Effectively Wild Episode 1222: Testing the Balls and Beating the Bookies

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the Red Sox designating Hanley Ramirez for assignment, what Mookie Betts and Barry Bonds have in common, Shohei Ohtani ‘s “workload management,” Bartolo Colon ’s 45th birthday, a John Jaso appearance at the Trop, a listener’s real-world use of tOPS+, and two more examples of players intentionally performing typically detrimental activities. Then Ben briefly brings on FanGraphs’ Meg Rowley (16:05) to discuss the latest Jerry Dipoto and Wilmer Font trades, work-related nightmares, and business words. After that, Ben talks to writer Rob Arthur (28:20) about the questions raised and the questions answered by MLB’s report on the ball being behind the game’s rising home-run rate, and Ben and Jeff get the skinny from sabermetrician Mitchel Lichtman (1:00:49) about his decades-long history of betting on baseball, how he built a model that beat the sportsbooks and made millions, and how and why his advantage evaporated. Audio intro : The Rural Alberta Advantage, " 45/33 " Audio interstitial 1 : The Minus 5, " Smoke on, Jerry " Audio interstitial 2 : Dr. Dog, " The Truth " Audio interstitial 3 : Earlimart, " Burning the Cow " Audio outro : Drive-By Truckers, " Checkout Time in Vegas " Link to Jeff’s Mookie Betts post Link to John Jaso sighting Link to intentional HBP video Link to Rob’s article about MLB’s report Link to MLB executive report Link to full MLB report Link to Bloomberg Bill Benter story iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!) Sponsor Us on Patreon Facebook Group Effectively Wild Wiki Twitter Account Get Our Merch! Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com var SERVER_DATA = Object.assign(SERVER_DATA || {}); Source