Good morning, and welcome to episode 70 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from baseball

perspectives.

In Long Beach, California, I'm Sam Miller in New York, New York.

He has been Lindbergh, Ben, how are you doing this morning?

I'm very well, thank you, and I'm excited that we're now ending a week on an episode

that's a multiple of five.

I've been looking forward to this since we started.

I've been looking forward to the day when we would miss an episode, or we would have

a vacation day, and we would start on a one and finish on a five, because it appeals

to my sense of symmetry.

So we can never miss a day again, is what I'm saying.

Unless we miss a whole week, which I would be just fine with.

Before we start, can I read a whole bunch of words to you guys, please?

So I've been thinking for the last few days for various reasons about why I hate predictions

and why I hate sort of A, having to make them and B, why I hate myself for so consistently

dodging them.

And I think I've finally gotten to the end of it, which is that I find that there's very

little value added to them, most of them either reflect the conventional wisdom, and therefore

don't say much, or they're based on not very much evidence that they're just sort of trying

to be interesting, and the writers who make these generally know this, and so they bolster

them with so much enthusiasm that they become sort of too provocative, too bold, and the

sense that you get from them then becomes even more disconnected to truth.

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