Effectively Wild Episode 2473: Rushing to Judgement

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, please visit our Patreon.

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about whether Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing is the new reigning redass of MLB, and the first in-depth he-said, they-said mud-slinging about Craig Breslow and Boston’s coaching cull. Then (35:19) they Stat Blast about the longest streaks of series wins and non-losses to start a season (or at any point in a season), lapping the league in run differential, and batterymates who were previously exchanged in a trade, before bringing on Ben Clemens of FanGraphs (49:36) to talk about whether Munetaka Murakami’s hot start is sustainable (and if so, why he was widely underestimated), how the strike zone has been shrunk and reshaped in the ABS era—somewhat counterintuitively, not just because of overturned calls—and the potential short/long-term effects on scoring.

Audio intro: El Warren, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial: Kite Person, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Jonathan Crymes, “Effectively Wild Theme 2”

Link to “redass” definition
Link to Carig on “redass”
Link to Rushing timeline
Link to “fishy” comment clip
Link to “fishy” comment article
Link to Rockies celebration
Link to Lee incident clip
Link to Rushing denial
Link to Lee incident article
Link to Amaya incident clip
Link to Hoerner comments
Link to Rushing’s slide
Link to Arraez comments
Link to timeout request
Link to 2015 Williams feature
Link to Breslow/Boston report
Link to fatberg wiki
Link to streaks spreadsheet
Link to Columbus Solons wiki
Link to traded batterymates
Link to Ben’s catchers research
Link to Shackleton wiki
Link to Clemens on Murakami
Link to chase rate leaderboard
Link to Passan on Ohtani in 2018
Link to Passan’s follow-up
Link to Clemens on the strike zone
Link to strike zone definition
Link to Trueblood on the strike zone
Link to Trueblood on challenges
Link to Sam on 3-0 autostrikes
Link to 2025 buffer zone change
Link to ump accuracy over time
Link to Ben on umpire grading
Link to kernel regression wiki
Link to 2024-26 MLB rates
Link to 2025 MLB rates through same date
Link to 2024 MLB rates through same date
Link to highest full-season rates
Link to Federer Hawk-Eye stance 1
Link to Federer Hawk-Eye stance 2

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