Empty stadiums, waiting for players to wake up, waiting for plays ball to come back.

A cup of coffee by my side, I'm ready for the RBL to come alive.

This yes does be good, but the seasons are better. I'm born in for Parker. He's not dead. Whatever.

Here's a solo. Hello and welcome to episode 1663 of Effectively Wild, a

Fangraft Space Ball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raleigh

and I am joined as always by Ben Limberger of the Ringer. Ben, how are you? I'm doing well. How are you?

Did you read Ryan Divish's story about Justin Dunn? No, I have not had a chance yet.

Well, Justin Dunn, he has checked every box on the spring training storyline Bingo card, which is pretty much how Ryan put it.

So Ryan made fun of himself for writing this story, so I am not punching down or anything here.

This story has everything that you could want for a player who comes into spring and says that he's gotten better in some way.

So best shape of his life, you've got different diet, different workout plan, increased velocity, different pitch grip.

I will just read some of the highlights here. So he says arguably the best shape I've ever been in my life.

I've made a lot of life changes, nutritionally putting more of an emphasis on that and getting my body right. I learned some really interesting things about my body over the

offseason. He dropped about 10 pounds, but also reapportioned the weight on his body.

So he has reduced his fat level around the legs and core area and replaced it with lean muscle.

Love when we get really specific about like where the fat was or is and where the lean muscle is now.

So there's that. Let's see. He got back in the gym. He started moving weights. He got faster. He got stronger. He got some athleticism back.

And he was apparently challenged to improve in various ways by Scott's service to photo people with the mariners.

And so he's answered the challenge in every possible way that he could. Then there's the nutrition.

He underwent some testing under the founder of precision food works and macro human, whatever that is. And done says I learned a couple of small things.

There was an amino acid. I was lacking in my body for burst energy production. I wasn't able to be as fast twitch or explode down the mound as fast as I wanted to be.

He found out that he's allergic to cheese and eggs. So you have to stop eating pizza. He's a New Yorker. So that's tough to give up pizza. But he did it for baseball as a result.

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