Effectively Wild Episode 2418: The Challenge System Challenge

by
December 23, 2025

EWFI
Ben Lindbergh, Craig Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus, and Joe Sheehan of The Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter break down teams’ last-minute Christmas shopping—including the White Sox signing Munetaka Murakami, the Padres signing Michael King and Sung Mun Song, the Orioles trading for Shane Baz, the Red Sox trading for Willson Contreras, a three-team trade involving the Pirates, Rays, and Astros, Jeff McNeil and Matt Strahm swaps, and the Yankees’ hibernation—plus banter about the quasi-retirement of Craig’s nemesis, Joe Kelly, the future of NPB, a report about Emmanuel Clase’s mid-game phone use, and supporting independent media. Then (1:11:40) they conduct an in-depth debate about the respective merits of human umpiring, the challenge system, and full ABS.

Audio intro: Harold Walker, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Tom Rhoads, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Kelly’s podcast
Link to Dubuque on the challenge system
Link to Craig on the challenge system
Link to Joe on the challenge system
Link to previous podcast discussion
Link to Seitz decision wiki
Link to Joe on the Seitz decision
Link to Baumann on Murakami
Link to Rosenblum on Murakami
Link to Longenhagen on Murakami
Link to Craig on Murakami
Link to Sarris on Murakami
Link to Ben on Murakami in 2022
Link to Sato story
Link to FG post on King
Link to FG post on Song
Link to FG post on Baz
Link to Craig on Baz
Link to team SP projections
Link to Joe on three-team trade
Link to FG post on three-team trade
Link to FG post on Contreras
Link to FG post on Strahm
Link to Strahm’s beer stance
Link to Bowlan info
Link to FG post on McNeil
Link to Lindor/McNeil drama
Link to Clase report
Link to Craig on the K-Zone
Link to Tango on challenge tactics
Link to Five and Dive
Link to subscribe to BP
Link to subscribe to Joe
Link to MLBTR on O’Hearn
Link to Posnanski MVP post
Link to A’s ballpark update
Link to Rian Johnson post

 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