00:09 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
welcome to circles off episode number 56. Derek Johnson number 56 don't even know who that is, don't even linebacker. Used to play for the Chiefs. I don't know why. I remember that I'm horrible with sports player numbers Like horrible that one sticks with me. There has to be a more. Can you think of a more famous 56? You're very good with this stuff, but not off the top of your head, I don't think 56. 

00:33 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I don't think that you know it's not a very common number in hockey. 

00:36 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
No no, and for football it's more Taylor number 56 be the most most popular one, and then a list of of not really a lot of history Rob Pizzola here, joined by Johnny from Betstamp. How are things? 

00:51 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
we haven't seen each other in a while yeah, it's my first time seeing Rob and uh, since we recorded the last podcast, I think did we golf on the next day. 

00:59
Last week we played on Thursday okay, so that morning, and then that was it. Yeah, um, but uh, yeah, going. Well, I know Rob was in Vegas, we were holding down the fort over here in Toronto. We got a lot of stuff happening with BetStamp on the daily, so we really are trying to run a big business here. And then, on the personal side, getting back into the fitness for the summer. Enough is enough. We got to get going. Health is important. We got it, like you know. We got to get going. Health is important, as we know, as we all know. Um, but yeah, back into the swing of things playing hockey now, weekly, football, weekly I'm gonna pop a couple genos, catch a couple bombs and, uh, working out on the daily. Healthy eating, you know, not really the biggest problem for me. I'm not like the, I don't eat a ton of sweets or whatever, but we're going clean through the summer and into september yeah, I mean, healthy eating is not a problem for you, but like uber is, you know, pretty. 

01:54
You're pretty addicted to no, no, I listen, I do like uber eats, but just because it, the food, was delivered to you doesn't mean it was unhealthy. It might not be. 

02:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It might not be the the healthiest, healthiest food, but like I'm not getting mcdonald's and stuff, have you seen the uber eats campaigns that they're running now with, like you can't just eat everything that gets delivered? Like what are those? I guess we're talking about it. So it's accomplishing. They got like famous celebrities who are just eating. Like the packaging that it gets delivered in, or like I've actually never seen those. 

02:21
Yeah, they're like ohats. I don't even know what the slogan is. Obviously it's sticking with me, so it's doing something right. But yeah, they're just like you know. Can't just eat everything that's delivered. 

02:30 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, no, I mean, listen, I do get Uber Eats a lot. I deleted the app off my phone. You know it was a mix of basically the limiting for the bonus abuse. I am trying to just, like you know, cook, cook clean now and do it all myself. But, um man, uber eats we don't even talk a random non-sports sportsman topic. I told you guys before. I think like uber eats is great value you talk about, we talk about finding a lot of value in this podcast and certain things. 

02:57
Uber eats is unbelievable value, even when compared to grocery shopping. If you're doing it correctly. And again, it's just like sports betting. You got to like make sure you're like okay, I'm getting the eats, pass here and whatever. And like this promo might be on door dash and this might be on skip the dishes and whatever. Like you definitely got to shop around from dealer to dealer, get the best price, but like uber eats you can get like sometimes like two things delivered to your door. If they would buy one, get one. It's like including tax and tip might be like 11. Like you're not getting that at the grocery store no, I agree. 

03:27 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I mean, for me the big thing is, I think both of us are are guys that put a heavy emphasis or value on our time and the time of grocery shopping and cooking. You know, driving to the grocery store no, but here's what I'm saying. 

03:43 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
If you include your time in there, then obviously Uber Eats is going to be good value because, like just the time to actually go to the grocery store and actually cook, you know, assign a dollar per hour value on your head that you're going to be above that. However, I'm saying excluding the time, excluding even convenience and time there is still ways in which you can get like food, that's like relatively good food, for cheap, like like a buy, buy one, get one on, like a chicken salad, for example, grab one for lunch, grab one for dinner, like save it for dinner, like both to your door for like 16 bucks. That's not horrible. I mean, yes, can you make that salad cheaper over the course of making like 20 of those by going to the grocery store, getting like a chicken from cost and then getting you know salad from Costco and doing all this? Yeah for sure, you make it slightly cheaper, but it's not. It's not that much cheaper and you do have to, you know, make like 20 salads before you elipse that value and use all that food. 

04:35 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I get it. You have more self-control than I do, though. Uh, like I'm, I'm pretty skinny guy, I weigh 170 pounds, um, but I'm diabetic. So I don't have the self-control like, even though I know I'm not supposed to eat crappy food, high carbs, whatever. If I go through uber eats and I see like freshie or like some salad place, and then I you know, you get to the burgers row. You know a and w hero burger, whatever, right, it's very difficult for me not to to get the burger, whereas if we do grocery shopping during the week it's a little bit easier to stay regimented. You know what I'm saying? I just don't have the self-control. I think more people are like me. It's very difficult to get like good food on uber eats mostly people starting like crap I agree. 

05:21 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I recently also discovered that you could do alcohol delivery here as well, in ontario, for for that, and it's just like that's a no-brainer. You know, like a couple extra bucks and just get your beers delivered that is a no-brainer, that's a no-brainer, it's a no-brainer. 

05:36
I mean you don't get the same variety. So let's say you're like, okay, I only drink this beer, I don't have it, all right, you're tough luck. But if you're like the guy who kind of like, doesn't really care that much what beer, like you have, like 10, you like man, deliver it to the house, I don't have to go in. I hate going to the beer store. People in the us we only have basically, well, you can get beer at grocery stores now but yeah, it's bad selection. 

05:56
If you go to a grocery store, you could only get like a. The max you can get is like a six pack, so it's like horrible value. If you go to the beer store, you can actually get a, two, four and like the beer store sucks. I don't know if you like it, it's like well, I mean, whatever I'll do it why don't you? 

06:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
like it. What is that you? 

06:14 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
walk into the beer store. You're waiting in like a line of people returning empties. They can get back like 60 cents on their thing and they have to sort it like they're they're coming in. You come with a box of empties and like, okay, yeah, here's your, here's your empties, but sort these all yeah, oh, there's different buckets and stuff. 

06:31 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, that's my wife so I can't. I don't know if she's gonna listen to this one. 

06:36 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I know she knows I mentioned you want me to sit here and sort all these dirty beer bottles to get back like 65 cents, like okay, no problem, I'll throw them out. Like what do you want me to do? 

06:45 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I get it. Um. I have two items on the agenda I just really want to quickly talk about. Uh. We are going to have adam burke on um. Nhl nba coming to an end. It's going to be a lot of baseball over the course of the off season. 

06:59
I know a lot of people have reached out about baseball betting. They're new to it. Just following it. Uh, adam, to me, is one of the best baseball betting analysts. Works for vcin. Uh, for years I have read his mlb season previews, which I would put uh toe-to-toe with any season preview in any sport. They're amazing, uh. So we will have him on. 

07:17
But there's a couple things I have to get to. Why don't you, why don't you, hit the sound bite that you cut for? Uh, I'll tell you how big of a scumbag I am. I'm gonna follow that up with. I ripped the guy last week on tweets that trigger us that player props. Okay, very big scumbag move for me because I saw that tweet and I was very. It triggered me. That's why I was in the segment. I was visibly like actually shaking when I was reading the tweet about um. It was a specific to not understanding the host rules for player props. I did not know that fan duel is only offering a one-way market for those. So, in fairness, there's nothing the guy could have done. So this is my apology. I I am a scumbag, but I want to write, to write the ship whenever I do rip someone, for you know, unfairly bet player props. That's my apology. I'll tell you how big of a scumbag I am. 

08:10 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, that's a bad move on our end because, uh, you know we're telling him read the rules and then we didn't even know that it was a one-way market. So, yes, 100 if it's a one-way market and they're not taking action unless the player starts and you can only bet the yes and the player doesn't start, there they are free rolling you heavy. Yes, if you avoid that 100. So he's. When he said he contacted fandu rule support yeah, that's a fine thing to do, definitely um, this isn't on. 

08:34 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
This isn't on you at all, though, because I brought that to the table. Some like a lot of times that people don't know this, but the tweets that trigger us rob such a nice guy. 

08:42 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It's okay. I, I talked about it too. 

08:44 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I, I don't mind uh, sometimes one of us is seeing it for the first time live on air, because we don't want to spoil the reaction sometimes, right and go into it. It's better like that, agreed. So this is not on johnny, he didn't really know. This one is on me, I will own it. The second thing, though, which really triggers me as well. I told you to remind me about this when we record last week. I'm like I want to talk about seat shaming. 

09:06
Don't, don't oh yeah, let's go he's like yeah, no, okay, seat shaming. This is one of the things that bothers me the most about anything like I'll post a ticket to a leaf game, for example, or blue blue jays game, whatever, where I'm sitting in the upper level and people are like oh you know, did you bring your binoculars? Oh, I must have had a horrible bedding week, or whatever. I've been attending sports events for my entire life. The quality of the seat is not directly correlated to the price of the seat. I want to make that explicitly clear. 

09:45 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Got to find the value where you can. 

09:47 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Four years ago five years ago now maybe, bruins-leafs round one of the playoffs, I sat first row behind the away team penalty box, behind the Boston Bruins penalty box. I paid $2,000 for that ticket to sit first row. I would rather sit in the upper deck at like center ice than sit in those seats ever again. You literally cannot see any of the play People are. It is a disaster. You can't see anything unless the action is directly in front of you. I've even sat first row glass directly behind one of the nets. They're great seats when something's happening on your side of the ice. When it's on the other side of the ice, you're just watching the scoreboard the entire time anyways. 

10:30 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, furthermore, one thing you didn't even mention is if you sit platinums and you're like, let's say, five, six rows up, seven rows up, when you like you, let's say you're center ice, you can't see the other end, as Rob mentioned. Okay, so you did mention that In order to see it, you do have to stand up. So if the play's there, it's like a power play You've got to stand up and Moving the mic. Now You've got to stand up and look like that oh, what's going on? When you're standing up, then this guy's behind you. 

10:55 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Hey, sit down, sit down. 

11:00 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah it's literally like, come on, like I can't see. Then I got to sit down also and then you also kind of feel bad as a guy, like, oh, I don't even want to stand up here because the guy behind me might not see anything, whatever. 

11:11 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Shitty experience. But on top of that, like the first listen this is not me patting myself on the back or anything like that, but game. One of this year's playoffs for the NHL was the Leafs Lightning game one. I bought the tickets for myself and for three friends. I brought them to the game with me, okay, Spent money to pay for their tickets. You know we sat in worse seats because I'm not going to pay for $1,500 a ticket for everyone to sit in the 10th, 15th row. But they were very appreciative of it. They enjoyed that as a game and I have no problem sitting in those seats. You see the whole play and whatever. But like there's a component of that as well. 

11:49
Blue Jays games baseball. I wouldn't be caught dead in one in like lower level outfield To me. I would rather just watch the game on TV. I'm not there to catch a foul ball. People sit there and they bring their gloves so they can catch a foul ball. You can't see balls and strikes. You only can really have good visibility of, like one outfielder there Might as well not be there. 

12:13
In my opinion, I spend more time at the bar than I would actually do in those seats. But put me upper deck, you know, behind home plate. I love that you can pretend like you're calling balls and strikes. Obviously you can't see the height of the pitch but you can see if it's over the plate or not. Still get on the umps case or whatever. Plus the atmosphere there is so much better because all the booze bags are in that section. It's always complete debauchery, which I like. When I'm at a game, I'm not going to a library, I'm going to a sporting experience where I want to be an experience. So I just hate seat shaming. Like people have their own preferences for seats. You know, maybe if somebody had like an obstructed view or something, I would call them out, but at the end of the day maybe they just want to be at the game because of the atmosphere more than the viewer, whatever. Like, don't seat shame, it's just. It's just so shitty. 

12:57 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I felt so bad at uh game seven because the leafs lost, but also felt bad because I was standing up for the majority of the third period. Just you know, obviously a lot of the crowd was standing up and directly behind me was like a seat behind me, was like an older gentleman and his wife. They did not stand up the entire game, like not even when goals were scored, nothing. They were just sitting there and like he did not say one thing, did not complain. Third period I was standing probably like five minutes straight. He couldn't see anything. I was trying to look back and just be like, oh, can you see Whatever? He couldn't see, he didn't care. I guess he didn't care. 

13:33
And then there was like three minutes left in the game. The whole stadium is standing. He's still sitting behind me. He taps me from behind. I was like, ah, it's gonna make me sit down. He's like excuse me, sir, I seem to have dropped my phone under your seat. You mind, grabbing it for me went under, grabbed it for him, gave it back, he did not care at all. And when, where we were sitting, like it was looking up to get to the jumbotron, like I don't even know if you could see the jumbotron. 

14:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You just, I guess, just happened to be just hearing the sounds of the game to the game, but uh, yeah so you can't even feel bad. 

14:07 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
My ideal seats is like the uh, first row of the upper bowl. Love that, any stadium. First row of the upper bowl. No, you know, you don't have people in front of you, you're there in quick. You can lean up against something. You just got the cup holders and you could see the whole stadium money. And for the jays games, for any baseball games, I love the upper level right behind the plate, like as close to the plate as you can. Then you can see if the balls and strikes are like left or right exactly. You can't see movement top to bottom, but those are, uh, those are awesome yeah, I listen. 

14:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
At the end of the day, there's obviously a number of different reasons why someone would buy different tickets and like just don't be like the shithead that is calling people out for where they're sitting at a game exactly especially a playoff game. Here's another thing too. Like I'm not going to name names, but like the people who are calling me out, I'm looking up playoff tickets in their city and they're literally one-tenth of the price of playoff tickets in toronto as well. 

15:00
So yeah, you know I would sit courtside at every game, if I could, in your city. Anyways, that's it, we will move on. We do want to talk some baseball, so we're going to welcome in Adam Burke. You can follow him on Twitter at Skating Tripods. He's a sports betting analyst for VSIN. He's a Cleveland native. We'll talk to him a little bit about that. Travels a lot, an IPA aficionado and a 500-time dumb and dumber viewer, according to his Twitter profile, which is my favorite comedy of all time. We'll talk about that as well. Adam Burke now joins Circles Off. Adam, welcome to Circles Off. How are things? 

15:41 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
I'm good. It's good. I know we've tried a few times to get this thing recorded and get it in the can, so I'm happy that we're finally doing it and it's an honor to be on here with you guys. 

15:47 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
People actually don't know the missions we have gone through. We had started an interview with Adam. Our internet crapped out on us. That actually led to us doing some studio renovations, as we call them. But glad to have you on, adam, and what we like to do with every guest at the beginning is just give us some of your personal background and basically how you got involved in the betting space. 

16:08 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
Yeah. 

16:08
So I mean, my story is probably fairly traditional in terms of how I got started. My college roommate my sophomore year had a Bodog account and kind of turned me onto that and I was betting the $5 three-line parlays like I'm sure so many people started out doing and obviously, given the legal space space, so many people continue to do. But it just kind of progressed from there. You know, my majors in college were mass media communication, so I've always been a writer, always wanted to do the on-air thing, so just kind of gravitated towards being a content creator in the sports betting space and got hooked up with Jeff Rake who, uh, you know you introduced me to when you were out in Vegas here recently and got to do some work for Beyond the Bets. And then, when Matt Lindeman got a job behind the counter out here in Vegas, I wound up getting found by my boss at bangthebookcom. So I was there for eight years with him and now I'm with VEASAN. So it's just kind of been an interesting progression in terms of the content creation space for sure. 

17:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
What does your day-to-day look like in terms of betting or from a betting perspective, because obviously, like you mentioned, you have commitments in the betting space from a content side of things with VSYN, are you betting year-round? Are you focused primarily on baseball? Because I follow your stuff for years, I know you're a big baseball guy. And then what does that look like for you on a day-to-day perspective? 

17:25 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
Yeah. So look, I mean I will openly admit that I'm a content creator first, a handicapper second and a better third. So a lot of what I'm playing, the vast majority of what I bet, is something I've written about you know, whether it's the daily MLB article, whether it's contributing to a you know a staff or a writer best bets file across NFL, college football, college basketball, whatever the case may be, I go through my handicapping process, write it out and then I wind up playing the things that I find. So I do end up betting year round, due in large part to the fact that I kind of need to familiarize myself with pretty much every sports betting market. It used to be even more when I was with Bang the Book. It was a smaller operation and I was responsible for also writing golf and UFC and NASCAR coverage and based on the ROI I had with those. 

18:09
I'm very thankful I don't have to do that anymore. But you know I just I have to do. You know I have to be aware of things year round. I have to know a lot of different stuff for doing guest spots, for filling in when hosts are out, stuff like that. So you know, everything just kind of feeds into itself into one big great. You know handicapping, betting, and writing and recording process. 

18:28 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I do appreciate your honesty with that answer and I actually do really like the fact that you're willing to bet on the content that you're putting out there, which I think is one of the big problems in the space. So we truly appreciate that. There's nothing that bothers me more than someone who would recommend someone else wager on something but isn't willing to bet that themselves. So that's pretty cool and I'm glad you brought that up. But just on a personal level, adam, we've obviously been acquaintances for a long time and largely through social media, but you're a Cleveland native. I know you've spent most of your life not living in Vegas and now you're there. I ran into you about a month ago when I was there. How has that transition been for you on a personal level? You know, going to that that day to day lifestyle in Vegas. 

19:13 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
Yeah, you know it's, it's a challenge. I mean, you know, being a Midwestern kid growing up in Cleveland, you know people are just different than they are out here in Vegas. You know everybody out here has a hustle. Everybody out here, you know, I would say to some degree there's a higher level of selfishness out here. That is something that I've, you know, kind of had to grow accustomed to. 

19:30
And you know it's also funny too, because I was thinking about this yesterday when we were, you know, actually going to finally get this thing recorded. And you know, last week I had some buddies in town and you know I traditionally think of going downtown to, you know, drink some beers and throw some dice and just kind of hang out from coming out here two, three, four times a year before I lived here. Now sometimes I have to go downtown to work and I understand why there's, you know, a certain level of animosity from, you know, locals towards the tourists, because the tourists are out here to have fun and everybody else is out here, you know, grinding away with that. And I don't even want to say nine to five because it's definitely not a nine to five town, but you know it's, uh, it's definitely been a significant adjustment, but I will tell you, uh, the weather is a hell of a lot better, especially in the winter time. 

20:15 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah. 

20:16 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
That I'm very dry heat too. It's the nice dry heat. 

20:19 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, I mean, listen, I'm coming from the weather. I don't know how good our cameras are, but like I fell asleep in the sun on the first day, top of the head absolutely roasted. 

20:27 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Oh, poor guy fell asleep. 

20:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
fell asleep in the sun, yes, but came back here and it's a little chilly relative to what I was used to in Vegas for the last week. But just out of curiosity, adam, do you still get to ever really enjoy it like a tourist? Or is it just completely changed for you? Because you know, on a personal level I've thought about moving to Vegas many times in my life before and for me it's like I I don't really think things would change, like I'd still be able to play blackjack, do whatever I want to do, but from the sounds of things it seems like for you it's just harder to have that tourist mentality at any point that's funny. 

21:02 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
I mean I try to do it as often as I can, you know, fortunately, just kind of, with the nature of the work and what's kind of asked of me, I do have a certain level of flexibility, you know, throughout the day and the evening hours. So you know I try to make it a point to you know, go down to the strip and just sort of walk around people watch a little bit. I don't want to lose that side of Vegas because I think it would make it extremely hard to live here. You know I've made some friends, obviously with colleagues at V-CIN and all of that. But you know, I mean I was 34 years, born and raised in Cleveland. 

21:33
You know, friends that I've had since high school, friends I've had since grade school. My buddy was out here last week. We grew up together, we met when we were six years old. You don't have that when you go to a new place. So you know, I try to sort of keep that, that fun and maybe the romantic side of Vegas, you know, just going out and and doing the things that I would have done as a tourist, but at the same time, you know, this is a phenomenal food town, you know. So we're always finding different places to eat out in the suburbs and and all that. 

21:59 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So you know, I'm don't know how long I'll be here but I'm trying to live it up as much as I can while I'm here just to explore all the different parts of the city and the different cultures and the different cuisines. That's cool and I think that's a good mentality to have. We will get into more of the personal side of things a little bit later, on your Twitter profile or your Twitter description. I find to be very interesting in terms of some of the stuff that I can ask you about. But this is a sports betting podcast and we did want to do a bit of a baseball betting primer. 

22:31
I follow baseball but I don't bet it like I used to before. We're not huge baseball fans here, but we continuously get questions about baseball and, with the NBA and NHL winding down, now obviously just as good a time as ever to get into the baseball season and what things that people can look for. So, before we do get into that, just want to touch on your handicapping process a bit so people understand where the information is coming from. Is it fair for me to say that you're more of a subjective based handicapper than a traditional numbers guy? 

23:05 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
You're more of a subjective-based handicapper than a traditional numbers guy. So you know, look, I try to blend the numbers and sort of you know, just observations, things I've kind of picked up on from being an observer of baseball for a long period of time. Primarily speaking, I do look at the data, I do look at the metrics and try to interpret them. You know, look for predictive indicators of positive and negative regression, stuff like that. 

23:24
The thing that's really challenging about baseball and I know that we'll get to this a little bit later on in the show is that it's the only sport where the object you play with fundamentally changes year in and year out, and so the stats that I use to handicap almost vary a little bit from season to season, or at least the weight that I place on them varies from season to season, just because, you know, in 2019 we had I think it was five teams that topped the previous all-time record for home runs hit in a season. This year the ball's not carrying at all. So the stats that I have to rely on, or the stats that I weigh a little bit heavier, do change year in and year out. So you know I use a lot of the metrics. There's a ton of data out there, I know we're going to get into that as well. But you know I use a lot of the metrics. There's a ton of data out there. I know we're going to get into that as well. 

24:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But you know, I just kind of go game by game through the card and try to find as many actionable edges as I can based on the metrics that are out. There are one of the most obvious starting points for someone who's looking to bet baseball. I think the beauty of betting baseball is that there's just so much that you can possibly access out there that you can use as part of your handicapping process. So for someone who's looking to get started in the space, what are some resources that they would be able to seek out in order to access data to bet on the sport? 

24:42 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
Yeah, I would say it's sickening the number of tabs I have up from Fangraphscom on a daily basis. Fangraphs is just an outstanding resource. The presentation of data is really nice too, and if you are somebody smart enough to model and that's not me, but it's very easy to export their data, kind of get it into the spreadsheet, sort of prioritize what it is that you're looking for. So Fangraphs is an outstanding resource. 

25:06
Baseball savantcom is one that I started using maybe four or five years ago, which is the home of stack cast data. 

25:10
So you've got exit velocity metrics, hard hit rate, all the expected stats that go into it, based on the batted ball data, and all of that. You know I've used that search function a ton, trying to find different ways to incorporate that data into my handicapping. So fan graphs and baseball savant are really the two biggest for me. But then there are things just as simple as you know following and monitoring bullpen usage, you know, or making sure that you have a good weather resource, something like that. Those are things that can make the difference between you know, betting a full game or betting a first five, betting it over or staying off of a game, something like that. So you know I just I try to use as much data, as much information as I can on a daily basis, and then my goal, as a handicapper, is to take everything that I've interpreted and analyzed and rewrite it into something that's digestible for a larger audience that maybe isn't as familiar with some of those metrics. 

26:03 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I've used fan graphss and Baseball Savant as well. I think those are amazing resources. One thing I was just going to ask is, like, when you're looking at those specific sites, it's kind of more of a. I don't want to ask you what to look for, because I'm sure you get that a lot. Here's what I'd say what are the biggest traps that people fall into on there? So there's tons of different stuff. Most of the time, those sites have like their own models or predictions that you can kind of pull in with. But what are some things to avoid, like what do I not do when I'm there? 

26:31 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
Well. So something that I've really thought a lot about over the last few years if you look at line moves that take place out there in the marketplace a lot of times, if you've got a pitcher with a low ERA and a high FIP or a high XFIP, that's going to be a guy that money is going to come in against. And if you've got a guy with a high ERA and a low FIP or a low XFIP, money is going to come in on that guy because of the expectation of regression one way or the other. But I think it's just too simplified to just look at that and blindly say, hey, this guy's going to get better and it did actually happen the other night with Jose Barrios of the Blue Jays but he'd be giving up a ton of hard contact. There was a reason why his ERA was as high as it was. There's a reason why his metrics looked as bad as they did. 

27:12
So I think to me what I would say is, if you start to get a basic understanding of the advanced concepts and some of their predictive value, you still have to apply the right levels of context to know that. Look, a guy may look like he's in line for positive or negative regression, but if he's giving up a lot of hard contact or if he's not locating well or something like that, then there's no guarantee that that's going to take place. So for me it's kind of about I've done the handicapping one-on-one and two-on-one thing with baseball. Now it's just kind of adding some of the additional points of emphasis that will show you if something is likely to happen or if it's likely not to happen. 

27:50 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I absolutely love that answer because I think it's applicable to all sports and I think a lot of people look at luck factors or luck metrics or signs of potential regression, whether that's positive or negative. 

28:04
And the baseball example that you use, with ERA compared to FIP or XFIP or Sierra or whatever, is a perfect one where you know I see this in other sports all the time we can use just because it's in season now. 

28:17
Hockey is an example, though, where they'll say, oh you know, this player is shooting at X percent. Eventually he's going to regress towards league average. Or this goaltender is making saves at X percent. Eventually he's going to regress towards league average, but there's an underlying history of this player being able to continuously perform at that level and not fall victim to the quote unquote luck metrics, and we see it in football and basketball and so on and so forth. So I do really like that, because I think a lot of people just fall into that mindset of, well, this is their actual performance, this is what their expected performance should be, but there's no context applied to that expected performance, and I do think that there are some athletes, especially in baseball, that are able to just get through a career with. You know very low BABIP, or you know their ERA being higher or lower than their expected ERA, or so on and so forth. So I really do like that answer Hold up though Hold up. 

29:16 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So here's my question. Like I don't, I don't do baseball modeling at all, okay, and I barely know what those metrics are. But just from being around community and stuff like that, I barely know what those metrics are. But just from being around community and stuff like that, I know exactly what those metrics are. I know what babbitt is, I know batting average on balls in play, I know why it's important, I know what fibs it uh, what fib is x fib difference between them? Um, you know, take into account defense and stuff like that versus not take into account defense. So I know all this stuff and I barely know about baseball. 

29:46
So what that would kind of, in my mind, lead me to believe is like, is it actually that valuable? Because do the people who are actually betting on baseball modeling shaping the markets? They obviously have that plus, potentially way more. So my question I guess for both of you guys would be you know, can somebody who is just learning out actually put together something that has any value using the metrics that are currently available online? I'll let Adam start with that. Is that a fair question, adam? 

30:14 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
Yeah, I mean, look, I think some metrics have kind of lost some of their luster. I guess I would say you take a statistic like XFIP, for example, which is expected fielding, independent pitching that assumes a league average home run to fly ball percentage. Well, most guys aren't going to have a league average home run to fly ball percentage. You know, if you're an extreme ground ball pitcher, you just don't have the sample size of fly balls. So whatever home runs you give up, you're probably going to end up carrying a very high percentage of home runs to fly balls. On the flip side, if you're an extreme fly ball pitcher, you're going to have a large sample size of fly balls. So if you give up home runs, it's not going to look as bad for you. So, like to me, that's a stat that has lost some of its value here. I think it's just sort of one of those things where we're always adapting, we're always evolving. There's always going to be new metrics and new stats that are out there. Really, up until this year I didn't take expected ERA into account too much a creation from the guys over at Pitcher List, just because I thought you know what. We have enough things that encompass, you know there are at least enough indicators that encompass, you know, whether or not a guy is getting lucky, is getting unlucky, something like that. 

31:17
But now, in a season where we have the highest exit velocity ever in the stack cast era but we have the lowest batting average of all time and we have the lowest fly ball carry in the stack cast era, like different metrics mean different things based on the season and sort of to use an example that I'm sure rob would agree with here, you know you got a goalie who's making, you know maybe, more saves above average than he should right. 

31:38
Well, what's the opponent's shot quality, you know? Does he just play on a team where you know they keep guys out of the middle of the ice, they force a lot of long range, low percentage shots? It's the same thing with Babbitt. You know, if you've got a high Babbitt and you're giving up a lot of hard contact, that may not get better for you. But if you have a high Babbitt and you're inducing a lot of weak contact, maybe can allow people to either create a model or at least create some sort of betting and handicapping process. But I think you just have to go a few steps beyond where you used to have to go, because of the data that's available and because of the line equity that gets taken away by people that already know this stuff, that are betting the overnights. 

32:19 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah. 

32:19
So, and just to add to that, I agree with everything you said, by the way I think with every sport now, you just kind of like have a starting point of, okay, these metrics are not going to give you an edge, like you're not going to get an edge by just handicapping, using fielding, fielding independent pitching, or Sierra or BABIP or whatever. 

32:40
But if you completely ignore them, you're not going to have any context whatsoever. You don't really have a starting point, and that starting point will change in every sport as time goes on, for sure. But then you just have to apply additional context with additional metrics, and I think it's very important to ask yourself when you're breaking down a game. It's just like continuously ask yourself why something is happening until you can no longer explain it. And that's kind of like where you've reached the point of, okay, this, this makes sense to me, and I think your your goalie example was a really good one there, adam. So, yeah, in every sport, your traditional metrics evolve, and I think we're seeing that in baseball especially but you just can't ignore them either. They you kind of have to use them as a starting point. 

33:21 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So, adam, another thing that came up recently is you mentioned actually like the exit velocity stuff, like that's all the StatCast data. Is that correct? So, with the StatCast data basically coming into the market and being 100% publicly available, do you think that's had an impact like either positive or negative for people who are betting this? Like what do you think the impact is of that? Like just a ton of data, high quality, tracked by the MLB, that people would never be able to get and just publicly released? 

33:52 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
So I think it's kind of a two-prong answer here. I think it can be a negative for some people because and I've experienced this, I'm experiencing this right now and maybe we'll get into this a little bit more but, just because you know, the baseball is dramatically different this season, I find myself getting paralysis by over analysis. I feel like I'm digging into too many different things now because there's so much stuff available out there and and I'm not just taking the numbers at surface value, I'm applying context, trying to figure out, you know how to not only convey this idea to the readers but also turn it into a bet that I'm actually going to make. So I think it can be a negative in terms of there being too much out there, especially if you're trying to understand and evaluate it all at once when you're just starting out. On the flip side, I think it's obviously a positive for people that know what they're doing, know how to interpret the data, know the value of what these different numbers and metrics mean, because it's such an old cliche, but knowledge is power. I mean the more that you know, the more apt you are to make smart bets, to know what's going on, league-wide, pitcher-wide, hitter-wide. This may be. 

34:57
So I think it's a little bit of both. I think it's kind of a necessary evil in some ways, I guess, to try and have all of this stuff as part of your toolbox. But then I also know people that have success betting with traditional metrics, betting totals based on home plate, umpires and strike zone sizes, and you know all those different types of things too. So I think it's just on a case-by-case basis, but I do believe it can be both a positive and negative, and even for somebody like me who's been looking at sabermetrics for for the better part of 15 years, I think there are times where it's still a positive and a negative for me on a day-to-day basis just the more data that comes in. 

35:34 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Sorry, I'll cut you off. The more data that comes in, the more it actually, in my opinion, favors the people who are like, have experience shaping and modeling data, versus like rookies I agree, I would agree with that but also if the data set was only available to a few people, then it doesn't matter how good you are at modeling, right if you have. If you only have, like data from nhlcom and someone else is getting all the team level data I think what we like. 

36:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Just from my personal experience, the I stopped betting baseball seriously would have been 2018 or 2019. I'm horrible with memory in terms of updates, but that was were you doing the daily grind? 

36:12 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
yes, for the people you were. 

36:13 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Actually, I was betting bait, like modeling, and betting daily like 10 20 plays a day up at 7 am not going leaving my computer until the final lineup was in of the game, so literally the daily grind, and that was seven days a week. But I stopped when the StatCast data started to become available and it just became so overwhelming of like. I have this well-oiled machine now of a model that's using my own projection system, essentially that I developed. But now we have all this new data entering market. People are starting to use it. I'm going to have to evolve. I no longer am going to have an edge because this is more sophisticated than what I'm actually using in terms of data. Now I just got to the point where it's like I'm not willing to do this anymore. 

37:02
But I think I've noticed this in every sport, where I do agree with you. Know, adam. You say you're going through the paralysis by over analysis. I definitely think that that's a thing. Where just you get so much data that becomes available, you tell yourself that you have to incorporate it in some capacity. I have to use this. This is great stuff. I could tell you know how hard the ball's coming off the bat, I can see launch angles from players and so the percentage of times that they barrel a ball, and so on and so forth, but you get to a point where it becomes too much at some point, and I think sometimes simplifying the process leads to just better success, in the sense that you know, know, you're not second guessing things necessarily, because I think that's the. 

37:46
The biggest challenge overall is when you have access to all this data and you're going to in a losing streak or something. You start to second guess everything. Oh what, I'm using this too much, I'm not using this enough, and so on and so forth. So I think there's something to that, but there's going to be like a new version of stat cast data eventually as well, too right, like we're. There's always iterations and data for every sport, and especially a sport like baseball. You'll get something in four or five years from now where everyone will start to incorporate, and then it's like uh, you know, should we be doing this is? Is this actually an advantage using this data? So on and so forth. So I think that's one of the most fascinating things with baseball, though, compared to every other sport, is just there's so much at your disposal at any given time, and trying to figure out what is worthwhile and what is just fluff is probably more challenging than any other sport. 

38:35 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
I don't think to that point. You know, like you talked about it, if you start struggling, you know if you have your process and it's working for you and it's working for a longer period of time, and then all of a sudden you hit a rough patch, whether it's variants, whether it's just bad handicapping, whatever the case may be, like you said, then you start incorporating different things because you're like have I lost something? Is there something I'm not accounting for? What do I need to add? What do I need to look at more? And that just becomes you know kind of it can be a downward spiral. You know, unless you find something that is is really beneficial for you, that maybe you weren't looking at, or you start applying something to a higher degree. 

39:09
I'm kind of in that spot right now where you know I had a really good month of April, a good start to may, and this is supposed to be the time of the year when I do better, because I've got sample sizes to analyze, I can look at some of those indicators of positive or negative regression. But this year is unlike any other that I've ever experienced and encountered, because there's just no offense. So I'm looking at pitchers that I think are going to experience negative regression and I'm sitting there questioning myself if any of them are going to, because no one's hitting, no one's scoring runs, no one's doing anything. Your blue Jays are a prime example, right, they make violent contact every game. They have the second highest hard hit rate major league baseball. 

39:47
They are awful with men in scoring position. They are there were the worst team in the league in batting average on balls in play, weighted on base average, wrc plus all the above. But they're too good of a lineup for that to continue and I just I keep losing money on them thinking that you know their overs are going to start coming through or they're going to start. You know winning games is a big favorite, something like that. It's just, it's it's front. That endless chase, having all that data can be something that kind of takes you off the path from time to time let's talk a little bit about the dynamic this season, because I think it's a really interesting one. 

40:20 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Um, the most serious baseball better that I know. Who's had the most success of anyone that I know? Um would tell you that I believe he said it was 2019 when all the home runs started happening. The first two months of the season for him was the worst that he'll have his entire lifetime, because predominantly was an unders better and the games were flying over the total because of the juiced ball and his models just could not react quickly enough to it and even as they were starting to catch up to market still wasn't catching up enough because they're very much built off of a historical data set um, all these previous years. Now we get the complete opposite this year. 

41:00
So I'm watching baseball the first two weeks of the season and I'm like, ah, ah, you know, scoring's down, home runs are down. Is that going to continue going forwards? And the market, in my opinion, was not reacting heavily to that early on in the year. So I think anyone who was just blindly betting unders at some point probably could go retire, you know, find some private islands somewhere at this point, because it took so long to react. But now we're at the point, adam, where we're in here a few months now. We have a larger data sample. How do you treat this style of game now? Because it's completely different to anything that you would have handicapped in years past. 

41:35 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
Yeah, it's been really frustrating for me, especially because, you know, like I said, I mean I've incorporated the StatCast data for a while and you know I look at pitchers that allow a lot of hard contact and those are guys that I typically look to fade, you know, especially if their numbers, their ERA, fip, xfip discrepancies, you know, signal that maybe they've gotten fortunate. And this year hard contact is just, it's not as penal, it's not as detrimental as it has been in previous seasons. And in fact now over the last couple of weeks or so, we've seen strikeout percentage decrease and we've seen walk rates decrease as well, because pitchers have no fear of pitching to contact. They don't have to because the ball's just not carrying anymore. So that's been a really big adjustment. 

42:16
I have not been able to wrap my head around yet because in a lot of cases I would prioritize high strikeout, high ground ball pitchers. Well, right now there aren't a lot of cases I would prioritize high strikeout, high ground ball pitchers. Well, right now there aren't a lot of strikeouts to go around and fly, balls aren't carrying. So being a ground ball guy is actually worse in some respects. So it's just, it's really really incredibly challenging where, you know, six weeks into the season, five weeks into the season, whatever we are, I generally feel very comfortable with you know kind of where I at, how I'm seeing things and all of that. 

42:45
And now I just I find myself kind of trying to reinvent the wheel on the fly because a lot of what I'm accustomed to seeing happen in May isn't happening. You know, it's warming up right Offense is not getting that much better, it's just the overs kind of come back around because the books have adjusted and are setting totals lower. So I don't know what the future holds with the humidor. I don't know if the warmer weather will actually create more offense, but I'm kind of going on the assumption that it will, and I think that's hurting me. But also going on the assumption that some of these bad pitchers you know will actually start performing to their true talent levels. But they're getting away with murder in terms of hard contact and low strikeout rates. 

43:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
See, this is a really fascinating conversation, because I think as bettors, we should really welcome uncertainty more than we do. 

43:33
If you pick up on a trend like what you're talking about, adam, where strikeouts start to go down and walks start to go down, there's prop markets being offered at every single book now where, if you're early to pick up on that and they're being priced as if they were, this is the same as years past you could really get out in front of that by weeks and make a lot of money on that. 

43:54
But then there's always for me and this is what I always have a challenge with is trusting the, the hypothesis, or trusting what you see, because I think it's natural for us to say, oh, this is just a blip on the radar versus what we're used to, and things will eventually get back to the norm. And for me, the more and more I watch baseball now, the more and more I convince myself that no, it's not going to get back to the norm. This is the game that we're dealing with this year, but it, you know, just speaking from a pure baseball standpoint it's definitely one of those sports where just a change in the ball is going to change the entire dynamic of the game and if you're quick to pick up on that, I think there's a lot of money to be made. But the natural challenge is do I trust that there was actually a change in this ball, or could it have just been complete random variance, like how? 

44:44 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
long is very. Is variance a thing there for? Us exactly like okay, through 20 games, through 30, 40, 50, and then like, okay, we're halfway through the season but, but, but that, that point everyone else might have caught on right for sure. 

44:55
and then there's also a chance that, just in general, like it was a regular season anyways, but the first month of the season had like an insanely low scoring rate. It was just like, oh, remember that year where first month of the season had like an insanely low scoring rate and it was just like, oh, remember that year where no one was scoring for April, but then it was fine or sorry, no one was scoring for. 

45:10 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, whatever, exactly, I guess may. That's the challenge with the sport. And then to add things, to further complicate things, 2019, for example, right, the, the pitchers are coming out and they're getting these blisters because of the seams on the ball and they're talking about how the ball is different and literally Major League Baseball comes out and says there's been no changes to the ball, it's the same ball from years past. So now, if you have this hypothesis of like, oh, you know, they changed the ball scoring's up because of the ball change I'm hearing the pitchers talk about it, but then the league actually issues a statement saying, no, it's the same as it's been before, it further compounds things. But this is kind of uh, what interests me so much about baseball? 

45:48
because such a small change like that I mean, it's not really small, it's the, it's the ball that's a massive change but it has such a huge impact and and I have personally never had the stones to basically get out in front of that, because I've always just been like huh, let's wait and see if this happens a little bit more. And by the time you wait and see, market has caught up and now we see all these lower totals in baseball now, where the edge that anyone would have had betting the unders early in the year has essentially evaporated. Maybe. 

46:17 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
Well, and something I think is really interesting too is we've heard the pitchers say that there's a major consistency issue with the baseballs as well. Like they, you know, after a fall ball they get a ball thrown to them by the plate umpire and it just feels completely different and I don't know. I mean this may just be cherry picking an example, but you know, on Wednesday when we're recording this, austin Riley hits a dribbler up the third baseline in the game between the Braves and the Brewers and it just rolls foul I mean it was maybe 45 feet down the line spins and rolls foul right so that ball is all scuffed up, gets thrown out of play. Next pitch he nukes the ball 430 feet and it's like you know. Okay, I don't know if that was a different ball or not, but just that two minute sequence illustrates the difficulty of baseball, where you go from a 45 foot infield single to a 430 foot three run homer and there's absolutely nothing you can do to account for that. 

47:09
I mean, you know it. Just it is what it is the variance in the nature of the game. But those are things you have to contend with in any given season. But now you add all these differences with the baseball. I mean it's you can drive yourself crazy if you don't have the proper mindset for trying to bet baseball and just kind of rolling with the punches and riding the ebbs and flows and whatever other expression or cliche you want to use. 

47:31 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It's definitely tough. I've been on like the wrong end of some really bad variants and bullpen blow ups where you're like, oh you know, I had this many leads in a row going into the ninth. They all blew it. Then it's like am I missing something? Am I not evaluating the bullpens properly? They all blew it. Then it's like am I missing something? Am I not evaluating the bullpens properly? 

47:45
It is a crazy game because there's just so many numbers you can look at and you can always find a way to spin things. But, um, I do, you know, I I do relish it overall, just because there's that much data available to you. And adding on the data side of things, adam, we obviously have these projection systems, because when I first started betting baseball, I would literally dm the guys from steamer all the time and say can you know, can you send me your projection systems before the? You know, you actually post them publicly and they're very nice guys. And there was all obviously zips was a big one as well that people used to use, but you could at one point, just blindly beat baseball by using steamers projections. Nowadays, I don't know, I highly doubt it, but I know that there's more and more projection systems in the market. I see adam churnoff doing, um you know, daily picks with someone from the bat um who's those are props only. 

48:35
Those are props only. But in terms of projection systems out there, is that something that you look at. Is it maybe more of an off-season thing where you'll take a look at steamer zips, whatever, going into a season, or do you actually look at their in-season projections as the year goes on? 

48:50 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
This is something that's difficult about being a content creator is when those things start rolling out. I'm doing college basketball, you know. I'm doing conference tournaments and March madness and all of that. So you know, I just I don't really have the time or the attention to pay to those, probably. But one thing that I do look to do on more of an individual level is I look for things that maybe those projection systems can't necessarily account for. So, like, as you mentioned about the 2019 season with the juice baseball. It's an outlier, but it's something that those projection systems would have taken into account for 2020 and probably 2021 as well. 

49:25
I look for we'll take Logan Webb as an example. So, logan Webb, he had a 26 and a half percent strikeout rate last year and the projection systems this year had him down for 21 and a half. And I'm thinking to myself why? Why is there so much of a difference between his actual performance and what the projection systems are looking at? So then I went into his pitch usage to see what he did differently last season to generate more swing and miss, to generate a higher strikeout rate, and it was a difference of, you know, throwing more sinkers, something with more downward action and also a 12% increase in throwing a slider. 

49:57
So I try to use it for that. I try to find maybe some undervalued starting pitchers that maybe you know, added velocity or change their breaking ball, or a lot of guys for the Braves, for example, they've thrown their their worst pitch less often because that's been their organizational philosophy. That's something that a projection system really can't account for. So I don't necessarily look at it from a team level. I kind of look at it from an individual level and see guys that maybe made a big leap in a certain area. If that's accounted for and if not, is it something that I find repeatable and can maybe use to my advantage? 

50:32 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's interesting. Now I know we've talked a lot and a lot of the examples you've brought up are pitcher specific of looking at this specific pitcher and so on and so forth. Now I have friends that bet baseball. I know the stuff that they like to look at and I'm just curious if you ever find any value in looking at it from the other perspective, where you'll take a specific team, for example and I'm just throwing this out as a completely it's not a real example, it's hypothetical here but you might say the Yankees just smoke pitchers who throw a cutter or something like that and they'll look up specific. You know they'll find specific teams that tend to perform very well or very poorly against a certain type of starting pitcher, rather than the opposite way around. 

51:17
Is that part of your handicapping process? I don't know how like. Obviously you have to account for the specific players in the lineup as well and there's so much to take into account. It's not just you know team-based stats, but I feel like that's potentially something that could be overlooked in the market. I don't know how granular people are getting now with specific type of pitch data. No-transcript. Why am I going to limit this to 80 sliders that this batter's faced when I can just look at the 8,000 total pitches that he's faced, type of thing. 

52:00 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
Oh yeah, absolutely. It is something that I tend to do more in the summer where I feel like, you know, a lot of pitchers are pretty properly lined, the market gets more efficient, the market tightens up a little bit. It's something where I will try to look for an edge, especially too, because, you know it, it takes a pretty significant sample size for a lot of that stuff to be, you know, uh, to have a stabilization point to be something that I feel like is predictive. So it is something I will look to do in the summer, absolutely, and I'll also look for kind of team macro trends. You know a team this year, for example, the Milwaukee Brewers. 

52:32
Right, so the Milwaukee Brewers offense has really taken off this year. They've hit for a lot more power than they have in previous seasons. They're hitting a lot more fly balls and the interesting thing for them is that the lack of carry hasn't really seemed to hurt them as much as it's hurt other teams, but they've completely pivoted on their offensive philosophy. You know, I saw that with the Braves a few years ago. You know a team that obviously won the world series last year. I saw, I've seen that with the giants, where they kind of stopped hitting ground balls at home and started embracing the idea of you know what, we're just going to elevate the baseball and try to hit for power, no matter where we are. So I do look for some of those macro trends on teams in terms of their batted ball splits. 

53:09
But in terms of specific matchups, yeah, if I've got, let's say, a two-pitch pitcher, we'll take, you know, like a Chris Archer type or a Chris Paddock, somebody like that. You know I will look and see. You know what does the opposition do against four-seam fastballs and against sliders? Because Archer is going to throw 52%, 53% sliders, probably in a given start. So that's a guy where it's pretty easy to take a look at because he's a two-pitch guy. But if I do see, you know, you think about Robbie Ray, for example, you know, and you think about his pitch usage and some of the changes that the Blue Jays made with him and some of the things he's not doing with the Mariners this season, I will, once we get deeper to the season, look at those things to get you know a better idea of how that pitcher will match up against the given team. 

53:54 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I just need the sample size to build up in order to do that. Now, you talked about looking at a lot of that stuff in the summer. Do you find that your volume does start to tail off in the summer, like are you? Is it easier for you to find plays at the beginning of the year that it might be three months from now? 

54:06 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
No, it's interesting because typically I kind of ease into a season, especially in major league baseball, because we've talked about a million times already the ball is different every year. 

54:14
So you know I don't really know what to do with the baseball going into the season and I have talks with, you know, people like at MLB Dream on Twitter who's a very, very sharp MLB handicapper. We discuss stuff like that going into the year of, like you know, what are we hearing from spring training? What are we kind of picking up on? I'll even ask beat writers you know I'm friends with the Guardians beat writer for the athletic and I'll be like, hey, what are you hearing about the baseball in spring training? Does it, does it feel different? Are the pitchers saying anything? You know, just to try and get some idea for early on in the season. But this is typically the time that my volume gets a little bit higher because I have the ability to use some of those predictive metrics. I just don't know if that's going to be the case this year because I have to figure out, you know, how predictive they actually are, given that we have a really big outlier offensive season. 

55:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
One of the big things for me when I was starting to branch out into sports that I wasn't fully acclimated with or I just started handicapping was using Twitter as a platform to find other sharp people that understood the sport and trying to learn as much from them as possible. Specifically for me was basketball, because I'm not a big basketball better and I just came across a lot of accounts that were giving out some really good stuff. So you mentioned MLB Dream as being one for baseball. Are there any other accounts out there that you think are highly worth following for someone out there who might just be new to the sport and wants to, you know, grasp or absorb as much information as possible? 

55:37 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
yeah, you know, I think a guy like you know, saris, his value, his information is invaluable and he's a guy that you, you know a lot like me takes a lot of very advanced concepts and, you know, spits them out in a way that makes sense to everybody. He's a phenomenal writer. Travis Sawchuk is another very good one. I do a lot of reading. You know I don't necessarily have the, the baseball betting community, or the the betting community in general that I know that you have and that other people I talk to have, but a lot of it is reading. A lot of it is searching for players' names on Twitter and just kind of seeing has something been written about them recently? Is there something that is worth looking into? 

56:16
Tom Verducci of SI wrote a great piece about Brent Strom, the new Arizona Diamondbacks pitching coach, and you see the improvements that the Diamondbacks have made. They had a 515 team era last year. This year they're basically a 500 or better team in the best division in the league and you know, you kind of get a little bit more context into why they've improved and if it's sustainable. And so I do a lot of that. I do a lot of reading, a lot of digging, you know, just to kind of see what's sort of out there and, you know, also try to share that with my readers too, because I, you know, if I find something that I think is is useful, I want to pass that onto them. I don't want to, you know, store it away like it's an acorn or something like that. I just I try to share as much information as I can, and, you, it's one of those things where there's always going to be something to write about over a 162-game season. 

57:07 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So I just try to find whatever it is that may be helpful for me. Well, we do appreciate you helping us out with a baseball betting primer here. For those who do want to follow Adam Burke on Twitter, it's at Skating Tripods and I do really like your Twitter description. There's a lot in here that we can unpack. It's really cool description. There's a lot in here that is we can unpack. It's really cool. Cleveland native traveler, IPA aficionado, ex beer league defenseman, 500 time dumb and dumber viewer. So that's the one I think that people want to know about. I want to hit you rapid fire with something about every single one of these. You're Cleveland native. If I'm a tourist to Cleveland, what's the one spot that I have to hit up? 

57:41 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
Well, look, if you're a tourist, it's the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. I mean, you know, it's something that you at least have to do once, without a doubt. And if you do it in the summer, catch a game at Progressive Field too, because I'm biased, but I still love that ballpark. And also, if you're somebody who's into craft beer, masthead Brewery downtown is probably my favorite spot in the Cleveland metro area but also, too, if you've got kids or you're a thrill ride seeker. Cedar Point in Sandusky, ohio, is only about an hour northwest of Cleveland. That's a really cool place to check out. There's a great brewery up there called Clagg as well. 

58:14 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I've been to Cedar Point twice. I think it's fantastic. You definitely have to be into the high thrill roller coasters, top Thrill Dragster, which you would be familiar with. This is just a little piece of trivia for anyone up there, but you can actually see the top of the sea and tower. So you can see toronto from the top of top thrill dragster at cedar point across the water, which is actually pretty cool because you are up there very slowly over the top, but that's a great amusement park in terms of traveling, your favorite spot you've ever been to so I was just there in november for the first time and I absolutely loved it. 

58:47 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
Bozeman montana was incredible. I mean, I've been to Hawaii and obviously Hawaii kind of speaks for itself, but I kind of wanted to go with something that maybe people wouldn't think too much about. For those that watch Yellowstone, obviously you know how beautiful that Yellowstone Valley is and all of that. But you know, we did the one night in a cabin thing on Airbnb. That was great. We stayed one night in Bozeman, just a really cool town, awesome food. If you're a meat fan like I am just fresh off the field uh, it felt like home, it was. It was a really great place. There in bozeman I had a great time we are meat fans. 

59:21 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm actually a yellowstone fan as well, though I think rip wheeler is maybe the greatest character on television right now. Like yes, I would agree with that just for everyone listening. 

59:31 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
if you're in montana, I'm sure it's great. I've never been. The sports betting there, though, needs a lot of work. As a lot of people know, the Montana State Lottery is notorious for dealing I believe it was minus 42 a side on major markets, so if you want to bet on baseball, it's probably not your best spot. 

59:55 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But you know, fresh off the field, meat, meat, as you said, I doubt it gets better than that. Yeah, that sounds, uh, that sounds pretty awesome. So ipa aficionado, your best ipa and what you think is the most overrated ipa so I'll start by pissing everybody off and saying the most overrated one. 

01:00:08 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
I. I think high life from cigar city down in Florida is a very, very overrated IPA. It's one of those things where when it was hard to find it kind of had that luster to it, but now not so much as far as best man. I've had so many good ones, Mass Ted, that I mentioned earlier. They do different citrusy flavors of their Dream Crusher IPA. It's a triple IPA. That's a really good one, More Citra than all Citra from half or other half brewery in Brooklyn, New York. I had that recently and it blew my mind. A good ten and a half percent are there and the beer is from Clagg. You know, if you ever make a trip out to Cedar Point, go to Clagg. It's a very interesting place. Clagg stands for cocky little Asian guy. Cocky little Asian guy, Um and, and he is. He is that about his beer, but it is damn good. It's a very, very citrus forward IPA, which is what I kind of like, more than the pioneer stuff. 

01:01:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So do I, and dream crusher is basically what they call my bets around the office. Here as well, they are dream crushers. Hasn't been a good run. Um X beer league defenseman, I didn't know you played hockey, so, um, um, he didn't say it was hockey. Oh, that's true. Am I? Can I assume it's hockey? 

01:01:17 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
it was hockey okay, fair enough. The skate, the skating tripods part. That was the name of our team, the skating tripods hockey club interesting how long did you play like rep, like actual serious hockey? 

01:01:29
uh, well, no, it wasn't very serious. I played in high school. Uh, in fact, I actually didn't start. I started I took learn to skate lessons when I was three or four years old and then I just got away from that. 

01:01:39
I played more street and roller growing up and then I got back into playing hockey in high school and, uh, I was awful, but I will forever thank my dad for making me stick with it and, you know, kind of learning how to stay with something even though you know maybe it's not something that you're super good at, but you know, it was kind of a uh, it was a learning experience as a teenager growing up and you know, kind of having those relationships with teammates and everything. And then I just gravitated towards being a beer league guy. So, uh, I I was better at drinking than playing hockey, but we did have some pretty good players on the team and, uh, you know, it was a lot of fun and I miss it. In fact, actually, when I moved out here to Vegas, I went and bought all new equipment just so I could get back on the ice and get a little bit of exercise and meet some people as well. 

01:02:21 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
New gitch, as they say it in Ontario, for all the listeners outside of Ontario. 

01:02:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I mean, obviously we're a little bit biased growing up in Canada and we've played hockey our whole lives. But, um, yeah, beer league hockey, just enjoying some brews after the game in the dressing room with the guys, it's just uh, it's just a great experience. You get the exercise, then you pack on a few more pounds after the game, completely ruin the exercise. It's um, uh, it's pretty fun. Uh, johnny played a pretty high level of hockey. We often have uh debates around the office because he thinks if he played in the 80s he would be basically putting up numbers at the same level of of wayne gretzky. He watches guaranteed he watches the, the games from the 80s where the goalies are doing like kick saves and trying to knock the puck. 

01:03:05 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
On youtube, search daryl sittler 10 point game. If I was playing in that game I would have have popped 23 points, minimum, minimum. And I'm saying my current form, like I have my equipment, let's say I have my equipment bag right there, I just put it on and go on. I'm not even saying like my current equipment, current everything I go in my skates. Just got them sharpened yesterday, didn't do it myself, which I normally do. They're not even the best sharpened skates. Right now I'm popping 23 points. But go watch the game before you judge me, cause right now I bet you're thinking I'd be like, oh, this guy's out to lunch, like what's he saying? Go actually watch the game and see like where the goalie is positioned and like how slow the pucks are coming in, and then we can chat. 

01:03:49 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
We'll put a. We'll put a link to that in our youtube description. But I've always found it fast, found it fascinating to compare eras of sports right, because it's it's very difficult. Like you, look at wayne gretzky when he played right, he could not really compete in this nhl and in like his state. 

01:04:07 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
No, that's why they have the era era adjusted. Gretzky is the greatest player in nhl history, but the reason is is because he dominated his time in the NHL more than anyone dominates now. But I think it's very clear to say that probably want to, you know, name a bottom tier NHL player right now, yeah, and put them in their current equipment, current state, current physical peak, into that era. 

01:04:30 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It probably would be better than Gretzky but I also wonder about this with baseball a lot of times now, because pitchers throw so much harder, right, you think about guys like greg maddox who could paint the corners back in the day. Right, he's just like, and also like, think about the umps back in the day who would give him those calls that were a foot off the plate. What would greg maddox be in today's mlb? I don't know, his control is so great. But I always wonder, like even you know, even mariano rivero, we're gonna do an episode, me and you on this one of the next ones. 

01:04:56 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Just yeah, just bringing in guests, we'll go no, we'll go sport by sport and we'll break it down. Because I don't claim to be like great, obviously. You know, if I played in the nba I would be absolute trash, like the guys back there were still. You know, six foot ten and dunking like it's not like we're gonna be any better. But certain sports I think you go down down the line. Baseball would be one where the era is so much different. Like the pitchers right now, like the way, let's say, like clayton kershaw in his prime when he's like dealing. Or max scherzer, give me like another good pitcher thrower. How, how much would they just rack up k's back in the day, right, adam? 

01:05:33 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
No, absolutely. I mean you think about a guy like Emmanuel Classe, the closer for the Guardians. I mean he throws like 101-mile-per-hour cutters, like it's just the game, and to that point not to get on a soapbox and go on a rant or anything like that. But you know everyone's like, oh well, way, why don't guys do this? Why don't guys do that? Well, fastball velocity is higher than it's ever been. Slider usage is higher than it's ever been. It's just hard to hit. You know it's very, very hard to hit. You know the human brain can only accommodate so much in terms of reaction time for identifying pitches, getting the body to swing, all that. There's a kid pitching college at Tennessee who touched 105.3 on the radar gun. He's a 22 year old kid. 

01:06:16 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Like I don't know what the end point is for velocity in baseball, but hitting certainly going to keep getting harder yeah, it always used to bother me when, um, when people used to talk about Anthony Rizzo right, because he notoriously chokes up on the bat, uh, in two strike counts and and you know. But he's a very good hitter. It's not like everyone can just choke up and hit for contact when they're going to get like 100 mile an hour fastball. That always frustrates me. It's like, yeah, why don't they do this? This one guy does it and he's very good and everyone else is just going to follow suit. But hold up. 

01:06:47 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
We're already off the rails. We're talking baseball. I do have to ask a question that came up. So this is it's going to be a weird one. We're putting you on the spot here. 

01:06:55
Okay, I'm looking personally to get into the baseball card market. Okay, I won't. I don't want to be the guy, like you know, grabs a box and breaks all the packs and tries to go for something. What I'm looking to do is find a player, one player specifically, and buy up a bunch of their rookie cards and then just hold those for like 20 years and hope that player grows. So my question to you, sir, is which player am I going for right now? 

01:07:24
And keep in mind, I'm looking for a player who is not necessarily like you know. I mean, you go for vlad guerrero. Obviously, buy a bunch of guerrero rookie cards doesn't be super pricey right now. So I'm looking for a gem, someone that may, maybe didn't have that great a rookie year, a great two years, but their rookie cards are available super cheap and I can maybe pick some up for, you know, relatively cheap. And then this if this player has a couple of good seasons, we're going. That's the question. Give me some, give me some players and take your time here. Give me some players and take your time here. I don't mean to put you on the spot. 

01:07:53 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
No, it's all good. It's actually funny. I haven't done much in terms of sports cards for a long period of time, but when I was growing up, my dad owned a sports card store, so it was a huge part of my childhood getting involved and ripping open packs to score and pro set hockey and all those kinds of things. 

01:08:09 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So to compare it to hockey, what I'd be looking for here is I'd be looking to get in on like a Matt Barzal type card where he played they had released his rookie card. He was not really supposed to be good. You buy up his rookie card. It was literally you could buy up a couple of cards of Matt Barzal. Like most expensive card might have been like 100 bucks, two bucks, three bucks, four bucks for a lot of his rookie cards and then after he wins the Calder, now anything from his rookie season you're looking at like you know $500, plus he had some cards go you know 20,000. 

01:08:43 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
So be looking for like a Matt Barzal type where he wasn't supposed to be good and then ended up being a good player where it wasn't supposed to be good. I mean, I was thinking of a guy who hasn't made his debut yet. O'neill Cruz for the Pirates is a rookie card that's probably worth getting your hands on. I mean, the Pirates are notoriously cheap, so who knows when he'll come up, but he's a six foot seven guy that currently plays short, probably going to get moved to the outfield, makes absurdly violent contact. He hit a ball 121 miles per hour in AAA the other day, so that's a guy that probably has a very high ceiling man in terms of you know, maybe started out a little bit slow. 

01:09:14
Um, that's a good question. You know, because the thing of it is like you know, these guys, that that kind of the leap from double a to triple a to the major leagues is is the biggest in sport, you know. I mean guys can walk off a college football field or a college basketball court and they can play from day one and it's. It's really not that big of a deal for them. That's a good question. 

01:09:37 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I'm looking about like an Alex Gordon type. You know where. It's like that guy's written off completely values at an all time low, and then next thing, you know oh you know what. He's actually a good player. He plays a full career on Kansas city and now he's worth something. 

01:09:53 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
It kind of wonders. Maybe somebody like a Brandon Rogers for the Rockies is a is a decent thought. You know. I mean first of all he's playing in a place where you can put up numbers for as long as he's there. But also, you know he was a very highly regarded prospect and you know everyone just kind of expected him to show up and hit just because of the park factor hasn't really done it yet, but he's a very athletic player that I wouldn't be surprised if he's somebody that you know kind of finds it here in the not too distant future. 

01:10:18 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
All right, I'll be looking into it. I appreciate the answer and I know we didn't prep you for this. We it was not in the show notes, not in the notes, but it's something that came up around the office. We were just guys and, um, we're. Sport cards are crazy, crazy market right now. Everything's been going up, but it's a lot of fun. It's bringing bringing back a lot of nostalgia from the childhoods, I'm sure, as it did with you and your dad in the sport card shop. 

01:10:40 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
So, rob, I mean maybe, maybe there are some guys from the white socks, you know. I mean, uh, and aloy jimenez has kind of fallen by the wayside because he can't stay healthy, but that's a guy with, you know, significant upside, really good contact skills. Uh, you know, louis robert, I mean he's playing, but I don't think that he's fully lived up to the expectations placed on him. So I took a look at I took a look at him. 

01:11:03 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
He still have valued pretty high in the card market, which which is basically um, it's a market, you know, it's another market it's another like the betting market, it's another market. 

01:11:11
You know, people still think that he's like the betting market, it's another market. You know, people still think that he's going to play. Well, I think, actually, louis Robert is actually probably someone who's overvalued right now because he hasn't really lived up to it. But since he was such a highly touted prospect, everyone's still, you know, riding him hard, like, okay, this is the next Mike Trout caliber player. I don't mean position wise. 

01:11:31 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So I've never told John. I've never told either anyone about this, really but I do have rookie cards from one baseball player. I was trying to do something very similar to this. What did you get? Ricky Weeks Jr. This was like eight or nine years ago, maybe 10 years ago. I had him on my fantasy team once, complete bust in like his rookie year, but I watched a lot of his games and I just liked him a lot. I'm like this guy's gonna turn his career around. I'm gonna buy a bunch of rookie cards. 

01:11:59 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
unfortunately, those are probably worth absolutely nothing right now but I'm gonna go look at he was on the brewers I'm looking at ricky. 

01:12:07 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
At the time I got them he would have been on the a's, I'm pretty sure, because it was early on his career. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe I I don't even remember. I just lost so much. I've lost so much touch with baseball at this point but oh, he did have one big season 29 bombs yeah, he hit a bunch of bombs, but he was like you know, he's a speedy guy. 

01:12:27
He's a stolen base threat a lot of times as well. Yeah, fair enough, I still have those somewhere. I have to dig them up, probably at my parents place. But, um, I do want to ask about dumb and dumber, because you're a 500 time dumb and dumber viewer and in my opinion it's the the best comedy of all time, which I can recite from start to finish. 

01:12:46 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
Best scene in dumb and dumber so because I grew up such a hockey fan, it has to be the diner scene with with sea bass and the fellas with Cam Neely, and then just pulling the prank at the end. And when Jim Carrey tells him they caught up with him about a half mile on the road and slit his throat, the look that Jeff Daniels gives him as Harry Dunn is absolutely incredible. It is one of my favorite scenes of all time in a movie, but let alone in that one. 

01:13:13 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Do you hate Dumb and Dumber 2? 

01:13:18 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
You know what? I don't hate it. I don't think it's good, but I don't hate it. I just I don't know. I watch it and I'll laugh at a couple of things, but it's certainly better than the Dumb and Dumberer that didn't even have Jim Carrey and jeff daniels in it, whatever that mess was. 

01:13:34 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Oh, I never watched, I was it's actually funny. 

01:13:37 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
So I saw the sec the the actual sequel, we'll call it uh with my nephew. My nephew's only two years and two weeks younger than me and growing up we watched dumb and dumber together a ton, so it was. It was pretty cool to see the second one with him, uh, down in columbus where he was living at the time. Uh, so maybe that kind of skewed my initial thought of the movie, just sort of the nostalgia element of it, but it's, it's not terrible all right, I'm actually a fan of dumb and dumber too. 

01:14:01 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I'm not afraid to say it. It's not a bad movie at all. I I did laugh multiple times. I I judge a movie based on, I would say, how entertained and was I during the movie and how much fun did I have. So if it's a comedy, then I'm basically judging it by like how many times that I actually legitimately laugh out loud during this movie, and it was, it was a lot during Dumb and Dumber 2. 

01:14:22 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think a lot of comedy sequels are better than people give them credit for, but because they have such high standards from the first one that they off like like, I think, and dumb, dumb and dumber 2 was a standalone movie and you never knew about dumb and dumber, people probably enjoy it a lot more for sure. But, um, yeah, it's well and also too. 

01:14:42 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
Something I think with comedy movies is like the wheelhouse for us, with dumb and dumber, like life, is a lot different. When the second one came out, I mean, the second one was what, 15 years or something after the first one uh, you know, it's just, it's, it's kind of different, you know. So I think that may be part of it too. You know, just kind of the, the stupid comedy that we maybe found funny initially. You know, is that something that kind of carries over throughout? And for me, I think to a degree it did, but you know, probably wouldn't be the case for everybody. 

01:15:17 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
There's definitely a nostalgia component to a lot of these. Like I. It's hard to say like I. I obviously watched dumb and dumber so much when I was growing up that, like I said, I can I have every line memorized in the movie. There's a component of it as well. But like, I watched the big lebowski recently with my wife and a friend of mine who had never seen it before and they're like how the hell did you ever enjoy this movie? 

01:15:34 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
that happens all the time. Right, because none of those movies are actually good from back, like they're not actually good, good in a sense that like you can show, like, oh man, that exactly what dumb and dumber is is actually good. 

01:15:46 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
No, it, show it to someone. 

01:15:47 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Show it to like a kid. He was like 20 years old. Right now he's gonna be like what the hell is? This is not funny at all. Like what are you, joe? You laughing because the guy fell off his chair? Like, but at the time we laughed hard yeah, I guess. 

01:15:59 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I mean there's two, the there's for me the scene where um harry has had an extra pair of gloves the whole time. That is hilarious to me. And then also the diner scene. Where the different diner scene, uh, where they kill, you know, they put rat poison and and, uh, he accidentally eats the rat poison, but where jim carrey and uh, um, what's his? 

01:16:25
name names eluded me. Now this is horrible. I'm put on the spot, but with the spicy peppers in the burger or the spicy burgers, hilarious stuff. One of the best movies ever. I will not, I'll go to my grave. It is one of the should have won an Oscar. It is. It is so good, so good, but maybe, maybe isn't there. 

01:16:46 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
Why isn't there a comedy category for Oscars? 

01:16:49 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Because it's an award show and those are naturally designed. But, but, but the, the Golden, golden globe splits them up. Yeah, but look at it. Okay, we don't. We'll get into this on another controversial episode with the sports leagues find me an odd like. Go look at the list of movies that are like oscar nominated. They're not good a lot of them suck. 

01:17:08 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, the majority of them are not good. Me and diane used to do this every single year. We We'd watch every movie that was nominated for Best Picture, and then after four or five years, we're like why? 

01:17:17 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
are we doing this to ourselves? 

01:17:18 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
If you've ever watched the Tree of Life with Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain and something else and you've sat through that entire movie, I commend you because that was. It's a piece of art. 

01:17:35 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
That's not what I was watching. 

01:17:36 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's probably watching the actual oscars themselves, oh yeah, but you occasionally get something like will smith, you know, slapping chris yeah, but if you watch the actual oscars, that was. 

01:17:45 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You didn't even know about that. It was more social media. I've actually watched a lot of oscars, though because I just bet, I bet them yeah I don't watch, though. I bet, bet, and then I don't watch, right? 

01:17:53 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
All right, adam, we'll uh, we'll get you out here with the closing question that we asked to all our guests If you could go back five years and talk to a previous version of yourself, what piece of advice would you give to your former self? 

01:18:05 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
Yeah, and this is something that that I I continue to struggle with. I'm sure you do as well. I'm sure a lot of people in our line of work and just in general do you know I am my harshest critic, you know I I feel like nothing I ever do is good enough. Try to be a perfectionist, not only in an imperfect world, but especially in an imperfect industry, you know, like ours, where you know if you're right 55, 56% of the time. That's damn good. You know the idea of being wrong that often and still being good at something. It's just hard for me to wrap my head around. 

01:18:37
So that's the thing for me, you know I. Just I'm so harsh and such a critic about everything that I do. You know overanalyzing, especially in a down period, because you know it's not only my money on the line, it's also the people that read me and all of that. You know I it's been something where I've had, you know, some mental health issues in terms of having bad betting runs and all those kinds of things. So you know, still something I'm working on, even into my mid-30s. But you know just understanding that perfection is just, it's not an option, no matter how hard I strive for it. 

01:19:06 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I think that's good advice. I think it's a lot of us struggle with the same thing, even winning months sometimes, and you feel like you should have won more. It's with the same thing, even winning months sometimes, and you feel like you should have won more. It's very easy to spin positives as a negative and it's also very easy to spin a negative as catastrophic, dangerous game to play it is. But that's really good advice from adam burke. You can follow him on twitter at skating tripods and you can follow his stuff with vcin at vcin live. He is a sports betting analyst for them year round. Adam, appreciate you joining us. It was good to finally get this one in the book after trying so hard for weeks, but much appreciated for the patience and thanks for joining us on Circles Off. 

01:19:46 - Adam Burke (@SkatingTripods)  (Guest)
No, it was worth the wait for me. Hopefully it was for you guys and for the listeners as well. But thanks for having me and, honestly, you're somebody I've looked up to in this business for a long period of time the way that you conduct yourself, the, the, how sharp you are across so many different markets and just what you've accomplished in the space not only the betting space, but also sports media. Thanks, adam, it's been an honor to be a friend of yours. 

01:20:08 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Thank you very much. I do appreciate that. Uh, no same you very much. I do appreciate that. Uh, no same. Obviously same goes for you as well. I mean, we've we've chatted on and off for years and, uh, really appreciate the work that you do out there and I said this, um in the in the preamble before we had you on. But your baseball previews every year I will put them up against any piece of content that's out in the space previewing any season. They are fantastic, they're so thorough. I used to buy the baseball prospectus you know the thick book and read through that and I started reading your season long previews and I literally stopped buying baseball prospectus. So I think that's a compliment. But really appreciate you having you on. And for all the listeners out there, please hit that subscribe button on YouTube. If you're listening on any other platform, please hit that subscribe button on YouTube. If you're listening on uh any other platform, please rate and review five stars and we'll be back next week in another episode.