SABRcast with Rob Neyer: Dwight Jaynes (Episode #29)

October 14, 2019/by Jason Best

Baseball fans, tune in this season to SABRcast with Rob Neyer, a new weekly podcast hosted by award-winning author and longtime SABR member Rob Neyer. SABRcast will feature insights and analysis of what’s happening in modern baseball on and off the field, plus compelling interviews with figures from around the game — and music from The Baseball Project.

Subscribe to SABRcast on your favorite podcast networks, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play, and listen to each episode as soon as it’s released.

Neyer is a longtime baseball writer and editor for ESPN.com, SB Nation, and FoxSports.com. He began his career as a research assistant for groundbreaking baseball author Bill James and later worked for STATS, Inc. He has also written or co-written seven baseball books, including The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (with Bill James), winner of the Sporting News/SABR Baseball Research Award, and most recently Power Ball: Anatomy of a Modern Baseball Game, winner of this year’s CASEY Award.

Current Episode

Episode #29: October 14, 2019

Our guest this week is Dwight Jaynes, a longtime sports columnist and reporter in Portland, Oregon, and one of the leading advocates to bring Major League Baseball to Portland. Since 2011, he has been the Trail Blazers Insider for NBC Sports Northwest. Previously, he co-hosted a morning radio show on KXTG The Game and was president of the Portland Tribune. He has co-authored two books on basketball, The Long Hot Winter with former Blazers coach Rick Adelman, and Against the World with journalist Kerry Eggers.

Click here or press play below to listen to Episode #29:

What’s Rob reading this week?

“Major League Baseball has lost public trust over the construction of its baseballs”
By Evan Drellich, The Athletic

It’s easier for much of the public to believe that MLB masterminded a plot to juice its baseball with precision and foresight, rather than believe the league bumbled something. Easier to believe in covert genius than obvious failure. Either way, the league appears to have lost significant public trust over the construction of its baseballs. The commissioner’s office is well aware of the reception that awaits statements like the following, a response to an analysis at Baseball Prospectus which found that the postseason ball appears de-juiced.