Effectively Wild Episode 2004: House of Cards

Ben Lindbergh talks to Will Leitch about the Cardinals’ horrendous start, their baffling decision to bar big free-agent addition Willson Contreras from catching, how Yadier Molina’s legacy looms over the franchise, how Oli Marmol and John Mozeliak have handled the team’s struggles, how the rest of the season might go, and more, along with the Effectively Wild connection in Will’s new novel, The Time Has Come. Then (54:51) Ben talks to David Hrusovsky about wearing a SpongeBob costume to Guardians games and David’s ongoing effort to map every high school baseball field in the country and document the weirdest ones. After that (1:19:58), Ben brings on frequent Stat Blast consultant Ryan Nelson to deliver several Stat Blasts, followed by (1:51:35) a Past Blast from 2004 and a few follow-ups. Audio intro: Alex Ferrin, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio interstitial: Dave Armstrong and Mike Murray, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Tom Rhoads, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to Katie Woo on Contreras Link to Katie on Contreras again Link to Rosenthal on Contreras Link to playoff odds changes Link to Marmol-Bucknor feud Link to Marmol on Contreras Link to Marmol on booing Link to more Marmol on booing Link to Posnanski on Marmol Link to Jay Jaffe on the Cardinals Link to Will’s Cardinals podcast Link to Will’s newsletter Link to The Time Has Come Link to EW wiki on weird fields Link to David/SpongeBob video Link to David/SpongeBob article Link to Gonzalez/SpongeBob article Link to David’s HS fields site Link to weird field % by state Link to Uni Watch on David Link to MLB field sizes Link to ballpark homogenization info Link to Topps NOW cards Link to Ryan’s first EW episode Link to EW guest data Link to Stat Blast results/data Link to Santander Reddit thread Link to Russell on fouls Link to 2004 Past Blast source Link to David Lewis’s Twitter Link to David Lewis’s Substack Link to Royals Pasquatch ad Link to Pasquatch footage Link to MLBTR on Greiner Link to tall-catchers EW episode Link to Anton’s MLB birthday data Link to relative age effect wiki Link to article on MLB RAE Link to Shane on M’s broadcast  Sponsor Us on Patreon  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