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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Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter anew about José Abreu’s perplexing RBI total, then predict and discuss the answers in the sequel to “the Crasnicks,” a survey of front-office executives on hot-button offseason questions conducted by ESPN’s Jesse Rogers. Along the way, they touch on the four-player Padres-Brewers trade involving Luis Urías and Trent Grisham, the Orioles placing Jonathan Villar on outright waivers, the definition of a “splash,” and more, plus post-discussion banter on the baseball as an object to hold in one’s hand and Ichiro Suzuki as a post-retirement two-way player, and a remembrance of the late Seymour Siwoff.

Audio intro: Courtney Barnett, "Anonymous Club"
Audio outro: Sleater-Kinney, "Anonymous"

Link to Rogers survey
Link to last Crasnick hot stove survey
Link to Sam’s first analysis of Crasnick survey responses
Link to Sam’s second analysis of Crasnick survey responses
Link to FanGraphs breakdown of Padres-Brewers trade
Link to Ichiro story
Link to The Numbers Game
Link to Siwoff obituary
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the artifacts from the 2019 season that will be preserved by the Hall of Fame, and then (32:25) Ben talks to FanGraphs’ Jay Jaffe about the 2020 Hall of Fame induction cycle, including the shrinking of the ballot backlog, first-timers Derek Jeter and Bobby Abreu, whether Jeter will be elected unanimously, Larry Walker’s chances in his last year of eligibility, which other holdovers on the ballot may benefit from the weak crop of debuts, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, relievers vs. position players, the most compelling candidates on the Modern Baseball ballot, Marvin Miller, the Harold Baines effect, catcher framing and the Hall of Fame, and Paul Konerko and reputation vs. WAR.

Audio intro: Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, "Keepsake"
Audio interstitial: The Only Ones, "The Immortal Story"
Audio outro: Rudi Richardson, "Fool’s Hall of Fame"

Link to list of 2019 World Series artifacts
Link to list of 2018 artifacts
Link to image of Kendrick’s Game 7 home run ball
Link to Hall of Fame ballot tracker
Link to intro to Jay’s 2020 ballot breakdowns
Link to intro to Jay’s Modern Baseball ballot breakdowns
Link to Jay on Walker
Link to Matt Trueblood on Walker’s context as a candidate
Link to Trueblood on Walker’s other home park
Link to Trueblood on Walker’s unfortunate timing
Link to Jay on Miller
Link to Ben on catcher framing and the Hall of Fame
Link to Ben on the ever-changing nature of WAR
Link to Zach Kram on recent voting trends
Link to Passan on Bonds and Clemens
Link to Ben on Baines
Link to story on the music lost in the 2008 Universal Studios fire
Link to order The Cooperstown Casebook
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about Charlie Finley’s dual “innovations,” Harvey and Little Blowhard, then answer listener emails about Chris Davis and why some veteran players may be unwilling to change, whether Gerrit Cole could regress away from Houston, the purpose of punishing the Astros for sign-stealing and how many years of draft picks a team would give up in exchange for a championship, and whether baseball players will ever take in-season vacations, plus Stat Blasts about players with more hit by pitches than walks and the Mariners’ record lack of intentional walks drawn.

Audio intro: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Blow Hard"
Audio outro: The Microphones, "I Want Wind to Blow"

Link to SI article on Charlie Finley
Link to article about Finley’s orange baseballs
Link to image of Finley’s K.C. Pennant Porch
Link to early 2019 article about Davis
Link to late 2019 article about Davis
Link to 2018 article about Trumbo
Link to order The MVP Machine

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