Effectively Wild Episode 1356: Keep Your Eye on the Bat

Ben Lindbergh, Sam Miller, and Meg Rowley banter about Sam’s cabin sojourn, how well Major League has held up, an exciting development in strategic bat tosses, a big day for Willians Astudillo, the difficulty of drawing conclusions about baseball early in the season, the early-season home-run rate, the paradox of sports radio, Sam’s Jose Ramirez hot take, bunting against four-man outfields, service-time manipulation and Kyle Freeland, whether we would notice if MLB stealthily implemented robot umps, and check-swing mistakes, plus Stat Blasts about Luke Voit and perfect starts to the season, the most MLB games ever played in one day, the longest gaps between pairings of the same pitcher and catcher, and Yu Darvish and the most pitches thrown in a game before the first ball in play.

Audio intro: Disclosure, "Together"
Audio outro: Frank Sinatra, "We’ll Be Together Again"

Link to Sam on strategic bat tosses
Link to Swanson bat toss
Link to research on hitters being ahead of pitchers
Link to Martin pitching appearance stats
Link to article about position players pitching with leads
Link to day with the most games played
Link to longest gaps in pitcher-catcher pairings
Link to list of games with most pitches before first BIP
Link to box score for Darvish start
Link to box score for Martinez start
Link to article about MLBPA grievance
Link to preorder The MVP Machine

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