At long last, it’s time for Alex to either publicly break up with the Oakland A’s and find a new team or renew his vows to the Athletics. In part one of two, we go team-by-team through 20 of the 30 MLB teams to determine where they measure up on Alex’s custom made rubric. In part two, we will finish the final 10, consider alternative visions of fandom, and make a final selection.
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Whitmer Thomas — “Rigamarole” • Booker T & the M.G.’s — “Green Onions”
At long last, Alex has selected the team he will switch his allegiances to. That’s it! This is a podcast! Here’s a podcast! Please listen! Thanks!
Buy tickets for the Tipping Pitches Brooklyn Cyclones Meetup
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Links:
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Songs featured in this episode:
[REDACTED] • Booker T & the M.G.’s — “Green Onions”
Episode Transcript
MLB Matchmaker, Part 1
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 at home understand what Tipping Pitches is all about? That’s amazing! That’s remarkable.
BOBBY: Alex, we have a very special episode on deck today. one that has been—dare I say months in the making? When I went back and I was listening to voicemails, uh, when people first submitted their pitches for you to become a fan of a new team. Uh, those voicemails started rolling in around April of this month. It is July.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s midway through July.
ALEX: I mean, you could argue this has been in the works for years. Um—
BOBBY: Some might say it’s been in the works since you were a child.
ALEX: Since I signed up to be an A’s fan.
BOBBY: Uh, of course, today on the podcast, we have the Alex Chooses a New Team episode. Should we have come up with a better name for this? Other than the very verbose Alex Chooses a New Team Episode? New team pod, Alex’s fandom power hour? Alex For Sale? That’s pretty good.
ALEX: That’s actually a pretty good one. Yeah, I was—I mean, I was trying to think about like the—the term for, like, architecture. You know, that, like, just— like, tells you what’s inside it. Like, say, um, you know, like, I think that—
BOBBY: Like a blueprint?
ALEX: Well, oh, like a blue—but I mean, like— like, I—you know, it’s like, um—um, a basket store that shaped like a basket, right? This is a—
BOBBY: Hmm.
ALEX: This is a team-choosing podcast, so what better way to name it than the—the Alex chooses a new—you know exactly what you’re getting when you walk in. Alex Choose—Alex For Sale leaves a little too much room for interpretation, I think.
BOBBY: I liked the room for interpretation. I think the listeners will like it as well. Um, MLB decided that they wanted to derail the Alex For Sale podcast before it even gets going. You know why? Because they dropped a big, old piece of news for us. A Tipping Pitches branded piece of news. Can I read you a tweet from the one and only Bob Nightengale, a man whose tweets have not been read enough on this podcast this year, I fear.
ALEX: Please do. I mean, I’ve—for the listener’s context, I’ve been offline, basically, all day long, so I have no idea what’s about to come out of your mouth. Uh, especially now that I know that it’s a Bob Nightengale tweet. So, I’m, uh, I’m strapped in.
BOBBY: Have you been off all day long because, uh, you’re protesting the downfall of Twitter, and you’ve migrated all of your—
ALEX: I’m all in Threads.
BOBBY: Threads. If—if [2:42]
ALEX: And I don’t think Bob is over there yet.
BOBBY: If Bob joined Threads, would we have to get on there? Are you on Threads? Do you have a Threads account?
ALEX: Yes, I did make an—uh, I didn’t mean to.
BOBBY: Oh, my—what do you mean?
ALEX: It was—well, you know, it was like—you know me, right? And—
BOBBY: I do.
ALEX: —I’m trying everything—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —on the face of the Earth—
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: —for shits and giggles.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And so out of curiosity, I did download the app, not realizing it was gonna irreversibly link my Threads account to my Instagram account—
BOBBY: See—
ALEX: —like the handle and all.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And now, I can’t delete the Threads account.
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: Like, I was deleting my Instagram account. It’s—
BOBBY: Oh, wow. That’s hardcore.
ALEX: It’s really hardcore.
BOBBY: See that’s why I didn’t make a Threads account. I downloaded Threads and I was like, “Oh, I’ll do this on the first day and I’ll get [3:26] but I don’t have that on Instagram.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And so when I knew—when I found out that it was just gonna be my same old, boring Instagram handle with numbers at the end, I was like, “This is bullshit. I’m not signing up for this.” And then I deleted Threads before I linked the accounts.
ALEX: Yeah, I think you—you would have to make a [3:39] Instagram account, which I assume already exists—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —in some fashion.
BOBBY: Yes. It took Herculean efforts for me to get [3:48] on Twitter.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: If you think I’m leaving the Twitter platform just because a couple of dumb Elon tweets, you’re wrong.
ALEX: Right. And now you spend all day long telling reply guys that you’re not the football player.
BOBBY: Uh, pretty much. Yes. Anytime he does anything, it’s about 25 people tweeting at me being like, “Dude, great job today.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Uh, no, Bob Nightengale on. twitter.com, Alex, brace yourself, “MLB is working with Dow Chemical trying to develop a baseball with a sticky substance.”
ALEX: Let’s go.
BOBBY: You actually could not parody this, if you try. Like, I—I challenge you right here, right now in this room where we are together for the first time in what feels like months, think of something funnier than that. I dare you. Think of an MLB partnership that could be funnier than that. What is it? Like, they hire Kissinger as Commissioner emeritus?
ALEX: It’s—to—on the note, first of all, isn’t it widely known that MLB has their own sticky substance they put on—on—on the baseballs?
BOBBY: What, like the mud?
ALEX: The—like the rosin?
BOBBY: Oh, the mud.
ALEX: The—the mud, right? There’s all—there’s the whole thing about the mud that they get.
BOBBY: Not cancerous enough.
ALEX: Not— it’s not—right. Exactly. That—
BOBBY: It’s naturally occurring. There’s no money to be made in mud.
ALEX: They haven’t poisoned enough agriculture, right? Like—
BOBBY: Honestly, they probably have. Sending people to the bottom of the Delaware River, they’re probably, like, leaking chemicals during that process, but that’s a whole different thing. And also probably not the worst—worst offenders in the Delaware River, to be honest.
ALEX: Yes, honestly. So, is there more information about this or is it—was it just the top line—like they’re working on it?
BOBBY: Just that Bob tweet. Haven’t seen anything else about it.
ALEX: It’s the kind of thing that like we do, right? Where we’re like, “Come on, we’re working on The Climate Pod.”
BOBBY: Stop bringing up The Climate Pod. You bring up The Climate Pod leads to—bare minimum—
ALEX: It’s the only thing that reminds people that that exists.
BOBBY: —three people being like, ‘What’s The Climate Pod?” And us having to, like, put our tail between our legs and run home.
ALEX: It’s the bed we’ve made.
BOBBY: I—
ALEX: I don’t know what to tell you.
BOBBY: I suppose it is, but even if we’re not delivering on The Climate Pod today, we are delivering on a long-awaited podcast, Alex For Sale, Alex Chooses a New Team. Alex has been shunned. He has been hurt. He has been let down, led astray, hoodwinked. He has been bamboozled by his close personal friend, John J. Fisher. He has been Benedict Arnolded. Ben—Benedict Arnolded. Past tense verb of a man’s name by John Fisher and the Oakland Athletics and Dave Kaval. Uh, and so, today on the podcast, we will be running through all 30 Major League Baseball teams, uh, Oakland A’s included. And we will be putting them through a rigorous rubric to determine their candidacy to become the team that Alex Bazeley roots. Uh, more about why that’s a worthwhile endeavor for these teams to come. But before we do that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I’m Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[theme]
BOBBY: Alex, let me just start this with a quick programming note. There’s gonna be a couple of quick programming notes here. We’re gonna explain what this exercise is.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And I’m also going to say something that if you are a— an astute listener or an astute reader of the podcast description, you no doubt already know that this is just part one of a two-part podcast where we find you a new team. I’m just going to be Front Street with this. Dear, listener, we thought and hoped that this would be just a one-parter, but it turns out that it demanded enough time, enough academia to be worthy of two parts. And also because you were going to be out of town next week and so we need something to fill that week anyway. So these are just how these things happen. Alex, before we put these teams through the wringer, before we put them on the podium, before we start grilling them in the job interview, would you like to turn the tables a little bit? And would you like to make a pitch as to why you’re a great fan? Why you will be a positive addition to the team for any of these franchises?
ALEX: Um, I don’t know. I’d go positive.
BOBBY: Oh.
ALEX: I think if—if, say, uh, an MLB owner looked at either of us as baseball fans, we’re not the platonic ideal probably
BOBBY: Big tent, though.
ALEX: A big tent.
BOBBY: Let us in.
ALEX: Like, I put 26 years and change into the Oakland A’s. I woke up every day, you know. Put on that cap.
BOBBY: You did.
ALEX: Put on my gloves. Pulled on my bootstraps and—and got ready for whatever the fight of the day was, you know? And I did that tirelessly and without recognition.
BOBBY: Right. You’re just a humble soldier—
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: —in the Oakland Athletics army.
ALEX: A foot soldier for JJF.
BOBBY: Tighten up those boots. Standing at attention every morning, 7 o’clock in the morning. I—0700 hours as they say—
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: —in the military. I have to say, I know this is a momentous occasion for you, and I know that this is a bit that we’re doing on the podcast. But this is also a momentous occasion for me. For as long as I can remember, you know, our friendship has been very intertwined with baseball and the teams that we root for. Being equally cursed in different ways, in different, unique, painful ways. And I believe you were wearing an Oakland A’s hat the first time we ever had a conversation.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. I think so.
BOBBY: It might have—it must have been an A’s hat because I wouldn’t have approached you and talked to you if you were wearing a Cal hat.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Just like a Big Bears guy. I mean, it was on brand for you to either be wearing an A’s or Cal hat, but I think that the conversation started would have been A’s, so I’m—I’m pretty sure this is the reason that we have this podcast.
ALEX: It—absolutely. I mean, you were sitting here wearing an Oakland A’s shirt.
BOBBY: I know. Did you like that?
ALEX: Like right now. That was good. That was a good touch.
BOBBY: I think you wear a picture of someone to their—uh, a picture of someone on your shirt to their funeral. This whole podcast energy is kind of like the, uh, the meme of those men carrying the casket at the funeral—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —with the—with the—the funny music playing. You know that meme?
ALEX: I do. Yes.
BOBBY: That I—that I’m good at describing on this podcast. What’s the shorthand for that meme? I don’t know, they’re wearing sunglasses. You know the meme?
ALEX: I—yup. I’m not gonna—
BOBBY: Did that meme—did that meme make—
ALEX: I won’t [10:14] myself to try and explain it further.
BOBBY: Did that meme make it to Threads yet? Did you see that one yet? Are you gonna—couple of months from now, you’re gonna see it.
ALEX: Maybe I’ll get it a couple of months from now, yeah. My viral Threads account.
BOBBY: If I can be made fun of for seeing three-week-old TikToks on reels, you can be made fun of for seeing three-month-old memes from Twitter.
ALEX: It’s all—it’s all brands, you know? It’s, uh, it’s like Wendy’s—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —hopping and McDonald’s replies, and being like, “I’d like to grim that ass.” You know, like—
BOBBY: The fact that you don’t work for one of these companies, social media companies, it’s just like a modern crime of our times. Uh, so you have created a rubric, and many, many listeners have made submissions as to why you should root for either their team, a team that they think would be a good fan experience, or otherwise—miscellaneous, otherwise, we will get to that, as we go along. How we’re gonna do this is you’re—well, you’re first going to explain your rubric and why you chose these things. And then we’re just gonna go team by team, organized by division. And we’re gonna rate them on the rubric. And then at the end, we’ll have a final list of contenders based on who scored the highest. And you will choose at the end, if you so decide. I suppose at the end of this, you could really edge everyone and just be like, “I’m not gonna choose this week.” Uh, tell me about the rubric. Did you work hard on this formula? You were—
ALEX: I—
BOBBY: —you were grinding away on the algorithm.
ALEX: I was grinding. You know me, I love a good spreadsheet.
BOBBY: How much code went into this? First of all, what code language, R?
ALEX: Right. R—uh, Ruby, Ruby, um—
BOBBY: Never heard of that one.
ALEX: —C++.
BOBBY: I know that one.
ALEX: There you go. None of these—it was equals sum the following Excel sheet cells.
BOBBY: Okay, great.
ALEX: No. You know, I mean, it’s—I think it’s an interesting exercise every so often to sort of zoom out and take stock of what really matters to you when rooting for a baseball team. And I think that this exercise really made clear in my mind that, like, there’s sort of two elements to that. One is like the actual baseball that you’re watching, like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —do I want to sign up and watch 162 games of this team, right? Either—yeah.
BOBBY: And that’s the stakes there. You will have to watch every single game for all of eternity.
ALEX: Right. I—
BOBBY: Forever and eternity, the [12:26]
ALEX: I’m—I suit up in the same jersey they’re wearing.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Like, I’m—
BOBBY: You have to try to run on the field at least once a year, as the stakes.
ALEX: Uh-huh. Right. And the goal is to not, uh, get found out, right? The goal is to, like, maybe have the mistake Trea Turner for the fan running on the field—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —or something,
BOBBY: You look a little bit like Trea, too. You can be the—you can be Trea Turner, right?
ALEX: I picked—I tried to pick someone who wasn’t, like, above six feet.
BOBBY: I think he is still above six feet—
ALEX: Well—
BOBBY: —but, I don’t know, maybe in comparison to Alex Bohm, he does—Alec Bohm, he doesn’t look like that.
ALEX: They’re all four inches on my TV, whatever.
BOBBY: That’s—
ALEX: Um, no, there’s like the—just like—
BOBBY: I’m just [13:01] with the friends on the TV. I want everyone to know that I’ve slept 45 minutes in the last 36 hours, so this podcast might [13:09] going in.
ALEX: Right. We’re gonna be recording longer than the amount of sleep that you have gotten—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —in the last, like, two days.
BOBBY: That’s right. Since we did the last podcast.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: It’s just all pods—it’s all—pods all the way down, baby.
ALEX: So, like, success, right? How good is the team? What are the prospects of—of the team?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: You know, what is—
BOBBY: Sell me this team.
ALEX: Yeah. What is the star—you know, who is the guy—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —on this team. So, there’s that element. And then there’s, like, the aesthetic element of it, which I think, as I’ve grown older, has grown far more important, right? What is actually like going to see a baseball game in that team stadium? Do they have a jersey that I would be actually willing to spend egregious amounts of money on buying, despite my aversion to jerseys? What is the—what—what is the broadcast booth like? What are the things that, like, make—taking in the baseball game, enjoyable, regardless of how good the actual product of the sport is? So, a lot of these categories are—are ones that I sort of—you know, I went through and thought about with each team and tried to assign a—not at all subjective, but, uh, attempt at being a subjective—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm [14:16]
ALEX: —object—no, it’s an attempt at being subjective. My opinions are objective.
BOBBY: You can attempt to be more subjective. You’re trying to make it more skewed towards yourself.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Uh, the—I mean, the third category that I didn’t mention, because I did not assign any score, is like the ethical cloud around these cheat, right?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Like, how does—how does the team engage with the community, uh—
BOBBY: So, are some of these teams just, like, straight up, DQ’d already in your mind? I imagine that there are some teams that you just basically didn’t even consider.
ALEX: Right. I mean, there’s, uh, definitely a handful of teams that—you know, when putting together these rankings and, like, summing out all the scores and everything like that, like they don’t perform very well. And some of them perform really well in, like, the aesthetic category of those things, right? But, like, the Tigers aren’t doing much to make their case—
BOBBY: Spoiler.
ALEX: —right now.
BOBBY: Spoiler. No spoilers. Save it. Save it for the Tigers. Save it for the—the AL Central. Um, okay. Are we ready to do it?
ALEX: I think so.
BOBBY: Should we just dive right into it? This is gonna take a long time, so I feel like we should get into it.
ALEX: We probably should.
BOBBY: Um, let’s go through the categories. There are six categories. First one, team performance, this is worth 15 points in your mind.
ALEX: Yeah. Loose point values assigned to each—each of these categories, so this takes into account like recent success of the team, as well as future prospects, right?
Do they have eight top 100 prospects or is it—
BOBBY: No one has eight top 100 prospects. Well, actually, no one has eight top 100 prospects that are not already in the Majors, I’ll say that.
ALEX: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, the Orioles are kind of scooping themselves here by calling them all up.
BOBBY: Like, in the last two months.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Next category, player likability. This is also worth 15 points.
ALEX: Yeah. And this one more oriented towards, like, who are the stars on the teams who are the ones that you’re gravitating towards? As well as, like, how they conduct themselves, so to speak. Again, some of these categories, super, like ephemeral, not something you can assign any sort of objective rating to, but, like, it’s like vibes.
What are the—what are the players vibes?
BOBBY: Yeah, There are plenty of good players who are less likeable just by nature of you don’t know as much about them. Um, third category, team culture. This is worth 20 points. A little bit weighted—a little bit more than, like, player likability and team performance. In your mind, what is—what is included in team culture? Because that can mean a lot of things.
ALEX: Yeah. I—and team culture, a really huge umbrella that, I think—you know, I tried to fold in the—the fan culture of that as well, right? So—so that takes into account, like fan traditions. Uh, you know, if you’re visiting the ballpark, that sort of thing. Like, how strong is the rallying cry around a given team? Are you seeing their fans at every other baseball game that you go to, right? Again—
BOBBY: Sticking with the A’s.
ALEX: Yeah, sticking to—sticking with the A’s [17:05]
BOBBY: I always see one dude in an A’s hat every single time you go to a baseball game.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: There is always one man in a baseball—in an A’s baseball cap. Sometimes that man is Alex Bazeley. Uh, okay. Team culture, I—in my mind, when you say team culture, you know what I picture? I picture like a Yankees fan being like, “27 rings, bro.” Like, that’s the culture around this. The fan culture around that team like, “We are the elite of the elite. This is how we talk about ourselves. This is how we pretend that we are better than everybody else.” And, like, that is appealing in some ways and that is unappealing in other ways. So just—it’ll just be up to—to you once we get to the Yankees.
ALEX: Yeah. And—and, like, some of these—you know, I did consult—I—I went around, I wanted to see what’s the—what is the field saying, right? What are, uh, other people who are thinking about these things? How are they thinking about them? And like you mentioned, the fan culture, that’s one that I found myself really diverting from a lot of the broader public opinion, because like fan culture, they’re like the Cardinals, the Yankees.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: The Red—and I’m like—I—these might be fun fan bases to—to grow up in, 100%, but from an outsider’s perspective, are not always the most endearing.
BOBBY: Uh, easily, the funniest thing ever would be if you chose the Cardinals out of this. Uh, number four, category number four, aesthetics. This is also worth 20 points.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Is this—is it just the—which—which team has the hottest players or is this different than aesthetics?
ALEX: Well, you know, it’s not considered. Uh, here, I was thinking about uniform, uh, and stadium really, right? So—
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: —so—right. So this takes into account uniform design, uh, both for the player, but, uh, also for me, right? And so part of the way I thought about this is I’m not thinking about which team necessarily has the best collection of jerseys, because they all have, like, 12, right?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: But whose are rising to the top, right? I’m not gonna buy all seven Astros variations. But if I’m a fan of them, I might buy the best one, so I want to know they have a good one, at least.
BOBBY: Okay. Number five, this is only worth 10 points. So only half as much as the last couple categories that we named. This is geographic location. I assume this is in relation to where we sit right now.
ALEX: That is—that is true.
BOBBY: The place where you live.
ALEX: Can I—can I hop on a subway to see them? Can I hop on a train to see them or do I need to buy a plane ticket? Is kind of how that felt.
BOBBY: Are you factoring in where you might live in your future?
ALEX: No, which is key. So this is—it’s—
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: —it’s New York-centered.
BOBBY: New Yorker or nowhere, baby. What—what a coastal elitist.
ALEX: I really am a coastal elitist, which is real—yes. The—the names that rose to the top, again, are some iral—
BOBBY: Shameful.
ALEX: —uh—uh, shameful choices there.
BOBBY: Shameful.
ALEX: I mean, the irony is that proximity actually didn’t—didn’t end up weighing that much.
BOBBY: It didn’t make or break it?
ALEX: I mean—I mean, I included it, but turns out Dodgers have a lot else going for them.
BOBBY: Stop spoiling. Uh, the six and final category—this is Tipping Pitches. The sixth and final category is ownership conduct.
ALEX: Yeah, and this is the real vibes one. I didn’t assign point values here, even though it’s on my rubric. It’s kind of like, does your team have a crimes.xlsx doc?
BOBBY: You’re really throwing the Dodgers fans through a loop. You’re like, “They’re great, but also they have a crimes doc. So you don’t know what to expect.”
ALEX: Well—
BOBBY: You’re really jerking them around, and we haven’t even started—
ALEX: Right. Have they—have been under federal investigation at any point in the last decade?
BOBBY: Um, this is more like a pass-fail category then?
ALEX: I—I think so. Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay. That’s fine. Uh, shall we—shall we start this? Shall we go through the teams?
ALEX: I’ve—yeah, I’m a little intimidated now, but, yeah, I think we should.
BOBBY: I have them organized by division, Centrals first, the Easts next and the Wests last. Is that order sound okay with you?
ALEX: Yeah. Get the flyover states out of the way, is that what you were saying?
BOBBY: Actually, that was just the order that they were in on espn.com when I Googled MLB teams. I was just writing them down in that order. I don’t know why they were in that order, but that was the order that they were in. First up is the Chicago White Sox, owned by none other than Jerry Reinsdorf, notable players from the Chicago White Sox. Um, keep in mind, listener, if you’re a fan of this team, there’s a high percentage chance you know much more about these teams than we do. Please do not write us emails or call in and say, “You forgot to name X player in notable players.” These are the current world leaders and/or stars of the most recent seasons of these teams. Uh, there’s a good chance that I missed some up-and-comers on your team who are having a breakout season this year, because I have not watched all of these teams consistently this year. That is my disclaimer for now. I might have to remind people throughout the course of this podcast. Notable players, Luis Robert Jr., you might have seen him in the Home Run Derby. Dylan Cease, Lucas Giolito, Tim Anderson, Yoan Moncada. Current top 100 prospects who have not debuted yet, Colson Montgomery and Bryan Ramos, top 100 prospects according to fangraphs.com, the website that we trust the most when it comes to these things. Alex, you tell me, do you want to tell me what you are thinking about the White Sox first or would you like me to play the voicemail that we have for the White Sox before you make your judgment?
ALEX: Yeah, let’s hear the—let’s hear the voicemails first. I wanna hear the fan pitches, so I can—I can take it all into account.
BOBBY: I’m glad you made that choice. Here’s the voicemail that we have for the Chicago White Sox.
SPEAKER 3: Hi, Bobby and Alex. This is, uh, Dan from the south side of Chicago just, uh, calling with a—uh, you know, an entry into the Pick A New Team Contest. Do not become a White Sox fan, uh, whether or not Jerry or his descendants end up selling the team. It will break your heart all over again. Good luck.
[laughter]
BOBBY: Oh, Dan. I hurt for you, sir.
ALEX: And—and I admire the—the self-awareness, you know?
BOBBY: The frankness, the honesty. This is the respect that our listeners have for you.
ALEX: Clearly.
BOBBY: They’re not trying to sign you up for more pain. They’ve seen what you have gone through.
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: Uh, are the White Sox in contention?
ALEX: You know, it’s—it’s interesting, because they ultimately rank pretty low in the overall scoring, which I think mostly had to do with the fact that they’ve kind of had a middling level of success over the last few years.
BOBBY: Over the last few decades [23:37]
ALEX: The last few decades.
BOBBY: With the exception of 2005.
ALEX: Yeah. I will—I will say when I—so when I was thinking about recent success, I was looking at, like, last five to seven years, right? So, is there any level of success maybe that, like, might still be with the team if you were good in the ’90s? Sorry, that doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. Uh, they—they don’t have a very robust farm system either. They consistently rank pretty low, uh, in the sort of rankings that exist on the internet. And this is despite the fact that on the aesthetic side, they ended up in the top 10 for me. I know some people are—are hit or miss with the jerseys. I love the black and white jerseys. I think it looks—
BOBBY: Me, too.
ALEX: —clean. Their broadcast booth consistently is ranked really—really well. I love watching White Sox games. Jason Benetti is an absolute gem in the booth. So, it does feel, like, the team that—from—from the outside, I look at it, and I’m like, “Yeah, great.” Uh, Eloy Jimenez, Dylan Cease. I’d—I—I hear you, Dan. It might be a little harder living that [24:43]
BOBBY: Yeah, I love Eloy Jimenez off—look at that. I already forgot the guy. Once again, 45 minutes of sleep. Um, Dan is right. This is—uh, they fail the ownership conduct category. They’re—the—the level of dysfunction is just—why would you sign yourself up for that?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Uh, okay.
ALEX: Right. There should be a—have they hired Tony La Russa within the last five years category.
BOBBY: You made the categories. That would have been a really good joke. Have they ever employed Tony La Russa? Uh, goodbye. Okay.
ALEX: That would be a good way, actually, to knock a few of these teams off.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. Um, next up, Cleveland Guardians owned by the Dolan family, controlling person, Paul Dolan. Notable players, Jose Ramirez, Andres Gimenez, Josh Naylor, Steven Kwan, Shane Bieber, Emmanuel Clase, Bo Naylor, Logan Allen, and Tanner Bibee. Quite a list there of interesting players. Uh, top 100 prospects who have not debuted yet, uh, Brayan Rocchio. The—the pronunciations are really—I’m—we’re gonna get a lot of notes about this.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’m just gonna tell people right away. Gavin Williams and Daniel Espino. They got another Daniel Espino. Wasn’t there a Daniel Espino that was, like, 40 and he’s like already retired. Wasn’t he on the—what—what—Nationals at some point?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s Paolo Espino. Close. Close. David Roth rolling over—
ALEX: You’re 50% of the way there.
BOBBY: Uh, we did not get any pitches for the Cleveland Guardians from the Tipping Pitches listenership. So, I turn it to you, where did the Cleveland Guardians rank?
ALEX: Another team that came in the middle of the pack for kind of opposite reasons of the White Sox. The Guardians have a really robust farm system, among one of the better ones in the league.
BOBBY: And a—a long track record of restocking that farm system via player development.
ALEX: Yes, exactly. And, like, a really good history of turning those guys into stars, right? They—they have had that real star power over the last few years in guys like Jose Ramirez, Francisco Lindor, Shane Bieber.
BOBBY: Who does he play for now?
ALEX: Well, uh, there are statics to me or something that—that don’t jump off the page. I think the—the jerseys are a little—little bland.
BOBBY: Red and blue, I mean—
ALEX: The—I mean, like, red and blue is already a strike against you for, like, half of these teams. And—and this is one of the few stadiums that I—that neither of us have been to also, so we can’t—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —speak to that specific experience.
BOBBY: White Sox as well, actually.
ALEX: Yeah. Uh—
BOBBY: Can—can you tell we haven’t spent a lot of time in the Midwestern part of the United States?
ALEX: Right. So—
BOBBY: Although, I actually weirdly have, but only in one specific part of the Midwest.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That’s unrelated. I’ll—I’ll talk about that when we get there.
ALEX: So—so things like their broadcast booth and stadium experience ranks a little less lower, just from kind of my top-level familiarity with them and the—and the bit of research I’ve done. Not exactly a stand-up ownership group either.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I think you might find that to be true of—of many of these teams. But if I’m looking for someone who’s going to invest long-term, I’m not sure we’re gonna find them with the Dolans. They’re too busy bankrolling political campaigns, congressional campaigns around the country.
BOBBY: Here’s what I wrote for how they made their money in our, uh, least terrible owners notes from the episode that we did with the Cespedes Family Barbecue. In 2000, Larry Dolan purchased the Cleveland Guardians baseball team upon his father taking control of the team. Paul Dolan was hired as Vice President and General Counsel in 2004. Dolan was promoted to team president in 2011. Promoted again to CEO/chairman. Uh, this is basically bigger failson gets the Cleveland team while the other failson gets the New York teams. His—his brother, Jim, James Dolan. Jim Dolan and the Straight Shot is the name of his band. If you want to check them out, they’re not good. Uh, he owns Madison Square Garden as well as the Rangers and the Knicks. So, when you have the—the bigger failson of that family, it’s not exactly, uh, exciting ownership. And, uh, I have to say from my perspective, they fail the pass-fail of ownership conduct. Seeing as it took them so long to change the name and they were really not on the cutting edge when it came to that. They’ve been known to sell the team for parts when it suits them.
ALEX: Yeah. So—so, unfortunately, it looks like the Guardians are—are not making it through—to the next round of consideration.
BOBBY: Okay. Next up, Detroit Tigers owned by—owned and controlled by Chris Ilitch, son of Mike Ilitch, a notable owner in baseball history. Kind of one of the more revered owners in baseball history as someone who—who spent and invested a lot of money in building good baseball teams and, um, got closed multiple times. Notable players currently on the roster, Riley Green, Spencer Torkelson, Matt Manning, and Tarik Skubal. The, uh, the two headed Tigers pitching prospect of a few years back who have not quite panned out how they were hoping, but have shown some signs of life in the major leagues.
ALEX: Uh, that’s combined no-hitter Matt Manning to you.
BOBBY: That’s true. That would—did that push them over the top, so you can [29:39] to use them?
ALEX: I did, yeah. Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay, great. Uh, top 100 prospects in their system who have not debuted yet, Colt Keith, Wilmer Flores, not that Wilmer Flores, and Reese Olson. We did not get a pitch from the Tipping Pitches listeners for the Detroit Tigers. So, Alex, I turn it to you. Let’s put them to the test.
ALEX: So, I mean, no disrespect to any Tigers fans listening to this right now. Uh, Tigers did not fare so well.
BOBBY: Hmm.
ALEX: They, uh, they did come in last in—in my—
BOBBY: Oh, wow.
ALEX: —in my rubric. Uh—
BOBBY: Wow! Shocking moment—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —on the pod.
ALEX: Uh-huh. And—
BOBBY: The Tigers came in last.
ALEX: Yeah. And—and so, again, they have little to no farm system to speak of, little to no recent success to speak of.
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: Again, the—as—in terms of—
BOBBY: He’s taking you out behind the woodshed right now, Tigers fans.
ALEX: In terms of star—star power—
BOBBY: Yeah, that—that roster is—
ALEX: Hey, look, I’m being honest.
BOBBY: That was—
ALEX: It’s kind of brutal.
BOBBY: —kind of brutal.
ALEX: Who—who was the first one you said?
BOBBY: Riley Green.
ALEX: Riley Green? Okay.
BOBBY: Former top prospect.
ALEX: Okay. Real star, Spencer Torkelson.
BOBBY: He hits the ball hard—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —when he does hit it.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And when he’s not hurt.
ALEX: Once thought of as being a big star at one point, still could get there.
BOBBY: Yeah, sure.
ALEX: Oh. Well, I’m hedging—
BOBBY: Baseball development—
ALEX: I’m hedging my bets on number one picks from, like, four or five years ago,
BOBBY: Baseball development is not linear, Alex.
ALEX: It’s not, it’s not.
BOBBY: I’ve said it many times on the podcast. Yeah, there’s just not a lot in the near- term future to look forward to, unfortunately. And it seems like they were a team—I mean, they were a team with a plan, and that plan didn’t turn out. And I kind of don’t really know why. All of their prospects were seemingly hot—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —up until AAA and then kind of none of them panned out in the majors yet. I mean, we’re talking about this very doom and gloom, there’s a chance that they just, like, draft extremely well over the next five years and—and turn into a good team, because they—though, they will not spend with the top of the league, they will spend with sort of the top third of the league. So, you know, they’ll give out big free agency deals when they feel like it’s a guy that suits them. Unfortunately, the last guy they felt that suit—that suited them was Javier Baez, who has been a negative WAR player since they signed him, so that was a mistake. It just feels like a team without a clear vision, and it’s tough to choose that. I do think they pass the ownership test.
ALEX: Yeah, I think—I think they do as well, and they recently just—
BOBBY: In comparison to the rest of the league.
ALEX: Right. They have a new GM in there, Scott Harris, who was inheriting a bit of a—a mess on all fronts. So, I—I don’t want to count them out in—in the future, right?
BOBBY: What say you about their—their uniforms?
ALEX: You know, I don’t know if the hot take, but I’m not super high on them. I gave them, um, a four out of 10 on uniform design. A lot of people like them. There’s a lot of really—they’ve—they do have a really classic look about them. The D is very regal. I like when they incorporate the Tiger. I just—it’s missing the it factor for me, man.
BOBBY: Interesting. Um, I don’t want to slander Dan Dickerson who is their current announcer, who has been doing it for—for 21 years. I honestly don’t know much about him.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Uh, haven’t spent a lot of time watching his broadcasts. So, Tigers, dead last. That’s, I think, surprising to me.
ALEX: And I will say obviously this—you know, there was a hard and fast sort of “ranking” in—in this spreadsheet just due to the fact that I can order things in descending order. No shade to the Tigers, or Tigers fans.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You’re doing your best, you know? As you—as you mentioned, one of the—one of the franchises, I’d probably, like, feel better about rooting for morally, all things considered.
BOBBY: Another one of the stadiums that we have not been to—
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: —as well.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Although, the vibe—and we discussed this on our podcast episode about the ideal baseball stadium, but the vibe is that the last stadium was much better.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So that’s, like, not really a point in their favor either. Okay. Kansas City Royals owned by propane lord, John Sherman, owner of energy LP, the fourth largest distributor of propane in the United States. Notable players on the Kansas City Royals, Alex, Bobby Witt Jr., Brady Singer. I suppose you could say Zack Greinke, though, I don’t know how much longer he will be on the Kansas City Royals, so I did not list him. Uh, top 100 prospects who have not made the majors, there are none.
ALEX: I think—
BOBBY: And—and nobody called him to make the case for the Kansas City Royals. Though, I know that we do have some Kansas City Royals fans in the Tipping Pitches community who—who still feel strongly about their Royals.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Uh, how’d they do? I think I have a feeling, but how did they do?
ALEX: The Royals are such an interesting team, man. I—uh, they—I feel like no matter how you judge them, they’re the team that, like, never looks quite as good on paper as they actually do on the—they’re, like, a real baseball teams—baseball team, you know? So I think—
BOBBY: The whole is greater than the sum of their parts.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Like, they ranked—in terms of the overall sort of scoring, they ranked in the bottom third overall, top third in aesthetics, right? Beautiful stadium. I think they have some of the most gorgeous jerseys in the league as well.
BOBBY: Interesting that you like the Royals jerseys and not The Tigers jerseys. I—I consider them similarly classic and simple. I agree that I like the Royals jerseys better, though.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, I—I like the Royal—but I also—I mean, so thinking about, like, individual jerseys, right? Like—like the powder blues feel very—
BOBBY: That’s true.
ALEX: —very iconic to me.
BOBBY: Is there too much powder blue in Major League Baseball right now?
ALEX: These days? Yes.
BOBBY: We got a question about this.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Okay, great. I’m glad that we’ve weighed in.
ALEX: Wait, like Texas Rangers. What? No, you’re not a powder blue team.
BOBBY: It feels a smidge like stolen valor.
ALEX: Yeah. I don’t know. Royals have been rocking them.
BOBBY: I agree.
ALEX: Probably a few decades.
BOBBY: I agree. Same with the Phils.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: The Fightins.
ALEX: Got to—got to—
BOBBY: We’re gonna get to them.
ALEX: We—
BOBBY: You better believe it,
ALEX: We will get to them. So—so, yeah, in terms of, like, the recent success in the star power, it’s a little middling. But, like, they—
BOBBY: They—I mean, they won the World Series in 2015.
ALEX: Okay. But—no—well, yes, I know. Uh—
BOBBY: Actually, they didn’t. That didn’t happen.
ALEX: They’re—they’re a team who always feels like on the cusp of, like, something. I’m like, “Well, if you squint, need to spend a little money.”
BOBBY: They do—they feel, like, ready to pull a rabbit out of the hat, but you just don’t know what the rabbit is gonna look like and you don’t know where the hat is at the moment.
ALEX: Right. And I’m not sure I wanna, uh, bank the next 60 years of my life on that—on that rabbit—or hat.
BOBBY: You’re committing to 60 years. So, 162 games a year, 60 years, where you run on the field at least once per year.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That is your commitment so far?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That’s—that’s just for everyone—
ALEX: And I’m wearing—wearing the jersey all day.
BOBBY: Okay, right. Just—just for everyone keeping track at home. Okay. Royals, kaputzo. Um, Minnesota Twins owned by the Pohlad family, back to blue Pohlad family. One of the only families to donate to the democratic party—
ALEX: Oh, that kind of back to blue. I was like, “What?”
BOBBY: Blue Wave Pohlads.
ALEX: There you go.
BOBBY: Big Biden heads.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: They don’t want you to know what was in the garage in Delaware.
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: They don’t want you to know. They’re trying to cover that up. Uh, notable players, kind of a lot. Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton, Sonny Gray, Pablo Lopez, Joey Gallo, I put him on there because he’s handsome and—and hits large home runs. Royce Lewis and Edouard Julien. Top 100 prospects in their system who have not yet debuted Brooks Lee. We do have a voicemail in favor of the Minnesota Twins. Let me play that for you before you weigh in.
SPEAKER 4: Hey, guys, it’s Isaac, uh, resident Twins fan over here. I’d like to make a pitch for Alex for a new team to root for. Do you love that heartbreak every season, the inevitability of wanting to do well and ultimately never doing well? Come on over to Minnesota Twins territory, where we have a long-standing tradition of either losing a hundred games or making the playoffs only to lose to the Yankees every single year. Seriously, think about it. We might not necessarily be the poverty franchise that the Oakland A’s claims to be, but, uh, a lot of similar vibes over here. Just for your consideration, Alex. Sorry about the Oakland A’s. All right. Bye.
BOBBY: I like the different approaches that our listeners are taking.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like, some of our listeners are trying to be like, “Come as far away from the A’s as possible.” And some of our listeners are trying to be like, “This will feel familiar for you.”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: “But slightly better.”
ALEX: Oh, losing to the Yankees in the playoffs? Yes, I’ll fit right in.
BOBBY: Like a glove, baby. Like a glove. Okay. Um, thank you Isaac for calling in and making that pitch. It was very nicely delivered. I appreciate it. How the—how did the Twins fare?
ALEX: Twins fared okay, so they’re kind of squarely in the middle of the pack, just outside the top—
BOBBY: Look at you.
ALEX: —15.
BOBBY: Pelosi shill that you are. I’m just trying to keep Adam Schiff in the Senate. Shameful.
ALEX: Can’t do it. We can’t do it.
BOBBY: 45 minutes of sleep.
ALEX: They’re the sort of team that, like, didn’t have a—a single category that really jumped off the page. But, again, um, they got some prospects. I feel like when you think about the Twins, they don’t scream star power. But you started reading some of those names and I was like, “Those are some very good—those are some very good players. I will sign myself up for—for watching some of that.” So they’re a team that—that scored for me slightly higher in the quality of baseball than the—than the aesthetics of the team. Although, they were very similar like—once again, tipping our hand, there’s another stadium that we, uh, have not visited. We’re just getting them all out of the way. Uh—
BOBBY: If some—if—if Dow Chemicals wants to sponsor our trip around the Major League Baseball stadiums of the Midwest, we’re open to it. Okay? We will take back everything we’ve ever said about Agent Orange on this podcast.
ALEX: That’s so true.
BOBBY: Which is a lot, I think. I don’t remember. I don’t know. Maybe not. The podcast throughout the healthy side effects of Agent Orange.
ALEX: Right. Here’s what Monsanto means for you. Yeah. I’d—you know, I—
BOBBY: It sounds like they’re not crossed off yet. It sounds like they’re in contention.
ALEX: I’m not—they’re—they’re—they’re not out of contention yet. Yeah.
BOBBY: Much like the AL Central in 2023, they are middling but still in it.
ALEX: Just kind of like you never really know.
BOBBY: Okay. Uh, National League Central, we move on to the Chicago Cubs owned by the—the—the lovely, the friendly, the warm Ricketts family. Notable players, Dansby Swanson, Nico Hoerner. Nico Hoerner is, like, fucking amazing this year. Cody Bellinger, Ian Happ, Marcus Stroman, Kyle Hendricks. Top 100 prospects who have not yet debuted, Pete Crow-Armstrong, that hurts to read, Kevin Alcantara, Hayden Wesneski ,and Cristian Hernandez. We have three voicemails—
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: —in support of the Chicago Cubs. Would you like to play all three back-to-back or would you like me to play one, we chat a little, I play another, we chat a little, and then you play the last?
ALEX: Let’s chat. Let’s—let’s give each—each, uh, voicemail a little bit of time to breathe.
BOBBY: Okay. Here’s our first call.
SPEAKER 5: Hi, Bobby and Alex, longtime listener, first-time caller. Uh, this is my condensed pitch for why you should become, ta, ta, ta, a Cubs fan. I know those weren’t the words you wanted to hear, uh, but I’ll go through a couple points. Players currently, uh, kind of a new crop, but couple of promise. Dansby is raking, Morel is showing flashes of brilliance like vintage—emphasis on the vintage, Javy Baez. Uh, Stroman is reinventing himself, and there’s a rarity that we’ve got a halfway competent bullpen, uh, for the past year or so. Uh, stadium, I’ve totally got [41:36] goggles on, but I still haven’t been to a ballpark like Wrigley. You can take the train right there, or bus, or walk, or bike, because there’s no parking lot. Uh, they just got rid of the piss troughs and, uh, I hear that the food is getting better. That’s the national landmark for a reason. Uh, and here’s another thing, they will never leave Chicago. Uh, when the climate refugees flocked to The Great Lakes, you’ll want to say you were a fan before they were huge. But above all, I know that you crave content. Complaining about Cubs ownership is a rite of passage. I grew up in the feast or famine Tribune Company years, and here we are in the feast or famine Ricketts years. Um, Stroman, he’s always doing something weird on social media. Uh, um, Jesus Christ. All about land use debate, uh, that inevitably fallen ownerships favor. Um, tickets are expensive everywhere nowadays, so there are fewer loonies at the park. But damn if the Cubs don’t have some of the best loonies. And here’s the best part, there really isn’t pressure to win, because the self-flagellation that is Cubs fandom is outweighed by the desire to get pissed drunk and just enjoy a beautiful day at the ballpark. In the years that they suck, they become the Scrub-a-Dub as the team is staffed by replacement-level guys that the hometown still rallies behind until they’re good again. It’ll be like it never left Oakland.
BOBBY: Put that call in—
ALEX: What a pitch.
BOBBY: —in the Tipping Pitches caller Hall of Fame. That was great.
ALEX: Hit all the marks.
BOBBY: He really went straight for your soul there, saying, “It doesn’t matter if they’re good, you can just get pissed drunk at the ballpark and enjoy the game.” He reached straight through your chest.
ALEX: Well, I should have noted—um, I’m actually—I am looking for—so the A’s notably have piss troughs, so I am looking for that in my next team.
BOBBY: Oh, you aren’t—so you’re a pro piss troughs—
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: —then? Right? Okay.
ALEX: I like to get cozy.
BOBBY: Uh, you’ve spent quite a bit of time at Wrigley Field over—
ALEX: I have.
BOBBY: —the years. Does that factor in here for you?
ALEX: Yeah, I think it does. I mean, I can certainly speak to, uh, personal experiences, uh, a bit more, so—
BOBBY: Does the long-term health of your—your romantic relationships skew this rubric at all?
ALEX: Right. I’ve been pitched to be a Cubs fan for, like, seven years now—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —so—
BOBBY: It’s amazing you were counting back right there, it’s like, “What anniversary are we having now?”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Yeah. Uh, okay. Well, let’s talk about some of your other categories then before we play another voicemail. Team performance, player likability, where are they weighing in here?
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, on the rubric, they fared pretty well across the board. Again, recent success, they’ve—they’ve known to—to win here and there over the last few years, emphasis on recent success. They do have an actual roster of—of decent prospects who—who are on the way. The star power is a little more middling without that sort of core that led them to the World Series Championship a few years ago. But I did play baseball against Nico Hoerner, so that went—
BOBBY: Oh.
ALEX: I get to—I get to pull that one out every time I go to a Cubs game.
BOBBY: How’d you fare against Nico?
ALEX: Not well.
BOBBY: Not well?
ALEX: No. I—I—
BOBBY: What were you doing and what was he doing? Was he—
ALEX: Uh, he was pitching, I was sitting on the bench.
BOBBY: Oh, no. Oh, no.
[laughter]
BOBBY: That’s—that’s not great. Uh, does that make you more or less likely to want to root for them? Because I’m—uh, I’ll come out and say it. One time I got—I was around the rim, I did not get dunked on, but I was near the rim, close enough to be in a highlight reel for a player who went on to play college basketball at Syracuse. And I’ll just say, I didn’t root for Syracuse after that experience.
[laughter]
ALEX: See, me, I’m like—like—with—with a—with a baseball team or a player, or whatever, I’m like, “Well, if you’re gonna be me, you gotta go beat everyone now.” You know? Just like, “Now, go—go—now, go in it.”
BOBBY: Notable that the Cubs—uh, they did build a great core that won a World Series in 2016, so they showed that they could do it. And then they promptly were like, “We’re done doing that.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They traded all those players, so they do have the appetite for a behavior like that, uh, led primarily by the Ricketts, which leads us to our next voicemail, um, in—in support of the—support of the Cubs.
SPEAKER 6: How’s it going, guys? So, I officially, like, to nominate the Chicago Cubs to be Alex’s new favorite team. We talked about it a little bit in the episode. Number one reason, Wrigley, it’s a beautiful place to watch a game. It’s green, I know the team doesn’t wear green, but it’s kind of close to the Oakland Athletics. But the real reason why I think you would like being a Cubs fan, or at least, maybe, Bobby, you like him being a Cubs fan is the content. Because we’ve got one of the most content-filled owners in the game with Tom Ricketts. Corporate development of a historic ballpark and neighborhood, check. Sports book in the stadium, check. His brother is Governor of Nebraska, Pete Ricketts, check. And maybe once in a while, he’ll trade away some of your favorite guys, maybe all in one fire sale to make you feel right at home. Make you feel like you never left the Athletics. Let me know what you think. Regardless, we’ll welcome you back to the friendly confines anytime. Have a good one.
BOBBY: Cubs fans are so nice.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: I would not be talking like that about the Mets if I was doing one of these voicemails. I just wouldn’t. I wouldn’t.
ALEX: You—you’re telling me that the Wilpons didn’t just create good content for you?
BOBBY: They created some kind of content.
ALEX: Right. Discontent with the [46:49]
BOBBY: Many of it—many of it was not recorded and I think that my life and career is better off for it.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Um, you know, this is a great pitch.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Because you can’t just become, like, a fan of a team that’s gonna make it unfun for us to talk about.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: But we do have to think about the content here. That is imperative for us.
ALEX: Yeah, maybe no oversight on my—well, not an oversight. You know, I—initially, I was thinking about, you know, team conduct and—and investment as a sort of, uh—uh positive or negative for the—in choosing a team. But, you know, the worse the owner is, the more we get to talk about it. So all of a sudden crimes.xlsx—
BOBBY: Looking a little juicy.
ALEX: —teams kind of rise in the—in the power of things.
BOBBY: You wanna download that one and work offline, huh?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Uh, okay. Final voicemail in favor of the Cubs.
SPEAKER 7: Hey, fellas. It’s Nicky. Alex, I’m here from—on behalf of the Chicago Cubs fan base to tell you to become a Cubs fan. You’re looking for new teams? Cubs. Why not? You mentioned jerseys, well, we got—um, well, red, white, and blue. That’s kind of boring. Uh, okay. Well, forget about that. Forget about that. Well, the—the players, we got some good guys. You know, we, uh, got Patrick Wisdom, Nico Hoerner, Ian Happ who are probably all gonna be—um, hmm, probably going to be sold at the deadline, um, if things continue. Okay. Well, what about the owners? The owners are—oh, geez. Yeah, Republican ghouls. Um, uh, what was—what was the—what was the question again? All right. Alex, you need a new team. Right. So, here I am, I’m here to suggest the Seattle Mariners.
[laughter]
BOBBY: That one coast kind of a misdirection, but as—uh, I couldn’t decide where to play it, because it was mostly about the Cubs.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Um, okay. So it sounds like the Cubs are still in contention for you then? They’re, like, close enough that we can’t cross them off yet?
ALEX: Yeah, I think so. I mean, again, like they’re one of the few teams that, like, feel too obvious, right? They’re one of, like, the baseball teams.
BOBBY: That, they are. I’ve always said that about the Cubs.
ALEX: Yeah. They’re one of the ones
BOBBY: The—someone says Chicago Cubs, you know what I say? Baseball team.
ALEX: Baseball team. It’s a baseball team. It’s a baseball team, I said.
BOBBY: When I say Chicago Cubs, you say baseball team. Chicago Cubs,
baseball team.
ALEX: Not ruled out yet. Not ruled out yet.
BOBBY: Okay, great. Next up, Cincinnati Reds. We gotta move. We gotta move. Owner, play the song, baby.
SPEAKER 8: He’s got carrots, and lettuce, and mushroom porcini. The vegetable king Bob Castellini.
BOBBY: Bob Castellini. Notable players, he’s just a very notable player who has hit the scene recently. His name is Elly De La Cruz, you heard of him? Uh, Jonathan India, Matt McLain, another top prospect, Alexis Diaz. You know, I didn’t put a lot of relievers on here, but I have to say when it’s Edwin Diaz’s brother and he’s doing what—what he’s doing this year, notable. Hunter Greene, Andrew Abbott, and Spencer Steer, who—you know, not quite notable yet, but another top prospect. Top 100 prospects who have not debuted yet, Edwin Arroyo, Cam Collier, and Noelvi Marte, the return from the Luis Castillo trade, shortstop. Um, you flirted with the Reds in the past. I have to say that, that was when they were trying.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That was when they had former Oakland Athletics Sonny Gray on the team. Uh, it was when—you know, I didn’t—I didn’t name Joey Votto in notable players. This is kind of like—it kind of falls in the Zack Greinke zone of like, “He’s not gonna be that notable for that long.” He will—you know, he’ll be an emeritus notable player, but he won’t really be on—on the team contributing for that many more years.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Although, maybe that’s slanderous. Maybe Joey Votto will—will play until he’s 45 and he’ll be great. Um, so that’s definitely not a point against the Reds. So, yeah, a few years—a few years back, you were considering the Reds as kind of your alternate team. I don’t know if you actually, like, landed on them in—in our little game that we played for the alternate team, but you—
ALEX: No. It was the Twins, remember? I was a—
BOBBY: Oh, right.
ALEX: I was a Twins fan.
BOBBY: Yeah, for sure. I definitely remember that. Um, we definitely followed through on that segment. Uh, so the Reds in 2023, in, out, up, down, left, right?
ALEX: Perhaps another—another team that, like—
BOBBY: Carrots, onions, mushrooms?
ALEX: They, like, doesn’t necessarily fare well on paper, so to speak. But when I look at them—
BOBBY: Artichokes, tomatoes?
ALEX: —I—I—only—only team whose owner has their own jingle.
BOBBY: Potatoes?
ALEX: Only one.
BOBBY: Leeks.
ALEX: We’d get to play the jingle every single week.
BOBBY: Beans, fruits? Everything you could need from a wholesale—wholesale vegetable—
ALEX: Fruits? Not fruits.
BOBBY: Did—he doesn’t have fruits?
ALEX: I assume it’s, um, it’s a vegetable empire, right?
BOBBY: We’ve always kind of said it as that, but you have to—you have to think that maybe he’s like—he’s hawking some strawberries or something along the way. Like, where’s the money in—in potatoes? There’s potatoes everywhere.
ALEX: It is a fruit and vegetable wholesale.
BOBBY: Okay, great.
ALEX: It would feel weird to draw the line.
BOBBY: Blueberries?
ALEX: Um, corn—
BOBBY: Bananas? Corn? I didn’t even name. Great.
ALEX: A corn guy.
BOBBY: I didn’t—I wasn’t—I wasn’t listening to anything you were saying. Are you considering the Reds?
ALEX: You know, I—I am. Uh, like their team that I do feel very drawn to. I—you know, I’ve never been to the stadium, but you’ve had a very good experience there, I think.
BOBBY: Great American Ball Park. Unfortunately, it’s not just named Great American Ball Park, because it is a great American ball park. It’s named that for a bank—bank insurance company, I think. Um, alas, it’s right on the Ohio River. It’s pretty nice. It’s not top five, but it’s definitely not bottom five. Smack in the middle of downtown Cincinnati. Which, uh, again, yes, it’s—as you alluded to, the—the place in the Midwest that I have spent, uh, a disproportionate amount of time. Similar to you with Chicago.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Um, good place to see a game.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I would recommend.
BOBBY: Close enough that you could drive to see the Florence Yalls, the independent baseball team as well.
ALEX: That’s big.
BOBBY: If you move to Cincinnati, if you were considering that.
ALEX: Right. Uh-huh.
BOBBY: I don’t know if you were. Uh, I have—I would have hoped you would have told me by now. Uh, we do—do a podcast together. We do own a business together. Um, yeah. So, all in all, I think a point in the Reds favor rather than a point against them.
ALEX: Yeah. Well, and they’re also one of these teams that, again, is in this weird middle ground where, like, we couldn’t drive there—I mean, we could, but it would probably be ill-advised. But we also wouldn’t—
BOBBY: That’s—no, that’s the American dream right there.
ALEX: But in—in—
BOBBY: Why spend three hours on a train when you could spend 12 hours in a car?
ALEX: That is actually really true.
BOBBY: Nobody talks about that.
ALEX: I think the—the—the star power—the sort of budding star power here does weigh really heavily, right? You mentioned guys like Elly De La Cruz, Hunter Greene is another one who comes to mind who is just electric to watch out there when he’s throwing it in the zone. So—so not ruled out yet. They came in on the lower side of my rubric, but I’m making the executive decision to bump them up a few points to keep them in contention.
BOBBY: Okay, great. Next up, Milwaukee Brewers. Gotta keep us moving. Owner Mark Attanasio. Notable players, Christian Yelich, William Contreras, Willy Adames, Corbin Burnes, Wade Miley, Freddy Peralta, Brice Turang, and Joey Wiemer, Weimer?
ALEX: Yup.
BOBBY: Wiemer, Weimer.
ALEX: Yup. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Yup, that’s the guy. Top 100 prospects, Jackson Chourio and Sal Frelick. Some tough names on this one. Uh, we did get a listener email in favor of the Milwaukee Brewers. I will read—I will read a highlight from that, because it is a—it’s a rather long email. The Milwaukee Brewers, also known as Alex Bazeley’s favorite team. The rebranding the Brewers went through before the curse 2020 season, brought back one of the best logos in MLB. The M and B ball in glove logo, color combo of blue, yellow and white, and cream mix pulling together game day fits a piece of cake. I—I—dare I say, I agree with that. Some people will say the City Connect uniforms are garbage, but almost all Brewers fans I talked to, love them. They found a way to put beer on the uniform. Important. Seriously, the bottom seam of the sleeve is yellow with a white top, just like the top of a glass of beer. The Brewers performance can go in waves. Sometimes they look like the best team in baseball, other times they get swept by Alex’s former team. You never know which team is gonna show up and no matter what—they are fun to watch, as one of the best defensive teams in the league. You can almost guarantee a highlight level play every night, even if national media will never actually highlight it, because Brewers don’t get clicks. Wow. Calling out the national media, that’s a compelling case, I like it. Um, apologies to Chad who wrote this email in, but I—we don’t have time to read all of this here. Uh, he—he notes the hang up of Mark—owner, Mark Attanasio, who’s done a great job making himself money, while also bringing the Brewers into a couple of nice playoff windows. But he is a big fan of crying poor. We’ve talked about this in the past. Um, I believe Jake and Jordan selected Mark Attanasio for least terrible owners—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —and we kind of ripped into them a little bit for that selection. Um, so a little bit of a mixed bag there. Chad closes it out by saying, “The owner can get in the way sometimes, but you cannot jump from a guy like John Fisher to a perfect owner. You will simply go into shock.” Compelling case. The Brewers, yay or nay? Where do they rank?
ALEX: Yeah, that was a compelling case for them. They—they fell just outside the top 10 for me. They really—like in terms of success, they have had a, uh, good period of—if not sustained success, kind of, like, hanging around. As an A’s fan, I’m very familiar with just, like, hanging around and—
BOBBY: Throwing your hat in the ring.
ALEX: —and seeing what happens.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Uh, they—you know, they have some real star power on that team, as well as a pretty formidable farm system. I also feel like the—the culture around the fan base is pretty good. I say with nothing to go off of. It just kind of seems like they’re all having a good time at a baseball game.
BOBBY: Yeah, they have a slide in the out—a slide in the outfield.
ALEX: They got a slide—they have a slide in the outfield. A slide they can break bones, apparently, but—
BOBBY: They’re drinking beer. They’re, uh, eating Cheese Kurtz, you know?
ALEX: Uh-huh. Yeah. Keep—keep going.
BOBBY: Good vibes only. I’ve never been to that stadium. I don’t believe you have ever been to that stadium either, but it seems—it seems pretty good.
ALEX: Yeah. You know, and the point about color coordination, really key also. Hard—hard sometimes to coordinate colors with MLB jerseys. It’s a little hard to coordinate bright red and blue into your fit, so—so I can appreciate some muted yellows, and creams, and navy blues.
BOBBY: A color scheme for the everyday simple man.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Or woman, or gender non-conforming person.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Uh, in the interest of time, would you like to keep the Brewers in contention or would you like to cross them off at this juncture? They were outside of your top 10, let
me remind you.
ALEX: Let’s—let’s cross them off. Gut—gut feeling.
BOBBY: You’re too nice. You’re too nice. You’re just—
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: You’re afraid of offending. You’re just being too much of a snowflake. You have the power, now wield it, Mr. Biden. Pittsburgh Pirates, owner Bob Nutting. Notable players, Jack Suwinski, best player on the Pirates this year. Jack Suwinski, Bryan Reynolds who they just signed to an extension, I think to everybody’s surprise. Uh, franchise legend, Andrew McCutchen. Ke’Bryan Hayes who can’t hit a baseball, but is very, very good on defense. Mitch Keller, Henry Davis, their top prospect. Their—their first overall pick from a couple of years ago. And Luis Ortiz, top 100 prospects who have not yet made the Majors.
ALEX: Wow. Oneil Cruz shade.
BOBBY: Oh. Oh, I—I missed him—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —because he’s out this year with an injury.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Listen, again, 45 minutes of sleep. Please do not be the person who inboxes me. Top 100 prospects, Jamar Johnson, who is our top pick, uh, last year, couple of years ago, and Endy Rodriguez. we have no pitches from the Tipping Pitches listener—listeners in favor of the Pittsburgh Pirates, so it’s all on you. Yay or Nay? Where did they fare?
ALEX: They came in right above the—the Brewers in the ranking.
BOBBY: Wow. Shocker. Tigers dead last. Pirates top 10.
ALEX: Pirates—
BOBBY: Pirates owned by Bob Nutting, top 10.
ALEX: Again, there was a bit of, uh, of ranker’s discretion in some of these. I—I love their jerseys, man. I feel like maybe they’re really divisive to some people.
BOBBY: No, they’re good.
ALEX: They’re just flat out good.
BOBBY: Great ballpark.
ALEX: Once again, I love—I love a good jersey that can actually incorporate black and, like, do it well. As you mentioned ballpark—this is a ballpark I have not been to, but you have been to—
BOBBY: Recently.
ALEX: —recently. It’s a pretty good ballpark as I hear.
BOBBY: I had a [59:15] I had a good time
ALEX: Yeah. That’s a—hell yeah.
BOBBY: I walked over a bridge to get there. I love a bridge.
ALEX: I love a good bridge.
BOBBY: I love to walk to the stadium.
ALEX: Yeah, they don’t do so well on the recent success, uh, category, but in terms of like—
BOBBY: Did they do well in the past success category or the future success category?
ALEX: Should I say future?
BOBBY: No, no, no. I’m—I’m wondering.
ALEX: Oh.
BOBBY: You said they don’t do well in recent, they’ve never really been that good.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Not since like Honus Wagner.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Or I guess Barry Bonds. Those are the two high points.
ALEX: That’s, uh—
[laughter]
ALEX: Yeah, but they—but they, like, have real prospects.
BOBBY: Uh—
ALEX: They do have like an actual farm system and, like—
BOBBY: A vote for the Pirates—let me just say this to you. A vote—selecting the Pirates would be the belief that Bob Nutting won’t fuck this up.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Do you believe that Bob Nutting won’t fuck this up?
ALEX: No. They’re the—no. They’re like, uh, always a prospective team. I feel like every—every year, I—I go in being like, “Hey, the Pirates maybe?” No. It doesn’t happen.
BOBBY: Next up, St. Louis Cardinals.
ALEX: There it is. And the pod, here we go.
BOBBY: Owner Bill DeWitt Jr. Notable players, Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Arenado. You might have heard of those two guys. Brendan Donovan, Lars Nootbaar , Willson Contreras, Jordan Montgomery, Jack Flaherty, Ryan Helsley, Dylan Carlson. And top prospect who debuted this season, Jordan Walker. Top 100 prospects on fangraphs.com who have not yet made the Majors, Masyn Winn. Masyn, that’s M-A-S-Y-N, Masyn. Gordon Graceffo and Tink Hence. Three names of three people who are very much real, according to Fangraphs.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Well, I’ve never verified their reality. Alex, St. Louis Cardinals, just—just tell me yes or no. Just—let’s not drag this out.
ALEX: Nah, I can’t—I can’t do it. I can’t do it to you. I can’t do it to myself. Even though they—even though they fared well on the rubric. Again, this is a team that, like, looks good on paper, vibes are off. I’m sorry.
BOBBY: This is—this is one of those things where if your rubric turns out, like, high score for this team, you really got to reassess.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: You really got to reassess where you’re at.
ALEX: Yeah. Okay, here comes a heavy hitter. The American League East, first up, Baltimore Orioles. They are owned by the Angelos family. Notable players, and let me just take a deep breath before this one, Adley Rutschman, Austin Hays, Gunnar Henderson, Anthony Santander, Cedric Mullins, Jordan Westburg, Colton Cowser, Kyle Bradish, Bradish. Not really sure. Heard it pronounced both ways. Grayson Rodriguez, Felix Bautista, DL Hall, and Joey Ortiz, top 100 prospect—oh, I guess I should say John Means as well, he’s out with, uh, Tommy John surgery, but Jake Mintz would have my head if I did not say John Means. Uh, top 100 prospects who have not yet debuted, the best prospect in baseball, Jackson Holliday and Coby Mayo. We have three separate pitches from the Tipping Pitches listeners. Would you like me to start by reading one of them?
ALEX: Please.
BOBBY: This comes from Vincent. Here’s my pitch for why Alex should root for the Orioles. The parallels run deep to the Oakland Athletics. Uh, uniform, orange, black, white, and gray, not red, white, and blue bullshit. Logo is an actual cartoon and not a letter. And the City Connect is [62:29] but in the context of the best City Connect. Uh, it’s—it’s fine. The players, for better or worse, their grift actually may have paid off. Vincent mentions that they need to win it all and spend, but the tank did lead to Adley, and Gunnar, and all of those other players that I already named. Uh, historically, they haven’t won at all since ’83, so it’d be a good time to get on the bandwagon now and see their first—see their—their first win since the 1980s. Uh, it’ll feel that much better. And the final—the final two points here that Vincent mentions, which I will summarize. The first is Mike Elias who seems to be a man with a plan. You might not agree with the methods of that plan. You might not agree with the early stage process of that plan. But it’s—it’s—at this point kind of hard to deny the results of Orioles player development. I feel good that the Orioles can turn—can turn Minor League hitters into Major League hitters. I feel pretty confident about that. And then, uh, the other thing that Vincent mentions here is John Angelos who is the control person of the Baltimore Orioles right now. Vincent mentions that, uh, he needs you to be a fan just so that we can talk more about the Orioles and that John Angelos is considering running for Senate at the moment—
ALEX: What? What?
BOBBY: —so I haven’t heard that before, but I believe it. So, that’s the point in the content bucket. Alex, what say—what say you about the much hyped Baltimore Orioles?
ALEX: I feel pretty good about them. Here’s the thing, a little unfair because I felt a little good about them going in. Also, a little unfair because how could you look at that team and not, like, feel like rooting for them right now? Like, the vibes are great. Did you see Adley in the Home Run Derby? Like, bro, come on.
BOBBY: Switch hitting.
ALEX: Come on.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Okay. And then getting bounced immediately.
BOBBY: Second-best young catcher in baseball, right?
ALEX: Like, the future is behind Alvarez.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Yeah. So—okay. Yeah, the Orioles score really well pretty much everywhere outside of recent success. And even in that regard, like they haven’t been god-awful in the last five or six years. I think the—
BOBBY: Hang on. Yes, they have. They were the worst team in baseball for, like, three of the last five years.
ALEX: It’s not as long as that.
BOBBY: They were good for the last—they were okay for the last two, but before that, they were, like, over a hundred losses.
ALEX: I should have trusted—the formula gave them a—a two out of five in recent success, so—
BOBBY: Not great. But, I mean, uh, as Vincent noted, you might disagree with the methods of the grift, but it’s—it seems to have paid off.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: Because of our broken systems.
ALEX: One of the most beautiful ballparks in the game right now. The—the aesthetics of the jersey are incredibly pleasing. John Angelos is a 12-year-old boy in a 50-year-old man’s body, and I would love to watch him every single day. Everything he does,
yeah, you gotta hand it to him. The man—
ALEX: Like, he’s the kind of guy—
BOBBY: The man who knows how to spin a quote.
ALEX: He’s the kind of guy who, like—I think when he goes to the bathroom, you know, he, like—when he’s, like, using the urinal, he, like, pulls his pants all the way down to the ground.
BOBBY: That’s a funny image, except he’s never used a urinal in this life, so the man was born as a billionaire. Like, what are you talking about?
ALEX: Maybe he needs to.
BOBBY: I agree. Maybe he needs to try out a trough.
ALEX: You know?
BOBBY: Uh, another email from listener Eric in support of the Orioles. The feeling around the city in the yard is electric. Get on the bandwagon now before it’s too late. He’s saying they don’t need you. You should want it—you should want to apply—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —to be on the bandwagon. Uh, these guys are truly a team. The younger guys, Gunnar, Westie, Ortiz, Cowser, and, of course, Adley—Adley is going to lead this franchise for 10 years. I believe it. I believe it. The outlook, “Don’t tell anyone, but we’ll be World Series champs in 2024 and/or 2025. Elias has already made all the right moves and he isn’t nearly done. There is no more logical choice in the Orioles. If you don’t pick them, I’ll still listen to your podcast. But I’ll start taking Manfred’s sides—side on some issues. Great show, guys. Keep it up.” Thank you, Eric. That’s—that’s—that’s a wonderful sentiment. I just want to point out that Alex often takes Rob Manfred’s side.
ALEX: That’s true. You’ll be right at home here.
BOBBY: So you guys are already on the same side. GH, sure. Pitch clock, sure. [66:47] shift, sure.
ALEX: Sure. Why not?
BOBBY: Whatever—whatever you need to do, Rob.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Do your thing, Rob. Clean up the game.
ALEX: Hey, man, I don’t know if you’ve been watching the first half of this season, but baseball is in as good a spot as it’s ever been. And I actually have a column for you that will prove every single one of those points, whenever you’re ready. Just don’t look at the byline.
BOBBY: Final pitch from our listeners on the Baltimore Orioles. “Alex should root for the Orioles because he’d get to watch—watch/listen to the color commentary of Jim Palmer, who aside from being a Hall of Fame pitcher with funny insights, is also the absolute GOAT at name-dropping. Palmer used a YES camera operator, having his orbital bone shattered by an errant Gunnar Henderson throw. To shoehorn and that he knows a producer at the YES network, who also does work for NBC Sports. This is very hard to follow. And is in fact not even at the game today because he’s at Pebble Beach working the Women’s US Open. Just needed everyone to know he’s friends with a decently connected sports producer. Love him.” It’s very niche, but it’s very funny.
ALEX: The—the Vin Scully of mid-tier TV executives, like—
BOBBY: So I was having lunch with this guy who’s—um, he’s an AP for NBC Sports covering the Women’s LPGA Tour.
ALEX: So Time Warner channel.
BOBBY: The Orioles are obviously in contention. Let’s just move on.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Boston Red Sox, owner John Henry, lima bean futures. Notable players, Jarren Duran. Duran, Duran, Duran?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You just—I hate when you do this. Alex Verdugo, Rafael Devers, Masataka Yoshida, Brayan Bello, Brayan Bello.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: James Paxton, he’s just having a good year. He’s not really going to be factored into the long-term future of the Boston Red Sox, but that’s okay. Chris Sale and Tristan Casas. Top 100 prospects, big, old prospect in Marcelo Mayer, Miguel Bleis, and Ceddanne Rafaela. We did get one call in support of the—the heinous, evil, awful Boston Red Sox. This call comes from beloved member of the Tipping Pitches community, Sam.
SPEAKER 9: Hey, guys, uh, first-time, longtime and all that, this is Sam from the Slack. Uh, that’s, uh, Sam Red Sox fan, not Sam Cardinals fan, or Sam Dodgers fan, because we’ve got a few. I was also the one, uh, referenced on yesterday’s episode who said Bobby better learn how to pronounce Brayan Bellow’s name in time for the Cy Young ceremony, which I stand by. But I wanted to get in my Alex’s new team voicemail under the wire and, you know, I thought about calling in and doing like a bit where I pretended it was like November 2018 and everything was great. Like, we’re gonna—we’re gonna get [69:38] $400 million. And you know, the prospect of that kind of bummed me out, so I’m gonna try my best to make an earnest plea. And I think our best case is probably proximity. You know, Alex talked about not wanting to root for a team that’s far away, and I think an AL east team is where you gotta go. You’re in New York for games at Yankee Stadium, and a reasonable drive to both Boston and Baltimore. But I think it gives you maximum opportunity to see your new team, which is going to be the Red Sox. And John Henry, you know, what do you—what do you want to say? If you want LeBron to be a minority owner of your new team, and possibly also has stake in the Las Vegas NBA franchise stock, but I’ll hang up and listen.
BOBBY: There’s your case. How’d the Red Sox fair? I feel like on paper, the Red Sox have a lot of things going for them.
ALEX: The Red Sox are a team who I think, like, in my mind, I would have thought fared better on paper and you—ended up right in the middle of the pack around the—the Twins and the Brewers. People have really divided opinions, I think, on the Red Sox broadcast booth of Dave O’Brien and Kevin Youkilis. I really liked Dennis Eckersley, who left the booth—who left the booth recently, so I—you know, the jury might still be out on them. I don’t know. Again, nothing that jumps off the page of me that screams—I mean, I—I appreciated the impassioned pitch. A little tough when the—when the—the—the biggest part of the pitch is—it’s kind of close by—
BOBBY: It’s not 2018. They’re kind of close by.
ALEX: You could hop on a train.
BOBBY: You know who is closer, is our next team. We’re throwing the Red Sox out. You know who’s closer? Our next team, the New York Yankees.
ALEX: Oh. Oh, boy.
BOBBY: Owned by Hal Steinbrenner. Notable players, Aaron Judge, Anthony Volpe, Anthony Rizzo, Gleyber Torres, Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon, Luis Severino, Nestor Cortes, and Oswald Peraza. Top 100 prospects who have yet to debut is the greatest player of all time, Jasson Dominguez. Notable that the cowardly Yankees fans did not even bother to call and make their pitch. You know why? Because they think they’re better than us. They think they’re—I know that there’s—
ALEX: Yeah, they think we should be calling them.
BOBBY: The cadre of Yankees fans in the—in the Tipping Pitches, uh, Yankees podcast community, so interesting. Their silence is deafening. Are you considering the Yankees?
ALEX: I don’t feel in good conscience, as though it’s an idea I can entertain. Especially, having rooted for the Mets for so long at this point.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like, it feels a little weird to just, like, jump across the bridge. They did well on the rubric, right? They’ve got the star power. There’s—stadium experience—uh, the—the stadium itself, I—I, like, don’t love that much, but I also think seeing a baseball game there is, like, really fun, unfortunately.
BOBBY: I’m just gonna come right out and say it, you’re not allowed to be a Yankees fan.
ALEX: I know. No, I know.
BOBBY: You’re not—you’re not allowed.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: It—joining the Yankees bandwagon at this point seems like both the most boring possible move and also, like, the least validating somehow of this entire—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —process. Like, putting every team through this rubric and then just choosing the Yankees just feels like a waste of time.
ALEX: What was—what was the point of that? Also, can I just say? Hey, pinstripe jerseys, get a new beat.
BOBBY: Oh, wow. Wow. So wait—
[laughter]
BOBBY: Oh, no, I just need to let that breathe, actually. I’m not even gonna step on that one. We’re just gonna move on. Tampa Bay Rays owned by Stuart, also known as Stu Sternberg. Notable players, Wander Franco. Goddamnit, he is good. Randy Arozarena, Isaac Paredes, Shane McClanahan, Drew Rasmussen, Tyler Glasnow, Glasnow, Glasnow. Brandon Lowe, not Brandon Lowe, Taj Bradley. Top prospect, too, has a 5.4 ERA this year, but that’s okay. Because he’s only pitched a few innings. And most Rays prospects turned out to be good. Top 100 prospects who have not yet debuted, Curtis Mead, Kyle Manzardo, and Carson Williams. We got one call in favor of the Tampa Bay Rays. I will play that for you now.
Speaker 10: I have a pitch for Alex’s next team. Listen, I think hating your—your own team and hating the office is in Alex’s bones. He needs a team that has sparks of hope routinely crushed or shaved off by management. He needs a team he won’t even be sure he’ll be happy if they win a World Series because he doesn’t want the current management rewarded. And, boy howdy, the Tampa Bay Rays can fit so much self-hatred.
BOBBY: All right, level with me here about the Rays.
ALEX: Oh, no.
BOBBY: Come on.
[laughter]
ALEX: That—I mean, they are the team right—a few years ago, I would have said that the Mets are probably the team that are, like, the closest in terms of, like, kindred spirit, in terms of, like, agony and getting really close, and being the—the sort of little—being the—the little sibling in the big market. And now it feels like the—the Rays have sort of taken that mantle, right? As, like, the sort of analog to whatever the hell is going on in Oakland of, like—
BOBBY: Moneyball 5.0 or whatever the iteration [75:09]
ALEX: Right, exactly. Hey, if I want to root for a team if shit doesn’t work in the playoffs, well, boy, oh, boy.
BOBBY: Okay. We’re not going to reopen this can of worms. There’s—it actually kind of does work in the playoffs, but it—it just falls short sometimes.
ALEX: So, it sounds like it doesn’t work.
BOBBY: I love your Rays negging and I love how little respect we have for Rays worshippers out there in the world.
ALEX: I—I also love that, like, six months ago, a year ago, you were all in on the Rays negging. You were like, “I will do anything I can to tear this team down.” And now, you’re kind of like, “Well, but they made some points.”
BOBBY: I just think when—now, that we talked—we talked about half the league already, I’m just kind of like, “The Rays are definitely gonna win—win the World Series before basically every other team we talked about here so far.”
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah.
BOBBY: Uh, they’ve been good recently. They’re gonna be good for the near future, probably for the long-term future. It’s just that they don’t really have a lot else going on. They’re not close, they’re in Florida.
ALEX: Right. Their—uh, like their stadium is not doing anything to call me. Also, I know that, like—
BOBBY: They might get moved or, you know, they’re—
ALEX: Right, they might get moved. I—yeah, they have stars on their team right now.
BOBBY: They might get sold.
ALEX: How long are they going to be on the team for?
BOBBY: They might trade the stars.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. I—it just doesn’t feel like a good vibe fit with you. It—I mean, it—it feels a lot like signing up for A’s again.
ALEX: Right. It’d be pretty bleak to sign up for the Rays and have them moved in three or four years.
BOBBY: Okay. Next up, Toronto Blue Jays. Steve Saikowski’s own Toronto Blue Jays, owned by none other than Rogers Communications. Notable players, Bo Bichette, Matt Chapman, Vlad Guerrero Jr, George Springer, Kevin Gausman, Jose Berrios, Jordan Romano, and Daulton Varsho. Top 100 prospects who have yet to debut, Ricky Tiedemann and Addison Barger. No one called in support of Canada’s very own, Toronto Blue Jays. In contention, yes or no? Where do they land?
ALEX: Another team that’s right on the cusp who, like, I always really enjoy watching on the—like, a year-to-year basis. I also think they have some of the best jerseys in the league, despite the fact that they are red, white, and blue. I—I think they use them in slightly more creative ways. I don’t have a great argument against them. They’re just kind of there.
BOBBY: You just don’t have a great argument for them.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And it just feels like a little bit too much of a hipster thing to do, to just pick the one team in Canada who has great uniforms. It’s like, “Eh. I don’t see it. I don’t see it.” And there’s nothing against the Ray—the Blue Jays. I mean, if I was from Canada or if I was from Toronto—
ALEX: Yes, we can—
BOBBY: —I’d be really happy to root for this team. I just—I don’t see it for you.
ALEX: Yeah, it just feels like a—a different culture there and—
BOBBY: You just can’t—you can’t get with the healthcare thing. I know that about
you. Um—
ALEX: Right. It’s true—it’s true, though, man.
BOBBY: It’s—it’s Pelosi’s vision or nothing for you.
ALEX: I will say only one of these teams’ heads of state has spoken at our graduation. Just putting it out there.
BOBBY: And that’s a point in their favor?
ALEX: I don’t know.
BOBBY: I don’t really think so. Okay. Whoever is gonna hit the road here. National League East, first up is the Atlanta Braves. Publicly traded Atlanta Braves, owned by Liberty Media. Notable players, Ronald Acuna Jr., brace yourself, Sean Murphy, Matt Olson, Ozzie Albies, Orlando Arcia, Austin Riley, Spencer Strider, Charlie Morton, Max Fried, Michael Harris II, and Travis d’Arnaud. Top 100 prospects yet to make the Majors, there aren’t any. They’re all on the team, and they’re all fucking good.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. And they’re all going to be on the team for the next two decades.
BOBBY: So there’s that. Be careful if you pick someone against the Atlanta Braves—
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: I’ll just tell you that. I’m experiencing that. Um, it would be boring if I came on here and just said, “You can’t root for these teams because of my own fandom.” But, like, I actually genuinely think we could not do a podcast together if you were a Braves—
ALEX: If I became a Braves fan?
BOBBY: Yeah, I don’t think we could podcast together. I still want you to talk about where they ranked on your list based on the—the different factors that you put through the rubric. But to the extent that you are going to allow me to have a veto, I would use the veto on the Braves above all 29 other teams in Major League Baseball.
ALEX: That’s big.
BOBBY: It’s true. It’s what it is.
ALEX: Well, I guess—I guess it—if—
BOBBY: I’d rather you root for the World Series-winning Rays than root for the Braves even if they don’t win.
ALEX: Well, it’s—I think it’s important you make that—because, like, they’re the—one of the ones that I feel like would be most in contention. Like, if you look at them, if you look at the Braves, you’re like, “Uh, it wouldn’t be hard to root for them.”
BOBBY: How are they doing on, um, team culture? Do you enjoy spending your free time visiting January 6 protesters? How’s your bicep for the chop?
ALEX: Right. Yes.
BOBBY: You wanna get ripped—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —for the chop?
ALEX: Yeah. Uh, vibes are pretty bad around that team and—
BOBBY: Horrendous.
ALEX: Like, they—I mean, they scored far lower than I—than I thought they would. They came in at, like, 18th.
BOBBY: Oh, laying on the Braves, tale as old as time. All right. I’m gonna eliminate them. Let’s keep going. Miami Marlins. I would describe this as a team you’ve flirted with on occasion in the past. Maybe not as becoming one of their fans, but you flirted with their players before. They are owned by none other—none other than art collector, Bruce Sherman. Notable players, Luis Arraez, Jazz Chisholm Jr, Jesus Luzardo, Sandy Alcantara, and Eury Perez who just got sent down to the Minors. Not sure what’s going on there. Top 100 prospects, Jake Eder, Jake Eder?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Eder?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Yiddi Cappe. I could be very wrong on both of those pronunciations, but it’s okay. No one called in favor of the Marlins, so, Alex, are they in contention?
ALEX: I don’t really think they’re in contention. Even though I find myself watching more Marlins games than I initially anticipate at the beginning of each year. I’m just like, “What’s the plan, guys? What’s—what are we—what are we doing here?” I haven’t seen anything in the last decade or so that would suggest they’re serious about building and maintaining a successful baseball team. And I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to get past that one. It’s a fine stadium. It’s a little cavernous.
BOBBY: It’s a bad stadium.
ALEX: Well, sure.
BOBBY: I’ll just come out and say it.
ALEX: I’ve only—I—
BOBBY: It feels like you’re in a high school natatorium.
ALEX: Yeah. It’s—I’ve never been there with the—the roof open and I probably never will with the way the Earth is going.
BOBBY: Geez.
ALEX: Yeah, I don’t have much more to say on it. They tried. They showed up.
BOBBY: Good for them. Next up. It’s your New York Mets. Owner, it’s Financial Crimes guy himself Steve Cohen. Notable players, Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, Francisco Alvarez, Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Kodai Senga, Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Brett Baty, better known as Brett, baby, in the Tipping Pitches community. Top 100 prospects who have yet to debut, outfielder Alex Ramirez, a lot of power there. We’ll see if he can get the bat on the ball. And Ronny Mauricio, a lot of power there. We’ll see if he can get the bat on the ball. Uh, we did get a listener pitch from a listener—listener of the show named John. Uh, John wants to remind you of the Mets broadcast booth. You’re a free-agent fan and you should think long and hard about watching games called by Gary, Keith, and Ron. Uh, if he was to make a hard sell on Mets fandom, it would go something like this. “The Mets are fun now and they’re likely to be fun in the future. And by fun, I mean, that they generally have more than the regular amount of organizational shenanigans going on and immediate environment that won’t ever let them live any of it down. When they’re bad and underfunded, that is grating. But now, that Steve Cohen owns the team, it just kind of adds to the excitement of winning anyway without subtracting from the underdog energy.” Also, there’s no substitute for proximity. What say you about the Mets?
ALEX: All really good points. I—it feels a little unfair to consider the Mets because I’ve been, like, rooting for them alongside you for the last few years. The Mets came in at number five overall on my rankings.
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: Here’s the thing, they’ve been pretty good recently and they got a lot of really good players, and it’s pretty fun to see a baseball game there.
BOBBY: And yet, they stink this season.
ALEX: And yet, they’re bad. Right. Uh, the—the Yankees and the Mets, obviously, the only ones who scored perfect 10s on my proximity grade because I can, um, take the subway, which helps. Although, maybe it doesn’t help enough to overcome being 10 games under .500
BOBBY: Yeah. Well, uh, so, are they—are they still in contention or are you DQ-ing them because you basically already are a fan of them.
ALEX: Let’s DQ them. I’m not—I—I’m not—
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: I’m not—I’m not stopping watching the Mets.
BOBBY: A shot across the bow—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —at me.
ALEX: Are we both gonna be Mets fans? Good god.
BOBBY: Wow, this podcast would turn into something very different. Uh, Philadelphia Phillies owned by cigarette lord John Middleton. Notable players, number one, Bryson Stott leading the—leading the team in WAR this year. Bryson Stott. That’s tough—tough scene. Brandon Marsh, Trea Turner, Nick Castellanos, J.T. Realmuto, Bryce Harper, Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, and Kyle Schwarber.
ALEX: Uh, Bryce Harper snuck in there at, like, eight.
BOBBY: Well, he missed, like, two months to start the season.
ALEX: Fair.
BOBBY: Top 100 prospects yet to debut, both pitchers, Andrew Painter and Mick Abel. We got listener pitches, we got two listener pitches. One comes from James in the form of an email. “I write to you today to make a pitch for Alex to become a fan of my favorite team that team Bobby knows very well, the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies history is long and painful, as they were the first franchise in North American professional sports to lose 10,000 games. However, there have also been some bright spots in their history, winning the World Series in 1980 and 2008, and AL pennant in 1915, 1950, 1983, 1993, 2009, and most recently 2022.” He goes on to highlight that, you know, they’ve had a lot of stars over the years. Several MVPs in the last couple decades. Um, a pretty stacked roster as, uh, as we already noted. Uh, the Phillies uniforms or something that makes them stand out from the other teams, with five different uniform types used in their daily rotation, such as the normal white home jersey and gray away jersey. They also have the powder blue 1980s uniform, the aforementioned, and their red alternate that they wear in afternoon games. And the cream Jersey they wear on Sunday home games. A lot of jerseys in Philadelphia. Uh, it’s also the original home of—this is an important point. It’s also the original home of Alex’s former favorite team, the Oakland Athletics. Intriguing. “My final point is that becoming a Phillies fan will help the podcast and balance out Bobby being a Mets fan. What better team to root for than the rival of your best friend’s team, then you can always bring the Mets’ past failures to annoy him, such as the 2007 season. That hurt. That hurt to read.
ALEX: Was it wrong, though?
BOBBY: It wasn’t wrong. We also have a voice note sent in from none other than Batting Around’s Stephen Hesson. With the note, “Sorry, Bobby.” I will play that now for us and the listeners.
STEPHEN: Hey, guys. it’s Stephen. I promise this is not a bit. I know that the most likely outcome here is that Alex adopts the Mets, and you know what? That makes complete sense and would be totally cool. However, I would like to present for your consideration reasons why Alex should become a Phillies fan. One, it would be an excellent dynamic for the pod. It—you know, it might be rough interpersonally, but I fully believe in your friendship and its ability to weather such things. Two, is it important to you to have a working-class fan identity with a chip on your shoulder about nearby teams? Because if so, look no further. Three, Bryce Harper. Four, the throwback maroon and powder blue uniforms. Five, they’re nearby, but they’re not local, so you have easy access to them, relatively speaking. But you do get to maintain your status as a fan of a team outside of the local market, which makes you cool. It also means that you’re less affected by MLB.TV blackouts. Six, they’re the reigning National League champs and have clearly demonstrated an ability to make a deep playoff run. They’re fun, they’re exciting, but they’re not so good that it would feel like you’re being a frontrunner by choosing them. There’s still quite a lot of baseball pain involved, but a much, much more normal amount than someone like you would be used to. Seven, they have an owner that has gone on record multiple times about his desire to spend money in order to feel the winning product. Eight, there is the tenuous, but nevertheless real connection between the Athletics franchise and the city of Philadelphia. Time has made the connection tenuous, but there is an enduring affection for that franchise among the people in this city. I have no idea if that is a positive or a negative, but I wanted to mention it either way. Anyway, I hope this was helpful. And if it wasn’t helpful, I hope it was at least entertaining. Good luck, and fuck John Fisher.
BOBBY: Oh, Stephen. Thank you for making such a wonderful case. I—I gotta say I don’t disagree with anything either most people said.
ALEX: Why am I getting tucked into this right now?
BOBBY: Oh, no! No, no. Again, Stephen text—
ALEX: The—the A’s-Philadelphia link is real, did not even think about that.
BOBBY: Yeah. Both people brought that up. You know, Stephen texted me on Sunday and he said, “Oh, fuck, I forgot to send in my message for your guys’ podcast. I’m sure you’ve already recorded this by this point.” And you know what I said? “No, Stephen, we haven’t. You should send it in still.” And you know why? ‘Cause I’m a fucking idiot.
ALEX: Yeah, that one’s on you.
BOBBY: I should not have led him—
ALEX: That’s—that’s on you.
BOBBY: —make the case because that was measured, that was accurate, that was compelling. He didn’t resort to screaming and yelling.
ALEX: And add homonyms.
BOBBY: Exactly. And, uh, I fear the Phillies now. I—I gotta say they’re probably—just based on your reaction alone, they’re in contention.
ALEX: I think they’re—they—so, uh, on the rubric, New York Mets number five, Philadelphia Phillies number four.
BOBBY: L after L. Um, I’m gonna say for listeners at home, this is the exact moment in the podcast that Alex and I realized that this needed to be a two-part episode. Otherwise, it’ll be three hours. That’s, uh, that’s just what I’m gonna note, and then we’re gonna keep going on to the Washington Nationals, uh, owned by the Lerner family. Notable players, Jeimer Candelario, tough start.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Tough start. Good season, but tough start. Lane Thomas, what position does Lane Thomas play?
ALEX: Centerfield?
BOBBY: I don’t know. I’m asking you. He is an outfielder. Don’t know if he’s a true centerfielder or not. We’re gonna keep moving on. Stone Garrett and his unbuttoned shirt. Handsome guy.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: CJ Abrams, if he’s actually any good, we don’t know. Mackenzie Gore, Josiah Gray, and Cade Cavalli. Top 100 prospects yet to debut, James Wood, Elijah Green, and Brady House. We got two listener pitches. Let me read through those for you. First one comes from Jeremy. Our lone Nationals nightmare is over. Now is the time to get in on rebuilding before liftoff. The Major League roster already features young and exciting players like CJ Abrams, Josiah Gray, and Mackenzie Gore. And the farm system has James Wood, Robert Hassell, Brady House, and probably soon, Paul Skeans waiting in the wings. Tough on that last one, didn’t get Paul Skeans, but wishful thinking. I like it. You want jersey aesthetics? The National City Connect is the single best jersey in all of Major League Baseball.
ALEX: Jesus.
BOBBY: You want a ballpark actually in the city with public transit access? We have that. You want a new ownership group that will actually sign homegrown players to long-term deals? We’re working on that. But we did just sign Keibert Ruiz long-term. Look, it’s not all perfect and there’s probably still another year or two of tough times left, but the glorious cherry blossom jersey ascent of the Nationals is nigh, and now’s the time to buy in. And if I may save the best for last, you can always feel good rooting for Sean Doolittle. That comes from Jeremy. A compelling case. I will quickly play for you the voicemail that we also got in support of the Washington Nationals.
SPEAKER 11: When you first mentioned [91:20] with Colin and pitch their team to Alex, I started a note on my phone with key bullet points and I’m really behind, so I was just listening to the latest episode today. And, oh, crap, I hope I made it in time. So, I’m just gonna go down my list that I haven’t even looked at since the last time I added something probably by voice while on the road for work that are typos, but whatever. Here I go, come be a Mets fan. Mets are lovable underdogs. Hey, they’re actually not even as bad as we all expected they’d be, if you ignore the Reds who were somehow good this year. Um, but if you ignore that, they won the last two series in a row. Um, they’re the newest team in baseball, so that’s fun. We can always use more fans. While on the east coast where you also are, um, a history of a lot of trades, especially a lot of trades with Oakland, so you’ll recognize some folks, notably Sean Doolittle, who of course is hurt right now. Again, I’m very upset. Let’s not talk about it. In—there in the NL East, which would make it really funny because of Bobby. Um, it’s not the most amazing ballpark in the league, but it is really nice and there’s no bad seats anywhere. Uh, coming in—well, what bad means that once we get good again, nobody can accuse you of bandwagoning. Not that there’s anything wrong with bandwagoning. I literally wrote a whole blog thing about this, but in case that is a thing to think about, it can go on this list. The longest-running pride night, this is a big one. So this year was our 18th Annual Pride Night Out, the longest-running pride night in all of Major League Baseball and the second largest in all of pro sports, only behind the Dodgers who have their own issues, but who also probably buy a lot of the tickets themselves. And it’s not actually grassroots community purchases, whatever. Uh, you’ll get a front row seat to the Angelos bullshit. Gotta love more reasons to be angry about baseball, right? That’s funny. Clearly, I added that before the O’s had what might have been the best example of a Pride Night and not just baseball, but all men’s sports. But whatever. Um, I absolutely do not ever have to hand it to any Angelos at least until the math and nonsense is settled and the Lerners can sell. And last but not least, uh, Mets Land is the birthplace of [93:15] and that should speak for itself or something. Thanks for listening. Bummed I can’t, uh, join y’all at Coney Island in a few weeks, so come to DC and hang out with the HSI weirdos at the ballpark. Bye.
BOBBY: Very compelling case. What a delightful voicemail.
ALEX: Yeah, that was a very good pitch. I—I think the—the point about the fan culture and experience here is really key. Like, I—I feel like I/we and Tipping Pitches follow, um, a disproportionate amount of Nationals fans who—
BOBBY: Yeah. How did that happen?
ALEX: I don’t know, but I’m not mad about it.
BOBBY: Me either.
ALEX: But they all seem like they’re having a really good time.
BOBBY: They seem like good, nice people.
ALEX: Uh-huh. Yeah, a nice, little community over there.
BOBBY: They didn’t choose all of the Republican senators to buy season tickets to their team.
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: They’re just from that area. They’re just—you know?
ALEX: They do have a nice ballpark. You and I have—have both been there.
BOBBY: It’s okay.
ALEX: It’s fine.
BOBBY: It’s okay.
ALEX: It’s— I saw the game there.
BOBBY: How’d the Nationals fair in those games?
ALEX: Do you know?
BOBBY: Not so hot, uh, recent World Series.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Quasi-restocked farm system. Are the Nationals really in contention?
ALEX: I mean—
BOBBY: In comparison to the—the Philadelphia Phillies who we just heard?
ALEX: I—see, again, I’m—I’m—I’m afraid of—of being too mean here, but, um, but I—probably not.
BOBBY: Okay. We’ll throw them out. We have two divisions left, but we have run out of time on this half of the Alex For Sale episode. At—at the original recording, we were hoping to fit it all into one episode, but on—on—upon hindsight, that was a little bit ambitious for us.
ALEX: Right. When you—when you, uh, walked in and said, “Hey, if we dedicate four minutes to every team, it’ll be two hours long max.” That—I should have known then.
BOBBY: With no—with no call opened and then—
ALEX: Raw.
BOBBY: Um, so when we come back in the next episode, we have the AL West, the NL West. Um, the AL West notably where your—where your current team resides, so we’re going to talk about them.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Um, and we have the remaining teams that you have not yet thrown in the—the dumpster. Those teams are the Philadelphia Phillies, the Baltimore Orioles. It’s just loss after loss for me. Somehow the Cincinnati Reds, the Chicago Cubs, the Minnesota Twins. That’s it. Those are the teams that are still eligible based on what we have decided here today. Do you feel good about that crop?
ALEX: I do feel good about that crop. Lots of teams who I’ve followed on and off over the last few years, so there’s a familiarity there. Uh, yeah. Whoever came up with the list knew me—knew me very well.
BOBBY: It’s actually pretty good.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Um, thank you to everybody for listening to this week’s part one of Let’s Find Alex a New Team podcast. At time of recording, we’re not exactly sure when part two will run. We don’t know if it’ll be, uh, the full wait until next week. We don’t know if it’ll be later this week, but we appreciate everybody’s dedication to the length and the denseness of this here podcast. It’s been fun for us. I’m excited to see who you keep in the field from the AL West and the NL West. Uh, two divisions that I wouldn’t necessarily, say on paper, have a lot of strong contenders knowing you and your baseball fandom, uh, but we will see. Uh, thank you to everybody who, of course, called in, who made a pitch to Alex about what team he should root for, and for everybody who is going to have already done that for next week. Um, if you’re listening to this right now, unfortunately for you, we have already recorded part two and that means that you cannot call and make your pitch for any of the AL West—
ALEX: I mean, you, uh—
BOBBY: —or NL West teams. I would suggest you don’t.
ALEX: You never say you did—it’s not gonna make it under consideration. But—
BOBBY: But if you wanna just call in, just chat.
ALEX: That’s what the lines are there for. I just—
BOBBY: That—actually—that actually is what the lines are for. That’s a great point.
ALEX: You know, we opened up a line so that folks could call in and vent about whatever.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Vent about their teams. And y’all have done a lot of venting, I just want to say. you’ve used the line very well for—for this episode.
BOBBY: This is—the number is 785-422-5881. Please follow the links in—the various links in the description. Those links might include such things as signing up for our Patreon. They could include such things as submitting questions for our future milestone episode that will require short answer questions, yes or no questions. Or they could include purchasing tickets to come see the Brooklyn Cyclones in person with us and dozens of other members of the Tipping Pitches community at a ballpark that I will no longer name because several people have told me I’m pronouncing it wrong, and I just don’t want to learn how to pronounce it. So, it’s in Coney Island where the Brooklyn Cyclones play. That is all we have time for this week. We will return in the near future with part two and with Alex’s selection for who he will root for the next 60 years. A heavy burden to bear. Thanks, everybody, for listening.
SPEAKER 12: So is everyone else. If you could just [98:08] something, yes. I never really knew myself. Na, na, na. I never really knew myself. Oh, right.
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Hello, everybody, uh, 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!
MLB Matchmaker, Part 2
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 at home understand what Tipping Pitches is all about? That’s amazing! That’s remarkable.
BOBBY: Alex, I got a question for you to start this week. Do you feel like we were overindulging in this exercise? We have 10 teams left, 10 teams that we could not fit into our part one of the Let’s Find Alex a New Team podcast.
ALEX: You know, we talk about real baseball so little.
BOBBY: That when we do, we just can’t shut up.
ALEX: Clearly. Again, I think this is what we asked for by saying we were gonna run through and discuss every single Major League Baseball team.
BOBBY: And—and whether it was worthy of rooting for them.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Their fan base, their stadium.
ALEX: That one is on us.
BOBBY: Their fan culture.
ALEX: That—we should have seen that one coming.
BOBBY: I gotta be honest, though. I’m sure that there was a subsection of our listeners who were like, “Look at them. They’re getting close to two hours. They’re gonna finally do it.” And then you know what we did? We just pulled the rug right out—
ALEX: Nope.
BOBBY: —from under them. And they were like, ‘We’re still not gonna do this. And I have to say, there’s a reason for that.
ALEX: Yes, there is.
BOBBY: I would have been opened—I would have been opened to doing a two-hour podcast for this purpose, because what—what more noble purpose than finding you a—a more wholesome and rewarding, uh, teams to root for.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You deserve that, you’ve earned that. As we discussed last week, you’re a worthwhile fan. They’d be lucky to have you on the bandwagon. But we already have plans in place for a two-hour episode and it is a bonafide two-hour episode that just by nature has to be two hours. And you’ll see what we mean by that at a future date. I think that we need to just do the work of pushing this rock back up the hill and we need to get right back into it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Before we do, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I’m Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to part two of Tipping Pitches’ Let’s find Alex a New Team podcast. Alex For Sale
[theme]
BOBBY: Okay. Where did we leave off, Alex? We left off with four of the six Major League Baseball divisions down. The remaining contenders from those—those four divisions are the Philadelphia Phillies, the Baltimore Orioles, the Cincinnati Reds, the Chicago Cubs, and the Minnesota Twins. A hearty group of worthwhile contenders, I would say. Some more than others. Some—some more than others.
ALEX: Some more than others. I—I think I bit off a bit more than—you sort of asking me like, “Is this team in or out?” On, like, the third team we were going through and they were kind of all still in at that point, you know? I think I got a little more selective as we gone along.
BOBBY: Are you—are you gonna be a killer?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Are you gonna finally be a killer?
ALEX: I got to be.
BOBBY: You’ve been training under A-Rod long enough to know that some things are assets and some things are liabilities.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Are the fucking Minnesota Twins an asset or are they a liability?
Just think about that question.
ALEX: I know. I’m doing my—I’m doing my risk management in my head right now.
BOBBY: I felt like I was very positive on part one of this episode. I’m gonna be like Aggro Bob on this—
ALEX: Do it.
BOBBY: —on this—on this episode. I’m gonna be like a military drill instructor Bobby.
ALEX: I want you to, like, push back on me, you know?
BOBBY: All right, fine. Fine. Fuck the Phillies. If you start rooting for the Phillies, we will be in many fights, repeated fights, long-standing fights. See, uh, you don’t want to see me when the Phillies takes two or three against the Mets.
ALEX: See, the thing is—
BOBBY: You can ask anybody that I grew up with, 18 years, I had to put up with this shit. 18 years. J suddenly—oh, look at J-Roll hitting .325.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: You think I want to know about Pat “the Bat” Burrell? You think I want to know these things?
ALEX: Stephen has an in—uh, from Batting Around called in on the last episode to make the case for the Phillies and—and noted that—and noted that, you know, I—me choosing the Phillies may not be good for our—for our interpersonal relationship. Personally, I think we could use more interpersonal conflict.
BOBBY: Disagree.
ALEX: Oh, you—you think we have too much?
BOBBY: It’s all love.
ALEX: Well, of course.
BOBBY: We argue enough.
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: What, do you want this to be crossfire?
ALEX: You know, imagine us arguing about, like, actual—
BOBBY: You want to be Tucker—
ALEX: —baseball—
BOBBY: Last week, you were all about Pelosi and now you want to be Tucker Carlson on crossfire?
ALEX: Yeah, I do.
BOBBY: You are all about the big [4:20]
ALEX: I’d run out the bowtie for this.
BOBBY: Okay. AL West. Houston Astros owned by your friend and mine Jim Crane.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Notable players—as a reminder for everybody, actually. Before I start—before I start just diving in here, we are working off of a rubric, which no doubt if you have listened to part one of this podcast, it would be just downright incoherent for you to start with part two. I don’t know why you would do that. But if—if—if just in case by accident, you have—last week, we delineated a rubric. I aggressively suggest that you go listen to that episode before listening to this episode. I strenuously suggest to borrow a phraseology from my favorite movie, A Few Good Men. Um, there are six categories that we are weighing here, team performance, player likability, team culture, aesthetics, geographic location, ownership conduct. All of those things are subject to the whims of Alex Bazeley, my co-host and friend. And that is the rubric that we are putting these teams through. And first up this week—because we have already done four of the six divisions. First up, we’re starting with the AL West, the Houston Astros.
ALEX: Winner. Let’s go.
BOBBY: I was wondering why you rolled that, like, big trash can into the studio and I was like, “Does he plan on, like, shelling peanuts in here? Like, what’s going on?” Um, notable players, said trash can in the studio, Kyle Tucker—actually, you know what? Scratch that from the record, producer.
ALEX: Oh. Oh.
BOBBY: We’re not doing trashcan jokes in 2023. We’re better than this. We are a better podcast than you choosing the Astros as a joke, as a bit, because everybody hates the Astros.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: I got—I—I think that if that was in our writer’s room, we—that would be the first draft that we would scratch out and throw away.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: So you know what—
ALEX: That’s—that’s the darling we kill.
BOBBY: What is this, John Boyd? Uh, Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez, Alex Bregman, Chas McCormick, Jeremy Pena, Jose Altuve, Framber Valdez, Hunter Brett. Framber Valdez is just that dude. Hunter—Hunter Brown, Cristian Javier, and Yainer Diaz. Top 100 prospects yet to debut, zilch, zero. The Astros are all out of top 100 prospects to debut. They’re already here, or they’re playing for other teams at this point because the Astros had too many good players to roster. Houston Astros. I don’t anticipate you to be a Houston Astros guy. Am I wrong?
ALEX: You’re not wrong on this. There—there does feel like a lot of baggage with the Astros that I’m not maybe prepared to shoulder. Like, I really don’t want to—want to pick this team and then have people be coming to me and saying, “Your team cheated in 2017.”
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like, those were my guys.
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: I’ll claim them.
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: Once again, we go off of vibes and gut a lot here. They’re not saying a lot of great things about the—the Houston Astros. You know who has, uh, bad jerseys? The Houston Astros.
BOBBY: I do like their City Connects, though. I’m in on this.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’m not afraid of them.
ALEX: Sure.
BOBBY: You get it? Houston, we have a problem. The rockets, they take off from
here.
ALEX: Yeah, space city. That’s how I refer to Houston.
BOBBY: For all the times that you’ve been to Houston?
ALEX: For all the times I’ve been to Houston.
BOBBY: You spent a lot of time in Texas in your life?
ALEX: I have been there a few times, mostly for music.
BOBBY: Prove it.
ALEX: Entirely for music, actually.
BOBBY: Prove it. Show me the receipts.
ALEX: I can pull out the cowboy hat.
BOBBY: Uh, oh, yeah. You attended South by Southwest when we were in college.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: For some reason, New York University decided they wanted to write in some budget for you to go there.
ALEX: Right. They were, like, the rest of the papers in the literal read, but—uh, yeah.
BOBBY: Sure.
ALEX: We got four tickets
BOBBY: We can talk about Joey badass. Uh, okay. Astros fail the owner pass-fail test that—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —we established last week. Is the owner heinous enough that it’s not even worth jumping onto this bandwagon no matter how good the rest of this rubric is? And I gotta say, Jim Crane, not a good guy.
ALEX: Not a good guy, not a great content guy, either.
BOBBY: What a square. Generally repulsive is right.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He had some—some war profiteering allegations, but, like, not even really in, like, an interesting way for content. It was kind of just, like, some of the companies he was associated with for profiteering off wars and it’s—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —like—all right. This wasn’t even—
ALEX: They all do like—
BOBBY: No, no. Like, this wasn’t even on Earth in a funny way. Uh, next up—speaking of owners, next up is a team owned by—
ALEX: Good—good transition. Speaking of owners.
BOBBY: Speaking of owners, next up is a team that is owned by a man who I would like to share ownership of a large parking lot with, and that is Arte Moreno. Los Angeles Angels, notable players, Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout, Mickey Moniak, Zach Neto.
ALEX: quite a cliff there.
BOBBY: And Reid Detmers. You got something against Zach Neto? Uh, Mickey Moniak is only on here because he’s having, like, an okay year. But Zach Neto is good.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah.
BOBBY: Reid Detmers is, like, the only pitcher worth a damn on the team.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Actually, there’s a couple of other young guys who are, like, kind of interesting, but maybe not notable in comparison to the rest of the notable players we’ve named on the—the past two episodes of the show. Um, oh, I guess also Logan O’Hoppe. He’s in the majors, too. He’s been in the majors before. Um, he’s a top 100 prospect. And Edgar Quero, I don’t know who that is. Uh, we got no calls in support of the Los Angeles Angels, because I’m not really sure what you would say. But you would say like, “Ohtani might stay, but—but probably”—uh, can I cross them off?
ALEX: You can cross—I mean, the—the biggest argument is the—the guy who’s about to leave the team—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —right? Like, that’s—it’s a little tough to come back, yeah.
BOBBY: Can you sign a one-year contract with the Angels?
ALEX: Right. With option years beyond.
BOBBY: I’m gonna skip this next team. It is the Oakland Athletics. I’m going to save them for last, if that’s okay with you.
ALEX: That’s fine. That’s fine.
BOBBY: Next up, that means it’s the Seattle Mariners owned by John Stanton, another oil man. Uh, not as boisterous as Jim Crane. Notable players, Julio Rodriguez, who I said sucks on the podcast two weeks ago. I regret that air.
ALEX: Yeah. Tough scene.
BOBBY: I didn’t mean to say he sucks. I meant to say he’s underperforming his expectation.
He sucks compared to Julio Rodriguez of yesteryear.
ALEX: That sounds fun. You don’t get clicks that way, Bobby.
BOBBY: All right. I forgot we were doing, uh, crosstalk on this episode—crossfire on this episode. Cal Raleigh, J.P. Crawford, George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, Luis Castillo, and Bryce Miller. I also failed to list Matt Brash here who is an interesting and notable player for the Seattle Mariners. Last week on the podcast, we played a— uh, what was seemingly a voicemail in favor of the Cubs and then the listener kind of bailed at the end of there, and—and said that, “You should probably just root for the Mariners.” We got two messages, two pitches in support of the Seattle Mariners. The first one is an email. I will read the highlights of that email to you now. This comes from listener Alex, part of the Alex group chat. “On a personal level, I want Alex to choose the Mariners because I need company in the middle of the people named Alex A-Rod superfan and Mariners fan Venn diagram. Off to a great start here. “By the rubric, the Mariners are a great fit. We have a likeable young core, great pitching development, and immaculate vibes. Best broadcasters in the sport, including Dave Sims, one of the few black broadcasters in baseball. Very notable. And Angie Mentink, a Northwest softball icon, who I— who in my opinion provide great perspective. While the owner isn’t great, he is not the cheapest in the league, nor has he done anything particularly egregious, just run-of-the-mill egregious for their owner. Ultimately, I think the Mariners are set up to give you a glimpse of what the A’s could have been with a replacement-level owner.” That cuts deep.
ALEX: Yup.
BOBBY: That hits close to home. That is a great point.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Didn’t even consider that. The young core is sticking around, the owner won’t supplement enough to push the team over the top, but the stadium is nice. The fans are passionate and expectations are still low due to decades of mediocrity. Will we ever make the World Series? Probably not, but that’s better than definitely not. And, hey, even if we don’t, you still get to laugh at the Angels and should attack the Astros. Hopefully, this pitch gets in under the wire. Looking forward to the episode. Uh, PS secondary pitch, I would love it if you follow the KBO and MPB. I know time zones make it tough, but it’d be both a hilarious spin on ironically interesting if the only serious, recurring baseball analysis in the pod was of overseas baseball.” Very funny point. Uh, you wanna do that? You want to just be the KBO consultant?
ALEX: Yeah, I’ll do— I don’t know when we’re gonna record, because, uh, I would be sleeping right now, I think, in order to catch those games. But I’ll do it. You slept 45 minutes to record both of this pod and the last pod.
BOBBY: We’ll see if I trumped that at the end of this. Um, that was a great pitch. We also got another pitch via voicemail, so let me play that really quickly before we—before we debate the Mariners.
SPEAKER 3: Hey, first-time, longtime— uh, listen, I’m not a fan of them, but I feel— I feel like— you— you know what? I’m just— I’m just gonna say it, the Seattle Mariners. Ichiro, Ken Griffey Jr., I’m not a fan of them. Let’s go Mets. You know how it’d be, but obviously, you know, that’s not gonna happen. Uh, Seattle Mariners, Macklemore, uh, Marshawn Lynch. This is a crack in, but, you know, let’s go Mets. Be the one to a hundred home runs, we’ll see.
BOBBY: Now, that was like—that was like my favorite call that we’ve gotten for this—
ALEX: It’s—
BOBBY: — for this episode.
ALEX: —really, really good.
BOBBY: I’m not a fan of them. You know how it’d be, let’s go Mets, but, uh, hey, the Mariners are a good option. Um, I do think that this call points out something interesting that the first—the first email did not point out, but no doubt the first emailer feels, uh—
ALEX: Macklemore?
BOBBY: Macklemore, right.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Exactly. Thrift Shop. Other Macklemore songs, One—One Love? No, that’s Black Eyed Peas. Um—
ALEX: Same Love.
BOBBY: Same Love. 45 minutes of sleep. Um, now, this listener points out that you have a—a [14:02] by association with Ken Griffey Jr. and Ichiro, the two—the two coolest baseball players of all time. So, I mean, we already know. I feel like the—the Mariners are sort of, like, the vibes leader in the clubhouse. What say you about the Mariners? Are they in contention?
ALEX: They are in contention. Again, a team I’ve, like, flirted with. As an AL West fan, I’ve, like, seen a lot of them, right? I was tormented by King Felix for the longest time. They’ve always been—been the team where I’m like, “Hey, if the A’s can’t do it, maybe the—maybe the Mariners can, right? They’re like similar underdogs in the AL West. I love, love, love, love their color scheme. I love that the different shades of blue that they’re able to incorporate. The throwbacks have a similar style of that, uh, Brewers Jersey where they have the—the kind of really bright gold and the royal blue. It’s been a—a long time since I’ve been to that stadium, but what I do remember of it was really wonderful. I, uh, I was not an old enough to do, like, anything really at that age. I might have a different experience now.
BOBBY: You’re old enough to do a couple of things now.
ALEX: A couple of things.
BOBBY: We still don’t let you, like, walk around on your own,
ALEX: Right. We do the buddy system.
BOBBY: Drive.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know? Go to the bathroom alone.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah. Me and John Angelo—Angelos at the troughs.
BOBBY: Okay. So we’ll keep the Mariners in.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I kind of anticipated that. Next up, Texas Rangers owned by oil—oilman Ray Davis. Uh, notable players, Adolis Garcia, Marcus Semien, Corey Seager, Jonah Heim, Josh Jung, Leody Taveras, Nathan Eovaldi, Jacob deGrom, and Dane Dunning, I supposed he’s having a wonderful year. Not sure how much he factors into your long-term considerations of the Texas Rangers, but I figured I would mention him.
ALEX: I’ve been on Dane Dunning for, like, three years now. Man, this—
BOBBY: Really? Is he one of your fantasy guys?
ALEX: This is it. Yeah. He’s been what— he was like a—like a fantasy guy two years ago where I was like—I’m just early, I know.
BOBBY: You should talk more about your fantasy team on the pod. People really love that.
ALEX: People—people love fantasy baseball team.
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. Tell us how good Pablo Lopez was for you back in the day. That was one of your—
ALEX: That’s right. That’s right.
BOBBY: That was one of your biggest wins. Uh, top 100 prospects yet to debut, Owen White and Evan Carter. We did not get any calls or emails in favor of the Texas Rangers. I gotta say, uh, topline thoughts for your boy here. They don’t pass the vibe check.
ALEX: No. No.
BOBBY: Not the out—not the [16:29] and the outfield vibe check?
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Not the executing any form of Pride Night vibe check?
ALEX: Nope.
BOBBY: Not the owner not accelerating climate disaster vibe check?
ALEX: Nope.
BOBBY: It’s not good. It’s not good. The team is pretty good. And I—I recall a preseason podcast, perhaps the one after Jacob deGrom signed with the Texas Rangers, where you told me you felt better about the Rangers for the next five years than the Mets, and I got mad at you. IRL mad.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I was like, “You’re fucking wrong. What are you talking about?” And guess who turned out to be right? It wasn’t me. However, um, this doesn’t seem like the right team for you.
I’m just gonna say that.
ALEX: Only baseball team named after cops.
BOBBY: The worst kinds of cops, too.
ALEX: The worst kinds of cops, too. The ones who, like, don’t have to call themselves that, so they can get away with anything.
BOBBY: Right. It’s honestly surprising to me that they’re the only team named after cops.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: In a way, aren’t the Yankees kind of cops?
ALEX: Right. I mean, it’s like—
BOBBY: They’re not named after cops, but they fashion themselves as police.
ALEX: Right. It’s implied. It doesn’t need to be in the name.
BOBBY: Facial hair policy.
ALEX: Well—
BOBBY: Uniform, it’s all cop—cop-ish. Um, so—so the Rangers are a no. What—talk about where they landed on your rubric, though, for the other—for the other aspects. Because to me, they are a sort of, like, ownership behavior DQ, if they fail that test for some of the things that we said. Um, but on the other hand, like they’re trying to spend, they’re trying to make the team better. They’re developing talent pretty well. They’re signing the best pitcher, uh, you know, of this generation. They’re—you know, they’re doing a lot of the right cosmetic things, but it seems—seems like under the hood, like—it’s—it’s like a kind of cursed franchise playing in a weird stadium.
ALEX: Yeah. Well, and it does seem like the kind of franchise where ownership or executives at the top do exert a lot of control on what happens both on the field and—and off the field, right? With—with regards to the Pride Night, for example, I think that—what I had read last year is that there’s actually a large contingent of people inside the Rangers organization who are interested in this sort of thing. And it was ownership who said, “Yeah, no. No, you know, we can’t do that. It’s Lockheed Martin Pride Night every night, and isn’t that enough?” So I just—
BOBBY: Where are you at on Lockheed Martin? On one hand, the Lockheed Martin, on the other hand, Top Gun Maverick. Debate. Crossfire. Um—
ALEX: Yeah, I mean, I haven’t heard a lot about him in the last few years, so maybe they’re a sleeper?
BOBBY: They—they really fell off.
ALEX: They really did fall off.
BOBBY: We could do a really great parody, like, capitalism debate show. Like, Lockheed Martin is just not turning and burning the way that they used to.
ALEX: Right. This is—this is what happens when—when woke comes for the defense contractors.
BOBBY: More of a black rock guy themselves. Dow Chemicals on the rise.
ALEX: Oh.
BOBBY: Spreading out, you know? Diversifying.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: As we say in the biz. Okay. So kaput to the Texas Rangers. That brings us to the NL West, our final division. First up in the NL West, Arizona Diamondbacks, right off the rip. Owner, Ken Kendrick, tough, tough scene.
ALEX: Semi-tough.
BOBBY: One of the more deplorable, and I use that word intentionally, deplorable owners in Major League Baseball.
ALEX: You’re pull—pulling out your 2016 bag of tricks over here.
BOBBY: There is a clown in the White House. It’s a circus. Notable players, Corbin Carroll, Geraldo Perdomo, Christian Walker who just hit one of the more impressive home runs against the Mets earlier this season. He is dead center at, like, .480. Um, Ketel Marte, Zac Gallen, Brandon Pfaadt, Drey Jameson, and Ryne Nelson. Top 100 prospects yet to make the majors, one of two of the best prospects in baseball, Drew Jones, son of Andrew Jones, and Jordan Lawler. No one called in in favor of the Diamondbacks. Uh, what do you think? Interesting young core for this team and they’re free of Madison Bumgarner.
ALEX: Yeah, huge point in their favor, obviously, in that regard.
BOBBY: Where did they land on the rubric?
ALEX: Well, they technically were second to last.
BOBBY: Oh, wow. If listeners will remember, behind the Tiger—or just in front of the Tigers.
ALEX: Correct.
BOBBY: A hair in front of the Tigers.
ALEX: Yeah. And, you know, part of that is probably personal preference. I’ve—
BOBBY: I wanna know why you just hate the Tigers.
ALEX: Look, hey, man, trust the formula. I didn’t—I didn’t put them there. The spreadsheet put them there.
BOBBY: You hate Detroit. You hate America-made—American-made companies. You hate union labor.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You hate Chevrolet.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You hate Ford. What else do you hate?
ALEX: Oh, buddy.
BOBBY: Red blood, red meat?
ALEX: Uh, yeah—I mean, yeah, all of the above.
BOBBY: Shameful.
ALEX: I don’t like baseball hotdogs, apple pie, nor Chevrolet. Thank you very much.
BOBBY: Leave Chevrolet out of this. They make great cars. I’m such a car guy now.
ALEX: Oh, yeah?
BOBBY: I’m just turning into my father, yeah.
ALEX: Jesus.
BOBBY: I was—
ALEX: Like, if they just add one more lane to this highway.
BOBBY: I’m not like that kind of car guy. I’m not like let’s stand in the way of urban development in favor of cars. I’m like, “Wow, that 1963 Chevy Impala looks brilliant.”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: They don’t make them like that anymore.
ALEX: Uh, they—they really don’t.
BOBBY: When I was in LA for a truly shocking amount of time—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —recently, 19 days in Los Angeles.
ALEX: Just don’t—some would say too many.
BOBBY: I’ve lived in Los Angeles for a whole month this year, let that sink in. Um, I was just taking pictures of cars parked on the side of the road and sending them to my father, and I was like, “This is what I’ve become and I’m okay with it.”
ALEX: There are worse things to become in your old age, I think.
BOBBY: I agree. It’s gonna be me, my dad, Jay Leno, and Joe Biden.
ALEX: That’s—
BOBBY: Driving vets.
ALEX: —dream blunt rotation right there. Oh, my gosh.
BOBBY: Back to the Diamondbacks. Listener, we are refocused. We are here.
ALEX: Yeah, they graded out really well in, like, the—the prospects—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —side of things.
BOBBY: Yeah, they’ve done a good job rebuilding that team.
ALEX: And, like, not much else on my rubric. I’m not a huge fan of the uniforms. I’m—I’m getting away from the A’s, because I don’t wanna go see them in an—in an arid climate every summer.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: Again, I—I was hoping there might be a listener who can make the case for the Diamondbacks, because it’s not a case I’m, uh— uh, adept at making.
BOBBY: I got a case for you.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Ken Kendrick, not a good owner. One of the poor owners in baseball. One of the less rich owners in baseball.
ALEX: Right. Because he gives it all to the Republican candidates.
BOBBY: Well, what I was gonna say is, you know, I don’t know if he’s known. I don’t know if he has a reputation as a meddler, but perhaps, he might not be as present around the baseball team as often, given how, uh, closely he’s looking into the Dominion voting systems.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So, like—
ALEX: Yeah. Doing his own research.
BOBBY: —while he’s away sort of doing that and, um, standing in on trial against Dominion. You know, maybe you could actually just rebuild the baseball team in your image.
ALEX: That’s true. He’s asleep at the wheel, man. That car could go in any direction.
BOBBY: Uh, okay. Colorado Rockies. Owner, Dick Monfort. Notable players—this is bleak. This is—I’m just gonna be real with you. This—this sucks. Notable players, Ryan McMahon, Ezequiel Tovar. I got nothing else.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: Top 100 prospects yet to debut, Adael Amador, Drew Romo, and Zac Veen. I feel like I’ve been hearing about Zac Veen for a while. When is he coming up?
ALEX: You know—
BOBBY: I guess you could say that German Marquez is a—is a notable player. He has been a good pitcher in the past, but he’s, like, not good this year. And I don’t really know what’s going on with him. So—
ALEX: Kris Bryant is on the Rockies.
BOBBY: Not notable.
ALEX: So they say,
BOBBY: Not notable. Have you ever talked about Kris Bryant being on the Rockies—
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: —before just now?
ALEX: Which I think is exactly how he likes it.
BOBBY: I am—
ALEX: I’m happy for him.
BOBBY: I am—
ALEX: I—I hope he’s happy.
BOBBY: I am, too. Uh, Rockies, where’d they grade out?
ALEX: Actually, a little higher than I—than I expected. They came in around 20, I think, in large part due to—
BOBBY: Your support of Dick Monfort’s work—
ALEX: —my support of—
BOBBY: —um, against the MLBPA?
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Uh, gorgeous stadium, but I’ve not had the pleasure of seeing in—in person.
BOBBY: It’s awesome.
ALEX: But like—
BOBBY: So great.
ALEX: Oh, man. Oh, man.
BOBBY: So great. That stadium rules.
ALEX: Also only team these days, Diamondbacks, to regularly incorporate purple into the uniforms and, uh—
BOBBY: Color of royalty.
ALEX: And the color of royalty, abs—that’s—I’m always saying that.
BOBBY: I get a little punchy. We’ve been recording for over two hours. Need I remind you, 45 minutes of sleep?
ALEX: I know. I’m—I—I pray for the person who decides to binge these two episodes back-to-back.
BOBBY: You just pray for your own mother. That’s nice. That’s a nice sentiment.
ALEX: Yeah, Rockies is on the other team on here besides the Oakland A’s to—to, uh, score one out of 10 on the star power ranking. That’s a little—that’s a little tough if you can’t even point to anything on the field right now.
BOBBY: I mean— and the other thing is that they don’t really develop stars.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And the—the small handful of stars that they have developed, for some reason, they decided to, like, aggressively commit to them and then back out of it, in the case of Nolan Arenado. I don’t know. It’s a weird franchise. It’s running Dick Monfort’s image and I—I just don’t trust that. I would not sign up for that.
ALEX: There’s also—there’s—like, there’s already no such thing as a pitching prospect.
BOBBY: I know. Yeah.
ALEX: But, like, it’s like BP prospects in Colorado.
BOBBY: They feel like a good team to just, like, casually feel no way about .
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: you can go and enjoy the stadium if you’d like to. Friend of the podcast, Austin Zimmerman, uh, is a big Giants fan, but lives in Denver. And so—
ALEX: Wow. Doxxing his real-time location, his rea- time coordinates, Bobby.
BOBBY: His, uh, his assassination coordinates.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Right, yeah. I’m gonna have to bleep that out. Um, and that—that feels, like, the right zone for the Rockies to be in. It’s like a place where you don’t have to want them to win. You just have to want them to show up 81 times a year at that beautiful ballpark.
ALEX: Exactly. I will watch from afar and hope for better for their fan base.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: And, you know, I’ll be cheering the whole time.
BOBBY: Let’s power through the last three. In the NL West, we have now come to the Los Angeles Dodgers, owned by Guggenheim Baseball Management. Control person, Mark Walter. There’s like a thousand people that own the Dodgers.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: They’re all very—very wealthy. Notable players, strapping Mookie Betts, Freddie
Freeman, Will Smith, James Outman. That’s Rookie of the Year James Outman to you. He’s not gonna win rookie of the year. Uh, Max Muncy, Clayton Kershaw, not one of the 30 most famous baseball players.
ALEX: No, he’s not.
BOBBY: He’s not. Bobby Miller, Julio Urias, and Miguel Vargas, who is not performing well. However, he’s a top prospect and so I included all the top prospects. Including the top—their top 100 prospects who have not yet debuted, Diego Cartaya, Andy Pages, and Gavin stone. Those last two names are definitely real. They are not autogenerated. Nobody called in in support of the humble, small town underdog, dark horse, Los Angeles Dodgers. No one will—no one will speak in their support.
ALEX: No. Not on record, at least.
BOBBY: All right. So you mentioned that the Mets came in at fifth via your rubric. The Phillies came in at fourth. Presumably, the Baltimore Orioles came in in the top five as well, so that’s three of the top five. I would venture to guess that the Dodgers are another one of those teams that finish in the top five. And I might even go so far as to say the next team that we’re gonna talk about is the fifth team, but I won’t spoil that. Am I right about the Dodgers?
ALEX: You are—you are right about the Dodgers.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: What—what is it about them? What is it about the Dodgers, Alex?
ALEX: What is it about the Dodgers [28:31] root for?
BOBBY: The team that wins 95 plus games every single year without fail, and plays in a gorgeous ballpark, and is one of MLB’s most storied franchises, and also employs Mookie Betts. What’s there to like? And also spends $250 million every year.
ALEX: They are—if you’re a baseball fan, something like the platonic ideal or if you’re a—if you’re a straight [28:54] cis baseball fan, something like the platonic ideal. Um—
BOBBY: Very notable.
ALEX: Yeah, very—very notable. Again, we talk about vibes, talk about ownership malfeasance, they don’t—they don’t score quite as highly there. But, uh, they got a few stars. They have the best farm system in baseball. I don’t know any of their prospects, but they got eight top ones.
BOBBY: Can I say something that might be controversial?
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: So I agree with the point about the ownership vibes. There’s something very weird and—and corporate going on with the Dodgers in the last 20 years. Um, I say that like I know anything more about the Dodgers beyond the last 20 years, like I’m not 27. But there is something cold and calculated and—and very big business about the way that the Dodgers are run. They’re as much an idea as they are a baseball team to the city of Los Angeles. That being said, I think the Dodgers have the best fans in baseball. Number one, I think they are the best fans in baseball. They take a lot of shit for showing up in the third inning. That’s not their fault.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, we were just talking about cars.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: We’re talking about adding new lanes to highways. We can have that discussion if you really want to. The True Blue—
ALEX: Now, there goes another neighborhood. You know, fuck it at this point.
BOBBY: The True Blue Dodgers fans who are like they’re in the—the reserve level. They’re in the top deck level. They’re in the bleachers, season ticket holders. Scalping a cheap ticket while walking around Echo Park an hour before the game. Those fans are—and granted, I have not been to every stadium I have not—I do not have a unique experience with every team’s fan base, the way that I do with the Dodgers, because I lived there for four years. But to my eye, they’re as good as it gets. And I’m not even trying to pander, because I didn’t go out there wanting to be like Dodgers fans are way better than Mets fans. Dodgers fans are way better than, you know, East Coast baseball fans. I didn’t have like a—a vendetta out against East Coast baseball fans necessarily. But, like, all the stuff that they say about, like, Red Sox fans and Yankees fans and all that stuff, some of that is true, but it’s definitely true of Dodgers fans. And there’s, like, generational fandom to their—generational, like, cultural community-based fandom going on with the Dodgers that I think would be a really cool thing to be a part of. I think it might be a hard thing to jump on the bandwagon of—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —from New York City. But, earnestly, I admire a lot of the things that they do from, you know, from your rubric, from their fan experience category.
ALEX: Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, it’s a gorgeous—it’s a gorgeous ballpark. I’d probably pass on the Dodger dog, but that’s okay. You can’t win them all.
BOBBY: Dodger dogs fell off.
ALEX: They really did.
BOBBY: You know what? I think a lot of people thought was gonna fall off even more was their broadcast booth, but it didn’t, because Joe Davis—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —ss tremendous.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: No one—no one is Vin Scully, no one will ever be Vin Scully. But Joe Davis is as good as we have in the modern game.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, to—to lose Vin Scully from your broadcast booth and still be, like, a top five broadcast booth is, uh, something.
BOBBY: Yup. So, are they still in contention?
ALEX: Like you said earlier, it—it feels like there’s so—there’s almost too much lore.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: That it wouldn’t feel right, uh, adopting. You know, I’m also slightly biased against them being a West Coast team and ,like, half of their games starting when I’m like—
BOBBY: Saying that you—thinking, like, you wanted to go to bed?
ALEX: The fact that I want to—uh, actually head to bed at some point, right. Yeah. They do—there is something—and I can’t put my finger on it. But as you said, there’s just something off about—like, they feel like the—the DNC of baseball teams—
BOBBY: This is so great.
ALEX: —you know? Like, if—
BOBBY: Yes. Like, if there was a team that Republicans were gonna implicate in, like, a Clinton crime ring scandal, like it would be the Dodgers. Maybe that’s just because of their exposure, because they have three dozen owners. So, like, it’s a numbers game—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —at that point.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And all—they all run in the same circles, anyway.
BOBBY: Uh, when you go to Dodger Stadium, which I was just at very recently, still, I think, like, baseball nirvana is a—is an evening game at Dodger Stadium and the sun is setting on you, and, like, the crowd is great, and the weather is perfect, but—
ALEX: Oh, hell yeah. We’re in real sincere hours out here.
BOBBY: Where the sincerity really falls off is when you realize how many things at Dodger Stadium are presented by Bank of America. It’s like, “That single presented by Bank of America. This scoreboard presented by Bank of America. This is the Bank of America steal-a-base challenge.” It’s—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t know what’s going on with that. They, uh, they just have a tight relationship, I guess.
ALEX: Probably nothing to see there, though.
BOBBY: No. Uh, all right. Let’s—let’s leave them in contention for now. Enough Dodgers chat. I assume people are gonna accuse me of pandering to the Dodgers fans because there are so many of them.
ALEX: I might think that was even a little—a little pander-y, but that—but that’s okay.
BOBBY: Really, I’m just pandering to your mom.
ALEX: Okay. That’s fair.
BOBBY: And that’s my only goal for this podcast. Next up, the team that I—that I believe is the fifth in your top five based on your rubric. The San Diego Padres, owner Peter Seidler, he a venture capital bank. Notable players, Fernando Tatis Jr., Juan Soto, Ha-Seong Kim, Xander Bogaerts.
ALEX: Sure.
BOBBY: Manny Machado, Blake Snell, Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish and Jake Cronenworth. I threw him on there because I’m just—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: What a solid—what a solid player.
ALEX: He’s a dude, he scraps.
BOBBY: He does scrap. He stays in that bats. Um, top 100 prospects yet to make the majors, Jackson Merrill and Samuel Zavala. Like, genuinely confounding to me how they still have top 100 prospects who are in their system and not yet in the majors, because they have traded for every single player on every single team. Um, A.J. Preller masterclass, I guess. No one called in favor of the Padres and so I’m just gonna clear out, because I think that this is the team that gets the most hype—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —as a good team for neutral fans. Great broadcast booth. Lot of star power. Really good fan base as well. Cool ballpark. Where did they rank?
ALEX: So they did—you were—you were correct that they rounded out the top five and came in second on the—on the ranking based on recent success and—and prospects and future potential, as well as that—that fan experience side of things. I initially, again, had the—the Padres kind of on my mental shortlist going into this exercise. Again, they’ve been on everyone’s radar for—for years now. As you mentioned, they’re kind of people’s go-to team as like this is the one fun team to watch. If you’re introducing someone to baseball, like this is—you know, they’re—they’re doing it. This is the next generation. Something going on in that clubhouse, where most of those guys don’t really like each other.
BOBBY: Is this a case of, uh, they didn’t think about chemistry?
ALEX: The chemistry is real, bro.
BOBBY: Were the old—were the—were the old heads right? Were we wrong? There’s something just so top-heavy about this team. Like, it feels really easy to praise from afar, but then you look at the—the top to bottom roster and you compare it to a team like the Dodgers that have been doing things the—the right way, so to speak—
ALEX: Yeah, they have.
BOBBY: —for—for, like, 12 years now. And it’s like, “Oh, something goes wrong, someone gets hurt.” There’s a very competent player who can back them up. Now, the Dodgers are a little less complete than they have been in past years. They signed Miguel Rojas to play shortstop for them. Like, there was a serious thing that they decided to do this year, they were like, “This is the guy who is going to be our shortstop this year, and we’re going to try to win a World Series.” Like, that’s nuts. But—and they were like, “If he’s hurt or if he’s not playing well, we’re gonna play Mookie Betts at shortstop.” Um, but like the Padres, there’s like a steep clip—cliff after those guys that I named, and that, to me, is like the difference between being serious for, like, eight years and being seriously for, like, three years, more like what the Padres have been doing. And they had, like, a—you know, long rebuilds where they built up prospects and stuff, but that doesn’t necessarily give you the kind of depth that developing prospects a lot over time, and supplementing that with free agents does, like when you’re the Yankees, or you’re the Dodgers, or whoever.
ALEX: Yeah. And I think part of that is just due to the fact that this team is still relatively young in the way that they’ve built it, right? And the—and the more that these—and the longer these veterans on the team, the more time you have to sort of add around the edges and fill in those spots. I think they’d be an immensely fun team to root for. They also do feel like a bit of an unknown at this point. It’s not like they have a lengthy track record of success. Their GM is fairly new, although, obviously, had a hand in putting all this together. Uh, their owner, as you mentioned, Peter Seidler has shown an indication that he’s willing to spend, but they all reach a point where the—the—the stock starts to go down. And all of a sudden, you have to tighten your portfolio and other areas, right? So—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —they feel like a bit of a black box to me in terms of fandom, and maybe that’s just because they were not on my radar for so long. And then here they are, right? All of a sudden, everyone has their eyes on them. But they feel a little hard to judge in that manner for me. I do think they’re—the—the stadium environment is—is really cool. It is a really fun ballpark to go to.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Some of their jerseys are hit or miss. The City Connect is just a Marlins Jersey, and that’s fine, you know? It’s like—it’s—you know, it’s like neon, like, green and then—
BOBBY: Yeah. Pink.
ALEX: —pink.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And that’s cool.
BOBBY: Does it feel a little bit, like, you might have missed the boat?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, if we did this exercise two years ago, it would have been kind of fun to jump on the—jump in the jet stream that is the Padres. But now, it feels like enough people have, like, praised what they’re doing, and we can do that, too. Like, we’ve been doing that in the show for—for a while now. But praise what they’re doing that it feels a little bit too on the nose to be like, “This is the team that we’re gonna—we’re gonna get behind.” You know?
ALEX: Yeah. No. 100%. That—and that’s kind of—
BOBBY: Feels a little bit like—it’s like 2008 and you’re like, ‘This new band, Strokes. Like, check them out.” Like, these are the guys and everybody’s kind of like, “Yeah. I mean, I feel like I—”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “—probably known that for a little while now.”
ALEX: No, you’re totally right about that. And that’s why I’m having trouble, like, really, you know, getting into the headspace where I can throw my weight behind them, just because they—I feel like they’ve been so overexposed the last few years. You know, I’ll probably wait a couple of years until the hype dies down and they’re not doing stadium tours anymore, and I can see them, like, in small venues, I’ll reconsider them.
BOBBY: Then we’re throwing them out?
ALEX: Toss ’em out of here.
BOBBY: All right. All right, P Padres. Okay. We come to the team across the bay, the San Francisco Giants, owner, the reprehensible Charles Johnson. Notable players, Thairo Estrada, J.D. Davis, Patrick Bailey, LaMonte Wade Jr., Mike Yastrzemski, Logan Webb, Alex Cobb, and Camilo Doval. I just love that guy. Top 100 prospects who have not yet made the majors, Kyle Harrison and Marco Luciano. Um, given that I know you, and I know your feelings about the San Francisco Giants, I don’t feel all that positive about this. However, I would like to allow Jessie, longtime listener of the show, Giants super fan, and very active member of the Tipping Pitches community to make the case. So, I’m gonna play Jessie’s voicemail.
JESSIE: Hey, guys, it’s Jessie, and I’m—I’m calling to make an appeal to Alex. Um, you know, when you guys were saying that we needed to make pitches to Alex for this episode to find him a new team. I thought to myself, “How do I spin this?” You know, I’m a Giants fan. How do you pitch a crosstown rival, um, to somebody who has been a fan, uh, of the other side of the rivalry for such a long time? Is it disrespectful? A’s fans have been going through a lot. Um, and then, Alex, you very stupidly said—so you were into the Orioles color scheme, um, and then it was all over for you. Here’s why you should be a fan of the San Francisco Giants. First of all, color scheme, great uniforms. Great merchandise. Orange and black, classic. The cream color Giants home jersey, absolutely, you know, indisputably good. Um, historic—yet another reason, the Giants really have everything. This historic franchise, Willie Mays, Barry Bonds, literally everybody else. Um, and to a recent history too, Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford. These are guys to root for. Also, now, youth movement, Patrick Bailey, Luis Matos. Listen, the team is exciting and it’s fun to watch. But you can also get angry because we have a very hateable owner, which is important to hate the owner. Can’t hand it to Charles Johnson ever love. Um, what else? Best ballpark in baseball. Best ballpark in baseball. Come on. Come on, Oracle Park, beautiful. Great place to watch a game. Um, what else? Hot people on the team, Camilo Doval. Come on. First of all, he throws 101 and is one of the best closers in baseball, and also is hot. Like, I just—I don’t even know what else to tell you. Um, obviously, I have to talk about Mike Yastrzemski. That’s my boy. Um, easy to root for. Again, history, storylines, uh, hot. I don’t know what else to say. Um, and, finally, you know, you don’t have to change a Pacific Standard Time, you know, viewing lifestyle, um, when you switch to San Francisco Giants. Um, circadian rhythms are important and it would make a very easy bridge. We’re happy to have you. Bay Area solidarity forever. Go Giants.
BOBBY: Jessie has added an—added an addendum to this extensive voicemail.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I will read that now. “Hi, guys. I need to add an addendum to my voicemail I left, which is twofold. Number one, Dodgers haterism is a historic and noble pursuit, which is fun as hell. The race for the division in 2021 was exhilarating and not many new team options offer the same kind of rivalry fodder.” Intriguing. “Number two, Slacking Pitches channel, Veni, vidi, vici is simply one of the best places on the internet to enjoy baseball. Okay, that’s all. Go Giants.
ALEX: Jessie, thank you. I—I was—
BOBBY: Impassioned.
ALEX: That was very impassioned and I think I was not considering the Giants, um, as much as I might be now, which is still leaning no, but, like, much less confidently than a few minutes ago.
BOBBY: It would be really funny.
ALEX: It would be—I mean—
BOBBY: It would be the ultimate backhand to the A’s, because this is like—so this is, like, what they don’t want to happen. The A’s don’t want all of their fans to just jump across the bay. Rob Manfred has said that he hopes the fans will follow the A’s to Las Vegas, even though he knows that that’s not gonna happen.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So it would be, like, the most direct rebuke of the A’s probably that you could have, but also it means you root for the Giants, which would present problems for me personally, because I hate them. And Jessie knows this. That’s fair. They’re hateable, too.
ALEX: Yeah, they are. Uh, the rivalry point is something that I, you know, I didn’t really consider in a lot of this research, but she’s right that there are very few, like, meaningful rival—rivalries still in baseball. And Dodgers-Giants is like a very real one that exists, so you get to indulge in.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Oracle Park, really good stadium. Really—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —uh, enjoyable place to watch a baseball game.
BOBBY: You could have a hometown team still when you go home.
ALEX: I could.
BOBBY: Do you want that?
ALEX: You know, I, um, uh, reflexively, you know, have kind of spurned the Giants over the course of my life as a baseball fan. And I—uh, can I just say that the—the Giants fans that I know and I’ve seen online, um, have been nothing—
BOBBY: [45:08] they’re like Trump voters.
ALEX: Right. I went—
BOBBY: A handful of them I know in my life. Uh, yeah, that—and I’ve seen them online. I’ve seen videos of them. Uh—
ALEX: Giants fan have been really respectful to A’s fans over the last, like, six—six months.
BOBBY: Yeah. What the fuck do they have to care about? They [45:26] all the time.
ALEX: Yeah. What—yeah, of course. I mean, they don’t—they don’t give a shit. I mean, they’re— now, we’re like dredging up some feels. You know, there’s always been the like—the like—it’s like the A’s fan snark to, like, the Giants fan smarm—
BOBBY: Right, right, right. Yeah.
ALEX: —you know? it’s like yeah, of course, you feel good.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You have fucking Barry Bonds and you won the World Series. Like, you’re—you’re good.
BOBBY: Yeah. And you’re like the rich—rich team across the bay, right.
ALEX: But I don’t know, maybe it’s time to see how the other—how the other half lives.
BOBBY: All right. Would you like to keep them in contention?
ALEX: I don’t think we can.
BOBBY: Okay. Fair enough. Jessie, great try. I appreciate the effort. Alex, the final team under consideration.
ALEX: Who is it?
BOBBY: It is the Oakland Athletics, potentially known as the Las Vegas Athletics. The precipitating event for this podcast as everybody knows, no doubt knows by this point, the owner of this team, at least—until it’s Joe Lacob, it is John J. Fisher. Notable players on the roster—man, I searched high and low, my friend. And I, uh, might you say, lowered the bar.
ALEX: On the word notable?
BOBBY: Ryan Noda and Brent Rooker.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Ken Waldichuk.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Top prospects who got called up and doesn’t look very great.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And Mason Miller, another top prospect who got called up and looked okay.
ALEX: Petty good. He’s hurt, but—
BOBBY: He got hurt.
ALEX: —he’s fine.
BOBBY: Top 100 prospects yet to make the majors after all those trades—
ALEX: They got one.
BOBBY: —there’s one lone man—
ALEX: They got one.
BOBBY: —Tyler Soderstrom. Alex, I have to say, even after the months and months of planning this episode, even after the long-discussed brotherhood between Mets fans and A’s fans, and the no doubt large community of people who listen to the Tipping Pitches Podcast and are A’s fans, not one single soul called in to make the case that you should stay an A’s fan. Not one single soul wrote an email saying, “Hey, maybe consider sticking around with this team.” I think that is sad. Uh, I don’t begrudge anyone for not doing that. I think they were right to do it. I just think it’s a bummer. It bums me out. John J. Fisher is a bummer.
ALEX: Yes, he is, Bobby. Well put.
BOBBY: I detest you, sir.
ALEX: I shake my finger at you.
BOBBY: Um, are they in consideration?
ALEX: If they stay. I mean, like I don’t—like, I don’t know what to do then, you know?
BOBBY: So if they stay, you will continue to root for them? I think you have to.
ALEX: I mean—yeah.
BOBBY: You don’t have to do anything, actually.
ALEX: Well, I have watched this team for 60 years, so I’d—
BOBBY: You—
ALEX: And wear their jersey and again—
BOBBY: And run on the field once per year.
ALEX: And run on the field—yeah.
BOBBY: Right, exactly.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Anything else you wanna throw out there that you’ll—you’re willing to do?
ALEX: That I’m willing to commit to? Um—
BOBBY: Entering their virtual ballpark on occasion, perhaps?
ALEX: Yes, but it doesn’t count as me visiting the actual ballpark. So if I do the virtual ballpark, I still have to go to the game that day, right?
BOBBY: He used to visit in the morning just to get a—sort of prescreened idea. Um, I think that maybe the A’s shouldn’t be in consideration for this.
ALEX: I mean, no. They shouldn’t. I mean, I would not—if I was not coming from the A’s but, say, was new to baseball, well, I have a few more questions. But I would not gravitate toward the A’s anyway. Like the things they have going for right now are uniforms, who I think are some of which are among the best in baseball.
BOBBY: Yes. Kelly Green is number one [49:00]
ALEX: Kelly Green is like—yeah, without a doubt. And stadium experience, I think pretty good. Fun place to see a baseball game. Now, amenities-wise, not what you’re looking for.
BOBBY: What say you about the architectural sketches of the new stadium that they would like to build in Oakland?
ALEX: Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
BOBBY: Where did they actually rank? Did you put them? Did you—did you fill out their categories? Where did they rank?
ALEX: 24th.
BOBBY: Yikers.
ALEX: Which given their recent success, which came in at a one out of five, pretty, uh, pretty all right. Pretty all right. Um—
BOBBY: Their future prospect has gotta be a one out of five also.
ALEX: Future prospects, two out of 10.
BOBBY: Okay. So one out of five.
ALEX: So one out of five.
BOBBY: Oh, it’s a bummer town, man.
ALEX: It’s—it’s a bummer town.
BOBBY: The organization is completely barren. I think that it’s an interesting opportunity for a new ownership group. That is what I will say. I don’t think that they stand a chance if we’re—are doing this exercise earnestly. Like, I don’t think they stand up to the other teams that you still have in consideration.
ALEX: No, not—not in the slightest.
BOBBY: Objectively, but, you know, this is a subjective thing for you. So that leaves us with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The—
ALEX: Uh, we’re already regretting that one a little bit.
BOBBY: The Seattle Mariners, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Baltimore Orioles, the Cincinnati Reds, owned by Bob Castellini.
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: The Chicago Cubs owned by the Ricketts. And the Minnesota Twins on by the DNC zone, Pohlad family. So those are the contenders. While you maul those over, let me, um, really quickly share for you the miscellaneous pitches that we got, that were not associated with a single team. The first one comes from—and I want you to be thinking about those teams—
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: —so that you can actually choose when— when I’m done. Um, or you could choose one of these—these alternative paths that our listeners laid out. The first one comes from Marcus. Marcus would like to make the case that Alex’s new favorite team should be Minor League Baseball. You’d be like Rob Lowe at the NFL stadium, just wearing the Minor League Baseball logo. Hear me out. It’s more about the players than about a specific team, the fledgling Miley union, cool and wacky jerseys. You’re not as directly supporting the awful billionaires that run the sport. Uh, you can follow a local team, cheaper tickets, cheaper food, better parking, better experience. Players are right there in front of you. Admitted downside player consistency is an issue. Team rolls over fairly frequently.
ALEX: Familiar with it.
BOBBY: And—
ALEX: Not—not an issue.
BOBBY: And teams are not as focused on winning as they are on developing the players.
ALEX: Not an issue.
BOBBY: Um, just think of the freedom and with, uh, MLB video available for almost any team, you can refer just about anybody. Though I’d encourage you to Double-A or a Triple-A team, because single a production value can be a bit painful on the MLB TV app. So, that is Marcus’ pitch, and we also have some voicemails, pitching, uh, slightly alternative ways of consuming the game.
GREG: Hello, Alex and Bobby. My name is Greg, longtime listener and first-time caller, I’d like to weigh in on Alex’s search for a new team as he moves away from Oakland and soon-to-be Las Vegas A’s fandom. I felt like a lot more people do this in the NBA versus other sports due to the amount of player movement in that league, but I’m trying to grant the baseball. So rather than being a fan of a team, be a fan of players. Just follow your favorite players, you root for them rather than a specific team. Now, the same goes with supporting a team is just rooting for laundry. Well, transcend supporting teams and support players instead regardless of their laundry. Alternatively, if you insist on picking a team, then just pick the team with the best laundry, which, ironically, it might be the Oakland A’s. Anyway, good luck with your search. Just don’t choose the Cardinals.
BOBBY: Really funny voicemail. Thank you for—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —calling, in Greg. Uh, next voicemail comes from a familiar—a familiar friend at the show, Becca.
BECCA: Hi, Bobby and Alex. This is Becca and I’m calling to submit my suggestion for Alex’s new team. My suggestion is that Alex should not pick a new team. I’m not saying that he should stay committed to the Oakland A’s. I think he should just not have a team at all. I am most often assumed to be a fan of the Washington Nationals since they are my local team, my part-time employer. But I’ve actually been team agnostic for the vast majority of my baseball fandom, and I think there’s a wonderful way to consume baseball. The con, admittedly, baseball does not quite incite as much emotion when you aren’t attached to a team. But the pros is that baseball does not incite as much emotion when you aren’t attached to the team. So, while you don’t get to revel in your team’s successes, you’re also guaranteed to not have your day ruined by a hanging slider, a bust double play, or it end up [53:55] fly ball, you get the point. You get to just watch baseball and enjoy the game for what it is rather than place your emotional stability on 26 guys. So, I think that being a teamless fan is the best option for Alex. Uh, so while you make your—your way through the list of 30 Major League teams plus potential Vegas team, remember there is a 32nd option.
BOBBY: A wonderful case from Becca. A similar case to the next voicemail, which comes from longtime friend of the show as well, Kieran.
KIERAN: Hi, Bobby, Hi, Alex. It’s Kieran. I’m just calling to make my case for the independence. So, Alex, I know you’re looking for a new team, but let me offer this. How about no team? This is what I’ve been doing for the past couple of years and I’ve found it incredibly rewarding. I know you’re looking for good jerseys. Well, I have jerseys from, like, five different teams. I just did a count. I have hats representing 13 different MLB teams, and it’s because I’ve totally removed my desire to cheer for baseball, from the desire to cheer for some stupid corporation that doesn’t give a shit about me. Now, I’m just cheering for players that I love. And I worried going into that season, that first season where I was just cheering for players. I worried if I —like maybe I wasn’t gonna watch as much baseball or maybe it wasn’t going to care as much when the playoffs came around. But that’s just not the case. When you love great players, they inevitably end up playing in games that you want to watch. And I’ll set my weekly schedule to watch pitching matchups that I want. I found that I started watching more varied Debbie of games, just because I wasn’t tied to just watching one team all the time. So maybe—a solution to this problem is no team at all. That way you don’t have to get rid of all you’re A’s gear. Okay, have a good one. Bye.
BOBBY: Okay, Alex. It’s all on the table. We’ve been recording for—you know, we’re coming up on three and a half hours—
ALEX: Yeah, we are.
BOBBY: —content about finding you a new team. But if we’re not going to spend this time doing this, what are we going to spend this much time on, you know? This is a worthwhile endeavor. This is 60 years of your life.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: 60 years of running on the field. 60 years of watching 162 two-and-a half to three-and-a-half-hour baseball games, depending on how much Rob Manfred’s pitch clock really lasts. So as a recap for the listeners, the options are no new team, choose players to follow, Minor League Baseball. Choose a Minor League team, I suppose. The Los Angeles Dodgers, the Seattle Mariners, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Baltimore Orioles, the Cincinnati Reds, Chicago Cubs, and the Minnesota Twins. Would you like to take anyone out of consideration now to make this job easier for you?
ALEX: Strike the Dodgers. Strike the Twins, strike the Reds. Not feeling it.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: I was in a different headspace then. I was a different person.
BOBBY: Okay. Twins, goodbye. Reds, goodbye. Dodgers, you guys have enough fans already. It’s down to brass tacks now.
ALEX: I know. I mean, this is the—this is gonna be the hardest part of the exercise, right? Like, we did all the fun stuff. Do I even need to pick something at this point?
BOBBY: Obviously, this is the hardest part of the—can you imagine somebody listens to this long on the podcast? And you’re just like, “That’s it. Just for, and I might not even pick a team. Come on, dude.
ALEX: Yeah, I can’t let that happen.
BOBBY: I told you I was gonna be Aggro Bob. I told you I was going to be drill sergeant, foot to the fire. Are you going to give me an answer or not? You’re just afraid, because I know who you want to pick.
ALEX: I am terrified of this.
BOBBY: But you’re afraid because I’ve been shit-talking this team for years on the pod, years.
ALEX: I think we could strike the Cubs as well. Are they even still—were they still on the list?
BOBBY: They were still on the list. Yes.
ALEX: Okay. I don’t know how they made it that far, to be quite honest.
BOBBY: It’s just the Ricketts stink all over them that makes it hard.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I can see a world in which you’re—you spent decades as a Cubs fan. Going to Cubs games, maybe.
ALEX: Yeah, sure.
BOBBY: I can see that world. Orioles, Mariners, Phillies, no team, which feels like a cop-out. ALEX: Right. I mean, what I—what I’ll say is like all of the options presented at the end feel like the healthiest ways to consume the game of baseball, which is not tied to one corporate entity, and is more based on enjoyment of the game itself. I’m sure if we had—uh, if we’d gotten in front of the pod, Michael Bauman on the line, he would have happily made the case to—uh, he would have happily made the case for college baseball as well. Which I’m glad we didn’t, because the pod would have been another hour.
BOBBY: If not more.
ALEX: If not—if not more than that. Um, I—there is something alluring about saying, “Hey, let me just—I’ll just watch the—the guys as they—as they come up.”
BOBBY: But, like, isn’t that what we already do, though?
ALEX: I—I know. I know.
BOBBY: We have our team and we also root for other guys. Like—
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: —there are teams that I root against because of the team that I like, but I don’t necessarily root for players to fail. I’m not—when Ronald Acuña goes up and has an—at bat against the Pirates, I’m not like, “Oh, I hope Ronald Acuña Jr. strikes out four times today.” Like, he’s great. I hate the Braves and I hope they lose, but it’d be nice if Ronald Acuña hit a home run.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That—that’s cool. That’s fun.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So, I—I kind of feel like we already do that.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: And to choose no team at this point would sort of be like abstaining, to be honest.
ALEX: I’m waffling on the Mariners because they’re a West Coast team, makes it hard. I wouldn’t—I would never see them, right, unless I move there. Like, I don’t go—
BOBBY: Oh, you’ll ever see them in person?
ALEX: I would never see them in—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —person, right? Because I don’t—I—
BOBBY: Except when they play the Yankees, which then you have to wear Mariners stuff to Yankee Stadium.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Which would be kind of cool, actually.
ALEX: It’d be cool. I enjoy wearing A’s stuff to Yankees games. You get—
BOBBY: Wow. I feel like so much—why won’t just stay a fan then?
ALEX: No, it’s about the hatred from the Yankees fans that keep me—
BOBBY: Tyler Soderstrom. You never know.
ALEX: No, you never know. You never know.
BOBBY: Okay. Goodbye, Mariners. That was good enough for me to cross them off. It’s down to the I-95 series, the Orioles and the Phillies, and I am scared.
ALEX: I kind of am, too. I don’t know what I’m gonna say.
BOBBY: Just think about it, 60 years. What’s Philadelphia gonna be like in 2083?
ALEX: What’s any of this gonna be like in 2083? They’re like—
BOBBY: I feel pretty confident I know what Philadelphia will be like in 2083, exactly like it is right now.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah. Not a damn thing will have changed.
BOBBY: Strong backbone, that city.
ALEX: The thing is one of these teams I came into this exercise really pulling for and here they are in front of me. And the other team, I just did not have on my radar.
BOBBY: But you heard a very compelling case for—
ALEX: But I’ve heard some—a lot of compelling cases, arguably the most compelling cases from said fan base, which is—which is causing me, uh, some pause here.
BOBBY: This is giving incredible, um, like you got to choose where you’re going to college energy. No wrong answer. You’ll have a great experience either way, right?
ALEX: No—right. No Wrong answer. You end up in debt no matter what, so fuck it, but—
BOBBY: And if you choose the wrong one, you’re not friends with me anymore, so—
ALEX: Yeah, right. No pressure.
BOBBY: Same with college, which is where we met.
ALEX: So you’re telling me there’s a prospective, Bobby, out there in the fan base of either one of these teams?
BOBBY: Um, wait, I’m not following the question. So, like, you find a new me who’s a Phillies fan?
ALEX: Well, it doesn’t have to be a new—uh, a new you. It’s—now, I feel like—you want me to hand me the shovel in the corner over there?
BOBBY: I’m just tired, man.
ALEX: I—me, too.
BOBBY: This has been a test of endurance, and we’re in the arena. The gauntlet is thrown.
ALEX: The gauntlet is thrown. The thing is I—
BOBBY: I’m just saying stuff.
ALEX: The thing is I know what I want to say. Well, a little afraid to say it. I—I will—
BOBBY: I want to say—I want to absolve you of the pressure.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Nothing that you could do as a Phillies fan would hurt me more than the intense bullying that I experienced as a child from adult Philadelphia Phillies fans. So I am steeled to it, I have a thick armor to Philadelphia Phillies fans. I have many Philadelphia Phillies fans in my life whom I love. So if you want to do that, for the content, you can do that.
ALEX: So what you’re telling me is I have—what I have to look forward to with being a Phillies fan is having kids to bully? This is—this is what’s coming down the road for me?
BOBBY: Like straight up yes. Like, that is what being—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —a Phillies fan is, bullying children.
ALEX: That’ll play.
BOBBY: It’s equal opportunity. It doesn’t have to be children, but they’re also not shielded, because they’re children.
ALEX: Right. Okay. That’s fair. I appreciate the clarity there. Sorry, can I check your ID first before I believe you?
BOBBY: Over 18, you’re good. Keep moving.
ALEX: You must be this height or under.
BOBBY: Um, I mean, you—you—you felt the wrath of the Phillies.
ALEX: I do. Well, that’s what I was gonna say is it’s actually the—the stadium in which I have felt the most wrath from—from opposing fans. Now, I should note largely deserved.
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah.
ALEX: At least on one count.
BOBBY: Which kind of you’re referring to when you sat for the national anthem?
ALEX: No, that one was unwarranted.
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: I met—I met when we were shit-talking—
BOBBY: Everything and anything around us?
ALEX: —Vanilla Ice.
BOBBY: Yeah, right. Great episode of this podcast.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. So, like, I thought I had commitment issues before, but, like, there’s a little fire inside me.
BOBBY: Oh, my gosh. You’re being Stockholm syndrome by the Phillies.
ALEX: I kind of am, and it’s kind of working. I’m kind of looking over there and I’m like, “You know what? Maybe this prison is nice.”
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: There’s only—look, I will say there’s only one player on all of these teams, all the teams that we considered, who has a hairline whose products one of us has tried.
BOBBY: That’s true. Much to consider. And he’s gonna—
ALEX: It’s not Adley. Yeah.
BOBBY: He’s gonna finish his career—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —as a Philly.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: All right, you got to do it. You gotta just choose one or the other. You—you have to do it. This is—
ALEX: Let’s go Phillies.
SPEAKER 8: I’m in the corner, watching you kiss her, oh.
BOBBY: Oh, my gosh. Three and a half hours of our lives to come out with the Philadelphia Phillies as Alex Bazeley’s new team. I’m happy for you. This is great.
ALEX: I don’t know how I feel yet. I’m already like—I just remembered Xfinity Live! and was like, “Fuck, what have I done?”
BOBBY: There’s no going back now, it’s recorded.
ALEX: I know, it is.
BOBBY: Um, wow. Big thank you to everybody who wrote in to help us with this episode. This was a real community effort from everybody, all the voicemails, all the emails, all the engagement, all of the, you know, plugging of this episode that we’ve done. We really appreciate it. We appreciate everybody’s attentiveness to listening to—to find out that Alex is a Philadelphia Phillies fan. I can’t even believe it as I say it. 45 minutes of sleep, could have dreamt this whole thing. As a reminder, the Patreon, the Brooklyn Cyclones meet-up, all of that good stuff. I’ve plugged that stuff enough at this point. Um, again, sincere appreciation. Alex, I turn it to you to close this out. How do you feel? Do you feel absolved?
ALEX: I got just one thing to say, ring the damn bell, baby.
BOBBY: I’m gonna be sick. Thanks everybody. Thanks everybody for listening. We’ll be back next week maybe, maybe not. Maybe this podcast is over.
SPEAKER 9: Shine the light, won’t you shine the light? Philadelphia freedom, I love. Yes, I do
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Hello, everybody, uh, 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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