Effectively Wild Episode 1918: Call Off the Search for the Secret Sauce
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 21 October 2022
⏱️ 94 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley review the results of the 2022 minor league free agent draft, discuss Gold Glove finalists and a study about the lack of special ways to win in the postseason, recap the first few Championship Series games (and banter about José Alvarado and same-named athletes in multiple sports), and answer listener emails about the name of the Division Series, on-screen strike zone graphics, and spotting higher-seeded teams a game before the start of a postseason series, plus a Past Blast from 1918, concluding banter about Shohei Ohtani’s comments about the Angels’ season and José Ramírez’s post-postseason surgery, and a postscript.
Audio intro: Nada Surf, “What is Your Secret”
Audio outro: Andrew Weiss and Friends, “Everybody Loves a Comeback”
Link to 2022 draft results
Link to Raymond’s EW wiki post
Link to Gold Glove finalists
Link to FiveThirtyEight on Gold Gloves
Link to 2021 story on Soto’s defense
Link to Dan S.’s playoffs study
Link to Russell’s playoffs study
Link to Russell on playoff homer-hitting
Link to Rosenthal on the playoff format
Link to ZiPS playoff odds
Link to study on playoff randomness
Link to FG post on NLCS G1
Link to FG post on NLCS G2
Link to MLB.com on Snell
Link to MLB.com on Padres’ rally
Link to MLB.com on Alvarado
Link to FG post on ALCS G1
Link to MLB.com on ALCS G1
Link to BP ALCS game preview
Link to Reddit on the best-of-9 WS
Link to ALCS G1 ump scorecard
Link to Division Series wiki
Link to BP K-Zone plea
Link to FG post on KBO playoffs
Link to EW emails database
Link to 1918 story source
Link to 1918 Ruth box score
Link to MLB.com on Ruth’s lost homer
Link to Reddit on Ruth’s homers
Link to Jacob Pomrenke’s website
Link to Jacob Pomrenke on Twitter
Link to Ruth homers book
Link to Ohtani Angels story
Link to Ohtani WBC story
Link to Ramírez surgery news
Link to Japan athletes poll
Link to U.S. athletes poll
Link to Patreon/Discord instructions
Sponsor Us on Patreon
Subscribe to Stathead (Code: WILD20)
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Twitter Account
EW Subreddit
Effectively Wild Wiki
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Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So we sat and talked, then we walked and talked about it was a truth. |
| 0:08.0 | What is your secret? |
| 0:14.0 | Driving on and on, eating favorite songs but your divisions roll. |
| 0:20.0 | What is your secret? |
| 0:25.0 | Hello and welcome to episode 1918 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangrafts presented by our Patreon supporters. |
| 0:33.0 | I am Ben Lemberg of the Ringer joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangrafts. Hello Meg. |
| 0:38.0 | Hello. |
| 0:39.0 | Before we get into today's playoff talk, I figured we should probably close the loop on something now that the regular season is over. |
| 0:47.0 | We can report the results of the minor league free agent draft. |
| 0:52.0 | Oh, well that's rude of you. |
| 0:55.0 | Yeah, I know. It's also kind of rude to myself. |
| 0:58.0 | Spoiler neither of us did very well. |
| 1:01.0 | Just to be accountable podcasters, I saw that the current keeper of the Effectively Wild wiki, Raymond Chen, who is great and diligent at doing that, although I know that he would like some assistance if anyone out there would like to help document Effectively Wild episodes with Raymond. |
| 1:16.0 | He would appreciate it, but he has updated the page for the minor league free agent draft with the 2022 results. |
| 1:24.0 | And he notes in parentheses that these totals are unofficial pending certification by John Chenier, official statistician statkeeper draft recorder of Effectively Wilds. |
| 1:37.0 | But I don't think that we're going to have to call in John to certify these things or go to a recount or anything because it's not close. |
| 1:45.0 | So, so this is episode 1798 is when we conducted this draft January 14th, 2022. |
| 1:54.0 | And for those of you who were not with us, we do this every year. |
| 1:57.0 | And the conceit here is that we draft minor league free agents. And we just draft guys. |
| 2:02.0 | We hope we'll get playing time in the coming regular season. And then we just count up the batter's faced or played appearances or both that they amass. |
| 2:13.0 | And just the most major league playing time wins. That's the whole game. |
| 2:17.0 | And we drafted 10 players each. And we welcomed in Ben Clemens of fan graphs in this draft to join us a rare non-host appearance by someone in the minor league free agent draft. |
... |
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