Listener Questions

TTO takes some listener questions and we also review some discussions on Scoresheet Talk forum (Yahoo Group ss-talk) about luck balancing and how the simulation does and how it should work. Tune in for all that plus the best things we saw since the last pod!

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Howdy and welcome to the Three Truckospodcast, presented by Baseball Perspectives. I'm
your host Ian left Wuiz and joiningme as always from suburban Michigan, it
is Ben Murphy. Ben. Howare you doing? I'm doing well?
Ian? How are you? I'mdoing well. Delighted to be here and
uh back in um in May wherewe're baseball starting account. It's very exciting

(00:25):
starting to count just now. Yeah, yeah, you know, you know
what they say, after three weeksyou shouldn't panic, and after four weeks
everything matters. Yeah, traditional folkwisdom. Um. Joining me as always,
also from the nation's capital, itis Jared Wis Jared, how are
you doing? I'm doing well.Oriels are staging and comeback as we speak.

(00:47):
Um. What I like is thatpeople listen to this. Uh you
know with schedule, Yeah, Orielsare going to be losing some game.
They're gonna get one base runner andeverybody knows that. For Jared, that's
staging a comeback. I guess youcould think of the Orioles as staging a

(01:08):
comeback in the cosmic sense, youknow, with the astronomical version of time.
All right, yeah, all right, aren't we all in the long
run. Um, but uh no, we have no time for Oriols jokes

(01:32):
because we have a great podcast,probably honestly filled with a bunch of oriol
jokes. But before that, butthose are funny. Yeah, Before that,
we have baseball content. We're gonnatry to talk a little real baseball.
Um. We are going to answersome questions. We're going to dip
into the scorcy Talk forums for somehot, hot takes. This is gonna

(01:55):
be the PTI of Scorcy Talk.Really my highest, highest and best aspiration
for myself. Um de yeah.But before we do that, this is
probably not going to be the longestof episodes. Um, which I realized
saying that that you actually can seethe runtime in front of you. So

(02:20):
I either just told you the truthor a really good joke. We'll see
either way. They're happy. Um, yeah, but we'll get we'll get
right into it. Um. Weactually got a few questions this week,
so I am delighted as always toturn it over to our mailback, Captain,
mailback, captain, how's it going? Fantastic? We get letters,

(02:44):
they're great. Who's Who's Tony?And who's Wilbon? That's it? Did
you immediately stack by yourself. Thatis very tough. Um. True.
Fact, I have never seen anepisode of part in the Interruption and falling.

(03:07):
Oh really wow? Yeah, fromend to end. I used to
listen to the podcast, just likekeep up with Sporting Curni events, And
then when High Noons started coming on, I stopped listening to PTI because well
I should have stopped a while ago. But Bemani Jones and Paula Toia do

(03:28):
a much better job of not soundingold and curmudgeon and generally wrong about things
that sees extremely accurate. Yeah,also describing a large percentage of the damning

(03:50):
with faint praise. Perhaps, Yeah, it's interesting like Kornheiser isn't doing the
one that irritated me. Um,yeah, as much. But Wilbon had
a lot of like elier than now, old person and get off my lawn
kinds of takes that got really omnoxious. Again, I aspire to that one
day, maybe maybe even a fewminutes. Oh maybe I am a Wilbon.

(04:12):
All right, this is exciting.Yeah, all right, if you
can get on here, I meanthat, listeners, if you want to,
if you want to weigh in,please squorcheet at baseball perspective? Is
this like Eric Moyer's question about whichone of us is each outcome is like
which one of us is each person? On PTI, we will answer any

(04:33):
of three things. I let mebe honest. That is a really evergreen
question. I kind of love it. Yeah, yeah, we should start
doing that, all right, butwe gotta go move on because the im
promises is going to be a shortrun times. Yeah, that's um.

(04:54):
So the first question comes from Michael, who claims to be a regu their
listener enjoy our shows but didn't likeour discussion of the theater um last podcast.
I think at least one of thoseclauses is not true. And if
it's the one about theater, wecould talk about the Tonys. I'm gonna
talk about the Tonys. Talk aboutthe Tonys, do you feel Yeah,

(05:18):
let's talk about the Tony. Yourboy Aaron Sarkin got robbed, you got
Well, he's not a he's nota Broadway kind of guy. Like I
mean, let's face it, he'snot one of them, and they're it
just it should have happened, butit didn't. But that's okay. He
doesn't need it. He doesn't needit. It's fine, he's just gonna
be an EO for the rest ofhis life. Huh um, yeah,

(05:43):
all right, yeah, okay.So again, the person who said like
everything about our podcast except the theatercontext delivered straight theater contest to you anger
on the pulse of listener dum.Anyway, Michael is in m al Keating.
He's Team eight if anyone wants tofollow along, which is a third

(06:04):
thirteen keep al only league that's beenaround since the mid eighties. That's pretty
cool that he's nice, he says, in that time, he only has
one championship, But we haven't beenpotting since the mid eighties, and don't
understand and as in the second yearever rebuild, and has some questions for

(06:27):
our team. He's at time ofthis recording, he's at four hundred,
sorry, at five hundred, fourgames out of his division. So his
first question to us is whether wethink he should try to compete this year.
He has some guys from who areinjured, like Lindor, Judge,
Dickerson, Givaldi, but he doesn'tthink he has the depth or the talent

(06:47):
to compete this year. Would youagree? Um? So in times like
these, what I have enjoyed doing, and which I've been recommending every couple
of weeks, is going to RobMCN's well score Baseball perspectus is But you

(07:08):
know, we know the brains behindthis. That's the Taken Players Report,
which you can find on the ScoresheetDraft aid tab, which kind of put
lines up your keepers along a numberof axes and tells you about I would
say this is a really rough estimateof you know, how good your team
is based upon projected SSIM, thevalue that Baseball Perspectives uses for scoresheetum.

(07:35):
According to that, I you know, I would tend to agree that the
team is sort of punching above itsweight. And I think I think that's
true to some extent even looking atthe team. You know, this is
am for a ten team league.You know that a little it's a little

(07:57):
shallow. We played a lot ofI think twelve and twenty four teen leagues,
so sometimes it's a little tough forus to adjust. But you probably
want like two or three stars tobe like a competitive team. And you
know, especially when it comes tothe pitching, this isn't something I see

(08:18):
from his team. So you know, I think if you look at the
top five, top thirteen keepers.Again, this is something I recommend for
everybody as an exercise. In thiscase, I see like a lack of
top end talent that I think isgoing to make it really difficult to compete
in the long run this year.Yeah, so it looks like teammate is

(08:41):
second to last in top five,second to last in top eight, second
to last in top ten, etc. So you're better than team seven woo.
Yeah, and which you know,it's like it might be the person
in the league's named after or isrelated to the person anyway. Sorry,

(09:03):
you're sending in your questions, pleasesend in your entire league history. You
know, we we demand context.Um No, you know, I think
it's been some canny drafting, probablysome lucky drafting this year. You know,
hunterd Dozier's broken out. I likeShane Bieber. I don't know that
he can front a playoff winning rotation, but I don't think he's that far

(09:24):
off, you know. I thinkthere are a couple of good breaks,
some bad breaks. Like an averageteam, I think it's probably punching a
little bit above its weight. AndI would, you know, if it
continues to do so for three moremonths, right, But you know,
I don't think I would plan forthat. I think we all agree here

(09:45):
that it's yeah, punching above itsweight, probably unlikely to be competitive.
Doesn't mean you have to throw awaythe entire team right the second. But
but yeah, it's not one whoprojected to be a winner. But this
leads into his second question because Ithink that deep down Michael knew that,
and he knew that. One ofthe reasons that his team is called over
performing, if you want, isbecause of hundred Dojer who you mentioned.

(10:07):
Did you guys see his triple slashin this league? Because it's insane.
No hunter Dojer in this league istriple slashing three fifty five, four sixty
two, seven sixty three. Becausehe's slugging seven sixty three the next highest
guys under six hundred. He's onehundred fifty point higher than anyone else.
Um, that's not right. Ittakes a lot to get chared that exasperated

(10:30):
about Remember when we saw a HunterDojer in Idaho Falls. I can tell
you he doesn't. I remember,I remember the game in Idaho Falls.
I don't remember hundred. Yeah,do you remember anything about the game in
Idaho Pap, I sure do,Yet was there a no hitter in the
game? Well, you know,if the team scores a run but they

(10:50):
haven't had any hits, is itstill count as a no hitter? Is
it a no hitter? I'm notsure, but I remember talking about this
game. Yeah, yeah, forthose who haven't, Um, Jared is
this might surprise you as Nora's fanof the superstitious sort, also of the
doomed sort, you know, andI would say, believes a little bit
in the no hitter jinks any kindYeah, any jinks. Um. It's

(11:13):
not like Jared is discerning about hischinks and the people behind us at at
this game that we were at inIdaho Falls, Idaho a lovely place,
um, although more falls Um whatcobnation for Idaho falls more falls? Um?
But I would say the better partof three innings describe asking each other

(11:37):
what a no hitter was in likebrand detail, just saying the words no
hitter over and over and over again. As this picture Yander Carmo uh carried
a no hitter into the ninth inning, which neither of us have seen before
in our lives. And it's theone thing, oh sorry, I had
seen no hit. The Orioles that'sfair, is my white whale. And

(12:07):
you know, is the most excitingthing to see in baseball the absence or
something, which is what makes mesmall special um so, and just the
idea of watching Jared visibly cringe nextto me every time the word no hitter
was said, which is like several, like about twenty to thirty times,
and like is that but do theyhave an error? Does an error count

(12:28):
a no hitter? Does that meanthey don't have any hits? Is that
a no hitter? So what whatdoes no hitter? No hitter, no
hitter, no hitter? And thenlike every time you just see like this
galvanic reaction, just like horrible likeshrieking pain coming next to me, which
is obviously what they look for evenmore than a no hitter in life.
Anyway, provides me that one hundredwas really good in that game, and

(12:54):
I see a breakout half a decadelater. So get back to the question,
Yeah, we've got hundred doser.And then Adelberto Mondessi, who is
also an a little like crazy andhe wants to know what to do with
Mondasy and Dozer? Are there people? Are they guys you would consider trying
to trade now? Do you doyou think they're long term keepers that it's

(13:16):
not worth investigating. Do you haveany thoughts in them? Yeah, I
mean I keep my options open.I think you could certainly offer Hunter Tosher
around to any team in need forwhat you perceive his equivalent value and lock
it in. Um. I thinkit's hard to say. You know,

(13:39):
we live in the stadcast world whereeverything kind of has the explanation behind it,
right, And I haven't fully boreddown one hundred doser. But you
know, I was listening to MikePetriolo talk about this last week, and
you know, just looking at himthere there's an aspect to this that feels

(14:01):
realm Despite that, like, Ithink you could also still, you know,
he might still be better off onanother team than yours. Even if
that is true, you think shouldbe looking for like younger or longer run

(14:22):
value instead of older guys that areless likely to hold it. Yeah,
Hunter Dozer is already twenty seven.Is a thing that you should know about
him if you're not like immediately familiarwith him so far. He was a
college prospect, I believe, andyou know has been circling the miners for

(14:46):
a while, you know, andagain, like because of swing pass change,
he's I think pulling the ball muchmore than he used to. Um.
You know, it's hard to saythat changes like these are completely out
of the realm of possibility anymore.But I guess, like with Max Munsey
last year, I guess you countyour blessings. But I think you may

(15:07):
want to shop him and see ifyou can get something that's a little more
stable or a little more future oriented. Even if that's true, I don't
bear Demondasy is really interesting. He'snot a player who I know what to
make of. Really, I thinkhe has He's not a player who I

(15:31):
had been particularly high on because Itend to like performance a little more than
projection. And you know, thepower has come to a degree that I
didn't really expect. But you know, even if it's not like a form
that is ideal or you know,the pure platonic like moneyball through Chilcolm's style.

(15:58):
But you know, he's still superyoung. I don't think you have
to trade him right away. Ithink he'd have value. I think he'd
have value at the end of theyear. I think he'd have value at
the end of next year, evenif he has a down year, people
will still remember its power. Yeah, that pedigree is going to stick for
the people that like him. Yeah. So I mean again, like if
you get a good deal, andif not, he's on your team and

(16:21):
pushing you forward. So I don'tknow. I guess the answer as always
depends but fair enough, right,it depends on what you get back,
but I wouldn't force anything. He'sprobably be more inclined to trade Dojer if
you get a good deal back.That's fair Ben in like the abschect sense,

(16:44):
someone like Dojer who's hitting the crapout of the ball in a way
that I think everyone acknowledged this probablyis going to last for the rest of
the season, but he still hassome value. Is there is there still
a way to trade someone like that? It just as long as they're want
to just their expectations, or isthere just it's unrealistic to expect a trade
to happen? Do you think Ithink Ian's advice about shopping him around is

(17:07):
how you're gonna figure out if youcan get a good deal or not,
and you're looking for somebody that's justyou know, more willing to pay something
close to present value instead of likesome kind of discounted future value, but
he's hitting well enough that he'll definitelybe able to move him. So yeah,

(17:30):
I don't know that. I guessit depends on what Mike thinks it's
going to happen to Dojer in thefuture, and whether he thinks that Dozier
is going to be part of Mike'snext team that's competing or not. Yeah,
because yeah, twenty seven is notso old that you couldn't see contending
with him on the roster right right, and I think he's kind of played

(17:53):
himself into at least being I don'tknow Yander orlans Will left, which is
doesn't sound exceptional. But to beclear, Hunter Dozer a month ago was
projected to be one of the worsthitters in baseball, so to have even
a third number thirteen keeper out ofhim is great and I think there's potential

(18:15):
for more um HUNTERD. Dojer,who was hit slogging six eighty eight in
real life. By the way,m one other fact about HUNTERD. Dozer
that I forgot about, but Idid flag for this podcast. So Hunter
Dozer, I was looking up hisstats and pancrafts and there's an recent article
about him by Craig Edwards. Thatsays a lot of what I was saying,

(18:37):
but better and with charts and youknow, supporting facts. But the
one upshot at the end of itis that Hunter Dozer's plate discipline shows he
swings a few pitches and doesn't makecontact on pitches outside the zone. He
doesn't have a ton of close comps, but the closest might be Tommy pham.

(19:00):
Um, he's fairly patient and outof the zone, and when he
makes contact, he hits all hard. Um, so as everyone knows,
I am a big fan, andit's just as painful every time. He
never gets less painfreing Yeah, andif that is hundred's best comp I guess

(19:22):
you hold on to him forever.Okay, that cool. Yeah, let's
move on and maybe let's grab itup. Michael also asked him about go
ahead. Sorry, I was justgonna say it. Um. My sense
is that if you're wondering, likewhether it's time to compete or like play
for next year, that almost alwaysmeans play for next year, right,
Because like I think our at leastmost of us anyway, are like inherent

(19:48):
biases to overestimate our team, andso if you think they might not be
good enough to contend they're probably notgood enough, right, Yeah, I
think I think that's fair stude observation, not that like, and I think,
um, Jared, you pointed outearlier like Mike sort of asked his
question in a leading enough way thatwe had a sense that he was going

(20:10):
down that path anyway. But Iguess for everybody that's out there listening that
maybe nothing about Mike's team specifically soundedapplicable to them. Maybe that will help,
Like, if you're not sure,that's very true. And you know,
I think something that you ben saya lot too, is like compete
for what, like compete for theplayoffs? Yeah, or compete to be

(20:32):
the best team. Yeah, andmaybe the playoffs is something that people want
to compete for. I'm not sayingthat you should, but we compete for
championships. So trust the process,okay, yeah cool? Um, So,
yeah, Michael had asked about startingpitchers, but I think we agreed
that that was the source of weaknessfor him. So unless you guys object,
let's just talk about the prospects heconsiders. Wander Franco Adele and Royce

(20:57):
Lewis is untouchable, Ian is itoffensive to put Wander Franco in the same
sentences of their prospects other than theseother prospects are not as good as wander
Franco. Look, the thing is, we just luck boxed into getting Wander
Franco in our league, and thenall of a sudden, in the you
know you love your own prospects themost, he is now the lord and

(21:18):
savior of our team. Um.I think Joe adell Is is a very
strong prospect. I am not convincedon Royce Lewis yet, but you know,
uh like, I think the upsideis there, so sure. Cool.
But and then he talks about abunch of other prospects. I don't

(21:40):
think you list him off. Doyou have any thoughts on McKay or Kyle
Tucker or um any other prospects onhis team? Um, so what to
do with I wouldn't even say theseare second tier prospects. I think these
are pretty clear, um, youknow, solid, especially in traditional heart

(22:02):
thirteen league keeper or heart thirteen keeperleagues. These are I think very solid
prospects. I would hold on toanyone who I consider too there. Let's
say average outcome being a plus keeper, and I wouldn't really concern myself with
having too many of them, especiallythis year. Is there anyone on his

(22:26):
team he wouldn't suggest keeping or youtry to get rid of. Well,
I wouldn't what he said. Iwould probably not package them into a starting
pitcher, because again, that's somethingthat depreciates pretty quickly. That's a question
that he was asking, and thatprobably appreciates even quicker than a prospect.
Like if he has Nate Piriston onhis team, If Nate Pearson has Tommy

(22:48):
John surgery next year or this month, I think you could potentially still get
something for him next year. Andif that happens with a major league pitcher,
I think you're out of luck.I don't immediately see players who I
would get rid of. I wouldprobably look to trade Ryan mount Castle he
gets to the major leagues. Yeaheverything o jain Yeah, no, doing

(23:15):
great, stub your toe. Whywould you training ry trade Ryan mountain Castle
because he can't hit or field?You know, he's having he's having a
much better you know, April thanI expected, and I'm probaly gonna end
up having to eat some crow.But like I still don't understand, like

(23:37):
I think he he is a player, and there are a bunch of players
of this type, you know,the tweener players who are like, well,
he was once a shortstop prospect andhe would be a great hitter for
a shortstop prospect, and now he'sa first based prospect and he still hits

(23:57):
about the same. Um. Idon't really trust the Oriel development staff yet,
but they're the asters now, Iknow. Um. But I think
one thing in general to think ofis like, I think some prospects may
have as much value as possible,Like their maximal value might be the day
they get called up to the bigleagues. Yeah, so you know,

(24:21):
if you're if there's a player likethat, I think he has Griff Canning
on his team. I think that'sanother potential tradeable candidate. Like, uh,
you know, these are players withpotentially having kind of the bloom is
not off the rose. If there'ssomething you're getting in return that you think
is more stable, or you're gettinga keeper back or a good deal.

(24:45):
You know, it all depends.Again it's the four what question, But
those might be players I look tomove the high triple A players for contending
teams the day they get to themajors or whereabouts? Cool? That's fair?
Um, shall we move on?Absolutely? Thanks for writing Michael from

(25:06):
We're gonna go. From Michael,who has been playing score sheets since at
least the mid eighties, it soundslike to Mike, who has been playing
score sheet for over twenty five years. Were questions right? Little Mike support
groupment anyway? Um? So Mike'squestion is about where to play outfielders defensively.

(25:29):
He always puts his top defensive outfielderin center field. But what do
you do about left field and redfield? Is it better to list one
a better or worst defender than theother or just put away from let scores
sheet decide? How do you decidewhat to do with left field and right
field? We did a little researchhere. I don't know if we did
enough research here. We did.We did some research, and but probably

(25:51):
not into the answer to this question, which is that's fair? We did
we did? We did a lotof research. Yeah, yeah, we
learned a lot about Josh Walland's career, Josh William who is mentioned in the
official scorreesheet rules. But we didalso look into the fielding rules and although
I can't say for sure, Ithink the implication of this question is right

(26:15):
that if, as you guys know, because you have been playing score sheet
for a very long time, thesporting news and the official stats did not
split the outfield positions for a verylong time, and I Scoresheet was built
in that era, and so Idon't believe there are chain differences between left

(26:40):
field and right field for that reason. Yeah, Mike, you I think
so. I remember we talked aboutthis a while ago, whenever it was,
But there's nothing that I've ever seenwhere Scoresheet differentiates between any part of
the lineup card the sim or therange factors based on like left field and

(27:03):
right field. So you know,like theoretically, in a normal baseball game,
right fielders like arms play a biggerfactor than left fielders. But it's
not like there's an arm rating inscores sheet or anything like that. So
I think that helps corroborate the ideathat left and right or sort of interchangeable
as far as Scoresheet lineup cards go. Yeah, there is one way I

(27:26):
do use left and right field andbreak them out online of card. If
I ever want a defensive replacement toreplace one guy but not the other,
I will use left and right forthat the guy you want replaced in one
of the two or like always inleft field. Yeah, the guy I

(27:47):
want replaced in left field, andthen the replacement in left field as well.
And did you just pick left randomlyor do you think it matters which
one you pick? I mean Ipicked it because, damn it, left
field is an easier position to playthat, right, But yeah it's random,
like okay, not because you thoughtscores she cared. No, be

(28:08):
a human recognizes that right correct way. That's somebody that's watched baseball for more
than ten minutes in your life.You know that. Yeah. Yeah,
I haven't seen anything to suggest otherwise. Yeah, but that doesn't Just to
clarify, that does not mean thethree of us are right if we're wrong.
And you were yelling at the podcastright now scoresheet at Baseball Perspectives dot

(28:30):
com. Yes please, And sinceyou mentioned, since you mentioned the arm
bend and Mike wrote in about ifarm matters and scuores sheet, would you
want that rolled into a defensive metric, either a SEP one or some sort
of overall defensive thing in your idealworld or is it not worth the hassle?

(28:51):
I mean, oh, I thinklike the sim that I want to
play a personally doesn't get you tothat level of detail, but certainly a
realistic sim should is that. Idon't know if that's enough. It's like,
I don't I don't personally really care, but I think if the goal

(29:15):
was realism, then that's definitely somethingthat should be included. Yeah, but
I would say I care. Imean not like obviously it's not a deal
breaker either way, but it wouldbe cool if I drafted Roman Lagano to
see him, you know, casuallytoss people out at third base. Don't

(29:37):
you care more about other aspects ofdefense in terms of like the sim being
able to account for playing players outof position with a little bit more flexibility
and stuff like that. Yeah,yeah, it's not that it's not number
one right, right exactly. ThinkI'm nailing to the wall, but you
know it's on there, right.That's why there were ninety three. They
weren't all like, you know,Protestantism is awesome. I'm sure one of

(30:00):
them was like, you should havea throwing arm. I don't know.
I wasn't a religious study adventure.Yeah, I think I'm more on the
bedside, just because it's fun toeveryone Loriano, but I think I don't
know if I personally think it's worththe hassle of dealing with people are all

(30:22):
roughly the same of the fun ofone Loriano. Sure cool, Um,
And those are the questions, thankssquarescy to Baseball Perspectives dot com. Really
questions, Um, did you wantto talk about the squoreshy talk questions?
Yeah. So there there were afew more questions this week, which you
know, we didn't responded directly becausethere's kind of been a back and forth

(30:45):
in the last couple of days fromwhen we're recording this about a couple of
points which I think dovetail into whatwe've sort of been talking about in this
conversation of late. Um, youknow, the little bit about the way
in which a sim is made,the way this sim is made, the
way we like sins. I thoughtthese were at least interesting topic starters.

(31:07):
So there are two two email chains. This is the scoresheet Talk forum on
Yahoo. Turns out you can't googleit look for it on Yahoo groups,
but I assume many of you aresubscribe to it already. The first email,
I'll just read the initial email,which is that somebody said that I

(31:32):
have a starting pitcher that for thepast week gave a five runs in the
majors. In scoresheet, he gaveup seventeen. Something doesn't seem right.
His era in the week for MLBwas four point seven. He pitched four
point two innings and scoresheet over twogames. For the same two games,
my team was assessed nine errors,but in MLB the same players only committed
three. So and the subject line, which I think sums it up well,

(32:00):
is I don't understand. I justdon't understand how this works. Um
So, when you guys hear thatsort of thing, I guess my first
question is how do you feel about? Um? I get how do you
feel about that concept? Do youfeel like players giving up four runs in

(32:21):
score sheet and seventeen runs in reallife? Is I mean something has gone
wrong in the system. Let mechime in first, real quick, just
the interest of fairness. Esteemed leaderJeff Barton chimed in on the thread and
said that according to him, hegot seven errors instead of nine ers and

(32:42):
thirteen total runs instead of seventeen runs. Sure, okay, um yeah,
so, I guess doesn't change yourpoint necessarily. Also, when you go
on till Yeah, but um right, I think it's fair to say that
it probably felt it worse than itwas. But does that bother you the
way it bothers the initial right forthose of us that haven't read the thread

(33:07):
was their context given about the seasonto date and how the season to date
compares between real life and the simFor these folks, um no, But
I think Garth Hewitt in particular respondedwith that exact point. Okay, yeah,
because I know that the sim hassome internal like machinations that use like

(33:32):
the season to date as a guidepost sometimes. Yeah, and there.
So there was a follow up fromanother writer who said that he has Walker
Bueller headed for a twenty last seasonand scoresheet. He's o and six with
six ninety in real life he's threeand now with a five twenty two ERA,
and he's going to lose twenty twentygames. And he said maybe if

(33:53):
he was a Giant pitcher, hemay have changed. Um, I don't.
I don't know that the scoresheet simulationhas a punish the Dodgers support the
Giants module in its seems like asurprising one. But I like it conspiracy

(34:15):
theory, you know, it's interestingbecause I feel like one of the things
that we have learned in our timedoing this is that not everybody sees the
world the same way we do anduse the same statistics that we do,
you know, And here you havesomebody looking to match up wind totals,

(34:37):
which you know, I think tobe fair is in scoresheet, right,
Yeah, I'm just seeing the roles. They d emphasize it, but they
say winds do matter. Yeah,yeah, And you know, I think
that's one of those things that thethree of us would not look to match
at all or to pack towards Noah. But even the run thing, like

(35:00):
giving them five runs versus in themajors for the week versus thirteen or whatever
ends up being I think this isa tough one because there's always going to
be outliers, right, and there'salways some weird situation where you don't have
a defense or whatever. But Iget the point, like that feels a
little off to me. I'm notsaying it is off, but it feels
it feels off. There's something thatwould make me want to investigate or complain

(35:21):
or whine, Like I'll totally getthat reaction if the season to date like
runs aloud. Let's assume the inningsmatch, just for the sake of simplicity.
If the season to date runs Alloudwas notably lower in the score sheet
performance for whatever reason, it seemsto me like that's something that maybe not
every score sheet player, but likea score sheet player that's on scoresheet talking

(35:44):
is reading those foreign posts should belike relatively well aware of, right,
I guess not like quote unquote balancingis news. No, no, I
get that, but still feels off. It still feels like too much balancing.
Yeah, And I think that's alittle bit. Why brought this up
is that, you know, evenI looked at the numbers and was like,
well, you know, it's notlike something and it maybe not went

(36:09):
wrong, but like I could seewhere you would feel that way. And
I think all the more so becauseyou have people saying, like, you
know later in the thread, likeE R is the key trigger you know
that, or that the SIM targetsR a M. And you had Jeff

(36:32):
Barton pushing back on that, sayingsim's not only target R a UM but
using bold end cap letters. Itwas yes, um, you know,
but I feel like there is anexpectation on some level that the sim targets
ra for pictures, and if itdoes not do that, then there is

(36:53):
at least some subset of the customer, you know, the customers who feel
a strong sense of dissonance. Andyou know, Ben I was wondering,
as somebody who, let's say,is interested in how sims work and making
sims, how to resolve that sortof dissonance for people who may not be

(37:17):
where you are. Yeah, Imean, it's one of the fundamental questions
you have to resolve when you thinkabout how you're going to create something,
because I think a lot of timesthe appeal of a simulation is that it's
not deterministic like normal roto would be. But most of the time people want

(37:39):
their sim team to perform something liketheir major league counterparts, because that's how
people are drafting those players for theirsim team. So they're you know,
using major league stats and major leagueprojections, and they're going to judge how
well the players are doing by theirmajor league performance. And so if your
sim team is performing drastically different fromthe rage of the regular like real life

(38:04):
team or like players would be,then I think people would be at least
uncomfortable with that. In certain situations. It also strikes me as the kind
of thing where people are not goingto ever notice or at least call out
the situations where their players are muchbetter in the sim than in real life.
But as soon as they're like muchworse in the sim than in real
life, people are gonna, youknow, start posting on social media and

(38:28):
all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I know that when we've talked about
it before, we feel like there'sat least some cohort of the player base
that says they want something that israndom, but they really just wanted to
feel random. They don't want itto actually be random. And the other

(38:49):
folks that say that they want somethingthat's actually random are probably a little bit
more amenable to seeing some differentiation orat least divergence between the fantasy performance and
the real life performance. And Idon't know how you would really figure out
how many or like what percentage ofpeople fit into those two groups, if

(39:12):
you could like formulate those in away that they're like mutually exclusive of each
other, or think of it likea spectrum or something, you know,
I don't know without doing some kindof robust survey or something like that,
how we would figure out how peopleactually feel about it. Yeah, And
one of the things I was interestingwas that you said, like the feeling
of randomness or you know, wantingthings to look like ye, wanting things

(39:37):
to look like reality. But it'sinteresting because again they're like, not to
turns into my postmodernism class, butlike reality means different things to different people,
and so you know when but youknow, when we're saying he gave
up six runs in scores shot seventeenreal life, we're like, actually sounds

(40:00):
a little weird. And when someonesays he's oh and six when he's three
and no in real life, Ithink all three of us immediately go,
nah, you know that's that's nota thing. But you know that but
that is somebody's reality. I don'tmean to like blindly dismiss it. Um.
You know, there are people whouse there are people who use EARRA.

(40:25):
I don't really look at the raA column anymore, but a lot
of people use that there and thereare still people who are using wins and
losses. And you know, Ithink all three of us don't. So
where do you peg reality? Iguess is but those are just different descriptions
of the same reality. And Idon't think what I was describing is invalidated

(40:50):
by having different descriptors of reality foreverybody. They're like still looking at what
happened in the sim and what happenedin real life. So however you want
to miss are those things. You'restill going to have some people that want
them to track and some people thatare okay with them not always tracking together.
Right, And then yes, fromthere, it's important to also look
at what you were saying. Ithink, like, do we really care

(41:14):
about wins and losses? Is iteven going to show up on the website
versus like runs allowed, earned runsthat sort of thing. Yeah, And
in this case, if somebody,let's say, if a picture gave up
five doubles, you know, sixtriples, eight home runs in the seventeen

(41:35):
runs or like five runs and seventeenruns, and he allows five runs in
real life because it was you know, clustered pretty well, and seventeen runs
in the SAM. Yeah, ifthey're looking at plate appearance outcome matching,
then it's a little bit easier tounderstand, right, Like how much does
sequencing matter? Yeah? And thenright, not everyone is going to get

(41:59):
there, And I think That's partof why I think the most elegant solution
is to have something that feels alittle bit stochastic but actually tracts pretty closely
to real life, because people don'treally want it to be that much different
from reality. Like, think ofit too, if you're approaching it from

(42:21):
the Barton's perspective, it's a waya better thing for them to deal with
having to justify the feelings of randomnessor whatever you want to call it,
the simulatedness than to have to dealwith people constantly complaining about how the sim

(42:43):
is doing them some kind of injustice. But just to push back on this
for a second again, like Ithink you're saying real life, But let's
say there's a picture. We'll callhim Dylan Bundy. He gives up five
home runs, five doubles, fivetriples, and five runs in seventeen innings.

(43:05):
Should he give up five runs orseventeen runs? And which is real
life? You're saying for his hypotheticalmajor league team, he only gave up
the five runs on the home runs, yes, and all of the triples
and doubles were stranded. I mean, I think a ser Alberto is it's
amazing or whatever. I don't know. I think everything we know about like

(43:27):
sequencing and stuff like that, seventeenfeels more like the right answer than five.
Yeah, but I don't think eitherone of them are the wrong answer.
It's just like, which one doyou prefer? And if he went
three and oh in real life?Would you want to reflect that? Why

(43:49):
don't? I don't know how he'sgoing to go three and oh? I
guess if he's scattering trade man.Yeah, how many games has his team
won overall? I guess. I'mnot trying to discard the point that you're

(44:12):
trying to make about like which metricsmatter, and like does our understanding of
the finer minutia of how the gameworks have a bearing on like what we
think the sims should do. Ijust think there's always going to be some
stratification in the fantasy player base,and you're going to see some people answer

(44:34):
the question a certain way and otherpeople answer it the other way. And
if you really want to know,like what the quote unquote right answer is,
you need to know what percentage ofpeople are in each camp, because
unless you're just doing it as athought experiment, the goal has to be
to figure out how many people aregoing to make happy and how many people
are going to make frustrated based onwhich decision you make, right, Because

(44:59):
the point of build the sim couldbe to be able to like actually predict
what's going to happen in real life, in which case you wanted to adhere
as close as you can to allof the minutia of physics and lunch angle
and sequencing and all that kind ofstuff. But most of the time that
we talk about building a sim,it's not in that context, right,
It's in the like fantasy game context. Yeah, right, it's right.

(45:23):
So it's interesting. It is thatlike fun factor versus yeah, realism that
we keep I you know, Ithink we keep circling around this point.
But I think there is something fundamentalto the point, you know, I
think it's really the fundamental question ofsimulation. Right. Well, if I
was in the baseball Pops department fora major league team and I'm building a

(45:46):
sim, it's for a fundamentally differentreason than if I'm sitting at my desk
at home and saying, like,score, she doesn't seem realistic enough to
me. Right, Do you thinkthey in the Baseball office department, what
range rating do you think, um, the second basement has well, first

(46:14):
they have to have played ten games. Yeah, well I guess that's true.
Do they write, you know,de lete all the data until they
played twenty games? Last, we'relike, bumber, Steve, we got
to a lot of stackcast data intothe shredder. They're just stick it on
the pile until the pile gets bigenough, and then they're like, Okay,
now you've got a meaningful, simplesize. That's fair. Recycling is

(46:37):
good. Um, sorry, Jared, any thoughts on this? I don't
want to. Um, Hey,yeah, I think it's a good discussion.
Half. I don't think there's oneright answer, right hypothetical unless here
the orioles um. Just to complicatethis a little bit further so, one

(46:58):
of the things that I thought wasinteresting about this was like you were saying
luck balancing, and I think acouple of people pointed out to the original
scores sheet talker that there's a chancehe just had his hook super high and
the player got blasted, you know, that his pitchers just got hit hard.

(47:20):
And I thought there was another relatedcomment on scores she talk someone was
asking like why Triple A players werepitching before bullpen arms, And the answer
to that is likely that the inningto come into the game was set incorrectly,

(47:40):
or maybe not not incorrectly, butnot to what the player was expecting
to happen, right, not loveenough to get that player into the game
in scores sheet as early as hewould like, right? Yeah. Is
it also possible that it's about likethe number of appearances that they've had and
so like they still had innings left, but they had already appeared in so

(48:01):
many games in scoresheet that like they'dused up all of their quote unquote like
appearances for the week. I don'tknow how closely those things track. I
feel like there's some sort of rulearound that, but again, none of
us are like scoresheet scholars, unfortunately. Yeah, So please, I'm sure
there's somebody listening that knows. Sojust write it and let us know and

(48:22):
we'll update next week, or haveyou on the podcast to tell everybody and
make it clear that we need Yeah, if you are a person who thinks
you can answer that question, youhave a standing invite to come on the
pot just to know. But so, my other question, when looking at
these two things back to back waslike, let's say, you give a

(48:45):
player tools to affect the outcome ofthe game, and in so doing they
hurt their team's performance. But isn'tthat what it's all about? Like,
right, is that is that fundamentalthe game? Or do people have right
to be angry and say this nolonger reflects reality? And I don't want
to like dismiss that, but youknow, I think there was an aspect

(49:08):
of that that was going on aswell, Like, you know, should
reality trump your own management of thegame or in game tactics separate from like
who you're playing? I guess,and this ties back to a conversation you're

(49:28):
having NF it was last time ornot. It's hard for me to believe
in this day and age. Iguess that the managerial levers you can pull
are gonna have a big enough impactthat you'd expect to see the sort of
difference, Like I would expect thechanges that you can make to make a
difference on the fringes, but notto have such a dramatic impact on your

(49:51):
team. It's interesting, you know, I I definitely see that point um,
But there is this tension between howmuch player control you want to add
to in game management and then like, if the outcomes are your fault,

(50:12):
I think it's clearly clearly addressing whatthat means, right, Yeah, yeah,
I agree, And I think Ithink that's a little bit of it.
Is, like, I think someof the pushback here in this case
is the black boxing nature of scoresheet, the simulation, yeah stuff, because

(50:37):
if you give too much away,then it takes some of the fun out
of it, right, right,But if you don't give any information,
then people are like, what theheck's going on? Yeah? Yeah,
um, yeah, I think that'sit's an interesting challenge. So, you

(51:04):
know, I think it's something thatwe will probably return to you again and
again as we kind of refine ourphilosophical discussion of scores sheet. Yeah.
I think the other thing that Ialways come away with or try to remind
myself about when we have these kindsof discussions is it's very easy for us
to sort of sit here and ponderthe hypothetical, or you know, for

(51:24):
people on scoresheet talk to point outspecific instances where things didn't really happen the
way they expected. But it's verydifficult to go through and resolve all these
questions and take a stance on whichway you think it should work and then
set something up. And I thinkwe probably would do well to remember that.
And I at least give like theBarton some credit for you know,

(51:47):
I think you can tell like they'vebeen fairly thoughtful about most of these things,
regardless of whether you agree with thedecision they came to the thought process
that got them there. Like,there are very few of these things that
happen where they're just sort of like, oh yeah, we just sort of
whimsically chose something, right. Theyusually have like some kind of thought process
or there's something that was happening inlike the mid eighties that I inspired them.

(52:07):
But um, right, even whatI see as for calcit Trens sometimes
is it like you're right, likeit spawned from you know, like making
a decision on this on a topicthat has to apply to everyone, and
doing what they thought would be thebest thing given all of the factors that
they needed to consider, right,and the factor of actually building and maintaining

(52:30):
ASSIST, which is extremely extremely challenging. Right, So yeah, yeah,
I completelygue that, And I mean, to their credit, you know,
whenever stuff like this comes up onscores you talk, they chime in with
with the what the reasons are,and it's never oh, this just felt
right, or it's almost never thisjust felt right. There's always some something
behind it, even even here,um Jeff Chimpsen, and this one for

(52:52):
anyone who didn't see so he gavethree reasons for why the Chiple pitchers might
be coming in before other people thewoll Pin, and one of them was
what you were saying before Ian aboutthem the early Sennings to be as the
reliever. There's two other ones thatI thought, um, just to say
what they were. One was,there's a limit of eight real pictures that

(53:13):
can be used in a single game, So an picture, it's a picture.
Triple adn't know that either, Yeaheither, Um your hooks to point
to five. Yeah, yeah,so that's yeah. Interesting. But again,
I mean to your point that therewas a choice that they made,
and I'm sure we you know,they have some reasons behind it, but

(53:35):
they didn't arbiture it. Jist.I'm pretty sure. I'm India, Sorry,
I have sorry, I'm gonna interruptyou. Uh. I wonder how
that's going to impact situations where likethe roster construction continues to change, or
like some of the things that wehad talked about before. Yeah, like
earlier on when we were talking aboutlike major league roster requirements and how they
might impact the sim. But likeif the sim had already had a limit

(53:57):
on number of pictures per game,maybe we over blew the magnitude of the
shift or whatever. Anyway, sorry, go ahead, j yeah, no,
and any other one. And thisis one I think we didn't know.
But it's new as of twenty twelvethat short relievers can't come in before
the fourth inning. They can onlybe used um after so um, just

(54:19):
another reason why ripley picture may comein right. And as as starting pictures
pitch fewer and fewer innings, youmay see more and more situations like that.
M Um. Yeah, all right, Well that was comprehensive. Also
comprehensive the best things we see eachweek. That's a segue covering all the

(54:46):
best things that we see each week. Um. So with that in mind,
man, what is the best thingyou saw this week? Avengers endgame?
Actually, U, so I won'tspoil it for anybody. Actually saw
it twice, once with my wife, which was lovely, and once with
some friends, which was also fun. You know, it wasn't I saw

(55:08):
it within like two days of eachother, due to some unfortunate timing.
But it wasn't the kind of amovie where like two days later there's like
a whole bunch of things that younoticed. But it was good. I
think I enjoy all of the likeMarvel Cinematic Universe stuff, probably because it

(55:29):
reminds me of like childhood and comicbooks and trading cards and stuff that maybe
Jared will remember too, because thatwas right around when we were sort of
getting to know each other. ButI'll just say, without like spoiling anything
that there, I thought the moviedid an awesome job of balancing plot,

(55:50):
action and comic relief and then alsolike genuinely emotional moments and true to everything.
It becomes like the best thing thatI saw. I realized too,
that watching these movies now as afather totally shifts, like the things that
get to me, or like theway that I perceive certain scenes, or
like something like that. It's likeanytime something dramatic happens, basically like I

(56:20):
can tell that I'm thinking about itdifferently, You're looking at differently or whatever
based on this, like totally adifferent perspective on the world. So no
appreciation for Fatherhood through of all things, a Marvel movie, So that's good.
I recommend it. If you've seenthe other movies, or like enough
of some of the other movies tothink that they'd be entertaining, then I

(56:42):
think you'll like it. Even thoughit's some Even though its a little bit
long, it definitely moves pretty quickly. There's always like stuff going on.
It's not like you come out ofthere and you're like it should have been
half an hour shorter. Even thoughit's like a three hour movie or something
like that. It's good, muchdifferent than any NBA basketball game I've seen
recently. Yeah, the whole matter. So um, I haven't seen the

(57:05):
second movie yet, but um,just no spoilers, but um, everyone
from who died in the first moviestays dead for the entire movie, right,
and they never come back and nothingever there half the universe remains dead
at the end of the second movie. I assume that's what happens. I

(57:30):
don't know. Don't tell me,don't tell me, adam On, No,
I don't want to know. Sorry. I can't even think of anything
clever to stray to that, becauseit wasn't clever in the first place,
Jared, what is the best thingyou saw this week? UM? I
was at I guess, the equivalentof a conference UM, and there was

(57:52):
a speaker, and I'm I guessthat's it. I'm generally pretty cynical of
UM speakers and convers of this sortof thing, but this was UM.
I don't know if you or anyone'sfamiliar with Not Impossible labs, Yeah,
yeah, Mick Eberling was there.Ebling, I getting there wrong. I
think UM was there speaking and UMit obviously was a UM talk that he's

(58:19):
given before. I was reading Idon't know, I don't know if you
know, given online. I wasreading like a Forbes article that was basically
the same essence of the talk.But UM, it was just so inspiring
and uh just I mean, anabsolute pleasure to sit through. And and
sometimes I almost felt badly for theorganizers of the conference because it was for

(58:42):
a very specific thing and this talkjust overshadowed anything else. Like So,
this this converence went for like twoand a half days, and I talked
to people afterwards and to when everyonewas like, the best thing was this
talk that the Not Impossible as guygave and it wasn't even close, like
and some stuff just everything else wasforgotten because the talk was so inspiring.
And you know, I won't gointo the details. The work that he
does is inspiring, and I can'tspeak to it's effectiveness or anything like that,

(59:07):
but just it was. It wasa really good talk to sit there,
and it's it's very infrequently that Ithink I personally am sitting through a
talk like that and feel inspired orfeel like, wow, I really really
got something out of it. Soyeah, so look looking it up on
YouTube, it's not or were Ito do that later? Not impossible?
Yeah, yeah, the company's nonimpossible labs. I think the website's not

(59:28):
impossible. And yeah it helped thathe was a designer for movie titles,
including a Bond movie, so that'ssort of drew me in in the fresh
place. But from their point,he's an interesting dude. I saw him
speak at a SaaS conference, andI agree with everything you said that like
inspiring and interesting and one of uslike uh in my also cynical like view.

(59:55):
It's all of those things that islike, it is inspiring, but
like the flip side of that islike, man, I am really wasting
my time here. Yeah, thisguy is out here doing some like really
like phenomenal, fantastic things and I'mlike, uh, yeah, I took
two naps. Yes, you're likeyou always got a pre nap. Um,

(01:00:24):
so jared no spoilers for the speech. But did he threaten to kill
half the world with a snap ofhis fingers because there were too many resources
being used? It was implied.Okay, okay, again, no spoiler,
don't tell me, don't tell memyself later. Um so, yeah,

(01:00:46):
I did not watch him enders inPortunate. I've been The best thing
I saw this week was probably abasketball game, and it was probably probably
a four overtime basketball game, butnever Nuggets and Portland Trailblazers wanted to get
where like by the end, likeNicola Jokish had melted into the earth like

(01:01:07):
great and like it like players werejust like it did feel like the Western
Front just like this fascinating, fascinatinggame. I've really enjoyed these playoffs.
Um, you know, I wouldsay the least interesting series of the four
is the one with the ostensible twobest teams in basketball right now, so

(01:01:28):
none of them the Rockets and Warriorsof the Bucks Rockets and Warriors. Yeah,
you think that's the least interesting oneto me personally, But I feel
like that one got real exciting whenwhen the Rockets tied up. Yeah,
but well that's what I mean.All four of them, I think have
been great and I'm looking forward togreat endings. So I've been a little
bit distracted from baseball, but Ido have at least one baseball best thing

(01:01:52):
I saw this week. Um,so I did watch. I've been watching
a few games. I did watcha Cincinnati Reds game a couple of days
ago. I don't know if youhave been tracking the one hundred and fifty
year anniversary and Cincinnati Reds. It'spretty cool they have. They've been doing,

(01:02:15):
you know, a number of likedifferent activities for one hundred and fifth
anniversary professional baseball and of the franchise, and it's really cool to have all
these generations. One of the thingsthey've been doing is that they're going to
be doing is uniforms throughout the years, and that started on the May fourth

(01:02:36):
game. I think with the uniformsfrom nineteen O two and the uniform nactin
O two are the best thing Isaw this week. They are just it
looked so refreshing. And by theway, to everyone who hasn't read this
some baseball perspectives yet, I recommendhighly without reservation Jinny sars article about how

(01:03:00):
boring baseball uniforms have gotten. AndI know I've said it a bunch of
times on this, but it's notjust the Patres, It's not just the
Brewers, it's not just the Nationals, the Marlins. They've all of these
teams have moved to like this newinsomnia style of like blue, red and
white in different shades and a teal, you know, like the Tampa bay

(01:03:22):
Rays look like a business card,and there's just no one pushing this game
forward in the way that again,like you see in the NBA. Not
to compare and contrast and say howhow exciting the NBA is, but they
are right on the edge on abunch of things. And one of those
things is, you know, thecity uniforms are really exciting. The way
they change the courts is really exciting. I think it lends excitement and interest

(01:03:46):
to the game to have the teamsbe a little bit more creative. And
then seeing these players step out andyou know, nineteen o two is obviously
freighted in baseball in a lot ofways, because in a lot of ways,
baseball and society is much better thanit was then. So when I
say that, you know a fewplayers looked out of place in nineteen o

(01:04:09):
two uniforms, it's generally for agood reason that they're allowed to wear them
now. But you know, Iwould say players of all races like they
look like modern players in older uniforms. But the older uniforms look crisp,
and I love the three quarter piping, and they had these nice buttons and
like pockets, and the Cincinnati wasactually really good. I would change the

(01:04:31):
hats a little bit. I wouldnot use nineteen o two hats. But
what I want to point out,because I'm saying all these players looked really
modern, and then you have JoeyVado. I'm going to send this image
to you of Joey Vado in anineteen o two Cincinnati Reds uniform. Proved
to me that Joey Vado is not, in fact a player from nineteen o
two time traveling to the modern era. I defy. That's the photo of

(01:04:59):
Tris Speaker, Am I right?It does fit him quite well? Like
right, like Joey Vato died oftuberculosis in nineteen twenty seven. Um No,
it's just like the collars. Iwould say, everything was really on

(01:05:19):
point. I think Cincinnati should moveto those as the Sunday uniforms. Apparently
they're made out of the same fabricas modern uniforms. It just looks great
and so different and hearkens back tothe Red's tradition of being one hundred and
fifty years old. I think it'sterrific for them. It's on point,
and I would institute it almost rightaway. I would consider even making it

(01:05:40):
the standard home uniform. I'm nota crackpot, I mean the kind of
are but they sure. But yeah, uniforms should be more exciting. I
think we do need to get backto more experimentation. So and if we
to do that by harkening back tothe past, then that's the only way

(01:06:02):
we will be able to go backto the future. M m mm hmm.
That's where we're gonna leave that.Huh yeah. On that note,
any final thoughts, I think youright, absolutely so we would again love
to hear from you at Squoresheet atBaseball Respects dot com. We'll be back

(01:06:25):
in a couple of weeks, butuntil then on behalf of Ben Murphy and
Jared Wise. I'm me in leftWitz. Thanks again and have a great day.