Bobby and Alex banter about some Opening Weekend takeaways, including a timely news dump from the Mets, first reactions to a chaotic new schedule, and the continued takeover of baseball by sports betting, then discuss John Angelos’s game of footsie with financial transparency, Rob Manfred’s PR tour and the disparate narratives coming from league executives, and what to make of the ratification of the first minor league Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Links:
John Angelos misses self-imposed deadline to share financials
Angelos declines to share Orioles finances after being pressed on it
MLB owner says analytics in baseball are “an arms race to nowhere”
MLBPA and MLB reach tentative deal on minor league CBA
Michael Baumann’s analysis of the minor league CBA
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon
Tipping Pitches merchandise
Songs featured in this episode:
Taking Back Sunday — “MakeDamnSure” • Booker T & the M.G.’s — “Green Onions”
Episode Transcript
[theme]
BOBBY: [Intro] Tell us a little bit about what you saw and, and, and being able to relay that message to Cora when you watch Kimbrel pitching and kind of help out so he wasn’t Tipping his Pitches. So Tipping Pitches, we hear about it all the time. People are home on the stand, what Tipping Pitches it’s all about? That’s amazing! That’s remarkable.
BOBBY: Alex, you know, coming into this recording, I was really excited. Because I thought we were gonna have a lot to talk about. But thought back on this week, lot news, a lot of conversations online, and in real life about Major League Baseball. Then as I started listing out the topics in my head, started writing them down in a note on my phone, I realized most of those topics are banned from this podcast. And I can’t just blame you this time, because one of the things that I really wanted to talk about was an article in The Athletic by Evan Drellich. Talking about a speech that Commissioner Rob Manfred gave, but the—the topic of that speech was also banned. So I have to look inward, I have to blame myself, as well. So I think on this podcast, instead of discussing baseball, I think what we’re going to do is we’re just going to play a recording from karaoke on Friday night.
ALEX: Sounds great, yep.
BOBBY: You and me, all the songs that we sing.
ALEX: Right. We do—we do Boy Genius album front to back.
BOBBY: Right. They probably amount to about an hour and 20 minutes, that’s the normal episode length for Tipping Pitches. Not going to be the 2-hour pod that seemingly everyone on Earth wants—
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: —except you and me.
ALEX: A little Taylor Swift, like—
BOBBY: So, we’ll see you next week, I guess.
ALEX: Baseball is back, Bobby!
BOBBY: Yeah, baseball is back. Is that exciting to you?
ALEX: I think so.
BOBBY: Have you watched all of the A’s games so far?
ALEX: All, I mean, all two of them, I actually have, yeah.
BOBBY: Nice. How are you feeling? Kyle Muller.
ALEX: That’s Right.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: It’s your Cy Young right there. They call him Kyle Eckersley Mueller, you know.
BOBBY: It really messes, really messes with my head ’cause we have a friend named Kyle Miller.
ALEX: Yup.
BOBBY: So it just looks like a typo.
ALEX: Wow, I can’t believe you’re Daxing—
BOBBY: Daxing it.
ALEX: —it real-time. Assassination coordinates.
BOBBY: Speaking of assassination coordinates—
ALEX: Right, speaking of.
BOBBY: —I thought that I thought the New York Times lost their checkmark today. But I still got mine. We’re going strong.
ALEX: What—what’s the assassination coordinates tie-in?
BOBBY: Like just Twitter.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Just Elon’s general behavior.
ALEX: I was like, are you about to divulge a long-standing beef—
BOBBY: What with the New York Times?
ALEX: —with the New York Times? I mean, you probably could.
BOBBY: So the A’s, 85 wins this year?
ALEX: I mean they are on pace for 500 ball.
BOBBY: That’s right.
ALEX: That’s big, that’s big.
BOBBY: That’s big. We don’t know what they’re going to do tonight, though. By the time this podcast publishes. In that case, they could be on pace for like 50 wins—
ALEX: —700 ball. Yeah.
BOBBY: Oh, I put the negative run with the [3:03]. Oh, no, I’m just kidding. We have a lot of fun stuff to talk about that is not banned from this podcast. And you know, what? If we—if we run afoul of the banned topics, what’s gonna happen? Someone’s gonna show up here? Someone’s going to shut the podcast recording down? I don’t know, maybe, we’ll see. We’re gonna talk about just opening day, the season coming back. A few quick hit thoughts, topics about baseball being back. And then of course, we have the highlights from the Minor League Baseball Collective Bargaining Agreement. Which was tentati—tentatively agreed to earlier this week. Ratified by the minor leaguers on Friday and has gone to vote with the major league owners. So we’re waiting to hear back on what they vote. Seemingly they are going to vote yes. And we’re gonna discuss all of that, but before we do, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I’m Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[3:56] [Music Theme]
BOBBY: Alex, new patrons this week. Jake, Tuck, Emma, Alix, Nick, Declan, and Max.
ALEX: Big week.
BOBBY: Big week.
ALEX: Some—
BOBBY: It’s opening day, you know, people want to talk about opening day. Not—not a member of the Alex hive, but Alix, a-l-i-x. Could be pronounced Alex, but I know someone else who has the name, a-l-i-x, and they pronounce it Alix.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So I’m just powering through.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And now I’m now drawing great attention to the fact that I am pronouncing it wrong if that is in fact the wrong pronunciation. But I needed to point that out, because it just seems like every week there’s a new Alex or Alex adjacent name in the Patreon, and I just don’t know what’s going on there. It’s like statistically improbable at this point.
ALEX: We’ve been doing a lot of canvassing of—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —adjacent names in other group chats.
BOBBY: Do you have like a long list, you know, of like the addresses of everybody named Alex—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —in the United States or in the—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —major cities of the United States [5:02]—
ALEX: Well, we also have Awls.
BOBBY: Awls.
ALEX: We have Albert’s actually—
BOBBY: Albert’s.
ALEX: —I think that one got snuck in there. I think ’cause I— ’cause I played an Albert in like the seventh-grade musical.
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: So I get to kind of claim that one.
BOBBY: What musical was that?
ALEX: Bye Bye Birdie.
BOBBY: Bye Bye Birdie, I’m not familiar with the content of that one. How—what—what was your performance like? Were you in character onset? Like Daniel Day-Lewis?
ALEX: Yes, I was, yeah. It was a little Marlon Brando method acting.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: I think— that set in like the mid-20th century, so I had my like, transatlantic accent going on the whole time.
BOBBY: Your—your transatlantic accent has come up a lot on this podcast.
ALEX: Apparently.
BOBBY: Somehow.
ALEX: Big, big accent guys over here.
BOBBY: Well, I’m not gonna not ask you to do it now. Do you want to do the transatlantic accent?
ALEX: No, I don’t.
BOBBY: You don’t want to call these base—these four baseball games that you’re watching while we’re trying to record this podcast in the transatlantic accent? Mark Cahna just singled up the middle, you want to do transatlantic accent, Gary Cohen?
ALEX: I know, I really shouldn’t have brought it up.
BOBBY: Alex, baseball is here, how are you feeling?
ALEX: I’m good man.
BOBBY: Yeah?
ALEX: I—every year, I think I don’t realize how much I missed it until it’s back. And then I— I can’t imagine my life without it. As evidenced by the fact that there was baseball all day long on opening day. And then the next day there was—there was none, right? And I know, I know, you have a, a rant that you’d like to get to, and I want to— I want to give you space for that. But—but generally speaking—
BOBBY: We might as well do it right now. I might as well—
ALEX: Hey, man, speak on it.
BOBBY: —it, it’s second on the list of things that I want to talk about. But since you brought it up, I’m just gonna do it right now.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: The schedule makers, they need to be put to trial.
ALEX: We need to reel them in.
BOBBY: What is happening? Who made the schedule? First of all, okay, everybody’s playing everybody. That is like a qualitative choice that they made, that we’re going to increase interleague play, everybody is going to play everyone at least once throughout the season. Which means you’ll be playing your division rivals last, which I mean, I’ve— I knew that that was a thing that was happening. I don’t think I really internalized that that meant that for like long stretches of the season, like months of the season, the Mets will not play anyone in the NL East, which is just weird. Like that’s a pretty drastic change to the flow of a season, like not seeing your rivals as frequently because of the way that the schedule has worked. The opening day thing is like this is just picking nets honestly, which you know, we’d love to do on this podcast. But the fact that you have baseball all day on Thursday, from 1 pm Eastern till 1:45 am Eastern, 12 and a half straight hours. And then the next day just no baseball until 7 pm, just nothing.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s like here, we gave it all to you yesterday. Now just back to the regularly scheduled programming on Friday afternoon. Like I’m trying to, I was trying to fuck off work at like two, you know. And I just stuck around and kept working–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —because I have nothing else to do.
ALEX: Incredibly rude of Major League Baseball to make you do that.
BOBBY: And on my birthday, no less, and on my birthday.
ALEX: Even worse.
BOBBY: And the Mets shit the bat in last 2-1 to the Marlins. Finally, the first game that came on was the Mets and Marlins. You know what they did? They promptly lost. So those are my thoughts on the schedule. Actually, the Mets are playing opening the season with a four-game series against the Marlins. And then they play the Marlins for three-game series again next week, and then they don’t play the Marlins again till like August. The Phillies opened their—
ALEX: Making it sense.
BOBBY: —season, the Phillies opened their season in Texas–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —against the Rangers.
ALEX: I know, I’m watching Cardinals-Blue Jays right now, which maybe—maybe they’re rivals in nature?
BOBBY: The Giants open their season in Yankee Stadium. What is ha— what is happening? I don’t—I mean, I’m definitely going to sound like a crank no matter how I frame this, but–
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —why are we— why are we doing interleague play on opening day?
ALEX: Yeah, what happens to tradition?
BOBBY: What happened to just like common sense?
ALEX: Yeah, we used to be a society.
BOBBY: Why wouldn’t everybody start with a series against their division? Why not?
ALEX: I guess, technically not possible because all the divisions are five teams. But—
BOBBY: So a series against their division and then like the odd man out you do sort of like more geographical, geographically sensible decisions. Like just starting the season in Yankee Stadium for the Giants that just doesn’t— it just doesn’t make sense, it’s just not right.
ALEX: I gotta say, that’s actually kind of a funny one. Given what transpired this offseason surrounding the Giants and Yankees, that’s the one I’m kind of okay with.
BOBBY: And then Aaron Judge homers on the first swing that he takes–
ALEX: Like, come on, come on.
BOBBY: —in 2023. My other thoughts from opening day, Alex, incredible news dump by the New York Mets to announce that Justin Verlander was going to begin the season on the IL with a strain of his teres major.
ALEX: That’s a—that’s a body that knew we had.
BOBBY: Well I mean I’m familiar with the teres minor, But the major was really the—the one that I don’t know as well.
ALEX: Alright.
BOBBY: I— I don’t, me and the minor we go way back with the teres major.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: We don’t know each other that well.
ALEX: I mean, the major one is far more upbeat, and like happy than the minor one.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: That’s much more somber.
BOBBY: Exactly, right, yeah. And the Met’s opening day game was at four. So they announced a couple hours before their game, right around the time that the rest of the games were starting. So they were really just trying to bury that. There’s no way that they found out that he had this strain on Thursday morning.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Just why does this shit have to happen?
ALEX: I can’t answer that for you.
BOBBY: The Mets have already lost Edwin Diaz for the year. Bryce Montes de Oca for the year. Jose Quintana till late July. And now Justin Verlander is starting the season on IO. I know his thing is like minor and supposedly he’s gonna throw still and he should be gone–
ALEX: I thought [10:41]—
BOBBY: —a week and a half. Boo!
ALEX: Oh, come on.
BOBBY: That was pretty good. It’s jus—it’s just bad vibes, bad vibes for them to start the season.
ALEX: Yeah. The Mets are back, baby.
BOBBY: They’re back.
ALEX: Come on, what did you expect?
BOBBY: Do you wanna talk about John Angelos?
ALEX: Yes, before we—before we do, though, there’s one thing—
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: —I want to bring up. And I suppose it’s a good thing that we didn’t ban this.
BOBBY: Your facial—facial expression just changed.
ALEX: Well, I know that with the return of baseball, we get the return of sports betting. I understand that that’s—
BOBBY: Oh, yeah.
ALEX: —kind of part and parcel of things at this point.
BOBBY: Uh-huh.
ALEX: But it just bums me out the way that it has wormed its way into every aspect of the sports culture. I mean, every single aspect—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —right? I—I love, I love employing MLB.TV’s Quad game view, right? Where you can watch four games at once. And having 4K—
BOBBY: Wow, no free ads.
ALEX: —I know. Yeah, I know. And, and—
BOBBY: Wait, speaking of no free ads, actually, let me give you a free ad really quickly. If you have T-Mobile, you can get MLB.TV for free, still, for like another day when this podcast posts. Which means that you won’t have to give $150 or whatever to Rob Manfred’s. So please do that. Anyway, back to your point. No free ads, [12:01]—
ALEX: It’s just such—it’s just such a bummer to have four games up and see four different like sports betting ads—
BOBBY: Oh, yeah, at the same time.
ALEX: —-like you know on each one.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Or like tuning into one and one of the broadcasters is reading like the over-under on the run line for the- like reading out loud saying the over-under—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —is set at 8.5, make your bets now, get a you know $100 free bet or whatever, right? They’ve added–
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —they’ve added odds to the MLB Home Run alerts. Like I’m–
BOBBY: Oh, that one was the one that really sent me into a rage.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: The MLB Home Run account, like got a sponsorship to put the odds for, I guess that that home run hit that day.
ALEX: Right, that— that Aaron Judge would hit a home run right there, the odds were 500, you know, like–
BOBBY: That’s like that already happened, that doesn’t help you.
ALEX: Right, like, what is the context of [12:54]?
BOBBY: That’s old news at that point. It’s just so dumb. Did you see that, speaking of CBA, did you see that the NBA signed their new Collective Bargaining Agreement, also, this past week?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Part of that Collective Bargaining Agreement was that players in the NBA now have the ability to, quote “invest in NBA and WNBA teams”. As well as promote and or invest in sports betting and cannabis companies, according to Shams Charania. Can you—what does that mean? So like LeBron can buy a stake in the Clippers?
ALEX: Right, and Bally.
BOBBY: And Bovada.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: And, I don’t know the name of a weed company, but like, wh— why? Why don’t we just share more of the revenue? He has to buy into the ownership group of his own team to get more of the revenue?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, I don’t really understand that.
ALEX: Right, you’re saying his name a lot, and I— I have to think that he’s someone who had a pretty big hand and is definitely who like wants to invest in the new Las Vegas expansion franchise, right? And like, set up his—
BOBBY: I don’t think he wants to invest in it. I think he wants to completely own it.
ALEX: Own it, yes, exactly.
BOBBY: Yes. I think that that team will not happen until LeBron retires.
ALEX: Exactly, yeah. We’re so far half–
BOBBY: That’s LeBron James, owner of the Boston Red Sox to you, by the way.
ALEX: Jesus Christ. Don’t [14:13] on me.
BOBBY: Yes, we’re past—we’re past the Rubicon. How is that not a conflict of interest?
ALEX: I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you.
BOBBY: In the NFL, they suspended a player for like two years because he bet on a game, you know. Isn’t there like minor leaguers who have been suspended for betting on games, too?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We’re back in my I’m just saying things like stories that I kind of remember era.
ALEX: But it didn’t happened.
BOBBY: But I don’t know if that’s true, I feel like that happened.
ALEX: Yeah. I don’t know, it’s just as you sa—as you say, like, we’re asking for conflicts of interest at this point. And like, we’re only at the beginning of this too. And I just, if you want to bet on sports, more power to you. It doesn’t affect me in any way whatsoever. Don’t shove it down my throat, you know, you know I mean?
BOBBY: Yeah, we are— I mean, we are living in, in era of one big conflict of interest. Everything is a conflict of interest because everything is owned by the same people.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So—
ALEX: I mean, in that regard, there’s really no conflict of interest then.
BOBBY: The interests are all out in front of you.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: If you look hard enough. Okay, John Angelos time. I think that’s a phrase that we will say a lot on this podcast. Should we have a—should we have like a little music for him? Like any time we’re going to talk about John Angelos, we drop a little soundbite in there, a little bumper, should I create something?
ALEX: Yeah, I think you should. Or if one of our intrepid listeners would like to, you know, they—they really rose to the occasion when asked to, to write–
BOBBY: Bob Castellini?
ALEX: —a Bob Castellini jingle.
BOBBY: Well, at this point, if we just keep this bit going, we’ll have a jingle for every single owner, anytime they come up, we’ll just, alright. it’s time to play Angelos, the Angelo’s song.
ALEX: Right. Right, John’s theme.
BOBBY: John’s theme number three—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —you know like it’s like the third one with–
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —the person came over. Like what—what happened to number one and two?
ALEX: Right. Moreno Sonata number five.
BOBBY: Moreno Sonata, that’s so good. I would like one for Arte. I feel like that name lends itself well to a little jingle.
ALEX: It does.
BOBBY: See, I love the Castellini one so much. We just don’t get to do it enough.
ALEX: I know.
[song] He’s got carrots, and lettuce, and mushrooms, porcine, vegetable King Bob Castellini.
BOBBY: If someone wants to come up with something and then—and then that’s great. If not, I’ll just— I’ll make my own little jingle. John Angelos.
ALEX: John Angelos, man of the hour.
BOBBY: John Angelos was being interviewed by 1070 The Fan. Which I believe is the official radio partner of the Orioles. I think that they do the radio broadcast for Orioles games. And so that’s why he has like a either a standing interview with them or like, that’s why he was being interviewed by them around opening day. And he was asked about the time like three weeks ago, when he volunteered to open the books to the Baltimore Orioles for press if they wanted to—this wasn’t actually three weeks ago, it was in February for Martin Luther King Day, if you’ll remember. And he was like, this is an inappropriate question to ask me on this day of all days, MLK Day. And, so people have been wondering, and this just kind of like the first interview that he has done since then. Other than like, a few days ago, when he was like, we probably won’t be able to extend Adley Rutschman. Which was cool. That was a cool thing he did. And he was asked about whether or not he was still open to giving a little bit more insight into the financial state of the Baltimore Orioles. And–
ALEX: I’d like to point out, he volunteered this too. It was not like reporters came them and said–
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —and said, will you open the books today? I mean, I’m sure, you know, it— it came up and it’s something that every reporter is interested in. But he said, you can come down tomorrow, I won’t talk about this today, but come down here tomorrow, and I’ll open every last page.
BOBBY: Well, so he was being asked if the Orioles were going to stay in Baltimore, basically. Because their leases expiring, they chose not to opt into an extra two years or five years or whatever, for the lease at Camden Yards. Because, you know, if you read between the lines, what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to keep that card on the table to threaten the city of Baltimore to try to get more money, more public funds for updates and improvements that need to be made to Camden Yards in the surrounding area. So he was basically being asked about that. And whether how—whether the team is financially solvent enough to be able to take care of some of these things on their own, if Baltimore decides not to give them money. And that’s when he was like, well, I don’t want to talk about this right now. I’m not talking about the Orioles leaving. You can come look at the books tomorrow if we can—I can answer questions about that tomorrow, you come down to Camden Yards, and we can do that then. So yes, like you said he volunteered this information. And then when radio host followed up about this on opening day, he was like, it’s an interesting concept. And I saw that—
ALEX: Hang on, hang on. What a bar. Whenever someone asks me, if I’m gonna complete the thing, I said I was going to do, and I say it’s an interesting concept. That—you know, that’s fascinating to me.
BOBBY: Hey, Bobby, do you have that edit for me? Well, that edit is an interesting concept.
ALEX: What is to have?
BOBBY: Could you define, could you use that in a sentence? It’s an interesting concept, and I saw that my good friends at the Baltimore Sun wanted to weigh in on that today. When the hedge fund that owns the Baltimore Sun based in New York City wants to open their books, I guess we’ll take a look at that. It’s difficult for me to understand what the fascination is. I will say this, there are a lot of teams in the Baltimore, Washington metropolitan area that are for sale. We might be the only one that’s not. And I might be the only control person and managing partner, that is a Maryland resident, pays taxes in Baltimore City. I would love to see his texture. So he’s, is he volunteering his tax returns? Well, we’ll look at those, prove it. And in the state of Maryland, and has spent every day of my life living inside the city. So he’s referring to I guess, the journalists that were asking him originally about whether they would open the books and weighing in on the fact that he basically has gone silent on that front.
ALEX: Right. There had been an article in the Baltimore Sun that came out just a day or two before that basically said–
BOBBY: Remember when–
ALEX: —every single self-imposed deadline. Right, remember when he said he was gonna do this and then didn’t?
BOBBY: And then so then he’s weighing and being like, well, well, the owner, the hedge fund that owns the Baltimore Sun, open their books, it’s like, do you think that the journalists writing that wouldn’t want to see the hedge funds books too?
ALEX: Yeah, remarkable [20:55]
BOBBY: Like, that’s a total misdirection. Yeah, exactly. That’s like when someone says, Bobby and Alex, why won’t you do a 2-hour podcast? And I’m like, well, have you seen how many 2-hour podcasts are being done by Joe Rogan?
ALEX: Right, why don’t you do a 2-hour podcast? It’s like because I’m not a podcaster.
BOBBY: Uhm, so the feigning surprise of the fact that there is public interest in wanting to see a Major League Baseball teams books. My question is, why is he doing this right now? Like in your honest estimation, now that the Orioles rebuild is somewhat on the swing, on the upswing. And they’re actually seeing some of these prospects who they intentionally tanked and cost, these insane cost-cutting measures, very similar to the Houston Astros, because the person at the helm of the Baltimore Orioles is the same person who was in the front office of the Houston Astros, Mike Elias. Putting into effect a lot of these practices and strategies and philosophies. And now that those players are finally starting to come up, and there’s like wider public interest in the team, and what they’re actually going to do with this. And whether they’re going to invest to build out the rest of the roster. Whether they’re going to invest to keep the Orioles in Baltimore. These outstanding questions, which I don’t feel like are—like the question of whether the Orioles are going to leave Baltimore. It’s not—it’s not like they’re the most likely team to leave their city right now. But typically, if there’s a lease that’s expiring, it’s a fair question, and then the owner will shut it down. Or the owner will keep the door open and invite more questions, which is what Angelos did. But my—my question for you is, why is after years, and years, and years of him doing almost no interviews, why is he suddenly trying to be the aggro antagonistic, owner of the year more or less? Why is he trying to fit into the shoes that the Castellini’s fit into last year?
ALEX: I mean, I think there’s a couple of things at play here, right? He recently took over as the point person in the Orioles ownership group, right? Because of his father’s health issues. And in addition to that—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —there was this kind of long-standing internal legal dispute among the Peter Angelos’ kids, right? About who would have control over the team, right? And that recently got settled as well. So I think there’s a little more clarity on that front as to what the management structure of the franchise looks like going forward. And I think Angelos is probably, I mean, well aware of the reputation that the Orioles have cultivated over the last decade or so. And in his mind, this is probably his way of reclaiming that narrative, right? And saying, we’re not the cheap, you know, joke of a franchise, that has been the butt of the joke, that has been the butt of the joke for the last, you know, 10 years or whatever. We actually, you know, we want to be on the cutting edge, right? We want to have these initiatives with the City of Baltimore, and we’ve got the young prospects and, and I can come out and like, you know, I can come out and banter with the media, you know, and, and say, we’re transparent, and I’ll take you down to the third floor of Camden Yards and you can go, you know—
BOBBY: [24:18] through it.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: What else happens on the third floor, John?
ALEX: Right. Hey, what’s that crowbar in the corner for. But he just seems like someone who has not had to do this before, and as a result, doesn’t know the things to say. Like there’s a way to say you’re going to be transparent without actually offering anything up. Like he needs a crash course in ownership, PR of learning how to say nothing, while sounding like you’re saying something.
BOBBY: I mean, why would he not to do this? He’s the spoiled son of a rich guy.
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: Who didn’t actually buy this team? We’re in a— we have a wave right now of inherited baseball teams, right? We have the Yankees. We have the Nationals, we have the Orioles, we have with the reds. We have the twins. And you know, to a lesser extent the Guardians were Paul Dolan is not? He didn’t— I don’t think he inherited this team necessarily, but he inherited the wealth of the Dolan family to purchase sports teams with, you know. And I’m sure there are some that I’m forgetting. But they all have such interesting relationships to the notion that there— that fans and media alike have questions about these franchises, which, you know, to them, they’ve basically just owned their whole lives or like they’ve inherited and have carte blanche to manifest whatever vision that they have for the team on to. But there’s a deepening entrenchment among ownership because I feel like there is a louder public conversation about how ownership behaves. Like, do—does that make sense, like owners are leaning harder into, to holding on to what they have? Because I feel like they see more of a public fervor for holding them to account. And at the same time, the owners who are not behaving in line are exposing them more than they did in previous eras. And whether that’s because of a wave of owners who actually want to compete and win, or like see that there is room to win in this market where half the teams aren’t really trying for whatever reason that they’re claiming, or whether that is because Bud Selig ran a tighter ship than Rob Manfred, or whether that’s because outside financial factors have a bigger impact on the game now than they used to. I don’t really know why that is, but it feels like we have owners wearing it in public more than they used to.
BOBBY: Yeah, I think there’s an increased visibility and accessibility of some of this younger generation of owners, who, as you mentioned, like have been handled a lot of this on a silver platter. And for you know, generations have largely gone unchecked, in their power over the sport, right? And all of a sudden, there’s a bit more of a combative environment where reporters and fans are less willing to take ownership claims at face value. And I think a lot of the younger owners, or representatives of the team don’t exactly know how to handle that. It was, you know, Angelo’s going back to his dad and saying, you didn’t tell me they were gonna ask about how much money we make. I didn’t know I was gonna have to do that. So I think it’s a really interesting time to sort of be witnessing how owners are interfacing with the public because they are forced to more than they ever have before, right? All of a sudden, we’re not so comfortable just tepidly accepting that 30 billionaires can control our fate, right?
BOBBY: Yeah, but it’s also it comes at a weird time because, you know, the next topic that we have here is kind of the opposite of, you know, I wanted to talk to you about the Rob Manfred’s media tour that’s going on right now. And that has been going on for the last 14 months, where it feels like what the league wants you to think, is more cohesive than ever. Like, I understand what major league baseball wants me to like about the game. I don’t think those are the right things to like about the game, on all instances. Some of them are, there are good people working in MLB and MLB, marketing, and PR who are trying to get people in on the correct things in the game. Like I think about the play-loud campaign or whatever. I think about some of the work that like MLB social channels do. And I think that they’re actually really good. Like, I think that the MLB social channels like Tiktok, and Instagram and like the videos of like behind the scenes stuff with the teams. I think that stuff is like better than other leagues. better than the NFL better than the NBA. And those leagues might get complacent about their popularity or like their—the love for their sports in a way that baseball doesn’t necessarily do because they’ve had to make this concerted effort to make their players seem more relatable and likable, because of generations of players being like boring and weird. But the league itself feels like it is messaging the same thing over and over and over again. In the last month, it’s taken shape as rule changes, which we’re not going to talk about any of the specifics of, but when you watch broadcasts, in spring training, or this year, or when you see commercials or when you see Bryan Cranston voiceover for an ad about how the game is changing because of these rule changes. It all feels like they know what they want to say. And then at the same time, collect the collection of owners feel like they are less on the same page than ever. And I just feel like it’s an interesting dichotomy that we’re observing right now because Rob clearly has this idea of like one baseball and getting everyone under the same umbrella and keeping everybody on message and whatnot. But he’s not a strong enough commissioner to get other owners to buy into that. Like, because there was this other article that Evan wrote, Evan Drellich, wrote in the athletic where Manfred’s gave a speech at an executive luncheon in New York City, which is I’m assuming just like boosters, or donors or whatever. And a lot of the— a lot of the speech focused on the—this idea of analytics and how it’s changed the game, which, again, is a banned topic. But there’s quotes in there from anonymous, more senior owners talking about how they don’t understand why they have analytics departments, and what they’re doing, and what it’s doing for the game. So while we have Rob trying to keep everyone singing the same song in one hand, we have other owners who are like, I don’t even know what analytics are. And then we have some organizations like the Rays who are like acting like they’re sending a rocket to the moon, you know? Like, it’s just, it’s a lot of interesting, competing thoughts right now with like the brand and the shield like we would call it in NFL like, what MLB is right now. It’s like a big question, but I found myself thinking it a lot over the last week, as we’ve been building up towards opening day and thinking about what is—what is going to characterize the season?
ALEX: Yeah, there are a few different strands on there. Yeah, there are a few different strands in there that I think are worth pulling. But what’s striking to me about the league’s messaging is that again, I—it is very cohesive, and I understand what they want us to like about the game, but I don’t—it still feels remarkably kind of out of touch.
BOBBY: Performative.
ALEX: Right? I—you know, Rob Manfred is again relaying this story to a—this executive luncheon that, as you mentioned, a senior owner told him who said, you know, I don’t know what this analytics thing is, I need to figure out what the hell they do. And the owner comes back to Manfred’s and it’s like, you know, I’m absolutely convinced that analytics is an arms race to nowhere.
BOBBY: Such a bar.
ALEX: Such a bar. What does that mean?
BOBBY: Let’s start calling—let’s start calling things arms races to nowhere.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Capitalism is an arms race to nowhere. Alright, we’re done.
ALEX: I mean, yeah.
BOBBY: And again, I know the topic of hand waving at analytics without divulging what that means, is technically banned. But yeah, but I’m not here to debate the value of analytics.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I don’t think the owner really was either.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, it speaks to just how out of tune a lot of owners are. And by extension, the Commissioner of the sport, right? Because Manfred goes on to say, you know, I agree with that sentiment, it’s become one of my favorite lines, because I think it’s actually true.
BOBBY: As opposed to the other lines that you have to say.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I just—I look at MLB, and I don’t see a league that is confident in what part of their product people are gonna like. Because I—I see a commissioner’s office who thinks that has done the market testing and thinks that they know what to put in their ads. I see some ownership groups who think that what people want is young cost-control players, and they’re willing to put their fans through a decade of malfeasance for the chance of doing that, which is not, I don’t think what people want.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I see other ownership groups are like, we want to get all the good players, which I think is closer to what people want. And yeah, it doesn’t seem to coalesce for me, in making the fans feel wanted. All of these competing strands of like, what is baseball in the 2020s are not melding together as a sauce yet. And it feels like, you know, different smaller communities are doing the work to vocalize and, you know, build foundations for what they like about the game. Like, you know, the people of our Slack know what they like about baseball, and they can tell it to anyone, and explain it very clearly. But it would not sound anything like what the actual people in charge of the sport would tell you about why you should like baseball. And I feel like that disconnect is just becoming more and more and more profound, year over year.
ALEX: I mean, what we are seeing is the plight of the billionaire, right? Which is—which is not so concerned about the—the public liking your product, but is concerned with the public liking you, right? it’s like— it’s the— it’s like the Elon Musk condition, right? Where it’s like, I’m going to tailor my product to what I think will make me the most popular, right? I’m going to come out and—and, and offer up the financial records that you know, you say you wanted so much, right? Because I think it’s going to make me look better, make our organization look better, right? We’re going to put out all these, you know, communications, and media, like clips, and all these things that talk about how great the sport is, right now. You know, so like—so like, you really recognize how hard we’re trying. Like, I think owners and the sports administrators are more aware than ever of just how much public opinion is maybe not in favor of them as an institution, right? Like knowing that baseball is a sport is doing fine, but maybe people don’t think that the people in charge of the sport are doing everything they could for the health of it, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX:
And so it’s a lot of virtue signaling about like, look at us, look how hard we are trying to make the sport better for the future.
BOBBY: I just keep coming back to this—this word, insecure? Like they are trying so hard because they aren’t sure about the health of the game, or they aren’t sure that they know what direction to push the game in. And I don’t know— I don’t— I actually don’t think that that’s true of Rob. I actually think he knows—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —he has a pretty clear-eyed vision, as we are seeing with the rule changes and with—
ALEX: [36:24].
BOBBY: Right, I’m just gonna be bleeping this out the whole time. As I mean, he gave like a trillion interviews around the rule changes and he was in the booths talking about them as the pitch calm went out in the— in the rangers and Phillies game on opening day. and they’re sitting there like, oh, this is less than ideal Commissioner, the pitch calm going out while you’re in the booth and they’re calling it a disaster, it was truly great. But I think Rob has a clear-eyed vision and it’s the same technocratic approach that we’ve always expected Rob to have. But he doesn’t really control, like the long-term two-decade health of the sport.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I mean, he has a large hand in actually enacting the strategies that the owners control but—but their—their governing this, like they’re governing the direction of the sport. And to me, like the number one thing that the league could do right now is get out of the way of the product, just do as little as possible.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’m—I’m being serious. I’m not even trying—
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: —to be facetious. Like, the sport is in a great place, because of the players and the teams, and the development. And [37;30] having a really solid start in his— in his first performance for the New York Mets, really rocky [37:35], but he got out of it only given up one— one run, and now he’s coming out in the six with a—with a solid line, in line to get the win.
ALEX: Yep.
BOBBY: That’s why the sport is healthy. No, but actually, though, like the actual—we’re in a great place with the talent, and it’s fun to watch for a lot of different reasons. You know, the 16 giftable players that we drafted in the many more on our long list last week are a huge part of that. But— but it seems like the league is a roadblock to those people, and they would like to tell you that they are promoting them, but only at the expense of the customer. Like we have to— you have to pay more than you ever have to be able to actually see the stars who they—who they allegedly want you to see more than anything else in the world. And that’s not getting better, it’s getting worse.
ALEX: Yeah. You can, however, watch minor league baseball for free through the Bally Casino App. So promoting the health of the game.
BOBBY: Well, they have mino—
ALEX: That’s the future baby.
BOBBY: They have minor league baseball on MLB. TV too, not for free though.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Hey, speaking of the minor leagues, Bobby.
BOBBY: Speaking of the minor leagues, we have a CBA. Did—did you know that they were just like bargaining?
ALEX: No [laughs]
BOBBY: Like hard? I don’t know how you would know, nobody was talking about it.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Nobody was like, hey, guys, we’re close.
ALEX: Didn’t hear a damn thing.
BOBBY: You would have thought that somebody would have just put a little birdie in our ears, be like get ready for this.
ALEX: No, but it is here at sort of long lat, at short last? There was like the turnaround on this was kind of unreal.
BOBBY: Can I ask you right off the bat a hard question?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That I want to be careful about the tone that I ask it?
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: How did you feel about the general vibe once the CBA tentative agreement was announced? The se—and by that I mean, the laudatory celebratory tone of all of the people who saw that it was signed or that it was agreed to tentatively.
ALEX: I mean, it’s interesting because it’s an interesting concept, Bobby. Because this is a historic moment in baseball history, right? Like this is something that has been overdue for—for decades. And as we’ll get into, like, contains serious improvements to lifestyle in the minor leagues, right? When it comes to pay, when it comes to, to housing and name image, likeness rights. There’s— there’s a whole host of things in there that minor leaguers now have that they did not have before. And I think that can’t be discounted, right? Recognizing that this is really the first step, right? This is laying the groundwork for future CPAs and future negotiations. and—and so I think it’s— it’s important to not let that moment go away. However, just because it’s a CBA doesn’t mean minor leaguers now have everything they need, and will for the foreseeable future, right? This is still only a first step.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And I think for good reason, there were a lot of people who were celebrating this as finally minor leaguers have the representation that they have so long deserved. And I think that’s true, and I think there’s nothing wrong with celebrating that. But it’s going to be really important now, moving forward to stay tuned into this, right? Because there’s still a lot of unknowns about how this is actually going to play out, especially with regards to the continuing— the continual gutting of minor league rosters.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Part of this agreement was the reduction of the domestic reserve roster from 180 to 165 in the regular season, down from 190 to 175, in the offseason. Like this is important, but the fight is like, far from over.
BOBBY: Yeah, I—look, I’m not— I’m not stupid. I knew there were things that were going to be in here that were not ideal. Otherwise, why would MLB be negotiating this? I knew that there were going to be steps in the wrong direction, in exchange for other steps in the right direction, and that’s what a CBA is, you give up things that you need because there are other things that you need more. You don’t give up things that you just would like to have in a perfect world for an exchange for things that you absolutely need bare necessities. Because it’s—we live under capitalism. You know, like we’re not having all of our needs met, and so we need to give away some needs to get more core needs in our lives. And that is what a union can get you, that is what a CBA can get you and that is what is demonstrated by this minor league agreement. Like the pay basically doubled at all levels, it’s still bad, it’s still not nearly not anywhere close to the value that they are providing in the aggregate.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: For Major League Baseball teams. And the insane surplus value that they’ve provided them for over 100 years.
ALEX: Right. And—and— and it’s still below what development leagues in other sports pay their players, right? I mean, the— the highest-earning minor leaguer will earn $35,800 in AAA.
BOBBY: Right. Salary wise, nonsalary [43:03]
ALEX: Yes, yeah, Right. Exactly. Yes.
BOBBY: Which is—is bad, but I mean, I think that those numbers also look really low in part because they’re not including the cost of housing, which was recently also agreed to be covered by a major league baseball and is now codified in the CBA. Including some improvements, even to the housing policy that was instituted a year ago. I think was a year ago, right? So yes, the actual, like bullet points of this agreement aside, I just—it always makes me a little bit queasy to see people lauding a deal without actually knowing like, how everyone feels about it, or like how the vibe of the negotiations went or like how that fight actually played out, or who had the largest hand in constructing the steel.
ALEX: Right. Like the owners are probably going to sign off on this, which tells you a little something—
BOBBY: About it.
ALEX: The owner [44:00] right, like.
BOBBY: Like, I think that they are grousing a little bit that they ever had this minor league thing become such a problem in the first place. Because of how overt and draconian and awful MLB handled this whole process since the Save America’s Pastime Act Like they really walked themselves into this problem, and then just had no plan for getting themselves out of it. And then that led to creating an environment in which minor leaguers were brave enough to step up and speak out about some of these things, or pissed off enough or were desperate enough to speak out about some of these things? And, you know, we should say 99% of the people who voted on the CBA voted yes. So that would lead you to believe that there is harmony over what over the contents of it, otherwise, that number would not be so high. I don’t think that we’ve seen the number of the percentage of people who actually voted on it, compared to how many minor leaguers there are. So that doesn’t mean that 99% of all minor leaguers voted yes on this, that means that 99 of—99% of people who actually responded and voted in the timeframe that they gave, which was very short. I think was like three days that they had to vote on this, which is too short in my personal opinion. All that being said, more than anything, the thing that I always think about with regards to a CBA is does this make people’s lives better tomorrow. Does this make the material conditions of the union members’ lives better the second you sign it and business?
ALEX: Without a doubt.
BOBBY: Clearly does.
ALEX: It makes them better yesterday, right? They’re getting back pay for spring training.
BOBBY: Yes. And for retroactive to the actual start of the season, depending on when the owners actually ratify it. So you know, and I know that the people who were involved in negotiating and pushing for this union drive think about it in that way, too, because we’ve literally talked to the people who were involved in it, you know, and they’ve expressed that same sentiment. So I don’t think that this was like, this is certainly not like a bad deal, because this is clearly the deal that was available to them with the resources that they have and the disadvantaged position that they have been forced into for decades and decades and decades. I just kind of like lament the unbalanced nature of the industry.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Still, even after seeing this, like, I think that you and I had like pie-in-the-sky visions for what a unionized minor leagues looks like. And it—this was not the vision.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: For me personally. Because, number one, I didn’t expect MLB PA to come in and include them into their union, I think it was good that they did, because I think that it expedited this process, and it gave them the necessary resources in order to actually like, get a deal, and organize and push for this and actually win a union drive, which is insanely hard to do, especially when people are scared for losing their jobs like you can be at the miners. But in my head, I always was expecting it to be like This would Have been a different organization effort, which would have led it to be more confrontational, which at its nature, might have yielded different— a different looking CBA. But there’s no guaranting that that would have ever happened. And so like there’s no— this is not me holding anyone at fault here. This is just me, kind of reckoning with the fact that you know, even after all it took to get this—this CBA to a point where it’s a realistic possibility, and all of the winds along the way that lead to it, it’s still like, owners are like, we’re doing you a favor by paying you $35,000 a year. That just kind of sucks.
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, this is going to cost teams roughly $3 million a year, which— that’s not just—just not very much money, the— you know, that whole thing about how Paign minor leaguers more would like maybe mean the death of the sport, because they don’t— they can’t afford it, turns out that was a lie.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Umm but—
BOBBY: And the flip side of this coin, right is like they unionized and they doubled their salaries in the span of like three months. It felt like—so there are—
ALEX: So like—
BOBBY: —there are so many positives to take away this is [47:59]
ALEX: I mean, it’s like—it’s like, I mean, it would have been amazing if they had come out. and you know [48:04]
BOBBY: Everybody’s making 100k.
ALEX: I mean, yeah, of course right, that was never gonna happen. And I think like, again, knowing the precarity of minor leaguers’ situations, I think expecting them to be really militant, it was just not my cards, right? I mean, they just doubled everyone’s pay basically overnight, right? And that’s huge, and there’s accommodations for—for families, and they are— they are getting some of the ancillary benefits of being represented by the MLB. Pa right with like, having nutritionists and being able to get a second medical opinion if you need, right? And being covered by the drug testing fucking law.
BOBBY: Agreement. Yeah.
ALEX: Agreement—
BOBBY: That’s a joint agreement. And they also get name in—and name, image, and likeness.
ALEX: And they can name image and likeness back which is— which I mean, you know, there are a lot of minor leaguers who can’t do very much with that, but also, none of them have ever had it, right? Major League Baseball has always as—as Michael Bauman, front of the pod definitely pointed out in— in the pages of Fangraphs. It was this interesting double-edged sword of you are not worth enough to be paid commensurate, to your value because you don’t provide very much, but you provide just enough that we’re going to hold on to your rights so that we can do what we want with it, right? So it’s— it’s amazing that something like that has like finally been— been wiped out. I think my big—like my biggest worry moving forward is I don’t want fans and the public to sort of you lose that energy that we’ve had over the last six months or so, right? Like there’s still improvements to be made, and there’s still going to be confrontations down the road. And I want people to be just as amenable to those fights, those changes as they are right now because they’re still important.
BOBBY: That’s very well put, because I look at the CBA, like you said as a good first step, that when it expires, maybe the existence of it takes some of the ill will out of how minor leaguers feel for how they’ve been treated for so long, but I think that when it expires, there are you know, many things that will be worth revisiting. And it’s the same trap that we get ourselves into with the major leagues CBA, where fans, the media, the wider reaction to something is like thank god, there’s baseball back, or like thank God, this—this XYZ condition was improved, and it’s like, well, the point of a—the point of a CBA is that it pauses the fight, it doesn’t end the fight. it’s not just in perpetuity, you come back every five years, and you sign This thing again. Like in five years from now, they should look at This document, and they should say, okay starting point, but we want to improve every single part of it. And like maybe you know, maybe I’m straw-manning a little bit, but like the— the tone of the reaction to the news that there was a CBA was a little bit like, thank God, we got that problem behind us, and I think that that’s a dangerous mindset.
ALEX: Yeah, famously—famously, unions work is done once they get their first CBA. Like that’s— I don’t think any union is ever had struggle beyond that point.
BOBBY: Hopefully, we—were able to talk to some of the people that were involved in the steel, and ask—ask some questions about what the process was like, because I feel like we don’t have a big window into what actually happened with the— with the major league CBA, it was like, we got videos of everybody walking back and forth, every time there was a new proposal. And with this one, it was like, we just found out that they were even bargaining like a month ago, and then we just got news dumped that we had a CBA. So I just— there’s a lot of questions.
ALEX: Yep, I agree. Damn, do the [51:54] unionize?
BOBBY: It’s pretty cool.
ALEX: That’s fuckin crazy.
BOBBY: The one thing that I— that I feel bad for not having mentioned yet too, is that they now officially have a grievance process. Like before, the only way for them to get any kind of legal recompense for anything that a team was doing for—to them, was to literally sue them. And at either take it to a class action lawsuit, or go to court by yourself against the team that is currently employing you and say you violated XYZ law, and hope that the judge sides with you. And now what they have is a grievance process built legally into the CBA, where if they feel like a team is running afoul of what they’ve agreed to, they can grieve it, and then a neutral arbiter will look at this document and vote on whether or not MLB’s violating this document. And that is like so much easier than suing your employer in court, for so many reasons. Because like, they now have the resources of the union to file this grievance with. And the lawyers that are employed by MLB. PA and a document that they can actually point to that is not a law that might change in the timespan that you are actually suing the team.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like there’s so many different things that make this so much easier and better that just by nature of a CBA going into effect immediately improves people’s lives.
ALEX: Yeah, we’ll see. You want to ban this one from the pod to just get it out of the way?
BOBBY: What else can we ban? Should we ban the Mets and the A’s?
ALEX: Probably, for our own sake?
BOBBY: I think that does it for this week. This is a short pod, or is this just a normal pod, and we’ve just been doing such long ones recently?
ALEX: I don’t know, but the pace of play stuff that we— that we implemented seem to have worked so—
BOBBY: We actually have a rule—a set of rules that’s pasted to the wall in the studio that if you violate it, you have to get out. Is—is talking about pace of play allowed?
ALEX: [53:50]
BOBBY: I guess pace of play is not a rule change.
ALEX: Right. Well, I was talking about our own rule changes too.
BOBBY: That will be a good pod. Rule changes for— for the podcast.
ALEX: Don’t—don’t—
BOBBY: This are no longer allowed to do.
ALEX: —don’t ban relevant topics from discussion.
BOBBY: Here, first rule change for the pod. Don’t ask me to do the transatlantic accent. Have you checked in with your man JJF recently? Just send them a text congratulating him on the opening-day win. And the crowd at opening dates 27,000.
ALEX: 27000.
BOBBY: That’s pretty good. That’s 20,000 more than their—their best game last year.
ALEX: Ouch.
BOBBY: Harsh.
ALEX: Fair. No, no, it’s—it’s been a little bit actually. I mean, I did —I did check in on him for— for some research I was doing for the next Patreon newsletter. There’s gonna be some—
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: —some fascinating little tidbits in—
BOBBY: Look [54:47]
ALEX: —in there.
BOBBY: Look at that teaser.
ALEX: Look at that teaser.
BOBBY: You’re already working on the newsletter? You’re doing—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: — your research for the newsletter, already.
ALEX: You’re doing it last week?
BOBBY: A week in advance, that is really special stuff out of you way, yeah. So you’re raising the bar this year, huh?
ALEX: Well, it’s gonna make it even more embarrassing when it’s still a week late.
BOBBY: You’re like— you’re like doing the Shaq and Kobe thing with me right now. And like, I’m already doing research for the newsletter. You like Shaq’s coming into camp out of shape, you’re not doing research for the newsletter a week in advance.
ALEX: patreon.com/tippingpitches
BOBBY: [55:22]
ALEX: That’s that, don’t put them back—
BOBBY: No backslash
ALEX: Again, it’ll still work, but—
BOBBY: It will still work.
ALEX: We will get roasted for it.
BOBBY: Don’t put it you— it will change in the address bar automatically,but still, don’t put it, don’t you dare.
ALEX: Yeah, you’ll feel stupid.
BOBBY: Three different tiers $5, $7, $12, they’ll get you different stuff, you can see what they get you on the website. You know, you can also call it Tipping Pitches. You can call Tipping Pitches and you can just speak your mind, share thoughts, your takes, your observations from opening day, your ups, your downs, your lefts, your rights, anything that you want—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —to talk about 785-422-5881. I’m saying it slower, because sometimes I listen back to the pod, and I listen at one and a half speed and I’m just like—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That was a bunch of numbers and I don’t know any of them. I mean, I know the number but like if there—
ALEX: —you’re the guy reading the medical warnings at the end of like a Tylenol commercial or something.
BOBBY: You are legally allowed to call Tipping Pitches, the number is 785-422- 5881.
ALEX: That was really good.
BOBBY: Thank you.
ALEX: Look, we’ve been discussion between us regarding rules and analytics and such on this podcast. We haven’t banned listeners, I’m just putting it out there.
BOBBY: Interesting.
ALEX: We may not be able to respond.
BOBBY: This is a real living document of a—of a concept, the ban to topics. Last week, we’ve let Stephen and Becca talk about it.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And we kind of responded but you and I didn’t discuss it between the two of us so, it’s kind of unclear, you know? There’s a lot of gray area in these laws.
ALEX: Yeah, like with MLB’s rules, you know. Again, it’s whatever your heart feels like [57:00]
BOBBY: Some might say there’s not enough gray area in MLB’s rules. I don’t know if I would say that, and I don’t know if I will say it to you on the Tipping Pitches podcast. But if you get catch me ou—you catch me offline, I might have some thoughts about it. You can also email the pods, to tippingpitchespod@gmail.com. Anything else, Alex, that you would like to you know, predict for the 2023 season?
ALEX: I like to predict.
BOBBY: Well, you know, I saw the— I saw the annual Spin magazine where they talk to every musician who’s a baseball fan like literally every, there’s like 150 respondents on that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s like a 30,000 word. I’m just getting my thoughts out right now. So by the end of it, I was like, I don’t know any of these people are, but they like the twins.
ALEX: That’s cool.
BOBBY: I saw—I saw in there that all of those musicians were willing to go on the record with predictions for how their teams would do. Number predictions, so I was wondering if you would like to—to weigh in musician that you are.
ALEX: Hmm, that’s a good point. I think the A’s shocked the world.
BOBBY: Hmm.
ALEX: And win 65 games this year.
BOBBY: Oh, you know, we forgot to talk about Bryce Harper saying that he reads romance novels.
ALEX: Yeah. You were asking for that to our pod, here it is.
BOBBY: Should we go for another hour? Alright, get it out. Have you read any of these books?
ALEX: I haven’t.
BOBBY: Have you heard of L Kennedy? I haven’t either.
ALEX: I actually have.
BOBBY: Really?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay, great.
ALEX: That’s—
BOBBY: Where—
ALEX: That’s the accent, I don’t know. Tiktok, probably.
BOBBY: Oh, great.
ALEX: But it seems that you know, we’ve bandied about the idea of the Tipping Pitches book club. And while I think that in—that concept at first was like maybe let’s read baseball books. I kind of liked the idea of Bryce Harper’s book club, you know? Let’s read book, Bryce’s reading.
BOBBY: I’m obsessed with the fact that he said this to GQ.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: First of all, The Growth of Bryce Harper. There’s no way he would have said something like this five years ago.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Number one. Number two—
ALEX: It’s not very alpha male of him.
BOBBY: I thought that this book would be like, okay, you know, it’s—it’s—t’s like an airport, romance novel, but it’s like it has like, a crime plot or like, something like that.
ALEX: Nope.
BOBBY: And I went to it, and it’s just two hockey players that fall in love.
ALEX: Are you surprised?
BOBBY: And—and it—
ALEX: Are you surprised?
BOBBY: It’s like a horny book too.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like, it’s not just like,a, oh, they fell in love, here’s their sweet love story It’s like— it’s it’s—
ALEX: Steamy.
BOBBY: Saucy.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s amazing, I’m so proud of Bryce. The growth. Oh, I finally found what I was looking for. Taking Back Sunday’s John Nolan, saying that he wasn’t sure what the baseball gods would have in store for the New York Mets this season, because, you know, he’s a Mets fan. He’s been Mets fan his whole life from Long Island, very up-and-down experience to be a Mets fan. And then they asked him for how many games they thought that he thought the Mets would win. And he said I don’t know probably 110. Come on John Nolan.
ALEX: That’s baseball brain right there.
BOBBY: Is it? Is that baseball Reiner is that I feel like they played 200 games, so I’m just gonna predict 110.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: There’s no way—there’s no way he’s like that. There’s no way he knows that that’s only six away from the record, right? Because you don’t predict that, there’s no way like Steve would not have predicted that the Blue Jays are gonna win 110 games.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Even though he feels really good about them. He’s in here talking about the Blue Jays as he always is.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Really wringing his hands over. Stephen, it’s gonna be okay.
ALEX: It’s gonna be alright.
BOBBY: It’s gonna be alright. 110 games, John Nolan, New York—New York Mets? [1:00:41]
ALEX: They can happen?
BOBBY: If the Mets win 110 games this year, will you allow me to put your make damn sure. cover in the podcast?
ALEX: Sure. Yes.
BOBBY: Really?
ALEX: I’d do that right now—
BOBBY: Really? Handshake, handshake.
ALEX: Handshake.
BOBBY: Alright, we’re shaking hands.
ALEX: Do it.
BOBBY: It’s real, it’s real, it’s real. I’m gonna take a photo of this moment.
ALEX: Now we’re just holding hands.
BOBBY: It has been written, that if the New York Mets win 110 games this year, make damn sure, Alex Bazeley’s version.
ALEX: 12 years old, baby.
BOBBY: Is playing on the podcast. This is the best day of my life. Now–
ALEX: Now, now you have something to root for.
BOBBY: Now I’m back in the Mets. God, now I’m gonna watch every single game this year. This is great, this is the best thing ever. We need to do more bets like this.
ALEX: This is great, amazing.
BOBBY: Okay. I don’t think we can top that. So I think we should just wrap up there. Thanks, everybody for listening. We will be back next week.
[1:01:37][Music]
[1:01:47][Outro]
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Hello everybody, I’m Alex Rodriguez, Tipping Pitches, Tipping Pitches. This is the one that I love the most, Tipping Pitches. So we’ll see you next week. See ya!
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