First day of May,

Bings are beginning.

Our side is winged.

Hit the red.

Bid in the shade.

Hello and welcome to episode 1688 of Effectively Wild, a fan-graphed baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters.

I'm Meg Raleigh of Fan Graphs and I am joined as always by Ben Limberg of the Ringer.

Ben, how are you?

We're going to do some emails today and we'll be joined by a guest for that segment.

But a few bits of banter before we get there.

Do you see Shane McClellan's regular season debut for the raise on Thursday?

I did not. I missed it.

Yeah, well he was pretty impressive and we don't have to do a major leaker segment for him because technically he did make his major league debut last year in the playoffs.

But this was his regular season debut and he threw four innings and you know he looked pretty good.

I mean he struck out five didn't walk anyone gave up a couple runs but he was throwing like 100 101 and he's a lefty and he's not a giant or anything he's listed at six one and it's just like routine almost at this point.

Or a lefty comes in and throw in triple digits and yeah whatever we're used to that he's not like the best prospect in baseball or anything he's not even the best raised prospect named Shane.

It's like it's just so humdrum. I mean it's not nothing but like looking at the fastest pitches thrown by lefties this year.

The hardest pitch he threw according to stat cast was 100.5 and that was the 31st fastest pitch thrown by a lefty this year.

It's still special but you know a role as Chapman who seems to have his top end velocity back is throwing gas and Jose Alvarado is throwing gas and so Shane McClellan is just another guy.

Whereas I don't know not that long ago I mean when Chapman came up it was an absolute sensation that he was throwing as hard as he did and now it's just yeah Shane McClellan and welcome to the league along with all of the other people who are throwing 100.

Yeah it is amazing what you become desensitized to over time and I think that you know we've often contemplated what would be most striking to like if we were to transport a fan from 50 years ago to today.

I just let like there are fans from 50 years ago who are still watching baseball today. I don't mean to suggest around but like if you you know if you pulled someone who died in between pick help me construct a better scenario but you know what I'm saying like if you if you were to transport a fan from a prior era and just plop them down in the middle of baseball today.

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