Bobby and Alex talk about one journalist’s coverage of the Astros and wonder whether Tipping Pitches’ second act will manifest itself in defense of service time manipulation, then discuss Oneil Cruz, Hunter Greene, and the varying logics behind prospect promotions. Then, they decide on a handful of “banned” topics in 2022. Finally, they answer a few listener questions about preferred rooting interests in 2022, stealing entertainment ideas from other sports, and whether the Guardians’ tactical retreat from competitiveness is worse than that of teams like the A’s.
Links:
Hat Trick Circa 1911 https://pod.link/1265588219/episode/bf1d88b191bfad51fa46d45d6fdc0641
Songs featured in this episode:
oso oso — “pensacola” • 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, later in this episode, you and I are going to do a new segment that we haven’t done before, called the Tipping Pitches Banned Topics for 2022. And I’m really excited to talk to you about that segment. But I thought for our cold open here, I would turn the clock back to late 2019. Bringing up an old, somewhat banned segment that you and I got tired of talking about. Are you okay with that?
ALEX: Not having heard what the segment is beforehand. I feel like I’m signing a bit of a blank check here.
BOBBY: I’m your business–
ALEX: Yes!
BOBBY: –partner, you supposed to sign blank checks for me, come on.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s true. It’s true. I do put my [1:06]–
BOBBY: [1:06] my friend.
ALEX: Yes. Right.
BOBBY: So some of our listeners may know that my day job is producing podcasts. And part of that job when you produce narrative podcasts is listening to other narrative podcasts and seeing what they’re doing well. And so my manager recently asked me and another, me and the rest of the team of Narrative Podcast Producers at the ringer to listen to, as he often does an episode of another podcast. This time he’s selected, Alex. Do you want to know what he’s selected? I’m gonna tell you what he selected, he selected The Edge, the podcast by Ben Reiter about the Astro sign stealing scandal.
ALEX: This is good. Famously, no one had any critiques about the Astros’ prior to the, the breaking of the sign stealing scandal and I think anyone who, who praised them gave lengthy mea culpa’s as to why maybe their, their perspectives were a little bit misguided. Is that correct?
BOBBY: Right that that’s exactly correct. Famously, you and I refuse to listen to this podcast. Because not that like many people were asking us to listen to this podcast and give our thoughts on it or anything like that. But I think that we had a, a somewhat principled stance that it’s kind of ridiculous that the guy who wrote the magazine article and then ‘the book’ about the Astros, called Astroball, also got to do this prestige podcast about the Astros sign stealing scandal. That was my stance going into it.
ALEX: So what did you find? Did you, did you listen to it?
BOBBY: I listened to, so my manager only asked me to listen to the first episode.
ALEX: But you got hooked?
BOBBY: Not only did I get hooked, I got hooked in like a really kind of embarrassing hate listen kind of way. And I listened to all seven of the episodes consecutively, on a plane.
ALEX: That’s quite the ringing endorsement, right there.
BOBBY: It’s quite the ringing endorsement. So listen, the podcast is well-made. Music is good. Interviews are good. Appearance from multiple time guests, Hannah Kaiser in there talking about how the Astros are ridiculous organization. There’s a lot to like about it. And to his credit, Ben Reiter addresses openly. I missed this multiple times. I can’t believe I missed this. The one thing that I really didn’t like about it is that it’s just gives Jeff Luhnow a pretty open mic. Like there’s a whole episode about the Roberto Osuna trade and he’s basically just like, I understood why people were mad. And then that’s the conversation about it.
ALEX: I I guess the the first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have one, right? I suppose.
BOBBY: I suppose.
ALEX: Usually, that’s not also the last step but hey, that’s just me.
BOBBY: The reason I bring this up on the podcast here is because I think I’m gonna be the guy that comes to items of cultural flashpoints, you know? Like pop cultural flashpoints? I’m gonna be the guy that comes to them two and a half years late. What do you think about that bit? Like I just have really strong opinions about Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri right now.
ALEX: The- there you go. Yeah. I mean, I think it’s more entertaining–
BOBBY: Greenberg was an outrage.
ALEX: Is why entertaining if if these are moments in pop culture that by and large were relatively I think inconsequential to like the broader disc- I mean, this this made made brief waves I think in the baseball world when it came out. But and, and people gave their commentary whether it was for or against, and frankly, I don’t even really have have strong feelings about this anymore. I mean, hey, get that bag, I guess, you know. The grip never stops.
BOBBY: Wow, Alex angling for season two of The Edge, the Oakland Athletics.
ALEX: Right, but I think it’s, I think it’s, I think it’ll be enjoyable for you to rant about something that, you know, I think probably maybe a majority of our listeners really have no context for, you know. I mean, maybe a majority of our listeners listened to The Edge.
BOBBY: Nah! I don’t think our listeners are really the type.
ALEX: I don’t know that they’re the target demographic, but I could be wrong. So that’s kind of why I appreciate you telling me about this because I actually have, I kind of memory hold it.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And, and had to take a second to go to, go to Ben’s Twitter profile, and just remind myself to who he was. And I I hope that, I hope that you enjoyed it for your own sake.
BOBBY: I can’t really decide if I, if enjoy it is the right word. But hopefully, we can become involved in missing a huge scandal in the baseball world and then getting to do a start season prestige series on this here podcast feed in the future. We just like missed all along that, I can’t even think of an example because all we do is criticize things. So–
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: –it would have to be something where we were criticizing it all along. And actually, it turned out to be good. Like, we do a short, we do a prestige podcast series about how actually MLB is doing great things for the baseball world in like three years from now.
ALEX: Right. Actually, service-time manipulation, has–
BOBBY: It was good!
ALEX: –inch- instrumental in improving the outlook of plenty of future Major League stars.
BOBBY: I look forward to our work on how moving the All-Star game out of Atlanta actually did cost the businesses of Atlanta $100 million.
ALEX: Right. Exactly. Kris Bryant really did need to work on his defense good for two weeks, guys. That’s why the Rockies just went out and signed him.
BOBBY: The Edge, Theo Epstein was right. Okay, we’re gonna do Banned Topics of 2022. We’ll also close with a couple listener questions. We have a couple quick hits to get to up top. Before we do all of that. I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[6:56]
[Music Theme]
BOBBY: Alex listeners can’t see this. But I’m here in Arizona Spring Training. Beautiful, sunny, Phoenix, Arizona. Hanging out, meeting baseball players. How’s New York?
ALEX: There’s no Baseball out here as of yet. However, I will be able to go and see Aaron Judge play Baseball in New York very soon. Thank you, one Eric Adams.
BOBBY: Wow, a long storied tradition of talking about New York City, mayoral politics sneaks its way back into the podcast very proud of us.
ALEX: Ab- absolutely. I mean, Eric kind of, kind of did that one for us. We really didn’t have to try hard to make that connection.
BOBBY: He’s almost like making it too easy.
ALEX: Right for context. For the majority of our listeners who have little to no vested interest in, in Eric Adams’ day to day mayoral happenings, he he did decide to remove the vaccine mandate for athletes and entertainers. Because, quote, “A a small number of people have an outsize impact on our economy.” Which I guess–
BOBBY: That was the reasoning he gave? He made it like a capitalism thing?
ALEX: Right. Well, because if Aaron Judge isn’t able to play–
BOBBY: The Yankees will go under.
ALEX: –the Yankees will go under, Wall Street is in jeopardy.
BOBBY: The Bronx will have to fold kind of as a borough. So New York City will be a four borough gig from now on.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Wall Street is in jeopardy.
ALEX: All of a sudden Staten Islanders have, have no reason to come into the city anymore.
BOBBY: Now we’re in the three boroughs city, because Staten Islanders don’t want to come into New York City so that they just secede.
ALEX: Really what, what we’re saying is a a small viral outbreak in a country on the other side of the world years ago, led to the consolidation of New York and the downfall of the Yankees, actually, maybe not the worst outcome in the world.
BOBBY: That, that is true. No, I’m here in Arizona, doing some some Artusi to stuff. So that is why the podcast is late this week. My sincere apologies. I’ve been traveling quite a bit. But we’re going to stick to a Thursday schedule, I think for the next at least a couple of weeks because we have opening day, a week from today, which is very exciting, Alex. Unless you’re a fan of a team like the Pittsburgh Pirates who are already saying where they’re gonna start opening day with their top prospects who is probably ready in O’Neil Cruz at shortstop. It turns out that all that service time manipulation language in the CBA. Similar to the anti-tanking language in the CBA, Alex. It didn’t, didn’t actually work. It didn’t actually do anything, which is why the owners ratified it 30-0 within 20 minutes of receiving it.
ALEX: Yeah, it’s almost like dangling a carrot in front of the owners. The carrot being potential small amounts of future gains in, in young stars and draft picks. Does not actually outweigh being able to save 10s of 1000s of of dollars? Hundreds of 1000s of dollars? Also in the somewhat long, I’m I’m, I’m really actually curious the the calculations that teams like the Pirates make where they have found that being non-competitive is relatively profitable. And these new tanking measures were instituted, supposedly to encourage teams like the Pirates to try a little bit harder. And they’ve still made the financial calculation that it’s not, it’s not worth it.
BOBBY: Yeah, I mean, you always clown on me for being the person who organizes his thoughts in Twitter threads before coming to talk about them on the podcast. But–
ALEX: For at least you organize your thoughts.
BOBBY: –for at least I organize my thoughts, number one. And number two, what I was saying is, when you don’t call a player up, when they’re likely ready, just to get a year of service time back, what you’re saying is that, you’re probably not going to be ready to compete for at least three years, right? Because that’s how long you have the player on their minimum contract. And it’s not like as soon as you start calling up all of your guys, you’re gonna start winning. The 2016 Cubs, they’re an outlier in that respect. Even the Astros, who had a about as good of a core as you have young players as you can possibly assemble, they had already called up some of those guys. Altuve had been in the majors for several years before they got good. Springer had been in the majors for several years before they got good. And then they called up Correa, and it still took them two more years to get to a World Series. And actually finalize the team and build the rest around it. Because once you actually start calling up your players and say that you’re opening up your competitive window or your whatever, like Wall Street language they want to use about changing the direction of the franchise. Like you’re, you’re converting your assets into competition this year, or whatever the fuck GM say, these days. Once you do that, you have to actually see how it plays out on the field. And whether those players all fit together, what you’re still missing, what which prospects don’t actually pan out. So I don’t own- I don’t always understand the calculus of saying, we’re not going to call this guy up until the last possible minute. Because it seems to me like that means that there’s not really an end point to this tanking, to being bad. Like you’re only trying to get a year of his service time back so that he will become a more valuable trade asset whenever you’re going to trade him three years from now.
ALEX: I mean, I think that’s just it, right? I don’t think it’s the Pirates saying, we recognize when our competitive window is going to come and we think it’s maybe still a a couple years out. Therefore we’ll, we’ll make sure that we have O’Neil Cruz when we think our window is coming. I do think it is, and I think this maybe is not the case with every single team. Although the Cubs are a very good example of manipulating service time and then doing absolutely nothing with it, right? Manipulating Kris Bryant’s service time, and then just letting him dip, you know. And and not actually building a winning team around him in his final years.
BOBBY: And now he’s on the Rockies.
ALEX: Right. I think a lot of teams see that as saying this, this gives us a little bit more of a runway, in which we can evaluate what the market is like for said player. We can, we can wait until his value is at the highest. And then cash out.
BOBBY: Yeah. But it’s just so cynical, and of course, that seems like a very obvious thing to say. But at the end of the day, they’re not holding these guys back because they think that their competitive window will be one year later. The Pirates don’t know when their competitive window is going to be. The Pirates don’t have a plan, there is no plan here. Except for to accumulate as many assets so that they contin- so that they can continue to shuffle those assets into future assets. That is as far as I can tell what the Pirates plan is. Because they have not indicated anywhere publicly that that is anything that their plan is anything other than that. Like the Orioles I guess supposedly have a year when they might want to be good. They’re obviously not going to come out and say that publicly so at least they’re a little bit more defensible. But if you don’t have a different plan for when you’re going to be good, then, like you’re saying, the whole reason of gaining back another year of service time is just for the optionality of it. And it’s like, how is that good for the sport? Like, how are we just okay, with this? It’s insane!
ALEX: I have, I have some bad news for you about the interests of the owners, and what is good for the sport.
BOBBY: I know, I know. But then you’re seeing teams, you’re seeing more teams now, actually make the calculation that it might be better to call up these guys when they’re ready. Because then you have a better chance at signing them to an extension. And there are at least a handful of teams who are willing to do that. Now I don’t really think the Reds are one of those teams. But they did just decide to call up Hunter Greene [15:45] opening day. Hunter Greene, the Reds topic in 2017. Also their top prospects, one of the, one of the top pitching prospects in Baseball. I don’t think he’s really like, in the top two or three anymore, like he was when he got drafted. But I’m really excited to see him pitch and have been waiting for this for a while is very highly touted High School pitcher in the draft, they’re just calling them up right away to pitch on April 10. And it doesn’t really track with anything else the Reds are doing right now. But I do think at least there, there is not 100% consensus about how to handle every prospect, these days. Tatís got called up at the beginning. Pete Alonzo got called up at the beginning of the year, even though he could have got called up the year before. Like that, it’s happening a little bit more frequently to the point where like, there is a contrast to draw now. It’s not just that every team does what they did to Kris Bryant, or what they did to Jarred Kelenic.
ALEX: True, although I also think it’s not always so black and white, right? Like it’s very well possible that Hunter Greene is up for two weeks or the month of April, and then sent right back down, right? Even if he’s a fine pitcher, which is really all the Reds need at this point, right? Like–
BOBBY: That would be so funny.
ALEX: –[17:00] the window has not closed for–
BOBBY: They made–
ALEX: –service time manipulation.
BOBBY: –a huge deal about him making his debut on April 10. And then they’re just like, nah, actually, April 20 I think, straight back down.
ALEX: I mean, and and like that’s not out of the question. Like that is something we’ve seen teams do before. So–
BOBBY: The Rays love to do that.
ALEX: Right. So yes, I mean, certainly there are diverging philosophies. And some teams maybe are a little more intentional about either promoting their top prospects or manipulating their top prospects service time, right. As you mentioned, the Rays very good at at manipulating service time. I hate to say it, but like they they [17:41]–
BOBBY: Any circumstances, have to hand it to the Rays, Alex.
ALEX: Right. The the the Reds one is like the real kind of head scratcher for me.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: It’s like what is the, so is your competitive window now? Do you think that Hunter Greene is going to help you kind of make that push in the next three or four years? Once again, not that I’m advocating for manipulating his service time. But I think, I definitely think some teams have a little less direction than than others when it comes to handling those those top prospects.
BOBBY: Maybe they’re to push their competitive window back even further. Call him up. Button pitch for a year trade them in a year from now.
ALEX: Right. The quicker he’s called up the quicker [18:29]
BOBBY: Quicker you trade him. Yeah.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Exactly. Then you can push the window back seven years from now.
ALEX: Right. [18:33]
BOBBY: That actually trade him for.
ALEX: That’s kind of the A’s mantra, right? Who I think historically, or at least in the last few years, have not monkeyed around with player service time as much as some other teams. They just call their guys up when they’re ready, because they know that the players are good now. And they’ll be able to capitalize.
BOBBY: Yeah, why wait? You just gonna trade hime.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You’re gonna trade them in their final arb-year, either way.Whether their final arb-year happens four years from now or three years from now. Tough, tough tough for you, my friend. Bringing up Hunter Greene was really just an excuse to bring up Bob Castellini, the Carrot King himself. Alex, last week on the podcast, we joked if anybody would like to send in a jingle for Bob Castellini’s music whenever we talk about the produce God himself on the podcast. That we would pass out you know, a a free or a discounted future Patreon subscription for those people. Well, people took us up on it Alex, we got I believe five jingles without, without checking every single one at the moment. We’re going to play Shane Gas Tires jingle right here. Which is it’s it’s the shortest sweetest jingles so it’s the one we’re going to use on the podcast in the future. Shane was also the first person to submit one. So he beat everybody else to the punch. But at the end of this podcast, we will play everybody’s fold jingle to play out the pod. Here’s Shane’s wonderful Bob Castellini produce jingle.
SHANE: He’s got, carrots and lettuce and mushrooms porcini, vegetable King Bob Castellini.
BOBBY: It’s just so good, it’s so good, it’s exactly what I was imagining.
ALEX: I could not have done it better myself, I really couldn’t have.
BOBBY: You’re a musician yourself,
ALEX: Right, I am. Inspired–
BOBBY: Write a punk-rock version of that.
ALEX: Right. I this, this sounded like maybe it was on on a on a ukulele but we can, we can get the plugged in version.
BOBBY: Track that next [20:45]–
ALEX: Inspired–
BOBBY: –when I get back to [20:45]
ALEX: –inspired rhyming. Right, exactly. Inspired rhyming scheme, porcini and Castellini.
BOBBY: Castellini. Yeah, porcini, a man after my own heart naming some Italian mushrooms.
ALEX: Shane, thank you for this. For all the times that we do reference Bob Castellini go and forward.
BOBBY: And if you know me at all, you know, it’s gonna be very often.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Any time we reference fruits, vegetables, the–
BOBBY: The wholesale nature of fruits–
ALEX: [21:13], pyramid, right?
BOBBY: [21:14]
ALEX: As we know many a best shape of their life right now.
BOBBY: Vitamin C.
ALEX: In large part due to–
BOBBY: Vitamin B-12.
ALEX: –fruits and vegetables.
BOBBY: Fiber, iron. Come on.
ALEX: I can’t do it!
BOBBY: Thank you, Shane. And thank you to everybody else who submitted one. That includes Keith and Kira. That includes Dave, that includes our good friend Austin. And then one of the person who asked not to be named, Alex. An anonymous artist, here on Tipping Pitches. We will play all of those, like I said, in full at the end of the podcast. Are you ready to do the Banned Topics of 2022
ALEX: Yes, I think I am.
BOBBY: So this was an idea that I had while I was sitting on the plane after listening actually, to The Edge. Because I remembered that after talking about the sign stealing scandal, just one time, you said something to the effect of I’m so sick of hearing about the Astros. And this was like 8 hours into the sign stealing scandal.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And I pulled out that audio clip. And for a couple episodes. I’m pretty sure every time the Astros came up, I played you saying, I’m so sick of hearing about the Astros, just the audio clip.
ALEX: I’m sick of talking about the Astros, this sucks, man!
BOBBY: I thought it might be fun, Alex, to come up with a couple lighthearted topics that we just are sick of hearing about, are sick of talking about. They’ve been played out. We don’t have takes on these anymore. There is a one year moratorium on bringing up these topics on the podcast. Are you ready?
ALEX: Yes, I am. Let’s do this!
BOBBY: You want to go first?
ALEX: No! It was your idea. I, I want, want you to kick it off.
BOBBY: All right, the first topic that I want to ban for the year. Is complaining about replay review. Just kidding! We’re gonna keep doing that all year, come on. Are you kidding me? That’s our bread and butter. No, the rule change that I want to ban for 2022 is talking about the runner on second.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It’s happening, it’s just gonna be there. It’s going to dictate the outcome of games, Alex. It’s going to be dumb. People are going to call it a ghost runner, even though it’s not actually a ghost runner. Because there’s a person out there. And we all know from playing wiffle ball as kids, the ghost runner is when you have an imaginary guy out there that you argue about whether they would have scored or not on a hit that you head. Baseball traditionalists don’t like it. Baseball players and writers do because it shortens game lengths. And that shortens the amount of time that they have to work. I don’t think there’s any other takes to have. We’ve had them all. Agree or disagree?
ALEX: Yeah, I agree. I I wrote this down. And I, I want to be clear. I still don’t love it. But I just don’t feel strongly enough about it to to die on this hill.
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: I, the, the argument that extra inning games happen rarely enough. So why do you feel the need to shorten them cuts both ways, which is extra inning games happen, rarely enough. And when is this really going to hurt the the viewing experience?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Correct me if I’m wrong, this this isn’t going to happen in the playoffs, right?
BOBBY: It’s not. Which is another reason I’m okay with banning it. Because by the time playoffs roll around, the time the real baseball is here, dude. By the time the cream of the crop has rise to the top. I’m not going to have to talk about this anymore.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So–
ALEX: Re- regular season redux.
BOBBY: This, this one, the one off occasion that this happens at a game that you and I go to. It’s not interesting enough for us to complain about it anymore. So one year moratorium banned, if the rule changes again next year, and we need to talk about it in 2023. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
ALEX: Yeah, I’m here for it. Yeah. Along these lines actually, we’re ju- we’re just banning all all rural change discussion.
BOBBY: We’re banning Rob Manfred’s name.
ALEX: And, and this is kind of it’s already been sort of shadow banned on this, on this podcast. Although we’ve slipped back into it on occasion.
BOBBY: [25:27] people when we shadow banned things. The whole point of a shadow ban is keeping in the dark dude, come on.
ALEX: The universal DH, I just, once again, it’s here.
BOBBY: Oh, okay.
ALEX: I mean–
BOBBY: To be, wait, to be clear for the listeners. This is something I forgot to mention. Alex and I did not discuss these ahead of time. So we don’t know what the other person is banning. So there’s a chance–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –like right now that Alex is going to ban something that I want to continue to badger him about for 2022. But that’s his power, as a 50% stake holder in this podcast.
ALEX: I just, there is nothing more to say. Once again, it’s here. I am interested, I’m interested to see what changes on the field, right? There’s going to be I would venture to guess a slight uptick in offense, given that pitchers who some of us still like to think are viable Major League hitters.
BOBBY: Never said that.
ALEX: Given that they wa- that they will be hitting, and they will actually have, you know, once again, good good hitters, fun hitters. I I enjoy that I’m slipping into making the argument for the universal DH as I am.
BOBBY: It’s fine.
ALEX: Coming out [26:43]–
BOBBY: This is your last chance to do it, apparently, because you’re banning it.
ALEX: I just like as, resettle there there needs to be said, right? Not a single listeners interested in you and I going back and forth about this.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Ad nauseum again and again, it’s here! This is like–
BOBBY: [26:59]
ALEX: –baseball traditionalists.
BOBBY: This is like people still talking about the Supreme Court overturning the 2000 election. It happened, it’s done, it’s over. No matter which side you were on.
ALEX: I guess that’s kind of what it’s like.
BOBBY: I’m fine with this.
ALEX: This also may up and the our political landscape, it–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –might we may never come back from it.
BOBBY: We might. This, if any, if nothing else, this is good for our friendship. This is one of the few things that I actually do get kind of mad sometimes talking to you about. And you def- I can tell–
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: –that you get mad talking back to me. You’re like–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –I can see it in your eyes. You’re like he’s being stupid and unreasonable. And you know what? I am, I am being stupid and unreasonable. Because that’s a good way to win arguments, to make the other person mad.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s, that’s it. I I have no more to say.
BOBBY: Okay, fair.
ALEX: I’m gonna pass the baton back to you.
BOBBY: I would just like, one final thing on the universal DH. Can we–
ALEX: Uhm, okay.
BOBBY: –can wait till it comes for catcher’s and then for every other position, just saying.
ALEX: Right. Again, the argument, the arguments–
BOBBY: [27:57]
ALEX: –[27:57] here.
BOBBY: The slippery slope argument. It’s very powerful.
ALEX: I too, actually can’t wait for that.
BOBBY: Okay, back to me.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I’d like to ban Tony La Russa red ass discourse.
ALEX: I wrote this down too.
BOBBY: Of course you did. We’re the same person. I just want to enjoy the White Sox, you know. I just want to be able to enjoy their incredible collection of talent. The cool guys on that team. The guys I love to watch, the Eloy Jimenez, José Abreu, Lucas Giolito. On and on and on, Luis Roberts, and I just don’t need to filter it through the prism of Tony La Russa. We don’t like him. We don’t think you should have got the job. He’s a legacy hire because Jerry Reinsdorf was guilty about something from the 1980s, literally a decade, a decade before you and I were born. He has done real bad things in the world. He nearly ruined Yermin Mercedes career by being a red ass. But everybody already knows all that stuff. And I’m sick of him being this heliocentric force in the White Sox world. And I’m sure like real White Sox fans would never feel this way. But as a National Baseball fan, who just wants to sometimes come in and watch White Sox games, like they don’t have that luxury. They’ll have to deal with this day in and day out. And that sucks. But in the interest of trying to bring as much positivity to the National Baseball fans discourse. I just wanna talk about the players. I’m done talking about Tony La Russa. Unless, you know I don’t wanna- unless something like different happens with might something more serious and event happens with him. But I don’t want to talk about him as like this crotchety old manager who doesn’t fit the young fun vibe of the White Sox. That strain of that conversation for me is is over that was 2020 and parts of 2021 but not 2022.
ALEX: Right. I want to, I want to clarify with this segment like there are things that are going to happen this year and the years to follow that neither of us will be able to predict and it will be someone unavoidable to a a reference. But there are also a lot of strains of discussion that kind of [30:06] over the same path. That, I think you and I tire ourselves out yelling about it. And, and then from time to time we’ve even had someone jump into our mentions and say, guys, it’s time to move on. You can’t, you can’t still be mad about this thing. And and while my reflexive response to that is I, you better believe I can still be mad about it. I I begrudgingly admit that sometimes it’s it’s right. It’s better to just close your eyes and and enjoy things–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –you know. And the White Sox are one of those things when there is a lot of noise happening around them. The the on field product of baseball that they put out, is supremely enjoyable. And like maybe that, maybe that should be the narrative around the White Sox.
BOBBY: Yes, this does not mean we can’t say Tony La Russa’s name. This does not mean we can’t talk about a pitching change that he made or anything like that. That is not what I’m talking about. I’m se- I’m specifically talking about his personality fit with the wider world of baseball in 2022. Banned! Banned! What’s next?
ALEX: Yeah, yeah, I’m on board with it. Next up for me, hat discourse.
BOBBY: Hmm.. Good one.
ALEX: This is, this was something that really, I feel like bubbled up at multiple points throughout last year, the last couple of years, really. Largely related to some of New Era’s, shall we say, questionable, artistic choices. And I love clowning on a clip art ass design as much as the next guy on Twitter. But I think I’ve also come to accept at this point, the Ne- New Era is a bit of just a volume shooter, you know.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: When you go to their website, and you look at the the shirts that they have, or the hats that they have, if you go to the MLB shop, it is such a mishmash of designs and and options that you kind of just have to accept that they most likely are not presenting every design as as a piece of art as the pinnacle of hatsminship. I don’t know. All you need, if you, if you toss out, you know, half a dozen designs over the course of a month and one hits. That’s really all you need. I think like from a business perspective, there, it’s probably relatively inexpensive for them. And and for the listeners who are interested, we did a whole podcast about this. About the, the kind of economics and the cultural cachet behind fitted caps.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And like–
BOBBY: Listen to the podcast, Mr. Sugar Penis.
ALEX: It just, I feel like it doesn’t make sense for myself to get up in arms over something that ultimately doesn’t actually impact my, the the way that I take in the sport in–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –any way.
BOBBY: It’s not like fascist New Eras, forcing every baseball fan to wear their hats.
ALEX: Right. And even, even the bad ones, even some of the bad ones are so bad that they are kind of good, or at least entertaining enough. I don’t know. I, I don’t want to swear off talking about uniform designs and aesthetic on field choices entirely right. For example, the Washington Nationals just recently announced their their City Connect jerseys of which the theme is Washington, D.C.’s cherry blossoms blooming. With nods to kind of the architectural style of Washington, DC. And that’s cool. And I even get tired about talking about the City Connect jerseys sometimes. But I think we actually try to do our best to talk about like the style of baseball when it actually matters. And more often than not the the New Era cap designs that come out, don’t really matter. That’s it, I think.
BOBBY: I think that’s a good take. Uhm, you raise an interesting question. What do you think about, are these topics banned for the podcast? Or are they banned for the podcast and Twitter? Are they–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –banned for Tipping Pitches media or just the Tipping Pitches Podcast?
ALEX: See, similar to New Era, I think we’re, we’re slight volume shooters on Twitter–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –as well.
BOBBY: Yes, we are, mostly me. You don’t, you don’t shoot with volume that often.
ALEX: Right, I I I pick and choose my shots.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. Some say you should shoot more though.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: That’s Steph Curry only shot three times a game, the Warriors be the worst team in the league.
ALEX: Something tells me it will be hard for us both to show self-restraint if something like this comes up in passing. But I I gue- I guess it depends on the topic, right? I don’t see myself doing a 20–
BOBBY: [35:12]
ALEX: –I don’t see myself doi- doing a Tony La Russa thread.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But I just no, no thoughts there. And I really don’t see myself doing a New Era hats thread again.
BOBBY: You know, we did so many of those. Okay, so so you–
ALEX: And also, [35:28] we are responsive to the culture, right?
BOBBY: Right, right.
ALEX: If the discourse is there, what do we do?
BOBBY: So, so your answer is you’ll make a good faith effort to stay off these topics on Twitter. Okay, I can do the same. Is it my turn now?
ALEX: Yeah, I think so.
BOBBY: I would like to ban discussing individual players NFT Grift.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Like–
ALEX: This is see, see, like, here’s one that’s going to be tough for me.
BOBBY: Okay. Oh, so you’re going to veto?
ALEX: Well, I’m not going to veto, but I may, I may choose to engage with it in other ways, right. The it’s this podcast is not a platform for it.
BOBBY: Okay. Okay. So this is a half-ban, then. We banned on the podcast because there’s, it’s not as fun to make fun of NF T’s in audio form because it’s way funnier to do it on Twitter by just copy and pasting it and being like, Thanks for the NFT!
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That joke never gets old.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: But for the podcast purposes, I’ll leave it open for you on Twitter writing this into the bill. For podcast purposes, I just don’t want to talk about if a player has new NFT partnership. It’s just bleak, boring, uninteresting, we get it. Everybody wants to participate in a multi-level marketing scheme at first.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It all sounds really good. Right after you get to college. How many of your high school friends are coming back with you coming back to you with an MLM in your Facebook DMs. A not insignificant amount of them.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. You and I lived across the street from one for a year.
BOBBY: We did?
ALEX: Yeah, that that was an Herbalife facility right there, bro.
BOBBY: Oh, Herbalife. I thought you’re talking about like, another NYU student was just running out of a dorm. And I was like, what the fuck?!
ALEX: Well, I don’t, I don’t know who the franchise manager was of that Herbalife, so it was in Bushwick. So there’s a decent chance.
BOBBY: But for the podcast purposes, I just don’t want to talk about Taijuan Walker’s apes. You know, I don’t want to talk about Fernando Tatis is Dogecoin. It’s not interesting. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not, banned, banned for 2022. Now, if the league does some kind of intense overture as a system as an institution with NFT’s that really rises to the level that it’s like, okay, this is concerning. Like this might bankrupt Major League Baseball. We’ll talk about it. But individual players inking deals with NFT companies. No, out for me.
ALEX: Yeah, I think when it gets down to the individual player level, it gets a little more sad than it is bleak, you know. Like it more just makes me a little bummed to see a player who I might otherwise have have great respect and admiration for get pulled into something that’s so obviously a Grift.
BOBBY: Right. They do play for Major League Baseball teams. So–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: They’ve already been pulled into one Grift.
ALEX: They have. Yeah, no, there’s no there’s no one players venture into NFTs that I think really warrants a capital D discussion. Now, if Jeff Passan gets hacked again. Or better yet, if he makes the active choice to go into NFTs. I’m not sure we’ll be able to stay away from that.
BOBBY: You’re right. This is a fluid law.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You know, sometimes it’s about the spirit, not the letter.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: The the Supreme Court for the Tipping Pitches Banneds, make a ruling. Can we talk about Jeff Passan, Jeff Passan’s Ethereum coin. I don’t know. The listeners are the highest court in the land when it comes to these things. They’ll let us know if we’ve crossed the line. And we’ll make them–
ALEX: Right. I have the utmost faith in them to to hold us accountable.
BOBBY: Okay, what’s next? I only have one more after this.
ALEX: This is, this is my last one. And it’s a bit of a layup. It may not even really count. Given that we have reached the baseball season, we’re at the point where we no longer need to talk about Bob Nightengale or or reference his musings on the world of Baseball.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: They have, they have, they have made for interesting fodder in the past, they have.
BOBBY: You’re right. This is a controversial one.
ALEX: It is a bit of a controversial one and I, we’re gonna have to see how long we can keep it up. Because when he drops a column–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –the column is there for us, right?
BOBBY: It’s gonna be tempting. It’s gonna, it’s gonna be calling our names. Sometimes Alex gives his toughest challenges to our strongest listeners.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Those of us–
ALEX: The devil, the devil–
BOBBY: –comes for you. Those of us who want to hear Bob Nightengale jokes, who are just dying for it. Maybe Alex is telling us that we need to move on. We need to strive for something higher plane. And I respect you for that. I respect you for that.
ALEX: He obviously is an unavoidable part of Baseball Twitter and Baseball discourse. But I think his, his tweets, especially, I just kind of wonder how long the the bit can go on, you know, of him being bad at his job. Like every time we, he he makes a tweet about a transaction, about something that has happened on or off the field. I’m kind of like, this has to be the the straw that breaks the camel’s back, right?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Like you can’t actually, he can’t keep getting away with this, right?
BOBBY: Okay, so you’re banning it because the bid is too played out.
ALEX: I think so. This is the one that’s, that’s I’m really wrestling with internally, too.
BOBBY: Okay. Yeah. With great power comes great responsibility, Alex.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: Like we can’t get up here and stab our listeners in the back by banning Alex Rodriguez. That guy’s a content fountain.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah, but I think, I think Bob’s takes are often relatively mailed in and, I don’t know. I think mainly, what I’m saying is I’d like to see us diversify our content–
BOBBY: Portfolio.
ALEX: –streams, are portfolio when it comes to the the wild world of perpetually wrong Baseball writers.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Because I think, I think there’s more out there to be mined. And I’m wondering if maybe, Bob Nightengale has, has kind of reached his peak there, right? He he gave us the pinnacle of the lockout, right?
BOBBY: Right, that’s true.
ALEX: On that, on that fateful night.
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: I’m almost, I almost think is it, is it time for him to hang them up?
BOBBY: We’re retiring Bob on top.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That’s a good one. This is a good one. You made a compelling argument. I wasn’t sure at first, but I’m in.
ALEX: All right, okay.
BOBBY: No–
ALEX: What’s your last one?
BOBBY: –no more Nightengale 2022, banned, for the podcast. I do not commit to banning quote cards of his typos on Twitter. I don’t commit–
ALEX: That’s–
BOBBY: –to that.
ALEX: That’s, that’s fair. Okay.
BOBBY: My final one. Is I am banning the, “Is baseball dying?” question. I am banning, “Our baseball players boring”. “Is it just not interesting enough?” “Do kids think Mike Trout is boring because he only talks about weather?” I’m banning that. We can’t talk about that anymore. We’ve been talking about that, literally since like the third episode of this podcast. And I’m sick of it, I’m sick of it. We can talk about, we are still allowed. As the, as the Congressman drafting this bill, we are still allowed to talk about, “Is MLB trying to kill the sport?” Obviously, this is Tipping Pitches. But I’m no longer interested in doing the ESPN talking head version of, “Is Baseball dying because it’s too slow and boring?” Because it one it’s not. Two, it’s not for any of the reasons that any of these people are saying. It is, it’s much more because of the economic structures and power concentrations of the game, as we talk about all the time. And three, like Baseball is as as good and talented and deep of a league as it ever has been. There’s no sense in wasting oxygen, having the same conversation all the time. Just, I want to live in the season and actually enjoy it. Maybe that’s a threat of these for me, like going back to the Tony [43:53] so one, I’m not interested. I want to shed that weight of all of these discourse cycles that we continually have all of the time. And I want to just be like, you know, what’s cool baseball? I like it. Is it dying? No. All right, conversation over.
ALEX: Right. This is one of those topics that actually is relatively easily debunked, right? Like the, the argument is usually made anecdotally, rather than based on things like–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –how many people are actually watching Baseball games.
BOBBY: My friends three kids, you know what they like? Fortnite. You know what they love? FaZe Clan. It’s like, okay, like, okay, cool. My friend has three kids, they all play The Little League, you know?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Great.
ALEX: Yeah. And I also think that, I I mean, I just don’t think the argument is often made in good faith. Like if you think Baseball is dying, you’re probably not watching the the right things.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like if you’re actually watching the games, if you’re actually, actually watching some of the players who are on the field right now, you very well could make case that this game has never been better set up to serve the future, right? And as you mentioned, it’s another question of whether or not Major League Baseball is interested in passing on that torch to the younger gener- generation of baseball fans. And there’s a real conversation to be had about accessibility of Baseball to the the modern American family.
BOBBY: Yes. But that’s not, to be clear. And maybe this is really splitting hairs. And it’s obviously like, this is a made up thing that we’re doing here. But to be clear, I don’t really want to ban that because I think like–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –talking about openly, how inaccessibility of the sport is really killing it. In the long run, is a really important thing? That’s near and dear to my heart. But talking about it in the context of baseball is old hat. Baseball is the 20th century. Baseball is no longer capturing the hearts and souls of America. I’m not, I’m not interested in doing that anymore. I just the people who think that are already gone, and that’s fine. Goodbye. You know, you might have left for honest reasons, or you might have left for dishonest reasons. I don’t really care anymore.
ALEX: Yeah, good pick. I’m on board with that.
BOBBY: Thank you. That concludes the 2022 Banned Topics for Tipping Pitches. To recap for me. I have banned runner on second discourse. I have banned Tony La Russa red ass discourse. I have banned individual players NFT Grifts and I have banned, “Is Baseball dying?” Do you want to do yours?
ALEX: Yes I banneds whining about the universal DH on both our parts. I think we could, we could maybe both uses annex when it comes to that. Banned, New Era hat discourse. Uninterested, if you like the hat, you’re allowed to like the hat. If not, that’s fine, too.
BOBBY: Alex had what you do in the privacy of your own head? Not my problem.
ALEX: And Bob Nightengale, I think, I think we can, we can do better, you know. I think it’s time for him to–
BOBBY: I’m playing him out with tabs right here.
ALEX: Please do. Yes, I think there it’s time for some younger writers to really come in and, and take over for him. I think that’s it, I feel good about that.
BOBBY: I like it. It’s a good list. I hope listeners enjoyed this segment. I have no idea if it’s funny or not.
ALEX: I also hope that we’re able to stay true to this. And again, I want you the listeners to let us know if we if we run astray when it comes to these self-imposed rules. Because we do rely on on you to to keep us in line. And and you all often do a very good job about that. So call us on our bullshit.
BOBBY: We’re gonna take a quick break. And when we come back, we’ll do a couple questions from you the listeners.
[47:58]
[Transition Music]
BOBBY: All right, Alex, got three listener questions to close this out right here. Just a reminder, if you’d like to write in, call in, DM in tipping_pitches on Twitter, tippingpitchespod@gmail.com. Our voicemail line is 785-422-5881. You can get us in any of those ways. And have your question either read or played on the podcast. The first question we have today is a really fun question, particularly for this time in the baseball calendar. This comes from Nick’s Knee. And they asked with baseball starting up next week, which teams would you recommend watching for someone with no real Baseball experience? Either for interesting players or just likely to have good games. Now in the past, Alex, you and I did, we bandwagons teams by randomly selecting them. We’re not going to do that this year, because I don’t really think we did a good job of it, to be honest. We’re just gonna continue to pick and choose players that and teams that have interesting narratives that become lovable throughout the season. As well as obviously we’re for our own teams. Although I know that you considered potentially banning talking about the Oakland Athletics on the podcast. And I even considered banning them for you as–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –a gesture of goodwill so that you wouldn’t have to talk about them on the podcast. But this is a great question. Did you, did you have any teams that came immediately to mind when you saw this?
ALEX: There are definitely some obvious ones, right? The the Dodgers are an easy pick because they might have, you know, one of the greatest teams ever assembled. Which makes for an enjoyable watching experience. The Mets are going to be incredibly interesting to watch this year because it feels kind of like a make or break is the wrong way of putting it. But they are at a point in their franchises that they have not been at in a few years. And I think a lot of eyes are going to be watching them to see kind of where, where this goes.
BOBBY: I’m glad you chose them because I wrote them down too. And I didn’t want it to sound like I was being a homer, but they have so many interesting players.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like, they made that huge trade for Lindor ;ast year, he kind of had a bad start to his Mets career. But he could and likely will bounce back, I hope. The Scherzer signing obviously makes them the rotation, even just in a different league. Then deGrom, hopefully he can stay healthy for the whole year. He’s the most exciting, I think player to watch in Baseball when he plays. And then all of the signings and the corner outfield positions and all of that stuff and all the spending and all the Steve Cohen aspects of it. I think that they are really interesting and fun.
ALEX: Then you get to teams like the Minnesota Twins. And the Toronto Blue Jays.
BOBBY: Great one.
ALEX: Who are made some real big splashes this offseason, right? Whether it’s someone like Carlos Correa or someone like Matt Chapman.
BOBBY: Ooh!
ALEX: The Blue Jays like already had a kind of core of really fun players and only added to them this offseason. Which I mean, kind of makes them favorites for the AL East at this point.
BOBBY: Interesting. Good take. I like that. Getting out there first.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. [51:32]
BOBBY: Although Rays and the Yankees
ALEX: Yeah. Well, I mean, it remains to be seen whether or not the Yankees still exist by the end of the season, right? I mean [51:41]–
BOBBY: Oh, right. The pressures on.
ALEX: The Rangers are the one of the most fascinated by.
BOBBY: Interesting.
ALEX: I just still kind of can’t quite make heads or tails of. Like I, I have, as someone who does not analyze baseball, actually professionally for a living. I have no clue what to make of their team, right? They have a a $500 million middle infield, right. Two amazingly fun players to watch and Corey Seager and Marcus Semien. And then like a bunch of other dudes–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –also.
BOBBY: I just don’t think the Rangers are gonna play that many interesting games because they don’t have–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –they haven’t almost no pitching.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So I don’t think they’re gonna be very good. I think Semien and Seagar are obviously interesting. But I think that’s more of a bone for the fans that are already there. Like I I would wait a couple of years to really hop on the Rangers train. That a couple teams that I wrote down that you did not mention. The Padres, hopefully are going to get everyone back from injury. At some point, Tatis will come back after his wrist injury and hopefully he won’t miss a beat. I know that we spent so much time talking about the Padres last year and the year before in the pandemic shortened season. But they, they figure to be very interesting as well. Yu Darvish is among the most fun pitchers to watch since you and I have been born. I think the Mariners are pretty interesting. Like they got pretty close on some some total devil magic last year. With like a extreme negative run differential, but a really good record. But I actually think that they’ve made significant improvements to their team in this offseason. They’re all one year older. You know, you figured Kelenic- Kelenic will be better than he was when he was first called up. Hopefully, I don’t know how he could be worse. You cross your fingers that maybe Julio will come up at some point. I don’t really know. I I don’t know exactly what his landing time looks like. And then the other team that I wrote down beside for the Mets have already mentioned, and you already mentioned, the Phillies. The last part of this question for interesting players or just likely to have good games. I think the Phillies are the team that is most likely to have the most interesting games this year. They have an unbelievable lineup, that will score a ton of runs and hit a ton of homeruns. And they have questionable starting pitching and extremely questionable bullpen pitching. So they might build a 10 run lead and below it. Like multiple times per week. And they also have bad defense too. So that’ll make for kind of like interesting circus ball style games. I would, I would check out the Phillies. And it’d be easy if you want to hop on the Mets bandwagon as well because they’ll play each other 17 times this year, 19 times or whatever it actually is. Plus, it’s never a bad idea to watch every Nick Castellanos at bat. You just–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –you just need to be aware of what’s going on when Castellanos is at the plate. It’s like push news noti- it’s like breaking news push notifications when he hits.
ALEX: Right. Yeah, I mean, it’s helpful that the NL East is actually a somewhat competitive division or at the very least, I think you can pick reasons off of all five of those teams to be interested in watching some of their games. The Marlins have an interesting rotation. Juan Soto is the best–
BOBBY: Wow, Juan Soto.
ALEX: –player. Right. And really, I think, I think you could, you could throw a dart and and hit most of those teams. And at the very least, you’re probably going to watch some interesting baseball games throughout the year just due to the fact that they’re going to to play each other a lot.
BOBBY: Yeah. Thank you for writing in with that question. It was a good one. Perfectly timed for this time of year. Next question comes from Mica. Mica writes in as a Guardians fan. My condolences Micah, tough couple years. And Mica wants to know if something like what the Guardians are doing right now. Which is trading away a lot of players. Not spending any money, extremely low payroll, but still incredibly good at player development. And incredibly good at keeping a couple really good guys on the roster at all times. He names Shane Bieber, and Jose Ramirez right now. Mica says, “I feel like that’s almost worse than what teams like the A’s are doing with trading everyone have value. Or is it just equally bad, but in a different way?” I wanted to hear what you had to say about this, Alex, because obviously, you are an A’s fan. So you’re in direct contrast here to what Mica is saying. What do you make of a total fire sale, and the promise of the future of getting back a lot of prospects like you did in the Matt Olson trade? Versus what’s going on in Cleveland, which is hanging on to a guy like Bieber, hanging on to a guy like Ramirez. Ostensibly so that the fans still have something to root for or so that you can shift back into a competitive window. If if a couple more guys turn out to be better than you thought. What do you make of that distinction?
ALEX: I mean, these mostly feel like two sides of the same coin to me, right? Because Jose Ramirez is in Cleveland now. And there’s a very decent chance that he’s not in three months. I think you’re right, that oftentimes in these cases, it is more fan service. It’s a desire to not alienate everyone, all at once.
BOBBY: Yeah, find the line, but don’t cross it too fast.
ALEX: Right, exactly. And I think the A’s have a little more going on with their search for a stadium and a real kind of vested interest in showing that they’re not competitive, and they have no fans. Because there’s something else that they’re angling for. I I see the point on this question, right? That it’s, it’s disappointing to watch teams who ostensibly are good at evaluating players and developing players. Not actually invest in that. But I also think that’s maybe not as rare as it seems. I think just different teams let that evolve to varying kind of points on that timeline, right? Like I don’t necessarily know that the Pirates are any worse at evaluating players than the Guardians. They may be worse at developing say, pitchers. But every couple of years there are still a crop of Pirates players who it’s easy to get somewhat excited about. And then obviously they end up getting shipped off, shipped off. So, I don’t know–
BOBBY: Their definitely worse a developing pitchers. That is–
ALEX: They are, they are definitely worse at developing pitchers. Yes.
BOBBY: I feel about his confidence in saying that as anything on the planet. Cleveland is the best organization at developing starting pitchers in baseball right now.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And I don’t really think it’s close. The Rays develop their relievers into very, very specific mold and a lot of their starters, too.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: But what the Rays are good at doing is looking at other organizations, and picking off people who they think that they could turn into good starters, who are floundering. Picking on teams like the Pirates getting Tyler Glass now. And turning them into an amazing player. Cleveland just trashed these guys. And like five years later, four years later, they’re like a Cy Young contender, almost without fail. It’s ridiculous.
ALEX: Yeah, I think the Astros maybe come close there as well.
BOBBY: Yeah. But but Cleveland like Kluber–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –Bieber, Clevinger, Plesac–
ALEX: Plesac.
BOBBY: Carrasco. It’s just unbelievable what they do. So I simply–
ALEX: McKenzie.
BOBBY: Yeah, Triston McKenzie. I I sympathize with Mica’s question. I I agree that it might feel slightly different. The framing of it if they trade Jose Ramirez, which there was some rumors, although there was also kind of like extension rumors at the same time. They did just trade Francisco Lindor last year. So it’s not like they’re not doing similar things to what the A’s did in selling high on players before they have to pay them in earnest. I think hanging on to a couple guys who are franchise cornerstones is better than what the A’s do, honestly. Like, who, who is the threat for the A’s? [1:00:05] Ramirez stays, or if they extend him, then he becomes the guy who you rooted for for the entirety of like a decade of your life. And honestly, do you have that guy? As an A’s fan? Is there a decade of your life where you rooted, where your favorite player stayed on your team?
ALEX: Stephen Vogt was on the A’s, like, you know, eight years ago, and then left, and now he’s back. Does that count?
BOBBY: Are you actively rooting for him in the interim? And you weren’t rooting for him to fail? But like, you know, but you–
ALEX: No, I–
BOBBY: –know, I mean no, like–
ALEX: –right, yeah.
BOBBY: –only ever for your windows for the A’s. And I don’t think that’s really good for anyone.
ALEX: Right. I think it’s a lot more enjoyable. Again, to the extent that you can enjoy teams not putting an effort. It’s enjoyable to at least have, like you said, a couple threads throughout the, the course of a team’s window, so to speak.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Because it at least gives you a chance to also familiarize yourself with that next generation of players while still having something to enjoy on the field, right? If you’re consistently having to look to the future and reacquaint yourself with prospects, you never really got to know super well, anyway. It’s hard to like actively want to tune in to that.
BOBBY: Yeah, put it this way. The only thing that got me from Mike Piazza to Jacob deGrom is David Wright. That’s it. There’s nothing else in between. I mean, there are obviously like a few guys–
ALEX: [1:01:45] Jason Bay.
BOBBY: Come on, come on. There are a few guys here and there for a couple of years in between. But in the time period between those two guys. The keystone of my Mets fandom was David Wright. And I think more franchises should have that. I think you think that too.
ALEX: I agree that more franchises should have David Wright’s, that’s–
BOBBY: Yeah. He’s pretty good. He’s pretty good at baseball. Okay.
ALEX: Universal basic David Wright. All right, what’s the last question?
BOBBY: That’s way funnier to me than it really probably is, but it’s gonna keep laughing. Okay, final question, this comes from Ian. Ian asks, a non-economics question says, “Your comments a few pods ago comparing the PR bonus pool to how the NBA does their supermax contracts got me thinking. Are there features of other sports who would like to see introduced into MLB?” I think Ian has a really good idea here that he follows up on and says, “Personally, I think interleague tournaments, with Korean or Japanese Baseball could be pretty cool. Or even a mini tournament between AL and NL teams halfway through the season. Like right after the All-Star break.” I think both of those are really cool ideas. I’m working on this podcast right now, talking about the history of the NBA. And one of the things that they did when they were trying to internationally grow basketball was that in the offseason, the NBA would fly like a collection of like 10 or 12. of the best players in the league. They would fly them around to play exhibition games against a countries like best- countries like international Olympics team, or whatever. And they would just play like one exhibition game. And then they would like meet a bunch of fans. And I think that similar to what Ian is saying, that’s basically what would happen if they did interleague tournaments with to KBO or the NPB in Korea and Japan. That’s a, that’s a wonderful idea. I don’t know that I can even really top it. Are there things from other sports that you see often and you’re like, wow, I wish baseball did more of that.
ALEX: Would require me to watch other sports. This is slightly unrelated. But I don’t know if you heard about the MLB Home Run Derby Acts, right? Which is the recently announced, a recently announced tournament that will feature former stars traveling around various cities around–
BOBBY: Uhm.
ALEX: –the world.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Competing in a Home Run Derby featuring stars like Giovanni Soto.
BOBBY: Just a banger.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Jonny Gomes.
BOBBY: Ohh!
ALEX: Adrian Gonzalez.
BOBBY: He was good.
ALEX: Nick Swisher.
BOBBY: King.
ALEX: King.
BOBBY: One thing about Nick Swisher, that dude’s available. He’s all over the place, he’s doing a lot! Iron, irons in a lot of fires for Mr. Swisher.
ALEX: This is kind of a non-answer, but I like the ideas of the sort of exhibition games in a typical places, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I know we, we did the Field of Dreams game. And that’s cool. Okay, that’s a nod to like a very kind of specific niche baseball interest. But, and, and this is not a new idea. But I think playing games, in other locales where baseball is massive, would be really fascinating, right? And this is already something that is being talked about. Right, playing games in Mexico, playing games in England. Major League Baseball released a short list of places where they plan to, to play some exhibition type games in the future. And they named like, cities, they named–
BOBBY: Region countries.
ALEX: –countries. They named Asia.
BOBBY: Just Asia.
ALEX: Just, just Asia, right?
BOBBY: They’re gonna play a game in Asia, we’re not sure where yet she’s gonna have to find it, no address, you just go over there. You ask around you say, you know where anybody in Asia, you know where MLB is playing today?
ALEX: But I think that’s a really great way to not only broaden appeal for Major League Baseball, world wide. But also offer a window into markets that might experience and appreciate Baseball in a very different way than we might. That’s why I enjoy the the exhibition games that the the A’s and Mariners often do in Japan–
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: –in the you know, at the start of the season. I don’t know if you saw that. At the the the Japanese teams, Nippon-Ham Fighters, home opener. The, the manager for the the Fighters, one Tsuyoshi Shinjo. Sorry, that is, that is big boss, Tsuyoshi Shinjo flew in on a hovercraft.
BOBBY: I didn’t know we have that–
ALEX: That, that Rob–
BOBBY: –level of hovercraft technology,
ALEX: I, I really didn’t. But the fact is that–
BOBBY: I thought it was, wait, I gotta say more about that. I thought it was just gonna come like three feet off the ground. That dude was–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –like 50 feet in the air.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We we–
ALEX: Just like flying around–
BOBBY: –have flying cars now? We have them.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I was led to believe when I was a kid that flying cars were going to be a way more monumental achievement when we got them. This guy has it. And he’s flying around a baseball stadium with a flying car. And I just don’t know about it. I just didn’t know about that.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Why? Why? Thanks a lot in New York Times, send another push notification for your think pieces about canceled culture, why don’t you? No, tell me about flying cars. Democracy dies in darkness.
ALEX: Right, I mean, this is just another example where America is woefully behind just the rest of the world. Anyway, that was, that was not a really direct answer to the questions because–
BOBBY: Flying cars.
ALEX: But I I do think my answer is engaging with the more global aspects of the sport. Because despite Manfred’s interest in creating Baseball that is defined through the prism of Major League Baseball, the company, there’s far more to what Baseball actually is then than that. And I think it is just service to the fans that we don’t often get to experience that, right. That we were only able to watch KBO games on ESPN, because there just happened to be no Major League Baseball at the time in 2022.
BOBBY: Two things, both from soccer. I’d like to steal international friendlies. That being exhibition games between national teams in preparation of when those national teams will have to play in events like the World Cup. I think friendlies in a weird way, are actually really fun to watch. Because they’re not as competitive, and they’re not as serious. And it gives you kind of a chance to like see players in a light that you don’t always see them. Which is working on something that they’re afraid to work on in games. Which is playing with a collection of teammates that they don’t always play with. Playing for a manager that they don’t always play with. So that’s one. That was less important to me than the second one. The second one that I would like to steal from soccer. This is actually from Club Soccer is the transfer window. Do you know what the transfer window is Alex?
ALEX: I do not.
BOBBY: Transfer window is a one-month period that happens two times a year, so two total months, one month installments. And it’s the only period that trades can happen. And because it’s the only period that trades can happen. They all happen in a flurry. And it incentivizes teams in international soccer. It’s almost like an arms race, where you start to see other teams, right when the transfer window starts, go out and get a guy and it sets the tone for what their competitors need to go out and get. And it it incentivizes all of this crazy spending, which I know is not obviously a one to one comparison because Club Soccer is just money laundering in most of the world. But and in many cases money laundering for governments. But I think it would be way cooler. If we had a more defined period in the offseason, where all of this free agency stuff happened. And even if you don’t do it like soccer, even if you don’t do a whole month. If you made the transfer window like two weeks, I know GMs would hate it. I know owners would never vote for it. But if I have the power to wave a magical wand, that would drum up a lot of interest in Baseball. In the time of the year where people don’t talk a lot about Baseball, because of Basketball, and because of Football, and because of whatever else they’re doing the holidays, that kind of thing. And then you could still keep the trade deadline, you, that would just be the last day of the second transfer window of the calendar.
ALEX: So, so would you say then that like, you can make trades for the month of January, and you can make trades for the month of July? I’m into it. I mean, we I think we talked about this a little bit on the eve of the lockout, right. Which effectively acted as an offseason trade deadline. And I think some people were comparing to the NBA, right? When trades actually open up after a certain point. And you see these flurry.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: It is like an event–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –right? Where there is a day, where shit just goes down, it hits the fan.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: It’s going down and hitting the fan. Both directions.
BOBBY: It’s going up, down, left, right.
ALEX: I think you’re right, I think event-tising kind of some of the more transactional nature of Baseball. Which to some extent, already exists. But putting kind of boundaries on it may lead to more heightened interest when those, those periods are actually opening.
BOBBY: Plus, I think it would incentivize teams to actually make their competitive moves, and not toe, that same line of we’ll see how the first couple months of the season goes, you know. Cuz’ you can’t actually do that, you can’t fire sale in May, if you get out to a slow start. You have to wait till the trade deadline or you, you know, you have to wait till the second transfer window. And then all of a sudden, the market for your guy might not be as high because everybody else is trying to train people at that same time. It just, there’s a lot of stuff in there that could make it a lot more interesting than it is now. This would obviously never happened because it would be such a big logistical hurdle to institute a system like this. But this is the kind of thing that like a real Commissioner would think about and try to advocate for.
ALEX: Yeah, I I’m into the idea. I think I have to think about it a little bit more. Because I, you know, who among us doesn’t love the the random late May trade of a star–
BOBBY: Salary dump.
ALEX: –you know, that happens at like, 11pm?
BOBBY: Well, you you workshop it and you circle back, you circle back with me later.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And we’ll, we’ll brainstorm together, we’ll put our heads together.
ALEX: Right. We’re doing the work that Rob Manfred is too afraid to do.
BOBBY: Okay, I think that does it for this week’s episode of Tipping Pitches. Next week, Alex, you All-GIF Draft. It’s coming. Not quite sure who’s gonna be on it just yet, because it’s been a hectic couple weeks. But we will have an All-GIF Draft next week. It will promise to be absurd and fun, just like all of our All-GIF Drafts. And that’s not even self-aggrandizing for me to say because it’s mostly absurd and fun because of the amazing list of guests who say yes to coming and doing that with us. If you don’t know what the All-GIF Draft is, it’s our way of previewing the season where we select players who we think are most likely to produce the best gifts, moving images, GIFs, GIFs of the 2022 season, you can go back and check out last year’s. It always comes out right around when the season starts. Anything else leave the people with Alex? Or should we just start playing some Castellini jingles right now?
ALEX: I want to hear some Castellini jingles, I’m so ready for this.
BOBBY: Thanks everyone for listening. We’ll see you next week.
JINGLE 1: Losing games with Bob Castellini. He made his living selling carrots and beef. Tanken every season so by June they work [1:14:12] it’s the Cincinnati Reds.
JINGLE 2: He’s got carrots, some cheese. Stalks of fresh broccoli. Castellini, sign [1:14:37] now CBA, just to trade Sonny Gray, Castellini. Reds will take you to the bank you’ve got, Oh Bob [1:14:50] Castellini. [1:14:56] new CBT [1:14:58] salary, Castellini.
JINGLE 3: Bob Bob Bob Bob, Bob chemin. Bob Bob Bob Bob, Bob chemin, Bob Bob Bob Bob, Bob chemin. Bob, Bob, Bob Castellini [1:15:20].
JINGLE 4: Tomatoes, [1:15:30], chevies and potatoes. [1:15:32] favorite [1:15:35].
[1:15:36]
[Outro]
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 ya.
Transcriptionist: Vernon Bryann Casil
Editor: Krizia Marrie Casil
Tipping Pitches 
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