Effectively Wild Episode 2089: Putting the WAR in Awards

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the the proper pluralization of “POBO,” then (7:12) answer listener emails about baseball with a five-second pitch clock, how long fans will continue to boo pickoff attempts, what it would take for a team to pay a particular fan to attend (or not attend) its games, Freddie Freeman’s base stealing, bringing turnovers to baseball, clubs that could achieve “perfectly average success” in the 30-team era, the limits of fan tolerance for playoff expansion, a proposal for the postseason to be like college bowl season, boosting starting pitchers with a “bullpen bank,” whether Harold Baines would’ve been better off declining Cooperstown induction, Adam Wainwright and the Hall of Fame, and fan voting on Hall of Famers, plus a Stat Blast (1:30:13) about whether awards voting has gotten more homogen(e)ous and closely correlated with WAR.

Audio intro: Harold Walker, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Tom Rhoads, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to POBO pluralization exchange
Link to info on forming plurals
Link to pitch tempo leaderboard
Link to speed chess wiki
Link to Episode 1453
Link to Tango on pickoff attempts
Link to Bruce Chen’s pickoff attempts
Link to Gonny Jomes wiki
Link to MLB Ballpark Pass-Port
Link to MLB Ballpark app
Link to Stathead on 1B SB
Link to FG post on Freeman’s steals
Link to L.A. Times on Freeman’s 20–20
Link to graphic on Freeman’s 20–20–200
Link to Sam on Freeman’s improvements
Link to NYT on O’Neill’s 20–20
Link to Stathead on oldest 20–20 guys
Link to Pujols steal streak video
Link to H-E-B wiki
Link to baseball exceptionalism wiki
Link to EW on batters catching pitches
Link to The Athletic fan survey results
Link to NHL playoff format wiki
Link to playoff randomness by sport
Link to “paper champions” study
Link to Ben on the SP protagonist
Link to Ben on pitcher limits
Link to @dril “turning a big dial” tweet
Link to latest Hall of Fame ballot
Link to HoF tiers EW discussion
Link to article on Baines induction
Link to Ben on Baines
Link to Jay Jaffe on Wainwright’s 200th
Link to Jay on HoF SP standards
Link to EW episode 114
Link to HoF by election method
Link to Ben on Mauer’s candidacy
Link to EW emails database
Link to homogenous vs. homogeneous
Link to Kenny Jackelen on Twitter
Link to Ryan Nelson on Twitter
Link to B-Ref awards voting results
Link to awards data, all years, with WAR
Link to awards data with calculations
Link to Ryan’s Stat Blast graphs
Link to concentration ratio explainer
Link to HHI explainer
Link to SABR study on WAR and awards
Link to win probability of scoring team
Link to Secret Santa sign-up sheet