Alex and Bobby discuss major leaguers’ opinions on what striking out the side actually means, then go over some takeaways from All-Star weekend including a Juan Soto derby conspiracy theory and how we talk about the game’s stars, pick apart Rob Manfred’s dismissal of the idea that minor leaguers are underpaid, and answer listener questions about coping, dowries, hometown discounts, and more.
Links:
Major leaguers define “striking out the side”
Rob Manfred rejects the premise of unlivable minor league wages
Sign up for the Tipping Pitches Patreon
Songs featured in this episode:
Ariana Grande — “Side to Side” • Pool Kids — “That’s Physics, Baby” • 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, hello. I feel like we’re sort of back to our bread and butter. And by that, I mean, I’m in Los Angeles, and you’re in New York, and we’re recording a podcast over Zoom. This is the majority, this is our home turf basically. The majority of our pods have been under these circumstances.
ALEX: I know, it’s like coming back home after a long road trip. You’re like, this feels good. I’m sleeping in my own bed again.
BOBBY: Which is staring at a screen which I guess you’re on the other side of? I don’t really know. There’s a chance that I could have just made all of this up in my brain this whole time. My travel to Los Angeles is the reason that this podcast is coming to you a little later than usual. My flight was canceled, you know? You know the airline when they’re just like, yeah, we just didn’t hire a crew for your flight. And you’re just like, ohh, okay. Great!
ALEX: That would be, that would be, I wish that was like the norm in other professions, you know.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Like, like, I don’t know, you, you go in to, to your, your, your local coffee shop. And they’re like, We know you ordered a drink, but unfortunately–
BOBBY: Right–
ALEX: –we just–
BOBBY: –and we know you paid for the drink.
ALEX: Right. But unfortunately–
BOBBY: 5 weeks ago.
ALEX: –we just, we just let all our baristas go home.
BOBBY: Right. And we know that the drink is $800. And we know that in order to do your job, you need the drink.
ALEX: Also, technically, we overbooked your drink. So we made one drink, even though four people ordered the exact same thing. And we’re kind of just hoping three people don’t show up.
BOBBY: It’s a kind of, it’s a, it’s a wild thing that we let society do, you know. If we–
ALEX: If we let airlines get away with far too much.
BOBBY: We haven’t even talked about baseball yet. We’re talking–
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: –about airlines, we’re talking about me being in Los Angeles. Here’s the most important baseball thing I want to start out this week with. We of course have Rob Manfred’s comments about minor leaguers. As per usual, we have the All-Star break. We have a bunch of listener questions to get to as well. But more important than all of that, Alex, we have the opinions of Major League Baseball All-Stars about what it means to strike out the side.
ALEX: And the results will surprise you.
BOBBY: The results, folks, they’re not going to be ideal, from my perspective. I’ll play a little bit of this clip that MLB tweeted out from their social media accounts from last weekend’s All-Star game. It’s just a wonderful, it’s a wonderful idea for a video. So this collection of Major League Baseball players was asked, what does it mean to strike out the side? Does it mean three in a row? Or any three in the inning? And here are the results. Alex. Six for striking out three in a row. Nine, nine for striking out three in an inning in any order. And then there’s Alek Manoah, who weirdly was talking about some technicality that wasn’t part of the question, but I love him–
ALEX: [3:26]
BOBBY: –for it anyway, I love him for it anyway. Are, are we wrong? Or are the best baseball players on the planet wrong? The best baseball players on the planet on that list, who said it was any three in an inning. Gerrit Cole, Travis d’Arnaud, Clay Holmes, Max Fried, Pete Alonso. Pete, come on. Paul Goldschmidt, could probably cross him off on his thoughts on things. Austin Reilly, Jack Peterson, and Devin Williams.
ALEX: These are the ones who are pro any three strikeouts in any order?
BOBBY: Yes, yes.
ALEX: So lots of–
BOBBY: So you get–
ALEX: –lots of hitters–
BOBBY: –5 runs–
ALEX: –I will say.
BOBBY: –and strike–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –out three. You struck out the side, that’s what they think, earnestly.
ALEX: So how many of those are, are, are batters? Because I, I maybe tend to trust their opinion on this slightly less. Because it doesn’t, doesn’t matter to them. And obviously, it doesn’t matter to Devin Williams, because he just strikes out the side no matter what the situation.
BOBBY: Doesn’t give up hits. Five of those nine are batters.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: And uhh, of the ones who said that you have to do it in a row, five of the six are pitchers and the other one was a catcher.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: All-Star–
ALEX: So–
BOBBY: –breakout, Jose Trevino on the right side of history here. Saying–
ALEX: Hell–
BOBBY: –that it has to be [4:41]
ALEX: –hell yeah, hell yeah. So I think that’s telling, right?
BOBBY: Right!
ALEX: That we kind of have this, this divide between pitchers and hitters on this subject.
BOBBY: A little jury selection bias?
ALEX: Right, exactly. I, is it, right. Is this our Principal Skinner moment? Where we’re asking ourselves if we’re out of touch or if the kids are wrong?
BOBBY: What, no, that’s what I’m asking you. Are we wrong? Is it possible that this is the first time in the 5-year history of Tipping Pitches we’ve ever been wrong about anything?
ALEX: No. Absolutely not. I know actually–
BOBBY: No because we’re right and we’ve never been wrong about anything else [5:17].
ALEX: That’s, that’s right.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: No, I actually feel far more confident in this, in, in the opinion that it must be three strikeouts in an inning. And like that’s, you know, 1 2 3 inning.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: I feel far more confident in that opinion than I do. And many of the others that I’ve, I’ve logged on here to spew. I mean, I think it would be interesting to ask broadcasters as well. Because they’re often the ones who are communicating this to the fans, right? You know, he, he gives up a hit, but he strikes out the side.
BOBBY: So there’s an interesting hypothetical, though. If you walk the first person or you give up a hit, and then you strike out three in a row, did you strike out the side?
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: I agree. Okay, it’s just, just checking, just checking. Because to me, the side in question the side in question, Alex.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Is the list of three batters that are due up in the next inning, that’s the side. And once you go beyond those three batters, you’re no longer within the side. Does that hold weight to you?
ALEX: It does. I, I, I want to throw a bit of a wrinkle in this. Because it’s also possible there are certain types of the side or retiring the side, right?
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: Is there a difference between retiring the side and retiring the side in order? Like are we thinking that you know, strike out the side in order, equals strike out the side? Or are they two distinct things, right? Is the side simply getting the three outs needed to, to end a team’s offensive half inning. But if you do it in order, there’s your 1 2 3 inning.
BOBBY: See, now you’ve really thrown me off. Because, you know, my side theory, I felt really good about it. But you’re completely right. And that when you retire the side, it’s just when the inning is over.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: No matter what has happened. Oh, thankfully he finally retires the side, gave up five runs before that doesn’t matter. So you’ve, you’ve stressed tested my, my side theory. Man, now I find myself sort of like not agreeing with those nine major leaguers, but kind of seeing where they’re coming from. But saying striking out the site in order. That’s a mouthful.
ALEX: It is.
BOBBY: And it seems not worthy, striking out three batters not in order does not seem like a worthy enough accomplishment to have its own phraseology, you know. Because everybody’s strikes out nowadays, and anything could have happened in between. So I, I feel like we should still reserve striking out the side for just doing it in order. Because no one’s gonna say he’s struck out the side in order. We were all watching, we saw it.
ALEX: I agree with you. We seem to be increasingly interested in the linguistics around baseball.
BOBBY: Yeah, we’re kind of effectively wild posting.
ALEX: Well, I, I, I’m curious what you the listener thinks of this. Because there’s, there’s a very clear divide on this, right? One that is arguably as strong as pro or anti DH.
BOBBY: Except we’re on the same side for this one.
ALEX: Right, exactly. But among, among baseball fans, I think you could take a, take a straw poll at, at any given game, and you’d probably get–
BOBBY: Love a straw poll.
ALEX: We’d love a straw poll. I think you’d probably get a few different answers. I think some of the answers would probably be like, what is, what is the side I’ve never heard of this before? I just saw the picture, do good, good, do good stuff.
BOBBY: Should we turn this into a bit of ours? Like whenever we’re at a baseball game, just ask people, everybody around us? Hey, bro! Hey, Chief!
ALEX: I–
BOBBY: What’s striking out the side mean to you?
ALEX: I, I kind of liked that idea.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Every game we go to, we got to ask at least one person.
BOBBY: Okay. I mean [9:17] running–
ALEX: Keep, keep like a running, a running tally. Yeah.
BOBBY: And then afterwards, after they’re done with their answer, we point at them and we say this is the year.
ALEX: To deepen our own bits, we can’t have like normal conversations anymore.
BOBBY: On or off mic, you know, we just like–
ALEX: Yeah, I know.
BOBBY: –a bit late in conversations, even when we’re not recording them for the Tipping Pitches Podcast.
ALEX: Yeah. That’s how, that’s how we cope.
BOBBY: Speaking of the Tipping Pitches Podcast, let’s, let’s do it! Let’s stop talking about striking out the side. Thanks to @MLB for that wonderful conversation starter. I think, I think friend of the podcast just what, he was the one who was asking those questions. So those major leaguers wonderful idea. As I mentioned before, we’re going to talk, we’re gonna hit on Rob Manfred’s comments about minor leaguers and their wage, and whether or not they can live on it. And then we’re going to answer a bunch of listener questions at the end of this episode. But before we do that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[10:20]
[Music Theme]
BOBBY: Alex, our favorite segment, we host a town hall press conference in response to a Rob Manfred press conference is coming up in just a moment. However, I wanted to talk to you about the All-Star game and All-Star Weekend, Home Run Derby, et cetera, et cetera. Which happened this past week, we didn’t talk a ton about it on the last episode, because we interviewed Randy Wilkins about ‘The Captain’. First, the first two episodes of that have come out now. If you haven’t checked it out, you can get it on-demand on ESPN+. Or if you have cable, it is airing frequently. And every Thursday until the series wraps up. I think there are five more episodes after this. So go check that out. But All-Star Weekend, we don’t usually spend a ton of time talking about, you know, like the baseball main events on the show. Famously, we don’t talk about the, the games, and who wins. Sometimes we talk about the playoffs, maybe the World Series where it rolls around every once in a while. But uhm, I wanted to ask you, Who do you think, who won All-Star Weekend? You know, I know the American League won for the ninth straight time, which is just very statistically improbable, we think too hard about it. But who is like the person who you are thinking of one week later, because of their performance at All Star Weekend?
ALEX: I mean, it has to be Alek Manoah, right? As far as the person who made the most waves over the course of the 48 hours of festivities. In terms of like, on field, not even performance, but like showing of personality.
BOBBY: According to our friends at the top of the show, he struck out the side even though we hit a batter. So his on field performance was good.
ALEX: Obviously, what caught most people’s attention was the he, he was mic’d up for, for his timeout on the mound. And, and they have a lot to say. Not to anyone in particular, mostly to himself. Seems like Alek Manoah is his own greatest hype man.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But after more or less every pitch, he was muttering something to himself, he was making some sort of ex- exclamation, either kind of in the direction of the batter or more just about the moment, then he was in. And, and I have to say this man is giving representation to folks who talk to themselves as they go about their, their daily work. And I have to applaud him for that because we need more of that out there.
BOBBY: So do you talk to yourself like that, when you make a sick meme? Or like when you pull together a nice little PowerPoint?
ALEX: Uh huh.
BOBBY: Are you–
ALEX: Yeah!
BOBBY: –fuck yah, Alex!
ALEX: Yeah!
BOBBY: You crush them?
ALEX: I am. Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah? That’s how you handle it?
ALEX: Uh-hmm. I’ll, I like go to other, other organizations, social media pages and say like, sit down. Like get out of here, bro.
BOBBY: Okay, you’re joking. But when I’m listening to other media companies podcasts and I don’t think they’re very good I actually do talk out loud to say that. So–
ALEX: I mean, yeah, so I, I totally don’t–
BOBBY: [13:41] segment. Fuckin’ whack ass segment, we could have done that one way better.
ALEX: Get the fuck out of here! Right, I, I maybe, I maybe don’t speak to myself in the manner that Alek Manoah speaks to himself. But I feel like we both kind of, kind of meet the moment as it, as it requires the level which–
BOBBY: Can you tell me when was the last time you fist pumped? You know like you just did something and you fist pumped.
ALEX: I fist pump far more than I really would like to admit.
BOBBY: Really? Wow! Shocking revelations in the first 20 minutes of the Tipping Pitches Podcast Alex is a self-talking fist pumper. I fuckin’ love it.
ALEX: I mean, I do it when I’m watching baseball a lot frankly.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Especially–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –if I’m not like not watching the team that I ostensibly root for. Not that I really do much fist pumping around the A’s these days anyway.
BOBBY: Yeah, you gotta save your fist pumps from when Joe Lacob buys ’em, baby.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yes, I do.
BOBBY: That’s right, thank you based Joe.
ALEX: I don’t know, I think that fist pumping should be more commonplace, honestly. Like after you cook a good meal, you know. You feel good about it. You’re like uhm..
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: That, that pasta water emulsified with the cheese on that pasta so fucking good, man!
BOBBY: Make sure I get an, I gotta remember to make sure to get an acid in this dish though. I’ve been watching the bear.
ALEX: Ohhh.
BOBBY: We actually–
ALEX: Oh, yeah.
BOBBY: –just watched the whole, the whole season last week. Speaking of getting an acid in your pasta dish.
ALEX: Oh, yes, chef.
BOBBY: It’s so good.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It was so good. Yeah, I hate to be like this show that everybody is telling you to watch his good but this just in.
ALEX: It’s like this the Ted, the Ted Lasso effect where you’re like, alright, we get it–
BOBBY: Alright, come on–
ALEX: –everyone likes it.
BOBBY: –don’t insult them. Okay? Don’t insult them. I fist pump all of the time when playing MLB: The Show. After a big strikeou,t I do Alek Manoah, myself. I think that Manoah was definitely the big, the big breakout star for me too. He’s given a little bit of CC Sabathia energy, I tweeted this. And, of course, I don’t know Alek Manoah personally, but on the mound, and the way that he celebrates himself and doesn’t hold back his own emotions. I think is, a little bit reminiscent of, of how CC handled things. There was a clip of him turning to the Red Sox bench after an inning ending strikeout and saying, “Why don’t you sit down bitch?!” Which, you know, it’s not, not CC. So I, I did very much enjoyment I was performance. And then of course, Julio, Julio Rodriguez is I think the mass appeal breakout of–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –the All-Star game. And it’s interesting how it lined up that Seattle is hosting the All-Star game next year. And so this will be his follow up to his breakthrough performance. And–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –he’ll kind of be the, the guy holding court in Seattle, you’d have to assume. And I just got, you know, I got a feeling watching him at the All Star Weekend. And then watching ‘The Captain’. And just thinking about, like, you know, the parallel Cy Young stars in Seattle. Becoming the face of baseball coming up and being highly successful at such a young age and how rare that is. Not to say that Julio will turn into the cultural figure that is Alex Rodriguez. But it was, it was really, it was really cool to watch. Because I know in 20 years from now, when Julio Rodriguez is a surefire Hall of Famer, as we promised he would be a couple of weeks ago on the show. We will be looking back on the 2022 All-Star game and thinking, wow! Look how young he was! Like this is crazy! I can’t, he hadn’t done this, he hadn’t done that, he hadn’t done XYZ. Like I, I just think that, that is what I take away from All-Star Weekend more so than the fact that Fox couldn’t get the onfield microphones to be louder than fucking three decibels.
ALEX: Yeah, we’re in real audio hours now. Now he’s in his element. I totally agree that like as far as stock among baseball fans as like, as like an actual baseball player, not necessarily just like a, like a cool dude. Although [17:47] is a cool dude is certainly rising as well.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But he absolutely like flashed all of the tools that make him such an insi- that make him such an exciting young player and will be such an exciting young player for the next, you know, better part of two decades. So it did feel like his kind of coming out party.
BOBBY: Yeah. And it happened in a natural way, which was him stealing the show at the Home Run Derby, which is far and away All-Star weekend’s coolest event. I wanted to get your temperature really quickly before we talk about Rob. On, I, I don’t know, man, I don’t know how to explain this, but the vibe of the presentation of All-Star Weekend. And the, the way that we try to market baseball to supposedly like the rest of the sports world who is coming in for a couple of days to check out the midsummer classic. Because I couldn’t help but get this feeling while watching in, this is the way that I feel oftentimes we’re watching things like Sunday Night Baseball or generally speaking watching baseball on largely ESPN, but Fox as well. They were the ones, Fox was the one, was the channel who hosted the actual game itself and ESPN held the other festivities. I can’t help but feel like they’re constantly trying to tell people that there are stars in baseball. Rather than just letting people observe the stars and make natural connections to them. It’s almost like, you know, an inception when they’re like, when they like, what’s the easiest way to get someone to think about an elephant? You’re like, don’t think about an elephant. And then of course, what are you thinking about an elephant? But you know that that idea didn’t come from you, you know? Because someone else just said it to you. But now you’re thinking about it. It’s kind of how I feel about how they talk about Shohei Ohtani where they’re just constantly, they almost make me not want to like him by how much they’re telling me to like him. Like these are the people who I don’t like telling me to like this guy. Does that make sense? Or am, I am I completely galaxy branding this?
ALEX: No, I know what you mean. It’s a lot of telling insh- instead of showing, right? Like trying to prove–
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: –that these players are the monumental stars that they actually are. Instead of kind of letting their performances speak for themselves. And I’ll say that I, I probably didn’t have the same viewing experience as you. Because I was watching with the sound off for most of the All-Star game and the Home Run Derby. So I–
BOBBY: Were you doing your own play by play?
ALEX: Right, exactly. [20:31]–
BOBBY: Like the shadow Slack that don’t I don’t know about?
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. No, I was just fist pumping and kind of yelling out, and yelling out affirmations to Juan Soto. While, while he was, while he was hitting. No, but I mean, that was like almost a more enjoyable experience. Because I, I didn’t need to, I didn’t feel the need to like to get upset over, over like commentating or anything like that, you know. But obviously, that’s how a majority of people take in the game, right? Is with, is with the sound on. And it definitely feels like, like for all of the, the criticism that we kind of throw at Major League Baseball, I, I don’t think that they are terrible at kind of marketing the stars or letting their stars sort of speak for themselves. I think they’ve made a lot of strides in the last couple of years, kind of putting them front and center, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Even, even doing stuff as simple as the, you know, what we talked about at the top of show, right? Just asking them kind of goofy questions that might, you know, might speak to the baseball community’s curiosity around the game, or whatever, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like that sort of stuff, I think is cool. And like raises interest in the players themselves.
BOBBY: Needing to bait major leaguers into saying something other than, I’m just happy to be here. I’m just taking it one game at a time. This is such a special experience.
ALEX: Right. Exactly. I was, you know, I was raised to play the game the right way. And so it’s awesome that that, that took me here. But it does feel like when it kind of reaches a national level, there’s a sense of not knowing how to kind of contextualize it within the broader world of sports.
BOBBY: There just seems to be a lack of self-confidence in how the sport thinks of itself in the national spotlight versus how other sports do. Like football has all the self-confidence in the world that it needs, because it knows that 100 million people watching. I think basketball has more self-confidence than baseball because the stars themselves are much more open to the spotlight. And they know how to be interesting in a way that I think a lot of baseball players don’t naturally want to be. And so then I think that what happens is, when you get players who are interesting in that way who can shine in the spotlight, who do well in situations like that, I think that there’s just a little bit of an overbearing quality to how people who genuinely liked baseball. Like the announcers and the people who cover baseball on television, I think those people like baseball, probably. They want you to know that there are other things to like about the game, other than what’s on the field. Because I think people are really insecure about what’s on the field right now. Because there’s this dominant conversation, which I banned from the podcast, which is, so I’m not gonna get into it. But there’s this dominant conversation about how baseball is, is, is dying. And the game itself is not interesting enough to young people. And I don’t think that that’s necessarily true. But I think that that is a presumption that people are bringing into events like All-Star Weekend, the All-Star game. And I think it’s kind of hard to ignore when you, when you watch an event like this. And it’s a little bit easier to ignore in October, because the games matter so much. So you can let them speak for themselves a little more. And all of the stars are not necessarily as individually showcased as they are at All-Star Weekend. But, I don’t know, it’s just something that I keep noticing time and time again, when we have events like this.
ALEX: Yeah. And, you know, I think that’s also a problem that’s kind of inherent to a lot of national broadcasts of baseball games. Just because you have a, a crew of people–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –who are kind of parachuting in, right?
BOBBY: Oh, you heard about this guy? Yeah, you heard about that guy? He’s good, he’s good.
ALEX: Right. And, and they use these, these kind of marquee exhibitions as a way to sort of like, you know, they want to give you a quick glance at every single star the tear, right? Which I get! I, I in, in an event like this, I do kind of understand that, the instinct to just say, let’s try and like focus on everyone, right? Because you, you, you want to elevate the profiles of these players. But you, you kind of run run into issues when you start to act like, like, do you have to convince people that these–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –are players that are worth being interested in?
BOBBY: Yes. Because the people who are paying close attention already know they’re interesting and the other people are not getting it from your little 32nd thing.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: They’re kind of getting neither of those two things.
ALEX: Yes, exactly.
BOBBY: And that’s not even to say, I don’t even think the broadcast was bad. Like, I don’t think that they’re doing anything wrong, necessarily. I just think we’re in a really we- I think we’re in a really weird environment. I think the vibes around the sport are very weird. Though, I enjoyed many of the things that happened at All-Star Weekend.
ALEX: Real quick, before we move off All-Star Weekend, I just want to float my conspiracy theory to you and you kind of give me a 1 – 10 on like tinfoil hat, okay?
BOBBY: Okay, right. Wait just to be clear, 10 means I like it? I believe it?
ALEX: 10 means it’s believable.\
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Like you like, Yes, I’m on board with this.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: I mean, you may not like what the conspiracy theory stands for, but you–
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: –you might be.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: I think that Juan Soto was trying to let Albert Pujols win, and accidentally Juan just because his talent is so good. He gets to the second round of the Home Run Derby, right? Schwarber–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –kind of, you know, struggles mightily in the first round. They go to the swing off, him and Albert Pujols. Pujols ends up prevailing and taking on Juan Soto in the second round of the Derby. And Soto who is like, looking locked in, in the first round, all of a sudden is kind of not struggling, but he’s hitting a lot more pop ups. He’s kind of hitting a lot more line drives. He looks like he’s like trying to put on like a, like an all fields hitter Derby, you know?
BOBBY: Yeah. Uh huh.
ALEX: I think that he revered Pujols enough. And, and then, you know, I mean, many of the Latin American players who were there, were showing their love for Albert Pujols. I think he wanted to let him have his moment, and just accidentally hit a couple of home runs that put him over the edge.
BOBBY: Okay, can I add to the theory before I give him my 1 to 10?
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: If that’s true, I think the reason that he ended up winning was because at some point, he shared a glance with Albert, who was like, please put me out of my misery. I don’t think that I can swing for another round.
ALEX: I love that. I think that’s a very worthy addition.
BOBBY: Albert did well. Like–
ALEX: It did very well.
BOBBY: It’s not that I didn’t think that he could hit home runs. But like, how many consecutive–
ALEX: [27:52] but like–
BOBBY: –swings.
ALEX: –we were, we were a little curious about how it would go, right?
BOBBY: It certainly wasn’t the worst person in the competition.
ALEX: No!
BOBBY: I mean, he beat cloud, Kyle Schwarber in the swing off, but there were other people in the first round that I felt like he could have beat as well. I like your theory, I’ll give it a 7.
ALEX: 7?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: 7 is was the number that I give whenever there’s a 1 to 10 scale just [28:16]
ALEX: Right. You’re just kind of like–
BOBBY: That sounds–
ALEX: –that’s a decent [28:18]–
BOBBY: –I don’t want to like bury your theory on the podcast, but I’m like, it’s probably not true. So–
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: –I’m just give it a 7.
ALEX: That’s the pitchfork like 7.0, it’s like, you know–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –it’s not best new music, but you know, there’s something here for everyone.
BOBBY: That’s, yeah, but like 5.5 to 7 is like the danger zone, you know?
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s like when Steve was on the podcast, and he was like, just either crushed me or love me, you know.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Because then that will get people to listen.
ALEX: Right. You don’t want, you don’t want- ahh, could happen. But like, probably not, and it’s not very interesting anyway.
BOBBY: Ooh.
ALEX: That, that sucks, that’s enough.
BOBBY: Well, now you’re making me want to give you a 7.5.
ALEX: Hell, yeah! That’s new theory, baby!
BOBBY: All right, we should uhm. Uhh, God. This is the part of the podcast where it becomes less fun. But like, once we get into it, I know I’ll have fun yelling at Rob Manfred. But at beg- the onset of any conversation about something that Rob said it’s a, it’s pretty daunting. So I felt like Rob did a, a decent job of staying out of the spotlight this past week. Better than he has done in the past. However, in the lead up to the All-Star game, he was giving his press conference, as the commissioner, always does at large events like this. And friend of the show, Hannah Kaiser asked a little question that I think will be of interest to the Tipping Pitches listeners if you haven’t seen it yet. Hannah asked Rob, if his owners don’t pay minor leaguers a living wage because they can’t afford to, or because they aren’t interested in doing so. Now, before I read Rob’s answer, I want to say this is how you ask a tough question. You don’t give the person an easy out to lie by saying, do you think minor leaguers are paid fairly? Because they’re not. And so what you do is you come into the question with the presumption, you come into the question with the knowledge that they are not paid fairly. And you ask, why? Because that made Rob’s response, I think even more explosive. Because then Rob goes on to say, I reject the premise that they’re not paid a living wage. So you make him fully tell the lie at the press conference. And then of course, Twitter gets a hold of this, people like us get a hold of this, and we pounce on it. And rightfully so, because the commissioner of Baseball at basically, any opportunity just lies to protect the owners about things that we know are true. And this is something that was happening all of the time, during bargaining, for the Collective Bargaining Agreement, it was a little bit easier to lie about the Major League Baseball Collective Bargaining Agreement. Because people, as we’ve discussed a million times, don’t sympathize with, quote unquote, “millionaire players”. But this one is a pretty tough one to lie about. Because I think a lot of people who pay attention to things like this, a lot of people who would even see this, quote, come through. At this point, understand that minor leaguers almost in all cases make less than $15,000 a year. And are not paid for the time that they are not playing in the actual quote, unquote, “championship season”. And so, so I think that that was the reason that you saw the amount of vitriol for Rob, for saying something like this. But I guess my question to you, Alex, is, what was he supposed to say? Like, what else could he do? I saw a lot of people being like Rob Manfred worst commissioner continually, you know, stepping in landmines, continuingly embarrassing baseball at its most important moments, but he’s sort of in a situation where it’s not like he can just admit that they’re not paid a living wage, right?
ALEX: Right. And, and again, I think a lot of this is, as you said, to Hannah Kaiser’s credit for making him either admit that teams don’t play, that teams don’t pay players a living wage. Or find a way to weasel out of it and, and kind of rationalize why they’re not paid a living wage. Or as he, or he chose option three, right? Which is just kind of reje- rejecting the question entirely.
BOBBY: No. Thank you, Rob, for finding the third rail.
ALEX: I mean, I think this was in his mind, and in the minds of owners, probably the right answer, right? I mean, it’s his job to protect the interests of the owners, and protect the bank accounts of the owners, right? And so when it comes to things like paying players a living wage, you certainly can’t come out and claim that owners can’t afford it, right? Because that’s not true, although it’s telling that that wasn’t his defense, right?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Because there was a bit of an out there, which was, you know, we’re doing our best to improve living conditions. But, frankly, money’s tight right now, you know. He could have said that, which is like, these are claims that he’s kind of made in the past when it’s coming to any number of issues regarding the financials of baseball, right?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: It’s like–
BOBBY: Particularly at the minor league level, where they try to pretend like there isn’t this $4 billion parent company, overtop of them. They try to make it seem like each individual Minor League club needs to be financially soluble on their own.
ALEX: Right. But–
BOBBY: Financially soli- soluble? I think it’s solvent. I think soluble–
ALEX: Solvent.
BOBBY: –just like chemistry term.
ALEX: Yes, it is. Yeah.
BOBBY: We’re just gonna keep rolling.
ALEX: It’s a linguistics podcast, not a chemistry podcast.
BOBBY: It’s not a finance podcast, that’s for sure.
ALEX: Well, that’s–
BOBBY: Well, actually guy who’s not–
ALEX: [34:13]
BOBBY: –financially solvent says financially soluble.
ALEX: But like, in theory, he gave the, the right answer here, right? Which is to simply not admit, which is to simply not concede on the point that minor leaguers aren’t paid a living wage, right? And he, you know, in the rest of his quote, he talks about making strides in the last few years in terms of what minor leagues are paid, right? He–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –he says, Even putting to one side, the signing bon- bonuses that many of them have received, which just a side note, most of them don’t receive much in the way of a signing bonus. They’ve received housing, which is obviously another form of compensation, side note.
BOBBY: Tell me more about–
ALEX: It isn’t–
BOBBY: –why they did that? Why they received that?
ALEX: –it’s not, it’s not a form of compensation.
BOBBY: Did you uhh, I mean, technically it is a form of comper- compensation, right? But if–
ALEX: But–
BOBBY: –not the, it’s not the, it’s not the type of compensation that you would need to give if you actually were paying them a living wage. You know what I mean? It’s like they’re doing everything they can to not have to pay them a living wage. And so they gave them housing, after extreme outside pressure. Like that’s what the part that he leaves out of this. Every good thing that’s happened to minor leaguers has net- not been out of the good of MLB’s heart.
ALEX: Yeah, absolutely. It’s been a way to kind of throw the, throw the towel on this, this fire that’s been kind of burning larger and larger over the last few years of actually–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –getting meaningful improvements to the living conditions of minor leaguers.
BOBBY: Yeah. Don’t, don’t take credit for that now, Rob. Where were you at on that issue five years ago?
ALEX: So but he easily kind of skirts around the issue at hand here, right? Which is, which is that many of them are not being paid properly. Which is frankly, what he’s supposed to do, right? If you kind of look at, look at his job, there’s really no way that he can say, this is the reason we’re not paying them a, a living wage. And he certainly can’t say, this is why we don’t want to pay them a, a living wage, right?
BOBBY: Yeah. Uh-hmm.
ALEX: I mean, ultimately, it doesn’t matter what he says, right? Because he’s like, what are you going to do? What are you going to do about it? We can, we can fire off our tweets, right? Where you can let Advocates for Minor Leaguers, put out a statement. And sure, it probably paints him in a bad light. But that’s kind of his job is to take the heat so that the rest of the owners don’t need to. And you could argue whether or not he does it in the, in the most savvy of ways. I think he kind of just goes out there and dispenses of all notion that he really cares about that the future of the game, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And in favor of simply, I, I lying to our faces. But like he can do that, he’s allowed to do that. Every commissioner does that, right? Like he is far from the first to do that. He’s maybe just the first to do it so plainly and brazenly and without any regard for what the interest of fans actually are or players.
BOBBY: Yeah, I started to entertain the idea for the first time. I guess, since we’ve been doing this podcast, I started to entertain the idea that he might not be that long for the commissioner’s office. Not because I, not because the owners necessarily think that he’s doing a bad job. But I think it’s a little bit more nuanced than that. I think that it’s at some point, there will be a, a, an approval rating that Rob and the league and the commissioner’s Office dip below. Where it becomes much more, it becomes much more viable to replace him. I mean, he’s been commissioner for seven years. And I think he probably wants to stay in that job. Given all of the shit that he’s willingly taken, and how his–
ALEX: Like $17.5 million a year?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: He willingly takes that.
BOBBY: And, and that he seems to kind of live for the notion of pulling one over on the Major League Baseball Players Associatio. Like most of his adult life has been dedicated to that exact task. And why give it up now, in the last third of your professional career? To retire early doesn’t seem like that’s something that he’s particularly interested in. But–
ALEX: Right. If you can’t exploit labor, why wouldn’t–
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly.
ALEX: –right?
BOBBY: I, I feel the same way. He only got 20 out of the te- 20 out of the 30 votes of owners to make him the commissioner, when he took over for Bud Selig. And I just feel like there is a little bit of an element of owners becoming increasingly frustrated with how nakedly some of these things are out in the open. Particularly with regards to the minor leagues. Like I’m, I have to imagine that the 30 principal owners of Major League Baseball, and their partners are not happy that this these are some of the loudest conversations around the sport. And in the offseason, when there’s a lockout, there seems to be louder and louder conversations about how the league is being run versus how other leagues are being run. And I don’t know if I fully buy into the notion that just because Rob is bad at the PR part of the commissioners job it’s better for us to know these things, to hear these answers, to hear how they really feel about things. Because I kind of feel like I already know how all of these leagues really feel about things. How they feel as they want to make the most money possible, they don’t care who it hurts. Who would, who it offends, who it takes wages from whatever. Every league would be operating the exact same way, no matter who the commissioner was. So I don’t know if I totally buy into the idea that we should fear the next iteration of the baseball commissioner who handles PR better, who makes it seem like they’re doing the right thing. I’m not totally bought into that idea. But I’m also not excited to have to talk about that person. Because I feel like I understand Rob, you know? He completes me like the Joker and Batman.
ALEX: Are you the Joker or Batman in this, in this scenario?
BOBBY: God, I kind of feel like we’re the Joker, you know?
ALEX: Yeah. Kind of, yeah.
BOBBY: Like, we want to bring chaos to the sport of baseball. This is order, we want chaos. So I sort of feel like we’re the Joker. But, TBD, I guess the listeners can, can share which role who, which role is who? No, you know what, I don’t even not, I’m not I’m gonna leave it up to listeners, Rob is definitely Batman. Vigilante–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –justice, like weirdly extra judicial.
ALEX: Right. Like to get dressed up in his, in his suit.
BOBBY: Little costume to go to his full job.
ALEX: Little costume.
BOBBY: Masquerades as like a head of business, you know, like a titan of industry?
ALEX: Uh-hmm, uh-hmm. Is this metaphors come–
BOBBY: But really–
ALEX: –together.
BOBBY: –but really just has all of these weird, like, internal rules that he has to follow for some reason. And workshopping, work- workshopping.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah. We’ll get there. We’ll get, we’ll get there. We’ll get there.
BOBBY: I don’t know. I guess I’m just not, I don’t get fired up about the idea of getting rid of Rob, the way that some baseball fans seem to think that it will be some sort of solve for all of the problems that baseball has. No matter who you put in that seat, the problems will be exactly the same.
ALEX: And if anything, it’s possible that that person is a little more savvy at bending the public opinion to their will, right? And I know–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –I know, you men- you mentioned that it’s, it’s oftentimes easy to see through the bullshit, no matter who’s saying it. But I think for a lot of people, it’s meaningful to have someone who kind of doesn’t really tip their hand when it comes to how the meat is made, right?
BOBBY: It just feels marginal, though, you know? Like, it feels like the difference between Obama and Biden.
ALEX: God, I was about to say the same.
BOBBY: Like they’re just gonna do the same shit. But Obama’s gonna be interesting.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And Biden is just gonna stumble through the press conferences.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So do you want Obama to be the next commissioner of baseball? Like I don’t really matter who you put in that role.
ALEX: No, I want [42:53]
BOBBY: Can we get a Buttigieg? Make Pete Buttigieg the next commissioner of baseball. That’s what some of these people sound like to me when they’re like fire Rob, we need someone–
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: –respect!
ALEX: Yes, we need, we need [43:06]–
BOBBY: [43:06] respectability back to the commissioner’s office and get the fuck out of here! Come on! What are we talking about? When was the commissioner’s office respectable when baseball was segregated? When the owners were colluding, and the commissioner knew about it?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: When there was a strike in 1994 because the league wouldn’t come to the table and negotiate in good faith and the Players Association was trying to get them to do that? So they didn’t have to stop in the middle of a season that they built their whole careers towards? Like when was the commissioner’s office respectable? It’s all fucking myth.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah. I think Manfred is, is Manfred is, is probably our, I don’t want to say best case scenario for a, for a commissioner. But you know, as, as two folks who have a podcast about the, the mishaps surrounding baseball’s culture.
BOBBY: Yep.
ALEX: I’ve. he provides a lot of fodder for us–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –right?
BOBBY: He sure does.
ALEX: He makes our jobs easier.
BOBBY: What would we do? We’re like the New York Times when Trump came in to office. Just profiting off Rob Manfred’s failures–
ALEX: Right. Seriously.
BOBBY: –ruining baseball. We’re getting rich, we’re getting fat and happy off it, Alex.
ALEX: Hey, man, we’re gonna, we’re gonna cut to his rallies, right? Because people are gonna watch.
BOBBY: Yeah, we’re gonna stop this conversation right here right now.
ALEX: Uh-hmm, uh-hmm. Nothing–
BOBBY: Let’s take–
ALEX: –more to say.
BOBBY: –let’s take a quick Obama is someho- or Manfred is somehow Obama, and Biden, and Pete Buttigieg, and Donald Trump all in one person, according to the conversation that we just had. Let’s take a quick break and then when we come back we’re gonna answer the listener’s questions.
[44:46]
[Music Transition]
BOBBY: Alright, Alex, it’s been a long time since we did any voicemail. So let’s start with a voicemail from a friend of the pod. J.T. Chipman and embarrass Royals fan. This one’s tough, here we go.
VOICEMAIL 1: Bobby, Alex, it’s J.T., aka Chip, aka depressed and embarrassed Royals fan. Little bit, a little bit rilling from 10 players going on the IL. I shouldn’t be surprised, I should not be surprised by how this year has gone that I’ve now in this position. 25 players up to this point far from Canada. And now we’re coming in with 10, pretty wild. Walking into Target to get me some family size mac and cheese. Here’s my question. When you guys are embarrassed or disappointed by your teams, do you have a specific coping mechanism? Is there a food maybe that you’re going to, you know, a snack or some sort of guilty pleasure? And this is philosophical. But is there a difference between being embarrassed by your team like this and just being disappointed? Because right now we’re just on the summer jam screen. Everyone’s taking their shots, versus just being let down. I don’t know if there’s a difference there. But I’m curious if you think there is? Anyway, I’ll take your call off here. Thank you. Bye.
BOBBY: See, this is so great. I thought Chip was going to be like, how should I feel about the Royals? How do I parse these feelings? But now he was just like, what do you eat, when you’re upset about your team? Which is a much better question. I, when I’m embarrassed by the Mets? I tend to just like talk about it with anybody who will listen. That’s like my coping mechanism. When I’m disappointed in the Mets. I get as far away from baseball as possible. I try to enjoy the other things in my life that brings me joy besides baseball. And I think there is a difference. I think being disappointed in your team can be like when they don’t sign the player that you want. Or when they lose a game that you thought they should have won. I think that’s being disappointed. But being embarrassed by our team is much closer to what J.T. is talking about here. And the Royals, monumental organizational failure when it comes to public health? Vaccination? Organizational, constructive organizational philosophy about the best way to stay healthy during a pandemic? I don’t know. I gotta say mac and cheese is not the worst option, though.
ALEX: Absolutely.
BOBBY: How about you, what, what’s your method for when you’re embarrassed by the A’s? You have so much experience to pull from.
ALEX: Well, it’s interesting because actually, my mindset is kind of the opposite of yours, right? When I am disappointed by the A’s, when they blow a game late, or miss out on a free agent signing, which is just a funny thing to say out loud the thought of the A’s supposedly missing out on a free agent signing. But when like their performance disappoints me, I that’s when I kind of remain engaged, right? That’s when I say, well, well shit, we’ll, we’ll get him tomorrow. That’s when I almost, almost check in more because, because the idea of disappointment means there was at some point, some level of excitement or, or curiosity, right, desire there.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And so I want to find ways to kind of continue to stoke that excitement in, in different ways, right? If that’s going on the FanGraphs and just trying to find like, minor league players who I think might complement the roster, right? Or, or twist myself into pretzels trying to figure out how they make the postseason whatever, right? When I’m disappointed in them, I’m, I try and lock in to them more. When I’m embarrassed by them, that’s when I start to kind of check out and say, I need a, a breather. I’m going to switch over to a different game right now. Because this team is, is not putting me in a good like mental headspace, you know?
BOBBY: The A’s, the Oakland A’sm I love you, but you’re bringing me down.
ALEX: Honestly. Yeah.
BOBBY: I think that’s, I think that’s valid. I, I just think about like, when the Mets decided to bring back Jose Reyes, or Jeurys Familia. And like how I handled that, meaning, like when I was at games that they would come in, and I would boo them and people around me would be like, why are you doing franchise icon Jose Reyes? And I’d be like, why are you not? You know, I’m actually wanting to like talk to people about that. Because I feel like the, the desire to like not want to talk about these things is part of the reason that teams think that they can take these actions oftentimes.
ALEX: Wow, that put me on blast.
BOBBY: Well, I don’t think that’s exactly what you’re talking about. You’re embarrassed by the A’s because of John Fisher. Which–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –talking about it is like, how much can you really do? You talk about it on the podcast every week more or less.
ALEX: Right. I just tweet through it.
BOBBY: Yeah. But I will say like for this Royals thing, and then for the subsequent if we can fold in the Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Arenado news, which is that we found out that they won’t be traveling to Canada, because they are not vaccinated. I do think that that we’ve now sort of hit a critical mass where I don’t, I don’t actually think that we should be talking about these guys. Giving them any kind of platform to share any kind of reason for why they did not get the vaccine. I think that we’re starting to like approach the territory of the more athletes talk about their misguided reasons for not getting the vaccine, the more people are just agreeing with them underneath it. And, you know, for the Royals, I think it’s just these guys are losers. They’re not team players. Let’s move on.
ALEX: Right. We don’t need any more profiles from flyover states of guys–
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: –and diners, right? We’re not, we’re not getting anywhere with this.
BOBBY: We don’t need to know Andrew Benintendi thoughts. Sorry.
ALEX: Just period.
BOBBY: You’ve taken away my desire to know your thoughts now.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Okay, let’s move on. This question comes from the Slack, it’s from Nick T. I’d love to hear your thoughts from the perspective of being pro labor and pro player. To what degree do you think a player saying, I want to stay at team X for the rest of my career, helps or hurts their ability to negotiate with current teams? The cynical part of me would probably say would do more harm than good, because they’re effectively playing their hand and putting the team in a great position to lowball. Which, in Nick’s opinion, the average fan seems to side with more often than not on things like contract and trade negotiations. Now, there are a handful of examples of this. Well, there are a number of dozens of examples of this of players saying, oh, I’m not going to I’d, I’d like to stay here for the rest of my career. I imagine myself here for the rest of my career. And what does that mean for their quote, unquote, “value”? What does that mean for resetting the market if they’re the best players in baseball? I think it’s, it’s an interesting question. Because I think the Players Association stances you should test free agency and make your hometown team give you their best offer. But I guess where I ultimately come down is, I don’t think it’s the players fault if they say that they want to stay with the team and don’t get the full market value. I think that, that it should be incumbent on the team, to say we’ve had you for under market value for so long. Now, we’re going to give you the proper market value, because we want to keep you here for the rest of your career. And we want to return to you everything that you’ve given to us. Now, that happened with David Wright, where the Mets gave him a big contract extension that was basically at market value for one of the best third baseman League. It didn’t work out perfectly, because he got very hurt at the end of that career, or at the end of that contract. But you know, there are examples of this throughout baseball history where the team does right by the player. More frequently that, that means the team tries to get some sort of hometown discount. Which, of course, I think people know how we feel about that.
ALEX: Yeah, and I think it kind of depends on the line that the player is kind of taking. Because I think there are many times when, when that’s as much a kind of PR move, as it is an actual expression that, you know, they’ll sign with X team, no matter what. Because I think it’s endearing to a lot of fans, if a longtime player for your franchise comes out and says, I want to be here forever, right? I want to end my career as a X team member, right? Because then it kind of puts the pressure on the ownership to come to the table and say, yes, we will, we will do this. Because you mean so much to the franchise, because you mean so much to the fans. It kind of puts the ball in their court a little bit. Now, certainly, it’s a little different if it’s like yes, I, you know, I much, I much prefer playing here than anywhere else. And so, if that means knocking a bit off my fair market value, so that I can play here in you know, the, in the city that I grew up in or whatever.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Certainly it disadvantages the player a little bit, but it also may not mean that much to them.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I think it’s kind of a case by case basis. Some guys are like, look, I want to get my bag I am, I am a, I am the game’s biggest star or, or one of the game’s biggest stars. And while I’d love to play for the team I’m playing for now I am gonna go to wherever pays me the most. And I think other guys kind of take a different approach and say, the potential benefits of getting slightly more in free agency don’t necessarily outweigh me having to uproot my family and kind of go into a new clubhouse completely changed my environment. Which may be coming, you know, halfway through your career. There may be guys that say, you know what, that’s not exactly worth it. But they may also not be saying that part out loud, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: In order to kind of–
BOBBY: And they don’t need to.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Because they will they, they don’t want to give those the, the owners that upper hand.
BOBBY: Yeah, it’s tough. And it’s like the inherent, the inherent combative nature of this type of negotiation. They, the ownership side, the team side, is going to try to use everything they can to sort of take concessions back a little bit and, and not give you that extra couple million. Because they, in theory or want to use that on different players. But in actuality, you probably just want to keep that payroll down a little bit. Okay, we have time for two more.
VOICEMAIL 2: Hey, guys, I have a question about Juan Soto for you this week. So imagine your team is getting ready to trade for Juan Soto. But instead of trading players, or draft picks, or cast, you have to present the Nationals with a dowry, such as goats, cows, farmland, whatever. What dowry do you present the Nationals for Soto? Thanks.
BOBBY: This–
ALEX: I love the way Becca’s mind works.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Let me just say that.
BOBBY: Truly, truly. I don’t know how to answer this question. So do you want to answer?
ALEX: This is incredibly hard to answer. Because there are a couple of different factors to take in, right? I, one is what is actually useful or meaningful to the Washington Nationals, right?
BOBBY: Yup! Uh-hmm.
ALEX: You may offer 100 goats. But unless they have plenty of farmland that needs upkeep.
BOBBY: Honestly, the Lerners probably do own plenty of farmland.
ALEX: I mean, yes, they probably do. Yeah. But I suppose is, is the thinking then that you are offering something that the Oakland A’s are or the New York Mets are able to give? Is it something that is maybe simply representational of the city in which the team plays, right? Am I going to offer the Washington Nationals a taco truck from downtown Oakland? And I don’t know the, the Fox Theater, do they want a music venue? You know, like, am I offering them real estate properties? Because there’s some good ones.
BOBBY: I just don’t know if you have the authority to offer that–
ALEX: Rig- well, right.
BOBBY: –as the Oakland A’s. So here’s why this is easy for a Mets fan, is because Steve Cohen owns a billion dollars worth of art. So he could turn over a cheeky little Pablo Picasso painting or an Andy Warhol, you know?
ALEX: Yeah, there you go.
BOBBY: The original Jeff Koons. And I don’t know, maybe that’ll pique Ted Lerner’s interests. Of course, that, that original Pablo Picasso won’t be able to be seen by anybody because it has to be on an offshore tax haven. Otherwise, they’ll have to pay taxes on it when they give, when it’s given in exchange for Juan Soto. But that would probably be the easiest thing. I feel like Steve Cohen may just like buy the Empire State Building? Just to be like, here, I’ll give you this for Juan Soto.
ALEX: Yeah, I don’t know that genes will have the same poll is the problem. Which is I guess largely what John Fisher has to, to offer–
BOBBY: Your lifetime–
ALEX: Right, I mean–
BOBBY: –50% off the gap.
ALEX: Right. I, I don’t know.
BOBBY: That could be [59:20] you know, they got decent denim.
ALEX: Yeah, but yeah, but here’s the thing is everyone already gets 50% off the gap. Because anytime you go to Gap or Old Navy, it’s like blowout sale!
BOBBY: [59:30]! Yeah.
ALEX: So that’s not even very enticing at that point. And frankly, I’m, I’m Googling some pictures of a, of Mark and Ted Lerner. And they don’t really strike me as jeans guys, you know?
BOBBY: It’s the same.
ALEX: I can’t even, I can’t even find a full body picture of them.
BOBBY: You think that they just wear suits all the time? Based on Google images–
ALEX: [59:54]
BOBBY: –that might be true.
ALEX: I, it may be a representative sample size.
BOBBY: Bro Gap, not bad, not bad. I’m wearing Gap jeans right now.
ALEX: Oh, wow! And endorsement–
BOBBY: [1:00:04], yeah.
ALEX: –of John Fisher.
BOBBY: I’m cutting all this out, because no free ads. It’s a, it’s a really good question, Becca. I, I would love to hear if people would like to call in and share with what they or their ownership group could offer an exchange for, for Juan Soto. Maybe like Steve Cohen could offer to hire every Lerner fail son. Like for the rest of time, to Point72 capital. And that’s a good, it’s a good well paying job for the whole family, you know. That’s legacy right there.
ALEX: That is, yeah.
BOBBY: All right, final question. Dan wants to know, this is a very important question, Alex. That I feel like we might have talked about at one point or another. But I love hearing you talk about your baseball career. What positions would y’all play on a major league team today? Feel free to consider your athleticism and experience as it is, as it is now. Or what it would ideally be for the position? Thank you for letting me consider my own athleticism and how it would play out on a Major League Baseball field. That’s not an exciting thing to think about, Dan. So what’s up, what position are you playing? Putting yourself right up the middle? Will shortstop? A quick love?
ALEX: Just, is like bullpen catcher a viable position?
BOBBY: Yeah! It’s a hard working job, blue collar.
ALEX: Right, exactly. You don’t get much love for it. But uh, but it’s a it’s a necessary job. Someone has to do it.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: I, I think that most of my tools probably do not play at a major league level.
BOBBY: What are those tools?
ALEX: [1:01:35] point in time.
BOBBY: Tell me the tools?
ALEX: Well, that’s just it, right?
BOBBY: Hit, hit tool.
ALEX: What, what are the tools? Nope, not really.
BOBBY: 20-80?
ALEX: On a, on a major league scale?
BOBBY: Yep.
ALEX: Is 20 the lowest you can go?
BOBBY: Yeah, dawg, come on! You never professionally scouted Major League Baseball? Come on! Read FanGraphs for once, bro.
ALEX: I mean, against major league pitching, it’s a, it’s gonna be like a 20–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –right? Like–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –I think the same–
BOBBY: What about–
ALEX: –call goes, goes for you. Unless I’m–
BOBBY: Here’s some, here’s more–
ALEX: –how much you can take an axe in this in the cage.
BOBBY: You don’t know, you don’t know. Here’s the more interesting question. How would you rate your five tools against the rest of the baseball podcasting universe? So like we create a baseball league of just baseball podcasters What’s your hit tool in that league? I feel like it’s probably like 60.
ALEX: I was gonna say it’s probably like a 60, yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah. That’s pretty good. Power still pretty low though.
ALEX: [1:02:34]
BOBBY: That doesn’t he–
ALEX: [1:02:35]
BOBBY: –power’s not comming out from nowhere.
ALEX: I’m still kind of a–
BOBBY: When was the last time you lifted a weight?
ALEX: I’m more of a Jose Iglesias type guy, you know. Like I got, I got the defense. I’m gonna, I’m gonna get you hits.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I’ll, I’ll get on base which uhm–
BOBBY: Jose Iglesias type!
ALEX: Not much power, not much speed. But you know a move to a, to a friendly, to a hitter-friendly ballpark might, might do me some good.
BOBBY: Right. A juice ball here there.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Might help you out. Uhm, God, I don’t know. I mean, like I was a pitcher. But I cannot throw a baseball anymore.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So I feel like that’s sort of important to, to pitching. So given that I very likely have a small tear in my UCL that was never repaired, I will not be choosing to pitch. I don’t think that I can pull off the Masahiro Tanaka pitching with a torn UCL for 15 years. And so I will just, I’ll have to say, I play for space. And I guess that makes me a sort of Ryan Zimmerman type if I can’t really throw very well. Maybe I’ll just get the TJ and I’ll be I’ll be a wildly old right hander like Adam Wainwright.
ALEX: Okay, yeah, I mean, hey–
BOBBY: Never have a curveball, though. So I don’t think that I could be [1:03:58].
ALEX: Do you think you could, do you think you could figure out or knuckleball? Like that’s–
BOBBY: God, no.
ALEX: –a way to revive, to revive the career put less stress on the, on the elbow.
BOBBY: Do you remember how fun it was to try to throw a knuckleball? Like with your friends after practice, just to be like, Oh, I could totally pull this out in a game and you throw–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –one and it goes like 15 feet over the batter’s head and you’re like, nah, I could do it anyway!
ALEX: Nah! Yeah. We’d, we’d make it work. Yeah, I was so bad at that.
BOBBY: You get anywhere near the strike zone and someone hits it 500 feet.
ALEX: Right, exactly. I’m like, how are you, you’re pushing out with your, with your, the tips of your fingers? Like, yeah, I’m like, I’m like how do you get any, any velocity?
BOBBY: Like fingernail maintenance is very important for that as well, you know. Like you–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –you could never be a knuckleballer because you bite your–
ALEX: [1:04:42]
BOBBY: –nails all the time and they would just bleed on the mound.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I, I do much better nail maintenance than you. However, I have very weak cuticles so that might become a problem in the long.
ALEX: Right, right.
BOBBY: Gotta say though, gotta say, I think we would be two valuable assets on in the All-Baseball Podcaster League.
ALEX: Yeah, I think so.
BOBBY: Excluding former major league players, that doesn’t seem fair.
ALEX: Right. Yeah, maybe, maybe less valuable if you just dropped us on to a, a Major League Baseball team, although I will say, if the Royals take another trip to Canada, they might, they might need some help.
BOBBY: Okay, thank you everybody for listening to this week’s episode of Tipping Pitches. Big thank you to our new patron, Jack this week. And of course, a special thank you to the five members of our Alex Rodriguez VIP Club tier that we shout out at the end of every episode. Thank you to Micah, Austin, Now I Only Want a Triumph, Jessie, and Austin. Two Austin’s in here. Neither of them are the Austin that we know in real life. So we, we apparently carry a lot of weight with people named Austin. Thank you to all of those fine, folks. And if you would like to sign up for the Tipping Pitches Patreon is patreon.com\tippingpitches. Or if you’re already signed up, or you don’t feel like signing up, why don’t you just go ahead and send this pod to a friend. See if they’d like to give it a listen.
ALEX: Speaking of the Patreon, if you’re a member of our Alex Rodriguez tier, we are hosting another Q&A session later in August, are we’re, we’re looking at August 14. And we just may watch a baseball game while doing it. So if you want to come hang with us and watch a baseball game, keep an eye out for more information on that we got a newsletter going out later this week where you can find those details. Anything else for the people?
BOBBY: Nope. I think that’s it. Thanks to everyone for listening, and we will be back next week.
[1:06:38]
[Music]
[1:06:53]
[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 
Leave a comment