After a brief preamble about the betting scandal surrounding Shohei Ohtani and interpreter Ippei Mizuhara, Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the first game of the regular season, whether gloves have gotten more permeable, the odds of a DH-only Ohtani MVP season, Ohtani’s lucrative endorsements, whether the addition of in-app gambling info to NBA League Pass portends a similar future for MLB.TV, the pitfalls of pervasive sports-betting ads, the implications of Eury Pérez’s elbow injury, the chances that Pérez will win multiple Cy Young awards, and the decimated Marlins rotation. Then (34:39) they answer listener emails about what makes pitchers aesthetically pleasing, whether Blake Snell is effectively wild, whether coaches spend more time on stars or scrubs, moving the bullpen beneath the mound, whether MLB has too many multi-team markets, and joint broadcast booths, plus Stat Blasts (1:12:04) on the Dodgers’ daunting top of the order and the Padres’ profusion of shortstops, followed by (1:37:49) a real-time reaction to the Ohtani-Mizuhara news and a postscript with additional details and thoughts.

Audio outro: Ian H., “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to shortstop PPR

Link to Gromit GIF

Link to Cronenworth play

Link to opener box score

Link to Duffy glove fail

Link to Vlad glove fail

Link to The Atlantic on flying

Link to Ohtani MVP odds

Link to DH MVP article

Link to NL WAR projections

Link to 2023 AL WAR leaders

Link to endorsement leaders

Link to MLBTR on Eury

Link to Baumann on Marlins SP

Link to article on Sixto

Link to Cy Youngs quote

Link to non-Cy winners

Link to Stuff+ ranking

Link to League Pass article

Link to Manfred-Silver story

Link to Hefner article

Link to moving mound EW episode

Link to Emma on bullpen brawlers

Link to two-team cities wiki

Link to MLB Sunday Leadoff wiki

Link to MASN booth article

Link to Sterling-Castiglione swap

Link to 1953 Scully story

Link to listener emails database

Link to Cory Brent’s Stat Blast cover

Link to Ben’s Dodgers-Padres article

Link to highest leadoff OPS

Link to leadoff power article

Link to Stat Blast sheet 1

Link to Stat Blast image 1

Link to Stat Blast image 2

Link to Ryan Nelson’s Twitter

Link to Cooper on the Padres

Link to Stat Blast sheet 2

Link to Kenny Jackelen’s Twitter

Link to Ron Swanson clip

Link to Shohei couples photo

Link to L.A. Times Ohtani report

Link to ESPN Ohtani report

Link to The Athletic Ohtani report

Link to Jaguars story

Link to Jaguars story 2

Link to ballpark meetup forms

Link to meetup organizer form

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