Effectively Wild Episode 2403: How Our Preseason Predictions Panned Out

Summary

Effectively Wild Episode 2403: How Our Preseason Predictions Panned Out

FanGraphs Baseball Podcast — November 21, 2025
Hosts: Ben Lindbergh (The Ringer), Meg Rowley (FanGraphs)
Guests: Michael Bauman (FanGraphs), Ben Clemens (FanGraphs), Chris Hannel (EW Stats Team)

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Episode Overview

This episode brings the annual tradition of reconvening the Effectively Wild panel to review their 2025 preseason predictions—examining which bold baseball prognostications hit, which missed, how the listener-submitted odds lined up, and crowning the year’s predictions champion. Chris Hannel, orchestrator of the contest and scorekeeper, returns to manage the results, games, and banter. The episode is rich with statistics, inside jokes, accountability, good-natured ribbing, and deeper dives into how prediction gamification impacts baseball fandom and podcast community culture.

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Notable Games and Opening Banter

[02:49] “2025 College World Series Starting Pitching Matchup or First Amendment Supreme Court Case?”

• Michael Bauman quizzes Ben Lindbergh by naming matchups (“Morse v. Frederick”) to guess their origins.
• Highlights:
  • Ben correctly identifies “Morse v. Frederick” as a SCOTUS case—“the Bong Hits for Jesus case.” (03:55)
  • Michael: “You’re doing way better at this than I thought you would.” (04:32)
• Tone: Playful, competitive, full of references to past games and inside jokes.
• Memorable Quip:
  • Ben: “Well, I finished over .500. That’s a winning ratio.”

[07:41] “Cedar Rapids Colonel or Character in the Star Wars Universe?”

• Chris Hannel puts Bauman in the hot seat, with minor league player names versus Star Wars extended universe characters.
• Highlights:
  • Michael: “I’ve never used Star Wars because [Ben’s] knowledge—”
  • Banter about the impossibility and depth of some names.

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[12:09] Minor League Free Agent Draft Recap

How Did the Panelists Do?

• Ben Lindbergh achieves a historic “10-for-10,” all his draftees making MLB appearances:

  • Chris: “That is unprecedented. No one has ever gone 10-for-10.”
  • Ben: “If I were to get a tattoo, I think it would be of my 2025 minor league free agent draft roster.”
  • Meg: “I think that we should skin him alive.”
  • Ultimately, Ben’s winning total was not the highest ever, but he’s the first to “bat around”—every pick making the majors.
  • [16:31] Ben delivers an epic, mock-Oscar “acceptance speech.”

• Meg Rowley: High projection, strong performance but edged out.

• Ben Clemens: “Throwback method” got the least help from projections.

Timestamps:

• [13:36] Ben’s “batting around” explanation
• [16:51-18:24] Ben’s passionate monologue

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[19:01] The Main Event: The 2025 Preseason Predictions Game

Introduction and Listener Participation

• Each panelist made 10 bold preseason predictions; listeners graded the odds.
• More than 1,500 ballots received, making this the most crowd-evaluated year yet.
• Chris credits Sean McNamee, Michael Fazio, Michael Mountain, Raymond Chen, and the EW Stats Team for their work.

Timestamps:

• [20:00] Listener engagement and website discussion
• [20:54] Team recognition and a round of thanks
  • Michael: “These guys like this podcast a lot, man.”

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[21:54+] Reviewing the 2025 Preseason Predictions

The 40 predictions are revealed in order from most to least “bold,” based on listener-assigned odds. Each is presented with discussion, context, and scoring ramifications.

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Boldest Predictions & Recap of Notables

• [21:54] Ben Clemens’ Shohei Ohtani prediction (“will throw fastest starter pitch”):

  • Listener boldness: 12%.
  • Ohtani came close but was topped by other pitchers.
  • “Bold effort by Shohei... he almost did it.”

• [23:55] Michael Bauman’s Sabrina Carpenter prediction:

  • “A major league player will date Sabrina Carpenter.”
  • Highest number of 0% ratings, 13% likelihood.
  • Inconclusive, “cannot accept a prediction on artistic interpretation.”

• [25:03] Meg Rowley’s NL MVP pick for Ketel Marte:

  • 16% boldness, Derailed by injury and entrenched contenders (Ohtani).
  • Michael: “16% for him to be an LMVP is insane.”

...

• [36:50] Rockies “qualifiers with negative WAR” prediction (Ben Clemens):

  • 29% boldness, failed—no Rockies made the cut, “basically can’t happen,” Clemens admits.

• [44:41] Ben Lindbergh’s Knuckleballers Prediction:

  • “Three non-position player pitchers throw twenty knuckleballs each.”
  • One succeeded, others fizzled—everyone “wants more knuckleballing.”

• [52:20] Ben Lindbergh’s “Max Fried, Cody Bellinger, and Devin Williams > Juan Soto WAR and Yankees miss playoffs”

  • Combo half correct (players outperformed Soto), but Yankees made playoffs.

• [56:58] Daniel Vogelbach Memorial Trophy – “Cubs runs double Bears points in September” (Clemens):

  • Fun, original, ultimately false—wins Best Commitment to the Bit.

• [61:01] Meg Rowley’s “no repeat division winners besides Dodgers”:

  • Too high a probability, eliminated early by Brewers and Phillies.

• [66:35] Meg Rowley’s “at least two MLB teams will announce new controlling ownership”

  • Controversial yes (due to White Sox sale agreement language)—“if the sale falls through in future, Meg loses the points,” adding future drama.

• [86:45] Final Scoring:

  • 1st: Meg Rowley (+73)
  • 2nd: Ben Clemens (-109)
  • 3rd: Michael Bauman (-253)
  • 4th: Ben Lindbergh (-278, also “Mr. Chalk”)
  • Listener Winner: Benjamin Hamler with 5910 points

Memorable Quotes:

• Meg: “I think the key is to just not remember your predictions at all.” (88:32)
• Michael [on being last]: “I was like, I only got one right?” (88:10)
• Ben: “How is it possible that I was the most chalk and also the last place?” (87:50)
• Ben: “This is my epitaph... These guys will be special to me the rest of my life.” (15:18, about minor league picks)

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[80:35+] Extended Gilmore Girls Tangent

• Meg Rowley and Michael Bauman debate Team Jess vs. Team Logan from Gilmore Girls.
• Michael: “Team Logan person.”
• Meg: “The real person who sucks is Rory.” (82:11)
• Announced as pure podcast digression, with everyone playing along.

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[90:41] Preview of Rule Addition for 2026

• New twist: Each panelist will pick one prediction from each other panelist to “take the other side of the action.” If that prediction is wrong, the challenger will get the points; if more than one picks the same prediction, the points are split.
  • Meg: “Very good rule change. Very good.”
  • Chris: “An extra bit of sassiness to next year’s bold calls.”

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Episode Themes & Insights

• Community Engagement: Massive listener participation, deeper website and stats features, EW predictions feed an ecosystem beyond the podcast.
• Podcast Culture: The episode centers the joy and humility of being wrong, the social aspect of baseball nerd-dom, and the camaraderie of recurring inside jokes and games.
• Baseball Trends Reflections: Many “bold” predictions targeted about-to-change or stagnant trends (knuckleballs, base-stealing, attendance, etc.), with robust listener skepticism reflected in the odds.
• Predictions as Fandom Fuel: Several hosts/judges testified that caring about bizarre predictions made for more fun and less stressful baseball-watching.

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Segment Timestamps (Selected)

• 00:29 – Show open & introductions
• 02:49 – Bauman’s “Supreme Court Case or College World Series matchup?” game
• 07:41 – “Cedar Rapids Colonel or Star Wars character?” game
• 12:09 – Minor League Free Agent Draft Results
• 19:01 – Preseason Predictions Game introduction
• 21:54 – Boldest predictions reviewed (Shohei Ohtani, Sabrina Carpenter, Ketel Marte MVP, etc.)
• 36:50 – “Three Rockies 500 PA & negative WAR?” prediction
• 44:41 – Knuckleball prediction
• 52:20 – “Three combine for more WAR than Soto/Yankees miss playoffs?”
• 56:58 – Daniel Vogelbach “runs vs. points” award
• 61:01 – “No repeat division winners” prediction
• 66:35 – Ownership sale prediction, rule clarification
• 80:46 – Gilmore Girls digression
• 90:41 – “Take the other side of a prediction” new rule
• 86:45 – Final scores & leaderboard
• 93:28 – Closing banter, summing up, appreciation

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Final Takeaways

• Annual Traditions: Effectively Wild’s preseason predictions game is a core, much-loved tradition, with more listener buy-in, better data, and gamified engagement each year.
• Peaks and Pitfalls: Even the “chalk” picks can go bust, and the boldest picks often hinge on delightful weirdness or luck.
• Celebration of Community: Fans, stats team, co-hosts, and even friendly rivalry with sports betting’s zero-stakes fun are persistently celebrated.
• 2026 Is Coming: Next year’s contest will build in new wrinkles for even more banter, friendly sabotage, and accountability.

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“You all participated… Well, one of us won.”
— Meg Rowley, triumphantly (93:28)

“Joy… No, you’re doing joy now. That’s new.”
— Michael Bauman, ribbing Ben as the group wraps up (93:46)

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For more information, EW Stats site updates, and future contests, check links in show notes or visit the Effectively Wild community spaces.

Transcript

[Chris Hannel]

It's Effectively Wild and it's wildly effective at putting baseball into perfect perspective. Impressively smart and impeccably styled. It's the wildly effective, Effectively Wild spin right along Shango Feather Pain War. You might hear something you never heard before.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Hello, and welcome to episode 20203 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fan Graphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of the Ringer, joined by Meg Rally of Fan Graphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. We have a full house here today because almost exactly eight months ago, by the time this podcast is Posted, probably exactly eight months ago, we convened to predict things about 2025 in baseball, which I am loath to do, but I make an exception for this Ann exercise, which is fun for us all and hopefully for you. And today is the appointed time when we reconvene to find out whether we were right about things or how wrong we were. So that was episode 2298. This is episode 2403. And we are rejoined both by Michael Bauman and Ben Clements of fangraphs. Hello, fellas.

[Ben Clemens]

Hello.

[Chris Hannel]

Yo.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And by Chris Hannel, the mastermind of this whole exercise, who is probably the only person on this call who remembers what we said back on March 21st. That's true. Hi, Chris.

[Chris Hannel]

I hope that some of the reminders that you've seen on bluesky might have prompted something in your brains at some point. But, yes, me and the EW Stats team have been keeping very fervent track of everything that's been going on, and we have some reports for you on how you all did today.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And we do very much appreciate that. And yes, you. You remind us both now and also throughout the year, really. So you're very diligent along with your colleagues at tracking what we said and how wrong we were and recording it for posterity. And today we get our scorecard. Essentially, we find out who was most or least wrong about baseball in 2025. And I guess we have a few things to get out of the way before we get into the meat of the predictions, because, for one thing, we have to quickly recap the minor league free agent draft, which is probably the number one priority for me. But then we last for me. Whenever Bauman is here, I assume he has prepared a fun game slash torture for me.

[Michael Bauman]

Yes, it's. It's different. It's not college baseball player or. But it's a fun spin on the classic game.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Okay, what you got for me?

[Michael Bauman]

All right, so today we're going to play 2025 College World Series starting pitching matchup or First Amendment Supreme Court case.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Okay, so.

[Michael Bauman]

So I'm going to give you two last names.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So it is still sort of college baseball player or.

[Michael Bauman]

Yeah, so really it's, it's two college baseball players or so you've got multiple chances to leverage your, your college baseball knowledge. And I will say, like, there are a lot of names you probably should.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Know in here of, of First Amendment cases or college baseball players.

[Ben Clemens]

You might know.

[Michael Bauman]

You actually might know one or two of these core cases.

[Chris Hannel]

But. Hmm.

[Michael Bauman]

Let's. Let's just go ahead and start. The first one is Morse v. Frederick.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Morse v. Frederick. All right, that sounds like a case that sounds like if it were baseball players, it would have been maybe a long time ago. So I'm going to go with first amendment case.

[Michael Bauman]

That is correct. It's a 2007 case decided by a 5, 4 margin. You might know it as the Bong Hits for Jesus v. US Case.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, well, if you'd put it that way, it would have been even easier.

[Michael Bauman]

So you're off to a good start. Number two, Wood v. Silva.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh, that sounds basebally to me. I'm going to go baseball.

[Michael Bauman]

It is baseball. This Wood is Gagewood. Who did what in the College World Series? Ben.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh, is he the one who threw the no hitter?

[Michael Bauman]

That is the 19 strikeout no hitter versus Murray State.

[Ben Lindbergh]

All right. Look at that.

[Michael Bauman]

He later went on to be the Phillies first round draft pick.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So.

[Michael Bauman]

Man, you're doing way better at this than I thought you would.

[Meg Rowley]

Wow.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Riding high.

[Michael Bauman]

All right, all right. Number three, Davis v. Beeson.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That sounds basebally to me. I'm gonna go baseball.

[Michael Bauman]

Incorrect. Davis is an 1890 case that held by a 90 vote. And I'm surprised you didn't know this, that a federal prohibition on polygamy did not violate the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh, right. That's been a thorn in my side all these years. Yeah. H. Okay, Davis versus Beeson.

[Michael Bauman]

Next one. Root v. Anderson.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Root v. Anderson. Boy, I could go either way with that one. I guess I'll go baseball.

[Michael Bauman]

It is baseball. It's a matchup between LSU and Arkansas featuring two first round picks, including Seattle Mariners lefty Kate Anderson, who went third overall.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh, heard of him.

[Michael Bauman]

The last one. Stump v. Einson.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Stump v. Einson. I'll go case.

[Michael Bauman]

No, it's baseball. This is Landon Stump of UCLA versus Anthony Einson of lsu. Einson went on to start the the ultimate national championship game against Coastal Carolina. And then he was drafted in the third round by The Boston Red Sox.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Wow, what a name.

[Michael Bauman]

Landon Stump.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I'm surprised I haven't heard that one. If I had heard that one, it might have stuck in my mind. Okay, Well, I finished over 500.

[Michael Bauman]

That's what you get when you drop Long John Silver.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, that's right.

[Meg Rowley]

I feel like we got a. We got a lot of landings floating around. Doesn't it feel like there are a lot of landings floating around these days? Like way more Landons in baseball. I've never known a Landon. Have you ever known a Landon?

[Chris Hannel]

My cousin Landon. Yeah.

[Michael Bauman]

I went to school with a couple Landons.

[Ben Clemens]

Yeah, I know, like one. But that's a low number.

[Meg Rowley]

I mean, that's more than I know.

[Michael Bauman]

That's.

[Meg Rowley]

That's 100% more Landon.

[Chris Hannel]

My cousin Landon is actually a notable Landon. Landon Castle used to race in nascar.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh, cool. How about that? Okay.

[Meg Rowley]

I love how I said oh as if that was like a reference that immediately registered for me. You know, like, oh, yeah, my, my tonight, my deep Rolodex of landings.

[Chris Hannel]

Ben, as we all know, he's a multi sport pundit now, so I would just expect that he would know.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I know, I know. Lando Norris. Not the Star Wars Lando, but the driver racer. Yeah, that's. That's a start. Okay, well, I'm happy to come out ahead. I'll take three and two. That's a, That's a winning ratio. And Chris, I know you have a game for Michael, but I don't know if. Oh, okay. I'm not going to spoil what it is.

[Chris Hannel]

I was going to do it now. I was going to do it now because we're about to do the minor league free agent draft and Bauman doesn't get to participate in that. So I felt bad.

[Michael Bauman]

So don't feel bad.

[Meg Rowley]

To be clear, we're not doing the draft today. We are reviewing who won. Clemens is like. Wait a minute.

[Ben Clemens]

What?

[Chris Hannel]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Ben Clemens]

I couldn't do worse.

[Chris Hannel]

I did make a game. Bauman. This is a game that the EW Stats team has put together for you. We are calling this Cedar Rapids Colonel or character in the Star wars universe.

[Michael Bauman]

Okay, Is this books or is this Disney bullshit?

[Chris Hannel]

This is the entire Star wars universe. Both the Legends canon and the current extended universe.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Okay.

[Michael Bauman]

I've noticed in a decade of doing this game with Ben, I've never used Star wars because his knowledge.

[Chris Hannel]

Yeah, Your first name, Jormun Landa.

[Michael Bauman]

That feels Cedar Rapids Colonelly to me.

[Chris Hannel]

That is a Cedar Rapids Colonel. He joined the twins org in 2011 and played for the Colonels in 2014 and 15.

[Michael Bauman]

Oh, this is all time Cedar Rapids Colonels.

[Chris Hannel]

Oh, it's a very rich history. Very. This is my hometown minor league team. I had to go with that.

[Ben Lindbergh]

This is the high A affiliate of the Twins for those who are not in the know. And it's Colonels with a K. Yes, it is. Yeah.

[Chris Hannel]

Your second name, Caleb Merk.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh, no.

[Michael Bauman]

That feels like a misdirect.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Wow, I'm really enjoying Batman being on the spot for this.

[Michael Bauman]

I'm gonna say Star Wars.

[Chris Hannel]

Sorry. That is a relief pitcher drafted by the Twins in 2012, who played for the Colonels in 2013.

[Michael Bauman]

I should have just gone with my gut.

[Chris Hannel]

Number three, Jim Doshan. Jim J. I M. I will not spell it for you.

[Michael Bauman]

Oh, I always spell for Ben. I also don that extremely rude buzzer sound that you just did.

[Chris Hannel]

Sorry. I'm drunk with power.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Usually drunk with power. I usually don't ask for spellings to be clear. Maybe I have at some point, at.

[Michael Bauman]

Least a couple of the cars.

[Chris Hannel]

I. I believe you asked during the Republican. Republican Congress. One. And I believe Meg's response was, would that help? And we never got to it.

[Michael Bauman]

Can you. Can you say the name again?

[Chris Hannel]

Jim Doshan.

[Michael Bauman]

I'm gonna say baseball.

[Chris Hannel]

Jim Doshin, also known as the Starkiller Kid. Jim appeared in the Marvel Comics series of Star wars in the 1980s.

[Meg Rowley]

It doesn't feel like it should count.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, it counts. But Chris play tested this with me. I don't know if it's exactly the same people, but just the difficulty.

[Chris Hannel]

And Ben destroyed it.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I did okay, but I was whiffing on the late 70s Star wars comics character, so that's a hole in my knowledge as well.

[Chris Hannel]

Number four, Gabe Jacobo.

[Michael Bauman]

That's baseball.

[Chris Hannel]

That is baseball. First baseman drafted by the Angels back when the Colonels were part of their organization instead. And number five, Hayden Glimo.

[Michael Bauman]

Oh, man, if I don't guess Star wars for Glimo and get it wrong, I'm gonna kick myself. So I'm gonna get Star Wars. If I get it wrong, I'll accept it.

[Chris Hannel]

Hayden Glimo was a Pitcher for the 2003.

[Meg Rowley]

Glimo.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Rhymes for Sleemo. Yeah.

[Chris Hannel]

G L I E M M O. Hayden Glimo.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, I don't know about that. I don't know about that.

[Michael Bauman]

Yeah, that feel. Gleemo feels like it. Like a. An alien character on Tatooine who reads his anti Semitic.

[Chris Hannel]

Well, that's a target, Rich. It turns out in many sci fi.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Universes, so Anyway, I enjoyed that. That was delightful just to hear. Hear Bauman squirming and overthinking everything just the way that I do.

[Michael Bauman]

I've gone into the last couple of these, like, not actively trying to make Ben's life miserable. And I think that's going to end after this incident.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Don't make me pay. This was not my idea. I did condone it. But you could have stopped it, didn't suggest it.

[Chris Hannel]

He could have said no. He could have put a stop to.

[Michael Bauman]

All of this tolerate or whatever the.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Well, you got on the boards. Good for you, buddy. All right, so let's recap the 2025 minor league free agent draft in which I and Meg and other Ben. Ben Clemens participated about a year ago almost. I guess it's. It's getting around to be minor league free agent draft season again. But let's. Let's hear how we did. As if I don't know and as if I hadn't just poured over these numbers just to console myself before I sleep every night.

[Chris Hannel]

Well, just to go back during spring training, we use the fan grass projection systems to kind of take a close look at the ballots. And when things got started, Meg had the most Valuable projected ballot at 733. Ben Lindbergh, 602. Ben Clemens at 201, not being helped by Sixto Sanchez going to the Mexican League. Dalton Jeffries did not get signed and Thomas Pannoni or Pannon. Is it Panon or Panoni?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Great question, Chris.

[Chris Hannel]

Wow. Okay. Well, let's leave that in then. Okay. Cover both my bases. But yeah, Ben Clem is at 200 1. And the one player that was projected to do the best out of everyone was Bryce Wilson, who is on Meg's ballot. Bryce was projected at 418. Bryce would not be the most valuable. The most valuable would be Adrian Hauser, who was also on Meg's ballot, who ended up completing 518. But our winner is Ben Lindbergh with 1594 plate appearances and total batters faced and completes the. What I guess we call it batting around. Is this. You batted around with your ballot as all 10 of your players made an appearance in the big leagues?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes. You buried the lead there. This is unprecedented. I I sco at your projections. That's why they play the games, people. Yeah, that's why they play the games. And it is, by the way, Panon, at least according to baseball reference. So that. But yes, I'm glad I won, but I believe I would have won In a manner of speaking. If I had completed the sweep and not gotten the most. All right, yeah, that is. I mean, that has never been done before. There's a winner every year, but no one has ever gone 10 for 10 has 100% hit rate on their picks.

[Ben Clemens]

Is it also the record for like, you know, pas plus batter's face?

[Ben Lindbergh]

It is not right.

[Chris Hannel]

That would go to a Mr. Jeff Sullivan in 2019 had 1640.

[Ben Clemens]

Okay.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh, close.

[Chris Hannel]

Meg got1163, which is the sixth highest score ever and is also the highest score to not win in a single year. Meg had six players who recorded played appearances and total batters faced. Ben Clemens. The throwback ballot method did not pan out for you on this one, but I did appreciate the fact that out of everyone's ballots, I knew all of the names of the players on your ballot. So there was a lot of rooting interest in that, but it did not come to fruition. But we can now put to bed the minor league free agent draft and prepare for 2026.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Well, just don't be too hasty. Let's not put it to bed just yet. Let's talk and.

[Chris Hannel]

Nope, We've all moved on emotionally.

[Ben Lindbergh]

No, just a little more because this is like, I'm not a tattoo guy, but if I were to get a tattoo, I think it would be of my 2025 minor league free agent draft roster. No, this, this is my epitaph. Put this on my headstone. This team, like these guys, will be special to me for the rest of my life. Whenever I see one of these names, it will remind me of the miracle year. That's what they're calling it. When I went 10 for 10. I'm sure there's, there's an element of randomness to this. I acknowledge that. That, sure. You know, generally we, we hit on about gracious our picks probably, and things have to go your way and you do enough minor league free agent drafts, then eventually it's going to break your way and some guys are going to get called up and not get hurt or whatever it takes to get to the majors. But 10 for 10, I mean, I may have finished second to Jeff Sullivan by 46 plate appearances plus batter's face or whatever it is. No wonder a baseball team hired him to work for it. But this is one of my proudest accomplishments professionally, I think. I don't think that's an exaggeration. I, I savor this and will forever.

[Michael Bauman]

That was gross.

[Meg Rowley]

I mean, like, look, we were all like, oh, yeah, we'll We'll. We'll excitedly embrace Ben's victory. You know, he's our friend. We want him to be happy. And then you're like, actually, I want a one no matter what. And I was like, I think that we should skin him alive. You know, I think that's where I've landed.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I'm. I'm thinking I probably won't win the latter part of this podcast, so I got to take my victories where I can. But I just. I am very pleased about this. As you can probably tell, I am crowing about it. And I won't have to eat crow because I won. Suckers. 10 for 10.

[Chris Hannel]

Well done.

[Ben Lindbergh]

My number one guy was Jason Alexander. Not that Jason Alexander, but the baseball one who had 336. So Meg. Meg had the best pick in this draft.

[Meg Rowley]

Thank you.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And I. I was like the. The Bulk guy. It was, you know, it was a team effort. It wasn't just like, 10 superstars.

[Michael Bauman]

Are you doing a second monologue?

[Ben Clemens]

He is.

[Meg Rowley]

This is like Adrian Brody at the freaking Oscars.

[Ben Lindbergh]

They're playing by music.

[Ben Clemens]

Act like you've been there before, man. It was.

[Ben Lindbergh]

No one ever has been here before. I'm the first to. To summit this mountain, and so I'm. I'm gonna survey my territory for a while.

[Chris Hannel]

This is my equivalent of playing them, playing them off. I'm playing the music right now.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It was a true team effort is all I'm saying. No, no one selfishly hogging all the playing time. It wasn't 10 stars, 10 cabs back from. It was true, incredible clubhouse morale. A band of brothers from. From Jason Alexander at 3, 36 to Josh Walker at 25. Everyone made equally important contributions to the 10 for 10.

[Meg Rowley]

Monologue. All right, I'm looking forward to seeing.

[Chris Hannel]

This added to the YouTube super cut of inspirational.

[Meg Rowley]

Halle Berry has, like, thrown a shoe at you. She's gotten her revenge. Your Adrian.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Brilliant. I yield my time. Not that I have any remaining.

[Chris Hannel]

Shall we move on to the main event?

[Meg Rowley]

Please.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I mean, if you want to call it the main event. I feel like my main event has happened already, but yes. Let's proceed.

[Chris Hannel]

The 21 pages of the Google Doc in front of me tell me this is the main event. Yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Okay, well, you're the emcee now. You're the captain now. It's in your hands. So we will do this as you see fit.

[Chris Hannel]

All right, let's get into the 2025 preseason predictions game because it's time to answer some burning question, like how bold did listeners grade Your predictions. How disapproving will Ben Clemens be of those ratings? And who will be the last person left in the proverbial green room as we work our way through the list and thus earning the title of Mr. Or Ms. Chalk? And did we hire freelance paparazzi to follow Sabrina Carpenter? That answer is no. But let us begin the reveal of the preseason predictions game. To brief a recap, all four of our panelists made 10 prognostications before the start of the season, and listeners were asked to grade them by their likelihood. Those results determined how many points a prediction could make if it came true or how many points it would lose if it was proven false. And the less likely a prediction was graded, the better. We set a new record this year with 1556 listener ballots received.

[Michael Bauman]

Wow.

[Chris Hannel]

And those listeners were able to to track their own personal performances on the EW Stats website for the first time, which we continue to work on and iterate for this, the minor league free agent draft. The contract over underdraft is now live on the EW Stats website and we are on our way to making it a home for every competition in the history of the podcast.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Who else has contributed to that effort? Yes, please.

[Chris Hannel]

That's Sean McNamee, our project leader. Michael Fazio is our lead developer. We have other people contributing. Michael Mountain has been helping out out. Raymond Chen has been helping us out with a couple things. Our team is growing all the time, but those are the main hitters right there. I cannot thank them enough for the effort that they have been putting into this. I. This is not something I can do on my own anymore. So three cheers to the EW Stats team.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes. Entirely too much effort. This is far too professional for what we deserve.

[Michael Bauman]

I say this. I say this every time. These guys like this podcast a lot, man.

[Ben Clemens]

Yeah, Project manager.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, guilty as charged. Put it on your resume. I guess it sounds good. I don't know.

[Chris Hannel]

It is on my resume, actually. If you go to my website, it's like, yeah, that's one of the things that's listed on there. Say I do this fun thing like last year. What we're going to do is we're going to go through all 40 predictions sorted from least likely to most. And for the first time, that order has been completely secret until now. So I am happy to acknowledge that the award for boldest pick goes to Ben Clemens. Ben Clemens, number one, Shohei Ohtani will throw the fastest pitch thrown by a starter in the 2025 regular season, excluding openers that rating 12%.

[Ben Clemens]

Okay.

[Chris Hannel]

So, so fun. Note, while this was calculated to be the boldest pick, it was not the prediction to receive the most 0% ratings. 387 listeners graded this at 0 and it would not be a preseason predictions game without having to track Ohtani in ways that sometimes get weird. At first blush, you would think that this is not hard to track. However, the last two words of this prediction had a potential factor in the outcome as Ohtani's return to the mound was accompanied by an extreme pitch limit to the point where he was more or less being used as an opener. And his fastest pitch for a long time, 101.7 mph, came on June 28 against the Royals, in which he only stayed in as a pitcher for two innings. Is he an opener? I believe that counts as being an opener. He did go on to match that speed though in a later start. But all of this was moot as he was taught by multiple players, including Tarek Skubal and Hunter Green, both of which cleared 102 miles an hour with room to spare. I will now use this platform to lobby baseball savant to make additional search features to make this easier to research, including individual event sorting and filtering, starting and relief pictures. Thank you very much.

[Ben Clemens]

This is like a classic. How do you classify an opener?

[Chris Hannel]

Yes. How do you define an opener?

[Ben Clemens]

Bold effort by. Or good effort by Shohei there. That was supposed to be a pretty unlikely prediction and he almost did it. I was really impressed. I was charting every pitch of his first. First return to the mound. Yep, that was fun. And he was throwing hard and I was like, oh yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes. I am somewhat surprised. That was the boldest. I guess in retrospect, maybe seeing how hard he threw, it's. It seems less bold than it seemed at the time, but he would have.

[Ben Clemens]

Needed to throw a lot harder than he'd ever thrown. Basically.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Chris Hannel]

Yeah. He had hit 102 in the world Baseball Classic. Right. But yeah, he had not done that in the majors.

[Ben Clemens]

Yeah, but it was. I was very impressed. Like, it's like the only thing he didn't do this year. But he. He really came close. Good work.

[Chris Hannel]

He did all right. Number two. And this is the prediction that did Receive the most 0% ratings a major league player will date. Sabrina Carpenter. Michael Bauman, 13%. Sabrina Carpenter's romantic aspirations were more or less out of public view until an Aug. 29 report on the pop culture website Du Moi, which published an article about tip that they had received about Sabrina being seen in Europe with a hot, tall blonde with his long hair in a bun. This was on July 9th, which is almost a full week before the All Star break. So not likely to be someone active in major leagues.

[Michael Bauman]

You have not ruled out Michael Kopeck yet.

[Meg Rowley]

I was just about to say Michael Koch's out there.

[Michael Bauman]

A famous, famous celebrity serial monogamist.

[Chris Hannel]

Yeah, I have here. Bauman's prediction didn't necessarily require the major league player be active, but I cannot accept it on blind faith that this was Michael Kopec or Noah Syndergaard. And so due to a lack of evidence, I must deem this prediction false.

[Ben Clemens]

I feel like Man Child could be about many major league players, including Michael Copeland.

[Michael Bauman]

I watched that video and I thought Brandon Marsh was in that video.

[Ben Clemens]

I mean, I'm just saying we don't know for sure.

[Meg Rowley]

We don't.

[Chris Hannel]

I cannot accept a prediction on artistic interpretation. I am sorry to say I might.

[Ben Clemens]

Just do this on no grade. I feel like that song was as much hint as we'll get.

[Meg Rowley]

I think that it's a tantalizing possibility, though, because it could be Kobe.

[Chris Hannel]

There was rumors about Yamamoto, but they ended up being debunked. But all of that, those rumors were like before the prediction even got made, I believe.

[Michael Bauman]

Yeah, it's going to surprise you. I did zero research for this, so.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, well, we can't conclusively rule it out, but for the purposes of this prediction, I guess we can.

[Chris Hannel]

Number three, Meg Growley.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Chris Hannel]

Cattel Marte will win the NL MVP. 16%. Catal was hampered in a few ways on this. His injury early in the season costing him a month of playing time, strong competition that he was up against in the form of, oh, I don't know, Shohei Otani, a couple others. And also the primary narrative surrounding him throughout the second half was less than charitable, which is going to have an influence on voting, whether it's valid or not. But in the end, Shohei Ohtani took the MVP crown last week. I must deduct 16 points.

[Meg Rowley]

Wow.

[Michael Bauman]

16%. Like, I love Catal Marte. I remember vividly cheering this prediction. 16% for him to be an LMVP is insane.

[Ben Clemens]

So remember that all of these are just skewed up.

[Michael Bauman]

I know.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I'm trying.

[Ben Clemens]

12% likelihood for Atani to throw the fastest pitch. That's too high. There's a lot of guys who throw harder than that. Anything for Sabrina Carpenter.

[Chris Hannel]

The way to think about these is always how they rate in relation to one another. Yeah, that's where I've landed on all.

[Ben Clemens]

There'S like some, Some behavioral effect here.

[Ben Lindbergh]

People don't want to pitch a shutout here on their ballots. They. They want these things to come true.

[Michael Bauman]

Yeah.

[Ben Clemens]

Yeah.

[Chris Hannel]

And with that, we now have our Mr. Chalk. Ben Lindbergh is Mr. Chalk for 2025. How long will Ben Lindbergh sit in the green room? Let's find out. Number four, Ben Clements. Jacob deGrom will pitch more than 150 innings, but earn less than four fan graphs. War points. For Ben Clemens.

[Ben Clemens]

It might have been 140.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Right.

[Ben Clemens]

But he got there either way.

[Chris Hannel]

He pitched more than 150 innings.

[Ben Clemens]

Oh, yeah, He. He got there either way. Yeah. I thought I predicted 140, but either way he. He cleared both bars easy.

[Chris Hannel]

Yes. 82 points for you as it was graded at 8. 18%. This is now the second best prediction all time, behind Bauman's an animal will kill another animal prediction. And early on, the worry was that DeGrom wasn't necessarily on pace to get enough innings. But as the season progressed, that concern flipped as it became clear he absolutely would. But he had a really strong string of excellent outings. And then the risk was that he was just going to blow past four fan graphs or without breaking a sweat. But that petered out and we all held our collective breath. In September, deGrom finished with 3.4, Fangraph swore, earning Clemens a healthy amount of points for what turned out to be a fantastic prediction. Excellent work, Ben. 82 points is what I would say if this prediction were correct. And it is.

[Ben Clemens]

So well done.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Quite the fake.

[Ben Clemens]

I want to say a shout out to the fans voting on this one. I was worried that, like, these contingent things can be tough to think about, but yeah, the last like this should be very hard. Like it was a pretty bold prediction. Good work.

[Chris Hannel]

Yes. Good work, everybody. Number five, Michael Bauman. @ least one major league game this season will be played behind closed doors. 21%. And as much as it might have felt sometimes like this one had come to pass in Miami, which will come up in a later discussion, we have no documented instances of empty stadium baseball. This is false. Negative 21 points.

[Michael Bauman]

God damn it. I see you can't even do this right.

[Ben Clemens]

Good show.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Probably a good thing for the world. Sure, Baseball, that this prediction did not come true, but bad for Bamman.

[Chris Hannel]

Number six, Meg Rowley.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, come on. I tried to be bold with my predictions. I guess I can't even when I'm trying.

[Michael Bauman]

I believe you that you tried to be bold.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes.

[Chris Hannel]

Meg rally number six, Chandler Simpson, will lead the league in stolen basis 24% we now come to the part of our podcast where I blame Jeff Sullivan for something. Yay. Chandler Simpson did not record a stolen base until April 20, at which point the league leader already had 10. This did not matter though, as Simpson displayed why this prediction was made in the first place. He immediately began gaining ground, at one point stealing five bases in a two day span, bringing his total to 19, only two behind the top spot. And then literally the very next day he got optioned to Triple A. He would stay there for a few weeks, but that was enough to keep him from contending for the top rank on the leaderboard. At three different points in July and August, he got back within two, but his stolen base pace would fizzle down the stretch and finish with 44. Five behind the Yankees Jose Caballero.

[Meg Rowley]

Isn't that funny?

[Chris Hannel]

So that is false.

[Meg Rowley]

Isn't that the funniest bit?

[Chris Hannel]

You are hereby assigned to spend the next year at a trampoline Park. Number seven, Ben Clemens.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh my goodness.

[Chris Hannel]

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Will win the Home Run Derby 25%. And I am sorry to say the Home Run Derby was not able to deliver for you the way it did so spectacularly last year. Yes, he elected not to participate, which is quite the obstacle to overcome when picking someone to win.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That is a prerequisite.

[Ben Clemens]

I was hoping for the old this player is either going to hit free agency or be traded. Like the Juan Soto wins the Derby year when the Nats were shopping him. Yeah, but then he got his contract so you know, good for him. But I imagine if he were going into free agency, he might have wanted to play in the Derby.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Chris Hannel]

I also cannot accept the philosophical victory a la war Games where you believe that the Home Run Derby curse is real and that it hurts your performance and thus meaning the only winning move is to not play. Then that is not applicable here. So. Minus 25 number eight, Michael Bauman. @ some level of domestic professional baseball, a mascot will strike a pedestrian with a motorized vehicle. 26%. I felt like I started getting blue car syndrome with the number of news articles that played a kind of Mad Libs with the target parameters but never being in the right configuration. We had lots of incidents outside of baseball, some involving some serious injuries that I'm not going to detail here, but never exactly matching the desired event. And I want to say Bauman, I think that in the history of this competition this is far and away the hardest prediction to track because.

[Michael Bauman]

Sorry. Well, I thought this was a lock. I thought it was going to happen.

[Ben Lindbergh]

He always makes it hard on you in some way.

[Chris Hannel]

Well, it's this one. It's that this one's not not hard in the same way that the Shohei Ohtani media rounds one was. Because I really believe that there are a lot of incidents that would completely fulfill the necessary conditions, like a mascot gently nudging a coach or an umpire in the butt with an atv. But that would never be noteworthy enough to be covered by a journalist or become popular on social media. And I would even go so far as to say that on balance, I'd be willing to bet that this happened. But we have no knowledge of it, no evidence. I did give a full throated effort and proactively sought out video of mascot antics. But I have been left wanting. I have no choice but to deem this false and penalize you 26 points.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Some things are unknowable.

[Michael Bauman]

I've almost personally been killed by the fanatic more than once. So maybe I should have just jumped in front of his quad bike.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, well, I was going to credit you for not cooking the books here because you did have the power to make this come true and you abided by the rules. And I mean, even the rules permitted.

[Chris Hannel]

The rules permit it. I permit cooking the books, yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Swayed this. And yet you. You let things play out and the chips fell as they would. And we'll never know. I guess. We can't know whether Sabrina Carpenter dated a baseball player. We can't know whether a mascot ran over someone and it just wasn't witnessed by anyone.

[Chris Hannel]

Wow. I am. I will be awaiting videos sent in the next week proving all of these true. And it'll be hilarious. Number nine, Ben Clements.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh my gosh. Is it just going to be everyone else's predictions and then mine at the very end, all in a row? Was I this cowardly last year? Was it?

[Chris Hannel]

No, you were not right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I was pretty. I was pretty bold last year, right? I thought I was proud of my boldness.

[Chris Hannel]

Bauman. Bauman was Mr. Chalk last year.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[Chris Hannel]

Ben Clemens, number nine. The Chicago White Sox will end at least one day with sole possession of the AL Central leading 26%. We were this close. The prediction absolutely carried the first few days of the season for me. Between March 31 and April 2, the White Sox had multiple opportunities to bring this home, including games where every other team that were in their way had already taken the required loss earlier in the day. Only for the White Sox to squander the moment in the night cap. The entire AL Central finished that stretch locked in a five way tie at 2 and 4. But our dreams were all but dead four short days later when Chicago dropped three straight games. And from there, destiny was written in stone. This is false.

[Ben Clemens]

This is the one that I followed a little bit when I think they lost one nothing to the Angels when they had to win and I would get the prediction. It's like, oh, I was just seeing the score pop up and 00, 0,000.

[Chris Hannel]

Come on, come on.

[Michael Bauman]

You weren't.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You weren't actually going to tune in to watch, though. You were just watching the scoreboard from afar because you wouldn't subject yourself to White Sox Angels even when a prediction was at stake.

[Ben Clemens]

Look, I have limits.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. This one, it was now or never. It was either it's going to happen right at the start of the season or it's not going to happen again. Because White Sox, they made some strides. They improved, but not to the point where this was ever viable past the first few days of the season.

[Chris Hannel]

Number 10, Meg Rowley. Yeah, the Athletics will finish second in the AL West. We were not this close.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, this didn't happen.

[Chris Hannel]

To their credit, I can actually say that the Athletics did spend time in second place a total of seven days in May. But then they lost 19 of their next 20 games and put this one to bed in short order. Oh, that was 26%. Okay. Now, before I read this next prediction, may I be so bold as to ask our panelists to either minimize the 90 tabs of fan graphs they collectively have open or at the very least, look away from them. Ben Clements. At least three players who play at some point for the Colorado Rockies will finish the season with 500 plate appearances and negative fan graph score 29%. Let's play a little trivia. I might need the three of you to tell me. Can you tell me the three players for the Rockies that qualified as batters for the season?

[Michael Bauman]

Absolutely not.

[Meg Rowley]

Oh, gosh.

[Ben Lindbergh]

I know. Hunter Goodman.

[Chris Hannel]

Hunter Goodman is one. Yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

He was one good man.

[Ben Clemens]

Brenton Doyle.

[Chris Hannel]

Yes. He's two.

[Meg Rowley]

Jordan Beck.

[Chris Hannel]

That's three. Very well done. Hunter Goodman, Jordan Beck and Brenton Doyle.

[Ben Lindbergh]

We remembered some Rockies.

[Chris Hannel]

They all had positive fan graph. Swan. The Rockies had 18 stupid tolia. 18 players had negative fan grass war for the Rockies. There was no overlap between those two lists. Tyler Freeman came the closest, earning negative 0.7 over 428 plate appearances. Michael Toglia. Kyle Farmer should also be recognized, as Rowan Atkinson might say in his welcome to hell sketch, for putting in an awful lot of work, but they were not able to do it.

[Ben Clemens]

I have to say this was a bad prediction by the readers. This was incredibly unlikely. Yeah, this basically can't happen. I thought this was going to be much bolder than it was. I kind of forgot about this one because it was such a throwaway.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Just because it's hard to qualify while being that bad. If anyone. Yeah, if any team could have made it happen, it would have been the 2025 rocket.

[Ben Clemens]

Well, if any team could. Right. Like, I feel like I picked one of the best teams in history to do this, but like. Like there were only five batters to qualify with negative WAR this year.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Chris Hannel]

Yeah.

[Ben Clemens]

And none were on the Rocket. Really hard. Yeah, none were on the Rockies. One of them was Andrew McCutcheon, which is shocking.

[Chris Hannel]

Number 12, Ben Lindbergh. Yay.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Finally, I knew there was a reason I showed up other than to take several victory laps about the minor league draft.

[Chris Hannel]

All right, the Atlanta Braves will finish out of first place in the NL east by no more than the number of games they lose in which Craig Kimbrell takes the loss or blows a save 29%. So we finally hear from you, Ben. I only wish I had good news for you. Craig Kimbrell made exactly one appearance for Atlanta in a game that he did not factor into the decision before being DFA'd and picked up by the Astros, where He did make 13 appearances and was responsible for a single loss. Which means you made one of the classic blunders. Not, of course, to never get involved in a land war in Asia, but. But had you been less specific, this would have earned you points. Had you phrased it, a team will miss the postseason by the number of games they lose in which Craig Kimball takes the loss or blows the save. The Houston Astros get you there because they lost the tiebreaker to the Detroit Tigers and he had one loss.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes, we got an email about this from listener Patreon supporter Alana about a month ago who said as I was watching the sadly Astros lists ALCS this week and I couldn't help wondering where to put the tipping point when Houston season went irrevocably wrong. Sure, they let Bregman walk, traded Tucker and lost the most value to injury of any team. Those are the obvious answers and clearly red herrings. After disposing of those horses, I started hunting zebra and realized that Ben had already pinpointed exactly what wound up being the final nail in Houston's coffin and amazingly called his shot all the way back in episode 2298 with one big caveat during the preseason predictions game Ben bet that Craig Kimbrell would cost Atlanta the NL east by posting more blown saves and losses than the margin by which the team lost the division. At face value, this prediction was hilariously wrong. Atlanta lost the east by a full 20 games. However, I'd encourage a slightly different perspective. Kimbrell lost a single game in 2025, but not until he was playing for Houston on September 9th. He gave up a walk off run in the 10th inning in Toronto. One could easily argue this was the straw that broke the camel's back. The next morning, Houston's playoff odds fell below 80% for the first time in three months. Three Astros went to the IL within the next week. Seventeen games after Kimbrell's loss in Canada, the Astros tied the Tigers 87 wins and missed the playoffs for the first time since President Obama left office. Ben was wrong. Ben was right. All hail Ben. Thank you, Alana.

[Michael Bauman]

She really say all hell, Ben?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes, it's in there. Meg can verify. Bye.

[Meg Rowley]

I can, but I'm not inclined to be generous to you after your marathon acceptance speech earlier.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, I knew. I knew Craig Kimbrell could do it. I just didn't know where.

[Chris Hannel]

Before we move on, I do want to state the EW Stats team had a really fun time working on figuring out the magic number for this prediction. Because theoretically, at any point, Kimbrell could be put back on waivers by the Astros, reclaimed by Atlanta, and then go on an epic stretch where they won every game that he didn't pitch in to get back in contention. But then he would factor in the loss of all the other ones and have that be enough games to make this prediction true. That's actually not the easiest math problem, but they reached it somewhere within the month of August. I don't have the exact date, but it was a fun thing to try and figure out anyways. 29%. That was false. Number 13, Meg rally. Yes, Ethan Holiday will be the first pick in this year's MLB amateur draft. 30%. Holiday did, in fact, top multiple mock drafts, including Jim Callis's projection for mlb. Com. Meanwhile, on fan graphs, Eric Longenhagen had him ninth, so I have to imagine that he agreed that this prediction was very bold. But in the end, the poetic outcome won out with Ethan going to his father's Colorado Rockies with the fourth pick. This is false.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah. Yep, it's true.

[Chris Hannel]

Number 14, Ben Clemens. Raphael Devers will play more innings at third base than Alex Bregman. 31%. And I hate to break this to you and this may come as a shock, this did not happen.

[Ben Clemens]

I thought it was very funny when he played some innings at third base this year.

[Chris Hannel]

This does offer me the opportunity though to I want to plug a really cool feature of fangraphs. Did you know that fangraphs has a community blog and not just a thing where you can post nonsense and hope to get eyeballs? If you have a post that is worth publishing, you will get an editor to work with you on your article. And so I wanted to do mid season updates on each panelist draft boards and decided that using the community blog would be an awesome way to do it. And I was very delighted when I received an email from fangraph's own Matt Martel to begin the process for editing it and making my writing ready for primetime and I ended up getting three posts on the site breaking down the status of Bauman, Clemens and Meg. I ran out of time to do.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Ben Lindbergh's but wow snub.

[Chris Hannel]

I just want to thank Matt for sharing his time and expertise to help me with my nonsense. The reason I mention this here is I had this really great write up on this exact prediction that I was really happy with and it literally was going to go up the day before Devers got traded and I had to completely pivot it and I got to experience something that I'm sure everyone here has had to deal with at some point while riding where it's like oh, I guess I get to toss this in the trash. But thanks to Matt's help I had something I was happy with. But regardless, no, you lost this prediction in very funny fashion. Negative 31 points. Number 15 Benlinberg 3 or more non position player pitchers will throw at least 20 knuckleballs each in the majors. Even without the qualifier that eliminated position player pitchers, this did not come to pass. Matt Waldron held up his end of the bargain. He threw 77 knuckleballs. The second most prolific starting pitcher was Adrian Morhone, who threw five knuckleballs by April 14th and then just stopped and he didn't throw another one the rest of the season. Twins rookie Pearson Ohl also had five, which is amusing because Pearson wasn't even the Twins prospect that you had brought up as being clocked as a promising knuckleball before this season started. That was Corey Lewis, but he did not get called up this season. This is false, Ben.

[Ben Clemens]

I thought this one was bold too.

[Chris Hannel]

Yeah, I think this is definitely we all just wanted it to happen very, very badly.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Maybe my Mr. Chalk reputation has caused people to downplay my boldness. Maybe I'm cursed by my past lack of boldness.

[Ben Clemens]

There is also like everyone wants more knuckleballing. I bet you I like. It's just so tempting. I want to click yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, it was a great disappointment to me. Matt Waldron made one start in the majors and it didn't go great, as you could probably infer. And also his minor league season didn't go so great either. He had a six and a half ERA is in 90 and a third minor league innings. So not a total shock that he didn't get to make more major league starts. And yeah, sad that he was not joined in the big leagues by some of the other knuckleballers. There are a few floating around, the Miners carrying the torch and I hope that one of these years this will be true.

[Chris Hannel]

Number 16, we stick with Ben Lindbergh. The success rate for scoring from third base in sac fly situations will fall to 94% or below 32%. This was a very fun one to track and I want to give a big thank you to Patrick Dubuque of Baseball Prospectus, not just for inspiring this prediction, but also for corresponding with me about the statistics he was tracking. And I wanted to be as fair as possible because the data set that you had looked at when originally making this prediction was based on Patrick's work, which does not agree with Baseball Savant ever so slightly. This is a really fun thing about baseball stats. Different data sets have separate criteria for what constitutes a fly ball, which has an impact on how you count sac fly situations. So I looked at both Savant and BP's data sets. When the season was over, though, it was moot. Both Savant and Patrick's data both decided that the tactical adjustment that you were hoping for did not come to pass. And we saw a success rate of 97.5% using baseball savant or 96.4 using baseball prospectuses. So that is a false negative.32.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Did it even go down? Do you remember what it was before?

[Chris Hannel]

I don't remember what it was. If it went down, it didn't go down by much.

[Ben Lindbergh]

No, I was, yeah, I was predicting a big drop because there had been Patrick's article and other things written that suggested, oh, teams are just too cowardly when it comes to this too like me evidently when making predictions and they should be waving those guys around much more often. And outs are the price that you pay for all the extra runs that you score. And yeah, there didn't seem to be any significant shift in how teams were thinking about this. Unfortunately for me and my prediction. So maybe one of these years.

[Chris Hannel]

Well, and Twins fans will tell you that the fact that Tommy Watkins has been hired away from being third base coach from the Twins to go work for Atlanta means that these odds are probably going up because Tommy was very famous for having a very quick gun on sending people. So that will not help in your stats for next year.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, there were a couple third base coaches who were dismissed mid season as I remember messaging Patrick about them to ask if this was. It was happening finally. That teams were finally recognizing that this would be the case. I think it was at least two teams. I think it was Atlanta replace their third base coach because of some bad sends. But then maybe that's even confirming. The problem is that when you have someone who has some bad sens and then you fire them, that's.

[Chris Hannel]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

That suggests that you're. You're not having a high enough level of tolerance for some guys getting thrown out. It's going to happen. So.

[Chris Hannel]

Exactly.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh, well.

[Chris Hannel]

Number 17, Ben Clemens. The strikeout rate will fall below 22% league wide. 33% for so much of the season. I thought you had this after. After a few weeks, the number fluctuating a fair bit. It dropped below 22% on May 19. Did not come back up for air. Repeatedly flirted with 21.9%, which doesn't sound like a big difference, but keep in mind, we're talking about tens of thousands of plate appearances. But on August 23, it started going back up. It just did not stop. It reached 22% again on September 7, kept rising at full speed and finished at 22.22%. And it turns out that had I actually familiarized myself with historical trends pertaining to the strikeout rate, this would not have shocked me at all. Which brings me to today's Stat Blast. Play the music.

[Meg Rowley]

Whoa.

[Chris Hannel]

And then they'll tease out some interesting tidbit, discuss it at length, and analyze it for us in amazing ways. Here's two days to blast. Today's Stat Blast is brought to you by EW Stats teammate and frequent Stat Blast correspondent Michael Mountain. And what we looked at was how often the strikeout rate goes up in September and by how much. And it turns out that the answer to these questions is almost always and by a meaningful amount. Since 1957, with 2020 removed from the data set for obvious reasons, the strikeout rate for games played September 1st or later has risen all but eight times, and of those eight, only three saw an actual drop. The others stayed level 16 times during that stretch. The increase was by more more than a full percentage point over the strikeout rate over the rest of the season. So it should be pointed out that a raise of 1% is a significant bump considering that over that span, league strikeout rates were somewhere between 12.5 and 22.5%. There is only one instance of the K rate dropping by more than 1 percentage point in September, and that was in 2021 when the league went more or less wire to wire with the highest year to date K rate for a full season, again excluding 2020. And if you I say this because Michael noted during our research for this Stat Blast Episode 1742 released September 3, 2021 during the outro, Ben mentions that he was hoping to see the first season to season decrease in K rate in 16 years and quote, we have a real shot because coming into this weekend we're only barely over last season's rate given that 2020 had finished at 23.4. And historically that would have almost always meant that your hopes were dead in the water. But it was the one year where there was a decrease and you ended up getting what you wanted. So your wish, or should I say prediction, came to pass. But I cannot retroactively give you points for that one in 2021.

[Ben Clemens]

I feel like I had the direction right on this. Lowest strikeout rate since 2017?

[Chris Hannel]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ben Clemens]

Went a little far.

[Chris Hannel]

Number 18 Ben Lindbergh, Max Freed, Cody Bellinger and Devin Williams will collectively surpass Juan Soto's fan graphs war but the Yankees will miss the postseason 30 so obviously the Yankees did not miss the postseason. But if it will help you at all, Freed, Bellinger and Williams easily outperformed Juan Soto's 5.8. FanGraph swore they totaled for 11.1 and in fact, any combination of two out of those three players would have cleared the bar for you. Freed at 4.8, Bellinger at 4.9, Devin Williams 1.4.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, they really did recreate Juan Soto in the aggregate, if not twice over something even better. Yeah, so I guess the thing that made it both was that that would happen and then they would somehow miss the playoffs. And that obviously did not happen. But they didn't win the division. So there was that. There was a time where their fortunes were tanking and their playoff odds were sinking and everyone was freaking out in New York even more than usual, and it looked like they might actually be on a trajectory to potentially miss the playoffs. And I was thinking of this prediction, but no, it did not come true. I refreshed my memory about the multiple base coaches who were dismissed. It was the Diamondbacks who relieved third base coach Shane Larkin of his base coaching duties in August. And it was Atlanta that made the same move and brought back Freddie Gonzalez actually to be the third base coach in the middle of the season in June. And this was the first time that Alex Anthopoulos had ever dismissed a coach or made a coaching change during a season. They reassigned the major league third base coach to the minors and he said there's been some aggressive sends and that's part of the job. But the results from my standpoint and in talking to Snit, he understood and he ultimately agreed. I felt like we could do better. So again, your aggressiveness coming back to bite you.

[Chris Hannel]

For the third base coaches, number 19, Michael Bauman. At least three Boston Red Sox players will earn Rookie of the year votes 34%. Roman Anthony finished third. And voting. You had him in the bag. That was. We were pretty certain that he was going to get votes early on. So the real question was if two more would come along for the ride. Carlos Narvaez finished sixth, but they would be the only two Red Sox players to earn votes. If you were to go through the roster and look for who would have been the next most likely candidate, I think you end up with Hunter Dobbins who pitched 61 innings over 11 starts but had an ERA over four. So this is false.

[Ben Clemens]

Yeah.

[Michael Bauman]

Christian Campbell and Marcel Meyer. Let me down here a little bit, but still getting two feels good.

[Chris Hannel]

Number 20, Meg rally.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Chris Hannel]

Isaac Paretis will earn more fan graphs war than Kyle Tucker.

[Meg Rowley]

That didn't happen.

[Chris Hannel]

No. Kyle Tucker had his struggles late in the season, but paretes lengthy il stint made taking advantage of that slump all but impossible. Tucker finished with 4.5 parades behind him at 2.5. This was 34% and it is false.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. I liked this one when you made it and for a while there it was looking good.

[Meg Rowley]

It was looking good. Yeah. I, I think that it should get bonus points for being just like a little bit sassy, you know, like in a fun way. Much like me. Just a little bit sassy in a fun way. But no, it didn't, Didn't. Didn't end up coming to fruition there. So what are you gonna do?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Add a separate scoring system for sassiness in next year's prediction?

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, because then you, you definitely finish last because your predictions are so milquetoast That's a weird word. I don't like that. I don't care for it. You should leave it in, Shane. Leave it in.

[Chris Hannel]

Number 21, Ben Lindbergh. A player will steal at least 80 bases. 34%. That's. That's a high odds.

[Ben Clemens]

That's pretty high.

[Chris Hannel]

As previously discussed, Jose Caballero led the league with only 49. That's so. I think it's time that we all went back to the early 2000s Internet vibe of writing about baseball. As if bullying managers in front offices being completely out of touch with optimal strategy. Let's bring back bullying, people. Let's get stolen basis back in the strats.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It seems like this should have been doable. If Juan Soto can lead the league in steals, then someone who's actually fast surely could have stolen 80. Come on.

[Chris Hannel]

This next prediction is one that I am granting special recognition in the form of the inaugural Daniel Vogelbach Memorial trophy, an award presented to the prediction that is most in the spirit of this exercise through its originality, commitment to the bit, and the entertainment derived from watching it progress. And this award is hereby presented to. Mr. Ben Clements for. The Chicago Cubs will score enough runs to double the number of points scored by the Chicago Bears in the month of September. 35%. I already loved this prediction. And Ben clinched earning this trophy by posting on Blue Sky. Oh, you're fading. Caleb Williams and fantasy football. Neat. Cool. Yeah, I managed to fade him in baseball.

[Ben Clemens]

I was wrong.

[Chris Hannel]

Yeah, wrong. But this was still really fun to think about and watch. The Bears only had four games in September compared to 25 of the Cubs. We did also include the one postseason game that the Cubs played in September 30th because it was in the month of September. Bears games also became fun to watch because every touchdown was a huge swing. Week one's game against the Vikings was initially very scary. Their very first drive, Bears carved up. The Vikings defense scored in 10 plays. And you're thinking, oh, God. And then they went punt, turnover on downs, punt, field goal, punt, punt, missed field goal, punt. Now it starts feeling like this is all back in play. And then they had a pick six and another touchdown in the final two minutes. And all of a sudden, the plate, the pace was completely blown. And with subsequent efforts of 21, 31 and 24 points, you need to take away the doubling that you offered the Bears in order for this to be true. But The Cubs had 120 runs to the Bears, 202 doubled points. So this is false. But congratulations on being the Recipient of the Daniel Vogelbach Memorial Trophy.

[Ben Clemens]

Yeah, I don't think that that that was a reasonable, like, percentage odds for this to happen. Like, I looked at it and I was like, well, I can't say 1x a double is, like, almost impossible, but it'll be funny. Yeah. So I. I kind of thought this would be like a 10 percenter, but it would have been amazing if it happened.

[Ben Lindbergh]

No such thing as a 10 percenter.

[Michael Bauman]

That's fair.

[Ben Clemens]

I. I did this specifically because I wanted to tell my friend who's a Bears fan, that I did it.

[Chris Hannel]

And I did, and you did, and.

[Ben Clemens]

He thought it was funny. So. Success.

[Meg Rowley]

I feel like the Bears are occupying this weird spot where, like, they're. They're 7 and 3 and they're leading their division. I'm. I'm not telling Ben Lindbergh noted anything. He doesn't know.

[Ben Lindbergh]

But.

[Meg Rowley]

But I do think that they're actively trying to kill their fans with the way that they're.

[Ben Clemens]

I think they're the Mets playing football.

[Meg Rowley]

They're like, really? Have I told my packers bar story on this podcast before? Will you allow a quick digression? Granted, when I was in grad school in Wisconsin and I wanted to watch the Seahawks, I'd have to go out to watch them because unless they were playing a national game, they weren't on where I was. And so a bunch of my grad school friends and I would go watch Sunday games together, and we walked into the bar where we normally played trivia, and the packers had just lost in devastating fashion in a game that they were supposed to win. And the game ends, and there's sort of like a moment of silence that falls across the bar because of. Very serious about their packers up there. And then a. A poke starts to play, and the words of the poker are, the Bears still suck. And then the bartender was like, look, we made all these green and yellow jello shots, so we're just going to give them out anyway because that state has a really weird relationship with alcohol. And. And that was my packers story where I was like, so in this moment where you have embarrassed yourselves or your team has, you still need to get that little shot in at the Bears. That's. That's wicked. Hate.

[Ben Clemens]

Yeah, Meg, I have a follow up for this story. My wife is from Wisconsin and she's a big packers fan. And the first time that I went to go see a Packers game with her is at this bar called Kettle of Fish in New York. It's a cool bar. Yeah, I've Been to Kettle of Fish together. It's like it's a Packers bar. It's Wisconsin themed there. When the packers score, they play a Packers polka and the whole place dances. And I think they hand out shots.

[Meg Rowley]

Sure.

[Ben Clemens]

And whenever the other team scores, no matter who it is, they play the Bears still.

[Meg Rowley]

Oh, my God, that's amazing.

[Ben Clemens]

Like 10 times a game or whatever, you know, if they're getting blown out, but they play it every time the other teams cook.

[Chris Hannel]

That's so good.

[Meg Rowley]

That's great.

[Chris Hannel]

Lewis Black always had a really good joke. He was doing a standup set in Wisconsin and he said, I love Wisconsin. It's like you have a government subsidy for drinking.

[Meg Rowley]

Yes.

[Chris Hannel]

How do you guys even tell when it's New Year's? And he. He mimed. Oh, New Year's, that. That's when we drink with hats on.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Michael Bauman]

He said, he. He said accurately that it's cheaper to fly from New York to Madison and drink there than it is to drink in New York.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, that's true, too.

[Chris Hannel]

Number 23, Meg Rowley.

[Meg Rowley]

Yes.

[Chris Hannel]

We will have no repeat division winners other than the Los Angeles Dodgers. 35%. This percentage was far too high. I will say on your behalf. The Dodgers did repeat, but this did look like an extreme long shot well before September arrived. On August 21, I was able to run the numbers against Vangraft's playoff odds and it calculated this prediction at 0.21% odds, mostly thanks to the brewers in the Phillies. On the final day, we did have some surprise in terms of who would join them in playing. Spoiler with the Guardians being surprise winners and the Yankees falling short. But this is false negative 35.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah.

[Chris Hannel]

Number 24, Michael Bauman. The Tampa Bay Rays will announce a relocation plan to move to a specific destination outside the Tampa Bay area. 36%. Now, we will be diving much deeper into the news regarding ownership situations later on, but as of the end of this competition, any news that's been reported related to the long term direction of the club has been the team staying in the Tampa Bay area. They'll be expected to return to Tropicana field in 2026. Their current agreement to play their runs until 2028. All active efforts to find a new stadium location have focused on staying in the Tampa Bay area. There is some rumbling that a few factions in the new investment group are based in Jacksonville and might want to seek an angle to move the team there, but that just remains idle speculation at this point. This is false negative 36 for now.

[Michael Bauman]

For now, I Might run this back next year.

[Chris Hannel]

Number 25, Meg Rowley. Yes, we have points. The New York Mets will miss the post post season. That's right, 37%, meaning you earned 63 points. And for the second consecutive year, I had to watch the final Mets game of the season to see if a prediction became true. And for the second straight season it was on September 5th. The Mets had a 96.6% chance to reach the postseason according to fan graphs. And a few weeks later, they were eliminated on the final day of the season.

[Michael Bauman]

I just want to say you didn't have to watch the final Mets game of the season. They would have put that in the newspaper between then and now.

[Chris Hannel]

You need to understand and I was going to get into this at some point. It's well known that I'm a Twins fan. If I wasn't running this competition, I would have stopped watching baseball in August. I, for the first time since like 2016, I would have just said I'm done. I'm done with baseball. Screw this game. But this competition, I had more fun with the second half of this season because it was very stress free and I was like watching games and tuning in. And I have fully bought into the slog to rigor mortis argument that Sam Miller put on. This is all for entertainment. And I had a lot of fun with baseball. So thank you very much.

[Meg Rowley]

You're welcome.

[Chris Hannel]

For allowing me to have this opportunity to not hate baseball.

[Michael Bauman]

Having something at stake with regards to predictions gave you an interest in, in games with which you didn't have a person.

[Chris Hannel]

That's not advocacy for sports betting. That's what you're trying to get to.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, it sounds like you're treading dangerously close to that territory, but yeah. Well, you can thank yourself because this whole game was your idea, I guess. But you've become almost more of a fan of the effectively wild predictions than of the sport itself. I guess. You know what, you need the sport to be able to grade the predictions. So it's still essential.

[Chris Hannel]

I don't like how that's only half joking. And that's something I'm going to have to talk to my therapist about next week. Number 26. We stick with Meg Rally and we stick with more points. At least three primary catchers, as defined by fan graphs will hit 30 plus home runs this season. 38%, meaning you earn 62 points. One of the more exciting predictions to track because even though Cal Raleigh was on track to blow past 30 home runs almost immediately, a path for the other two catchers to join him felt extremely tenuous as late as September. And the list of who had the best chance was frequently in flux. Logan. Oh, hoppy. Had close to 20 by the all Star break and then completely fell off a cliff soon afterwards. Salby got off to a hot streak. Then he cooled off. But finally, Hunter Goodman and Shay lang Lears eclipsed 30 home runs. They both finished at 31. And Salvador Perez snuck in at the very last second and reached 30 on September 19th. You earned points.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Thank you. Came true with a catcher to start. Spare?

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Chris Hannel]

Number 27, Michael Bauman. At least one of the 2025 Cy Young winners will finish with five or lower. Fan graphs war 39%. This is false. I think we all collectively felt like this was not going to happen due to the exploits of Tarek School and Paul Skeens as the season drew close. Amusingly, I did have to keep it open until the very end because Hunter Brown was included on the list of finalists, and so, technically, the result was still up in the air. But if we're being honest with ourselves, I think we knew that this was not going to happen. This is false. Negative 39.

[Michael Bauman]

I would have been very pleasantly surprised if Hunter Brown had ended up winning the Cy Young.

[Ben Clemens]

No, you wouldn't. We would have had a gambling scandal.

[Michael Bauman]

I tell you what, I would carve that out as a little bailiwick of mine so I would have had something to write about.

[Chris Hannel]

We now come to the prediction that makes me want to walk into the ocean and never come back. Meg rowley. At least two major league teams will announce new controlling ownership.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Chris Hannel]

39%. I will now ask producer Shane to play the clip of Meg proclaiming that. We will know. We'll know. We'll know. We'll know.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Hopefully, that's specific and precise enough for us to be able to evaluate this, but I think that.

[Meg Rowley]

I think it is.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Mm. Yeah. I think we'll probably know it when we. Like.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, you'll know. Okay. You'll know.

[Ben Lindbergh]

All right.

[Chris Hannel]

No, the trouble. Trouble with a capital T, which rhymes with P, which stands for predictions, started when the White Sox announced a deal between owner Jerry Reinsdorf and billionaire investor Justin Ishbia to transfer shares over the next several years, with Ishbia being able to hold a controlling stake as early as 2029. Now. Now, based on the wording of the announcement and how the language of the prediction can be parsed, as well as Meg spelling out that the sale does not have to be completed by the deadline, it simply must be announced, I felt that this met the requirements and the evening that the news broke, after reading through multiple reports and how it was being analyzed, I shared on social media that this counted towards this prediction being fulfilled. However, a fair number of lists listeners react to that. They expressed their disagreement and I am more I am willing to admit they do have a valid argument because technically the announcement wasn't about quote unquote new controlling ownership. It was quote a deal in place between two parties that builds a framework for said parties to have the option to transfer controlling ownership. There is definitely a sequence of events where neither party exercises their part in that deal and Reinsdorf somehow remains owner of the White Sox at the spry young age of 98 years old.

[Meg Rowley]

I think he'll find a way to do it when he's a ghost, you know. Yeah, possibilities.

[Chris Hannel]

My counter to this has been that the contract of this scope is not signed lightly. It does not happen unless both sides go into the deal fully intending to see this go through. The tone of the press release, quotes from both sides of the deal, analysis of media members close to the relevant parties all communicated that this was for all intents and purposes, a succession plan. Now, while all of this was going on, there were two other franchises at the epicenter of news and rumors regarding their sales, the Rays and the Twins. Now, given the volume of noise and rumors related to these, my prayer for very selfish reasons was that these would both happen. And I do admit that I was a very, very selfish hope. But if both teams sold, the White Sox decision becomes moot and I'm off the hook. But the Poland family found a new and novel way to disappoint me even further. Pulling out of plans to sell their majority stake and with the raise, ownership groups actually selling very late in the situation, we are left in the situation where I am standing on principle and I am declaring this prediction true +61 points.

[Meg Rowley]

However, we have a clause much like the potential sale of the White Sox.

[Chris Hannel]

Yeah, I am not deaf to the cries of those who deem this decision questionable and as a result we're going to have a bit of fun with it. I've already conversed with all four of our competitors and the decree is this. In future years of this competition, should news come out that Ishbia and Reinsdorf have washed their hands of this whole affair and no transfer of majority ownership takes place, Meg will lose the 61 points that she has earned today in that year's iteration of the preseason predictions game, which will be colossally funny if it should happen. So you know, let's, let's turn that frown upside down, people.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, fair enough. I like this condition very much.

[Meg Rowley]

And I, I, I want to make clear to our listener, I was very willing to submit to the judgment of both the listeners and also to my fellow contestants. I did not cause a fuss about this. I wanted to do what everyone thought was fair because that seemed like it's in the spirit of the thing.

[Chris Hannel]

Yeah. But in the end, as we've said many times before, this is all for fun. This is all for entertainment.

[Ben Lindbergh]

There's zero stakes, unlike the minor league for agent draft, which is life or death.

[Chris Hannel]

I am, I am going to want to sit in. Even if I don't say anything, I am going to want to sit in on the next one. So I can just chime in and be like, I, I might want to tweak that one a little bit. Number 29, Michael Bauman. A Division 1 college team will hit more home runs than the average MLB team. 40% in the college ranks, Georgia was the Division 1 leader with 144 home run runs. That was overtaken fairly easily by A league average of 188. 29 of the 30 MLB teams hit more than 144. Only the Pirates hit less with 117. So they're way behind the rest of the league, but that is minus 40.

[Michael Bauman]

I expected home runs to go up in college and down in the majors and the reverse happened.

[Chris Hannel]

So number 30, Ben Lindbergh. The Cleveland Guardians will finish outside the top 10 in team reliever WPA or team relief pitcher WPA 40%. The Guardians finished third in the league even with all of the Classe Ortiz related nonsense happening throughout the second half of the season. They did fall to 10th midseason, but rebounded soon after and finished third.

[Ben Lindbergh]

For a while there it was looking like this would come true and then Class A couldn't pitch anymore and somehow they got better and this did not.

[Chris Hannel]

Is that all I the way this.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Went south from a prediction perspective. But what I was getting at that they would go from best ever to less good. That happened, but not to the same extent. So there was regression. But it didn't bite them hard enough to keep them out of the top three or the playoffs, as it turned out.

[Chris Hannel]

Yeah, number 31. We stick with Ben Lindberg. This season will feature the most ever teams finishing at or above.500 both by the total team and percentage of teams across the league. 42% for multiple long stretches of the season. This was projected to happen by fan Graphs as well as the league being on pace. But it all fell apart in the final three weeks of the season. Things did not go your way. And while it was still possible, it required multiple teams to either win out or close to, it was not meant to be. In the end, 17. 19 of the 30 teams won at least 81 games. You needed 19. This is false.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So close. So close. Yeah, it was kind of chalky in the sense that it was actually predicted to come to pass when I made this prediction, but also not chalky in the sense that it would have been unprecedented. Never happened before. Yeah, but still hasn't.

[Chris Hannel]

Number 32, Michael Bauman. Jamie Arnold will be one of the first two picks in this year's MLB amateur draft. 43%. This prediction saw the most 50% ratings by listeners at 196. 196 people threw their hands up. There went, I don't know.

[Meg Rowley]

People are like, we do not understand college baseball.

[Michael Bauman]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. That was my reaction to this prediction.

[Chris Hannel]

Yeah. The Athletics selected Jamie with the 11th pick of the first round. This is false.

[Michael Bauman]

So let me tell you what happened. I expected, I thought it was a mortal lock that the Angels would pick a really polished, fast moving college arm, number two overall. And they did, and they just went crazy and picked, like the seventh best one. So they picked Tyler Bremner and they should have picked Jamie Arnold second overall. But you can only control so much.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You can't bet on the Angels to do the predictable, conventional thing.

[Chris Hannel]

I like how in the last few episodes you've talked about how silly the Rockies are and how important it is for there to be a weird team in the league. And the whole time I'm listening, I'm like, guys, the Angels are right there.

[Ben Lindbergh]

We still have the Angels. Yeah.

[Chris Hannel]

Ben Lindbergh, number 33, Luis Robert Jr. And Sandy Alcantara will be moved by the trade deadline and still lead their respective original teams in full season fan graphs. War, 43%. This one fell at the first hurdle as neither of them were traded.

[Ben Clemens]

That's an absurdly high. Yeah, that's wild.

[Chris Hannel]

Uh, but even looking past that, Neither of the two players led their team in FanGraphs war for the full season either.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So this could not have been more wrong. It was wrong on every possible count.

[Ben Clemens]

There were so many different steps.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris Hannel]

Uh, let's find some points here. Ben Lindbergh.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Ooh, points.

[Chris Hannel]

Number 34. A player will be ejected or fined for tapping their head as if calling for a ball. Strike challenge. 44%. You, my friend, earned 56 points on June 1, the raise, Taylor Walls stepped out of the batter's box visibly upset with a strike call and while re entering the batter's box, locked eyes with the umpire while pretending to adjust his helmet and added the most obvious mock challenge signal and then acted completely outraged that the umpire would see this for what it clearly was and immediately ejected him, as all players had been warned would be the consequences for such an actual act. All told, given Taylor Walls's personal views, this was a lovely way to start Pride month on my part. And for Ben's part, he earns 56 points.

[Ben Clemens]

So.

[Chris Hannel]

Hey, yeah, nice.

[Ben Lindbergh]

This was. This was the only time this happened this season.

[Chris Hannel]

The only time. Yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, there were a couple close calls maybe or miscommunications, but yeah, this was the only confirmed case. So just barely squeaked away with this.

[Chris Hannel]

And I believe this. This was the first prediction that earned points this season. Okay, number 35, Michael Bauman. Sticking in some familiar territory, Luis Robert Jr. Will earn more fan graphs for after being traded mid season than before. As previously mentioned, Robert wasn't traded, so this had 47% odds. I did try and come up with a tortured hypothetical where he remained with the White Sox, but then had a negative fan graphs war, thus meaning his fan graphs war after being traded. Undefined is still more than a negative number number, but I'm pretty sure every mathematician and programmer in a thousand mile radius would attack me until I could be represented by a null variable for doing so. So this is false negative 47.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Bummer.

[Chris Hannel]

Number 36, Meg rally. Nick Kurtz will earn more Fangraphs war than Travis Bazzana. 48%. You earn 52 points.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Travis just barely made it.

[Chris Hannel]

Travis just literally won Rookie of the Year, while Lozana never even made the majors. And yet this prediction still had some twists and turns because when Kurtz got called up on April 23, he got off to a slow start and was at negative 0.4. Fan graphs or meaning Travis Bazzano was winning without being in the majors. But then his debut got sidelined by an oblique strain and Nick Kurtz took his metamorphosis into Big Amish very seriously, going fully superseded on July 25th with a full four homer six hit night against the Astros, firmly cementing this as one of the biggest poster dunks of a prediction since we started this exercise three years ago. 52 points to you, Meg.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah, thank you.

[Ben Lindbergh]

On the short list for best rookie offensive season ever.

[Chris Hannel]

He's up there.

[Meg Rowley]

I had. I had faith in him. I Had faith in my boy.

[Chris Hannel]

Number 37. We're in the home stretch. Ben Clemens. Juan Soto will earn more fan graphs war than Aaron Judge. Ben, you spoke of this prediction as a litmus test for the listener, saying no projection system had Soto ahead of Judge and thus the listener vote should be under 50%. It was 49%. They got there. Yeah. Moral?

[Ben Clemens]

Still fairly far, just to be clear. But yeah, good work.

[Chris Hannel]

The projection systems are designed by some pretty clever people, and they were correct. Judge came close to doubling Soto's fan graphs war. He finished with 10.12 sodas, 5.8. This is false. Number 38, Ben Lindberg. Neither of the teams playing home games in minor league parks, both Sacramento and Tampa Bay will have the league's lowest average home attendance. 50%. We finally reach a 50% prediction at number 38. This is the latest we have ever reached 50% in our odds. According to the data on baseball reference, the two minor league parks in question still occupy the bottom two ranks in attendance. Both averaged under 10,000 fans at home. Miami was next up at 14,282. However, I do want to note that the Marlins had nine home games with lower attendance than any of the games played by the Rays or Athletics. The Marlins Low point was 5,895. The raise Low point was 7,731. And coincidentally, the Athletics lowest attended game was also 7,731. Except it wasn't coincidental at all because it was a game that they played against each other in Sacramento. So the lowest attended game in Steinbrenner Field, just slightly higher at 7,883.

[Ben Lindbergh]

All right. I knew the Marlins had it in them, just not consistently enough.

[Chris Hannel]

Yeah. Number 39, Ben Clemens. Patrick Corbin will throw at least 100 innings for the Texas Rangers. 51%. You earn 49 points.

[Ben Clemens]

Good work, Patrick.

[Chris Hannel]

Yes. He earned a hundred innings in lightning speed. This was one of the first predictions to earn points that required a full season metric to come true. So there wasn't much suspense, but the conversation around it was more fascinating. Meg, we need to do a tangent here. You went into a very deep analogy involving the Gilmore Girls, Tony Cobin, and saying, get off my side immediately.

[Meg Rowley]

Yep.

[Chris Hannel]

And I know we're on our penultimate prediction, but I have an extremely burning question that I wanted to ask you. Are you Team Logan or Team Jess?

[Michael Bauman]

You're so Team Jess coded. I'm already mad.

[Meg Rowley]

I am Team Chess. I am Team Jess. I think that. Look, here's the thing about it. Jess had Potential to grow into a better person. And I'm skeptical of that capacity and Logan because, like, what incentive did he have to change? She's already rich.

[Michael Bauman]

Jess did grow into a better person, which this was. The only thing that I thought was worthwhile about the. About the revival was that he was exactly the same kind of dip teenager who grows into a cool adult after he moves to Philadelphia. But he was a dip teenager.

[Meg Rowley]

Oh, I mean, to be clear, terrible teenager. And. And one where you're like, hey, buddy, stuff's happened to you in your life. Like, I can imagine that some of this is, like, unprocessed, whatever about your mom. But some of it is just. You're a teenager. Not all of it, though.

[Michael Bauman]

Some of it goes around talking like this the whole time. And he thinks he's the smartest person in the room.

[Chris Hannel]

Yeah.

[Michael Bauman]

Off, man.

[Meg Rowley]

That's my.

[Chris Hannel]

See, my argument on all of this is that it's actually a trick question and they both suck.

[Michael Bauman]

Well, they all suck.

[Meg Rowley]

They all suck. Yeah.

[Chris Hannel]

That's the thing is that Rory. Rory and Paris's selection in Men in both of their lives. Lives. All of these dudes need to get. I mean, Michael York, 35 year age gap. And like, Doyle was like, dating Michael York first of all. Yeah, but Michael York's character in Gilmore. No, okay, you know, the.

[Meg Rowley]

The. Here's the.

[Michael Bauman]

She also divorced Doyle.

[Meg Rowley]

The real take. The real take. And I say this as someone who, like, you know, will re. Watch the show. The real person who sucks is Rob. Rory.

[Michael Bauman]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I. I don't think that's kind of controversial at all.

[Ben Clemens]

I was, like, dreading watching her scenes by the end of the show. Well, relative to Lorelais.

[Meg Rowley]

Part of it, too, is that, you know, like, you had the creator shift. And so that was some of it. But she does better in high school than she does in college, particularly toward the end. But that show just got, like, increasingly ridiculous as time went off.

[Michael Bauman]

So I'm a Team Logan person.

[Ben Clemens]

Person.

[Meg Rowley]

Really? I'm shocked by that.

[Michael Bauman]

Really.

[Meg Rowley]

Oh, man.

[Michael Bauman]

I. No, this is. So this is a problem is like, I knew you were going to be, like, in the world. I'm a magnet for women who won when Harry Potter was not problematic. Were really into being Raven Claws and women who are very militantly team dreams. Jess.

[Meg Rowley]

I don't think I'm militant about it. I don't remember having super strong, like, house affiliation at the. At the time. But I mean, probably if I had sat and thought about it for a while, I would have been like, yeah, that feels like a better fit. Gryffindor had too many adventures. Seems like I'm gonna get hurt.

[Michael Bauman]

The Gryffindors were annoying.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Feel the need to return us to the Rails?

[Chris Hannel]

I am. I'm so happy.

[Michael Bauman]

Sorry. Let me get this. This takeoff, the two. There are two corrections. Correct answers. Even as a team, Logan person. One is Rory does not deserve love. And the other is Jesus is Rory and Paris should have ended up together.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah. Yeah, that was.

[Chris Hannel]

You stole my point. You stole my point.

[Michael Bauman]

I didn't steal it. I've been telling everybody who listens to.

[Chris Hannel]

Brian Parish, okay, you stole the thing I had written down right here that I was.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Okay, doesn't have to write it down. It's committed to memory. But.

[Chris Hannel]

Well, I'm very pleased with the. The discourse that I've created here.

[Ben Lindbergh]

All right, I will say that I. I tracked what I wanted to be my Patrick Corbin related prediction.

[Michael Bauman]

Remember what we were talking about?

[Ben Lindbergh]

Because that kind of came down to the wire too, where I had wanted to make the prediction that Corbin would lead the Rangers in innings pitched. And then I refrained because other Ben beat me to a Corbin prediction. He came close. He finished second. Second. About 17 innings behind Jacob deGrom. So for a guy who was picked up at the last second for break glass in case of emergency, and. And you signed Patrick Corbin. He ended up eating innings as he always does.

[Ben Clemens]

The most bold fix would have been only one Rangers pitcher will throw more innings than Patrick Corbin, and it'll be Jacob De.

[Chris Hannel]

That would have done well.

[Ben Lindbergh]

All right, last one.

[Chris Hannel]

Our final product prediction. Michael Bauman, the Rockies representative in the All Star Game, will be someone other than Michael Toglia, Nolan Jones, or Ezekiel Tovar. And it was 46 points for you. 54% odds.

[Michael Bauman]

And that's the only one I got right. Right?

[Chris Hannel]

That is the only one you got right.

[Ben Lindbergh]

The way you predicted that. Didn't you just ask us to name Rockies?

[Michael Bauman]

Yes.

[Ben Lindbergh]

And then.

[Chris Hannel]

And then you use them. Stole other Ben's name inexplicably, but yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Well, there are only so many Rockies anyone can name.

[Meg Rowley]

That's so funny.

[Michael Bauman]

That was part of it. I wanted to make sure that everybody here could name a Rockies player.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It was touch and go.

[Ben Clemens]

Rockies. If you're listening, I would love to be your gm. By the way.

[Meg Rowley]

You're more qualified than they're hire.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Too late. They made a higher already.

[Ben Clemens]

I'm just saying if that. If that doesn't take.

[Michael Bauman]

Well, no, he's the Ben. What did you call him?

[Chris Hannel]

The.

[Michael Bauman]

The depobo.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. Well, Depoto is the. Is the depobo. But it was the depobo. Right? Yeah.

[Chris Hannel]

Since this is the one opportunity I have to insert this. Derek Folly of the Twins. His title is President of Business and Baseball Operations, which makes him the pobo.

[Meg Rowley]

Yeah.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Oh, yeah. Well, he was the Pope oath. When he was occupying both of those.

[Chris Hannel]

Roles, he brought up poboeth, and I was screaming, no pobebo. That's funnier.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Is better.

[Michael Bauman]

Yeah. Paul D. Podesta. There's a. There's an opening underneath him for a Ben G. Emons.

[Ben Lindbergh]

It's true. I like that. Yeah.

[Meg Rowley]

No, we're not allowed to have anyone else from fangraphs. Go work for a team. I can't do another hiring cycle. Dear God, we stole one back with Brendan. I was like, take that.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Teams, what's our final score?

[Chris Hannel]

Well, first, I want to give a shout out to our leaderboard listener. Leaderboard. Benjamin Hamler is Our winner with 5910 points.

[Michael Bauman]

Great. Morbid Ben's.

[Chris Hannel]

Yes. Ben's triumphant. He wins swag from the Effectively Wild Store. Someone should be reaching out to you about that. Tyler green, Alex Isherwood, T.J. krafnick, Jordan S. Billy Dennis, John Krasuli, Daniel Swan, Turquoise, and Ryan G. Round out our top 10. Thank you to the 1,556 people who submitted ballots. I want to top that next year, obviously. Always onward and upward. But now it is time for our final scores. In last place, Ben Lindbergh, negative 278 points.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah, I get my comeuppance. Wow.

[Meg Rowley]

Can you say it again, like, four times?

[Chris Hannel]

I can say. I can say it again.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Ben Lindberg, negative 260.

[Chris Hannel]

78 points.

[Ben Lindbergh]

How is it possible that I was the most chalk and also the last place?

[Ben Clemens]

Yeah, well, that's. That's kind of how it works, right?

[Michael Bauman]

Oh, yeah. I guess.

[Chris Hannel]

You can not be bold and wrong. That's. That's how that works. Third place, Michael Bauman, 253 points.

[Michael Bauman]

I was like, I only got one, right?

[Chris Hannel]

In second place, Ben Clements, negative 109. So your winner, Meg Rowley, with positive 73 points. Congrats.

[Ben Clemens]

That's got to be a first, right?

[Chris Hannel]

No, Meg won with positive points the first year that we did this as well.

[Meg Rowley]

I think the key.

[Ben Clemens]

Megaren Ohtani.

[Meg Rowley]

The key is to just not remember your predictions at all, because I never. I never commit them to memory. You could tell me that they are anything, and I would believe you, but mostly I'm just, like, so impressed with what you guys have built out for this exercise and all the people who contributed. It's like a lot. It's a, it's a great deal of fun.

[Michael Bauman]

So we appreciate it's not nearly self aggrandizing enough.

[Meg Rowley]

Well, I'm trying to draw a contrast between me and my co host. People say that we agree too much and so now I want them to realize that I'm really something.

[Ben Lindbergh]

So gracious, such a gracious winner, you.

[Meg Rowley]

Know, so generous with her pride, praise. And then there's Adrien Brody over here.

[Chris Hannel]

Well, as always, I always say I do very much appreciate the opportunity to run this for you. It's like being a year long D&D DM with baseball and getting to have fun with this and people on social media get really into it and it just gives an extra fun, zero stakes thing to enjoy throughout the season and have reason to tune into other baseball games you wouldn't normally follow. I have some notes about this year's ballots. According to listeners, this was the boldest set of ballots in the exercise yet you averaged 34%, which was down 4% from last year's 37.75 and the first year's average was 37.98. So you're getting bolder. You're all getting bolder.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Not me. I guess I'm getting less bold. But the rest of you are making.

[Chris Hannel]

Up for me for the second straight year. The second boldest ballot won. Meg's ballot was the second boldest out of everybody. Buddies. And I am hereby announcing we are adding a rule next year. This was inspired by something that Bauman said last year in response to me where he said, can I have the points that Ben Clemens lost on this because he made it to spite me. And I said, no. Next year's contest, each of you will get to pick one prediction from each of your fellow contestants to take the other side of the action.

[Meg Rowley]

Very good. Rule change. Very good.

[Ben Clemens]

I do like that.

[Chris Hannel]

So if you are going to look for something that you think people will grade as being likely so that when it's wrong you will get more points. But if more than one person picks the same prediction to take the other action on, it splits the amount of points they get from it as well. So we will be tracking that as well and we'll get to have a surprise reveal at the end of next year as to who took each other's predictions in a bit of sassiness, I believe.

[Ben Clemens]

Wait, who had the boldest ballot this year? Bauman.

[Chris Hannel]

The boldest ballot was Ben clements with a potential 691 points.

[Ben Clemens]

So were all of us, like, were me, Meg Bauman pretty close? Because I felt I was listening to those and I thought Bauman comments are pretty bold.

[Chris Hannel]

You were all very close. So the way that it works is you look at how many points you could have earned if you got all 10 predictions right. Ben Clemens, 691, Meg, 674. Bauman, 648. Ben Lindbergh, 623. So there was actually in a pretty narrow band.

[Ben Clemens]

We were actually. Everybody was pretty bold.

[Chris Hannel]

Yes.

[Ben Clemens]

It was just that Ben didn't have any of the bottom, like 10 or whatever.

[Chris Hannel]

12. Yeah.

[Michael Bauman]

I'm deciding whether I want to try to win next year or whether I want to get all 10 of my predictions read before Ben has to speak.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Just competing to be boldest?

[Chris Hannel]

Yeah, I think. I think adding the recognition of Mr. Chalk adds a lot to the results episode, for sure. So we will keep that going for sure.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. So what. How many total correct predictions? Did we have five or something?

[Chris Hannel]

No, we have more than that. I believe we had eight. Let me take a look. We had. Bauman had one, Ben Clemens had two, Meg had four, and Ben Lindbergh had one. So that is eight. Eight total. Yes. And I think in past, it's been like 10 and 11, so that's still not too far off.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yeah. I wonder if you added up all of the listener percentages, though, what the expected number of correct predictions would be. It would probably. Probably be way higher than much, much, much higher.

[Chris Hannel]

I can do that math and I'll. I'll be sure to post it on the EW Stats Blue sky account.

[Michael Bauman]

Chris is learning the perils of doing a game like this in front of a bunch of stats people.

[Chris Hannel]

Oh, I. I got that beat into me long ago, and as you said, he loves it. So, you know, I just accept you. I accept myself for what I am, and that's a stat nerd. Well, that puts a bow on the 2025 preseason's predictions game. Congratulations, everybody. You all participated.

[Meg Rowley]

Well, one of us won.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Yes, we all won in a way. Hopefully our listeners did.

[Meg Rowley]

Well, you didn't win. You didn't win in any way. There was no way in which you won.

[Ben Lindbergh]

You watch out the joy that this brought.

[Meg Rowley]

All right, fine. You're allowed the joy. I will not begrudge you the joy.

[Ben Lindbergh]

Joy.

[Michael Bauman]

No, you're doing joy now. That's new.

[Ben Lindbergh]

All right, well, this was fun. We'll do it again in March.

[Meg Rowley]

Thanks, everyone.

[Chris Hannel]

Thank you.

[Ben Lindbergh]

All right, that will do it for today. Thanks as always for listening and thanks to those of you who support Effectively Wild on Patreon, which you can do by going to patreon.com effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podc. Help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks as have the following five listeners Mitch Golditch, Nick, Ed, Ryan Pavlich, Paul Hendrickson and Eric Johnson. Thanks to all of you Patreon perks include monthly bonus episodes, personalized messages, prioritized email answers, playoff live streams, discounts on merch and ad free Fangris memberships and so much, much more. Check out all the [e-mail] effectively wild if you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site and won't that make you feel special? If you're not, though, you can still contact us via email. Send your questions, your comments, your intro and outro themes to podcastangraphs.com you can rate, review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music and other podcast platforms. You can join our facebook [e-mail] group effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at R Effectively Wild and you can check the show notes in the podcast posted fangraphs or the episode description in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today, including a link to the site where you can register for Effectively Wild. Secret Santa deadline is December 10th. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with one more episode before the end of the week, which means we we will talk to you then.

[Chris Hannel]

Can you effectively sort through.

[Ben Lindbergh]

All of.

[Chris Hannel]

These stats and players in your head? Isn't it wild to repeat them to all of your indifferent faces, family and friends? They'll keep you company. They'll keep you sane on a long bike ride or a slow work day making Ben wax about a playoff race whose bats hard Effectively Wild. So stick around. You'll be well beguiled. It's Effectively Wild like Nolan Ryan was sometimes.