Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Shohei Ohtani’s (finally) leagues-leading jersey sales, Mets grounds crew shenanigans, and shrinking minor leaguers, then (28:18) answer listener emails about restructured pitching staffs on which everyone would throw 3-to-4 innings at a time, a speed limit for pitches, displaying error bars for WAR, allowing outfielders only a certain number of catches per game (plus info on secret natural lefties), and a pitcher who reliably gets stronger as the game goes on, followed (1:20:03) by a guest Stat Blast on the not-nice improbability of the Twins’ playoff losing streak by Chris Hanel, maker of the new YouTube documentary “The Minnesota Twins and the Cruelest Streak in Sports.”

Audio outro: Tom Rhoads, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to 2023 jersey-sales ranking

Link to 2021 jersey-sales ranking

Link to 2018 jersey-sales ranking

Link to grounds crew story

Link to Schumaker video

Link to Longenhagen on heights

Link to shrunk/shrank pedantry thread

Link to Laurila on the Rays

Link to Petriello on the Rays

Link to restrictor plate article

Link to Ben on smaller pitching staffs

Link to EW Episode 449

Link to BP DRC+ SDs

Link to info on natural lefties

Link to baseball bounce catches

Link to EW emails database

Link to Topps Now cards

Link to Twins Topps Now archive

Link to EW guests archive

Link to Chris on score bugs

Link to Twins playoff results

Link to Chris’s Twins doc

Link to Chris’s Twins blog post

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