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- [00:00]
Verizon Announcer
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- [00:31]
Grant Brisby
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- [01:00]
Marc Maron
Hey, it's Marc Maron from WTF here to let you know that this podcast is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. And I'm sure the reason you're listening to this podcast right now is because you chose it well. Choose Progressive's name your price tool and you could find insurance options that fit your budget. So you can pick the best one for your situation. Who doesn't like choice? Try it@progressive.com and now some legal info. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.
- [01:36]
Grant Brisby
This is the wind Up.
- [01:50]
Welcome to episode number 195 of the Roundtable. I'm Grant Brisby here with Andy McCullen, Sam Miller. Sam, how you doing today? I want to start with you.
- [02:01]
Sam Miller
I'm okay. Okay.
- [02:02]
Grant Brisby
Okay. Andy, how you sleep?
- [02:03]
Sam Miller
Is it worth it? Did that pay off?
- [02:05]
Grant Brisby
No, that was pretty good. That was pretty good. Andy, how's your sleep been?
- [02:08]
Andy McCullen
Poorly. I have a quick question for you guys. I don't want to derail things too much. I'm just curious. As you know, fellow sort of washed Gen X millennials, there's nothing on television in the morning. Like there's no. TV's terrible, right? There's like, no, you know, Sports center is not Sports Center. I'm sitting here watching Wake Up Barstool, right? How much money would it cost for the people who own the rights to MTV to just run whatever was on MTV, commercials included from 25 years ago. Is that. Is that doable, technology wise?
- [02:45]
Grant Brisby
So here's the thing. I have what you might call a TV in my living room, but it's actually a portal to all this other stuff that doesn't just come over the airwaves like you can. It's. It's like a TV that has access to other applications, apps you might be familiar with, and you could watch other things other than what's delivered to you on tv. So I have my DVR streaming Metal Militia, which is the MTV classic. Just nothing but heavy metal videos from the 80s. I've got like 50 episodes of that teed up. So I've got that. It's just. It's technology. I've got it.
- [03:17]
Andy McCullen
Do that cost money or did you just. Did you steal that from the Internet?
- [03:22]
Grant Brisby
What? I got YouTube TV. I got the darn YouTubes. I know what you're saying because you want something. It's. You want to be able to push one button and something you want is on. That is a dream that young kids will not understand.
- [03:35]
Andy McCullen
Yeah. I want to reclaim the passive viewer experience. I want to be fed yes. Entertainment and not have to seek it out.
- [03:42]
Grant Brisby
You got my votes. You got my vote. We'll talk about your actual politics letter. Sam, what do you think?
- [03:48]
Sam Miller
I do think it's sort of sad how much useful content is. Exists and like, we just don't have a way of watching it. And I think it's a sort of a sickness that we continue to produce new content. And I am 100% including this podcast. Like.
- [04:09]
Part of the problem. Most stuff. Most stuff is age is fine. Like, most stuff is still interesting. We don't need to keep redoing. You know, there's only seven plots. We don't need to keep re. We don't need 7 billion applications of it. Like, a few hundred was enough. You can just spend your whole life watching those few hundred. You'll never get to the end of it. And I don't know why they. Why we feel the need as content creators to continue to, you know, create brand new stuff and as content consumers, why we don't accept things that are slightly old. I mean, I write a. I write a subscription newsletter, and I don't tend to do a lot of, like, transaction analysis of, like, oh, well, just George Springer, 6 years, 150 million. How will it age? Like, that's not really the stuff that I'm writing about. 90% of the stuff I write about is as fresh today as it was the day that it came out. Which is to say, not fresh at all. And people love it the day it comes out and nobody will look at it like two weeks later. They want new stuff. And I don't know, we've all got a sickness that the machine is, is feeding and I don't, I don't know about it. My. I love it when you discover or like you just sort of like get locked in to something that's old and has like limitlessness to it. My wife has recently started re listening to Prairie Home Companion. She will not make it to the end of that project. I've been watching Triton Cash games which are. Wow. Which are these like, like 11. They're like 6, 7 day, 11 hour per day streams. And I'll just put it on while I'm doing the dishes. You will never get to the end of that. And yet, like, there's a part of me that's like, okay, what's new today? It is an infinite stream. Dip your ladle in whenever you are thirsty instead of continually looking for new streams, in my opinion.
- [06:08]
Grant Brisby
Sam and I were just texting back and forth about something like this off the pod where we were talking about our daughter's musical tastes. And my youngest daughter, she's 12, she shared her taste. And I looked at it, I was like, oh, you know, I, I like the music that's on there. A lot of it. There's a couple bands. Didn't know earlier that day I'd read Pitchfork's best rock albums, right? And one of them was Alex G. Okay. In the capsule it says Alex G's ninth album. He's really taking it here. This is his major label. Like, you see the records behind me? You know them? I've never heard of Alex G. Never once heard of Alex G. If I have, I just.
- [06:44]
Andy McCullen
I think you would like Alex G.
- [06:46]
Grant Brisby
I think I would.
- [06:46]
Sam Miller
Good.
- [06:47]
Grant Brisby
That's the thing. But it was on my daughter's playlist and so it's Grant Coded. This is Grant Coded music. And like my daughter's like, the reason I can't find guys like Alex G. I'm busy worrying about my kids. Busy.
- [07:00]
Shopify Announcer
It's, it's.
- [07:02]
Grant Brisby
They're taking my content. That's what's going on. They're taking it. But I, I agree with a moratorium on content, including this podcast. Just stop. No more books like I got. It's no more history. But come on, man, I got stuff to read.
- [07:12]
Andy McCullen
The last of his kind. If I haven't sent you book plate and I owe you one, I'm sorry. I'm tired.
- [07:17]
Grant Brisby
Pebble hunting, by the way, worth the subscription.
- [07:20]
Andy McCullen
Pebble hunting is worth the subscription, man. Pebble hunting is tremendous though.
- [07:24]
Sam Miller
I have probably written 4,000 or so pieces in my life, maybe more across Baseball Prospectus, ESPN and now pebble hunting. And yet four hours after the last thing I write, I start getting the sweats because I'm like, people are expecting new stuff from me that they think I'm slacking. The stuff I wrote in 2012 is still there. Just read it.
- [07:49]
Andy McCullen
It's true.
- [07:50]
Grant Brisby
I found we're talking about Jim Palmer's jockey ads. You know, we're in the 70s. Jockey. The underwear company got a bunch of athletes, including Jim Palmer and Pete Rose to pose in just their skivvies. And I found a whole article I wrote about it. I googled Jim Palmer jockey. And like I'm the full first result of like, yay. And I read it. It's like, oh man, that's a good bit. And I Photoshop like Pete Rose.
- [08:13]
Sam Miller
It.
- [08:13]
Grant Brisby
It's just good stuff. I forgot about it. So if it works on me, it can definitely work on you.
- [08:18]
Andy McCullen
There has to be at least two people listening to this who are like, are they going to tell me where Kyle Tucker's signing? And it's just like the Blue Jays. Who gives a. All right, whatever, you know, But I do think that like when I was a younger person, like really getting into sports writing, like I read everything that like Joe Posnanski wrote, you know, it was like I've discovered Joe Bosnianski and then just like read his entire blog all the way to the end. And I guess it's just like you just run out of time as you become an adult where you just like, you can't do like you. I imagine there's like a, there's a 20 year old kid somewhere doing that with Sam Miller. I imagine there's someone doing that with Grant Brisby, but they're in prison clearly, like they've been locked up, you know, for. Those are the thoughts that kept them out of really good schools. But like you, you have that ability to dip in and I don't know, maybe I just need to, I need to figure out what stream I want to dive into and not watch, you know, whatever's on FS1 at 8 in the morning.
- [09:15]
Grant Brisby
One thing I find myself doing a lot is I will have albums or movies from a director or an auteur or something that I love and I just, I love every little bit about it. And it's, to me, it's perfection. And I'll just use an example. Jessica Pratt, she had like the album of the year last year. The album before that, Quiet Signs is the one I fell into. And for me that's. I just need that one album. I don't need to see what she's done since then. I don't need to see what all. All these favorite artists. Like, I've got all these artists that I just, I love this album. I don't even need to really get into Frank Ocean Blonde because I, I love Channel Orange so much.
- [09:50]
Andy McCullen
Don't worry, you've still got time.
- [09:52]
Grant Brisby
Yeah, I guess so. But I mean, it's like that is. I just, it's filled a slot for me and I don't necessarily need more slots filled by that style. And it, it helps me curate.
- [10:01]
Sam Miller
I relate to that. I also think that just sort of the parenthetical an auteur or someone was a little bit much. Ah, yeah, I like to. Sometimes I like to go out and experience the world. You know, an auteur or something.
- [10:16]
Grant Brisby
I was trying to say book and then I was like, ah, that's boring. And then I got caught between film and book and author art. Nevermind.
- [10:22]
Andy McCullen
They're calling Grant the flaneur of San Jose.
- [10:26]
Grant Brisby
Goodness. All right, what, what are we talking? Let's talk. Winter meetings are on Monday. We just so you know, we're not going to have a show at the winter meetings. Andy is raising a, a busy human. Sam is busy pounding away at pebble hunting the great, great newsletter. I will be, you know, out and about. But no, no show. So we're just going to be talking about these winter meetings as if we know what's going to happen or should we say what we want to happen? Should we. Are they going to be a hot winter meetings? Are you going to be a room temperature winter meetings? By definition? Probably by definition they'll be room temperature.
- [10:59]
Sam Miller
Yeah. I mean, I'd be interested if, if Andy has any like, you know, tea leaves that he, he has. But I'm interested in how we should react. I don't know, like, okay, Grant. I don't know. Maybe this is just a way to pivot into the. Grant. So the Blue Jays just signed Cody Ponce, a pitcher, and he had been rumored to go to, you know, to several teams. And one of the teams that was interested was the Giants. And there was a skeet from Andrew Baggerley. Giants were involved, but market got beyond them. He signed for three years and $30 million. And I saw a lot of reaction to this, like, poverty franchise. Giants coming in second again. They, you know, they can never land anybody because they're too cheap or whatever the case may be. And Grant jumped in. Lot of folks are going to focus on the market being too steep for the Giants. I'm as cynical as the next guy, but I read that as we don't have him being worth that much for that much, we'll get a guy we know better. And it struck me that I don't. We're in a place now where I actually have a hard time. Not just me. I think that the reaction to signings has gotten a little bit kind of weird. We used to really have this, like, simplistic way of going, well, a war costs, you know, a war costs $10 million. And so then you just plug in the projections for this player and you see how many wins he projects to be worth. And then you divide it by the millions. And if it's over 10 million, your team's dumb. And if it's under 10 million, your team's, you know, smart. And that thinking, I don't really hardly ever see that logic applied to moves anymore. I don't feel like there is a real, like, sure footed, solid ground way of analyzing a lot of these moves anymore. Like, does it. Does it kind of just feel to you guys like there isn't really a consensus on how best to process a signing anymore? Does this ring true to you at all, what I'm saying?
- [13:03]
Andy McCullen
Well, I mean, when you're a hammer, everything's a nail. I brought this point up so many times, but the 2016-2019 period of faux austerity where, you know, teams basically stopped paying for free agents agents led to a analysis over correction in which every signing was considered great. You know, it was great. The Reds are trying. They're getting Mike Mustakis right? When you look at. You're like, oh, my God, that's gonna. That might not age well, but if you wrote that right, you get ripped on the Internet. And it was at a time when, you know, we. People were a lot more interested, you know, concerned about sort of reaction to things like that on Twitter. And so I don't know if anything is replaced that because there was kind of like, hey, you know, what's the war? What's the way to do it? And then it just. The analysis for every move became great. They're trying, which, you know, fair, like, because teams kind of stopped trying in some ways. And now that there are, there's definitely some teams who are trying, you Know more than there were in that. In that period of time. I think that, like, we as an industry have not totally figured out. And also, like, it's just gotten harder. It's. I think especially with pitchers, it's gotten harder to tell, you know, like, you know, Saras wrote a. Had a good piece, you know, kind of about the. About the C. Steel sort of talking. He made me. It basically. It was like I. He had a tweet that like, made me feel like an idiot where he was like, don't judge a. A pitcher by era. That's batting average. And I was just like, damn, dude. Like, man, like, you know what I mean? Because I was like, I don't know, like, but I don't know if I agree with that. But like, he definitely knows more about pitching than me, you know, So I felt pretty stupid. And I just think the analysis of all these things there, because we know we have more information, it just gets harder and harder. We know that WAR is flawed, right? So we don't want to use that as like a catch all way to do it. But we don't totally know how to factor in, you know, the reliability of how many games a position player plays, you know, slugging versus on base defense in certain context. You know, versatility, like, it's just. It's become harder, I think, for us to evaluate players. I think. Is that. Is that. Do you guys vibe with that at all or am I just talking out of my.
- [15:14]
Sam Miller
Yeah, I definitely do vibe with that. I also think that. Well, I don't know if this is the case, but like, it used to be that you. We all knew how much a WAR was worth. Like, that was just in every article. And particularly when it started to get around $10 million, it's like, oh, nice round number. It's in every article. And I have no idea what a WAR costs anymore. Like, I don't. I don't because I don't see it as much. It's not like baked into my analysis as much. And so then I'm not leaning on it. And so there isn't that like real easy, super simple, snapshot heuristic that you can apply to these things. But the reason that I sort of fixated on the Cody Ponce thing in particular is that, like, nobody has heard of him.
- [16:03]
Like, he has not been pitching in the United States. He's a guy who sort of like washed out of, you know, of American organized baseball, went to Japan and then Korea, rebuilt his career. There's a model there, there's an archetype. There's guys that we've seen do that. So there's a reason to be optimistic. But no one, like, knows the specifics and no one could really, like most of the people who would react to this signing couldn't, you know, most of them, including me, couldn't tell you, like, what is a good projection for him, what is a realistic expectation of him, how much should he get? Is 3 and 30 good, or would 3 and 36 have been better or what? So it felt to me like we went through a long period where basically any team that signed anybody we treated like they must be dumb because they overbid everybody else. And then now we're in a place where every team that finished second must be shamed because they couldn't get it over the line. And so I wanted to bring it up because, Grant, you know, you are still, you process moves because you're like, sort of like really knowledgeable about one team and you have to be extremely knowledgeable about every kind of angle that the team is taking. You process these moves from like a more knowledgeable and detailed perspective. And you somehow given like really, you know, unclear facts about what this pitcher is worth and what the Giants are trying to do and how much they actually bid and all that, you still managed to come away with a take. You came away with the take that they were not just being cheap and that they just didn't think he was worth this much. And like you're not mad about it. And, and I wanted to know what went into the math or what went into your analysis that made you confident enough to say any of those things.
- [17:59]
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- [18:29]
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- [18:42]
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- [19:15]
Grant Brisby
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- [19:16]
Andy McCullen
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- [19:21]
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- [19:23]
Grant Brisby
Just one rogue agent can do big.
- [19:26]
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- [19:28]
Andy McCullen
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- [19:48]
Grant Brisby
I have some educated guesses. I know the Giants are planning to have a very boring off season, but I would still be surprised if they didn't spend more on pitching, especially in the rotation, what Cody Ponce is getting from the Blue Jays. So it's a matter of the Giants will spend that money, right? It's just they're treating it like a fantasy auction where I got $40 left, I got, I still got two spots to fill, right? Do I spend $30 on Pedro Martinez? Right? You know, they're treating it like that. That's all I was getting at is that just because they couldn't, they didn't pay for this $30 million pitcher doesn't mean that $30 million isn't out there somewhere for another picture. That's, you know, it's hard on Twitter or Blue sky to, to fit everything, but that's kind of what I was getting at. Just like, yes, they thought this guy was too expensive. I still think they're going to spend at least 30 million, whether in salary or prospect capital in a trade. I don't know, it just felt like that one phrase above their comfort level or something was taken out of context. That's all it was gotten at.
- [20:46]
Sam Miller
You say that you are as cynical as, as anybody. Do you find that cynicism is like in your, in your analyses of what the team is doing? Is cynicism something you have to push back against?
- [21:00]
Grant Brisby
Well, certainly. I mean, from the very beginning of my sordid tale, I was someone who was just my whole bit was making jokes about the general manager who eventually won three championships, maybe look very stupid in the process. At the same time, I think there was a lot of I don't want to relitigate that, but it's just like Then I kind of pivoted to like, well, I guess, you know, the, the guys up top are really right. And then that was wrong. And so then, you know, a couple decades later, you got, you got a little, A little blend.
- [21:29]
Sam Miller
It's good.
- [21:30]
Grant Brisby
It's good.
- [21:30]
Andy McCullen
I am stunned. Not stunned. I just am sort of amused at this idea that the Giants are a quote unquote poverty franchise.
- [21:40]
Grant Brisby
Oh, they're not.
- [21:41]
Sam Miller
That's.
- [21:41]
Andy McCullen
Don't want to sign a guy who, you know, was in Asia for four years and he'd never heard of before. Like, what? Like, yeah, it probably is a better bet to just sign Max Scherzer. Like, even if Max scherzer gives you 15 starts. Like, what?
- [21:56]
Grant Brisby
Like, we've got.
- [21:59]
Eric Fetty, we've got Miles Nicholas, Meryl Kelly. Yeah, Mel Kelly. Okay.
- [22:05]
Andy McCullen
I mean, there's an archetype for sure.
- [22:07]
Grant Brisby
There's.
- [22:08]
Andy McCullen
There's Josh Lindblom. Like, it's. And look, I am as, I am as sort of bargain pilled as anyone else. When I see, you know, the White Sox sign Anthony k. For like 2 for 12, I'm like, man, that's a great deal, you know, but wait, you're.
- [22:24]
Grant Brisby
Signing Anthony K. You're missing on Alex G. Sorry.
- [22:30]
Andy McCullen
It's good, you know, whereas like, the Blue Jays signed Dylan cease for 210, and it's the, you know, the classic Craig Goldstein tweet where it's like, don't see it. I don't know. I don't know if I get it. You know, this guy who's made 32 starts in the majors, you know, every year for five years in a row. So, like, I'm as, I'm as prone to that type of thinking, but, like, it is an extremely reasonable perspective for the San Francisco Giants to not want to go 3 years on a 32 year old guy who, you know is like coming off the best season of his career in Korea, like, that that's totally fine. Like, they might be wrong, but like, to, you know, yeah, the market, they probably want something more reliable and like, Chris Bassett probably is more reliable and probably won't take a three year deal.
- [23:17]
Sam Miller
It's funny how the team that finishes second gets all the shame, you know, a lot of times. But like 29 teams came to the same conclusion. All of these things, all of these deals are more complicated than we realize. Like, the human brain is sort of like limited in what it could actually analyze, and we don't know everything to begin with. Like, we don't even know all the relevant data like none of us have seen, like none of us have like a perfect, you know, projection system or scouting report or understand the finances all that well or anything like that. So it's all too complicated. And so the starting point, I imagine is always heavily influenced by is your default, these guys are idiots, or is your default, these guys know more than me. Are they smarter than me? Or are they, you know, are they kind of like screw ups? And we've gone through eras, I think, as analysts where we have defaulted to one direction or the other. And then every fan has an individual relationship with their team in any given moment and their team's front office that is going to dictate whether they see their front office as being, you know, idiots who can't get out of their own way or like, you know, the, like their guys, you know, the smart guys. Right. Are we in more of an era, I feel like we're in more of an era of default is that the teams are dumb and not dumb, not dumb, but hamstrung by their cheapskate owner or their incentives don't line up with mine as a fan or sometimes dumb, like sometimes incompetent. And I don't know if it's right or wrong, but I think, think that that is kind of the state of things right now. You start with, you start with the cynical position, right?
- [25:08]
Grant Brisby
I don't think it's binary though. I mean, I think you're laying out that you either think that they're idiots or they're, they're geniuses beyond reproach. What we've found in like every, I don't know, this might be personal, but every aspect of life, not just baseball, is that I'm talking to two guys who have spent their life devoted to figuring out baseball, the history of baseball, the present day state of baseball. Would you say that you are infallible? Would you say you know 30% of what you need to know for baseball history? You know, 50, 75, you'll never get there. So the aging, getting into middle age, as a so called expert in realizing that you don't have all the cards you, you're not holding, you're not holding a pack of 52. You have to present like you do, you have to present like you do. And I think that's every part of life you can name an expert. And then you have to think about, well, what don't they know? Because that's just the reality of the human brain. So that's where we're at now is I think they have very smart people, but they're just not going to have all the information just like us, only less so. But they're still flawed just like the rest of us.
- [26:18]
Sam Miller
I think it's less smart. I think it's less smart. Less about judging their smarts, though. I think we like came out of the GMs are all dumb era. Went through the GMs are all smart era. Or at least, you know, the, the analytical ones were all smarter. We came out of that too. And now it's the owners are all evil era.
- [26:35]
Andy McCullen
We're a little bit out of that, I think.
- [26:37]
Sam Miller
A little bit.
- [26:37]
Andy McCullen
I think we're a little bit out of that. But that was definitely the, that was definitely the post pandemic motif and hard earned. I would say, you know, a very reasonable stance. And given how the next offseason might go, that, that one may come back around. But I think we're, I think we're in the executives are too cute by half era.
- [26:59]
Sam Miller
O yeah, yeah.
- [27:01]
Andy McCullen
The default mode is that these guys are SM are being too smart and they're not doing the obvious thing, right? They're not doing the thing like, you know, Andrew Friedman. That Andrew Friedman, who was considered, you know, too cute by half in a lot of ways kind of stopped doing.
- [27:25]
Sam Miller
Right.
- [27:25]
Andy McCullen
It was just like, oh, you want to come play here? Here's all the money you want. You know, that sounds great. Come play on my team.
- [27:32]
Sam Miller
Right.
- [27:33]
Andy McCullen
I do think, Grant, to your, to your point about do I feel like I know more about baseball? I think I've leaned too hard into the, to the opposite of the Dunning Kruger effect, where now I'm the smartest man in baseball. Because I admit I don't understand it at all, but I think, you know, the 2Q by half era, right? Like think about how many fan bases if you. And again, you'd have to like, you know, talk to them. I don't know what, how you'd even pull this, right? Because like online is different than talk radio is different than just like, you know, talking to your uncles or whatever, but assuming that you could find a consensus, how many fan bases really feel confident about their front office?
- [28:14]
Sam Miller
Right?
- [28:14]
Andy McCullen
Like how many teams Definitely Dodgers fans, right. But that's something that was an open question. Fair or unfair? You know, as of two years ago, Phillies fans probably. Padres fans probably. And then like, who else is, you know, like, I think Brian, Brian Cashman is a tremendous executive and Yankees fans are furious at him all the time. You know, Alex Antopoulos is, is getting a lot of heat now because his team has basically underperformed, you know, significantly this past year and, and, you know, had undershot expectations the previous couple years. I mean, I think it's very, it's very fickle. But if I had to, if I had to say what sort of era of default analysis, it's like, why don't you just do the obvious thing which is, you know, similar to kind of where it was in, in 16 to, to 19. But I think it's, it's a little more like, like, why don't the Giants sign from Bravadas?
- [29:08]
Grant Brisby
He's a bit of a kook. All right.
- [29:10]
Andy McCullen
Why don't they sign Ranger Suarez?
- [29:12]
Grant Brisby
Because they're cheap.
- [29:14]
Sam Miller
Yeah, because he's. And because he's a poor man's. From Revaldez.
- [29:22]
Andy McCullen
Yeah, I mean, you know, why don't the Giants sign Tetsuya Imai?
- [29:26]
Grant Brisby
Too expensive. And they, I mean, honestly, this goes in when I, when I'm looking at. I reacted to the news that they weren't going to spend and they were not going to get there and I can get Emi.
- [29:35]
Sam Miller
Really.
- [29:35]
Grant Brisby
It all goes back to. They were really pumping this idea. We've got this real estate development on the other side of the COVID Before the pandemic. They're like, hey, this is going to. Once this baby, once this baby hits once, once this commercial real estate is in place, then baby, we're going to be popping, we're going to be going with the Dodgers and then the pandemic happens. You know, it's not quite as easy to fill commercial real estate in San Francisco. I think they're panicking. Shouldn't be my problem. Shouldn't be, you know, the Giants fans problem. It's just I simply think they should suck it up and not order avocado toast and get imai.
- [30:10]
Sam Miller
So this won't happen to any of us. But let's say hypothetically next week, you know, you get a call at 3:15 in the morning, Kyle Tucker has just signed and they couldn't get your, you know, they couldn't get ahold of anybody. They need you to do the write up. You know, you got to do the analysis. This is Grant of this move. It's all of us. We're all hypothetically the one who has to do this. Okay.
- [30:31]
Andy McCullen
I'm just trying to imagine what Grant's hair would look like during this exercise. But yeah, keep going.
- [30:36]
Sam Miller
So what is your. You don't know the. I mean, I mean, I'm not going to tell you what the dollars are what the years are, what the team is. But those would all be known to you. What is your starting point? What is the seed that you start building your analysis out of in, you know, December 2025 when a guy signs a $370 million contract?
- [30:56]
Grant Brisby
Well, first I take my hat and I turn it like a switch. You don't know the famous over the top movie, the arm wrestling movie from the Easy.
- [31:04]
Sam Miller
Okay, I thought you were just getting ready to do a hit on foul territory.
- [31:09]
Andy McCullen
I thought you were doing Dan Cortez.
- [31:10]
Sam Miller
From Seinfeld just to like expand a little bit. 12 years ago. It's easy. You start by getting the, you know, getting Danny Zips to give you the 10 year projection of Kyle Tucker and then dividing it by the millions and figuring out what the cost per war is. That's the seed of everything that you do. And Then probably like 6 years ago maybe it starts to become like, well, maybe it doesn't work as much for hitters, but you start looking at the statcast data. The seed of it is where in the statcast data do you see room to grow? Where do you see maybe like, oh, you know, the contact was better than the results or the spin rate shows room for growth or the launch angle could be tweaked, you know, like that sort of thing. That's six years ago. What's the first thing you do to start building your Kyle Tucker free agent signing analysis piece in 2025?
- [32:05]
Grant Brisby
It's very giant specific because it would have a lot to do.
- [32:08]
Sam Miller
No, no.
- [32:09]
Grant Brisby
Oh, this is just, oh, I don't know the team.
- [32:11]
Sam Miller
Okay, you don't know the team.
- [32:14]
Grant Brisby
Then it's just gonna be the, basically where I started from in like 1998. Or it's, it's gonna be good for a while and then it's gonna suck.
- [32:22]
Sam Miller
You start with like, this is fun.
- [32:24]
Grant Brisby
And it's gonna be good for a little bit and then you're gonna have to worry about it and then by that time hopefully there's cheaper players who allow you to get more people who are fun and worry less about. You know what I mean? It's just you're gonna have Kyle Tucker, at least for next year, enjoy it and then worry about it when it comes you.
- [32:38]
Andy McCullen
Yeah, that was kind of my analysis of the Devers trade for the Giants. Whereas like, the good news is you're probably going to like this trade today. And the better news is that by the time you start disliking this trade, you may well be dead because that will be in the future, that future could come very soon. So, you know, enjoy every day.
- [32:56]
Sam Miller
I sincerely, non jokingly think that there is a little bit of post 2020, like, live for today. The vibes are good now, and we, none of us are really putting a lot of energy into imagining what the world is going to look like in eight years because we don't want to. I think there is a little bit of a darker. A darker or like, more present focused analysis. I think it is cultural. I think that maybe it is a little bit sociological.
- [33:27]
Andy McCullen
When I think about how I would do that story, like, and this is probably why I'm not actually a good baseball analyst, is like, I kind of need to know who the team is, because what matters to me is the context of, like, where that team is in their sort of cycle, what division they're in, what happened to them last year, where does Tucker fit into what they're trying to accomplish in the present and maybe in the future? And I look more like, okay, what was this, like, OPS plus the last three years? All right, he's pretty good player. You know, like, I. I don't do as much. I'm not. I'm not as deep in the weeds trying to project stuff. I think is, you guys are. That's why you're better at it than I am.
- [34:03]
Sam Miller
I think what you just described is that was. That was the dominant way of evaluating things from like 2001 to 2009. Like, it was the winning, winning cycle and, you know, a little bit of advanced stats, but more like, where is the team in its winning cycle and how much does this make sense for what they're trying to do over the next five years and, you know, allocation of resources today versus allocation of resources in the. In the future. This was all pre war. Like, we didn't have really. We didn't have Warren in the analysis until, like, 2009, 2010, 2011. There was a little bit of it at baseball prospectus with Vorp, but not the war per dollar kind of stuff that we had after 2009. So I think that you are describing an analysis that also had, like, a pretty good run and maybe makes sense. I think there's a little bit of a hesitance, hesitancy to. To giving teams too much of a pass for being out of the winning cycle. Now, like, we got really cynical about tanking and about, like, the extended rebuild. So we're not quite as willing to put a point on, like, today's the day to spend and today's not the day to spend. You should always be spending.
- [35:12]
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- [36:16]
Verizon Announcer
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- [36:18]
Grant Brisby
Zoe, this thing weighs a ton.
- [36:19]
Sam Miller
Drewski, live with your legs man.
- [36:21]
Grant Brisby
Santa.
- [36:21]
Sam Miller
Santa, did you get my letter?
- [36:22]
Grant Brisby
He's talking to you britches.
- [36:24]
Sam Miller
I'm not. Of course he did. Right Santa?
- [36:27]
Grant Brisby
You know my elf Drew Ski here.
- [36:29]
Sam Miller
He handles the nice list.
- [36:30]
Grant Brisby
And elf, I'm six three. What everyone wants is iPhone 17 and at T Mobile. You can get it on them. That center stage front camera is amazing for group selfies, right Mrs. Claus?
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I'm Mrs. Claus's much younger sister and AT T Mobile there's no trade in needed when you switch so you can keep your old phone or give it as a gift.
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- [36:52]
Grant Brisby
Nice.
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Andy McCullen
My side of the tree is slipping. Kimber the holidays are better.
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Grant Brisby
AT T Mobile switch in just 15.
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Minutes and get iPhone 17 on us with no trade in needed.
- [37:01]
Grant Brisby
And now T Mobile is available in US cellular stores with 24 monthly bill.
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Andy McCullen
Credits for well qualified customers plus tax.
- [37:06]
Grant Brisby
And $35 device connection charge credit and.
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- [37:18]
Grant Brisby
The F1 season reaches a dramatic climax this week and for the first time since 2010, three drivers can still win the title. Follow all the buildup in the fallout from the final Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi this weekend with the race wherever you get Your podcasts. Every time we're predicting where a player is going to go, what he's going to sign for, what he's going to make, how he's going to do, we're probably wrong. I mean, in the way anyone, a fan, a writer, an analyst, baseball. Like, we are the other side of like, you know, hitters, when they hit. 280, you know, they're. They're failing 72% of the time. Like, that's us. Except we're not hitting. 280, we're hitting like 100.
- [37:57]
Sam Miller
Like serious.
- [37:58]
Grant Brisby
I mean, we are just not. Like when we go. When I'm looking, I go back just 10 years to the free agents from 10 years ago, a decade. It's David Price, Jason Hayward, Zach Greinke, Justin Upton, Chris Davis, Sana Cespetus, Jordan Zimmerman, Johnny Cuaito, Alex Gordon, Ian Desmond, Jeff Samarja, Mike Leak. Like, you can you hear those names and you have a reaction to like, oh, that didn't work out. Oh, yeah, that didn't. You know what I mean? And just going through, boom, boom, boom, Granky's probably, you know, that's the most successful one, which strengthens the idea that if you're going to pay, pay for a Hall of Famer or future hall of Famer. I just picked a year because it was 10 years ago, any year, they're all garbage. Every free agent's garbage. Every team that has not every free. But I mean, every team that they works up the, they work up the war per dollar and they have all these. And they're smart and they do it, and it still doesn't work because that's just the nature of baseball. And so we have all these reactions to this doomed pursuit of, like, trying to gain control by saying, ah, they're stupid, they're smart. No, we're all stupid. We're all stupid. And some people are smart.
- [38:58]
Sam Miller
Devin Williams signed for three years and $51 million. So I mentioned last episode on the Fly, I was started developing the, the theory of the solved player compensation model that basically, like the, the range of player salaries is just like everybody agrees on how much everybody is going to get paid. And so there is no longer that sort of like, cowboy negotiation technique where, you know, like, someone loves the player way more than anybody else. And who knows if Boris is going to be able to find that guy in time. Basically, I don't know if that's true or not. I started to figure out, like, hypotheses of how I could test this theoretically. Like my Hypothesis would be if that if I went to an agent who has a number of clients and I looked at his notes from 10 years ago, I would see a player get maybe like 8 offers with a fairly wide range. And if I asked that same agent for his notes today, I would see like seven offers in a very narrow cluster. So that would be one way to test this hypothesis. The much, much, much shorter, faster shortcut would be to compare public predictions of how much free agents are going to make over time. In the early 2000 and tens, Jim Bowden started to make predictions for free agent contracts. Before that, people would predict where a player was going to go. But Jim Bowden, with the expertise of being a former gm, he started putting dollars on it. And there was a period where we were like, holy cow, this guy's a witch. Right? Like he said 4 and 68 for Victor Martinez, and Victor Martinez signed for 4 and 68. Wow. Now lots of people do these, you know, dollar figure predictions or whatever. I created a spreadsheet with Jim Bowden's 2014 free agent predictions to figure out how how much his average miss was in 2014. The average, I'm going with median because seems to be better. But on average the median miss for total value of his top 25 free agents contracts was about 28%. That can be badly distorted by, he says it's a three year deal and it ends up being a four year deal. So if you look at just average annual value, the average miss was 11%. The median miss was 11%. Jim Bowden again, at the time we thought he was a witch. So I'm going to say that's a solid baseline for what the range would have been in 2014. So we're at 28% total value, we're at 11% AAV. This off season I'm going to be looking at every signing to see how MLB trade rumors contract prediction have done, has done and to see whether it is in fact narrowing is way too early to say. Only four of their top 50 free agents have signed. And the ones that sign, arguably you could make the case the ones that sign early would be the ones that are going to be the closest to the prediction because there's less disagreement. But, but anyway, just as a status report, as a progress report, they have gotten pretty close. Their median miss on total value is only 14%. Their median miss on average annual value is only 4%. That is much, much closer. Again, not drawing any conclusions from that. It's only four signings, it's very early But, I mean, Dylan cease, they said 7 years 189. The Players association values that at 7 years 185. So that's very close. Josh Naylor, they said 5 and 90. Actually signed for 5 and 92. Devin Williams, they said 4 and 64. And we'll have to see what the adjustment is with deferred money, but it looks like they got the average annual value almost exactly right, but off by a year. So, anyway, that's just an update. This is a obsession of mine growing, and I wanted to let you guys know where my head is.
- [42:56]
Grant Brisby
That's fair. I'm impressed. I'm impressed. And I would think that, gosh, is more information, more data streams, more people to check in with. I would think taking any shortcut to. In any facet of the game would be helpful. And if you've got a couple of reputable places saying, here's what the market is, and the agents say, yeah, it's kind of like what we were arrived at, too. We took this comp. We added a little inflation. That's how we get it. And you have a nice, easy start, starting point, that probably saves a day. I don't know. I could see the temptation.
- [43:24]
Sam Miller
Here's the potential downside of this. If the. If in fact, salaries are solved and all the teams agree on what every player is worth, basically the downside is that if you're a free agent and you get seven offers and they are all about the same, that looks a lot like collusion. Oh, no.
- [43:40]
Andy McCullen
Oh, no.
- [43:41]
Sam Miller
And with it, it did come up a few years ago in collusion, there was briefly a little bit of collusion discourse where players were saying that their. They were getting identical offers from teams. And so anyway, with CBA negotiations warming up, if this is, in fact a phenomenon that gets borne out, which it might not like I say, it might look like collusion. We might hear the word collusion.
- [44:04]
Andy McCullen
Well, one of the wonders of technology is you can collude without having to call the other teams and just be like, hey, hey, just so you know, the value on this guy is $7 million. Okay? So don't go over 7. You don't have to do that. The computer tells you, and everyone's got a version of the same computer, so that's a hard charge to prove. And now I do not disagree with the player's frustrations that it seems like all the offers are identical. I think the timing is up when the. When the clusters. The timing that is interesting and maybe, you know, more indicative of something tiptoeing around the C word. But I just think, in general, like, the reason that these contracts appear sort of solved is because we can kind of solve them. Like, we. We have the comps, we have the data, we have the projections, and the teams can kind of all put them into the. You know, the computer, and it spits out, hey, Cedric Mullins, 7 million. And Cedric Mullins is just like, yeah.
- [45:01]
Sam Miller
No, that's what I'm worth. I'll take it.
- [45:02]
Andy McCullen
You know, like, yeah, okay, sounds good. That's what they're paying this year. Like, gotta.
- [45:06]
Sam Miller
That's.
- [45:07]
Andy McCullen
That's. That's what they're paying me at the. At the baseball store, so I might as well go get a job there. You know?
- [45:12]
Grant Brisby
Is there a machine that could spit out, like, Grant Brisby Worth 7 million?
- [45:18]
Sam Miller
Specifically, you needed to say 7 million.
- [45:21]
Andy McCullen
I mean, not an American currency, but we can dilute you, you know, through some sort of. I don't know what, like, Estonian currency is, but we can. We can figure this out.
- [45:30]
Grant Brisby
Baseball is more fun. And if I'm reading between the lines, I think you guys would appreciate a few more. Holy crap. The rocky sun, the sign, Chris Bryant. For what, like, kind of deals? Like, I think those are. We miss those.
- [45:43]
Andy McCullen
I will say, you know, the Rockies are going unk mode, and I like it. I like it. I think it's like. I think everyone looked at the Rockies and was like, oh, man, they got to get, you know, these. Some. Find someone from the Rays, like, whatever. Get the. Get the new hotness. It's like, no, man, let's get seasoned baseball guys who've been kind of sitting.
- [46:01]
Grant Brisby
On the shelf, you know, The Expendables, baby.
- [46:04]
Andy McCullen
Oh, my God. You know? But how. Yeah, like, Frank Ren. You know, it's coming back in.
- [46:10]
Sam Miller
They got the Traveling Wilbury's front office.
- [46:13]
Andy McCullen
Like, these guys, they're probably good. They're just as good as anyone. Like, Josh Burns is a smart guy. Paul D. V. S. Is a smart guy. They'll probably do a good job. It's just.
- [46:20]
Sam Miller
I think they will.
- [46:21]
Andy McCullen
For people our age bracket, it's kind of like, oh, yeah, all right.
- [46:25]
Grant Brisby
You know Dolph Lundgren. I remember Dolph.
- [46:28]
Andy McCullen
The Expendables.
- [46:29]
Sam Miller
Yeah. I can see why people would not be excited about, like, what you would sort of more. Less generously call the rehashes. But, yeah, I mean, I like. These don't feel like classic rehash play, you know, These are not guys who, like, got fired from a bunch of mediocre teams and like we're just not creative enough to think of anybody else. There was a great. This is gonna, people are gonna roll their eyes at this, but there was a great Malcolm Gladwell piece in about 2003 on Enron called the Talent Myth. And it's all about how organizations obsess over talent, over like this perceived sense of genius, and that's what gets them in trouble. And rather than looking at results, rather than like, like compared to like, I think Procter and Gamble was considered the, the counter to the Enron talent pursuit. Rather than look at results, you like, look for who can like most wow you in, you know, with their like social media profile or whatever. And you know, the Rockies are avoiding some potentially bad tires that would have probably been more like exciting and would have gotten people excited because like the guy's like 21. Like they could have gotten a 21 year old GM and they would have gotten some good headlines from some people for, for that and maybe that would have been a better offer or maybe not. Instead they went with the Wilburies. And I'm not, I'm not totally opposed to it. I'm, I'm not, I'm curious about it. I'm curious.
- [47:59]
Andy McCullen
Well, I think it demonstrates, I think it's, it's a pattern now. Right? Two is a trend. We can call two a trend. They want guys who have. Josh Burns has spent time in Colorado. He's been a GM you know, he's spent the last 11 seasons working for the Dodgers. His exact role in a lot of stuff with the Dodgers, similar to Paul, DB s with the Browns, kind of unclear, but he's been in the room, he's been in conversations. He's been a trusted, you know, advisor for Andrew Friedman during that regime. Yeah, yeah, that's a, that's a good pick. Makes sense to me.
- [48:37]
Grant Brisby
Yeah, I'm all in. I just think these aren't the types of names that are going to be live spin rate. I'm not doing spit. You know, they're gonna take all the new knowledge like we've been accumulating over the years and be like, yeah, okay, ye. Kyle Tucker. He's got great stats, but he's not a real batted ball guy. Does he work for this ball?
- [48:56]
Andy McCullen
They're going to do all that stuff.
- [48:57]
Grant Brisby
They should sign Kyle Tucker is what I'm saying.
- [48:59]
Andy McCullen
I would struggle to analyze, analyze that one on a variety of fronts, but it's possible, you know, they can afford him.
- [49:05]
Grant Brisby
All right, this has been episode number 195. We're not going to have a show next week. It's the winner meetings, but we're all in disparate parts of the globe. We will be back on the 15th. Me back on the 15th to talk jabber. Yeah, I'll see you then. Thanks for listening.
- [49:26]
Andy McCullen
I was very wrong.
- [49:36]
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