CubsPS+ #118: Still Chasing the Same Answers, Ben Lindbergh (Ep. 37) Revisited
About this episode
The episode revisits a conversation with Ben Lindbergh about the ongoing challenges in baseball's player development and the impact of recent changes in the game.
Two years ago I sat down with Ben Lindbergh — co-host of Effectively Wild, co-author of “The MVP Machine” — to talk through the player development revolution remaking baseball. I’m re-airing it with a new intro. The reason: two years later, baseball is still chasing the same answers, and still hasn’t solved the same problems. We get into: • Why pitching always stays a step ahead of hitting • How chasing every edge turned the whole league into the same team • Whether the rule changes were ever going to work • Ben’s fix: cap the pitchers on the roster, make guys pace themselves, and you get back deeper starts, more contact, fewer blown-out arms A few references are frozen in 2023 — Hosmer getting DFA’d, Morel being all the vibes. Enjoy the time capsule. The heart of it plays sharper now than the day we taped it. The thread to hold onto: every adaptation has a price — what it costs a player, and maybe the game itself, to become something different than it used to be. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
People in this episode
Guest: Ben Lindbergh
Topics covered
- player development
- baseball
- pitching vs hitting
- rule changes
- team dynamics
- adaptation in sports
Keywords
- baseball
- pitching
- hitting
- player development
- rule changes
- team dynamics
- MVP Machine
- Ben Lindbergh
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Effectively Wild
Books & works: The MVP Machine
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