Effectively Wild Episode 1327: Marginal Wince

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about good and bad news for much-traveled pitcher Oliver Drake, the Dodgers’ signing of A.J. Pollock and the team’s perplexing offseason plan and lack of NL West competition, the Cubs’ signing of Brad Brach, and a report about the 10-day DL and the rules about optioning players to the minors, then (21:35) talk to Field of Schemes author Neil deMause about the financial calculus behind why teams aren’t spending more on player payroll, how the game got here and what the union can do, the rationale for rooting for a team despite subpar ownership, whether any progress has been made in educating the public about funding stadiums for sports teams, and more.
Audio intro: The Decemberists, "January Hymn"
Audio interstitial: Supergrass, "In it for the Money"
Audio outro: Old Sea Brigade, "Western Eyes"
Link to Jeff’s Pollock post
Link to Ringer article about the Dodgers’ offseason
Link to AP article about DL and option time
Link to Neil’s article
Link to preorder The MVP Machine
iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)
Sponsor Us on Patreon
Facebook Group
Effectively Wild Wiki
Twitter Account
Get Our Merch!
Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com
Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
if the yankees spend more of their revenue on baseball competitiveness, something tells me other owners would not have agreed to the new revenue sharing structure that allowed them to keep more money.
Good for having an interview with someone who has economics expertise in this subject. deMause actually pushed back on many of the narratives seen here at fangraphs, and at SI, nbcsports, et al, and increasingly heard on the podcast.
It was especially nice to see someone with expertise after that trainwreck interview with the team-boycotting, owner-hating SD fan. Good grief. It was just an exercise in knocking down straw men. He didn’t analyze the Tribune article from a finance/business/economics point of view; he assessed its PR value based on his own (strong) biases and “Padres twitter.” That was worthless (except as catharsis for his own issues). I can only assume Acee himself wasn’t available; his views on the article would have interesting.