Effectively Wild Episode 2284: Season Preview Series: Astros and Cardinals

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Ben’s new sound-dampening windows, listener defenses of MLB’s altered two-way-player rule, and the latest intolerable “breakout” pick, followed by Stat Blasts (15:49) about the teams with the most winless, non-lossless pitchers and the all-time past-their-prime/time-travel teams. Then they preview the 2025 Houston Astros (32:41) with The Athletic ’s Chandler Rome , and the 2025 St. Louis Cardinals (1:25:07) with The Athletic’ s Katie Woo . 2025 EW Season Preview Series AL BAL CHW ATH BOS CLE HOU NYY DET LAA TBR KCR SEA TOR MIN TEX NL ATL CHC ARI MIA CIN COL NYM MIL LAD PHI PIT SDP WSN STL SFG .intro-team, .intro-team td { font-family: lato, Arial, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 20px; } .intro-team .intro-header { /*display: none;*/ text-align: center; } .team-lg { text-align: center; width: 100%; } /* [class^="team-box-"] > div { display: inline-block; width: 48%; } [class^="team-box-"] > div table { width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse; } [class^="team-box-"] > div td { background-color: #efefef; border: 1px solid #ccc; line-height: 2; text-align: center; cursor: default; } [class^="team-box-"] > div a { color: #000; text-decoration: none; display: block; width: 100% } [class^="team-box-"] > div a:hover { color: #50ae26; } [class^="team-box-"] > div a.link-inactive { color: #aaa; } */ Audio intro : Ted O., “ Effectively Wild Theme ” Audio interstitial 1 : El Warren, “ Effectively Wild Theme ” Audio interstitial 2 : Liz Panella, “ Effectively Wild Theme ” Audio outro : Alex Glossman and Ali Breneman, “ Effectively Wild Theme ” Link to windows explainer Link to breakout push notification Link to Ragans article Link to late-2023 pitcher WAR Link to Stathead results Link to Kram’s Stat Blast Link to 2005 payrolls Link to Ryan’s Stat Blast data Link to Michael’s Stat Blast data Link to offseason spending Link to FG payrolls page Link to Astros depth chart Link to Astros offseason tracker Link to Chandler’s author archive Link to Chandler’s podcast Link to Cardinals depth chart Link to Cardinals offseason tracker Link to 2024 attendance change Link to Katie’s author archive Link to Katie’s podcast Link to MLBTR on Ragans Link to EW gift subscriptions Sponsor Us on Patreon Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com EW Subreddit Effectively Wild Wiki iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!) Spotify Feed Facebook Group Bluesky Account Twitter Account Get Our Merch! var SERVER_DATA = Object.assign(SERVER_DATA || {}); Source