Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1184: When Would You Want Your World Series?

Episode Date: July 8, 2015

Ben and Sam discuss the optimal distribution of World Series wins across an average lifespan.

You wouldn't understand the route I had to take to get here, so I worked for this, it didn't come easy. Most people hit me up and say, he rap for cheesy. Cause you deserve it, you deserve it, you deserve it. You deserve it, you deserve it, you deserve it. You deserve what you got, you deserve it. You deserve it, girl. You deserve it, you know. You deserve it. Good morning and welcome to episode 1184 of Effectively Wild, the twice-daily podcast of BaseballPerspectives.com. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg of Grantland. How are you?

Hello, I'm well. Good. As always, we are brought to you by the Play Index at BaseballReference.com, where you can get a year-long subscription to Baseball Reference's Play Index for the never-changing BP promo code rate of $30 a year. Ben, how are you? Ever since they added StatCast stuff, it's been better than before. I know. All right, so do you have any banter? I don't. All right, good. We'll get right to it then.

Because I have a question that's kind of a big picture question. And I was thinking about this a little bit because, as you know, the Cubs are in first place, might finally win a World Series. And, you know, in the last few years, we've had a lot of different kinds of teams winning the World Series. If you think about it from the long-term perspective, last year you had the Marlins, the year before the Royals, the year before that the Giants, the year before that the Cardinals, Red Sox? Red Sox.

It's been a while. Red Sox. I want to say it's the Red Sox. It hasn't been. And so I've been thinking about this question a lot lately, which is this. If you had a child, and of course you are expecting your first child. So if you had a child and you could pick for them, if someone came to you and said,

your kid is going to root for a team that will win three World Series titles in his or her lifetime, I think maybe that's a fair average to expect. So your child's favorite team is going to win three World Series in his or her lifetime. When do you want them? And you as the parent can pick when those three World Series titles come. Now, A, I'm going to promise you three. So there's no point in getting three in the first three years on the off chance that you might win a fourth.

You're not. You're not. You're not going to get a fourth. You get three, okay? Number two, your kid's not going to know this. And so there's not going to be any sort of like extra enjoyment or lack of enjoyment because of the fatalistic nature of this exercise. Only you are going to know this. You and baseball God are going to know this.

So you have the power to get as much happiness in your child's life as possible by assigning those three World Series championships. And the reason that I've been thinking about this is because, like I said, these teams that have won it recently have had very different models. Say you were a Giants fan born in 1960, right? You would have had a very long drought, and then you would have had a cluster of three really like bang bang bang and then you know presuming that you live a long life another drought right and if you are a cubs fan uh in the night born in 1960 you would have an extremely long drought and then finally one and then we don't know when the next two but maybe one may i mean the Cubs are so dominant this year that I'm willing

to concede that they have a pretty good chance at winning it this year, even though I know that people say that about the Cubs far more often than they should in their history. But let's say the Cubs win it this year. So you get the one and then you don't know. Maybe you have another one in 20 years or whatever. I don't know. But you have a long drought and then you have some sort of spaced out final three. And then the Marlins, you couldn't be a Marlins fan born in 1960. So let's say you were born in 1990, and you were a Marlins fan. You get three real early.

Bang, bang, bang. And you've got all this happiness baked in and then never again. And then the Royals is the spaced out version. If you were a Royals fan born in 1960 or whenever you could have been, then you'd have every 30 years or so roughly because the Royals, they won it in 2015. It doesn't look like they're going to win another one for a long time. It's not an organization that is currently all that healthy considering they won the World Series a year and a half ago. So let's say that's every three decades spaced out.

Every so often you get a half ago. So, you know, let's say that's every three decades spaced out. Every so often you get a little fix. And so those are a few models. And then there are other ones, you know. The Dodgers, for instance, have kind of got too bunched up early. If you were a Dodger fan born in 1960, you would have gotten one at 21, at 28. And then, you know, they're pretty awful right now too, given how much money they have sunk into horrible contracts. Doesn't look like they're necessarily going to win one for a really long time.

But you know you've got one. Maybe you get one when you're 75, which could be nice. Anyway, I could go on forever. I could describe every team. I could, if you wanted, describe every team. If you want me to, I will. Yeah, we're trying to put out two of these a day now. We have to keep them relatively short. Yeah. So, all right. So the question is,

do you have a preferred model for winning, for spacing out World Series? Well, I think you want one early, not too early. You want to be old enough to appreciate it, but you want one early just to kind of hook you. You want the hard sell early. I want little Albers to experience the joy of a World Series early on in life so that he'll get hooked on baseball and he'll want more of that feeling. He'll want his fix. He'll want to keep coming back to baseball year after year to recapture that feeling. And it's, you know, it's when you're young, not so young that you don't remember it, but young and everything's sort of new to you. It's very pure and fun. And he can experience it as a fan, not as an analyst or just a lifelong

person who's been waiting for this delayed gratification. You can just enjoy the pure euphoria of a childhood championship, which I had because I grew up close to Yankee Stadium when the Yankees were winning every year. And that was nice. I was a bandwagon fan, basically. I came to it, honestly, because I became a fan at the time when the Yankees were the bandwagon team, and that just worked out well. But that kind of hooked me. That feeling was great. I will never experience quite that same feeling again. So I would want one of those, but I would not want to use them all up early. I'd only want one early. And I think there are a couple ways I could go. I could either just say spaced out evenly. So, you know, whatever your your life expectancy is, you get one early, you get one when you, you know, huge swath of your life without winning one. And you get to experience it in a different way every time.

And maybe when you're young, it's just the pure joy of it. When you're middle-aged, maybe you appreciate it as an analyst and a student of the game. And you see how the team was built and how it won. And you can appreciate all the finer aspects of it. And then maybe when you're older, you get sort of a nostalgia because you're remembering what it was like when you were young, and you get to kind of relive that feeling in a way, in a completely different baseball version of baseball version of the team.

Everything is different. You're different. The team team is not different so that's probably the ideal i guess you could make a case for just dynasty right you could make the case for just clustering them together and it could be a great case for that yeah yeah and it could be i would say probably not early because you don't want to go your whole life without winning one after winning you know all before you turn 20 or something i don't want to go your whole life without winning one after winning all before you turn 20 or something. I don't think. You don't, but let me interrupt. I mean, you might make the case that there is some, that the happiness that you feel from having won that

is something that you carry with you. And if you win it four days before you die, for instance, well, you have four days of living with the feeling that you achieved something, you being passive fan of team that cashes your, you know, checks. But if you're four years old, when you win it, then you get to, you know, for the rest of your life, you get to carry it on. So it's like, I don't know, if you think about happiness and memories as a resource, it feels like a little bit of a wasted potential to have it come late. I'm trying to think of an analogy, but I guess an analogy would be that it's kind of like if you started eating healthy when you were like 93, like okay,

good. But if you started eating healthy when you're four, you're going to grow up big and strong and be in the Olympics like an Olympian. Right. So, yeah, I mean I had the early dynasty before I was like 15. I had a bunch of World Series and that was fun. And then I was a Yankees fan so they won't go that long without winning. They won in 2009. They'll probably win again in the not-too-distant future.

But that was not bad. But I kind of wish I had been older when that happened. I kind of wish. In a sense, I don't, because if it happened now, I wouldn't appreciate it because I'm not a fan anymore. But most people are lifelong fans, so that's not really a problem. But I was maybe a little young. I experienced it on a very pure euphoric level. But I didn't know anything at the time that I know now.

And couldn't really appreciate how good those teams were. Because it just seemed like that was how good baseball teams were. Because that was the baseball team that I knew. i wouldn't want that i think if i were going to make the case for the dynasty i would want it to come later in life probably and maybe maybe a maybe a delayed gratification thing where you you get like a long drought. You're the team with the longest drought. Yeah. And then you get the dynasty. So you get to be the fan base that wants it more than anyone else and has been deprived of it more than anyone else.

And then you also get the highest high of just stringing it together, hit after hit. So which isn't quite the Giants because they weren't the Cubs, you know, and they weren't the Red Sox. Which isn't quite the Giants because they weren't the Cubs, you know, and they weren't the Red Sox. But to have existed in San Francisco for, you know, almost 60 years without having won one ever, it was pretty close. I mean, I think they had the third longest route and then they got a little bit of a dynasty, right? And I think there is a multiplying effect. Like, the first one is going to be great no matter what. The first one cannot be topped. But the second and the third ones, they do seem to either need to be great no matter what. The first one cannot be topped. But the second and the third ones,

they do seem to, they either need to be well spaced out, like you need to create a new drought, or they need to be right on top of each other so that they are memorable. Because most World Series are pretty forgettable. Like, there's some good ones, but nobody's, I don't know, nobody, does anybody really

care about like the 95 braves like like truly not not really but everybody remembers like the early 70s a's or the big red machine or like really any team that puts together a dynasty or anything that can kind of be memorable as a great team 95 indians are probably better remember than the 95 brave they probably are yeah so i think that there is a benefit to to clustering them some cluster luck there now your point about winning it as a child and experiencing it as a child is good i hadn't really thought about that but if you can experience it in three different life stages then it really is like winning three different three almost like three different life stages, then it really is like winning three different,

almost like three different achievements instead of the same achievement three times. And I think you might have convinced me, especially because, well, if you really want your kid to be happy, then you want to probably make sure that his or her team wins one when he or she is a parent and has a child who's also into the team. A multi-generational celebration, right? And so I think you have to have one somewhere between the ages of 40 and 60. Like you got to have one in there. And so once one is X'd out, then it's really just a matter of when the other two are going to be. I think that probably age 9-ish seems to be a sweet spot. You're not too cool for anything. You feel like the whole world

loves what you love. You feel like the whole world is into whatever you're into because whenever people see you, whenever adults see you, they you they're like hey how about those baseballers because they see you wearing a hat you know like when you're a kid they're always talking about the thing that you're interested in or that you have the hat of because they don't they're not gonna like what are they gonna be like yeah let me tell you about my job you know so nine is this sweet spot where you're interacting with adults a fair amount because you're not too shy. And they're still humoring you by talking about whatever you like. And so you feel like this whole world is involved in the thing that you like.

And so, yeah, I think I'm going age nine. I think I'm going to give up the dynasty. I guess maybe I'll get a semi-dynasty. I mean, it's not like the 92, 93 Blue Jays are the most famous team in the world, so maybe this wouldn't pay off. But I think I'd go age 9 and then 59-60. I don't need one when I'm old. Oh, God, to have the season be even longer when I'm old,

I just don't know that I'll have the endurance for that. But your schedule will be clear. I know, but also I'm very undemanding. Like, at that age, I probably am happy with whatever is making noise on the box. So I don't know that I'm, I just can't really see. Especially if I'm, if I win a third one after already having two, and it's only been 15 or 20 years since the last one, my kids are grown, but my grandkids aren't old enough,

and I don't like them anyway. They're sticky. I don't know that I'd get that much out of the third one. So I'm going to gamble on the chance that my back-to-backs will get me dynasty status. I'm going 9, 50, 9, 60. Okay, that's fine. Yeah, I'm going to go a little older than 9. I think 9, I, 60. Okay, that's fine. Yeah, I'm gonna go a little older than nine. I think nine, I don't know, my memories of nine are not quite as clear as I would like. So I'd go a little bit older. I'd go like 11 or 12 or something. And then, I don't know, I think I want one,

I think I want one in my 30s or 40s. I don't, I'd rather not go decades. I don't have to, well, you have to go decades unless you're clustering them together. But I'd rather not go most of my life without one. Unless you start out that way. Because if you start out as part of a fan base with a lineage of never winning, and you get the gallows humor and the shared, you know, the commiseration about how you never win. That would be, that's not a bad thing. I wouldn't mind having my kid have that and then eventually have it, you know, be the Red Sox where you get a great run after also having the total deprivation. So I wouldn't mind that either so if you wanted to cluster them not late in life but later in life and come in in the

middle of a you know like a tradition of a heritage of losing that would not be bad either it is really fulfilling to have to wait for it really does heighten the suspense of every season when you haven't ever had a first one there's something something, I feel like if you choose that one, when you ultimately win it, it won't be as good, it won't be as fulfilling as if you won it when you were 11. Like, 11-year-old would get way more joy out of it than 51-year-old you ever could, because 51-year-old you's got taxes and stuff and they're busy.

But, however, I feel like a like 11 year old might enjoy all the seasons that they that you don't win more because it's just everything is amplified when you haven't done it it's like god it's just like waiting for you know your driver's license or something it just seems like it's going to be so amazing you count down days and that you can't really replicate that if you i'm still waiting that's why i waited so amazing in countdown days. You can't really replicate that if you... I'm still waiting. That's why I waited so long. Waiting for a driver's license is special.

Don't even... Look, we almost quit the podcast because I was so mad at you for not letting me drive and snowmobbing after you promised you would. So let's leave that in the past. In fact, I'm going to change the subject. Can we do a real quick banter before we go? Sure. All right.

I wanted to know, with All-Stars being announced tomorrow, I wanted to know, and this is going to be absurd because there's no answer, but who do you think is going to be the Reds? Who do you think is going to be the Reds All-Star? It's absurd when you look at it, right? The Reds All-Star. It's absurd when you look at it, right? The Reds, All-Star. Well, ever since the Votto trade, there has not been a clear candidate, really. I'm going to go with the Jumbo Diaz setup man All-Star game.

Yeah, that's not bad. Yeah, I mean, normally you have to be elite as a setup man to get there, but on the other hand, if you're a red, and you simply haven't, you know, gotten injured or cut from the team yet, then you almost qualify. That's not a bad one. Along those same lines, I was thinking

Tanner Shepard's, because he's got that, like, he's got a low ERA, even though he's got those like ridiculous peripherals where he's like striking out like four batters per nine but you know he's got the low era that's possible there's all you could always go with the closer but man kevin greg really i know and it just doesn't feel like even even with the 19 or whatever saves he has i mean the era is like five and a half right and the i mean the latest jason marquis comeback is a good story yeah i mean logan morrison i mean he's like he jeez he's he's

the best hitter in that line if he's hitting 265 and coming off a pd suspension but i mean i guess i guess i mean if this were 1987 then it'd, then it'd be Billy Hamilton with all those stolen bases. Mm-hmm. But is his OBP over 250 yet? Mm, 263. 263. I guess just because, I don't know. Well, maybe is there, do you think there's any, the manager would think that there's

something tactical? Are they going to pinch run? They would pinch run in an all-star game, right? You hold him back. You know you've got some old guy who's just on the team because he's an old fan favorite or whatever. Maybe it's the ninth inning. You need one run.

You've got a catcher-pitcher battery that's never worked together, so maybe it's easy for him to steal a base. I'm going to say Billy Hamilton, even though it's absurd, even though he's below replacement level, even though he spent time in the minors, I'm going to say him for actual tactical rather than recognition reasons. Okay. We've really dwelt on the Reds this season

for a team that has not won many games. No, and the weird thing is they haven't even lost that many. Even though they're so bad, like we can't find a single credible player, team that has not won many games no and the weird thing is that haven't even lost that many even though they're so bad like we can't find a single credible player like they're only on pace to win like to lose like 96 97 years like they just can't possibly be interesting for all they're trying they can't even get to where they're so bad that they're interesting all right well we'll be back what this afternoon yeah see you in a couple hours okay