After their longest layoff between recording episodes, Bobby and Alex are back with another episode of the acclaimed podcast Tipping Pitches. This week, they run through some news items they missed in their time off, including the FTX meltdown, Billy Beane’s Irish exit, collusion abound, buying and selling Atlanta stock, Jim Crane taking the reins in Houston, and baseball’s impending rule changes.
Links:
What players have to say about MLB’s rule changes ($)
Rob Manfred talks FTX deal ($)
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Tipping Pitches merchandise
Songs featured in this episode:
Jeff Rosenstock — “You, In Weird Cities” • 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, it is three weeks to the day, since you and I sat down to record an episode of this Tipping Pitches Podcast. The longest stretch we’ve ever gone without recording in the five plus years that we’ve been doing this podcast. You know, it’s November 27, last time we recorded it was November 6. Some really important political elections happened since then. And I’ve actually wanted to start the show by talking about one of those political elections.
ALEX: Hmm. Pivot.
BOBBY: That political election was for a school board seat in the greater San Diego County area. Solana Beach School District to be specific. Are you familiar with the Solana Beach School District?
ALEX: Vaguely? I’d say it’s in the my top 10 Southern California school districts.
BOBBY: Can you name the other nine?
ALEX: That’s Patreon content.
BOBBY: Well, you don’t need to name the other nine because former San Francisco Giant, Aubrey Huff did not lose an election 80-20 in any of the other nine. He lost an election with only 19% of the vote in Solana Beach, San Diego.
ALEX: He’s just trying to be relatable dad–
BOBBY: Is that why he did this?
ALEX: –at this point, right? Getting, getting waxed in, in school board elections.
BOBBY: Is that how you think of relatable parenthood? Is losing school board elections?
ALEX: I mean, I really am curious sort of what compelled him to do this. He obviously has no shortage of strong feelings about the direction of the culture right now. So I guess, I mean, I guess it tracks that he’d want to go right to the source, right. The–
BOBBY: Changed heart and minds.
ALEX: –the place where, the place where young, young people’s minds are molded, right?
BOBBY: Right. Yeah.
ALEX: And the place that is frankly, I think under the most attack right now, from the left.
BOBBY: The right.
ALEX: So, I mean, I exactly. I, I now want to say it really wasn’t about whether he won or lost, you know, it was more about sending a message.
BOBBY: Right. And the message is–
ALEX: To that leaves.
BOBBY: –that, even if you only get 362 votes and your opponent gets 1505, that’s okay.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: Because at the end, you can still give yourself a trophy.
ALEX: Yes, it’s all about the participation trophy. He gets to go out there and, and, and be one of those guys now. Man, I know he doesn’t have a Twitter anymore. But if he did, he’d be able to–
BOBBY: Well–
ALEX: –be one of those.
BOBBY: –don’t speak too soon.
ALEX: Well, yeah, I know, I know, I know. He could be one of those people who puts in his bio, ran for this seat, former candidate for.
BOBBY: Wow! So you think he wants to wear this like a badge of honor? I think the explanation is simpler, I think that he ended his career with a .192 batting average. And he just wanted to get that average backup. So 19.4%, that’s .194. He’s, he’s charting back upwards.
ALEX: Right, exactly. He’s pulling his, his career average back in the right direction.
BOBBY: Right. Back towards that career .278, .278 hitter, .278- .342. .806 career OPS, how about it? Should have stuck with baseball. All started going downhill when he pivoted to posting.
ALEX: Yeah, it really does- I mean, whom among us, right? Like we’ve all been there.
BOBBY: Well, what, what next for him? What position do you think he should move on to and try to tackle?
ALEX: Well, again, I think that he follows in the mold created by somebody politicians as of late. Which is run for the next highest office on the run, you know. Pull a little Andrew Yang and, and just kind of keep losing at higher and higher levels.
BOBBY: That’s the Beto, dawg.
ALEX: That’s true, yes. The, the Yang is slowly biting off less than you can chew.
BOBBY: Maybe he can move to Pennsylvania and run for Senate.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. I, I, no. Don’t, don’t give him that idea. Are you serious right now?!
BOBBY: He doesn’t even need to move to Pennsylvania to run for Senate.
ALEX: I know, it’s not [4:27]–
BOBBY: The last time is not a requirement. Okay. We have a bunch to catch up on in the time that I was gone. We’re going to talk about the owners maybe accidentally colluding and then bragging about it. We’re going to talk about your beloved Billy Beane, riding off into the sunset, FTX going bankrupt. A few other things, but before we do all of that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[4:53]
[Music Theme]
BOBBY: Alex, it’s good to be back. And it’s good to be greeted by a wonderful list of new patrons. Those new patrons over the last few weeks since we recorded last are Lindsey, Riley, Alex, Claire, Ryan, Peter, Ben, On Elisa, Mike, and Sammy. Thank you, to all of you. Alex, how have you been? What’s up, man? Have you enjoyed not recording the Tipping Pitches Podcast? Soft, soft retirement from the pod? What was that like for you?
ALEX: Yeah. I know, I know. I don’t know if I should, if I should talk about on the podcast, but–
BOBBY: Might not [5:37]–
ALEX: –my, my enjoyment or lack or lack thereof of, of, you know, recording or not recording. I think it was good, I, you know, it’s been a long season. I think we were due to kind of hit the reset button. Take a, take a couple weeks away, you know.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: I’m–
BOBBY: In tune.
ALEX: Right. I mean, in the off–
BOBBY: [5:56] golf.
ALEX: –in the offseason players don’t immediately go back to the batting cages, right? You, you take some–
BOBBY: Maybe you don’t.
ALEX: –time off. Well, yeah, I know. You take a little time–
BOBBY: That’s why you’ll never be, that’s why you’ll never be as good as Aubrey Huff.
ALEX: I know, I mean, he clearly he’s filling his, his offseason. Yeah, I gotta admit, it’s I think it’s gonna take me a minute to kind of get back in the, in the swing of things, you know. Talking about this, this sport I, you know, we were going back and having to kind of look through everything that happened over the last couple of weeks. And boy, I forgot most of it.
BOBBY: Well, late November rust for you.
ALEX: Yeah, just a little bit.
BOBBY: Well, fortunately for you, the first topic that we have queued up here is one that is right in our wheelhouse. So it’s not, it’s not like you’re facing an opening day starter right here. This is the topic of the owners of the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets potentially accidentally colluding with each other, less than a week into the offseason. Reported by Andy Martino on November 3, Alex, who remember that we talked about this. I used it as the cold open of our podcast talking about the Houston Astros winning the 2022 World Series. To which you commended me for finding a way to make this about the Mets. But I wasn’t just making it about the Mets. I was making it about one of the largest collusion stories in 20 years. One of the most actionable collusion stories in 20 years, Andy Martino reported that the New York Mets and New York Yankees enjoyed a quote unquote, “mutual respect”, according to sources within the organization. And that neither side expected that mutual respect to be up ended over a bidding war for star right fielder Aaron Judge as he heads into his first free agency coming off one of the best walk years in the history of North American Sports. So as soon as we heard that, we thought, well, that sounds an awful lot like that illusion.
ALEX: Yeah. Hey, that tracks.
BOBBY: I mean, usually, we assume those things, but they don’t tell Andy Martino that to go write it in the Mets team owns website.
ALEX: Right. Well, what was also kind of remarkable about this to me, was that I mean, Martino has, Martino has apparently been following this story for much of the season, right? It was not something that someone just di- it, it wasn’t a quote that he received the first day of the offseason, right? This is something that, that it seems like he has been aware of for few months now. And so even the headline is just like, Reminder: There, the Mets aren’t going for Aaron Judge because the two kind of talked about that. Yeah. And I’m like, reminder? Hang on a second. You’ve been holding out on me, Andy.
BOBBY: So Martina reports that, shockingly on November 3, where, sorry. Martino reminds us about that on November 3, brain genius that he is not realizing that everybody is going to think, wow, that sounds an awful lot like something that is explicitly banned in the collective bargaining agreement, as collusion based off previous behavior in many different decades by Major League Baseball owners. You can’t say, you can’t say to another team, that you’re not going to sign a player. You can’t do that. You’re not allowed to do that. That is artificially suppressing that players market. And in this case, I think it’s extremely high profile, because it’s the now richest team in baseball, running out the highest payrolls, the New York Mets. Which still feels absurd to say, the richest owner in baseball, saying that he’s not going to be- now. I should be explicit in this so that we don’t get sued. Steve Cohen never actually said this. It was just the implication in Martino’s article that the Mets front office felt this way. And it was vague enough in how he wrote the story and reported the story that it seemed like each team knew that about each other which is a violation of the collective bargaining agreement. To tell the other team that you’re not going to go for them. So in this case, it was the Mets indicating that they were not going to be in the running, one of the highest spending teams indicating that they’re not going to be in the running for the player that will come in the most money this offseason. I mean, that’s a big, that’s a big story. It’s just a really big story. And Martino didn’t even realize that he reported it as a cute little look at how much these two teams respect each other now. The new owner, Steve Cohen, and Hal Steinbrenner, they’re good friends, just like each other. And it’s just better when the, when the two teams are friends in New York City. That’s just better for baseball, you know, that was the framing of the story.
ALEX: I mean, it’s, it’s interesting, ’cause I think that Martino really sort of did feel like he was adding important context to the conversation around Judge’s free agency. And he, he was I think, right? He was, you know, taking the local beat writer angle that everyone tries to do, right? Which is like, hey, Mets fans don’t get your hopes up, right? And here’s the context for, for why and most of the time, it would be writer writes that it’s, you know, this is just the general, the general vibe is that they’re not interested in an X player. Or they don’t want to spend this much money or, or whatever. And, and in this case, the rationale just so happened to be–
BOBBY: Collusion.
ALEX: –that, that Cohen and signwriter are a little buddy, buddy.
BOBBY: So okay, I agree. And I think that that’s what Andy Martino thought that he was doing. But the the piece was not a column.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You know, it was not framed as an opinion piece. It was not framed as I’m Andy Martino, I’m around the New York Mets. I don’t think that they will spend this money, because that would start a decade’s long bidding war with the team across town. And I think that would be a bad idea, based on conversations that I’ve had with both sides. That was not the way he framed it, the–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –framing of the article, and I unfortunately read it multiple times to make sure that I wasn’t missing anything. But the framing of the article was these two owner, these two owners, Steve Cohen and Hal Steinbrenner respect each other. And so Steve Cohen will not want to upset Hal Steinbrenner by bidding up a free agent. So really, Martino has no one to blame but himself, and I guess his editor.
ALEX: The thing is like it’s not actionable collusion, right?
BOBBY: Nah.
ALEX: Like there’s nothing that the league can do about this. They said they were going to investigate it, nothing came, nothing, nothing came of that.
BOBBY: November 16, Ken Rosenthal reports that there’s an open investigation into these two sides for potential collusion that was requested by the MLBPA. Because they saw the Andy Martino article, and I guess I had the exact same reaction that we did. And everyone else in our corner of baseball Twitter had. And then by the 22nd of November, Rob Manfred says, case closed, everything’s fine.
ALEX: So like–
BOBBY: And then, wait, finally, the coda here is that Jon Heyman writes a little column on 1125, saying, everything was fine, there was never collusion.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We’re all good here. Thanks, Jon Heyman, thanks for your contribution to the discourse. And Andy Martino says, everything’s Jon saying is right, this was never collusion all along.
ALEX: I mean, I think it’s–
BOBBY: [13:19]
ALEX: I think it speaks to sort of our warped sense of how teams interface with each other about players, right? That this functionally suggests a level of cooperation between teams, that is not allowed, right? But at the same time, two owners saying they maintain a good relationship and, and, you know, whatever happens on the field, we want to, we don’t want to jeopardize that relationship with our business dealings. I think too many people, including national baseball writers, that’s, well, that’s the, the cost of doing business, right? That’s, that’s how you maintain a good relationship and keep things light and fun and competitive. But, you know, not nasty, right? It’s like don’t step on each other’s toes. And we’ve just come to sort of accept that a lot of this comes with the territory, right? That they do have these relationships they want to maintain. And, and that something like this would just be a cute little story in SNY rather than something that indicates a fundamental flaw in baseball’s economic system, you know. And again, that like there’s nothing in there that the PA can point to that says they were colluding here, right? Like there’s- unless–
BOBBY: Presumably not.
ALEX: –they left of, presumably .
BOBBY: But we haven’t, we haven’t read the Rob Manfred investigation, but yes.
ALEX: No, I mean, if they left a paper trail, good guy, like, you know, that–
BOBBY: That point you, thank you.
ALEX: Yes. Yeah, honestly, you’re, you’re doing everyone a service. But–
BOBBY: No, no, you’re doing us a service.
ALEX: Right. But the more likely thing is that Martino just kind of knows the relationship, right? And, and knows the kind of sentiment. And that’s that, you leave it at that, I mean you can- can you call collusion based on vibes? Maybe, I mean, we can.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Certainly, but Rob Manfred probably can’t.
BOBBY: Yeah, I mean, like legally speakin, can you prove that that is collusion without a text message between the two owners? It would be hard. But qualitatively speaking, is this as good as collusion, if one of the richest teams in baseball is just completely out on a free agent, the first day of the offseason? Because they don’t want to upset the other team. They don’t want to keep the other owner, that’s not a good enough reason.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like I think sometimes, something that happens with bait quote, unquote, “baseball insiders”, is that they take the system that they observe and report on at face value too often. They listen to the logic of the people that they, that, that are their sources. And they take that as logical. And it’s not always, it, it doesn’t track with how things should be functioning, they can never take a 30,000 foot view on this. And say, that’s as good as collusion. And that’s why you get a moment like Martino writing this article, and everybody being like, wait, dude, does someone want to tell you? Like is some- someone going to tell you that this is actually illegal if they’ve put this in paper, and you’re implying that they might have put this in paper. You should have been maybe even more explicit that they didn’t put it in paper, and that this is just something that you’re picking up on. Because I think if you’re a baseball insider, you know that this is as good as a monopoly. Like the way that this system functions is monopolistic. And it’s not like the rest of the world. But from a legal sense, they’re not allowed to act like a monopoly, these 30 teams are not allowed to collude against the MLBPA, that’s part of the, the 1995 ruling, to return to play after the strike in 1994. So it just sort of [17:08] decision, said that this is no longer, your anti trust exemption no longer applies to Major League Baseball players. And so because of that, they’re not allowed to do something like this. And then the rest of society, they wouldn’t be allowed to do something like this. But because they still think of themselves as a market in a vacuum. And that things are different in baseball, that’s the way they act. And then the people who are observing and reporting on them, take that at face value, rather than thinking critically about it and questioning it. And it makes for funny moments. But it also makes for sort of disappointing moments, honestly, as a fan, to think that there’s, that the owners are all in cahoots with each other. And there’s predetermined destinies on who’s going to land where. Even with the new renegade owner, Steve Cohen, who supposedly is coming in and blowing everything up.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, my biggest takeaway is that sentiments like this are far more present in front office’s than, than we might see on the outside, right? Owners–
BOBBY: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
ALEX: –have these sorts of relationships far more than they let on. And they just happened to say the quiet part out loud, real quick. And then, and then tried to reel it, reel it back in.
BOBBY: And it’s even worse, like, it’s not just the owners have this type of relationship. It’s probably that front office’s have this type of relationship too.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: If you started with the Blue Jays, and now you work for the Dodgers, you might be less likely to quote unquote “backstab” the Blue Jays and take a guy that they might want or that they’re in the advanced, in the advanced talks to sign. You might not want to parachute in at the last moment, because you might not want to piss off the Blue Jays or vice versa, whatever that tends to be. And all of that, you throw all of that into the soup. That is the market of Major League Baseball. And sure, maybe it doesn’t suppress Aaron Judge’s value, because someone is probably going to meet the offer that Aaron Judge wants in the end. But if there’s a fourth outfielder that was on the Yankees, who the Mets like, and they might want to offer him a starting position or a really good contract or more than the rest of the league, and they balk and don’t offer him because the Yankees want to keep them around as a fourth outfielder, then that guy’s market is definitely going to be suppressed more than Aaron Judge is. And this the existence of this relationship is the problem, not specifically the circumstances of Cohen telling Steinbrenner that he’s not going to sign Aaron Judge.
ALEX: I think it’s good. I think it’s just dude supporting dudes.
BOBBY: What the hell dude, I was gone for two weeks. Who’s um, who’s Fisher’s guy? That they enjoy a mutually respectful relationship. Other than you, John Fisher will not hire Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So how soon A’s podcast.
ALEX: No, I think–
BOBBY: Because he simply has too much respect for Alex Bazeley.
ALEX: He’s mutually–
BOBBY: [20:11] business partner.
ALEX: –respectful relationship is with the A’s front office, which is like we won’t compete with each other. But you don’t, you don’t have to worry, I’m not going to give you very much money.
BOBBY: You’re not going to get fired for–
ALEX: Yeah, it is.
BOBBY: –being a winning team on the field.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: And you’re not going to slam me in the press for not giving you enough money to put the winning team on the field. We’re going to fail in anonymity. I love it. Okay. I forgot to explain that we’re just gonna run down a list of topics through each from the last few weeks that you and I didn’t get the chance to talk about. Because even though we were putting up podcasts the last couple of weeks while I was away in Italy, we have not recorded as I mentioned at the top of the show since November 6, all the stuff that happened in that time period. Okay, you’re up next. What do you want to, what to chat about?
ALEX: Well, you brought up John Fisher, and the Oakland A’s. So this feels like a, a logical place for me to start. Billy Beane is riding off into the sunset, he’s, he’s–
BOBBY: And the manera.
ALEX: –dip in town.
BOBBY: Okay, wait, I thought this already happened? Like three years ago.
ALEX: I mean, he has not, so he’s not been the, the team’s General Manager since 2015. That, that title is belong to David Forst.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: He’s been involved in baseball operations, he’s been the, the president of their baseball operations department. But has taken a backseat on more day to day handling of, of transactions.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And now–
BOBBY: He’s the guy who like three meetings a year he comes in, he’s like, I’m thinking left handed relievers this year, what do you think?
ALEX: Yes, exaclty.
BOBBY: Press the front office’s like, what’s–
ALEX: Right. And, and now–
BOBBY: I’m thinking athletic catchers are the new market inefficiency. And everybody’s like, I love that guy, he’s so smart.
ALEX: He’s not, he’s not wrong. He’s moving into a, a senior advisory role to pursue, quote, “non baseball sports endeavors”. This isn’t–
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: –really a surprise. He’s been in love with European soccer for years at this point. And just more broadly interested in, I think the ownership side of things, which is what he’s going to lean towards is, is he saw the writing on the wall. Frankly, I have to get handed to him. Because after because after 25 years, with the Oakland A’s, he realized it was better to be in the owner’s chair than the general manager. I gotta say it feels a little weird. Not necessarily because I feel any sort of strong bond with with him. He didn’t really he didn’t really give me what’s to work with. In, in his time, with the A’s in my time with the A’s, I mean, some, some playoff appearances, some–
BOBBY: Playoff exits.
ALEX: –some playoff exits, and revenue sharing checks. Obviously never won a World Series. And I don’t know, I, I’m still working through my feelings. I think I feel a little like how, how Brits felt when the Queen died, you know. I’m like, I’m like, yes, she has a really complicated history.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: And, and was probably a net negative in her world.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And yes, we know that, that her role has been largely symbolic for, for a long time now. But it’s still gonna be weird to not have her there, right?
BOBBY: Yeah. Who’s Boris Johnson in this analogy?
ALEX: I, I know, I think I just made David Forst, like King Charles.
BOBBY: And the A’s fans are the corgis?
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: I think it’s weird, it’s weird for Billy Beane to be gone, because obviously, this is a little bit like when Theo Epstein was no longer the GM of the Cubs. It’s strange for the person who created the trend to no longer be there doing the trend. And so like for being to be gone and not be running a team, it’s a little bit awkward that every team is basically trying to be the 2002 A’s in Beane’s absence. And it’s even more awkward because they never actually won anything. So–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –like, I think that it’s we’ve seen the writing on the wall for a little while, like we did our Billy Beane legacy conversation, I think like three years ago now or two years ago, at this point. And it’s, it’s a complicated one, he did a lot to validate critical statistical thinking in the game of baseball. But I think ultimately, where that netted out is that he did that at the behest of owners not wanting to spend money. And so it’s, It’s like a bittersweet fitting ending, that he’s going into ownership now. Because he’s basically been at the service of saving owners pennies for the last 20 years anyway, so why not save himself those pennies?
ALEX: Yeah, he said, if you can’t beat him join them, right? Like–
BOBBY: Pretty much. Yeah.
ALEX: So it feels a little bit like unfinished business. But you know, again, can you blame him? Especially if you’re working under John Fisher, right? Like at that point, I’d want to get out and join John’s team too.
BOBBY: I guess. But I think he probably could have run a different team at some point. Like, I, I think we all, we sort of have to stop pretending like he’s some underdog, Robin Hood, who wants to be winning and wants to be spending money. Like I think he liked doing this. I think he liked the chess game of it more than he had ambitions on winning a World Series, frankly, because he didn’t leave A’s ever. And it was it became pretty clear that he was never going to have the resources to compete with some of these other teams who had adopted his strategies, with more financial resources behind them. Like the Yankees, like the Red Sox, like the Dodgers, like even the Giants at certain points. You know–
ALEX: The Rays.
BOBBY: –all, the Rays who also never won though, that’s why I didn’t name them. But you know what I mean, like he, he, maybe Stockholm Syndrome himself a little bit. And now his–
ALEX: Oh, yeah, totally.
BOBBY: –way out is, I guess becoming the captor for the next up and coming GM who wants to run a team like this? Who knows? Maybe he’ll, maybe he’ll buy a European soccer team and completely disrupt how that market works. That’d be fun to watch, I’d watch it. Although, unfortunately, Michael Lewis will not be around to follow him around in that endeavor. Because Michael Lewis will be busy writing his book about our next topic, the bankruptcy of FTX. Alex, crypto exchange FTX went, went, went bust.
ALEX: What?!
BOBBY: Now you, you–
ALEX: What?!
BOBBY: –can include this in our newsletter on the Patreon. By the way, if you’re a patron at the Alex Rodriguez VIP Club tier, you get a newsletter every two weeks, we’re behind on that newsletter because I was gone. And so I will be catching up on that newsletter. Next week or later this week, by the time you’re listening to this. You chronicled the bankruptcy of FTX, not because it’s funny, not because–
ALEX: Well part- well, partially because–
BOBBY: –not because you like to make fun of people like Sam Bankman-Fried–
ALEX: It’s hard because of that
BOBBY: –founder and CEO of FTX. Not because Michael Lewis is gonna write a book making fun of Sam Bankman-Fried, anyone actually fun of him, but maybe someone will turn it into a movie where we can make fun of him. You chronicled that because FTX was the crypto sponsor for Major League Baseball. The number one exclusive crypto sponsor for the brand. They had patches on the umpire’s jerseys. They had special tweets promoting shit to the moon. They had presumably some kind of financial relationship, which we don’t know that much about, which might not be fulfilled, because FTX has like $8,000 leftover after all of this. And, you know, we’re like a few weeks late to this story. And even a few weeks late to people talking about how it relates to Major League Baseball. But I felt like we needed to talk about it on the pod because we haven’t had a chance. And it’s like, perfectly in the Venn diagram of late stage capitalism, and Major League Baseball, and to being funny, that triple Venn diagram. And so I guess my first question to start this out, is, are we completely beyond the point of Major League Baseball, vetting or caring about who they do business with at a sponsorship level? Because it seems like if they had done like a week’s worth of due diligence on FTX, before accepting their sweet, sweet bags of cash, that they would have realized that this was probably not for the long haul, as we say in the business world.
ALEX: I mean, this is what I, I tried to get at in the newsletter, right? It’s like–
BOBBY: Yeah, wonderful newsletter.
ALEX: What is–
BOBBY: I love it when Alex writes stuff.
ALEX: I need to, it’s a rarity these days.
BOBBY: Write the blog, bro. We’re not gonna have Twitter. No more microblogging. We’re going back to full blogs.
ALEX: Now, man, didn’t you hear, comedies legal again?
BOBBY: Unless the comedy is saying that Elon Musk has a receding hairline, or that a Tesla will run over his child.
ALEX: What is the–
BOBBY: I regret to inform everyone that this podcast is over, because Alex has been hit by a self-driving Tesla.
ALEX: [29:51]
BOBBY: [29:51]
ALEX: It’s parody!
BOBBY: Elon doesn’t known this platform, bro.
ALEX: I mean, what sort of due diligence do you think they do on any other partnerships? And like what, what do you think that due diligence actually is? Like, is it–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: –this product might be harmful to our consumers? Therefore we better make sure it’s not? Because I don’t think that that’s a part of the routine, no matter who it is that they’re shacking up with.
BOBBY: I guess, but like, so that why don’t they advertise with cigarette companies? Like it feels so selectively enforced as to what they think is appropriate and what they think is not. Why don’t they advertise with porn websites? Why don’t they advertise with boner pills? Like, where do they draw the line?
ALEX: Well, well, they do–
BOBBY: I don’t know.
ALEX: –they do, don’t they?
BOBBY: Oh, that’s true. I was thinking more like the Alex Jones’ boner pills, you know. Like, not the FDA approved ones.
ALEX: Oh, right. The like, the like gay frog sex, or whatever.
BOBBY: There’s just no, I am not going to use gay frogs sex pills as a trout. You know–
ALEX: I mean, I mean–
BOBBY: –I wouldn’t advertise with like, like narcotics, you know? So we’re honestly, where do they draw the line? And, and that’s the first question is, is this product morally irresponsible, to hawk to our customers? Which they obviously selectively enforced, because they’ve basically just turned gambling addiction into their revenue stream? And number two, is this product going to go under, in a really embarrassing way in less than 18 months. And that’s the one that I’m more confused about. That’s the one that–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –I’m more interested in talking with you about. Because, say what you want about advertising with gambling companies, they’re probably not going to go under, they have like legislative approval. And this seems like the future. Say what you want about alcohol companies like beer companies, they are, for all intents and purposes, a monopoly in this country, Budweiser and Anheuser-Busch, like these companies are not going to go under next year, the checks are, are going to be there. And MLB is not going to be showing are ass over choosing to shack up with these with, with those businesses. But with FTX, it was like, it was never guaranteed that it was going to be there tomorrow, let alone next year. And so at what point is it a circus, and not an actual functioning business, where they care about their customers. And they care about the notion that, that this is all legitimate business dealings and not racketeering.
ALEX:
Yeah. But like, isn’t that just a feature of our world right now? Like Major League Baseball is far from the only conglomerate that tried to ride the wave of crypto, right? And that wave isn’t over, right? But there were, there have been billions of dollars poured into these partnerships in recent years. There was a huge spike in Cryptos market cap in the middle of COVID. And then it was subsequently wiped away. But I, I’m not surprised I think that someone like Major League Baseball, would look at all the money floating around in this space. And say, how can we cut ourselves into that equation, you know? Like this is, this is kind of just a function of the, the stage of capitalism that we’re in, right? Is to squeeze as much money out of you can, as you can.
BOBBY: One house of cards giving money to another house of cards?
ALEX: Yes, literally. Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah, I guess, I guess my point is, we don’t always have to the MLB Major League Baseball, our national pastime. Does not always have to be on the fucking cutting edge of every industry, with who they’re partnering with, you know? You don’t need to be, we don’t need to be disruptors. MLB doesn’t need to be advising people on what the future holds, frankly, because they’re not qualified to do it. And this is a perfect example of that. Like MLB doesn’t need to make Theranos, the official healthcare partner of Major League Baseball. Like we’re, let’s just slow our roll a little bit. But of course, that’s not what they’re interested in. And I think that’s what’s funny.
ALEX: No, and again, I don’t think that that concern has ever existed. Like, sure, the league isn’t partnering with cigarette companies today. Because it’s considered taboo at this point, right? What are they 75 years ago? Absolutely, right? Because we all were collectively under this idea that it’s fine, this is not harmful, right? And, and this just feels like a similar stage of that exact progression, right? Where we haven’t really fully come to grips with the fact that a lot of people are gonna get burned by this. And so in the meantime, why not try and make a little money? Why not try and pad the pad your bottom line a little bit? What’s the worst that could happen?
BOBBY: Yeah, everyone’s feeling good.
ALEX: What is the worst that could happen?
BOBBY: I don’t know, let’s all wait for the Michael Lewis book to find out. All right, next up.
ALEX: Next up our, our good friends, Liberty Media news lately for, for [35:15] for a multitude of reasons, actually. Which–
BOBBY: Wow, this is gonna be a Ticketmaster thing?
ALEX: Sure, we can get to, it wasn’t going to, but it feels like it will end up there.
BOBBY: Do you like that I, that I pulled that string a little bit and realize it to the Liberty Media owns Ticketmaster?
ALEX: Yeah, owns, owns Live Nation? Yeah. Yeah, you can’t–
BOBBY: They might not–
ALEX: –you can’t make this stuff up.
BOBBY: The, the Congress might not have decided that they have a monopoly on the live music industry. But they do have a monopoly on my, my fucking life.
ALEX: Yes!
BOBBY: Me personally, my interests, you know?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: They own the Braves, who own the Mets.
ALEX: Wow, wow!
BOBBY: They own, they own Ticketmaster, who owns all of the fucking concerts that I want to go to.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So what am I left with, Alex? What am I interests now? What’s next? They’re gonna buy sandwiches, the concept of sandwiches?
ALEX: Right. Liberty Media has acquired Italy.
BOBBY: Liberty Media has acquired Focusrite, the audio technology company that we record this podcast with, a hardware company.
ALEX: The reason I bring them up is, is for actually a relatively mundane reason, which is that they, they decided to split off the Braves into their own asset base stock. Which, which means that the Braves entire organization basically, is going to become publicly traded, backed by its assets. Now they’re like kind of publicly traded right now. But it’s more just a tracking stock that–
BOBBY: I’m really enjoying watching you trying to explain this.
ALEX: –that suggests the, the value of the Braves. Now, you know, I, I’ll actually instead of bumbling my way through this. I’m gonna let Liberty Media president and CEO Greg Maffei explain this to you because he, he broke it down really well, I think.
BOBBY: All right, Greg–
ALEX: He said–
BOBBY: –welcome to the pod. Thank you for–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –for joining us. This is a big gift for us, Greg, thanks for coming on. You’re the first CEO to ever be on this podcast.
ALEX: Thank you.
BOBBY: And for us, too.
ALEX: Worse- yeah, exactly. Thank you.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Some respect from–
BOBBY: I got that asterisk in there. co-CEOs of Tipping Pitches media.
ALEX: “These actions will provide greater investor choice and enable targeted investment and capital raising–
BOBBY: I’m already out.
ALEX: –through more focused currencies- I’m going to keep going, -while maintaining an optimal capital structure for Liberty Media and preserving optionality with–
BOBBY: Wait.
ALEX: –respect to our subsidiary, Sirius XM and our Live Nation State.”
BOBBY: Optimal capital structure?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Are you serious right now?
ALEX: Uh-hmm, uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Okay, wait, I’m back, I’m back in now.
ALEX: It’s kind of starting to come back together, right?
BOBBY: Okay. Yeah. Anything else, Greg? Hope you know that I’m putting Elevator Music under that.
ALEX: I’m just gonna go to thesaurus.com real quick and type in business and then see what words come up and how I can fit them into a statement.
BOBBY: What’s our optimal capital structure? Friggin more people sign up for the Patreon, patreon.com/tippingpitches.
ALEX: Yeah. That’s–
BOBBY: Get in there.
ALEX: –that’s right, that’s right.
BOBBY: Friggin buy in sweatshirts, that’s our optimal capital structure.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s right, tippingpitches.myshopify.com. The only, the only reason I bring this up–
BOBBY: Selling ads, if anyone listening to this has a company that they want to advertise on this podcast.
ALEX: It’s, it’s a little cool, frankly, because we might be able to actually see through the, the sort of opaque walls that teams like to put up around their business dealings, it being a publicly traded company and all.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: We have a better sense of the financials that go into not just Atlanta’s literal baseball team, but its broader business interests, shall we say?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Heard, heard of real estate? Heard of the battery?
BOBBY: I have, like 38 questions about this. None of which you’re gonna be able to answer, but I’m gonna ask them anyway.
ALEX: The answer is greater investor choice and targeted investment in capital raising.
BOBBY: Greater investor choice is always important.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: When you always want to have choice in life. Variety is the spice of life. My first question is, what happens if their stock tanks? Like what if we don’t have confidence in stock and it goes down? I don’t know if you know this, but stocks are not in a good spot right now.
ALEX: No, they’re not great.
BOBBY: Do you hear about Bob Chapek getting the X. A big old Bob Iger coming back in because of the Disney stock. Like what if that, so what is Alex Anthopoulos gonna get bounced because the Brave’s stock is in the tank.
ALEX: Again–
BOBBY: I think I’m gonna be replaced with Alex Bazeley?
ALEX: I really well, I don’t, I don’t hope for the latter part. But I–
BOBBY: Alex, on Alex prime.
ALEX: –we should publicly trade all Major League Baseball companies, frankly.
BOBBY: Stuck up right now, go! No, I, I guess I just don’t know how that works with their specific setups spinning them off into their own publicly traded company. And we should, I would be interested in having someone on to talk about this exact thing. But then my other question is, what kind of window does that give us into everything, it’s still going to be similarly, just the basically the revenue and revenue and expenditures. The, which gives us a general idea of like the gross profit of the Braves, which is always a lot. Incase you didn’t know, you just wanted to pay attention to the fact that all these teams make hundreds of millions of dollars every year. That would be good to know. And then the third question that I have is for you, you personally, do you sign off on us buying one Braves stock? Can we buy one, I want one, one brave stock Mr. J.P. Morgan.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Coming right up! Sold!
ALEX: This is, this is like back in 20, like 15 or whatever. When I was like, oh, yeah, I’ll buy one Twitter stock.
BOBBY: I’ll buy a Robin Hood–
ALEX: I–
BOBBY: –opened a Robin Hood account.
ALEX: Yeah, I believe in this company’s mission. Well, that was, that–
BOBBY: Full takes alert.
ALEX: –that brings me to the other–
BOBBY: [41:15] takes alert.
ALEX: –that I brought this up, which is that this doesn’t make it easier for them to sell the team.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: So we could buy not just one stock, we could buy–
BOBBY: 50% of the stocks.
ALEX: –all of the stocks. Pull a little Elon Musk?
BOBBY: Wow. It take them private. Like actually no private ownership is fine and baseball. Or we could buy all of the stocks and just donate them to the greater businesses of Atlanta to offset the 100 million dollar loss from when they moved the All-Star game.
ALEX: You know, now Max starting to consider this.
BOBBY: This opens up one amazing possibilities for us being like, I love what, I love, I love the Braves this week. I’m buying stock, I’m buying stock. All right, the Braves are looking rough. You know, Spencer Strider, shoulder tightness on the IL. I’m selling my Brave stock screenshot of us selling the Brave stock.
ALEX: Oh, absolutely. I’m, I’m in my Jim, Jim Cramer bag right now. You know, we’re bringing back Three Up, Three Down, but it’s literally just the Brave stock on each options.
BOBBY: Stock, stock picks. You know this week, I’m gonna say, hold, hold some Rays stock.
ALEX: Hold, yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t know, are you feeling short? I’m just thinking [42:27]. Sorted.
ALEX: Are you feeling like a bull? Oh, this is how it always ends up when we, when we start talking about like actual business is us just saying buzzwords.
BOBBY: This stock is $8 down before the open. Oh, oh. Speaking of stocks, is Twitter off the stock market yet? Like has that gone that’s done? What happened with your stock? Did you still have it?
ALEX: Absolutely not.
BOBBY: Well, what, what would have happened? Would you have gotten like $15 for it or something? Like the, the payout price for whatever 44 billion divided by however many Twitter stocks there are?
ALEX: I, I, you know, I, I hadn’t kept up with where Twitter’s stock actually was when Elon bought it. Mostly just because I don’t give a shit. But I think I probably would have come out even. Like I think, I think in the time that I held my stock it went up and then it went back down.
BOBBY: See, I think it’s bullshit that you have to sell your stock just because everybody else decided to sell their stocks. You know, like we got what because the Twitter board was like, oh, we’d like this $44 billion offer like, why can’t Alex Bailey hold on to his single Twitter stock? Why is it have to go private? This is bullshit- that’s you, you own that! This is America.
ALEX: That’s true. That’s–
BOBBY: So you get someone else gets to make that decision for you?
ALEX: Right, yeah, now you want to take my property? Hmm, interesting.
BOBBY: In my Apple stock app.
ALEX: So much for a free market.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Do you have, do you have other thoughts on stocks or do you want to run to your, your third thing?
BOBBY: I would like to run to our third, my third thing. My third thing is that the Houston Astros won the World Series. And one week later, just didn’t bring back their GM, James Click who was on a one year contract because he was replacing, he was obviously the replacement for Jeff Luhnow, when Luhnow got suspended and then fired from the Houston Astros for his role in the sign stealing scandal. And Click was his, was the person who sort of stepped in to write the ship on the baseball operation side. At that same time, Jim Crane, the owner of the Houston Astros stepped in and took a larger role in baseball operations, according to a lot of people who cover the team. And it seems like over the course of the last couple of years as Click has been the GM in name. That Crane has wanted to have final say on most of the baseball decisions. And that Click has pushed back on that at points. And that led to the parting of ways between the two sides. I think it was that Crane and the Astros offered Click to come back on another short term contract kind of like a one year deal continue to prove that you can do a good job running this team and Click thought that he had earned by winning the World Series. He thought that he had earned more than just a one year contract as a general manager. And so they parted ways. He did not accept that one year deal that did not offer him another deal. And they will be searching for another general manager to replace James Click. I don’t know, I, I don’t really care all that much about who, who runs the Astros. I think at this point, they’re, they’re a pretty well-oiled machine. And they have at least a couple years worth of a runway on just based on the players that they have in their organization right now of being a good team. Now, obviously, the right GM can extend that longevity for ever, if they aren’t good enough. I mean, the Yankees have been over .500 for like decades on end now. And the Yankees fans want to fire their GM. But I find it interesting for a couple of reasons. Number one that, that Jim Crane had success with a team where he wasn’t influencing baseball decisions all that much. And now he wants to sort of step in and take some of that glory. And be kind of like a Jerry Jones figure. A, a Texas owner worth billions of dollars stepping in, in a sort of cowboy like manner. And, and the buck stops here with the owner. And he gets to make the final decision on, on basically everything rather than being more so like a hands off, and telling them how much they’re allowed to spend and letting them spend that how they, how they would like to. That’s interesting to me. But what’s more interesting to me is the qualitative shift and how we think of general managers. And how they’re successful. It’s certainly not unprecedented for a GM to have success and still sort of not be revered within the organization or liked that much within the organization. And a couple years later be out or the next season be out, you kind of come to the end of your rope with a team and you, you need to move on to a new opportunity whether that’s because you want to challenge like Theo Epstein or because the organization wants to go in a different direction. Like Dave Dombroski at multiple stops, whether that was with the Red Sox or the Tigers. It’s not unprecedented. But I do think it is the starkest example that we’ve had in a little while that just winning is not really what teams care about. Like he, he is the GM of a team that just won the World Series. And they don’t want to keep him around. Which leads you to believe that the objective of the team, objective number one of the team is not winning the World Series. Because otherwise he would still be around, right?
ALEX: I mean–
BOBBY: Objective one of the team must be winning the World Series in the way that Jim, in exactly the way that the owner wants them to win the World Series. And–
ALEX: Well, yes.
BOBBY: –has anyone off along the way.
ALEX: I think that’s probably true. I mean, the sense that I get is my read on this is more that this is Crane, like believing his own bullshit that, you know, a company can largely be run by putting numbers through a computer, right? It doesn’t necessarily matter who’s at the top of the food chain. Because you’re not making these decisions based on gut, based on emotion based on relationships, anyway, right? And, and Crane is as taking an active role in negotiations with free agent Justin Verlander. He actually, and kudos to him. also tried to dampen Justin Verlander is market by saying that–
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: he was looking for a Max Scherzer type deal, which–
BOBBY: Yes, he also violated the CBA.
ALEX: Yeah, really, really cool of owners that are in midseason form right now, I just got to say.
BOBBY: He, he’s was an actual straight up, quote–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –though.
ALEX: He was legitimately [49:19]
BOBBY: Yes, definitely violated the CBA. Like they will have to settle that grievance. Like they will be giving money to the MLBPA. Straight up.
ALEX: And so, because I don’t, because don’t they have to prove that Verlander’s market was like materially dampened?
BOBBY: I guess? But, but they also probably don’t want that headache. And so they would probably just settle it pretty quick.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s my opinion.
ALEX: I mean, all that to say–
BOBBY: Welcome to the legal watch three–
ALEX: Right, exactly. You and I just saying, right? That, doesn’t that make sense?
BOBBY: I actually when I was in Italy, I actually pass the bar. I took it remote for the state of New York.
ALEX: You pass quite a few bars.,I think when you’re out there.
BOBBY: That’s right, Passan steps on him.
ALEX: Oh, hey, Negroni hour.
BOBBY: Hey, hey, hey.
ALEX: I don’t necessarily think that this is Crane saying winning is not the most important thing. I think it’s him saying whoever’s in the front office is largely a figurehead. We have the systems and the analytics in place to make these decisions on behalf of us. So whoever’s in there is not necessarily going to materially change the direction of the team. And you can even argue, right, that Click, largely inherited a franchise that was already a pretty well-oiled machine, right? And yeah, and there is a culture and a structure that extends far back, you know, beyond Click’s time there into Luhnow’s reign, right? And sort of crafting this new era of the Astros. And, and I think, and I think Crane realizes that.
BOBBY: Yup.
ALEX: That as long as you can throw someone in there, the rest will figure itself out, frankly. I mean, it’s not entirely dissimilar, with how he approached the Dusty Baker move. Which was not, this is the best manager who’s out there who I think will make the biggest difference to our team. It was, I know, our team is good, what they’re dealing with is a PR nightmare. We need someone in there who can help us clean that up. And that’s what he did. And it frankly, it kind of worked.
BOBBY: I think it’s an optically it’s weird, I guess, in this–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –specific case. Crane is probably right, you know. Like, I think like, no matter who they bring in, they don’t need to bring in another, quote unquote, “visionary disruptive GM”. Now, they already did that, they already changed the processes, they already put in the new system. They already fired all the scouts, they’re already based basing all of their decisions on this strict set of data inputs. And it’s working, it’s working, really well.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And I, I do think that they are, at this point, an organization that it’s more important, what they’re doing systematically from the ground up rather than the, than the top down of the pyramid. And so long as the next GM is similarly analytically inclined to allow those processes to adapt in the way that they need to as trends in the game change. They’ll continue to have success because they just have a stacked team and a stacked organization who develop players as well. Whoever is in that organization telling players what to do is telling them the right things. And I don’t necessarily think that that is a function of James Click.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Because it there’s, a lot of the similar things that they’re doing well have carried over from the Luhnow, carried over from the Luhnow era. The one thing that I will say, though, is that it’s just it’s, it’s never good when owners are like, I need to make the baseball decisions.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That tends to not work. And if there is a way that they can fuck this up, it is Jim Crane thinking that he is the guy who should be making the baseball decisions. That he needs to decide what is best for the Houston Astros baseball team. And that he, it’s just a little bit of hubris to think that he knows how to handle the Justin Verlander negotiation just because they just won the World Series. And he was more heavily involved in baseball decisions than ever before. Like, he doesn’t understand whether or not Justin Verlander is worth $45 million or not. No matter what he thinks he does understand, he doesn’t. I’m sure the Astros have models. But a team run by Jim Crane is not going to, a team run by Jim crane for the next five years is not going to look like the 2022 Houston Astros. That is my bold prediction.
ALEX: This is the, this is the muskification of the Houston Astros, you know. And, and it has me a little bit like Twitter.
BOBBY: It’s like, it’s like the appearance of success does not mean that success was driven by the person who was front and center.
ALEX: Right, exactly. And say do have like, oh, well, it’s it’s just a baseball team. If you cut all the fat off it, it’s just, it’s just a website, right? How, how hard could it be? And it hasn’t been- like Twitter, wanting it to fail a little bit, you know. Because I don’t, I don’t want it to be justified. And used as a model for how a baseball team actually can be done.
BOBBY: Yes. I love that, I love that analogy. Because I hate when people just point to success. And they’re like, well you have to imitate that person, they succeeded. I’m like, do you ever think critically about anything? You know, like, Jim Crane is not right because the Astros won the World Series. He’s not gonna be right about all this baseball decisions just because the Astros won the World Series. That’s how you get bad for a decade is you think that that person always knows what to do just and there’s a little bit of that hubris coming into this like there’s a little bit of a myopic view of I know what to do. I have run this team, I have turned this team around from the lowest of lows in franchise history. And now we’ve gone to however many consecutive World Series or ALCSs and we’ve won two World Series and I know all the right answers. And I just think that if there’s one, one way that we can start to unravel the Houston Astros, and maybe people should be rooting for this then. Maybe people should be happy that Jim Crane is stepping in and, and deciding everything for this organization. Because they don’t want the Astros to be good anymore. If there’s one that way that we can ruin this. It’s, I don’t know, like bending the knee to the owner and thinking that they’re the reason for any of this/ Because he’s not, he’s not the reason.
ALEX: Speak for yourself, man.
BOBBY: Because, because what the owner does is the owner provides money. The owner decides–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –the owner decides how much money the Astros can spend, or should spend. And honestly, his track record on that is not, not always the best. Like they didn’t bring back Gerrit Cole because they didn’t want to spend the money for him. It’s like well, you probably should have brought back Gerrit Cole, I mean, I know they have a plethora of pitching but there’s no way that they could have known that all of this these decisions would have worked out exactly like they worked out. And just because they won the World Series doesn’t mean that he is infallible.
ALEX: Again you keep saying this man, but if they keep winning, I’m, I’m buying in–
BOBBY: [56:45]
ALEX: –that’s it. Like I, if the Astros keep winning the World Series, fuck it! Crane me up, man.
BOBBY: If the Astros keep winning the World Series, we’ll just, we, I guess we have to make a world a shirt that says war profiteering is good. That’s Jim Crane’s foundation. That’s what Jim Crane really cut his teeth in.
ALEX: Yeah, well, it was, it was like that or deforestation or like debt servicing, so.
BOBBY: I mean, I don’t know. If I had to power rank those three, I think debt servicing is the best. I think, man, deforestation and war profiteering are real toss up.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I think, I think deforestation is better than war profiteering. War profiteering is the worst.
ALEX: War profiteering I’d say it’s pretty bad.
BOBBY: Because wars are really bad for the climate, just like deforestation. But at least with deforestation, you could plant new trees. You know, it’s not like John Fisher did plant new trees, but he could plant trees. You know, like, once you profited off the war, like, you know, a lot of people aren’t coming back.
ALEX: Do you wanna go to our last one? Or we can, we can keep going with this.
BOBBY: I would like to go to our last one before I say something that Jim Crane really what like.
ALEX: All right, well let’s, let’s talk baseball briefly before we, before we get out of here.
BOBBY: Just want to say everything that that ranking was parody. The war profiteering was never settled. Never proven.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: It just some swirling war profiteering accusations.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know–
ALEX: We, we should hear–
BOBBY: –all of our faced.
ALEX: –hear both sides on that one.
BOBBY: Right. Well, we can’t. All right, your final one.
ALEX: Oh, my God, I can’t believe I’m about to talk about like a fucking pitch clock right now, you know, like.
BOBBY: No, back to our, back to our bullshit, pitch clock.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Let’s go!
ALEX: Yeah. We’re going to talk about, I imagine we’re going to talk more about rule changes kind of later down the road as the offseason progresses, and we get closer to the start of the 2023 season. Obviously, there’s some big changes that are, that are coming. Which means the–
BOBBY: But we are going to do our Banned Topics of 2023. And I am considering all rules. I’m considering just banning rules.
ALEX: All, all rules.
BOBBY: We are not allowed to talk about baseball rules.
ALEX: Does that include unwritten rules both on the field and in front office’s? Like, say, admitting to your buddy owner that you’re not gonna sign a certain player?
BOBBY: Yeah, we just aren’t going to talk about baseball anymore. All right–
ALEX: That’s it, it’s over.
BOBBY: –rule changes.
ALEX: I actually don’t, I don’t know, I don’t have much in the way of a take here. Or something intelligent to say. I was however, going back through archives of things that we’ve tweeted about and stories that have come out over the last month or so. And I, and I went back further just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. And, and I caught this article that came out back in, in mid September from The Athletic that I, that I missed at the time. But it was what MLB players and managers are saying about the rule changes for 2023. Now, I don’t, I don’t know if you saw this or, or read any of it. But, but it caught my attention. Because I’m generally interested in, in what players have to say.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And they said some, some, some bass shit. And that’s kind of cool.
BOBBY: Oh.
ALEX: When you give players a chance to, to speak out against their bass, they, they are, they’re more inclined than say they, they may have been in past years. There are obviously some big rule changes on the table. The biggest ones being pitch clock, banning of the shift, and larger bases.
BOBBY: No, okay wait, just, just a personal bugaboo of mine.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We can just say pitch clock and banning of the shift, bigger bases are not one of the bigger rule changes. No one–
ALEX: I mean–
BOBBY: –talked about that one.
ALEX: –I mean, okay, but they’re not, not big, right? Like, stolen bases are about to go up. Maybe.
BOBBY: Maybe. Prompt by that much.
ALEX: I mean, they’ve, they’ve spikes in the minors. They may not change- I mean–
BOBBY: Right, because the minors–
ALEX: –there’s more incentive in the minors–
BOBBY: –doesn’t in control- expla- experiment, though, because the pickoff limit is the real thing that I think is impacting that. Not the bigger bases.
ALEX: Possibly, I think it’ll, I think it’ll make a dent.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: But, you’re right. I, I–
BOBBY: Mine is [1:01:36] overruled. You’re right, Your Honor.
ALEX: –I only bring it up largely because it was the only rule that the players actually voted.
BOBBY: In favor of.
ALEX: Right. It was the only one that they actually said yes to.
BOBBY: We’re playing the other two rules under protest.
ALEX: Exactly. I, I really just want to print and hang this Charlie Blackmon quote on my wall.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: He said, I’m actually very against how it’s happening. It does help left handed hitters like me. But anytime you have the boss implement something against the will of the players, that’s not good for the game of baseball. It’d be really great–
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: –if we could have arrived at a conclusion together with compromise, love compromise. That would have been nice. It sounds like something we should have addressed in the collective bargaining agreement, which I guess is our fault as players. But it seems contrary to the whole spring training goodwill our guy took, oh, okay, Charlie. Then he says, you know, for trying to bring new fans putting in a bunch of shot clocks and special rules like that is probably not the way to do it. Charlie Blackmon, come on Tipping Pitches.
BOBBY: I love when you call him–
ALEX: He literally–
BOBBY: –the boss.
ALEX: –and said, the spring training goodwill tour my guy took. Just–
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: –just talking about the commissioner of baseball.
BOBBY: My guy.
ALEX: –my guy.
BOBBY: Do you think that’s good willed for?
ALEX: Do you think- which amazing. Do you think that Charlie Blackmon like talks to him like that to his face? Like is he like, hey, my guy?
BOBBY: I think that–
ALEX: How you been?
BOBBY: –Charlie Blackmon and 91% of Major League Baseball players have never talked to Rob Manfred. So no, I don’t think that’s how he talks to him.
ALEX: You really think that? I feel like most players have met him.
BOBBY: I guess anybody who would have been like an All-Star like Blackmon would have probably met him. But I, I think that the large majority of players have not met him. Or if they have met him, it’s like, they’ve just been in the same place as him. They’ve never had–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: –like a one on one conversation with him.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Where Rob was like, hey, how’s your family?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, that never happens.
ALEX: What music you’re listening to lately?
BOBBY: With more than half of the players, yes. What music you currently listening to lately? What do you think Charlie listens to? There’s probably some data on this. We’ve [1:03:46]–
ALEX: I don’t know, Morgan Wallen?
BOBBY: Come on, you just said he was based and now you’re giving him Morgan Wallen?
ALEX: I know, yeah. I know.
BOBBY: It only goes so far.
ALEX: Right. It’s weighted-based you know. You have to, you have to take account of the, of the environment.
BOBBY: Well-based.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Charlie Blackmon is from Dallas, Texas.
ALEX: See, come on, we’re, we’re moving closer already.
BOBBY: It could be, yeah. Dallas, it could go either way, you know, Dallas went for Beto.
ALEX: Do you think that Charlie Blackmon voted?
BOBBY: No. No way. I don’t even know. Like, I think he probably doesn’t maintain residence in Texas. Although I guess he could for tax purposes. How are we talking about Charlie Blackmon like to spend 99.
ALEX: Yeah, he might have set, set this company up in Wyoming to, to avoid the taxes there.
BOBBY: Right. He lives in Delaware in the offseason.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly.
BOBBY: Uhm, Charlie Blackmon seems like a interesting guy.
ALEX: He does. It doesn’t take much to impress me these days. I just have to say, the bar is very, very low.
BOBBY: Yeah. The bar is on the floor. Although, you know, it’s, it’s being slightly raised of some of these younger guys. Like, imagine, imagine the confidence that the Minor League Baseball organizers are going to have by the time they hit the majors.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like their whole career there’ll be sticking to the man, sticking to our guy. Our guy, Rob.
ALEX: Our guy.
BOBBY: They’re not gonna be afraid of him. What are they gonna be afraid of? He voluntarily recognize them, they won. I;m not sure who was it the, the number one pick the Pirates, number one pick last year. Like tweeted that–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: –owners are a sham more or less. Like, wait until he gets to the majors, that’s gonna be dope.
ALEX: Yeah, the kids are alright.
BOBBY: The kids are alright. Hope they don’t let us down. Is that it? Anything else about the rule changes, any other quotes? Anything else on Charlie Blackmon’s legal residents? He doesn’t seem like a Greg Abbott guy. He doesn’t.
ALEX: He doesn’t seem like someone who knows that Greg Abbott exists.
BOBBY: Yeah. I guess you’re right. Career 297 hitter, how about that, say the 300 hitter’s dead. Blackmon has spoken about his Christian faith. Saying the love that JC has for me, Jesus Christ in case you keeping score at home.
ALEX: JC!
BOBBY: Even though I don’t–
ALEX: My guy, Rob or do JC.
BOBBY: –are imaginaly. You know that grace is something that I try to understand everyday, but it’s hard to comprehend!
ALEX: Where are you getting this from?
BOBBY: Fucking Wikipedia, where else? He doesn’t have a controversy section on his Wikipedia page. But he does have a lengthy personal life section on his Wikipedia page. And just in, Alex, Blackmon resides in the Belcaro neighborhood of Denver during the season. So I have to imagine that he, that’s a permanent residence.
ALEX: Colorado had some important elections, recently.
BOBBY: Yeah. Disappointing ones.
ALEX: Yeah. I don’t even really know what we’re talking about anymore. I went to go and see if there are any campaign contributions he’s made.
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: There’s only a Charlie Blackmon in, in Georgia who’s retired.
BOBBY: Okay, Charlie Blackmon, no, no campaign contributions, your instinct was right. This has been a slightly chaotic return to the Tipping Pitches Podcast, but a fun one nonetheless. Thank you to everybody for listening. Thank you to the members of our Alex Rodriguez VIP Club tier. I don’t exactly remember which five we ended off with last time. So I’m gonna bring that feature back next week. But thank you, a sincere thank you to all of you at that level. This was our first season of doing the podcast, while baseball was on having the Patreon, having the community of people in the Slack. I, I will say for myself, it’s been incredibly, creatively motivating to see what people are talking about and what they care about, and to see the jokes that people are making. But to see the serious things that people want to talk about in the Slack. It’s been on charitably read a feedback loop of the things that we want to talk about, but charitably read, validation for the things that we want to talk about and the things that we’d like to talk about. So a huge thank you to everybody, as we head into this offseason, who signed up for the Patreon. If you want to join and you want to be in the Slack, you only have to join at the lowest level that’s $5 a month. That is the Thanking Pitches level at patreon.com/tippingpitches. We’re coming up on the end of the year, which means we’re coming up on one of the most fun perks in our Patreon, Alex, and that is handwritten holiday cards mailed out to you folks at the A. Rod. VIP Club tier. So if you want to get in under the wire, you’re running out of time, get your handwritten holiday card. As Alex mentioned earlier in the pod, we do have new merch out, new-ish now, a few weeks old, but it’s wonderful. And I love it. It’s nationalised baseball shirts with Mariners inspired colors and Orioles inspired colors. As well as crew necks which are a perfect holiday gift. Crew necks with the Tipping Pitches Ricky logo on them. Alex, is there anything else? Any other former baseball players, retired baseball players who maybe won a school board seat? Maybe are having a successful political career?
ALEX: Well, they’re all too busy campaigning for their hall of fame votes right now. So once that, once that dies down, which I just want to point out, we’re going to be covering heavily here. We’re really invested in the outcome of that. So rest assured in the coming weeks, we’re going to be having a ton of guests on to talk about whether or not, I just can’t even come up J.J. Hardy, there we go. Does he deserve to be in? I think so.
BOBBY: They always have said that the road to Cooperstown starts at Tipping Pitches, so–
ALEX: Yes, that’s right.
BOBBY: Thanks everyone for listening, we’ll be back next week.
[1:09:50]
[Music]
[1:09:59]
[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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