Effectively Wild Episode 1972: The Prospects for the Prospects

February 22, 2023

EWFI
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Prospect Week at FanGraphs, a misleading email, and Ben’s daughter’s cold, then discuss Alex Rodriguez as a budding book author, social-media maven, and flawed (anti)hero (9:19), non-revelatory news about Shohei Ohtani’s future (24:07), a secret Mets spring training drill (32:07), and Ben’s reviews of two baseball books that were recently under consideration to be banned in Duval County, Florida (46:07). After that (1:10:59), they bring on FanGraphs lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen to discuss the site’s ranking of the Top 100 (well, 112) prospects in baseball, touching on the relative thinness of the top of the class, evaluating injured pitchers (including Daniel Espino), prospects who could make impacts in 2023 (such as Eury Pérez and Andrew Painter), Gunnar Henderson vs. Corbin Carroll, fast-rising prospects, players Eric is higher on than the consensus, how rule changes affect prospect rankings, notable farm systems, the most interesting prospects to evaluate, and Noah Song joining the Phillies, followed by a Past Blast from 1972 (2:04:31).

Audio intro: The Plimsouls, “Dangerous Book”
Audio interstitial: The Notorious B.I.G. (Feat. 112), “Sky’s the Limit”
Audio outro: Billy Joel, “Zanzibar”

Link to Phoenix population story
Link to U.S. media market ranking
Link to A-Rod’s “book” image
Link to A-Rod’s bubble-bath image
Link to A-Rod’s mirror kiss
Link to ESPN’s Ohtani story
Link to Evan’s Mets tweet
Link to Eagles push play
Link to article on banning the play
Link to Woodward on the Mets drill
Link to Mets spring WS celebration
Link to info on Henry Aaron’s Dream
Link to buy Henry Aaron’s Dream
Link to story of Aaron’s spring debut
Link to Tavares on the book’s language
Link to Roberto Clemente on Goodreads
Link to Thank You, Jackie Robinson
Link to Clemente’s debut game
Link to Clemente’s 3000th hit
Link to 2022 story about possible bans
Link to story about book removal
Link to Duval County on law compliance
Link to Jacksonville Today on Duval
Link to Steven Goldman on hiding history
Link to story about books under review
Link to thread about books under review
Link to Tavares’s Twitter reply
Link to PredictIt Presidential odds
Link to Stop WOKE Act Wiki
Link to The Guardian on the act
Link to The Guardian on act injunctions
Link to The Guardian on book bans
Link to WaPo on book bans
Link to NYT on book bans
Link to CBS poll on book bans
Link to Jemele Hill tweet @MLB
Link to story about book approval
Link to Duval County response
Link to FG’s Top 100 list
Link to Top 100 chat
Link to Ben on 2023 prospect debuts
Link to Ben on pitching prospects
Link to MLBTR on Espino’s injury
Link to Baumann on the “Rolen Zone”
Link to ESPN on Song
Link to 1972 story source
Link to The Boys of Summer
Link to David Lewis’s Twitter
Link to David Lewis’s Substack
Link to Topkin on Manfred’s comment
Link to Rob Mains on PPP