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Welcome to the latest episode of Hot Takedown, FiveThirtyEight’s sports podcast. On this week’s show (Sept. 27, 2016) we talk about tragic death of Miami Marlins pitcher José Fernández and how both the numbers and his background show why he was so great. Then, we chat with Sports Illustrated’s Lindsay Schnell about why LSU fired Les Miles and whether he should give up being a coach and concentrate on being a recruiter. Finally, we break down the numbers behind Kevin Garnett’s historic career. Plus, a significant digit on Vin Scully’s retirement after almost seven decades in the commentator’s chair
Links to what we discuss:
- Neil Paine says baseball lost a potential all-time great in José Fernández.
- Josh Levin, in Slate, writes that Fernández represented the future of baseball.
- The Ringer’s Michael Baumann goes one step further and says Fernández also represented the future of America.
- Jordan Ritter Conn, on Grantland, tells the story of Fernández’s journey from Cuba to the MLB All-Star Game.
- ESPN Stats & Information produces the numbers that show Les Miles was a winner early on at LSU, but not so much at the end.
- Nylon Calculus’s Justin Willard asks how will we remember Kevin Garnett.
- Dan Rosenbaum breaks down what the adjusted plus/minus statistic says about how good Garnett was on defense.
- Significant Digit: 67. That’s the number of years Vin Scully has been a broadcaster for the Dodgers. He’ll be calling his final game with the team this weekend.
