Bat Flips And Nerds

Rays minor league pitcher, and More Than Baseball Program Director Simon Rosenblum-Larson, joins the pod to chat about MTB's campaign to bring minor leaguers a living wage of $35k and his organisation's amazing work giving voice to the plight of the world's most poorly treated professional athletes.

John, Rob and Ben run the rule over the teams raising eyebrows - for good and bad reasons - in the early season running, including the storming Mets and Yankees and the scuffling Phillies and Red Sox.

They also dive deep into MLB's pitcher problem, and challenge Rob ahead of his US trip next week.

You can find the Ben Lindbergh piece referenced in the show here: https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2022/5/2/23052714/pitcher-roster-rules-limit

And Tucker Davidson's thread on pitch clocks here: https://twitter.com/tucktuck6/status/1520065304092631042

Rob and Darius dive into all the action from the first two weeks of the MLB season, from the de-juiced ball to Clayton Kershaw's almost-perfect game and some of the least popular intentional walks of all time. If you're a fan of puns, you might want to listen to the end...

Listen to John's exclusive chat with Two-Time World Series Champ and Home Run Derby X Legend Jonny Gomes from this Saturday's huge MLB UK Community Meetup at Home Run House in London.

You can grab tickets for Home Run Derby X, July 9th in Crystal Palace Park, London by heading over to MLB.com/homerunderbyx

The BFN 'B' team take a stab at their preseason predictions as Rob and Russell are joined by celebrity guest Gav to prove their overwhelmingly superior baseball knowledge - I highly doubt they'll mention it but they did prove the brainier bunch last year.

Hot takes as far as the eyes can see...

The annual predictions show is back! John, Tom, Darius, Ben and that beautiful spreadsheet give their win totals for all 30 MLB teams with some spirited debate along the way.

We'll be dead wrong about almost everything but fear not because the far superior B team are delivering hot takes of their own very shortly too...

For the final of our 2022 Previews we are in the AL East and joined by:

- Melanie Newman, PxP for the Baltimore Orioles
- Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic on the Red Sox
- Keith McPherson of WFAN on the Yankees
- Rays Pre-Game Host Neil Solondz
- Andrew Stoeten on the Blue Jays

In our penultimate preview we cover the NL West, joined by:

- Zach Buchanan of The Athletic on the Diamondbacks
- Thomas Harding of MLB.com on the Rockies
- Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic on The Dodgers
- A Mystery Padres Guest
- Susan Slusser of the SF Chronicle on the Giants

For the fourth of our 2022 MLB Previews, we focus on the AL West and are joined by:

- Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle on the Astros
- Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register on the Angels
- Steve Berman of The Athletic on the A's
- Cespedes Family BBQ's Jordan Shusterman on the Mariners
- Levi Weaver of The Athletic on the Rangers

The third of our 2022 Previews covers the AL Central. This time we are joined by:

- Janice Scurio of NBC Sports Edge and Southside Sox on the White Sox
- Mandy Bell of MLB.com on the Guardians
- Brandon Day of Bless You Boys on the Tigers
- Anne Rogers of MLB.com on the Royals
- Brandon Warne of Access Twins on the Twins