Effectively Wild Episode 2248: Target Acquired

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about how much Shohei Ohtani’s teammates helped him win his third MVP award, his incredible four-season stretch, whether Dekopin/Decoy is really his dog, the other MVP and Cy Young results, a Joey Meneses signing, Austin Slater and the virtues of being a team’s “top target,” the Rays’ confounding stadium strategy, the varying pronunciations of “envelope,” a listener question about RSN ownership, the seventh annual Effectively Wild Secret Santa, and more, plus a postscript Stat Blast (1:15:40) about players whose whole MLB careers were confined to “non-MLB” ballparks. Audio intro: The Shirey Brothers, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio outro: Grant Brisbee, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to Ohtani interview Link to Ohtani quote Link to preseason projections Link to Episode 2140 Link to Dekopin clip Link to MLB.com on Ohtani Link to AL MVP voting Link to NL MVP voting Link to AL Cy voting Link to NL Cy voting Link to MLBTR on Meneses Link to Sox Machine on Slater Link to Rays letter story Link to DRaysBay on funding 1 Link to DRaysBay on funding 2 Link to Calcaterra on the Rays Link to Manfred on the Rays Link to Joe on the RSN era Link to Rangers RSN story Link to ROOT schedule Link to Ben Zimmer’s website Link to Ben on Wolfe Link to first pronunciation Link to second pronunciation Link to summer sausage episode Link to Secret Santa sign-up form Link to listener emails database Link to 2020-only players Link to Ryan Nelson’s Twitter Link to Andrew Lowden’s cover Link to “The Good in Everyone” Link to Stat Blast parks list Link to Stat Blast players list Link to Reddit comment  Sponsor Us on Patreon  Email Us: [email protected]  EW Subreddit  Effectively Wild Wiki  iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)  Spotify Feed  Facebook Group  Twitter Account  Bluesky Account  Get Our Merch! var SERVER_DATA = Object.assign(SERVER_DATA || {}); Source