TTO talks about the Scoresheet mock draft with Nate Stephens and John R Mayne

TTO sits down with guests Nate Stephens and John R Mayne to talk about this year's Scoresheet Mock Draft, including everybody offering takes on the tough decisions at the top of the draft, the best picks throughout the draft, and other trends they noticed this year.

For more information see the mock draft league page, spreadsheet of results, and Yahoo Group (note links may not render nicely in all browsers):

http://www.scoresheet.com/htm-lib/picks.htm?dir_lgw=/archive/2018/FOR_WWW1/BL_Mockdraft;all

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pOweTYQ8KhVuvzo_-nH83Ao-WpqJUvhPnAIK0VQ9hMg/edit#gid=0

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Mock_Scoresheet_Draft/info

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Howdy, and welcome to the ThreeTrue Outcomes podcast, presented by Baseball Perspectus.
I'm your host, Ian Leftcootz,and joining me as always are Ben
Murphy and Jared Weiss. And ifyou think that's quicker than usual, that's
because we have a lot of showto get to. We are going to
be talking about the scoresheet, mockdraft, and we have some guests.
So I am going to turn itover to Jared now to take us through

(00:24):
the next few minutes. Two outan hour every many minutes it takes.
Yes, I got additional duties.I get upgraded from LV gaptain. This
is very exciting. Joining us fromConnecticut. Please welcome Nate Stevens. Nate,
how are you. I'm good.How are you? I'm doing well.
Thanks, and we have more thanone guests. This is super exciting.

(00:45):
Joining us from California. Please welcomeJohn Army, John, how are
you? Hey? I'm doing dandy. Good to be here. Man.
That's exciting. That's a lot ofenergy. Yeah, John's got too much
energy. I'm on the correct coastwhere it's you know, still bright and
early uh not, you know,time to fall asleep. But what I

(01:08):
like about that most is that it'sa podcast. But as you know,
everybody on these coast is tired allthe time. That is my understanding.
So you accurately guess yes, um, but sorry, so go ahead.
So I guess we should introduce whatis the scoresheet mock draft? Yes?

(01:32):
Boy, um, so I'll takethat one. Take great question. Ian.
The scoresheet mock draft is a annualtradition, I don't know how many
years. If anyone here knows,feel free to jump in. UM led
by past guest and uh uh scoresheetuh man about town Brandy Barry Jones,

(01:53):
um, in which a number ofscor sheet experts and and others and yeah
yeah, but mostly expert And wehad a very good year this year.
I think our get together to kindof mock draft make December a little bit
better and also rag on each otherfor the picks that they have made.

(02:16):
UM. Just to start off with, like how to follow along with this
conversation. We'll try to make theconversation as easy as possible for you.
But if you want to get theresults of the mock draft, we will
either probably leave them in the shownotes. Yes, and if you can't
find it there you can go togroups dot Yahoo dot com. It turns

(02:38):
out you actually can't google it andtype in score sheet mock draft, and
then you can get a little bitof the conversation. You can also go
to the mock draft league in scoreesheet, which is bl mock draft, and
then if you know the trick onhow to get archive results, you can
get archive transactions. It's typing backslasharchive backslash twenty eighteen into the transactions field.

(03:00):
It'll change your life, I promise. Okay, on with the show.
I think on Scorcia Talk, oneof the most frequently asked questions is
where to get a clean copy ofthe mock Jeff slash me similar. So
I think let's just start off withwhat do you guys, how do you
guys find the mock Jeff useful interms of real leagues? So obviously it's

(03:21):
fine, we all get together,we make jokes and we have a good
Jeff. But how do you allfind or not find the mock Jeff to
be useful? I'll start with youNiate. Yeah, so I think it's
extremely useful from a benchmarking perspective.You know there's going to be outliers there's
going to be people that disagree,but it gives you a general sense of
you know, hey, there's twentyfour people in the league. At least

(03:43):
one other owner values this player inthis way, right, So you know
I use that a lot in tradesin the offseason or early in the season.
You know, hey, this personwent in this round. You know
this is pretty similar to this,so maybe we match up. So I'll
do a lot of that. Andthen the other thing is, you know,
I think you you do learn alot. You know, I'm pretty

(04:04):
vocal in the group about picks,but I myself learned a ton. You
know. Paul gold Schmith's the oneI always put out there that I had
not a lot of interest in him, and then Bill Sanders took him one
year and made a pretty compelling caseand flipped a switch when all in on
Goldsmith got him in a couple ofleagues. So you know, it's like

(04:26):
that. Every year there's at leastone, if not a handful of players
that you kind of get a bettersense of. And oh, maybe I'm
more interested now than I was beforeit started. And John I agree heavily
with date. Obviously, the Goldsmiththing is one that the Goldschmid type players,
the guys who somebody else picks,who you say, well, wait

(04:49):
a second, that doesn't look quiteright to be that high, and then
you look at it you say,okay, well maybe I needed to prep
better. It. Also, it'sa first chance, a first cut at
kind of prepping for a d figuringout where people go. Plus it's the
fun of getting to do a startupdraft without committing yourself and ending up in

(05:09):
you know, twelve leagues at atime, So it does have that advantage.
My wife always points out when Itell her I'm doing a mock draft.
She points out that our other draftsare also not real. So this
is a fake, fake draft.But I enjoyed a great deal. I
enjoyed prepping ford I enjoy doing it. The fake fake draft is one of

(05:30):
my wife's favorite quips about the mockdraft. Also, does she say that
about mock trials as well. No, because actual trials are real, our
drafts are not real. Trials arereal, so a mock trial makes sense.
But mock draft is really a mockmock draft because obviously the fantasy leagues
when we draft from my trout,he does not come to our house and

(05:53):
play in the backyard fair American jurisprudencetoday. Um, So I want to
get it into the meat of thedraft in a second. But first,
John and they you normally don't owna team together. But in the mock
draft you mocked. Did you mocked? You mocked? Yes? YEAHS co

(06:15):
owned the mock draft team. Um, whereas normally your separate entities team DdO
has found the joint experience to berewarding, or at least that's what they
tell me to my face. Buthow did you find uh mocking together as
opposed to owning separate teams. I'llhit this one first. I think the
we've done this now for two years, and last year it was sort of

(06:38):
an accident, and this year wedid it with malice aforethought, and I
think we learned something from year oneto year two because we're both we both
have strong opinions. Uh, we'reboth uh, we both have strong personalities,
and uh, you know, we'reboth competitive in everything including fake fake

(07:00):
drafts. So we ended up havinggood conversations about a lot of players,
and I think we ended up tryingto be a little more deferential in our
first draft, and we were alittle stronger I think in this one in
finding the points where we were goingto defer or not defer. And so
I felt like I felt like thisyear's draft coming out of it, I

(07:20):
was pretty happy with the results.And it's fun to talk to Nate because
you know, generally in NorCal obviouslyhe's failed because he was behind me last
year, and he's behind me inour ranking system, and he's behind me
I think morally, intellectually and politically, and I do like to stress that
just this moment, while I havethe chance, I should probably let Nate

(07:44):
talk at this point, Well,I really missed the opportunity a couple of
years ago when I won twice andthree years and went to three straight World
Series. Really should have rubbed thatin a little bit more when I had
the chance. Apparently I was upagainst this, but no, I mean
back to the draft. I mean, I agree with John. I mean
I think we definitely got better inthe second year. I think the first

(08:05):
year was more of like, oh, well I don't really want to do
that, so but you know,go ahead. Uh, And this year,
um, we kind of just wouldlike veto individual players like, hey,
we don't really have a lot ofconsensus on this guy. Let's not
let's not do that. Um,And you know, if I have a
guy first and you have a guyfifth, you know, especially in like
the mid or later rounds, likethat's that's a lot of consensus. So,

(08:28):
um, we did that, andI think it. I think it
worked out better. You know,last year, at the time, I
didn't not like our draft, butI think in retrospect it was kind of
okay. You know, this year'sdraft, I feel a lot more confident
about coming out of it. Jaredand Ian and I avoid that problem wherein
Ian is the only one that knowsanything about anything, so we just do
whatever Ian says. I'm not sureI agree with that logic, but yeah,

(08:56):
no, I think there's I thinkthere's an interesting aspect of like,
as people who have done this fora very long time, Like I like
working in teams, I don't.I don't know if I particularly would like
to run get a team solo personally, just I like discussing and dialectic.
But I think there's an interesting thingthat you were kind of hitting on of

(09:20):
the difference between let's say, justlike seating your territory and compromise and like
understanding where it's like, just becausesomebody has a strong opinion doesn't necessarily mean
that it's the right one. Andit's like going into a one for you,
one for me scenario might not beideal, but you know, I

(09:43):
think saying like, okay, weboth have this person high you know,
I don't know. I wonder ifyou feel like consensus picks end up doing
better than the ones where you feellike you're more one of you is more
out on a limb. I thinkit's a question of expertise. I mean,
one of the mistakes LI was notgetting Miles Nicholas, which we could
have done if I had listened toNate. And one of the things NATA

(10:05):
has better expertise on foreign leagues.And so it's really a question of finding
the areas in which we're which we'relikely to be better. And there's still
some room for deferring, but thereshould be a reason for that. And
if so, I think we founda better a better fit this year.

(10:28):
Yeah, And I think one thingyou can say from that is that the
team that drafted Miles Michelis last yearreally understood teamwork the best. Sorry,
go ahead, so let's get intothe draft a little bit maybe, And

(10:48):
I don't want to go through allthe pixel or all our picks, but
I thought it might make sense tostart with the first round. In our
first pixel, we were both inthe top five. So first Mike trent
Win does any won't have any problemswith that? Who you'd be out of
your mind not to pick Mike Trout. And it's a huge advantage to get

(11:09):
the one seed. Trout is differentthan everyone else. He's still better than
everybody else. He's gonna be betterthan everybody else. There's really not an
issue. I meant to ask thisof the of the comments section, and
for those who are missing at thecomment section, one of the best reasons
to subscribe, like and you cankind of go back to the Yahoo grip

(11:30):
and look through it. Um,what year do you think is the first
year that Mike Trout will not gonumber one in the mock draft? You
had to guess. I was tryingto think, how, oh does he
know twenty eight? He's twenty eight? Yeah, Um, I'd give it
three years, yeah once once he'sthirty one. Yeah, So I think

(11:50):
like one of like Son and oneof those guys have going instead. Yeah,
I think it'll be an early twentiesguy. And at that point you're
looking at eight, nine, tenyears of differ rents. Yeah, someone
will weigh that more. I'm notsaying that's right, but it's at least
colorable in a couple of years.Yeah, And I think you guys may
have staked a claim on which personyou think might be the next one one.

(12:15):
We'll get their shadow, yeah ina second. But since we're here,
I think John, you have apoint to lead you a little bit
about startup leagues and if you were, if you were starting a new one,
you wouldn't have randomly assigned picks,but you'd have some other system.
And I'm going to guess that hassomething to do with Mike Chad. In
any league, almost in any leagueyou're in, if you do a standard

(12:39):
back and forth snake draft, theearly round pick, the earlier picks are
going to have an advantage because rememberone of the things Bill James taught us
is that baseball talent is the farend of a bell curve. It's not
a bell curve. So as yougo up that I mean being ahead as
you go in lower rounds, beinghad an round is worth less than it

(13:01):
is at the very top. Soyou'd have to have you have to have
some kind of auction or some kindof distribution system if you want it to
be fair. If you don't wantit to be fair, if you want
it to be lucked, and fine, but otherwise you have to have some
kind of distribution system, an auctionsystem for not just pick one, but
I think other picks too. Ithink all the way down until people lose
interest, in which you either giveup picks or you reduce picks down to

(13:24):
the end of the draft. Ifyou're not doing that, then the trout
water is a huge, huge deal. I talked about that with Matt Houser,
who sort of won the quick anddirty way we calculated it, and
one of the advantages he had wasthat he had the chance to get trout.
One of the other advantages he hadas he outdrafted everybody else and still
would have won even without that.But the h but it really is.

(13:48):
It's a huge thing. And soif you're if you're gonna run a league,
if you're gonna start, if you'regonna do a startup league, you
want to make sure you do that, especially if you have sophisticate an actor.
It's like I think we all are. Yeah, yeah, oh go
ahead, sorry sorry, um yeah. I think that's always the case,
which John said. I think itjust Mike Trout being who he is exacerbates

(14:13):
that right now and not doing thatjust is a really big mistake, a
bigger mistake than usual. Not tocross sports, but it's like when LaDainian
Tomlinson was scoring like twenty to thirtytouchdowns every year and he was like the
number one pick every single year andFantasy football, and everyone just started throwing
their hands up and it's like,this is this massive advantage. So they

(14:33):
started doing like third round reversal andthey tried to do some other things to
counteract that. That's that's who MikeTrout is, the Ladamian Thomlinson of baseball.
Oh as somebody who lives the Jetsterritory. That's really ominous. I
can't wait to reprobusted Mike Trout ina decade. No, I was just

(14:56):
going to add that we have beensubject to this rule all twice now,
once in joining VP dork Coal andonce this year in VP Kings. And
you can hear about that experience inan earlier podcast. Um, it's really
good, and it's really good forus because now we have Mike Trout.
But we were we were big fansand like we were willing to spend for

(15:20):
the first pick um in both casesand some team other teams were not,
And I think being able to makethat choice was really appealing to us.
Moving all the way down to thenext pick um made by a tree of
charming and handsome gentleman. I thinkwe had a discussion here, Um,

(15:41):
John Nada, I guess I'm curiousto see what you guys think of our
pick of Francisco Lindor as number twooverall. U were you hoping that he
would follow? Did you expect thathe might? Were you happy we took
him? Yeah? I jn souit was what I expected. Um.

(16:03):
I told John before the draft thatI thought Lindor and Bets would go to
three in some order. Um.I don't have a huge preference between the
two, but I do think theyare the right picks. I think,
you know, there's the exciting trioof baseball players that can't drink yet that
we'll get to in a minute.But I still think Lindor and Bets are
are worth it. They're both justso good right now, they're both still

(16:26):
very young, that they belong there. Yeah. I agree. I I
wasn't just convinced that Lindoor and Betswould go to three, but Nate was
right, and so it was.And there's good reason for Lindoor to be
number two. I mean, hesolves a problem for you for for a
decade. He's really good. There'she's a completely sensible number two. And

(16:52):
anyway you have with think because wedidn't land on the door right away,
there's some back and forth there.Yeah, so it's sort of, you
know, we were trying a thing, and we'll talk about our strategy a
little later, but we were thinkingabout kind of, I think, structuring
the question a little differently. Sofirst we kind of just thoughted between Lindor
Bets and let's say Alex s BregmanI think was up there, Manny Machado

(17:17):
was up there, Jose Ramirez wasup there and just deciding like essentially who
the best player is. And wekind of came to that same Lindoor Bets
conclusion. We had Soto Kunia andFlat Junior, which I guess we can
name them. They're not like Baltimorein a in a bucket and then you
know, arrange them in a certainway and then said like, okay,

(17:38):
now what team do we want,which is probably not exactly the way to
do it, like you should probablyjust line up players in terms of value,
But I think we were also thinkingabout like how much this would affect
our strategy, and you know,are the extra six years worth it?
So I'm happy with Lindoor. ObviouslyI would like him to not have gotten
hurt like two days into the draftto make us look good, but you

(18:03):
know we're getting in for the nextten years in this theoretical league. So
um yeah, I still no regrets. So Bet swin third, then Machado
and then Nat and John you guyshad the fifth pick and took one Sodo
there. Um was there a lotof discussion there? How did you end
up on Soto? Well, uh, we had we there was some discussion

(18:29):
as to what we would do.I think we had we ended up with
our list being trout Lindor, andthen because I was an agitator, h
Soto at three. But I amI'm absolutely I am not confident between Soda
Acuna and vlad which one of thoseguys is going to be the best out
of those. But man Soto hadan age nineteen season that was just crazy.

(18:55):
Throw it an eight here. Yeah, yeah, I would say,
I'm like thirty four, thirty two, thirty two between the three of those.
I think the real answer is justyes, Like, if you can
get any of those guys in thetop ten of a startup draft, you
just do it and say thank youand move on. Um, you know,
it'll be super fun to see whichends up the best. But I

(19:15):
don't. I wouldn't argue with anyonethat picked those three in any order.
Yeah, well, I mean,certainly we have to take into account that
Vladimir Greer juniors own GM said thathe was not a major league player in
the moment, So you know,we'll let that wigh in. But um,
well, let's let's have that discussionnow since it has to happen every

(19:37):
mock draft. So like we're talkingabout Soto and Kun you win a lad
Win nine, We're why were prospectstaken too early? Why when will his
madness end? Someone please make itstop? Blad of course is uh he
Blad, It's not a normal prospect. Um, he's not a normal human.

(19:57):
I think I think Nate as alwayssaid we're drafting prospects too high and
we should stop. Isn't that whatyou said, Nate? That's that's pretty
close. Yeah, it's our longnatural nightmare. We have the argument.
We have the argument each year,and uh, Nate and I are trying

(20:18):
to I think there's the old saying, UM, build a man of fire
and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and
he'll be warm the rest of hislife. And in this case, I
think we're ready to set the peopleon fire. Who keeps saying that the
prospects aren't are taken too early,Um, it just hasn't. It's not

(20:41):
true. Um, it's just notempirically true. Because if you hit on
one of these guys, if youdrafted one Soto last year, um,
in anything other than the first fifteenpicks, you're a huge winner for the
rest of your life. And ifyou look back at the old drafts,
I mean, if you take toolow and round sixteen or round fifty and
these all these other picks. Now, sure a lot of them wash out,

(21:03):
but the goal is to end upwith you know, three, four
or five baseline players wore studs,and at that point it gives you a
lot of room for error else Yeah, I think that's the key when you
think of it as trying to builda core and having those players have a
lot of time to develop into beingpart of that core. That's what makes
the difference for some people. I'veheard a lot of people talk about like

(21:25):
the relative risk of the prospects also, and I think it's important to make
sure everybody's mindful of the relative riskof all the major leaguers. Also.
I think it's the other big counterargument that's easy to dismiss with a little
bit of evidence. Yeah, AndI'm fully with you, Ben, I
say that all the time. Imean, you know, the way to

(21:45):
do it is like, Okay,show me your third through fifth round picks
for the last five years and showme how you never missed. Yeah.
Right, and then that quickly crumbles, right, because people's hit rates even
in the third or four fifth roundare not very high. They're a lot
lower than you thing they are.I will say though, that I think
the mock's gotten a lot better.I think this was probably the best year

(22:07):
we've ever had in terms of evaluations. You know, the prospects to go
to early crowd was very very verysmall this year, which was good.
And I think our quality of drafterkeeps going up, so I think it's
a better benchmark and really it's everbeen, which is pretty great. Can
I ask a question of the groupabout that, because I think this came
up a little bit in some ofthe discussion that and so I'll just say,

(22:30):
like I'll preface this, like,my personal opinion is generally to agree
with what Nate said about the qualityof the average participant in the mock draft
has gone up, and I thinkthe mock draft benefits from that, and
so to all the people that arefollowing it. But I think there was
some concern that there's maybe too muchagreement, or maybe there will be a

(22:51):
point where there's too much agreement andthat's not necessarily constructive at least that's like
the perspective that I heard. AndI think if you wanted to carry that
a little bit further, and I'mnot sure that this is what the person
was necessarily saying in starting the discussion, but if you want to carry that
a little bit further, you couldrun into some issues of groupthink or a

(23:12):
situation where the mock draft is notnearly as generally relevant and applicable to folks
unless they're sort of of that samemindset as the people who are doing the
mock draft. If you if youdo get into that situation, do you
guys think that's a problem now goingto be a problem in the future.
Is it has anything to be concernedabout. I'll take this one first.

(23:37):
No. I think part of itis, you know what the role of
the mock draft is, and Ifeel like there is like it is not
your draft. It is on somelevel to reflect group think. If it
works well, the same way thatthe top hundred prospects lists have probably converged

(23:57):
over time. You know, Ithink there's probably an element of group thing,
but it's also consensus from which youcan work in your own opinions.
I also think probably whatever aspect ofgroup think there is probably gets overwhelmed by
having more correct picks. You know, I don't think unless you are in

(24:19):
the draft, you know, Idon't think it is as relevant like who
is taking who when I think justhaving them having the draft available as a
resource later probably just benefits from havinga more consistent point of view that you
can then work off. Yeah,I would agree. I would say I'm

(24:41):
like nine anti that position. Maybefive percent worries about it a little bit,
But I mean I think group thinksa good thing when it's because you
have a bunch of super successful ownersthat are coming together and you know there's
certain strategies that work better than othersover time. So um, I think
that's what you get here. Now, if you have a scenario where there's

(25:03):
a whole bunch of people that aredoing really well, it's course she that
aren't in the mock or people usetypes of valuations or strategies that they do
and they're not there, then yeah, then you have a group think problem.
But I don't think that's the casetoday. I think we have a
super strong group that's very representative ofthe people doing well and where she and
I think the argument that argument isa little bit. Hey man, all

(25:26):
you people are going to operate asif the Earth is a sphere and you
don't. You're not gonna put anybodyin here who's gonna tell us the Earth
is flat? Are we gonna reallydeal with this? Are we gonna deal
with this kind of groupthink where everybody'sgonna think the same way. Everybody's forced
into the same model. Um,and I think that's uh so I have
as much I agree with everybody else. Follow up a question? Sorry,

(25:56):
go ahead, UM, so yousomeone mentioned the successful strategies that they're potentially
leading to what some people called groupsthink. Um, what are some strategies
that you al saw emerge in thismock? And um, you know that's
that's been born out of previous mocksas well. Uh yeah, I mean

(26:21):
I'll point out a few things.The one is draft young players. Um,
you know, there were not alot of thirty plus players draft in
the first round. I'm not evensure if there was one this year.
Um, don't draft pictures in thefirst round. You know, there's the
Clayton Kershaws Jephson, which you canuse for a number of years, but
other than that, you probably shouldn'tbe drafting a picture. No pictures went
in first round this year. SoI think those are two good ways to

(26:44):
start your draft. If you candraft a twenty to twenty five year old
a really good hitter, um,that's a that's a good place to be.
So you're saying take it, DavidPrice. Third, overall, it's
a bad plan. Yeah, uh, in in this year, yes,
a few years ago. Also,yes, do you guys think if Kershaw
had been healthy it would have beenreasonable to see him middle of the first

(27:07):
round? Yeah, I mean secondhalf, some twenty six year old,
super healthy, no worries about hisarm or anything else. Kershaw, Yeah,
absolutely know, he gets an exception. He's that much better than everyone
else. But that Kershaw doesn't existanymore. Right, He's older, he's
had problem staying healthy, he's hurtright now. Um so yeah, not

(27:30):
not anymore. Yeah. And Idon't even think there's necessarily a consensus on
who the number one picture is.I don't like no one immediately springs to
mind for a continuing league, um, I would say, And this kind
of details into what our strategy was, because there was a there was an

(27:53):
aspect where we kind of saw thewriting on the wall, and um,
a lot like we tended to draftthe last few years pretty heavily in the
twenty two to twenty six year oldrange or twenty two to twenty seven.
And I think we were probably alittle more dogmatic about it than the two

(28:14):
of you, who I think tendto jump around for value. If that's
and I'll let you guys respond tothat, and I yeah, and I
think this year, like we justsaw everybody filling that space, and I
don't know that we were like incrediblysuccessful at it, but we ended up
going almost a little younger than usual, which is maybe not the right direction

(28:40):
all told. And we can talkabout how successful that was later. But
you know, I think we triedto draft maybe even into the nineteen to
twenty two range a little more thanwe usually do, which is, you
know, we are not big prospecthounds in this league, just because I
think there are people who take thatspace better than us. But um,

(29:03):
with this kind of um, Iwant to say, like strong drafting,
it just became almost too hard tofind equality twenty five year old by mid
round. And you know, forwhat we're trying to do, which is
probably generally it's to compete in Mplus one year, we just found there

(29:23):
was more value like outside of thatkind of type window. Sorry, yep,
everyone agrees, Um, well let'sjust move on more generically. UM,
were there any picks that sort outto you all that? Um you,
like Dorik I said, you didn't, like, feel free to tout

(29:45):
your own picks as well, ifthere's something you want to call out.
I think there ended up being valuewith the age with some of the older
guys. I thought, seeing Donaldsonin the sixth round, Cane in the
eighth round, I mean, LorenzoKane's really good and with the format,
if you get a guy who's reallygood for a couple of years, uh,

(30:07):
you know, those are championships added. UM. On the younger side,
I really liked the pick up Washington'sLuis Garcia, whose name is not
memorable. And then uh, uhNate was on me. Uh Nate wanted
to draft Cabrian Hayes and we didn'tquite reach a consensus. Uh, and

(30:27):
somebody drafted him then before we uhwe would have. But you know,
now, Cobryan Hayes is just killingspring training. And I know there's a
lot of people saying spring training ismeeting less. They are wrong. Um.
And the even in this very veryvery small sample size for Cabrian Hayes,

(30:48):
it is some useful information. Sothose are some of the picks I
I saw and uh and I thinkreally provided uh you know, obvious good
value. There were a lot ofreasonable value picks to be had because of
the focus on youth. Yeah,I had I had something of the similar,
and I was hinting at that Ihave I think your own Uh did

(31:12):
you take up? Were you theones who took Joey Vado in around six?
Um? Sorry I should have thatup, but I had Joey Vado
listed around six. I thought evenCarlos Santana and Josea Breyu in round eleven.
I think those are closer to whatyou guys tend to call tedious value
picks. But you know, Ithink there was just some value in older

(31:32):
players, and it kind of ummade us with you know, when once
we had the once we kind ofhad made enough nineteen to twenty one year
old picks, it was too hardfor us to pivot to like, um,
you know, going much older inthe draft, because I don't think
we would have had the base withwhich to support that. But you saw,

(31:56):
almost like halfway through the draft thatthe talent was really dropping for teams
that were trying to compete in yearone. So, if I may,
I think, if I put myselfin the shoes of say, somebody who
is interested in the mock draft,but maybe it is I don't know,
somewhat ignorant, say, how wouldyou reconcile the difference between saying prospects aren't

(32:22):
going too early, but also sayingthat there was value in the veterans later
on. There was value in someof the veterans later on, some of
the veterans. I think we're notgreat picks, but you and you know,
I talked about some of the valuesthat I thought were there for some
of the prospects later and some ofthe values that were clearly there. I
mean, Donaldson and Kane shouldn't havedropped that far, but I don't think

(32:46):
Louis Scarcia should have dropped that fareither, And Nate, you were right,
Kabrian Hayes probably shouldn't have dropped thatfar. Yeah, it's funny too
because most of my list is mostlyyoung players. Still, even with the
enhanced focus on younger players, Ithink everyone on my list is under thirty
um in terms of pick that Ilike. You know, I like Donaldson

(33:07):
too. I think that's a goodpick. Is it one of the ten
or twenty those picks in the draft? In my opinion, No, it's
not um, but it's a goodone. I think in round six there's
a there's some value there. Well, where are some of the best picks.
Uh So Danny Jansen went in thefourth round. Um, that's gonna
be surprising to a lot of people, but I think it's absolutely appropriate.

(33:30):
Um he's the catcher two on myboard. Um in all the baseball,
which is kind of crazy, butum, there's a lot to like there.
He's gonna get on base, He'sgonna have herm some power. He's
young, catcher's terrible. Um,go get yourself and Danny Janson if you
can. Um. Ramo Loriano roundeight. Um, you know, he

(33:52):
had pretty bad seventeen and was maybethe Astro's only mistake of the last few
years when they let him go afterthat. But he rebounded pretty big last
year, had the good forty someodd game debut. You know, guy
that can do it all. Youknow, strikeouts may limit him a little
bit, but looks power, speed, defense, kind of get it all

(34:15):
there. His arm is also kindof must watch TV. Doesn't really help
you a ton of score sheet,but a super fun player to watch and
root for a couple others. Ihate to say our own picks, but
I can lump up together, soI'm going to do it. Padre's pictures.
So Chris Paddock went in round eight. Huge, huge, huge fan

(34:38):
of him. He is looked reallygood in spring training, not surely in
the results, just in his stuffand how he's approaching batters and some of
the silly swings he's getting looks reallygood. You know. An anecdote I
offered in a pretty competitive league.I offered Kyle Schwarber for Chris Paddock straight
up within the last week. Pattickwent round eighth where we went around four

(35:02):
of the mock and I was easilyrejected. So I think that's mostly about
Chris Paddock. He's really good,and I think in round eighth that's pretty
incredible. Um, who's the busname? Yep, yep. That might
have been a trade that happened.And then the other Padre pitcher is Matt

(35:24):
Strom. He's probably my favorite pitcherpicking this year. Ye we took him
around twelve. Everything is pointing inthe right direction. Uh. You know,
he pitched last year coming off kneesurgery. By his own admission,
he wasn't healthy until August. Hestill had a really good year. He
was kind of doing the opener thinglate in the year and he was still

(35:45):
pitching really good. He had atwelve K to nine in the second half.
He has four pitches that graded aboveaverage last year by results. Yes,
he did that as a reliever,but still that's an incredible place to
start and bodes well for going tothe rotation. He added a bunch of
weight and muscle this winter to helphim get more durable for for being a

(36:07):
starting pitchers. So he's he's probablymy favorite UM pitcher pick this year.
Yeah. I had both of themon my sheet about year best players.
I couldn't agree more. Matt Tron'slooked just like outstanding this spring. Padres
remain a fun watch. Yeah,for sure. That's going to be a

(36:28):
super fun team pitching, hitting.They have a lot of young, exciting
guys. It'll be interesting to seehow they they come together. A few
more U Chad Pinder Round fifteen doesn'thave a starting gig. He's still gonna
get at least four hundred plate appearances. He's gonna play all over the place.
I had a pretty good year lastyear. Batted ball data was really

(36:49):
good. Um, I think youknow the drafts I've looked at. He's
getting out of the fifteen, sixteenthround. I think that's an incredible pick
there. And so when I'd recommendPete Alonzo speaking of good spring training performances,
particularly in bls L, first baseis kind of loaded right now,
particularly for leagues that have been goingfor a while, so um, it's

(37:12):
a little harder to get excited there, but certainly in BL's. Um,
you know, this is the classic, you know, non sexy, righty,
righty first baseman that just keeps hittingand all of a sudden he's in
the big leagues and he's, youknow, one of the twenty or thirty
best hitters in baseball, and you'relike, oh, how'd that happen?
He never he never got a lotof hype, so he could be the

(37:35):
new Goldschmidt or Hoskins or you know, a whole bunch of guys that have
done that. So there's still somerisk. You know, he's not the
most athletic guy, to put itkindly, but um, that bat looks
really good. And in round ninethat was that was pretty good. And
then one more out I second toHayes Hayes recommendation, and lastly round thirteen

(37:58):
v. Dal Brujon. At somepoint we're gonna stop underrating the little guys.
He is not big. He couldhit the gym that would help add
some physicality, but he's also notvery tall. But everything else. If
you like didn't know his height andweight and you looked at him as some
prospects, you would think he's atop ten prospect in baseball. You know,

(38:22):
has the hit tool, played,approach, discipline, defense, speeds,
makeups off the chart, scorting toeveryone that talks to him. You
know, the power is not quitethere, but he's young and still growing
and all that. He did havea kind of a mini late season breakout
in high a small fample, somaybe nothing, but he started to add

(38:42):
more power there. So another hitterthat I think could be very good and
around thirteen, I think the tablesare in your favor. Cool um Need
You had just mentioned about the Gloodyfirst baseman. Did the mock jet reveal
anything to you all about positional scarcity? I know, at least in my

(39:04):
head, there was a running threadabout how deep third base was this year.
Yeah, I mean the one thatI got to me was just Catcher
is awful. I mean, ifyou're not going to get one of the
first two or maybe a couple ofthe mid tier guys like the Tryst or
Grandall or something like that. Afterthat, I mean, I might I'd
rather just wait till like round twentyand draft a couple of guys and have

(39:29):
a Franken starting catcher platoon. You'renot going to be missing out on any
productivity by doing that. You know. There's not only there's not even a
lot of guys with like upside whereyou'd be like, hey, maybe this
guy's gonna be something. It's justa lot of people that you know,
are not going to be very goodor just kind of be mediocres. So
catcher looks worse than I can rememberit. Yeah, And one of the

(39:52):
things we see on the prospect it'sDanny Jansen still qualifies as a prospect,
and he's like and so not evenin some top one hundreds or he's eighty
seventh on place and you look atthat. I mean, the guy right
now is Nate said, he's he'sone of the top catchers in the league,
I mean right now. So whenI see that on the on the
prospect, was I have some concernsbecause, as Nate said, Danny Jansen

(40:15):
is actually good and catching, notjust for score sheet but in the major
leagues is weak. Obviously the majorleagues. I think part of that is
that there's more of a more ofa focus on some of the defensive things
that are out there, and sowe end up seeing Jeff math Is still
having a job. Yeah, Iwill just echo that. I think I

(40:37):
saw Danny Jansen in the one hundredto one range in what I would call
a prominent minor league evaluators rankings.UM, and I thought that was crazy.
Um. And you know we sawonly I was just counting. I
think only twenty catchers went in thisdraft. It's a twenty fourteen draft.

(40:58):
About half of them are rookies orpeople without position or you know, or
playing time one of that. It'swilling test Todio. So can can I
can? I? Can I addan asterisk to the statement I made?
There is the Astudillo gambit, whichis an exception I'm willing to allow.
Um, he does not go veryhigh, but is actually interesting. UM.

(41:20):
I don't know how long that's gonnalast, or if he's gonna ever
get playing time, but he's good. And I think the thing I said
in the mock was if you neverstrike out and batting average on balls and
play as a thing. That meansyou hit three hundred, right, um,
and and he does that. Imean it's a trick. It was
like two percent last year, threepercent, So um, it doesn't take

(41:42):
much if you do that, andyou have even a little bit of power
to become a pretty valuable catcher inthis day and age. So I don't
know, he might make the teamas like a utility guy slash third catcher.
He might come up later in theyear. It's gonna still to be
determined as far as I know.But um, he's interesting, and I
think he's someone you'd like to haveand just kind of treat him as a
prospect and see when he comes home. Yeah, you know. And it's

(42:07):
interesting because one of the actual fewveteran catchers he went was Mitch Garver ahead
of him, so there and neitherof them are actually starting catcher who did
not go. But it's just reallyfascinating. That's why we ended up taking
in the ninth round, we tookAdlee Rushman. One of the things you
should know about this league is thatyou can take anyone, including you or

(42:31):
me, but please don't I'm notnot I do not return sixteenth round value.
But I do think Adlee Rushman,who is by and large the consensus
number one, and I think hasjust again not that like playing like Fedom
or whatever matters, but he hasbeen looking dynamite in the early college season.

(42:58):
Gangrass just to jump Fan Grafts justupgraded him to a sixty future Value
Prospects, which puts you solidly inthe top twenty prospects of the game.
So yeah, it's not too earlyto jump on that bandwagon. He's He's
not a you know, Bryce Harperlevel one dot one when it comes to
the draft, but he is asolid Yes, this is the best player

(43:21):
in the draft coming. He's alot different than everyone else in the draft.
Yeah, and I think there wassome backtock at the time. I
think he was severely underdrafted because Ithink a lot of people are working for
a limited information in the college here, but there are also because there are
no good cashers. Yeah. Um, so, John, I wanted to

(43:45):
go back. You had brought upMalcolm Nuniez before. I know he had
a point there, But first,Ben, who is Malcolm juniaz Um to
see that author that wrote that reallypopular book, Yes, exactly, John,
Why should know who Malcolm Junia is. So Malcolm Junia is. It
was our sixteenth round pick. Hewas a slight statement pick. I thought

(44:07):
he was fifteenth round whatever, thelast round is, sixteenth round the uh.
I thought he's value there. Um. But obviously in a real league
somebody might let him slip. Um. But basically what he did in rookie
league at the age of seventeen wasto crush the ball entirely. He's sort

(44:27):
of a third baseman. Um.And here's the thing, like nobody had
heard of him, he'd had He'ssigned for I think four hundred grand,
which is not nothing, um.But when you have this kind of performance,
it's kind of massive, epic performance. It matters. Um. It's
it's an overwhelming performance, even inrookie ball. It's just you just don't

(44:51):
see people do this. Um.He had no ps of something like eleven
hundreds something ridiculous. And yeah,it's a it's the in a consummer league
which they keep adding teams and theyhave a thousand players in might not be
a thousand, but it's a lotof players, and so the quality is
slow. But you also have aseventeen year old who has just with real
power, and you shouldn't ignore that. And I think one of the things

(45:15):
that we see with some frequency isperformance gets kind of ignored sometimes in on
some of these lists. Even now, you used to be much worse.
I think you want Malcolm Nunez.I think if you're in a league,
especially with unlimited rookies, nobody elseis going to draft him. You can
probably draft him in the middle twenties. You're the only one listening to this

(45:36):
podcast, whoever you are, whodoes listen to this, and that's fair,
and you should go ahead and getget him. The performance is too
much of an outlier to ignore.And when you have things like that,
both Nate and I in season lookat for supplemental picks, look at outlier

(45:58):
performances by minor league players, andyou end up picking up some good players
by doing that. Yeah, someof them are flukes, but there are
some things you can do, likeyou know, home runs, if you
have a bunch of home runs.Yeah, maybe a little flukey, but
it's hard to hit a bunch ofhome runs if you don't have the ability
to hit home runs. So youreally want to look at these kinds of

(46:20):
super outlier performances, even when they'rein crappy leagues, even when they're even
if it's the Dominican Summer League andthe guy is very young, and you're
gonna have a holding cause. SoI think the lesson isn't just Malcolm Junia
is, but any of these thingswhere you have some kind of you can't
ignore outlier performances. Yeah, andjust just a correction there. His OPS

(46:45):
was actually twelve seventy. It waseven better than eleven hundred and so,
you know, silly video game numbers, right, But I agree with John.
You know, he wasn't on myradar for around sixteen. He was
a guy I had heard of andwho put up good numbers, but you
know, it wasn't wasn't anywhere nearmy list at that point. But John

(47:05):
made the case, and UM ultimatelyis yeah, this this makes sense.
Um, it's an outlier performance andwe should see how that goes. Yeah.
I feel actually pretty similarly. Ithink it less more scouting, less
performance. But about your fifteenth roundpick Nolan Jones, Um like getting the
players who just dominate league, likeon some level, you know, it's

(47:28):
right, it's something to work from, like right, you're you know,
I think there's this like that,don't scout the stat line line That just
infuriates me because it's used wrong allthe time by everyone. Um, but
you know, if you know howto, if you know how to just
outlines and what matters, you know, it's information, and to throw out

(47:49):
information just to feel superior is seemssilly to me. I think that's an
excellent point. I think that goesfor yea, that goes for spring training
stats, which have demonstrable use.If we throw that out and say,
oh, they don't matter, itdoes matter. All these things matter.
The question is how much do theymatter? Quantifying how much they matter and

(48:10):
then using that to make good decisions. Yeah, or drafting Lewis Brinson in
the first round because he get fivehome runs? Can we can we talk
about Nolan Jones for a second,because he's super interesting. He's a weird
prospect um if you haven't looked athim, you know he's made a few

(48:31):
top one hundreds towards the back.But you know, you don't find many
prospects that you know, add anappropriate level in you know, single A
or high A. You know,walk sixteen percent of the time, strike
out twenty five percent of the timeand have a whole bunch of power that
rarely happens, particularly the walks.Um. So you know, there's I

(48:54):
think some concerns that you know,maybe the batspeet isn't there and uh,
you know he's gonna strike out awhole bunch and he's being too passive and
uh, he's got Jeremy Hermida diseaseback in the day where it's like you
need to swing the bat sometimes,So he may be that a little bit,
um, but you know, theraw indicators there are super good and

(49:15):
you know, at someone that's notgoing to cost you very much, is
it's pretty interesting also, um,because it's not going to come up again
in the world. I'm a Jeremyhermid The truth there and everyone needs to
know this. He had a ninepsone year where he just like dominated in
the Major league and everyone forgets thisand he's like just a massive bust.

(49:37):
No, he was like legitimately likehaid Off for a year and just um,
Jared, I think you can agreewith me on this because I think
you were at this game. Wesaw him once in spring training like the
single Like, I don't mean toturn this into a Bills in his pot,
but like the single lowest motor Ihave ever seen on the baseball time.
And maybe he was sick that day. I don't know. That was

(49:58):
like in retrospect, I was like, oh, that's a warning sign.
Now I understand. But he's nota prospectus, he's a major league bust.
They're different. How long is thateating away at you? Ian?
Oh? All the time? Justyou know, it doesn't come up in
regular conversations of Um, well,I want to be respectful of everyone's time

(50:27):
as of us on the East Coast. Do have to go to sleep because
we're on these coasts? Um?Do you have any final thoughts about the
mock that um you wanted to makesure to get out there. John will
start with you. I think thething that we haven't talked about a lot
is it's really fun. I havea great time doing it. I had
a great time to doing it alone, but I also had a really great

(50:49):
time doing it with Date. Youknow, we had the back and forth.
It's something in the off season youget to you also have really high
quality commentary from a variety of people. I do think we're at a just
an incredible group of drafts at thispoint. I mean really good drafters,
really sharp people, people with takes, and we've really, I've just had

(51:14):
a terrific time. It's a funthing to do. If you're if you're
interested in doing it next year,you should. And if you're if you
like scoresheet enough to be here alistener to a podcast on it, then
heck, uh, this is areally fun thing to do. I recommend
everyone do it. Yeah, AndI think the other benefit is that,
you know, though it's a mockdraft and we don't play it out,

(51:36):
the truth eventually emerges, right,so uh, you know there's some good
natured ripping that happens. You know, if someone doesn't like a pick or
something like that, that that we'llget said, we're not all just polite
and everything's roses and sunshine, andyou know, we've had people come back
and you know a couple of yearslater you do know, hey, this
pick up hand and it worked outand that's the fun part, right,

(51:58):
So you know, hey, ifyou go against the grain and something works
out, and you should come backand crow about it a little bit.
So I find it super fun.It's someone that's obnoxiously competitive, i'd probably
get a little bit too into it, But um, I really enjoy it,
and I think we got a greatgroup of owners. Yeah, I
will echo what they say. Um, and you know again, I actually

(52:22):
think that is a really good point. Like, um, you know,
this year, I think, um, I was noticing a lot of beloved,
beloved former baseball Perspectus writer Joe Shehanand Jay Young Claus have a team
together. I was noticing a lotof their picks. Uh, kinde got
gagged up on a little bit.Um, But um, you know,

(52:42):
I do think there's an aspect wherethey ended up taking a lot of brewers
and padres, and the brewers andpadres looked pretty terrific and the early going,
Um, you know, I thinkthere's a place where they could come
back in three years and say,well, we were actually just right about
everybody. So take that. Um. But yeah, you know, I
think you also, I would sayit's extremely fun to draft. But if

(53:07):
you you know, not everyone cando that. If you just want to
be in there on the conversation,just join the Yahoo group again. Groups
that Yahoo dot com and Google,you know, Google, Yeah, that's
exactly what you should do with it. Look for a mock draft in the
search bar and you can just signup for the league and then just start
receiving the emails. And you know, even if you can't participate, we

(53:30):
get comments from people who aren't participatingthat are you know, rigorous and well
thought out and probably probably as signedthat they should have our position. But
you know, I think the participants, the people who participate without drafting,
are just as valuable as those whoare in the league itself. Yeah.

(53:52):
I was gonna mention that too,Ian, So I'm glad you said something.
I think participating comes in many forms, and certainly the folks that are
watching and thinking critically or even justshouting random insult set terrible picks definitely add
to the entertainment value. I haveto tell myself that, because otherwise there's
no point for me. Nice thanksto sure um with that. If no

(54:22):
one has any further thoughts on themac on the mock, John, what
was the best thing you saw thisweek? Oh? Man, I did
on the spot? I know,Man, I am uh is how I
feel every week, John, Idon't let's see, I want to go
with I think. Oh, thebest thing I saw this week was the

(54:45):
Jeopardy Tournament of Champions, The bigteam tournament. It was great. I
was rooting for Ken Jennings over BradRutter and I've got another half hour on
this old Jeopardy tournament. But itwas great. Of course, the saddest
thing this week because Alex Trebeck's pancreaticcancer. But the but it was great
to watch the Jeopardy at its finest. They did a brilliantly run tournament and

(55:08):
it was a lot of fun towatch. Yeah, real a real validictory
for Alex Travac too, you knowif this is if he's facing a battle,
like just a testament to thirty yearsof a great show. Yes,
yeah, what was so good aboutit, John, Not that I'm I'm
just so they what they did isthey got all a bunch of former contestants.

(55:30):
They did had it in a tournamentformat. They had six teams of
three each, and they had alittle bit of a complicated play into the
finals, and they got very entertainingpeople, uh you know, and and
these uh, these people who arereally good at the game uh playing And
then they switched off from single Deputyto Double Jeopardy to Final Jeopardy, and

(55:54):
they showed you some of the thoughtsand what their betting strategies were uh going
into it and so h and also, you know a lot of these people
are just you know, genuinely charming. Uh and so watching all this was
a good time. I think BuzzyCohen, who got knocked out before the

(56:14):
finals, he started off saying,well, you know, we're gonna win
in a kind of cocky way,and then one of the other guys said,
well, you know, I'm justhoping to do well. I'm the
uh, I'm probably the worst playerhere except for Buzzy. And you know,
just the back and forth, thelittle throwdowns were a lot of fun.
Uh. And you know, youcould see everybody was respectful of game,

(56:35):
respectful of each other, willing tothrow lines out there. But uh,
you know, it's like the bestof fantasy baseball. Um. You
know, I I insult Nate justbecause he's a bad person, but uh,
you know for the rest of you, obviously, I I insult you
probably for some other reasons that I'llbe able to justify later. So it

(56:55):
was it was a good thing towatch. It was a lot of fun.
Cool. Um, well, Natefammed for a while. Now hopefully
you've been able to come with somethingwhat was it. I don't know if
I can beat the Tribec Nod butum, and I don't know if this
is best, but certainly the mostmemorable. Uh. I was out in
Bozeman, Montana last week and theygot three feet of snow and like three

(57:20):
days. It's just like snowed.It never stopped for three whole days.
And uh, if you've never beento Bozeman in the winter, um plows
you would think would be a thingthat exists in vast quantities, but they're
not. And um. They alsodon't like put sand or salt down on
the roads or anything. Occasionally they'lldo some gravel, but that's pretty rare

(57:40):
apparently from what I saw. Andeven when they do plow the roads,
then you don't do a very goodjob and don't do it very often.
Coming from the northeast, it waskind of startling. So we had this
drive to the airport at like fourin the morning on our way back after
you know, the three plus dayssnowing, and there's snow everywhere, and

(58:01):
it looked like the day after Tomorrow. I mean it really did. There
were cars abandoned all over the placeon the side of the road in the
middle of the highway. There wasa couple cars on the road that were
like sliding through stoplights in front ofus, and uh, it really felt
odd. I've never seen anything quitelike that and also terrifying to even drive

(58:21):
fifteen minutes on back roads was waskind of crazy. Um So, yeah,
Bozeman as the Day after Tomorrow,I love The Day after Tomorrow.
If it's on TV, I haveto watch it to its conclusion. It's
a word they watch for sure.Um I think we can just reserve that

(58:45):
best thing for our guests. Andlet's spinnery and there's anything you wanted to
get off your chests. Oh um, well, I'll just go with one
quick anecdote because I think it'll wrappen. And it's actually about baseball, because
I've been watching a lot of baseballthis week. Um so, as as
I mentioned, been watching the Poddresa ton in the last couple of days.
Many Machado looks good. Hey,did you know Mani Machado was a
good player? Tared you should havewatched it for a few years. Maybe

(59:09):
if you watched it more regularly,you would have been able to know that.
Um he was fine. But myfavorite thing was. Um, there
was a game where Eric Hosmer cameup to bat and uh, you know,
just for a moment, the sounddropped out. They were talking and
um, you know you can hearsounds from the stands pretty well in uh

(59:35):
when watching spring training broadcasts and inthe distance you hear a fango let's see
that launch angle. And it justreminded me that hecklers are now smarter than
like I've ever been, and likeI had to study now to be able

(59:57):
to heckle these players. So it'sjust a real huge, humbling experience.
And that's why that's the best thingI saw this week. That's awesome,
that's pretty good. I don't knowhow it took us this long to get
through a mock draft podcast before makingfun of the Orioles. I'm stunned that
we lasted this song. Oh,I forgot to say. The best thing
I saw during the mock draft isthat none of you knew this, but

(01:00:21):
we had a sided bet going aboutwhether an Oriole would be drafted in like
a baby pool about when the firstOriole would be taken. Yeah, well
we posted about it after it hadWell, that's true, that's true.
We because you know we couldn't geteverybody in, but I did want everybody
in on the pool. Um andthe I think what the first Orel was

(01:00:42):
taking with pick number was a twohundred fifty two. All I remembers that
I won. That's all I neededto know. How did you remember that?
Yes? It was Ryan Mountcastle picktwo fifty two. By the way,
Ryan Mountcastle severe overdraft should not havebeen taken. Um, but um,

(01:01:05):
yeah, yes, I think wealso drafted how many Orioles would be
taken, and I think Ben wonthat as well by taking the under.
Um. And what I love mostabout that and why was the best thing
I saw is that Jared who wasan oriole man for your entire life,
when like, here's the most pessimisticthing I can come up with, and

(01:01:30):
then Ben just took the under twiceand one. So let that be a
lesson to y'all. Okay, okay, all right, nice, I'll be
honest. I don't know how towrap this up. You can you always
do it. Um, Nick John, thanks for coming on. We really
appreciate it, and we hope you'llbe back at some point if you're willing

(01:01:51):
to, because sometimes our listeners wantactual content and smart people actual smart people
helps too. Thanks for having us. It's always fun and happy to do
it again sometime we had a greattime cool. Thanks so on behalf of
everyone else. Thanks for listening.And I don't know what the lex mine
is. I have a great Jack, have a great deal. Jarreny listens

(01:02:15):
every time. How do you doall right?