Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about MLB player chatbots, an Addison Barger giveaway, Tarik Skubal’s big arbitration win, the Tigers signing Framber Valdez, and a rough week for sports media, then (36:29) begin the 14th annual EW season preview series by discussing the 2026 Houston Astros with The Athletic’s Chandler Rome, and the 2026 Arizona Diamondbacks (1:25:35) with The Arizona Republic’s Nick Piecoro, followed (1:54:53) by a postscript.

2026 EW Season Preview Series

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Audio interstitial 1: Austin Klewan, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Audio interstitial 2: Sean .P, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Audio outro: Tom Rhoads, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to chatbots story

Link to Barger story

Link to season preview series wiki

Link to Passan on Skubal

Link to Baumann on Skubal

Link to Dan S. on Framber

Link to Rosenthal on the Pirates

Link to Rosenthal on the Tigers

Link to Chandler on the cross-up

Link to team SP projections

Link to NPR on WaPo

Link to NYT on WaPo sports

Link to The Ringer on WaPo sports

Link to The New Yorker on WaPo

Link to The Atlantic on WaPo

Link to Silver on WaPo

Link to MLB.com layoffs

Link to Grant post

Link to team payrolls

Link to Astros offseason tracker

Link to Astros depth chart

Link to BP IL Ledger

Link to Dan S. on team injuries

Link to Chandler on Correa

Link to Chandler on Imai

Link to Chandler on the infield

Link to Chandler on Espada/Brown

Link to Trueblood on Peña

Link to Chandler’s author archive

Link to Crush City Territory

Link to Diamondbacks offseason tracker

Link to Diamondbacks depth chart

Link to team RP WAR

Link to team RP WPA

Link to ballpark funding deal info

Link to more funding deal info

Link to funding deal opinion piece

Link to renovations preview

Link to Nick on the Alexander trade

Link to FG post on Santana

Link to Nick’s author archive

Link to Boehly/Epstein article

Link to ESPN’s Clase report

Link to Ben on Clase

Link to EW episode on Clase

Link to SABR awards voting

Link to Wood/Lolich IP leaderboard

Link to Lolich obit

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