Another season, another year of a storied Tipping Pitches tradition: the All-GIF Draft. Bobby and Alex preview the season by taking a look at which players will produce the best GIFs this year, bringing on Bradford William Davis, Stephen Hesson, Jake Mintz, Jordan Shusterman, Clinton Yates, Meg Rowley, and Shakeia Taylor as fellow evaluators. Long necks, tight pants, can’t lose.
Links:
Follow Bradford @BWDBWDBWD
Follow Stephen @TangoGolfKilo & Batting Around @BattinAround
Follow Cespedes Family BBQ @CespedesBBQ
Follow Clinton @clintonyates
Follow Meg @megrowler
Follow Shakeia @curlyfro
Songs featured in this episode: Taylor Swift — “Cruel Summer” • 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, my friend, you and I are gathered here today to continue the long standing tradition, previewing the Major League Baseball season. Without actually really having to make any predictions about who’s gonna be good at the Major League Baseball season. We are here to do The 2022 All-GIF Draft. Are you excited?
ALEX: I’m so excited. This is, it’s such a joy to do this every year. And it’s really a joy to bring on folks in our orbit, whose opinions we love and respect to not actually talk about the things that they are professionally knowledgeable about. It’s wonderful.
BOBBY: I’m glad you mentioned people sharing opinions that they are not actually professionally knowledgeable about. Because before we get into the fun of the GIF Draft, I wanted to do a little qui- quick check in on something else that we care a lot about, Alex. I wanted to, to check in with you about Alex Rodriguez.
ALEX: Of course.
BOBBY: I do have a clip that I would like to play for you and our friends, listeners.
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: That we all make a million dollars today we can go say, hey, let’s go on a vacation. Because hey, let me go buy a Rolls Royce. Let’s go buy a boat. My whole thing is I’ll be like, all right, guys, I want to take this million and buy assets, I don’t want to buy any liabilities. Because ultimately you’re gonna get an elevator. Either one is gonna go up or is gonna go down. Nothing’s gonna stay the same. You got to pay Uncle Sam. And then I believe in buying assets and we have to educate our community. What is the difference between an asset and a liability? When people look at their homes, they say this is an asset. Well, they’re wrong. Your home is a liability. My multifamily is an asset. Now you ask why? Number one, very simple: if something takes money out of your pocket every month, that’s a liability. If an asset puts money in your pocket, that’s an asset. And the more assets we can have and the less liability we can have. We’re going to be better off.
BOBBY: I just thought this is very important to share with you just to get our headspace right. Heading into the Tipping Pitches, All-GIF Draft. We need assets, we don’t need liabilities. Do you agree?
ALEX: I do agree. I agree that we are going to pay Uncle Sam first and foremost, right? That’s before drafting any GIFs we are going to send some gifts over to–
BOBBY: Give Uncle Sam his cut right.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: We follow that through.
ALEX: Right. I want you to flip your bat. I don’t even know where to begin with trying to break, like when I was watching this yesterday like every single line he says. it deserves–
BOBBY: [3:15] better.
ALEX: deserves its own deep cut, Bobby elevators.
BOBBY: You’re gonna go up are you gonna go down?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: He’s right about this, he is right about this. It, in your professional opinion, Alex, as a, as a podcaster, which is what you and I are. Your professional opinion as a podcaster, our homes, liabilities or assets?
ALEX: I think they are–
BOBBY: Should you buy a home, Alex? Tell the people who are listening whether or not it’s a good investment to put a roof over their family’s heads.
ALEX: He he, He’s not wrong in that. These days, it’s a liability for your wallet to actually own or or rent a home, right? Like he’s, he is right in a way that I don’t think that he’s right about. Because he thinks that, that you know everything in your life once again should be a- assets. Through which you can appreciate the increasing value, right? So, yeah, if a home is taking money out of your pocket every week, every month. It probably is a liability but maybe it’s because these things shouldn’t be taking or putting money into our pockets, Right?
BOBBY: Didn’t this man, now correct me if I’m wrong, didn’t this man just purchase the Minnesota Timberwolves with financing? I presume he did not pay cash for the Timberwolves.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Nor was he going to pay cash for the Mets. So do you think that actually instead of Rob Manfred, turning down his- Rob Manfred and the Wilpons, turning down his bid to buy the Mets. Do you think that maybe A. Rod. turned away because he realized the Mets are a liability not an asset?
ALEX: Well, we know that it’s not profitable to own a baseball team. In fact–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –it’s smarter to actually bet on the stock market, right? That’s actually a safer bet–
BOBBY: Those are assets, not liabilities. It’s my understanding that those are liabilities as well.
ALEX: The biggest thing here, I think that I do have to give A. Rod. [5:20] for is wanting to educate our community, right?
BOBBY: Uh-hmm, uh-hmm.
ALEX: Our community–
BOBBY: Our community Tipping Pitches, yeah.
ALEX: That is the, the community of multimillionaires, right? The community of billionaires, because–
BOBBY: No, no, no, the community of multimillionaire landlords–
ALEX: There you go.
BOBBY: –you do not leave that part out. We don’t include anybody who doesn’t own a multifamily, a month just multifamily. He didn’t even say, like, apartment complex. He said–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –my multifamily–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –is an asset, pays for itself.
ALEX: Right. Insert, insert JLo joke there. I mean, that’s the thing, right? Is none of us are free until we’re all free, right? And it really, it starts from the bottom with the landlords. So he’s putting in the work for, for our people.
BOBBY: Okay, landlords of the world unite. Okay. Now that everybody’s on the same page about assets versus liabilities as it pertains to GIF drafting. I think that we should just get into it unless you, you want to make some, some World Series predictions beforehand?
ALEX: I’m not gonna lie. I haven’t given it a ton of thought up until this point. In fact, you could argue I’ve given zero thought up until this point. Which is why I, I’ll, I’ll just say the the Blue Jays because that’s the team that I’m just kind of–
BOBBY: Nice.
ALEX: –defacto in on, right? I think, I think I’m mentioned this. It was maybe on last week’s podcast, or maybe it was just in a conversation between you and me. But uh, but–
BOBBY: Every time we talked to each other, it’s a podcast recorded or not.
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: Hey, man, how was work today podcast?
ALEX: But yeah, I’m into that team. I, I can’t really, can’t really name why, exactly. I think it’ll help given the, the varying levels of vaccination status on players across the league, that they may have some home field advantage there. But overall, I’m just rooting for Matt Chapman to have nice things. Like really that’s kind of what it comes down to, you know.
BOBBY: He has plenty of nice things. Eight other nice things in the lineup around him. Nice–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: –nice bats in the lineup around him. I have Dodgers over Blue Jays. Do, do you want to make a selection as to who the Blue Jays will beat in the World Series? Or you just, you just going Blue Jays in a forfeit? Blake Treinen has convinced too many Dodgers players to untake the vaccine. And the Dodgers can’t feel the roster to play against Toronto in the World Series.
ALEX: I Wanna go, Blue Jays over Braves.
BOBBY: Oh God, why do you do this to me? We’re supposed to be friends. You’re predicting Atlanta to make it back to the World Series.
ALEX: Okay, okay, fine. Blue Jays over Mets. Is that better?
BOBBY: That hurts also. You watching me watch the Mets lose two World Series in the span of 10 years and then still choosing to be friends with me after that experience would be a really, really unbreakable bond. So maybe it’d be good for the podcast and [8:31]–
ALEX: It’s true. I have seen you at your lowest–
BOBBY: Absolute navier.
ALEX: –the most emotionally vulnerable.
BOBBY: Yes, just tears at Halloween parties. Okay, it’s Sunday The GIF Draft. We are going to bring in a wonderful and complete lineup of our good friends here at Tipping Pitches. That includes Bradford William Davis, Stephen Hesson of Batting Around. Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman of Cespedes Family BBQ. Clinton Yates, who works for a little company called ESPN. Meg Rowley Managing Editor FanGraphs. And last but not least, Shakeia Taylor. But before we bring all of those good friends in, Alex, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[9:13]
[Music Theme]
BOBBY: Okay, it’s The All-GIF Draft. Bradford William Davis is back, hi Bradford. Welcome–
BRADFORD: Yo!
BOBBY: –back to the Tipping Pitches Podcast, my friend. It’s great to see your face.
BRADFORD: Pleasure to see y’all too.
BOBBY: We’re so excited to have you back. This is your second year selecting in the GIF Draft and you were the most punctual and responding to us. So that means you are rewarded. We reward trying hard unlike baseball ownership. We reward that, so you have the first overall pick. And we will select after you for our team, you are now picking for the guest of Tipping Pitches team. And you are on the clock my good friend.
BRADFORD: Okay, cool. [10:02]–
BOBBY: How much, how much work did you put into the big board this year?
BRADFORD: [10:05] I’m, I’m looking at like Jay Bilas wrote right now. Almost get into baseball players. I mean, I kind of, like, blew, my first take was Trevor Bauer.
BOBBY: I was wondering–
BRADFORD: [10:19]
BOBBY: –mea culpa?
BRADFORD: This is before I knew he was a criminal, you know, I just thought he was evil without a criminal, you know. So I- released in the back of the atmosphere, so apologies, apologies for that. But uhm, let’s see, as far as- I’m just gonna go, I’m gonna go with like, you know, people who I think are next now. But you never know, you never know, right? Like, uhm, but let’s go with Ronald Acuna Jr.
BOBBY: Good one
ALEX: That’s my pick.
BOBBY: So Ronald has been selected multiple times, you obviously will need to wait a little while before it comes back from the ACL tear. But I do feel like by selecting him, when we missed so much of his time last year, you get a little bit of boost because people will be so happy to have him back. They’ll be like, Ronald is back. Baseball has missed him. Baseball needed him. What do you like about Ronald Acuna Jr, both as a player, but also as a GIF producer?
BRADFORD: So, obviously, this is a slight article of faith that he has not lost any athleticism after a serious injury. But he’s young, he hits big beautiful home runs. He plays extremely hard, but he plays extremely cool. And I love, you know, and so I love watching him shot. I love the the style, and the energy and the strength that he plays the game of Baseball with. So I can’t wait to see, and I know he’s gonna be revved up too. You know, because of course he’s, you know, he is, he Ronald Acuna has missed Ronald Acunagreen. Yeah, you know, as you know–
BOBBY: Yeah.
BRADFORD: –perhaps more than–
ALEX: Yeah.
BRADFORD: –we’ve missed him. So coming back to a team that’s defending the title, you know, I know he’s gonna be all out. Maybe not the first first game, but–
BOBBY: Defend- defending a title? No, the Braves win the title last year. That didn’t happen.
BRADFORD: Nope. Yeah, the Atlanta Baseball team, they were, they were be like, we’re pretty good.
BOBBY: Congrats to the World Series Champion last year. Nobody! You do not–
ALEX: Any circumstances have to hand it to the Atlanta Baseball team.
BRADFORD: Sadly, this season did not end and on July 12 or so, you know, otherwise, things may be very different for your Mets. But uhm, but nope, they got a playoff six months, most years and and that’s why, you know, we’re gonna see, I think, you know, another fun team, you know. Obviously, the more for accounting reasons they, you know, they traded away, or in that trade away, rather, they let Freddie Freeman walk for Matt Olson. But hey, you know, he’s still Matt Olson. And, you know, the team’s gonna be winning a lot of games still. They, you know, they’re, they’re running it back, so to speak, with the, you know, with the team again, that won the World Series, but for the most part. And they’re adding, you know, and and but they’re, but they’re running it back with, you know, a inner circle MVP candidate in Ronald Acuña [13:07] so I yeah, I just think there’s gonna be you know, there’s gonna be lots of primetime raise games, lots of bright lights and lots of chances for you know, energetic crowd and energetic player to shine. So that’s why I pick Ronald Acuña.
ALEX: I I feel like I mean, I I feel like this every day. Just that I can’t keep track of all of the young beautiful baseball players who I love to watch play baseball, right? So the fact that Acuña missed, effectively the second half of the season, last year, I think gave people, gave people’s attention a chance to kind of shift towards players like, like of Vlad. Jr, right? Obviously, Shohei Ohtani is always on on everyone’s mind, Juan Soto is another one. And I feel like Acuña kind of flies under the radar in a sense, just because he’s so consistently good and filled with swagger. Like there are a lot of players who might have, like, these kind of one off outbursts, and you’re like, Oh, I love to see that from, I don’t know, Tyler O’Neill. Cool, cool, like bat flip bro or whatever, right? But, but what you forget is like Acuña has this on every single at bat, right? Every single play, like you were saying he is like revved up and ready to go.
BRADFORD: He’s five tool, I mean, wow, this is an amazing hitter, right? But he’s just wants to have the ball, you know, Fernando Tatís Jr., you know, all of course, a great complete player. But I would say that Acuña is better at the defensive, on the defensive end, more consistent and defensive end. And I get, you know, I guess before last summer we was injured from so that’s why I think you’ll ,you’ll see more opportunities for him, you know. He also apparently does not ride a motorcycle, which is really important [14:56].
BOBBY: Really, really though.
BRADFORD: I think that’s the that’s the X factor in this–
BOBBY: This story has gone [15:01] on Tipping Pitches.
BRADFORD: How do you [15:03] to work.
BOBBY: So–
BRADFORD: Uber.
BOBBY: The way I think about Ronald is that he’s obviously an exceptional, exceptionally talented baseball player, just naturally gifted with all five tools. But then, you know, pretty quickly when he came up, you know, people would draw comparisons to Juan Soto, same division and I guess also Bryce Harper, too. But they would draw comparisons to Juan Soto, the other under 25, superstar outfielder in the NL East. And I, the thing that I like about Acuña is that I think he kind of took exception to that. Like all the stuff that they said that–
BRADFORD: [15:39]
BOBBY: –yeah, all this stuff that they said that Soto could do that Acuña couldn’t like, oh, Acuña strikes out a little bit too much. He hasn’t walked in, like Soto, he doesn’t have the, the plate vision of Soto. Acuña has doubled his walk rate since he got called up in 2018. Just just [15:54] he’s like the Terminator. Like you tell him to learn a skill. He’s like, sure, I’ll just be elite at that skill next year–
BRADFORD: You know what–
BOBBY: [16:01] talk shit.
BRADFORD: –we’re talking about, we’re talking about. You know, Bobby, just jump off your plane. We talk about, like, GIF Draft, right? It’s a little different than, like, adding the WARs, you know what I mean?
BOBBY: Yes.
BRADFORD: Like, what, like, yes, Juan Soto is like a savant genius heir. But the chaos of being a little unwieldy, a little undisciplined.
BOBBY: Yeah.
BRADFORD: Makes Acuña a little more fun for me.
BOBBY: Yeah.
BRADFORD: You know–
BOBBY: He’s great.
BRADFORD: Like, yeah, so yeah, I’d say like, you know, Juan Soto was a 10% better hitter, but like, but that’s not what it’s about, you know. This isn’t, this is not about always guessing correct on the page in MLB: The Show–
BOBBY: Yeah.
BRADFORD: –you know, it’s about swinging off your heels.
ALEX: Right.
BRADFORD: And still hitting a triple.
BOBBY: Yeah, no mother fuckin’ picture while you’re rounding second base.
BRADFORD: Yes, yes.
ALEX: Acuña is gonna swing out of his shoes 10% more than Juan Soto this year, 20% more than Juan–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –Soto this year.
BOBBY: Right.
BRADFORD: Can you give me working his way back to actually what game action so it might be a little silly, but fun. And again, that four second, you know, video, is what we’re here for. So–
BOBBY: Alex, that turns it over to us to select second overall, our first pick. Would you like to do the honors? Bradford actually named-dropped our first pick here.
ALEX: Right. I mean, he kind of shaved it first–
BOBBY: Yeah, a little bit.
ALEX: –right here.
BOBBY: A little bit.
ALEX: Our first pick I saw here does not necessarily have the tools on both sides of the ball. But it is one, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
BOBBY: It’s not about the tools on both sides of the ball. It’s about the GIF. It’s about, it’s about the GIF. Everybody loves Vlad, everybody loves Vlad, the other players love Vlad. The fans love Vlad, the camera, most importantly, Bradford, the camera loves Vlad and he loves it back. He’s obviously incredible. I think he’s the best hitter, just hitter in baseball right now in terms of what he can cover, the combination of power and contact and a great eye as well. I don’t think that he’s been selected in the GIF Draft yet, up until this point, because last year was kind of his big breakout year. And the Blue Jays were, I think front and center. I think that’s going to be the same this year, I I picked the Blue Jays to go to the World Series. They are by far the most complete team in the AL, I don’t know if they’re necessarily going to end up the best by the end of all of it. Obviously health will have a lot to do with it. But they are the most fun team for me to watch with the amount of incredible hitters in that lineup. And Vlad is, you know, top of the top in that lineup. He’s the, he’s the main attraction. And he’s, he’s a really funny, light hearted guy on the field too. Like he doesn’t take himself too seriously. And I think that that is prone to producing wonderful heartwarming GIFSs out on the field in 2022.
BRADFORD: I mean, he’s one of those guys where, like, like, in so many ways while we help said that he’s your that a, your father was also an extremely great fun play player.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Yeah.
BRADFORD: Because that is like he plays, he’s like there’s a chill to it, you know of like–
ALEX: Yeah.
BRADFORD: –a co- a confidence of like, you know, I know my heritage. [19:04] you know–
BOBBY: He’s never pressed on [19:06].
BRADFORD: Yes. Never press. It’s like eh, you know, I’m still a millionaire sound the greatest player in Canadian history, whatever. So it’s cool. It’s all good, but like no, I think that’s a great trick, you know, just despite you know, my advocation of, for Acuña but like, because the man almost won MVP award against the guy who, like, literally does it all, Shohei Ohtani? That’s how exciting, incredible hitter he was last year. That we had people kind of like kind of talking a little reckless about being MVP even though, even though he put in because he had a pitch .
BOBBY: Yeah.
BRADFORD: That’s how great a hitter he was. So uhm, you know, he was putting, it he was putting together highlight reels, you know, three times a night for all, you know, pre- pretty much all year, so I totally understand it. I just think you get the, you you get more opportunities for fun stuff on on defense was unbelievable players.
BOBBY: You’re probably right, the Blue Jays have a very like Memphis Grizzlies vibe to them to me. Like they’re, they’re just, they’re good. They’re legitimately good now. And they all still like each other, you know, haven’t had enough time to start hating each other yet. And so one of my favorite types of GIFs is the celebratory GIF. If you look up, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on giphy.com, one of the first GIFS that will come up or multiple, the first GIFs that will come up are just him running out of the dugout, versus one of him running out of the dugout jumping up and down with this huge smile on his face. There’s one of him, like, really aggressively. Like, potentially he could have hurt someone dumping Gatorade on his teammates head as as they’re doing their postgame interview. And so he’s just a, he’s a beam of joy. And I’m so excited to get to watch him a lot this year. And I think that, I think that we both acquitted ourselves well. Both teams acquitted ourselves well at this first round. What do you think, Bradford?
BRADFORD: Yeah, I mean, uhm, I I I I think that’s a great point and just about how much of a cheerleader he is, in between, you know. The, the crazy events and the big big was like, that he is, you know. He is a sparkplug in other ways that I think, I I’m glad you factor that in to your, you know, your consideration for your, you know, at least your first pick.
ALEX: You know, I think, I think in years past, we haven’t always rewarded, like, that kind of calm, cool, collectedness as much as we probably should. And, and that’s something that I think really comes through when you search his name, right? Like, the, when you search Vlad’s name it, the, the GIFs that come up are not necessarily him pimping home runs, or making sliding stops or anything like that. Like, sure he can, he can do those things. It’s, it’s him standing on the top deck of the dugout, just kind of like moving his hips a little bit, you know, just kind of like, like getting into it. But I mean, and maybe it’s because they were playing the open days, and if I was I’d probably be pretty chill before that game, as well. But I, I really appreciate that, you know, like you guys said, he’s such a huge cheerleader for his team. And for like, just the other players on the field, right? Even, even his opponents. I think they all have such admiration and respect for him, knowing who he is and the lineage that he comes from. It seems like he genuinely gets along with everyone.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And I think that that really, that’s a really rewarding aspect of his.
BOBBY: Okay, Bradford William Davis, thank you so much. Let people know where they can find you and your work and really anything else that you want them to find.
BRADFORD: You can find me posting, I love to post, twitter.com forward slash my initials Bradford William Davis, BWD tri- so twitter.com/BWDBWDBWD. You put the BWD once you probably find me so. I’m a I’m an I’m a I’m an investigative reporter in Insider SLI, you know, pay my expensive rent. And barely to be clear from not for some journalism Irish. And, so that’s I’m house for but like yeah, that and you know, anything else is probably you know, connected to the little bird. So find me their reppin on everything and nothing.
ALEX: Bradford Good to see you.
BRADFORD: Good to see all, too. Thank you for having me.
Commentator: First pitch is belted by Acuña. Deep left field, one pitch, it’s one-nothing.
BOBBY: Two picks down. We are up to our third overall pick. We are joined by Stephen Hesson of Batting Around, 1/3 of Batting Around. Stephen, hello sir, welcome back to Tipping Pitches.
STEPHEN: Yo!
BOBBY: It’s great to have you, we’re very excited to see who you all have selected. It’s my understanding that you’ve come to some composite selections. You are the here as the representative–
STEPHEN: Yeah.
BOBBY: –from the great state of Batting Around.
ALEX: RIght.
BOBBY: Come to bring us your GIF selections.
STEPHEN: Jane and Lauren unfortunately could not make it but we recorded our most recent episode last night and we talked about it. So I am ready to, I’m ready to hopefully not embarrass the Batting Around contingent. I am very interested to hear who has gone so far.
BOBBY: Yes, I will tell you that right now. So far, Bradford William Davis selected Ronald Acuña Jr.,–
STEPHEN: Hmm.
BOBBY: –first overall. And we selected Vladimir Guerrero Jr., second.
STEPHEN: Yes!
BOBBY: I feel like those are two pretty chalk picks. And I’m curious to see if you get creative so without further ado, you’re on the clock, sir.
STEPHEN: Yeah, those are two excellent picks. They were on my list, but they were not number one. For GIFs now, remind me, are we on field only or are we off field?
ALEX: No. Yeah.
STEPHEN: Hmm.
ALEX: We don’t have to stay between the, between the chalk lines so to speak.
BOBBY: We cast a wide net of GIFs here. We’re in crochet.
STEPHEN: Okay.
ALEX: In the dugouts, walking into the stadium, whatever, whatever fits. As long as it can be uploaded to giphy or or giphy cat and we’re not exclusionary on our GIF generator.
BOBBY: Not until we get this segment sponsored by one of those two. [25:15]–
STEPHEN: Well–
BOBBY: –for free here.
STEPHEN: –that clo- that that that makes it a little closer but I’m still gonna go with my number one pick. The consensus number one among all of the Batting Around crew, I’m picking Shohei Ohtani.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
STEPHEN: I like, he, there’s just so much there. If you want GIFs of good pitching, boom, you got it. You might give some good hitting, boom, you got it. You want an emotional player showing, like, excitement or disappointment in a really funny dramatic way, boom, you got it. Also very important for my brand, he’s hot as fuck. And he’s probably, probably number one in the league, currently. I haven’t done, I haven’t done an evaluation yet maybe in the middle of the season. But–
BOBBY: Right we haven’t done–
ALEX: We haven’t updated your rankings.
STEPHEN: I haven’t updated my rankings but he’s–
BOBBY: Sabermetrics.
STEPHEN: –he’s like top three at least. So yeah, I I feel very comfortable picking our boy, Shohei.
BOBBY: That’s a great choice, Shohei has been selected I think twice in the All-GIF Draft and you’ve made our jobs very easily. Because we were between Shohei and one other person.
STEPHEN: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Alex, before we make our selection, would you like to talk about Shohei Ohtani? He’s pretty good, he’s pretty good at, at all things baseball [26:37]–
STEPHEN: I [26:37]
BOBBY: –including creating GIFs.
ALEX: Yeah, I think that on my, on my desktop, I have like seven different GIFs or still images of him looking utterly confused at various things happening on, on the, on the ball field. Whether that is a a pitch that he thought was a strike. Whether that is simply an opposing player doing something just that is absolutely baffling to him. He is very representative in that he is consistently showing everyone how confused he is. Which I feel like I can relate to. I am often very confused at things that are happening around me and tend to show that on my face. And and it just once again helps that he happens to be the, the greatest, most holistic baseball player on the planet right now that doesn’t hurt his case either.
STEPHEN: We stan, we stan a relatable, god-like athlete.
BOBBY: He, he definitely wears his emotions on his sleeve. Especially in that particularly in the dugout. He’s he’s looking like as nervous as I look during baseball games. I’m like, my guy, you’re the best baseball player alive. Like you don’t need to be that nervous. Things are gonna be okay for you. Although he does play for the Angels. Maybe they won’t be that okay. Yeah, he’s, he’s topped here. He’s AD grade in all respects. And plus you have the added benefit of MLB will be doing this GIF marketing for you all year round. They are pushing–
STEPHEN: Exactly.
BOBBY: –Ohtani, rightfully so they are pushing Ohtani like nothing else. So you will have him across platform. Let’s do it, Alex, let’s let’s select, fourth–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –overall pick, second pick for the Tipping Pitches team. We’re gonna do it right in front of you, Stephen, we’re gonna stab you right in the heart. We’re gonna take Nick Castellanos.
STEPHEN: Ahhh, yup! That was, he was on the list.
BOBBY: So I I, correct me if I’m wrong, Alex, I don’t think Castellanos has ever been taken in this exercise.
ALEX: He has not.
BOBBY: And–
STEPHEN: That’s the power of memes, baby.
BOBBY: It is the power of memes.
ALEX: He is.
BOBBY: It’s also the power of him actually continuing to be one of the best hitters in baseball. So that he is front and center in a lot of these moments. You know, a few years ago, he was kind of just doubles gap to gap power kind of out of nowhere, like oh, Nick Castellanos on the Tigers, he’s a trade target. And now he’s like a bonafide, he’s part of the Phillies, like all in push. And he, also like you said, very handsome guy. I think that people will happily pass around GIFs of Nick Castellanos on the Phillies. And Phillies fans are absolute sickos, so they will look for any and every little thing that they can get into eternity. We’re gonna make you do some of the work for us this year by selecting Philadelphia Philly for our team.
STEPHEN: Yeah, yeah. I I am unfortunately going to be doing it. Yep. Oh boy. But you know, I have to keep my personal brand very strong. And yeah, I, he’s the hottest player on the Phillies. A team that includes Bryce Harper, so yeah, excellent pick.
BOBBY: I think the banner GIF of Castellanos for me it’s him making that face after he had his whole little tussle with Rob Manfred made the face in the postgame on field press conference. You remember that one, Alex?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You made the like the, just kind of stared into the camera.
ALEX: Yup.
BOBBY: He’s a little bit of a ham too.
STEPHEN: Yeah.
BOBBY: [30:04] plays up to it.
ALEX: He he does. I’m, the thing about him is that from time to time I feel like his personality can almost not be contained by a GIF. Like it is, it is almost too big, right? For for example, there is, there is the notorious home run that he, that he hits a mid one broadcasters heartfelt apology, right? And obviously, that something like that, for example, transcends really any form of, you know, media that can be transmitted online, right? But, but Stephen, is there something that you’d like to, to add to that?
STEPHEN: Point of order, real quick.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
STEPHEN: Does it count sharing GIFs of Thom Brennaman? Does that count toward–
ALEX: Right.
STEPHEN: [30:58]
ALEX: Are they [30:58] really linked now through the–
BOBBY: No, I think–
ALEX: –through the cosmos of universe?
BOBBY: –he’s be like, I, every once in a while you see like a kind of high concept split screen GIF of like one one is like–
STEPHEN: Oh yeah.
BOBBY: –Thom Brennaman reacting and the other one is Castellanos hitting a home run. So I feel like if you get creative with it, as long as it’s a, it’s a GIF, I’ve I with featuring the player that you’ve selected. I think that accounts, I think that account, I think that counts.
STEPHEN: Well, you’re, you guys are really going for it.
BOBBY: Chess not checkers, Stephen. Chest not check- Okay, well, thank you for coming on and making a wonderful selection and Shohei Ohtani. Thank you for representing Batting Around. Do you want to just let, let the people know where they can find the podcast and anything else you’d like them to find?
STEPHEN: Yeah, you can find us @Bat- @BattinAround on Twitter, and Batting Around everywhere else in your podcast feeds. We just released our season preview this, the week I’m presuming this episode is coming out. So find us on there, come chat. We’re, I think we’re nice.
ALEX: Co-signed by, by your friend over here on Tipping Pitches.
STEPHEN: Sorry, Ja- Jane usually does the outro, so I’m just sort of like, Hi! Yes, hello. Come, come listen to me and my two much smarter and more charming friends talk about baseball.
BOBBY: [32:21] Batting Around.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Highly recommended by Tipping Pitches.
Commentator: Ohtani, crushes it too deep right field, good! Bam! Shohei!
BOBBY: Okay. We are now joined by Jake Mintz and Jordan Schusterman. Collectively, their Cespedes Family BBQ. I have heard of them. I remember them from a time long, long ago. When we used to do some podcasts together or something like that. Hi guys.
JAKE: They let us on the air. Let us on a podcast again.
JORDAN: Hi, Bobby. Now I’ve been kind of having a bit of an identity crisis now that we know that you and Cespedes will be appearing at Mets old timers day or we buy transitive property just old timers are we washed by [33:05]?
BOBBY: Oh, I thought you were gonna ask if that meant that you had to select him like you said last year or–
JORDAN: 2 years ago!
BOBBY: –pandemic season, I think.
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: Are you gonna take you out be with your first picker?
JORDAN: Hmm. We probably should have considered that. But I’m not counting on enough Major League times, so–
JAKE: Next year.
BOBBY: Next year. Okay, great. I’m gonna let you guys know who has been picked already. There have been four selections that were made. Bradford William Davis, I think you’ve heard of him. He took Ronald Acuña Jr. And then we selected Vladimir Guerrero Jr. In the first round. Stephen Hesson from Batting Around took Shohei Ohtani, third overall. Shohei Ohtani, you guys familiar?
JAKE: We didn’t consider him.
BOBBY: You familiar–
JORDAN: [33:48] think about.
BOBBY: –with his work? He’s he’s pretty great at producing GIFs, you know, independent of how good he is on the baseball field. And you pause you have the whole media machine behind you the entire MLB mafia behind–
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: –you. All the tweets that are being sent by you guys from the MLB account those are working in your favor too.
JAKE: Let the kids play.
JORDAN: Yeah, he does have right like he’s got probably the most cameras on him which is kind of a factor we’ve talked about in the past, so.
BOBBY: Right.
JORDAN: All fair, but that’s fine. No one on our at the top of our board quite yet. And then who was the fourth person?
BOBBY: Fourth overall selection that Tipping Pitches team selected Nick Castellanos.
JORDAN: Ohhh, wow! All right. Okay, well, I I can you tell me more about that pick? Maybe you can use–
BOBBY: He’s gonna do some weird shit? I don’t know.
JAKE: Yeah.
BOBBY: How else to say it. I mean, he’s great. He literally broke–
JAKE: [34:36]
BOBBY: –a meme so–
JORDAN: Fantastic.
JAKE: But he hates it! We know that he hates it.
BOBBY: Yeah, but even if he hates that meme, he still plays to the camera. You can’t deny that Castellanos knows where the camera is, and does stuff with regards to it.
JORDAN: I was recently reminded of the Nick Castellanos suspension for the getting up in whose face was was [34:59]? Or no, it was someone, it was like Andrew Kisner or something?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JORDAN: Some random, just because the slide at home you just ended up popping up like too close to the other player.
ALEX: It was, it was pure, like, kind of basketball, right? Like when you–
JORDAN: Yes.
ALEX: –like dunk over–
JORDAN: Yes.
ALEX: –a guy and then kind of, it’s one of the first GIFs that comes up when you, when you search for it. I think just the fact that he’s such a fucking weirdo kind of lends itself to this, to this format. Even if you can’t predict how it will come out.
BOBBY: They always do this to us, dude. Every time we tell them who we picked, like, ohhh, oooh, they weren’t even on my board. Cool, guys, cool, guys. You the baseball hipsters over here the GIF hipsters.
JAKE: No, it’s just because like, you guys are smarter than us, I think, for sure. But we definitely know more about baseball, you know what I mean? And so this GIF Draft is just reassuring that every, every year on an annual basis.
BOBBY: That’s fine.
JORDAN: That’s a great tradition. It’s a great tradition.
BOBBY: But you’ve built up expectations for your first pick. You guys really making should tell the listeners you guys were making two selections.
JORDAN: Yeah, yeah yeah.
BOBBY: The fifth overall pick and the seventh overall pick. So you’re now on the clock. Who’s it gonna be?
JORDAN: Right, but I will just quickly say that we we appreciate you giving us two picks because there are two of us. But this is a joint board. We did come up with this together. This is not Jordan drafting and Jake drafting. We we agreed on this list together. So, Jake, I mean, this is this is incredible. But he fell to us at five. I’m feeling great.
JAKE: A no brainer selection, Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman we’ll select Jasrado Prince Hermis Arrington Chisholm Jr., aka, “Jazz”.
BOBBY: Yeah, he was next on our list.
JORDAN: Okay, good, then I’m glad we didn’t overthink it and think we could get in with our next one. Jazz is an easy call here. Now while unlike, you know, Ohtani or or even Vlad and some of these other guys that will be on TV–
BOBBY: Unlike them–
JORDAN: –all the time.
BOBBY: –he’s not actually [36:48] baseball, right?
JORDAN: No, no, no.
JAKE: kNot yet!.
JORDAN: That’s not–
JAKE: Not yet!
JORDAN: –that’s not we’re saying, that’s not we’re saying. Maybe there won’t be as many cameras on him as possible. But I think that Jazz has a, as far as a pure highlight producer, and the variety of highlights that he is capable of giving us on all every facet of the game, right? He can give us a backflip, he can give us amazing base running. He can give us amazing defense. He’s capable of all that from a baseball standpoint. And then from a personality standpoint, I mean, the dude’s name is Jazz for a reason. And he is extremely extraordinarily fun.
JAKE: Very few professional baseball players, relatively, want to be famous people. Which is in my opinion, people, ohh, baseball personality market- that is the reality of the sport. And I think there are many reasons for that. A lot of which have to do with Southern Right Conservatism. But we don’t need to get into that right now.
BOBBY: No, no, you should–
ALEX: [37:47]–
BOBBY: –you should get to it.
ALEX: –actually.
BOBBY: Yeah, if you’d like more.
JAKE: Okay.
BOBBY: Yeah.
JORDAN: Getting to it.
JAKE: My point, my point is, Jazz Chisholm wants to be renowned. And that matters when we’re talking about GIFs. But doesn’t matter is his 96 OBS plus from last year, okay? That doesn’t matter. That’s a number that’s gonna go up. What does matter is that he is cool as hell. likes being cool as hell, wants to be on camera, wants to be famous. I’m telling you man, this is a no brainer. I think I would have taken him second overall, in the baseball.
JORDAN: Here’s the other thing about Jazz that I’m most excited about this year. Is now he has some cool friends. You know we we, I don’t know if we did take him last. I don’t think we did take him but we we we are a huge fan of Jesús Aguilar and he has been–
JAKE: [38:40]
JORDAN: –we we love, we love our Matt Joyce proclaimer Jesús Aguilar. But and Miggy Rose is fantastic, right? We love him grow. But other than that I mean like, it Jazz and Brian Anderson wasn’t really like a fun duo. But added Jorge Soler. I mean, that, we we we’re really starting to an an exciting team down there. I don’t know how good they’re gonna be. Obviously, I got to see the same kind of thing. So I just, I just love that to adding of Soler to the mix. I’m seeing a lot more, you know, team related entertaining GIFs from Jazz.
JAKE: Last point. Every home run he hits is literally a GIF, because he Euro steps onto home plate.
ALEX: It’s true.
BOBBY: How much value do you get out of that though? If it’s the same–
JAKE: At over time?
BOBBY: –GIF every time?
JAKE: Over time–
JORDAN: Yeah.
JAKE: –he’s definitely going to mix it up like he’s going to, he’s going to do different stuff. Again–
JORDAN: Yeah.
JAKE: –he wants to be on camera.
JORDAN: Yeah. But I do, I do agree, right. There’s gonna be some some repetition there. But in in general I just, it’s just such an easy pick, man. I mean, I I, if he was on like 25 other teams, he would be even 10- 10 times as big of a deal. So we love Jazz, happy to have him. Is your board in shambles, Bobby Wagner? It sounds like it is.
BOBBY: It’s, it’s not not in shambles. We’re just trying to make sure that we do the right thing here is all.
JORDAN: Right.
BOBBY: I think that you, you’ve put us on a little bit of the defensive by trying to make us seem like we’re not cool enough with our selection.
JAKE: You guys–
BOBBY: That was a really good pick.
JAKE: –you guys are definitely cool. You just know less about baseball. That for sure. Thought about cool, it’s knowledge.
JORDAN: Not what we’re talking about, okay?
BOBBY: I I I feel–
ALEX: Harsh fair.
BOBBY: –I feel good, knowing less about baseball number one. And I feel good turning it over to you, Alex and I’m happy with whatever you think is best right here.
ALEX: God, I hate when you do this.
BOBBY: I love doing this.
ALEX: I hate when you do this.
BOBBY: I love it.
JORDAN: It’s like, this is funny. This is like trying to give someone an alley-oop. And they’re just kind of landing and awkwardly looking to pass after they catch the ball.
ALEX: Right, right.
JORDAN: That’s what Alex is doing right now.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Well, in in lieu of Jazz Chisholm, who who I think very well could have gone first overall, in this draft.
JAKE: People, people will look back.
JORDAN: I think you guys overthought it, everyone overthought it.
ALEX: Yeah, we we do this.
JORDAN: [40:54] continue.
ALEX: We do this every year.
JORDAN: Okay.
BOBBY: I feel fine about our first pick Vladimir Guerrero Jr., I don’t know if you know this, he knows–
JORDAN: [41:00] our board.
BOBBY: –every single person in baseball intimately.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And they fuck around with each other all the time.
JORDAN: Totally.
BOBBY: He’s a great–
JORDAN: On our board, totally fun.
ALEX: I think we’re gonna have to take a, take a cue from you guys last year. I believe it was last year and go with one Tim Anderson once, once again. In part purely by virtue of the fact that there really is always, always a camera on him. And he in the same vein, as Jazz would, would like to be the biggest presence on the field. And once again, when you talk about supporting cast, Tim Anderson is an easy pick with with the infield that he’s playing in with guys like Moncada, with guys like Abreu. You, you very well could make an All-GIF team from the Chicago White Sox alone. But, but Tim Anderson might be, might be the top, might be the top of that, top of that list. Although I know there might be some other guys on there that, that are in the running.
JAKE: Hmm.
JORDAN: Hmm, interesting. We love this pick, obviously. Who doesn’t love TA7?
JAKE: Brad Keller.
JORDAN: I’m so sorry. There’s the one, there’s the–
BOBBY: The Southern White Conservatives that Jake point out.
JAKE: How do you- yeah. How do you guys feel about the fact that he’s suspended for the first two games of the year? You know that? That TA is–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JAKE: –apparently suspended? I didn’t know I forgot about this.
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah.
JORDAN: That’s, I mean, he could play every other game. But I don’t know, I mean, we might just forget about, forget–
BOBBY: The diminish the value of him not–
JAKE: Right.
BOBBY: –having the first two games.
JAKE: By Saturday, he’s not, he’s not around till Saturday.
ALEX: It’s pretty ridiculous, it’s one of those things that, you remember when, when they they decided to suspend Yuli Gurriel. But they were like, we’re actually not going to do it for the Playoffs. We’re just going to push it back to the next season.
JORDAN: Right.
ALEX: Like they very well–
BOBBY: Yeah, if they have a moment to suspend him during the World Series.
JAKE: Yeah, it was really good that everyone was able to remember the incredibly heinous thing that he did six months later and allow it to reenter the public discourse [43:07]
ALEX: Right.
JAKE: Yeah, no, very weird. But it’s fine. You’ll have him for, you know, 160 games, so you’ll be okay.
BOBBY: The only thing that, the only thing that stinks about Tim Anderson in the GIF Draft is that you don’t get like, don’t get him talking about anybody else. Like–
JORDAN: I I think this is a good point, too. Because, you know, there are players who are so like TA is right like that are so real in a way that is both charming and entertaining and all these things, right? And that’s definitely true. And we’ve heard Jazz say some pretty crazy stuff also. So I mean, he would fit in that, but it’s fine. You’re right, the GIF. Can hear a GIF. Sorry, guys can hear it. We’re not doing lip reading over here. So it doesn’t count. I mean, it sort of counts, but not in the way that you’re describing it so. Okay, good pick, though.
BOBBY: There’s an argument to be made that he had the GIF of the year last year with a walk off home run at the Field–
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: –of Dreams.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Yeah, that’s a very good point. That’s a very good point. And again–
JAKE: I think–
JORDAN: We happy to take him–
JAKE: [44:05] our GIF of the year pointing at [44:07]
BOBBY: So don’t get the audio.
ALEX: [44:09]
JAKE: [44:11] pick. I I want to just say, before I sat down here, I engaged in a little thought experiment in my own brain. About who would I least want to pick. Which major league regular would be my last pick in this draft?
BOBBY: Right.
JAKE: And the answer is Austin Hays. And I just wanted to share that briefly before we made our selection. I–
BOBBY: Who did, who did Jordan drive by shoot?
JORDAN: Kyle Gibbs.
BOBBY: What pitcher? Kyle Gibbs, who then–
JORDAN: Became an All-Star. So–
BOBBY: That he was the most boring, uninteresting player baseball last year–
JAKE: Yeah.
BOBBY: –and was an All-Star.
JAKE: And, yeah, I don’t know.
ALEX: Doesn’t make him any more interesting. I just gotta say that.
BOBBY: That’s fair. Yeah.
JORDAN: Yeah. Well, that’s true.
BOBBY: You think our final selection like the Mr. Irrelevant of the Tipping Pitches board would be Joe Panik, Alex?
JORDAN: See Joe Panik is a much better one. I I disagree with the Hays pick but–
JAKE: Ryan–
JORDAN: –I’ll I’ll save that–
JAKE: –Reynolds is–
JORDAN: –for another–
JAKE: –is the best good player.
JORDAN: I think Brian Anderson now for [45:06]–
JAKE: Ohhh.
JORDAN: –there because–
ALEX: Uhmm.
JORDAN: –I think that I don’t’ feel like Austin Hays has given us some amazing catches, you know.
JAKE: César Hernandez.
JORDAN: Yes, César Hernandez is–
JAKE: Nap- naptime.
BOBBY: This riveting audio of you guys choosing the guys who you don’t want.
JORDAN: Okay, [45:22]–
JAKE: Okay, [45:22]–
BOBBY: It is now back to you for the seventh overall.
JORDAN: Now, if you were listening to this podcast over the last, you know, five minutes, you can’t see us. But Alex, you can see us reacting to your Tim Anderson pick.
ALEX: Could.
JORDAN: You could see us agree.
BOBBY: There’s a buzz in the draft drum.
JORDAN: With some- you can see us agreeing with some of your points about the Chicago White Sox. And because of that, that is a little little lead up into our second selection, Jake Mintz, please announce it.
JAKE: The only baseball player to die and come back to life. We are selecting Eloy Jimenez of the Chicago White Sox.
JORDAN: Yes, we feel good about this one. Now, this is a little bit different than Jazz. Again, to your point–
BOBBY: And that jazz has never gone to the other side.
JORDAN: Yes.
BOBBY: Seem what it’s like–
JORDAN: Well, hold on, let’s let’s save that point.
BOBBY: –in the afterlife.
JORDAN: That will be our, that will be our closing argument. We’ll get to that, okay? Let’s talk about living-Eloy, okay? Before he went, you know, moved on, crossed over. This dude is so delightful and not necessarily- in in a different way than Jazz, right? Like Jazz, as as Jake said, wants to be famous, wants to be seen, wants to be flamboyant, and all these things. Isn’t Eloy’s nickname, “Big Baby” like he is so just charmingly huge and goofy. And that translates to terrible outfield defense, which is one of the keys of a good GIF that is in baseball, internet history. Terrible outfield defense is way up there in terms of categories to give us amazing GIFs. And so when you add that to some jaw-dropping homers and backflips. And and him, you know, saying hi, mom, and all those things. I love this pick, and I’m very happy to have it. Jake, what else about Eloy?
JAKE: I also think it’s worth mentioning that that bad outfield defense is why he died, in the first place.
JORDAN: Yes, yes. The first person to die trying to rob a homer in Spring Training which what a way, what a way to go out. In terms of like the Darwin Awards, I don’t know how familiar we are–
JAKE: Yeah, I am.
JORDAN: –with that. We’re trying to run the home runs Spring Training is really has to be way up there.
JAKE: Yes. But–
JORDAN: It’s good to be back. Amazing!
JAKE: –Eloy, we are also betting on Eloy to ascend as a player on the field this year, to become–
JORDAN: Not just descend to the great beyond.
JAKE: Not just descend to the pearly gates–
BOBBY: Ascend on the third day of the season, the fourth day of the season.
JAKE: But to ascend into the conversation for best power hitter in the American League. He missed la- most of last season because of his death and hopefully he can have a full death read 2022.
JORDAN: I agree. And yeah, man, I I think he is like when you have this many famous fun players it’s it is pretty, pretty easy to get lost. But I mean the dude he’s still 25 like, I he’s, he’s great, he’s great. And he clearly was not all the way back last year.
BOBBY: No.
JAKE: All the way back from what, Jordan?
JORDAN: Well, if that’s true, maybe a lot to ask to really be all the way back from from–
BOBBY: It across the River Styx again like it’s a whole whole fucking journey.
JORDAN: Right. So–
JAKE: [48:48]
JORDAN: –anyway, for [48:49] we’re we’re, we’re very in, we’re very in. I mean, this dude, hit hit 30 homers, you know, as a rookie a few years ago. So I mean, I’ll be loyal in that. I I can’t wait to see him for a full year this year.
BOBBY: It’s a phenomenal selection, the GIF of him falling into the net. And just kind of sitting in there is the one that really sticks in in my mind as I look over here at his at his giphy search page [49:11]–
ALEX: [49:11] botheredness.
JAKE: This is not a coordinated gentleman, okay?
JORDAN: No, no, and he knows it too.
JAKE: Yeah.
JORDAN: If anyone can recreate, well, I still believe as a top five funniest GIF for the last five years that Marcell Ozuna botched-catch where he climbed the wall and it was off it like lands in front of the winning track.
JAKE: Twice.
JORDAN: This is our guy. This is our man. So–
BOBBY: Oh, I forgot about that.
JAKE: [49:37] I think he–
JORDAN: I know that was those Ozuna not not–
BOBBY: So good.
JORDAN: –but he could do it.
JAKE: I think he could also recreate the greatest baseball GIF of all time, Jordan, which is the Raúl Ibañez throw.
JORDAN: Just chucking it straight into the ground. So there’s so many possibilities. And as far as we know, right, like he’s going to be out there. I don’t–
JAKE: Yeah.
JORDAN: –I don’t think, yeah, he’s there like they’ve stood there. I mean Gavin Sheets, I’m not picking Gavin Sheets for the GIF Draft. Although he would also probably be fairly entertaining on the left field. But yeah, so we’re we’re all in, Eloy is our second pick. I love our guy.
ALEX: Doesn’t, doesn’t hurt that he plays baseball with his jersey halfway on [50:16]–
JORDAN: Uh-hmm. Another good point, another good point very true. So–
BOBBY: Okay, we’re going to select with the eighth overall pick. Great pick, Eloy, I love it. I love it for you guys. You crushed it as always. We’re gonna go with the first, the first to the first pitcher only selected so far. It’s we’ve gone back and forth on the value of choosing pitchers in the GIF Draft. Because I, I feel like there is sort of like a stealing for most guys. It’s just it’s usually going to be a, a GIF of a nasty pitch. But you do kind of need to satisfy that want on your team. You need to satisfy that role for those of us who love the pitching ninja element of the GIF world. And so I think we’re gonna go with Corbin Burnes. Because I feel like he has the most GIFs of making people look silliest. Like backdoor cutters, sliders that make batters look ridiculous. And of all of the pictures that we could have selected I guess you know, we’ve chosen Max Scherzer in the past, something we’ve ever chosen Jacob deGrom, I don’t think it’s excellence really translates into GIF form. Although Scherzer psychotic illness does. I think it’s just the cleanest, simplest picture to choose for this year. So we’re going with Corbin Burnes.
JORDAN: Now we see your point. We have talked about how right value of picking pitchers for us we only have two picks. You guys have way more than two picks. So it’s easier for you to go pitcher wise and if we’re talking aesthetic of pitch I agree that his cutter is way up there. But I don’t know, he really isn’t giving you much else. So, but it’s fine if–
BOBBY: And he will.
JORDAN: Maybe, maybe, maybe–
JAKE: No!
JORDAN: Jake disagrees, but again we will–
BOBBY: [51:54]
ALEX: [51:54] for for your, the your, the argument that you know more about baseball than, than us, really.
JAKE: I mean, do you want me to be, I think this pick sucks!
JORDAN: Hmmm.
BOBBY: Wow! [52:06] thrown.
ALEX: Okay.
JAKE: I think this pick sucks. Yeah, he’s never going to exalt This is not like a strikeout the last guy the inning fist pump guy. This is not a jaw at the hitter guy. I think you could have selected someone with equal parts of nastiness and loudness. Amir Garrett, would have been another selection, because he is–
BOBBY: We, we got, we got burned by him last year.
ALEX: Yeah.
JORDAN: Yeah. That- yeah. You need someone that you definitely is going to be pitching a lot. Obviously, that is the risk of taking someone there. So–
JAKE: Liam Hendriks, another guy that comes to mind.
BOBBY: Yeah, another guy that you’d missed the audio for, though.
JORDAN: Yeah. That’s what I about to say.
ALEX: To hear it in your head with him though, right? Like you almost don’t even need the audio to know–
JORDAN: Hendriks probably would be my–
JAKE: Hear–
JORDAN: –reliever pick. I mean–
JAKE: I will make- let me make one more point. Let, let me, let me shit on you guys just a little more if you don’t mind.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
JAKE: Okay?
BOBBY: Uh-hmm. Yep, bring it on.
JAKE: Issue with Corbin Burnes, is that very few casuals, I think, could recognize him in a GIF. Part of that is that he sees on the Brewers. Part of that is because he was not really that famous until last year. I understand that he won the Cy Young. But I am still skeptical that if you just tweeted a GIF of Corbin Burnes and said who is this? I think the amount of people who would know our concerningly low to get draft [53:37]
BOBBY: Q score?
JAKE: I think it’s pretty low. That is my last point. Again, I like you guys as people, a lot. I think you’re, I think you’re good dudes, okay? And I love you.
JORDAN: There was any doubt. Yeah.
JAKE: I hate this pick.
BOBBY: This can be the beginning of our online beef that we start so that people think that that’s why you left The Ringer, that you’re just shitting on Corbin Burnes.
JORDAN: I am curious how many of, how many more picks?
JAKE: I know! No, no, no, I’m not shitting on Corbin Burnes is an–
BOBBY: Jake Mintz saying–
JAKE: –outstanding pitcher.
BOBBY: Jake Mintz thinks Corbin Burnes won the Mickey Mouse Cy Young in 2021.
JORDAN: Is, how many more picks are there total?
ALEX: It depends on how many people get back to us.
BOBBY: Six, six, I think
JORDAN: I’m curious if any other pitchers get selected. We’ll see, not our problem.
JAKE: Can you take Rob–
JORDAN: We love [54:27] duo.
JAKE: –can you take Rob Manfred?
BOBBY: That’s an interesting question.
ALEX: It is an interesting question.
BOBBY: It has only ever been players, but Rob Manfred is not a bad idea. Might have to stash that one out.
JORDAN: What about managers? Would managers, would there be any managers worthy of GIFs?
BOBBY: I don’t think so.
JORDAN: Probably not. Certainly not–
JAKE: To- Tony Tony La Russa. But the thing with Tony La Russa is I just don’t know if he’s a good culture fit for Chicago.
JORDAN: On by, on the GIF Draft.
ALEX: We also have technically banned Tony La Russa discussion from this from this–
JAKE: That–
ALEX: –podcast.
JAKE: –that is, that is why I, I read the banned book.
BOBBY: Okay, Jake and Jordan, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you to Jordan for not shitting on our picks the entire time and thank you to Jake for shitting on our picks the entire time. Where, where can people find your work these days?
JAKE: You can find our work on our group chat that me and Jordan have with one another. Because it’s not really a group. I’m writing, I’m rewriting the Bible with calligraphy by hand, and that’ll be out at Barnes and Nobles across the country really soon. I’m working on a short animation film of Joe Panik grinding out to second base so people can catch that in AMC theaters.
BOBBY: That one is funded by Tipping Pitches media.
JAKE: Yeah, 2023. Also we write for Fox Sports.
JORDAN: foxsports.com, we’re all kinds of fun, written content going on over there. As well as video stuff coming soon. Podcast, we will podcast by Division III Baseball, check it out. It’s called the Podcast About Division III Baseball.
BOBBY: It’s good for FBL.
JORDAN: We also have a podcast about Division I Baseball. Which you can check out with our good friend Stephen Schoch. And then our podcasts about Major League Baseball is coming very, very soon.
JAKE: No, no it’s not!
JORDAN: Oh, it’s not. Nevermind, we don’t have. It’s over. Baseball BBQ, dead forever and it will never return.
BOBBY: The archive is still up if you want to go back and listen to The Good, The Bad & The Ugly from August 2020.
JAKE: You should. Last thing I’ll say, we are now that our podcast was murdered in cold blood. We are going to be producing–
BOBBY: It’s gone to be with Eloy.
JAKE: It’s with 2021 early season Eloy in chatting with St. Peter. If you do want to hear us talk about baseball, we’re going to be doing a lot more YouTube content. So you should subscribe to us on YouTube. Click the link down below. And on Cespedes Family BBQ on YouTube, foolish baseball slept in my guest bedroom for four days. And now I want to be a YouTuber.
JORDAN: All said.
BOBBY: Thank you, guys.
JORDAN: Go subscribe. Thank you.
Commentator: Sharply hit, diving play by Jazz. Up with throw the first hit. Time! Jazz Chisholm Jr.
BOBBY: We are now joined once again by Clinton Yates. Hello, Clinton, thank you for coming back and doing this wonderfully stupid exercise with us.
CLINTON: You know, this is part of what makes me me and what makes our baseball community our baseball community. If we don’t have wonderfully stupid exercises, what are we here for? You know what I’m saying? It’s a large part of how I run my office so to speak so, yes!
BOBBY: Made more wonderfully stupid by the fact that you’re just driving through Los Angeles traffic while making this selection right now. It’s perfect.
CLINTON: I’m all [57:52]
BOBBY: No notes.
ALEX: If we, if you hear a turn signal in there anywhere.
CLINTON: I’m on Crenshaw Boulevard right now.
BOBBY: Wouldn’t change a single thing. Okay, I’m going to tell you who all has been selected and who selected them.
CLINTON: Right.
BOBBY: First overall pick, Bradford William Davis selected Ronald Acuña Jr. We team–
CLINTON: All right.
BOBBY: –Tipping Pitches then selected Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Then Stephen–
CLINTON: Okay.
BOBBY: –Hesson from Batting Around, took Shohei Ohtani. We took Nick Castellanos.
CLINTON: All right.
BOBBY: Jake and Jordan who you just saw on the way in and out of the Zoom room. Selected Jazz Chisholm Jr. and we selected Tim Anderson. Then they selected Eloy Jimenez, and we selected pitching ninja-god, Corbin Burnes.
CLINTON: Jake’s pick, completely obvious. Obviously he went to the Bahamas, that was clear. He was enticed by the islands. And that’s a great thing. I’m gonna go a little bit more off board more towards the nostalgia range with a bit of a Z-axis pick. I’m picking Mets manager Buck Showalter. Let me–
BOBBY: Wow!
CLINTON: –explain why.
BOBBY: Okay, wait, we have–
ALEX: Beautiful.
BOBBY: –we have a first in the Tipping Pitches GIF Draft. The first non-player–
CLINTON: You weren’t ready for this–
BOBBY: –ever selected.
ALEX: Actually, actually this is, this was just asked by our, by Cespedes Family BBQ friends, if non-players were allowed to be picked. And here you are setting the stage. So–
JORDAN: Here I am, I didn’t ask, I’m telling you. I’m picking Buck Showalter, let’s think about the setup. First of all, Buck, old man Buck coming back to the game with a team that is arguably one of the most ridiculous in the league. In terms of how they run their front office. Is I say that with all due respect. Shout outs to [59:31] Ben who’s back in that operation, doing something good. I’m being facetious but just in general. That guy’s been on TV, that guy’s been around the bigs forever. God knows what’s gonna happen with him from an oilfield standpoint. Buck Showalter is my pick in the 2022 MLB GIF Draft.
BOBBY: That’s a pretty amazing pick. I gotta hand it to you, doing first and asking for forgiveness later. Like not even checking in on the rules is a, is a, is a big flex. I respect that [59:58]–
CLINTON: Yeah. What are we, what are we doing here? What are we doing here? He wears a uniform, he’s in the dugout. As far as I’m concerned, he’s as available for all GIFs as possible. And here’s the secondary point. When a guy like that comes back to the game, give him some flowers. I’d like to see the socials on MLB, show us a little bit of the Buck meanness, the Buck absurdity, the Buck showing people how to corked bats on National TV. A thing he actually did. You heard him saying like, come on. This guy is the closest thing we got is a national treasure from his generation, that’s actually still in the game in an invisible space.
ALEX: He’s definitely the platonic ideal of like a curmudgeonly baseball, curman- manager, right? Like–
CLINTON: Yes! You know, like, I have book GIFs in my mind that I can’t even like, you know, describe. Because I just remember watching this guy so much growing up, Wag, you seem betwixt and befuddled by my choices.
BOBBY: No! No, no. I’m impressed, I’m impressed. I liked how you called it, Z-axis pick, because it’s that I might I might steal that phrase.
CLINTON: Okay, traded, traded some phrases today.
BOBBY: Exactly.
CLINTON: That’s fine.
BOBBY: Uhm, no, I I will be, I will probably be making a lot of Buck Showalter GIFs this year as–
CLINTON: They–
BOBBY: –a gigantic Mets fan of the podcast, I’ll basically be doing your work for you, man. So, so you’re playing–
CLINTON: This is–
BOBBY: –you’re playing a little bit of chess, not checkers with us. I like it.
CLINTON: Correct. That’s where the Z-axis lives, sir.
BOBBY: And we ourselves the Tipping Pitches, I consider us inclusionist. So we’re not, we’re not offended that you went off board–
CLINTON: Right.
BOBBY: –manager here.
CLINTON: Good, good. Okay. So your turn now?
BOBBY: Yes, that turns it back over to us. We, you know, we’ve been doing this now for, I believe this is our fourth season, that we’re doing it.
CLINTON: Okay.
BOBBY: So we’re wrestling a little bit with internal draft strategy between choosing guys that we know will produce incredible GIFs and have been doing–
CLINTON: Sure.
BOBBY: –it for a long time that we’ve already picked versus guys that we are a little bit more off board who have not been selecting this exercise yet. And I think–
CLINTON: Right.
BOBBY: –for, for our pick, we’re going to go back a couple years to someone who we were really high on early in this exercise. And have left them off for a couple years because of I guess mostly because of injuries. But we’re going to choose Byron Buxton. Because–
CLINTON: Oh, yeah.
BOBBY: –he, he is most likely to do things that nobody else on a baseball field can do, especially defensively. We’ve checked all the bo- we’ve checked the boxes–
CLINTON: Right.
BOBBY: –in terms of weirdness by selecting Nick Castellanos, he’s gonna like, you know, play to the camera, do weird mememable stuff. We have Vladimir Guerrero Jr. who–
CLINTON: You know me too, explained the content, You don’t need to explain the content god, Nick Castellanos. So every time that guy shows up, something great happens.
BOBBY: Exactly, Jake and Jordan kind of shit on that pick. And we were kind of just like, All right, dude we’ll, we’ll see at the end this year.
CLINTON: What?! Yeah, yeah, come on now.
BOBBY: We’ll, we’ll let our draft board talk for ourselves. For–
CLINTON: Right.
BOBBY: –for, we’ll we’ll let our draft board talk for us. So, you know, we we filled that hole, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is obviously incredible baseball player. Who, who makes highlight plays but also knows everybody else. So he has like the sort–
CLINTON: Yeah.
BOBBY: –of team–
CLINTON: I like him.
BOBBY: –camaraderie GIFs.
CLINTON: Right.
BOBBY: Tim Anderson has the loudest GIFs in Baseball. Corbin Burnes checks are pitching, pitching box. And now we’re checking our defense box. We’re building a full–
CLINTON: Okay.
BOBBY: –well-rounded team.
CLINTON: I like the way you’re running your program here. I like it, okay.
BOBBY: We’re spreading our payroll out evenly. Alex, I know. I know you’re a gigantic fan of Byron Buxton and he makes you feel all of the feels. Do you feel confident that he can stay on the field is that this is the full healthy Byron Buxton season that is going to make him the GIF king that was promised?
ALEX: No! Not, not at all. I not even close, I mean, I, I’m rooting for it. And if he does, you know, it’s it’s him or Vlad for MVP in the AL, right? But–
BOBBY: Wow! You heard it here first.
ALEX: Yeah, you did. But just the, the level of energy that he brings to the game, right? Again, we’re not drafting actual baseball skills. But, but it comes through in the GIFs. The man, the the way he runs it, he does not run in a manner that it looks like he is one of the fastest people in Baseball. Like ’cause he’s so gangly, and his arms and legs are going in every direction. And then he’s standing on third base, and you’re like, how the hell did that happen, right?
CLINTON: We saw that long, long levers in the scouting room. That’s that’s what he’s got going on. Yeah.
ALEX: Right, exactly. So like he is, he’s, he’s tool Z. He has a gorgeous, he has a gorgeous smile. And I, you can’t discount that. So I’m, I’m all in on him this year.
CLINTON: I liked this pick for a couple reasons. Number one, he plays a very active position just in terms of how he does. Also, you want to pick somebody that is well-liked by their fan base. And potentially the most like player on the team, which might not necessarily be the case but like you mentioned the flashy smile. He’s a very likable guy, popular up there, that helps the curating.
BOBBY: Yeah.
CLINTON: Which to me is important–
ALEX: Uh-hmm
CLINTON: –induced decision making. This gets back to why I went with Showalter because my number one theory about the Metropolitans, which is the best theory on Earth. All Mets fans hate other Mets fans. So the Mets manager doing stuff that makes them upset is going to be one of the more traded pieces of imagery there is out there. So this this all adds up to me, in a major way.
BOBBY: It’s a phenomenal [1:05:24]–
CLINTON: [1:05:24]
BOBBY: –no, no, you’re exact–
ALEX: Not at all.
BOBBY: –you are exactly right. Like the Terry Collins arguing with Tom Hallion effecting–
CLINTON: Yeah.
BOBBY: –in real time. Like that would have been probably the top GIF for that year. Even though you couldn’t really hear what he was saying. But him just getting right in that face–
CLINTON: Right.
BOBBY: –right in the face of Tom Hallion. And so, you know, opening that up for yourselves and and for Team friends. I think that you, you’re pushing the boundaries here, Clinton, and that’s why we bring you on Tipping Pitches to push boundaries.
CLINTON: I I appreciate that. If I was gonna be real, like, weird about it, I’d make caveats for me, which that I’m the only one that’s allowed to pick managers and sports. I’m not gonna do that, I’m not gonna do that. I recognize the inclusive vibe here. But I just want everybody to know if you do it going forward–
BOBBY: [1:06:09]
ALEX: Yeah, here’s the thing is I don’t, I don’t know that anyone else is courageous enough outside of you–
CLINTON: I know.
ALEX: –to pick a manager in the All-GIF Draft. So you have, you have–
CLINTON: Fair enough, fair enough.
BOBBY: Clinton Yates, it’s always wonderful to talk to you. ESPN, he’s on the television, man. He- turned on the television and see Clinton Yates.
CLINTON: I do a lot, I do a lot. Thanks, guys. I’m, I’m so glad you guys asked me to do this again. Like this is a very fun thing. What do you call it silly exercises?
BOBBY: Yes. Silly and stupid exercises.
CLINTON: Those are my type to hear.
BOBBY: Anything else, anything else that you want people to find of yours?
CLINTON: Uhm, no. But I’m very not happy about the idea of Robo Umps and the idea of people–
BOBBY: Yeah.
CLINTON: –using Nintendo power gloves to call pitches. I just don’t understand reinventing this wheel, specifically. I don’t think it’s going to speed things up that much. I think it’s very weird for infielders. I feel like if you want to battle technology in terms of sign ceiling. You eliminate the technology, you don’t add more. Like I said this on my buddy’s podcast earlier today. Yo, what if I’m some 80-year old guy with a hand radio Arizona? I’m picking up signals from what, you know, it’s just like–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
CLINTON: –what are we doing here? Why do we have gear pieces and arm things for playing baseball. I know that sounds very old. Very Get off my lawn. But that’s like, the fun part to me is that you can figure it out with your eyes, your fingers and your hands and your feet. That’s why baseball is cool, you know.
BOBBY: Yeah.
CLINTON: So I don’t know, man, it’s just to me, it seems to be adding a level of complication that I don’t need. And when it comes to umpires, if you don’t like the way the umpires or umpiring, again, get better humans, you don’t need to get more computers. And this whole idea of the cabal of humans, that all exactness at all times in the strike zone is taken over everything that’s more important about what the purpose of all the humans on the field are. I’m not buying that, all right. I’ll take umpires 100%, okay? As long as we can get people that are absolutely the best that we can get. That’s how I feel about it. That’s why I love Baseball.
BOBBY: And the Buck Showalter pick finally comes into clearest focus with the anti-computers rants. Snuck it in there.
CLINTON: I’m, I’m a little slightly, slightly on my porch screaming at kids. But at the same time, this is part of the idea of what I think Major League Baseball specifically is biggest problem is. Trying to market things that aren’t just the fun part about playing. Which is what most people who liked the sport most actually liked it, you know what I mean? And that’s, that’s, that’s a big thing for me, we don’t need all this other stuff get helps. But if people liked the game on a poor level for just what it is to pick the ball up in a ball, throw a ball, catch the ground or dive for a stab or whatever, then people are going to like it more in addition to all the other stuff, not the other way around.
BOBBY: Incredibly well said.
ALEX: Well said.
BOBBY: Clinton, thank you.
Commentator: I’ll give you a little insight. You know, I still get residuals from that. I guess it was a popular show. I remember when they first asked me to do it. I came home, the kids to dad you got to do it. It’s a real popular show. But the problem is I had to get up at eight o’clock in the morning after a night game out in Anaheim and auxiliary locker room to shoot it but I didn’t one shot. I was pretty excited about that. But the problem is everybody kept cracking up at George. But understand that every time they show that it costs me $19 in taxes. So when you guys see it, go God books gotta fall another tax from that show.
BOBBY: All right, Meg Rowley, back on the podcast, Managing Editor of a little website called FanGraphs, which we are big fans of. Hi, Meg.
MEG: Hi!
BOBBY: Thank you for joining us again on the Tipping Pitches 2022 All-GIF Draft. You’re, you’re a fan of GIFs. And you’re a fan of baseball players and your–
MEG: Yeah!
BOBBY: –fan of baseball players making GIFs, is that all accurate?
MEG: Yeah.
BOBBY: For the listeners at home now.
MEG: Yeah, I think, you know, Baseball famously a visual medium, and I think some, some of the players in it, you know, they’re, they’re fun to watch. So when you can break it down into, I don’t know, tiny expressive clips, more for that, it’s fine.
ALEX: That’s why we, every year we conduct an entire exercise drafting visual mediums on a medium that is not–
MEG: Not visual?
ALEX: –visual. It’s very fun.
MEG: Well as a fellow Baseball Podcaster I, I feel your pain.
BOBBY: It’s safe to say that when we started this silly exercise, Alex, I don’t really think we foresaw this many friends joining us, this many years later. That, that, it was mostly just to you and me didn’t have a better idea for how to preview a season.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Meg this is your third, third year, joining us? Second year? Third year? I don’t really recall.
MEG: What is time? I couldn’t tell you who I picked in the past. I’m sure that they did great though.
BOBBY: I’m pretty sure. recently acquired Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Matt Chapman was one of your picks at one point.
MEG: Oh, yeah.
BOBBY: It was defensive highlights. That’s–
MEG: Yeah.
BOBBY: –a good pick, great pick.
MEG: Yeah, I mean, it’s good that if he was my pick last year, I wasn’t selecting him for his bat. So as long as it was about the fielding, I think I did fine.
BOBBY: Okay, I’ve already offline told you who has been selected because you requested that information ahead of time.
MEG: Yeah.
BOBBY: You’re getting your big board all in order and I respect that. So you should be as ready as anybody can be to make a selection. So with- without further ado, I will turn it over to you. You’re on the clock to make your All-GIF selection.
MEG: Okay, I will be accused of this being a homer pick. And you know what, I I’m fine with that. I am going the prospect route. And I am selecting the the ones and future face of the Seattle Mariners, Julio Rodriguez. I think that Julio, you know, Julio is an incredibly exciting player. Like sometimes we discount how great these guys are when we’re drafting them for GIF ability I think that we should say like Julio was our number four overall prospect in in in Baseball at FanGraphs this year. He’s a, a 65 future value. Exciting, exciting guy, big raw power, big game power, fun hit tool. I think the the cool thing that Julio does is that, like, Julio plays Baseball with a lot of joy and expression. And he seems to take seriously the idea that he not only with his play on the field but as sort of an ambassador to the fan base can really usher in a new era of Mariners Baseball that we hope to see in Seattle. And so in addition to his play on the field, I think that he’s just gonna, he’s gonna do fun stuff. Like he’s gonna make excited faces and in the dugout. He’ll probably, you know, he’ll come up with fun traditions as he goes around the bases or you know, is in the field or is hitting big home run. So, I’m I’m picking Julio because I think that I I will look back on this and feel as if getting him where I have in this draft that he was a steal.
BOBBY: It’s all about, it’s all about value.
MEG: Right.
BOBBY: And the slot, that the slot value is very important–
MEG: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: –Tipping Pitches All-GIF Draft.
MEG: Yeah.
BOBBY: So, so we’re now knocking down multiple barriers. Clinton Yates just selected Buck Showalter, a first for a manager being selected was a first. And I believe this makes the first person who has never debuted–
MEG: Ohhh.
BOBBY: –to be selected Julio Rodriguez.
MEG: Yeah.
BOBBY: So you know, no fear that Tipping Pitches 2022.
MEG: No.
BOBBY: GIF Draft–
MEG: No fear.
BOBBY: –from from team friends, I love that.
MEG: Yeah, we are, we are a, a fearless contingent. I mean, I thought about, I thought about other prospects who are coming up it’s, it’s exciting. Like there are a lot of top prospects who are making their team’s opening day rosters. And so for fans of–
BOBBY: Meg Rowley, says service time manipulation is over on Tipping Pitches.
MEG: Well, I mean, like O’Neil Cruz apparently has to learn how to be a left fielder. So we’re not, we haven’t, we haven’t gotten there all the way. But as you think about the guys in that group of prospects, I think that just from a GIF ability perspective, like Julio probably is the top guy even if we have Adley Rutschman as our top actual prospect in Baseball. Because I appreciate that not everyone likes framing as much as I do. So while–
BOBBY: It’s fra- framing GIF.
MEG: –sitting there I’m, I’m doing hand gestures [1:14:12]–
BOBBY: I’m tired waiting someone up you really–
MEG: Yeah.
BOBBY: –distressing Joe West to, wait, no sorry. Joe West is retired. You’re drafting–
MEG: Yeah.
BOBBY: –Angel Hernandez.
MEG: Oh, God. So I mean, we should, we could do a a draft of umpires having to announce the rationale for replay decisions. Like that could be its own draft if one were so inclined. I don’t know if we have enough information to do that draft with any kind of rigor right now that might need to be a mid-season. You know if you’re like going into the All-Star breaking or like what will we ever talked about you can do the all umpire [1:14:42]
BOBBY: By the All-Star break you know us, we’ll be talking about the next potential labor stoppage.
MEG: Oh God.
ALEX: I’m, when you, when you Google or when you search on on giphy Julio Rodriguez GIFs. One of the first one that comes up is, is, you know, they, every, every player kind of they do they’re kind of like hype videos for the team, right?
MEG: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: And so it’s a bunch of different GIFs of them just kind of doing random activities against the backdrop that they’ve compressed into a GIF. My favorite is it looks like he’s just drinking tea. And then, and then saying, Ahhh, afterwards, I’m really, I’m fascinated to hear what the Genesis was of of this particular action that he took.
MEG: Is he in uniform when he’s doing that?
ALEX: He is in uniform. Yes.
MEG: Wow! I mean, he has, he has like a YouTube show that he is, is quite proud of. And so some of this is me, assuming that it will translate from from YouTube to to the fields. But yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know what that’s about, I can’t wait to find out.
BOBBY: Something much discussed in the, the GIF Draft, this year especially is how, how much does the added benefit of having teammates who are also GIF-able, support a guy’s–
MEG: Ohhh.
BOBBY: –case for draft ability? And I think for Julio, you know, he’s gonna be on a team that people have a lot of vested interest in because of what you’re saying, Meg.
MEG: Yeah.
BOBBY: They’re finally calling up all these guys. And I think, you know, like being in the same lineup. And the same outfield as someone like Kelenic, it’ll, it’ll be good for his GIFs this year.
MEG: Yeah. And like, they won’t be next to each other in the field, obviously. But like J.P. Crawford, I think is an underrated GIF-able guy. I don’t know that we can say that Robbie Ray just tight pants are GIF-able but boy, are those pants tight? They are some tight pants Jesse Winker has that long, long neck. You know, it’s just like, it’s just very long. So–
BOBBY: Amazing breakdown of the physiology of the 2022 Mariners right now.
MEG: Yeah. Long neck, tight pants. Can’t lose.
BOBBY: Uhm, okay. That is, that is a great selection. It has freed us up to to draft none other than a beloved member of the Tipping Pitches extended universe, and that is Kike Hernandez.
MEG: Oooh, sure. Yeah.
BOBBY: Who, Alex, has he ever been drafted?
ALEX: I really don’t think he has, which feels of–
BOBBY: Just like a ma- a massive–
MEG: Yeah.
BOBBY: –oversizing.
MEG: That’s surprising.
BOBBY: –a massive oversight. Kike is, you know, obviously not the best player in baseball, but he’s up there with the most fun players in baseball, just just from a off field shenanigans perspective. He loves to have a lot of fun. And he’s always kind of generally aware of where the camera is, as he’s making his ridiculous–
MEG: Right.
BOBBY: –faces or doing his ridiculous dance moves. Or walking behind someone during a postgame inter- on field interview, any of those things. And I just think it’s kind of a shame and I feel kind of bad that we’ve never selected Kike Hernandez.
ALEX: Yeah, it’s pretty remarkable given that he generates good half-dozen kind of AD grade outputs in GIFs every year.
MEG: Yeah.
ALEX: I, I sometimes, sometimes that happens to be him standing on a, on a bubblegum bucket.
MEG: Yeah.
ALEX: In order, in order to poke fun at his, at his height. That as, as you said, Bobby, might be hidden dancing in the field and looking straight into the camera. But he’s, as, as we’ve noted in the past, actual baseball talent has very little correlation when it comes to GIF ability, right? If you are just having fun out there on the field, frankly, that’s really, that’s really all it takes.
BOBBY: I’m looking at a GIF right now. From, from way back when of Kike pretending to kiss, it appears that it is Adrian Gonzalez. So this is from way back in his Dodgers days, pretending to kiss him in the dugout, putting his hand in front of his mouth and then walking up to him and kissing him. This is just the kind of stuff that you you can’t make it up. You know, Kike’s reality is stranger than our fantasy about whatever the greatest GIFs could possibly be produced by Major League Baseball players.
MEG: I am of the opinion that like, you know, they shouldn’t do it if they don’t want to, be more of a baseball guy should kiss each other if they’re excited. Like we should, you know, at the end of the World Series, some of them look like they want to kiss. And and again, if they don’t want to, they shouldn’t do it. You shouldn’t. Never obligated to kiss but I think that they should feel free to kiss, you know. If they want to, if they’re like, this is how I will express affection for my friend in a moment that we have been working for our entire lives. You could feel free to give him a little kiss.
BOBBY: If there’s a guy who’s gonna do it.
MEG: Yeah!
BOBBY: It’s Kike.
MEG: Yeah.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
MEG: There should be more pink and purple on uniforms and there should be more kissing.
ALEX: [1:19:44]
BOBBY: Full hardly support. Full–
ALEX: Absolutely.
BOBBY: –hardly support. Uhm, okay, that completes round six of the 2022 All-GIF Draft. Meg Rowley, thank you. Where can they find, where can people find your work and your podcasting? And anything else that you’d like them to find. Even if it’s not related to your work or Baseball.
MEG: Sure, you can check out all of the stuff that I edit and the words I occasionally write at fangraphs.com You can listen to me and Ben Lindbergh on Effectively Wild, our wonderful Baseball Podcast. It is also a FanGraphs and all the places that you find your podcast. You can follow me on Twitter @megrowler but only if you aren’t weird and have good boundaries.
BOBBY: Also get a FanGraphs subscription if you’re listening.
MEG: Yeah.
BOBBY: Come on.
MEG: Yeah.
BOBBY: Come on.
MEG: Yeah, an ad free membership, it helps us, it helps you, it’s a win for everybody.
BOBBY: Thanks, Meg.
MEG: Thanks for having me.
Commentator: [1:20:39] Sweet! Destroyed! This is going to the Kid City, baby! That is destroyed, clobbered and gone.
BOBBY: It is the final round, it is here. We are joined by many time Tipping Pitches guests. One of our absolute faves, Shakeia Taylor. Hi, Shakeia, it’s been too long. How are you?
SHAKEIA: It’s been a way too long, what’s up? I’m glad to be here, you know, the unofficial third co host.
ALEX: We’ve had more than, more than one request to just let you come host the podcast. Which, frankly I on, on days off when I’m not feeling it we might, we might reach out to you.
BOBBY: Are you–
SHAKEIA: Let me join.
BOBBY: –are you often feeling it on on every day that we record, Alex? Because sometimes, to me it feels like I’m not, I’m not always feeling it.
ALEX: We’ll both tap out.
SHAKEIA: Just have me on. Yeah.
BOBBY: Monopod.
SHAKEIA: You know, I, I like freestyle a little bit.
ALEX: Exactly.
SHAKEIA: I can’t rap but I use like the old sprite commercials.
ALEX: There you go.
SHAKEIA: Just Tipping Pitches will have a completely new audience in one week. Because everyone would be like that girl lost her mind. You guys got a shoutout on Ballpark Figures last night.
BOBBY: I heard, I heard from Twitter.
ALEX: Hmmm.
BOBBY: Yeah.
SHAKEIA: You’re across pi love this.
BOBBY: Appreciate that, appreciate that. I heard that Mark was wearing one of the, one of the first generation Tipping Pitches Unionize the–
SHAKEIA: Yeah.
BOBBY: –Minors shirts. So that’s, that’s–
SHAKEIA: Yeah.
BOBBY: –longtime love, that’s longtime love. Shakeia, you were just a costing us before we started the podcast about how you’re selecting in the final round this year. Supposed to previously, you’ve been the first overall selection in the last–
SHAKEIA: Uh-uhm.
BOBBY: –few years. It’s, it has nothing to do with your performance, which I [1:22:26]–
SHAKEIA: I demand a recount, January 6th on the pod right now. I’m going crazy.
BOBBY: It’s been nothing but phenomenal. But Alex and I are very bad procrastinators. So we waited until the last minute to ask folks to come on and do this. And just because you’re a busy person, we’re busy people. We’re seeking you in right at the end here before we publish this tomorrow. We sit here on Wednesday, and other people just were, like, ready right away. So they’re not–
SHAKEIA: You know what?
BOBBY: –busy, they–
SHAKEIA: Save the best for last.
BOBBY: –don’t have as much going on, best for last. Exactly.
SHAKEIA: Best for last.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
SHAKEIA: Natalie Cole said it, you know, we’re gonna save the best for last. Hard to everyone else who picked, let the real has arrived.
BOBBY: Okay, it is your time to make a selection. Who would you like to pick in the 2022 Tipping Pitches All-GIF Draft?
SHAKEIA: Ten-tenenen. Mookieeeee, I’m going with Mookie Betts. Uhm, you know, it’s Mookie, right? First of all, what a cool ass nickname. Uhm, you know, and obviously, there’s the callback to Spike Lee, right? As Mookie, “Do the Right Thing.” Dodgers fan. In the movie we all know, Spike is probably not actually a Dodgers fan. But also, my papa is a Dodgers fan. And that’s something that I recently discovered. Uhm, I didn’t grow up around my paternal grandfather for I don’t even know what reason, uhm, and it doesn’t really matter. But a couple of weeks ago, I was on the phone with my dad, and my papa was over his house. Yes, I am a grown up calling my grandfather my papa, he will not answer to anything else.
BOBBY: I love that..
SHAKEIA: But so, my papa over my, over my dad’s house. My dad had knee surgery, papa in his 80s, still drives, okay. Which, you know, I question that, but whatever. He’s visiting my dad and my dad’s like, talk to your grandfather. So I’m on the phone with my grandfather. And I go, you know, I was wondering, pop, who is your, who’s your Baseball team? And he goes, well, my favorite players are dead, you know? And it’s like, well, obviously like, but if they weren’t, what team were they on? And he’s like, well, all black people like the Dodgers in my time. And, and it’s like, well, who am I? Why didn’t I think of that, you know? So it was just a moment and I asked him who his favorite player was, and he said Roy Campanella, which–
ALEX: Wow.
SHAKEIA: –is extremely dope. And I thought for a second I was going to try to, like, bandwagon the Dodgers a little bit as a, you know, homage to my papa. So when I couldn’t get my first choice in this draft, I went with my papa’s choice. So I’m glowing, Mookie Betts for, for the, for the entire Taylor family there.
BOBBY: I love it.
ALEX: I, you, this is like, arguably one of the more shallow exercises we do on this podcast every year. And you just brought a tremendous amount of depth to it. No one, no one has a personal story–
BOBBY: Generational gravitas to the selection of Mookie Betts [1:25:50]–
ALEX: Literally, right?
BOBBY: –the final round of the GIF Draft this year. What an excellent pick, you know, we, Mookie has been selected in the GIF Draft before I don’t remember by who or in what years. But he’s obviously a human highlight reel, a five tool player. I do feel like he’s kind of fallen out of the national conversation a little bit as you know, one of the game’s best players in the last couple of years. Whether that be because you know, Tatis gets call up in the same division or because the Dodgers are just so, so good as an entire roster. Or because he was hurt for a long stretch of last year. But you know, we’re talking about a guy who is the only player to put up a better season than Mike Trout and went in a season where Mike Trout has played a full year. Like this guy is cream of the crop, best of the best. And it’s not like he’s lacking for emotion or expressiveness, or style or individuality out there. So I, I think it’s a phenomenal pick. You’ve, you’ve acquitted yourself very nicely, Shakeia. Even though you’re picking–
SHAKEIA: Thank you.
BOBBY: –last, instead of first.
SHAKEIA: But I feel like because my pick is so good, and it’s for my papa. I mean, last becomes first, everyone’s gonna forget everyone else who chose, right? They’re gonna be like, wow, that’s Shakeia, she’s so thoughtful. She thinks, talk about her grandfather, like yeah, I already won, you know, [1:27:04]–
ALEX: I know it, you really are making the rest of us look bad being like, being like, oh, well, he has tight pants and his butt looks good.
BOBBY: We’re picking the Castellanos for memes. And she is picking Mookie Betts for family.
ALEX: Yeah.
SHAKEIA: Hey, look, for family.
ALEX: Yeah. Not, not to mention, not to mention, the man is a two-sports star, right? Like, on the bowling alley.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: He’s gonna–
SHAKEIA: That should say [1:27:34]–
ALEX: –he’s gonna go, he’s gonna go off.
BOBBY: Those GIFs counts.
ALEX: Absolutely counts.
BOBBY: I, I completely agree if he bowls at 300, that last strike counts as one of the best GIFs of the year.
SHAKEIA: Also, do you, I remember I think it was this summer, this past summer. I don’t know, fall, everything’s running together since March of 2020 [1:27:54]. But when Mookie got married, he’s in some of his photos at the wedding reception just in an undershirt. Like–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
SHAKEIA: –and his tuxedo pants, and Nelly performed at his wedding, he actually got hot in there and took his shirt off. Like, you cannot beat that kind of wedding performance. Any wedding reception that ends in a shirtless groom, it’s a, it’s a good wedding. It’s a–
BOBBY: Yeah.
SHAKEIA: –wedding.
ALEX: Yeah, especially when said groom is Mookie Betts, right? Like damn, I want, I want Mookie Betts shirtless at my wedding, too, you know, like?
BOBBY: Speaking into existence, Alex. This is our platform and you’re using it for good, trying to get Mookie to come through.
SHAKEIA: Mookie! Hey, Mookie!
BOBBY: Okay.
SHAKEIA: Come take your shirt off at my wedding
BOBBY: Was that, see when they’re coming into town when the Dodgers–
ALEX: Weird- weirdest sign.
BOBBY: –are going into town so you could hold up a sign.
SHAKEIA: The sign?
ALEX: Yeah, weirdest signs that ever gonna be showed on ESPN.
BOBBY: Jesus.
SHAKEIA: I feel like I wouldn’t even wear it on a shirt. Like because then–
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
SHAKEIA: –you don’t have to worry about, you know, just put it on your shirt.
BOBBY: Yeah.
SHAKEIA: That shirt that says, I just hope both teams have fun, you can change it, you know. It’s I hope Mookie takes off his shirt at my wedding. Viral in two seconds.
BOBBY: At most esoteric t-shirt ever made. Okay. We’re on the clock. Alex, would you like to do the honors of the Mr. Irrelevant of the 2022 All GIF Draft, the final selection.
ALEX: Of course, someone we all know and love and I think tends to probably get overshadowed a little bit by some of the other stars on his team. But that’s one Ozzie Albies. The goat.
SHAKEIA: I like it.
ALEX: I feel like he truly does not get the the respect that he deserves in part because he plays with one of the greatest outfielders in baseball, one of the greatest hitters in baseball right now, right? In Ronald Acuña Jr, obviously. The, the number one overall pick in this draft by one Bradford William Davis. I feel like almost the fact that he doesn’t have the spotlight on him the entire time lets him loosen up a little bit. He has a beautiful bromance with, with Dansby Swanson, across the, across the base from him, his, his turning to partner, and–
BOBBY: Two very different guys just extremely–
ALEX: Extremely different–
BOBBY: –differently human beings, in so many ways.
ALEX: But he just feels like he has so much love to share with–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –everyone, whether it’s on his team, or or players on the other team. And so and so we couldn’t let this draft go by he’s never been picked, I don’t think–
BOBBY: No [1:30:41]–
ALEX: So–
SHAKEIA: I would pick him.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He’s, so when I think of Ozzy, I think of just the joy of Baseball. Like, he he never takes himself too seriously, even during the World Series last year. And this is the GIF that I think of, and this is the GIF that I will ask Alex to put into our blog posts whenever we get around to making that this year. The GIF I think of with Ozzy is him knowing that there’s a camera in the base, and going over to the base, and sticking his head under it on the national broadcast. Like that’s so funny. He did that during the World Series, the most important baseball games of his life. So I I think it’s, you know, it’s a shame that we’ve never taken him before. I’m glad that we get the opportunity to take him here. And I feel really good about adding him to our team.
SHAKEIA: I love it. It’s an amazing choice. I actually consulted with my, my Life Consultant, Craig Goldstein. And he suggested that I pick Ozzy so like, I mean, I obviou- I love it. I think it’s great. I think picking someone who’s fun but overlooked is a, a very you guys kind of thing. Uhm, so I began and I think the the base camera antics are amazing. I would like to put my face near a base camera and like, you know, be like you got games on your phone just to see if people catch the reference. So, I think it’s really awesome. That’s my feedback. Great choice. A+, 10 out of 10.
ALEX: There’s also, a there’s a really gorgeous like GIF/video of him caressing Acuña in the dugout, right? I don’t know what- whatever it was that, that Acuña was, was going through at the moment, he just needed a shoulder to lean on. And Ozzy so gladly, just like let’s hi- let’s Acuña cuddle up into him. And it’s kind of like stroking his head and stuff. And I feel like so many baseball players would be very hesitant to kind of, I mean, baseball players love showing emotion. But that sort of like level of intimacy, I think a lot of players are hesitant to maybe lean into. And and the fact they have such a deep and close relationship. I think matters–
SHAKEIA: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: –matters a lot. And and I love that, that he’s not afraid to let the world see that.
SHAKEIA: Since you will baseball, the world needs more of it.
ALEX: Exactly. Exactly. Mookie Betts shirts off.
SHAKEIA: Oh my God!
ALEX: Caressing Acuña, like–
SHAKEIA: The world, needs now, the shirtless Mookie Betts. [1:33:26], sorry.
BOBBY: Wonderful, wonderful. No, more people should sing on to the Tipping Pitches Podcast.
ALEX: True.
BOBBY: That concludes the 2022 All-GIF Draft. Shakeia, thank you so much for joining us. It’s always great to see you.
SHAKEIA: Thank you for having me.
BOBBY: We need to talk to you again sooner. We can’t, we can’t spend this much time without having you on the podcast again. Do you want to–
SHAKEIA: I mean.
BOBBY: –do you want to let the people know where they can find all the stuff that you’re doing, all the writing that you’re doing? The shows that you’re hosting, the many things that you want people to see that you’re working on?
SHAKEIA: Uhm, I’m on Twitter @curlyfro, I am on Instagram @alittlebitofdope. It is spelled correctly, all spelled out, no capital letters. I get asked that all the time. And as far as the writing, it’s all, it it’s all on the bird app. Like I I have a website but who uses those anymore? It’s all on the bird app.
Commentator: The Dodgers on one. Swatted away in the center field! Diving play! A walked-off Jazz! Mookie magic!
BOBBY: Thanks to Bradford, Stephen, Jake. Jordan, Clinton, Meg, and Shakeia. Alex, I’m very excited for this season. We weren’t sure if it was going to come, to be honest. But it’s here. It feels good.
ALEX: It does. I wasn’t really sure how I was going to feel about it kind of as Opening Day rolled around. And then I realized that I actually do still care about Baseball despite what my favorite team is trying to, to do to myself and and the rest of our fan base. I’m excited for 29 baseball teams this year.
BOBBY: I still haven’t repurchased mlb.tv.
ALEX: I–
BOBBY: Got to get on that!
ALEX: Yeah, I haven’t either. I did accidentally repurchased Minor League Baseball TV this year. When I, when I saw that $50 charge on my credit card. But you know what, you know what, that’s fine. That’s fine. They need it. More than, more than the millionaire’s playing baseball, right? And that money I know is going directly into [1:35:36]–
BOBBY: Directly to the pockets. Yeah.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Exactly. I still have it- I also still haven’t made a plan for how now that I live back in New York. I’m going to watch Mets games. Because they’ll all be blacked out. But, you know, I’ll find my ways to do it. Even though they shut down my beloved VillaSport last year.
ALEX: Yes, there are plenty, plenty of options out there for you. I’ll, I’ll help you, you know, route, set up your router to go through a VPN or something.
BOBBY: So that I can get it on my PlayStation.
ALEX: Exactly. Using a VPN to watch Mets games on your Playstation 2022 is wild.
BOBBY: That’s Praxis right there too.
ALEX: That really is.
BOBBY: If listeners at home thinks that there are any extremely glaring omissions from the 2022 All-GIF Draft please call in and feel free to make your selection. Though you have less than three minutes, I will remind people on a voicemail. Less than three minutes, but you can call in and tell us who you would have selected, 785-422-5881. So leave us a voicemail. You can write us at tippingpitchespod@gmail.com, tipping_pitches on Twitter. Very excited for this year. And I’m very excited to be doing this podcast still with you my friend.
ALEX: I am as well. I will, I leave the listeners with what Meg Rowley put best long necks, tight pants, can’t lose. Enjoy the season everyone.
[1:37:05]
[Music]
[1:37:20]
[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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