Alex and Bobby grin and bear the news that Jacob deGrom is leaving the Mets to join the Texas Rangers, before recapping a quick hits list of news items from the past two weeks, including: José Abreu signing with the Astros, Disney purchasing the remainder of BAMTECH for $900 million, the Brewers dumping all salary, and the Rays pivoting to real estate.
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Songs featured in this episode:
U2 — “Sunday Bloody Sunday” • tiny deaths — “Ever” • 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, Jacob deGrom signed with the Texas Rangers for 5 years, $185 million. That concludes our Jacob deGrom discussion for the day. My name is Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I guess my name is Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And this is Tipping Pitches!
[0:43][Music Theme]
BOBBY: Hi, Alex.
ALEX: Yeah, no, I know.
BOBBY: How’s it going?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: How are you, how are you doing? This is our first pod back in person, in like a month.
ALEX: In a month, yeah.
BOBBY: Last time, we ran our respective hometowns, doing it remotely, especially back in the same room as you. We got our brand new LED sign to make this a real studio. Studio vibe in here. I hope everybody can tell the energy.
ALEX: Right. I hope you can hear that the— the sign sitting like propped precariously on the couch.
BOBBY: Big startup energy in here.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly.
BOBBY: You know, like you’re drinking a cold brew. We’re all just hanging out, no shoes.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Our interns are in the other room playing like foosball.
BOBBY: No, foosball is too loud. That’s not a very good audio internship.
ALEX: Oh, true.
BOBBY: They’re playing Fortnite.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: Nerds.
ALEX: Yeah, in like beanbag chairs.
BOBBY: Drinking beer, drinking IPAs.
ALEX: No, hard kombucha.
BOBBY: I hope that you can hear, frankly, the denial in my voice. I hope that everybody can hear that, that feeling. When you told me, so you—let me just pull listeners behind the curtain a little bit.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah, set the scene.
BOBBY: We’re having a—a fun Friday night, you know, back in New York City, everybody’s back from the holidays, hanging out. We were celebrating my partner Phoebe’s birthday. Have a little lasagna night as I chronicled in the Tipping Pitches Slack my—my— The Lasagna Chronicles. That’s my new television show for Hulu, has some really dramatic music in the background. They’re gonna do a lot of zoom shots at the lasagna. We’re—we’ve played the lasagna, we’ve played the—the lasagna is on the plate. Everybody is getting—
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: —ready.
ALEX: Steaming, we’re about to dig in.
BOBBY: —for the lasagna. And you turn to me like somebody is dead.
ALEX: Like the blood drained from my face.
BOBBY: Tears welling up in your eyes.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Having to break this news to me. And you’re just like, it’s Jacob.
ALEX: Yeah. I think I just turn to you. And I was like, oh, Bobby. Oh, no.
BOBBY: And for a brief second, I thought you were just fucking with me.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: You know, like, I thought that you were going to be like, it’s Jacob, who signed with the Mets.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And then I realized, you know, when the other shoe did not drop, and you just didn’t say anything else. I was like, well, it can’t be good.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I looked down at my phone, which had been in—in silent and do not disturb mode, which is my new favorite thing to do. I just keep my phone at do not disturb while at the time. Just pretend like things don’t happen.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And sure enough, tweet notification. Jeffrey passing.espn.com. So It could be ground five years, $185 million.
ALEX: Is his full name Jeffrey.?
BOBBY: I don’t know. Probably. Is Jeff a name? I mean, it is a name. [3:37] My full name is not Bob.
ALEX: You’re right. My full name is not Alex. Jeffrey Scott passing. There you go.
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: I was.
BOBBY: You see. I knew. Me and Jeff, we go way back, way back. I mean I—I guess it like I’m supposed to process this out loud on the podcast now. Like, is that what I’m supposed to do now? I just—when moments like this happen, you know, there’s like the initial disappointment, for sure. But then, I feel like it’s much more of a death by 1000 cuts feeling, like the initial is more—more like a punch to the gut like, damn, that really feels weird to read. And it feels weird to scroll my Instagram and see all of the Photoshops of him wearing Rangers, jerseys, but it’s more—more so the fact that every day, or every day of the baseball season for the next five years, or however long he continues to play, he’s not going to be on the Mets, and that’s just going to be a strange feeling. So I—I never really know how to grapple with the idea that a player is no longer on your favorite team, and it’s not because that player retired or it’s not because that player was traded. You know, we go from when—when you think that a player is going to get traded because the team is entering a rebuilding window, which that you have a lot of experience with. You have more time to prepare because you expect that that’s going to happen. When a player just leaves in free agency, what— they here one day, gone the next. I—I don’t really know how to process that feeling. Honestly, I saw—I mean, we were all making jokes, and we were all talking about how disappointed we are, but I don’t. There’s like a collective uncertainty to the whole situation that, that is just—frankly, a little bit foreign because most of the Mets players who I’ve loved the most, I expected them to leave. Like we haven’t had very many players who are like one-team whole career franchise icons that got away like David Wright still retired with the Mets or other players who I would consider to be iconic Mets. You could see the writing on the wall for a long time. And I guess maybe in retrospect, I should have seen that with deGrom, but he was always so quiet and secretive about how he felt being in New York, that maybe naively, I’d kind of just expected them to keep him.
ALEX: I mean, I think that really gets at it right? Is that everyone sort of knew that this was a possibility? But I don’t think that there was an overwhelming consensus that he actually was going to leave. Like, I think a lot of people kind of assumed that the Mets would do whatever they could to hold on to him. Right? It’s Steve Cohen. It’s the richest owner in baseball. Obviously, he’s opted out of the final year of his contract to try and negotiate a better, you know, final what—what might be his final contract in baseball.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: But like his final, like big payday. Yeah. I mean, he’s gonna be—how old is he?
BOBBY: He’s turning 37 next year.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: So he’ll be 42. Yeah, I guess this is so l [6:53] I mean, he might keep going, you know, little satchel page energy. He could do it.
BOBBY: Ohh, I mean, I don’t know if he can.
ALEX: Well, that’s, yeah. I mean, so that was the other I think sort of surprising thing, was like sort of the scale of the contract.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: He’s obviously dealt with injuries. This takes him into as you just mentioned, his—his age 42 season. And it’s impossible to predict how he’s going to be pitching, if at all—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —by the time that, that comes around, and so I get why the Rangers did it because he wants to security, and they are trying to make a push in—in the division that has the Astros and like no one else.
BOBBY: Yeah, right—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —it is, maybe not winnable but like playoff spot grabbable.
ALEX: [7:43]—
BOBBY: For sure.
ALEX: —As we’ve seen that window has gotten a lot wider to, to make it into the playoffs.
BOBBY: But the Rangers are a different element of this conversation that I’d love to dive into a little—
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: —bit deeper. Because they’re very Phillies-esque. Yes.
ALEX: Yeah, they’re kind of pouring money.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: So like if I want to take his money.
BOBBY: Right. Yes. Exactly.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And we saw them—
ALEX: Kind of get started with this last offseason right with the secret and Simeon signings, which obviously single-handedly did not push them into postseason contention.
BOBBY: Uh, can I just do a little pet peeve rea—real quick?
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: When all of the reporters are like the Rangers, who committed $500 million last offseason I’m like, reforms is love to share the total value of two contracts with the total value spent in the offseason, that’s like spread out over an unnamed amount of years.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like who committed $500 million over the next 10 years, 20 years, 50 years.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Well, it doesn’t because—
ALEX: [8:36]
BOBBY: [8:36] a check, that’s the money. Yeah, no, you know that, now they have to give them all the money, have to back up the Brinks truck to their house. Right.
ALEX: It’s so silly. It’s just such a weird framing.
BOBBY: Yeah, no. Can we talk about like, Manfred that way, like Manfred who a—who’s owed a $100 million dollars? Like, which you probably is over some period of time.
ALEX: Can we talk about the local—the RSN deals like that? [9:02]
BOBBY: $40 billion.
ALEX: Last offseason. No, I know that—again, whatever you can do to—to spin it and create that, that narrative, especially when it revolves around the economics of baseball, like writers are going to do that.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But I—you know, I have to—I have to hand it to the Rangers. And they’re—
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: —and they’re an oil-backed ownership group.
BOBBY: It’s not just oil. Alex, it’s propane.
ALEX: That’s right. Yes.
BOBBY: It’s cleaner.
ALEX: Yeah. It fuels barbecues across the United States, like what I—
BOBBY: [9:37] things can you name?
ALEX: You don’t want people to have smoked ribs. You don’t want people to have barbecued chicken. And no people have burgers, what are you, an American?
BOBBY: Yeah. Umm, back to Jake. A couple interesting things, but I want— before we get into the—to what has since come out after the signing. I want to say he is the best thing about being a Mets fan. For the last in totality, for the last eight years, since he debuted in 2014. Rookie of the Year, I—I don’t need to read all of his accolades, but from the very beginning, seeing him, it felt like found money, like it felt like he was not the most hyped of that pitching, of those pitching prospects. He was not the most highly touted, he was not even a pitcher for most of his college career. And so when he came up, and he was immediately good, Harvey was still there, Harvey was so great. And so people were more focusing on him. And all the while he was just grinding away, getting better, and better, and better, and better until he hit the apex, an Apex that I have never seen any player get in baseball. You know, like at their craft, I’ve never been as lucid for a player who was as good at his position as deGrom was, when he won the back-to-backs items. And for parts of the next couple seasons, outside of the, the injuries that sort of kept him off the field for the last two years, which I think is a—a larger factor in him leaving, than maybe we’re giving it credit for. A lot of people are talking about, oh, deGrom is not really a fit for New York City. He’s from Florida, Texas is a little bit closer to lifestyle-wise, how he would like to spend the latter part of his 30s and the— I guess, the rest of his life. And so that was a big appeal for him. There’s no state income tax in Texas. So the money goes a little bit further than in New York City where he has to pay higher income tax. And a lot of people are making a lot out of that. I’ll say, it becomes a lot easier to imagine life on another team, when you’ve— you haven’t been on the field much for your current team. And that’s not the Mets’ fault, necessarily. It’s not Jacobs’s fault, necessarily, either. But if things had been going swimmingly, and he was continuing to win Cy Young’s, and continuing to be the best, most consistent, and healthy pitcher in baseball and the Mets are going deep into October, maybe his priorities changed. Maybe he has better feelings about being with the Mets. And I think if we can sort of peel back the layers of that onion a little bit, and talk about why I was frustrated with the organization when I found out that he left. Not necessarily frustrated, with deGrom. Though I think his communication skills are maybe a little bit lacking. If I’m being frank, like if I’m being fair, here to Mets fans who have given him nothing but love and support. I think that the years that he spent wasting away with teams that were underperforming, because the club was a failure, under the Wilpons, laid a weaker foundation, then there should have been for a player of his caliber who was as loved and as successful with a marquee baseball team as he was. You know, like To—Tom Seaver didn’t leave the Mets, they traded him. I don’t think he would have left. He was the best pitcher alive by an order of magnitude, and having great success. And he won a World Series with the New York Mets. And that’s the stuff that they could not provide deGrom. There was years and years of running jokes about how they couldn’t get him run support. They couldn’t build a team around him. And he was just pitching through it anyway. And I think it’s—it’s not just that they wouldn’t outbid the Rangers, it’s that, they didn’t outbid the Rangers because they had a certain idea of how long they wanted to give a contract for. That’s fine from a pro—process perspective. The thing that is a failure here, is that they didn’t build the other elements of making a player happy, making a player comfortable for his entire career, that would have made it the default choice for him to want to stay. And I don’t think that was—I don’t think that was the case. I don’t think he was—wanted to stay above all else, as long as the money was right. I think he was more on defense about it, as his kind of early decision to sign with a different team would indicate.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, I think there’s like a certain sort of level of stability that kind of comes with a decision like this right in that you are moving to a team that’s a little more out of the spotlight. That maybe is in a locale, that’s a little bit more your speed. You’re—you’re nearing the end of your career, or you’re on the, the waning end of your career. And hey, I get it, man. So the big lights of New York City aren’t for everyone.
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: Not—not everyone can cut it out here.
BOBBY: Wow. He’s going mad dog, Russo.
ALEX: No, absolutely. Can I just say because, because you mentioned not, not wanting to—to read all of his accolades earlier, because it’s not necessarily Jacob who can speak for himself?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I really enjoy when—when teams sign a player, and then feel the need to, like justify that signing.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: With like, a paragraph, long press release, the—the Rangers released a press release that was 810 words.
BOBBY: Damn.
ALEX: Talking about why Jacob deGrom is on the Rangers. Now he’s saying like, you know, 101 of his first 204 career starts, he allowed one or zero runs in it, which is the most threw a player’s first 209 starts. And I’m like, you can say he’s Jacob deGrom. And like, leave it at that.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like the title can be Rangers Inc, Jacob deGrom to a five-year deal. And the body of it can be, that’s right, we did. Like I want—
BOBBY: Are you—are you offering your services right now? You know, [15:54] Baseball teams like let me write the paper.
ALEX: I will be their copy editor. Yes.
BOBBY: What’s your rate?
ALEX: You gotta kill your darlings.
BOBBY: Kill your—kill your darlings. The Mets killed their darlings, but not bringing Jacob deGrom back.
ALEX: Although I will say this press release was useful in one aspect in that it uh, corrected the record for us, that he’s only 34, he’s not 36 right now. So—so you know, who what is his—
BOBBY: No, no, no. 36 in physiological stress, you know, all this talk about how like billionaires like my biological age is 10 years younger—
ALEX: Great yeah.
BOBBY: —than actual age.
ALEX: Right. [16:32]
BOBBY: He’s two years older than his actual age.
ALEX: Yeah. Maybe more. Right. Jacob deGrom was 73.
BOBBY: Yeah, I don’t know, man, I—I there’s a lot of like thoughts swirling around in my head about, about why he would want to leave, what the Mets did to fail him. Why—why even though like bringing Steve Cohen in, is an improvement upon the Wilpons for like a more or less 13 billion different reasons. But that, it creates a sort of like a different culture that maybe deGrom is—is like a relic of the previous regime in a way like he’s carrying over a lot of the baggage from the previous team, all of the rest of the stuff is like new and different. And Bach is a new manager and Scherzer is here now, and they’re trying to change things, and they’re trying to do things like the Dodgers. And all the while, deGrom was like, Well, I’ve been here since 2014. And I have like resentment in my heart for the New York Mets and how things were handled in certain situations. And honestly, I was underpaid by my last contract. And I wanted to stay in New York because of the stability that would provide me for my development. And I became the best pitcher in the world, on this contract that was not paying me what my value was for. And so maybe it’s just cleaner to turn over a new leaf and—and get my fair value from a new team that, again, maybe aligns more with how I imagined the exterior part of my life being lived. And all that is fine. And that’s his right to make that decision. Again, I just—I think it’s disappointing because—
ALEX: Totally.
BOBBY: —At the same time like it—he’s the kind of player who Mets fans deserved to have on their team for his whole career.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And that’s not his responsibility, that’s not—should not be his priority, to make his decision based on that. But all of the people along the way, who fucked something up to make it go wrong and make him leave, should carry a little bit of that responsibility. And that is— that is what hurts the most like that—that is what hurts. Is that many, many different times, they could have made things better for him. And, you know, the TLDR of this whole conversation that we’re having right now is the Mets failed him. The Mets failed him.
ALEX: 100%.
BOBBY: He never won a World Series. They never provided him stability in the rotation, stability with coaching, stability with ownership. And I don’t know, it’s just the whole of it feels incredibly sad, because this is a person who by himself is an event that you make a whole day, a whole season out of trying to go see him as many times as possible. Because—or if you’re not going to go to the game, I would make a hole dad every time he’s on TV. Sorry, I’m not doing anything that night. Like so—like, sorry, we gotta watch this at least until he comes out of the game. Because you don’t know how long it’s gonna last, healthwise. And you don’t know how long he’s gonna be here. And unfortunately, that feeling, that creeping feeling was validated.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, I—you—you look at the decision and—and the context of his years on the Mets. And it makes absolute sense that he would want to go for something new, right? You—he wants to win a World Series as I think most baseball players probably do. [20:00] but he signs with The Texas Rangers so—
BOBBY: Well, yeah.
ALEX: [20:02] to win at that bad. But like, he may look at them and say, well, they’re willing to at least commit money to try and win, right? And—and say, hey, look I— this baseball team—
BOBBY: He would be wrong, but Well—
ALEX: It wouldn’t be right with the Mets, right? Like I—I guess but the Mets are clearly in a better position to win a World Series than the Rangers.
BOBBY: You think over the next five years they are? I—yes.
ALEX: Like with—with without deGrom, and then without Scherzer? Unless you think they’re going to keep Scherzer around for through the end of his career?
BOBBY: Well, I have no idea about that. But—
ALEX: Well, right.
BOBBY: I think that—
ALEX: I feel like it’s—the Rangers are certainly not in the position to become a powerhouse right now. But they are in a position to be like you said, a Phillies-Esque contender team who’s able to sneak—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —into the playoffs, and whose strengths really play up. Like having Jacob deGrom in the three-game series. Pretty fucking meaningful.
BOBBY: Wasn’t that meaningful for the Mets last year? Except it was because he was good. And won his game.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: In that three-game series—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —it was the other two guys, that messed it up? Um, yeah, I don’t know. I mean, ho—how can you possibly predict that? I just think that like, if your number one priority is winning a World Series, and maximizing your opportunity to win the World Series, personally, I think it would make more sense to stay with the team that just won 101 games last year, versus going to a team that won 68 games, like you don’t know how healthy you’re going to be in three years or four years when the Rangers are sort of getting to that point of really competing and really contending. And so I would think that, if all you wanted to do was win a World Series, then you would just stay with the team that was a real contender for the World Series last year and especially would remain more of a contender for the World Series if you stayed with them.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Now it looks maybe slightly different. Because there are a lot of question marks about what the Mets should do or will do, or can do, or want to do. Like they’re in on Justin Verlander. They’re talking to him in that sort of, like, let’s give him a lot of money for a short amount of time like we did with Max Scherzer. Because we can afford it. But it may be it doesn’t. It doesn’t determine our strategy for the next seven years. It only determines our strategy for the next two years, whatever their—I guess, having conversations with Carlos Rodon, too who will cost them a lot and like draft capital, but won’t cost them as much, in terms of salary year over year as—
ALEX: [22:33] capital. Look at this guy over here.
BOBBY: That won’t cost them quite as much in salary over the next couple of years as someone like Justin Verlander. But I don’t know. All of that stuff is kind of irrelevant to me. Like you had Jacob deGrom in the building.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: For the last eight years, and he’s the best pitcher alive.
ALEX: Yeah. You should have backed a dump truck full of money up to his house.
BOBBY: Yeah, I mean, if it’s up to me, just give him five years 300 million, like I—I don’t really care—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —personally, right. But of course, that was—that’s not—that’s not reality. Like that’s delusional to think that the Mets would just outbid anybody for the sake of outbidding people.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like no one is going to—teams are not going to do that. We—we know that to be true about how teams operate now. Not—not even the Yankees are going to— they’re not going to— the Yankees will not blow every other offer out of the water for Aaron Judge, they might say we’ll provide the best offer so that we can make sure that we keep him, but they’re not going to make it so overwhelming that if Aaron Judge wanted to leave because he wanted to live a different lifestyle. Like it seems like maybe Jacob deGrom wanted to, then I—I don’t think that they’re gonna provide the— a contract that is like a godfather offer, so to speak.
ALEX: No, you don’t become worth $14 billion and get slapped over insider trading fine by—by spending money on whatever you want.
BOBBY: Well, I mean, Steve Cohen kind of did you know, all the art, the shark? The 8-million-dollar shark or whatever.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Although like, you know, that’s—that’s an investment too. He’s just doing that for tax purposes.
ALEX: Right. Exactly. Yeah. And he’s in just like the—the painting of the shark.
BOBBY: It’— it’s a sculpture, bro.
ALEX: Oh, it’s a sculpture.
BOBBY: 3D. You don’t know the shark?
ALEX: Bro.
BOBBY: Come on.
ALEX: Bro.
BOBBY: The shark. Alright. Are we—are we good to move on? Can we move on?
ALEX: Please.
BOBBY: And I bury this demon of mine. I just— I mean, I’m gonna miss them. I’m gonna miss them a lot. She uh— for me personally, like I love, I love just love pitching so much. You know, and like, hitters go through slumps, and to an extent, pitchers go through rougher periods too. But deGrom never did. When he was out there. It was pretty much guaranteed that he was going to be in the 99th percentile of pitchers and there’s just aren’t a lot of players that you can say that about.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And it was just a—it was great. He’s gonna cherish those memories forever.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: Alright, let’s move on. From one franchise icon to another. Going to play in Texas instead of staying with their team. Jose Abreu signing with the defending World Champion, Houston Astros. Three years, 58 point 5 million. Um, Jerry Reinsdorf. He stinks.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He’s just as the worst. He’s—maybe if we did most terrible owners draft, like we did last year, at least terrible owners. It says for this feeling barbecue if we brought them back, and we did most terrible owners draft, I don’t think it would be as fun, but it would be easier.
ALEX: Abso—oh, that’s so easy.
BOBBY: Just be Jerry. [25:47]
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know? I guess the ma— the like, the contract itself is not a contract that I look at and say, hey, the White Sox could have easily or should have easily beat this. I think a lot of people—there were definitely a lot of teams interested in Joseoa Abreu, who provides a very predictable and needed skill set. He hits for power in average and doesn’t do a lot else. You know, like he’s good at driving and runs. He’s— he’s one of the better hitters from a macro perspective in Major League Baseball for the last half-decade. But he doesn’t provide a ton of defense, doesn’t provide a ton of bass running, etcetera, etcetera. So the—the Vance metrics crowd doesn’t love him. But I think to a team that already wins on the edges like the Astros do, he can provide a level of like stability and just pure baseball player that is really valuable to them. And so I don’t look at the contract and say, wow, that’s Reinsdorf being overly cheap by not wanting to beat that. But similar to the Jake situation. I look at his time with the White Sox, and their many myriad failures and say, well, you really lost this battle before this offseason with Abreu. You made it shitty for him to be part of the White Sox organization, because of your many failures as an owner. And so even if you offered him the same contract, chances are he was probably going to leave anyway because this team has floundered under Jerry Reinsdorf’s ownership, basically stretching all the way back since they made a miraculous run to win the World Series in the mid-2000s.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, Abreu has been a cornerstone of this team, as they’ve tried to make a push over the last eight years or so. I mean, he has been, and—and I feel like him playing on the White Sox has meant that he hasn’t always gotten the shine that he deserves as being one of the best first basemen in baseball, over that period of time, right? He’s been an above-average hitter. Every year, he’s been in the major leagues, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Career 134 OPS.
BOBBY: Damn, that’s pretty bad. 134 OPS. I mean OPS Plus, career-worst hitter of all time.
ALEX: Crew 134 OPS Plus.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: MVP caliber season’s MVP literals season’s
BOBBY: Mickey Mouse MVP, though.
ALEX: Stop, stop. And, and just like a, like a great veteran presence as well on a team that has featured a lot of a younger developing players.
BOBBY: Yeah. He’s like—he’s like um, in the house, some people are like a comics comic. They’re not as popular as like stadium comics, but like other comics love them. He’s a baseball players, baseball player.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He’s just a fat lip hits, just does nothing but hits. You know, he rakes. And he’s not here for the bullshit. You know he looks like a baseball player. He acts like a baseball player. He talks like a baseball player. And I think we loved him for that reason.
ALEX: Yeah, absolutely. So like my heart goes out to White Sox fans—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —right now, because this one hurts, and obviously, it was I think kind of accepted to a certain degree that Abreu was probably going to go somewhere else. The White Sox have been relatively open about their desire to bring in Andrew Vaughn and make him their primary first baseman because why have Jose Abreu when you can have Andrew Vaughn? There’s something about it not being like a $100 million deal $150 million deal, where you look at your team and you’re like, but like we could have done that.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Right? Like the fact that it is a little bit smaller in scale, makes you just wonder, just a little bit.
BOBBY: Yeah, it wasn’t not worth it. to you.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Just for like the intangible aspects of it.
ALEX: Yeah.BOBBY: To keep him around because he is. He really is like a kind of a franchise icon of this last decade, you know, and part of it to me is that like, there seems to just be sour feelings across the board in that organization for everybody, you know, like, it doesn’t seem like anyone’s having a good time. I think Jose Abreu included and so I think for, for him to sign a similar deal or even a deal at slightly better with the White Sox. It’s like, for, you know, for what, like, what have you guys given me—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: — to incentivize me to stay around, when I can sign with the Astros. And I can actually compete and try to win a World Series. When, for the last few years, I’ve been busting my ass to try to turn this team into a contender. And I’ve been playing well this whole time, through all of the turbulence. I’ve been the study force in this locker room, I’ve been the studying player face of this franchise, along with Tim Anderson, for the fan base. And all of that has been rewarded with a lack of investment from ownership and the hiring of one of the worst managers we’ve ever seen. Not—not extending back to Tony Louis’s reputation, but what he did with the White Sox—
ALEX: Just in terms of single hiring, yeah.
BOBBY: —some of the worst managing we’ve seen since the—the turn of the century. And it’s like, for Jose Abreu. It’s like, why would I waste the last few years of my career doubling down and justifying your behavior? And I—again, like very similar in my mind to how I—how I feel about my anger towards the Mets for even creating an environment in which deGrom would want to leave. Despite all of this success that he had with the Mets, despite all of the personal player development and accolades that he won. And despite how much the fans embraced and loved him, that’s very similar to how I feel with Abreu.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s like, you guys basically made a mistake at every single turn in the entire organization, and you didn’t create a place that he would even want to stay. So it felt like a foregone conclusion that he was not going to be with the White Sox anymore.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, I love—I love kind of thinking about the scope of a player’s career. If they had spent their entire professional baseball career in the major leagues, right? He came over and he was 27. And if he has another six or seven years in the major leagues, he’s hitting 500 home runs and is you know, a Frank Thomas-type character, I think to that organization, right? That—that level of importance. And fuck, man, there’s just no loyalty anymore.
BOBBY: No, bro. If he came over five years earlier, he would just be gone five years ago. Cool player. Great player.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: Great figure in the game of baseball. A perfect example of a guy who’s just fun to go to his baseball reference page. More fun to go to his b-ref page, than his fan graphs page.
ALEX: Absolutely.
BOBBY: It’s like, this guy hits. The counting stats are shocking. eye-popping.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: 1984 would have been obsessed with this guy.
ALEX: Yes, literally.
BOBBY: Um, but I will say they made up for it with the Clevinger signing.
ALEX: One year 12 million. Come on, doesn’t get any better.
BOBBY: Oh man.
ALEX: Doesn’t get any better.
BOBBY: Talk about substituting a guy who seems like the—the best thing for a guy who seems like the worst.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah. It was like, like projected vibes versus like actual vibes. Like Clevinger here like, oh, he’s all sunshine and rainbows. Look at the cleats. Yeah. And then he
BOBBY: [33:30]
ALEX: Damn. This guy stinks. Yeah, not—not fun.
BOBBY: Remember, he—when he was not good enough to get into the Padres rotation for the playoffs last year. Despite the fact that he was one of their like, at 1.1 of their marquee pitching trades.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He stinks. You know, who would have been better for the Padres? If they could actually develop pitchers? Cal Quantrill the guy that traded him for. Oh, I can’t wait for the next baseball season.
ALEX: Oh my god, this is gonna be crazy.
BOBBY: Alright. There were other signings and stuff, but I don’t—I don’t think anything that raises the level of a deep dive, the tipping pitches podcast. So we’re gonna take a quick break. And then when we come back, do some quick end new stories.
[theme]
BOBBY: We might think, offseasons here, no games being played. No TV contracts being fulfilled. No gate receipts. Must be a slow time for MLB revenue, must be tough to keep the lights on for all the executives who are there grinding, burning the midnight oil.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Trying to pull off these trades and signings? Well, if you think that you would be wrong. The Disney Corporation, the Walt Disney Corporation, not sure if you’ve heard of them, um going through a lot of turmoil these days, stock price in the tank, lost $4 billion or something, or one and a half billion dollars on streaming and one quarter.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Not good.
ALEX: This is— I just want to say this is what happens when companies go woke. I’m sorry, direct correlation.
BOBBY: Fucking go woke, go broke.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Well, fortunately for Major League Baseball and their affiliated owners, they were not too broke to pay $900 million for the remaining portion of BAM tech, which is the MLB advanced media technology company that created MLB TV, and the streaming platform that Disney then purchased to build Disney plus on. Disney acquired the majority of that company a few years ago, probably five or six years ago for around $4 billion. And now they wanted to require the rest of it. They paid $900 million, just sort of a billion dollars for the final—I don’t—how what final what percent?
ALEX: 15% stake.
BOBBY: The final 15%.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: 15%. 900 mill gate of BAM tech. And so Disney owns at all 100% of BAM tech and MLB has fully cashed in that platform that they built up and sort of trailblaze in the online streaming, media streaming, video streaming world, much to the delight of their owners who have now made, you know, close to $5 billion collectively off of that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Development, um.
ALEX: Nothing like cash and a $30 million check for work that was done two decades, you know, like,
BOBBY: [36:41] not by you, like some coding nerds. So that—that’s roughly about $30 million per team, that they are just uh— that they’re just cashing in, right now in the offseason, I think it’s a good reminder of how you know this in con—in conjunction with Rob’s press conferences around the World Series, where he basically said that we’re back to pre—pre-pandemic levels of revenue, they made around $11 billion this past year, collectively leaguewide. It’s just a good reminder that like as we are now one full year away from a new CBA, and everything is getting back to normal in terms of money that they’re bringing in, that like the splashes the quote-unquote “free agent” splashes are—are really just like them needing to put the money somewhere, or else they’ll be making too much money and have to pay like too much taxes on it.
ALEX: Yes. Yeah.
BOBBY: And I just thought it was funny perspective given that like some dominoes and free agency are starting to fall.
ALEX: I mean, it’s just one more piece of evidence to never believe what they say when they are talking about the economics of the sport, right? Like I don’t have a refined take here. I just get on, get on Disney, you know?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Yeah, just crossing their T’s and dotting their eyes. They needed—they needed a win. I mean, I’ll just say that.
BOBBY: Do you think um, do you think this was Bob Iger’s first move when he got back in the door? Do you think this was a cheap act?
ALEX: Interesting. Like is there gonna be a sour taste left in, in Iger’s mouth though?
BOBBY: Is Iger going to turn around and be like, no, I’m gonna be buy this back? Cult of personality that he is.
ALEX: I mean, MLB could afford it. Right? Easy, easy money. $5 billion to buy this thing back.
BOBBY: That’s half of what they made this past year.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: I like our continued um— our continued bet on this podcast where we treat revenue, like just money that they have in—in hand.
ALEX: Right. Like, like they literally like Disney ven mode MLB, like $900 million.
BOBBY: Notification on Rob’s phone pops up, he’s like, oh, shit, now it’s time to pay off the credit card.
ALEX: Right. I—I don’t ca— I refuse to understand further how it works.
BOBBY: I have a question.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Here’s just a— just a— just a general, you know, accounting question. When one company gives another company $900 million, how do they do that? Like, how does the money go from one place to another? Is this like a wire transfer? Like, is there a human being, who is writing down or typing in the routing number for Disney Corporation to Major League Baseball Corporation?
ALEX: Right. I mean, these are great questions.
BOBBY: And if so, this is the new segment that we have where I ask a bunch of questions that you don’t have the answer to.
ALEX: Uh-huh. This podcast.
BOBBY: Yeah. Right. But like it’s called still tipping.
ALEX: So like, if—so if there is someone makes a mistake, basically just like Bobby get $900 million by accident—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Like could that happen?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And if so, how many people need to say yes, that’s the right number. Because people make mistakes all the time, human error. What if and the NFL gets this $900 million instead, then—it’s Roger Goodell have to like, give the $900 million back or is that just found money?
BOBBY:
I’m trying to—I’m trying to think of the scenario in which you accidentally wire it to the NFL instead of major league—be,
BOBBY: Like [40:26] on the phone directory.
ALEX: But the routing numbers are the exact same, except for the last digit, you know.
BOBBY: Oh they like it, oh, they bracket together all of the sports leagues.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You know, just for ease.
ALEX: You just checked the wrong box?
BOBBY: Right. It’s that so like Roman, you know, only has to change one number in their routing number when they’re trying to take out like 1000s of ads with these different sports leagues.
ALEX: Right, right. I mean, ’cause I really— I really do think it’s just like a one-person typing a routing number to the other person. I mean, that person is probably highly paid. And it’s probably like a third-party company that just does this.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You know, and they probably make like three times what I make—
BOBBY: But it also—
ALEX: Just to type routing numbers in. It also suggests that like, do they both just have like, debit accounts? You know, like, does MLB [41:06]
BOBBY: [41:10]
ALEX: I do against my better judgment.
BOBBY: Come on, bro, you think this is scam?
ALEX: I know. I know.
BOBBY: You gotta get scammed by a more legitimate corporation like Bank of America, or Merrill Lynch.
ALEX: Hey, they suggested I buy a house and they were really convinced. So.
BOBBY: I don’t—I don’t think not do loans anymore. So I’m like mortgages, were they just like we’re getting out of that game?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Guys are a bank.
ALEX: Like sorry, we—I’d—were not really interested in releasing a podcast every week.
BOBBY: Yeah, right. We’re getting out of that game. One of my favorite things about Wells Fargo is that they still sponsor the where the Sixers and—and flyers play in Philadelphia. And it’s like, it’s a nice reminder that like not every company or bank or whatever that sponsors something is really going to be like crushing it in like eight years. Do you know like, we think loan depot is going to be doing well in 10 years, like probably not? It’s not like really done that loan depot sponsor. And that’s—that’s without even making a crypto.com Arena joke.
ALEX: God dammit, I was about to go there. Man,
BOBBY: Sobbing your eyes. So back to my accounting question. They just have—they just have a bank account. That’s like, in this bank account, there are $5 billion dollars and this is my acquisitions bank account.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Or is this like one of those things where like, they write up a little memorandum that’s like, you’re gonna get $900 million worth of Disney stock that’s gonna be dispersed over six years and whatever? Or is it like cash, cash?
ALEX: I feel like, for something like this, it’s got to be cash right? Again, these are unanswerable questions.
BOBBY: Why would Jerry Reinsdorf sign off on this if it wasn’t just cash going into his pocket?
ALEX: Literally.
BOBBY: Yeah. For the learners [42:46] they need that 30 million before they sell out?
ALEX: Yeah. you got—you got to be liquid? I don’t know. These are good questions. If—if anyone listening to this knows the answers, or if anyone listening to this is the person who makes these transactions. [43:04]
BOBBY: We’re really— I think we’re really popular with the accounting department of the Disney Corporation.
ALEX: Well yeah, actually.
BOBBY: And we’re like over, we oversample, we’re over-represented in that I mean, population. I mean, the amount of time we spend talking about MLB TV.
ALEX: Yeah, dude, that’s free advertising.
BOBBY: Basically giving them ideas.
ALEX: It’s not always good, what we’re talking about, but we’re talking about it.
BOBBY: You know, that might actually be true because it seems like every time we’re at a baseball game, you and I, and we’re like sitting up in the four hundred wherever we’re chilling, having a good time, we spent like 20,30, sometimes 35 bucks on tickets depending on how good the other team is. Stupid world that we live in. And we tweet that we’re there. And you know, there may be a listener slides in the DMS or whatever. It always seems like they’re sitting behind home plate. What’s going on with that?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We got a bunch of rich listeners. What’s going on? It’s gonna put everybody on blast now, what’s going on?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Come sit with the proletariat.
ALEX: Exactly. Yeah. Sorry. You can see it all from up here,
BOBBY: Or, or I’m willing to be offered a ticket to sit behind home plate with you.
ALEX: Right, okay.
BOBBY: Okay, sit with the proletariat or—
ALEX: Invite me.
BOBBY: Bribe us.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Yes, exactly.
ALEX: Is our heel turn?
BOBBY: So that $30 million, that’s going to each team. Comes at an interesting time for Mark Atanasio, when the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers who has decided that he doesn’t want to pay anyone any money to play baseball for his team. Anybody who makes over a couple mil, so it’s gonna be a no for me, Doug. The brewers are salaried dumping, their—the NL Central’s latest to blatantly try to trade all of their players who are making more than a couple of million dollars. You know this is a little bit of a trend. Pirates have been doing it for decades, the Reds decided they’re going to do it all in one offseason last year. And now it seems like it’s the brew risk. It’s taken shape in the form of trading Hunter Renfrow to the Los Angeles Angels. He was—he’s due to make, what about like 10, 11 million bucks in arbitration. Now he’s like late ARB. And he’s had a few good years in a row now. You might think that, that’s a good player to keep around because he’s good and still on arbitration. But you know, you might think that Mark might not. And they also traded Kolten Wong, to the mariners who, similarly I think, is an arbitration player who’s going to make a few million dollars more than the Brewers would have wanted to pay. And so I don’t know, man, I—It’s funny timing. Given that this is happening right on the heels of like I said, Manfred saying how much money the league made, and the $900 million coming in and being dispersed to each of the individual clubs. And it’s also funny timing, given that David Stern’s, the president of baseball operations for the Brewers decided to step down last year into an advisory role. Sparking a lot of rumors. He’s one of the—the youngest and most sought after executives in Major League Baseball right now. Sparking a lot of rumors about whether that meant, he was gonna go to a bigger team. He’s been—I don’t know if he’s been linked to the Mets as much as the Mets have wanted to link him to them.
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: But that’s worked out. And then—so that sparked a lot of rumors when he stepped down. And now it seems like this is sort of the other shoe to that story. And that ownership might have provided him a little bit of a—a future blueprint and said, do you want to be a part of this? And he said, maybe not. Maybe I’d like to spend a little bit of time with my family, and then maybe relocate to a different organization while you guys are tearing it down.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So same shit different day.
ALEX: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, it’s a little hard to know what to make of this, right? Because the Brewers still have a handful of good young players and guys like Corbin Burns and Brandon Woodruff. And I mean, Christian Yelich. Just certainly they’re, he’s still on the team.
BOBBY: He’s gone the way of Cody Ballenger.
ALEX: Yeah, I fear. So it’s—it’s not like they are completely receding from competitiveness. But that may change three months from now. Right. And that may change at the trade deadline if they are out of contention. You know, apparently, they’re already, according to the athletic, they’re already Fielding— they’re already doing some preliminary chopping those players around.
BOBBY: All of them?
ALEX: I don’t know about all, every single one of them. But I think they’re— I think they’re listening. You know, they’re in listening mode. Right? Where it’s like, what do you— what can you do for me?
BOBBY: You know, as much as I’m going to miss Jacob deGrom, something that would make me feel better is lying down my head down on a pillow every night knowing that Corbin Burns, is going to pitch for the New York Mets.
ALEX: Yeah, Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Yep.
ALEX: Make it happen, Steve.
BOBBY: I mean, Steve’s going gonna be the half-get— Steve’s gonna have to be the one calling because it seems like Billy Eppler doesn’t really do anything.
ALEX: He doesn’t.
BOBBY: I’m not really sure what he’s doing.
ALEX: Obviously, the—the competitive landscape of the sport looks a little different next year, because they’re reducing the intra-division play, that allowed some teams to beat up on the—on the cellar dwellers, so to speak, like the—like the reds, like the pirates. All of a sudden, the Brewers who, you know, are able to win 85,87 games, now have to do that facing off against a more balanced slate of opponents. And I don’t know, it’s just cut—again, the jury’s still out on really the direction that they’re going to go in. I don’t want to be premature in evaluating this. But I know you got the money.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I like— I’m—I have no doubts that you could afford to keep them around.
BOBBY: They’re kind of an interesting case like they are still. They’re holding firm to the idea that they don’t have the money, you know, more—more than even other small markets, quote-unquote, “small market clubs” are like, it feels like the— the general shift in tone about small market versus big market, which I think has trended to more fans saying, well, small market doesn’t really exist, you know, like, look at what the Padres are doing in a similarly sized market, to your market, and they’re over the luxury tax. It feels like the brewers are just powering through that logic and saying like, no, that doesn’t apply to us, like we actually don’t have any money. And I don’t know, maybe this is another question for our fellow accountants listening to the pod, like, maybe they don’t have as much money, or maybe they’re—maybe their RSN deal is not as good or maybe—but it feels unlikely and certainly—certainly I don’t think that they can go out there and say, hey, we’re gonna spend $300 million every year, but they could retain players who are in that like middle. Sort of like a mid-tier player, like Hunter Renfrow who is useful, who doesn’t have an obvious replacement [50:18] doesn’t have an obvious replacement, there’s sort of like, Wong specifically is kind of like a extremely useful Swiss Army knife of an infielder who any good team could use. And so if you’re not keeping that guy, I guess what you’re saying is like, you’re not really intending to be that good.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Because he’s someone who has a home with most good teams, even if he’s not like your marquee player, your marquee signing, your marquee trade acquisition like he was, I think that slightly less fanfare than when the mariners traded for Teoscar Hernandez, just because he’s just doesn’t, I guess turn as many heads but he’s just as good. You know, like he’s— I don’t know, it’s— it’s moderately disappointing, but, but not surprising. And, I mean, when I look at the NL Central, I—I don’t see a lot going on. It honestly reminds me of a few years back, when we would look at the Al Central. And there’s just like a team, that’s a topic regularly by default.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like the Cardinals are not that good.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: They’re certainly not good enough that you should be trying to push your own competitive window back.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like the Dodgers. We’re not even forcing the Padres to push their competitive window back there, the Padres decided to steer into the skid. And so it’s a little disappointing when you don’t see other teams do that, especially the Brewers who, in a lot of ways were a success story of building a team under certain financial constraints. But still making a legitimately good team that was sniffing 100 wins a few years back, like as recently as like 2017, and 2018. They were among the better teams in the NFL, even though that didn’t translate to a World Series win necessarily. So I don’t know. They—they more than any other team, I guess, not more than the race necessarily, but they seem like they’re trying to make $1 out of 15 cents all the time. And it’s like, you have the dollar so just spent, you know what I mean?
ALEX: Like it why, like, it’s not it’s not even fun.
BOBBY: You’re just handcuffing yourself for no reason. I don’t know, at least, at least with them. They’re not like, sort of as hoity-toity about it as like the race usually are, as the media surrounding the race, which leads you to believe and speaking of the race, Alex, our final topic this week, the race decided to get into real estate.
ALEX: About fucking time and that’s where the real money is.
BOBBY: Yeah, I hear Florida real estate is very valuable.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Can you share the details of this, because I did not read the story?
ALEX:
Yeah, so this past Friday, the Tampa Bay Rays submitted a proposal in partnership with the Global Development Group to redevelop the 86-acre site on which Tropicana Field sits. It and you know, the kind of surrounding area they want to um—they have big plans, big big plans, in addition to a new ballpark. So in addition, that’s kind of get that park out of the way.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Because that’s less interesting. The plan would include more than 5700 multifamily units. Housing traders, 1.4 million.
BOBBY: I love my new landlord. Eric [53:32]
ALEX: 1.4 million square feet of office, 300,000 square feet of retail, 700. Hotel rooms. 600 senior Living residences. Sure. And a 2500 capacity entertainment venue. That doesn’t seem right.
BOBBY: Is that like a XFINITY live?
ALEX: It—I think so. Let’s go.
BOBBY: Okay, wait really quickly before you move on.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I like how—I like how they give the total square footage for the office space and the— the retail space, but then the amount of units for the multifamily so as to not expose the fact that the total square footage of housing, it’s going to be less than the other two.
ALEX: Well, yeah.
BOBBY: They make you do that math in your own head.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, and—and yeah, cuz that number doesn’t look as good. Right. If you can tell you’re building 57. If you can say you’re building 5700 homes—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: That sounds amazing.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Are you serious?
BOBBY: It’s like fucking 20,000 people, roof over their head.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Thanks to Stu Sternberg.
ALEX: This doesn’t mean anything. There’s—there four groups submitted bids. In theory, the—the mayor of, in theory, the mayor of St. Petersburg, one Ken Welch we’ll pick a winner by January. But as we know, there are so many hoops to jump through when it comes to actually trying to build a stadium. Especially when you’re not just building a stadium.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You’re trying to like, start your own company town, you know?
BOBBY: Yeah. Having to turn everything into, like a sovereign city? Like, honestly, following like the Disneyland model—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —is what most of these baseball teams are doing.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: And, I mean, it’s pretty clear that all of the praise that certain teams have gotten for following this plan, quote-unquote, “successfully”, has just led it to be— become the envoke thing. Like every—every team, no team wants to build Camden Yard now. Every team wants to build the battery.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And that’s because it’s for, you know, wants to build Wrigleyville it’s just—it’s just more financially solvent for them, I suppose. Because they can convince cities to give them more money because that creates diversified revenue streams, which is their favorite thing. And because they don’t actually know how to monetize baseball anymore, as evidenced by the fact that they’ll take money from anyone to advertise on their baseball games. So yeah, I mean, it’s all—it’s all part of the same problem, I guess. I— guess I missed this memo. But just like the rays are definitely staying in Tampa, St. Pete, like, I know that Rob said that they were— that they were not going to move. But that, as he sort of gave his updates about the a’s and the rays, he was like, well, it seems like the A’s might have to move and the rays are not going to move, that was like the latest statement from him. But this seems like a level of commitment to that exact area of St. Petersburg, which, I mean, I’ve never been there. But like from everything I’ve read about it seems like not the best way place to be to get people to actually come to the game like there’s a huge traffic problem in driving to it, because it’s like, mostly accessible by freeway. And so, therefore, a lot of people from Tampa Bay don’t actually go there, because I think it’s located in St. Petersburg, which is sort of like a neighboring city situation. So Michael Bauman wrote a good story about this for the ringer a few years ago. But I guess they’re just doubling down.
ALEX: Yeah, I guess if we make our own population here. Right. And exactly, as long as you lock the gates, they have nowhere else to go. Like, are they going to wander around 300,000 square feet of empty space? No.
BOBBY: I mean, I—this is a commitment in so far as the rays have committed to sitting down, to make a plan for this. Right which again, means very little, right he is poured millions and millions of dollars into you know, creating a so-called plan for—They have a lot of really pretty pictures.
ALEX: And they have a ton of really pretty pictures. Exactly. The rays, similarly, have some very pretty pictures. I—
BOBBY: We should get into that business bro.
ALEX: I don’t really see—
BOBBY: You’re pretty good at Photoshop.
ALEX: You—shall we—you want me to start doing like architectural renderings.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Of?
BOBBY: Baseball stadiums.
ALEX: Like, like ones that exist right now or like—
BOBBY: We can undercut the architectural firms that are doing these like we could price them out of it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Because it’s definitely more than we’re making from this podcast.
ALEX: Yeah. And how hard is it, you just—
BOBBY: It can be part of Tipping Pitches, media, you know, like, you know, like, in parks and rec, they have entertainment. 720.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And they just like, do a bunch of weird shit that doesn’t actually make any money.
ALEX: I mean, if—
BOBBY: We could do that.
ALEX: If baseball teams think this is good business, why would we not want to get in on it, right?
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. Crypto next.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, I’ve studied Urban Studies in college, right? Like, whatever.
BOBBY: Right. That’s so—
ALEX: That’s easy.
BOBBY: Write that down.
ALEX: Easy money.
BOBBY: Write that down. We could turn the other half of this room into a casino. You step in there, and you can bet. You can bet while watching us record the pod.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You got to pay a premium for it of course. You will juice to the house.
ALEX: You know, these aren’t bad ideas. I’m going to—I am going to make note of them.
BOBBY: Okay, good. This is being recorded. So that’s a way of making a note.
ALEX: Um, yeah, like I said, I—I’m not holding my breath for anything. I mean, the rays have been through this exact process before in recent years, and it hasn’t come through. So I certainly don’t think this means they’re—they’re actually committing to staying. I think like most baseball owners will tell you they’re committed to staying if it’s on their terms.
BOBBY: Yep. They’re committed to laying out a vision for what would keep them there.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: Not really enacting a set vision or plan, or putting forth the commitments, financial commitments to making that thing happen.
ALEX: I mean, do you know all the shit that I would promise to do if I didn’t? have to actually follow through on them.
BOBBY: You can be president.
ALEX: That’d be easy. Zing.
BOBBY: Urban Studies, Urban Studies, major NYU, comma, President, Tipping Pitches Media Ceo. I saw some blowback after we call ourselves CEOs in the last pod.
ALEX: Oh, yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah, a couple of people in the slack, be like, not Bobby and Alex saying that they’re CEOs. I know what you thought this was, bro.
ALEX: I make money somehow, right? We live in a society. I want to tell you.
BOBBY: There’s no conscious Chief Executive Officer under capitalism. Um, speaking of being a CEO, have you made any progress on becoming Alex Rodriguez, his protege? Maybe a LinkedIn connection?
ALEX: You know, I haven’t there are no LinkedIn postings up. I do check every few weeks just to make sure.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: I don’t even think his website has a careers page.
BOBBY: It feels illegal. Like how can you be a company and not put jobs anywhere? I say we have a company with no careers to see.
ALEX: He just had to be his nephew.
BOBBY: Well, once again, I think this is a good off-season project for you. And bringing up Alex Rodriguez gives me an opportunity to shout out the Alex Rodriguez VIP club members this week, we shout out five of you every week. There are many, many of you in that tier of the Patreon. Those five members this week are Alex, Sam, Matt, Austin, and Jack. And because I forgot to mention them at the top of the show. The new patrons this week are Trevor and Julia, thank you, to you too. You can sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/tippingpitches. You can buy merch, maybe for the holidays, at tippingpitches.myshopify.com. And you know what else you can do for the holidays? And the giving spirit? You can give someone the gift of sending them this podcast. We’re going to a salesman skill. You know.
ALEX: Yeah, this is good. This is what I actually have to do for my job. So you’re doing— you’re killing it.
BOBBY: Right, exactly. You can um, jobs are, jobs are so fake. No, I have to do for my job this. Edit pods, create content for the world.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Content consumers of the world. But actually though, if you are not a member of the Patreon, or you don’t have merch, but you maybe don’t want to spend on that quite yet. Truly something that we are very thankful for is when people share this with someone that they think might like the pod because that is the best way that we can find new people to listen. And it’s been a while since I’ve done the spiel at the end of the pod. So I’m doing my due diligence here. My fiduciary duty to two big [1:02:55] media.
ALEX: And the stakeholders will be pleased.
BOBBY: Is to hawk it at the end of the pod. And we’re very appreciative of everybody who has already done that, and will continue to do that. Alex, anything else, for the people? Are you happy to have acquired a Jacob deGrom Jersey Muir weeks before he left in New York?
ALEX: Like is this on me? Like did I bring my—Yes, my bad A’s fan Mojo, you know, cause this is what happens? I buy an ACE and then the player leaves.
BOBBY: You know that I blame nobody but myself for everything that happens to the Mets right? So yes, it is on us.
ALEX: It is on me. Yeah, I’ve been here before. Welcome to the club. Real quick before we dip, speaking of the ACE, can you guess the— the amount of money they have committed to their payroll next year?
BOBBY: Oh, great. Great game. 28 million.
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: What?! Is that right?
ALEX: No, that’s—that’s your—your way high on now.
BOBBY: I’m high?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: 28 million?
ALEX: Hmm, hmm. Okay. I Got okay, so. So let me just—
BOBBY: Is this not, not including our players?
ALEX: Right. So, so this does not include— include our players.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Umm.
BOBBY: Let’s talk because all their players are ARB.
ALEX: Yeah, actually all of them are pre-ARB. Not all of it. They have—okay, so here’s—
BOBBY: Okay, okay, let me guess.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: 13 million.
ALEX: Keep going.
BOBBY: What? Does not— How is that even possible? They have—they have 25 players—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —on the roster.
ALEX: Twenty-six. Yeah.
BOBBY: 26 players on the roster. And the league minimum is $700,000. So how can the committed money be less than 13 mil?
ALEX: Well, Okay, so I mean, I don’t think they’ve committed that—that pre-hard money yet. Technically. I mean, I suppose technically, they have to pay it at some point.
BOBBY: What’s the answer?
ALEX: We’re going off sport track, okay?
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Spot, Spot track.
BOBBY: Now, you gotta go to Fangraphs roster resource. They factor in that stuff. They factor in what people are going to make in PR when they know it. You can even filter it so that—I think you can even filter it so that they can give you an estimation of what they’ll make, even after arbitration based on, you know, the season that they had the previous year.
ALEX: Alright, so if you’re including pre ARB, we’re at—we’re at about $34 million.
BOBBY: See, 28 was pretty good.
ALEX: 28 was pretty good.
BOBBY: Thank you. I’m here all week.
ALEX: For—for arbitration, eligible players there—they’re gonna make a whopping 12 million total.
BOBBY: Oh wow.
ALEX: At least one of them, Sean Murphy will—will not be on the baseball team by March.
BOBBY: You’re never gonna guess who I think he should go to.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: The New York. I—listen. I’m willing—I’m making you an offer right now. Listen, my name is Billy Eppler. David, how was your Thanksgiving? You’re David force. David—
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: —how was your Thanksgiving? And you say it was good, Billy.
ALEX: It was good, Billy.
BOBBY: I said, hey, I got an idea.
ALEX: I’d love to hear it.
BOBBY: I will pay all of James McCann salary. And I’ll give you Ronnie Mauricio. And, you know, you can even have Mark Meatos if you want him. He’s the kind of player that these would turn into like a four wind player.
ALEX: Yes, exactly.
BOBBY: And I want John Murphy. And you say, Nice doing business with you. This will really make the Tipping Pitches podcast happy. Click. Hang up the phone.
ALEX: Seen. I don’t— I’m gonna be honest with you. I don’t think Force is giving up enough in that deal. I think he’d probably want to throw in someone else.
BOBBY: Do you have anyone else making more than like $30,000 a year? No.
ALEX: Oh, I love Tony Kemp, though.
BOBBY: I do too. But I mean, I think he’s maybe past the point of his career where he’s going to meaningfully contribute to a World Series.
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: He’s bet.
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: I like him. But he’s not good.
ALEX: I mean, he’s fine.
BOBBY: In a minute, 80 of the pod, like what do you think that final number comes in at? Under 50? This is I—almost, listen, it shouldn’t be a correction on my previous statement that you do not have to hand it to the Oakland Athletics under any circumstances, but I almost do want to hand it to them. Its kind of impressive to build such a little bit, like this would be low for like, 2006 and It’s 2022.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, we’re slowly moving into, we need to force John Fisher to sell the team territory and like mentally, mentally, mentally. I’m already there, right? I’ve been there for years.
BOBBY: Will you want him to sell the team so that you can have more time to spend with him?
ALEX: Yes, exactly. This takes up so much of his time. We haven’t been able to do our trivia Tuesdays as of late.
BOBBY: Dan Fisher not a good cultural fit for New York City though. Him and Jacob deGrom.
ALEX: Yeah, I don’t really want to know what songs he sings at karaoke.
BOBBY: Oh, man.
ALEX: All I’m saying is—
BOBBY: He thinks the five to nine, working five— five to nine, the Dolly Parton sell out for the commercial [1:08:12] whatever it was. Yeah exactly.
ALEX: I just—this is organizational practice.
BOBBY: We’re so far behind.
ALEX: I know. I know. Like the writing’s on the wall. It’s been there, man
BOBBY: It’s really bad. Yeah. I mean, you would think that this would be bad for the product, for the sport and that a commissioner would maybe want to just disincentivize this kind of behavior.
ALEX: Why would you think that? Just not what—why
BOBBY: One might think. Okay, that does it for this week’s episode of Tipping Pitches. Thank you for listening, we will be back next week.
[1:08:44]
[Music]
[1:09:04]
[Outro]
ALEX: Hello everybody, I’m Alex Rodriguez, Tipping Pitches.
[voice record]: Tipping Pitches.
ALEX: This is the one that I love the most, [voice record:] Tipping Pitches. So we’ll see you next week. See ya!
BOBBY: What’s your favorite U2 song?
ALEX: I don’t have one because U2 isn’t good.
BOBBY: Yeah, obviously not. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a favorite song of theirs. Don’t you have a favorite MGK song?
ALEX: I can only actually name like four U2 songs.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Like—
BOBBY: Bloody Sunday.
ALEX: Right. Sunday Bloody Sunday. You know, Beautiful Day. That one’s a banger.
BOBBY: It’s actually not.
ALEX: I disagree.
BOBBY: Do you think it’s good?
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, it’s corny, you know.
BOBBY: It’s a beautiful Day.
ALEX: Henry, but it’s like when I think of like a U2 song—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —like that’s plutonic.
BOBBY: [singing]
ALEX: You know, like huge atmospheric—
BOBBY: Yeah. Right.
ALEX: Trying to say something without actually having to say anything, you know.
BOBBY: Yeah. I got one.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: My favorite is Where the Streets Have No Name.
ALEX: Oooh, yeah.
BOBBY: Because when we went to Joshua Tree, I kept just being like, this tree has no name.
ALEX: Jesus Christ. I’m never traveling with you.
BOBBY: [singing]
ALEX: Let’s start off talking about how U2 has been unfairly maligned.
BOBBY: I don’t feel like I know enough about how they’ve been maligned—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —to do a bit in support of them.
ALEX: I know—
BOBBY: You know?
ALEX: —I mean, I mean, right. I mean, they haven’t been that maligned, right? Like the end of last three decades.
BOBBY: RIght. Yeah.
ALEX: [singing] should [1:10:47]
BOBBY: I’ll add that to my playlist. That would be really funny to pull out, or you just, just get, just got done with Stacy’s mom.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: [1:10:57] without you.
ALEX: Without sunglasses, like a leather jacket on.
BOBBY: It’s beautiful day. Alright, I’m going now, so you can stop singing U2.
ALEX: Well, I’ll stop when you start.
BOBBY: It sounds like it could be the name of a U2 song.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: [1:11:17]
ALEX: [1:11:17]
Transcriptionist: Vernon Bryann Casil
Editor: Krizia Marrie Casil
Tipping Pitches 
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