Alex and Bobby discuss their weekend in Philadelphia and the disgust that they incited in Phillies fans, then talk about what the Braves’ recent spate of team-friendly contract extensions means for the sport, as well as their misguided loyalty to Marcell Ozuna. Then they bring on their resident Yankees fan Mike Schubert to talk about the Yankees’ fun August, a Brian Cashman-less franchise, and to place some bets with Bobby on the upcoming Subway Series. They round things out with a couple listener questions about walk-up song strategy and a Statcast time machine.
Follow Mike Schubert on Twitter at @Schubes17.
Taylor Swift — “You Need to Calm Down” • Earth, Wind & Fire — “Let’s Groove” • Santana — “Hope You’re Feeling Better” • 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, if you had to describe your long weekend in Philadelphia that we just spent together for the last four plus days, if you had to describe that in one word, what word would that be?
ALEX: Probably loathed.
BOBBY: Loathed?
ALEX: Loathed
BOBBY: Loathed, okay.
ALEX: Not. Loved.
BOBBY: Say, say more.
ALEX: I want to be clear it was not that I loaded my time in Philadelphia this weekend. Going to a couple Mets-Phillies games I had an amazing time with with you and our friends. It was, we, we had a blast. However–
BOBBY: It’s strangely no mention of the Earth, wind, and fire in Santana concert which balled out at as well.
ALEX: That’s incredibly true. I mean, that was also the only safe space that I had to not draw the ire of, of Phillies fans. Which happened at both of the games that, that we went to.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I, I should say the, the highlight was obviously the Vanillaice concert following the first the first game that we went to. I didn’t even really know about until that very day. So that was wonderful! I did draw the ire of some Phillies fans on a couple of different occasions. But there was, there was, there was one in particular that, that stuck with not only me, but said Phillies fan, and, and I will explain why.
BOBBY: Just kind of like the Bad Boy of Mets podcasters.
ALEX: I apparently is this so far as–
BOBBY: Burning down every city you go to.
ALEX: –I am a Mets podcaster but yeah, I know. So much for the City of Brotherly Love.
BOBBY: So true, Scotch.
ALEX: So much for the tolerant.
BOBBY: Fight in Phil’s.
ALEX: We’re workshop it. So much for the podcast–
BOBBY: So much for life liberty and the pursuit happiness, okay?
ALEX: Yes! So I’m always saying this. Listeners of this podcast may know that we here at Tipping Pitches don’t often traffic in in jingoism. And, and are maybe not the biggest fan of, say the, the national anthem, right? I for a while there, it was, it was actually the description of this podcast was about sitting for the national anthem. And I tend to do that, at baseball games that I go to. I don’t, I don’t–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –make a, I don’t make a show out of it. And I don’t begrudge anyone who, who is standing, at least not publicly.
BOBBY: Not until they personally attack you.
ALEX: Right. And so at this Mets-Phillies game, in, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Citizens Bank Park. I was seated for the national anthem, we were, we were sitting relatively high up for this that the section that we were in was relatively empty, and you had gone, I think, to go to the bathroom or, or get food at the moment. So it was just kind of me and my lonesome holding down the like nine seats that we had, right? And we were sitting next and we were seated next to this older couple. They were probably in their early 60s? If I had to ballpark it.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm. I see what you to do–
ALEX: Who–
BOBBY: –ballpark it. Nice.
ALEX: Yeah. Who were in fact, standing up for national anthem, right as was I just about everyone else in the ballpark. And whenever I remain seated, I kind of expect that there may be people who take umbrage at, at that action or lack thereof. I’ve never actually been accosted or anything as a result, except for the Mets Stadium. Except for the Mets team shop employee who accosted me for not stopping shopping for shirts or hats while the national anthem was playing. But that’s another story–
BOBBY: It’s anything you’re honoring the country more by continuing to shop–
ALEX: That’s exactly [4:25]–
BOBBY: –for the national anthem.
ALEX: Yes. I’m like, Are you kidding me? This was made with child labor. This is the most patriotic-like thing I can do right now. That said, this, this man–
BOBBY: [4:36] is all America is about, dude.
ALEX: That’s it, this, this man and woman were none too pleased with this, this choice of mine. And I, I kind of noticed it right away because the man just kind of stared at me throughout the course of the anthem. Like it was, he was, it was almost disrespectful to the flag because he wasn’t–
BOBBY: He wasn’t looking.
ALEX: –looking at me.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And I, I figured, yeah, but that’s, you know, that’s fair, comes with the territory.
BOBBY: Right. It is–
ALEX: I figured, I figured maybe he’d say something, maybe not. Maybe he’s just, he thought the glare would get the message across, which it did. I think I texted you guys and I was [5:17]–
BOBBY: Right away. Right away. You’re like–
ALEX: [5:19] a death stare right now. And that was it.
BOBBY: So right.
ALEX: But–
BOBBY: Oh my God.
ALEX: And in the middle of the first inning, right? So this is like 20 minutes later, at least.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I, I look over and I, thankfully, I guess he, he had his font size on his iPhone turned all the way up, right? You know, one of the ones where like, when you text you can only see like, four words–
BOBBY: That’s the word.
ALEX: –on the screen at the time. And so I looked over and in his own group chat. He, he had sent a text to that red, classless Mets fan sitting next to me, didn’t stand for the national anthem.
BOBBY: Okay. Pause. Pause, pause, pause. You were there to root for the Mets. However, an important detail of the story that listeners should know is that you were not wearing any Mets stuff.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You were wearing an Ohtani shersey and a National Parks Hat?
ALEX: Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, but–
BOBBY: Oh, okay, okay.
ALEX: –you know, same, same thing.
BOBBY: Right. So, so nothing that would indicate that you’re a Mets fan. Except for I guess the fact that you had come in with me–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –and I was wearing that stuff. So he just kind–
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: –of guilty by association?
ALEX: Yes. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
BOBBY: So much for a fair trial.
ALEX: Right. I’m like, if you’re going to disparage me do it correctly, sir.
BOBBY: Classless A’s fan.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Don’t stand for the national anthem.
ALEX: Classless very sad looking A’s fan next to me.
BOBBY: Classless A’s fan who’s looking down and seeing the A’s blow their lead against the Mariners. Didn’t stand for the national anthem.
ALEX: So he said this text and whoever was in the group chat with him, you know, responded, wow! Like, can’t believe that.
BOBBY: He was like, literally sitting right next to you and his phone–
ALEX: Literally.
BOBBY: –right in front–
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: –of your face? Okay.
ALEX: Yes, it, it was. He, this, this person that was in the chat with him, said, you know, did you, did you say something to him? And he said, no, I, I will. And the, and the person responded, tell them you lowed Keith Hernandez. Which–
BOBBY: All right.
ALEX: –would, would’ve burned. Your mileage may vary on Keith Hernandez. But–
BOBBY: Well, so, this was, that doesn’t really track logically. Because Keith Hernandez also would have been mad at you for not standing for the anthem.
ALEX: Well, yeah.
BOBBY: So if he lowed Keith Hernandez, and Keith Hernandez is on your side, like- now you’re kind of making this about just Mets versus Phillies, which doesn’t seem like what–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –you were originally mad about. [7:54]–
ALEX: Exactly. You’re not really getting your point, your point across effectively.
BOBBY: Right. He was just getting, getting something in there for the boys in the Gchat.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. So he didn’t say anything, I’d like to point out. But for the rest of the game, whenever she or the woman sitting next to him would look over at me, they would just shake their head, you know. I ruined these people’s night.
BOBBY: Just by sitting?
ALEX: Just by sitting. I, I don’t think they actually enjoyed the baseball game, whatsoever. Like they were preoccupied over this for hours. Like I need to know if he was able to sleep that night, you know. I, I just, and you know, because I thought maybe he would say something given that, you know, he was talking a big game [8:48]. I’m like sitting there in my head, you know, kind of trying to go through like, what my response is going to be, you know.
BOBBY: Oh, ofcourse.
ALEX: Like how am I going to, how am I going to defend the decision, you know? Am I gonna like just try and like make a joke about it and, and tell him if I, you know, I’m not from here. I don’t, I don’t know what the national anthem is. Am I, am I going to actually like go hardcore tell him my rationale for why I’m, I’m not standing–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –for the national anthem.
BOBBY: We just cross the aisle so to speak. Open up dialogue.
ALEX: Right. Yeah, exactly. And the woman he was with was imploring him not to say anything. She was just as livid, but I think she didn’t want the confrontation. And he was like, I’m not, you know, I’m not, I’m not going to. I’m just going to, I’m just going to ask a question, you know. I, so he was hyping himself up for this, for like half the game!
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Literally, they left in like the seventh thing. I think they were sick of it. Immediately after I, immediately after this kind of debacle went down. He went on SeatGeek and started looking for tickets at that very game. And I–
BOBBY: But he left this part out when he told you.
ALEX: Yeah, I didn’t, I didn’t tell you this. I was wondering if maybe–
BOBBY: I love that, save it for the pod move by you.
ALEX: He was actually going to buy new seats, just so that he didn’t have to like, sit by me anymore. Like–
BOBBY: Maybe he was just trying to see which seats weren’t sold so that he could go in to them in the event, so, so that he could go to them, and no one would come up and try–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –to sit in those seats.
ALEX: Right. Or, or see if, if this seat had in fact been sold. And if he was going to try and, you know, give me the boot, say, or these or even your seats, you know. Like–
BOBBY: Oh, they were our seats.
ALEX: –check my, to check my ticket. They were our seats, we did pay for them. I just it’s far funnier than him saying anything.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: If he had, if he had turned and said, like stand up you sick fuck. I’ve, I’ve, which, maybe that’s how he would have phrased it, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like it, given his somewhat meek demeanor. But I would have, I would have expected that, frankly. And I, you know, I may have felt some type of way about it. But I would have been like, alright, roll my eyes and, and move on. But like this so clearly got under his skin.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: It was like he had never witnessed something like it before. Like the concept was foreign to him.
BOBBY: I have two things to add to the story. The first is that I kind of missed this man once he did leave in the seventh inning, Because the person–
ALEX: Me too.
BOBBY: –that was sitting behind him who then had the direct line of view to us was significantly worse than the guy who was not saying anything.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’ll just, Phillies fans being Phillies fans. And the second thing is that, you know, it’s just not that deep. Like, it’s just not that deep. If you sit for the national anthem, you sit for the national anthem. If someone–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –sits next to you for the national anthem, and you want to stand, that’s fine, too. It’s, it’s fine–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –if you stand. It’s fine, if you don’t. I was in, you know, and like, I think that some people, I think that some people would say like, oh, it’s Philadelphia, it’s like a slightly more conservative city than New York, even though that’s like, kind of not even really true. But it has a reputation for being like a slightly more conservative, right leaning hard-nosed city, in certain areas of Philadelphia–
ALEX: Right [12:09]–
BOBBY: –in New York City.
ALEX: –you know it’s the, it’s the birthplace of our of, you know, like our nation’s like, laws–
BOBBY: Right, right.
ALEX: –like–
BOBBY: Exactly. And that might be true. And I think that that’s probably something that that guy would have employed in his argument against you. Like, you know, here in Philadelphia, we stand for the national anthem. He probably would have said something–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –along those lines. Or if he talked long enough, he would have said something along those lines. But meanwhile, you mentioned I went down to use the restroom. I didn’t know what the national anthem was about to play the although that wouldn’t have changed my decision to go and use the restroom. But I’m in there, and the national anthem is playing. It’s just like a bunch of Phillies fans and they’re being you know.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So, so you’re not allowed to sit out there, for what? Because of the theater of it. You’re not allowed to sit in the four hundreds, but I’m allowed to go down there and pee during the anthem. And that’s fine. And no one’s mad at me. I’m a Mets fan in their classlessly, taking a bathroom break during the national anthem.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, it’s all just it’s not that deep, is what I–
ALEX: Well–
BOBBY: –kept wanting to say all weekend to everybody who said anything to us. And or texted in the group chat, who had designs on saying something to us. It’s just–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –not that deep.
ALEX: I mean, to be clear, you did leave out the part where all of the Phillies fans who were in the bathroom, let go of their pants, letting them fall to the floor so that they could put their hand over their hearts while they were going to the bathroom. So they, you know, they were doing their best at the very least.
BOBBY: Yeah. Yeah. They were, they just, a national anthem just snuck up on him. This is really had to go.
ALEX: Pushing–
BOBBY: [13:41] about it.
ALEX: –it out, really, really, really hard so that you can race back to your seat to get the last verse.
BOBBY: Oh, man. All right, well, a ridiculous start to what I hope is a slightly less ridiculous podcast. We’re going to talk about some of the stuff that has happened in baseball in the last week. We’re going to answer a couple listener questions. And we are also going to invite Mike Schubert, former guests of this podcast. Noted, gigantic Yankees fan, to, to play some wagers about the upcoming Subway Series that starts tonight. But before we do all of that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: Classless Alex Bazeley. And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[14:18]
[Music Theme]
BOBBY: All right, Alex, thank you to the new members of our Patreon this week, Bradley, Andrew, Bryce, Devin, and Jeremy. You can sign up for the Tipping Pitches Patreon at patreon.com/tippingpitches. Maybe you can sign up and DM us and tell us why Alex should have stood during the national anthem. That’s fine too. Patreon DMs are always open. If that man is listening and he would like to support us financially, he’s welcome too! Alright, are you ready to get into the pot?
ALEX: I am but I want you to know that I’m gonna be fuming about something that, that you did pre recording throughout the whole podcast. I just want you to know, I wasn’t gonna bring it out. And I’m still not going to. But I’m, I’m sitting with it.
BOBBY: But text messages are being sent right now.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Yeah, everyone in my family knows about it, it’s pretty fucked up.
BOBBY: I feel like your mom might take my side.
ALEX: Without a doubt.
BOBBY: I want to start this week’s podcast by talking about the Atlanta Braves and their ability to sign their young players to long term extensions. Now, this has been a trend over the last few years. Of course, there was a lot of consternation when the Braves signed both Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ozzie Albies. Albies in particular, to extremely under market extensions for what they might have been able to get had they gone to arbitration, fought it out year over year, and then waited for their payday and free agency. Now, this trend with the Braves extends beyond just Acuña and Albies. They’ve also extended Matt Olson, whom they traded for in the offseason. They extended Austin Riley, who is one of the favorites for NL MVP. They have many of their pitchers under contract for the next few years as well. And so it seems to be an organizational strategy of Atlanta, and their GM, Alex Anthopoulos, to offer these contracts, which are long, and in total dollar amount of large chunk of money to young players and try to ensure that they are going to be with the organization for a long period of time. Now, you know, this carries some team side risk, in that these players might not pan out to be the kinds of players who you want to have under contract for a really long time. But at the same time, I wanted to talk to you about this trend, specifically with Atlanta. Because last week, they signed Michael Harris II to an eight year $72 million extension. And so now that basically makes the majority of their roster under a long contract, which if all of these players types, their potential will be extremely under market. And now I wanted to get your, I guess, a take on this whole trend with Atlanta, both from an organizational strategy perspective. But also, I just wanted to talk through with you why this is happening? Not even as a Mets fan, who knows that he’s going to have to be seeing Austin Reilly rip 110-mile an hour line drives for the next 10 years. And Matt Olson just hit it above the Chop House, which is still somehow called the, the Chop House. Even though Atlanta has said that they don’t want the fans to do the Chop anymore. It’s interesting how they won’t change the name of the Chop House. I just don’t understand it, Alex, I don’t understand why all of these players are signing these contracts. And I don’t even know necessarily that they’re bad contracts for each individual player. But there’s no other team doing this. So take me into the mind of Alex Anthopoulos. What’s, what’s going on?
ALEX: The only logical explanation that is, that he has dirt on every single one of these guys.
BOBBY: Okay, I didn’t want to be the one to say first. But like, would you completely put it past a baseball front office? Not making a specific accusation against Alex Anthopoulos or Atlanta? Because this podcast is parody. But would you put it past a theoretical baseball front office to have something like that?
ALEX: No, I, I wouldn’t. And I, I don’t necessarily think that that’s the actual case here, right? I think that–
BOBBY: I don’t either.
ALEX: –but I don’t I think that’s due to the institutional factors that some of it you may not even be able to, you know, really understand or know about. But these sorts of deals certainly loomed large. I think knowing kind of the state of the broader economic landscape in baseball. And, you know, us having a podcast that focuses heavily on labor issues in the sport. This feels like in our wheelhouse, you know. And the–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –the Michael Harris one is maybe not as egregious as some of the, some of the other deals that they’ve signed, right? Notoriously, the extension that Ozzie Albies signed–
BOBBY: It’s like the worst contract–
ALEX: –is considered by, by many people to be the worst contract of all time, right. Because it was like, 7 years, 35 million or something like that, right? And–
BOBBY: For a player who would have beat that in arbitration basically.
ALEX: Right, with- without a doubt. And all this at the time said, I’m not doing it for the money. I am doing it, I’m doing it because I want to provide for my family, right? And when I want my family to be like safe and secure. Which absolutely makes sense, right? Especially if you’re a kid who came into baseball, like in your teenage years, received a relatively low bonus, right? All these being an international creation as well as Acuña. And then having to play in the minor leagues for years, right? Whatever that bonus is 3 or 400,000, that is only going to get you so far, right? And again, I, Michael Harris is not necessarily an Acuña type prospect, right? He’s one of the Braves top prospects, and he has moved through the system super quickly, I think, faster than many people would have had, would have expected. And there’s a little more risk for the Braves on this one, right? Because he’s got half season under his belt. He’s not necessarily a sure thing. But all in all, like you were saying, this locks him up for an extremely long time it buys out his, his arb years it, you know, it buys out his for the first couple years of free agency for him. And he, you know, now is not going to hit free agency until, what he’s like 31 years old? Which the baseball free agent market tends to not be too kind to players who are on that side of 30, right?
BOBBY: Atlanta won the World Series last year, they’re a very good team this year. They’re better than they were last year, significantly better than they were last year. And we know from having watched the way that front office’s Skillshare amongst each other and the way that they copy each other strategies. We know that that front office’s play the copycat game with each other. And I would not be surprised if this became a trend leaguewide, should Atlanta locked down some sort of not, not even necessarily dynasty, God forbid, please, please, God, please forbid that from happening. But should Atlanta have sustained success with this model? And I gotta say, I know that the term predatory feels strong when each individual case there’s reasoning behind why these guys are accepting it. But should this become a league wide issue? And to some extent it already is a league wide issue. But should this become the dominant team building strategy in the way that like tanking was the dominant team building strategy. And in the way that like, before owners realize they just didn’t have to pay for free agents after 30, signing good players after 30 used to be the team, the dominant team building strategy. Moneyball is, is undergirding a lot of this team building strategy as well. But should this become a thing that every team is basically just requiring players to sign these extensions, or go to free agency. That’s like a light form of collusion more or less. Like if every team says sign it an Atlanta style extension to buy out your arb years, then we no longer have an arb system. We no longer have a CBA that is functioning as it was designed to function. And guess what we just signed up for six more years of this same exact system. And so, I don’t know, as the PA, you have to be looking at one of the best teams in baseball and how they’re building their team and thinking, that’s not really how we want teams to be built for the betterment of our membership. And, you know, I don’t think that the PA should ever look at an individual player and say you shouldn’t have signed that. But I do think the PA should be saying to players at large, in most outcomes, this is worse for you and better for the team. And I think that those are the types of things that we should be saying when we’re looking at how the best teams in baseball are being built. And of course, like there’s no moral way to build a baseball team, you know. But I think that there are slightly less moral ways to build a baseball team. As we’ve sometimes flirted and sometimes joked around with the teams that spend bigger money, it honestly is easier to root for them than it is for the teams who leveraged the fucked up international market to get their best players under contract for significantly less than they’re actually worth.
ALEX: Right. And that’s kind of the, the gist of what’s happening with, with some of these deals, not all of them, right? As we mentioned Harris came through the draft. You know, same with Austin Reilly, obviously, Matt Olson came over to the trade and then they turned around and, and locked him up.
BOBBY: Those guys got better deals. I mean–
ALEX: It, it does strike me as the Braves kind of operating system that, like allows for this sort of behavior from teams–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –right? They can leverage the fact that you’ve been paid peanuts for years. And in exchange for a little bit of security now and in the future. You obviously may be leaving 10s of millions of dollars on the table. And–
BOBBY: Or in the case of Acuña, like $100 million–
ALEX: 100 of million–
BOBBY: –on the table.
ALEX: –of dollars. Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I do want to know what’s in the secret sauce. right?
BOBBY: Yup! [25:00]
ALEX: That allows Anthopoulos to get away with doing this, right? Because–
BOBBY: He convinced these guys to sign them. It’s not like every single guy is doing this. Like so- you just saw Soto not do this for the Nationals.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Right, exactly. I mean, I think there’s pr- it probably, I think it says something about maybe the internal culture there that you and I as, as fans of the game aren’t necessarily privy to. Where a player says, you know what? I, I want to stay in Atlanta, right? Like–
BOBBY: [25:33]
ALEX: –it’s a, yeah! It’s a, it’s a good clubhouse. It’s a good organization.
BOBBY: [24:38] manager.
ALEX: I, it’s a good manager. I think it matters that like, they’re feeling a competitive team, right? That they’re not doing the Washington Nationals model, which is when your World Series and then you know, tell everyone to go fuck themselves. They’re–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –they’re looking for somewhat sustained success, you would think, right? As, as reflected in their moves. And I think that like that says something to a player, right? I don’t, I don’t necessarily know that if Arte Moreno comes to Shohei Ohtani and says, hey, so we’re looking to extend you, right. And that’s only going to happen. But, hey, we’re looking to extend you, what do you think? I don’t, I don’t really know that you are holding all the cards at that point. Because you seem unable to actually build a contending baseball team.
BOBBY: Yeah, let’s do the legwork of building the contending baseball team. The legwork–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –that Atlanta is doing, you know, like as well as basically any team in baseball right now.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: And, you’re right, like, I, I think that they’re operating fairly, fairly within an unfair system, if that makes sense.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And that’s why it’s worth talking about. Like, it’s not that they are just using some devil magic to get all these, to get all these players to sign these contracts. It’s not that weird that these players signed these contracts. Now in, in all these case, it’s frustrating, because he’s basically a four to six WAR player for $5 million, which is like the price of a mediocre reliever, you know. And it’s like–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –okay, that seems like an extenuating circumstance and it should be discussed as such. And it, of course, was on here on this podcast and other places. But what is interesting about it, is that it’s not that weird to the rest of the league. Unless it is, in which case, if you’re a GM on another team, and you think that they’re doing something out of bounds, please feel free to reach out tippingpitchespod@gmail.com.
ALEX: Yeah. Or reach out to Jason [27:38], just throw your coats- your quotes into column, right? Like, that’ll play too.
BOBBY: Okay, we’re going to do some listener questions, before we do while we’re on the subject of Atlanta, I want to say, you know, for everything that we’re talking about them building an internal culture. For everything that we’re talking about them wanting to have sustained success, and they of course, have franchise history of sustained success with the teams that they built in the 90s that just dominated the NL East. And, you know, they spend not as much as they could or should, but more than most teams. I, I want to say all of that does not do anything to mitigate the fact they are despicable in many ways as a franchise. And, you know, one of those ways I already alluded to with Matt Olson hitting homeruns over the Chop House. But another way, and this was news from this past weekend, is that Marcell Ozuna, who served a 40-game suspension last season for violating the MLB Domestic Violence Policy, who they continued to keep on their team after that. Was arrested Friday night for driving under the influence for allegedly driving under the influence. I mean, he hasn’t had his trial or anything like that. But a video surfaced of him telling the police officer that he was Marcell Ozuna, from the Braves, you know, which would lead you to believe that he was trying to leverage his position as a star baseball player to, to be above the law and to be able to drive under the influence. And I saw a lot of people, a lot of murmuring, suggesting that, you know, this was one strike too many for Ozuna, a player who’s not having a very good season. And though that doesn’t matter to me, that, that does factor in to the calculations of Major League Baseball teams has been worth negative 1.1 more this year. And I thought people speculating that they were going to cut him loose. And he was in the lineup today. This is Sunday, as we sit here and record this. And, you know, for everything that we can say about Atlanta building a sustained contender, and investing in the team, and, and wanting to have players be committed to being on this team. I mean, when you do something like this, it kind of unravels any praise I’m willing to heap on you. Because are you keeping him because you think he’s the best option in left field? Are you keeping him because you feel some sort of sense of obligation to him as a player? Because you signed him to a contract or what are you trying to prove with this? Like, I just think that teams get away with so much because they think that people don’t have the energy to criticize them for the things that they’re getting away with. And I think that it showed that, that can backfire sometimes when Atlanta booed him, the Atlanta fans booed their own player today. Which–
ALEX: Yeah. Far be it for me to heap kudos on to them. But like, like they were booing him as he was coming up to the plate, right? And they booed him after–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –he struck out, right, and the boos rained down even more. But it did feel indicative of a fan base who was just kind of sick of this shit.
BOBBY: And, you know, it shouldn’t have to get to that point where the fans are put in the position of trying to force the organization to have any sort of any form of moral compass. But also, at the same time, at least the fans were willing to try to force the organization to have a moral compass.
ALEX: Yeah. I, I mean, it certainly, again, we were just talking about building a culture that players and fans can believe in. And this certainly does not speak well to that notion. But I also wonder if, and I think there are probably many players who abhor the things that he’s done. And resent the continued opportunities that he’s been given, right? And there also might be some guys who read that and say, well, you may or may not like what he did, but the team is standing behind him, right? You know, it’s like, they’re dealing with it internally. They, you know, they’re not just casting him away. Like they, you know, they, they care about the, the players in this organization, you know, to the point where they will overlook any transgressions, right? And I’m, you know, this is just kind of speculation, but I think that a lot of players do kind of value feeling like management has faith in you, you know. I, where, where it might be the right thing to do to kick his ass off the team. There are probably a number of guys who think, well, you know, if I was in that position, I’d want a second chance, right? And so fucked up as it obviously is, it’s not insanely surprising to me. I mean, it’s surprising to me because, it’s surprising to me, because it doesn’t even make sense from like a baseball standpoint. Like this isn’t even a star, you’re throwing your weight behind. This is a guy who has a pretty terrible a track record off the field. And really is giving no justification to remain on the field, given his performance. But I don’t know man, I, what a middle finger to any Braves fans whose lives may have been impacted by drinking and driving, right? To any women in the stands who may have experienced domestic abuse or, or not even, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like you don’t have to have been affected by it to give a shit about this sort of thing. But I don’t know, it just, it reflects so poorly on where your values actually lie, you know, I mean?
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah. It just, it feels like organizational malpractice for an organization that has no shortage of problematic tendencies. With like, their, their actual impact, like outside of just what the product that they put on the field is, because it’s not about that. It’s not about–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –just the product that you put on the field. Like, you are a billion dollar organization that is taking a lot of public funds from the greater Atlanta area. You’re owned by a publicly traded company. Like you have a moral responsibility to like think about what you do as a baseball team and how it affects the people who have a vested interest in you. And I, I don’t think they’re taking that very seriously, honestly. By putting–
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: –him in the lineup two days later. Like I’ve seen in the last decade, we’ve seen players get benched for longer than that for not running to first.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So what does that say about your code of ethics?
ALEX: It’s not great, Bob. Tell you that much.
BOBBY: Not great, Al. Okay, let’s take a quick break. When we come back, we’re going to have a hardcore Yankees fan in front of the podcast, Mike Schubert.
[34:28]
[Music Transition]
BOBBY: Okay, Mike Schubert is back. Mike Schubert, the host of, many a podcast. Mike Schubert, the host of Horse. Mike Schubert, the host of The Newest Olympian. And Mike Schubert, resident Yankees fan, guest of the pod. Hello, sir.
MIKE: Hello. Thank you for having me back. None thank you for waiting until the Yankees are garbage at baseball [34:58]. I’ve been waiting all year.
BOBBY: Well, listen–
MIKE: To get the TP invite because I was like, let me write in on the highest horse possible. And now I come to you, I would say on, on whatever the opposite of the high horses? The low donkey? I don’t know. But we just, we, we just won a rousing victory today because we were retired Paul O’Neill’s number. Whose number did not deserve to be retired. But we retired his number, I think we should retire a number every single day for the rest of the season so that we go undefeated.
BOBBY: Well, like, okay, so the joke is that the Yankees are not going to have any numbers to give to new players pretty soon. They’re just working backwards from 99, which is why Aaron Judge is trying to make the 90s cool. But I think if you actually retired a number every time the Yankees needed to win really badly based on how they’ve been playing for the last couple months, you would run out of numbers before the end of the season.
ALEX: [35:46]
MIKE: I think you’re just here to, we’re just here to innovate. I think we’re going to be the first team to potentially do triple digits. We could do fractions, we could do–
BOBBY: Decimals?
MIKE: Yeah.
ALEX: Fractions, I like that.
MIKE: Non normal numbers. Like I, I, as the Engineer, this is embarrassing. But what’s it like when it’s I or when it’s E like–
BOBBY: Yeah.
MIKE: –irrational numbers, we could get irrational numbers up in the mix, square roots. Like I think we’re just innovating, emojis.
ALEX: Right.
MIKE: Like [36:10]–
ALEX: Way emojis.
MIKE: It’ll get fraud.
ALEX: Formulas, maybe? Make the, make the fans have to figure it out.
MIKE: Yes, right? Educational? Love it.
BOBBY: So you alluded to the fact that the Yankees are no longer riding in on a high horse. What’s going on? How are you feeling? Of course, the listeners of Tipping Pitches, we don’t talk that often about on field events here. Which you know, is as the host of Horse, which is a basketball podcast that doesn’t really talk that often about the games. It’s our, it’s our MO here. But as the Yankees fan, how are you feeling with your, you were? I think in your fullest form, early in the season with how well they were playing. You were at your fullest your most Yankees, bro. And now things have not gone as well since the All-Star break.
MIKE: Right. What’s funny is that the current arc of the season is actually the worst possible thing that could have happened for the Yankees. Because we had a very bad offseason and everyone was very mad at Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman as we all well deserved to be. And then we were the greatest team to ever play the game of baseball in the history of baseball for like most of the season. And we were like, well, I guess we were wrong, and they were right. And then trade didn’t happens.
BOBBY: No! Never admit defeat, never admit defeat.
MIKE: They do, the, the, the trade deadline happens. And then we make like some minor moves. We don’t make the big swing for Juan Soto, which is sad. We don’t make the, we don’t make the big swing for Luis Castillo, which is sad. We make the kind of big swing for Montes. And we do the Benintendi-Joey. We do these like half measure things that we always do at the deadline, that sometimes pan out. And then the trade deadline passes, and now we start to be bad. And now we’re like, oh, the whole thing that we were worried about is now happening, and it is too late. And now we can’t be mad. I think the thing was, we were always just like a good team, but we were thin. And all of the injuries started to happen right before the All-Star break. And when you lose Michael King when your best relievers for the rest of the season, and then Stan gets hurt and Rizzo was hurt. And Clay Holmes had some issues and Chapman had issues. Like we just had, normally in the past couple years, everybody gets injured all the time. And then nobody was injured. So we were really good. And now everybody got injured again, so we’re bad. Just like not great when half your lineup is just a dud. And I think honestly trading, beloved clubhouse figure Jordan Montgomery for a guy who’s supposed to be really nice, Harrison Bader. I just feel like that wrecked the vibes, and it’s just a recipe for disaster. But also like, I think we’re just kind of taking our foot off the gas a little bit in the month of August. I think–
BOBBY: Yeah.
MIKE: –we’re just kind of taking August off and that’s okay. Like, I’m currently in “wake me up when September begins” mode–
BOBBY: Okay.
MIKE: –where, if we, if–
BOBBY: Billie Joe Armstrong [39:00] up.
MIKE: If we extend this grace period into September, then I’ll be worried. But I feel like it’s kind of the rest of the AL East is really bad. So we’re kind of chillin. And I think if there was ever a time to be bad, at least it’s the month before the month before the playoffs. I hope over the course of September we like get that momentum up. But yeah, it was, urghhh! It not, not good timing for wanting to get Brian Cashman fired. This is like the worst case scenario of keeping him employed more, which he really shouldn’t be at this point. He’s not very good at–
ALEX: Yeah.
MIKE: –his job anymore. And that recipe for disaster there. Because if we, if we start off the season awful, he would have been fired. And that would have been amazing. But now this is the absolute worst is to be bad immediately after the trade deadline. I guess we can kind delay the trade deadline, I don’t know, which is really cool.
BOBBY: Yeah.
MIKE: But, yeah, it’s not great.
BOBBY: I love the fan speak of like, let’s just be bad for this month. And then we’ll get good for next month. Like as if those–
MIKE: Yeah!
BOBBY: –two things have anything in common, necessarily. But I’m the same exact way. I’m like, Mets, why are you wasting all your hits? And why are you wasting all your wins now save them for October. But that doesn’t–
ALEX: I do, I do like think about that sometimes like if a te- if my team scores a dozen runs, I’m like–
BOBBY: They’re not going to score 8, the next days.
ALEX: –yeah. Like I save some, keep some in the chamber. Sidenote, I have just never considered a world in which Brian Cashman is not at the helm of the Yankees. And I am so interested to see what that–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –next chapter actually looks like. Like you know, I’m I, I am not holding out hope for the sign runners to, to check out anytime soon. Because I, the Yankees are a literal bank. But, but I, I just Cashman and the Yankees are feel like very synonymous to me when it comes to like their front office, right, and their, and their moves. And I just like, I, I see this man’s face in my dreams, like–
BOBBY: He’s been their GM, like the entire time that we’ve been on planet Earth.
MIKE: Which is just so unnatural for baseball. And I feel like the only thing that can actually happen is that it has to be like Brad Stevens in the Celtics, where you kind of just like, promote him into a different job that sounds better. Like what we really should do is we should fire Randy Levine, who is a terrible human being.
BOBBY: Yeah.
MIKE: Like get him out as president of baseball ops. Make Brian Cashman, president of baseball ops, and then get a new GM because like–
BOBBY: See, but wait. I think that Randy Levine is just their president, like their–
MIKE: Oh!
BOBBY: –financial president.
MIKE: I, see.
BOBBY: I don’t think he has anything–
MIKE: Oh, no.
BOBBY: –to do with baseball, though.
MIKE: That’s, that’s–
BOBBY: Well, maybe he does. But that’s like inner office politics and I have no idea.
MIKE: If we got rid of that guy, I’d be so happy. You know what, like, the whole thing with him and then number four and why the Yankees did that for a whole season every time they got a hit, right?
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: No.
MIKE: So the Yankees had a thing two seasons ago? Three seasons ago, where after they would get a hit. They would hope- they would hold up the number four to the dugout is like a celebration thing.
BOBBY: Yeah.
MIKE: And everyone wondered, what’s the four? There are all these theories, like there was a spring training game where some team put four in the outfield and then Judge hit a home run anyway. So specific- so it’s supposed to be like wall or that was the first season I think when they did the you can just hold up four fingers for intentional walks along. We’re saying, oh we were saying you should have walked me. But then Clint Frazier went on a podcast and revealed that would have–
BOBBY: Dangerous territory, Clint Frazier being on the podcast.
MIKE: Oh, sorry, he doesn’t go by Clint anymore. I’ve, I’ve forgotten he goes by his middle name. So the artist formerly known as Clint Frazier, who talks smack about the Yankees and then got released by the Cubs two hours later. Which was the best, I was on my way to the Yankees Cubs game ready to boo him and then he got DFAed, ohh, so great. But he on a podcast said that it was then making fun of Randy Levine, ’cause Randy Levine used to walk into the spring training facility and just hold up the number four to a cook at the breakfast place. And that was him ordering four eggs. And rather than you know, order like a human being, he would hold up the number four to someone. And force them to make him four eggs. And everyone made fun of him. And that’s–
BOBBY: Damn!
MIKE: –why they did that.
BOBBY: Alex, are the Yankees players cool for doing that?
ALEX: Yeah, that’s kind of based it for, for being honest.
MIKE: So yeah, get rid of Randy Levine. Put Cashman incharge there and let’s get a real GM. Because like Cashman, I don’t know, I feel like some offseason moves are really good. The DJ LeMahieu signing everyone thought it was stupid. And then he turned out to be very, very good for the team. He was, he’s never been good at trades. Trades have never been his strong suit ever. His, his unless it’s like one of the trades where you trade for someone you’ve never heard of. And then they’re good out of nowhere, which we did with like, Urshela and Luke Voit and all these people where teams are like, urgh! Screw this guy! But anytime he tries to make the high profile trade, he never trades for the big guy. He always goes for the step below. And then the big guy always turns out to be great. And the step below is horrible. And that’s exactly what’s happening with Montas. I was, I thought Montas would be fun to have. And it has not been very fun. He’s got two games where he’s thrown six earned runs, and they’re both in pinstripes.
BOBBY: Yeah, I just feel like he’s, he’s sort of a Yankees institution. But at the same, like giving up on Cashman, without him just like wanting to retire is sort of like giving in on the Yankee way, not being the only way. You know what I mean? Like–
MIKE: Uhh, yeah.
BOBBY: –because the new era of the Steinbrenner, they just like, they don’t want to be like George, like, they don’t want to be bombastic. They don’t want to necessarily make the biggest splash all the time. They just want to kind of like, be steady, Like Alex said, they just want to kind of like print money and be a bank.MIKE: They always want to be good enough that they’re never out of the wildcard race. Like as long, their hope is like anytime, like when the Braves won, I was so sad, I was so sad. I was rooting for the Dodgers so hard, ever since the Dodgers have been spending all the money I’ve been a huge Dodgers fan once the Yankees get eliminated. Because I’m like, let’s have the Dodgers win so that how, we can point to hell and say look and I’ve always been rooting against the Rays. So when the teams that are lower seaded do well, I get so upset. Because then the Yankees–
BOBBY: It does give them cover. Yeah.
MIKE: Yeah, all they want to do is like put together a good enough team and then be like ahh, if things would have broken right we would have been fine. And I hate that a lot.
ALEX: It, it does feel like there’s been a sort of philosophical shift, obviously, in how the Yankees have approached, right. Where, you know, two decades ago, they were just throwing money at players left and right. And I, I feel like the criticism of like that being the Yankee way probably got to Cashman a little bit. And, you know, this is his way of saying, I don’t just have to buy my players, right? Like we can, we can put together a real team because we’re, I’m a real GM and, and we’re a, we’re a real franchise. But you have to actually be good at doing that, for that–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –to work out which that’s the rub.
MIKE: Right. And what’s funny is, I I’m glad, and I appreciate that Tipping Pitches exists. Because it can like weirdly helped me justify my Yankee fandom better or at least like from before. Where it’s funny that growing up, it was always uhh the Yankees spend so much money, they’re the worst. And like, weirdly now, like the team spent a lot of money on the players is like, kind of based.
ALEX: Yeah.
MIKE: Like, it so weird how [45:59]–
ALEX: Every [45:59] conversation we, we flirt with. It’s like, are the Yankees good for this? Like–
BOBBY: Well, there’s like a little bit of a boomerang effect going on. And this is an interesting way to, to fold in the reason that you’re on this podcast to talk about Subway Series, talk about the Mets. And you and I are gonna play some wagers against each other. But like, now across town, having an owner who is doing what the Yankees did in the early 2000s. And now making it seem like a cool and fun thing to do. Not that it was never a cool thing, cool and fun thing to do. I think if Alex and I were doing a podcast in the early 2000s, had we not been in elementary school, we would have thought that it was cool that the Yankees are like, good player, I’ll have him on my team. But now that there’s more examples of teams starting to do that, and to, you know, separate themselves from the pack a little bit. I think more fan bases are seeing the benefits of that and that fine, you don’t want Mookie Betts on my team? You don’t want Mookie Betts on your team? I’ll take Mookie Betts on my team. You don’t want Francisco Lindor for his market value? We’ll trade for him. And we’ll pay him to stay in New York and build a franchise iconoclast image for the next 10, 12 years. And I’m, I’m interested to see that this is obviously like a huge, huge conversation of like the sports radio types. But in a meta way, I’m almost interested to see like how that breaks different layers of people’s brains just having the Mets across town like out spending the Yankees and outspending the other teams in baseball.
MIKE: I was hoping when it started to happen, that it would be the thing that lit the fire under our butts and returned us to true Yankee spend money on everybody form. I guess the true test will be whatever happens with the Judge situation. Which I love to try to not think about at any moment in time. But also weirdly like would Judge we haven’t such good of a year? If he wasn’t trying to fight for more money. Like weirdly, is this working? But, that’s going to be the true thing. If we don’t shell out the money, because as much as we want to hate on how and all them which I think is justified. Like when it comes to like the people who are truly worth it. Or at least at the time you think they are before you learn that they’ve only been good because they use SpiderTech. Like you, you do see them like bust out the money for the people where it really counts. Like they did for Cole and that was nice. And I like in, in their defense like everybody wants to get Patrick Corbin, urghhh! Like not ideal! So if we don’t put the money up for Judge I think that’s like the that’s it’s just gone, like it’s just completely gone. But like, if this offseason we don’t hand him a blank check, what are we doing? Especially because we didn’t trade for Soto? Like–
BOBBY: Yeah.
MIKE: Now it’s just you have zero excuse, absolutely zero excuse. Aaron Judge’s the reason that we are so good and he is the most beloved. And he, he’s every kid’s favorite Yankee. He’s, he’s the closest thing to a Jeter type you’re gonna get, and that we’ve had since he left. So like, how do you not? This is the most no brainer decision ever. If you don’t just give him whatever he wants. In a sport where there’s no rule against paying–
BOBBY: Doing that.
MIKE: –money.
BOBBY: Yeah.
MIKE: Like, just do it! Oh my gosh. Like–
BOBBY: Steve Cohen outsourcing Brian Cashman and the Steinbrenners to like overpay for a bunch of players. It’s just proof that trickle-down economics doesn’t work in any context. Like not even amongst baseball billionaires. Like the trickle-down effect just doesn’t happen. It’s just a myth.
ALEX: Yeah, there really is no excuse for not doing that. Like it’s not even a question of money or anything like that, or, or, or a question of like, statistical analysis. Like he’s far and away the best player on the team and one of the best in baseball. You don’t, you don’t let that guy walk.
MIKE: No!
ALEX: Even, even if you’re the Yankees, especially.
MIKE: Right! And the, the thing is, if you want to pull the whole, oh, he’s a little older. You know, he’s 30, he’s gonna not age well. It’s not a long country or whatever. Like, dude, Aaron Hicks still has like three years left on his deal, come on, man! You can’t pull that card. You gave him the 7-year deal. What are you doing? Like–
BOBBY: Well it feels like the only way that they could get away with doing it is if they had done what, kind of what Atlanta did. Which is if you’re gonna let Freddie Freeman walk you can have to trade from Matt Olson and extend him. And you’re gonna–
MIKE: Exactly.
BOBBY: –have like if you’re gonna let Aaron Judge walk then you should have traded for Juan Soto and you didn’t beat the Padres for Juan Soto.
MIKE: Right. That was the silver lining that I was telling myself at night was, okay, we didn’t trade for Juan Soto because we’re giving Aaron Judge whatever he wants. That’s what I’m like telling myself so that I can go to bed at night.
BOBBY: That’s, that, that would have been more than a silver lining, if you had traded for Juan Soto. I think that probably would have–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –come out in the black knot.
MIKE: Well, I, I would have loved to have traded for him. But I’m just saying–
BOBBY: Oh but you’re saying no now because you didn’t get Soto? Okay, that’s [50:38]
MIKE: Right. The reason they didn’t do it is because they, they are 100% committed to giving Aaron Judge whatever he wants us offseason.
BOBBY: I see, I see.
MIKE: I hope that is true.
ALEX: Will it feel any better once Shohei Ohtani is on the Yankees a year and a half from now?
MIKE: I mean, that would be pretty cool.
BOBBY: How dare you?!
MIKE: The proble- the proble–
BOBBY: How dare you?!
MIKE: What’s funny with, with Shohei it’s like I had this very interesting history with him where it’s like the Yankees are really close to getting him but he wanted to be on a West Coast team. I guess, I know there were like reports who want to be in the West Coast seems to be closer to home. Su- okay, fine, do whatever you want, whatever. But then I remember it was like, it’s so funny looking back, but like I was big on the Miguel Andújar won Rookie of the Year not Shohei Ohtani. Like, it one of the things like, Ohtani, sure, it was like cool and unique and different. But he was like, injured half the year. And like–
ALEX: Right.
MIKE: –it was more of I thought, the novelty pick and then like looking back and like ahh, and do heart we should have traded him after his rookie year. [51:32] peak, his peak. But–
BOBBY: That is such a great example of Yankees brain. Where you’re just–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –like you’re still mad three years later that Miguel Andújar didn’t win Rookie of the Year.
MIKE: I still am, like I’m not trying to act like he’s good now. But like, I’m still mad about that. I’m also forever upset–
BOBBY: If you go back in time to what it was like 2019.
MIKE: Which the other thing, the 2017 Judge not winning MVP over Altuve. Before the cheating, before–
BOBBY: I know.
MIKE: –the cheating. They gave Altuve MVP because he’s short. And they didn’t give to Judge because he’s tall. Like that’s it, that’s literally it! He’s short, they didn’t give it to him. Or they, they short, they gave it to him. He’s tall we can’t give it to him. We have to give it to the tiny guy because we feel better about it. I will never drop it ever. It has nothing to do with the cheating. Even before they did the cheating, I was like this is I was arguing with all my friends in Houston. Like look at these numbers. The only thing that he was better at strikeouts. But if you look at OPS like–
BOBBY: You’re doing like the March Madness, like two team blind taste tests. Like which team should make it and all the bubble and like without the names ther, you know?
MIKE: Yeah, I’m talking about strikeouts are fun because he just graduated double plays it! Yeah, do it as urgh!
BOBBY: Alex, did you actually send this Zoom link to Mike Francesa without telling me?
MIKE: But to get back to the point of Shohei, I, the, the only thing that would make me feel okay. There, there’s two things if it comes on the Yankees, amazing, that’d be great. If he stays on the Angels and he continues to ‘Tungsten Arm’ O’Doyle, I, dude, anytime a ‘Tungsten Arm’ happens, I’m so happy.
ALEX: Yeah.
MIKE: And it’s so funny. Because I’ve always been above you know this. I’m a huge Mike Trout hater. Mike Trout–
BOBBY: Yeah.
MIKE: –three career games in the playoffs.
BOBBY: But literally every time I bring up anything with Mike Trout, Shubes was like, can you do in the playoffs though?
MIKE: And I know in baseball, that doesn’t make sense. But I don’t care, it’s my basketball brain. But I just like that the Angels continue to get better and they keep adding people and then they’re still the Angels. And even this year, people like oh, Trout is hurt. I’m like, I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. And it hurts me because Anthony Rendon went to Rice and that’s a big bragging point for my small little but somehow still D1 school. Rice University my alma mater.
BOBBY: Baseball powerhouse, Rice University.
MIKE: Except we haven’t won since we’re, uhh I don’t think we’ve won since 2003.
ALEX: It’s a nice North Star, I would say is the Angels being absolutely mid no matter, no matter what they do, you know. Like I, it’s kind of, it’s kind of relatable actually.
BOBBY: But in the most like, you know, tire fire way though. Like they’re never made in a boring way.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: They’re made in a really dysfunctional way. Mike, are you ready to make some bets? This is what–
MIKE: Yes!
BOBBY: –you’re here for. I alluded to this in the intro for our listeners. But Mike is here to play some wagers based on whether or not the Mets or Yankees win this two game series. If they split, I think that Mike and I are gonna pour our heads together and make Alex do something very funny. But we haven’t decided on that yet. I have a nomination for what I would like Mike to have to do if the Mets win these next two games. And Alex is basically going to be the commissioner of these bets. Mike, I’ve asked you to, to put together you know one or two things that I will have to do and then I guess we can talk it through and decide on what we think is funniest for, for content. Because that’s what we’re here to to put out into–
MIKE: Right.
BOBBY: –the world.
MIKE: You told me to put together one or two, I put together five. And–
BOBBY: Okay.
MIKE: –I don’t, I’m not saying that all five have to be done. I just think they’re all good in different ways and whatever like you want to do or you think is funny, or I am. I’m happy to differ. Because I think they’re all fun, but it’s all like different versions. Because you know everybody’s got their different thing if you lose your–
BOBBY: Yeah.
MIKE: –fantasy sports thing, you know, you got to take the SAT or you got to–
BOBBY: I will not be taking the SAT.
MIKE: No. That’s not in there, nothing dramatic. There’s some that I’ve gotten a little like outside of the, of the standard bet box and I’m pretty proud of them.
BOBBY: Okay, Alex any other things to add before Mike shares his five? So we’re gonna allow him to go first, because we’re gentlemen here.
MIKE: Oh, thank you.
ALEX: Naturally. No, I just, I, I invite the listeners at home to play along. If you, if you are a, a, a Yankees fan or a Mets fan, or even not, if you, if you just want to cosplay for, for this two game series. We’re not going to use all these ideas, obviously so, so call up your angry old uncle and get him to shitpost on Twitter about the Yankees
BOBBY: The Tipping Pitches challenge is to own yourself for no reason for content. Okay, Shubes what, what are the things that I, what are the nominations for the things that I will have to be doing? Should the Mets drop two straight to the New York Yankees in the Bronx?
MIKE: First one, nice and simple, all the music breaks for a week on Tipping Pitches are New York, New York by Frank Sinatra. Plain and simple.
BOBBY: That’s pretty good, i like it.
MIKE: Yeah, that’s pretty good.
BOBBY: Yeah.
MIKE: Number, number two, of the complete opposite end, you’re not allowed to take the 7 Train for a week. The 7 Train is a Met’s subway line.
BOBBY: Okay. I like it, I don’t have any reason to take the 7 Train unless I’m going to a Mets game. So I could just basically not go to a Mets game.
MIKE: That was the one I was least confident ’cause if the 7 isn’t convenient for you. Like for me, that would actually make my life harder, ’cause the 7 does [56:31] pretty close to my house. But I just figured like, for whatever reason. Every time, every time I get to the 7, I’m like, uhh, this is a Met subway.
BOBBY: You can tell that people are like to, ahh, [56:39]. Okay, two good offering so far. Alex, are you noting which one you would like me to have to do more?
ALEX: I, I am, I’m creating the power ranking, power ranking in my head. I’m taking notes, throwing it all into a Spreadsheet.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: So yeah–
BOBBY: Mike [56:55].
ALEX: –let’s keep in common.
MIKE: All right. So third one, you, Bobby as I record this on August 21st, you’re about to have a two episode run on The Newest Olympian, my-
BOBBY: I am.
MIKE: –it’s a Jackson podcast, I was going to say that I will edit the descriptions to say that you are longtime Yankee lover, Bobby Wagner comes on the podcast.
BOBBY: That is very funny. And also for the real The Newest Olympian heads who have been listening since Season 1, and will remember that I had a two episode run in Season 1, they will know that I’m not actually a Yankees fan. So they will know even more than I’m being owned by you in the description. So I feel like that kind of cuts even deeper. That’s really–
MIKE: Yeah.
BOBBY: –that’s funny.
MIKE: It’s certainly less publi, ’cause like, does anyone read podcast descriptions? It’s always my big question as a podcaster. Every time–
ALEX: I know.
MIKE: –[57:37] one, I’m like, does anyone read this?
BOBBY: It’s always like, some people will be like podcast descriptions are the only thing that matter. And then the other people are like, I don’t care about podcast descriptions at all.
ALEX: Right. Yeah. I, I mean, I, I write most of them. And I’m like, no one ever reads it. Like why am I sure I’m putting in all the links and stuff been like, you know. Your Twitter handle when you come on, but no one read- and then like, one day someone, a friend of ours DMed us, was like, hey, just a heads up, there’s a typo in your description. And I’m like–
BOBBY: And that completely–
ALEX: Wow!
BOBBY: –broke you? You we’re like, so everyone is copy editing all of our podcasts description.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Well, it was like it was not even that she had just glanced at it, you know. It was she was doing a close reading of it, was like Oh–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –interesting Oxford comma use in, in the third sentence.
BOBBY: Okay, so that’s three. We got two more.
MIKE: Yeah. Number four, along the lines of Podcast Metadata, you have to change the official title of Tipping Pitches to Tipping Pitches: A Yankees Podcast.
BOBBY: [58:39]
MIKE: Yeah, that [58:41] that one was certainly the highest. I feel like, I shouldn’t even do, I just thought it was a funny idea. Final one, you have to finally make a Unionize the Minors Yankee TP merch.
BOBBY: Okay. So I thought that this might come up. I currently have a, a DM bet out there with Jayson Buford, who is a large Yankees fan and a big on Yankees Twitter. A bet that he placed in the DMs of Tipping Pitches, saying that if the Yankees win the World Series, then we have to make the Yankees Unionize the Minors–
MIKE: Okay, okay.
BOBBY: –design, Yankees inspired–
MIKE: Okay.
BOBBY: –inspired, Yankee inspired–
MIKE: Inspired.
BOBBY: –inspired by the Yankees. The color is blue and white inspired.
MIKE: Yeah.
BOBBY: So I think that that one has to be off the table though. I recognize the clamor for the Yankees inspired Unionize the Minors.
MIKE: Cool, great. Yeah.
ALEX: Famously, we are a Yankees Podcast, so the representation is, is needed.
BOBBY: Can I suggest a, a slight softening of number four so instead of changing our entire podcast title on all platforms, we like add a comma in the title of our Twitter for a week? Tipping Pitches, a Yankees Podcast?
MIKE: Sure, yeah, that, that, that would be suitable.
BOBBY: Okay. So, so those are the four. Alex, you have your, your power rankings?
ALEX: I, I do have, I have the power rankings. It’s, it’s a little tough because some of these also affect me. Like I don’t have a dog in this fight.
BOBBY: Hey, now wait, I thought you were a Mets fan with me, come on. You do have a [1:00:11].
ALEX: I am, but–
BOBBY: You were potentially getting into fights with Phillies fans this weekend about your–
ALEX: Right. On behalf of a team–
BOBBY: –for your Mets fans.
ALEX: –I don’t root for, yeah. So I, I’m liking number four, honestly.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Because the, because the it’s, it’s very clearly not shrew necessarily. Though it would not be clear if you were just coming to our this this podcast. You would have, I mean, it may, you may be thrown a little bit that we have a picture of an A’s player as our, as our logo and–
MIKE: We’re gonna call Ricky Henderson Yankees legend an A’s player, but okay.
BOBBY: Oh, wow, that really cut deep. That really cut Alex’ to his core right there.
ALEX: That one, that one kind of hurt, but it’s, it’s fine.
BOBBY: So, okay. Before I share, before I share what my suggestion for what Mike will have to do. I did mention that we would put our heads together if there’s a split and make Alex do something, so is that something–
MIKE: Ohhh!
BOBBY: Shall we make Alex–
MIKE: [1:01:13] bring pinstripes instead of the A’s uniform in the logo?
BOBBY: I was gonna say just like changed his Twitter picture to like a picture of Rickey Henderson and a Yankees uniform or something.
MIKE: Yeah, I think that’s, that, that feels pretty good. I enjoy that.
ALEX: God. Why do you do this to me?
BOBBY: It’s for the contest, bro.
MIKE: It’s okay. I went to St. Louis ’cause one of my best buds he’s a huge Cardinals fan. And finally the Yankees and the Cardinals play each other.
BOBBY: Sorry to you for knowing one, having to call a huge Cardinals fan your friend.
MIKE: The whole weekend I was there, I was just giving them crap about now Carpenter being amazing and being like, oh, yeah, this Oh, this guy should play for the Cardinals? Interesting, I didn’t know that. It’s so weird–
BOBBY: Oh, the new guy coming through the Yankees system.
MIKE: Yeah, every time they give him a standing ovation. I’m like, wow, I didn’t know these guests really liked the Yankees so much like it’s strange. Oh, he do play for the Cardinals? I was like his rookie years or something, oh, so fun. I know, I just did it for three straight days.
ALEX: I, I, as a Cardinals fan, I think he deserved it.
BOBBY: Yeah, frankly, and especially coming.
MIKE: My buddy Johnny has done this multiple times where and the Yankees straight forgotten the Cardinals. Or if the Cardinals call up a guy if Johnny says they’re bad, they become the greatest person ever. So when we traded for Luke Voit, he was like, Luke Voit sucks. And then Luke Voit was very good for like two years for us. And then when they called up Lars Nootbaar, I was like, that guy has the greatest name ever. He’s gonna be amazing at baseball. And he’s like, nah, I kind of sucks. And then Lars is great now. And then when we, when we signed Carpenter, he was like Carpenter’s washed and I immediately were like, Oh, it was gonna be really good?
ALEX: That’s a pretty good curse to be able to inflict.
MIKE: Yeah, it’s sad though, ’cause we treated Jordan Montgomery for Harrison Bader. And Johnny texted me and said you’re gonna love Harrison Bader and I was like–
BOBBY: Oh, God!
MIKE: –God dammit! God dammit! It’s gonna be horrible!
ALEX: It’s gonna be Bob Nightengale effect.
BOBBY: Sell, sell Harrison Bader in your fantasy leagues, everybody.
MIKE: Yeah.
BOBBY: If you were stashing him through his walking boot injury, I don’t know. Okay, Mike, are you ready to hear what I would like you to do? Should the Mets take two straight from New York Yankees?
MIKE: Yes, I’m ready.
BOBBY: I would like you to tweet this phrase as–
MIKE: Oh no!
BOBBY: –it is constructed.
MIKE: Oh no, I hate this already.
BOBBY: Two sentences, actually. Not just a phrase, two sentences.
MIKE: Okay.
BOBBY: Quote, “If not for injuries tragically cutting his career short. It would be undeniable that David Wright had a better career than Derek Jeter. No matter what Yankees fans say Wright is the true captain of New York baseball.”
MIKE: I, I hope you have other options, ’cause that one really as like as much as I love analytics, I do also love to be shut up about analytics guy for Derek Jeter. Like I love to go harpy like, Oh, he didn’t deserve Gold Glove. Like he dove into the seats and broke his face. He deserves every Gold Glove, I don’t care what you say.
BOBBY: I didn’t come up with other options but I’m, I’m willing to be–
MIKE: Okay.
BOBBY: –I’m willing to be bartered down. Like you, you know, you can–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –soften the language a little bit if need be.
MIKE: I’m happy to like spit ball some stuff. I think like if you want to get personal with me Robinson Cano was my favorite Yankee.
BOBBY: Okay.
MIKE: Until the whole thing, so if there was some sort of like Mets-Cano kind of deal thing. But I know he didn’t have like a great run with the Mets like trying to think of other, anything like–
BOBBY: That’s [1:04:18]
ALEX: The rare Brody bandwagon and miss, honestly.
BOBBY: Yeah, true.
MIKE: Man, I tried to, man, it’s tough. Because that that’d be that is very funny. Like I don’t even hate David Wright though. It’s, it’s the–
BOBBY: Yeah.
MIKE: –Jeter slighter more than the David Wright parade. That does it for me. Yeah, but no, I, I like is there a way we could do, like people who were on both teams. Like was it like Darryl Strawberry was on both teams, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
MIKE: David Cohen was he on the Mets too?
BOBBY: Yeah. He started with the Mets.
MIKE: Yeah, I’m a big Cohen dude. So like, we could do something there. But if you, if you, if you want it to be a pro David Wright, I feel like it’d be okay to do something pro David Wright but not with–
BOBBY: Okay, okay.
ALEX: –not anti Jeter.
MIKE: –it really hurts.
BOBBY: I like it, I like it. So, so we’re bartering here. How about if I take out the part where it says that he has a better career undeniably that he had a better career than Jeter? How about if I softened it to be something more like David Wright has a fair claim to the title of ‘The Captain’ as well as Derek Jeter? The pain on his face.
MIKE: I would, I would do that only because like I think making Derek Jeter ‘The Captain’ is cool. I think making his nickname ‘The Captain’, and naming the documentary series, ‘The Captain’ is not cool. Because we’ve had other captains. So–
BOBBY: Yes.
MIKE: –I’m, I’m okay with this. Because–
BOBBY: Okay.
MIKE: I’m like, I feel like he could have had a cooler nickname. But also Derek Jeter is one of those like, he doesn’t have a nickname. He’s like Derek Jeter, he’s really–
BOBBY: He just Jeets.
MIKE: –well yeah. Like yeah, you either do YeahJeets or like he’s one of the guys you call by his full name. Like he’s–
ALEX: Yeah.
MIKE: –Derek Jeter. Like you call it a full name. Like if you’ve reached say your full name status. You don’t need a nickname because you’re just Derek Jeter, you can just–
BOBBY: Yeah.
MIKE: –call him a Jeter, it’s weird. You can’t just call him Derek–
ALEX: Yeah.
MIKE: –that’s weird. He’s Derek Jeter full stop.
ALEX: Also, has anyone in the history of, the histories referred to him? Like as the captain, like in passing in conversation said you know, the captain is having a great night, tonight have it short.
MIKE: No.
ALEX: You know, like–
BOBBY: Probably yes, honestly.
MIKE: I just I, I, I, I’ve only like when they were doing the, the, the farewell stuff did they really start to captain it.
BOBBY: Yeah.
MIKE: And when they were doing that and they’re like read too packed for [1:06:32].
BOBBY: That was tough, that was really tough.
MIKE: It’s tough.
BOBBY: Not his finest marketing hour.
MIKE: The only thing that saved it was his kid tipping his cat.
ALEX: That was pretty good. Uh-hmm.
MIKE: The little guy–
BOBBY: Iconic gift, iconic gift.
MIKE: That save the entire redo packed campaign.
BOBBY: Okay, so we have a memo- a memorandum of agreement on some language indicating that David Wright has a fair claim to the title of the captain as well. We’ll iron it out, we’ll not, we’ll ironed out the details along with Alex our, our bet commissioner after the podcast recording is over. Once it looks like we’ll know who wins this bet.
ALEX: Right. This is, this is like when they, they, they settled on everything that’s in the CBA.
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: I’m going to hammer out the details of the course of the–
MIKE: Sure, sure.
BOBBY: Exactly.
MIKE: Yeah.
BOBBY: But we need to decide, we need to decide definitively what, what my punishment will be. I guess our punishment if it’s going to be Tipping Pitches related Alex.
ALEX: I’m, I am vibing with the, the Twitter change because it’s, because it’s public. I like something that is, I mean, I really like the, the podcast description one as, as well. But again, like we were saying I, it’s kind of a coin flip whether people are even scrolling through that. Especially if–
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: –like, it’s a podcast with like a dedicated following. Like you’re just gonna press play no matter what, right?
MIKE: Yeah.
ALEX: You’re not scrolling through and looking for the one that, that interests you. So that’s the one that I’m, that I’m leaning towards.
BOBBY: It also–
ALEX: How do you, how do you feel about that, Bobby?
BOBBY: I agree, ’cause it’s also the one where our listeners are going to see it the most. So it’d be like we have to wear the dunce cap in front of our own friends.
MIKE: Yeah. It’s also good as then my punishment is Twitter related, yours is Twitter related. And it is like if anything a joke if people who are like in on the Tipping Pitches cinematic universe.
BOBBY: Yeah.
MIKE: I do very often reply to you on Twitter anytime, anything is said about the Yankees. And I’m like, ahh–
BOBBY: Love you guys, this is a Yankees pod.
MIKE: My favorite Yankees pod guy. Please there is for folks in the know that like really, you know, know me as like, oh, right. It’s the guy, you know–
ALEX: Right.
MIKE: –you get that in the mix, too.
BOBBY: It’s nearly–
ALEX: So, this is the literally the, the name of our group chat, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like, I, we’re just extending–
MIKE: Yeah.
ALEX: –the joke to its logical conclusion.
BOBBY: Okay, we have our ruling, the ruling, so you will tweet something about David Wright being a worthy captain.
MIKE: Cool.
BOBBY: And I will change our twitter name to Tipping Pitches, a Yankees Podcast. And we split–
MIKE: Can I, can we get it out there that it’s not fair that you have Scherzer and deGrom pitching? Is there a way to like adjust like, like a golf? You know, gross and net score thing.
ALEX: Like give you, give you a handicap.
MIKE: Like that is not–
BOBBY: I mean, you, listen, all you had to do to get Scherzer was pay. All you had to–
MIKE: I know, God!
BOBBY: –do was pay.
MIKE: If Domingo German is pitching, I’m out.
ALEX: I think he is, I think he is, he’s, he’s, he’s scheduled for, for game one.
BOBBY: Oh, let’s go! Let’s go!
MIKE: Uhhh, good- goodness!
BOBBY: Off to a great start for Mets fans everywhere. Mike Schubert, thank you so much. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you. It’s always a pleasure to wager embarrassing things for content with you. Would you like to let people know where they can hear you talk more about sports and or other things?
MIKE: Yes, before I do, can I really quickly tell everyone what I texted you guys when I was on the 7th Train in the Mets-Phillies series in New York was happening. And the guy yelled at Phillies fans, it was the funniest interaction I’ve ever heard in the subway this year.
BOBBY: Yeah, like this is like your sign off.
ALEX: Yeah.
MIKE: Okay, so I was on the 7th, bunch of Mets and Phillies guys, and I was just coming home from I think just hanging out with friends. And I was like, oh, no, it’s the game train. And there were two Mets fans given a Philly fan crap who was this guy wearing, he’s like Mitchell & Ness Philly shorts that were like not Phillies color. They were like gold shorts with some red trim so they look like 49ers shorts. And these Mets fans were sitting, and the Phillies guy was standing and the Mets fans are like, yo, what the hell is up with these shorts, my guy, they don’t fucking look like Philly shorts, what they’re why are they 49ers colors? And the guy’s like, oh, it’s like Mitchell & Ness shorts. Like very different- oh, they’re Mitchell & Ness. And [1:10:21] the fucker that you’re, talking about these are your fucking friends, it was Mitchell & Ness! And then he like as explained all that. They just got those weird like Balenciaga socks shoe things on them or whatever.
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
MIKE: After that conversation finishes, they wait a little bit. And then the Mets guy like gets his attention again, he goes, how much of these fucking things cost? And then, the guy was like being like, coy about it. But then like, somehow the Mets guys are then like, Oh, what do they cost like, fucking $200? And then the guys like, try eight times that. Oh, way yo! Making fun of him for having $1,600 shoes. And I did Google–
BOBBY: Yeah.
MIKE: –that’s how much those shoes costs, wild! Truly wild!
ALEX: Yeah. Also a choice to wear them to the Mets-Phillies game?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like–
MIKE: You ha- I were very parti- like I care about my clothes. Because I don’t like to buy clothes again. Like I like to buy clothes and then treat them well so that I have them forever. Note what delayed this recording was I was doing laundry and I deline dry my stuff before I could hop on the pod here. But when I go to a stadium, you wear the junky shoes. Like how can–
BOBBY: Yes.
MIKE: –you wear that expensive shoes? Just like out in public, but also to a stadium where people actively take peanuts and throw them on the floor? Like what–
ALEX: Yes.
MIKE: –are you doing?
BOBBY: And also like 7 out of 10 games that I go to a beer spilled? Whether it’s by me–
MIKE: Right.
BOBBY: –or by somebody else. Like–
MIKE: Right.
BOBBY: –that kind of stuff is just out of your control. Why–
ALEX: Every time you walk onto the bathroom, the floor is wet.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I don’t know, I don’t know what from, I don’t really want to know. But it’s probably not what you want on your $1,600.
BOBBY: It was–
MIKE: Yeah, truly absurd. Anyway, that aside, you can find me doing lots of podcasts wherever you get the podcast.
BOBBY: You can find me on the 7 Train, making fun of Philadelphia Phillies fans.
MIKE: You can find me on the 7th Train, begrudgingly rooting for the Mets. Because I would, I took their side of this argument. No, if you want to hear my podcasts as mentioned, I do a podcast with my buddy Adam Mamawala called Horse. Similar vibe where we talk about basketball but not the on court stuff. It’s all of the drama. Talk about the NBA, we talk about the WNBA. Talk about Twitter beefs, all that kind of fun stuff. And then the other pod we mentioned was The Newest Olympian where Bobby has been a guest. And Alex, if you’ve read the Percy Jackson books you can come through I don’t know if you’re a PJO, guy.
ALEX: Yeah, you know, I was, I was as a kid, but I’ll probably need to brush up on my untext–
BOBBY: That’s what I do, I just read the entire book before appearing on The Newest Olympian.
MIKE: I don’t force my guests to do that, but Bobby overachieved. But yeah, yeah–
BOBBY: It turns out, it’s really easy to read YA, when you’re 26. Like the language is much more accessible.
MIKE: They’re not even YA, they’re technically middle grade. So they’re even easier. But yeah, if you brush up, come on through. But yeah, that’s a Percy Jackson podcast, never read the books as a kid. So it’s me going through them for the first time as an adult, and it’s very fun. We are about halfway through the third book, and it’s very good. It’s getting very spicy. So that’s called The Newest Olympian. You can search for those wherever you get your podcasts or if you just want to see all the stuff I’m doing. I have a website, it’s just schubes, schub.es. And that’s got all my stuff, technically, a Spain website, I had to give them my driver’s license in order to apply for it. Since it’s dot es.
ALEX: Please, actually, we might need to dialogue off layer, off air. Because for the longest time, we wanted to get Tipping Pitch.es.
MIKE: Our, our own.
ALEX: Right, exactly. And I looked into it and it seemed like there were a lot of hoops to jump through, tippingpitches.com I think is a few $1,000 a year is the going rate for it right now. So we wanted to find a way to, to get–
MIKE: Yeah.
ALEX: –on that. So you can–
MIKE: Yeah, hope [1:13:52]–
ALEX: –do tipping pitch domain contacts in Spain.
MIKE: Right. I, it’s pretty, it was pretty easy. I think I just use GoDaddy. So definitely before you post–
BOBBY: Wow.
MIKE: –this episode they’re trying to buy it–
BOBBY: No free ads.
MIKE: –before somebody else does.
BOBBY: Just GoDaddy, it’s like a Danica Patrick Superbowl commercial. I think that means it’s time to end this segment.
MIKE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Mike, thank you so much. This is great. Really [1:14:15]–
MIKE: Thanks for having me.
[1:14:16]
[Music Transition]
BOBBY: Okay. Thank you to Mike. I feel like I came out ahead in that, in that that segment. Like I’m okay, changing the Tipping Pitches Twitter, to Tipping Pitches, the–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –Yankees Podcast, because it’s kind of like a bit that we’ve been doing anyway. Like we have A. Rod. you know, we had Randy on a few weeks ago. We’ve talked to Lindsay Adler multiple times. Mike’s been on several times. We have a, a robust Yankees fan community flourishing in our Slack that you can get access to patreon.com/tippingpitches. Signup for any tier, you get access to the Slack. You can join any number of teams Slack channels, where all the sickos of that team commiserate with each other. So you know, I just want David Wright to get his respect. There’s room to pecked where five pecked, which actually looks better than [1:15:23]
ALEX: [1:15:23] works.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly.
ALEX: But yeah, I, I think you did, too. You’re not necessarily personally implicating yourself–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –in this, in this manner, right?
BOBBY: I wouldn’t have had to tweet out the photo that does exist of me wearing Yankees hat in college. Because I forgot a hat and needed a hat and I was abroad and didn’t take whatever turns is such a piece of blackmail.
ALEX: Damn, that’s tough. I’m gonna text Mike right after this and, and let them know the terms of the bat have changed.
BOBBY: Don’t, no, no, no, that’s not honest commissionership. Rob Manfred would never do that.
ALEX: Look, I’m doing it for the, the interests of the game, you know. I’m just giving the people what they want to see. That’s–
BOBBY: All right, you’re banning the shift, basically?
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Trying to bring action back into the Tipping Pitches, Subway Series bets. Well, this is less of a series of the year. But if this works out well, and it’s fun, then maybe we’ll do it next year. Tipping Pitches listeners, please give us ideas for how we can punish ourselves for content. Let’s do a couple listener questions and then get out of here. Because I know that this has been an action packed episode.
ALEX: Alright, we got a couple good ones this week, we get a couple of–
BOBBY: Really good ones.
ALEX: –good ones every week, only good ones. But I, I really liked these we had to, had to get these in here. Despite the length of this podcast. This first one comes from Alexander. And he wants to know, what’s the correct number of walkup songs? And how often should a player change theirs?
BOBBY: This is a question that we were actually talking about at the game on Saturday night. Because a, a friend of mine who was there in attendance with us was saying, you know, I feel like not enough players utilize artists from the cities that they are now playing for. To try to, you know, current interest with the fan base, who might also feel some kind of emotional connection to the athlete and the artists for representing their city. And I was saying, yeah, but then, you know, your walk up song is so personal, like it has to get you excited to and you want to perform because the song is on. And I was thinking to myself, like, you know, how would I approach it strategically from what I would choose? And I’ve always said that my answer would be The Anthem by Good Charlotte. And there’d be like 37 people in the stands, who would be like really excited that I’m coming up to bat and the rest of the people just be like, alright, generic rock chord. But I also expressed that I would love to have one song that became iconic because I walked up to it. You know, if I was like a really good major league player, or you know, like Mariano Rivera walking out to Enter Sandman. You know, everything with Edwin Diaz Narco this year, like, it would be cool to be consistent for your whole career Simple Man. So Fresh, and So Clean Curtis Granderson that was his walk up song for his entire time with the Mets. But then I just thought about it. And I’m like, I’m just not decisive enough.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And so I think the answer really depends on your personality. But I think for most people, the answer is just like switch it a lot. Like whatever song you feel like hearing–
ALEX: Right. Well, I–
BOBBY: –that’s the song you should use. I’m fine with having multiple per game also.
ALEX: Yeah, I, I also like think back to what I was listening to, like 15 years ago, and I’m like, is that same stuff gonna get me hype today? Like I–
BOBBY: In my case, yes.
ALEX: Well, yes, yeah, that’s–
BOBBY: 15 years ago, I was listening to Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge and earlier today in the car was listening to Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge. So–
ALEX: Right, so the more things change, the more they stay the same. I definitely would have like a handful in the rotation, you know. And I think it kind of depends on how you use the walk up song. Like do you want the walk up song to be something that like, really gets your blood pumping? That like it’s a song you really love. And so you can like walk up to the plate or whatever, like bobbing your head. Or do you want something that’s like that gets the stadium hyped up, right? Because that’s what you’re in to. Like I imagine there are a lot of baseball players who probably kind of tune out their walk up song, right? You’re not, you’re not like–
BOBBY: That’s sad.
ALEX: I probably is and I could be very wrong. Any Major League Baseball players who are listening to this. Like–
BOBBY: You know we don’t get to talk to a lot of hitters. We talk to a lot of pitchers, but now a lot of hitters.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah. Big pitcher bias here on Tipping Pitches. What’s ironic given the name.
BOBBY: I mean, I think ideally your song would do both. Like it would–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –get you hyped up and it would get the crowd engaged.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: It’d be, it’d be enough of an earworm and it’d be enough of a crowd out pleaser. That it would do both but also at the same time it would get you hype. I noticed Alec Bohm walks up to a to Famous by Kanye West, which I think probably accomplishes both things for him. Because the crowd gets really into it, because it’s like the bump, bump, beaten part, you know, and like, everybody can kind of sing along. With an Alec Bohm seems like the kind of guy who’s like Kanye West changed my life, you know?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So, you know, it’s a, it’s a narrow line to walk.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I think for me, I would have like an old reliable that I would go to, most frequently, probably The Anthem. And then I would have like, you know, an off speed more or less like a like one that I throw in there every once in a while just to mix it up for the crowd sake.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And then I would definitely need to choose a song. I don’t want to commit to one yet. Because I haven’t been call up to The Show yet.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But I would definitely need a song that would be my slump breaker.
ALEX: That’s what I, just what I was thinking. Yeah.
BOBBY: Something that I know that if I hear it, it’s gonna put me in the right headspace to get out of a, a rut.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah, I imagine you definitely need this scenario, specific ones, you know. Like, or, like a big moment, walk up song, you know, that may not be the same song that gets you hyped as, you know, your fifth played appearance of the day in a 7-1 ballgame, you know. Like the vibes–
BOBBY: [1:21:19]
ALEX: –the vibes, exactly. The vibes are a little bit different. So I’d want something that like kind of meets that, the moment where we’re at. The, the interesting thing is like, these choices obviously aren’t being telegraphed to like the PA team in real time. So you need to like have a little bit of foresight–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –on when and how you’re going to choose these songs. Like if you can switch it up mid game, but I imagine you are telling them, okay, first at bat, you’re doing this second the bat. Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: That’s–
BOBBY: Stick to the plan.
ALEX: Et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. I certainly wouldn’t be able to, to choose one. Like it’d be a different one every week.
BOBBY: I feel like they should have some sort of technology where you can just press play from your phone, as you’re walking out.
ALEX: I think that’s called Bluetooth.
BOBBY: No, Bluetooth would not work, especially in a crowd of 45,000 people you think your–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –Bluetooth is gonna be the one that hears? No, all of a sudden, you’re gonna be hearing the Joe Rogan experience.
ALEX: Yes. I mean, the thing about that is the some team would find a way to use that technology to cheat. So I, you know–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –double-edged sword.
BOBBY: You know, it occurs to me that one of us, should we ever make the, the major leagues.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Whoever makes it first. It’s really anyone’s, anyone’s game at this point. One of us should probably choose Green Onions, you know.
ALEX: Probably, yeah. It does, it gets, it gets me hype and kind of its own way, you know.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: It’s only like it gets my like, head banging or my blood pumping. But it does feel like, like I just associated so much with baseball. Like the essence of baseball.
BOBBY: Right. If there’s a baseball game happening in heaven, Green Onions is playing underneath it, you know. Like it’s, it’s scoring the baseball game. Yeah.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Okay, I think that’s plenty of an answer for Alexander though we didn’t really commit either way. But Alexander, I hope that that was–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –what’s next?
ALEX: This next question comes from Nick. He wants to know what moment in baseball history would you have liked to have Statcast data available for?
BOBBY: Great question.
ALEX: Amazing question.
BOBBY: First thing that came to my mind was the Willie Mays catch.
ALEX: Yup.
BOBBY: Over his shoulder.
ALEX: Hear in my mind, too.
BOBBY: I want to know the, the route. But then also–
ALEX: I know, I know, yeah.
BOBBY: –I thought about it. And I was like, kind of don’t–
ALEX: I don’t–
BOBBY: –I don’t need that [1:23:41] that his route efficiency could have been 10% better. Like–
ALEX: Stack has been like that was a three star catch actually.
BOBBY: I need someone to like, look first. Just so that–
ALEX: And to leave it’s good.
BOBBY: –I leave it’s good. Would you do that for me?
ALEX: Yes, I would, I would take that bullet.
BOBBY: Okay. Thank you. Uhm, the second thing that came to mind was the Endy Chavez catch in left field in game seven of the NLCS, the 2006 NLCS. I want to know the catch probability of that, of that play. Because I know what the probability was in my head, it’s like one to a billion. But he’s gonna rob the home run that will keep them in game seven of the NLCS with the chance to go to the World Series.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Put that on the line in that way, that’s, that’s pretty fucking amazing. So that’s probably my answer.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s a really good one. Interesting that they were both defensive place that–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –that you chose. Which I feel like I don’t usually–
BOBBY: Really want to know that the RPM of Pedro change-up, like, I’m good. I’m good. Got my eyes for that.
ALEX: No, I know but, but I, I feel like I see Statcast employed most often with like–
BOBBY: Exit Velo.
ALEX: Yeah, exit Velo and projected home run distance and–
BOBBY: Well, as you know, I’m a Mets–
ALEX: [1:24:54]
BOBBY: –fan and we don’t care about exit Velo. [1:24:56], soft contact, it’s all about luck.
ALEX: Yeah, take the ball the other way.
BOBBY: Statcast didn’t tell you about luck.
ALEX: Yeah. I, I love both choices. As I said them the catch was on my list as well. I have a couple, a couple other ones. I, I want to know the, the sprint speed on, on Enos Slaughter mad dash to home–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –in the, in the 1946 World Series where he score-
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: –some first.
BOBBY: Let’s go!
ALEX: So, so curious, I want to, I want to see the little like, you know, animated retraction that they do of like–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –every play of the guy running around the bases.
BOBBY: I just dropped like 58 million for that. Like–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –they spend enough money on that. That if we just like got that money and sponsorship money for the podcast, we would never have to work again. Just think about so let that marinate.
ALEX: That’s true, but it’s a bit of an under market deal for us. I don’t know if I’d be able to take it.
BOBBY: Oh, yeah. Or holding out. Sorry. We don’t have a presenting sponsor yet. If you’re listening–
ALEX: I, I just want–
BOBBY: [1:26:03] presenting sponsors.
ALEX: Yeah, keep going. Someone’s out there, they’re hearing. I, I was also thinking of the flip, right? Jeremy Giambi and being called out at home. I, there isn’t really a, a metric–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –that I’m interested in for this. And as I, as I was thinking about it more, I realized that I just wanted instant replay–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –instead. I just wanted a different way to see the play, you know. But I do think looking at the numbers of the probability that that Giambi scores, you know. Or that Jeter makes that throw.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Because it’s a, it shouldn’t have happened, right? That was just ridiculous play all around.
BOBBY: So stupid.
ALEX: It was, it was crazy stupid.
BOBBY: Just one of those plays were just like, this is actually the dumbest sport I’ve ever seen in my life.
ALEX: Yes, literally.
BOBBY: And I think Yankees fans feel that way, though.
ALEX: The, the last thing I want to know, and I don’t think you can use Statcast in this way. But Babe Ruth famously once called his shot. I want to know what he was pointing to. Give me the, what was the angle of his arm? Was he calling the shot? Was he, was he pointing at the foul pole? Is he pointing at the flag? That seems–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –it seems like a definite possibility.
BOBBY: So okay, I have an answer.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Another answer for you. Not the Babe Ruth thing, I have no idea what he’s pointing, probably pointing at–
ALEX: The sky.
BOBBY: I, I don’t have really an idea.
ALEX: Some, some broad [1:27:38]
BOBBY: Some [1:27:40]. So this is maybe not even Statcast anymore because I don’t think Statcast does this. But this is more like you remember a Sports Science with John Brakeman.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Or they would be like, Tim Tebow ran this defender over he applied 22.1 pounds per square inch or something. That’s enough force to knock down a shrub in your front yard. I need that, but for- sorry, I’m sorry. I need that. But for, I think it was John Brenkus, I’m sorry to the Brenkus family for getting your name wrong. I need that for the Carlton Fisk home run. Like, how much of a gust of wind would we have needed in the ballpark that night for that to never happen?
ALEX: Yeah, that’s, that’s a really good question, actually.
BOBBY: That would be like–
ALEX: I think you can–
BOBBY: –be like me as a physics textbook writer. Carlton Fisk winds up and knocks one to left field.
ALEX: I mean, it’s a really interesting way to learn about physics.
BOBBY: I know. A lot of my physics textbooks were like that. It’d be–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –like Romeo is standing below Juliet’s window, he tosses an Apple as a launch angle of 31 degrees. How hard is you need to throw it to get it up there and fall in love with Juliet? That’s a real question that I had in my physics textbook.
ALEX: That’s, that’s pretty remarkable. I think they need to update their sources a little bit, though.
BOBBY: I know didn’t they hear that Shakespeare’s cancelled for being problematic?
ALEX: I think these are all great answers. There’s no obviously way of quantifying any of this stuff. And I think that for some of these answers, we don’t even really know what, what we, what we want. But I think the, the point that you made at the beginning is a sound one about not really wanting to know, on some plays. Like I think the mystique is kind of cool. Especially when you talk about these massive moments in the history of the game. If they were then broken down into all of their parts and dissected, I think that would make them a little more boring–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –you know. Like if we were just seeing the Statcast replay of the catch. I don’t, I don’t need that, I don’t need to catch sponsored by Google.
BOBBY: But it’s all different. It’s a whole different thing. Yeah. Imagine Vin Scully has to tell you the launch angle of the Kirk Gibson home run.
ALEX: Jesus Christ.
BOBBY: Now this is extremely cursed. We have to stop.
ALEX: I know, I know.
BOBBY: Okay. Thank you, Nick. It’s still a really good question and, and a very fun conversation. Listeners, please share your answer with us, tippingpitchespod@gmail.com. tipping_pitches on Twitter, drop them in the slack in the episode discussion channel. If you’re interested in that, you can call our voicemail 785-422-5881. It’s been a while since we’ve done some voicemails, if we get a few calls, maybe we’ll throw them into next week’s episode, you never know. Before we get out here, let me give a quick shout out to the five members of our Alex Rodriguez VIP Club tier this week. There’s so many of you that we just have to read five of you every week, otherwise, it would take a very long time. And for that we are very, very, very, very, very, very thankful those five members this week are Colleen, Jack, Jessica, Peter, and Micah. Alex, you have anything else to share with the people? Would you like to just do a little mea culpa with the guy from Philadelphia? Just in case he’s listening. To like to get anything off your chest?
ALEX: I just wish we could have talked it out, man.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I really do. I feel like we could have come to a consensus, you know. I was like, I was like coming up with like his rebuttals in my head and trying to figure out how I would respond to those rebuttals. And I was very nice throughout the whole conversation. He was too, though, so, you know.
BOBBY: It’s just like doing therapy exercises at the Mets game.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly.
BOBBY: Sir, if you’re listening, please call the voicemail, 785-422-5881.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And share what you would have said and we will respond in due time. Other than that, I don’t think there’s anything else for us to add. Thanks, everybody for listening. And we will be back next week.
[1:32:02]
[Music]
[1:32:18]
[Outro]
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Hello everybody, I’m Alex Rodriguez, Tipping Pitches, Tipping Pitches. This is the one that I love the most, Tipping Pitches. So we’ll see you next week. See ya!
Transcriptionist: Vernon Bryann Casil
Editor: Krizia Marrie Casil
Tipping Pitches 
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