More than any other major American sport, baseball is most closely tied to the radio. Leading writers have long nostalgized the poetic pauses and cracklings offered by early broadcasts. The most famous narration in all of sports history is probably Russ Hodges' call of Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard Round the World," when he shouted repeatedly into his microphone, "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!"
Today, Major League Baseball is driven mostly by television revenue, but the sport's audio coverage is thriving in the form of podcasts. Like almost every facet of baseball fandom, though, podcasters are divided between those that utilize advanced statistics and those that prefer more traditional record-keeping. In baseball, the statistically inclined have been infiltrating the sport for the last couple decades, as Michael Lewis profiled in his 2004 book, Moneyball.
Inside MLB, the use of analytics is widespread with pretty much every franchise relying on advanced statistics to some degree. Outside of the front office, though, advanced statistics are still reviled by many players and fans. The statistical divide plays out in the podcasting community too, since many of the best podcasters come from statistically inclined writers.
Top 5 Baseball Podcasts
1) Tie:
Fangraphs Audio, the Fangraphs Baseball podcast with Carson Cistulli & Dave Cameron (Weekly)
Effectively Wild: the Baseball Prospectus podcast with Ben Lindbergh & Sam Miller (Daily)
Fangraphs and Baseball Prospectus (BP) are the two best sources for analytical baseball writing. The latter has a much longer history. BP started publishing in the mid 1990s, and employed statistical superhuman, Nate Silver, before he left to write for places like the The New York Times and ESPN. Fangraphs is the upstart kid-brother, but the site's unrelenting outstanding content, along with the ramblings of Carson Cistulli, have earned it a respected following alongside BP.
It shouldn't come as much of a surprise, then, that the two best websites for baseball writing publish the two best podcasts about baseball. Many listeners decidedly prefer one or the other, but the stylistic differences between the two nicely complement each other. For the Fangraphs podcast, Cistulli interviews the managing editor of the site, Dave Cameron, with self deprecating aplomb. Cameron provides a sober breakdown of the latest developments in baseball.
3) The Jonah Keri Podcast (Weekly)
The Grantland writer and author hosts a weekly podcast where he interviews both people inside baseball and reporters that cover it. Keri is a stats guy, but he goes out of his way to include listeners and guests that are not versed in analytics. I regularly listened to the podcast, but it became a must-listen after hearing Keri interview Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe. Ryan had just written an anti-analytics tirade that was widely derided in the places where I read about baseball. Instead of jumping on the bandwagon, Keri brought Ryan on the show and asked him to expand on his viewpoint while also challenging him. The resulting conversation exposed Ryan's lack of understanding of advanced statistics, but did so in a thoughtful and polite way.
4) Slate's Hang up and Listen (Weekly)
This is a general sports podcast that doesn't often cover baseball. And when they do, they often invite Lindbergh or Miller from Effectively Wild to provide insight. The show's trio, though, is a lot of fun, and they know enough about baseball to dig in and discuss either the most compelling stories or at least have Lindbergh or Miller explain it. Its a great listen every week even if they aren't covering baseball.
5) RIP: Baseball Today with Keith Law (Daily)
ESPN's top prospect writer, Keith Law, is one of the most engaging personalities writing about baseball. Before 2013, Law appeared regularly on ESPN's daily podcast, Baseball Today. In 2013, ESPN changed the show to Baseball Tonight and gave the reigns to one of baseball's least interesting personalities, Buster Olney. Still, Law appears on Olney's show every Thursday, and the 20 minutes of analysis he provides is worth the listen. The rest of the daily show can be immediately discarded since it regurgitates the standard gut instinct, cliche driven narrative coverage that appears in the rest of ESPN's publications.
Honorable Mentions
I'm quite fond of the podcasts mentioned above. I'm just starting to get into those listed below. I've listened to at least several episodes of each of these, and hey are all worthwhile if you find yourself with even more time to listen to baseball podcasts.