Butyou know, as as I said,
it's really hard to fix when youmake a mistake like that in the
spring draft, because, especially ina deep league like this, there is
you know, there's nothing left inthe positional for position players after a spring

(29:56):
draft in this league. Hopefully thissomething that the twenty sixth man next year
is going to fix a little bitum because you know, just with short
benches everywhere, there's very little youcan do to make up for that except
in a trade. Um, Jared, who have you looked for so far

(30:18):
as a trade candidate? Well,first of at Chris Owings, the DH
feels like an indictment of just ourgeneral strategy and approach to this thing,
where we say, well, anyonecan play first base, anybody can DH,
and then you end up with ChrisOwens Owings. Yeah, it's not
great, it's not a great job, but um uh yeah, well we'll

(30:42):
see how this league goes. Ithink the challenge for this team is really
going to be able to is goingto be to find a direction to go
with it. Um, you know, we drafted a couple of rookies.
Actually this year we drafted and HayesUm and we drafted Adlie Rushman. In

(31:03):
this league, a team like thatreally plays to Jared's strengths of his decisive
decision making this and his decidedly Yeah, I'm out of decision making words,
but I made a harp. Yeah, you know, we probably need to
help Jared with figuring out the directionof this team. Then. Yeah,

(31:25):
Um, I think there's a chancethat we may see the writing on the
wall in a couple months and thentry to pack it in early. I
was gonna say when I loved Surprise, it seemed Yeah, it seemed like
the pitchers were over their heads alittle bit. I know you called out
their early season performances. Do youexpect them to keep it up? And
and if we aren't at the topof the division in a month, do

(31:48):
you think it's going to be becauseof the hitting or the pitching. Um.
I think it will probably be thelack of top end talent, to
be honest, on both sides ofthe ball. UM, I think if
we aren't at the top of inthe month, it'll probably be because of
the pitching. But I am lookingmore for the pitching to surprise and hold
up. And I think if weare at the top of the month,

(32:12):
it will probably be because the pitchersare continuing to play over their heads a
little bit. Okay, interesting,but you know, this might be a
pivotal year for our team, becausemaybe this is the year where we pulled
the trigger and trade Buster Posey andAndrew mc cutcheon for whatever we can get.
Everything falls all the way apart,yeah, or George Springer and just

(32:36):
see you know again, we're justnot going to get value back because this
is not the league where you getenough value back to usually make those kinds
of trades worth it. But arewe going to Are we going to try
to do maybe one or two fallowyears as we did when we first joined
this league. We're even in asoft eight we were keeping I think we

(33:00):
kept Buster Posey for instance, inthe soft age a couple of years before
he made the majors and just liketook a loss on that position over and
over again for the chance to payoff, which is again, if you're
keeping young stars, you know,that's something that's a little more appealing than
keeping, um, you know,potential prospects. I would say, so,

(33:28):
so it's interesting. We'll check backin maybe in a month, see
how see how well the decision makingprocess is gone. It'll be going great
what we're landing on. But youknow, this is I think also a
case where you can look at ourteams to give us advice. If you

(33:49):
have thoughts on our team sentence scoresheetat Baseball Perspectives dot com, we will
read it and try not to feelbad about ourselves. Already passed that point,
I have no probably left in myability to play fantasy baseball. So,

(34:12):
um, I'm okay with being badat this. Yeah, so um,
speaking of being bad at things,Um, Jared, you've been watching
the Orioles for a week. I'mgood at watching the Orioles. Yeah,
No, you're good at watching theOrioles. I was going to pivot to
talking about a player who's maybe hada rough week, and it is perhaps
the story of baseball a moment Iwas gonna say, even I know about

(34:35):
this, That's what I'm able todeal it is, um, And I
don't mean to pick on him,and I will try to pivot off Um,
but you know, hopefully hopefully bysaying this, I am actually just
chasing him to get a hit tonight. I haven't checked the results yet,
but no, Chris Davis is overthe season so far. Chris Davis was

(34:58):
over most of last season, especiallythe end of it. Has now set
a record fourth most consecutive at batswithout a hit. Is that is that
correct? Shared? Yes, okay, Um not played appearances, but at
bats twenty nineteen Orioles a team offive distinction. I think he's went away

(35:22):
from played appearances to something like that. He's close. Um, what is
the remaining contract? I'm sure it'sover at the end of the year.
Yeah, yeah, I mean youdon't want to like cut bait before the
season ends, but yeah, Ithink you're coming pretty close to the end

(35:44):
of the rotten right. Surely,how could he possibly be under contract for
any longer than the end of thisyear? I mean that would be he
was the worst playing basebaster. Howcould it be being that doesn't make any
sense, like it was another threeyears and ninety two million dollars that would
be. I was gonna say theyat least getting like a good below market
deal on him. He got thatextension because it was like a low per

(36:09):
year rate, right right, Well, I am looking at him now,
and six million dollars of it isdeferred each year, So I mean the
new Bobby buddy a deal. ButI think the thing that he is like
the silver lining if anything, isthat it did not cost them their best
player. No, I mean,why on earth would you give up your

(36:31):
best player to hold on to ChrisDavis. That s Mark Trumbo a functionally
equivalent player. The deferred money onlygoes through twenty thirty seven, so I
don't that's quite Bobby Budnita. Wait, I was on because I was coughing.

(36:51):
What twenty thirty seven? Yeah,so he's signed through twenty twenty two,
but the deferred money only goes untiltwenty thirty seven. So that's that's
gonna be exciting. That's a funarticle that writes itself. Bro, my
daughter's going to be in college whenChris Davis is done getting paid by the

(37:14):
Oils. Although possibly my favorite I'mlooking at Cott's contract now. My favorite
bullet point outlining the contract is thatthere is only limited no trade protection.
He doesn't have full no trade protectionis just limited. So well, well

(37:36):
he kind of has fallowed no trade. There's a difference between being untradeable and
having no trade protection, right,He's really ensured that. In another way,
it's not true. I mean that'sa sign of his love of Baltimore.
So I genuinely I don't mean topick on him because if anyone is

(38:00):
going to uh and also strike,players who strike out a lot just look
horrible when they are slumping because theywere just not making you know, noctis.
Yeah, so you know, Ithink it looks even worse than it
is. Um, of course,what it is is the worst player in
base so it's not like a featherin his cap. But um, you

(38:27):
know, I think this is theyear when players are just not getting hits
anymore. I was thinking about thisbecause I you know, I was looking
at the first week. Um youknow, I was watching some games and
um, just over and over again. I was just watching like really average
pictures just take no hitters. It'slike the fifth inning was it was David

(38:52):
hess who had no. Six.It was seven and then seven yeah,
yeah, I uh god, almighty. It was like, um, you
know I saw Chris Paddock, uh, you know, making his debut.
That was a no hitter through fourMatt Moore had no hitter through five innings.

(39:15):
Hey, Matt Moore is still good, right, And you love Chris
Paddock, Yeah, and Srud Thorntonmatched him. Um, but you know
in his first start, I sawBrad Peacock throw a bunch of hittings.
You know, it was just umand just up and down. All sorts
of teams are um just you know, average to bad pictures or throwing two

(39:37):
hitters, three hitters left and right. Um, and something has like just
I don't want to say like brokenin baseball, but um, you know,
I think it's a sign that somethinghas uh formidably changed when we're seeing
things like that. And you know, I was thinking about what that means

(39:57):
a little bit for U our teamand for Scuorti in general. We were
talking us just a little bit offfair about some concepts around this. Um.
You know, there is an articlein Joe she Hands Valuable Newsletter.
Again, That's another thing I wouldsuggest that anyone listening to the subscribe to

(40:19):
about the death of the single.And I've seen some pole up conversations around
that on the Internet, But thegist of it is that the single is
almost gone as a offensive weapon,and it does more than just like,
okay, it's a three tro outcomesgame. Now everyone knows that. It's
been great branding for us. Yeah, we pop up all over the place.

(40:43):
It's great. How apprescient was oneof us. They're both effective marketing
tool certainly not anything else that wedo. Yeah, our one bit of
genius. It's just getting up theSEO rankings there. Um. But you

(41:04):
know, I think, um,it's not just seeing the three child comes
game, uh going, it's youknow, the single just all of a
sudden, It makes sacrifice bunts pointless. It makes things like stone basis pointless
because it requires you know, movingthe runner over and then moving the runner
over again. Um. You knowthat. Um. Basically, any you

(41:29):
know, any strategy that kind ofmoves the runner along is really relying on
a hit that is in all likelihoodnever going to come or be an extra
mace hit if it does. Umum, thus rendering the initial moving the
runner over and right right. Um. And you know, I think it

(41:49):
has moved the game, uh inexorablytowards this U batter picture confrontation that either
ends and strike out or victory withan extra mashter a home run, and
this kind of all or nothing thingthat is has a lot of m kind

(42:10):
of ramifications for the way that baseballis being played. And you know,
just thinking about that, because scoresheet is a league that is kind of
the underlying engine. Probably it hasbeen built and settled in a different offensive
era, to say the least,you know that there is still a bunt

(42:34):
column and a steel column and thoseare really the actions that you can take
and pinch hitting, and none ofthose really happen anymore. You know.
There isn't like a shift column orthat kind of you know, reflects the
decisions being made today. But youknow, on the other hand, there

(42:55):
are fewer decisions being made today.So um, you know, I'm looking
at these two hitters one hitters andsaying like, okay, how are you
building a team this way? Youknow, are we looking more even more
towards slugging that over everything else?If the system is expecting hits that just

(43:20):
aren't going to show up in ain a simulation, And then I guess
the question is is that okay?Because the system is really keying on ear
and balancing everything else around it isthat kind of the natural the natural safeguard

(43:42):
to avoid breaking the rest of thesimulation. And Ben, if it's okay,
I'm going to turn it over toyou in a second, because I
think you had a couple of thoughtson like, Okay, if you're building
a simulation, what is important?Yeah, yeah, And I think it

(44:04):
gets to some of what you weresaying about how score sheet was built and
designed in a time when you know, baseball as a whole was just played
differently. You know, the frequencyof events was different and the style was
different. I hadn't thought about thelast part of what you said about how
like the era matching sort of keepsthe run environment in check in a way

(44:28):
that might cure some of those otherills. A lot of what I had
been thinking about when I sort ofbrainstorm about this sort of thing is,
you know, one of the thingsthat happen in real life that need to
be tracked by the sims so thatpeople that are playing appreciate, you know,

(44:51):
some some realism and also some fantasy, right, Like, we don't
actually want it to be perfectly tiedto reality, because then we'd just be
roto essentially right, it would becompletely deterministic, so right, or strat
or something like that. Yeah,And so finding the balance between you know,
just one hundred percent replicating reality andsomething that deviates so far from reality

(45:14):
that it doesn't feel like our abilitiesas fantasy players to evaluate talent or whatever,
you know, have a bearing.We want we want the thing that
we see played in real life andour ability to evaluate players as they play
actual baseball to be something that informshow well we play the fantasy game.

(45:35):
And so you have to start apick, you know, and I think
you could you could come up witha ranking or something like that where you're
like, well, home runs areprobably more important than triples, right,
because home runs are happening more often, they have a more significant driving force
on run expectancy and team performance andall these other things. So you know,

(45:59):
you could go through through the differentways that a plate appearance can end
and have a sense for, like, you know, which things are the
most important in terms of how closelythey track between fantasy and reality. And
my sense is that singles, untothemselves, probably wouldn't be They'll probably be
like in the middle third somewhere.It's like my hunch, right, it

(46:22):
wouldn't be at the bottom because againmaybe something like triples are down there or
depending on how finally you want tobreak it out, like the nature of
you know, ground out versus lineoutversus flyball pop up, that type of
thing. You know, the typeof batted ball out matters a little bit,
but you know it doesn't matter asmuch as maybe single versus double versus

(46:47):
home run types of things. Soyeah, and I think one of the
things that is interesting to me conceptuallyabout this is that, um, there's
a real break point between something likesingle, double, home run and ar

(47:08):
right, because era is something that'smeasuring outcome as opposed to like the result
of it at bats. It's thisoverall result of the game. It's this
abstract concept, right, So youknow, if a if a pitcher,
uh, let's say a J.Burnett's it and allows let's say nine hits,
nine walks, strikes out seven andno runs, I think it's scoresheet

(47:31):
there are going to allow no runs, yeah or something. The fact that
they allowed no runs is way morenotable than the fact that they allowed nine
hits, right, right, Andin this world where let's say a pictures
pitch for five innings allowed two hitsand two runs both by home run.

(47:55):
The thing that is most notable isthe two runs right picture strike at its
functionally don't matter. Yeah, Ithink that's generally true. The way that
the batter gets out is not isnot that significant, and it's becoming even

(48:16):
less significant, right. That's partof what you're getting at with Like the
decrease in singles is also like theincrease in strikeouts, and the fact that
you know, the groundball to theright side that used to advance the runner
is less and less consequential as theability for that base advancement to have a

(48:38):
difference in the sequencing and how manyruns are scored. Right, and you
have batting averages essentially collapsing in realbaseball, mitigated somewhat by the home runs.
So you know, I think what'sinteresting in building a simulation or something

(49:02):
like that would be this balance oflike, Okay, do we want to
preserve this run environment that exists,or do we want to try to simulate
this batter picture outcome as the funkas the key unit. And then you
know, if you do that,I think you're a little bit more susceptible

(49:23):
to these types of changes in league. You think tying it more directly to
the batter picture interaction leaves you susceptiblewhen the run environment changes. Yeah,
Or I think as the batter picture, you know, if you haven't modeled
let's say singles correctly, you knowthere's no countervailing force that's saying, Okay,

(49:49):
well, I don't care how theteam needs to score run here,
it just happens, right. Ithink also, if you did it correctly
and the sims programmed to track toreality closely enough in terms of the batter
picture interaction, it would automatically correctitself, right. And I think I

(50:14):
think part of what we've talked aboutis you sort of want to get to
the lowest level that you can ifyou're really going for realism, because it'll
have a tendency to correct itself andyou won't see weird anomalous results that don't
seem to track based on what youwould expect to happen, right, Like
that example that you gave with likethe A. J. Burnett start doesn't

(50:37):
and shouldn't probably happen very often,right, right. And I think some
of what we see in the likerun balancing or luck balancing types of things
that happen in score sheet are situationswhere like, this player's this batter's performance
has to be like at a certainlevel in order to sort of track to

(50:58):
you know, they're like key performindicators from real life, like on base
percentage or whatever. But because thepicture that they're facing, you know,
has some luck and run balancing,that means that they're gonna artificially suppressed run
scoring. You get these sort oflike weird combinations of things where a lot
of runners get stranded or the sequencingas such that you know, things end

(51:21):
up looking kind of wonky and you'resort of like, well, you know,
I guess you can chalk some ofthat up to the randomness of sequencing,
but at some point it's it lookstoo weird to be believable. Whereas
if you could really track to likethe nuts and bolts of the batter picture
interaction, I think all that wouldtake care of itself, or would come
much closer to taking care of itself. So yeah, Jared, I'm just

(51:47):
curious what you know between the two, Like do you think kind of preserving
the run environment might be more importantor you know, do you do you
think this like fundamental unit is enoughto kind of carry a simulation through or

(52:07):
is that something you'd be looking towards. Let's say, do you how do
you want your David has start reflectedDavid has should only pitch no hitters.
Um, I leaned towards the fundamentalunit. But may I ask a I've
been thinking about like a somewhat relatedquestion. I don't want to. I
don't want to. They've hurt theconversation. If you guys said more that

(52:30):
you want to come on, Jo, this is a very focused exploration.
Well, I've just been thinking aboutit from like a more like one level
up in terms of like interaction withthe sim And so my bias here is
that I've never found the managing partof stuff as interesting as the GM aspects.

(52:50):
So like, I didn't play STRAT, but we had this board game
called Superstar Baseball that was spec similarof STRAT basically, and it for to
me it was more fun it wasdrafting the cards of the Hall of Famers
rather than actually playing the games againstmy brother. But it seems sort of
deal. But so I guess myquestion is and I think it's related because
it seems like that's part of theappeal of something like UM scoresheet is that
you get to be the manager too, and you get to you know,

(53:12):
just all other strategies that every everybattery decide steal or bunt or whatever the
case may be. But it soundslike, you know what we're talking about
in this in the sort of environmentthat the role of the manager, both
in real life and in something likescoresheet, is um plays less of a
role in the SIM. And like, how how should how deep? What

(53:34):
plays less of a role in theSIM managerial strategy? Yeah? Right?
Like if the single? If thesingle is less important, then stealing and
stealing and bunting are less important.Then what are the lovers that a manager
is has to pull? And howmuch does one need to think about that
when thinking about the SIM? Right? And a manager is pulling? Like
if we talk about a major leaguemanager, the things that they are most

(53:58):
doing are well, frank, listeningto the general manager, a like executing
their will. But I would saymajor league manager's biggest decisions are kind of
setting the lineup based upon batter pitcherinteraction effects, right, so you usually
handedness, but things like that,I would say defensive positioning, and this

(54:23):
would be the magial unit, right, including the bench coaches, defensive positioning,
and then bullpen management. Sure,it seemed like the three big levers,
and I would say you're right thatnone of those seem particularly well reflected
right now. I think bullpen managementis the low hanging fruit there. The

(54:45):
like picture substitution should be something thatare easier to have a fine tune wrench
around, where like shifting and positioningand stuff like that, it's going to
be much tougher, Yeah, becauseespecially and you're already dealing with results shifting,
so you can't like so shifting thedefense and then on top of that,

(55:08):
dealing with shifted player results. Ithink that's extremely messy too. Untangle.
Sure, yeah, but you knowit does seem like that is the
way that you know material decisions aregoing, and it's kind of tough to

(55:29):
say, like, Okay, thisplayer needs to bunt to the sixth ending
when and have that be your decisionwhen you know so much energy is being
focused elsewhere in the real world.Yes, I agree with that, all
right, Yes, so I thinkit's interesting. I think we might pick

(55:53):
that up. We're coming to theend of our our audio recording window right
now, though. I do wantto hivot and you know, if we
have more to talk about on asubject, that's great because you know what
that means. That's a podcast topicfor next time. Um. But until
then, UM can I I wantto tease the thing that we're going to

(56:15):
talk about next time because I thinkso Jared, you've talked about this before.
It was like how realistic do youreally need it to be? You
know, like what's the driver ofhow fun it is? You know,
because I think everything we're talking abouthere is like, how can you gear
it to be as realistic as possible? But maybe the better question is like

(56:37):
how can you gear it to beas fun as possible? And when are
those the same thing? Yeah,and for anyone who has made it this
far and cares to share their thoughts, we want to hear them. Baseball
Perspectives dot com. If you don'thave a good scoresheet, team question,
at least chime in with your opinionson sim stuff and we can share those
on there. M Yeah, andyou know again, we'll probably ask that

(57:01):
a little more upfront in the nextpodcast. But until then, Ben,
what is the best thing you sawthis week? I was gonna go with
the Chris Davis stuff. Yeah,first, and then I was like,
well, I can't do that becauselike and then you said, like you're
gonna tease chat about that anyway,So I couldn't go there. And one

(57:29):
of the things that happens in thetiming of like when baseball starts that matters
a little bit more in the northernclimates is the start of spring. So
I was gonna go at the startof spring. It's been wonderful weather around
Michigan, and it's gonna be opportunityto take a lease outside and it's fun
to watch her like run around andjust sort of be outside for the first

(57:51):
time when she's able to walk.We're outside today, I was like taking
the dogs out or whatever, andlike a huge gust of wind came like
completely shocked her because you know,you don't you don't think about her like
she's spent her entire life indoors.Basically, right, is really strange,
right, right, Like, andso like this is the thing about being

(58:13):
a parent that is like continually rewarding. It's like you're like, oh wait,
Like I never thought about what itwould be like to experience wind for
the first time. So she hasjust like very bewildered look on her face,
like what is going on? Itwas awesome. Yeah, definitely looking
forward to spring, getting outside more, going on walks, that kind of
thing. So you next time byblowing on her. Yeah, so,

(58:36):
and I have actually they have.So babies have this reflex. You may
may not be aware. I thinkit called the diverse reflex. So like
if they're crying and you blow onthem and it'll like startle them for a
second and they'll stop crying. Soif you're willing to like hyperventilate yourself,
you can sort of like mitigate reallyterrible crying fits. So she definitely had
like people blow on her face before. I won't say that, you know,

(59:00):
let's a go to move of mineor anything. But uh, it's
not like the wind itself was completelyfor like the notion of having like air
moving around her. It was justlike, you know, of course there's
a feeling on her and then likeall the trees are making all the noise
and the leaves are kicking up,and it's just anyway, Can I just
say if if I were crying andsomebody blew on my face, I would

(59:21):
be pretty startled too. Yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah, they grow
out of it after a while.But um yeah, so it's a good
s tragy for really, anyone who'scrying just get all up in their face.
Um. So, Jared, whatis the best thing you saw this

(59:42):
week? I'm gonna stretch the limitsof one thing and turn it into three
things. Okay, but but novers real quick. Um. I don't
know if you guys remember last podcast. I was like, man, Yankees
are so good. Even if theyhad two injuries to their hitters and two
injuries to their pictures, It's stillbe just fine. I'm just gonna leave

(01:00:05):
that there for a second. Um, but the best thing I saw this
week was I'm gonna get two things. It's it's uh interaction between fans and
players. So going back to theChris Davis, I want to bring it
up before. I was watching thegame last night when Chris Davis broke the
record, and um, sorry,I just love that. It's like the

(01:00:27):
Cal ripping game. You know,were you there with Chris Davis broke the
record? Wait, Jared, weren'tyou also there when Cal broth the record?
So you're like witnessed all kinds ofoil records. I wasn't I wasn't
in Baltimore yesterday. I was oncatch because there was only sixty five hundred
people was the announced crowd, thelowest attendance in Kenny Yards history. No

(01:00:52):
get broken a few times this year, guys, but just them. And
maybe this is maybe me was castingit onto that. But the way that
the fans treated um, Chris Daviswhen he was up to tie and then
to break the record was really positive. It felt positive. At least it
felt like this is a situation wherethey could have gotten on his case.

(01:01:13):
And there are certainly tons of peoplewho are like, oh man, you're
getting paid twenty three million dollars tobe absolutely terrible and and literally anybody else
could do what Chris Davis is doingbecause he's not doing anything. But at
least in this one moment, itwas it felt kind of nice that the
fans were, h we're not onhis case with this one at that,
which must be a really truly terriblemoment in somebody's life. It's like the

(01:01:34):
Rudy moment, right, sort ofyeah, you know what the opposite something
well, but then he doesn't looklike he find he's getting a lot of
money but like to be have allthis attention on just how terrible you are
is gotten kind of rough and itwas somewhat supportive, you know, Yeah,
it is a Bombers like I dogenuinely like as much as he is

(01:01:54):
a rich person, I do genuinelyfeel bad for him because I think there's
a confluence of factors that yeah tooat this point. And it was actually
kind of exciting watching it. Igotta say, just you know, whether
he's going to get a hit,and I don't know if you guys saw,
like on the last one he actuallyhit the ball really well. As
soon as he hit it, Iwas like, oh man, he did
it. And if you if youlook afterwards, like the hit probability on

(01:02:15):
it, I was fifty eight percentor something. Got unlucky. It was.
It was kind of crazy. Butthen just yep, unlucky. It's
a good word for Chris Teas.That's gonna be rough one we make all
the records move over to stack cast. I was at the Nats game when
I was last week, when Iwas that, uh, Bryce Harper came

(01:02:36):
back for the first game. Um, I managed to get free tickets and
then because it's the Nats, theirbeer concessant stopped working, so I got
free beers. There's I mean win, but uh uh yeah. Just to
see the reaction that that Bryce Harpergot when his first time up, I
don't know if it was good orbad, but it was just a thing.
And to see NAT's fans passionate aboutsomething I guess was nice, but

(01:02:59):
it was. It's just kind ofinteresting being there and seeing both the Nuts
and the Phillies fans and there wasso much emotion there. It was fun
to be there. I guess.I don't have a judgment on him.
Who was the person on Twitter thatwrote, like, why are you people
booing? You were all Oriels fansfifteen years ago. It's just such a
remarkable troll. I appreciate it.Yeah, No, I mean it's it's

(01:03:22):
clearly fair. But I guess ifthe Nuts are going to build their fans,
you know, build their history ofsomething, this is sort of how
it starts. That. Yeah,and that was definitely a remarkable game.
Um. You know, I wasgonna stretch the definition of best thing I
saw this week because the best thingI saw this week was not the Bryce
Harper Nationals game. It was thefirst Bryce Harper home game where he hit

(01:03:45):
a home run in the eighth inningand then was it the or late in
the game. Um, So youknow, he came up and was just
getting cheered by Phillies fans who areobviously noted for their uh passion and love
of the hometown craw hometown nine.Um. And then you know, I

(01:04:11):
kind of in his last bad ofhis first game of you know, his
Philly's career, he hits a mammothhome run. He I mean, obviously
he's been looking okay part of theseason. Yeah, I know. And
the thing the thing that got meabout that well, to youth so one.

(01:04:33):
You know, just uh, themoment, the passion, the excitement
in the standard you know, himcoming out, and it was like,
oh, this is you know,this is what makes sports exciting that you
you know, you can't script thingsand it just makes things all the more
enjoyable for the fact that you know, when it does happen, it feels

(01:04:55):
electric and alive. Um. Butthat wasn't the best thing. The best
thing I saw about that was thatad as he was hitting the home run.
On the replay, you could seein his swing you see a bunch
of fans rise and in the middleof the fans looking like blend close in

(01:05:18):
the natural is the Philly fanatics straightto cabin with what I can only describe
as a shocked expression. And everyoneis moving, and the Philly fanatic is
just like staring at you dead onwith like surprise, joy, all the

(01:05:40):
emotions that you can expect from felt. And you know, as everyone rises
and uh, you know, eventuallyyou see this Philly fanatic just get ready
to do his thing, his thing, obviously being less enjoyable, staring likely
straight to camera. Uh you youjust appreciate, like, oh, this

(01:06:06):
is this is amazing, This isa moment, This is like wonder Boy
all over again. I knew therewas a twist coming. I didn't see
that one. That was pretty good. Maybe there is some magic in baseball
after all. All right, Soon that note, please send us your

(01:06:30):
thoughts, questions, memories other Philipfanatic to Scoresheet at Baseball Perspectives dot com.
Until then, on behalf of BenMurphony Jaredwis I mean Leftgwitz. Thanks
again and have a great day.