Dust off the bobbleheads and display your hat collection. It’s time to hop on The Bandwagon. Join Yahoo Sports’ Hannah Keyser and Zach Crizer for a weekly conversation about the rapidly evolving world of baseball. From the bullpen to the front office, Hannah delivers perspectives from inside MLB organizations, and Zach goes full moneyball to provide the analytics angle as they critically dissect the stories and topics guiding baseball each week. Closing out each show, they hop on a new bandwagon and tell you the team or player for whom you should abandon your hometown allegiance and become the ultimate fair-weather fan.
Hannah and Zach are back with their first episode since the start of the baseball season, leading to a fun conversation at the beginning of the episode about what each of them did for MLB Opening Day this year.
About a week into the season, they agree that the new rules have been a success in terms of speeding up the game and creating more small-ball. Specifically, teams are attempting steals at rates we haven’t seen in over a decade and succeeding at rates we haven’t seen since even longer ago. That’s good! Right?
Zach comes up with a fun game before he and Hannah discuss Anthony Rendon confronting a fan in Oakland and getting suspended as a result.
Before bandwagoning the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays, Hannah and Zach dive into the story of MLB pitchers being told to throw the first pitch of each at-bat right down the middle of the strike zone, explaining why it is probably a good idea and if we can expect more widespread adoption from the rest of the league.
00:30 what did you do for opening day?
04:20 A lot of stolen bases!
12:20 Zach’s Game: Did this happen in an Orioles/Rangers game?
19:50 Do We Care? Anthony Rendon fights a fan
24:15 We Were Wondering: Throwing pitches down the middle
43:00 The Bandwagon: Tampa Bay Rays
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