Effectively Wild Episode 2287: Season Preview Series: Rangers and Pirates
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 22 February 2025
⏱️ 136 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the end of the Yankees’ beard ban, the potential end of MLB’s business relationship with ESPN, and whether the World Baseball Classic should imitate the NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off. Then they preview the 2025 Texas Rangers (50:07) with MLB.com’s Kennedi Landry, and the 2025 Pittsburgh Pirates (1:27:23) with Pittsburgh Baseball Now’s John Perrotto, plus a postscript (2:03:57) about Ben’s growing affection for Tigers righty John Brebbia.
Audio intro: Ian Phillips, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 1: Austin Klewan, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 2: Alex Ferrin, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Nate Emerson, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Link to Yankees announcement
Link to story on policy change
Link to story on policy origins
Link to Simpsons clip
Link to Gleyber photo
Link to Castillo hair story
Link to Castro hair story
Link to McCutchen hair story
Link to Vlad/Yankees story
Link to Williams reaction
Link to ESPN opt-out story 1
Link to ESPN opt-out story 2
Link to Ben on the WBC
Link to Ben on Hang Up
Link to offseason spending
Link to FG payrolls page
Link to Rangers depth chart
Link to Rangers offseason tracker
Link to Kennedi’s author archive
Link to Pirates depth chart
Link to Pirates offseason tracker
Link to John’s author archive
Link to Brebbia links
Link to EW gift subscriptions
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Give it, give me, Effectively Wild, |
| 0:02.8 | Give me, Give me, Effectively Wild. |
| 0:04.8 | Give it, Give me, Effectively Wild. |
| 0:06.8 | This is Effectively Wild. |
| 0:08.8 | Hello, and welcome to episode 2287 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from FanGrafts, |
| 0:15.8 | presented by our Patreon supporters. |
| 0:18.0 | I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rally of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. |
| 0:22.5 | Hello. Well, we have two team previews today. We're actually going past the halfway point already in the season preview series. Yeah, we're sailing along here. |
| 0:32.6 | So we will have Kennedy Landry of MLB.com to talk about the Texas Rangers and John Prado of Pittsburgh Baseball now to talk about the Pittsburgh Pirates. |
| 0:42.4 | But before we get to our previews, two eras ended, not just the end of an era, but the end of two eras potentially, the era of MLB being on ESPN and the era of no facial hair being on Yankees' cheeks. |
| 1:02.5 | The beard policy is no more, or at least it's greatly amended. |
| 1:07.8 | The Yankees will be allowing beards, not just any beard, well-groomed |
| 1:13.0 | beards. |
| 1:14.2 | Yeah. |
| 1:14.7 | But still... |
| 1:15.6 | They can't help themselves, can they? |
| 1:16.6 | No, no, they can't quite get there, but... |
| 1:20.6 | Yeah. |
| 1:21.6 | I don't know exactly the genesis of this. |
| 1:24.6 | Hal Steinbrenner made it sound like this is something that's been in the works for a while that they've had conversations about. He said in recent weeks, I've spoken to a large number of former and current Yankees spanning several eras to elicit their perspectives on our longstanding facial hair and grooming policy. And I appreciate their earnest and varied feedback. |
| 1:44.8 | I'd love to know what it was. |
| 1:46.3 | Varied. |
... |
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