Ben Lindbergh, Sam Miller, and Meg Rowley discuss the signings of Hyun-Jin Ryu and Dallas Keuchel, the Blue Jays’ historic 2019 rotation, the depleted pitching market, MLB’s rising revenue and the continued strength of spending on free agents, Jake Odorizzi and the qualifying offer, Nick Senzel’s switch to Scott Boras, and Rich Hill’s arrest(!), then conduct the seventh annual Effectively Wild Minor League Free Agent Draft, selecting 10 minor league free agents each and competing to see whose roster will accumulate the most combined MLB playing time in 2020.

Audio intro: Chance The Rapper, "Get a Bag"
Audio outro: Paul Weller, "Bag Man"

Link to list of minor league free agents
Link to Weems duck photo
Link to EW competitions and drafts tracker
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about whether this year’s good free agents have actually gone to an unusual selection of teams and whether they believe in Wade Miley’s supposed pitch-tipping, and then, in the third and final installment of a three-part series, discuss stories that they overlooked about 10 more teams in 2019, touching on the Mariners’ many players (especially Kyle Lewis), the .300-hitting Hanser Alberto, Danny Santana’s resurgence, the joy of Ji-Man Choi, career years for Eduardo Rodriguez and Christian Vázquez, Ian Kennedy as a relief ace and Danny Duffy’s experience with anxiety and depression, Spencer Turnbull’s record and the conversion of Nick Ramirez, Mitch Garver and Luis Arraez, Eloy Jiménez’s vengeance, the Yankees’ home series and CC Sabathia as Yoda, and other players, fun facts, and statistical oddities that deserve longer looks.

Audio intro: Earlimart, "Nothing is True"
Audio outro: The Smiths, "Hand in Glove"

Link to Ben Clemens on free agents
Link to Rosenthal on Miley’s pitch-tipping
Link to Lookout Landing on Lewis
Link to Ben Clemens on the joy of Choi
Link to Duffy story
Link to story on Garver’s makeover
Link to Arraez origin story
Link to story on Arraez plate appearance
Link to story on Sabathi-Yoda
Link to story on Pedro-da
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about Scott Boras’s mystifying goose metaphor and then, in the second installment of a three-part series, discuss stories that they overlooked about 10 more teams in 2019, touching on a Fernando Tatis Jr. fun fact and BABIP extremes, Ian Kinsler cursing, JD Hammer, Scott Kingery, and a Phillie Phanatic dispute, Mitch Keller and another kind of extreme BABIP, the Reds’ first-inning scoring, their double double-header, and Derek Dietrich, Tim Melville, Matt Harvey, Cy Sneed and Cy stats, Mark Canha, Matt Shoemaker, Jordan Luplow and James Karinchak, and other players, fun facts, and statistical oddities that deserve a longer look.

Audio intro: Parliament, "The Goose"
Audio outro: John Lennon, "I Found Out"

Link to Andy’s Boras article
Link to Kinsler cursing video
Link to Kinsler cursing comments
Link to Phanatic story
Link to pitcher BABIP leaderboard
Link to doubleheaders story
Link to Melville story
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about the Texas-Cleveland Corey Kluber trade, the Diamondbacks signing Madison Bumgarner, the fallout from both moves, and what Kluber and Bumgarner meant to their franchises, and then, in the first installment of a three-part series, discuss stories that they overlooked about 10 teams in 2019, touching on Mike Soroka, Corbin Burnes, Tommy Edman, Dillon Maples and Robel Garcia, Edwin Ríos and Kyle Garlick, Christian Walker, Mike Yastrzemski, Don Mattingly, Dominic Smith, Aaron Barrett, and other players, fun facts, and statistical oddities that deserve a longer look.

Audio intro: Harry Chapin, "Corey’s Coming"
Audio outro: Jerry Lee Lewis, "I’ll Make it All Up to You"

Link to Ben Clemens post on Clase
Link to Bill James article about ground-ball pitchers’ longevity
Link to Ben on the Braves’ rebuild
Link to Donnie Kwak on Edman
Link to story on Garcia
Link to story on Smith and sleep apnea
Link to article about Barrett
Link to Barrett GIF
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about baseball’s busy week and the Giants and Marlins moving in their outfield fences, then discuss the Angels’ signing of Anthony Rendon, touching on Rendon’s greatness and similarity to Mike Trout, what the Angels still need to do to contend and their outlook for 2020, Shohei Ohtani’s probable workload, the Dodgers’ relatively uneventful week, what this week’s activity tells us about baseball’s free-agent market, how to talk about opportunity cost with free agents, and more. Then they answer one listener email about why more players don’t sign with Scott Boras and another that inspired a Stat Blast about baseball’s most similar players, and finish with brief banter about the Rays signing Yoshitomo Tsutsugo and the Yankees bringing back Brett Gardner.

Audio intro: Belle and Sebastian, "Lord Anthony"
Audio outro: David Bowie, "New Angels of Promise"

Link to article on the homogenization of ballparks
Link to Grant on home runs and San Francisco
Link to Grant on the Giants’ quest for a 20-homer hitter
Link to FanGraphs’ home run park factors
Link to Neil Paine on Rendon as Trout’s best teammate
Link to Ben Clemens on the Rendon signing
Link to Tony Wolfe on the Angels’ pitching needs
Link to Phil Birnbaum on not being stupid
Link to info on similarity scores
Link to Thornton/Mayberry comparison
Link to data on most similar players
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller debate the merits of a possible Mike Trout fun fact, banter about Nomar Mazara and the evolving definition of “slugger,” discuss the record Gerrit Cole contract and its implications for the Yankees, the battle to be the best team in baseball, the Dodgers and Angels without Cole, baseball’s competitive balance, Scott Boras, the perplexing free-agent market, and more. Then they review the last 16 of Bill James’s 30 recent suggestions for counteracting baseball’s slowing pace of play and rising strikeout and home-run rates, and Ben talks to Rob Arthur of Baseball Prospectus (1:32:33) about the findings of MLB’s latest study on the baseball’s behavior, the causes of the record homer rate, and the future of offense.

Audio intro: Jale, "Nine Years Now"
Audio interstitial: The Apples in Stereo, "Same Old Drag"
Audio outro: Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, "Tearing at the Seams"

Link to Beyond the Box Score draft post
Link to Ben on Cole implications
Link to David Schoenfield on the highest-paid pitchers
Link to Travis on foul balls
Link to ESPN story about the ball
Link to Rob’s story about the ball
Link to Bill James Handbook 2020
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley link up during the Winter Meetings for a brief bonus episode in which Meg tries to stump Ben about genuine and fake media-scrum statements supposedly made by baseball superagent Scott Boras.

Audio intro: Yo La Tengo, "If it’s True"
Audio outro: Jethro Tull, "Sparrow on the Schoolyard Wall"

Link to photo of Boras scrum
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller follow up on (o)possums playing dead, discuss the Nationals signing Stephen Strasburg to a record contract for a pitcher and the implications for the Nationals, Scott Boras, Anthony Rendon, and Gerrit Cole, banter about the possibility of Shohei Ohtani hitting on the days he pitches, the elections of Marvin Miller and Ted Simmons to the Hall of Fame, MLB moving the amateur draft site to Omaha, and the end of marijuana testing for minor leaguers, then review the first 14 of Bill James’s 30 recent suggestions for counteracting baseball’s slowing pace of play and rising strikeout and home run rates.

Audio intro: Grateful Dead, "St. Stephen"
Audio outro: The Apples in Stereo, "Stephen Stephen"

Link to opossum post
Link to Ben on the Strasburg signing
Link to Jeff on Bruce Chen
Link to Bill James Handbook 2020
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about covering transactions past and present, the latest eye-catching comments by Scott Boras, the Tommy Pham trade and Blake Snell’s candid real-time reaction to it, and what the busy signing season so far augurs for the future of free agency and labor relations, then answer listener emails about players with more times caught stealing than strikeouts and team TV networks airing classic losses, with additional discussion of the weird and wonderful Nick Madrigal, the forecast for a fun White Sox team in 2020, an increasingly intriguing crop of two-way players, and the evolving look of baseball broadcasts.

Audio intro: The Move, "Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited"
Audio outro: XTC, "Harvest Festival"

Link to Boras story
Link to Boras Corporation website
Link to Snell story
Link to Ben Clemens on the Pham trade
Link to Ben on free agency
Link to Jen Ramos fundraiser
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller discuss a crowdsourced effort to help baseball writer Jen Ramos, then banter about hot stove terminology and why free-agent activity seems to be picking up, analyzing the implications of a busy non-tender deadline day and the expectations-exceeding signings of Drew Pomeranz, Mike Moustakas, Cole Hamels, Zack Wheeler, José Abreu, and others, as well as changes in how teams evaluate players and the benefits of playing possum. Then they answer listener emails about an ownership spending conspiracy and how good Mike Trout would be if baseball were the world’s only sport, plus a Stat Blast about the Mets’ extreme 9th-inning woes and an observation about Dylan Bundy and Jurickson Profar.

Audio intro: The Hold Steady, "The Stove & the Toaster"
Audio outro: The Mountain Goats, "Whole Wide World"

Link to Jen Ramos fundraiser
Link to Ben Clemens on Wheeler
Link to Dan Szymborski on the Wheeler signing
Link to Craig Edwards on the Moustakas signing
Link to Ginny Searle on the Moustakas signing and the free-agent market
Link to Edwards on non-tender takeaways
Link to Edwards on the state of team payrolls
Link to Tyler Kepner on free agency
Link to order The MVP Machine

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