I was having trouble settling on a Purple Row After Dark topic tonight because I was distracted by the absurdity that was the Rockies game today.
By the time it was over, Colorado had scored 23 runs on 24 hits.
Every Rockies starter had at least one hit. Every Rockies starter scored at least one run.
Nobody in the Rockies lineup had a birthday today, but it might as well have been everyone’s birthday.
Which brings me to a baseball belief I have always had:
Play the birthday guy.
Baseball is already loaded
with superstition. Lucky socks, rally caps, dugout routines, not saying certain things out loud — this sport has never been shy about chasing vibes. So if a player’s birthday offers even the smallest chance of baseball magic, why not lean in?
Mickey Moniak gave the theory a pretty strong push earlier this season. On his birthday, he did exactly what the birthday guy is supposed to do: he homered.
That is pretty much all the evidence I need.
But because baseball is baseball, there is actual data for this. Baseball Savant has a Birthday Index, built by Sarah Langs, that compares how players perform on their birthdays against how they perform every other day.
Naturally, I opened it.
The June 14 leaderboard had a familiar name at the top: Greg Brock.
Brock played 10 MLB seasons with the Dodgers and Brewers, finishing with 110 home runs, 10 WAR, and a 105 OPS+. He also hit 44 home runs for the 1982 Albuquerque Dukes, giving Rockies fans a loose Albuquerque connection through today’s Isotopes.
Greg Brock was also my high school baseball coach.
At that point, I was fully invested.
As for the Rockies, Moniak is the easy headliner because he already delivered the birthday homer. He ranks fourth among active players with a 4.7 Birthday Index, and the numbers are as ridiculous as you would hope: in three birthday games, he has gone 6-for-11 with a double, a triple, two home runs, a .545 batting average, a 1.947 OPS, and a .784 wOBA.
Willi Castro was less fortunate. He has a 2.6 Birthday Index, but he was injured the night before his April 24 birthday and missed the chance to test the theory in a Rockies uniform. That is too bad, because Castro’s birthday line is strong: three hits in seven plate appearances, two home runs, a .429 batting average, a 1.858 OPS, and a .759 wOBA.
Jake McCarthy and Ezequiel Tovar are the next proven birthday bats to watch. McCarthy owns a 2.0 Birthday Index and has gone 5-for-9 in two birthday games, with two doubles, a .556 batting average, and a 1.334 OPS. His next birthday game opportunity comes July 30. Tovar follows two days later on August 1 with a 1.8 Birthday Index, built on five hits in three birthday games. Four of those hits have been doubles, good for a .357 average and a 1.043 OPS.
There are a few first-time cases before then. Troy Johnston has the first upcoming Rockies hitter birthday on June 22, followed by Sterlin Thompson on June 26. Kyle Karros is next on July 26. None of them has played in a major-league game on his birthday yet, so the sample size is nonexistent. Which, honestly, makes the experiment cleaner.
Of course, the Birthday Index also makes it clear this is not universal. Some players get the cake and the candles and still go 0-for-4. That is baseball. The Rockies have had a few fun birthday lines to point to, but the point is not that birthdays guarantee anything.
It is that in a 162-game season, with all the weirdness this sport already allows for, I am fine giving the birthday guy a start.
Let him swing. See if the birthday luck can carry.
Pitchers are trickier because of rotations, of course — although given the state of Rockies starting pitching, maybe birthday vibes are worth trying there too.
So what do you think: Play the birthday guy, or is it completely irrelevant once the game starts? Has anyone ever had birthday luck show up on the field, at work, or somewhere else in real life? Or is this just one more baseball superstition that feels true because it is more fun that way?
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