Effectively Wild Episode 2243: Roki of the Year
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 13 November 2024
⏱️ 95 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen banter about how to abbreviate Twins executive Derek Falvey’s new dual role as president of both baseball and business operations, then (5:23) discuss Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki from a scouting perspective, touching on how good he could be, how a team could ease him into MLB, what tweaks he could make to his repertoire, the bonus pool system that could help determine where he signs, and more. After that (50:16), Ben and Meg talk to NPB journalist Jim Allen about Sasaki’s posting from a Japan-based perspective, exploring why Sasaki was posted now, how Japanese fans feel about his departure, and what the implications could be for NPB. Finally (1:21:01), Ben does a bonus Stat Blast about baseball overrepresentation in crossword puzzles.
Audio intro: Alex Glossman and Ali Breneman, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial: Liz Panella, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Kite Person, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Link to Falvey news
Link to Trueblood’s Falvey tweet
Link to Eric’s Roki update
Link to Eric on Roki in August
Link to Ben’s Roki update
Link to Ben on Roki in 2022
Link to Kiley on Roki
Link to Passan on Roki
Link to Coskrey on Roki
Link to 2024 bonus pools
Link to Cooper on draft picks
Link to Ardaya on courting Ohtani
Link to Ohtani courtship
Link to Jim on Roki’s situation
Link to Jim on the Marines
Link to Jim on Hirooka
Link to Jim on Roki’s future
Link to NPB union article
Link to Jim’s podcast
Link to Hang Up and Listen
Link to latest HUaL
Link to Raymond’s spreadsheet
Link to Rooker EW episode
Sponsor Us on Patreon
Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com
EW Subreddit
Effectively Wild Wiki
iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)
Spotify Feed
Facebook Group
Twitter Account
Bluesky Account
Get Our Merch!
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Let's play ball. |
| 0:02.2 | It's effectively wild. |
| 0:05.0 | It's effectively wild. |
| 0:08.1 | It's effectively wild. |
| 0:09.8 | Hello and welcome to episode 2243 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from |
| 0:19.9 | Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. |
| 0:23.0 | I am Ben Lindberg of the Ringer, joined by Meg Rally of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. |
| 0:27.7 | Hello. |
| 0:28.3 | Also with us is your colleague Eric Longenhagen, also of Fangraph's lead prospect analyst, etc. |
| 0:35.4 | Eric, welcome back. It's been so long. |
| 0:37.9 | Thank you. |
| 0:39.1 | This is the sound of my voice. |
| 0:43.2 | I have to tell Meg, my phlebotomist today said to say hi to you. |
| 0:46.5 | All right. |
| 0:48.1 | Ben, you weren't mentioned. |
| 0:48.7 | I don't know why. |
| 0:49.6 | Huh. |
| 0:50.8 | All right. |
| 0:52.1 | Snubbed by the phlebotomist. |
| 0:52.6 | That's okay. |
| 1:12.7 | I'll get over it. It's been sort of a slow news week in baseball except for one big bit of news. And so we're going to devote essentially this entire episode to that news, which is that Roki Sasaki is coming. He's coming stateside. He is being posted by his NPP team, the Chippilote Marines. And so we're going to talk to Eric about the scouting and signing aspects of that. Later in the episode, we're going to be joined |
| 1:19.1 | by NPP journalist Jim Allen to talk about the implications for the Marines and for Japanese |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.