Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast

Effectively Wild Episode 2403: How Our Preseason Predictions Panned Out

7 snips
Nov 21, 2025
Michael Bauman, a savvy baseball analyst and recurring panelist, joins the crew to dissect the aftermath of their bold preseason predictions. They dive into the thrilling outcomes of the 2025 minor league free agent draft, where surprises abound. The panel also engages in amusing games, including predicting College World Series matchups and teasing out baseball from pop culture. Highlights include evaluations of predictions on Shohei Otani's pitch speed and Ketel Marte's MVP candidacy, revealing the hits and misses of their forecasts.
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ANECDOTE

Miraculous 10-for-10 Draft Run

  • Ben Lindbergh celebrated a perfect 10-for-10 minor-league free agent draft where every pick reached the majors.
  • He described it as a career highlight and joked about tattooing the roster on his headstone.
INSIGHT

Listener-Graded Odds Drive The Game

  • The preseason predictions game used listener-graded likelihoods to weight point values for each pick.
  • That made rare predictions worth far more and turned grading into a crowd-calibrated scoring system.
INSIGHT

Wording And Role Use Matter For Predictions

  • Ben Clemens' Shohei Otani pitch-speed prediction was judged extremely bold by listeners.
  • Narrow wording (starters excluding openers) and Otani's usage patterns complicated tracking and evaluation.
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