The Baseball Rabbi Podcast

With the trade deadline behind us, Major League Baseball offers some tantalizing storylines as it enters the final third of the 2018 season. The Baseball Rabbi analyzes a number of close - and surprising - pennant races, discusses why the Wild Card Game brings the Yankees' issues to the fore, and offers a startling prediction about Cole Hamels. Plus: feedback on Andrelton Simmons, what's going on with the Astros, and more.

When you think of Andrelton Simmons, you probably think of the phenomenal fielder with the so-so bat. But in 2018, Simmons is doing something amazing at the plate which has, quite simply, never been done before. Join the Baseball Rabbi, Pesach Wolicki, and his hearty sidekick Scott Kahn, for a discussion of why Andrelton Simmons is having - in one statistic - the greatest season in the history of baseball. Also: three short follow-ups on the Orioles' badness, the Manny Machado trade, and why the use of the shift doesn't have anything to do with the league's unusually low batting average.

A lot of sportswriters wondered why so many good free agents remained unsigned in January and February 2018, and ultimately signed for bargain basement prices. Was this a result of bad teams saving money rather than making the right moves to improve? The Baseball Rabbi revisits the issue (even though everyone else stopped talking about it in April), and through careful analysis of the top 50 free agents, proves that the actual story is completely different. Plus: Scott tries to figure out why Boston, the 21st-largest city in the U.S., is considered one of baseball's biggest markets.

The 2018 season is shaping up to be one of the all-time worst in terms of batting average, but in many ways is fundamentally different from all previous seasons with a sub-.250 MLB average. What has changed? Why is there such a noticeable increase in home runs while average and OBP have declined? And if there is a greater emphasis on patience at the plate, why have walk rates stayed essentially the same over all of baseball history? The Baseball Rabbi puts it all together in The Baseball Rabbi Podcast.

The Baltimore Orioles are in the midst of a historically bad season, made even worse by the fact that just a few years ago, they had the chance to climb the World Series mountain - and failed. Is this just a normal symptom the regular rise and fall of mid market teams in the Major Leagues, or is there a villain to the story? The Baseball Rabbi argues that there is both a culprit and a moment in time - or even two moments in time - when bad decisions directly created today's Orioles disaster. Even worse: these were mistakes that should have been obvious even when they were happening.

Who is the Baseball Rabbi, and how did he acquire his august title? What will you learn by listening, and how can you join the conversation? Sit at the feet of one of baseball's greatest scholars, and you, too, will soon be spouting stats and sabermetrics. Listen now!