Bobby and Alex do a (slightly belated) dramatic reading of the history of Mike Piazza’s quest to bankrupt an Italian soccer team, then take stock of the myriad “mega-deals” over the last couple weeks and how they reflect the health of baseball’s economic landscape, and try to figure out whether Chaim Bloom has any clue what he’s doing, before answering listener questions about conspiracy theories, Jesus Christ player comps, and “The Last Out.”
Links:
The Passion of Mike Piazza ($)
Ken Rosenthal on how teams are circumventing the luxury tax ($)
Effectively Wild Episode 1942: Get Interested in Interest Rates!
Ben Clemens on how interest rates tell the story of decade-long contracts
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon
Tipping Pitches merchandise
Songs featured in this episode:
Florence and The Machine — “Free” • Future Teens, Dan Campbell — “Team Sports ” • 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 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.
BOBBY:
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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. That’s remarkable.
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BOBBY: Alex, I want to start this week by talking to you about a promoted article that I saw it on my twitter.com timeline. Now—
ALEX: There are still people promoting things on twitter.com?
BOBBY: Well, there’s some people promoting some strange things, like fake Vaccine Information and Elon Musk’s simping.
ALEX: I’ve seen some promotions for like soup. You know, like that’s really—
BOBBY: I’ve been seeing a lot of promotions. So this is already a digression.
ALEX: We’re literally eight seconds since the podcast, and on a digression already. But I’ve been seeing a lot of people promote—If you stand with Elon Musk, follow me heart emoji, heart emoji, heart emoji, like just promoting their own tweets. Like this is becoming like an Elon Musk fan site, you know, like circa 2006, when you would just make like boyband fan sites or like blogs—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: — about, I don’t know, whatever you are into.
BOBBY: That’s what Twitter is becoming, like the whole website.
ALEX: Yeah. Like if I really wanted to do that, I would just reopen my account on the Jeremy Renner social media platform. Like that’s—that’s what I would do.
BOBBY: Was Jeremy Renner ahead of his time, [1:38]
ALEX: It’s yes, yeah.
BOBBY: So this tweet that I saw promoted was for an article. Now this article—full discretion. Four years old, this article was four years old. I don’t know if that’s because Twitter doesn’t have enough money right now. And they’re just recycling old promoted tweets for like a discounted rate or something to get more money. But this is an athletic article. Maybe it was because the athletic didn’t have any new articles because all their staff walked out on strike. But this article was promoted to me, this past week. Now, it also could be because it was the four-year anniversary of this event. Could be because the World Cup final was coming up, and this article was about soccer. Let me go ahead and read you the headline and the subheader of this article. People—maybe people know about this, but I didn’t. So I feel like it’s worth sharing with listeners. The Passion of Mike Piazza. How the Midlife Crisis of a Baseball Hall of Famer, Led to the Demise of a 100-year-old Italian Soccer Club.
ALEX: There it is, you—you—you hear that? You—you hear that headline, and you think it’s kind of like editorializing, right? It’s like okay, but you’re not really giving him a fair shake. Oh, he had a midlife crisis, really you can say that with fa—no, it’s—that’s there are quotes in the article that back that up, like everything in that headline is actually, factually correct.
BOBBY: We have a little bit of a thing in journalism, where they just give away the whole story in the headline going on right here.
ALEX: Right, exactly. But worst—
BOBBY: But also—
ALEX: —because it—it made us click through.
BOBBY: Yes. The Passion of Mike Piazza, like this, is the Scorsese movie, The Passion of Christ, like they really went for it with this headline.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly. He’s bargain bin Mel Gibson, is that what this makes him?
BOBBY: No. Lightweight, like kinda. Now, I’ve asked you to go through this article, and pull out some select—some select quotes, some select moments, and also just for your general takeaways from this article. So I’m gonna turn it over to you. What stood out to you about the Passion of the Christ, the Passion of Mike Piazza?
ALEX: I think what—what shocks me the most and—and you know, I have to tip my cap to them is how—is how honest they were about this whole—whole ordeal. It seems that—that Piazza was not taking this lightly at all. But they were very happy to talk about the myriad corruption accusations that they—that they would throw against the Italian team city. The Italian team city of Reggio Emilia, it’s— it—it’s a fucking journey, man. But I—I— it can probably be encompassed with a—with a quote from his wife, who gives many choice quotes in this—in this article, who uh—who refers to Mike’s ownership dream as his quote, midlife crisis and said, Who the fuck ever heard of Reggio Emilia? It’s not Venice. It’s not Rome.
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: My girlfriend said and you can quote this, and this really depressed to me. She said, honey, you bought into Pittsburgh.
BOBBY: [4:38]
ALEX: First of all, drive by on—on Pittsburgh,
BOBBY: Right. Beautiful city.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Great working-class movement in Pittsburgh. That’s number one. Number two. So let’s backtrack for a second. So the article starts out by talking about Mike Piazza. He’s retired. He doesn’t know what to do. It’s 2016, you know, he’s writing hi. Donald Trump’s just won the Republican nominee. He’s about to go on to become the President. Mike Piazza is like, this is great. Life is grand. Well, I’m on top of the world, what do I do now? So he goes and he buys a controlling interest in A.C. Reggiana 1919, the Italians, the so—the soccer club of Reggio Emilia. Now, this was a team that was relatively down on its luck at the time, they were in the third tier. [5:23] fam—so famously, Piazza, he likes to diversify his business portfolio. And this was his, I guess, foray into ownership. He clearly didn’t have enough money to buy into like a baseball team. So he was like, you know what I’ll do, I’ll go back to the home country.
ALEX: Right. Famous proud Italian, Mike Piazza, said I want—I want to—said I don’t just want to ride off into the sunset. And at one point, he says in this—in this interview with Robert Andrew Powell, who wrote the article, right, he’s doing the kind of post mortem with—with Mike Piazza. He says to Powell, I was rehired when my second daughter was born. And, you know, it’s my kids, I would never trade them for the world. But—but I remember thinking, here I am, I used to be hitting home runs in front of 42,000 people. And now I’ve got shit under my fingernails from changing diapers. So like, he is going through it very, very clearly. He’s bored out of his fucking mind.
BOBBY: My personal favorite is that he starts the interview by saying to the reporter, this interview is going to be wet. Mike said soon after I arrived, he stepped toward a bar in the living room and smiled. I hope that’s okay with you.
ALEX: So, okay. That’s also—I just want to say that’s how I—that’s how you talk with drinking. I’m like—I’m like, hey bro, you trying to get wet tonight?
BOBBY: The club is bankrupt. Can you—ho—how did this happen? How did he run this—this—this team into the ground?
ALEX: I—again, I mentioned, like due diligence, like this team had already gone bankrupt twice, like in the previous, you know, 15,20 years or whatever. So it’s—so it’s not like financial problems were new to the team. But they are obviously compounded when you have someone enter the head honchos office who doesn’t know anything about running a football team, right? Like it’s—you asked how this happened. But I’m like, ho—like, how did it not happen sooner? How did it take two years for this, you know? And you know, I—I want to be clear, it seems at least from the framing of this article, that Piazza was genuinely invested in this. He—he was hands on it. He was hands-on, the players really liked him.
BOBBY: He was giving out contracts, which were large for this division of Italian soccer.
ALEX: Right, the payroll ballooned from like 500,000 euros to like 6 million euros, after his purchase of the team, so like, I—I have, I have to give him credit, right? He’s a man of the people. The article even notes that the town of Reggio Emilia is, you know, has had ties to communism in the past, and still views itself with a sort of collectivist mindset. And so I have to assume—
BOBBY: That’s right.
ALEX: —that he was just trying to buy into that ethos, right, and say I am for the money. The problem is you—you eventually run out of money, right as—as the old—as the old refrain goes.
BOBBY: So, Mike Piazza lost over 6 million euros on his midlife crisis, which, it’s fine like he’ll—he’ll recover from this. He also owns the used car. Mo—moderate used car empire in the mid-Atlantic. I grew up driving past to Mike Piazza Honda de— Honda dealers daily, which I don’t know if people know this or not, if they’re not from the tri-state, Pennsylvania, New Jersey area, uh.
ALEX: But it doesn’t matter, right? Like I didn’t know—you know, I didn’t know about A.C. Reggiana, but it mattered to the people of the town, right? And like, that’s the most important part of all of this.
BOBBY: I think that my takeaway from this is that as much as I loved White Lotus season two, I feel like they should have focused more on the reality of Mike Piazza in Italy like this might have been a better trip to Italy for them.
ALEX: There is absolutely a like six-part Netflix docu-series coming down the pike, right? Like this—this feels perfectly suited for that, you have charges of corruption. You have access wealth, you have a, a small community with a sort of cultural touchstone that’s being ripped away from them, like—like it’s all there. And you have these two really sort of, you know, for better or for worse, kind of outlandish personalities in Piazza and his wife, Alicia.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Who—who actually, who really comes off as being like the one in charge. Like at one point, he says Alicia became the only one I could trust. I basically took the budget and I turned to her and went help. I don’t know what to do, which that’s, I think, usually, you’re in a good spot, when you’re holding the budget of your soccer team that you just bought, and saying, what’s some—what’s the move?
BOBBY: Here’s my final question about this. And the end of the article, he’s talking to the reporter. He says maybe it could have been different, he’s talking about, he’d put in his own people, people know what they were doing. That’s what we’ve learned. We’ve learned those lessons the hard way. There’s a lot of shoulda, coulda, woulda, Taylor Swift-coded language there. But he doesn’t regret doing it. So am I to take from this that he’s interested in doing this again? And should we be on the lookout for being the chroniclers of Mike Piazza buying another Italian soccer team?
ALEX: You know, if the conditions are right, I—I don’t think we can rule out that possibility, right? And—and part of the—part of the reason for the financial strain was due to the rent of the stadium kind of doubling. And he was really, really upset about that, about being beholden to, you know, billionaires who are controlling the fate of, of his team. And I—it did kind of sound like he was looking for a handout a little bit. So I don’t know. Maybe if he is able to turn up in a country that’s a little more generous to, to wealthy sports team owners then he—he might do. Alright.
BOBBY: Now I’m quoting from the article at the end here. I’ve spoken to him a couple times at length since he returned to Italy. Last time we talked we discussed Reggina for a while, naturally. But the team and its problems in his brief time running club seemed like a closed chapter. We talked about Donald Trump, how big an American abroad has given Piazza a wider perspective on immigration. We talked about the mess for a bit. He told me he’s starting to get into rugby on TV, and also Formula One. He said he doesn’t like to watch Italian soccer anymore. Not even Syria. I just don’t. he said, or I think I’m just too hurt to care. So again, Mike Piazza’s email album dropping when?
ALEX: Yeah, right.
BOBBY: He’s too hurt to care, he’s getting out of this town. He’s done. He’s not looking back.
ALEX: I—I just want to be clear, because I know—I know that it has—has come off. Like we have suggested that Piazza was not well-equipped to run this team. Perhaps that he didn’t have the financial strength, or—or even the—the sort of social wherewithal to be able to effectively keep this team above water. I—but under no circumstances, do we think that he’s a pussy. And that point is underlined by his wife, who, following his naming of her to be the club’s Vice President said, he likes to stay above the fray. It’s not like he’s a pussy, or he needs his wife. It’s the way he’s comfortable. He’s always been like that. Again, I just want to reiterate, Mike Piazza is neither a pussy nor does he need his wife.
BOBBY: Well, now that we’ve got that cleared up, [13:49]
ALEX: Ex—exactly.
BOBBY: Look, we’re making fun of him. We’re making fun of him running 100-year-old football club into the ground.
ALEX: [13:56]
BOBBY: Ruining a small town in Italy, right? Dashing these poor folk’s hopes and dreams. His fans who give their life to this game, you know, we’re making fun of it. But honestly, this is sort of like the rich guy’s version of me being like, I want to just move to Italy and work in a work ba— work making espresso. You know, he’s like, I want to move to Italy and buy a soccer team.
ALEX: Right. Yeah, but the difference is, you want to move to Italy and like get a normal job.
BOBBY: Work a wage job.
ALEX: You know.
BOBBY: Not—not try to invest in by owning a team. Yeah.
ALEX: Right. I mean, this is—this is like reverse Ted Lasso come to life, right? Yeah, we’ll just throw someone in the front office, and let’s—and let’s see what happens. Turns out it actually doesn’t work.
BOBBY: Well, It’s interesting that this happened before Ted Lasso, so that’s yes. Maybe they just took the exact opposite and turned it into the TV show. Alright, we are going to talk about the last week in, in news and free agent analysis. We’re going to talk about one GM who’s maybe a reputation is outpacing his output. We’re going to do some voicemails at the end of this podcast. We are not going to talk anymore about Mike Piazza, I promise. But before we do all of that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley. And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
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BOBBY: Okay Alex, thank you to our new patrons this week, Isaac, Jack, and Lauren. As a reminder, you can find the Tipping Pitches Patreon. At patreon.com/tipping pitches. There are three separate tiers for you, $5 to get access to the Slack and to say thank you, to us putting out this pod every week. Like how we asked people to give us money after doing some dumb shit intro, about an article from 2018 are like, hey, you want more content like this? The $7 tier, which will get you access to the Slack as well, as well as some free sticker packets. Some other fun perks. And this $12 Alex Rodriguez VIP club tier, which will get you all of the perks of the Patreon, which include the Slack includes the stickers, includes end of your holiday cards, which are in progress. For those folks out there listening right now who are anxiously checking the mail, you just have to understand that Alex and I are going to be behind on everything. So they’re going to be end-of-year Holiday cards, but they’re not going to be pegged to any specific holidays, say like December 25th, that you’re not going to get them by then. You’re probably not going to get them by January 1st. But you know what you are gonna get, a card in the mail at some point, which has a photo and has a handwritten thank you for all of your support and love along the way. The other thing that we are behind on is the newsletter, which I’m going to write another one this week. And we’re going to give you back, to back, to back newsletters to round out this year, to apologize for being overdue on that as well. So I’m just—Alex, some putting it all out on Front Street. You know, we’ve had a busy—busy couple of months here over at Tipping Pitches Incorporated. And I just want to be open and honest with our listeners, because they’ve been so supportive of us throughout this year, launching the Patreon. As we’ve launched the Patreon and people have signed up, to show so much love and support. The Slack has been wonderful even though I’ve been in it a little bit less than I like to be recently. So thank you so much to everybody. Especially as we get closer to the end of the year, the holidays. It really means a lot and it really still resonates all the support that you’ve—you’ve been giving us. In the calendar year of 2022, it’s been a huge year for the pod. Huge year for baseball, huge year for labor, all of that good stuff.
ALEX: Yeah, again, we—you know, we—this is obviously not our final pod of the year. But never a bad time to—to just take a moment and reiterate how grateful we are. That all y’all are, are joining us on this—on this journey of talking about Mike Piazza’s poor financial decisions.
BOBBY: It’s not our final pod of the year. It’s our final pod ever. This is it. We’re done after this. Thanks for everybody. It’s been a fun ride. Is that a good bit to tell people that this is our last pod ever, on every pod?
ALEX: Didn’t we—we do that once and a handful of people were like, wait, actually?
BOBBY: I think that I’ve done that at times when you’ve said stuff that like fake made me angry, you know.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Yeah. I think I also did that after you met John Fisher. And I was like there’s nowhere to go, but down from here.
ALEX: Here we are.
BOBBY: And I definitely made that joke after the minor leagues were unionized. We’re like, well, the pod’s done. We did it.
ALEX: Yep. Yep.
BOBBY: Okay, let’s talk—let’s talk quickly. So obviously, last week, we had—we spent a ton of time talking about all of the big contracts that were handed—that were handed out, all of the sort of discourse around them, about whether the back half of those contracts are going to be worth it, et cetera, et cetera. So this week, I don’t really want to, like I don’t need to talk about Carlos Correa’s, 13-year deal unless you really are dying too.
ALEX: I am.
BOBBY: By the look on your face I don’t—I don’t think you are. But what I do want to talk about is that— in the last week or so, I feel like anecdotally speaking, I haven’t done a you know, internet-wide sample of this data. But I feel like anecdotally speaking I feel like the envoke take of the past week, can you tell me if I’m—if I’m Cherry Picking. But like the envoke take has been, wow look at all of these big contracts. Look at all of these free agents who are signing within the first you know, two months of free agency as opposed to pre-lockout, pre-pandemic, when we were seeing guys like Manny Machado and Bryce Harper take their free agency. Two Boris guys you know, and many Boris clients have already signed this offseason. Two Boris guys in Machado and Harper, and even stretching back further than that. We were seeing it take a long time for these guys to find these long, big-money deals. It seemed like there were fewer suitors and they were struggling, scraping, scratching, clawing to find these deals that they were actually worth. And you know this offseason it seems like most of the large free agents are—are signed already. You know, like the last two holdouts I think of the biggest free agents were probably—or the last three holdouts I guess, signed in this past week. So Dansby Swanson signed with the Cubs. They finally got someone to actually want to come, I guess, end of their rebuild. I don’t really know what’s going on there.
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: Carlos Rodon signs with the Yankees. I mentioned Correa’s signs with the Giants. Feel like all the big—the big names are off the table. Now there are still wonderful players that will sign. And there’s still work to be done for some of the biggest contenders in order to round out the rosters, right? But this is admittedly very different than it was three years ago. So the envoke take, to circle all the way back around to my original point, has been—we just got a new CBA. There’s more financial security. There’s no pan—no more pandemic. No more shortened seasons. MLB just got back to record revenues this past season. So now owners are much more comfortable with handing out these big long-term deals, spending, splashing, throwing their money around, getting loose with it. I feel like I’ve seen that take a lot. And I—I don’t really think it’s true. Like, say more. I—I don’t think that owners are just loosening the belt all of a sudden, you know like they’re not just opening the checkbooks. In the way that I saw Ken Rosenthal share this take. So, Jeff Passan share this take. I saw plenty of—plenty of beat writers across the Internet, share this take that it seems like anecdotally speaking, it’s much easier for these guys to get these contracts now. And that owners are just kind of spending willy-nilly, and we’re not sure how it’s going to turn out 10 years from now. While acknowledging that, more guys have signed earlier in the offseason. I think that there are sort of external factors to that, like the return of the winter meetings, like a return to normalcy in an offseason. That is now like re-solidifying some of the—some of the timelines of when free agents usually sign. Like—just because we had a two or three-year period where there was a capital strike more or less, right before the pandemic, and right before the lockout, doesn’t mean that this is sort of some aberration we’re owners want to spend more than they ever have before. Am I crazy for that, because I just—I feel like there’s like four outlier owners right now. They’re like four teams that are spending, and spending, and spending. But the rest of the league is kind of operating exactly the same. And it’s not like just because these long-term deals have been given out. It’s not like these guys are making insane amounts of money in terms of average annual, annual value. Like some of these contracts are still like below 30 million a year. They’re just really long.
ALEX: Right, which is partially the point, I think, and I’ll know that Ken Rosenthal actually did have a decent breakdown of this sort of dynamic in the athletic the other day. Talking about the way that these long-term contracts, basically allow you to sort of skirt the luxury tax in the sense, right? By flattening out that average annual value. So you still say I’m paying Carlos Correa, $350 million, or you know, whatever the sum might be. But you don’t have to do that at 40 million a year, or whatever. You spread that out over 10,12, 13 years. And because the luxury tax is calculated based off average annual value of salaries, and not the literal salary that a team is paying to a player in a given year, you’re basically able to cheat the system a little bit and give Correa the guaranteed money that he wants without having to absolutely annihilate your payroll in a given year. And I mean, Rosenthal’s article has a bit of a sort of hand-wringing tone to it, where he’s like, will the league step in and do something to prevent them from skirting the luxury tax? And it’s like, no, they probably literally can’t do that. They can’t put their thumb on the economic scales of baseball like that, and step in and say, hey, guys, you need to renegotiate these contracts. Is obviously the Players Association wouldn’t stand for that. But whether or not they can do that, almost is beside the point. Because they shouldn’t. Are we mad, are we mad that the teams are spending money like this, right now, right? The owners have—as we kind of talked about last week, made the calculation that says this is the best use of my money to put us in a competitive window for the next decade, say and that’s fine. I—if they want to skirt the luxury tax so they can spend more money now, and put a better team together. I’m not mad about that. John Fisher might be. I actually think it’s incredibly funny that you have these owners basically ducking the luxury tax, while guys like Fisher and—and Nutting and Casalini are sitting on their hands, like, well we don’t have any money to do that, right? As the—as the front of the pack kind of runs away from them. But like, I’m not mad about it.
BOBBY: Well, I say—so I think that’s kind of part of my point. Like that—the take, owners and the league, and spending is healthier than ever because we have a new CBA. And owners feel comfortable to maybe spend a little bit more. Doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny because of the bottom half of the league still operating exactly how they were between 2015 and 2019. Like, there’s no difference in those bottom teams. It’s not like—it’s not like the Pirates are competing with the Yankees for Carlos Rodon, all of a sudden, because they be having a new CBA. And they know how much money they’re going to get. And they feel comfortable to go and do that. Now, do I think that the Pirates should go sign Carlos Rodon for the next five years? I mean, maybe but it’s probably not that beneficial to their team to do that, because of all of the tearing down, and all of the laying waste to that organization, that ownership has done over the last eight years. But like, I just think it’s like a slight difference in structure that’s being way overblown, like the length of these contracts, and the total dollar value of these contracts looks really high. But I don’t know, like can we use like a shred of critical thinking here, like in 2035, Carlos Correa making $27 million, there’s not going to be any kind of hamstring situation for the Giants. Like $27 million is less than Justin Upton made last year. He even played, that’s less than—that’s less than Arenado, it’s less than Machado. It’s less than Miguel Cabrera’s average annual value. It’s less than Correa made last year, like just because of the total dollar value of the contract. I feel like a lot of people are being totally duped by all of this stuff. Like they’re being—they’re kind of—they’re kind of being rupes about this whole situation. Like these teams are not going to be hurting for the $27 million, 13 years from now. They’re not going to be hurting for Trey Turner’s salary, 11 years from now. And if they were, they were just using that as an excuse not to spend them, which they’re happy to do, you know. And—and like, maybe it just bothers me a little bit, because I do feel like for a few years there, everybody was in agreement, that ownership was not doing a good job in distributing the revenue of Major League Baseball. And now all of a sudden, they hand out longer contracts, but not really higher average annual value contracts, and not a higher percentage of the revenue to players, by the way. Because the revenues is going to—just going to keep skyrocketing. Honestly, at a faster pace, than even these contracts can guarantee, because guys are taking lower—lower average annual value. The stars are taking lower average annual value, but moreover to the total time period. So as long as revenues keep increasing at their same pace, which we have no reason to believe that they won’t, without some catastrophic event, then the player is just gonna be making a smaller portion of the pie. I thought Effectively Wild had an interesting episode, they brought on Ben Clemens to talk about the idea of interest rates, and how teams can utilize higher interest rates right now from the Fed, in order to essentially make bets on these contracts. By setting aside a certain amount of lower money right now. They use Carlos Correa’s ex— Carlos Correa’s contracts as an example in that episode, which is probably subliminally why I’m focusing so much on the Correa deal. But also that was the most recent and the longest contract. Where, because interest rates are so high right now, they can basically guarantee that they’re not actually going to have to put out that $350 million in total. They can set aside a smaller amount of money now because Correa doesn’t need the whole lump sum at the moment, he gets it paid in installments yearly. And that’s not even gonna cost them the full $350 million over this, because their money will make money in that time period. And more money than ever. Or like more money than in the last couple decades, because of the sort of historic inflation conditions in the country right now. Like, I’m not doing the best job of explaining this, because I’m not a finance person. But like, I highly encourage people to go listen to that conversation on Effectively Wild, because I think it’s really eye-opening in terms of the large scale of money that these teams are working with, and how little it actually means to give one contract out to these guys. Like how little risk they’re actually taking by giving this money, knowing that they have all of these guaranteed revenue streams that are going up and, up, and up. And I also think something that Steve Cohen, [30:00] about Steve Cohen well last week. So I’m trying to avoid just making this a Mets conversation. I also think something that he said last this past week, was really eye-opening too. Where he was just like, I’m used to working with gigantic numbers like this, like $70 million in, in luxury tax is not a lot to me. Based on the dollar amounts that I work with in my head for now, how much money I’m accustomed to losing, knowing that it’s going to swing back up. Not that long from now. This—this new generation of owners who are coming from different industries, like wealth management, like hedge funds, like fine—like the finance world. I don’t know it’s—to me, it’s not as simple as saying like, giving out $350 million to Carlos Correa is a ton of money. Like it’s not really.
ALEX: I mean, it’s not. And also, I have to say, it’s an insane amount of money. And like, I know—
BOBBY: But it’s not though—
ALEX: I know—I’ll be like,
BOBBY: This is what I’m saying, I feel like—I feel like reporters are just looking at it being like, big number wow.
ALEX: Like, I mean—yes.
BOBBY: When you—when you inflation adjusts this contract, it’s like fucking two-thirds the size of the A. Rod contract, signed in the early 2000s.
ALEX: Well, but like my point is like, this is like, it is an extremely large sum of money that’s impossible for my mind to comprehend. I was like, you know, fucking around in Excel the other night, just putting together like, like, owner net worths.
BOBBY: That sounds fun.
ALEX: You know, player pay rolls—
BOBBY: Probably invited me to that.
ALEX: — team payrolls. And I kept—I kept second guessing myself because I thought I had added like, too many zeros, when I was typing out, like Steve Cohen’s net worth, I’m like, it can’t be nine, right? I’m like, going back to second grade. I’m like, I know I’m doing something wrong here. So but like—but like, as big as $350 million is, it’s still just a fraction of what a lot of these owners actually have in their bank account. And not only have now, but like we’ll have over the next 10 years, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You’re gonna talk about all the money that’s been spent this offseason, over you know, to varying degrees over the next 10 years. Let’s talk about all the money that is going to be raked in over that period of time—
BOBBY: Yes. Yes.
ALEX: —which is, which is billions of dollars.
BOBBY: Give me this contract, as a percentage of the Giants revenue, like 350—we’re to the point now, where, like wealth inequality in this country, sorry not to get on my soapbox here. But we’re to the point now where wealth and inequality in this country is so vast, that like we can’t comprehend $350 million, we can’t comprehend $14 billion. But to them, this is just like moving zeros around on a spreadsheet, like you’re talking about. Like, I need this money for—for all these reporters who supposedly are like key essential to the baseball world and helping us understand how teams operate. Why are there no reporters who are like giving these numbers as a percentage of any of this revenue? Like why— why are we not—and then like, as a person—because
ALEX: Cause we don’t—cause we don’t know, right?
BOBBY: But we know—
ALEX: [33:16] even if
BOBBY: Okay, we—but we know the league-wide revenue though.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So last year, they made around $11 billion, even if you divide that by 30. Just say that every team makes the same exact amount of money, which is obviously not true. But even if you did divide that by 30, the Carlos Correa contract is so insignificant, so insignificant to what the Giants are going to make over the next 13 years, especially since we—
ALEX: [33:42]
BOBBY: Can you show how much that revenue is gonna go up—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Based on how much it’s gone up in the last 13 years.
ALEX: No, if they are getting an average amount of that $11 billion dollars in revenue, the Carlos Correa contract just paid for itself in one year.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: With—with a few billion leftovers.
BOBBY: That’s what I’m saying. I feel like I’m losing my mind. Like, I feel like I’m losing my mind.
ALEX: But that—
BOBBY: But—but every, I don’t understand how this—this like accepted logic is that teams are spending more, spending more, spending more, they’re just not spending less.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That’s not the same thing. That’s not the same thing.
ALEX: I mean, and frankly, I don’t mind talking about teams, spending money, right? Like that’s—like it’s an essential part to the economics of the sport. And so when you have offseasons like this, where there are these massive, you know, double-digit year, free agent contracts being handed out. Sure. Let’s talk about why that’s happening. But it—it really feels like we’re kind of only looking at the surface and saying, well, there was a CBA that they made last year. Which where is it by the way? I just—can someone tell me where the fucking CBA is. We’re gonna be talking about the next CBA by the time we see the CBA. I—yes, literally.
BOBBY: The CBA is just an idea, you know. [35:06]
ALEX: [35:06]
BOBBY: Yeah
ALEX: Right, exactly. But like, I don’t know, I—
BOBBY: See based the holy grail.
ALEX: Correlation is not causation, right? It’s like expand your—your framework of actually looking at this a little bit. And recognize that like, this still exists within the broader contours of like, the fucking American economy, you know—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Like, these guys became billionaires, because they knew where to put their money. Like, again, Fabio for me to like, give them credit. I don’t think they earned it. But did they make it? Yeah, so they—they know how to make money probably. I don’t think they’re just like, oh, we’re flush with cash. Let’s give it all out because we’re being charitable, you know.
BOBBY: Yes. Yes. I just think that maybe, maybe I’ll be wrong. Maybe we’ll be doing the Tipping Pitches 10-year anniversary. But I think fa—and—and I’ll be like, wow, I was—I was wrong. MLB went bankrupt because they gave the players all the money. I just think in five years—
ALEX: That, one can hope right?
BOBBY: —in five years, we’re gonna look back, and we’re going to be like, wow, most of these guys were underpaid for most of their contract, relative to league revenue. And I just—I just honestly hope that we keep that same energy, I guess, that we had before all of this, like before the lockout, before the new CBA. Because it’s less than a year ago now that we were saying, wow, they didn’t really get them to raise the—the CBT as much as they wanted them to, or as much as would keep up with league revenue, or inflation, or all of these different numbers, like the Gotham’s raise it as much as possible. And we’re back to playing and we’re happy for that we played a full season, et cetera, et cetera. But like, that was the takeaway, when we came into the CB—CBA, the—the takeaway was that they wanted them to raise the competitive balance tech, competitive balance tax even more. So now, when we’re acting like teams are going over it, we’re acting like, oh, my God, how could they possibly go over it? Well, because they should have raised it more, they should have raised more. The competitive balance X should be the highest tier, should probably be like 350. And in five years, it should probably be like 400. You know, like these numbers, these ranges are artificially compressed. And now we’re all just being tricked by the fact that some teams are going over it. Like few teams, by the way, like four teams are going over it. And one of those seems is not even the Dodgers. They’re trying to reset their competitive balance tax right now. The team that spends more than anybody, supposedly.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s really my— I think my biggest thing with this is, if you want to talk about the money that’s being thrown around this offseason, that’s okay. But let’s talk about the ever-widening gap between the highest payrolls in the league and the lowest payrolls in the league. Because tamping down on what that higher tier is spending, is not going to encourage those teams at the bottom to spend more, you know what I mean? Like—like, the work has to be done there, not in putting a salary cap on the league, which the—the union is absolutely not interested in doing anyway.
BOBBY: I guess. I don’t know my final thing on this. And I—I apologize if I’ve just been like, preaching to the choir, or like stating the obvious here. But like, I guess I’m just a little bit surprised that so many people are shocked at the length of these contracts, or the total dollar amount of these contracts. Because I mean, you got to remember, we’re like 3, 4, or 5 years removed from a player development. Honestly, revolution that got a lot of these players up into the majors and good, younger than ever. And so these guys are younger than free agents were in the 1990s and 2000s. And so they’re getting slightly longer contracts that are taking them through similarly age seasons, as other former superstars were taken through. That’s number one. And number two, so like to bring it back to Correa. 13 years from now. 2035 people seem so shocked by the length of that contract, that they’re going to have Carlos Correa’s contract on the books until 2035. Trey Turner’s contract on the books until 2033. And I’m like, you wouldn’t be losing your mind if, in 2031, they signed three guys to $9 million contracts. So why are you losing your mind that in 2022, they signed one guy to $27 million average annual value? Like there’s gonna be a team in 2035. There’s gonna be a league in 2035. I don’t know understand why we’re so shocked that one guy is still going to be on the team then, or still going to be getting paid by them. And why it’s such a cause for [40:00] or why it’s so groundbreaking all these people who are talking like owners or splashing around more cash than ever. Also, by the way, it’s Carlos Correa, you know. It’s not like Elvis Andrew got $30 million a year here. We’re talking about Carlos Correa.
ALEX: Right. Well, there’s also—there’s also not even a guarantee that Correa will—will still—the Correa’s contract will still be on the books at that point. Right. Like, [40:30]
BOBBY: I mean, someone will be paying it by then.
ALEX: What—well—I— yes. No, abso—absolutely. But [40:37]
BOBBY: [40:37] contract with the Rangers.
ALEX: Right. No, exactly. That’s what I’m saying. Carlos Correa might play until he’s 42.
BOBBY: Maybe.
ALEX: Or maybe there’s a team that is interested in absorbing those last couple years cause fuck it, right? The Astros are saying, let’s—let’s bring home our boy king. You know.
BOBBY: They want Edwin Diaz, bro. And so they’re gonna take on—
ALEX: Yes, I know.
BOBBY: —Robinson Cano.
ALEX: But like, so much can happen between now and then is my point. That like, just thinking about how this contract is going to look for the Giants in 2035, is just a pointless exercise. Because so much, so much will have changed by then that it’s impossible to actually cast judgment on it, in— in any meaningful way.
BOBBY: But also, to be quite frank, I don’t think it’s that hard to envision 13 years from now, $27 million per year not looking like that much.
ALEX: Oh, exactly.
BOBBY: So, again—again, I ask why are people acting like owners are throwing around more money than ever. We’re just—we’re just being—this is just a more elongated version of my rant from last week, where I was like the total spending of this week was $3 billion. Like that means anything, that doesn’t mean anything. That doesn’t mean anything.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: The Giants got Carlos Correa for $27 million per year.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s like the 15th-highest contract in the league. Right?
ALEX: It’s a pay cut for him.
BOBBY: It’s an $8 million-a-year pay cut. I don’t know where I were acting like the whole financial system of baseball is revolutionizing last week, nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. Okay. That’s—that’s all I got on this. I say 30 minutes later.
ALEX: But just one last thing. One last thing.
BOBBY: One last thing. Chaim Bloom is a bad GM. So that’s my one last thing for this segment of the podcast. Do you agree or disagree?
ALEX: I—I’m gonna zag.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: I’m gonna zag.
BOBBY: Yes. Yes. [42:38]
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: I—I don’t think that he’s a good GM. But I think it is. I think the situation in Boston is emblematic of a lot of baseball teams’ desire to sort of cheat their way to success, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Because you look at—you look at the Rays. And you say, well, they found success with a low payroll. Chaim Bloom was one of the wonder kins of that franchise. Of course, he’ll be able to replicate his success over here. But it seems like you know, teams like this are more interested in chasing results of success on a low payroll, then process, which is like investment in talent acquisition, and player development. And that sort of thing. Like, the reason the [43:37] shit works, is because they have a pretty well-oiled development system. And if you plop Chaim Bloom into a team, that doesn’t have any of those resources, like you can’t expect him to wake up and just turn the team into a World Series winner overnight. Which, again, is not to say that I think the moves that he’s made are particularly good. I would have kept Mookie Betts, for example. Like that’s one move that like I would have held on to him.
BOBBY: This—this week that trade officially became the worst trade in MLB history when they DFA Jeter downs, who was like the top prospect that they got in return for him.
ALEX: Right, exactly. So—
BOBBY: Absolute seems on Twitter.
ALEX: It’s—It’s so bad. But like, if you’re going to try and run a successful baseball team that’s like, affordable by baseball standards, you have to just make sure everything else is in line. You can’t just—just drop the whiz kid in there and say, do the—do the numbers, figure it out. Get us—get us the good players for less money and like cross your fingers in hopes that, that works.
BOBBY: I think you’re right. I also think—now this is not to say that the Red Sox can’t develop players, but like their whole organization is not built around the same thing that the Rays organization is built around which is—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —only looking for players to develop. Only looking for undervalued players from other teams that you think that you can turn into a above-average major league players. Now, I think like, to the extent that we’re all piling on Chaim Bloom, I think it’s fun. And I think it’s funny. I like to make fun of people in the baseball world who are on the management side, like, I think that, that is a fair thing to do. They signed up for it, you know like they didn’t sign up to be—GMs signed up to be a nice face for ownership. In Chaim Blooms’ case, he’s a very nice face, a young, handsome face that he is wearing, in defense of John Henry and Fenway Sports Group, you know. Like he is—he went out and made—this is what’s crazy to me. They hired Chaim Bloom and they were like, alright, objective number one, trade the best player in the AL. And it was like, really, like, how am I supposed to come back from this?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And it’s not a surprise that he hasn’t been able to come back from that, like, you’re already setting your franchise back so far by trading the face of your franchise, the face of your team, the face of your city, the face of baseball in your city. Like, why would another player want to come Boston, when they just traded away a player that everybody else would want to play with? Who just won the World Series?
ALEX: [46:21] and you just let franchise player number two, walk and you’re about to let number three [46:28]
BOBBY: [46:28] Let’s go, baby, let’s go. I just think what people are doing here, is pretending like you can do Moneyball without the salary suppression. The salary suppression is the point. Finding cheap players is the point. As soon as you start getting out of the lower third of salaried players, that shit doesn’t work anymore. Like you can’t—you can’t, Moneyball a war player. They know how much they’re worth, you know, the league knows how much they’re worth. There are fewer diamonds in the rough to be found amongst elite free agents. So you can’t like, you can’t play high and low, only one team has really been able to do it. And it’s been the Dodgers. But also the Dodgers don’t try and lowball those top players, the way that the Red Sox have done under Chaim Bloom. Now, is it Chaim Bloom’s fault? I have no idea. Like I—I don’t know what John Henry has told him. But guess what, they got outbid for all of the players that they wanted to get. And I personally, I think that that is a [47:33] of the way that like, specifically like the Rays model works. Now I know that Andrew Friedman, who runs the Dodgers came from the Rays also. Right? But like, the purpose of Moneyball, right, or the purpose of maximizing dollars per war, above all else, is to never overpay for a player, right? Never pay a premium for a player, no matter how good they are. So it’s like, don’t even sign Mike Trout if you have to overpay the dollars for war. It’s not about amassing the most war. It’s about amassing the most war for the least amount of dollars. And so things start to go completely haywire when you’re actually playing at the top of the market too because some of those guys are gonna get overpaid because other teams want them. You know, some of those guys are going to overpay the aggregate dollars per war model leaguewide. And obviously, some teams have started to adjust that formula for themselves, and pay more to get premium players. Like you’ve seen the Padres do this like you’ve seen the Dodgers do this from time to time. Like you’re seeing the Phillies do this. Like—it’s always my favorite thing when people are like Dave Dombroski doesn’t know anything about analytics and like, kind of like he doesn’t know some stuff about analytics. He’s built multiple World Series-winning teams. But like to me, the thing to make fun of, the thing that has done Chaim Bloom in, is that he hasn’t been able to use like both parts of his brain here. He hasn’t been able to say I need to overpay at the top, or I need to convince ownership to overpay at the top. And I need to also do the same stuff that I was doing with Tampa Bay. And that’s—this is part of the reason that I get so frustrated with like the worshipping of Moneyball and surplus value, and all that sort of thing is like, these teams don’t actually want to build the best team. Clearly, like they—they’re admitting that. And I think Boston is a really interesting case of that.
ALEX: Right. I mean, they are following the model of let’s put together a decent team who might be able to look into the playoffs. And given the randomness of MLBs playoffs, you can hope for an October run, right? I mean, then this is the sort of sport that is amenable to that sort of thing. But it’s not keeping up with the times at this point, right? Because when you have teams that are willing to go all in on these top end, free agents and amass, just unreal levels of superstars, you can’t play at the margins anymore. And this to me, like feels like the worst spot for the Red Sox to be in, right? It’s like—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Right in the middle, just spinning your wheels. Like, I don’t think necessarily that every team could, or should try to be a World Series contender every single year. I mean, sure, in an ideal world, would that be great to have 30 great Major League Baseball teams, okay? But realistically, teams go through cycles of competitiveness. And it just seems like the Red Sox haven’t been willing to commit one way or the other, which is really unfortunate, given the recent success that they had. Like it was not that long ago that they won the World Series with Mookie Betts, you know.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like it was—it was there for the taking. And—and frankly, I mean, it’s un— it’s unfortunate. Much as I might have mixed feelings about the Red Sox and or their fan base. It’s—it’s symptomatic of the—it’s symptomatic of the endless pursuit of efficiency—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —that they think is killing any real sense of competition in the sport.
BOBBY: They played themselves. Straight up. They played them, they were so afraid of the competitive balance sacks going over it for 1,2,3 year, whatever.
ALEX: Yeah, if you know, you know, right.
BOBBY: Right. That they now don’t have any of the players, that might have pushed them over the competitive balance tax. And now what, because in service of what, you know, what were you resetting your tax for? You know, maybe the Los Angeles Dodgers this year, they are trying to stay under the luxury tax. They’re trying to reset their luxury tax penalties. Because next year, maybe they’re going to try to find Shohei Ohtani. Maybe they’re gonna—because he already played in California. And maybe he likes the West Coast. But he just thinks the angels are a shit show. And so 40 miles up the road. Let’s do it.
ALEX: Oh, bro. Can you imagine?
BOBBY: Yeah, I actually can imagine. Yes, I actually can.
ALEX: Me too.
BOBBY: And so—but the Red Sox didn’t do that. But they also didn’t tear it down. Like they were also giving out moderate contracts to moderately good above average players. And so like, what—what was your goal? And what were you so afraid of to go over the competitive balance sacks, because they know that they have a fan base who is not going to accept a full teardown Astro style? They’re not going to accept that. Boston is not the type of market to try to pull that in. As much as like we make fun of Boston fans, like that is such a fan—that is such a strong and passionate relationship that they have with those fans. It’s such a storied franchise. One of MLB is marquee franchises, that has already had a lot of success in the 21st century, unlike what the Cubs have done, you know, like they win their World Series. And a lot of Cubs fans are frankly, just happy that they got one, you know, they’re happy that they’re not amongst the millions of Cubs fans who have died without seeing their team win the World Series. But with Boston, like they had to have known John Henry having owned the team for—for a few decades now. Had to have known that they were not gonna be able to run out like a $100 million payroll. So why not just pay the competitive balance tax for a couple of years and keep all of your good players? They played themselves and the person that they hired to continue to play themselves was Chaim Bloom. And so, I’m left wondering like, are you a good GM? Are you a bad GM? Doesn’t even really matter if you’re playing out a bad plan on behalf of ownership.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: Alright. Let’s take a quick break, and come back, and we’re gonna do a couple of voicemails and then get up.
[theme]
AUSTIN: Hey, guys, it’s Austin. Wanted to get a tinfoil hat meter reading on a couple of items from you guys. The first is obviously John Heyman dropping the arson judge tweet within like 20 minutes of Bradford William Davis, publishing another article about the baseballs. And the other one, perhaps more far-fetched is, are the team’s only spending a lot of money this offseason so that they can go to the negotiating table with the minor league union and say boy, we’re short on cash Anyway, thanks, guys. I’ll hang up and listen.
ALEX: Thank you, Austin. I just want to say, this is the conspiracy theory I was trying to get at, at the end of our conversation with, with Bradford last week.
BOBBY: Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah.
ALEX: I—I don’t think there was coordination between, say, Bradford and Heyman. I do believe. I’m like an eighth on the tinfoil hat scale, that the league probably had an idea of when the article was coming out. And they said, let’s get this done [55:36]
BOBBY: [55:36]
ALEX: Let’s get this done right now. Come on.
BOBBY: Nah, dude, come on. You gotta—you gotta give our man Scott more credit than that. My man Scott, who—who will hold out.
ALEX: Oh, no, he’s not Scott Boris.
BOBBY: You’re right, now it’s done. No, it’s in the bag. You’re right. You’re right. Eight out of 10. You’re right.
ALEX: Or, or and—and not even with the agent necessarily, right? But—but going to Heyman who I’m sure is more than happy to be a lackey for the league, and saying we need you to [56:04]
BOBBY: I don’t believe that, Jon. I don’t believe that, Jon. I’m—I’m with you, Jon. Come on the pod and defend yourself.
ALEX: Right. We think that typo was all you, bro.
BOBBY: I think that Austin is right. Fake sources within the Giants leak Jon Heyman to distract from the ball. Now we tried to beat Bradford into agreeing with us and he—he wouldn’t, he’s a professional. And so he would not. But um, it’s fishy. It’s certainly, where there’s smoke, there’s fire, we’ve learned in this league before. His second—his second conspiracy theory, I think is less of a conspiracy theo—conspiracy theory and more of just like a foregone conclusion, frankly, like whether or not, they’re spending a lot of money in this particular offseason. They’re gonna cry poor at the minor league negotiating table either way, right? Like, we—we can’t underestimate their ability to pretend like they have no money. They’ve been doing it for as long as there’s been Major League Baseball.
ALEX: Right. Well, and—and the thing is, like, the thing is, like, it doesn’t really matter, right? Because like, you can’t go to the union and say, we actually don’t have any money for the benefits. And the unions say, oh, oh, okay—well, in that case, we’ll, we’ll dissolve the union, it’s fine. We get you guys have come on hard times. Like it’s, you know, but—but it’s also not like—again, it’s not like they have spent all this money this offseason. Right. So it would be a bit of a fallacy for them to go and try and cry poor, for this specific reason, anyway. But I mean, like you said, we know we’re—they’re gonna do it anyway, it doesn’t really matter that the financial circumstances.
BOBBY: To me like, speaking as union steward, speaking as a good union man who’s been across the table, from a company and negotiated contracts before, what the company is doing, wht major league baseball, what these teams are doing, in giving out big freezing contracts, even though we just spent the first half of this podcast breaking down that sort of myth that they’re not actually that big. By giving out those big contracts to me, you’re signaling that you do have that money, you’re guaranteeing those people that money and so, therefore, there is enough money for these other things as well. Right? Because you knew that this was a financial obligation. You didn’t not give Carlos Correa contract because you were going to have to give some Giants minor-league a health care. So you knew that this was coming. And so you do have this money, it is there. The financial health of the game is such that, you can negotiate with us in good faith. Don’t go splash somewhere else before taking care of your union obligations. I’ll leave it at that.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah, they’re gonna—they’re gonna—you have to come to the table regardless, right? Like, good—good luck with that guy.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Opening up your pockets, and saying see there’s nothing in here.
BOBBY: What’s a $2,000 raise for a measly associate Podcast Producer when you’re giving $200 million to Joe Rogan? That’s my question. You know, what’s $80,000 a year for a triple-A reliever, when you’re giving $350 million to Carlos Correa, not to weaponize these two folks against each other? But yeah.
ALEX: Yeah, there’s more than enough. There’s more than enough money to go around. That’s for sure. Alright. Next question.
BECCA: Hey guys, with Christmas coming up, I’ve just been thinking a little bit about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I was just wondering, what do you think a good player comp is for Jesus? Like how—what—what do you think his game looks like? Was he fallen on the 20-80 scale? Is he—does he hit for power? Is he speedy? Is he a pitcher? I don’t know. [59:48] thanks, I’ll hang up and listen.
BOBBY: This question comes from Becca you know, Becca messaged us in the Slack after sending in this question, saying I forgot to say that this question was from me. And I said back to her, I was like, I don’t think that you’re in danger of being an identifiable [1:00:09] like no, who else is asking questions [1:00:12] You know.
ALEX: Right. It’s got signature Becca written all over it.
BOBBY: Right. She’s like a regular caller, I compared her to an odd tour, like a director like you see one senior, like, I know who that director is. And some people were like,
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Your example of that was Baz Luhrmann. And I was like, are you telling me you wouldn’t be able to tell it’s a Baz Luhrman movie? I stand by my Baz Luhrman takes. Okay, so Jesus, Savior Jesus, right? I could go two ways with this, two ways with this. I mean, obviously, it’s gonna be good, right? Because he can do all of these things that no one, no other human can do. Right. Water into wine, that sort of thing. I think. I think he’s just Jacob Degrom. That’s how he would pitch.
ALEX: Come on.
BOBBY: I do sort of feel like his game would be Hunter Pence, you know, like long legs— Jesu was kind of lanky, bro.
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: Right. Like kind of gangly, kind of weird looking.
ALEX: Right. Like he probably could have hooped, if we’re being honest. That’d be the better sport for him.
BOBBY: Right. But like, kind of that herky-jerky kind of athleticism.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He doesn’t look like a fluid athlete to me. He does a lot of standing straight up, you know? He’s not really like a lot of fluid movements kind of guy.
ALEX: Are you—are you imagining that like, Jesus Christ, like, I don’t know, pulls a hamstring because its mechanics aren’t there?
BOBBY: All I’m saying is he’s kind of sinewy.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Well, how are you imagining his game? I don’t hear you piping up to give the scattering report on Jesus. You as a famous—famous Catholic School alum, you have a lot of opinions about this. You played baseball at a Catholic School.
ALEX: Yes. It’s from—
BOBBY: They didn’t ask [1:01:53]. Like Jesus when you were on the field in high school.
ALEX: Religion lover. They actually—they actually did. I sat on the bench. So I don’t really know what that says about me or Jesus.
BOBBY: They call that the Pew in Catholic High Schools. Grab some Pew, Baisley.
ALEX: Right, exactly. I mean, I do really imagine him as a very well-rounded player, obviously. I think he’s got 5050 potential at the plate.
BOBBY: Wow. So he’s A. Rod.
ALEX: Yes, he is. That’s it. Is that the comp right there? I don’t know. I don’t know who that’s disrespectful to even though like—
BOBBY: It’s not disrespectful If you can’t figure out who it’s disrespectful to. It’s right.
ALEX: Yeah. But—
BOBBY: I think—honestly, I feel like he might just be like a pretty solid player who goes on to be a great manager. You know, like [1:02:57]
ALEX: So this is—this is where I was gonna go with this is like—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —he feels more like a— like a—like a guy who would really manage a clubhouse well.
BOBBY: Right. You know, because he’s—he’s everywhere.
ALEX: [1:03:09]
BOBBY: Wasn’t that—wasn’t that Jesus’s thing, that’s like good vibes.
ALEX: Jesus come up all about the vibe. So yeah.
BOBBY: No one is asking questions like this. Thank you, Becca.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: This is—this is—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —this gets the best stuff out of us.
ALEX: I guess— I guess the other answer is Chris Carpenter.
BOBBY: Well, boooo. That’s pretty good though. That’s pretty good though.
ALEX: Last question.
BOBBY: Jesus was lowkey tall bro.
DAN: Hey, Bobby, and Alex. This is Dan. I really appreciate y’all doing an episode and just generally signal boosting the last out documentary, it was really moving and touching and informative. And in just like a wild coincidence, I’m down in Houston to be with family for Christmas. And the person who drove me from the airport was a Cuban immigrant who used to be a judge in Cuba and was telling me about his time. I’m also—well I’m Cuban American, so we were generally just chatting. And it turns out that in late 90s, he was a pitching prospect throwing 98 at 17, and it’s just this like crazy echo the story or just maybe another example of what they were getting that, where this guy was crazy talented, and he chalks up not being able to make it obviously to like be embargo and he literally cited malnutrition. And then last night, my brother in law took me to eat at the restaurant that I know who yeah, who is the owner of the—of the Astros owns, like across the street from Minute Maid, and it was like really fancy and nice. And I just couldn’t enjoy it, because all I could think about was just this yawning gap of disparity, and all the yawning gaps and disparity between American citizens and anyone else who have to fight their way into the country. And owners and workers, and people like this guy who were just, you know, fighting for even an opportunity to be good at a game they love and yeah, it’s all just so heartbreaking. And I really appreciate you guys for taking the time to give us a look at such a complex and well, it’s complex, but in other ways, it’s a really simple story. You know, borders are awful, and prisons are awful. And the embargo is awful. And I just wish people could just play baseball. Anyway, I’m gonna go be set offline. Thanks.
BOBBY: Hey, Dan, thank you so much for calling. I mean, a lot of what you said is the exact reason why we wanted to talk about the last out. Alex had read about it online or seen that it was coming out and brought it up. It’s something that we should definitely talk about when the offseason rolled around. And it just so happened that, that was when it was premiering. And we’re able to talk to the directors. And honestly, I felt pretty honored that the directors came on. And were so candid with us and talked about their process. And they were just like really cool down to earth guys. And seemed like really down with our sort of anticapitalist vibes here on the show. And we’re willing to make those connections in a way that like not every documentarian would want to lay all out there, on the interview. And so I’m glad that you felt the same way. And I’m also, you know, I also think it’s incredibly important to see how those things resonate in the real world, right? Like, we’ve spent the first half of this podcast talking about how baseball owners are actually just like, ruthless monopolists, you know. And ruthless monopolists, by definition, have to like crush the little man. And all of these young players are in this analogy, just like the average little man. Like until they become a $350 million player, they don’t have a lot of power in this situation, they’ll have a lot of agency in this situation. And because of the embargo, global politics, and all of these different things that affect this game. I mean, these are things that we need to be aware of. And like that, we need to be thinking of as we’re talking about making the game more equitable. And it’s the reason that we wanted to do that documentary, because I feel like in the past, on the show, we just—we focus so much on like, youth development in the United States and the minor league system in the United States, and the inequities there, but that’s just like, honestly, a really small portion of this whole pie. So I—I really appreciate you calling in and sharing that anecdote. Because if nothing else, it should signal to our listeners don’t eat that Jim Crane’s, shitty expensive restaurant. But yeah, that everything you said is completely right, Dan.
ALEX: Yeah, well, and I think it’s a story like that is such a testament to the kind of diaspora of former—former baseball players who never made it, right? Who the system chewed up and spit out, right? And may go on to have a wide variety of careers, but certainly not ones that were supported by their journey to playing Major League Baseball, right? Or ones that were benefited by that in any way. And I think it’s always important to not let that global lens fall by the wayside, even though it’s really easy when we’re talking about a sport that is played in primarily the United States.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And is the most highly visible, right? I’m talking about Major League Baseball, obviously, not the the sport of baseball, right? But it’s so easy to kind of forget that it will be has tentacles stretching into a variety of different continents, right? Like, it’s not just a couple thousand of the best baseball players in the world playing baseball. Like there’s so much more to it that, than that.
BOBBY: Right. Yeah. And we—I feel like so often when we talk about Major League Baseball, what we do is we glorify this language of exceptionalism, right? Like we talked about the [1:09:09], beating the odds, like making their way up through the system, even though he’s this like, underrated prospect. And this diminutive guy who’s not that impressive to most of the scouts, but he turned into an AL MVP. And I’m like, that’s true. That’s a story that’s worthwhile. But that’s not the only story that’s worthwhile there. There’s like a million [1:09:28] that didn’t make it for a myriad of reasons, you know, that a lot of things didn’t break those players’ way. And oftentimes, like that language of exceptionalism is glorified by the League. And there’s a reason for that they’re not—they’re making it seem like this dream is attainable for everybody, so that people don’t think about all of the people who this dream is not attainable for, and who MLB doesn’t care that the dream is not attainable for. Or who MLB has not put in the work to make the dream more attainable for? And Cuban baseball players are—make up a large portion of that, that this dream that they’re being sold to be the next big thing in the—in the United States defect from Cuba is frankly unrealistic for 99% of guys. Like there is not an easy pathway to be the next Yuli Gurriel or Lourdes Gurriel, Jr., Or you un assessed as any of these other guys who have had their stories put on a pedestal, but also maybe at the expense of all of the—the happies. And the—Carlos is and all the guys that were in the last documentary who didn’t make it to Major League Baseball.
ALEX: Yeah, well said. I hope that we get the chance to have more of these sorts of discussions in the coming months, especially as you know, a minor league union gets underway. It’s important not to forget that there are—there are still people on margins beyond the margins, in a sense.
BOBBY: Yes. Alright. That’s gonna do it for this week’s episode of Tipping Pitches. Thank you, everybody, so much for listening. We’re hoping to do over the next couple of weeks, some—some special thematic episodes. But we’re not quite sure exactly how they’re going to come, together. So I don’t want to spoil too much of them. But over the—
ALEX: —or commit us to anything.
BOBBY: Right, exactly. Once I say it out loud, it needs to be done. But over the next coming weeks, I know people will be traveling, people will be going different places, more able to listen, less able to listen, et cetera, et cetera. We want to do something that sort of has a—a quasi finale feel to what has been a very busy year in baseball and for Tipping Pitches. So we appreciate everybody’s support along the way. If you’d like to buy some merch, some last-minute merch tippingpitches.myshopify.com You can get a discount by putting in the word Rob, R O B, Rob, for Rob Manfred. [1:12:00] into our discount codes now.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: That’s for listeners of the podcast. Alex, anything else to leave the people with?
ALEX: I’ll leave you with one final quote from Mike Piazza, how about that?
BOBBY: I promise people no more Mike Piazza.
ALEX: I know. Yeah, but we’re past the [1:12:15] I’m sorry. He was talking about watching baseball games. You know, we—we discussed how he was going stir crazy at home with his kids, as one does, right when you have a family.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Who’s can’t stand—and he just missed the excitement of the game, you know, and so he—he was talking about watching Reggiana play. And he said when that ball wens at the net, I felt like I was playing again. I’ve never done cocaine. I’ve never done crystal meth. I’ve never done hard drugs. Or any drugs for that matter besides aspirin. But let me tell you that was fucking intoxicating.
BOBBY: Damn bro.
ALEX: Me—me thinks he doth protest too much on that—on that one. I’ve never done off the top of my head crystal meth. I don’t know why—that’s the—that’s the first hard drug that came to my brain, but man.
BOBBY: But oh, I already has like, I heard it as him being like, well, if I only specify that I’ve never done coke, then people are gonna be like, so he’s done steroids right?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: There are rumors swirling around Piazza as well.
ALEX: So he had to throw the lat—he’d like started going, he’s like, I’m just gonna list off a few drugs I haven’t done, and then say but it kind of felt like that. And then he realized, wait. But— I need to clarify actually, I have never any drugs, except aspirin.
BOBBY: When you say it out loud, it sort of reads like a Billy on the Street skit, where he’s a, he walks up to my class, he’s like name a drug that you’ve never done. And he’s like—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —crystal meth.
ALEX: That’s right. Anyway, my—my—
BOBBY: And a bottle of steroids.
ALEX: My—I never done any hard drugs, [1:13:54] is—is raising wild questions.
BOBBY: Already answered. Buy my shirt. Thank you everybody for listening. We’ll be back next week.
[theme]
Alex Rodriguez: Hi 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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