About this episode

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley discuss various baseball topics including pitching strategies, player performance, and the MLB's approach to tanking.

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about vagueposting screenshots of Baseball Savant percentiles, a Ron Darling comment during the Mets’ 12th consecutive loss about why pitchers shouldn’t apologize to batters for throwing inside, team-level changes in pitch usage and results this season, why MLB partly escaped the NBA’s tanking epidemic, why relievers are struggling so far, baseball parallels to track’s quest to produce lighter shoes, and an EW listener meetup tool (password: EW2026), then Stat Blast (1:25:12) about player home run totals that outstripped team win totals, winning streaks built from other teams’ losing streaks, and batting orders with jersey numbers that matched lineup slots, plus (1:39:40) a postscript. Audio intro : Benny and a Million Shetland Ponies, “ Effectively Wild Theme (Horny) ” Audio outro : Alex Ferrin, “ Effectively Wild Theme ” Link to vagueposting wiki Link to Buxton/McLean matchup Link to pitch before homer Link to home run pitch Link to Clemens on McLean Link to Clemens on hard in, soft away Link to Ben on the Pirates Link to Sawchik on the Pirates Link to THT on the Pirates Link to…

People in this episode

Hosts: Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley

Topics covered

• baseball analytics
• pitching strategies
• MLB tanking
• player performance
• listener engagement

Keywords

• Baseball Savant
• MLB
• tanking
• pitch usage
• home run totals

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Baseball Savant, MLB, NBA

Places: Mets, Pirates, SNY, Lumineers, NYT, Mamdani, Mr. Met, Clemens

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• Effectively Wild Episode 2465: Before You Can Say Jack(ie) Robinson · April 14, 2026 · 1h 44m

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