Bobby and Alex chronicle the latest in CBA negotiation news, including an outlandish proposal to replace salary arbitration with a payment system based on FanGraphs Wins Above Replacement. Then, they discuss Scott Boras, and whether his annual comments at the GM Meetings align with MLBPA interests or not. Finally, they finish by answering listener questions about the Athletics’ impending tear down and — what else? — Red (Taylor’s Version).
Links:
Evan Drellich on the latest MLB proposal ($)
Songs featured in this episode:
Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak, Silk Sonic — “After Last Night” • Taylor Swift, Chris Stapleton — “I Bet You Think About Me” • Booker T & the M.G.’s — “Green Onions”
Episode Transcript
[INTRO MUSIC]
Tell us a little bit about what you saw and and and being able to relay that message to Cora when you watch Kimbrel pitching and kind of help out so he wasn’t Tipping his Pitches. So Tipping Pitches, we hear about it all the time. People are home on the stand, what Tipping Pitches it’s all about. It’s amazing. That’s remarkable.
BOBBY: Alex, I want to start this podcast by letting listeners in on a little secret letting listeners behind the curtain. You know, we like to do that here. We like to make listeners feel like they’re a part of the show.
ALEX: Of course, you could argue we spent an entire episode doing that last week–
BOBBY: We did.
ALEX: –but it was really enjoyable by the way. That was that was one of the more fun episodes I’ve I I think we’ve done it a while in part because it had very little to do with the acrimonious labor landscape in Baseball. We could put all that two sides to the side, and just talk vibes feels.
BOBBY: I did have a lot of fun recording that podcast. But are you trying to say that, you don’t actually enjoy making a show with me every week and you want to see other people?
ALEX: Bobby, I se–it’s not you, it’s me. I–
BOBBY: Ow it’s you.
ALEX: –serious. Well, it’s not you, it’s me, it’s Scott Boras, who’s really the the icon that I think we need to complete this trifecta.
BOBBY: You’re leaving me to do a podcast with Scott Boras? Uhh, no, I was gonna let listeners in on the fact that we almost missed this recording here because you were so busy filming your 15 minute short film about why shareseys are better than jerseys.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And we almost just completely missed our recording window because of it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But you stepped all over the joke, so it’s over now.
ALEX: Wow. Weirdly, my short film also featured Dylan O’Brien.
BOBBY: Oh.
ALEX: I’ve I’ve weird scheduling, ahh mishap there. But he was able to make it work.
BOBBY: It’s like avant garde, there’s no sound, no dialogue. He just switches by standing in front of a mirror. Maybe three mirrors, like one in front of him, one to the right, one to the left.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Just trying on different sherseys and jerseys and seeing what looks better.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly.
BOBBY
Dylan O’Brien could play you in a movie?
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Is is there an actor that you feel like capture your essence really well? Like if someone was writing a movie about you or this podcast or whatever? Who would you want to portray you?
ALEX: Who would I want to portray me?
BOBBY: Or like, is there somebody–
ALEX: I don’t–
BOBBY: [2:37] people told you–
ALEX: –I don’t know would ever want to be portrayed any anyhow, anywhere. I mean, what I will say and this is–
BOBBY: Oh, I remember now–
ALEX: –maybe a bad, a bad time to bring this up. But when some people meet me, they say, Hey, you know who you remind me of? Is Jake Gyllenhaal–
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: –and that’s a real bad beat for me these days.
BOBBY: Wow. When is Prince of Persia 2 coming out? I don’t think that I look like this person. But I would I think that Logan Lerman, who’s in Perks of Being a Wallflower. And he’s going to be in the new Percy Jackson TV series.
ALEX: Mmm.
BOBBY: I feel like he could really capture my sadboy energy.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: But he could also play you too. So it’s just another example of how similar we are.
ALEX: Right, I mean, that has more to do with the personality than it does anything else like I–
BOBBY: I think Dylan O’Brien kind of looks like you if you grew his hair out, or if you bust your hair. You’d need to be able to grow a little bit more of a beard though.
ALEX: Yes, I would. Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s me too. That’s hard, it’s hard.
ALEX: But that’s okay, it’s a work in progress.
BOBBY: Oh, this podcast intro is worse than a work in progress. Let’s just get on to the rest of the show. Alex, we’re going to talk about ahh some back and forths and labor negotiations between the MLBPA and Major League Baseball. We are going to answer a couple questions that we had leftover from last week. We’ll of course get into the man the myth, the legend Scott Boras’ quotes at the GM meetings. But first, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[4:11]
[Transition Music]
BOBBY: Alex, the December 1st deadline, for the expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement that governs Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association. It’s coming up, it’s coming up–
ALEX: Fast approaching.
BOBBY: –it is two and a half weeks away. And that means that the speed with which these negotiations and back and forth and proposals are coming in, is increasing. And so in since we last recorded the normal episode, ahh I will leave the 200th episode, Mailbag out of that because we didn’t really want to talk about the nitty gritty of labor proposals on that podcast. We were having a fun time. And again, like Alex said, we we did didn’t really have a lot of fun recording that episode. Thank you so much to everybody who wrote in questions. I know I said this multiple times last week. But if we didn’t answer your question, we do have in a document somewhere. And we’re going to trickle some of those questions out, spaced out over the offseason, because we might need stuff to talk about when it’s just radio silence on Baseball labor negotiation. So we have a few questions saved up, either because they we ran out of time or because they would have required longer ahh answers or more research. So we will get to the remaining questions throughout this offseason. But that brings me back to negotiations. Uhm we have had a union proposal and an MLB proposal that I want to discuss with you, Alex. Really quickly in the Union proposal, we don’t know that much more, we certainly don’t know more than we really knew from the last time they propose something. Uhh this is from an Evan Drellich article a little over a week ago, maybe like a week and a half ago. Uhh he writes us previously reported the Union’s first proposal would have allowed players to become eligible for arbitration after two years instead of three. The Union in may also proposed a change to draft order, increases in the minimum salary raises to the CBT threshold, changes to revenue sharing between clubs, changes to the way service time is calculated, and bonuses for players who have yet to reach arbitration. So we don’t know much more than that, in this round, coming from the Union side. Uhh except for broad strokes, we know that they want to address service time, we know that they want to address getting money to younger players, as they start to get called up and have a bigger impact earlier.
ALEX: Which is which is not new. This is something we we know that the Union is agitating for given the you know, the discussions around this over the of the last few years.
BOBBY: Right. And since basically since Kris Bryant’s grievance, we’ve known that this was gonna be the thing that they were gonna focus on.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And you didn’t have to be an insider to understand that. I think the more interesting thing that we could talk about and maybe kind of poke fun at a little bit was the MLB response to these proposals. Which the large headline from this was that Major League Baseball, proposed that instead of salary arbitration as it’s currently constructed, which, you know, we’ve alluded to, and we’ve said that we’re going to do a longer episode about. But salary arbitration is after your third year of service, you are eligible for arbitration, and you can propose what you think that you should make, and the team can propose what they think that you should make. And if the numbers if you can’t agree on a number, then you go to arbitration with a allegedly independent arbitrator, and they decide which salary number you end up getting paid. The one that you said, or the one team said. MLB wants to do away with that. Great, Alex, great–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –no more arbitration. Arbitration is a, a psychologically manipulative tactic that teams have that they can make players feel like they’re lesser than.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Uhm–
ALEX: I mean, I, I I–it’s interesting, because arbitration is an an incredibly imperfect system, right? As we’ve noted, and also it is a an arena in which the side of the owners, the side of the teams have to give up a little bit of control, right?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: They are not, they do not have all of the leverage in those negotiations, right? There’s a third party in there. So it’s interesting that they would want to do away with that.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Bobby, will will you tell me more about what it is that they’d like to replace it with?
BOBBY: Well, what they’d like to replace it with is this, this trickled out in stages. At first, we heard from some reporters who had gotten wind of this, that it was going to be an algorithm that was going to determine what players were worth. And then algorithm makes it seem like–
ALEX: Which is great, we love algorithms.
BOBBY: Algorithms are working so well in the rest of society that MLB was just like, more algorithm, algorithms. And then we quickly found out from Evan Drellich, who is very plugged in here, as you can tell by the fact that we keep referencing articles that he’s written. But Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal, they quickly reported that that algorithm was actually just MLB wants to use FanGraphs WAR, to determine how much players would be paid in years three through six of Team Control. S,o I saw Craig Goldstein pointing this out right away, this would do nothing to address when you’re actually getting paid the least when you’re under complete team control in years one through thr–one through three of your career in the Majors. This would only address years three through six. So all of that background, your first response to when you saw that they wanted to use FanGraphs WAR to determine how much you’d be paid instead of arbitration.
ALEX: Honestly, it was like, this was the best you came up with? And no shade to owners who are you you gotta hand it to him very, very good at manipulating player salaries, and gaming the system to their best advantage. And when I heard that the latest proposal was this number times another number is your salary. I thought man, I thought you would have worked harder on something. This sounds like, you know, one of those, like very first meeting, they’ve got the whiteboard up. They’re like, no bad ideas, no–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –bad ideas. What do what do we say? And they exhausted all the other options. And they landed on, well what if we multiply a player’s FanGraphs WAR by a set number, and that will be their salary in arbitration, right? So in the in the first year of arbitration, they will multiply their FanGraphs WAR by 580,000. For the second year, that goes up to 770,000, for the third year that jumps up to 910,000. And it’s really just like–
BOBBY: Which it’s not the cost of a win in the–
ALEX: –with the-
BOBBY: –open market. It’s like–
ALEX: –abs–absolutely not.
BOBBY: The cost of a win in the open mar–I don’t even remember what it is. But it’s like millions, it’s like 5 million or 6 million or something.
ALEX: Right, this is also not a number that’s necessarily expected to change year over year, depending on how much the league is making. It’s just a number that the league feels comfortable with and says, “we don’t think this player is going to be over”. It’s the league saying, “we don’t think this player is as a result of this proposal, we’re going to be raking in more money than they should be raking”, right? We feel confident that if a player’s posting for war, sure, I’ll pay them $4 million, because that’s how that works.
BOBBY: I love the way that they this is such a common labor tactic, ahh or this is such a common anti-labor tactic. I love the way that they sort of weaponize the complaints of the pro-player side, the complaints of the Union side and try to make it seem like the solution that they came up with in this whiteboard. brainstorming session is actually is actually the perfect solution, Alex. It’s the perfect solution for the problems that you have. There’s this line in ahh the the Drellich piece that says, “MLB sees this proposal as in part a way to do away with the acrimony of the arbitration process, which can be uncomfortable for clubs and players alike. And as a way for younger players to be paid more. One of the union’s stated goals”.
ALEX: Sorry, did he say it’s uncomfortable for clubs? I’d like to know what Executives are made uncomfortable by the arbitration process?
BOBBY: Well, it’s all it’s also like–
ALEX: This was asking for–
BOBBY: –who’s determining–
ALEX: –$20,000 too much for me and that’s making me squirm.
BOBBY: Right, who made it uncomfortable to begin with? Was it the players who were asking to be paid, like 1/50 of their market value? Please, sir, may I please make 1/50 of my market value. Or was it the teams that come in there with a dossier about when the players skip practice when they are 15 years old in high school, and how that means that they shouldn’t actually make an extra $51,000 a year from a club that’s making $10 billion based on their services.
ALEX: I get that, that’s tough for both sides.
BOBBY: It’s [13:22] it’s hard for both sides.
ALEX: I’ve tough to come at in there and dig through a player’s personal life, because like that–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –carries emotional weight.
BOBBY: –citing their tweets.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Citing their weight, cite–citing their personal lives, it’s just very, it’s very, it’s very hard [13:40]–
ALEX: It’s not it’s not easy to depress a player salary. And frankly, I think more people should think of the the billionaires on the other side of the table.
BOBBY: Right. Private Investigators aren’t cheap, Alex.
ALEX: Yeah, it’s an extremely bizarre proposal that, you know, I I I think on its face to a lot of people sounds somewhat reasonable, right? You say, players should be paid to some extent based on how they are performing, how they have performed over the course of their career. If we just multiply this one number that sums up their whole career by another number that we think reflects the market value, that works right. Then every player is being paid based off the same variable, and it’s up to them on on how well they can perform. Like you said, that ignores the the the the first three seasons of their career in which many players are arguably their most productive.
BOBBY: And getting paid the league minimum.
ALEX: And getting paid the league minimum, which you know, I gotta give credit to MLB. They did propose that they’d bump it like 100k, which is good. They recognize that there’s a problem there.
BOBBY: They’re out there they’re trying to cover for an inflation–
ALEX: An inflation run–
BOBBY: [15:01] now–
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. You know, it’s not trying to cover for inflation this proposal, which–
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: I don’t know, the the idea that the idea that there is a proposal to replace arbitration with the system that still does not take into account the league’s overall economic position.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: The the viability of their business is a non starter and I this has been reflected in the reporting right? The the quote unquote, “sources” that have come back on the players side of these things have said this is ahh vaguely speaking a joke.
BOBBY: Specifically speaking, Albert Pujols has a better chance of leaving the Majors in stolen bases and agents said in response.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Ahh no, your your point is extremely well taken, though. Because the Union is striving towards making this a free market. They don’t want, they don’t want a 50/50 revenue split, they never have. Because they want the market to be free for each individual player to negotiate. So are you actually trying to replace the old system with something that is closer to what the Union is asking or just you just using some of their talking points to try to soften public opinion about this? I think it’s the latter, because this does not, this is the exact opposite of a free market. Guys can not negotiate with their for what they’re worth, they cannot come with this is actually further away from what the Union wants than arbitration is. For all–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –of its flaws, and all of its limits, arbitration at least has two sides, coming with what they feel like the person deserves. Now both sides have to be somewhat reasonable. And I think that the player side usually gets screwed in that case, because because of all of, because of a lot of regressive things about arbitration, and how much you can actually ask for. Uhm based on what stats you have to present to these neutral arbitrators who don’t actually know that much about Baseball. But boiling it down to one single number. By the way, one single number that people who created it will tell you is not meant to be used, like incredibly imperfect. And–
ALEX: Really useful, and has a lot of flaws. Really useful [17:22]–
BOBBY: And [17:22] talk about in broad strokes, right?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But not as useful to talk about what a specific guy means to a specific team. Because if you’re asking as of as a team, if you’re asking a player to do something, that they’re not that good at for a season. To learn how to play left field, their war is going to suffer. But why should their salary suffer? Because you play them out of position, there is–
ALEX: Uh-hmm
BOBBY: –if this is ripe with opportunity to exploit, from the team side, to–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –take at bats away, to put guys in positions that they’re not used to. To tell them not to steal, because that might help their WAR. To tell them to have a more aggressive played approach. Because if you walk more, it’ll help your WAR, because you get on base more. Like there are so many ways that teams could try to game this, even unintentionally, that would ultimately end up being extremely anti-player.
ALEX: Yeah. Relievers, notoriously undervalued by WAR. You want to know what we just saw in the last month in the playoffs? And in the last few years than the playoffs? You want to know the players who are quite valuable? Relievers, relievers very, very valuable to teams. And that’s reflected on the market. When you see free agent relievers getting $10-$15 million a year, even if you’re just a setup, man, that’s an incredibly valuable role to play that oftentimes, is not reflected in a player’s WAR, because they only accumulate 50-60-70 innings a year. And WAR isn’t like you know, is a cumulative stat. So how do you help that?
BOBBY: Right. And–
ALEX: Chalk it up to to an Excel formula?
BOBBY: How do you account for the fact that like, if you’re a Reliever or you’re a Pitcher, and a team just rides you really hard for a year four, blows you out for your five, then you get nothing for your five? You get nothing for your six? The years that you’re ostensibly supposed to be making more under this proposal? You’re making nothing, because you put up no WAR? Like there are a million questions that this opens up. And it just doesn’t seem like they cared about the questions. Like they, it seems like a really lazy attempt to me at trying to appease the players Union and trying to appease the wider Baseball community by being like, we’re forward thinking, we’re looking at WAR, without ever really thinking about what that would mean in practice.
ALEX: Yeah, and it goes without saying that anything that the owners propose. And for that matter, anything that the players propose, is worth being somewhat skeptical about. Because and especially with the way it’s reported, because it’s usually reported directly from the impacted parties mouth, right? And given that the owners are oftentimes the ones with the upper hand, in economic negotiations, the notion that they would put something forth, that is a rational proposal to fix MLBs economic system feels ahh somewhat unsavory. I had to to accept this idea, is to accept the notion that the owners are acting in, in good faith and in the interests of the players. Which again, thi–this is a system that the owners i–that as it currently exists, owners don’t have complete control over. So it’s in their benefit to replace it with something that you can much more easily calculate the results of.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Because then they don’t have to invest in all of the stuff that we joked about at the beginning of the segment that comes with arbitration, which is like–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –Lawyers who go to the courts and tell the arbitrator why they shouldn’t make more money.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And like, you know, research assistants who compile a list of the players body fat percentage at different points throughout the first three years of their career and why that means that they weren’t trying hard enough. Like all of these other things that, you know, all of these arbitration horror stories. And, I I guess, where we’ll end with this, because it’s maybe not worth getting too much further into the weeds on something that is a non-starter to begin with. And just seems like a, it just seems like a little bit of like a hot potato move within negotiations here. Like, Oh, you guys sent us back this proposal, we’re just gonna give it right back to you. Now–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –like, we don’t actually expect this to pass before December 1st, of course. We’re we’re not–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –taking this all that seriously in the time that we should be taking it the most seriously, allegedly.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Uhm, but this comes from John Becker, who’s a Roster Resources Assistant at FanGraphs. And he said, he made a really good point about about all WAR, whether it’s FanGraphs or not. He says, “What I would hate is a stat that is public and inherently inexact being used to underpay players. 3.34 is essentially the same as 3.2, players would not be paid such”. I think that’s a really good point, because FanGraphs and all all sabermetrics sites that have their own version of wins above replacement, they go back and they update these numbers.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like based on–
ALEX: They acknowledge their imperfections.
BOBBY: Right, they acknowledge their imperfections. There, they are living predict numbers that they go back and change based on different I don’t even know what they change it on based on different trends in the league over longer periods of time. Like I don’t actually know what goes into the formula of WAR. But I do know that if you go back and look at older players who are long since dead, their WAR changes. So how are you going to account for that as a league when this is the actual money that you’re putting into a player’s bank account? Are you going to go back and give them a bonus? Are you going to go back and debit money from them?
ALEX: Posthumous bonuses?
BOBBY: Yeah, like, what? That’s it’s unserious. It’s I mean, that’s the word that like we keep coming back to but like, the–they know that this is not going to be agreed on anywhere close to this.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Now, if you want to talk about if you want to talk about we can factor in WAR and in arbitration. Because, you know, it’s been talked about a lot how things like RBIs, things like home runs are very valued in arbitration. And that’s not really exactly how players are thinking of the best versions of themselves anymore. But that’s not what really, this seems like. This seems more like a one stop shop. This is the number and that just doesn’t seem beneficial to really either side, to be honest.
ALEX: Yeah, absolutely. I, you know, it’s worth noting that neither sides proposal, that of which the details were were leaked out in the last couple of weeks. Were much different from what we’ve heard in the past, which I think underscores the inevitability that we’re bailing. Bet that we are barreling towards of a lockout, right? The league’s most recent proposal, deferred very little compared to the last one, right? They are still advocating for two years to reach arbitration instead of three. You listed off the whole a laundry list of asks that they have at the beginning of this conversation. And, frankly that’s a good thing, because they are sticking to their guns, right? And not caving to these inherently bad faith demands that the ownership is putting forward. And it also means we’re headed towards a work stoppage.
BOBBY: Yeah [25:28]–
ALEX: It’s it’s becoming more and more clear by the day. And it’s, I think, far less dramatic than I think some people would have seen, right? Because a lot of it is, is more paperwork and backroom deals than it is something that’s going to be like reflected in the day to day goings on of the game, right? As fans, we may not actually witness a lot of this stuff. But as we’ve talked about before, there is a lot at stake here. And there’s incentives for on either side of the table to come to a somewhat swift agreement. So–
BOBBY: Yeah, well, I mean, the last thing I’ll say on that, and then we could take a quick break and come back and talk about Boras is, I was really surprised to see Jeff Passan, tweeting about how Corey Seager and Marcus Semien’s market is heating up, and how it’s becoming increasingly likely that they will sign before December 1st. It’s probably a fools errand to make, like overarching jud–judgments about where negotiations are at because of that. But I think that you and I, and most people who thought about free agency in this way, would have assumed that most guys would want to wait until after the CBA. So that they can, so that they can understand the terms with which the terms that are available to them in a league wide market, signing the next deal that they signed or signing the biggest deal that they signed.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I mean, just just to give like a single or a single example of why this sort of alarms me is because one of these guys are like starting to catch wind of the fact that the that there might be a salary floor, and therefore the competitive balance tax might be lowered. And so their larger individual, average annual value of salary means more to teams that it would have had they signed before the CBA expired, like all of those things. I’m like, is this a bad sign? I don’t really know. It doesn’t mean nothing, I don’t really know. Is it just that these guys know where they want to go? And the teams are interested? So why wait? Why let teams talk themselves out of a big contract over the course of the next three months? It could be nothing. But it is, if not informative, at least interesting, that two of–the guys who are gonna sign the biggest deals are going to do it before they know anything about what the CBA is.
ALEX: Right. Well, and it’s interesting that teams would be interested in entertaining that before knowing anything about what their potential payrolls might look like, in 2022 and beyond. I mean, I think players have a decent incentive to sign relatively quickly, because I don’t necessarily anticipate the CBA to move things backwards. As far as player compensation, obviously, I mean, we know that ownership would would like to rein things in. But I, we know how militant the the Union has been. And I don’t think I don’t think they’re gonna stand for anything that allows players to make less than than what they made years past. And so I think players should be chomping at the at the bit to sign right now. And like you said, do teams are teams actually interested in in making these signings right now? Is it financially prudent for them to do this before knowing what the CBA looks like, knowing what luxury tax limits look like and such?
BOBBY: I mean, I guess it just might be if you really want the guy and they really want to come to you. Why let the next three months of shit slinging, affect your individual negotiation when you could just ensure that you have the guy.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So it’d be interesting. And it kind of really depends on what teams they go to. Because if they go to a team, that’s nowhere near the luxury tax to begin with, and why they wouldn’t care anyway. About whether the luxury tax goes slightly down or slightly up, it won’t make too much of a difference to them. Uhm so yeah I, i–it might be a moot point. Come like three weeks from now.
ALEX: Right, I mean, this is all like prognosticating, like we have zero intel on what either of these parties are are thinking but the fact that we’re getting any of this at all when we I think expected largely radio silence is certainly telling.
BOBBY: Yeah. All right, let’s take a quick break. Come back talk Scott Boras. Answer a couple of questions and then [30:00].
[30:00]
[Transition Music]
BOBBY: All right, we’re not gonna do Three Up, Threw Down, Alex, because it’s the offseason and not as much happen. So Three Up, Three Down will make its triumphant return. I guess around spring training maybe mid February. We’ll see–
ALEX: Right, may–maybe we shouldn’t put a date on that.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But uhh, but it’ll it’ll return around the time that baseball returns.
BOBBY: Yes, exactly. Uhh but what we are going to do is we’re going to talk about the fact that Scott Boras. We’re not going to talk about all the analogies that he made, because that has been that’s well trodden ground in the in the wider world of podcasts and media. Uhm effectively wild has been on that corner for like, eight years. So–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –we’re not going to add anything to the discourse that they aren’t already covering. But we are going to talk about the fact that he said, Scott Boras said, “Only 17 teams at the most are currently trying to win in 2022. Alex, can you think of 17 teams that are really trying their hardest to win?
ALEX: Scott, you were the chosen one. You were supposed to bring balance to the system–
BOBBY: To the labor landscape.
ALEX: Not destroy it. Yeah, uhh, that’s being very generous, Scott, about the amount of teams and, and his point stands, which the point he’s trying to make is not enough teams are trying to compete. And I think he is still overestimating the amount of teams that are trying to compete. And I’m sure to a certain extent, he feels the need to tread somewhat lightly because I’m sure he has to maintain relationships with a lot of these teams, and he doesn’t want to burn bridges by saying there are only five teams trying to trying to compete here. Because you will have plenty of GM saying “Seriously, you don’t you don’t believe in us?”
BOBBY: Oh, next time you come–
ALEX: You don’t believe on what we are doing?
BOBBY: –next time you come to me trying to get $200 million. I’ll say, “Nope, sorry. I’m not trying to compete”, and hang up the phone.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly.
BOBBY: Well, it’s interesting though, like this this last round of winter meetings and sort of a conversation an ongoing conversation that we’ve been having and joking about Scott Boras being a labor legend. Because he gets his players paid the absolute maximum amount of money is. Do owners really hate Scott Boris that much? Is my question, because or is he more so in a roundabout way kind of beneficial to them because they know that they have to pay his clients top dollar but everybody who he does not represent who’s in that sort of middle tier they can completely underpaid and those people make up the majority of rosters. So is it like they sacrifice they let Scott Boras bluster, they let him say that only 17 teams are competing because he’s Scott Boras and then everyone else falls into line underneath that. He’s like planned opposition for them. He’s he’s the built in force that they know that they’re gonna have to deal with and then everybody else they can kind of squash down underneath that.
ALEX: Right, well and he carries a a large amount of influence, right? And I mean, five out of eight of the the Union’s Executive subcommittee, which is made up of players are Boras’ clients. So, the the league recognizes the sway that he has made I cannot imagine that they think he is a rogue radical you know talking out of left field to an extent the the boundaries of the playing field have been set, right? And and Scott Boras knows his role which is to be the the one who blusters on one side and throws metaphors I mean left and right like no other. And frankly I I think getting a little lazy he got a he could do some work.
BOBBY: I I need to understand more, like does he have like a tight 15 minutes? Like these all these comparisons where they were coming out in streams. Like–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –people were updating these threads of different Scott Boras comparisons and the hunt for October with Chris Brown, like all these things. Is he just like up there try and knock knock jokes?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Is this this come in like a press conference?
ALEX: Right. He’s got 10 minutes to, to give his stand up routine, and boy, does he make it worth it. I don’t know, man. But certainly, you make a good point in noting that. Sure. It’s useful for him to point out the show shortcomings in the league’s free agency market, or the the broader financial system, whatever. But a lot of these quotes mean very little because what he’s more interested in, is advocating for his clients, which are, again, among the league’s biggest stars. So–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –he may have have less vested interest in the quote unquote “middle-class” of Baseball players, which are–
BOBBY: Most of the Baseball players.
ALEX: –not coincident, not coincidentally, most of the Baseball players. And most of the players who get squeezed in the way that free agency has shifted over the last few years.
BOBBY: He’s not really like a pro-Union force. I mean, some of the stuff that he does ends up having sway within the Union. But like, he exists on a kind of third rail, and then it’s like, it’s kind of every time the GM meetings roll around, and it’s like the Scott Boras show. I’m like, okay–
ALEX: Maybe we could just turn it back a little bit. This is one perspective, advocating on behalf of a very specific class of player.
BOBBY: And it’s good and like he should get the absolute maximum dollar that teams are willing to give for every single one of his clients. But that doesn’t trickle down. Not to make Scott Boras sound like Ronald Reagan, but that doesn’t trickle down to the rest of the player pool.
ALEX: Right. It’s advantageous for him to negotiate the freest of markets.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Because that will benefit his clients and in turn benefit him. But it has never been the top dollar players that have seen issues with free agency.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Bryce Harper got paid. Manny Machado got paid, right? These players have always gotten top dollar. Because teams are our I think, recognize that to a certain extent, say you’re a star, your value goes beyond you know, your WAR.
BOBBY: Just don’t use one status example.
ALEX: Just as an example. And we’ll throw $300 million at you because you’re worth it. You put butts in seats, as the old adage goes, and and and and no one is no one is concerned about whether Gerrit Cole is is making 25 or 28 million on his year to year contract.
BOBBY: And the stratification of the highest and lowest earners is what allows teams to underpay the largest majority of the bell curve in the middle there in terms of like, player value and and player ability. Because like the more that are paying up top, the higher the overall payroll is and the less that there. And we know that teams are not willing to go up to that competitive balance tax and so they just reallocated told Scott Boras clients and it’s like, okay, well, then everybody else is still unable to like, still unable to make much beyond their arbitration years. Like you’re then working for like short contracts for $5 to $8 million per year. Uhm so I don’t know it just, it just made me think about it, because I’m wondering how much Scott Boras thinks about the larger forces of him saying that 17 teams compete. Because 17 teams might offer Bryce Harper the contract, 17 teams might have picked up the phone when he called about where Bryce Harper might want to go. But I don’t think that 17 teams would be willing to sign Bryce Harper and then also turn around and sign like a third starter for 15 million a year. You know what I mean? And that is the larger problem when it comes to when it comes to team behavior in the quote unquote, “free market”. And that’s what we’re seeing with your team right now. With the A’s we’re seeing, we’re seeing the fire sale of players that are below that tier of stars. We’re seeing different teams be uninterested in paying what it costs to maintain and build a core of very good players, but not superstar players. Because those guys are no longer PR, but they’re no longer ARB, they’re actually going to go to the market and make something close to what their market value is. And that is the bigger problem in terms of how it trickles down towards fans. That is the bigger problem with that grinds our gears every week is teams just come punting on competitiveness. And it’s not just because the those teams don’t want to offer $35 million to Mookie Betts. It’s because those guys want to trade away Chris Bassitt and Frankie Montas and Mark Canha and, and just move on and and recycle it.
ALEX: Yeah, Boras, one of the positions that he that he took at this winter meetings was that the Braves should not have been and, and he made it clear that this was not to to no fault of the Braves. But they shouldn’t have been so easily able to upgrade their outfield by simply picking off the players that other teams were no longer interested in that that other teams had assessed, were no longer valuable to them, right? And, and and we’re making the assessment that, that it is, it makes more sense to trade them for a prospect or for cash or whatever it may be. And that’s the point that I think his comment about, you know, what 17 teams or whatever trying to compete whatever it is, kind of obscures is that there is a huge swath of teams in the middle, who aren’t are not not trying to compete, right? They’re not actively tearing down the whole time. They’re just reshuffling every couple of years. And that’s, I think, as bad for the sport as it is [41:21]–
BOBBY: Very, very loaded, I think thrown in there in the middle of [41:28]–
ALEX: I think–
BOBBY: –I think as a lifelong fan of the Oakland Athletics–
ALEX: Right, not that I have a vested interest in any of this. But like, you know, just in terms of when you think about fan bases, you know, the retention of fans, and fostering goodwill in a community, that’s just as harmful as a team trying to tear down and maybe even more harmful, right? Because you can look at the what the Orioles are doing, which is a pretty blatant tear down and say, “Damn, that team had a lot of promise”. But a lot of their fans also have a lot of optimism about what’s coming down the road. Because they have been able to turn this quote unquote, “tear down” into some young stars that do actually set up a future for them, right?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And, and there are a lot of teams that would much rather have one foot in the door and one foot out and say, We’re not going to set us up to have a huge future. But we can’t promise anything this year either.
BOBBY: Right. Because it’s a really interesting question, though. Whether Orioles fans will feel like it was worth it. If one of two things does not happen, the first thing being they win a World Series. And the second thing being they actually retain this new core that they’ve developed via tanking for the last five years.
ALEX: Uh-hmm, yeah.
BOBBY: You don’t have to do both of those things.
ALEX: I I would argue that you don’t need to do the first thing you don’t need to necessarily win a World Series to show that this was a productive way of building a baseball team. We know that the playoffs are a crapshoot.
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: The Dodgers, the Dodgers spent $300 million and got a ring. And the fact that they lost a year prior or a year afterwards, does not mean that anything they did was a failure.
BOBBY: Right. But But I’m saying you don’t have to do both of those things.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You do ha–if you’re not going to retain the core, you do have to at least win a World Series.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like you have to win one. Because otherwise, then it was actually for nothing.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And that’s that’s the only thing that keeps the Cubs fan base afloat that keeps the Astros fan base afloat and they actually got to see their team win. But let me know how Cleveland fans are feeling right now. Because they came–
ALEX: –up short. And then they didn’t retain that core that they had developed. Now they didn’t do a full tear down tank but they’re doing this half in and half out thing that you’re talking about Cleveland’s one of these teams that is in this perpetual state of half in and half out. Cincinnati is trying to be that, the A’s have been that since Moneyball. And there have been different instances where they have gone fully in what’s the team that you love the most? The team that went fully in, right?
ALEX: Yeah, yeah. Like that 2012, 13, 14 team, right? Shh God, I will rent for days about how they traded a yo and assessment is for John Lester at the deadline, because that shit ripped my heart out. But what it meant was them saying we think this is our best shot. And at the very least, I have to give them credit for that rather than just kind of resting on their laurels of hanging around and being a 91 team.
BOBBY: Uhm, while we’re talking about the A’s, Alex, I just have I have to read you a tweet from John Heyman.
ALEX: I don’t know that you to have to [44:54]–
BOBBY: I simply had compelled to read you a tweet from John Heyman, “GM David Forst of the cash-strapped A’s.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: Need I repeat that for you cash-strapped A’s.
ALEX: Hang on, I’m doing some research here real quick, keep talking.
BOBBY: Independent, independently researching while I’m reading this tweet from John Heyman said, “They are willing to listen on everyone, everyone, they were clearly willing to listen on their Manager who they gave away without getting anything in return. Even though he was under contract, they listened.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: They just didn’t say anything back. This is the cycle for the A’s. We have to listen and be open to whatever comes out of this. This is our lot in Oakland until it’s not”. A few things jumped out to me there.
ALEX: [45:40] dude.
BOBBY: Very interesting that the A’s are cash-strapped. And this is there a lot in Oakland. But before I even say that John Heyman is just straight up state media. I know he actually works for MLB. But to print this unexamined, quote, from a GM at the GM meetings, it’s like, this is what the GM meetings exist for==
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –to like spin propaganda like this. If a reporter is just going to tweet this and then not say anything else after that. The entire endeavor solely exists to bend, fan, public fan opinion to their will.
ALEX: Right. It’s not about breaking actual news at this point. It’s about crafting a narrative and of which a lot of these national reporters are useful fools.
BOBBY: Yes. Extremely useful. Uhh back said, back to David Forst. man, that guy just has to come out and eat shit a lot, huh?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Because we know Billy Beane’s not going to do it. He’s graduated beyond the shitty thing days of his youth.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: David Forst has to come out and be like, we have no money. And everybody has to be like, yes, you do. And also your owners worth three and a half billion dollars and his net worth has gone up as has the franchise value, as you’re currently trying to publicly extort a city council so that you can get a new stadium built. And if not, then you’re going to move to Las Vegas to make even more money and probably open the casino in centerfield and make even more money on top of that. But please continue about how you can’t sign any players. This is a loved team, they’ve won like 90 plus games, like five out of the last six years, this team is good. And they’re listening on everyone.
ALEX: Right. I love when teams come out and say, “No, we don’t have a we don’t have like a goal. We’re not trying to get anywhere with this. But come and take a look at what we have to offer.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You know, we’re, we don’t have weak points that we’re trying to upgrade. And we’re willing to listen on our stars in order to upgrade those weak points. It’s, well, the cycle continues. So 29 teams, you have your picking of which A’s player you’d like to trade for. And we’ll make it easy for you, because that’s the name of the game,
BOBBY: Moneyball effectively turned the A’s into a used car lot. And a lot of people really thought that that was cool. Like a lot of people thought that that was next level. And now we’re 20 years removed from that. And it’s still used car lot, where at the end of the day, they got to sell all these players to make it go.
ALEX: Right, well–
BOBBY: No matter what, no matter what value, they’re gonna get back, it’s time to sell. It’s at the end of the month, we got to make our we got to make the end of our competitive cycle. It’s the end of our three year window where we’re allowed to spend more than $60 million on payroll. Everything Must Go sale.
ALEX: Yes, exactly. I mean to extend the metaphor to its very end it is it is car salesman. It is it is people who are car salesman as their second job, right? Because they have income coming in. From elsewhere from plenty of other places. They’re gonna be fine at the end of the day–
BOBBY: Their landlords [48:52]–
ALEX: [48:52] they don’t need this. Wow, tough beat.
BOBBY: Well, I mean, John Fisher is not actually I mean, he probably is a landlord of like 10 buildings maybe but it’s not like his empire. His Empire is fast fashion. destroying the environment.
ALEX: Right and rey==logging
BOBBY: T shirts for 17.99, logging? Like old school, like really literal–
ALEX: I mean, really is what like his family was like, embroiled in controversies because they were just clearing forests left and right.
BOBBY: Right, and then they also found it the gap, on the back of child labor. Yeah, like it’s just gnarly, easy to understand though, at least we can point to that and we understand it, as opposed [49:45]–
ALEX: You get rid of these used cars, though.
BOBBY: Right, as opposed to the time that we spent 45 minutes trying to explain what a short squeeze was and how Steve Cohen loses or makes money. That was way harder to explain to our listeners. I had to like go to a Reddit thread for that.
ALEX: Right yeah. investopedia.com says–
BOBBY: Alex is in the Robin Hood app.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Live tracking game stock stuff, gamestop stock.
ALEX: I’ve lost the thread at this point. But you know, the A’s are exhibit A of how teams have gamed the system.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And are continuing to take advantage of it, right? And, and in the A’s case, and you know, in the the Rays case as well, holding actual, like public, taxpayers and cities, hostage over it, right? And saying we will not spend more money until you give us millions of dollars in tax breaks.
BOBBY: You know, we should do we should make a children’s book that explains how owners make their money. You know, like little pictures.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Talk about extorting public governments–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –talk about trading little children’s favorite baseball players for pennies on the dollar.
ALEX: If you give an owner a subsidy, then he’s gonna want a tax break–
BOBBY: R is for racketeering.
ALEX: –and if you give him a tax break. He’s gonna on a $3 billion stadium.
BOBBY: Rock Around the Clock how to extort a city government in 24 hours. Oh, we have a couple listener questions to answer here at the end. And the first listener question. It’s actually one that we got last week. Uhm even before these David Forst quotes, but it comes from Zach. Ahh he’s asking specifically about the A’s and he’s saying, if the A’s completely blow it up, just so John Fisher can save a couple bucks before he has to pay players to fill his new stadium. We can’t keep giving him our money for a few years of replacement players, right? So if you acknowledge that is true, and you can’t root for the A’s anymore, that’s your own personal journey to go on. But if you can’t root for your own favorite team, where do you go? Do you root for the Padres? Because they’re fun and Melv–with Bob Melvin? They’ll be even better. Do you go all in on the Angels hoping that they can bring Chad and Ohtani to the playoffs? Do you pick a totally random team on the other side of the country, so there are no blackout restrict–restrictions like the Reds or the Twins? I’m [52:13]–
ALEX: [52:13] that has to be a consideration.
BOBBY: He’s really hitting all the Tipping Pitches points right here. Thank you, Zach.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Uhm, yeah. What do you what do you do? Alex, I’ll let you answer this one, because this is your conundrum as well.
ALEX: I mean, I don’t I don’t have an answer for that. I’m wrestling with this day in and day out. And and people have asked me this very directly and said, Well, wha–what will you do if this move? Will you root for the Las Vegas–
BOBBY: People, I I’me people, I’ve asked–
ALEX: You are people?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Because it’s really hard to divorce yourself from a fandom that has been inherent to your identity, so to speak for, you know, the entirety of your life, right? How do you say–
BOBBY: 2006 A’s posters still up in your job–
ALEX: [53:04] literally is Eric Chávez. Nick Fisher, [53:10]–
BOBBY: I saw my own two human eyes. I saw the calendar. It’s poster sized.
ALEX: Yeah, that is a that’s a relic right there.
BOBBY: I knew I was doing a sparkle quiz the other day, Eric Chavez came up because it was–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Can you name every player since night, the 1990 season who has won the Gold Glove and the Silver Slugger in the same season? Eric Chavez, bro.
ALEX: That’s fucking right.
BOBBY: A’s 2000, I don’t know, I forget what year 2003 I think?
ALEX: Sounds right. [53:38]–
BOBBY: So I thought it would take your word for it. So you know, I thought I’d tell you on on our baseball podcast here.
ALEX: He was very good.
BOBBY: Yeah. He was really good. You know who else won it?
ALEX: Mets Eric Chavez–
BOBBY: David Wright.
ALEX: David Wright, Yeah.
BOBBY: Yep.
ALEX: Eric Chavez is David Wright if he does not get injured as much as he did. Which I mean, David Wright got injured to his own extent. But Eric Chavez was somehow like more injured [54:05]–
BOBBY: Chavez is like injured during his career. David Wright’s career was cut short because of injury. Those are–
ALEX: Right, yeah exactly.
BOBBY: He’s healthy for his whole career, It was just short. David Wright–
ALEX: Yes, yeah.
BOBBY: Until the last year and a half.
ALEX: Right. Chavez had his prime years, kind of carved out as a result of injuries. This is not a podcast about Eric Chavez, although it very well could be. And I would do that simply have a more enjoyable time talking about that. Then the team I’m going to have to root for once the A’s, skip town.
BOBBY: But I think that this, I think this illustrates why it’s so hard to to kick your team because you have like you’re thinking about Eric Chavez on November–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –14 2021.
ALEX: Exactly, yeah.
BOBBY: You’re talking with a friend for the world to hear about Eric Chavez.
ALEX: I frankly, the the first team that did come to mind was the San Diego Padres. It’s an easy transition, because the manager has bopped right over there. Shout out, Bob Melvin. Obviously, I mean we have Walter White looking at Reddit. I guess–
BOBBY: He looks like Walter White.
ALEX: That team is very good and fun to watch. And and, you know, I’m on board with that. Uhm you know, a part of me thinks it’s, it’s tough to switch allegiances within your division.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I I love the Angels. But could I be an Angels fan? Ahh–
BOBBY: Nah.
ALEX: Could any of us?
BOBBY: Here’s why the Padres works perfectly NL team, so you can still maintain your A’s fandom, which I–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –think is key here. You want you don’t want to kill the fandom.
ALEX: Right, exactly. I’m–
BOBBY: You may want to put it on life support, put it in a medically induced coma for a few years.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And then bring it back. And then you put your main focus on a different team and preferably different division, preferably, like preferably NL–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –vs AL. And Padres still on West Coast time. So you’re used to watching West Coast baseball.
ALEX: Right. But as okay, this is I mean, this was not a part of Zach’s question, but as an East Coast fan, as an East Coast resident watching the West Coast team, do I maybe say, “Hey, I’d like to watch a team that maybe I’d be able to watch it a reasonable time of day”. I don’t know, We don’t want that —
BOBBY: Is this, I mean–
ALEX: [56:34] you know I don’t want–
BOBBY: [56:35]–
ALEX: [56:35] 30 watching a baseball game on 1am. You know,
BOBBY: It’s just personal preference. I mean, I imagined Zach is calling from Oakland. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But since he didn’t say that he was living in a different part of town that he could write or a different part of the country that he could pick up that town’s baseball team. I’m assuming that he’s staying in Oakland, unlike–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –in the athletics themselves.
ALEX: The knives are out here.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Yeah, it’s it’s stuff again, Zack, like I said, I don’t have a good a good answer. I, I am very drawn to individual players who just play exciting bit. You know, there’s a little bit of like–
BOBBY: I’m drawn to the players who play.
ALEX: The players who play who are good at baseball. It’s kind of fun, there’s a little bit of giddiness inside me of being like a free agent fan.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Right? Because I’m kind of like, I get to–
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: –my options now. I don’t have to, like be born into some into a curse. I can, I can create a spreadsheet and multiply every team’s number by another number and say–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –this is this is where I think I’m gonna net out.
BOBBY: Once again, your Mets GM is showing speaking of the Mets, you don’t even have to worry about this. You’re rooting for the Mets with me. Let’s go–
ALEX: It’s true, I I I do love the Mets.
BOBBY: Season tickets 2022. Come on, get on board. Let’s go–
ALEX: You’re moving back here like–
BOBBY: Wow, breaking news on the podcast.
ALEX: Well, yeah, that was big.
BOBBY: [58:04] anywhere [58:06] on the podcast, that’s fine, that’s fine. Uhh you you won’t have any time to be a free agent. The only thing you’ll have time for is stressing about whether the Mets are going to resign Aaron Loup.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You’re going to be checking out Taijuan Walker’s FIP at 1am, forget the A’s.
ALEX: Jesus Christ. I’m already having like night sweats about this, you know, like–
BOBBY: Welcome to the club.
ALEX: –this is pretty much a lateral move for me as far as fandoms go. Maybe I’ll even generous
BOBBY: Yeah, I’ve been generous in the maze. The Mets have made the playoffs four times in my life. Just made the playoffs.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Let alone [58:45]–
ALEX: You count count it on one hand.
BOBBY: But they have made the World Series twice. So, you know, that’s more than you can say for the A’s. Uh, okay. Final question that we got this week, Alex, that is a voicemail. And that is of course, about Red Taylor’s version.
VOICEMAIL 1: Hey, it’s Friday, November 12th. And I’ve been listening to Red all day. And I kept thinking of, what was that podcast that I heard where someone was talking about the Fearless pre release? Like, I really want to hear what they think about this one. Finally, remember this you guys, please let us know all of your thoughts about this new album. Yeah, take care.
BOBBY: This is so funny. Uhh mainly because like we’re we’re conditioning our listeners to think of us as Taylor Swift podcasters even–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –though this podcast has actually nothing to do with Taylor Swift like it couldn’t be further from Taylor Swift than one of the most mainstream musical artists making music right now. And we are a niche leftist Baseball podcast.
ALEX: And yet the connection that was made was what was that podcast that was talking about the Fearless rerelease.
BOBBY: I want to remember, I want to know how this person remember that was us. Like what, I guess maybe the 200th episode Mailbag when we talk so much about Taylor Swift I don’t know.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: But thank you for calling. And thank you for asking–
ALEX: Really, really dangerous, dangerous question because very open ended. What-what are your thoughts on Red?
BOBBY: Right. We’re at the–
ALEX: [1:00:11]–
BOBBY: –end of the podcast here. We have five minutes maximum to talk about this, Alex, five minutes that’s maximum to talk about this, but–
ALEX: Half of the length of the All Too Well.
BOBBY: Taylor’s version.
ALEX: 10 Taylor’s version 10 minute version.
BOBBY: Right. Uhm, so you and I were texting, the second that this uhh, this album dropped on the old Spotify app. Have you’ve heard of it. And I don’t know, I don’t want to I don’t want to scoop you. What did you think?
ALEX: I, It’s Red?
BOBBY: Yup.
ALEX: All the all the songs are there. That’s, you know–
BOBBY: And more–
ALEX: –that was the first–
BOBBY: –and 8 more.
ALEX: –thing I noticed. Yep. We, again, as you noted, we don’t have the time to do a, a Red retrospective, or really any deep dive into Taylor’s archive one day, you know–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –we will be in the throes of the lockout. And I think we’ll be forced to do just a purely Taylor Swift ahh record,
BOBBY: You’re looking into a window where you can see January 21, 2022, nothing to talk about.
ALEX: I mean, it’s good. She sounds really good on it.
BOBBY: Yes, that’s right.
ALEX: Red is, I think I’m not the first person to to suggest that Red is maybe slightly bloated?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: In places or places where we could have kind of cut some fat. I don’t think that diminishes any of the work that she’s done. And in fact, even in those places where it felt a little excessive that, you know, the back half of the album is has a lot of slow jams. As far as Taylor goes, she was able to even make some of those really compelling in this rerecord.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: So I don’t know I like you know, Phoebe Bridgers on a Taylor Swift song? Are you fucking kidding me?
BOBBY: You know, I was listening to that song today and ahh in the car with Phoebe and i–it’s remarkable.
ALEX: Phoebe Phoebe your partner not Phoebe. The Bri–Bridgers one.
BOBBY: Right, exactly. Yeah, me and Phoebe Bridgers were driving around Los Angeles–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –listening to a Phoebe Bridger song. Uhh no, I was listening to and I was remarking we were both remarking about how natural the the song felt with the two of them. And I was like–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –to the to the point where Phoebe my partner, Phoebe not Bridgers. Uhh said, I I don’t know how much I can believe that the song was really written in 2012.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And I was like, well, maybe the lyrics were but the everything else about the song was changed. Everything else about the song was pasted onto what it would sound like with Phoebe Bridgers. Because–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –it sounds perfect. Like the two of them on it. The other uhm, the other from the vault song, Alex, that really, really hit for me wasI Bet You Think About Me.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t know how that got left off the album. I mean, I do. It was like a victim of the country to pop agenda at the time, where she was trying to make her transition known. And that song was a little too country to make it on the back half of that album. And it was maybe a little too explicit about her experience with Jake Gyllenhaal, where the rest of the album is a little bit more general in places, sometimes more explicit, but it’s a fantastic song. Uhh the song that was most improved, with Taylor Swift recording it at 32 instead of 22. For me, was ahh Sad Beautiful Tragic.
ALEX: Yeah, I–
BOBBY: I like the song. I’ve always liked the song. I’m not saying–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –it was bad before. I’m just saying there’s something like ahh nostalgic and wistful about hearing her sing it as an older person. And like her voice is a little bit deeper. It’s like a slightly different register. And that song is like low and slow and kind of build some feeling in your chest throughout it that I just felt like it hit a little harder this time.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah, I think you can definitely tell that she put a lot into some of those ballots.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: That maybe felt a little overwrought at the time. And she was able to give everything and more on on this go round.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Which, again, maybe it doesn’t end up justifying the length of the album, which are still very long.
BOBBY: 30 songs, two hours in 10 minutes. 30 songs, two hours in 10 minutes. ahh–
ALEX: Should be, I mean, I mean, should we spend a minute talking about the the 10-minute version of All to Well?
BOBBY: Yes, we should–
ALEX: Like–
BOBBY: I have something that’s gonna sound like a take, but it’s actually I actually really like it. I will start out by saying that however, I wish it was eight, the eight minute version, and it doesn’t sound as good because you’re not like doubling the length, okay? But I wish that some of those like awkward verses that were added in the middle were not there. I like the extended–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –version. I like the extended outro with the fade out. I thought that that was sweet and sounded really good. And I like the last verse that is added in, but the ones in the middle are slightly cringe for me, slightly cringe what the fuck the patriarchy thing on the keychain. It’s a little bit cringe. So I wish it was eight minutes, cut two minutes out of the middle.
ALEX: I largely and in the same camp where I loved the composition and the instrumentation of it. It’s I mean, it breathes a whole new life into the song and I think–
BOBBY: It sounds like fall.
ALEX: –hits hits in a very different way. Yes, exactly. And fits very well with the short film that she produced, right? Like it tracks–
BOBBY: And direct it [1:05:53]–
ALEX: And producing. Yes, exactly. Ahh attracts very well with that. You could say it all both tracks word for word with the song in places.
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’ve known criticism podcast.
ALEX: This is everything but a Baseball criticism podcast really at this at this point at this hour of the night. Yeah, it’s good. I It’s all still probably end up spinning the original version the most?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Because I that’s–
BOBBY: It’s the best version.
ALEX: It’s the best version. It’s the more important version.
BOBBY: You know what I would have loved to hear. But the 10-minute All Too Well demo from 2012.
ALEX: Right, I am actually less interested because I think because we never heard this version at all, she was likely able to take much more in the way of creative liberties in how it was presented today.
BOBBY: Right. [1:06:53]–
ALEX: But we really have no idea–
BOBBY: [1:06:55]–
ALEX: Right the other Taylor version songs are pretty much note for note reproductions, which I mean very good reasons for that. But I’m curious how different the one we heard on Friday was from the one that supposedly was you know, existed in her original demo recordings.
BOBBY: We’re gonna [1:07:16] we’re gonna, yeah, like before we die. We’re gonna get that there’s just too much at stake here.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Scooter Braun will go bankrupt or something and he’ll need the money.
ALEX: We’ll sell the original All to Well–
BOBBY: God willing he’ll send me, maybe he’ll send sell it to the pharma bro.
ALEX: Scooter Braun who doesn’t even own the Taylor Swift ahh masters anymore, like sold them off I think–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –a couple years ago.
BOBBY: But he’s still catching that heat as he should–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –because he was when he wouldn’t sell them back.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: He just let my farmer brojo go unresponsive. What the hell, come on. Barns [1:07:55]–
ALEX: Never never in million years. [1:07:55] was gonna come up and this podcast. But again, offseason, lockout season. This is this is where we’re at. Sorry you all.
BOBBY: Okay. Please call, please continue calling into Tipping Pitches so that you can have fun conversations about stuff like Taylor Swift’s Red. Taylor’s version All Too Well. 10-minute version, Taylor’s version (From The Vault). Ahh the number is 785-422-5881, the email is tippingpitchespod@gmail.com. The Twitter is tipping_pitches, you probably know all this stuff. If you’re listening all the way at the end of this podcast after we’ve discussed Taylor Swift for 10 minutes when we promised it would go no longer than five. Ahh but it’s worth reminding you if you want to get in touch. Another thing that is worth reminding to look out for is new Tipping Pitches merch. If you’re a pod listener, you’re listening all the way at the end. You’re gonna get the scoop, you’re gonna get the first look, the first heads up as to when that merch is coming out. So keep an eye out. We don’t have a specific date yet. But make sure you’re listening closely. If you want some new original merch, not just Union as the miners, although there will be another Union as the miners design. Did I leave anything out, Alex?
ALEX: Uhh, no, I don’t think so. I would just again, I will underscore the point you made which is please call in with ahh opinions on the best song off Red and why it’s state of grace. And uhh you know we can proceed from there. That’s really all I really have to say on the matter.
BOBBY: I’m not mad at that take, I’m not mad at. Ahh thanks for listening, everyone. We’ll be back next week. I bet you think about
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Hello everybody. I’m Alex Rodriguez, Tipping Pitches, Tipping Pitches. This is the one that I love the most, Tipping Pitches. So we’ll see you next week. See yah
Transcriptionist: Vernon Bryann Casil
Editor: Krizia Marrie Casil
Tipping Pitches 
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