Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Prospect Week at FanGraphs, a misleading email, and Ben’s daughter’s cold, then discuss Alex Rodriguez as a budding book author, social-media maven, and flawed (anti)hero (9:19), non-revelatory news about Shohei Ohtani’s future (24:07), a secret Mets spring training drill (32:07), and Ben’s reviews of two baseball books that were recently under consideration to be banned in Duval County, Florida (46:07). After that (1:10:59), they bring on FanGraphs lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen to discuss the site’s ranking of the Top 100 (well, 112) prospects in baseball, touching on the relative thinness of the top of the class, evaluating injured pitchers (including Daniel Espino), prospects who could make impacts in 2023 (such as Eury Pérez and Andrew Painter), Gunnar Henderson vs. Corbin Carroll, fast-rising prospects, players Eric is higher on than the consensus, how rule changes affect prospect rankings, notable farm systems, the most interesting prospects to evaluate, and Noah Song joining the Phillies, followed by a Past Blast from 1972 (2:04:31).

Audio interstitial: The Notorious B.I.G. (Feat. 112), “Sky’s the Limit”

Audio outro: Billy Joel, “Zanzibar”

Link to Phoenix population story

Link to U.S. media market ranking

Link to A-Rod’s “book” image

Link to A-Rod’s bubble-bath image

Link to A-Rod’s mirror kiss

Link to ESPN’s Ohtani story

Link to Evan’s Mets tweet

Link to Eagles push play

Link to article on banning the play

Link to Woodward on the Mets drill

Link to Mets spring WS celebration

Link to info on Henry Aaron’s Dream

Link to buy Henry Aaron’s Dream

Link to story of Aaron’s spring debut

Link to Tavares on the book’s language

Link to Roberto Clemente on Goodreads

Link to Thank You, Jackie Robinson

Link to Clemente’s debut game

Link to Clemente’s 3000th hit

Link to 2022 story about possible bans

Link to story about book removal

Link to Duval County on law compliance

Link to Jacksonville Today on Duval

Link to Steven Goldman on hiding history

Link to story about books under review

Link to thread about books under review

Link to Tavares’s Twitter reply

Link to PredictIt Presidential odds

Link to Stop WOKE Act Wiki

Link to The Guardian on the act

Link to The Guardian on act injunctions

Link to The Guardian on book bans

Link to WaPo on book bans

Link to NYT on book bans

Link to CBS poll on book bans

Link to Jemele Hill tweet @MLB

Link to story about book approval

Link to Duval County response

Link to FG’s Top 100 list

Link to Top 100 chat

Link to Ben on 2023 prospect debuts

Link to Ben on pitching prospects

Link to MLBTR on Espino’s injury

Link to Baumann on the “Rolen Zone”

Link to ESPN on Song

Link to 1972 story source

Link to The Boys of Summer

Link to David Lewis’s Twitter

Link to David Lewis’s Substack

Link to Topkin on Manfred’s comment

Link to Rob Mains on PPP

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