Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Jose Altuve forgoing a home run trot, then break down the details of MLB’s plan to enforce the rules against foreign-substance use starting on June 21, covering the pros and cons of putting that plan into action at midseason and opting to ban all substances, what the effects on offense will be, whether Tyler Glasnow’s injury presages many more arm injuries ahead, a Scott Boras metaphor, and much more. Then (51:07) they bring on EW listener and criminology scholar Josh Beck to explain what the principles of punishment and deterrence can tell us about the efficacy of MLB’s approach to preventing cheating.

Audio intro: John Lennon, "Cold Turkey"
Audio interstitial: Grateful Dead, "Victim or the Crime"
Audio outro: Paul McCartney & Wings, "Spin it On"

Link to video of 2012 Morse homer
Link to video of Altuve homer
Link to details of MLB’s plan
Link to Ben on sticky stuff
Link to Jeff Passan on sticky stuff
Link to Boras statement
Link to info on deterrence
Link to paper on deterrence theory
Link to five findings about deterrence
Link to paper on cheating in baseball

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Meg’s experience seeing Shohei Ohtani pitch, hit, and play right field in person, why balks can be so incomprehensible, the differing recent fortunes of the Angels and the Diamondbacks (and Albert Pujols), Jacob deGrom’s dominance and durability, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the big bats (and playoff fortunes) of the Blue Jays, and Baseball-Reference relaunching with the Negro Leagues reclassified as major leagues. After a break, they return (41:43) to talk more about the Baseball-Reference redesign, hearing first from researcher Larry Lester and Josh Gibson’s great-grandson Sean Gibson on the historic and personal significance of the new presentation of Negro Leagues stats and information, before bringing on Sports Reference president Sean Forman to explain how and why his company updated its display of Negro Leagues data, the ethical and practical considerations involved, and what will happen next.

Audio intro: The Minders, "Same Time, Same Place"
Audio interstitial: The Baseball Project, "They Played Baseball"
Audio outro: The Baseball Project, "Jackie’s Lament"

Link to highlights of Ohtani game
Link to Ohtani balks breakdown
Link to Ohtani balk face
Link to Jay Jaffe on Ohtani’s MVP case
Link to Sam on balks
Link to Jon Bois balk rules
Link to Blue Jays hard-hit-balls stat
Link to MLB.com on deGrom
Link to Dan Szymborski on the ERA record
Link to Episode 1560 (with Larry Lester)
Link to Episode 1626 (with Sean Gibson)
Link to Episode 1630 (with Ron Teasley)
Link to Larry Lester’s website
Link to the Josh Gibson Foundation
Link to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
Link to the Seamheads Negro Leagues Database
Link to Ben on Negro Leagues reclassification last August
Link to Ben on Negro Leagues reclassification last December
Link to Shakeia Taylor on merging records
Link to James Wagner on the Baseball-Reference redesign
Link to the new Baseball-Reference Negro Leagues hub

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Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and The Athletic’s Grant Brisbee discuss Grant’s experience co-hosting a podcast with Hunter Pence and Grant’s hatred of the zombie-runner rule, before attempting to explain how and why the San Francisco Giants have baseball’s best record and what they should do at the trade deadline.

Audio intro: The Baseball Project, "The Giants Win the Pennant"
Audio outro: The New Pornographers, "Need Some Giants"

Link to Baseball Barista
Link to Baggs & Brisbee
Link to Grant’s Pence scouting report
Link to Grant on the zombie-runner rule
Link to The Athletic on the Giants’ offensive improvement
Link to Grant on Oracle Park
Link to Grant on the Giants’ bullpen
Link to Tim Keown on the Giants

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about another prescient player prediction (this time involving the Phillies’ Luke Williams), Nick Madrigal’s hamstring injury, another aspect of the baseball scene in A Quiet Place Part II, and a few observations about the foreign-substance scandal, including teams’ culpability, how the perception of sticky stuff use may mirror the perception of the PED era, Pete Alonso’s conspiracy theory about MLB manipulating the baseball, and how the evolution of sticky stuff mirrors the evolution of the spitball. Then they answer listener emails about the underperforming Yankees offense, outs on the bases, and WAR for base coaches, whether MLB needs new names for positions, the “father-son” rule in Australian Rules Football, how vaccination status might affect player trade value, seven-inning-game gamesmanship, and John Gant and regression.

Audio intro: Pavement, "Spit on a Stranger"
Audio outro: The Rentals, "Conspiracy"

Link to FanGraphs newsletter
Link to story about the Williams walk-off
Link to James Fegan on Madrigal
Link to video about baseball movies
Link to Brittany Ghiroli on team/MLB culpability
Link to Devan Fink on spin and performance
Link to Ben on offense in the steroid era
Link to Alonso comments
Link to history of spitballs
Link to Pages from Baseball’s Past
Link to Cluster Luck leaderboard
Link to wOBA-xwOBA leaderboard
Link to 2021 team RISP splits
Link to B-Ref outs on the bases leaderboard
Link to Russell Carleton on third-base coaches
Link to Ben on positions and the shift
Link to cricket positions graphic

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter (sans spoilers) about baseball movie A Quiet Place Part II, Eric Sogard sliding over first base, a Travis Jankowski TOOTBLAN, Miguel Sanó repeatedly predicting success, and Jesse Winker raking, then consider whether it’s actually “unfortunate” that the first true two-way player in ages is as good as Shohei Ohtani, answer listener emails about the two-way-player Mendoza Line and whether pitcher Ohtani or hitter Ohtani would win a head-to-head matchup, and conclude with an in-depth discussion about what might happen and what we’ll learn if MLB does crack down on foreign-substance usage.

Audio intro: Dawes, "Crack the Case"
Audio outro: Bachelor, "Aurora"

Link to Sogard slide
Link to Jankowski TOOTBLAN
Link to Twins triple play
Link to 2017 Sanó triple play prediction
Link to 2021 Sanó triple play prediction
Link to Sanó 3-homer-game prediction
Link to Sanó 2014 season prediction
Link to list of players with multiple 3-homer games
Link to Devan Fink on Winker
Link to Jeremy Frank tweet about Ohtani
Link to R.J. Anderson on Ohtani vs. Ohtani
Link to video of Ohtani facing himself in VR
Link to Buster Olney on MLB’s crackdown
Link to Ken Rosenthal on Joe West and MLB
Link to Bauer’s Players’ Tribune piece
Link to Bauer on morals
Link to Dylan Hernández on Bauer and the Dodgers
Link to Fabian Ardaya on Bauer and spin
Link to The Athletic on Spider Tack
Link to Ben on foreign substances
Link to SI on foreign substances
Link to Travis Sawchik on foreign substances

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Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and Sports Illustrated’s Emma Baccellieri banter about Ryan Yarbrough throwing a rare Rays complete game, then share their thoughts on the recent debate about media access in sports sparked by tennis star Naomi Osaka, touching on how access to athletes compares across sports, the dubious value of press conferences, athletes’ obligations and mental health, how media coverage can help players, reporters, and the public, the ongoing efforts to restore MLB clubhouse access, and whether it makes sense for baseball teams (and Joe Girardi) to dissemble and withhold information about tactics and player availability. Then they examine recent research that suggests that defensive positioning (but not the infield shift!) may be responsible for much of MLB’s offensive outage, and discuss Emma’s recent deep dives into newspaper archives to see what contemporary writers, players, and baseball officials said about the 1968 Year of the Pitcher and the 1917 spree of no-hitters, reflecting on the value of historical research, how baseball history (and coverage) repeats itself, how the 1968 discourse mirrored and differed from today’s, whether we’ve gotten better at diagnosing baseball’s problems, putting pitchers in holes, and much more.

Audio intro: The Rolling Stones, "Yesterday’s Papers"
Audio outro: Split Enz, "History Never Repeats"

Link to Joe Posnanski on Osaka
Link to Bryan Curtis on Osaka
Link to Curtis on NBA press conferences
Link to Ken Davidoff on Girardi
Link to Devan Fink on Harper
Link to Rob Arthur on defensive positioning
Link to Rob on fielders playing deeper
Link to Rob on outfield shifts
Link to Russell Carleton on four-man outfields
Link to study on optimizing outfield positioning
Link to story on Fowler in 2016
Link to story on Jones in 2017
Link to Emma on baseball dying
Link to story on the 1963 strike zone expansion
Link to Emma on 1968
Link to Rob Mains on 1968
Link to Emma on 1917

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about why “Zombie Runner,” not “Manfred Man,” remains their preferred term for the automatic runner, zombies in general, position player pitchers vs. pitcher hitters, the benefits of forfeits, the increasing rate of pitcher hitters not attempting to put the ball in play, MLB’s bad timing with NFTs, the minor league sticky substance crackdown, and the death of Mike Marshall and the chances of ever seeing another pitcher like him. Then (42:04) they talk to Ethan Singer, the creator of the @UmpScorecards Twitter account and UmpScorecards.com, about how and why he started tracking umpire accuracy, how his audience grew, why assessing umpire performance is complicated, how his methodology has evolved, accuracy vs. consistency, team-level umpiring metrics, fan anger at umps, what the robo zone could look like, his new-feature plans, and more.

Audio intro: Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, "Runner"
Audio interstitial: The Jazz Butcher, "Zombie Love"
Audio outro: Marbles, "Out of Zone"

Link to Bradley PA
Link to Walker PA
Link to data on pitchers not swinging
Link to story about the NFT bubble
Link to story about Gehrig NFT
Link to story about NFTs’ environmental impact
Link to story about minor league suspensions
Link to Joel Sherman on foreign substances
Link to Passan on Marshall
Link to Russell Carleton on pitching roles
Link to Umpire Scorecards on Twitter
Link to Umpire Scorecards website
Link to Ethan’s website

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Luis Urías, the zombie runner, and walk-off wins, a few other aspects of the Will Craig/Javier Báez play, a new stat called the “Boner,” MLB and NFTs, Theo Epstein’s recent comments about making changes to the game, Shohei Ohtani’s player-page traffic and the future of two-way players, the Rays and Rich Hill, how the aftermath of the spitball ban relates to the future of foreign substance use, the definition of a “generational talent,” whether to credit teams or players for positioning, and whether MLB should ban in-game analytics use (and coaching visits), plus a Stat Blast about Trey Mancini and players who’ve accrued the highest-ever percentages of their teams’ runs and RBI.

Audio intro: The Replacements, "Gary’s Got a Boner"
Audio outro: David Newberry, "The Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth"

Link to Brewers walk-off game story
Link to Craig’s comment about his boner
Link to Dan in Milwaukee’s field diagram
Link to story about Gehrig NFT
Link to story about Topps NFTs
Link to story about NFTs’ environmental impact
Link to Theo Epstein story
Link to Ben on Ohtani
Link to story about the spitball ban
Link to Pages from Baseball’s Past
Link to Servais “generational player” quote
Link to Tango on sports generations
Link to story about Joe West confiscating card
Link to “lasers in the outfield” story
Link to Stat Blast “Contribution Rate” data
Link to Ben Clemens on Lindor
Link to All-Star Game lawsuit story
Link to second All-Star Game lawsuit story
Link to listener David Newberry’s album

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Javier Báez and Will Craig combining on a baffling blooper, a naked streaker seizing the moment during a rain delay at Nationals Park, Cardinals manager Mike Shildt’s objection to a foreign-substance inspection (and how MLB should respond), an update from New Era about its short-lived “Local Market” caps, and Francisco Lindor’s protracted season-starting slump, then answer listener emails about legalizing sticky stuff for bad teams and whether umps would improve if they didn’t rotate around the field.

Audio intro: Passenger, "The Wrong Direction"
Audio outro: Teenage Fanclub, "I Need Direction"

Link to video of Báez/Craig play
Link to GIF breakdown of Báez/Craig play
Link to Yakety Sax version of video
Link to 2012 Astros play
Link to Sam’s single-play breakdown
Link to video of streaker
Link to another video of streaker
Link to still image of streaker
Link to Shaker Samman on the streaker
Link to story about banning fans
Link to story about Shildt
Link to video of Shildt ejection
Link to video of Shildt’s comments
Link to The Athletic on foreign substances
Link to Ben on foreign substances
Link to Tony Adams Bauer video
Link to Patrick Dubuque on breaking the rules
Link to EW episode on foreign substances
Link to WaPo on the New Era caps
Link to Lindor’s Baseball Savant page
Link to Lindor’s worst 44-game stretches
Link to Deesha Thosar on Lindor
Link to Russell Carleton on changing positions

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Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and Baseball Prospectus editor-in-chief Craig Goldstein banter about cicadas, New Era’s short-lived “MLB Local Market” caps, the exploits of Adolis García, and Byron Buxton being too fast for his own good, then discuss Craig’s recent writing on how to fix what ails baseball, touching on what exactly the problem (if any) is, whether the offensive environment could correct itself, the best ways to reduce pitch speed and strikeouts, and much more, plus a real-time reaction to the conclusion of MLB’s investigation into Mickey Callaway.

Audio intro: The Apples in Stereo, "If You Want to Wear a Hat"
Audio outro: Tall Tall Trees, "Hats"

Link to The Athletic on the caps
Link to Royals’ response to caps
Link to post about the Grand Junction Chubs
Link to first bad fun fact
Link to second bad fun fact
Link to Jamey Newberg on Garcia
Link to Levi Weaver on Garcia
Link to Buxton tweet
Link to Craig and Patrick on restrictor plates
Link to Craig’s rules suggestions
Link to Russell Carleton on rules changes
Link to Rob Arthur on time between pitches
Link to THT on ascendant strikeouts
Link to BA on TTO at all levels
Link to article on pitch clock and injuries
Link to Hot Takedown episode on offense
Link to Ben on 2021 offense
Link to Petriello on pitcher strikeouts
Link to The Athletic on foreign substances
Link to Ben on foreign substances
Link to Five and Dive podcast
Link to story about baseball on ice

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