Show notes
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about an NPB matchup between Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki, those aces’ current talent levels and MLB futures, how velocity has climbed in NPB compared to MLB, and how stealing bases seems to be the one thing Shohei Ohtani (and, for that matter, Mike Trout) can’t do. Then (18:52) they follow up on earlier conversations about Cast Away, playing baseball on top of a tall building, and a pitcher who throws an unhittable pitch, discuss partial runs (26:53), a strange MLB survey question (37:10), whether Rob Manfred is suddenly based (44:34), Jim Bowden’s pro-ownership stance (55:17), and why teams aren’t stealing third base more often (1:06:45), followed by Stat Blasts (1:12:43) about the most first major league hits in one game, teams with the most players who had career years, the biggest years for prominent retirements at each position, and mascot clothing, plus a reaction to an assault on Rockies mascot Dinger (1:42:04), a Past Blast (1:48:04) from 1994, concerns about ESPN micing up Martín Maldonado during a game (1:50:28), and a few follow-ups (1:54:47). Audio intro: Ian H., “Effectively Wild Theme”Audio outro: Kelley Stoltz, “Memory Collector”Link to Yamamoto/Sasaki storyLink to Yamamoto/Sasaki linesLink to Yamamoto/Sasaki highlightsLink to DeltaGraphs NPB dataLink to 0 SB playersLink to Sam Blum on Angels stealsLink to Sam Miller on Trout stealsLink to Ohtani “by the way” lineLink to Burj al-Arab tennisLink to Tom Cruise climbing sceneLink to MLB survey screenshotLink to Manfred on blackoutsLink to Bowden on opt-outsLink to 2023 basestealing statsLink to Petriello on basestealingLink to Rob Mains on going for 3rdLink to Topps NOW cardsLink to info on Julien debutLink to 1938 Feller gameLink to 1938 debuts gameLink to 1947 debuts gameLink to first-hits dataLink to best-seasons dataLink to best-seasons summaryLink to player-retirements dataLink to mascots surveyLink to Dinger attack videoLink to article on wanted manLink to Charmin’ bear adLink to Ben’s bidet articleLink to Abbott Elementary referenceLink to Ryan Nelson’s TwitterLink to EW emails databaseLink to Maldonado newsLink to Ben on in-game interviewsLink to Manoah videoLink to Cortes/Trevino videoLink to 1994 Past Blast sourceLink to David Lewis’s TwitterLink to David Lewis’s SubstackLink to Dinger arrest newsLink to Dinger summons Sponsor Us on Patreon Facebook Group Twitter Account EW Subreddit Effectively Wild Wiki iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!) Get Our Merch! Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.comvar SERVER_DATA = Object.assign(SERVER_DATA || {});Source