Welcome to the latest episode of Hot Takedown, FiveThirtyEight’s sports podcast. On this week’s show (July 12, 2016), we welcome ESPN The Magazine’s Mina Kimes as a guest host.
We look at Von Miller’s battle with the Denver Broncos over his franchise tag, and Mina explains why the tag is a problem for players in the NFL. Then, we break down the numbers behind Daniel Murphy’s revenge run against the New York Mets and offer some insights into how the 2016 Major League Baseball season is shaping up at the All-Star break. Finally, this week features the deadest day in the sporting calendar, with all four major sports out of action. We wonder what the WNBA and MLS, which are still in action, could possibly do to capture the public’s attention. Plus, a significant digit on Tim Duncan, the NBA great who retired on Monday.
Links to what we discuss are here:
- Von Miller says he won’t play under the franchise tag.
- Joel Corry at CBS breaks down what a new long-term contract for Von Miller would look like.
- Mina Kimes on Darrelle Revis’s savvy contract negotiations.
- Neil Paine says the Cleveland Indians are dominating Major League Baseball like its the ’90s again.
- Chelsea Janes in The Washington Post tells the story of Daniel Murphy’s super season.
- Rob Arthur and Ben Lindbergh try to work out why baseball teams are hitting so many home runs.
- In 2014, Neil Paine wrote about the deadest sports days of the year.
- Significant Digits: 17 and 10. That’s the number of points and rebounds Tim Duncan averaged every single year in his career except 2015-16. Duncan retired on Monday at the grand old age of 40.
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