Bobby and Alex discuss Don Mattingly’s sense of style, then look at what’s been trending up and down in their eyes over the course of the season, including the questionable existence of the CBA, myriad ump shows, Buck Showalter, Aaron Judge walk-year mode, and more. Then they try to make sense of the turmoil among the Angelos family in Baltimore, and answer a couple listener questions about a missed Extremely Online Baseball moment and what to do when you’re fed up with your team.
Links:
Rays pitchers reject pride patch
Angelos family feud looks over Orioles
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon
Songs featured in this episode:
Nickelback — “Photograph” • Radiohead — “Just” • 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? That’s amazing! That’s remarkable.
BOBBY: Alex, the door is closed, the pod has started. I gathered you here to talk about something very important. And that’s something very important is that I think that your outfits are too good when you come to the apartment to record the podcast. And it’s, it’s making me a little bit, it’s making me a little bit insecure. And it’s hard for me to perform once the tape starts, starts rolling. And I wanted to call this meeting, call this podcast recording, to really let it all out. Get it all out on the table, so that we can address how your, your attire is just too good.
ALEX: I’m sitting here wearing a t shirt and jeans.
BOBBY: Black jeans. But a really nice t shirt.
ALEX: Thank you. You look nice as well–
BOBBY: Thank you.
ALEX: –you know. I, I think it’s important for us to feel comfortable while we’re doing this, you know. We want to be in a space where there’s, there’s no judgement, right? When we’re free to kind of let loose. We don’t want anyone cutting up any outfits in here because they don’t like to perform in them.
BOBBY: Well, this is just, it’s just not how we podcast.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You don’t, you can’t, you don’t dress well, when you come to podcast.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: It’s, it’s not how we do things around here.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So if you could, if you could kindly be as boring as possible. And you could make no new fans for this podcast. By That’s it. That’s fine. Now this bid doesn’t even make sense. It’s not even a good bid to start the podcast. I wanted to try to talk about the Jazz Chisholm situation in a fun way. Because it’s just so absurd. So I wanted to treat it with the proper amount of absurd, absurdity.
ALEX: Major League Baseball drip this year is real good.
BOBBY: Yeah, that’s true.
ALEX: I’m just saying like, like we’re gonna do a segment that kind of talks about the, the things that have attracted our attention either positively or negatively this year. And that is one thing that’s that is maybe not on my list but I am acutely tuned into, right? Is just baseball players are having their style moment.
BOBBY: Well So would you put that in the stock up or stock down? Are you more of a Don Mattingly or are you more of a the rest of the world?
ALEX: Yeah, Don Mattingly rocked the pornstache for like most of his career, like I don’t know that he has really room to, to make any judgments any which way about how people present themselves to the world.
BOBBY: The thing that was okay, I don’t even want to get too far away for this, because I want to get into are more, are more fun segments. But the thing that was really frustrating about that story was, and granted, take it with a grain of salt, because we got it through the lens of Jon Heyman. So you never really know what that means in this context. But the thing that was so frustrating about that story was if, if Jazz is acting like an asshole, just [3:35] that, he’s acting like an asshole and the team in his teammates don’t want to be around him because of that, or he’s getting a little bit too cocky or whatever. He’s not being a good teammate. That would be something to leak to the media. But don’t leak to the media that they don’t like his hair, and that he’s dressing like Dennis Rodman.
ALEX: I mean that the dog whistles are coming from inside the house, y’all like.
BOBBY: The dog whistles are coming from inside loan depot Park. It’s a good, it’s good title for this podcast. Okay, Like Alex said, we’re going to do a Stock Up, Stock Down. I’ll explain that a little bit more in a second. We’re going to talk about the, the rich people shit going on in Baltimore. It’s just a lot of rich people shit going on there. But it affects baseball fans, now we’re going to answer a couple of voicemails and we’ll get out of here and and out really fast. But before we do all of that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[4:29]
[Music Theme]
BOBBY: Okay, thank you to our new patrons this week. I’m just getting right to it, I’m going full professional host today.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I got a, I got a lot of energy.
ALEX: I got here you were, you were ready to go.
BOBBY: I was fired up, I’ve had a productive day already. Typically when we record this podcast, I do nothing for the 4 hours before you get here and then we sit around for 2 hours and we decide to talk about and then we record for 3 hours but not today, baby, not today.
ALEX: No, I have a, I have a stand for my microphone now, again, pulling back the curtain a little bit. But like, my hands are free, you can’t see this but I’m doing like shadow puppets on the walls while we’re doing this recording. Like, I don’t know, it feels like we’ve leveled u.
BOBBY: Literally like, okay, a quick moment of retrospect here for us. We used to just tweet thing, dumb stuff and get like a like, in the same like five people replying to it, us, retweeting it from our personal accounts trying to grow the brand. And now I tweet like a picture of a microphone stand and people are like hell yeah, guys, congratulations. It’s really amazing. Thank you to everybody.
ALEX: It’s the American dream right there.
BOBBY: Thank you to Foolish Baseball for knocking us down a peg by saying that, that microphone stand, looks like you’re gonna start talking about Cancel culture. Thank you to our new patrons this week, Nathan, Andrew, and Callie. Okay, Stock Up, Stock Down, Alex, this uhm, if you’ve been listening for a while, it might strike you as very similar to a little segment that we had called Three Up, Three Down, which we used to do weekly. But we don’t anymore.
ALEX: I’m kind of unceremoniously–
BOBBY: Asked from the podcast.
ALEX: Right, with how much of an explanation, it’s fine.
BOBBY: Well, it’s, it’s being workshopped, we’ll say for, I’ll just come right out and say it for me for the Patreon one of these days. I don’t, I don’t care, this is full transparency. Stock Up, Stock Down, I’m stealing this segment from another podcast that I produced. I’m sure there are some of you listening to this podcast, you also listen to The Big Picture. Stock Up, Stock Down basically for the whole season thus far, we’re about a third of the way through. And you and I, admirers of Wall Street, that we are. Just wanting to lend our condolences to the various banks, stockbrokers out there who are having a tough time in this, this downmarket. Nevermind my 401k, which is also having a tough time, love to live in a society. We’re going to talk about the things that are having a moment and are more so on the downswing. It’ll make sense the more we talk about them, I think.
ALEX: Right. These are, these are just good, good things and bad things.
BOBBY: Trended up–
ALEX: We’ve, we’ve noticed.
BOBBY: –trended down. This is just a podcast segment. You know, we’re just packaging it nice and neat for you guys so that we could talk about some stuff that we haven’t really gotten a chance to talk about so far this season. So do you wanna start with Up or Down?
ALEX: Let’s start Down, because I, I imagine some of these things are conversations we’ve maybe already had or danced around over the course of the year. So we can, we can power through those and then get to the things that have that have sparked a joy for us this year.
BOBBY: I’ll do you one better? I’m going to start with a neutral.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Plot twist didn’t–
ALEX: Alright, okay, okay.
BOBBY: –tell you about it. Neutral, Rob Manfred, haven’t heard much about that guy recently.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: Have you?
ALEX: [7:45]
BOBBY: When was last time you heard Rob’s voice? Saw quote from him? Saw him in the real world?
ALEX: I mean, this offseason, really, I think kind of reset the idea of like how much exposure we can or should have to, to Rob Manfred, right? Like he, like we were seeing him, we were hearing from him on like a weekly basis.
BOBBY: Daily right? Towards the end.
ALEX: Daily basis, I was like watching press conferences. Lke of my own volition going out of my way to see him talk about baseball and, and it’s state. And, you know, I gotta respect it. The deal got done and then he just kind of dipped.
BOBBY: It just fucking went back from which he came, you know, he just slithered back to his little hole in the ground.
ALEX: Yeah, little lair.
BOBBY: Do you think that’s a concerted effort? Do you think that someone in the MLB Commissioner’s office was like, alright, Rob. Q score in the tank.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Maybe it’s time for you to just like take a retreat out to Cedar Rapids.
ALEX: Right. A little well, overexposure on his part.
BOBBY: Right. I think it is.
ALEX: I, I think it actually probably is.
BOBBY: And then once All-Star break rolls around, we’ll have to come back into the fold a–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –little bit. But I think he was like, you guys have had enough for me. And you know what? More power to him. I don’t think he likes being in the spotlight based on the fact that the owners just kind of push them out there from behind the curtain and they’re like, Okay, Rob, eat shit for a couple hours. And he’s like, okay, yes, sir. Okay, Stocked Down, this is the most serious one. So we’ll just start with it and get it out of the way. I have Stocked Down the Rays as an organization for a couple of reasons. The first one, I’ll start with the news from the past week where five Rays players refuse to wear the Pride Month patch that was on the hat of the Tampa Bay Rays that they were wearing for, I guess home games or all games throughout June. And those players cited their religious views as the reason that they can’t wear this patch. Do you, do you even remember which five players it was?
ALEX: Right. I, I have the names here. They’re all like milk toast.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like random white name generated.
BOBBY: I feel like we should name them though.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Because they, they came out happily putting their names to these quotes in many articles.
ALEX: Yeah, it was a, they were all pitchers, Jason Adam, Jalen Beeks, Brooks Raley, Jeffrey Springs, and Ryan Thompson.
BOBBY: I put them in Stock Down, because I don’t know how, as an organization, you would let something like this get to this point. You knew you were going to have these patches, you knew you are going to use them as a way to help members of the queer community feel included during pride month. And I imagine this is not the, the first time that these players or other players have expressed some reservations about wearing something like this. And it rolled around and they just didn’t do it. And the Rays didn’t really have a plan of action for that happening. And I don’t know. this, this news came out mere hours after we recorded last week. And I thought that it was particularly resonant with the conversation we had around the state of political actions, and social justice by billion dollar corporations, and how they often rings so hollow. And, you know, this was just another example of this, this sucks. This is not what your religion tells you to do. This is what you use to your religion as cover for for your bigoted views about the world.
ALEX: Right. I mean, the point of Pride Night, and really any sort of celebration of Pride Month within Major League Baseball, is to simply say that LGBTQ people are, are welcome at the ballpark. That’s, that’s, that’s pretty much it.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And you can take issue with whether or not that’s actually a meaningful step, if that’s a meaningful stand to take. But that’s, that’s what it is.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: So to opt out of that sort of thing, and to use your religion as cover for that bigotry is, I don’t know, pretty cowardly? Frankly.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like say, say what you mean, say what you mean, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like, like there were, there were pitchers who came out afterwards, who said, you know, I have nothing against gay people.
BOBBY: Always good when you have to start your sentence like that.
ALEX: Right. But, but but I don’t know. Like, like you said, we were talking last week about making political stands in baseball. And the kind of you know, this comes just a couple weeks after every player was wearing the ugliest camo uniforms you have ever seen for Memorial Day weekend. And you astutely pointed out on Twitter, I, you know, I wonder what the backlash would look like if a, if a player decided to opt out of caping for the, the American war machine?
BOBBY: Yeah. Well, I think, and I think it’s important to point out, there was a lot of backlash for this. And, and that’s good. But that backlash came from fans. I think, if somebody had refused to wear the camo hat, because their religion tells them not to blindly murder people in war, then the backlash would have come from inside the house, to borrow a phrase that we’ve already used multiple times in this podcast. The ba- the backlash would have come from the commissioner’s office or from within the organization. Or from the owner who doesn’t want to offend, let’s just say, a random company like Lockheed Martin. You know, I think that it would have been institutional backlash. And that’s what I, that’s what I think a moment like this makes so clear is that there are things that MLB accepts into its orbit, because they think that it will make them more popular. And then there are things that are part of MLBs DNA. And, and these two things that we’re talking about, are stark examples of that contrast to me. Patriotism and jingoism is part of the DNA. And Pride Night, accepting members of the LGBTQ community is not. It’s a, it’s something that you can distance yourself from and still be a functioning member of a Major League Baseball team. And, and that’s not true for other things that MLB wants to embrace.
ALEX: Yeah, well, when we talk about, when we talk about the idea of kind of a politicism in the sport. Like this kind of I think perfectly represents that divide, right? Where every every issue is inherently a political one. You can’t, you can’t opt out. And I you know, I’ll say it was, it was heartening to see some Rays players talk about how, how happy they were to wear the pride flag, right? And to kind of push back on that narrative a little bit. And you know, there are players around the league, who are very outspoken in support for the LGBTQ community.
BOBBY: It’s so weird seeing players call out other players and, and like the evaporation of some of that decorum of not openly criticizing other players for what they do. That has, I think, come with social media, basically, like Jack Flaherty, quote, tweeting the article, just as you are, I would.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Being like, this is a joke. Yeah. That’s wild. It is. It’s, it’s I mean, it’s happened slowly. But when you look back on it, it feels like it’s happened in a flash that that players just openly enter the political discourse like this. It’s weird.
ALEX: Yeah, it’s good, I think.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like, it’s good that these discourses–
BOBBY: It’s good–
ALEX: –I think are happening.
BOBBY: –without reservations.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Whenever [15:55] Bradford was like, maybe you don’t want to hear everybody’s opinion. I always think about that.
ALEX: Right. Well, I and certainly, I think the, the way in this is, the way in that this is revealing itself is certainly pretty important. I think it’s probably a good thing that players are feeling a little more emboldened and protected, to actually push back, you know.
BOBBY: Yeah, we spent a lot of time on a heavier topic than I think we were intending for this segment. But I think it’s important to talk about that. And I think it’s important not to let these Rays players off the hook for doing something like this. Okay, so let’s get to your first Down.
ALEX: All right, my first Down, I want to bring it back to the, the storyline of the offseason. Do you, do you remember a little thing called the CBA? We touched on it once or twice.
BOBBY: Vaguely.
ALEX: Where, where’s it at?
BOBBY: I don’t know. I’ve been wondering this too. And you know, when we did our CBA emergency reaction pod, stupid little us. And I should have known better by the way, like, when you get a, whenyou get a deal, what you actually get is like a memora- of what’s called a Memorandum of Agreement. You agree that this is the framework of what you will have. And these are the important details of what you have. And the language will be looked at. And pored over by lawyers for a small media company like the next three to four weeks for a multibillion dollar, antitrust protected sports league. I guess the next four months, five months, six months, and we’re still waiting on the CBA. So that in depth pod that we promised just not it’s not here yet.
ALEX: Well, and, and there is like, there’s the kind of literal interpretation of where is the CBA, right? Which is we don’t, we don’t have the text yet. It doesn’t exist to our knowledge, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And then there’s kind of the–
BOBBY: Well, it does exist.
ALEX: Well–
BOBBY: If you want to hack Rob Manfred’s computer, like you could, you could find it probably.
ALEX: You think?
BOBBY: Yeah!
ALEX: You think it’s on his, do they use like Google Docs?
BOBBY: No, no.
ALEX: But then there’s the kind of more figurative theoretical idea of where’s the CBA, right?
BOBBY: And yeah, this is–
ALEX: And–
BOBBY: –what I’m more interested in.
ALEX: –and like, what was it intended to do? How it was intending the kind of shape of the sport moving forward? And, you know, we’ve been over this so many times, right? It’s, the players really wanted to address competitive balance, right? And the, the kind of broader economic system, especially when it comes to younger players. And while certainly, it, it can take months and even years for you to really actually see the, the result of a CBA, right? These things don’t change overnight. I’m kind of wondering when, when we’re gonna, we’re gonna see that shit. Because there was kind of widespread agreement that, hey, maybe some teams are not trying as hard as they should. And hey, maybe, maybe we should try and make it so they actually do want to try and, and spend money so that they can win baseball games. Because, for the most part, the goal of baseball is to win the games.
BOBBY: Here’s the thing, we said it that night, that that was the one thing that they didn’t address.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: And no, were written down on a piece of fucking paper. Does it say these 30 teams have to try and win baseball games.
ALEX: No!
BOBBY: That’s the problem. It’s not legally enforceable.
ALEX: Yeah!
BOBBY: And if it’s not legally enforceable, billionaires not going to do it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Not gonna do it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: If there was not minimum wage laws, do you think Elon Musk will be paying people 725? No, fucking way! No way. I don’t know, I don’t know what you get paid as a Tesla employee but I know a lot. Sticking that drive by shot at Elon Musk.
ALEX: I don’t know, I just, I feel like it has really quickly kind of faded from the consciousness of the, the broader narrative working its way through baseball, right? It’s kind of back to business as usual. And there was a lot of venom, there was a lot of fire–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –for the management side of baseball throughout those negotiations.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And I guess I’m just saying, hey, keep that, keep it up.
BOBBY: No, you’re right.
ALEX: Keep it up. Those, those fractures are not gone, right?
BOBBY: I think it’s reasonable to after you get a CBA to chill a little bit, because it’s such a push.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, it’s like, you have to cool down for the next, I mean, whatever the term of your CBA is, it’s different for every industry. But you have to, hu- human beings cannot sustain this level of raw emotion that comes with being mad at your employer. And that’s reasonable. But at the same time, the cynical view of that would be as soon as you get a CBA, everybody forget about the problems. And because you can’t change them over the next five years. And that’s the problem with everything feeling rushed when you get to negotiations. That’s why you get eroded at the table is because you’re not, you’re not, you’re not prepared. You’re not organized throughout this whole the rest of the five years. And I don’t know what MLBPA is doing, right now, I have no idea. Are they continuing the organizing effort? Maybe, internally. But I know that the MLBPA needs to continue to leverage public opinion. Because for whatever reason, in baseball, people give a shit about the relationship between management and players a little bit more than they do in other sports. This podcast is proof of that. So I think continuing to educate fans on why this is important. It matters throughout the, the five years that the CBA is in effect. And it makes it so that in that last year leading up to negotiations, you’re not trying to do your entire project the night before it’s due. So I don’t know, we’ll see. I, I don’t mean, I don’t want to malign or criticize MLBPA. Because they have a uniquely difficult task.
ALEX: Oh, yeah. And, and I don’t even necessarily think that they need to go like scorched earth right now, right? I mean, I mean–
BOBBY: Honestly, no.
ALEX: I mean, I’d love to see it. But also, I don’t know if you heard, baseball players are playing baseball–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –right now. And I think a lot of them probably don’t have time for political theory, when it comes to negotiating a, a union contracts. But if you’re a fan, you should be tuned in still, right?
BOBBY: But that’s why, I mean, that’s why we idolize Marvin Miller, though. Is because when the players weren’t thinking about it, he was. And I don’t know, I mean, Tony Clark is obviously not Marvin Miller for a million different reasons. He was a player first. And he’s not trying to foundationally change the relationship of labor, to management in baseball. But, like in many ways, Marvin Miller parv- paved the way so that Tony Clark didn’t have to be like him. But I don’t know, I, I get excited when the people who are leading the labor movement it’s absurd to say that the MLBPA is at the forefront of the labor movement, but it is because our country is our country. I get excited when those people are the militant ones. And I don’t know it just doesn’t seem like Tony is militant, but maybe he is. And maybe the union is leading him away from being militant. Like secretly fantasizing about Tony Clark like ready to storm the burned down the baseball stadium. Interesting fanfic.
ALEX: Yeah, Tony, if you’re listening, you, you, you have a, you have an open line. Okay, my next Down, Carrot futures. Play the song, Alex, play the song.
He’s got, carrots, and lettuce, and mushrooms, porcini, the vegetable King Bob Castellini.
ALEX: Ohhhh.
BOBBY: It’s the Castellinis. You know, this is a first third of the season, recap that we’re doing here. So without too much recency bias. For the first few weeks of the baseball season, Alex, they weren’t getting it, left and right. And front and center and underneath and above. They were getting it from all directions, the Castellinis. And I think it’s a perfect follow up to what you just said because where’s the CBA? Where’s the correcting? Where’s, where’s the course correction from anti competitive behavior? If anything, we’ve just dug our heels in deeper on anti competitive behavior and the poster children of that, the literal poster child, the poster fail son of that is Phil Castellini and his dad Bob Castellini. And It’s a real shame because the Reds are not uninteresting as a franchise. Like they still have Joey Votto, they play in a cool park. They have a an incredibly rich history. They have Hunter Greene, one of the most exciting young pitchers in baseball. Jonathan India won rookie of the year last year, he’s in his second season. Like there are things to recommend about this team. And they’re just completely being overshadowed by the, the clown show. That is the Castellinis and they’re carrot empire. And I, I don’t know, that’s Down, the stock is Down.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, so–
BOBBY: A literal stock of carrots is down, by the way, too. And that’s why they’re doing what they’re doing.
ALEX: Is it?
BOBBY: You want to get real with it.
ALEX: Is it?
BOBBY: I mean, they took a fucking hit during the pandemic.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And maybe it’s back on the upswing. People are back in on wholesale produce.
ALEX: If I google like carrot stocks.
BOBBY: Carrot futures, Google that, see what happens. Just looking up carrot futures. That’s millionaire mindset.
ALEX: I guess, I’ve run into the issue of that I don’t really know how to read carrot futures.
BOBBY: Are that, is that a thing?
ALEX: I don’t, I don’t, I am, on the usda.gov and it’s the specialty crops market news.
BOBBY: See? Okay. So the thing is, we had a chance to build any society that we wanted. And this is the one that we built, where carrots have a little graph that goes up or down. Carrots and those carrots with their graph that goes up or down affect whether or not the Reds trade good baseball players. This is it, this is what we chose and not like you and I chose it but we–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –did royal we.
ALEX: I’m, I’m able to see the soybean oil futures.
BOBBY: Oh, right. Those are, that’s like kind of a meme.
ALEX: That’s a, that’s an actual thing, yeah. Corn, corn futures–
BOBBY: I’m not seeing corn futures.
ALEX: –seen lean hog futures.
BOBBY: God.
ALEX: Random length lumber futures. Wow! I’m getting interested in this now.
BOBBY: The thing is I don’t really know if the Castellinis claim to fame is carrots. That’s just what–
ALEX: That’s just started with.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: But I think they’re just broad wholesale fruit [27:15]
BOBBY: [27:15] corn guys. I don’t really know they can be tomato guys. I’m more of an onion guy myself. love onions. can do so so versatile.
ALEX: Bob–
BOBBY: Sweet, savory–
ALEX: –Bob will fail–
BOBBY: –like these.
ALEX: –if you have a favorite produce item.
BOBBY: Well, no, because we already have a song. And we can’t ask people to make more song that’s just like free labor at that point. People have already generously donated their IP–
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: –this, this podcast.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So it’s carrots, we’re creating our own reality. Do you agree that the Castellini’s stock is down?
ALEX: Yeah, yes, I do. Well, and so I will play off of that. Because the next item on this list is simply I just wrote down ownership groups.
BOBBY: I love it.
ALEX: That’s the tweet.
BOBBY: I love it, I love it.
ALEX: I just I, I think that–
BOBBY: With starting the essay out with being like, we live in a society and that society has rules. That’s the Tipping Pitches equivalent.
ALEX: I just we’re at a point where I think the ownership groups rightly have realized that there’s–
BOBBY: Stevie likes that one, she likes the ownership group Stock Down, she jumps up on the couch for that.
ALEX: [28:32]
BOBBY: This is all staying in the podcast.
ALEX: Please. Ownership groups have rightly realized that they can largely tell fans whatever they want.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And they’ll be provided enough cover from the rest of the ownership groups or the, the Commissioner or the media to be able to say those things and I think they are acting more outwardly brazenly than they have before. Which is not to say that owners haven’t been consistently trying to game the sport for their own benefit for majority of the existence of the sport. But I think that has reached a point where it’s a little more out in the open–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –than it was before. So you mentioned the Castellinis, the, the A’s are another really obvious one that’s just–
BOBBY: Youre gonna good three or four weeks without talking about the A’s.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. That’s probably, did you know, they’re the worst team in baseball?
BOBBY: Yeah, they’re pretty bad.
ALEX: I, it’s kind of remarkable. Turns out Moneyball only gets you so far. At a certain point, you still you need the ball part of that.
BOBBY: Is this, is this even still Moneyball?
ALEX: No?
BOBBY: That’s a whole other question, actually. Maybe we should save that for a future podcast. This is not Moneyball.
ALEX: No!
BOBBY: Billy Beane is just like, you know what? That was my, that was my old shit.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’m trying to new genre. It’s like a punk band, it’s like pivoting to folk.ALEX: This is his [30:00], he sold out, he went mainstream.
BOBBY: Oh, he’s got, yeah, he’s going mainstream, he’s playing arena rock now.
ALEX: Right, he’s just kinda like–
BOBBY: [30:06]
ALEX: –doing cash the check.
BOBBY: No Moneyball will not punk obviously, Moneyball was, no.
ALEX: I don’t know what, pop punk?
BOBBY: Yeah, kind of.
ALEX: Like kind of a bastardization of, of the, the roots of the genre.
BOBBY: Right. But like, then there’s a couple moments that sneak through where you’re like, well, this works.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You know, like–
ALEX: Exactly. I’m like, this scratches–
BOBBY: [30:30]
ALEX: –an itch for me.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: There’s something there.
BOBBY: We are so down the rabbit hole. I agree with you.
ALEX: What? This is our second piece of data in, in the last like two weeks that we are actually a music podcast.
BOBBY: This is true. But the other one was a large piece of data.
ALEX: It was.
BOBBY: That was like kind of a whole episode.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Thanks to Steve. Okay, my final Down is letting a top three baseball player hit his walk year with no extension. That’s a Down, Stock Down on just letting your best player accrue hell of value right before he’s about to become a free agent. I’m talking of course about Aaron Judge, who we, have spent very little time talking about on this podcast. We don’t do MVP hedging. We don’t do WAR leaderboard chat. We don’t talk about OPS+, or wRC+ all that much on this podcast. But that’s not to say that we don’t pay attention to things like that. And what Aaron Judge is doing right now, is uhm, it’s a pretty big middle finger to the Yankees ownership and I feel like we should not do Yankees apologia this early in the podcast. I know we’re gonna get text messages about this from friend of the podcast, Mike Schubert. But uhm, it’s pretty, it’s based, it’s based what Aaroan Judge is doing. He is extracting more money out of the Yankees ownership and I’m not I just got to my cap Stck Down. I was just really hurting for a third Down. This is more of a Stock Up to be honest.
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: Stock Down, the fact that the Yankees let Aaron Judge raise his stock.
ALEX: Yeah, I guess getting the shot wasn’t that bad after all?
BOBBY: Oh, my God. You ruined it. Just this, what’s your third Down?
ALEX: My third Down? is actually what’s Up right now. And that’s the, the ball. Homeruns are back, baby!
BOBBY: Yeah. Quietly.
ALEX: And quietly–
BOBBY: Not that quietly, actually.
ALEX: No. But it’s it is somewhat dramatic way. This has obviously been much discussed here and outside the podcast, right? But, but early on in the season, it was looking like, we were back in deadball era, Manfred version, right? And that has rapidly turned around to the point where in the middle of May, that abruptly reversed course the home run rate rose by a couple of percentage points. Like from, from week to week, which is a staggering thing to happen. That’s like–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –like a, like two percentage points does not seem like that much. But it’s–
BOBBY: Not two percentage points mo- 2% more home runs and more before. It’s 2% more plate appearances result in homeruns, right?
ALEX: Right, right. And when you’re talking about just the number of fly balls that players are hitting, from plate appearance to plate appearance, that’s, that’s a lot more homeruns to be going out of the yard. Not to mention the fact that this happened in such a brief period of time, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Homeruns always trend upward during the–
BOBBY: Warmer months.
ALEX: –during the warmer months when there’s less water vapor in the air that slowing them down [33:53]–
BOBBY: Yes. No, no, no, no.
ALEX: [33:54]ologists.
BOBBY: No, actually–
ALEX: But like–
BOBBY: –keep go away. So explain more about the science behind why warmer beans were home runs.
ALEX: That there–
BOBBY: The ball gets hot and, and so it wants to get out of there and, and–
ALEX: Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s like Icarus flying towards the Sun as the Sun comes out, it wants to fly from, I don’t know. My point being, it’s never ending, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I remember you brought this up, you wanted to talk about this a few weeks ago. Kind of before this shift happened in the middle of May. And we’re back here again with just more questions than answers.
BOBBY: So is the Stock Down your faith in Major League Baseball with regards to the ball? Is that what’s Down here? Or is the Stock Down, water vapor in the air? Stock Down astrophysics.
ALEX: Right. There’s a higher dew point!
BOBBY: No, I, I see what you’re saying.
ALEX: I mean, I, I don’t know that like my Stock Down is in my faith. Because I’ve, I don’t know, it feels–
BOBBY: [35:04]
ALEX: –that one, that one’s bottomed down, right?
BOBBY: Already filed that one a bankruptcy court.
ALEX: But it’s that dollar amount has been de pegged from the, the US.
BOBBY: [35:16] Penny stock now.
ALEX: Right, there you go. Yeah.
BOBBY: How many more stock phrases do we know? Is that all of them, right? Do we just hit a perfect, perfect game? That all of our stock phrases?
ALEX: This is a big stock, [35:27]–
BOBBY: It’s a bull market? No, it’s a bear market.
ALEX: It depends on what, what is the market.
BOBBY: I don’t know. I think this shocking thing about this is, well, number one, I think it’s funny that announcers just have to be like, because their league partners they just have to be like, that ball looked like it carried. And then leave it alone.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And number two.
ALEX: –The wind, the wind must really pick that one up.
BOBBY: You can tell the player didn’t expect it to go that far.
ALEX: That just, that just died on the warning track.
BOBBY: The water vapors. And then the second thing is how quickly they, they can change this just, it just means that they just have a lever basically. They just press a button and everything changes. And that’s moderately alarming.
ALEX: Don’t really alarming, kind of cool.
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: Honestly–
BOBBY: Knowing how much betting money is coming into baseball. It’s moderately, moderate to high alarm level.
ALEX: Yes, I agree. That said if, if–
BOBBY: Smokey the Bear sign for fire danger, it’s getting pretty high. It’s we’re in the red now.
ALEX: If, if I had a seat in front of the levers of Major League Baseball, I kind of like it’d be like Homer Simpson, you know.
BOBBY: Yeah,
ALEX: At, at his workplace, where he just kind of doesn’t know how to anything. So he’s, he’s spinning dials.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And he’s pulling levers.
BOBBY: I have a thing to confess.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I’ve never watched The Simpsons.
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: I’ve weirdly watched The Simpsons Movie.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: But I’ve never really sat down and watched a full episode of The Simpsons.
ALEX: I, I would.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: I think it’s, or–
BOBBY: This is a TV Podcast now?
ALEX: Yes, it is. I, early season Simpsons, is like it’s pretty good.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: That the like, jokes per minute ratio is like pretty high.
BOBBY: It’s in I, my understanding is that it’s sort of like in our sensibility, like our general worldview. Like it’s making fun of the stupid world that we’ve created.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Okay, I’ll give it a shot. This just in, check out The Simpsons. Stock Up, The Simpsons. Okay, so speaking of that, so we go to Stock Up?
ALEX: We should go to Stock Up, yeah.
BOBBY: Okay, you go first, ’cause I want to end on, it’s important for my, my segue skills here–
ALEX: Oooh. Okay.
BOBBY: –to end on the one that I’m gonna end on.
ALEX: Yeah. That’s good producing like that.
BOBBY: Teasing a segue.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s how we do it radio, baby.
ALEX: My, my first one Up, what’s your grown at, is–
BOBBY: Ready, readying my grown.
ALEX: –is that Canada–
BOBBY: Ohh.
ALEX: –decided not to allow, back in January, decided not to allow unvaccinated athletes into the, into their country. Which I think is generally a good idea, you know? And the result of that is it’s very easy to see who’s kind of a meathead in baseball.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like you just get to see who’s on the restricted list that week for this series.
BOBBY: I feel like a necessary plug right here for a Batting Around segment, Players to be Shamed Later–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –that they’ve been doing all year. Which is a keeping a running tab of all of the players who deserve shame for not being able to enter the entire country of Canada because of their vaccination status.
ALEX: Novak Djokovic has nothing on these guys.
BOBBY: As always Batting Around as the companion podcast for Tipping Pitches.
ALEX: They are.
BOBBY: So Stock Up, accountability? Transparency? What, what’s the Stock here? What am I buying?
ALEX: Yeah, I think just a more holistic world view of this sport, you know. Again, these are just, these are just data points on a Spreadsheet. But I think they add to, they kind of color in around the edges a little bit–
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: –right?
BOBBY: Yeah!
ALEX: Now I’m like, now I’m like, damn, Dylan sees with 12 strikeouts, that’s crazy. But also, you know?
BOBBY: You know what else is crazy?
ALEX: The other thing is–
BOBBY: [39:16] Mets have not gone to Canada yet this year. Speaking of the Mets, Stock Up, Buck Showalter. Man, talk about a stock that’s through the roof right now.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, people like Buck, always have. Liked him when he was the Orioles Manager. Clearly he got all the juice out of that orange when he was managing the Orioles. Because it was always confounding that they had the best record in the AL East over that stretch. Because they clearly had like, they beat every projection system I’ll say, that’s how I phrase it. They, they did not have the most talent at that time in the AL East. And the, the rub on Buck is like he’s so detail oriented. His attention to detail is so much higher than other people that over a long period of time it can actually wear you out and stop being effective as a manager. Like that’s, that’s what Jake Mintz told me when I was like, what should I expect Buck Showalter as Manager? But for now for that first year, the halcyon days of Buck just knowing more about baseball than everybody else in the entire stadium. All 60,000 people that are in that stadium, it’s pretty nice. That stock is up and in turn, Clint Yates stock is up for choosing him and they all get [40:28]–
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: Because the man’s face, no matter the emotion, the man’s face is everywhere. So Stock Up, Buck Showalter, and in parentheses, Clint Yates.
ALEX: And in parentheses, the, the New York Mets–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –as, as a result.
BOBBY: Well, okay. I didn’t want to jinx it. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself. I feel, I feel uncomfortable talking about the Mets when they’re good. I know how to talk about them when they’re bad.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: But when they’re good, I’m just like, I hope it doesn’t go wrong, really hurt.
ALEX: Right. I, that is true, if you ignore the, the text that you’ll send me after a Mets win. That’s just like, the Mets are so fucking good, dude.
BOBBY: Ohh, so now we’re just giving away privileged information or just confidential we’re just turning it over.
ALEX: The Mets, question mark. Good, period. That’s usually how it goes.
BOBBY: Or like if we’re in the room together with Sunday Nights while they’re playing and they do something good. And I’m watching it on game day on my phone and I just turn to you, Mets so fuckin’ good, so fuckin’ good.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And you’re just like, I guess. Stock Up, Shakira. Stock Up for you, next Stock Up?
ALEX: Ump shows!
BOBBY: Yeahhh!
ALEX: I don’t know if it’s just my perception. And, and maybe it is also, and maybe it also has to do with fans kind of increasing impatience for umpires. That they will kind of willingly pile on to, to any moment that it seems like could be solved by a robot ump. Or–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –or, you know, is just further indication that they are, are past their prime or whatever.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But they just, the moments keep coming, man. And they don’t stop coming.
BOBBY: It’s like a Smash Mouth?
ALEX: [42:16]
BOBBY: Throughout the reference right there?
ALEX: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: That was fucking sweet. Nice work. Didn’t, didn’t have Smash Mouth reference on my futures. Yeah, I think it’s just, I think they’re lashing out, you know. I think–
ALEX: [42:29] they just kind of their last hurrah.
BOBBY: I think that the world is not for them anymore. And they’re like, we’re gonna go out with a bang. It’s like the dinosaurs see in the comment.
ALEX: Like, I’m gonna eat as many fucking–
BOBBY: Plants?
ALEX: –plants is pos- I don’t know, how do you stick it to Earth?
BOBBY: Yeah. Uhm, we’re doing our best as a society. I, I, you’re right. I think there is a general tenor of umps feeling like they’re under appreciated. And I think it’s playing out in less than stellar ways. But I guess the Stock of ump shows is Up because of that.
ALEX: Right. I’m not necessarily saying I’m, I am enjoying the fact of it.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: We are getting more ump show. Although, I mean, by and large. I don’t, I don’t mind that ump show.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I think maybe I, I minded less than the average baseball viewer. I’m kind of like hey, here’s a, here’s a nice burst of excitement in like a 7-2 ballgame.
BOBBY: Well, an ump show often becomes a player show as well.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And–
ALEX: Manager show and–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Like, this is where someone–
BOBBY: Crowd show.
ALEX: –like Buck Showalter really shines, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: It’s like he will take on buyers task.
BOBBY: Uhm, okay, my next Stock Up, the eye test crowd.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah, the, the sort of, it’s not even anti analytics that I’m talking about. It’s the, it’s the crowd of people who appreciate things that are maybe not as quantifiable within the Sabermetric community. The dog in him crowd, so to speak.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I feel like they’re having a moment and I’m happy for them. You know, they waited it out 25 years. They have been sitting around listening to all the nerds. And they’re having their moment.
ALEX: Where the nerds now huh?
BOBBY: Jazz Chisholm got that dog in him. Where are the nerds now? Well, the nerds will tell you that Jazz Chisholm is actually also playing better this year. Which is why he seems like he has more of that dog in him. But yeah, I mean, more power to him. I think dog in him is a little overrated at this, at this moment. The Stock is a little inflated. But if you bought a couple months ago, you’re cashing out. Good for you.
ALEX: Yeah. I’ve, we don’t have to go into the we don’t really have to dissect that, that phrase, you know, exactly.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like I’m not really, I’m not really curious to kind of probe really what you’re getting out there.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But yeah, get, get that dog.
BOBBY: I just think there, there, there is a reappreciation for players who maybe don’t fit into a specific archetype.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Where as I feel like, there was like a good 12 years, where we’re getting a lot of cookie cutter, the best players are pretty cookie cutter. And it’s not, it’s not really the case anymore.
ALEX: Well, it’s interesting because I actually think a lot of that success of a typical players is promoted by, is aided by the use of analytics that sees something a typical and a guy.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: That has the ability to throw off hitters, right?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Or, or that other teams are undervalued, right? Like this is–
BOBBY: Like Nestor Cortes is a great example of this.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Like this was in theory.
BOBBY: He’s not and he’s right next to Gerrit Cole. But he’s not Gerrit Cole. He’s not throwing 99 and then has a perfect slider and curveball.
ALEX: Yeah. But he, but his wind up is fucking stupid. And if you’re a hitter, you don’t know what to do with that, right?
BOBBY: I think, yeah, I think it’s actually funny because someone like Nestor Cortes, or, or even like, even like Jose Ramirez or something. Or they they’re a player who doesn’t necessarily fit into a specific archetype. But it’s not, it’s not the Sabermetrics revolution that has allowed them to thrive at the level that they’re thriving. It’s this, like scouting and player development revolution that has allowed–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –them to. There’s a team that saw something in them that was working, and didn’t try to change it. And, you know, we, we don’t always go into like super depth about this. But that’s like kind of the second wave analytics that is allowing people to appreciate the, the eye test, so to speak. A guy that is doing something different. That is, like you said, keeping hitters on their toes. Not everybody is a four seam fastball up in the zone guy anymore. We’re seeing syncher ballers coming back. We’re seeing guys whose below is a little bit lower than your typical, I mean, at league wide, we’re still seeing velocity going up. Because we’re seeing higher and higher reliever usage and they can throw a little harder. But I feel like there are more and more examples of guys who don’t necessarily have blow you away stuff who are having success.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And I like it, it’s fun. It’s good for the game, Stock Up. Okay, your third and final Stock that listeners of the Tipping Pitches podcast should wish that they bought three months ago.
ALEX: Just absolute disarray in Anaheim, just the, the state of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. From like a business like corporation level–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –down to like an actual–
BOBBY: On field product.
ALEX: –see ball hit ball level. Like ne–
BOBBY: Wow. So Alex is saying that you should have wished that you shorted the Angels–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –before the season, which–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah, that’s, that’s pretty good.
ALEX: I just, they are in such a bizarre state as a franchise right now. Where certainly there are plenty of bright spots and things you can kind of put your faith and hope into. But it’s kind of hard to feel optimistic, I would guess. About the direction of the franchise as a whole. right?
BOBBY: Yep.
ALEX: You still have two of the best players on planet Earth on your team right now.
BOBBY: The two best players on planet Earth.
ALEX: Yes. Yeah. I mean–
BOBBY: It’s really tough. But when you put it that way, it’s pretty undeniable.
ALEX: They obviously were in the midst of a franchise worst losing streak. They tried to turn to Nickelback to break that spell. And it just I’ve, they fall in bases.
BOBBY: Stock Up. It’s Chad Kroeger.
ALEX: That’s right. Look at this Photograph, baby, of the Angels tanking of Joe Maddon walking out in, in a jean jacket.
BOBBY: Yep, Stock Down.
ALEX: Joe Maddon?
BOBBY: Managers named Joe.
ALEX: I don’t know, on the one hand, it like brings me a profound amount of sadness that Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout are not in the position to actually compete on a nightly basis. And go toe-to-toe with some of the best players and teams in the league. Because they just learned that more than anything else. And on the other hand, it kind of brings a nice balance to–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –to the, to the universe, right? That the Angels no matter how hard they try, can, can only be mid.
BOBBY: No, but here’s the thing, I think it’s, it brings the balance because it just proves that you can’t, you can’t cheat your way to winning. You can’t look into it. If you don’t do the right things at some level. Like look at all the World Series winners. Maybe not ever but at least of our lifetimes. They’ve done something well. They’ve spent at the big league level or they’ve developed well at the lower levels or they’ve treated their minor leaguers well or they’ve any of those things. And the Angels don’t do any of those things. They spend a little bit at the big league level. Because they kind of have to. When you’re in Los Angeles, you’re justm what are you gonna do with all that profit? You got to spend it somewhere. And so, yeah, I think it, it’s, it’s nice to know that you can’t, you can’t dance around having Arte Moreno as your owner. I mean that they remind me a lot of where the Mets were for the last two decades before Steve Cohen. It’s just that level of turmoil at the top level, it’s insurmountable. And I’m not even saying that they can’t ever win if Arte Moreno is their owner. But they can’t win if Arte Moreno is actively preventing them from doing the things to make the organization healthy at all levels. They’ve treated their minor leaguers as bad or worse than any other organization. And I don’t know how you expect to develop depth is an organization. Like, I hate pinning it all on like one player. But why doesn’t the player like Jo Adell work out when he might work out in a different organization? Like, it’s no, it’s no surprise, put it that way. My final Stock Up, the, the, the power of franchise value in Major League Baseball. Despite–
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: –all of this stuff.
ALEX: [51:16]
BOBBY: Okay, despite all of this stuff, despite all the Stock Down stuff, despite all of the conversations that we have on this podcast. Despite the CBA, despite the lockout, all of that stuff. Seems like business is still good, right? Seems like that Apple TV partnerships working out. Seems like that bet and money’s coming in smooth and stuff over. There are some questions around the future of regional sports networks. But it doesn’t seem like anybody is too worried about it. There are currently two ownership groups who are either actively trying to sell or potentially interested in selling and or relocating. We’re going to talk about one of those ownerships in just a second. There’s talk of expansion, which would lead you to believe that the franchise values are high enough to sustain, quote, unquote, “diluting the product”, by putting two new teams in there. The looting this extremely closed market that we have. It’s just a reminder that no matter what happens in Major League Baseball, obviously, there are things that I guess could come around and lower franchise value, but I’ve yet to see them. And I’m almost 30, you know, I am four years away from being 30. And nothing in my lifetime has ever lowered general franchise values. That is, that is a stock that is going straight to the moon. Despite the best efforts of some of the people with the most power in Major League Baseball.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah, those revenue sharing checks are gonna keep clearing, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –like you said that betting money is still going strong. I’m sure that the, the Nationals NFT deal like they, they made sure to get that money–
BOBBY: Upfront.
ALEX: –upfront.
BOBBY: Yeah. I alluded to this, but one of those ownership groups that is, you know, maybe loosely exploring a sale or might need to sale based on the turmoil is, the Baltimore Orioles. We’re going to take a quick break. And then when we come back around and talk about the report from this past week. The very, very messy and confusing report about the family trust of the Angelo sons and how it’s affecting the Orioles organization.
[53:26]
[Music Transition]
BOBBY: Now, as we’ve talked a lot about the Orioles on the Tipping Pitches Podcast. Because they’ve been tanking for four of the five years that we’ve been doing this podcast. And so, you know, with our sensibilities, we care about teams that are tanking and what that means for the sport. We got a little bit of a wrinkle in the state of the Baltimore Orioles this past week when there was a new story that came out in The Baltimore Banner. It’s titled: Angelos sons feud over future of Orioles, lawsuit reveals. That’s tough, tough headline. I don’t need to bore you necessarily with the details of this. But in short, Peter Angelos, the principal owner of the Baltimore Orioles, purchased the Orioles in the 1980s after winning a gigantic class action lawsuit making a lot of money off that side to purchase the Orioles. You guys know Peter Angeles, his sons, Louis and John are, in effect supposed to be stewarding the Orioles now that Peter Angelos’ health has sort of gone down over the last few years. They’ve created a family trust that would split the, the control of the Orioles evenly amongst these two sons. Get I think John has been the one who has had the most public facing role as the owner and control person of the Orioles over the last few years. And this lawsuit is from Louis alleging that John has acted unilaterally, which would be in violation of this family trust that says they’re supposed to act in concert about the future of the organization. And the reason that this is important is because, a few reasons, one, supposedly John wants to move his team to Tennessee. And there’s a city in Tennessee, that currently has an expansion type ownership group, ready to buy a team and move a team there into Nashville. Which was we’ve talked about it in the past is headed by Dave Dombrowski and some other money people and Justin Timberlake and all of these other folks. That’s one of the reasons, and then the second reason is because, like, I know, this seems like rich people shit, right? It’s like billionaire creates Family Trust. Family argues over what that family trust means in practicality. But when you filter it through the lens of the fact that the Orioles are in the middle of one of the biggest tear downs, and rebuilds and tank jobs, in recent memory, it starts to make you feel a little bit queasy about how, how much control petty family drama amongst billionaire families can have over the lives of millions of baseball fans. And for at least for me, when I was reading this, I was like, so we’re just firing people over because one son doesn’t want this guy here and one son wants the other guy here? And all of this while the Orioles are trying to remake their entire farm system and invest in player development and make sure that Adley Rutschman is good and make sure all these pitching prospects stay healthy. All of this at the top, it, on its face it seems like it shouldn’t matter. But it, it kind of does matter, right?
ALEX: Right. Well, because these are the people who control the, the drawstrings to the purse, right? And if there are competing ideas about the direction of the franchise, that’s going to have a material impact on what happens on the field. Like those things eventually do bleed over, right? Whether it’s the decision to sign a certain free agent, right? Or the decision to trade a player in his walk here, you know. Like–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –we know how these guys think, right? And they’re certainly not just gonna let the, the Baltimore Orioles, the team go and do their pretty little thing while they’re having their feuds over here, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –the, the state of the Orioles is really dependent on–
BOBBY: Who’s calling the shots?
ALEX: –who’s calling the shots, yeah. And, and what decisions they’re actually making. So it certainly doesn’t seem to bode well for the near future of the franchise. I, I gotta say I’m a little, uhm, a little shocked. I wouldn’t have pegged the Orioles to have been the, the succession team, you know? Like, my–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –instincts would have been more like–
BOBBY: The Yankees.
ALEX: –the Cubs, or the Yankees.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Alright, family business, you have kind of your tentacles in politics and, and media and real estate. And at the center of it is this giant, you know, multi-billion dollar–
BOBBY: Conglomerate.
ALEX: –conglomerate sports enterprise.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: So good on the Orioles for really kind of coming in the–
BOBBY: Dark horse.
ALEX: –dark horse pick.
BOBBY: Nice. Yeah, I mean, obviously, I don’t know what goes into the decision to tank like the Orioles tanked. I think the hiring of Mike Elias is a big thing that goes into the decision to tank. He was one of the architects of the Astros tank job. It’s the reason that the Orioles hired him. But I don’t know, from, it just raises a lot of questions for me about who gives the sign off on a decision like that? Who, who is signing off and why are they signing off on five years of being terrible? And are they really reckoning with how much despair that is going to cause in a fan base? Should they have that power? No. Do they have that power? Yes. And so it matters, who they’re allowing to exercise that power. And if it’s unclear or if they’re doing it because of petty family drama, again, I think it’s just a shining example of why we should not be allowing individuals like this or families like this to own these franchises. They have way too much civic value. They have way too much financial value for any one person or any two sons to be arguing about. It just, I mean, it’s a circus. And I, I feel really bad for Orioles fans.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Because I don’t know how this gets resolved. I personally don’t know how well I could do this podcast if I was suing you over it.
ALEX: You don’t think we could put our differences aside and say you know what, for the good, for the good of the pod–
BOBBY: Good of the pod!
ALEX: [1:00:00] people.
BOBBY: Yes. The good of the tippers. That’s like we have no good name for the fans. I saw someone DM does about it. And they were like, is tippers too obvious? And I was like, it’s also not good.
ALEX: [1:00:14] just like, what does it mean–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –you know?
BOBBY: It’s like it’s like when you go to dinner like you’re a tipper, I think that’s kind of what he was saying, like ob- like it’s obvious that people who listen to Tipping Pitches with support to service workers? Same time, it’s like this is a Baseball Podcast, so, I don’t know.
ALEX: Maybe, maybe we change the beat of the podcast, just to kind of match the, the name? Tipping Pitches, but it’s about tipping servers?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Tipping servers, is up and the new name.
BOBBY: How much content can we get out of that?
ALEX: These days? More than you think!
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: The, the, the Tipping discourse–
BOBBY: I know.
ALEX: –like popped up again this past week.
BOBBY: Well, a couple of weeks ago, the New York Times wrote an article about it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Because it was like, the invention of square pay, has raised more questions than answers about whether or not you’re supposed to tip when you just order a coffee at Starbucks.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And then kind of just like, if it’s going to make or break your life, don’t tip. And if it isn’t, then give a couple of bucks to the people who are working with that shift, obviously tip if the person like waits on you.
ALEX: Also what is the like, concern trolling over this? Like this is actually one of the key economic issues that we need to be discussing right now.
BOBBY: Right. Yeah.
ALEX: You know, like, people are grappling over the tough decisions they have to make while a barista stares at them, will they hit 10%? Will they hit 15?
BOBBY: Will hit custom?
ALEX: What is, what is the, will they hit custom? What is the public shame that comes with not pressing it? You know, it’s like they went, instead of going to talk to Trump voters about voting for them a second time.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: They were like, my all my friends stopped talking to me after I like didn’t leave a tip at the restaurant.
BOBBY: Well, here’s what they should have spent that time and energy doing, figuring out whether or not those companies are actually giving those tips to those employees. Because there are laws that say that they’re supposed to be doing that. But I gotta say, sometimes when I walk into an establishment, I know when I’m pressing that tip button, I don’t have faith that it’s gonna go to the person that actually served me.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Don’t have faith. Why would I? Plenty of companies like, I don’t know, DoorDash? Uber?
ALEX: See, you asked how much content we could get out of this.
BOBBY: Damn, you’re actually right. You’re actually right.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: It’s, uh, this podcast is making a hard pivot to be about the gig economy and how tipping factors into it. All the way back to the actual host family. It’s bad, it’s a bad situation. Anything else on this? Because we spent so much time talking about Stock Up, Stock Down and we have a couple of voicemails to get to. So I don’t, I don’t want to make the pod drag too long. This was my sort of pet project that I wanted to talk about the downfall of the Angelos family.
ALEX: I, I guess my, my last question before we move on from this is, if you had to pick either Phil Castellini, or John Angelos, right? One–
BOBBY: Choose your fighter?
ALEX: Right, choose your fighter. Like one who is openly, one who openly disregards the, the interests of the fans says as much to their faces. And other- otherwise really just kind of doesn’t pay attention to anything the team is doing.
BOBBY: I got the vibe from him that that he doesn’t really like, no, maybe like how many outs are in an inning.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He was sort of putting off like a weird kind of, I don’t know how many players are on the field at once energy?
ALEX: Right. Like he had kind of just come ho- he’d been at the strip club like all night–
BOBBY: I think–
ALEX: –and he’d–
BOBBY: Yeah, I think it was–
ALEX: –holed up at like 10 am. Had not–
BOBBY: Allegedly.
ALEX: –slept allegedly or dirty. I guess I’d, I’d rather have Castellini, at least he’s fun, right? Good hang maybe?
BOBBY: Yeah, there’s a dark energy coming from this Angelos thing.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That I how, I feel like I understand Castellini. He’s a python as well. So I feel like, I mean, I get it, I get it. Okay, let’s, let’s go straight to those voicemails.
VOICEMAIL 1: Hello, Bobby. Hello, Alex. So my MLB Baseball Twitter moment that I wanted to talk about. It, it’s, it’s probably a smaller moment than some other ones. And there’s probably more significant ones that I’m not thinking of. But one that I really liked was after the 2020 World Series, when Rob Manfred was giving Corey Seager the MVP trophy. He, like was having a hard time speaking coherently. And it’s probably, it was probably because he was getting weird feedback and his earpiece and everything. But it just sounded like he was having a fucking stroke. And that’s what everyone on Twitter started to like, say, and I thought that tweets and discourse around that was very entertaining. Like Foolish Baseball posted a pretty funny clip on his Twitter about it. So yeah, that, that gave me a good laugh that night. So yeah, that’s, that’s my MLB Baseball Twitter moment.
BOBBY: This person left out the fact that Justin Turner also tested positive for COVID in the middle of this and then walked back out back out onto the field. Which people were also tweeting about at the same time. Yeah, Manfred was getting feedback in his head on, in his headset on, like he was hearing himself delayed, which makes it really impossible to continue to speak. Because you’re hearing what you just said. And you know what he does? It’s a whole thing. But there are people who are like, is he having a stroke? Or there were people who are like, is he drunk?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: What, what is happening here? It doesn’t seem like Rob to come out schwasty at the fucking World Series presentation trophy?
ALEX: There’s a little bit of like tone policing to have like–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –stop laughing at this. Commissioners only do this when they’re very scared or tired. You know, like–
BOBBY: Uhm, that’s a, it’s a good submission. And you know, I gotta say, I’m a little disappointed that only one person called what their favorite MLB Twitter moments. You at home right now, you’re listening. Maybe not at home, maybe you’re at work, more power to you. Listen to the tipping pitches at work-based, 785-422-5881 We will play your submission for what the best moment to be on baseball Twitter was. Okay, let’s move on to our next voicemail.
VOICEMAIL 2: Hey, what’s up? This is Alejandro, I’m a fan of the White Sox in, in Chicago. Not a fan of their Mayor. Or the manager I meant to say, manager. Anyway, to hate the Mayor too. Just watch Tony La Russa do an intentional walk on a two one count with two outs left doing sees out there struggling with no one in the bullpen. And just totally losing my patience with the White Sox and don’t think I have it in me to be a Cubs fan. Love the team. Hate the ownership, hate the manager. How do I, how do I pick a new team to root for? If you lived in Chicago could reasonably travel around or at least the teams when they come to visit either the Cubs or Sox? Would you support instead? Because I’m on the market. I’ll take my call off here. Thanks.
BOBBY: First of all, Alejandro, incredible Freudian Slip to say that you hate the mayor. Nice work and I think that listeners of Tipping Pitches will appreciate that Lori Lightfoot stray shot. We’ve gotten this question a few times. How do you pick a new team when your team is really dumping on you? I don’t know. We, we often give the advice of just like choose players that you like the most. And whatever team has a collection of players that you feel like is striking your fancy, just side with that team for the year. I will say this, don’t abandon your White Sox fandom. Don’t let them, don’t let them win, don’t let the bad guys win. Don’t let Jerry Reinsdorf, don’t let Tony La Russa walking people on one, two counts with two outs. Don’t let them win, because this team is as much your team as it is their team. Maybe you don’t get to, to pocket all the profits at the end of the year, and then lie about how baseball isn’t profitable. But like they wouldn’t exist without you, and the collection of other fans who put up with their shit. And if every team’s fan base just like allowed the ownership group to drive them away, then we would basically just be admitting that a collection of 30 old white guys actually do own the whole sport. And I don’t think that they do. So you don’t have to follow them. You can be pissed off, and you can ditch them for a year or two years or five years or ten years or whatever. But just keep a little space deep in the recesses of your heart for the potential that you could take back–
ALEX: The White Sox.
BOBBY: –some point.
ALEX: Counterpoint. I want to see what would happen if they drove everyone away.
BOBBY: Sure. Well, not, not to be too mean, Alex, you’re already seeing it. You, specifically–
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: –are already seeing what would happen if they drove everybody away. There are only a single digit 1000s of people coming to A’s games this year.
ALEX: Yup!
BOBBY: Are you gonna go see the A’s and go to Oakland in a couple of weeks?
ALEX: I don’t know. I was, I was thinking about this last night actually, because I feel very hesitant to give them any of my money.
BOBBY: Like in.
ALEX: Well, okay, so, so what I was thinking was.
BOBBY: Get credentialed.
ALEX: I really actually shouldn’t say any of this on air. But I, I–
BOBBY: This is something someone could do.
ALEX: Right. In theory, you could buy a ticket for a really cheap seat. And then in theory, use an, an image editing program to manipulate the, the ticket on your phone to maybe say a section that for example, you’re not actually sitting in. And, and use that to gain access to said section. And then maybe, theoretically speaking, you could bring–
BOBBY: You–
ALEX: –a sign–
BOBBY: –the royal you.
ALEX: –you, the royal you could bring a sign that expresses your disdain for John Fisher. Perhaps the royal you could go to dhgate.com and get a custom jersey that says, sell the team or, or Fisher’s wallet or something along those lines. Again, not that I would do any of these things–
BOBBY: This is inspired.
ALEX: –specifically.
BOBBY: This is inspired.
ALEX: I’m just like, fucking, come on, man! What, you, you’ve, you’ve forced me into this position. The royal, the royal me.
BOBBY: Royal me? Tipping Pitches does not endorse dhgate.com until they’re willing to give us money. Tipping Pitches does endorse everything else, Alex just said. Alejandro, back to your question, can’t be a Mets fan, dude. Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s fucking go Mets!
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, I think that like, more and more, my evaluation of like, who I want to root for really does come down to like, how do they treat the fans? And what is their relationship to baseball? Because I don’t find it hard to root for a team who is bad, but is maybe actually doing the best that they can, you know?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like if I know that there’s a collection of players out there, who the team is willing to invest in and, and throw their weight behind. And they happen to you know, end up only winning like 75 games or something like that. Like they fucking did their best, you know?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like I really–
BOBBY: Participation trophy hours.
ALEX: It’s big participation trophy hours. This is why I want everyone to win the World Series every year. Because I’m just like, I don’t, I don’t like seeing–
BOBBY: [1:11:52]
ALEX: –them fail.
BOBBY: Alex feeling bad when the team gets eliminated, his own team eliminates another team. I think all of this is trending towards me once again. Stabbing myself in the heart and saying that, the Royals are not a bad team to root for.
ALEX: Wow!
BOBBY: They, they’re like not a good team. But if you’re looking for a team that is maybe, you know, occasionally treating their minor leaguers right. Has a decent relationship with their fans, hates pornography. Maybe the Royals, maybe the Royals are for you. But really just be a Mets fan. Like just so rewarding, so healthy. Definitely have a good relationship to the Mets right now. Definitely not like really tired from staying up for the last 10 days straight to watch them on this West Coast road trip and then letting me down a couple times and multiple untimely injuries. Definitely, definitely fun time to be Mets fan. That’s concludes the Tipping Pitches Podcast. Because Alex and I are very tired after having to wait 10 minutes for all of the sirens outside of my apartment to stop. Which you guys didn’t hear any of.
ALEX: But we did, we did come up with a good garlic bread recipe and determined that fruit salad is, it takes a little effort.
BOBBY: I think fruit salad is easy to make. Here’s my number one fruit salad recipe, just kidding.
ALEX: Let’s, we need the Castellinis to chime in here. That’s really what we need.
BOBBY: Again, veggie salad, they’re, they’re more of a veggie salad type. Fruit salad recipes are more for the Patreon. You know what else is for the Patreon? It’s our live Q&A on Flag Day, Tuesday, June 14, Flag Day. Tuesday, June 14, that is tomorrow. If you’re listening to this the day that it comes out that is today if you’re listening to this one day after this comes out. And that is yesterday you missed it, if you’re listening to this on Wednesday. It’s just gonna be a hang, it’s gonna be on a Zoom. We’re gonna send everybody the link. Probably be a Patreon messenger, but we’ll drop it in Slack for those people too. And if you’re listening to this, and you’re a member of the Alex Rodriguez VIP Club and you have not received a link to join that live Q&A, please feel free to nag us in a Twitter DM, tipping_pitches more likely in a Patreon DM, if you actually want us to see it in time for the live Q&A, or in a Slack DM. People can slack DM us. If they, if they want to chat about anything, or nothing at all. If they just want to say hey, the Alex Rodriguez VIP Club, they get a shout out, special, members of that club get a shout out at the end of every podcast. We shout out five of those people because they’re basically like our producers. Those five people this week are Maddie, Anne, Eddie, Josh, and Henry. Mercifully, this podcast is over. Would you like to leave anybody with some sage words of wisdom Alex?
ALEX: Yeah, real quick, if you, if you have signed up for our patreon you may notice that one of the perks in a couple of the tiers is a free sticker pack. Well, you’re finally getting them.
BOBBY: Free, free sticker pack.
ALEX: Free sticker pack, yes. We, we are ordering sticker packs for all of you, and they’re on the way. You should have already gotten a email about it. Don’t worry, we did not covertly charge all of your cards. So you–
BOBBY: This is actually just a long con grift, where the fire festival of Tipping Pi- or the fire festival podcast Patreons?
ALEX: Right and, and the act we committed was purchasing the cheapest item on our webstore for all of our customers. Anyway, you should be getting those in the mail very soon. If you haven’t gotten any sort of correspondence about that, please reach out, let us know. We might not have your, your address–
BOBBY: Or your correct email address.
ALEX: –email address, whatever it is.
BOBBY: I will say if you’re an international listener, you will not have gotten that confirmation yet. Because we have to do something a little bit different to get you guys stickers. But we’re working on that. Apologies. You know, nation states make these things hard, to be quite frank. Sovereignty makes our sticker shipping very difficult. This podcast is off the rails. It’s patreon.com\tippingpitches if you want to get access to all that stuff that we’ve been talking about for the last couple minutes. If you just want to sticker pack, and you, you don’t want to sign up for the Patreon, I guess I, I get it, I get it. You can get that sticker pack, tippingpitches.myshopify.com, where you can also find a bunch of cool T shirts. That’s enough promo. Until next week, we will talk to everybody who is joining the live Q&A tomorrow and we’ll talk to everybody else in a week. Bye.
ALEX: Butter futures are down.
BOBBY: Buy the dip.
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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