Effectively Wild Episode 2305: How Low Can it Go?
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 5 April 2025
⏱️ 94 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In a grab-bag episode, Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the low league BABIP early in the season, the most interesting standings developments so far (with emphases on the Dodgers, Padres, Braves, and AL Central), Atlanta re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-acquiring Jesse Chavez, early attendance issues for the A’s, (team-friendly?) extensions for Jackson Merrill, Kristian Campbell, and Ketel Marte, Dennis Santana’s sartorial innovation, the end of Comerica Park’s dirt strip, players being told not to tap their helmets, a mid-plate-appearance pitching change, a 12-6 slider, the Dodgers’ new, Ohtani-related celebration, ESPN’s annual executives/scouts survey, being “on gear” in climbing, and Carshield baseball ads.
Audio intro: Andy Ellison, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Gabriel-Ernest, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Link to early season BABIPs
Link to Ben on 2020 BABIP
Link to Ben on lower league BABIPs
Link to playoff odds changes
Link to Baumann on the Braves
Link to Chavez transactions page
Link to Hill Stat Blast
Link to Chavez Stat Blast
Link to Clemens on Mookie
Link to 2002 NL East
Link to Castillo fun fact
Link to FG on Merrill
Link to Union-Tribune on Merrill
Link to FG on Campbell
Link to Campbell on “friends”
Link to FG on Marte
Link to The Bandwagon on Marte
Link to MLBTR on Marte
Link to A’s attendance article
Link to ESPN survey
Link to Goold tweet
Link to EW on “strategy” in 2024
Link to Ben on “strategy”
Link to Harper quote
Link to EW on The Pitt
Link to new 12-6 slider
Link to Santana clip
Link to Comerica change
Link to Ben on pickoff moves
Link to ballpark homogenization
Link to Ohtani celly 1
Link to Ohtani celly 2
Link to Freeman injury info
Link to Vlad report
Link to Shapiro quote
Link to Curb clip
Link to Ghiroli article
Link to Carshield EW episode
Link to FTC press release
Link to FTC complaint
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | A baseball podcast, |
| 0:04.6 | Analytics and stats with Ben and Meg from Fangraphs. |
| 0:12.5 | Effectively now. |
| 0:17.4 | Effective in life. |
| 0:19.6 | Effective in life. |
| 0:30.6 | Effective in life. Hello and welcome Hello and welcome to Episode 5 of Effectively Wild |
| 0:34.7 | A Baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. |
| 0:39.1 | I am Ben Lindberg of the Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of FanGraphs. |
| 0:43.5 | Hello, Meg. |
| 0:44.2 | Hello. |
| 0:45.1 | I have a grab bag of topics for us today, a little Friday potpoury, and I'll start here. |
| 0:52.0 | Do you think this is cause for concern? The league-wide BABIP, batting average on balls and play, is currently through Thursday's games, 273. |
| 1:05.0 | Oh. That is a low number, Meg, 273. Now, I went back and looked at every season since 2002, because |
| 1:14.4 | Fangraphs makes it easy to go day by day since 2002. And I looked for every season, |
| 1:21.2 | the equivalent number of games. So we've had 100 games, 200 team games. And so I looked through the date that was closest to that number of team games in each season, |
| 1:33.6 | dating back to 2002. |
| 1:35.1 | And this is the lowest babbit easily over that span. |
| 1:39.3 | The average has been 290. |
| 1:42.8 | There have been some low years before. Last year was 294 through roughly this |
| 1:48.8 | same point. So that was more than 20 points higher. In 2020, it was 279. And I wrote an article |
| 1:58.2 | saying, where did all the hits go? And I think the answer was probably just it was 2020. |
| 2:03.2 | So there was all sorts of stuff going on and things normalized a bit after that. |
... |
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