Effectively Wild Episode 1864: One Giant Leap

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a broadcaster relatably mixing up Taylor Ward and Tyler Wade, the Dodgers “fixing” former Rockies pitcher Yency Almonte, a deep, perplexing rabbit hole (7:46) of baseball-themed CarShield commercials, the bat spike as the new bat flip, an umpire’s close call with a broken-bat shard, and the building backlash against position-player pitchers. After that (39:13), they welcome back former major leaguer and current Giants director of video coaching Fernando Perez to talk about how he got his gig with the Giants, what a video coach does, the advantages of the Giants’ giant coaching staff, the disintegrating distinctions between front office and field, the player-development variation among teams, how the Giants beat preseason projections by a record margin in 2021, the upsides and downsides of being in a difficult division, some veterans the Giants’ development philosophies have helped improve (including Brandon Belt and Brandon Crawford), how coaching and player dev have evolved since his playing days, the next player-dev frontiers, the Giants’ anti-unwritten-rules approach, and how new technology and information have affected the pitcher-batter balance, plus detours into Joe Maddon’s mohawk, trick plays he wants to see, and the Joc Pederson–Tommy Pham fantasy-football dispute. Then (1:43:18) Ben ends with a Past Blast from 1864, a fun fact, and a few followups.

Audio intro: Small Faces, “Things Are Going to Get Better”
Audio interstitial: Ry Cooder, “Fernando Sez”
Audio outro: Isotopes, “Infield Fly”

Link to Petriello’s Almonte tweet
Link to Cameron Grove on Almonte
Link to Nick Groke on Almonte
Link to CarShield MLB ad playlist
Link to other CarShield ad playlists
Link to Vierling article
Link to Vierling homer off Hader
Link to CarShield Collegiate League wiki
Link to CarShield Field wiki
Link to Stubbs bat spike video
Link to Stubbs EW episode
Link to umpire bat-shard photo
Link to umpire bat-shard article
Link to umpire bat-shard video
Link to Nightengale tweet about Hinch
Link to Jay Jaffe on the Tigers
Link to McCarthy position-player P tweet
Link to live EW episode with Fernando
Link to Rob Mains on PECOTA and the Giants
Link to 2008 Rays mohawk story
Link to 2020 story on the Dodgers’ player dev
Link to story on the Giants’ new training facility
Link to 2020 story on the Giants’ coaching staff
Link to 2022 story on the Giants’ coaching staff
Link to Tim Kurkjian on bad baserunning
Link to Kapler’s unwritten-rules comments
Link to MLB.com on the Giants’ rewritten rules
Link to Ben Clemens on the Giants’ bunting
Link to Yaz deke video
Link to story about the outfield deke
Link to Coghlan leap video
Link to Susan Slusser on the Giants’ t-shirts
Link to Tom Ley on the Giants’ t-shirts
Link to 2019 Pham interview video
Link to latest Pham comments
Link to Richard Hershberger’s Strike Four
Link to Richard on the infield fly rule
Link to story on Houston’s immaculate innings
Link to video of the immaculate innings
Link to Sarah Langs’ immaculate-innings tweet
Link to list of three-pitch-strikeout streaks
Link to Clemens on three-pitch strikeouts
Link to 2016 Albies injury video
Link to Jayson Stark on second base’s location
Link to hyper-punny ad

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