Effectively Wild Episode 2530: The Top 24 Players 24 or Younger

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, please visit our Patreon. With Meg Rowley on vacation, Ben Lindbergh continues his quest to (temporarily) resurrect a few dearly departed baseball podcasts. Next Up: The Ringer MLB Show, featuring Ben, Michael Baumann of FanGraphs, and Bobby Wagner of Patreon and Tipping Pitches. Ben, Baumann, and Bobby banter about their old show and the absence of one member of the Ringer MLB crew, how MLB commemorated 9/11, who&#8217;s to blame for banged-up Shohei Ohtani, whether they&#8217;re buying Anthony Volpe&#8217;s power spike, and what the widespread mockery of Vivek Ramaswamy&#8217;s baseball swing says about politicans&#8217; eagerness to invoke baseball, the danger of appearing inauthentic by faking ball knowledge, and the difficulty (relative to other sports) of not looking doofy doing baseball activities without past playing experience. Then (54:49) Ben plays &#8220;Did This Famous Figure Play College Baseball?&#8221; and they draft (1:02:38) the top 24 MLB players who are in their age-24 seasons or younger. Audio&nbsp;intro: Dave Armstrong and Mike Murray, &#8220;Effectively Wild Theme&#8221; Audio&nbsp;outro: Alex Ferrin, &#8220;Effectively Wild Theme&#8221; Link to The Ringer MLB Show feed Link to Ringer Baseball feed Link to Baumann&#8217;s FanGraphs archive Link to Tipping Pitches Link to 2021 young players ranking Link to 2021 young players podcast Link to 2022 young players ranking Link to MLB&#8217;s 9/11 press release Link to Baumann on Ohtani Link to Woo on Ohtani Link to Ardaya on Ohtani Link to Ohtani comments Link to Volpe reinvention article <a href="https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast-search-minors?hfGT=R%7C&amp;hfSea=2026%7C&amp;player_type=batter&amp;game_date_gt=2026-08-07&amp;game_date_lt=2026-09-07&amp;hfFlag=is%5C.%5C.tracked%7C&amp;hfLevel=AAA%7C&amp;group_by=name&amp;min_pitches=0&amp;min_results=0&amp;min_pas=75&amp;sort_col=woba&amp;sort_order=desc&amp;chk_stats_abs=on&amp;chk_stats_hits=on&amp;chk_stats_woba=on&amp;chk_is..t