Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley (at the Winter Meetings in Nashville) banter about how the secrecy surrounding Shohei Ohtani’s free agency is breaking baseball media members’ brains, what makes free agency fun for fans, the advisability of a winter transaction deadline and whether it’s OK for baseball to just be boring sometimes, and the latest ridiculous dot-connecting about Ohtani’s destination, plus (41:50) discussion of the Winter Meetings milieu, the Jarred Kelenic swap (43:55) and what it means for the Mariners, the Yankees’ Alex Verdugo deal (1:00:30), the Orioles’ Craig Kimbrel signing (1:06:05), Erick Fedde joining the White Sox (1:15:24), and a smattering of minor news and transactions, followed (1:18:08) by a conclusive solution to a recent Stat Blast mystery and an outro rendition (1:24:43) of the classic Michael Baumann baseball ditty “What Did Jerry Dipoto Do?”

Audio outro: Michael Baumann, “What Did Jerry Dipoto Do?”

Link to Olney column

Link to Rosenthal column

Link to Mintz column

Link to O’Brien tweet

Link to Janes tweet

Link to Janes column

Link to article on Ohtani’s agent

Link to article on Jays meeting

Link to article on Giants meeting

Link to flight-tracking tweet

Link to Washington quotes

Link to quote about Boone’s face

Link to Nightengale on Roberts

Link to article on Roberts/Gomes

Link to tweet about Friedman

Link to EW branzino wiki

Link to Opryland photos

Link to Hollander’s quote

Link to Dipoto quotes

Link to Baumann on Kelenic

Link to Dubuque on Kelenic

Link to Clemens on Brewers SPs

Link to Gilligan on Kelly

Link to Roberts on Betts

Link to Roberts on Kershaw

Link to Blum on Trout

Link to Baumann on Yates

Link to Clemens on Verdugo

Link to Baumann on Kimbrel

Link to Longenhagen on Fedde

Link to tweet about Fedde

Link to Verdugo benching info

Link to Verdugo Dodgers incident

Link to EW episode 2093

Link to 1998 Baseball Weekly article

Link to 1998 Ocker article

Link to 1998 AP article

Link to 1998 game’s play log

Link to 2000 game’s play log

Link to latest-first-whiff data

Link to longest whiff-less stretches

Link to Ryan Nelson on Twitter

Link to Nightengale “two sides” tweet

Link to 1998 clip 1

Link to 1998 clip 2

Link to 1998 clip 3

Link to Secret Santa sign-up sheet

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