Effectively Wild Episode 2494: Culture WAR
Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast
Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 18 June 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, please visit our Patreon.
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley discuss the backlash to MLB’s initial statement about the Giants’ objectors to Pride Night, the league’s subsequent expanded statement, and the facts about the policies and punishments (or the lack thereof) pertaining to uniform alterations. Then (37:10) they banter about the Blue Jays’ ballot dominance in early All-Star voting, the history of teams being overrepresented on All-Star rosters, the Mariners’ piggyback pitching plan, and Curtis Washington Jr. as the ultimate phantom ballplayer, answer emails (1:19:28) about where the next two-way player might come from and whether Pete Crow-Armstrong’s defensive value is underrated, and Stat Blast (1:31:56) about where franchise scoring records tend to be set, the biggest run differentials in games with equivalent times on base, days when one team outscored many other teams combined, Boston’s lack of late comebacks, and teams whose win totals did or didn’t match their WAR totals.
Audio intro: Austin Klewan, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Andy Ellison, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Link to wisdom teeth etymology
Link to Domínguez tooth news
Link to Ohtani gamer
Link to MLB’s initial statement
Link to assorted bad tweets
Link to MLB’s second statement
Link to story about statements
Link to Hawley letter story
Link to story about backlash
Link to CBA
Link to Josh Hawley fleeing footage
Link to Noah Hawley wiki
Link to Vesia tribute story
Link to California Post story
Link to All-Star vote totals
Link to AL 2B WAR leaders
Link to Blue Jays voting story 1
Link to Blue Jays voting story 2
Link to Blue Jays WAR leaders
Link to team All-Star records
Link to 2015 Royals voting story
Link to 2015 Royals All-Stars
Link to 2026 YoY attendance
Link to 2015 YoY attendance
Link to 2023 Braves All-Stars story
Link to Mariners piggyback plan
Link to Ben on the ’93 A’s
Link to Washington call-up story 1
Link to Washington call-up story 2
Link to Washington call-up story 3
Link to Washington scouting report
Link to Washington demotion story
Link to Rob Mains on roster limits
Link to Ben on Padres Rule 5 guys
Link to phantom ballplayers wiki
Link to Ben on Ohtani’s origin story
Link to Las Vegas stats
Link to Rockies record score
Link to scoring differentials data
Link to 9/2/01 scoreboard
Link to ninth-inning scoring splits
Link to FG mailbag answer
Link to team WAR/wins data
Link to listener emails database
Link to HRD format report
Link to HRD format history
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Effectively wild, where we can talk about or told me all day long. |
| 0:07.0 | Effectively wild, been in makeup on a life, you know it's going to be a good time. |
| 0:15.0 | I want to look about my statistics. |
| 0:19.0 | I want to hear about none of them obvious,'t want to hear about them RBI's, yeah. |
| 0:22.6 | Tell me about some prospect I should know about. |
| 0:26.6 | A fake, a fake, a fake, Disney wild, a fake, a fake, Dizzy Wild. |
| 0:32.6 | A fake, A fake, A fake, Dizzy Wild. A fake, A fake, Dizzy Wild. Hello and welcome to |
| 0:46.8 | Wild, a fanxivale, |
| 0:49.2 | a fangrafts baseball podcast brought you by our Patreon supporters. |
| 0:52.0 | I'm Megrelly FanGraphs and I am joined by Ben Lindbergh of the ringer. Ben, how are you? I'm doing well, but how are you more importantly? |
| 0:59.1 | Because much like Jason Dominguez of the Yankees, you had a tooth pulled and thus were not in the |
| 1:05.8 | lineup on Tuesday, not in the effectively wild lineup, at least. he i think had an infected tooth whereas you were |
| 1:13.3 | hoping to avoid one as i understand it it was a a preemptive move yes that's correct my my last |
| 1:20.6 | wisdom tooth was pulled it was not impacted thank goodness but it was growing at a real weird angle, |
| 1:30.6 | and it was all bunched up against a molar, and my dentist was like, hey, that's going to be |
| 1:37.4 | bad at some point. Let's take care of it now, because it was irritating my gums. It was introducing the possibility of cavity. |
| 1:48.9 | It was, well, it just, it hurt, Ben, you know, at times was uncomfy. And so got yanked out, |
| 1:56.0 | clean pull, as it were. How nice. And yesterday I sounded very swollen and I was in pain. |
| 2:06.5 | And today I'm already much better. |
| 2:08.7 | So isn't that? |
| 2:09.4 | Excellent. |
| 2:09.6 | Yeah, only had to take one of the Tylenol with codeins. |
... |
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