Effectively Wild Episode 2409: Hindsight is 2025

by
December 3, 2025

EWFI
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the John Brebbia and Devin Williams signings (in that order, obviously), share a few follow-ups, and (31:33) assess whether each team satisfied its season preview guest’s conditions for a successful year. Then (58:18) they answer emails about the origins of the concept of the “opposite field,” the meaning of the word “whiff,” how to refer to offseasons, whether umpires practice throwing, how much stock to place in regular-season wins without an accompanying championship, and two takes on the challenge system.

Audio intro: The Spaghettis, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Beatwriter, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to MLBTR on Brebbia
Link to Brebbia on EW
Link to minor league FA
Link to FG post on Williams
Link to present-value calc
Link to Petriello on Williams
Link to biggest 2025 ERA-FIP gaps
Link to contracts draft
Link to team SP projections
Link to Canadian currency details
Link to Metrodome demolition
Link to preseason team goals
Link to Dickson on “corner”
Link to Dickson on “opposite field”
Link to Dickson on “whiff”
Link to FG top 50 FA
Link to team wins since 2000
Link to Andrews on ABS and catchers
Link to Tango on ABS and catchers
Link to listener emails database
Link to MLBTR on Manoah
Link to MLBTR on Ponce
Link to Patreon gift subs
Link to Secret Santa sign-up

 Sponsor Us on Patreon
 Give a Gift Subscription
 Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com
 Effectively Wild Subreddit
 Effectively Wild Wiki
 Apple Podcasts Feed 
 Spotify Feed
 YouTube Playlist
 Facebook Group
 Bluesky Account
 Twitter Account
 Get Our Merch!

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.




 

0 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments