Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about how much Shohei Ohtani’s teammates helped him win his third MVP award, his incredible four-season stretch, whether Dekopin/Decoy is really his dog, the other MVP and Cy Young results, a Joey Meneses signing, Austin Slater and the virtues of being a team’s “top target,” the Rays’ confounding stadium strategy, the varying pronunciations of “envelope,” a listener question about RSN ownership, the seventh annual Effectively Wild Secret Santa, and more, plus a postscript Stat Blast (1:15:40) about players whose whole MLB careers were confined to “non-MLB” ballparks.

Audio outro: Grant Brisbee, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Ohtani interview

Link to Ohtani quote

Link to preseason projections

Link to Episode 2140

Link to Dekopin clip

Link to MLB.com on Ohtani

Link to AL MVP voting

Link to NL MVP voting

Link to AL Cy voting

Link to NL Cy voting

Link to MLBTR on Meneses

Link to Sox Machine on Slater

Link to Rays letter story

Link to DRaysBay on funding 1

Link to DRaysBay on funding 2

Link to Calcaterra on the Rays

Link to Manfred on the Rays

Link to Joe on the RSN era

Link to Rangers RSN story

Link to ROOT schedule

Link to Ben Zimmer’s website

Link to Ben on Wolfe

Link to first pronunciation

Link to second pronunciation

Link to summer sausage episode

Link to Secret Santa sign-up form

Link to listener emails database

Link to 2020-only players

Link to Ryan Nelson’s Twitter

Link to Andrew Lowden’s cover

Link to “The Good in Everyone”

Link to Stat Blast parks list

Link to Stat Blast players list

Link to Reddit comment

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