Ben and Sam discuss the Orioles' exciting 14-inning victory over Tampa Bay, then break down Rafael Soriano's season and his upcoming opt-out decision.
Episode 42: "Breaking Down Baltimore's Latest Extra-Inning Win/Should Rafael Soriano Opt Out?"
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A few days ago I was on the verge of posting a whiny comment about how you never talk about the Reds on the podcast, but I decided instead to hold up, gather some data, and make sure my complaint was warranted first.
So I made a spreadsheet tracking every BP Daily Podcast topic that has been discussed so far and which team, if any, each topic pertained to (or if the topic was a particular player, that player's team (or teamS if it was a recently traded player)).
The results show that my whiny accusation is justified:
Of the 73 topics that could be linked to a particular team or teams, only 1 (the very first, on Chapman) was about the Reds.
But, CIN isn't the only team given short shrift: SDP = 0 topics, and only 1 topic for: CLE, HOU, MIL, STL, TOR.
Look further, and we see a bone-chilling trend:
-Summarizing by division-
AL East - 16 (3.2/team)
AL Central - 14 (2.8/team)
AL West - 16 (4.0/team)
NL East - 18 (3.6/team)
NL Central - 9 (1.5/team)
NL West - 12 (2.4/team)
(*it adds up to >73 since some topics pertain to multiple teams)
It's not like the NL Central is bereft of interesting things to talk about:
Reds: best record in MLB at times?! 32-16 w/out Votto! Cueto! Frazier! The magical plays of Brandon Phillips!
Cardinals: great run differential; mediocre record! Many runs w/out Pujols, Berkman!
Pirates: The Pirates?!?! Finally, Alvarez! McCutchen OMG!
Astros: SOOO BAD OH NO! OH NOOOO!
Cubs: ...well, they've been talked about most (3 topics) despite their most non-descript season of the past few decades, so don't talk about the Cubs.
Brewers: Also a baseball team!
-The most talked about teams-
Yankees - 6
Orioles - 5 (+1 proposed-but-not-talked-about topic, from the old pre-episode#4 format)
Angels - 5
Rangers - 5
DET/NYM/OAK/PHI/SFG/WSN - 4
All this being said, I don't actually think you guys should make any sort of concerted effort to make sure you cover every team equally, and, of course: SSS. And I do LOVE the podcast, and in particular your abilities to hone in on interesting and often under-reported stories, or at least present refreshingly reasoned perspectives on the bigger stories, so I don't actually want you guys to change the way you do things. But I'm also a whiny fan of a particular team and therefore you are both jerks.