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  Sponsor Us on Patreon Subscribe to Stathead (Code: WILD20)  Facebook Group  Twitter Account  EW Subreddit  Effectively Wild Wiki  iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)  Get Our Merch!  Email Us: [email protected] var SERVER_DATA = Object.assign(SERVER_DATA || {}); Source