Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about beer and the mercy rule, a 12-minute game finish at Fenway, whether baseball players have high job satisfaction, compelling playoff races and especially lucky and unlucky contending teams, robot ump implications (including measuring player heights, determining the shape of the zone, and preserving receivers’ sense of self-worth), and the Angels’ unorthodox rotation and the future of pitching staffs and Shohei Ohtani.

Audio intro: The Beths, "Happy Unhappy"
Audio outro: Derek and the Dominos, "Tell the Truth"

Link to Freaks and Geeks beer scene
Link to happiness study
Link to cluster luck rankings
Link to USA Today Atlantic League article
Link to Baseball America Atlantic League article
Link to Baseball Prospectus Atlantic League article
Link to info on online dating and height
Link to study on sock height and the strike zone
Link to Ben on Kratz and catchers making noise
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout, and the most compelling playoff races remaining, introduce the new Effectively Wild listener email archive, then answer emails about whether a team in a three-team race suffers or benefits when its opponents play each other, whether home runs hit off of position players should be valued lower than others and whether an MLB mercy rule is a good idea, whether players should earn WAR for helping other players, whether fouling off a pitch down the middle can coincide with a good swing, and the most pitcher wins in a season against a single opponent in the divisional era, plus a Stat Blast about Shooty Babitt, Troy Neel, and the shortest careers by players who received Rookie of the Year votes.

Audio intro: The Walkmen, "Postcards From Tiny Islands"
Audio outro: Blondie, "Island of Lost Souls"

Link to Ben on letting Ohtani play two-way
Link to EW email archive
Link to Jay on position player pitching
Link to Sam on hitters facing position player pitchers
Link to Boone on the mercy rule
Link to Lucas on the mercy rule
Link to Rosenthal on Martinez
Link to story on Cleveland pitchers and Bauer
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller bring on White Sox play-by-play broadcaster Jason Benetti to banter about sharing the broadcast booth with Bill Walton, Mike Schur, and Mike O’Brien over the weekend and what the success of the experiment says about the future of broadcasting. Then Ben and Sam mull a one-of-a-kind dropped third strike on Scooter Gennett, MLB’s homer rate reaching an even higher level and the inflationary effect on fun facts, and what the ongoing MLB youth movement tells us about when Mike Trout will no longer be the best player in baseball.

Audio intro: Stephen Stills, "Change Partners"
Audio outro: Math and Physics Club, "Broadcasting Waves"

Link to article on Walton’s TV commentary
Link to GIF of Gennett play
Link to Baumann on Galvis in 2016
Link to Ben on the ball and the steroid era
Link to Ben on young hitters
Link to story on aging curves for phenoms
Link to story on offensive variance by era
Link to Ben on baseball’s caliber of play
Link to article about Kershaw being deposed as best pitcher
Link to article about Bellinger’s swing change
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about Bryce Harper’s clutchness and how he’s perceived by fans, Clayton Kershaw’s resurgence, and Mickey Callaway’s comments about analytics, then answer listener emails about the same player batting twice and playing two positions, whether Byron Buxton’s defense has hidden value, career WAR vs. career counting stats, whether players could call balls and strikes better than umpires, and the umpire replacement level in the age of computer-called strike zones, plus Stat Blasts about pitchers whom Mike Trout has faced only once and the Cubs’ extreme home/road split, and a postscript about the Angels’ historic .500-ness and how hitter aging curves have changed.

Audio intro: Courtney Barnett, "Crippling Self-Doubt and a General Lack of Confidence"
Audio outro: Dave Mason, "We Just Disagree"

Link to Sam on Harper
Link to Craig on Harper
Link to Ben Clemens on Kershaw
Link to Callaway’s comments
Link to story on the Metrodome’s ventilation system
Link to Chuck Klosterman basketball story
Link to player eyesight story
Link to Ben on young hitters
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about how Gleyber Torres’s ownership of the Orioles and Aristides Aquino’s home-run spree are emblematic of 2019, fun facts about players’ accomplishments in their first X games, home-run fun facts and the juiced ball, Juan Soto vs. Ronald Acuña, Jr., two recent Scott Boras quotes, the Dodgers’ near-record extra-base-hits game, and Jeff Mathis’s offensive ineptitude and defensive prowess, then discuss an ESPN oral history of the 1994 strike, touching on whether the sport would have survived the extensive use of replacement players, the change in media coverage of baseball labor issues, what the biggest loss would be if the rest of the 2019 season were canceled, and more.

Audio intro: Chance The Rapper, "Juice"
Audio outro: The Rock*A*Teens, "Pretty Thoughts Strike Down the Band"

Link to story on Torres and the Orioles
Link to Ben on breakout batters
Link to Jay Jaffe on Aquino
Link to C. Trent Rosecrans on Aquino’s swing change
Link to list of players with most batting runs through age 20
Link to Sam on Scioscia, Mathis, and Napoli
Link to Sam on Scioscia and defense again
Link to R.J. Anderson on Jeff Mathis’s game-calling
Link to worst offensive careers (min. 2500 PA)
Link to worst offensive single seasons (min. 200 PA)
Link to Tim Kurkjian’s oral history of the strike
Link to Ben on Lords of the Realm
Link to the book Baseball’s Power Shift
Link to Emma Baccellieri on players’ social media advocacy
Link to Evan Drellich’s oral history of the strike
Link to Bryan Curtis on the liberalization of sportswriting
Link to order The MVP Machine

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In the third episode of Effectively Wild recorded live at Saber Seminar in Boston, Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley talk to Boston Globe sportswriter Alex Speier, author of the new book Homegrown: How the Red Sox Built a Champion From the Ground Up, about Boston’s championship core, the twists and turns of player development, why clubhouse chemistry is so unpredictable, player development before big data, how scouting and player development machines break, the future importance of player development, what’s next for the Red Sox, and more.

Audio intro: Derek and the Dominoes, "Keep on Growing"
Audio outro: Jason Isbell, "Grown"

Link to Saber Seminar site
Link to Alex’s book
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Bo Bichette fun facts vs. Travis Demeritte fun facts, Javier Báez batting left-handed against a position player and why the shift appears to be exempt from unwritten rules, and umpire perfect games, then (30:46) talk to The Athletic’s New York Yankees beat writer Lindsey Adler about how to explain the team’s injury-riddled yet somehow ultra-successful season.

Audio intro: The Pretenders, "Almost Perfect"
Audio interstitial: James Brown, "I Refuse to Lose"
Audio outro: Bing Crosby, "Out of Nowhere"

Link to Bichette fun facts
Link to story on Báez batting lefty
Link to video of Báez batting lefty
Link to diagram of shift on Báez
Link to Sam on unwritten rules and the shift
Link to Ben on umpire perfect games
Link to story on compassionate umpires
Link to Jay Jaffe on the Yankees
Link to Mike Petriello on the Yankees
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about Mike Trout’s 28th birthday, the stats he’s led the league in, and the stats he still might lead the league in for the first time, the Mets’ recent hot streak and the way in which their season has been both tumultuous and predictable, Max Muncy and a cycle/walk-off triple attempt, and whether the basepaths should be wider, then answer listener emails about the best era in which to hit for the cycle, how teams should decide whether they’re out of contention, and baseball without timeouts, plus email-inspired Stat Blasts about whether it’s good to get a lot of walk-off wins and whether pitchers should swing away with the bases loaded and one out.

Audio intro: Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, "Forever 28"
Audio outro: The Breeders, "Walk it Off"

Link to Ben on Trout’s league leadership
Link to Sam on walk-off triples
Link to Phil Birnbaum on forecasting team wins
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about the non-running Royals and Terrance Gore, the Diamondbacks’ stolen-base success rate and Zack Godley’s disastrous season, the Phillies’ roster crunch, Sam’s recurring nightmare, a Roman Quinn fun fact, and the outfield exploits of Vince Velasquez, whether the 40-man roster should be bigger, what Velasquez has in common with EW legend Ned Garver, the trials and travails of baseball’s forgotten “bullpen jeep” and the sport’s perpetual efforts to shorten games, lying about Babe Ruth, a new nickname for combined no-hitters, the Astros debut of Aaron Sanchez and Houston’s continued way with pitchers, plus a postscript tribute to the late, great unknown comic, Ted Berkelmann.

Audio intro: T. Rex, "Jeepster"
Audio outro: John Entwistle, "Ted End"

Link to post on Gore’s 2019 baserunning misadventures
Link to post on Arizona’s success rate
Link to story on the Phillies’ wild Friday
Link to video of Velasquez’s 14th-inning play
Link to video of Velasquez’s 15th-inning plays
Link to Schifman on the rise of MLB’s minimum earners
Link to Schifman on roster rules and player churn
Link to photo of Garver throw
Link to bullpen jeep photo album
Link to Axisa on Sanchez’s pitch usage
Link to FanGraphs post on Sanchez’s pitch usage
Link to Travis on the Astros and spin
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about FanGraphs’ completist coverage of the frantic trade deadline, the backlash to a perceived lack of activity at the deadline and whether the deadline was really a manifestation of baseball’s structural problems, the appropriate balance between trying to win now and trying to win later, what we can learn from the Chris Archer trade one year later, the significance of the suspensions for the Reds’ and Pirates’ bad brawling behavior, the Hall of Famers Mike Trout passed in July, Bobby Wallace and another reminder that baseball is a wonder of human ingenuity, Jeff McNeil’s netting-assisted snag, a vintage Zack Greinke story, and more.

Audio intro: Belle and Sebastian, "Dirty Dream Number Two"
Audio outro: Robyn Hitchcock, "The Man Who Invented Himself"

Link to FanGraphs trade deadline coverage
Link to Ben Clemens on trade deadline activity
Link to Ken Rosenthal on the deadline
Link to Marc Carig on the deadline
Link to Ben on the Greinke trade
Link to Ben on revisiting the Archer trade
Link to Sam on the Hall of Famers Trout passed in July
Link to Pirates-Reds brawl suspensions
Link to Eno on purpose pitches
Link to article about McNeil’s net catch
Link to Rob Arthur on ejections
Link to order The MVP Machine

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