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Welcome, welcome to Wharton Moneyball. Welcome to a full hour of sports analytics
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here on the Wharton Podcast Network. This is Cade Massey hosting this week with two of my three longtime collaborators on this
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show. Eric Bradlow is here, dialing in from points away, and Adi Weiner from the main line
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in Philadelphia, back in the States. Good to see you, Adi's in his... Good to be back in the US of
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A, getting ready for July 4th. And enjoying the heat wave in the Northeast, no doubt.
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You and Ravi both. So Ravi is joining us, Ravi Ramanini. We're gonna do our usual format for today's
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show, this show. This is Tuesday afternoon, we'll go up on Wednesday. We have a guest, first half of the
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show, Ravi Ramanini. We'll jump into that momentarily, and then we'll roll into open lines in the second half
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of the show. Ravi is here to help us get caught up on all things World Cup. Ravi is a longtime friend of the show,
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been on multiple times. He presently heads up the analytics department at the LA Galaxy.
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He has been involved in a wide range of sports. He spent a decade with the Seattle Sounders,
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including a couple of championships, building the analytics program out there. He has taught analytics, soccer analytics at Rice.
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He had his own consultancy for a while, advising clubs in Europe and the US. The man's been all over and always at
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the cutting edge of analytics in soccer. Also, Ravi, you had, you played, right?
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So give us your background, give us your background in the sport and how you got
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into analytics. I haven't played soccer, but I played cricket back when I was in India in high
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school. Okay. I got to scratch that itch of doing analytics in cricket just last year when I
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was working for like a IPL team in the T20 league. So it was fun just doing a different
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sport. Yeah, so in terms of, I've always had a soft spot for soccer, even though I
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grew up in India. I always liked the World Cup and that's how I started. You know, it was not very, it was
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not, like soccer was not widely available in India when I was a kid, but whatever
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was available was like, yeah, that was fun to watch because it was so different from
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cricket. It was everything, it was antithesis of cricket, right? Yeah, so that's how I started, you know,
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my interest of the game. And then once I got into my college and then got into working in software, I
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realized that I, you know, I worked at Microsoft before getting into soccer analytics.
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I was in Seattle and I've, you know, I didn't wanna be at Microsoft for the rest of my life or like a software
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company like that for the rest of my life. So a sequence of events like, you know,
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meant that I ended up meeting someone at the Sounders, like a fitness coach. At the time they just got like GPS
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units and heart rate monitors. So he was getting, they were generating a lot of data and he didn't know how
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to use it. He had some questions he wanted answers for. And, but, you know, like obviously at Microsoft
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I worked with a lot of data and so I had the skills. So that found, that ended up being eventually
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that turned into like where I quit Microsoft and then I joined the Sounders and yeah,
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and then it's been, since then it's been just soccer. So now at this point in my life,
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sorry, go ahead. No, well, there's an important detail in there that is interesting.
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How did, you're working for Microsoft, how did you meet this guy who's got the data
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for Seattle? And you had a substantive conversation for you all to realize that maybe you should work
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together. Oh yeah, so I tried to fast track it. It actually took a while. It was like, you know, I met him
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at a like conference and then like we used to meet, so this was the year 2012, 2012, yeah.
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So we used to meet at a Starbucks on the off day for him. So it'd be like a Wednesday and I
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would, he would give me some data and then I would analyze that and meet him in the next off day, next week and
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give him some stuff. Did he give it to you in like an unmarked manila envelope and he was kind
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of in the shade and sneaky? Yes, so yeah, so that's what I, that's how it started at the end of that
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season. He basically, I did not know that he was using all of that to create the
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position saying, hey, we need this guy here to help me. So that was like, that went on for
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about three months. And then at the end of the season in December, he asked me if I wanted
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to join the club. So yeah, so that's how that happened. It was over a period of time.
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One last question and I'm pursuing this because this is relevant to a lot of people
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who listen to the show and are interested in this kind of thing. And there's always that the origin story for
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how people get involved is interesting. And of course it's hard to generalize for
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any one experience, but I'm curious about one detail. You were doing this work for them.
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Was he paying you at all or were you just kind of doing it on spec basically? So that was just like, that was just
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out of, like, yeah, I just met him. And then, and also like another detail is that I started my own blog at the
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time, you know, when blogs were old, old school blogs. You know, you used to write analysis and
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any data you get on internet, like, you know, transfer marked or whatever, where you get
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some data and you try to analyze it and you put yourself out there that, hey, you could do these sort of things with
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this data. And right around the same time, there was also like a brief analytics project started by
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like Manchester city analytics team at the time, where they gave out some summary data for
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a season. And so that created like a lot of people using the same data set and creating,
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writing blogs and then interacting with each other. Twitter was really good in those days to
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just have this type of conversations. So, yeah, so all this was going on. And then while I was doing that, I
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was, you know, like I was working with Dave. His name is Dave Tenney. Now he's at Real Salt Lake.
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So we had this kind of, we used to meet every week and do this, yeah. Okay, well, we need to transition to World
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Cup out here. We'll hear more about that, but let's talk World Cup. But before I leave, Eric was trying to
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jump in. I'm not sure if he wants on this topic or World Cup. It was this topic.
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Just one quick question. So first a comment, Robbie, for all our listeners. I can only speak for myself.
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Every interesting problem I've ever addressed in my life is because there's a data set where
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someone has approached me they don't know what to do with it, or I've come up with a data set and I don't know
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what to do with it. So just to let you know, we're kindred spirits there. My question for you was, in the bio
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that's given to us before the show, it says he is currently leading the development of
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the analytics department at the LA Galaxy. So that sentence intrigues me. So first, does that imply that for years
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and years, the LA Galaxy has not had an analytics department? And if the answer is you're developing it,
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I'm sure many of our listeners would like to know this. Who do you hire first in the year
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2026? I can imagine it's someone, I'll make this up. Three, here's three groups of people you could
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hire. People that are extremely facile with cloud code, codex, et cetera, that can build agentic workflows.
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I could imagine also hiring data engineers because you need to pipe data into some set
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of programs, or I can imagine hiring statisticians slash computer scientists. So both, could you talk about briefly the
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development aspect of that word? And also like, how do you build someone in the year 2026?
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How do you build an entity from the ground up? I think it's just two great questions.
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Number one, I think LA Galaxy didn't have an in-house setup all these years. And I think there are services that you
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could use to get by. I think that where they were using some services that give you out-of-the-box
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metrics and data from that perspective. I think there's a lot of clubs like that.
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Not anymore, but if you say five years ago, I think there were still a lot of clubs in MLS using out-of-the
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-box services and stuff like that. Second question, this is a great question because
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you know how like, you know, at corporate it takes a while for you to get a headcount.
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And then from there you ask for something and then you get, it takes a while. So my idea has changed of who I
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have to hire during that period because everything is moving so fast. So I initially went in with the idea
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that I need to hire like a traditional data scientist and a data engineer. That those two were my, those were the
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top skills I was looking for. But then as I've seen like how, you know, obviously cloud code and agentic workflows that
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have just, you know, even every, it feels like every three months, every six months and
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the cycle gets shorter, they're getting better. And it's like, you have to change your
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paradigm quickly because if you're not, you're probably not using them efficiently enough.
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So I think now I've completely focused on, you know, hiring, I think the first one
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I hire is a data engineer. Yeah. And I think that after that I'll pause just because I think that that will, that
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plus my experience and in general, everybody's experience with agentic workflows and coding is like, is
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high now and it's, people are learning fast. And one thing that is a bit democratized,
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if you know what you're doing with these coding agencies, like the algorithms and building like
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a models, I think some part of it is definitely a lot easier now, especially if you can verify.
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Like, it's not like a go build like, you know, a prediction model, like blah, blah.
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And then, you know, see, you know, garbage in garbage out. But like, if you can verify what these
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agents are doing, then I think you have an advantage there. So I think that, so now I'm like
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the second position, I'm torn between a data scientist or a UX designer. Wow, yeah, right.
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Because- The UX is intended to put the decision-making in front of the, the information in front of the decision-makers to
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democratize access to the information, right? Yeah. Yes, and I feel like there is a
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lot more, ultimately, like I firmly believe that if you're not making decisions, if you're not
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using all this to make decisions or change the decision-making process or this doesn't have
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impact on it, obviously it doesn't matter what you build, right? So I think that there is a lot
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of, so I'm like now in that phase where like, I'm like, okay, should I do this or this sort of this profile?
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So yeah, so that's my answer. That's great, Ravi. Good fun, good fun. And as Eric said, that's a challenge many
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people face in sports, across all sports and outside of sports. Ravi, let's talk World Cup.
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We're approximately at the halfway point. We're day two, day three, day three of
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about six days of the round of 32. Just before taping, Norway managed to squeak by
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Ivory Coast late in the game in a great match. We've got Mexico-Ecuador tonight, I think.
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And then the US plays Bosnia-Herzegovina tomorrow night. So some games of interest.
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But Ravi, just kind of start us at the top from the Ravi Ramaneni's perspective.
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Like you've been watching this stuff, obviously it's of interest to you, it's your world.
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What are your strongest reactions at this point, kind of the midway point of the tournament?
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I think I'll start with the whole format because this is the first time we were having 48 teams.
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I was definitely very skeptical getting into the World Cup that this is not going to
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be a great idea. But as I see that, it's definitely made the World Cup longer and there are more
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matches that, they're not tight groups anymore because there's also the third place team qualifying.
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But I don't think the teams that are debutants have made this any worse. I think adding more teams overall is a
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good thing because this is the most popular sport on the earth. And so there are a lot of teams
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that, a lot of football played and including more teams is only a good thing, I feel like.
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So I've kind of come around to that idea that I think it could be, I think the third place thing has sort of
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like made a little bit of chaotic in terms of predictions of who plays who and also how they decided.
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For example, second place team in group A played second place team in group B but
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then other second place teams played first place teams in other groups. So it comes with it.
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I'm sure FIFA is going to say the best thing to do is now make it 64 so that you don't have that problem.
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I think they might do that in a couple of World Cups. But I think the format wise, one thing
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that I did not appreciate or I don't like is that they've changed the tie-breaking
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rule within the groups of, instead of having the overall goal scored or goal difference, they
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made it head to head, which meant that a lot of the third group games ended in kind of- You mean, for example,
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Ravi, like the one the Bradlow family was going to go to in Los Angeles between the U.S. and Turkey and I did
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not go to the game because, I mean, I sold the tickets. I mean, I don't go to meaningless sporting
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events. And I just, I found that I was so disappointed- Eric, I've seen you go to a lot of regular season Philadelphia 76er
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games. I'm not sure how consequential- Oh, they're all meaningful, all meaningful.
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Well, there's always individual statistics that can be accrued during the regular season that you care
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about. This is true. There's a baseball guy for you. About the expansion, I actually weighed in on
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this a little bit. One of the problems with expansion in sports is that you start getting into mismatch, right?
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So the top teams are pretty close in skill level and even among them, there's some
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differentiation. Once you get down between 33 to 48, are you looking at teams that can play
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competitive matches? And I think the answer was yes in this particular World Cup, which invites a lesson,
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which is that there's enough talent around the world and to maybe, so that the 48th
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team isn't embarrassing themselves against a reasonably high quality team. Is that a fair assessment?
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But also to add on to that, Robbie, if you could also answer Adi's question and the corollary to that, which is, is it
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gonna lead to a lot of parking the bus and PK games where 45 knows if they play the regular game and 10 plays
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the regular game, they're not winning. So could it also lead to some, I'll call it bad form soccer?
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I think that, well, I- Sorry, Michael. So yeah, so I think that, yes, I think the overall answer to that, there is
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definitely more teams, more good teams that you will get into with a 48 team tournament.
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But then again, there will always be a few teams that, you know, because it's not
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like one through 48, you're giving five teams, you're adding two more spots to AFC, two
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more spots to AFCON, two more spots to CONMEBOL, CONCACAF. So there's always a little bit, like you
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get some good teams, but I think in the end, the teams that have not been good or teams that have been in the
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World Cup before, like Tunisia and Turkey, you know, obviously they were a little bit unlucky
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in the first two games. What do I, like, you know, two-time champion, even though the last time they won
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is like 75 years ago. But so I think that you can't avoid a few bad teams or just, you know,
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a bad moment for certain teams. In terms of like parking the bus tactics, one thing that's, one thing that I've noticed
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in this World Cup, and you know, it started happening maybe the last World Cup also,
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is that like the level of coaching and the level of fitness, there is not, like it has become more even across the board.
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And so, and so I'm not saying that there are going to be exceptions, like, you know, some teams don't have the resources to
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hire the best coach, but I think that they could find a local coach who's very good, eager to prove himself, because a lot
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of them, I'm talking about the smaller size, hiring coaches from within their country is that
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they are, this is their ticket to getting a big club job if they do well in this tournament.
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Plus the fact that I think the players in general, fitness-wise, there's not that much
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difference anymore. Like, sure, there is the top end, top end, you know, elite, 99th percentiles.
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But then after that, like it's a sport with, you know, as is, you know, low scoring sport.
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So there is like, if you have good tactics and you're pretty much even on the physical thing, so physical aspect of the game,
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athleticism, you can contain a team. Like playing a contained soccer is a lot easier than creative soccer.
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So I think what we are seeing is that, like, if you look at Cape Verde, like they've actually played good soccer in moments.
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Like obviously against Spain, they did not. They were just pretty much apart and Spain
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was too slow to move the ball side to side, so they couldn't break them down. But then against, they played Uruguay.
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They played them 2-2. I thought they had moments where they attacked and they would look pretty good.
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So it's, I think that those are the aspects that have made that you can bottle these top teams if you have good coaching.
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And good coaching is more, I think, is more widely available now. Just like, I think, as we are noticing
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that there's more good soccer playing teams and players around the world, there's also a lot
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of good coaches. And I think that has helped them even the gap, especially in the early games of
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the tournament, because, you know, the Spanish national team or the French or the other, the
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big nations, those guys will play like 60 matches. Robby, can I ask a follow-up to
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that? Is coaching a unidimensional quality in the following sense? Let's imagine there's a Paraguay, right?
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They're the ones that beat Germany, right? Let's imagine they go on this deep run.
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Are you going to the owners of the LA Galaxy and saying, this is an amazing coach?
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Like, is someone that's demonstrated good outcomes, possibly even good coaching, there's randomness, of course, in
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the World Cup, are they necessarily going to be a good coach, let's say, in the MLS?
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I wouldn't say, you know, like, I don't think I, the best answer is it depends. I think, I don't, I will not go
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off of just the eight or seven game or six game body of work. I'll have to see, we'll have to look
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at data from, you know, a club soccer is completely different from national team.
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That's why I was asking. Yeah, yeah, it is very different. And I think that, you know, obviously, but
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still, I think, you know, there's always, you know, the premium, the players that scored three
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goals in this tournament is going to have, you know, but if you look, but if you're hiring, if you're looking to sign players,
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like, I will avoid, I would probably avoid players that just scored goals in the World
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Cup and, you know, look, and haven't done much else. That reminds me, there used to be a
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thing where the Super Bowl MVP would be over signed the next year, almost reliably.
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One observation I make about the tournament format is that we have twice as many knockout
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games. Who doesn't like a knockout game? And now we have 31 of them instead of 15.
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And that's just a ball. That's just sheer upside, in my opinion. Okay, what about- Oh yeah, just one
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more thing that I think Americans probably don't appreciate. There is a 32nd game, the third, fourth
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place. So there are 32. No, no, no. No, I forget about that. Do people care about that match?
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I think the smaller nations that, you know, they do care winning the third place.
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So last year, the semis were unusual teams, right? It was Morocco and the Netherlands.
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Who won the third place? I think the, and Morocco finished fourth, so it's probably Netherlands.
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Okay, maybe it wasn't. The Netherlands lost to Argentina, but I don't know if that was in the semis or
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not. I don't recall what round that was in. I may have that wrong. Okay, okay. But correction noted, Ravi.
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Okay, what about team level evaluations? Teams you're even more impressed with than you
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had thought and teams that you're disappointed versus what you expected? I think starting on the positive, I'm very
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impressed with Morocco. I think they, you know, I knew that they were coming in, they were going to
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be the best team from Africa. And I think they've definitely played really well.
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They played some really good football against Brazil in the first match last night against Netherlands,
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even though it took a late goal. And, you know, but in terms of just the overall play and the number of chances
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they created, it was, I think they look very solid, solid team. I also like Colombia, who looked very good.
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You know, one of the problems for them is they're literally in the last group, I
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think, or the J or the L group and all their games were the last, last game. So it was just a...
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Nobody saw it. By the way, Ravi, just to be clarified for our listeners, you're not talking about teams
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necessarily that have exceeded expectations. You're talking about teams that look good, right?
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So you've yet to mention France or Argentina or any of the powerhouses. So you're saying to me, I just want
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to be clear, your mind, Morocco and Colombia look good objectively. You're not even saying relative to your expectations,
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or you are? They look objectively good. You know, I had, especially Colombia, I would
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say Morocco, I had an expectation that they will be good. And I think, you know, Morocco is a
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great story about how it's like college recruitment. Like a lot of their players are not,
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they don't play in Morocco, but there's all these players that are born in Spain.
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They have, I think, five players that could have played for Spain. And, you know, a few players that could
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play for France. And, you know, like, and all these teams are getting better at it.
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I think Morocco has done an excellent job in the last two cycles of, you know, getting all these players that are really good,
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but are not playing for the bigger nations. How much of that is because the bigger
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nations wouldn't take them? Like Morocco, they mentioned last night during the telecast, there was a player, maybe he was
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a younger guy, who was born and raised in France, always thought he would play in
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France, and then France didn't take him. So it was more like France didn't take him, versus is Morocco reaching a level where
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they're going to start poaching players that the bigger, more traditional powers actually would take?
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I think right now they are just going after players that, you know, they go, like,
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you know, if you go to France, like at U-17 or U-19 level, it's like, there's probably six defensive midfielders that are
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very, very good. And probably five of them are dual nationals. And so they all can't make it.
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And so you, so like you have that, that happens a lot, even within club football,
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where, you know, once the academy, they reach a point where, okay, we have to take
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one guy and then promote him to the next level. Then the other guy is like, okay, would
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they just let him go? And so he goes to another team in the league. And so this is the same thing they
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are trying to replicate in the national team side. Okay. Okay, what about on the disappointment side, if
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you have any disappointments so far? I mean, obviously Germany, even before yesterday, you
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know, I don't think they looked very good. You know, like they didn't seem very clear
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on their ideas of how to, how they're gonna win matches. You know, they started playing, their first match
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was, I guess, Curaçao, who actually were 1 -1 at like 40th minute. I know they scored six goals, six more
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in the second half, and it was 7 -1. But like, but the next, the other two matches, they struggled to put away opponents that
00:25:06
you would expect them to put away. And I think that, in general, the talent level has been down and some of their
00:25:13
best players haven't played well, like Florian Wurz or Jamal Musiala, who are coming back from
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injury. They haven't really shown their highest level. But I thought that was a little bit
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disappointed with them. Even coming into yesterday, I still thought yesterday they would beat Paraguay, but I think that
00:25:32
they just couldn't. The other thing is, there's also a huge difference of teams that are, like, especially teams
00:25:39
that are not used to hot weather, having to play in the outdoor stadiums versus indoor
00:25:45
stadiums. Like, for example, like some teams have only played in Dallas, SoFi, or, you know, or
00:25:53
Atlanta. And then when they go play in Miami, they just completely disintegrate.
00:25:58
Like, that's a real thing with, you know, the differences here. There's heat and then there's the extreme heat
00:26:05
that's being forecast. Has anybody looked, maybe you've looked at this on the impact of extreme heat and does
00:26:13
it, I could make an argument, it helps the more, the better team. I could make an argument, it's an equalizer.
00:26:19
Has anyone ever looked at that and what does your intuition say? I think if you, I mean, heat basically
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slows the game down. I think players do, for the most part, players do adapt, like adapt.
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But then I think the overall, both teams slow the game down. So now you look at then what a
00:26:41
slow game, which team will benefit? Generally, the underdog will benefit if the game
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is slower because they don't have to deal, they can easily slide side to side and,
00:26:51
you know, double team the attack, like the top players on the attacking team because they're
00:26:57
generally, the weaker team has less possession. So you are gonna have to run a lot more without the ball, which is harder,
00:27:05
or at least psychologically feels harder to run without the ball. So yeah, so I'd say the game slows
00:27:11
down. So it's definitely not the best thing for like the top teams when they're playing.
00:27:19
Like there's a huge difference between the quality, but then again, if they can score early,
00:27:27
I think one of the things the US had in the first two batches is like, they got to own goals both in each
00:27:33
game, like right at the start of the game, like within 10, 15 minutes. And then they were able to just go
00:27:39
on with it and score the second goal and then just played out the second halves pretty easily.
00:27:44
I thought, you know, so yeah, I think in terms of just pure factors, I think the game slows down.
00:27:52
So whoever the slower game plan helps will benefit from that. Robbie, we're gonna have to let you go
00:28:00
here in a minute. I'm gonna warn you about the question I'll end with, which is we'll put you on
00:28:03
the spot for picking the team you think will win, give us a dark horse and then give us a prediction for the US
00:28:09
team. So we'll end on that. But before you get to that, tell us something as amateur soccer watchers, as quadrennial soccer
00:28:15
watchers, tell us something, give us a tip for how to watch a little more insightfully
00:28:21
or wisely. Watch, don't watch the ball all the time. Watch what's happening adjacent to the ball or
00:28:30
like, you know, try to not, you know, you can have the ball at kind of, you know, at the corner of your eye,
00:28:35
but look at what's happening around who is running. Then you can see the game develop.
00:28:41
You know, that's one of the things I got when I got to the team. I, you know, I was a soccer buff.
00:28:48
And, you know, when I joined the Sounders, I was like, I walked into a room where there's people with 100 years of experience
00:28:54
put together playing or coaching soccer. So, yeah, so my way of the way I watch the game, the way I, you
00:29:01
know, analyze the game has changed since then. And this is one thing I tell everyone,
00:29:05
is I just don't watch the ball too much, just watch what's happening around. Good tip, good tip.
00:29:09
All right, give us three predictions of a sort. Your favorite to win, a dark horse we
00:29:14
should keep an eye on, and your prediction for how far the States will go. My favorite, I think it's between Argentina and
00:29:22
France. So you ask me one day, I'll pick one, another day, another one. Okay. A dark horse, probably Morocco.
00:29:38
Okay, staying with your team, all right. Yeah, and for US, I think they have a really good path to quarterfinals.
00:29:46
And then in quarterfinals, they'll probably play Spain or Portugal. As you mean, there are no upsets in
00:29:54
their matches. I think that one would be the tough one for US. Let me follow up with one quick question.
00:30:02
What do you think the odds are that we have a new world cup winner? New world, new means like first time world
00:30:09
cup winner? First time world cup winner. No, probably 5%. Right, that's what I was thinking at the
00:30:18
very beginning. I think wasn't that the betting line that you were discussing? We were talking about making a bet because
00:30:24
if you try to make a bet on it, the odds in the betting market have ranged from basically 10 to 30% chance
00:30:32
that there's gonna be a new winner, which I think is ridiculously high. I didn't make the bet because the fees
00:30:38
were so high. And I'm like, I didn't even realize they were that high, but they don't offer that
00:30:43
as a bet. They offer, you have to construct it by betting basically on all the former winners.
00:30:51
You can skip, Uruguay, if you like. Now you can skip Germany. I'm actually curious to know what the odds
00:30:58
are now. I'll bet it's still a really good bet. I'll bet it is to bet on a repeat, no new winner.
00:31:07
But it's a controversy because if you just look at, there's a bunch of really good
00:31:12
teams out there. You list Morocco, you list Portugal, the Netherlands. If you look at more, you'd say, oh,
00:31:20
one of them has a shot. But if you be more Bayesian and look historically, you'd say, no, we do this movie
00:31:27
every year. We think that someone's gonna be competitive, but the real- Mexico, Mexico.
00:31:33
I mean, the last time a new team won was Spain, I think in 2010, like a debutant, or not a debutant.
00:31:39
Spain hadn't won since before 2010? I didn't know that. No, they've never won World Cup before, so
00:31:44
that's why. So here's one thing I'll leave you guys on. Since 2002, Brazil, there has not been a
00:31:53
repeat winner. Every time it was different. Brazil, and then Italy, where are they now?
00:31:59
And then Spain, then Germany, then France, then Argentina. So now I think maybe it's someone different
00:32:11
this time. I don't know if a bet exists for that, but that's an interesting one too.
00:32:16
You can win on this in four years is a long time, Robby. Yeah. All right, well, very good fun.
00:32:23
Thank you for making time for us. Good luck with all of the work you're doing. Good luck up in the Northeast over the
00:32:29
next week or two, and enjoy the rest of the World Cup. We've enjoyed talking with you about it.
00:32:34
Robby Ramadhani. Thanks a lot, guys. Thanks for having me. Fun conversation. Anything remaining from the World Cup for you
00:32:41
guys? I have to say, if you didn't see the Netherlands goal last night, they were down,
00:32:50
no, no, no, no. This was the first goal of the game. This was, they were gonna win it.
00:32:53
They held on. It was, you know how we talked about hockey a few weeks ago and how Adi
00:33:00
ends up characterizing it as a drunk sport, because I was talking about how the puck
00:33:04
can go from one net down the ice and into the other net in a matter of seconds in a way that just flips
00:33:11
the probabilities on the game very quickly. Well, you wouldn't think soccer did that, but
00:33:16
the Netherlands goal last night started with the goalie kicking it basically as far as he
00:33:22
could down the field. The first touch was a header at midfield. The second touch was some forward taking the
00:33:29
ball further along, and then he gets tackled by two guys, and at the very last second as he's going to the ground, he
00:33:36
sweeps his leg and kicks it over to the middle of the field for a little cross, and the guy punches it in.
00:33:42
So it was like, I don't know, it was like six or seven seconds for the length of the, just straight down the middle.
00:33:49
It was absolutely spectacular, but pretty unusual. Let me ask you, let me make a
00:33:53
statement about the World Cup, and you guys tell me if you think I'm wrong. Let's imagine I give you an opportunity, whether
00:33:59
it's hockey, basketball, baseball, football, you can go watch two teams you do not care about,
00:34:07
or you can do it in soccer. I'm starting to believe, because I'm watching all kinds of games between teams I just do
00:34:15
not care about. Is that right? And it's exciting, and I don't think I can say that about most sports.
00:34:23
So I'm going to, I think World Cup is going to build a broader base in the U.S. for soccer, and I really
00:34:30
do. I think of all the sports, like I find it difficult. Baseball, I just love, so I could go
00:34:36
watch a baseball game anywhere, anytime. But ignoring that, like football, not exciting to
00:34:42
me as much. Basketball, definitely not. Golf, I mean, not golf, but you know, hockey, not that exciting.
00:34:48
But man, soccer, there's something about it. Something just intrinsically about it.
00:34:52
Well, what do you think it is? What's your opinion? Because I have, actually, I have mixed feelings
00:34:57
about it. I really enjoy watching a game I care about, but not so much watching a game
00:35:03
that I don't care about. I think it's something that maybe, Cade, part of it is because I don't know as
00:35:08
much about soccer. And so I see things that seem just incredible to me. Yeah. And I'm like, wow.
00:35:14
Or maybe it's what you described, which is these massive swings in probabilities, or you know,
00:35:20
one team about to score, and then all of a sudden it comes down the other way. And then also the, maybe it's also the,
00:35:27
any goal in soccer is monumental. Like it literally can change, you know, score a goal, park the bus, and it can
00:35:37
change the entire game. Maybe that's it. It's just, I don't know as much about it, and the swing in probabilities.
00:35:45
I was gonna posit that some of its novelty, I'm guessing, Eric, because my position is
00:35:49
I can sit down and enjoy virtually any sporting event that's played at some competent level.
00:35:55
Like you can put me down in front of a, you know, college field hockey match, and if we're sitting with the kids' parents,
00:36:01
you can kind of get into it. It's okay. But so I think that's broadly my answer.
00:36:06
But one thing I would say about soccer, and I've said this for a while, I would put soccer highlights against probably any other
00:36:14
sport. I think they're probably, the best plays in soccer are probably as elite and athletic a
00:36:21
thing as I think is possible. And the coolest things. Even like last night's Morocco, that last goal,
00:36:26
Morocco was down one nothing. They scored the 91st minute to tie the game, and it was a header.
00:36:31
I think it was on a corner kick, and it was a header. It was just absolutely beautiful, spectacular play.
00:36:36
But like it happens again and again in the NSR. Even just moves guys make with the balls.
00:36:41
Grown men making other grown men, like professional athletes, look like school boys.
00:36:46
I mean, I would put soccer highlights against virtually anybody. I really would.
00:36:51
I'm probably the leading curmudgeon among the three of us then. I mean, as I said, I enjoy watching
00:36:57
games and I care about the outcome. But to me, it just seems like endless, endless balls just traveling back and forth between
00:37:06
two players. That parking the bus seems to be parked a long time. You're not alone in the curmudgeonness.
00:37:14
But Eric, I feel like this happens every World Cup though. We get all excited for this month, and
00:37:20
then it kind of goes away again. But I will say- Let me make an example. Like last time, the last four years ago,
00:37:26
World Cup final was what? France-Argentina, right? I'm gonna put that up with any sporting
00:37:32
event I've ever seen. Now, there happened to be a really exciting game. Messi finally won the World Cup.
00:37:37
Mbappe and Messi were world-class in that game. It went to peak haze. Like you couldn't ask for anything more.
00:37:45
Back and forth, team scoring. That was, and I don't care whether France or Argentina wins the game.
00:37:50
And that was just incredible. It was as exciting to me, not that I had as much interest in it or
00:37:57
vested interest, but that was as exciting to me as any Super Bowl I've ever seen.
00:38:02
Well, one thing that soccer has going for it, this is a combination of several things
00:38:05
that we've talked about, including the explosiveness and the minimum, the very few scoring, is that
00:38:13
particularly when you care about the outcome, it's essentially overtime all the time, right?
00:38:19
Sure. So if you talk about stress on your heart in aggregate over a soccer match, it
00:38:27
just crushes any other sport. Well, maybe that's what Eric is responding to because Eric's talking about matches where he doesn't
00:38:34
care, but that makes it interesting if essentially the game is in the balance continually throughout
00:38:38
the regulation time. I will say the flopping is just terrible. The flopping is horrible.
00:38:44
And I pine for some athlete out there who just refuses, refuses to flop. They don't seem to be very many of
00:38:52
those guys. It just reminds me, I've never told a story on the air before, but for some
00:38:56
stupid reason, for my, I think it was 40th birthday, my wife got me tickets to like world wrestling or some stupid thing like
00:39:02
that. And we went there and there's a guy like taken out on a stretcher and then
00:39:06
like it's being filmed for TV. And then like five minutes later, he's back in a different match in like a different
00:39:11
costume. And, you know, it's, you know, I agree with you in soccer. These guys seem crippled.
00:39:16
Like this guy cannot go on. They've got to get him off the field. And then he's, and then the ball comes
00:39:21
his way and he's sprinting down the field. Like, you know, no tomorrow. Well, quite honestly, I mean, listen, wrestling is
00:39:26
staged, but I hope I didn't insult our listeners. But soccer, they understand expected value, right?
00:39:35
No, it's terrible. There's still principles, Adi. Come on. Principles. Maybe the funniest thing you've said in 12
00:39:43
years on the show. I will say it's a physical sport and you forget how physical it is.
00:39:51
I mean, again, I haven't watched that many matches that closely. I happened to watch Morocco Netherlands last night
00:39:55
and it was just brutal. I mean, they just beat each other. So every now and then someone goes down
00:40:01
because of actual injury. All right, guys, let's change sports. Why don't we just focus for the time
00:40:08
that we have on baseball and football? Well, let's give Eric a moment on Serena because while we're sitting here, she's probably being
00:40:13
drummed out of Wimbledon. She's not. So she was down two match points. I've just been watching out of the corner
00:40:20
of my eye. She just won the second set. And so it's going to a third set. And so very interesting.
00:40:27
Is this doubles? No, singles. Singles. Wow, singles and doubles. Eric, talk about why she decided to do
00:40:35
that and by what means was she able to get into the tournament? And what chances do people, I mean, what's
00:40:41
reasonable progression to make winning one match sufficient? Like, what's the deal?
00:40:45
Yeah, good question. So first, the way she got in, she was the last wild card they let in.
00:40:50
She's the greatest, she may be the greatest champion the sport of tennis has ever seen.
00:40:55
I understand maybe Djokovic has, you know, one more major, Margaret Court does. They both have 24.
00:41:01
Serena has 23. But Serena's considered by all the greatest female tennis player of all time.
00:41:07
And I think even if you cross male -female, her delta from her peak to the next player is probably the largest.
00:41:15
If she wants to play any tournament, she can get in. She's the six-time Wimbledon champion.
00:41:21
The only reason she doesn't have more is that her sister's the five-time Wimbledon champion.
00:41:25
Otherwise she would have probably 10 or 11 of them. And so she got in at the last
00:41:31
minute. She was the last person they let into the tournament. I agree with you. Why is she doing it?
00:41:35
Why is she doing it? Well, that's a good question. You know, there's lots of stories that have
00:41:42
to do with promotion in the sense that she's now a spokesperson for Rowe, which is
00:41:50
a company that distributes weight loss drugs. She was one of the first pro athletes.
00:41:54
She lost about 40 pounds by taking, I forget if it was Ozempic or Wigovy, whichever
00:41:59
one. One potential is that she's trying to show, you know, this is the new lean Serena.
00:42:06
There's been a financial story that's been told, although given her husband was the founder of
00:42:11
Reddit, it's pretty hard to imagine. And she's who she is. It's hard to imagine it's a financial story,
00:42:16
but that's one story that's been told. Or how about she still thinks she can play?
00:42:22
You know, does she think she can win the tournament? If you hook her up to a lie
00:42:26
detector, I'm sure the answer is no. If you ask her, she'll say, you know, it's the same thing Tiger Woods.
00:42:31
You ask Tiger Woods, even if Tiger Woods comes back, you ask him if he can win. I only show up if I think I
00:42:38
can win. So I think also, I actually think I've admired Serena her entire career because of what
00:42:45
she's done for the game. It could also be she wants to show that, you know, a 44 year old person
00:42:50
who takes care of themselves isn't exactly washed up in tennis. And so I think there could also be
00:42:57
a motivation story and it could also be she's a parent with two kids. Maybe she wants to, you know, play tennis
00:43:03
and have her daughter a member, not people talking about how great she was, but actually
00:43:08
having her win a match or two. Okay, good fun. Well, I did wonder as I saw her go down early in the first, you know,
00:43:14
she lost the first set and I'm thinking, well, you know, maybe- That was down a break in the second.
00:43:18
Is she's gonna, you know, but if anybody can kind of dig deep, you wouldn't want
00:43:22
to bet against her. But she's actually, if she wins, which it's unclear, but if she does win, she has
00:43:26
a fascinating matchup. And she's, there's this woman, a Filipino Alexandra Eala, E-A-L-A, who has kind
00:43:34
of taken the tour by storm, who would be her second round opponent. It would be an extra, she's maybe 20.
00:43:41
It would be an extraordinarily hyped match. Extraordinarily hyped. So I want to see it just for
00:43:47
that. All right, good fun. Well, let's change to the home sport for the summer with two fellas who I know
00:43:54
pay well. I don't get to talk about golf and Scottie Scheffler coming in second for the third
00:43:58
straight tournament and him getting his, he's, I told you, I said this the last time
00:44:03
I was on the air, I'm not getting concerned. Look, he has not come out of the top 15 in like 50 straight tournaments.
00:44:10
So I'll say that. But the guy's starting to rack up second place finishes, left and right.
00:44:18
I think he's got five second place finishes this year on tour. Eric, are you really worried about Scottie's ability
00:44:23
to win a tournament? I mean, we only worry about a lot of number twos when a guy has never
00:44:28
won a tournament. The guy's won 20 in the last three years, no? He has, but he's won one this year.
00:44:36
And that might be all he wins this year. It's hard to know. All I'm saying is, is that, you know,
00:44:43
it's also, by the way, the only knock I've ever had on Jack Nicklaus. Jack Nicklaus has 18 major wins and 19
00:44:51
seconds. That's a good, that's a knock. Tiger Woods has 15 and maybe three or four seconds.
00:45:00
Tiger Woods in contention had a conversion rate that's higher than anybody I've ever seen.
00:45:07
All I'm saying is- You beat the crap out of everyone by miles. So, I mean, when you're that good, first
00:45:12
is easier than second. But when you're winning, when you're just a little bit, when you're good, but not enormous,
00:45:19
the odds between first and second are equal, roughly. You're just pointing out how good- There's
00:45:25
a good parsimonious explanation for it. And I was just going to say, Tiger is a very high bar.
00:45:30
I knew you were going to bring Tiger to the conversation. He's the exception. We can't, I mean, I'm just not going
00:45:35
to knock Nicklaus for 16 second places. 19, 19, more seconds than first. That's an extraordinary accomplishment.
00:45:43
I mean- I mean, I wouldn't even argue that for a good player, seconds are better or more likely than first.
00:45:49
Or equally likely or something. Equally is simple. But my argument is that often there's someone
00:45:54
who, because of the tail events of the, because you remember you're summing random variables.
00:46:00
So it's not really, it's not like a streak that has, the other side is where you'll see gaps, but this is on the
00:46:06
lower side. It's also asymmetric, Adi, which is you can have a lot of backdoor seconds, which happens
00:46:11
a lot also in sports, where Scottie will shoot 65 in the last round. He wasn't really in contention, but he ends
00:46:19
up because a lot of other people don't play well, but you can't have, it's rare that you have a backdoor first, is all
00:46:25
I'm saying. So you're strengthening my argument that seconds- I agree. No, I thought I was arguing with you.
00:46:30
And so I think that Tiger's specialness was he was just so dominant that he's the
00:46:34
only player that truly had a substantially higher probability of winning than coming in second, third,
00:46:40
fourth, or fifth. And Adi, what you're distinguishing that from implicitly is against some killer instinct, which is kind
00:46:47
of the motivational, psychological story. You're saying that's an interesting narrative.
00:46:52
Statistically, I'd go with something more parsimonious, which is just he has a bigger gap between
00:46:55
him and the next guy. Okay, interesting. All right, guys, catch me up on baseball.
00:47:00
We're just past the halfway point. And Adi, if you're gonna kvetch about your boys, you've got 30 seconds to get it
00:47:06
out of your system. Well, I like to kvetch. I don't like that I have to kvetch, but I'm gonna kvetch.
00:47:12
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking, thank you, Kate, kvetch is Yiddish.
00:47:17
It means to complain, but it's a particular variant that really fits nicely when your team
00:47:23
is losing. And so I'll just mention two things. First of all, it does seem like the
00:47:29
Yankees do this every year, or have done it in the last four or five years. Come out strong, leading their division, looking terrific,
00:47:38
and then totally swooning some point in the summer and looking terrible. And then in the previous four years or
00:47:44
so, they've come back and gone to contention only to lose it either some point in
00:47:50
the playoffs. The playoff stuff we can call coin tosses, but this particular pattern of strength, collapsing, returning,
00:47:57
seems to be something worth studying statistically. I don't know the answer. But Adi, isn't it, let me ask a
00:48:04
question. Whether it's through theory or through a simulation, you and I have complained for the last,
00:48:09
whatever, 10 years, that the Yankees have so many holes in the lineup that, you know,
00:48:16
and couldn't this lead to that? Yeah, I mean, poor lineup construction, too many
00:48:23
stars, too many aged stars. If you think about that, Goldschmidt and Bellinger. Judges, you know, he's no spring chicken.
00:48:31
Stanton, these guys are the backbone of the Yankee offense and they're not young and they're
00:48:36
injury prone. And we could also argue that that's part of it is exhaustion and injury.
00:48:41
So that could be it, roster construction. They never seem to have the young talent
00:48:46
that other contending teams seem to put together. I went to a game last night. I went with Ryan Brill.
00:48:52
And Ryan's a Dodger fan his whole life. And he remembers Bellinger playing for the Dodgers
00:48:58
and he sees he come up the Yankees. He said, if the Dodgers got rid of them, there's a reason.
00:49:05
Because the Dodgers are known for being the smartest team in baseball, analytically, or at least.
00:49:09
And I know the Yankees invest enormously in analytics, but I just don't see them being
00:49:16
run in a way that reflects that. And that's something I noticed. The other thing is just another anomaly.
00:49:23
The Yankees set a record for the fewest hits in a four-game stretch in their entire history.
00:49:32
Their history or any team's? Their history. Their history. And that's impressive.
00:49:39
12 hits in four games. That's incredible. It's absolutely incredible. I was at one of the games last
00:49:43
night and I watched some of the Red Sox series. They just look lifeless. And what you don't catch is the incredible
00:49:51
defensive lapses that I watched. Some of them were actual errors, but others were just bad plays that like, really.
00:49:59
And you were watching the Tigers and they look great defensively. Am I gonna pick the Tigers in the
00:50:04
long run over the Yankees? No, judge will come back. The Yankees' starters will get back in shape.
00:50:09
Something's gonna happen. I mean, but that's just a, I would also argue this is slightly anomalous.
00:50:14
How close is judge to coming back, by the way? You know what? I mean, I read about his injury and
00:50:19
it's a classic big man injury. They swing so hard that they break their bones. Their rib.
00:50:27
They fracture their bones, not because of a impact, because they just rip their own bones
00:50:34
with the strength of their muscles. It's just crazy. That is crazy. Good Lord. Guys, I wanna ask you a question that
00:50:44
came up on Twitter in the last week. It's from Sam Hoppen, who's a good follow on Twitter, by the way, mostly an NFL
00:50:51
analytics guy, but obviously dabbles in other plus things as well. So I have to try to pronounce the
00:50:56
guy's name and y'all will forgive me because in baseball, I'm more of a reader than a watcher.
00:51:01
But Phanom from Pittsburgh. Mizoreski? Mizoreski? We just call him Miz. Okay, Jacob Miz.
00:51:10
So the fastest pitch-by-starter since pitch tracking started in 2008, 105.5 miles an
00:51:17
hour. And he has each of the top 37 fastest pitches. So Hoppen asked an interesting question.
00:51:23
He says, this is the fastest pitch-by -starter since it's been measured in 2008.
00:51:29
What's the chance that it's the fastest pitch ever in the history of Major League Baseball?
00:51:36
And he just kind of posited- For starters, you mean? Let's say starters, 85%. He said, just kind of guessing, like maybe
00:51:44
85%. So my question to y'all is, is that too low or is that too high? Like, how do you think about the chance
00:51:49
that Mizoreski's 105.5 is the fastest starter thrown pitch ever? All right, so I've thought about this a
00:51:55
lot. So if you don't mind, I'll just jump in. Before you give us an answer, why have
00:52:00
you thought about this a lot? No, not this particular question. The Miz has been around too short.
00:52:05
But the question of comparing, of thinking about who's thrown the ball the fastest over the
00:52:11
last hundred years of the life of baseball. Who's hit the ball the farthest? These are the two questions that I've asked
00:52:15
myself. I think that I'll just digress about hitting the ball the furthest. They absolutely used heavier bats in yesteryear.
00:52:24
And heavier bats are going to hit the ball farther and harder. That is a physical, if you're big enough
00:52:31
and strong enough to swing it, which, now there's a trade-off. You can't react to the pitches.
00:52:35
Yeah, right. And so the bats don't do it today because they won't be successful with a heavy
00:52:41
bat. If you're looking for someone to hit the ball 550 feet or 565 feet or something,
00:52:46
you're gonna need one of those 42-ounce bats swung by a Ruth or a Mantle or one of those.
00:52:53
And so that's that. The issue of the speed of the ball, there are two things that, the reason why
00:53:00
you'd think that they're the fastest ever is that the training technology is better than ever.
00:53:04
So that's definitely going for it. If you argue, as evolutionary biologist Stephen Gould
00:53:09
has written about, he would say that the incredible advances in training and technology have made
00:53:16
the means rise and brought the extremes closer in standard deviation terms. But the limit of human performance is more
00:53:24
or less the same and that we aren't really seeing, you don't really see anyone throwing
00:53:30
it faster than now, even though more people throw faster. Let me just stop you for a second.
00:53:36
I didn't remember that about Gould's argument. What I remembered about Gould's argument was that
00:53:41
the 400-hitter has disappeared because variance has reduced. And that was a- That's right.
00:53:47
But the reason why variance has reduced is that the better the training has moved people
00:53:52
up. It raises the mean. Okay. It raises the mean and that does it as well. But he said the limit of human talent
00:53:58
is the same. Well, that's the part that I'm not remembering. He's saying the human, the extreme human talent,
00:54:04
all the training and all that is not moving that extreme. No. It's not moving the far right tail.
00:54:09
Yes, it's not really moving the far right. I mean, you can, by the way, you can see this in like running.
00:54:13
I mean, obviously, Usain Bolt has the record, but if you try to do a Jesse Owens match relative to the technology and the
00:54:21
shoes and how- How long ago was Usain Bolt's race? I mean, you bring that up. That's- It's a long time ago.
00:54:28
20 years ago, right? And exactly. And it's not even been close to have been touching.
00:54:33
No. And if you look at a sport like that, just the advances have just not been there.
00:54:37
Well, that's an interesting, because it feels like it doesn't feel, over time with the endurance
00:54:43
races or at least the mid-length races like miles, they have come down and they continue to come down.
00:54:49
Correct, shoes, technology. Okay, this is interesting, because maybe that's a domain because it's gotten more dimensions, is more
00:54:56
susceptible to training. Marathon is shoes. Throwing a ball, it's throwing a ball as
00:55:02
fast as possible. It's such a simple, in some ways, a simple act. Humans have done this forever.
00:55:07
I mean, this was our projectile to knock out animals, right? So if you argue, what are the things
00:55:12
we're good at? Swinging, right? Swords and weapons. If you talk about what baseball, what are
00:55:18
you doing with baseball? You're throwing stuff and you're swinging stuff. This is a primal act.
00:55:24
Hitting people hard. Right, so counter-argument would be, who could it have been?
00:55:31
And so the only measurement that we would have would be Koufax, not Koufax, Ryan.
00:55:37
Ryan was measured to have thrown the ball a hundred miles an hour, like maybe 101
00:55:41
miles an hour at the plate. That is anywhere between six to 8% slower than out of the hand.
00:55:51
And the Miz is measured out of the hand. And so the conventional wisdom that if Ryan
00:55:57
were measured at the plate, he'd be throwing 107, 108. Couldn't also, couldn't this be answered, Adi?
00:56:02
I mean, I don't know if they have every single game video that Nolan Ryan ever threw, but like, I would imagine they might.
00:56:10
Like, isn't this an answerable question? Computer vision. Why is computer vision not able to do
00:56:16
this? Honestly, honestly, why haven't we done that? Come on, go get us, go get us.
00:56:21
12 frames a second, is that enough? That's a great question. I would wonder the same thing.
00:56:26
So the real issue is what, so I would argue that, well, wait, is that faster? Is 105.5 faster than any pitched Chapman?
00:56:34
No, Chapman is through 105.8, I think. Okay, so that's why I say it's the fastest starter.
00:56:38
It's a starter thing, but real quickly on the guys who've ever done it, much deeper
00:56:43
than I am on this, and Ryan, of course, stands out as a good example, but what about like a Bob Gibson?
00:56:48
Wasn't he known as a hard thrower? Yeah, but not Ryan, not extreme. The people, historically, the ones who would be,
00:56:55
it's not Koufax. Walter Johnson. It's Walter Johnson from ages ago, and we don't know anything about that.
00:57:00
It's Bob Feller, and it would be Ryan. Those are the three that are historically, now,
00:57:08
there are some Negro League pitchers who might be in that group as well. Like, Satchel Paige is sick, but I think
00:57:15
more from the control and the movement side of things. Well, weren't J.R. Richard and Nolan Ryan
00:57:24
on the same team? Did J.R. Richard not throw as hard as Nolan Ryan at that stage of the
00:57:30
game? No, not consistently, Adi, but Nolan, I think, threw as hard as peak Nolan Ryan, but
00:57:37
J.R. Richard might have thrown in the low 100s. Yeah, sure. And then, finally, there's the issue of numbers,
00:57:43
right? So, and this is, we actually had, I think it was David Eck on our show talking about trying to do equivalences over time
00:57:50
in baseball. So, his argument is partly technology, partly the numbers. I mean, the world is bigger now.
00:57:58
The populations are bigger, and therefore, we talked about the World Cup, and you can field
00:58:04
48 teams because the, I mean, even from populations twice as big from when we were
00:58:09
kids. There's eight million, a billion, there used to be four billion. There's many more people out there, but in
00:58:15
the United States, there's a big difference is that there's so much competition, right?
00:58:20
So, we'll take San Diego back for homework. For sports, right? Our best athletes are spread over five, six
00:58:25
sports now. There's also a practical nature where, Adi, I'm pretty sure you, I mean, we've all read
00:58:29
books about this. Like in the 40s, 50s, 60s, these guys were working in the off season in other
00:58:34
jobs. I mean, now these guys are training. There's also, as you talked about, there's video
00:58:38
equipment, biomechanics, all of this. But Adi's saying none, he's setting all that
00:58:43
aside, and he's going with the fundamental side. No, just the number of people. I got it.
00:58:47
But the same thing for a second, because Adi says, yeah, yeah, more people, but more
00:58:51
alternatives. But what about like, you know, the Dominican Republic wasn't a big player, wasn't a big
00:58:57
feeder into the US in our childhood. For decades, that wasn't the case. No, so you add up, but Dominican, I
00:59:03
mean, listen, Dominican Republic's a tiny country, and they're responsible for like 25% of major
00:59:07
leaguers. It's crazy, right? And it's like 10 million people. So the United States, if you look at
00:59:13
the number of people in the United States was like 175 million during Mantle's day.
00:59:17
We're twice that now. But if you talk, but at that point, a great athlete was gonna be a baseballer
00:59:22
or really nothing, post-college. And so you can argue everybody was, you know, I mean, here's a funny story about
00:59:29
Koufax. Koufax didn't play a day in the minor leagues, didn't play a day at college.
00:59:36
He was a drafted basketball player who showed up at the Dodgers kind of tryouts and
00:59:42
threw so hard that they're like, what the hell is this thing? And they offered him a contract.
00:59:47
He was, and because of the dumb ass rules that they did, it protected the owners
00:59:51
and not the players. He was forbidden to play. He had to be put on the major league roster the next season.
00:59:58
And because of that, he took six years to develop in the majors. And instead of developing properly in the minors
01:00:05
and in college or wherever, and then all of a sudden figured out how to throw. But even, he threw hard, but he didn't
01:00:09
throw Ryan hard. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's finish where we started with
01:00:15
Hoppen's 85%. What I'm hearing from you is below 50%. I'm saying somewhere around between 50 to, yeah,
01:00:21
maybe 50% is my goal. Interesting. Interesting. Okay, super helpful. It's a good guess though.
01:00:26
85 is, you know. Yeah. Yeah, again, a great question from- But you know, the Miz is not big.
01:00:33
Look at him. It's not like he's JR, you know, Richard. How big is he? I have no idea.
01:00:37
He's in the mold of the Ryan-Koufax kind of like mid-sized guy. I mean, Ryan got stout over time, but
01:00:45
he didn't start out that way. No, Ryan again, 170. Every time Koufax comes up, I always want
01:00:51
to remind, y'all don't remember this, but I stood next to Sandy Koufax just a few years ago.
01:00:55
When I was in Connecticut, I went to an event and he happened to be there. And I'm standing in line next to Sandy
01:01:01
Koufax. So one of the things that stood out to me is that he's later in life, but he was my size, essentially identical size.
01:01:07
He's just not a big guy at all. Okay, good fun. Guys, a few updates around the league.
01:01:14
Give me anything that's top of mind. When you rest, when you wrench your eyes away from the Yankees, Adi, what do you
01:01:19
notice about the rest of the league? I'll tell you some things. I'll ask you questions based on what, looking
01:01:24
around a little bit. So I see that the Cubs are playing surprisingly well, but they're stuck behind the Brewers,
01:01:30
which is interesting. I'll tell you what I noticed. The Marlins had their best month in franchise
01:01:35
history. Is that right? All right. Well, we're friendly. Marlins are close to us because obviously Sam
01:01:44
-Andre Cohen's one of ours, the ownership team are all connected to Penn. So we root for the Marlins.
01:01:51
For sure, for sure. That's great. They're above 500. They're stuck behind the Phillies who are stuck
01:01:58
behind the Braves right now. That's a stout stack up. The Dodgers are the only team that FanGraphs
01:02:04
has forecasted out at a hundred wins. In fact, there's only three or four teams in the nineties and they're the low nineties.
01:02:10
And then there's the Dodgers. Which by the way, as you remember at the beginning of the season, it's not that
01:02:14
surprising. The Dodgers were not forecasted at a hundred by FanGraphs, but now of course we have
01:02:18
85 games of data. Yeah. So let's just show that they were. And it's also, you know, my favorite thing
01:02:24
to do is to say, so what would the Dodgers have to play the rest of the way not to reach a hundred wins?
01:02:32
And it would probably, the thing that would stop them would be they clinched their division
01:02:35
with 20 games to go. And then all of a sudden they just play a more blended team in the last
01:02:42
20 games. And they go 10 and 10 instead of the 14 and something and they miss by
01:02:46
a game or two. What do you mean by more blended team? Well, for example, they start other pitchers.
01:02:53
They don't start their full rotation the entire time right up until the end. They want to stack their rotation for the
01:02:59
playoffs and all of that. That's what I mean. Okay. How is Chicago White Sox leading their divisions?
01:03:06
Cause it's just a bad division. That's all, that's the answer. That's part of it.
01:03:12
I don't know if it's recent. Was there any team above 500 there? Yeah. The Sox and the Guardians are both above
01:03:17
500. Remember, was it last year that the Sox were competing for the bottom ever?
01:03:21
Yes. Yes. Exactly. This is what I'm saying. Interesting. Actually, Adi, that to me, that you bring
01:03:27
that up, I'm going to do a bunch of research between now and next week's show on that.
01:03:32
I remember thinking, remember, I forecast, you guys were right, I was wrong. I forecasted they'd have the worst record ever
01:03:37
last year. The fact that they're- I love winning those bets. I didn't realize they were leading their division
01:03:44
or even close. They're above 500? Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah, that's incredible.
01:03:50
Hey, they've got a, San Angelo, my hometown, there's a fellow, one of their pitchers is
01:03:54
one of their successful pitchers this year is from my hometown, which doesn't happen very often.
01:04:00
Okay, guys, why don't we leave it there? Let's do one thing on the way out though.
01:04:03
Dion Simpkins, our longtime associate producer and engineer, longtime meaning from the first show, is going
01:04:12
to edit this show. And that'll be the last Wharton Moneyball show that he edits, at least as far as
01:04:17
we know. And it's been 12 plus years. So a quick word about our man, Dion, who was there from the very beginning and
01:04:24
has been the backbone of the show for 12 plus years. We can't say enough, but let's do a
01:04:28
quick, like top of my, a quad cut your eye, 12 years reflections on Dion, top of mind what comes to mind for our
01:04:35
friend and collaborator, Dion Simpkins. I'll just go first and say, we didn't know what we were doing.
01:04:42
He helped us become more professional. He helped us do better interviews. He helped provide us guidance and thoughts.
01:04:51
And at the end of the day, he made, for me, he made it more fun. You know, we did in studio for so
01:04:57
long, you could count on Dion being there. And yeah, and also, you also remember when
01:05:03
we were doing it in studio and we'd have, we were obviously on Sirius XM at the time, you know, we had music and
01:05:08
stuff in and out of the breaks. It was always interesting to hear what Dion would play.
01:05:13
I was going to say the same thing with the music. Yeah, he brought fun to the show.
01:05:17
But I will say one thing, sometimes you don't really realize how valuable someone until they're
01:05:22
gone. During those Sirius XM days, he was often assigned to other shows. And we had someone who was backing him
01:05:28
up and there was one particular radio, live radio, where I was in the studio by myself because of the way things fell out.
01:05:36
And there I was running the whole show and the sound went out. And the sound engineer that day was not
01:05:43
Dion, wasn't able to restore it. And it was crazy because I couldn't hear, there was nothing in my own ears.
01:05:50
I couldn't hear anything. We couldn't deal with a guest. And I essentially had to talk for 25
01:05:54
minutes to the ether about sports. It was quite a day and we missed Dion and we'll miss Dion especially going forward.
01:06:03
Every team is better if you have a Dion. He rolls with things. He's going to make it okay, regardless of
01:06:10
what happens. He adds heart. He's always got heart and a smile. So he's professional and personal in that balance.
01:06:16
Every team is better if you've got a Dion Simpkins and we've been better. All right, guys, let's leave it there.
01:06:23
Thank you guys for listening for the whole team. Audie Weiner, Eric Bradlow, Shane Jensen in absentia,
01:06:29
Dee Patel, the big boss lady, Marissa Reyna, who will be rolling off real soon too.
01:06:33
Marissa has been a producer for us for the last year. Greatly appreciate her work.
01:06:36
And for the mighty Dion Simpkins, many thanks to him. Wouldn't be here without you.
01:06:40
Thank you guys for listening. Come back and join us next time. Between now and then, enjoy your sports.