Effectively Wild Episode 1705: Spit Takes

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about another prescient player prediction (this time involving the Phillies’ Luke Williams), Nick Madrigal’s hamstring injury, another aspect of the baseball scene in A Quiet Place Part II, and a few observations about the foreign-substance scandal, including teams’ culpability, how the perception of sticky stuff use may mirror the perception of the PED era, Pete Alonso’s conspiracy theory about MLB manipulating the baseball, and how the evolution of sticky stuff mirrors the evolution of the spitball. Then they answer listener emails about the underperforming Yankees offense, outs on the bases, and WAR for base coaches, whether MLB needs new names for positions, the “father-son” rule in Australian Rules Football, how vaccination status might affect player trade value, seven-inning-game gamesmanship, and John Gant and regression. Audio intro: Pavement, "Spit on a Stranger" Audio outro: The Rentals, "Conspiracy" Link to FanGraphs newsletter Link to story about the Williams walk-off Link to James Fegan on Madrigal Link to video about baseball movies Link to Brittany Ghiroli on team/MLB culpability Link to Devan Fink on spin and performance Link to Ben on offense in the steroid era Link to Alonso comments Link to history of spitballs Link to Pages from Baseball’s Past Link to Cluster Luck leaderboard Link to wOBA-xwOBA leaderboard Link to 2021 team RISP splits Link to B-Ref outs on the bases leaderboard Link to Russell Carleton on third-base coaches Link to Ben on positions and the shift Link to cricket positions graphic  iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)  Sponsor Us on Patreon  Facebook Group  Effectively Wild Wiki  Twitter Account  Get Our Merch!  Email Us: [email protected] var SERVER_DATA = Object.assign(SERVER_DATA || {}); Source