Alex and Bobby banter about the litany of transactions over the last week and do a little discourse about the discourse surrounding contracts, then bring on Insider investigations reporter Bradford Williams Davis to break down his report in partnership with Dr. Meredith Wills regarding MLB’s use of three different baseballs in 2022, including how the league tried to discourage cooperation with third party investigations of the ball, why they thought they’d be able to get away with this again, the media’s role in this sort of story, and more.
Links:
Major League Baseball used three types of baseballs in 2022
Transgender sex workers face an acute risk of violence
Rob Manfred is willing to waive a relocation fee for the A’s
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon
Tipping Pitches merchandise
Songs featured in this episode:
070 Shake — “Nice To Have” • Parquet Courts — “Light Up Gold” • Katy Perry — “Hot N Cold” • Booker T & the M.G.’s — “Green Onions”
Episode Transcript
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BOBBY: Tell us a little bit about what you saw and—and being able to relay that message to Cora when you watch Kimbrel pitch, and it kind of helped out so he wasn’t tipping his pitches.
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BOBBY: So tipping pitches, we hear about it all the time. People are home on the stand what tipping pitches all about. That’s amazing. And that’s remarkable.
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BOBBY: Alex, the cold open that I was going to do for this podcast has been traded by Davy Force and signed off on by Billy Beane and John Fisher. So no cold open this week. Sorry, bud.
ALEX: Little bit of a low blow. A little too—little too soon. Uh—but I.
BOBBY: Is it too soon? We’re doing a baseball podcast about how cheap owners are.
ALEX: One owner in particular.
BOBBY: No, no, no, we’ll hit on some other owners this time through.
ALEX: Well, that’s fine. I have—I have one in particular, I’d like to direct my ire towards. So I’m kind of hoping you can carry the rest of that. Because I just—I’m at capacity right now. You know, my emotional cup is overflowing. E—exactly. Yes. Said with—with all the love in the world.
BOBBY: I assume you’re referring to John Fisher is the—is the one that you want to direct all of your ire toward?
ALEX: You know me well. Again, far be it for me to disparage the only not—the only owner whose contact information I actually have. Right. So I want to tread lightly here. But it’s nothing he hasn’t heard from me before. I’ll just put that out there. These are all conversations we’ve all had. Offline. Anyway. So I’m, you know, it’s not news to him.
BOBBY: Do you consider you and John Fisher to have an open and honest dialogue?
ALEX: You know, I—I—I think we do. Much of our conversations are like late-night chats, you know, like after dark, when he just kind of needs a shoulder. It’s John Fisher hits me up for a booty call. [2:04] in this corner.
BOBBY: [2:04] Okay, well, we’re gonna talk, I—I guess we’ll—we’ll talk a little bit about the A’s, there’s not that much interesting to say to be honest. We’re going to talk about the spree of free agents who have signed in the past week since we last podcasted. We’ll do a little discourse on the discourse as we are want to do here at Tipping Pitches. And after all that, we’re going to talk to Bradford William Davis about his bombshell investigative piece, revealing that there were three baseballs used during the Major League Baseball season last year. Not one, not two, but three baseballs. But before we do all of that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
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BOBBY: Alex no new patrons this week. Pain. We let—we let everyone down I guess. No, no, it’s okay. I understand. Thank you to everybody who has signed up for our Patreon. You can sign up for that Patreon at patreon.com/tippingpitches. If you’ve been thinking about signing up. Or if you know someone in your life who has been thinking about signing up, and you want to gift them that for the holiday season. That would be great. You know what else you can do for the holiday season, you can go to our store tipping pitches at myshopify.com Buy some merchandise for your—for the Tipping Pitches lover in your life. Promo code Rob for 15% off, for listeners of the podcast Rob, as in Rob Manfred is in the commissioner who is using many different forms of the baseball, to play Major League Baseball. Alex, I want to open this week by talking about payroll. Are you okay with opening this week by talking about payroll to end the year, you know?
ALEX: Right. We do have—we have some books to balance, taxes here—
BOBBY: Coming soon the [3:52]
ALEX: Exactly. Yeah.
BOBBY: So let’s talk about—
ALEX: I’m here for it.
BOBBY: Let’s talk about payroll. I want to talk about the payroll of the New York Mets. Would you like to talk about that with me?
ALEX: No, I wouldn’t. I’d have no interest.
BOBBY: The payroll of the New York Mets is now north of $300 million. That is the highest payroll ever. Steve Cohen along with the help of Billy Eppler, who says yes to spending all of Steve Cohen’s money, has exceeded the $293 million tax level, the top tax level in the most recent collective bargaining agreement, which means that every dollar that they spend after that will basically be taxed at 100%. So they will double that. So I believe the Mets tax bill is now over $70 million. So the total payroll, the functional payroll is approaching $400 million. Now, I said all of those details just to say this, I don’t give a fuck. I don’t care. I don’t care about how much money they’re spending on players. I don’t care if the payroll was over a billion dollars a year. Do you know why I don’t care? Because it’s not my money. It’s not my money.
ALEX: I—I would like to. I would like you to amend your accounting of how much they’re spending a little bit.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: They might spend $400 million next year. But how much are they spending over the next 10 years? Because that’s really kind of the terms in which I think about this, I need you to tell me that they are—
BOBBY: Committed to spending $1.3 billion over the next unlimited amount of time.
ALEX: Yes, exactly. That’s the only—that’s the only way my—my small brain can physically understand, that—just the sacrifices that Steve Cohen is making.
BOBBY: Alright, Jeff Passan. Okay, take it down a notch. There’s been a lot of discussion about the Met’s payroll, there’s been a lot of comparing how much the Mets are spending on two players, versus eight players from a different roster. Comparing how much the Mets are paying in the payroll tax, to how much other teams are spending on their entire payroll. It’s just been a lot of discourse. It’s just been a lot of discussions. And you know what? I think it’s really weird. Like, I’m not surprised by it. But I think it’s weird that it’s normal, how much we talk about the teams who spend the most money, and how much money they are spending, and how much money they’re being taxed for how much they’re spending. Because you know what? I was thinking about this earlier today. Do you know how much money the Cubs spent on developing Wrigleyville?
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Should I? Do you know how much money the Braves spent on developing the battery?
ALEX: Probably—probably a lot. Probably chunk of change.
BOBBY: Do you know how much money Steve Cohen is pouring into trying to get the casino next to Citi Field? Do—do you know how much money the Rays are going to spend on their version of XFINITY live in Tampa? Well, do—
ALEX: Zero.
BOBBY: Do you know how much money—
ALEX: That was zero, but yeah, that’s true taxpayer money.
BOBBY: Do you know how much money the Padres are going to be spending on becoming landlords in the Greater San Diego area? Like we don’t talk about any of the other expenditures, which are not insignificant expenditures? So I don’t know why we talk about the payroll down to the dollars and cents. I guess the only answer is that we know that number. And we don’t know the exact numbers for the other expenditures, because teams don’t open their books. But that’s even more of a reason not to whine about how much money the top people are spending.
ALEX: I mean, I understand why it is, right? Because you get to see in real-time, the fruits of those contracts, right? I—most fans don’t care about how much money goes into the sportsbook or a housing development or—or whatever it is, because that’s not what they’re rooting for, right? And they are not seeing the fluctuations in how much money they’re pulling in, or how well that arm of the business is doing year over year. No one signs up for that, despite—despite our desire to protect owners’ interests entirely, not just the baseball interests. So again, it doesn’t surprise me that that’s the thing we focus on. Because when you think about the business of baseball, that’s the most obvious entry point, right? We see the players, we—we watch them play every day. But—but it’s important to note that it’s just an entry point, right? It’s just a fraction of the pie.
BOBBY: But also, if the business of baseball is what we see every day in the players, why do we freak out when teams spend money on the business of baseball? Why do we freak out when teams spend money on baseball? Why is it we’re the Steve Cohen is putting an extra 100 million dollars into payroll, versus putting an extra 100 million dollars into multipurpose housing with retail space on the first level, like every other development that’s going up in New York City right now? Like, it’s not weird to spend money on baseball, when you own a baseball team, this should be the norm. This should be not—what—what the other teams are doing is weird. And I know that I’m preaching to the choir really with this, with Tipping Pitches, listeners. But I just feel like I’m driving myself like a little bit crazy here. Like Steve Cohen, new owner came in and said, you know, it’d be fun. Having a good baseball team. I’m gonna basically prioritize that, above all other things. And the rest of the league is freaking out about it.
ALEX: Well, because he’s blowing their cover, right?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Hey, On— on the flip side, I just want to say it’s—it’s not all doom and gloom in Oakland, because the A’s finally have guaranteed contracts for next year.
BOBBY: Oh, [9:30]
ALEX: As—as of this week, there are players who have contracts that are inked, the A’s have to pay up. So I mean, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop and wondering where they’re going to cut that money elsewhere. But things are looking up. You know, I—we’re on the trajectory towards you. I just want to know that. You shouldn’t sleep easy at night, because we’re well on our way.
BOBBY: A’s or—A’s or Met’s tail.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: Where would you like to start on free agency, from the past week? We finished recording our podcast last Sunday night. Mainly talking a lot about Jacob deGrom, who was sort of the first big free agent domino to fall, in an unfortunate direction for Mets fans. But so much has happened since then, on the Mets front and elsewhere, that it feels like Degrom is more or less old news. I mean, there was a whole new cycle from this past week about Mets fans being mad at deGrom and his press conference, and him saying that he wanted to go be part of a winning culture. And obviously, that’s a cliche, but it seems pretty bad when you go from a team with 101 wins, to a team with a 68 wins. And you say you want to be part of a winning culture. Is just a whole discourse cycle that— that got frankly, overshadowed by the sheer speed of news that was coming out in this past week. We had Aaron Judge sign back with the New York Yankees, nine years 360 million. Justin Verlander signed last Monday, basically a few hours after we put our podcast out, with the Mets for two years and $86 million. Just today, you know, Chris Bassett signed with the Toronto Blue Jays and the A’s traded Sean Murphy to the Atlanta Braves, and a three to trade with the Brewers, Trey Turner
ALEX: Returning to the Phillies, Xander Bogaerts to the Padres, like the dominoes have— have fallen past tense.
BOBBY: So what do you look back on this past week and care most about?
ALEX: One thing that kind of stands out to me, is the sort of grand—grandiosity of a lot of these contracts, because we’ve spent years kind of, and then when I say we, I just mean kind of baseball fans in general, debating the efficacy of the mega deal, right? Is it worth it to commit 200 million, 300 million to a player and have them on the team for the rest of your life, right? Those deals always look—always look bad in the rearview mirror, you know, he’s gonna be 40, and he’s not gonna be pulling his weight, right? The Albert [12:02] Boogeyman. And what we’re seeing is teams say, that doesn’t matter to us. We’re not—we’re not thinking about it in the way that you’re thinking about it. Because we recognize—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: We can give Trey Turner $300 million over the next 11 years. And it’s going to be a net positive for our team. Right. And so this—this implicit admission, on the part of front office, that they’re okay with this sort of thing, should give cover to fans to also be okay with that sort of thing. And I don’t expect the narrative to change that way. And I also am not under the assumption that MLB owners are doing this out of th goodness of their hearts, because they want guys on their teams for life. I know there’s a business move in there. I know there’s a business rationale in there, that— that they are making, that there’s a financial gain to be made by this. But great—hat—if—that’s how you need to justify actually paying the players what they deserve, making fans happy in the process. I have no—I have no qualms with it. I’m not going to look back on Aaron Judge’s contract and say, bad move by the Yankees. I almost—almost no matter how his contract goes, worth every penny, sorry.
BOBBY: I think it’s fascinating. You know, I think when we talk about these things, something that we should do more of, is that we should split up conversation and coverage of these two things. So like a conversation from a fan’s perspective. In my mind, is less harmful than slanted coverage of these stories. So like when I started this podcast by yelling about the Mets payroll, do I really care if fans are worried about the payroll, not really? Like, I think that, that’s correct behavior. And we shouldn’t be doing that as fans. But I—I understand from a fan’s perspective, having this innate fear, that if you run a $300 million payroll out this year, and it doesn’t work out, and it doesn’t work out next year, and you don’t win the World Series, then owner beh—owner behavior in the past would lead you to believe that they’re not going to continue to do that in perpetuity if it’s not paying dividends on the field in the form of championships, or in the form of continued increase in— increase in revenue. Which, again, because of revenue sharing, you don’t even see all of it. So there are these structures in place. And I think fans even if they don’t know all the details of that, they implicitly understand that that’s how owners are going to behave. But when I look at how the media covers these things, and I see how much they care about spending on players, and how much they frame it in terms of how generous owners are being towards giving out these huge contracts, that’s when I start to get really disappointed because that sort of reinforces that as the knee jerk reaction to every contract, every big contract. Like you can find a reason to poke a hole in any contract. Like welcome to real life. Not everything works out exactly like you expect it to, the day that you get in contract. Maybe it works out better. Maybe it works out worse. But like to look at every contract and say, I wouldn’t have done it. It’s like, okay, well, then would you have a baseball team? Like if you were a GM and you wouldn’t have done that contract, who would be on your team? Would you look like the A’s? Would you look like the Rockies? Would you look like the Brewers? Like, do those teams have any prospects? Are those teams looking to be—
ALEX: Well, well, tough beat to say that on the day that the Brewers fleeced the Braves and the A’s.
BOBBY: But yeah, but yeah, in reality, though, like, or even—even if, let’s say, a more exciting, and a better team, like the Mariners. Like would you be Jerry Dipoto and just come in second on every big free agent, who could maybe push you into like real contender status? Now they’re just like fringe contenders. Like I did this whole thread about how only two teams in the last 12 years have won a World Series with their payroll being outside the top 10. And people got so mad acting like I was individually damning them as fans, and their team and saying their team is bad. That’s not what I was saying. What I’m saying is, you can do everything else, right? But if you don’t also spend to fill out the rest of your roster, it’s very historically unlikely that you’re going to win a World Series. So when Trey Turner signs or Bryce Harper signs or Manny Machado signs—by the way, a contract that has worked out swimmingly, so swimmingly that he might even opt out next year, and they still want to resign him so—
ALEX: So swimmingly that you don’t hear about how well it’s worked out.
BOBBY: Same with Bryce Harper, right? Like—
ALEX: Yeah, right. Right.
BOBBY: When Francisco Lindor signs, when Max Scherzer signs like, of course, there’s going to be a statistical case that you could shade and make for—a reason why you shouldn’t have given them that money. But then we just—we don’t have, we don’t have a sport, then, if you only ever give contracts that are guaranteed to work out dollars and cents in the team’s favor, then there’s no sport. So I just think I like what you said that GMs clearly are operating on a different set of input values, than the outdated fan bases, and the more outdated media, honestly, that are covering these. Like, I think fans are actually kind of ahead of some of these media members, or a lot of these media members that are like, stuck in like, you know, mid-2000s era, sabermetrics where like, all these long contracts usually look really bad by the end, because of the precipitous decline of position players after the age of 35, or whatever.
ALEX: Right. I mean, it’s a selective analysis that you can make about any contract, as you’re saying, you pick the timeframe, where you think the player will be bad, and then say, I think the players gonna be bad. You know, I mean, we saw this—this week, the Red Sox signed Masataka Yoshida from Japan, who’s an outfielder who’s—who’s really known for his ability to, to get on base. I feel like saying that phrase is like, the Beetlejuice for Billy Beane, you know, like, I’m afraid he’s gonna, like, appear behind me if I talk about of [18:11] But—but in the days coming after that, that signing was announced, the move was largely panned by, you know, all the MLB sort of insiders and prospect evaluators and that sort of thing. And—and it was, you know, five years $90 million. I’m not an evaluator. I don’t know how good Yoshida is going to be. I don’t know how this contract stacks up against his perceived value to Major League Baseball teams. And if you want to critique the move, I’m okay with that. I just want you to have the same energy when you think that a team just got an absolute steal in a contract, right? Like don’t come out of the woodwork, when you just think something looks bad on paper. It’s—It’s dishonest framing, and it does a disservice to fans and the overall atmosphere around the business of baseball.
BOBBY: Right. I just think that we’ve taken this incredibly inside baseball concept, which is, you know, evaluating how one player works inside of baseball’s very specific market. And we’ve turned it into like the only form of baseball analysis. You know what I mean, like, this is like the only way that players are talked about. It’s not like, did this player make his team better? It’s like, did this player make his team better for what they paid him? There’s no divorcing these things anymore. When—If you believe the way that Moneyball is framed, if you believe the way that Michael Lewis wrote the book, right? Billy Beane didn’t come in and say, I want to get rid of Jason Giambi because he’s too expensive. He said we’re not gonna be able to sign Jason Giambi because our owner is not kind of allow us to spend that much on a contract. We’ve never done it before. The Yankees have more money, they’re going to outbid us. That’s the truth. Okay, that’s reality, no matter how you feel about it, that’s reality. Now, what can we do to overcome that? So that wasn’t the goal. That was the reaction. That was the plan B. And now I feel like we have so many players, media, and fans, because of Billy Beane, because of the success because of the book, because of the mythmaking of it. Who are like, well, why not just make that plan A? And I’m like, well, because Giambi was fucking better than who they replaced him with. That was the whole point. That was the whole point. Like that was step one.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Is admitting that Giambi is better than anyone that we have. So.
ALEX: Like did you—did you read to the end of Moneyball? Did you see what happened?
BOBBY: Did you read the fucking first chapter of Moneyball? Right, did you read till the end? Yeah, they lost.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like, why is that—why is it Plan A now? I mean, it’s—truly, if there’s one tweet that I could choose that personifies the last 20 years of baseball coverage, it’s his tweet about Max Scherzer. And Billy Beane, and being making 15 moves to make the team worse, and that sign Scherzer I don’t see it. Like, I just—maybe this is just because I’m coming off—I’m coming into this podcast recording, like tired and the Mets have done so much in the last week. And so many people have had so many opinions about it. But I’m just like, and maybe I’m also allowing, like, external factors in the rest of society inform my opinions on these sorts of things, but I’m like, if there’s a simple solution, just take it, you know, like, we don’t need to make everything. We’ve allowed everything to be like completely over-intellectualized for the purposes of saving a couple of dudes a lot of money. And I don’t know, I just don’t think that that’s a fun way of consuming a sport, frankly.
ALEX: Right. It’s like, like Oaklands Razor, you know, like signing the best player available is probably the best move that—that you can make, you know, like it’s— sometimes we don’t need to try and out-think ourselves. It’s right there in front of us.
BOBBY: Yeah. Okay. Do you have anything else you want to talk about before we go to Bradford?
ALEX: Real quick update on the a— on the A’s stadium situation, which I know you’re all waiting with bated breath to hear about because this is—this is it. Today’s the day. I mean—
BOBBY: Oh, today’s the day?
ALEX: —It’s now or never, [22:25] from here on out.
BOBBY: Okay great.
ALEX: Ro—Mr. Rob Manfred noted that—that we are past any reasonable timeline for the situation in Oakland to—to be resolved. And, and if they don’t figure something out by January 2024. No more revenue sharing for them, which is uh, which, which, you know, that’s—that’s gonna hurt [22:49] I’ll pull this car over right now. I get—this is—he—he also noted that he would waive the relocation fee, the like, whatever billion-dollar relocation fee that teams usually have to pay.
BOBBY: What? I didn’t know about that.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah. Which I—
BOBBY: It was treating it like broker’s fees at apartments.
ALEX: Right. Exactly.
BOBBY: Oh, will waive it for fun, free. You know—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Fuck it actually. I just—
ALEX: None of this makes any sense. To be quite honest with you. The revenue-sharing thing is, is weird, right? Because they were, they were phased out of it back starting in 2016. And then it was reinstated this past CBA. Because they were like, well, you’re trying to get a new stadium. So you need the money. I get it. You need cash fast. We got you.
BOBBY: [23:37]
ALEX: But [23:39]
BOBBY: Capitalism over fan. Socialism for owners.
ALEX: Exactly. Again, all of this is like supposedly meant to put pressure on the city of Oakland, maybe, John Fisher, personally, who—whose wallet isn’t going to feel a thing no matter what happens. Like, I just don’t really get the political calculations that are being made here. And—and they’re also being made for in a political landscape. It’s very different in Oakland following the recent elections. There’s now a new mayor, there are new city council members, there’s a lot of work that went into sort of drumming up favor—
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: For this.
BOBBY: That’s one way of saying it. I just—
ALEX: There’s a lot of work that went into drumming up [24:30] I just— I—I don’t know, man. I don’t know the—Manfred’s just reaching down into the bottom of his bag to see what veiled threats he has left. You know, and at this point, if you’re a city council member, you’re like, why do I care about this?
BOBBY: He’s like—he’s like three months away from like posting on Zillow. You know, like a new stadium listening, is like beautifully re—redone kitchen, high ceilings, a lot of natural light in Las Vegas. Will waive the relocation fee.
ALEX: Right. No feral cats outside.
BOBBY: In—in units fanbase.
ALEX: Anway, today’s—today’s—things are so good over here. I—you know what I’ll say? I am really happy for you.
BOBBY: Thank you.
ALEX: You’re wearing a Mets hat right now.
BOBBY: [25:29] here’s a question for you. Are you a Mets fan?
ALEX: Uh, yeah. I consider myself so.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: I mean I—you know, I think that I have kind of struggled a little bit as you know when you and I became friends, we sort of adopted rooting for each other’s teams, right?
BOBBY: Right, and you fucked me on that deal, by the way.
ALEX: Yeah, just another contract that didn’t look as good at the end, right? Um, again, as the A’s have pulled away from me, I think I’ve pulled away from them. So here we are, man.
BOBBY: I just—I like to check in every once in a while on your budding Mets fandom, you know, to see like, how—how much of a transformation has taken place? You know, like, are you as sick and twisted as me yet? No, but are you on that path? is what I want to know. Like, is that your arc? If I vanished off the face of the earth tomorrow, like the avatar [26:24]
ALEX: When we needed him most. He vanished.
BOBBY: Would you still be a mess man? Or is this only like proximity base? If we had gone to college in Wyoming, you know, and we weren’t like a subway ride away from Citi Field. would you still be a Mets fan? I—I mean, would you still be a Mets fan?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Then yeah. Okay, great. Let’s—I just want to know how real this is. You know, like, this is your Mets fan [26:50]
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like are you—how committed to the cause are you?
ALEX: Right. I—you have commitment issues. I know you want to know, am I in? Am I out? I get it. I do.
BOBBY: I’m on one knee. Saying will you take this Mets fandom—
ALEX: I really—I really do.
BOBBY: —for life.
ALEX: I—Yeah.
BOBBY: [27:08] Alright. Sounds good. This podcast is getting a little bit more unhinged than I anticip—than I intended it to. So why don’t we take a quick break and when we come back, we’ll bring in very reasonable, very accomplished very professional journalists Bradford William Davis.
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BOBBY: We are once again overjoyed delighted to be joined by returning guest Bradford William Davis. Hello Bradford.
BRADFORD: Hello.
BOBBY: So great to see you. Investigative reporter at Insiders. Is that your title, investigative reporter? You’re certainly doing some investigation of the Major League Baseball—
BRADFORD: That’s right.
BOBBY: —Corporation these days.
ALEX: You are literally covering baseball like that is your—your coverage sphere. I feel like.
BOBBY: Covering, uncovering.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: Dissecting.
BRADFORD: Yes. Or should we say baseballs? [28:04] yeah man, that’s me. I’m an investigative reporter from Insider.
BOBBY: Bradford you’re here because we like you, and you’re friend and you’ve been on many times and we’d love to chat with you. But you’re also here because you wrote quite—a quite a bombshell I would say, that you’ve been working on for a while. You’ve been covering the beat of the baseballs. I’m sure most of our listeners have probably seen or read this story. And if they haven’t, the link is in the description. You should go give it a full read before this chat. But you wrote a story. Six days ago now at this point, about how a follow up on your story from last year that you confirm that Major League Baseball use two different baseballs, the composition of them, the weight of them, the bounciness, how far they would travel. And this year along with research from Meredith Will’s, determine that there is a third baseball, third baseball. One baseball for each person on this zoom talking on this podcast right now. So can you—for people who maybe haven’t read it, or who read it a week ago and are forgetting some of the scientific details, can you—I guess just describe the difference between these three baseballs as they emerge in your research?
BRADFORD: Sure. So last year, we dropped the story about Major League Baseball using two baseballs. One more juiced than the other, meaning it carries further the crack of the bat. When Major League Baseball has done this, and this has been explaining in their own internal correspondence about how they just a baseball, is there is by raising or lowering the weight, when you keep the, the orig size of the ball, the same but you raise and lower it that either increases the ball flight or decreases it. So what we found this year was that both of those balls, you know the juice in the dead, were still in circulation. So admittedly mostly dead, which is what Major League Baseball has asserted, is like a ball that they intend to use this year going forward. However, what we found was about—we had over 200 baseballs, our largest sample ever. Total bill like about 18-20% of them are so. We’re—this like, other weight in the middle, about weighing heavier.
BOBBY: But wait.
BRADFORD: Yeah?
BOBBY: A third ball.
BRADFORD: Yeah, about a gram heavier than the— than the average we found with a dead ball. And so when we were like—we were like, okay, but wait, there’s more, it’s also double verified the same way the juice and dead ball whereby the week it was manufactured. What we found last year and you know is that the production week that the you know, baseball was made in, like, doesn’t had you know, or there like discrete production weeks. Meaning like juice are in week ABC, dead EFG, you know, and now this new third ball also or it was HIJ so to speak, you know, and so. So yeah, we found basically in 2022, they were manufacturing the dead, and the—this new heavier ball dropped the season. We call it the Goldilocks ball because it’s not too hot, not too cold, not too heavy, not too light, kind of the middle between, you know, the two current polars of what, you know, baseballs within the last few years. And so because it is heavier than a dead ball, it is, you know, it has an expected performance change, should lead it to carry more. So you might be—[31:19] call it semi-deuce, you know, like—but point is, it does more. And so that was you know, essentially what we found on it, on the pure forensics of this year was that like, yeah, a sizable handful within our sample were heavier than the dead ball.
BRADFORD: It’s just like Chris Evans for Captain America, not like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 80s.
BRADFORD: Well said.
ALEX: So, I guess my first question is, what is going on? Like, you know, like, when—when this story kind of first started to come to light in 2021, right, where you were kind of looking, discovered that there were two different balls in circulation after Manfred sort of claimed at the start of the season that they were using this new manufacturing process. He—you—you have this report that came out, you found that there were multiple balls in use. He blamed it on kind of a COVID-era manufacturing issue at Rawlings, right? And—
BOBBY: [31:17]
ALEX: Right. Exactly. Supply chain, you can blame everything on the supply chain, I can see.
BOBBY: The reason is part of the daily supply chain.
ALEX: But, but. You know, here we are a year later. And we’re having the exact same conversation. So I wish I had a more sophisticated question beyond what’s—what’s going on. But like what is the thought process behind this, especially when they now know that everyone is looking at this?
BRADFORD: Well, the for—one thing is that the change is admittedly subtler. So it’s harder to immediately sort of like see I think especially for you know people like us in the seats you know. The difference is, though they are in fact real you know, and systematic—systematic clear manufacturing changes with these, you know with this sample of you know, the quote-unquote “rodeos balls” that are made different weeks. Then the dead balls, but um, you know the thing is you know, weekly baseball has—is expressed quite explicitly a vested interest in not, and people will not in understanding more about what is going on with baseball, which is a big part of the story, and that’s awesome Slater who is you know, a the—the outfield for San Francisco Giants, not the one that they—wanted the absolute most apparently there’s got to be offseason. But—but a longtime better and a good player in his own right. [33:38] very good next year and Judge. But regardless, he’s uh, you know, he’s a—he’s also a big part of the [33:43]. Like he’s very involved in a number of committees including [33:47] committee that kind of like you know, push through some of the things, like the pitch clock or whatever. And yeah, he’s like, I want to get to the bottom of this. I want to understand more what—what’s going on. And so he started to—he—he wanted to collect baseballs and send the merit of wills, after reading her—after reading our first article last year. And when that happened, he got—he got message from Major League Baseball high-ranking executives Major League Baseball through—via the EPA saying, hey, I’ve heard anything, but don’t send balls of merits. We don’t really trust their science and methodology here, and also if you do, we might fire people. [33:42] descending baseball’s out and he’s like, okay, message received. I’m not gonna do that because I don’t—because I mean, he’s not about him, then you know that the millionaire athlete who you know is in arbitration, and you know, as a solid player in everything that has a career ahead of him, you know. And one that though never I guess never say—never I was unlikely being forwarded, you know, by, you know, helping out a third party scientist or something. But he was you know, but he’s worried about the club is. He’s worried about like, the dudes who do not have union you know, protection here, being harmed, just because he was curious, you know. And so uh—and so he shut that down. We didn’t get anything from the Giants, you know, really, except for with one ball. I think the narrative was in attendance for at ANZ Park. And the guy next we’re caught the ball. And we were like, that’s it.
BOBBY: Yeah.
BRADFORD: [35:16] forever. For San Fran. So, um, you know, so yeah, so basically, whatever— whatever message you want to call it, though, MLB denied being a threat, you know, but certainly seen you perceived as a threat, it works.
BOBBY: So, as you’ve tried to, you know, garner comments from them on this issue, as you’ve reported, you know, this Austin Slater piece, and them saying that they don’t want to give baseballs over for research. I guess the part that I don’t understand is, what do they have to lose by being more transparent about the baseball? Because to me, this seems like a larger issue, where it’s not just that the baseballs are different. I think that people could stomach the fact that there are different, differences in manufacturing, that would lead to different baseballs. I think people could even be okay with the fact that they’re trying out very slightly different baseballs within the season, to get data sets on how they perform, and to determine what baseball they want to use for the future. Now, I think that would be harder for people to accept. But I think that most fans could be okay with that if they were transparent about it. But they’re—they’re doing the exact opposite. And so the erosion of the fan’s trust, and most importantly, maybe the erosion of the player’s trust, to me, doesn’t really make sense as to why they’re not being more like—do you ever—do you see a world in which this kind of reporting or this kind of conversation around the baseball ever leads to an a third party independent review of this process, so that they can kind of put this story to rest once and for all? Or do you think that they’ll just continue to treat this like state secrets for some nebulous reason?
BRADFORD: Man, I’m not equipped to say what it means to live in baseball world in world war two. I—you know, I’m still blown at the [36:55]. I mean, like, that’s still like, you know, the evidence at least and such, you know. That is—that’s the wild to me. I think that if there is to be some sort of outside party looking into it, it would probably come—it’s not going to come the Major League Baseball, or I should say, it has not come to me to the baseball, being super transparent about it, but the lack of transparency, raising, you know, perhaps questions and alarms elsewhere. So I think any sort of industry that may have a sort of financial stake in you know, information about how baseball works, is, you know, might be—it might have an interest, certainly, you know, players making this think of it perhaps that, you know, being seen eventually is a labor issue, though again, [37:44] this week, you know, you know, so it had to be a music. They probably couldn’t comment on the story, but like, the clearly, the players, you know, are disadvantaged.
BOBBY: Yeah, they did not decline the comment.
BRADFORD: And we—and we—and we got.
BOBBY: Justin Verlander, and Chris Bassitt, like these guys, did not decline to come.
BRADFORD: Yeah, yeah, we—we got, you know, like for our story, like, you know, we got Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, you know, Chris Archer, like dudes who, like, you know, have some clout around the league, and you know. And what better way to do a good [38:12] three of the best—the three best pitchers of this current era all being like, hey, something’s wrong here. You know, and the cast down is going to left totally by, you know, alleged, you know, by basically drawing [38:24] over and over in the NFL. And so, yeah, so there’s, you know—so to me, I think anyone with a financial stake, which includes players to be clear, because if there’s a ball days change and performance, and if it’s—and also if it’s inequitably distributed around the league, then that could potentially affect stat lines that, you know, that create people, you know, that creates tension around, you know, as far as, like, am I being, you know, am I operating on a level playing field that allows other teams to properly evaluate my worth. Will level or [38:56] level and transparent, I should say, you know what it’s?
BOBBY: Yeah.
BRADFORD: So it’s truly different, you know. I, for example, Colorado, for example, before the Humidor was using all theIr stadiums, the Rockies, were exclusively use the Humidor for years, you know. So that’s not level, but it’s, like, transparent, you know.
BOBBY: Yeah.
BRADFORD: It’s like, okay, so the ball is for—is ball is—is designed to form a little differently here because of what we’re doing, you know, the Humidor, you know. Not the construction, per se, but the you know, [39:19] after the fact. So, like, you know, but again, that’s transparent, you know. So like, you know, so when, you know, someone hits 331 years, and return the next you have like some of that—some understanding of perhaps Humidor you know how depressing that. This is a—this is a whole different ballgame. Again, sorry, [39:37] is so easy, but they’re like, oh do not attend it, like to see like, you know, with—with—with the existence of multiple manufacturing processes that are used in Spain. You know there are—there are—that are used and then also applied within the same season of time. So.
BOBBY: Sho—should we just go around in a circle right here, like an improv group, and try to come up with as many ball puns as possible, like the balls in Rob Manfred’s court now?
ALEX: Balls don’t lie.
BOBBY: Alex, [40:02]
ALEX: That was a good one. The—the—the ball—the thing about the—the balls to the— to the wall. Whether or not they’re to—I don’t know you gotta give me some time. Getting over sickness. [40:19]
BRADFORD: [40:19]
BOBBY: Oh.
ALEX: First [40:22] ever.
ALEX: Get off the stage.
BOBBY: Yeah, mom, can you pick me up from the rap battle. [40:27] One of the—one of the most interesting kind of storylines to—to come out of this investigation, where was the—the sort of discovery of the circumstances under which these Goldilocks balls were being used, right. And they were really popping up in these sort of marquee events like that—that you know, demand some sort of commemorative ball, like the run Derby, or the all-star game, as well as postseason games, and Yankees games. Um, without reading too much into like, the specific use cases of this, right, because like, a part of me sort of understands, you know, you have these nationally televised games, or you have, say, a home run race that you don’t want to be seen as tampering with. You want to make sure you have all your ducks in a row. So like, let’s put the—the median ball out there, right? The not-too-hot, not-too-cold ball. But like, how much of this do you think is actual, like tampering on their part? I don’t want to say malice, but like, is intentional? And how much do you think can you actually chalk up to incompetence, for this sort of manufacturing process that they keep sort of alluding to, because when you look at it, laid out on the table, these three different buckets of balls and these very specific use cases, it’s hard to see it as something that you really can just hand wave away, right? The evi—evidence keeps mounting to a point where you’re like, we can’t keep trusting every single thing, right?
BRADFORD: So one things is really important about last year study, is that even though we found two distinct balls, we did not find any sort of relationship or pattern to where the balls were found. Meaning, you know, which is actually what the league and Manfred have said, remote managers that will be said. We randomize how the balls were sent out, you know. As a matter of not putting his thumb on the scale for any one team, and the expected performance—and the performances that would you know both [42:37] getting whether or not the accomplice is not, you know, is something that is, again, [42:45] you know, and it’s typically difficult to ascertain this year as well. But like, you know, that is what he said, and I can say that we can find a sa—a pattern. This year within our sample we did, right, like—you like as he has mentioned, comm—you know, balls that were appear to be set aside for special occasions, like, again, commemorative ball, you know, also game over Derby. The postseason within World Series, all four rounds, we found them. Like most—most of [43:10] balls actually, like sending 16 other 20 balls, you know, that we got from there. So 80%, right, we’re like, all we’re worthy Goldilocks, right? And then, of course, seeing these. And, you know, and so that was, you know, that was telling, right? I should say, it was no—let me say as inaudible, you know because we know that Major League Baseball, and their lo—you know, the logistics of how many balls are—are sent and information provided to that back to the league. There is a lot of tracking of that, you know, like that, you know, when you—if you’ve ever been on the field during the game, which I guess, you know, you wouldn’t unless you’re a player or hoarder, or maybe, you know, maybe like a friend of a players and like that. Like you wouldn’t see, but they come with these red boxes, and they have a code on it, you know, that is actually reported back by Major League Baseball’s game compliance monitors, those are the guys who make sure no cheating, basically, you know, and they send that—and they send whatever box is being used, like—like us for that game, back to the league office, you know, before the game starts. So that is, like, you know, a part of what happens every single day before you play a game. Which means that again, it should be no surprises as to which ball, you know, is being used, if there’s, you know, especially if this goes [44:16] with all, whatsoever with the batch codes, which I— you know, again, cannot I don’t have the—the—the, you know, the secret email that—codes and all but like, you know, but it’d be surprising to, you know, for it to not be that way. Yeah. But anyway.
BOBBY: But his DMS are all guys [44:34]
BRADFORD: [44:35] the signal, whatever, you know, whatever is in encryption, I’m here for you, but um, but yeah, the—the but the most important thing to say I guess this—and all this again, is yeah, and that like what almost, and almost Bernoulli here, almost every single baseball that we found during the regular season was dead, except in one place, and that was—and that was with the Yankees like and that’s across many of the parks, you know, dozens. I—and so that—whether that is by [45:03]
BOBBY: So wait. Wait, exactly, wait. Just for specification, only at Yankee Stadium though, right, like not they weren’t—that Yankees games on the road.
BRADFORD: That’s actually an important clarification. Right. And so what—I want to kind of wish was it was in the body of that article first, because I had a footnote that got caught like last second. But basically, here’s what I mean. Here’s what I mean, when we say Yankees games. Anything that is played, you know, actually in game, you know, at Yankee Stadium, counts, right? Also, balls that the Yankees hit during their home batting practice also account, why, because of the balls that are shipped from Major League Baseball to Yankee Stadium. But we—we also get, you know, relevant, you know thought it’s relevant factor here, were balls that were sent to, you know, our [45:42] And I’ve also said [45:43], but balls hit by the Yankees on the road BP, why, and you wouldn’t notice unless you’re like, you know, reporting like I am, but like, or player is, but—but when teams go on the road, and they bring, you know, they bring baseballs set to their home ballparks with them for batting practice. They did and just like a totally normative thing that every team does, not just the Yankees, you know, when they—when they do BP on the road. Still like, so while something could get mixed in, it is highly unlikely that it wasn’t up yet, that those roads BP balls that we collected, you know from Yankees, you know, from the Yankees, we’re not ball sentient the stadium. So that’s when we say when we use that when we make that kind of Yankees, you know, 11 Goldilocks from the Yankees.
BOBBY: Yeah.
BRADFORD: And so, you know, so I just hope that clarifies right, you know, requiring minds anyway, that, you know.
BOBBY: It does.
BRADFORD: There’s always that sort of, like, you know, tension here while trying to make the, you know, the narrative flow as simple as possible, so everyone would get it, while also trying to add, like, you know, the—
BOBBY: Important content and nuance.
BRADFORD: Yeah, the important content and nuance. You know, but like, but those—but those what we found is relevant if it was like a home BP ball, let’s say like the Brewers, Brewers-Yankees game, you know, like that when, you know, that went back to our, into our account for like Yankees games to me. Like that doesn’t matter as much, but like, or at all, really, you know. But what does matter, you know, are the— are the old ones. Because those were brought by the Yankees to the, you know, to the field of the playing it you know, for batting practice. So, anyway, so um, yeah, I hope that explains here. But you know, but if you—unless you’re getting more of a question on top of that, but you know, that’s [47:13]
ALEX: You can want to give the benefit of the doubt in maybe a singular scenario. But when this sort of pattern comes up over and over again, I’m like, you’re not giving either us the fans, or you the reporters, or the players, really much of a reason to take your word at face value. Especially when last year he was like, no, yeah, so you guys win, when last year, Manfred was like, yes, your reporting is correct. We actually did use two baseballs. And then this year, he’s like, sorry, that’s—the research is completely inaccurate. And uh—and I can’t say why. But I can tell you that it is, you know, like.
BRADFORD: And that’s actually an important thing that you—that you sort of like touch on in a decent way, Alex. What the Major League Baseball did, was he did provide some comments from their researchers, you know, at their partner labs at University of [48:05] as well as University of Washington, right. And they—over there, they have some you know, these laboratories where they’re studying the baseball, football, baseball performance, and both of them intensity according to our studies. We did not see any sort of difference, you know, in the— in uh—in the how the ball is performing, right? We just—you know, we saw no evidence of multiple baseballs. I called one of those—yeah I called both of them actually, one straight to voicemail but uh— but the person at University of Massachusetts did pick up the phone, and during it, and I was able to ask them questions about methodology, most of which they declined, because they— basically, they needed [48:42] approval, [48:44] engaged in baseball in order to be able to comment on the methodology. I went—I personally don’t think that’s a perfectly scientific answer. But I—you know, but you know, they—if they have an NDA or some sort of that I’m aware of, you know, I gotta get that right, like the little amount. But what they did confirm was that, the scientists did the research and they confirmed, was that he did not study postseason baseballs, that’s really important because that means what they—what they are conceding is that they looked at a different data that you did. Like, and of course, if you look at different data, you’re gonna get different results.
BOBBY: Yeah.
BRADFORD: Like, there’s no—there’s no way around that, you know, you need to be able to look—look at the end, an overwhelming amount of the Goldilocks baseballs that we found, like, about half of them are in the postseason. Like, you know, and it’s not—it’s not like we were trying to per se like, you know, we weren’t waiting them before we got the baseballs, we just got what we could [49:34] and they turned up Goldilocks, you know. So if that you know,[49:39] a major issue, if you are bringing it, you know, an incident for Major League Baseball mostly, primarily. But to bring in scientists knowing that we did a different study needed, and using the scientists or to—to allegedly refute our, you know, our findings. When their findings had to be different on some global beat, you know, because they weren’t looking at the same stuff. So that is a, you know that—that’s one—if those one thing that like, I wish people could see a little bit more than like Judge 62 asterisk, you know, fraud, you know, Astros forever like, which is a whole lot of y’all. I see you all mostly laughing, but you know, but let’s, you know, lower temperature a bit. That’s the thing is like, you know, bring—no bring out [50:19] science, try not—trying out accomplish researchers with the—with credentials in their field and having them spout out findings that I could that— that do not necessarily overlap with the research that we did.
BOBBY: Yeah, I mean, far be it for me to make excuses for Major League Baseball, this is why it’s so frustrating that they won’t be more transparent about this. But like, you could see a world in which, that when the postseason rolls around, you say, hey, let’s put a ball that’s not juiced like ol—the like the 2019 ball, but it’s not as dead as this new regular season ball that we’ve tried to create, because it’s 40 degrees out there. And so how is anybody going to hit a home run when it’s as cold and those external factors are changing how the ball performs more than they are during the course of the regular season? But they’re just not seeing any of that. So like, I don’t know how I’m supposed to give them the benefit of the doubt, if they’re denying that there are these separate balls in for different use cases, which, like you said, Bradford, you are looking at different use cases based on what you know about baseball, and based on what you know about the production process and how these balls get sent. And when they get sent. And knowing that you might use different balls for a homerun derby. Knowing that it would make sense to have a commemorative baseball for the all-star game. Not just looking at a data set of every single ball that was used blindly. Because that is just such a wide swath of data that it— it’s not really telling the story, the same kind of story that it would be to look at the postseason, see if it changed from the regular season. Like that’s an important demarcation point, qualitatively, not just quantitatively.
BRADFORD: [51:47]
BOBBY: And that what people should be factoring into their research.
BRADFORD: [51:52] I added Bobby is that, in 2019, there was a more thorough study of drag, dine around the 2019 postseason baseball, because if you recall it a lot of—a lot, a lot of players like you know, who were who win, right watching this ball just like carry out, you know, if the—with like a flick of the wrist, you know. And now it’s like, you know, and then it was dying in the outfield. That and—and Rob wouldn’t say, Rob Arthur [52:17] protects us now that the drag coefficient hadn’t, you know, had an effect injuries, meaning that like, you know, the baseball was not carrying as far—as far even though he did not have forensic data. He certainly no, he had dragged data with which to test to that. So it was definitely on my mind as to like, you know, could the postseason ball be different, you know, as you know, normal— normatively and you know, that certainly, you know, appeared to be the case.
BOBBY: My— my last question for you, Bradford is how much of this—so this is clearly— this is a thing. There are different baseballs, MLB is using different baseballs, to the extent to which they intend to for whatever reason, we can’t and shouldn’t speculate at this point with what we know. But it’s clear that there are different baseballs that are being used because of the production process, which they own and they control. They own Rawlings, the company that makes these baseballs, they bought them a few years ago. Do you think this has just always been going on? We’ve just never paid attention to it because we didn’t know. Nobody studied it. Nobody looked at the science, like do you think all the way back to Babe Ruth, there was just like randomly juiced balls that were flying out way more, and that this is just a function of like living in an information age that we know all of this stuff?
BRADFORD: That’s a really good question. I mean, look, I think ultimately, the—the ball specifications are so broad, that like kind of anything is possible with that.
BOBBY: Yeah.
BRADFORD: Because—because they’re so broad, and that’s part of it. And that’s actually part of the issue with Major League Baseball’s statement, is that they keep on saying yeah, all the balls are illegal. We know, we’re not—we’re not contesting that they’re illegal baseball is here. It’s all within the rules. The problem is that the rules are so broad that you can do multiple things within the rules, that you—you know, that have multiple outcomes. And we know that, and we saw what happened in 2019. And then also we saw what happened this year as, as again there is a mostly dead ball that appears to be circulating per and Moby’s you know, statement, which is entirely dead, you know. But like, and so, you know, anyway, there is—the ball is extremely likely buried, you know, over the course of, you know, a century. Again, I don’t have uh you know, Honus Wagner baseball with which you dissect and tell you, whether that was juice or dead, but like as you know, as a totally, it would not shock me whatsoever if there were, you know, if there may be extreme changes in weather. And even if it wasn’t by nefarious means, you know, or you know, and I’m not saying it—I’m not saying that we concluded in nefarious means this year, but like, you know, but just it. That this difference exists, but like, you know, just the—the fact that the ball specs are so broad, you could do a whole lot, you know, by intent or by accident to make things different.
ALEX: Yeah, that was something that—that—that physicist Alan Nathan pointed out in the article right? This that—the specifications for the balls, almost don’t even deserve to be called specifications, because that—that margin is so big, the top end and the bottom end can be completely different. So again, it’s like—
BOBBY: The ball has to be somewhere between one gram and 10,000 pounds basically.
ALEX: I—my—my—my last question isn’t really a question. It’s more than an observation. I—I just thought it was interesting that one of the biggest free agent signings in Major League Baseball History just happened to break on the same day that this article dropped. Again, I’m not—I’m not saying anything. I just thought it was really interesting to wake up to.
BRADFORD: Oh, yeah, you know, me and Jon Heyman, my best friend, Jon Heyman, you know, conspired with Farhan, to, you know, to suppress Aaron Judge’s market value like that, you know, as the thing that happens all the time, in sports media, especially my neck of the woods, and, you know, and I love working with Jon, Heyman, he’s a great partner in the—in the suppression of [55:49].
ALEX: No. No. Hey, I—
BRADFORD: I was wrapping up when I had. I was [55:56] meeting, so I was there for, you know, for [55:59] Judge and, and all of that, I was like, yo, this is mad, funny, like, you know, that like, the same time—around the same time with my article, like, you know, there’s this thing and so a lot of people were speculating on social media, they’re like, oh, yeah, look— look what happened. Look at the coordination the stakes is in.
ALEX: You’re right, yeah.
BRADFORD: But no, no, I have no idea.
BOBBY: There’s just—there is no good way to talk about any of this stuff without, without seeming like the meme from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia with the corkboard behind you. But you know, what, there’s some answers on that corkboard sometimes, you know, that is how some crimes get solved. That is how some conspiracies get you know, un—unraveled so [56:38]
BRADFORD: I try not to be Charlie Day, no partially by being literate [56:42] you know, by just kind of doing you know, thorough good research with a—with a someone far smarter than I am and it’s deftly merited wills, you know, nothing tremendous research on this stuff that has been proven, and or even—even verified as articles, I mean, just baseball, you know. [56:58] So, yeah, we—yeah we stand on, on we stand on article, you know, we definitely want you know, you know, when they continue to be able to—to offer clarifications, you know, when needed, you know, as far as some of the shorthand terminology we use to describe, you know, longer things like, for example, what are the Yankees ball, but like, yeah, yeah, we’re— we’re proud of the work we’re doing. And, you know, watch out for us because we—just because it’s still around.
ALEX: I know, because you’re working on an article about the fourth baseball next year already, right? [57:26]
BOBBY: Can you name the fourth baseball after us, like if it’s like extremely weighted to left side, you know, like, we’re—
ALEX: There you go.
BRADFORD: The Tipping Pitches Ball. Yeah.
BOBBY: The Tipping Pitches Ball.
BRADFORD: Yeah.
BOBBY: Bradford, thank you so much. Do you have anything else that you’re working on that you’d like people to go check out right now? No, I knew your stories are very deep dives that come out, not very frequently compared to what your previous job was. But what’s—what’s one thing that you want people to go check out?
BRADFORD: Yeah, so you know, about—about a week ago, week before the baseball [57:56] in two weeks. I dropped a actually long investigation on as part of a package that we did on homicides of transgender people in the United States. And so I strongly encourage you to look at these packages called deaths, Deaths In The Family, and we, you know, where we hope to provide a compassionate and honest look at, you know, why transient United States. And so I feel proud of my contribution, and I spend a lot of time in Washington DC speaking to— to—to women and trans community who lost, you know, two people within a short period of time and [58:26] on the same block, you know. And, you know, and believe the murders are connected to the police, I’ve always—I’ve always sort of downplayed or disputed, you know, that connection, but like, we found some interesting things to fully document, you know, retrieval that might attest to more weight than what has been publicly stated by the law enforcement area. So anyway, that’s—that’s, that’s—my contribution. There’s—there’s more there are more that’s already out there are more that is coming. And so, you know, given that, you know, violence in the United States is on the rise period, and certainly chance to trans people, you know, feel that in a different way. You know, like I—we hope to provide clear explanations that hopefully lead to do it to change for their lives, all of us, really. So. That’s my last uh—that’s my last part.
BRADFORD: Awesome.
ALEX: Bradford, thank you so much for joining us. It’s always a pleasure.
BRADFORD: Alright, y’all.
BOBBY: Thank you, brother. You’re one of our faves, one of our faves.
[theme]
BOBBY: Alright, Alex, we’re running short on time here. We did get two listener questions in our replies when I put up that call earlier today. However, both of them we’ve answered in the past, so I’ll just point people back to those answers. The first one comes from Brandon, what would be your three go-to walk-up songs? Wow, only one Taylor Swift song per host, please. Brandon knows his audience. I believe we answered that question in great detail on the 200th episode, Mailbag, which came out in 2021. So Brandon, if you’d like, go check that episode. And the other one comes—
ALEX: You really said read the fucking column.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: We’re not answering it in the replies?
BOBBY: Read the column. And then the other one comes from Ken, what is your ideal arrangement of MLB, who owns it, real changes, profit, distribution, et cetera. The real reason I wanted to point this one out, so that I could point Ken back to two episodes that we did in our past, which, you know, I’ve plugged often on the show, and I like to take an opportunity to whenever possible because I feel like they’re both of those, these episodes are a bit of a mission statement for our show. And are still eminently listenable, given the state of baseball and the state of the discourse around it in our conversation to open the show. The first one is called Good Fans On The Team. This is just me and Alex coming through the hypest hypothetical situations and breaking down other sports leagues, fan own— fan ownership structures, and how it’s worked internationally, and whether or not it could work in Major League Baseball. And then the second is called, So You Want To Own a Baseball Team with featuring Rob Mann. Who is a wonderful writer over at baseball prospectus, and knows a lot about how owners make their money, why they make the decisions that they do. Rob has a lot of experience in the finance world that he could speak to, in more quantitative ways than just our qualitative analysis of how this stuff works. So those are two episodes that I would go back and check out. Sorry to all the people who have already heard those episodes, just for plugging them again. Alex, anything else to leave the people with this week?
ALEX: I think that mostly covers everything. I mean, are we—is it a dereliction of our duties that we—that we didn’t make like an Arson Judge joke? Or like a—like a Coke Hamels joke, you know. I mean, we are like baseball content, people. So like, we got it. We got to go for the lowest hanging, hanging fruit, right?
BOBBY: Do you think Jon Heyman would come on the pod?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I think so too. But you know why? Because he famously blocks everybody. Right. And you know, he hasn’t blocked, either of us or The Tipping Pitches account. So that will lead us to believe.
ALEX: Despite we’ve made quite a few kind of attempts.
BOBBY: Right. So the only reasonable conclusion that I could make from that, is that he likes what we’re doing here at Tipping Pitches.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: He’s down with [1:02:21]
ALEX: He was aware, he respects us.
BOBBY: Comrade, Jon, come on the pod. If you’re listening to this right now. And you’re feeling like a little troll, what I want you to do, is I want you to tweet at Jon Heyman and say, hey, heard that the Tipping Pitches podcast wants to have you on, I would love to hear you there.
ALEX: I don’t know how I would talk to this man. Or like, what I would talk with him about.
BOBBY: Yeah, [1:02:48]
ALEX: I’m not interested in talking like transactions.
BOBBY: No, that’s extremely true. Like, what—he’s not even one of the funnier ones that we could bait into coming on our podcast, right? Nightingale would be far funnier.
ALEX: Unfortunately, yeah. Like I have to assume Nightingales got like a shred of self-awareness, at this point, you know, like he can’t be—that might be giving him too much credit, but I at least think he’s probably a little more self-aware than Heyman. Like, there’s no way Nightingale has escaped to the memes that he has spawned, right? Like he’s got to know. Heymans feels like the kind of guy who—who tweets and then shuts off his phone.
BOBBY: I can’t tell. I can never tell who’s like a scroller, who’s like, who’s deep in their own mentions or not, you know?
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: I mean, you could—it’s pretty obvious when people are like replying to their mentions all of the time. But I kind of think that like anybody who tweets that much, also reads their mentions that much.
ALEX: You think?
BOBBY: Yeah. You know, who definitely doesn’t read his mentions, Peter Gammons, because he like tweets from uh—he tweets by texting.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: She that services like the one of the last five people, using that service still.
ALEX: So texting the 40404, like that’s—that’s literally I—back in the day. I was like, 14, I was so cool being on Twitter. I’m like, no, I have to send my message and like multiple messages, but it’s fine. I’ll get it out there. I love that he’s—there are still some people clinging to the old ways, you know.
BOBBY: He’s keeping it alive. Alright. The voicemail number to call in 785-422-5881. Please call and let us know which member of baseball media you would like us to try to bait in to come on the Tipping Pitches Podcast because we’re gonna make this a democracy. By popular demand, we’re gonna ask Anthony Dicomo to come back on. I don’t know you tell us. Thank you for listening to another episode of Tipping Pitches. We’ll be back next week.
[Hot and Cold playing]
ALEX: 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.
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