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- [00:01]
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- [00:31]
Grant Brisby
Race the rudders. Race the sails. Race the sails. Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching.
- [00:36]
Sam Miller
Over.
- [00:37]
Grant Brisby
Roger, wait.
- [00:38]
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- [01:02]
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- [01:20]
Grant Brisby
Edu.
- [01:21]
Sam Miller
Welcome.
- [01:24]
Grant Brisby
This is the wind up. Welcome to episode number 176 of the Roundtable and Grant Brisby. I'm here with Sam Miller today and again, only with Sam Miller is Andy in jail. We'll never tell. We will never tell. Sam, how you doing today?
- [01:52]
Sam Miller
I'm shaken. I'm shaken up by a revelation that you made just before we hit record. Grant, you have 1069 unread text messages.
- [02:02]
Grant Brisby
This is correct.
- [02:03]
Sam Miller
Nothing could be easier than having zero unread text messages.
- [02:08]
Grant Brisby
Yeah, I have a thousand unread text messages and more. Let me just go into Gmail real quick. I have three 32,000 unread emails on my personal account. I have 11 12,000 on my work account. Yeah, that's just how I. That's just how I live.
- [02:30]
Sam Miller
I feel like the emails are understandable. Emailed an email demands a response in a way that a text message doesn't. But there's something about this, that the history of human communication basically is that we. We keep on coming up with faster ways to communicate with each other, which then reduces the friction required to have a conversation. Right? Like, it becomes instantaneous. We get ever more instantaneous and the messages become ever shorter. And it seems like, well, this is finally a way to get through the non response problem that we have. So, you know, like, we used to have phones, those were cool for a while, but then people just started screening their calls. You have to come up with a more direct way to communicate with someone so that they won't screen your call. And then whatever we invent for, like, a couple years, you get, like, hundred percent response rates because it's just so easy, so fast, so quick. You mean I could just email you? You mean I could just IM you? They get faster and faster, more direct. But then eventually, after like two or three years, the psychopaths quit responding to those as well. Then we have to invent something that's even more direct that they will respond to. I mean, you know, a text message. I shouldn't have to wonder if a person is ignoring a text message, especially because I know you saw it, right? But then you didn't. Like, you actually never opened it.
- [04:00]
Grant Brisby
Here's the thing. So you. You and I, Sam, we text. We text about stuff that isn't baseball. We'll text about music. We'll text about stuff. Have I ever ignored one of those checks to a point where you've been like, dude, what's up with Grant?
- [04:13]
Sam Miller
No, but I don't know if it's that you have seen it and ignored it for four hours or if you haven't seen it yet. And the whole point of direct communication is that, like, you. You want to know when the thing has been seen. Like, you want to have a sense that at least it's been seen. And when someone is pushing things off for years, like, you, like, not even opening the. The chat, then I don't know whether it's even been seen.
- [04:40]
Grant Brisby
Okay, so let me just say this. Let me just say that I see the messages. I see the messages that come through. It is not 1000 unseen messages. It is 1000 messages that I perhaps have seen pop up on a push notification. I have turned my Apple watch slightly so that I have seen the information, and it doesn't need to be responded to. That's what I have 1,000 of. So, just for example, recently I texted Giants beat writer Alex Balovich. I texted him, Hey, 250th career double for Matt Chapman. That's an inside joke, because when Gene Segura hit his 250th double, they did, like, a little celebration on the Citizen bank scoreboard. It was very funny. He's kept it up as a bit, and it's an incredible bit. So I text him that he responded, and it was just like a yay I saw your text. I responded haha. I didn't need to respond to it. It didn't need a thumbs up, didn't need a heart emoji. Just I saw, I sent it out, got the response I wanted. That's it. It will never get read. I will never text officially but I did read it. You know what I mean?
- [05:42]
Sam Miller
You and I might have different. Anyway, we're going to get 2, 2 in the weeds now into like the that I mean that's like series. At some point we're going to be comparing like which iOS each of us is using.
- [05:55]
Grant Brisby
Yeah, I do a lot of messages. I have Apple watch my phone's. I just see the notification and if like and my mom's a big texter of okay, you know, like in response to something, I'll get an okay back. I don't need to open that. I've seen it. I've seen it. So I'm good. I'm responsible. I'm only part way crazy like so just you know, keep on keeping on with me. I give it 110%. I'll be out there every day.
- [06:17]
Sam Miller
So what's going on in ball?
- [06:18]
Grant Brisby
You know, when I prepare and we do the roundtable planning document. Question mark? Question? Because we can't believe that we actually plan for this now, but we do. I go on mlb.com right. I just go for the, for the, the front page of mlb.com because I figure if I'm going to miss an earth shaking event it will be on there in the top headlines. And the top headlines are all just a playoff races kind of creep, you know, kind of getting hot. Kind of getting hot. The Dimebags are, are back. The Guardians are, are back. The, the Cardinals not so you know, and all that stuff. And so I guess that's the story baseball that is all really that I am paying attention to. I'm looking to see how the Mets are doing. I'm looking to see how the Reds are doing. The Guardians, the Giants. It's exhausting because I'd rather be checking the scores for Padres, Dodgers. I'd rather be checking Yankees, Blue Jays. Man, which one of them is going to get left out? That sort of. But I think that's the story of baseball right now is just the others, the other teams.
- [07:14]
Sam Miller
Yeah, you know, not to insult any of these teams but like the Reds. I don't get the sense that anybody's out there rooting for the Reds other than the 17,000, you know, paid, paid attendance of the last game. People, I think, are rooting against the Mets because we are haters. We're a hater culture. And also mainly because I think people want to feel stimulated. We want to like, it's, it's. Our only hope is some chaos. And so I every morning do check the playoff odds to see what are the chances that anybody else will get in. It was 17%. Just a few, maybe like a week and a half ago when we recorded. And now it's up to. It was 70% over the weekend and it dropped a little bit because the Mets finally won a game and the Rangers lost a game. But it's like 60% now that someone will, someone will overturn the existent 12 in the playoffs right now. So I kind, I'm kind of am rooting for that. But at this point it's not quite fatigue because like the Giants and the Reds and the Diamondbacks and the Guardians, we are not tired of them because we haven't thought about them much. So I don't want to say it's fatigue, but there is some aspect of being unable to rally enthusiasm for them. I liken it to like when you make a tape of a tape of a tape and like the quality degrades over each replication. And every time you give up on a team.
- [08:44]
Grant Brisby
Yes, yes.
- [08:45]
Sam Miller
Every time they lose two out of three to the Pirates and you're like, oh, okay, well they're done now. And then a week later you see that they went 4 and 3 and you're like, oh God, I gotta pay attention to them again. They went four and three. But your enthusiasm for that idea has degraded over time. And we are right now on like, like sixth generation Guardians, like eighth or ninth generation Giants. Reds we paid attention to. Reds have been a little steadier and kind of just lurking and playing slightly inspiring ball sometimes, you know. So I think they're maybe like third or fourth generation of the teams that are kind of floating. I was big on the Rangers. I, I really thought the Rangers would make a really exciting postseason team. But then now that Evaldi's gone and Evan Carter went down and I'm like the only person who's excited to see Evan Carter again. But like, you know, I am. I was. Now they are less of a, of an entrancing possibility. But the Reds are, I would say the Reds at least have one elite attribute. Their starting rotation is, you know, like crazy good right now. They have three pitchers who are pitching at like 150 ERA plus level. They have depth. Beyond that, they have chase Burns, who's won't be in the postseason rotation if they make it, but is striking out 14 batters per nine as a starter or has this year and could theoretically just be a complete bullpen monster if. If things broke right. The problem is that they're otherwise just a pretty bland team. If you look at their regulars as sorted by baseball reference, like their primary player at every position, the nine, you know, nine regulars, the median war in that group is 0.2. That's their median. And so at like, at no point have we thought, like, the Reds are good.
- [10:47]
Grant Brisby
You know, I want more Reds in my diet. Is something few of us have said.
- [10:51]
Sam Miller
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, if I'm ranking teams I've watched this year, I would say the Reds are probably like 27th in terms.
- [11:00]
Grant Brisby
Of how much you've watched, the terms.
- [11:01]
Sam Miller
Of how many hours. Like, when I get my. My MLB TV rap at the end of the year, I would say that reds will be mid-20s or so. So, yeah, they're not front of mind particularly, but, you know, you're right that it's kind of unavoidable that with two weeks in the season left and you're looking around and you're like, well, there's only two playoff spots basically up for grabs. You're gonna try to pump some saline in that chicken, you know, plump it up.
- [11:29]
Grant Brisby
I will. I. I will go back to the tape degradation analogy, and I am willing to officially proclaim that the best analogy in roundtable history, because that is. Is what it feels like. That is. I will. I will vote for that. In the analogies. What are the awards called where you give out the free analogies? I don't know. It's probably the anals. The anals. Yeah. Yeah, There we go. So you're doing well. Well, oh, boy. But, yeah, good analogy. Because it feels like when I look, and I am not just. I'm not soaked with Guardians information, I do not open my phone and see an unread text from a Guardians fan saying, hey, watch this about the Guardians. Am not communicating online. I'm not on the Guardian subreddit. I do not have the maximum amount of Guardians in my life. The FDA says I can have much more. But when I look at the standings and I see that they've won nine out of 10, I swear, I use, like, bad words. I just go, God, I know. We have evolved past the point of caring about the Guardians in 2025. We have, but they've won nine to 10. They've won four in a row, they're two and a half back. You know, they've been outscored on the season. They're not a good team. I think they're empirically not a good team. They why should I watch this team try and hit in the, in the postseason? Why? They've scored 580 runs this year. That is like the All Star break for the Yankees a few years ago, it feels. Or the Braves, you know, like I am not into watching the Guardians. Probably I might have to, I'm going to have to watch one of these teams that I am just not like pumped up for. And I feel like we talk about this every week, but that's what there is to talk about.
- [13:08]
Sam Miller
I mean, this is the problem, you know, of trying to design a perfect playoff system every year you have kind of a different distribution of talent, you have different gaps between teams. It's hard to know what's going to make it most exciting. I got a reply to our conversation that we had along those lines not long ago and I'm going to read that because I really liked it. This is from Michael Hank, who says, I've decided we can mostly fix baseball by waiting until September 1st to decide what the playoff format for the season is. And I really like, am kind of trying to force that into a realistic possibility. It's a great idea because you don't baseball, again, like, it doesn't create enthusiasm for underdogs the way that like March Madness does or the way that, you know, other, other sports, you know, a bad, you know, a sort of a team that you haven't heard of starts getting momentum and you get more excited and it just, it doesn't really work the same way in baseball. And so what you end up having instead is a lot of attention paid to teams that are not that exciting. And some years, you know, that can still be really exciting. You can have a, like a, like a jumble, like like nine teams competing for four spots and you're trying to figure out all the different iterations of how the final two weeks can go. And you know that you used to have like all the various tiebreaker scenarios and some years it sort of just falls flat. And you would rather have a playoff system that really like fenced in the good teams and left everybody else and made the good teams really have to fight with each other for various playoff incentives. I'm not sure exactly what you would want this year, but like the old five team system where two teams are playing for, you know, a one, one card wild, one game wild Card spot would probably work better than six. Six is just slightly too many. On the other hand, maybe not. Maybe the fact that we had at least something to watch this year with the Mets and the Rangers over the weekend, two teams that we otherwise wouldn't feel that much suspense over. Maybe it's salvaging September. I don't know. I. This. This idea that Michael floated, I really like it, but I haven't yet been able to untangle all the ramifications of it. I do think that you can't let Rob Manfred decide what the playoff format is going to be because everybody would then hate it. It would. It would look like some sort of like, oh, well, they just want the best TV ratings. You know, like big wig conspiracy sort of stuff from the top. What you would have to do is every kid like 5 to 16 who goes to a major league baseball stadium drops a raffle ticket in a barrel. And then at the end of the year or on September 1st, you draw a raffle ticket and that kid decides the playoff format for everybody and just all joy based joy and also his own rooting incentives.
- [16:14]
Grant Brisby
I like it. I mean, it's. Obviously, it's not realistic, but I, like, I'm up for that.
- [16:19]
Sam Miller
We need more barrels. The barrel economy has really sunk.
- [16:25]
Grant Brisby
You can't even get straps for the barrels anymore.
- [16:27]
Sam Miller
It used to be a lot of barrels in pop culture.
- [16:32]
Grant Brisby
Where have the barrels gone? I will say, I'm not sure if producer Brian's gonna keep it in, but Sam accidentally misspoke and said one card wild instead of a one game wildcard. And I think that one card wild. I think you should use that and just pretend like that is the proper English. That's like not splitting infinitives. It's like attorneys general. Yeah, dude, One card wild. I'm right, you're wrong. You're a moron. I will say, boy, my best idea is like, I think maybe the writers.
- [16:57]
Sam Miller
Should vote on it on the platform.
- [16:59]
Grant Brisby
Has that ever. Has that ever gone wrong when writers have voted on things? I mean, yeah, there's no real way to do it. You would want, like, some sort of third party. And by third party, you mean like aliens or someone that doesn't. Maybe soccer fans from. From England. Ready to order?
- [17:19]
Sam Miller
Yes.
- [17:19]
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Sam Miller
Everything.
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- [17:33]
Grant Brisby
Yes, chef.
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- [18:19]
Grant Brisby
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- [18:51]
Sam Miller
It would be great, too, because the teams wouldn't know what the format is. And so you would have this great deus ex machina that lands in the final. Like, it would be. The ultimate deadline is great, the ultimate deck shuffle. You know, like just all of a sudden you don't even know. Like, you'd have to prepare as a. Yeah, like at the trade deadline, you'd have to prepare for like three or four different scenarios. As a team, it would really add complexity to the whole thing.
- [19:17]
Grant Brisby
Do you think it would add complexity or do you think it would make teams more wary? Would it. Would it make teams say to themselves, like, we believe in that this is the actual talent level level of our team, not our 64 and 65 record or whatever.
- [19:33]
Sam Miller
Let's talk about this specifically with the Giants, because the the Giants were sellers at the trade deadline and they weren't far off from a playoff spot. But part of the calculus was specifically, we're not a good team, right? Like Buster Posey more or less. I don't remember. Maybe. Maybe I'm imagining this, but he more or less said, like, we don't have the horses this year. And surprisingly, there was no revolt in the clubhouse because the players agreed with that. They just did. So even if you had like a 14 team playoff system in the National League where the Giants were going to make the playoffs. The team didn't seem to have that much enthusiasm for itself. No, no, they still would not have been investing even if they'd known that, you know, Joey from Cincinnati was going to have a eight, eight team system and the Giants were going to be playing the, you know, we're going to get a second round buy because Joey has second round buys. Joey's system is really crazy. Second round buys barrels and kids named.
- [20:33]
Grant Brisby
Joey bring him back.
- [20:35]
Sam Miller
So I'm not sure how teams would respond, but you'd have, you'd have uncertainty. You'd have exponential uncertainty because you wouldn't know how good you were going to perform, you wouldn't know how good your rivals were going to perform, and you wouldn't know what the playoff format was going to be. So I think you'd have to. There'd have to be. Well, maybe it would just be more hedging. You mentioned the. Speaking of hedges, the Guardians. You mentioned the Guardians. The Mets obviously are, have been, you know, free falling. The Guardians have been hot. And one of the stories of this season has been it seems like teams are getting hot and teams are getting cold and upending everything you thought you knew about their positioning. I'm just curious. I created this thing. You're gonna have to maybe explain the significance of it. But I wanted to see who the streakiest team was or how streaky teams have been or how much momentum has dictated things this year. And so I looked at every playoff team or every team that's in the race, and I looked at what their record was in games after they won versus in games after they lost. If you believe that they're streaky or you believe that there's momentum, then they would have a better record after they win and they would have a worse record after they lose because they're streaking. Right. And so I, I now know of these teams well, a, I know how, how streaky they are in the aggregate, but also I know who the streakiest teams have been. Do you have a sense of, of who the streakiest team in the playoff race has been this year?
- [22:14]
Grant Brisby
And this is including division winners or division leaders, I should say.
- [22:19]
Sam Miller
This is the 12 teams that are currently in the playoffs and then also the Rangers, Guardians, Giants. That's it. I did not include the Reds. I'm sorry.
- [22:31]
Grant Brisby
That's. They've been pretty steady. They've been pretty safe, I would guess. Okay, so for streaky, you're going to be looking for a team that's had high highs and low lows.
- [22:39]
Sam Miller
You'. For a team where the delta between their winning percentage after wins is the highest compared to the their winning percentage.
- [22:49]
Grant Brisby
After losses, I'm going to, I mean obviously it's proximity bias, but I'm going to go Giants just because they sure seem to be packing in a lot of like, hey, we've won 11 out of 12 games and then a lot of whoops, we lost 11 out of 12. Whoopsie doodle. But the Dodgers, I know, have some extremes too because of how they started the season. And for them to even be worried even slightly about the NL west seems ridiculous. So I'm going to go with Dodgers with my reserve pick being the Giants.
- [23:17]
Sam Miller
Okay. The Dodgers have been incredibly unstreaky. If you look at this, their winning percentage in games after they win is.566. Their winning percentage in games after they lose is.547. So it really doesn't matter whether they won or lost the previous game. It matters a tiny bit. Only Giants pretty good. They're I think three fourth in this list or fifth, maybe.530 winning percentage after they win.490 winning percentage after they lose. But no, there are basically are three teams that fit this narrative. Three teams that have been incredibly streaky, if you believe what I'm doing means anything. The Mets are in fact one of them. The Mets, the day after the Mets win, they're 44 and 32. The day after the Mets lose, they're 32 and 40. So that is a 120 point win percentage differential. The guardians, after they win a game they have a 580 winning percentage. After they lose a game they have a.450 winning percentage. So that is a 130 point win percentage differential. And the Red Sox 590 after they win.470 after they lose. So they are also about a 120 differential. But in general these 15 teams that we have made up, you know, the storyline of Major League Baseball this year have not been that streaky. It feels like they have been, but it's about a 10 point differential between the day after wins and the day after lose losses. So for the most part in the aggregate, you know, momentum, not that big a deal this year. Not as big as it has felt. Not as big as it has felt. Now this is only, this is day to day. So it doesn't necessarily say how months have differed from each other. But you know, if you, if you win nine out of 12 then that's going to show up in this little metric that I made. It's going to show up quite positively. The Cubs, if I. If you want to have your mind blown. The Cubs after they win, have a losing record. So after they win a game, The Cubs are 41 and 43. But after they lose, after the Cubs lose a game, they're 43 and 20.
- [25:33]
Grant Brisby
Wow.
- [25:34]
Sam Miller
Yeah. It's like all, all their winning, all their losing streaks are like one game, two game, that's it. They never lose three in a row.
- [25:43]
Grant Brisby
It's like they don't want to hear that song. And then after they go a couple days without hearing it wasn't that bad. I kind of liked it, you know.
- [25:49]
Sam Miller
Yeah. But they don't want to go more than a, a couple days. So incredibly unstreaky. Incredibly unstreaky. In fact, I. Another way I looked at this was what percentage of a team's games were the same outcome as the day before, you know, and the Cubs, of the 147two game sequences that the Cubs have played, there's 61 have been the same outcome and 86 have been an opposite outcome. So basically like strong reversion to the opposite thing happening.
- [26:18]
Grant Brisby
That feels to me like it's almost like I could blame one starting pitcher and I know that's not it. Or like two starting pitchers in the rotation. It's that guy's fault and it's that guy's fault.
- [26:26]
Sam Miller
Oh, right. Like if you had, if you had Garbage man in, in the second and fourth spots in the rotation.
- [26:32]
Grant Brisby
Yeah, but that's, that's, that, that's just, that's probably not what it is. It's just one of those things. My guess.
- [26:38]
Sam Miller
So I don't exactly know what any of that means. I don't think that a podcast is the perfect medium to have described these fights, to be honest. But I found it very interesting while doing it, while I was counting these things up to see the difference between teams is really interesting.
- [26:55]
Grant Brisby
Probably noise on a day to day basis. Yeah. I think what you have just looked, you've tried to attach some scientific rigor to vibes. I think you tried to. Yeah, I think is what you tried to do is just, you know, because you're getting ready to settle in and watch a two and a half hour, three hour show of, of your, your favorites. And how do you feel about that? How do you feel about allotting? Well, yesterday it worked out today, you know, so you're feeling, feeling the vibes. Yeah. That is interesting. It for me, winning After a loss or losing after a win. That is momentum to me. So the Giants, if you include their March games, the Giants, March and April, had a winning percentage over.700. In July, they had a winning percentage under.400. I think what I'm thinking about are months where you have a team playing out of their heads, getting ready to set franchise records and, and then in another month playing like they could lose 100 games. Right. That's my Giants experience this year. And I'm assuming that Dodgers fans have the same experience with a team that could win 116 games and a team that could lose or a team that could win 86 games right. Over different points of the season. So it just depends on your. What the context is. Are you looking for a little bit longer term or day after day? But streakiness is what it takes to get these teams on the fringes of the fringe of the expanded postseason.
- [28:22]
Sam Miller
If you had to take this as a positive or a negative, though, it would be probably a bad thing for the Mets to be. They're unreliable. They're too vibes dependent. They can go through a malaise. Whereas the Cubs. If you were gonna force this to mean something, you'd say the Cubs are resilient. They lose and they bounce right back. You know, you're not gonna. You're not gonna sweep them in the postseason because they lose game one. They're going to bounce right back. Kind of a thing. That's. That would be how you would force this into. Into meaning, right?
- [28:54]
Grant Brisby
I think so. And I think that if I were to go on the Mets page that there's. If, if you go on Fangrass or Baseball Reference or Baseball Prospectus and you find, you can find a stat where the Mets are have that same sort of kind of split when it's days of the week. Right. I'm sure that there's one team that is. And you know this. I'm just saying that there is probably noise that is going to be impossible to fil crouch even when comparing it to days of the week or day games versus night games, which could also maybe it's closer to day games versus night games, because I believe that could have an impact. If you have a preponderance of players who maybe need to get their eyes checked a little bit better or have troubles in the dark, maybe that will make a difference. It's not going to be us that figures that out though, right? There's too much noise for anyone else to figure it out, but it could make a difference theoretically. And I think vibes streakiness could make a difference. I don't think anyone has said it can't, just that we can't really tease it out.
- [29:50]
Sam Miller
Well, if you were going to say the ability to bounce back from a loss is a skill going into the postseason, if you wanted to tell yourself that, then the three teams that you want to look out for, according to my findings, are the Phillies, the Cubs, and the Astros. Those are the three teams with the best record after losses this year.
- [30:08]
Grant Brisby
Sam, I'm going to need you to go back and run 120 years of baseball history. We can pause Producer Brian can we just pause the podcast for a little bit? Sam's going to do 150.
- [30:28]
Sam Miller
It's both the the best and the worst part of my work process is like if I had any skills whatsoever with databases, running SQL, you know, I would have, I would have done this. It would have taken me 20 minutes and I would have had 120 years and I would be able to tell you what it means. But I don't. So what I have to do is by hand, team by team, page by page. It takes an hour and 40 minutes to do half the league for one year and I can't do the big thing. But on the other hand, all the interesting stuff, all the story ideas, all the enjoyment of the process comes from sitting there doing it by hand and being surprised that the Astros had this like every other day, you know, may and so it's good and bad to have to do it by hand, but I unfortunately, I can't tell you whether this means anything.
- [31:22]
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- [32:12]
Grant Brisby
Had the time of my life a I never felt this way Before.
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Grant Brisby
And I owe it all to you.
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- [32:43]
Grant Brisby
You work very similarly to. To how I work. It sounds like where you just. Just dive in and, you know, you dive into a swimming pool full of seashells and then you grab a seashell and you go, oh, that's interesting. You know, and like, that's when I do those big, heavy lifting research projects. There was one time back when I believe as. No, this is when I was at the Athletic, but I did this project and I said, what would happen if there was no player movement, no trades, no free agency, nothing, you know, waivers? No, nothing. Who would have the best teams, right? And so you go through and you look at all the teams and maybe this was SB Nation, I don't know. Anyways, it took me forever. It took me going through every single team and every single player. And then there'd be like the weird players who you thought that they were homegrown, but they were really some random trade. Like, Richard really was drafted by the Rangers, and so you have to account for him not being a homer. Anyways, and so I did. That took forever. I was happy with it. Now you go on Roster Resource and it's right there. Like you, every player just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. How Originally brought into the major leagues, and it would have probably saved me eight days. Like, no joke, eight days of research. But at the same time, I probably got three story ideas out of the first way. So I'm torn because I really should know SQL and I should know databases. I should have the layman database on my computer. I should be able to have three screens open and do the matrix thing. But I just can't. I'm not. It's not wired for it.
- [34:09]
Sam Miller
The other thing about it that's nice is that I am a procrastinator. And it is a form of productive procrastination to waste six hours doing by hand querying instead of doing the hard thing, which is like the first sentence of an article.
- [34:26]
Grant Brisby
First sentence, for whatever reason, I get my lead out. Like, boom. That's what I'm good at.
- [34:30]
Sam Miller
Well, that's impressive. But if I didn't have something productive to do with my procrastination, instead, I would just do nothing. And then the days would pile up, the anxiety would build. So it's good to have something to put my energy into when I'm not writing. Did you see Anthony Rizzo this weekend?
- [34:45]
Grant Brisby
I did.
- [34:46]
Sam Miller
Did you watch the game? Were you by chance watching the game?
- [34:49]
Grant Brisby
I was not at the time, but I did see the. The hoopla.
- [34:53]
Sam Miller
Anthony Rizzo had, like, his day, his retirement day at Wrigley Field, you know, threw out the first pitch, you know, Ian hap him a ball. You know, he sat in the bleachers. You know, he. He did a beer cup snake. You know, it was all good fun. And I had a little bit of lack of enthusiasm in my voice there. I don't know why, because it was super fun. Like, it was like, really a fun game. Like, the whole game was just the Anthony Rizzo day. The crowd, you could tell, was like, really into it. Everybody was into it. It was one of the most exuberant player retirement team connection days that I've ever seen. Right. And it struck me as a little bit interesting because if you were just to. To like, look at Rizzo's resume, you know, great player, great career, won the World Series, caught the ball though, you know, the final out. But, you know, you could also make the case that, like, well, you know, he, he wasn't a Hall of Famer. He wasn't an mvp. He was really rarely, if ever, the best player on that team. He wasn't a one team career guy. So you could say, like, seeing the reality of how beloved he was and how great that day was and how excited and enthusiastic everybody was about Rizzo Day, you could say he was, like, punching above his weight resume wise. Like, he was a special, special player to the Cubs and the Cubs fans in a way that the, you know, accomplishments might not quite convey to someone who didn't live through it. Right. So it got me wondering, of all the active players in baseball, who do you think will have the most enthusiastic retirement day? Or who will be. Who will get the longest ovation when he comes back, you know, right after his retirement? Or who will. However, whatever metric you would use to judge belovedness, which active player in which franchise do you think will reach that max?
- [37:06]
Grant Brisby
All right, now, are we eliminating guys like Kershaw? Like, are we sticking with the Rizzos of the world?
- [37:13]
Sam Miller
No, no, no. Anybody? Yeah, anybody? Because I think Rizzo, like, if you look at the various hall of Famers that, that were his contemporaries who have retired, I don't think any of them had a retirement day that was as enthusiastic as this one, you know, going back to, like, Jeter and The, you know, the, the core four with the Yankees. I think that, that he set the standard for his era's stars as far as his retirement day. So who sets the standard among the currently active players?
- [37:41]
Grant Brisby
By rights, it should be Kershaw. And I feel guilty talking about this without Andy on because he's, he's like the last of his kind. But Kershaw, the idea of a left handed pitcher coming up with the Dodgers and becoming the Dodgers best left handed pitcher, best pitcher of all time is wild. It is. It should be impossible. It should not have happened. And it did. And it led to championships, it led to MVP votes, it led to an MVP award, it led to Cy Young's, it led to everything he's given the Dodgers, as much as any player could give anyone. So by rights it should be Kershaw. But I don't know if that's going to be the case because it's, that's almost like a stately reaction when he retires. It's like, it feels formal. Like you have to like put on black tie to, to appreciate what Kershaw did because it's so special. With Rizzo, you've got that kind of floaty goofiness, you know, and you've got the, the success and just the energies. It's more similar to Hunter Pence and the Giants or 100 pence with the Phillies or the Astros. Right. It's just. And then you've got teams like McCut, you know, the Pirates, like it should be McCutcheon. You can't get any enthusiasm for that. And the way the ownership has treated the franchise, even if McCutcheon deserves it. Oh, this is tough. All right, I'm going, I'm going Jose Ramirez. I'm going Jose Ramirez, because I've, I've heard he's the most underrated player in baseball.
- [39:02]
Sam Miller
Yeah, Jose Ramirez is a guy I, I wondered whether you would land on him. He is very fun, very enjoyable. Kershaw, you're right. There's no, you know, Kershaw. Lots of players deserve it, right? I mean, Mike Trout, we could talk about Mike Trout in a minute too. But Kershaw, surprisingly, I know Dodgers fans that hate Kershaw. Like one of my good friends, he, he hates Kershaw. He wishes. He, he will actually say he wishes they had traded him when he was a prospect. That he has been a, a net negative for the franchise. Now, that's crazy, obviously, but Fanbrain is weird. And Kershaw, his narrative has been one of postseason failure. The, the defining the defining image of Clayton Kershaw for most people is head hung in the dugout in the postseason with a Fox chyron in the top right as it shows, you know, a pitching line like six and two thirds, seven hits, five runs. And then like a little note on the bottom that says, you know, two runners on base, his responsibility. You know, like that's the Kershaw experience. Like, like a bad final inning in a postseason game.
- [40:12]
Grant Brisby
That should also. Just to be clear, that should also include pitching on two days rest after throwing 150 pitches. Hanley Ramirez has the range of a post box. Yeah, okay.
- [40:21]
Sam Miller
Pedro Baez should not be his problem. Yes, but he is. He is Clayton Kershaw. The narrative is postseason failure. Even with two rings, the narrative is mostly postseason failure.
- [40:36]
Grant Brisby
We were against that.
- [40:37]
Sam Miller
His championship win probability added in the postseason is 2%. 2%. He's basically been, you know, like a non contributor to their postseason in the aggregate. I don't think it's fair to judge him that way, but I do know that like many fans do, he's also a pitcher. And pitchers don't quite have the same relationship, I think, to the fans as everyday players do, in a lot of cases, they feel a little bit set apart. And. Well, let me put it this way. He's not trying to charm you. And people like to be charmed. People like to feel that they're being charmed. So I don't know that Kershaw. We'll see, but I don't know that Kershaw gets it.
- [41:18]
Grant Brisby
I have another one, but I'll let you cook.
- [41:21]
Sam Miller
McCutcheon. Whatever storage of joy the Pirates fans are capable of feeling, he has filled it. I've always felt that he is the perfect franchise player. He has been the perfect franchise player. You couldn't ask for a better player than him. And for him to come back at the end of his career and performance, he has even better. He's so likable, so wonderful. He played what, one year as a Giant and he's your third favorite player of all time, right?
- [41:47]
Grant Brisby
Half a year. Yeah. And he's like, everyone loves him.
- [41:49]
Sam Miller
Yeah. But I mean, really, what the. The magic trick here is to expand the amount of joy the fans are able to feel. And Anthony Rizzo expanded the amount of joy. Like he turned the Cubs fans from being long suffering to being, you know, fulfilled, filled beyond two in one, shampoo and conditioner in one. They did it. He figured it out. Right. And nothing McCutcheon could have done in this scenario better than he did But Pirates fans, they can't dance. They just lost their wallet. You know, it's like it's back to back. Hedberg's, by the way, back to back. We gotta get, we gotta expand the references. So unfortunately, McCutcheon, you know, he's the right, he's the right franchise player in the wrong franchise. If you, if you're gonna measure if the metric is how joyful is his send off. Jose Ramirez. Perfect answer, but no ring. You know, long suffering franchise in a sense, but still no ring.
- [42:51]
Grant Brisby
I got my. What? My revised answer.
- [42:53]
Sam Miller
Okay, I'm gonna, I don't want to hear it quite yet.
- [42:55]
Grant Brisby
Okay.
- [42:55]
Sam Miller
Is it Bryce Harper?
- [42:57]
Grant Brisby
Might be.
- [42:58]
Sam Miller
I think it might be Bryce Harper. I feel like Bryce Harper has got, he's got some of that, right? Like he's, he wants to charm you.
- [43:06]
Grant Brisby
He's a Hall of Fame panderer. And that's not a, that I'm not. That is not a slight. That is, he is just as good. It's the Simpsons where you've got the fake Kennedy saying I, you know, enjoy a good Jeff beer. And then when you've got Nixon saying it, everyone hisses, right? And so when Harper says go Birds, you believe it. You believe it's like, yeah, go Birds, man.
- [43:30]
Sam Miller
I do. I think. And Harper made a lifetime commitment. I mean, he signed the longest contract that any human being has ever signed for any service. And he did it when the Phillies weren't good yet. He went through a couple of years where they were disappointing, where it seemed like the rebuild had failed. In fact, the last article I wrote at ESPN before I was laid off was that the Phillies rebuild had failed. And I think that that's true. But then there was rebirth, you know, and it was. Bryce Harper was in the center of it, postseason hero. And he's just sort of like aging into like great American status as a Philadelphia Philly. And so I think that's a good one in a way. It's an, it's an obstacle that he didn't come up with them that, you know, like you have a different relationship with a player that you saw as a kid, as a debut to the degree that any player can overcome not joining your franchise until he's 30 or whatever. Bryce Harper maybe can, because we all watched him grow up. He was our little boy, you know, he was our little 14 year old little boy.
- [44:43]
Grant Brisby
And he then old Joey, old Joey there by the barrel.
- [44:46]
Sam Miller
We all watched his major league debut. We all watched those Dodgers fans moon the camera. And then now you can't find a clip anymore because MLB expunged it.
- [44:58]
Grant Brisby
I forgot about that. We had so much fun on the Internet back in the day.
- [45:02]
Sam Miller
So Bryce Harper was all, our little boy. He will show for this. You know, Rizzo showed up, and I think Bryce Harper will show up for it as well.
- [45:12]
Grant Brisby
He might, you could say, get in the fanatic costume. And there's like a non zero chance that he'll say, yeah, hell, yeah, absolutely. Why haven't you asked me before? You know, And I don't feel like that was the early read on Harper, you know, maybe because he's had a life unlike almost any other. So for him to get to this point where just seem at least he's radiating fun, the hell of a progression. Good career arc. I recommend it.
- [45:38]
Sam Miller
Yeah, absolutely. I agree. Jose Ramirez is also a good guess. Sad that we didn't even bother mentioning Mike Trout. Sad but true.
- [45:47]
Grant Brisby
What are you gonna do? Talk about the weather? Nimbus clouds? Like, you present him a golden nimbus cloud.
- [45:52]
Sam Miller
I think Lynn Dor's personality has just been split. It's been cleaved too cleanly between two franchises. So even though he's also a perfect. A perfect player, perfect franchise player, which, you know, he's gonna have, like, which hat does he wear? Controversy when he goes to the hall of Fame. So, yeah, I think we probably. Oh, you know, like, probably people would think, why not? Aaron Judge.
- [46:16]
Grant Brisby
Yeah.
- [46:16]
Sam Miller
Judge is a guy, but I think that's the person.
- [46:19]
Grant Brisby
The Kershaw personality thing.
- [46:20]
Sam Miller
Yeah, exactly.
- [46:21]
Grant Brisby
Personality thing.
- [46:22]
Sam Miller
Yeah. He doesn't. He doesn't. He's not trying to charm you. He doesn't radiate joy in the same way. And also, also, you know, things could change, but. But, you know, a Yankee can't retire without a World Series ring and want to and care and expect to get the Rizzo treatment or the Jeter treatment or anything like that.
- [46:41]
Grant Brisby
That is brutal. Because as we know, they're 27, 28, whatever, championships. Much different time when they won most of those. And then even when they got the wildcard in there, then they won, what, three in a row? Four out of five.
- [46:53]
Sam Miller
Four out of five.
- [46:54]
Grant Brisby
Yeah. And so then it's like, well, you know, we can just keep doing this. And I think that's. That reset expectations in a. In a bad, bad way. Because it's a guy like Judge could. Should. Maybe not should, but could plausibly go through his career without a World Series ring through. I'm not gonna say no fault of his own, but pride, you know, Barry Bonds doesn't have one. That's just how it goes for some of the best players ever. So I think it'd be unfair for him not to get that treatment if the Yankees don't want a World Series in his tenure. But that's what's going to happen.
- [47:24]
Sam Miller
No, I think it's fine to play your career without a World Series in this day and age. Bryce Harper doesn't have a World Series rank, but as a Yankee, you know, as a Yankee, as the captain.
- [47:35]
Grant Brisby
Yeah. All right. We are out of time now. I. Now I'm looking at the list and I'm just going through and I'm imagining all these people all gussied up and doffing their. You don't take off your hat. You doff your hat to the crowd. And there's a lot of good candidates. A lot of good candidates.
- [47:50]
Sam Miller
But I gotta tell you, Grant, that when I saw someone describe Anthony Rizzo almost catching a home run ball as surreal, and I was watching that game and, you know, like, they'd been cutting to him between every pitch, so you sort of had a sense where he was sitting in the stands. So when Moises Ballesteros homered, I had this thought like, oh, that. That. Wouldn't it be cool if that was in Rizzo's section? It looks like it. Maybe it's in his section. And then they zoom in and the guy behind him is holding the ball, directly behind him is holding the ball up, and you're like, oh, my gosh, it almost went to him. And then they show the replay, and it's directly to him. He's the only guy. He's the only guy in the crowd who stands up to catch it. And you really had. I mean, surreal was perfect because you really had that sense, like that dream, like that Jungian dream sense where you're the only real person, there's only one real character, and everybody else is just, like, manifestations of your psyche. And Anthony Rizzo is the only real person in this entire stadium. The ball just goes directly to him. A home run ball goes directly to him. It freaked me out, dude. It, like, honestly, it felt like. It felt rigged. It felt like physics was rigged. The universe was rigged.
- [49:13]
Grant Brisby
If circumstances were any different, if the. The sport were played any different, there would be conspiracy theories. But you can't fake that. You can't rig that. It's. It's just. You can't. I'm going to rank that above Matt Holiday getting a moth stuck in his ear, all right? As unlikely, like, million one But I'm going to rank it. But underneath, Denard Span hitting his own mom with a foul ball.
- [49:34]
Sam Miller
That's a good one. Yeah.
- [49:35]
Grant Brisby
That to me, is the pinnacle of. Come on, come on.
- [49:38]
Sam Miller
My go to example has also always been a foul ball, which was Richie Ashburn hitting a fan with a foul ball. And they had to cart the fan off on a stretcher. And while they were carting the fan off, he hit her with another foul ball.
- [49:57]
Grant Brisby
Know the story. That is straight Simpsons. That is when the the ambulance leaves and then hits the tree and then Hobart falls back to. Oh, that's so good. All right, Richie Ashford, number one. Now I've got to go do a deep dive on that. Oh, my God, that's so good. All right, this is episode 176 of the Round Table. We'll be back on Friday. You know, we'll probably talk guardians and reds. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. But by the end, we might get to some goofy stuff. So that's what we'll do. We'll see you then. Thanks for listening.
- [50:34]
Sam Miller
I was very wrong.
- [50:44]
Grant Brisby
Ready to order?
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Sam Miller
Everything.
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Grant Brisby
Yes, Chef.
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Terms apply. See capitalone.com for details. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Three men, three murders, one killer who simply vanished. Thirty years later, Crime Adjacent host Chase Patrick returns to Ridgewood to uncover how the nation's most prolific serial killer went undiscovered and why he started killing again in 2023. Crime adjacent is the never ending true crime story told weekly. Listen to Crime Adjacent wherever you listen to podcasts.