Bobby and Alex take a wander through the vast world that is Jon Heyman’s mind, then discuss the (nearly) completed division series, including the Phillies as the last standing NL East team, the Guardians’ #brand of #baseball, the parity among baseball’s top teams, and more. Bobby breaks down his platonic ideal of a playoff baseball game, they discuss why playoff format discourse is missing the forest for the trees, and then talk for a good half hour about Taylor Swift’s upcoming album.
Links:
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon
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Songs featured in this episode:
My Chemical Romance — “Mama” • Pencey Prep — “Yesterday” • 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, when I outline this podcast, not this one specifically, just the Tipping Pitches Podcast in my Notepad, I always leave the cold open blank, until the day before, or until the morning of more frequently. And the reason I do that is because I want it to be, I want it to be timely, I want it to be the best option. I want to workshop through multiple things in my head throughout the week, so that we can land on the best option. It has nothing to do with procrastination. And every once in a while, wake up on the day that we’re going to do the pod. And I thank my lucky stars. Because something gets sent down from on high. Or in this case, something gets sent down from the New York Post.
ALEX: Basically on high.
BOBBY: A version of high, I guess. We’re opening the pod with a bad take dramatic reading from Jon Heyman.
ALEX: Yeah!
BOBBY: Let’s go! Before I do the reading, would you like to guess how many Twitter followers Jon Heyman has? Just a guess. Ballpark it.
ALEX: 800,000.
BOBBY: I am shocked. 796,200!
ALEX: Woah!
BOBBY: Sorry, prices right rules, you went over, you lose. Great guess. Amazing work by you.
ALEX: Too many, too many followers–
BOBBY: I want to start to this–
ALEX: –in my opinion.
BOBBY: –with all different baseball, different members of baseball media for every pod and see how close you can get for all of them. See how sick your brain truly is?
ALEX: Yeah, I know. It actually kind of reflects poorly on me that I’m familiar with a rough estimate of how many followers Jon Heyman has?
BOBBY: Does that make you feel better or worse that we have like 180th, the amount of followers us in?
ALEX: Witnessing the ways in which he makes a fool of himself on a day to day basis on there. I, I consider myself lucky that we don’t have nearly as large of a platform as he does, I’ll just say that.
BOBBY: To make a fool of ourselves like he does, you mean?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You think if we had 800,000 followers, we would be getting dunked on as often as Jon Heyman does?
ALEX: I kind of feel like when you get that big, you’re gonna get dunked on, no matter what you do
BOBBY: I have been noticing this a little bit with the Tipping Pitches Podcast recently, the Tipping Pitches’ Twitter account. Maybe we can talk about this briefly right here before we do this bad take dramatic reading.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We now have 12,000 followers on Twitter, that’s nothing. Some, mo- so many people, even in baseball media, even amongst baseball podcasts. So many people have way more followers than us. But I have noticed this thing going on where like people don’t understand the bid anymore, you know. We’ve expanded the scope of the, the followers on Twitter to be just like regular guys, with like, John 37985143297.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Replying being like, do you actually think this?
ALEX: I know, I mean–
BOBBY: And I, I, I’ve been doing my part, I mute those guys, usually.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So that we don’t have to see that, so we can keep the circle tight.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, we already have trouble reading each other’s tone like in person.
BOBBY: This the thing, yeah.
ALEX: Yet alone like other people, right.
BOBBY: This the thing. When you say something, I don’t know if you’re being serious right now.
ALEX: Right. This, this happened last night. I think I said something in earnest, and you were like, wait, are you serious?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Yeah, it’s a curse, really, but this is what I mean, right? Like that effect would only be magnified if we had 80 times the followers that we do right now.
BOBBY: Do you think that we should start a Twitter circle and put it in one of the tiers of our Patreon?
ALEX: I feel like the last thing we need is another place where we have to post content.
BOBBY: [4:05]
ALEX: [4:05] ourselves then as it is.
BOBBY: All right, it’s time for the bad text romantic reading. And you have not read this, right?
ALEX: No!
BOBBY: You have not seen any of this, no excerpts?
ALEX: I don’t believe so.
BOBBY: You’re impressively offline these days.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Jon Heyman, the New York Post, October 16, 2022 11:50pm. The Yankees returned home after surviving a scare here and we’ll have a packed house at Yankee Stadium behind them for the deciding Game 5 against the gritty Guardians on Monday night. Presumably, some of the fine folks at Major League Baseball will be quietly rooting, too.
ALEX: Wait real quick, what’s the headline of this piece?
BOBBY: Oh, sorry, MLB could certainly use marquee team in Yankees advancing to ALCS. I felt like that–
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: –was sort of a spoiler.
ALEX: All right. Well, that’s fair. Okay. I see why you didn’t, why you didn’t divulge it.
BOBBY: With the Dodgers and Braves out of the playoff picture. Rip Dodgers, rip Braves.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: With the Braves from the playoffs. The Yankees’ chance to run the table improved without them even lifting a bat. For the same reason. That’s not a phrase by the way. For the same reason- the surprise extinction of powerhouses LA and defending champion Atlanta- some MLB people presumably wouldn’t mind seeing the Yankees keep going, for at least another round, and better still, two more. If they can beat Cleveland on Monday night, the Yankees have a date with hated Houston. Of the teams that despise the Astros, the Yankees are probably first on that list, making for a great storyline. An Astros-Guardians series wouldn’t bring nearly the same buzz. Here’s where it gets really good Alex, just brace yourself.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: You’re seated? Everything okay? The Yankee Stadium crowd will be ready to give a boost to their $260 million team, which has its handful with the $60 million Guardians, who deserve a pat on the back for going this far. It’s a really nice Midwestern story with their fun and outstanding manager, terrific pitching and the anonymous band that doesn’t ever quit.
ALEX: Wow! Ethered.
BOBBY: It’s a really nice Midwestern story.
ALEX: He said, that’s really cute that you’ve come this far.
BOBBY: Bro, he’s doing coastal elitism in 2022. Like, come on, this is played out, dawg. We know, Hillary didn’t go to Michigan, we know! She didn’t go to Wisconsin, we know! Like, what are you talking about?
ALEX: I get why he’s doing this, right? He’s a, he’s a columnist for the New York Post. He has a very specific vantage point. He has a vested interest in the Yankees making it further because that’s much more interesting, narratively speaking,
BOBBY: But he also works for MLB Network.
ALEX: I know. But what, what does that mean? We’ve just been watching MLB Network for an hour and a half and still are not really sure what we’ve been watching.
BOBBY: That’s the headspace that we’re in doing this pod. This isn’t always said aloud. But as far as the country is concerned, it’s enough already. The Guardians while deserving of our admiration for getting this far after trading off a trio of stars. Don’t know why that makes them worthy of our admiration, not here. Including Mr. Smiles himself, Francisco Lindor. Can remain mostly anonymous for another year. Dawg, this, this article is sick, actually.
ALEX: Someone had to say it.
BOBBY: He really–
ALEX: He all thinking it.
BOBBY: –he’s literally like, I’m, I’m a truth teller, you know. Like, this is what everybody deep down wants to say. But–
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: –canceled culture prevents us from saying that the Guardians are anonymous.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Canceled culture prevents us from saying that Rob, man for its pockets will be better off if the Yankees make the World Series.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, the radical left doesn’t want to see the Yankees win.
BOBBY: Because you know this that does track though.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Because the radical left wants the Guardians to move on.
ALEX: Exactly. The scrappy upstarts who, you know, don’t spend, like the Yankees?
BOBBY: Not even that, not even that. But they went woke. So the radical left probably wants them to advance.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: The Guardians or the satanic lefts team should all get behind them.
ALEX: I just, this one is too easy. I, there’s been actually a really, and we’re gonna get into this later on in the show, talking about kind of the format of these playoffs. But there’s been an exceptionally vast amount of think pieces that I’ve seen. About the, the sort of disparity between talent in the playoffs, and who is deserving, who’s deserving to be here, who’s not deserving to be here, right? There was a, there was a similarly framed article in the LA Times that suggests that the Dodgers, you know, I think the pull quote that was tweeted out was like, canceled that, that 2022 postseason and give the–
BOBBY: I share that opinion.
ALEX: –which honestly, here’s the thing, I read the article, and I feel so bad for the writer. Because that was like a line.
BOBBY: Really?
ALEX: Like two-thirds of the way down, it was mostly about, you know, just like growing up watching the Dodgers and it being tough. And you know, they have the 2020 World Series, but they, they always–
BOBBY: The Mickey Mouse.
ALEX: –show up in October, it was Mickey Mouse, obviously. And so it’s him like talking through his like feelings, and everyone’s like, fucking loser! Participation trophy ass motherfucker!
BOBBY: Let me just round out Heyman’s wonderful kicker that he adds to the article here. He’s talking about Aaron Judge in his wonderful season breaking the American League home run record. A lovely second place trophy, actually more like a seventh place trophy. But Judge provided some great and historic memories for the season- at least 62 of them. You remember every single one Aaron Judge’s home run.
ALEX: I do, ’cause I believed.
BOBBY: –they’re all historic and they’re all great. But for baseball’s sake and theirs, Judge and Co. had better keep it going.
ALEX: What I will just say in response to that is, I do think it’s a really sweet story what Aaron Judge has done. It’s really nice, all the, the cute little home runs that he’s been hitting.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: I think it’s great, I think the city needs this.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: You know, Aaron Boone, he’s, he’s really worked hard to get to where it needs to be. It is a really sweet story the, the Yankees being here in October.
BOBBY: Against all odds.
ALEX: I just–
BOBBY: It’s the kind of thing that literally everybody can get behind, you know. Everybody’s like, you know, the Yankees have just been down on their luck for too long.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, nobody is going to be excited about the Guardians breaking, you know, a 50-year drought of winning the World Series. 50+, you know, they’re up to like, 54 now, I think, if I remember correctly. No one is going to care about that.
ALEX: Well, that’s the, that’s the wonderful thing about the postseason, right, is we rely on its predictability.
BOBBY: Right. And–
ALEX: Famously, baseball’s playoffs are usually decided by the time the year starts.
BOBBY: And the narrative always plays out exactly like you expect it to.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I just thought I’d share that opinion from Jon Heyman. Jon Heyman, who later on in the same day, went on Twitter, and tweeted about how we have too many golf courses in this country. So I really–
ALEX: I know–
BOBBY: –don’t know what to believe anymore.
ALEX: –I know, I don’t know what to believe anymore.
BOBBY: Like, it’s like he, he’s just playing hard to get with us, specifically, you know. He’s making fun of the Midwest. And also anti-golf course? I really don’t–
ALEX: Well, this is what he does, right? He pulls us in with the–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –backtape reading. And then he just, he just sprinkles a little, a little woke take out there, right?
BOBBY: Do you think we need tweet that he was like the wokes are gonna love this? Or do you think that it was just the first thing that came to his mind?
ALEX: I, I do not believe Jon Heyman is nearly familiar enough with like, leftist discourse to know that like–
BOBBY: He doesn’t [11:34]
ALEX: –overly public over golf courses it’s like a thing.
BOBBY: Like the TikTok anti-golf course girl, anti-grass girl.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You know her?
ALEX: Yeah. I don’t know, but he’s moving there, right? He’s moving in the right direction.
BOBBY: Right. It doesn’t matter how you get there, it’s where you [11:47].
ALEX: We’re all on our own journeys, man.
BOBBY: Thank you, brother Jon. Okay, well, we are going to recap the Division Series, at least those of which that are done because our original plan was to record this here podcast, while Game 5 between those Yankees and those Guardians was going on. However, that is still in a rain delay. And it is 9:49pm Eastern on Monday night, October 17. And we didn’t really want to wait any longer to start the podcast. So we’re just letting it rip, because I don’t think this baseball game is going to happen. But if it does, if it does start we sure will, I guess do play-by-play of it on the podcast. We’re gonna recap the division series that are done. We’re going to talk about the championship series that we know we’re coming. Talk a little bit about the playoff format discourse, which is completely unhinged. And maybe we’ll do a little bit of Taylor Swift new album chat at the end of the podcast. But before we do, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[12:47]
[Music Theme]
BOBBY: Alex, we’re recording this in, in your apartment this week. We’re not in the stew. We’re not in the Tipping Pitches studio.
ALEX: No. But we brought the vibes here.
BOBBY: We’re sitting in your living room.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s an interesting different vibe. We were planning on watching the baseball game here. Moved half the studio here, you know. So it’s a little bit boomier than usual. You’re just gonna have to live with it. That’s, that’s, that potting in October.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s what it, that’s what it means to be.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly.
BOBBY: You know?
ALEX: Sorry I have a Brooklyn loft, you got high ceiling, you know.
BOBBY: You got it win- wow, okay, a little loft action. Okay. Okay, I see you all right. I guess, I’m the broke boy with a low ceilings, I suppose.
ALEX: I, I is this, I don’t think this is a loft. I don’t think this–
BOBBY: I don’t know what any–
ALEX: I don’t actually know really know what a loft is.
BOBBY: You live in a penthouse on Fifth Avenue in the Trump Tower.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And it’s a million dollars a month in rent.
ALEX: Yeah, but the Tipping Pitches Patreon covers most of that, most of it.
BOBBY: That’s exactly right, that’s exactly right. No, we’re potting, I’m potting on the road, you know, and I’m not complaining. I’m not complaining like the Dodgers.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Or, or Atlanta? Or the Mets? No, I’m not complaining about any of that.
ALEX: No, you, you adapt.
BOBBY: But before we get to the rest of this podcast, I would like to say thank you to the Tipping Pitches patrons who are funding Alex’s $1 million dollar apartment. Those new patrons this week are Preston, Eve, Jasmine, David, McKenna, Elliot, Brian, Christopher, Lee, and Katie. Big week for your boys. Where do you want to start? Which series? Which series are you going to remember the most, Alex?
ALEX: Let’s talk about the one that I think was the most surprising to everyone which was Padres-Dodgers, right? That was, if you could come on nothing else this October. You could pencil in the Dodgers to at least probably the championship series. And people were drawing them into their brackets back in March and April, right? Like this, this is the team that is built to be here, meant to be here. When the greatest regular season teams we’ve ever seen.
BOBBY: It’s not built to do it in October.
ALEX: Just not built to do it in October. Yeah.
BOBBY: So what happened? What happened to the Dodgers, in your estimation? There’s been quite a bit of discourse about whether the Dodgers were constructed well enough for the playoffs whether they had enough frontline starters who actually pitched well on the series. Although gaunt let didn’t give them very much length in his start coming off the IL. They are obviously missing Walker Buehler. They were missing Walker Buehler in this series. He had Tommy John earlier in the year. And I’d say the last piece of the discourse was about their manager Dave Roberts, who has already been renewed for next year to the chagrin of some Dodgers fans, but not all. He could do worse, but he could definitely do better than Dave Roberts, definitely do better than him and Aaron Boone. I think the Padres probably did better right across the diamond with Bob Melvin, he’s been great this October. But in your estimation, what happened to the, what happened to the Dodgers?
ALEX: Is this where I clock in the sports talk radio mode and talk about–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –like how, they beat themselves, you know. Sometimes when you go out there, they didn’t want it. The other team beats you or you beat yourself.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And the Dodgers, I think, beat themselves.
BOBBY: They were in their own heads.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They were trying to do too much out there.
ALEX: Right. You were just when you’re pressing at the plate. When you’re pressing on the mound in the field, you make mistakes. I mean–
BOBBY: On ironically.
ALEX: Yeah, that actually. I mean, what happened? The Padres had played more baseball in the last couple weeks than the Dodgers had. And they were playing good baseball and they were rolling along. And it feels reductive to say like the Dodgers didn’t show up. But like at the end of the day, the Padres shoved, right? Like they went out there guys like Musgrove. Guys like Darvish went out there and–
BOBBY: Shade to snow, no love for snow.
ALEX: No love for snow.
BOBBY: You got it done in the ugliest of ways, but he got it done.
ALEX: Was brutal. Right. And that’s, that’s the thing, right? It’s like they’ve had production, even from when the middle of their lineup is, is hurting, that 7, 8, 9 spots are gonna, are going to come through, right? And I think they’re just such a well-balanced team. This is just some way, this is just sometimes the way the cookie crumbles, right?
BOBBY: Yeah, to me. I mean, we’re going to talk more later about like the whole playoff format discourse. And whether or not the top seeds have been getting enough of an advantage or whether or not five games makes sense, necessarily. But to me, like what’s been what, what happened between the Padres and the Dodgers. What happened between the Phillies and the Braves is that, you know, the teams that are in sort of the top third of baseball, are all really good. And even if their records are not necessarily reflecting that, I think that we’re maybe underrating how bad the bottom third of the league is right now, and how that sort of trickle do- trickle up effect, I guess? Trickle down, trickle up effect of all of those teams, selling at the deadline, selling in the offseason has led to a somewhat balanced top end of baseball. We’re seeing more parity this year. And you know, to some extent, last year, with the Braves getting hot and making it all the way and winning a World Series. It’s painful as, as it is for me to remember that time. You know, we’re seeing more parity among these top teams, because it’s not like there’s like one or two good teams right now. Like everybody who made it this year is, is pretty good. And even if their record didn’t always reflect that, like, you know, the Guardians, I think match up incredibly well with the 99 win Yankees. And we were talking shit about them before the season, before the playoffs started, about how are they, they were the worst team to make it in. That they just want a bad division and they barely even deserve to be here. But then you wa- watch them actually go out there. And maybe their lineup is not as deep as, as a team like the Dodgers. But their bullpen is way deeper than all of the rest of these teams to baseball. And I honestly think it’s two thing- and, and the Guardians case I think it’s, it’s a testament to player development, increasing and giving these teams that maybe don’t have or don’t employ as many resources, whether they have them or not as an entirely different conversation. But there are more avenues to be good than there used to be. It’s not just sign all the best players. It’s not just be really good at player development. And even though the Dodgers do both of those things really well. They’re playing against a team, they lost to a team in a five game series that traded for Juan Soto, traded for Josh Hader, traded for Yu Darvish, traded for Blake Snell, traded for Joe Musgrove. I’m just gonna keep saying [19:36]–
ALEX: Traded Machado, like–
BOBBY: Signed Manny Machado, you know, extended Tatís, even though he’s not with them, which is kind of a fun parallel to Acuña last year with the Braves, that I’ve seen pointed out a few times. But it’s not like they’re just playing against a team full of a bunch of mediocre players. Like this, this Padres team is good.
ALEX: Right. Well and we thought they were going to be good, right?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: And they like underperformed our expectations throughout the year. And now we’re back to being kind of shocked, right?
BOBBY: Right, exactly. But I think that it is simultaneously easier to make the playoffs and harder to guarantee yourself a spot deep in October than it ever has been.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And I think that that kind of catch 22 that conundrum is frustrating a lot of people, it’s frustrating a lot of fans and fan bases. And it’s kind of driving everybody a little bit crazy right now, ’cause no one knows how to talk about that. You know, ourselves included, I have no re- no idea why the Dodgers lost.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like from a, if I’m if, if we had Andrew Friedman right here. And we asked him, I don’t know that his explanation would make any sense to us. I don’t know that he even would have an explanation.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: He would probably just say small sample sucks. We’ll we’ll try to get him next year.
ALEX: Right. Which is like what, I mean, why did they lose? Because they went out and they didn’t play very good baseball for–
BOBBY: Why, why did they lose?
ALEX: –for three games [20:51]–
BOBBY: They didn’t win. Phillies-Braves, to me this is just an example of morality winning out–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –honestly.
ALEX: Yeah, but this–
BOBBY: I think that has happened to my man, Spencer Strider, future third co host of this podcast. Brother Spencer, I’m sorry–
ALEX: Yeah, it’s tough.
BOBBY: –but now it makes it easier for you to come on to the Tipping Pitches Podcast earlier in the offseason because he won’t be on a championship parade tour celebration. You won’t be getting fitted for your frequent World Series ring. So you did just find a nice extension. Congratulations on the extension. Open invite and send you the Zoom or you can you know if you’re spending your offseason.
ALEX: Or send me the addy and like–
BOBBY: Liberal New York, we can send you the address on Fifth Avenue for Alex’s $1 million a month apartment–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –in the Trump Tower. Um, yeah, I, I, I, I don’t know what happened to that series.
ALEX: Ba- baseball Gods haven’t fun–
BOBBY: The Phillies are–
ALEX: –if it is one man.
BOBBY: –damn hot right now.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You can’t, I mean, everybody has just, everything is cooking for them.
ALEX: Yeah. They are super hot right now. And they’re getting production from guys like Brandon Marsh. Which like, if things are clicking for him in the postseason–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –the Phillies opponents are going to be in a lot of trouble, right? And it’s not necessarily like the guys like Schwarber and, and Harper and Castellanos have necessarily been raking equally this offseason, right? There’s probably still another level in them to unlock at the plate.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like they, like this is a Phillies team that weirdly can probably be a little bit better–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –than they are right now. Which is a little, which is crazy to think about. And it’s crazy to think about the Philadelphia Phillies in the 2022 National League Championship Series.
BOBBY: I’m quite interested to see them play a seven game series, ’cause they really legitimately only have three starters.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like they’re only employing three starters right now.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: It moved to the other two starters that were in the rotation. One of them is closing, and one of them is Noah Syndergaard, you know? So like, I genuinely don’t know what their plan is. I don’t know if their plan will be just like Noah Syndergaard wants through the order, kind of like it was in Game 4 against the Braves. But that doesn’t work quite as well, when you still might have three more games in the series to play after that. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not like 100-meter sprint. It’s more like a, you know, like a 400-meter sprint or the mile or whatever. And so I’m curious to see how that works out for them against a Padres team that I think is not lacking in starting pitching. I find it, I find it funny how, how often we are reminded how fickle baseball is. And how certain it felt all season that both Atlanta and the Mets were significantly better than the Phillies. I watched all those games against the Phillies. I watched the Mets pants the Phillies multiple times this year, take their lunch. I watched the Phillies look like a Double-A team against the Braves in September, like three weeks ago. And it’s just, it’s just a completely different game that they’re playing right now. I mean, they looked the part and I don’t even think like, I don’t think Atlanta looked bad necessarily in this series. No one came, no one necessarily came in and, and put up an absolute stinker. I mean, Acuña had a bad series. Strider coming off the injury really did not look like himself after the first couple innings. But it’s not like the Phillies lucked out either. Like they, they just, they’re not as bad as like an 87 win team should be. Does that, does that make sense? Like I feel like these teams aren’t as bad as I remember previous 87 team, 87 win teams looking in the playoffs. Like you think back to some of these Milwaukee teams that won in like high 80s, low 90s. That maybe won the NL Central or gotten in in the wildcard and you looked at those lineups man, like it just never felt like they were gonna get a hit. They just seem doomed. They seem completely overmatched. And I don’t think anybody really looked totally overmatched in October so far, you know, not even the Mariners who actually did get swept by, by the Astros. But all of those games were extremely close, including the game that went 18 innings without scoring a single run, which was one of the more insane baseball experiences to watch unfold.
ALEX: No, I think you’re ri- I think it speaks to your point earlier about parody at the top of the league, right? You have a select group of teams, probably 10, or maybe a dozen if you’re being really generous. Who are actually trying to go out there and compete. And there are certainly powerhouse teams at the top that are going to gun for 100 win seasons. But ultimately, you’re going to have some of these teams crammed into the same division, right? So it’s like, this is a team that maybe without the Braves and the Mets in their division, right? Maybe the Padres without the Dodgers in their division, are able to crack 100 wins, right? And, and like, these are all like, pointless hypotheticals that don’t really tell you anything. But I think it speaks to like, at the end of the day, someone has to win the games, right?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Usually how those work. And when it comes to October, that field is just much more level.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Your slate is wiped clean, you’re facing off against the teams who in theory built themselves to be here to face off against you, right? So that–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –so that mich- mismatch that I think like we are perceiving is maybe not as big as we would, we’re being led to believe.
BOBBY: That’s what, that’s what I’m trying to get at is that I think that the difference, the 14 wins between the Mets and the Phillies. In terms of like absolute value to me, seem much less in size than the 14 wins between the Phillies and maybe whatever the Marlins finished at if they were 14 or 15 or 16, whatever wins. That gap on the bottom end to me is much wider. And I think that it’s compressing the top end in an, in a pretty interesting way. I mean, your mileage may vary on whether that’s good for baseball. Obviously, Jon Heyman doesn’t think that it’s good for baseball. But I think when you look at it in the context of the things that we’ve been complaining about, for the last five years of doing this podcast, I think it’s good that there are more teams that are potentially in the mix, you know. Like it’s less of a foregone conclusion, these teams that have been sputtering, like the Phillies, like the Padres. These teams have legitimate chances, they have legitimate teams. And to me, I think there’s a knockdown effect, like to me I think that convincing yourself that you could be the next Padres is a lot easier than convincing yourself that you could be the next Dodgers. Same goes for the Phillies, like they did the obvious thing. They signed Bryce Harper.
ALEX: Right, I mean–
BOBBY: They signed Nick Castellanos, they signed Kyle Schwarber.
ALEX: This–
BOBBY: Like they didn’t develop 58 great players and turn them into 30 great players like the Dodgers, you know what I mean? Like it’s, it’s much more achievable, in a way.
ALEX: Right. It is kind of interesting that a vast majority of the teams left standing are ones who actively made that push, right? The ones who went out and signed Manny Machado, and traded for Juan Soto, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: It went out and got Zack Wheeler and got Bryce Harper, right? And obviously, there are teams that have been bounced, who did those very same things. But like the Padres have been doing all the right moves for a few years now, right? It was really only a matter of time until like, if the talent actually caught up with them, right?
BOBBY: Right. In theory, I mean, they could have easily gotten eliminated by the Dodgers and all the same stuff would have been sure.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They still should have made those trades, they still should have went for it. Because why not? Look at the way that they’ve engaged their fan base. Look at the way that that crowd met the moment in this, in this series against the Dodgers. And I, you know, I think the Dodgers, you know, far be it for me to like, do the sports radio thing. And to try to like put myself in the mindset of the Dodgers. But I do think there was a little bit of like, this team went 5 and 14 against us this year. There’s no way they’re actually going to close us out. And there’s nothing even specifically that made me feel that way. And I don’t, I’m not even trying to fault the Dodgers for thinking that way. But how could you not in the back of your head, think about the fact that you’ve been own this team for the last three years?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And it’s true both qualitatively that this Padres team feels different. But it’s also [29:44] quantitatively. Because there’s so, that the roster has turned over so much, that we’re just looking at a completely different team and it’s very hard to judge. It’s very hard to judge how good they’ve been for the whole year when they only got Juan Soto, 50 games ago, you know. I think, he hasn’t had been that good yet. So I don’t know, it’s interesting. It’s been, it’s been compelling. I mean, I made it known that I wanted the Dodgers to win. And I obviously wanted the Mets to beat the Padres. But I’m not like offended by the fact that they’ve, they’ve moved on. Like, it seems like some people are. The, the Houston-Mariners series feels much discussed. Do you have anything to add to that? Other than it seems like we have a decent division race shaping up over the next few years. Like these teams both feel pretty set up for the, the next few years to come.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, certainly the Mariners will be back obviously the Astros will, too. This, it was a very unceremonious exit for the Mariners after kind of stunning the baseball world with their series win over the Blue Jays. And it really felt like they kind of captivated everyone’s attention. They were kind of, as we said, like the default underdog team to pull for it. They have these young stars, combined with a handful of veterans, and they play a fun brand baseball, man. Julio Rodriguez is like, a like, like, I cannot take my eyes off of him whenever he steps on a baseball field. And I feel really blessed that we got to see him in October. And I know we’re going to see him back here, again. The Astros are just inevitable, man. I, and–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –I know we just spent like 20 minutes talking about how–
BOBBY: No, but like death taxes in the Astros making the change [31:29]–
ALEX: I know, I know.
BOBBY: Like they’ve just made it every year since 2017. Like it’s ridiculous. I’m pretty sure that’s true, they’ve made it to, at least the championship series every year since 2017. That is just unbelievable–
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: –sustained success.
ALEX: Yeah, like, I mean, it’s painful to say but like, this is, are they not like the platonic ideal of a competitive baseball team in 2022?
BOBBY: Uhm, I still think that I would say that the Dodgers are the gold standard.
ALEX: I think so, yeah.
BOBBY: Even though their World Series is Mickey Mouse. And even though they got bounced by the Padres. But, you know, the Astros are right there with them. I mean, there have been some things that they’ve done like cost cutting things like firing all their scouts and like, letting someone like Gerrit Cole walk, because they didn’t want to try to extend him. Like they never even were really in the negotiations for him. But that is just like their organizational philosophy that like we could replace them, you know. So–
ALEX: And then, and then they do, right? Like that’s–
BOBBY: It’s a little bit more–
ALEX: –thing.
BOBBY: Right. It’s a little bit more of a mixed bag than the Dodgers for sure. Where I think that like you could basically point to every decision that the Dodgers made and say that’s competitive. And there are some things along the way with the Astros that you can say, maybe that’s financially driven. But they more than make up for it with their player development, with their advanced analytics, like their advanced scouting, that sort of thing. So yeah, I mean, you know, you said the Mariners play fun brand of baseball. Do you think that the Guardians play fun brand of baseball? I have a little, little tweet here from the Guardians Twitter account. There are a lot of people on the national stage who are seeing our brand of baseball for the first time, you may contact. We run the bases hard.
ALEX: Settle out.
BOBBY: We do the little things. And you know what, Alex? We don’t care if you don’t like it. Tipping Pitches, we don’t care if you don’t like it.
ALEX: We don’t care if you don’t like it.
BOBBY: You don’t care- that’s, I mean, that’s–
ALEX: It’s true, yeah.
BOBBY: –honestly true. But we’ve been doing that for years. You know, we’re not tweeting about it. We’re not tooting our own horn at Guardians.
ALEX: That’s so corny, man.
BOBBY: We don’t care if you don’t like it. We don’t care if you don’t like Tipping Pitches, because you know who does like Tipping Pitches? Alex Rodriguez.
ALEX: Well, yeah.
BOBBY: Really bummed that the Mariners got eliminated so that we can’t see him rooting for them in the World Series.
ALEX: I know, real missed opportunity there. I feel like the A. Rod. content has been lagging a bit.
BOBBY: Yeah. I agree.
ALEX: So I’m keeping my eyes peeled. But I’m appealing to you the listener to please let us know if, if anything comes across your feed–
BOBBY: So you’re crowdsourcing the work that we should be doing?
ALEX: Well, I, isn’t that what a community is for, right? Is sharing knowledge.
BOBBY: Right. So you’re, you’re just saying like, your voices are our voice.
ALEX: Right, exactly. We, we hear for you. We–
BOBBY: We all sing the same song of Alex Rodriguez. Okay, before we, before we talk about the, the playoff format discourse that has been just unavoidable for the last few days. I, I on the plane home from Los Angeles where it was last week. Bringing my, my bad luck, my odious luck to the Los Angeles Dodgers. I was thinking what would make for the perfect playoff game? What is like the recipe so to speak for the perfect playoff game? And I wrote down five things here. This, this is an incomplete list, Alex. But I was thinking on, on years past, you know the maybe the 2017 World Series. Some of the 2015 games between the Mets and the Dodgers were really great back and forth, not just because I love the Mets, but because it was great players performing well, in big moments, that sort of thing. There have been a bunch of games over the years that I would doubt characterize as wonderful games. And I feel like this year hasn’t had as many wonderful individual games as memorable. We’re obviously not even at the championship series yet. So there’s still plenty of time for that stuff to happen. The one that I would say is probably the, the Padres eliminating the Dodgers, the five three win where they came all the way back. But here are the, here are the five things that I wrote down. I think you have to have a great starting pitching matchup. I think it has to start there. And I think that those starters really have to at least make it into like the sixth, seventh inning against each other in it. And it has to feel like either one could really pull it out in the end.
ALEX: Yeah, certainly there’s been no shortage of lamenting over the last few years of the, the way of the bullpen game.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And how that has become the kind of domineering force in October in recent years. And while it’s a little overplayed at this point, it’s also true in that we like seeing good starting pitchers go out and put up six strong innings.
BOBBY: I think Castillo versus Framber Valdez was, was probably the best starting pitching matchup that actually delivered. Or like, you know, Castillo-Alvarez took him deep on a pitch that was like 98 running away from him and Alvarez did it the other way for home run, which is just a gift to tip your cap to that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But that was a phenomenal game, and it stayed close throughout the whole game basically. The other thing you need for a perfect playoff game is to deep lineups. You can’t, you just can’t have at bats being given away easily. You can’t have a bunch of rollovers in the 7, 8, 9 spots. You know, for, for as deep as the Padres lineup has shown itself to be this postseason. I gotta say the Guardians lineup is a tough hang at the bottom of it. You got Austin Hedges, batting under 100. You got Myles Straw who couldn’t hit the ball out of the infield if his life depended on it. Like these, that’s, that’s tough to watch. That’s tough to be the perfect playoff game if you have basically 33% of at bats being just handed, handed away to the other team.
ALEX: You’re absolutely right. I, I think, I want to add that the caveat that I don’t mind having sort of role players in there, right? Because they–
BOBBY: No, no, no.
ALEX: –often provide for very special playoff moments, right? But your, that usually tends to happen when they’re like major league players, you know.
BOBBY: Or at least major league hitters, you know.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: There’s a reason that those players are in the lineup, and it’s not to, to get hits.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: The third thing I wrote is a, a feeling of surreality, you know. You have to, at some point in the game say, I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe this is happening. And that’s sort of why I chose Padres-Dodgers is maybe the game that gets closest Potts- Pad- Padres-Dodgers Game 4 elimination game is maybe the game that gets closest to the platonic ideal of a playoff baseball game. Because as soon as the Dodgers went up 3-0, I forget who was announcing that game. But the, the announcer literally said this is the first three run lead of this series so far not neither team has been leading by more than three runs. And the Padres the next half inning, came out and scored five straight runs, took the lead and never gave it back. And from that point on, from the point that the Padres started amassing those hits, I would say the Ha-seong Kim double was the one that I was really like, holy shit. They’re gonna do this. And as soon as they took the lead for the last few innings when the Padres closed it down, you’re just like, I can’t believe it’s gonna happen. I can’t believe the Dodgers are gonna lose in this fashion.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Sorry to my Dodgers fan friends out there.
ALEX: I know that, it really hurt, man.
BOBBY: It was a, yeah, that was a, that was a knife and a twist.
ALEX: Yeah. It seems to me like they’re kind of in my head sort of two competing ideals for this playoff game, right? And like one is that sort of momentum shift, I think that you talk about, right? Where you’re like I literally cannot believe what we’re witnessing right now, right? It has completely turned upside down my expectations for–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –this game, right? And the other one I feel like falls closer to the, the Astros-Mariners game that went 18 innings, right? Which is just like, teetering on the brink the–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –entire time. We’re like, I don’t know where this–
BOBBY: [39:35]
ALEX: –gonna go or when–
BOBBY: [39:36]
ALEX: –it’s gonna end, right?
BOBBY: It has to end at some point.
ALEX: But you don’t know when.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: But you don’t know how and so you there’s just this kind of pit in your stomach.
BOBBY: Yeah. Love that shit.
ALEX: Yeah. directly into my veins.
BOBBY: Baseball fans are inherently self loath- self loathing.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That is just the truth of the matter. Well, okay, so here’s the another thing that I wrote down here, number four is kind of like a punch, counter punch feel. I like a game that goes back and fourth multiple times. Multiple lead changes, just when you thought one team was going to take the lead and hold it, the other team punches back. We haven’t gotten that much of that in this postseason, you know. Like the, there’s been sort of like, you know, the Dodgers took the 3-0 lead and then Padre scored five runs, but it would have been really cool to Dodgers took the lead back. And then the Padres took it back from the you know. Like a game like that, where there’s just increasing hysteria around it. To me provide that sort of like drunken feeling of watching a baseball game where you’re just like, I watched baseball all season, and then how often do games really just go back and forth like this? Almost never, you know, it’s usually like the team that scores first pretty much wins most of the time. And in the playoffs, I feel like that’s much less likely because teams are pulling out all the stops are not willing to concede any games because all of the games matter so much more.
ALEX: Yeah, there have been a lot of screen grabs of like win probability charts, right? Of, of various games that have happened in this playoffs.
BOBBY: 90% is not 100%.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: And that’s like the biggest thing that I could say to people who are like, whoa, they were just 90% of the time they’re gonna win this game. Well, that just 90% of the times not all the time.
ALEX: No, I know. But like, a lot of them have kind of been this, they’ve been very similar right in that they have tract to one side and then the very end shot down the other way, right? And, and while there’s something very tantalizing about them.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: I do really share your appreciation for the kind of volatile up and down and up–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –and down, right? Because you, I mean, I you know I think that Astros-Mariners game like captures a little bit of that, but like certainly not to the magnitude. It’s still can go anyway, but like nothing is happened, right? Those, those games with lead goes back and forth. You’re like, I might see every play in baseball today. Like I just might see the the logical conclusion of the game. We might run out of things to do.
BOBBY: The J.T. Realmuto inside that–
ALEX: Sure!
BOBBY: –inside the park home run.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: You know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I might see David Freese triple tonight.
ALEX: That’s right, you will.
BOBBY: I like that seesaw feeling though. I really do. I think that’s when baseball is at its most, most entertaining as a product. The last thing I wrote down it, it feels obvious to say but, but ninth inning drama, extra innings, you know? No clean innings for late relievers, pressure, mounting pressure. Because I feel like, you know, we’ve definitely talked about this in the podcast in the past and in October’s. But the thing that really makes baseball the thing that really makes me love this month more than anything, is just like that feeling of like a low hum becoming a low roar, becoming a roar, becoming a hysterical roar of like, it’s not, not even just the crowd noise but just like in your head. You’re like, oh my God, things are getting more intense, it’s like a horror movie–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –in a way. You know, baseball is hard in sports form.
ALEX: Yeah, you just have a single drawn out violin that’s getting louder and louder in the background.
BOBBY: Right, exactly. And I feel like so often, you know, we want baseball to be, we want baseball to be more like the NBA. We want it to be like, drama Shakespearean like these, these main characters having these tragic endings of the buzzer beater shots, stuff like that. And I feel like we’re, we’re kidding ourselves, you know. We are actually just in like a horror suspense thriller. A psychological trauma, psychological thriller. And we have to stop kidding ourselves and thinking that it’s going to be like all these other sports all the time, because it’s not.
ALEX: It’s not.
BOBBY: And maybe that leads us nicely into our conversation about, our conversation about this year’s, this year’s playoff format and the discourse around it. But why don’t we, why don’t we take a quick break, catch our breaths before that. And after that, we will delve into the discourse.
[43:55]
[Music Transition]
BOBBY: Okay, Alex, are you ready, are you ready to address the takes? Everybody’s had a take, man. Everybody’s got to take about the playoff format. What is going on? This is, this is how baseball is, right? Does it feel too obvious to say that?
ALEX: Ohh, I mean, this, this was inevitable, right? We were always, it was always going to become a storyline. Because like how could it not, right? This is, this is what we do, right? Is you, you, whatever happens on the field, you read into that in the way that suits your narrative. And there’s no easy–
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: –like, there’s an easy like scapegoat here, right? And I think that like people are actually interested in talking about the MLB playoffs and whether or not they, you know, lower seeded teams have it too easy. Whether higher seeded teams don’t, don’t have enough of an advantage.
BOBBY: Sure.
ALEX: You’re right that- what I keep coming back to.
BOBBY: Is that they should just let the Mets go to the World Series every year–
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: –coming back to that too, you know.
ALEX: I agree, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: It’s like I wake up and I’m like, I don’t want to think this, but I just do, you know. let’s just put the Mets in the World Series every year.
ALEX: Exactly. The, the thought just wormed its way into your head.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: I find myself thinking, wanting to ask people what they want the playoffs to be, right?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Like–
BOBBY: Why are you here?
ALEX: What is, what is the purpose of them? Is it to get the best teams together? The, the top 8 or 10 or 12 best teams together, and have them play a little tournament? And you crown a winner based off of that? Is it supposed to reward the best regular season team? Should we not have any playoffs and just do final like regular season ranking? Like I mean–
BOBBY: I saw Randy tweeting like, wow, everybody suddenly loves the English Premier League format.
ALEX: I mean, I’m like I’m not suggesting–
BOBBY: [46:08] have somebody Premier League bans.
ALEX: Seriously. But like, that is part of the thing that we love about the playoffs right is the is the chaos?
BOBBY: Sure.
ALEX: I don’t know, it doesn’t feel new to me. Like the best team usually doesn’t win.
BOBBY: The best team never wins, dawg.
ALEX: Right. Exactly.
BOBBY: Best team doesn’t win. That’s why it’s so shocking when there are dynasties where the best team consistently wins.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s why we’re still fucking seeing should about the core four Yankees. So I we can’t escape them. I just think nothing has changed. And people are acting like something changed between the something changed with the way that they restructured the playoffs. And that didn’t change, it didn’t change. We’ve had a period of slightly more parity. And before that we had a period of slightly less parity. And that’s okay. If the next 10 years, every team that wins 100 games gets bounced in the Division Series. I’m willing to have a conversation about it. But until then, we’re just completely overreacting to one year of a couple of good teams getting eliminated before they expect it to be eliminated. And I genuinely do think it’s because there’s more parity at the top of the league because there is less parity league wide. Because these teams at the bottom don’t care. And so it’s not that if I’m being really real with you, if I’m being really real, there probably should not have been, yep, I’m being a truth teller right now.
ALEX: Yeah, you are. Yeah.
BOBBY: Brace yourself, guys. There probably shouldn’t be four teams that went 100 games. There probably shouldn’t be four or five teams that sniff 100 games. That’s probably not how a healthy functioning league should go. There’s probably a reason that that doesn’t happen very often. And it’s because the other teams at the bottom are supposed to win a few more games. And so if the Mets won 96 games, would people be freaking out? No, it wouldn’t be as clean of a talking point to say that two teams that won 100 games from the same division got eliminated before the Championship Series. It’s all up just about to me, to me this is all about, to me, this is all a function of just laziness, like intellectual laziness. Thinking that these teams were really that much better than their opponents in a five game series is a fool’s errand. Now, if your take is a reasonable take that, you know, we play 162 games, why not just make all three rounds of the playoffs seven game series? Who’s really going to be mad over the four extra days that adds to the playoffs? I think that’s a perfectly reasonable take to have. In fact, I have that take. I think that the Division Series, Championship Series, and World Series should be seven games. If we’re going to play 162 games, what’s two more games on each side of the bracket in that first round? Now I don’t, I don’t even think the funniest part about that is, I don’t even think that would have saved some of these teams.
ALEX: No!
BOBBY: The Braves and Dodgers got eliminated in four.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They would have both been losing the series three to one, which would have been tough for both of them to come back. Now maybe one of them could have done it. The Dodgers have done that in the past. They came back from down 3-1 to Atlanta in 2020 to win their Mickey Mouse title. Someone tuning into the podcast for the first time thinks that I really think it was Mickey Mouse title.
ALEX: I know, I know.
BOBBY: But I just, I can’t believe people are just remembering what the MLB playoffs are.
ALEX: Right. Like it’s been 5-7-7 format for a while.
BOBBY: For a long time, for like a long time, for like most of our lives.
ALEX: Yeah. I agree with you. I think it’s postseason brain. I think people don’t like seeing their teams get eliminated and are grasping at straws for explanations. I also think you’re right, like it’s, it’s really too soon to make the call on this one. And, and ultimately, don’t we appreciate the randomness of the baseball playoffs. Isn’t that–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –what we were just talking about, makes an ideal playoff game is its unpredictability, right?
BOBBY: I think, yeah.
ALEX: Now, now it’s pai- it’s painful for sure, as a, as a fan of a team who is playing in the playoffs, that’s super hard to swallow. But like, it’s a good baseball game. It’s a good entertainment product.
BOBBY: This is the thing, so, so what do you want, then? So do we want to play a 21-game series? Because you’re asking for what is, what is the most fair? So if we made it a 21-game series, and half the pitchers on one team got hurt because they’re playing 21 games against the other team, is that fair now? Like, it’s going to be random. I think that that makes the baseball playoffs more interesting than the NBA Playoffs. I think the NBA Finals are really intriguing. Because it’s the two best teams facing against each other. There’s ofset- often a collection of stars. And I think that they are a little bit more unpredictable than people give them credit for. But basically, at the beginning of every NBA season, we know like which four teams have a chance of making the finals. And that seems shitty. I would hate that if that was the case in baseball.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: If every single year, it was like alright, Yankees, Astros, Dodgers, Braves, no one else has a shot. I’d be like, wow, this is really shitty. Why would I watch 162 baseball games?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t think, I don’t think people realize that that is what they’re asking for. They’re asking for just complete and total disengagement for the rest of the baseball year. And I don’t, I don’t think people really want to live in that world.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Because baseball is too up and down and too painful. And demands too much of your time for the rest of the calendar. To have that sense of inevitability at the end, I think that the hope is what drives people to October every year. And that’s why it feels so bad when your team gets eliminated, because you actually allowed yourself to have hope. But at least you had it, you know. You weren’t, you weren’t a fan of the under .500 Detroit Pistons getting stomped by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round every year. Like that those teams had a 0% chance of winning.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So I don’t know, I just don’t understand what people think that they’re asking for. And then the final piece of this is that the way that people are cherry picking this into their arguments about how, Oh, they really just want it to be like fair for competitiveness in baseball. And they don’t want these 100 win teams to not behave competitively anymore, because the the playoffs are just a crapshoot. Now, now it pays to just slash payroll and be like the Guardians. Like that is such, the lack of critical thinking there to think that that is going to be the reason that teams are going to act. And in an anti competitive way. Like, I know that I’ve made a whole thread about this already. But like, those same 10 or 15 teams every year, are going to say, we’re going to cut payroll because we don’t think we’re in a competitive window. Regardless of whether the Dodgers win 120 games, or whether the Dodgers win 93 games. That is not going to affect what Bob Nutting does. So to convince yourself that the Dodgers getting eliminated is somehow going to make the te- the league less competitive. What the fuck you talking about? The team that eliminated them is more competitive, because they made it further. You know what I mean? Like the team that eliminated them, the San Diego Padres, they’re acting pretty competitively. And had they not, had they not traded for all these players, they wouldn’t have been there to eliminate the Dodgers in the first place.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: It would have been the Brewers and the Dodgers would have steamrolled them probably.
ALEX: It is a little ironic that four out of the five teams left standing now, obviously, without knowing the outcome of the Yankees-Guardians series. Four to five of them are top 10 in payroll. Like–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –these are for all the hand wringing that was done, here included about disincentivizing competition in the playoffs, and in the regular season, whatever it is. We are seeing what is likely the, the collection of the best teams facing off against each other. And like sometimes the ball bounces the wrong way, right? That shit sucks, man.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Been there. But like–
BOBBY: A pain that you face. Yeah, I mean, you know, there’s a case to be made, and we made it. And if you want to make this case all year, that’s totally fine. But don’t just make it based off two weeks in October. Like there’s a case to be made that restructuring the playoffs, adding more teams in, giving more teams an easier way to make it into October, will lead them to behave less competitively. And I think that that has maybe played out in a division like the AL Central, where it was not the most competitive division in baseball this year. But then at the same token, having those two extra spotss means that you don’t necessarily need to beat the Dodgers to make it into the playoffs. You don’t necessarily need to beat the Mets or the Braves to make it into the playoffs, if you’re the Phillies. You can get in and then you have a shot. And I think that there’s a reason to believe that that might make ownership groups that are willing to compete and willing to spend more likely to compete and spend. But at the end of the day, these ownership groups are going to make the decision that they want to make for their bottom line, no matter what, whether there’s 10 teams in the playoffs, two teams in the playoffs, 16 teams in the playoffs, it doesn’t matter. They’re just gonna do whatever they feel like because most of the time, they don’t really actually even care about baseball. So we’re all just kind of driving ourselves a little bit crazy over this.
ALEX: I know you’ve been itching to get this out of your system for a while.
BOBBY: Well, it’s just, it’s, it’s on, it’s like the dominant thing people are talking about.
ALEX: I know, yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t understand that. Like, why not just be excited that Rhys Hoskins had a cool home run.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah. Enjoy the chaos. Like that’s why we’re all here, right?
BOBBY: All right, speaking of enjoying the chaos.
ALEX: It’s time to talk about blondie?
BOBBY: It’s time to talk about Taylor Swift. She’s putting out a new album this week, the end of this week, Friday at midnight. How are, how are we going to cover this on the pod? Famously, last time she put out a new album we did like music criticism about it, kind of?
ALEX: Right. Yeah, you know, we’re not known for emergency podcast necessarily. We’ve–
BOBBY: Wow!
ALEX: –only we’ve only had one or two.
BOBBY: Emergency pod, that would be kind of sick, actually.
ALEX: It’ll become sick, right?
BOBBY: We have three emergency pods in our history. And one of them is because of a new Taylor Swift album.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: CBA, Unionized Minors, Taylor Swift.
ALEX: Taylor Swift. That’s kind of it, right?
BOBBY: That’s kind of [56:45]
ALEX: That’s the, the Holy Trinity. Yeah. I don’t even know how I’m gonna process this, let alone how we’re going to talk about it. Because I don’t know anything about it and neither is anyone else.
BOBBY: Okay, here’s where I fully share my opinions on the rollout of this album.
ALEX: Okay. Yeah, do it.
BOBBY: Weird. Just a weird–
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: –choice on all fronts. No singles yet to this point, I guess she could release the single three days before the album is coming out.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Which wouldn’t really accomplish that much. The whole like, TikTok videos with the roulette wheel and pulling out the names of the songs has been kind of strange and, and kind of like Jordan peels us the way that she’s like, staring into the camera. It’s slightly–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –unsettling. The, the concept of the al- it’s a concept album.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Which we’ve barely even discussed much on this podcast. The concept being all the songs that she was like up in the middle of the night and have kept her awake and that, you know, have had been ruminating inside her for, for decades at this point. I feel like it’s not, it’s easy to sell as a reason that you would want to listen to the album. But then you peel back one layer of that onion, it’s like this is, these are all the songs that never ended on any of your other albums, then? All that being said, all my reservation–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –I think it’s gonna be killer. What do you think is going to be the ge- this is our last time to get predictions out about the album before, before it’s out in the world and we do our next pod. What do you think the genre of the album is going to be like? Do you think it’s going to be sort of how she’s done her career in the past? Which is like these incremental moves towards new genres. With the exception of reputation, which I think was like a radical reimagining of what she could be as a genre artist? Or do you think she’s just going to completely make a hard left turn? Do you think this is going to be like a dubstep album?
ALEX: I don’t think it’s gonna be a dubstep album.
BOBBY: House music Taylor Swift album.
ALEX: I would want to hear it, I’m still–
BOBBY: Reggae tone Taylor Swift.
ALEX: –I’m still waiting for the actual–
BOBBY: R&B Taylor Swfit.
ALEX: –Taylor Swift rock album, I know.
BOBBY: I mean, she’s like Taylor Swift all ballads.
ALEX: I mean, again, like if you go through her discography, you could make most of these albums up with stuff she’s already done.
BOBBY: I’m just throwing them out there. I’m Jack Antonoff thing.
ALEX: I think it’s going to be–
BOBBY: You like, you know sewed my jacket to nothing joke right there, come on. Despite the fact that you don’t, come on! I don’t look like him. I’m just a white guy with glasses.
ALEX: Right. That’s- yeah, that’s it!
BOBBY: So if you, if I put my glasses on you right now, I can say you look like Jack Antonoff?
ALEX: Yeah, probably. Yeah, dude. I think that this is going to be a, not necessarily progression from folklore Nevermore. Which obviously plumbed the depths of, I guess, indie rock, really.
BOBBY: Yeah, they did.
ALEX: Yeah, I think she’s taken it back. We’re going like a, like a little ’60s, ’70s sound.
BOBBY: They had more, more than one genre in the 60s and 70s, what do you mean?
ALEX: Well, I, I think like a, like a sort of a ’60s–
BOBBY: Like a pop rock–
ALEX: –’70s, like sort of like–
BOBBY: –new [59:51].
ALEX: –[59:51] like, right, exactly.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Yeah. I think I’m not the only one who feels this way. I think there are, I mean, the Swifties are talking man, right? Like Swifties talk.
BOBBY: Here’s the thing.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You can say fucking anything–
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: –if you’re a Swifty.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: It’s like, it’s like Meteorologists except for pop music, you know. You could just come out there and be like it’s gonna rain and then it doesn’t rain for three weeks.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Taylor Swift, is Taylor Swift is going to release a new album. And it’s going to be a double outlet, it’s going to be a triple outlet.
ALEX: I know, yeah.
BOBBY: She’s going to release a single tonight because she winked in one of her videos. I’m like, no, she probably just like had something in her eyes. Like it just–
ALEX: Yeah. No, I know, that’s the thing is like, Swifties–
BOBBY: She’s cultivating this.
ALEX: –are always reading the, the tea leaves. Yeah, she has cultivated this.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: To the point where like they’re reading tea leaves that are not there, right? When she leaves hence, they’re like usually actually relatively easy to–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: –pick out, right?
BOBBY: Yes, she’s–
ALEX: Like it’s the wording is [1:00:47]
BOBBY: –she’s not strange, and she’s not–
ALEX: She’s not subtle.
BOBBY: –a subtle person, dawg.
ALEX: No. Exactly. And so–
BOBBY: They’re like Sam Darnold, you know, like, he took so many sacks early in his career. He’s just, he one time was mic’d up and said, I’m seeing ghosts out there. That’s how, that’s how Swifties are.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They’re seeing ghosts.
ALEX: Right. They’re seeing things that aren’t even there.
BOBBY: Some football fans are gonna really appreciate that.
ALEX: Some really are. Yeah.
BOBBY: I didn’t get it, you just laughed nervously.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That’s what you do, you don’t get my jokes. Like just now.
ALEX: No, I mean, I, I, I buy into it because there have been some instruments that have been shown like on the covers, or, or in TikToks that were manufactured in the ’60s or ’70s. The aesthetic of it all is very sort of like–
BOBBY: Do we think that–
ALEX: –turning back this pod.
BOBBY: –Sitar is gonna make an appearance on this Taylor Swift album?
ALEX: Sitar.
BOBBY: Sitar?
ALEX: I couldn’t say with confidence that it hasn’t already appeared on the Taylor Swift album.
BOBBY: That’s fine. Musical saw?
ALEX: Oooh.
BOBBY: She goes Neutral Milk Hotel on our asses.
ALEX: That’ll be fun. Yeah.
BOBBY: Interesting. Musical saw and Taylor Swift album is like the Venn diagram of my interests right there. Do it for me, Taylor. I have to say, this is far more animated than we’ve been for this whole pod.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: This, this really got our blood flowing.
ALEX: I had more notes down about this than–
BOBBY: Maybe that’s an indictment of what we’re doing as a podcast. We’re just, we’re podcasting about the wrong thing, you know? Like Bob Costas is trying to announce baseball games. He should just be doing like news segments at the Olympics and he should just keep it to that.
ALEX: Yeah. Or like philosophical musings.
BOBBY: Do you think Bob Costas–
ALEX: Nihilism 101.
BOBBY: –likes Taylor Swift? Which Bob Co- which Taylor Swift album with Bob Costas, like the most?
ALEX: Well–
BOBBY: Evermore, probably, right?
ALEX: Probably, Evermore.
BOBBY: Big Coney Island guy.
ALEX: You know- no, I think, I think he’s probably in his bag for like 1989, honestly. I think–
BOBBY: Wow!
ALEX: –I think he’s probably like the mainstream pi- I mean, do you think Bob Costas has listened to Taylor deep cuts? He did! And I, I noted this in the newsletter a couple of weeks ago. He did once call her gutsy on a radio broadcast. So–
BOBBY: It’s like a backhanded compliment?
ALEX: It is a backhanded compliment, right? I mean, I think this was probably around 1989 or Reputation era, right? So–
BOBBY: Right, sure.
ALEX: –you just go out and really say whatever you want at that point.
BOBBY: And everybody was–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –you know. She swear she doesn’t love the drama, but it loves her. The drama was Bob Costas calling her gutsy.
ALEX: That’s actually true.
BOBBY: There’s like a nonzero chance that like that actually factored into her whole like anti media persona. It’s like people like Bob Costas weighing in on Taylor Swift.
ALEX: Actually, well, I just want to say before we end this podcast.
BOBBY: Okay, this podcast is nowhere near being done. I got, I got more time to talk about Taylor Swift. I got nothing else to do, dawg.
ALEX: She’s dropping a teaser trailer for this album on Thursday on Amazon Prime during–
BOBBY: Thursday Night Football.
ALEX: –Thursday Night Football. What the fuck, bro! The MLB playoffs are on right now.
BOBBY: That’s what I’m saying, dawg, we have given so much to Taylor Swift. Certainly she’s given a lot to us. But like this is a real no your audience situation for me. Like you think these fuckboys watching the NFL want to see your teaser trailer? No! All these weirdos sad people watching the Major League Baseball playoffs want to see your teaser trailer. The Swifties are baseball fans, baseball fans are Swifties. None of this NFL Thursday Night Amazon Football BS, they want to hear Florida Georgia Line. Like they don’t want Taylor Swift, they don’t want real music. They want garbage.
ALEX: Wow! You, so making a joke for the football fans in one breath and then bodying them the next.
BOBBY: I’m like Jon Heyman, dawg, I give it and I take away.
ALEX: Exactly, no one can predict where you’re gonna go next.
BOBBY: I, okay, I don’t think this is going to be the album that she does it. But I want her to make like a traditional country album before she’s done. Because she was like, always she was. I think her early music obviously it’s very country. If you go back and listen to it, it seems country particularly in comparison to where her career went. Like if you listen to Reputation, and Taylor Swift, the self titled album back-to-back, you’d be like, what the fuck? This is insane. But she’s never really made like a true like sad country album. Like 12 cowboy like me’s. That’s what I want before she’s done. I want late period life’s really beaten her down country from Taylor Swift. And it’s not going to be this album because the tracklist, just because of the tracklist you can tell that that’s not what this album is going to be vigilante shit.
ALEX: Actually, weirdly enough that’s one of the, the songs that I feel like could absolutely be a country song.
BOBBY: Oh, okay.
ALEX: Vigilante like Outlaw.
BOBBY: Or you’re going like Wild West Outlaw kind of vibe.
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: Like No Body, No Crime kind of energy.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: No, I want like Taylor, acoustic guitar, and depression. I want her to have a perfectly happy life.
ALEX: Jesus Christ!
BOBBY: I just want her to make music for me when I’m sad.
ALEX: Bobby said no, artists should suffer a little bit for their art.
BOBBY: Just like a little, a little.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I think that’s true. Bro, your favorite band of all time is Bright Eyes. He wanted to lecture me about saying artists should suffer for their art. Come on! I saw you at the Phoebe Bridgers concert.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You’re letting it rip.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s true.
BOBBY: Giving me COVID.
ALEX: Yeah. Oh, wow. Alright.
BOBBY: Not you, everybody in the crowd–
ALEX: Generally.
BOBBY: –just screaming giving me COVID.
ALEX: I would take a, a Taylor Swift country album, like actually.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And I, I mean, I do think that like, she’s gotten to the closest country she’s going to. But if she was going to like, hold up with like, Miranda Lambert, you know.
BOBBY: I think this album, I, I, I am with you. I think it’s gonna be like, more poppy. But then that doesn’t really track with what she said about the themes of the album. Maybe there’ll be like, sad pop like, Robin.
ALEX: I mean, yeah, I mean, I, I–
BOBBY: Sad powerpop.
ALEX: But I feel like she’s gonna lean into like the sort of like sultry, smoky nature, right? That’s like the vibe she’s giving is almost like, like ’70s speakeasy–
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: –you know.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like, that’s where my head is at.
BOBBY: Are you on the sliding scale from like, 1 to 10 on acoustic versus electric, how are you imagining this album to sound? In your head, when you describe it that way, genre wise.
ALEX: I guess I’m–
BOBBY: If 10 is like Megadeth.
ALEX: When you say well, I guess I want to clarify–
BOBBY: And one it’s like–
ALEX: Right. I–
BOBBY: –Symphony Orchestra.
ALEX: When you say, when you say acoustic versus electric, do you mean like, like, broadly speaking? Like, is it going to be more electronic sounds versus like natural acoustic tones? Or do you mean like, electric guitar versus acoustic guitar?
BOBBY: Both.
ALEX: I, I think it’s gonna be like 70-30 in favor of acoustic tones.
BOBBY: Okay. Like real instruments string instruments.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Real drums.
ALEX: Like, again–
BOBBY: Not [1:07:57], it’s not electric guitar, not since.
ALEX: Right, right. Well, right, probably not. But like, you know–
BOBBY: I feel like Reputation is her, I would describe that as her most–
ALEX: Yeah, that’s like the 10 on the scale.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. And Folklore and Evermore are probably the most acoustic. Although her early stuff is very country very traditional.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Two guitars, drums, bass.
ALEX: I think it’s going to build off of the techniques that she used on Folklore and Evermore without like, trying to replicate that sound.
BOBBY: Flute?
ALEX: Even instruments now.
BOBBY: It’s like you let me talked about music for too long.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: Okay. All right. I’m into it, I’m into this fake Taylor Swift album that we’ve cooked up here.
ALEX: I know, it sounds really good.
BOBBY: I just want to say I’m really excited. I just want to say I’m really excited for everybody who’s gonna listen to it in the coming week. And I’m really excited to share in this moment with people in the Tipping Pitches, Blondie Slack in the Tipping Pitches tunes Slack. If you would like to be a part of the Tipping Pitches Slack discussion about Taylor Swift or anything, you can, by going to patreon.com/tippingpitches and signing up. Thank you to the five members of the Alex Rodriguez VIP Club tier that we will shout out this week. Those five members are Kera, Austin, Cameron, Jose, and Michael. Alex, anything else we’ll leave the people with this week? Do you wanna do like a whole Taylor Swift like two-hour long bonus episode that we just dropped for Patreon? Music thoughts with Bobby and Alex.
ALEX: I mean, that would be really easy to do, right?
BOBBY: I just talked about the, the My Chemical Romance concert that I went to last Tuesday.
ALEX: Oh, so just we’re not even listening to Taylor anymore.
BOBBY: I mean, the first two hours can be about Taylor but anything that comes after that. It’s just, it’s just–
ALEX: Fair game?
BOBBY: –fair game, yeah. Bro, My Chemical Romance.
ALEX: Yeah, man.
BOBBY: Holy hell!
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They could put on a show.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t know if I’ve actually fully told this story on the pod. But the reason that I was in In Los Angeles last last week was because me and my partner Phoebe had bought tickets for My Chemical Romance in 2019 in Los Angeles at the Forum. And the show was supposed to happen in October of 2020. It got delayed two full calendar years. Because of COVID. We moved out of Los Angeles, so we had to then fly back to LA for the concert. But the reason that it was so important to me is because, number one, I’m a huge My Chemical Romance fan. But number two, I’ve never actually gotten to see them live before. I’d seen all my favorite, other favorite bands live growing up. I saw Taking Back Sunday a few times. It’s up here more a bunch of times. But I never got to see My chemical romance because they broke up when I was, they broke up and stop touring, like pretty early on when I was in high school. And my mom was always like, it’s not the right, it’s not the right place for a middle schooler to be. She used to say that to me all the time. My sister was five years old.
ALEX: On, on My Chemical Romance show?
BOBBY: Yes. My sister was always going to their shows and she was going to, you know, bamboozle and she was doing all these shows that My Chemical Romance was playing. But she was five years older than me so so her and her friends were in high school. And I was like mom, you let me go to like Breaking Benjamin concert when I was in fifth grade. That, that Three Days Grace opened up for. But I can’t go see My Chemical Romance, why? Because of the Goths? Because I can’t go see the Goths?
ALEX: Right, because of the eyeliner, man.
BOBBY: Just literally, literally. No, she said it was because Gerard cursed too much on stage. And I was like, mom, come on. We have the internet here. But all that being said, I finally got to go see them. So my mother and I’s relationship is fully repaired, though, it was never actually had. But we’re really in a good spot now that I was able to go see them. And the concert was everything I could have, could have ever imagined it to be the fact that they sound this good 10 years later, as like straight up like semi old adults.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s just a blessing music man.
ALEX: It’s crazy looking back at the bands I listened to in like, elementary or middle or high school. Like looking at them and being like, you would like qualify for Social Security soon, you know. Like Blink 182 just announced–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –that they’re like getting back together, you know.
BOBBY: They’re looking old, old. You know, I’ll say Taking Back Sunday opened up for My Chemical Romance and I had a great time. Because I love Taking Back Sunday.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: They close with Make Damn Sure of course. But I would say that they’re like in their Jamie Moyer era, you know, they’re not–
ALEX: Just getting it a hug, getting up there and just loving it over the plate.
BOBBY: No, like they have a little you know, guile left in them, you know. They can still put a little, a little sauce on it if they need to. They can hit the outside corner every once in a while. But they certainly can’t just blow up by up in the zone anymore. Adam was already did his little you know, Mike swing all that stuff.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: But he wasn’t like, when I saw them in, in 2010, he was like climbing up on the amps like he was doing crazy shit. Like he was hanging upside down something–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –like he was, he was doing a lot. There, there and more of their sort of like standard sway era.
ALEX: Right, exactly. As are most of their fans, honestly.
BOBBY: Most of their fans who were not at the show, they, it was not Taking Back Sunday crowd.
ALEX: That’s so interesting to me because I feel like–
BOBBY: They’re in the same scene.
ALEX: –they’re, they are in the same scene. And like they’re big enough that like even if you’re a fan of one over the other, like you’re familiar enough with the other band to like be able to vibe.
BOBBY: You would think but it was just me screaming the lyrics to What’s It Feel Like to Be a Ghost and everyone else was kind of just like, this guy knows this band? That’s not true, there were some people who were into them. But you know, not quite as many people as we’re singing along with, with Welcome to The Black Parade, that’s for sure.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: This has been my music podcasts.
ALEX: I don’t even, I don’t even know how long we’ve been recording for this point.
BOBBY: Hour and a half.
ALEX: Okay. We could have done worse honestly, we got a lot. Are you telling me that if we actually managed to record the baseball portion of our podcast and an hour each week, we can just–
BOBBY: We can just talk about music.
ALEX: –talk about music the last half hour?
BOBBY: This is really just a litmus test for when we launch our music podcast. Thank you everybody for listening. I don’t know exactly when we’ll be back whether we’ll be back on a regular Monday morning schedule or not. Kind of depends on how these series shake out. Best of luck to our friends listening who are Yankees fans. Best of luck listening, best of luck to our friends listening who are Guardians fans. We will talk to you next week.
[1:14:24]
[Music]
[1:14:34]
[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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