Effectively Wild Episode 2436: Season Preview Series: Astros and Diamondbacks
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 6 February 2026
⏱️ 120 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about MLB player chatbots, an Addison Barger giveaway, Tarik Skubal’s big arbitration win, the Tigers signing Framber Valdez, and a rough week for sports media, then (36:29) begin the 14th annual EW season preview series by discussing the 2026 Houston Astros with The Athletic’s Chandler Rome, and the 2026 Arizona Diamondbacks (1:25:35) with The Arizona Republic’s Nick Piecoro, followed (1:54:53) by a postscript.
Audio intro: Alex Ferrin, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 1: Austin Klewan, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 2: Sean .P, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Tom Rhoads, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Link to chatbots story
Link to Barger story
Link to season preview series wiki
Link to Passan on Skubal
Link to Baumann on Skubal
Link to Dan S. on Framber
Link to Rosenthal on the Pirates
Link to Rosenthal on the Tigers
Link to Chandler on the cross-up
Link to team SP projections
Link to NPR on WaPo
Link to NYT on WaPo sports
Link to The Ringer on WaPo sports
Link to The New Yorker on WaPo
Link to The Atlantic on WaPo
Link to Silver on WaPo
Link to MLB.com layoffs
Link to Grant post
Link to team payrolls
Link to Astros offseason tracker
Link to Astros depth chart
Link to BP IL Ledger
Link to Dan S. on team injuries
Link to Chandler on Correa
Link to Chandler on Imai
Link to Chandler on the infield
Link to Chandler on Espada/Brown
Link to Trueblood on Peña
Link to Chandler’s author archive
Link to Crush City Territory
Link to Diamondbacks offseason tracker
Link to Diamondbacks depth chart
Link to team RP WAR
Link to team RP WPA
Link to ballpark funding deal info
Link to more funding deal info
Link to funding deal opinion piece
Link to renovations preview
Link to Nick on the Alexander trade
Link to FG post on Santana
Link to Nick’s author archive
Link to Boehly/Epstein article
Link to ESPN’s Clase report
Link to Ben on Clase
Link to EW episode on Clase
Link to SABR awards voting
Link to Wood/Lolich IP leaderboard
Link to Lolich obit
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Upsters, that's inventory, they both mean a lot to mean. |
| 0:05.0 | That's why the baseball. |
| 0:07.0 | Special kids is previous series pitching and pure poetry. |
| 0:11.0 | That's how I love baseball. |
| 0:14.0 | Effectively wild. Effectively wild. Hello and Hello and welcome to baseball podcast. |
| 0:30.6 | Hello and welcome to episode 2436 of Effectively Wild, a fancraftsball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. |
| 0:37.7 | I'm Meg Raleigh, FanGraphs, and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of the ringer, Ben. How are you? |
| 0:43.3 | Well, today's sign of the AI slotpocalypse. You ready for this one? This is hot off the |
| 0:49.3 | AP wire. Major League Baseball players have agreed to let a tech company create AI characters of |
| 0:56.2 | themselves that can chat and interact with fans. Under an agreement announced Thursday between |
| 1:02.2 | Genies and MLB Players Inc. It's another example of, you know, something you can't put back |
| 1:09.8 | in the bottle, I guess. |
| 1:11.2 | Right. |
| 1:11.7 | Yeah. |
| 1:12.0 | Like, what are we? |
| 1:13.3 | Just call it Pandora's box. |
| 1:16.1 | Yeah. |
| 1:18.1 | Agreement between GD's and MLB Players, Inc. |
| 1:21.4 | The business affiliate of the Players Association, AI avatars of top stars will be created that can have conversations with fans. |
| 1:30.1 | Each avatar will reflect a player's voice and interests. |
| 1:34.6 | Interests. |
| 1:35.5 | I wonder what that means. |
... |
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