Alex and Bobby banter about infrastructure in Pennsylvania and the destruction of the cap shuffle in Washington, D.C., then discuss the rationale behind Arte Moreno’s waiver wire frenzy, Jerry Reinsdorf’s jarring lack of hobbies, and Brian Cashman and the Yankees’ inevitable turn to “outside consultants.”
Submit questions for a Tipping Pitches milestone
Links:
Answering questions about the Angels’ waiver wire dump
Reinsdorf on the 2023 White Sox
Reinsdorf on the possibility of selling
Reinsdorf on Mitch McConnell
White Sox decline to hire diverse group of GM candidates
Yankees bringing in outside consultants
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Songs featured in this episode:
The Cardigans — “Live and Learn” • Booker T & the M.G.’s — “Green Onions”
Transcript
Tell us a little bit about what you saw and—and—and being able to relay that message to Cora when you watch Kimbrel pitching and kind of help out, so he wasn’t Tipping his Pitches. So Tipping Pitches, we hear about it all the time. People are home on the stand, what Tipping Pitches it’s all about? That’s amazing! That’s remarkable.
BOBBY: Alex, we formed a new podcast segment in our lives over the weekend. Am I— can I tell people about this? Do you know what I’m referring to?
ALEX: I don’t, so you’re gonna have to refresh my memory.
BOBBY: Well, this segment that we debuted on our trip to Washington, DC this weekend, it’s something that requires your memory. It’s something that requires you to learn, to listen and to learn. And this new segment in our lives is called Alex’s Philadelphia Education.
ALEX: That’s right. I— as— as listeners of the show, no, I have very happily hopped aboard the Phillies bandwagon this year and— and every year in the future, you might say. I guess that— that remains to be seen.
BOBBY: No, I— I seem to remember you committing six decades. That’s—
ALEX: Yeah, you’re right about that. Yeah.
BOBBY: —60 years of your life, you said.
ALEX: But— but as I relayed to you—
BOBBY: As I sit here, I got a Reddit notification from the Philly subreddit because I know that you’re spending time on there for our shared Reddit account.
ALEX: I— I— I divulge to you that— if I’m being quite honest, I— I feel like a bit of a fraud at the moment, you know? I’ve— I’ve— I’ve adopted the— the costume, but— but I haven’t grown up in the culture, you know? And I’m— and I think that’s not fair to other Phillies fans nor to myself, so I’m relying on you, my Delco professor to really— to show me the ropes.
BOBBY: I’m not from Delco. This is not from Delco. I would not sound like this if I was from Delco. I would sound more like Delco Dave who has called into the show a couple times—
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: —over the years. Thanks to Delco Dave. I would just like to point out how magnanimous of a person I am. You go— you choose the Philadelphia Phillies, my lifelong enemy and you say, “I feel like I’m not— I don’t know how to be a true Philadelphian and then I’m going to have to lean on you to learn that.” And what do I say? I’ll say, “I’ll be your teacher. Come with me. We can share the Philadelphian experience.” And so we came up with six categories, and whenever Alex would like to request— maybe once a week and maybe we can do it on this podcast. Whenever Alex would like to request a lesson on Philadelphia culture, he can choose from one of the categories, sports, political figures, infrastructure, food, regional phrasing, and popery. Political figures is not— I don’t love that one. Maybe this is like—
ALEX: That’s just— maybe [02:53]
BOBBY: Maybe just like famous people, like famous Philadelphians—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —unrelated to sports might be a more accurate category. So—
ALEX: Like cultural figures?
BOBBY: We’ve done two lessons so far. What were those lessons about?
ALEX: Let’s see. I learned about— about Jaws.
BOBBY: Yeah, you did.
ALEX: In fact, I learned so much about him, I don’t actually remember what his actual name is.
BOBBY: Come on. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. Not knowing his name is part of it. Ron Jaworski, former Philadelphia’s quarterback.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: First quarterback to bring the Eagles to the Super Bowl.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: Alex learned all about him this weekend.
ALEX: I did, and I’m a big fan now.
BOBBY: And then what was lesson— what was lesson number two?
ALEX: And— and number two is when it’s especially beautiful outside, you might be interested in— you might be interested in— in taking an excursion to the beach. And you know how I would relate that desire?
BOBBY: Right. Nicki Minaj said, “Let’s go to the beach, beach.
ALEX: Yes. Beach, beach.
BOBBY: Let’s go get a wave. But if Nicki Minaj was from Philadelphia, what would she have said? What would the lyric be?
ALEX: She might say, “We’re going down the shore.”
BOBBY: Okay. Do you want to do a quick lesson right now in this cold open right here?
ALEX: I do.
BOBBY: Alright. What category?
ALEX: Are you— are you, like, ready on all fronts? Is there one— one—
BOBBY: No, no. There might be, like, 30 seconds of silence that I cut out here—
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: — but the listener will never know what category.
ALEX: I— I want to hear what you have to tell me about infrastructure.
BOBBY: Infrastructure. Why is that one of the categories?
ALEX: You made them. I don’t know.
BOBBY: Did I?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I thought we kind of made them together. This email came at—
ALEX: No, this was the middle of the day.
BOBBY: A modest 5:48 p.m.
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: I thought it was at 1:15 a.m., but that was a previous email. The way that we produced the show now, emailing yourselves.
ALEX: Emailing yourselves.
BOBBY: Oh, okay. Infrastructure.
ALEX: Josh Shapiro’s recent win doesn’t count either, I just want to say.
BOBBY: So there are two large bridges in the city of Philadelphia as you are aware,.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I think you know this, that there is a river—
ALEX: I’ve—
BOBBY: —to— to the—
ALEX: Yeah [04:43]
BOBBY: — to the east of Philadelphia, that’s called the Delaware River.
ALEX: Uh-huh. Right.
BOBBY: One of those bridges is called the Ben Franklin Bridge, for obvious reasons. You know— you know all about Ben Franklin. The other bridge is called the Walt Whitman Bridge.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: Not because Walt Whitman was from Philadelphia.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Not even because he was from New Jersey. It was because he spent the last few years of his life and died, then came to New Jersey. And they were like, “To honor him, let’s name it the Walt Whitman Bridge.” So now you know the Ben Franklin Bridge and the Waltman— Walt Whitman Bridge, the two bridges that you’ll need to know if you’re driving through the city of Philadelphia. There are some infrastructure facts for you.
ALEX: That’s— that’s amazing. They were like, “Someone, like, went out of their way to come die here. We need to plaster their name all over town.”
BOBBY: He died on the Camden side—
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: —which is even more obscure than dying on the Philadelphia side. Camden is like Philadelphia but with way less respect and way less cultural footprint. Can you imagine what type of person that breeds?
ALEX: Yeah, seriously.
BOBBY: My father was born in Camden, New Jersey.
ALEX: Okay, there you go. So, I actually can—
BOBBY: Exactly. Although, he didn’t really live there for very long. Just a couple of years of his— of his young life before moving to California. When I was a kid, we’re driving past the Walt Whitman Bridge and my— my dad goes— you know, like when you’re— you’d like quiz your kid on something in history.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like, “Oh, do you know what— like, what did Walt Whitman do?” And my sister was like, Wasn’t he a president?” And so we kept going with the bit.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: We were like, “Oh, yes, he was a president.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: We were like, “Oh, when— when— when do you think he was?” You know, “What did he do— which president do you think Walt Whitman actually was?” And we kept it going for about a couple hours before my sister realized that we were kind of laughing at the whole situation.
ALEX: Oh, so she had not clued in on the bit. You guys—
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: You guys were— were keeping it going for her sake.
BOBBY: Right. To be clear, she is five years older than me so she should have known. I was, like, 10 when this happened, so she was, like, 15.
ALEX: Right, but you had picked up on it, like—
BOBBY: Right, exactly. So not that any listener would have a use case for this, but you might if you ever see my— next time you see my sister, just ask her what her favorite thing that Walt Whitman did as president was. Alright. Infrastructure. Walt Whitman Bridge, Ben Franklin Bridge. We have non-Philadelphia infrastructure related things to talk about.
ALEX: You haven’t seen my list.
BOBBY: That is— well, that’s true. We have a truly bizarre series of events for the— for the Los Angeles Angels. What else is new? We have some follow-ups on the whole— the whole situation that is the Chicago White Sox. And, of course, we have one of our favorite things. We have outside consultants coming in to help one of MLB’s marquee franchises. We are going to talk about all of that, but before we do, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I’m Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[theme]
BOBBY: Alex, thank you to this week’s new patron. That new patron is Slicker Joe. Slicker Joe, Thank you. Where would you like to start? We got the Angels, we got the White Sox, and we got the New York Yankees.
ALEX: I’m gonna— I’m gonna zag. I don’t want to start with any of those.
BOBBY: Okay. More bridge talk.
ALEX: I want to start— yeah. I want to start with something I witnessed at— at the Washington Nationals, Miami Marlins baseball game that we—
BOBBY: Okay, great.
ALEX: —attended together this weekend.
BOBBY: Great.
ALEX: We took a little Labor Day trip down to Washington, DC.
BOBBY: Passed the famous— made famous by Tipping Pitches, Joe Biden rest— not memorial.
ALEX: Not memorial rest stop because he’s not dead.
BOBBY: I don’t know why I always call it a memorial rest stop, but that would imply that he’s no longer alive, which some people in this country believe.
ALEX: We saw a— a fun baseball game. We saw a baseball game—
BOBBY: They went to extra innings.
ALEX: —between two teams who did go to extra innings. I think the— I think the Marlins pulled out in front on that one, but I don’t quite remember.
BOBBY: We weren’t there for the 11th inning when the Marlins won.
ALEX: That— you know, that— that makes a lot of sense—
BOBBY: You can’t remember something that you weren’t there for.
ALEX: —because I was a little worried about the alternative. So you’re familiar with the— the— the hat shuffle game that they do on the jumbotron, right?
BOBBY: Oh, yeah. I am, yes. Who is not—
ALEX: You know what I’m about to say?
BOBBY: It’s one of the more fun moments of the baseball game, you know?
ALEX: It is. It’s riveting.
BOBBY: You spend $50 on a ticket to go sit there, and the most riveted people are— is when they look at the jumbotron for a pre—pre-animated hat shuffle.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Which doesn’t even yields you anything. You don’t win anything if you get it right.
ALEX: Right, you don’t. It’s like that and the— and the Dot Race, I feel like are kind of the two— it’s like, “Let’s like”— like the Wordle of the baseball world. You know—
BOBBY: A Dot Race?
ALEX: —everyone needs like a little— have you ever seen— or maybe it was just a coliseum thing— maybe it’s not always a Dot. Sometimes they do like—
BOBBY: Oh, like— yeah.
ALEX: —like, you know like actual races or like it’s a car— or a BART race or a—
BOBBY: Right. I mean, famously, the Nationals do the best president race.
ALEX: Do the— in-person mascot race.
BOBBY: Like Walt Whitman versus George Washington versus—
ALEX: Ben Franklin.
BOBBY: Yeah, Jefferson versus Ben Franklin.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Right, exactly.
ALEX: No, you can see that the hat shuffle is defined by two pieces of the game that are familiar to everyone who witnesses them, right?
BOBBY: Right. Hat and ball.
ALEX: There are— hat and ball. The ball goes under the hat. There are multiple hats. You shuffle them, and then see if you can guess where they are. I don’t even want to go into the fact that the Nationals incorporate more hats throughout—
BOBBY: I know. There are, like, nine hats.
ALEX: —and they’re like, “Here— here’s three more.”
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Okay. Changing the rules on me.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: It’s no longer baseball, Bobby, that they put under the hat. You know what it is? It’s poker chips. Poker chips. I just like— I did a double take when I saw it and I— and we don’t have to talk about this for 20 minutes and pretend that it’s reflective of baseball’s slow slide towards moral decay, although we could.
BOBBY: But it is reflective of that. We don’t have to pretend anything.
ALEX: Right. I— I know.
BOBBY: There’s just not anything insightful that is not already observed by the nature of the fact that they changed it.
ALEX: I’m just like, “Look what they took from us.” You know?
BOBBY: Why even play with a ball at all?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: On a field?
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Why— I mean, take it one step further, why even play at all? Generate the whole nine innings.
BOBBY: Why isn’t all this taking place in MLB’s virtual ballpark?
ALEX: Literally.
BOBBY: That has really resonated with me, because the whole time— we were sitting in right field in the upper deck, and so, you know, our— I— I’d say the angle of our seat was a little strange. You had to kind of turn to the left a little bit to see home plate. So if you were just sitting straight forward, looking straight ahead, you’re looking at the left fielder. And so therefore, you were looking at the left field wall as well, where all of the ads are. And there were a lot of ads for normal stuff, like products that you can use in the real world. A thing that you could go buy. Maybe a thing that you could go eat. A drink that you could drink. Normal stuff.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Right there, smack in the middle, bigger than all of them, was an ad for a thing that no longer exists, Terracoin. I know we’ve already had— like, literally had this exact conversation about the Nationals before, about how they’re still advertising a blockchain coin that went bankrupt like 18 months ago.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: But is it just because in order to claim their money from the bankruptcy court, they have to continue to hold up their end of the bargain and that they’re advertising for the— like, what— how much money could they possibly be getting from the bankrupt blockchain company? I don’t—
ALEX: It’s— I mean, I just hate that, like, every three months, there’s like a new, usually, relatively small thing that happens in a baseball game, or within a team that you can justifiably point to and say, “Fans of the game are the ones who are going to be left holding the bag on this one.” Whether it’s through a crypto coin that you could have reasonably predicted might go belly up at any point in the next 6, 12, 18 months.
BOBBY: I still believe it’s coming back.
ALEX: You think?
BOBBY: Buy the dip.
ALEX: Yeah. Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Buy the dip.
ALEX: Or just like— or just like [12:56] yeah.
BOBBY: Buy shares from the company from the— the federal bankruptcy court. Oh, yeah. Or just gambling. That’s true. Gambling thing is gnarly. Do you remember— do you even remember what casino it was?
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Is the ad working?
ALEX: No, it wasn’t.
BOBBY: Great. That’s— that’s good. Thank you for zagging. I’m— I appreciate that you brought that—
ALEX: Of course.
BOBBY: —piece of color to the listeners of the Tipping Pitches podcast.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Did you have a good time at Nats Park?
ALEX: I did. I— I like going to Nats games. The two I’ve been— three I’ve been to.
BOBBY: My big takeaway from the Nats game is that the Nats fans love CJ Abrams.
ALEX: That was the other takeaway that I wrote down.
BOBBY: They love that guy.
ALEX: He got a standing ovation on, like, his last AB of the game, and all the ones before it, too.
BOBBY: My other— my other big takeaway from going to a Nats game is that I do think that the Nationals have— I— I had a tough time phrasing this to you when I was trying to share this observation on the subway on the way home. I do think the Nationals have the highest percentage of fans wearing jerseys of players who are no longer on the team.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: Of any fan base in Major League Baseball. Every single jersey that you see—
ALEX: I mean, maybe except the A’s.
BOBBY: Nobody wears A’s jerseys with names on the back, though.
ALEX: You’re— I guess that’s a loophole, a big one there.
BOBBY: Well, excluding retired players, I guess.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: Like, players that are still currently playing, but are just on different teams.
ALEX: Right. Okay. Yes.
BOBBY: It’s like it’s all Soto, Harper, Trea Turner. I saw a bunch of Schwarber jerseys.
ALEX: Schwarber, yeah.
BOBBY: He was there for half a year, but that’s okay.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah. You know— I mean, you know, all the— all the same names that we’ve talked about the Nationals dumped their entire— entire good team after when Scherzer, it’s a big one that I forgot. I don’t know. You know who— I didn’t see one single jersey for Patrick Corbin. I was proud.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: Nationals fans holding it down. I saw a Hunter Harvey jersey, but no Patrick Corbin jersey.
ALEX: So what you’re saying is these lobbyists are not fake fans?
BOBBY: No, I think they’re real fans. I— I don’t think that the lobbyists are coming out to the games in the seasons where the Nationals are like 25 games under .500.
ALEX: Really? I think that they’re not going there for the games, period. I think they’re getting the ticket for free through their employer that don’t [15:05]
BOBBY: In that case, we probably didn’t even see them. They were probably in the luxury box—
ALEX: Well, yes, you are right about that.
BOBBY: —that we had to go down the elevator to go around four different times to get to our seats.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Nationals Park, not well-designed.
ALEX: No, it’s not well-designed [15:13]
BOBBY: Not well-designed at all. Very poorly designed ballpark. You have to go to multiple elevators. There’s only an escalator on the one side and not in the side where the seats that we were sitting in. The whole thing. I had great chicken nuggets, though.
ALEX: I’m glad.
BOBBY: Can we talk about the Angels?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Another ballpark that is poorly designed and—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —not that fun to see a game at. Although, Nats park is fun to see a game at. I’ll hand it— I’ll— I’ll give it to them for that.
ALEX: Angels— the Angels stadium is— I think the part— okay. I will preface this by saying I’ve— I’ve never actually been there. I’ve never seen it in person.
BOBBY: And here’s the thing about the Angels stadium.
ALEX: Here’s the thing about the Angels stadium, as someone—
BOBBY: Number one thing, I’ve never— yeah, someone who’s never been there.
ALEX: — as someone who’s never been— but, no, as someone who’s only seen it on TV, like playing the A’s usually, I have always found it to, like, be— like when I was growing up, I would look at it and I was like, “Oh, that looks like a really beautiful ballpark.” You know? And, like, as I grew older, I started to realize that it’s like— it’s like what someone who has no experience with, like, architecture—
BOBBY: Hmm.
ALEX: — thinks a beautiful— or baseball. Thinks a beautiful ballpark would look like. Like, it’s got the, like, fake rocks and, like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —waterfall—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —in centerfield.
BOBBY: That looks really good from, like, 10,000 feet in the air.
ALEX: Yeah, I bet it does.
BOBBY: You were there. You can, like, literally touch the fake rocks, like you can— on the backside—
ALEX: Oh, really?
BOBBY: Yeah. It looks really bad. I mean, it looks very consistent with something that’s right down the street from it, which is Disneyland.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: It looks like that kind of faux actual design—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —amusement park energy to it. It’s just— it’s not as fun as Disneyland. We’d have better time at Disneyland. Especially given the team—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —that the Angels have put on the field. Angels Stadium feels like— like what ChatGPT would make if you told someone to make a version of Dodger Stadium but in Orange County. The Angels cut everyone on their baseball team.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: They cut all of the players.
ALEX: Let them go.
BOBBY: The Angels placed Lucas Giolito, Matt Moore, Reynaldo Lopez, Hunter Renfroe, and Randal Grichuk all on waivers on August 29th, two days before the deadline to actually place them on waivers to give them, I guess, time to be picked up by other teams. A few years ago, you know the— the rule changed about the waiver wire trade deadline. It was previously that— there was a trade deadline on July 31st for normal trades. And then on August 31st, there was a trade deadline that you could trade a player, but through a different process by placing them on waivers and going down the list in reverse order of teams by record, and seeing if any of those teams wanted to complete a trade with you for that player. This was functionally like a second trade deadline, because if you didn’t want to agree to the conditions of the trade with any of those other teams, you didn’t have to, and then it would veto the trade or just nix the trade.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: MLB got rid of that because it was kind of like inconsistent and a— a weird thing that players could feel like they weren’t going to be traded at the July 31st trade deadline, and then, like, huge names could move at the August 31st trade deadline, like Justin Verlander was traded to the Astros was a waiver wire trade deadline. All of that bureaucratic process aside, that no longer exists, I’m not sure if the Angels really— I’m not sure what they knew about that. That no longer exists. This move by the Angels is literally— was literally just them cutting all of those players that I just named. They— they’re no longer able to receive anything in return for them. And the reason that they did this was because they wanted the salary relief of not having to pay those players. Some of them were the Angel— were on the Angels higher side of salaries for this past year and, you know, particularly Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez, they had just traded for those players—
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: —like two weeks earlier, three weeks earlier. And so it was one of the more bizarre moves that I can possibly remember a team executing, because you just decided to get those players. You basically, for the first time in your franchise, had decided that it was worthwhile to go into the luxury tax to try to— just— just into the first tier of the luxury task— tax to try to push Shohei Ohtani having maybe the best season of any player ever into the playoffs. And then Otani— it was revealed that he had a torn UCL and Mike Trout tried to come back too early, and he either re-injured himself or realized that he was not ready to come back. And the Angels lost a bunch of games in a row and they were like, “Well, we’re not going to make it. So what are we going to do? We’re just going to cut half of our team.” And they were pretty transparent about the fact that it was just because they wanted to get back onto the luxury tax, and that they did. I— it’s— it’s probably, like, not true to call something like this unprecedented. Like, I’m sure players— I’m sure teams have cut, you know, a handful of players when they were out of contention. But given that these are players that they just got, that they just traded for, and given how directly motivated by money and salary this was, I do think it is like— it— it does not remind me of anything that I have seen before.
ALEX: Yeah, it’s very much a direct result of these new rules that don’t allow you to make the August trades, right? Which— which allowed teams to say, “Hey, our trade deadline push didn’t really work. We’ve got a little bit of wiggle room here and we might be able to offload some of our— oftentimes, like— like, again, higher-salaried players or players who did not have much left on their contract that it seemed likely would make it through waivers, right? That you’d be able to agree to a— to a trade with a team and there wouldn’t be other teams in front of them on the waiver line, who would say, “Oh, I— I want that player.” Right? Which is why they’re not— which is why they’re not cutting anyone who could be remotely considered to be a part of their future, right? These guys are all free agents after the year. None of them are getting qualifying offers, so it’s a sunk cost for them, basically, right? They’re like— and it’s— and it’s about the luxury tax, but it like almost isn’t even, right? Because it’s really about the compensation pick that they’ll receive as a result of being under the luxury tax, right? They’re saving, like, a few million dollars, I think in the realm of like five or $6 million, right? That pushes them just under, and that means when Shohei Otani walks this year, and they extend them a qualifying offer and he turns it down, which he will, they’ll get a second round pick instead of a fourth round pick. That— and that’s it. Like that’s it. It starts and ends there, right? It’s just a cynical play to get a slightly better standing— get a slightly better return for wasting Shohei Otani’s— much of Shohei Otani’s prime and you get to save a couple of million dollars, that can’t hurt, right? I think you’re right, that like the— about the unprecedented side of this, again, in part because these rules are— are new. But like this— this kind of thing almost feels very— this is the kind of thing that I think you— you might have realized would happen, you know? When you start thinking about the ways that owners approach running a baseball team, right, is that they’re not stewards of the game who are worried about how their moves will impact competition across the league heading into September, heading into a playoff race, right? Like, you don’t— you don’t have to consider those.
BOBBY: Right. They just— they just put five good— pretty good players like on the waiver wire for anyone to pick up if they wanted them.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Yeah. And like you don’t— and you don’t have to think about that and that’s— and that’s fine, right? You are thinking about your own team and whether you can marginally maybe get better for the next year. But it is the commissioner’s job to be a steward of the game, right? And when you see stuff like this—
BOBBY: Huh.
ALEX: —that’s like— well, I mean, no, but—
BOBBY: Yes, I know.
ALEX: —but, like, kind of, right?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Like— like they are, in theory, the only check on the power of owners, right? And oftentimes that means that they carry the water for the owners, but it also means that when an owner goes out of line and does something so craven like this, I don’t know. I would think it would be incumbent upon the commissioner to say that’s not allowed.
BOBBY: It’s interesting because like they’re— so— had the Angels held on to any of these players, most likely none of them would have been worth a qualifying offer. Qualifying offer will likely land around— somewhere around $20 million for one year. For— and for those of you who are listening who don’t know what the qualifying offer is, like when you become a free agent, your previous team can offer you a— a standard rate that is determined based on the average salaries of— based on the average salaries of players across the league as a qualifying offer. Basically, like some form of a— a median or average contract for one year of services and you can either choose to accept that qualifying offer, come back for one year, and try to work out an extension or hit the free agent market next year. Or you reject that qualifying offer and the team receives— as compensation for losing the free agent, but attempting to retain them, they receive a pick in the second round of the upcoming MLB Draft, I believe. Second round, third round, fourth round? I don’t really know. You receive a pick in the draft. None of these players probably would have gotten a qualifying offer. The only player who I could conceivably think might get a qualifying offer because of his previous performance and because he is a starting pitcher who, you know, will be going into a market where the— there won’t be that many great starting pitchers on the market would be Lucas Giolito. But I don’t think that the Angels in 2024 would want to be paying Lucas Giolito $20 million to pitch for them.
ALEX: Well, I don’t think— I don’t think they can offer them qualifying offers because they were deadline— I think you have to be on the team for the year—
BOBBY: Oh, really?
ALEX: —to get— I mean, otherwise, you could just trade for stars at the deadline and say, “Hey, we’re not gonna sign you, but I will extend you a qualifying offer, so we get 12 first round picks next year.”
BOBBY: Well, then— if— that— that— that— then that even makes the point even more, because then there’s no— there’s no, like, reason for the Angels to remain competitive once they’ve already realized that they’re not going to make the playoffs.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So it— it filters back into this— it filters right back into this, like, dynamic, this cycle that we see all the time where it’s like if you’re going to be rewarded for not competing, or if you’re going to be rewarded for doing blatant brazen as you say, actions like this, why not—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —do them? It’s already in these owners’ personality types to not care as much about winning as they care about finances. And so when you— when you have structures like this where they’re gonna get two nice things out of something, they’re gonna get a better pick, more future value, and they’re gonna save money in the short term. It’s just— it’s like a no-brainer that someone like Arte Moreno is going to choose to do this. I just think that, to me, like this move was so even beyond like what we’ve come to know as the modern baseball owner making decisions for future value above all else. This move felt more like something out of the 1950s where it’s just like an owner is like, “Eh, I don’t want to pay the extra $5 million. Let’s— completely nuke [26:35] our entire team—”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “—for the rest of the year.” Like team chemistry, “We just acquired these players, like doing right by these players be damned, let’s just get rid of them all. Let’s cut them all.” Almost like the type of move that you make when you don’t have to hear feedback about it.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Yeah, this one was tweeted by Jeff Passan on August 29th to much, much, much, much response from fans and neutral baseball observers alike. So it’s just— it was— it was like almost quaint in that way.
ALEX: Yeah. Right. Well— and like they were not the only team to release a player ahead of this waiver that— right? The deadline also coincides with playoff roster eligibility, right? So if you’re on— if you’re in the team’s organization— if you’re on the team’s 40-man prior to September 1st, you can still roster them throughout the playoffs, right?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: So that’s— so that’s kind of where the timing on this lines up. And— and it seemed like the Yankees waived Harrison Bader and called up Jasson Dominguez, right? Because they said, “We’re not getting much out of this spot anyway. Let’s use it as an opportunity to, like, showcase one of our young stars. Or give them opportunity to try things out at the Major League level.”
BOBBY: Which that— at least makes sense.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: You know?
ALEX: Exactly, right? Especially for a team that has struggled heavily this year. You can say, “We’re already turning our eyes towards next year,” right? Which is not what the Angels are doing. They’re turning the eyes towards whenever this hypothetical prospect from the second— from the compensatory round makes the Major League, if that happens.
BOBBY: I think the craziest part to me is that they actually gave up, like, real— I mean, your mileage may vary on how well you think these prospects are going to turn out in the Majors. But they gave the White Sox real prospects to get—
ALEX: Yeah, he was like a—
BOBBY: —Giolito and Lopez on the same page.
ALEX: —he was like a top 50 prospect.
BOBBY: Like that’s not—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That’s not good process.
ALEX: Like— like, this is one of these things where—
BOBBY: It’s not even process. There’s nothing.
ALEX: No, there’s no process. It’s just reevaluating your process every week. It’s the kind of thing where like, “if I had done that, I probably just would have been too— I would have like—”
BOBBY: Way too embarrassed.
ALEX: There would— it would just— it would have been the thing where it’s like, “Well, why did I do that?” You know? It’s— it’s like cooking a meal that I don’t really feel like cooking anymore. Because I just have the ingredients, I’m like, “Well, I can’t toss it. It’s already here.”
BOBBY: Right, exactly. And then you’re sitting there, eating the meal, and you’re like, “This meal is kind of [29:00] but at least I didn’t just like rip it all up and—”
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: “—decide to eat nothing for the rest of the year.” I don’t know. They have just nothing coming down the pipeline.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Interesting question that Jake and Jordan posed on their podcast yesterday. Who do you think will have a winning season? First, the Angels or the A’s? Like another winning season, who will finish above .500?
ALEX: History tells me it’s the fucking A’s, man.
BOBBY: Exactly. Exactly. That is what Jake said.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And then Jordan, who has a much deeper knowledge of different—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —different teams— he did like different organizations’ depth charts.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He was like, “The A’s don’t have a lot going on.” it’s not like previous years, you know? It’s not like Billy Beane years or even, like, more recent David Forrester where it was like— yeah, they could cut bait with guys who were having, like, three worst seasons because they knew that there were comparable players that they could scrap— scrap together to have, like, 2.8 worst seasons—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —or something like that. And then all of a sudden—
ALEX: Then they scrapped all the comp— the— the comparable players.
BOBBY: Exactly. Now, it’s like the A’s don’t have— they don’t have any reinforcements coming, and also they don’t seem like they want to find those reinforcements. However, what the A’s do have that the Angels don’t have is like any proven track record on finding good players that aren’t named Mike Trout or Shohei Ohtani. The Angels just haven’t found any other good players, so it’s pretty bleak. Before we— before we talk about— you mentioned, Jasson Dominguez, you mentioned the Yankees, I’m fascinated to talk about your opinion on just the Yankees in general—
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: —and— and where they are right now and what— what the vibe is around the team. But before we do, I— I do feel like we should talk about the team that is maybe equally as incompetent. I— I joked before I started recording that it might be good to just, like, rank which organizations were the biggest bummer this year, and the Angels would be up there, the A’s would be up there, the Mets would be up there. You know, a couple other teams have had, like, really bad years, but maybe didn’t have high expectations like the— the Royals or the Pirates, or like a couple other teams who, like, should maybe be turning a corner by now but are not. None of them really compete with, like, those teams that I named and the Chicago White Sox, who— whose owner came out recently and just kind of— you know, he did a jam sesh about everything that’s been going on this year.
ALEX: He had some riffs. He spoke from the heart. We learned about his favorite pastimes or a lack thereof. It was a— it was wide-ranging. This came amidst the announcement that the White Sox would be hiring Chris Getz to be their new senior vice-president and general manager, I want to get that right. Senior vice-president and general manager.
BOBBY: They love— the White Sox love having a senior vice-president.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: When they fired Rick Hahn and— and Ken Williams last week, it was like, “Who’s Ken Williams again?” I was like, “Oh, it’s the senior vice-president.”
ALEX: Senior vice-president.
BOBBY: Because they gotta have a senior vice-president. You can’t just have a GM or even the president of baseball operations.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We’re gonna make sure this— this feels like a sales company, and make sure this feels like an advertising marketing agency. We have to have senior vice-presidents.
ALEX: Like I think the senior vice-president would be the president. That’s neither here nor there. None of this was addressed during the press conference.
BOBBY: How many risk analysts do you think they have?
[laughter]
ALEX: I don’t even want to entertain that idea. We’re gonna get to risk analysts.
BOBBY: Are we really?
ALEX: Well— well—
BOBBY: Oh, yeah, that’s true, we are. Yeah, we are. Yeah, we are.
ALEX: Jerry gave a press conference half hour-long— a half hour-long press conference introducing Getz to the world, really.
BOBBY: Wasn’t he already in the White Sox organization?
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Aren’t they just promoting him?
ALEX: He’s third in command. And what you do when there’s organizational rot is just go down the ladder one by one.
BOBBY: Next man up.
ALEX: Yes,
BOBBY: That’s really funny. That’s like the Mets being like, “Man, the starting rotation is so bad this year. Let’s see what Joey Lucchesi can bring to the table as next year’s opening [33:08]
ALEX: Yeah. Should we push David Peterson from a five-starter up to the two-starter. Maybe he just needs a change of scenery.
BOBBY: Should we get Tommy Hunter in the rotation?
ALEX: So Getz is introduced as the new SVP GM. White Sox, by the way, do get a pass on—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: —on hitting MLB’s diversity benchmarks for interviewing and hiring candidates—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —because they’ve done so well in the past.
BOBBY: Oh.
ALEX: They were able to, like, bank up some of that goodwill, because this is such a unique situation, Bobby.
BOBBY: And so you start your account with a $100 of credit in diversity hiring.
ALEX: And— and Reinsdorf talked to kind of a great length about the trials and tribulations of this season, this rocky, to put it lightly, White Sox season and— and how it’s weighed on him.
BOBBY: I— speaking of rocky, I forgot to name the Rockies and the disappointing—
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: —the bum— the bummer organization just because I just never think about them.
ALEX: Yeah. I just saw that their— their artisans [34:25] shutting down this year, so they— they need to plan for next year.
BOBBY: They’re fine. They sell out, like, every game.
ALEX: I know. They’re— they’re still good.
BOBBY: They’ll be alright. They’ll be alright.
ALEX: The Rockies are like—
BOBBY: Monfort got it under control.
ALEX: —somehow always have good vibes.
BOBBY: If there’s one— I agree. Yeah.
ALEX: Like even when the vibes are bad, I’m just kind of like, “I’d watch.”
BOBBY: If there’s one thing I’m gonna do is trust Dick Monfort.
ALEX: That’s right. Jerry Reinsdorf, I just want to read you a couple quotes from him, if that’s okay.
BOBBY: Okay, of course.
ALEX: Straight from— from God’s ears. It’s straight from God’s— straight from God’s lips to— to your ears.
BOBBY: Is that the saying?
ALEX: Isn’t it?
BOBBY: I thought it’s from your lips to God’s ears.
ALEX: Well, no, but this is— this is from the God himself.
BOBBY: Oh, God’s talking back.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Here’s what he has to say. Here’s some responses to some of your prayers.
BOBBY: Here’s some— here’s some notes on your prayers, everyone.
ALEX: “The 2023 season was my 43rd season in baseball. It was absolutely the worst season I’ve ever been through. It was a nightmare. It’s still a nightmare.” Jerry’s going through it right now.” Embarrassing, disgusting. All the bad words you can think of just the way I feel about the 2023 season.”
BOBBY: Those are the two words that he came up with? All the bad words you can think of, embarrassing and disgusting.
ALEX: Embarrassing and disgusting.
BOBBY: Someone get this man a thesaurus.
ALEX: And—
BOBBY: I feel— I, for one, feel really bad for him.
ALEX: I feel for him as well.
BOBBY: Yeah. He— I mean, he’s just the guy who’s just there to have a good time. He has no bearing on any of these decisions. He’s not influencing, he’s not meddling. He’s like hands off, you know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He’s like, “You guys do your thing.”
ALEX: Well—
BOBBY: “I’m just gonna give you all of the money and resources that you need.”
ALEX: Well—
BOBBY: “That’s my thing as an owner.”
ALEX: And— and also like he’s been here for so long, you kind of just have to trust that he knows what he’s doing. As he mentioned, 43 years, right? So if he says this is the worst baseball season he’s ever experienced, I’m gonna take him at face value.
BOBBY: That’s his truth. We’re not here to invalidate his truth.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah, that’s his truth. So the— the question came up then, and was posed to him.
BOBBY: Where’s this interview, by the way?
ALEX: Thank you for— for bringing it up. So this first quote came from Chuck Garfein, who’s an anchor for NBC Sports Chicago. This next one comes from Scott Merkin, who’s a White Sox beat reporter. On the question of, “Jerry, would you sell?”
BOBBY: Hmm.
ALEX: “This is— you’re in such dire straits right now. You are clearly going through it. Would you take the easy way out?” Here’s his response. “Friends of mine have said, ‘Why don’t you sell? Why don’t you get out?’ And my answer has been— my answer always has been, ‘I like what I’m doing, as bad as it is, and what else would I do?” I’m a boring guy. I don’t play golf. I don’t play bridge. And I want to make it better before I go.’”
BOBBY: Which way, modern man, golf bridge or owning a baseball team?
ALEX: Owning a baseball team, the— the three hobbies.
BOBBY: I’m sorry, that’s so funny. You asked me if I had seen these quotes over the weekend—
ALEX: Yes, I did.
BOBBY: —and I said no. And then you were like, “Dude, you have to have”— you, like, started to tell— tell me about them.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I was like, “Please stop.”
ALEX: You were like, “Save it, save it.”
BOBBY: “Please stop. Save it for the pod.” I’m so glad I did because, “I don’t play golf, I don’t play golf, so I must own a baseball team.” That is really funny, although, I’m going to be really, really careful here on how I phrase this because—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —I don’t want to— we live in a glass house and I don’t want to cast stones. I don’t want to throw stones. When people in our lives come up to us, and they start asking us, “When are you gonna stop doing this podcast? You’re 70?” Like, “When are you going to hang them up?”
ALEX: Right. And that’s gonna be— I’m gonna say—
BOBBY: I’m gonna think—
ALEX: —as bad as it is—
BOBBY: I’m gonna think back on this moment, and I’m gonna say, “People are furious. They hate the podcast.” They come to us every week. And they say, “Please, for the love of God, stop publishing this.” And I’m gonna say, “I don’t play golf, and I don’t play bridge.”
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: “I don’t know the rules to bridge.”
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: And I— you won’t—
ALEX: I— I only know about two bridges.
BOBBY: Even if I—
ALEX: And they’re both in Pennsylvania.
BOBBY: Boo. Even if I wanted to learn to play golf, which I don’t—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —I have such a bad back that I don’t think it’s advisable. I spent the first three hours, when we were in DC, laying on the floor.
ALEX: You did.
BOBBY: Okay. So I understand where Jerry is coming from on this. And again, I want to reiterate, he’s been such a good owner. He’s given everybody everything they need to succeed, and repeatedly, everyone else around him has been the problem, not him.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: They’ve been letting him down. In fact, White Sox fans are letting him down, too.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Even asking these questions.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “When are you going to sell?” Well, this is his thing.
ALEX: When are you gonna buy?
BOBBY: You can’t— you can’t— bought more tickets. How else is he supposed to run the team unless you personally send him a piece of mail with the routing number for your personal bank account so that he can have enough money to sign good players?
ALEX: It’s so funny that he’s just like— he’s acknowledging that this is his personality now, you know? His hobby is a stand-in for, like, his personality.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Where he’s like, “I don’t have anything to fall back on. This is the one thing I can talk about— about at cocktail hours.”
BOBBY: Normally, I hate when— when people are like, “Oh, I hate when reporters asked, like, boring questions like this, or questions that you know they’re not going to answer. You— they should ask something, like, more in-depth.” But I’m going to do that right here now. I’m going to say that the reporter should have been followed up and been like, “So, like, you don’t do anything else, then?”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Like, “What was the last movie you watched? What was the last book you read?”
ALEX: I agree.
BOBBY: “Who was the last person you met that you didn’t know already know?”
ALEX: No, I agree. We should catch them on the back foot a little more often.
BOBBY: What was last movie you watched?
ALEX: I think it was Oppenheimer.
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: Did— did we watch any— we didn’t watch any in DC.
BOBBY: I don’t think so. I tried to get everybody to watch Superbad, but—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —you were— you were down, but then we were, like, doing other stuff, like going out to dinner and then watch baseball games.
ALEX: Well, to be clear, Bobby, the whole weekend was a movie, so—
BOBBY: Is that the worst Gen Z, like colloquialism?” Man, if this was a movie, I hate that. That’s not one of my faves. Of everything Gen Z has given us.
ALEX: What— what do you— what are your feelings towards the— the kind of riffs on that, right? Like, man, this weekend was direct to DVD.
BOBBY: Man, this weekend was so bad that it wasn’t even published and it just went straight to Hallmark.
ALEX: This weekend was canceled after three episodes.
BOBBY: This weekend was unreleased so that Warner Bros. could save money on their tax bill.
ALEX: God. Ouch. Can I read you one more Reinsdorf quote and then we can edit the—
BOBBY: You can— you can read me a hundred more Reinsdorf quotes.
ALEX: Alright. I got them.
BOBBY: That’s for the Patreon.
ALEX: I think this is in response to him being asked about Shohei Ohtani.
BOBBY: What—
ALEX: Best player the world, right?
BOBBY: Just— just generally, like what are your thoughts?
ALEX: No, I think it was— it was about, “Hey, Shohei Ohtani, famous free agent this offseason.”
BOBBY: Wow, bold question.
ALEX: “Would you”— a bold— again, the questions we need.
BOBBY: That’s true.
ALEX: His response. “No Ohtani. That’s absurd, but— but— but— now, I lost my train of thought. I feel like Mitch McConnell.”
BOBBY: He said that?
ALEX: Yes, he did.
BOBBY: He said, “I feel like Mitch McConnell.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That’s not a fake quote that you said for him?
ALEX: No. No, that is the quote.
BOBBY: Oh, my God.
ALEX: Let me see if I can find that.
BOBBY: Hang on, now I’m reevaluating everything I’ve said and felt about Jerry Reinsdorf. Is he funny?
ALEX: He’s, like, clued in to pop— popular events. Gets a cheeky little dig in, in one of our elected officials.
BOBBY: Wow. What were— what were his political donations when he did that whole— is he, like, donating to both? He kind of seems like a guy who would donate to neither.
ALEX: I’m gonna be honest with you, I don’t remember. And it’s gonna take me way too long to go and— and look that up. I’ve— he— he does feel like a— a both sides of the aisle guy.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: I— I mean, if I recall correctly, I think that his footprint in giving is, like, pretty minimal—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: —you know?
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: And maybe this is why, because he’d rather clown on them all day during press conferences.
BOBBY: He’s married to the game.
ALEX: He really is.
BOBBY: He’s married to the game being— owning a baseball team.
ALEX: Posted his heart right there.
BOBBY: Okay. Shall we move on to our final topic?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Which feels maybe like a psyop for this podcast. When I saw this come across the— the— The Wire. I like— like talking about— I like talking about stories that I see where, like, you turn your phone to me and be like, “Look at this tweet,” And I’m like talking about that like as if it’s—
ALEX: Came across The Wire.
BOBBY: As if it’s like storming the beaches of Normandy, like you’re hearing it over the wire and you’re, like, relaying it to a reporter who needs to write it for the New York Times.
ALEX: The facts is coming through right now.
BOBBY: Like, you’re never gonna believe this. The Yankees are hiring outside consultants to address— take a look at the analytical side of the organization, according to Hal Steinbrenner. Famously, the Yankees have not been good this season. They have underperformed at various points in the last few years based on the expectations of the franchise, based on the expectations internally of the organization. They have not been to the World Series since 2009, when they won the World Series against your Philadelphia Phillies. Does that sting for you in retrospect?
ALEX: It does sting, yeah.
BOBBY: Okay. Right. And something that has been going on a lot like on Yankees Twitter, but also weirdly, like, within the Yankees organization, is that Brian Cashman, the GM of the team, who has been the GM since the 1990s, since the— the dynastic core for New York Yankees. He has been running the show. And he has been given a— a lot of free rein, the kind of tenure that you don’t usually see in the sport in large part, because the Yankees have been really good for most of that time. And he’s been a good GM and he’s made a lot of frugal decisions, like on— around the edges so that they can make some of the more obvious Yankees splashes that— that we know. You know, giving CC Sabathia the biggest contract in— you know, for a pitcher in MLB history. Like, trading for Giancarlo Stanton and absorbing all of the money from the Marlins, and not having to give up that much. Like, these sorts of moves that we know that are the obvious ones. The Yankees have been so good at player development that you almost don’t even notice, like, how well-run they have been for the large part of the Cashman tenure. But now in the last few years, there’s a— there’s a feeling of frustration and staleness to the way that they operate, because they are not making as many splashes as they used to. I would say that the variable here that— the only variable here that has changed has been Hal Steinbrenner versus his father in— in being the reason why they don’t make some of these more obvious splashes. But because the Yankees have, like, a constant 24/7 news cycle, because sports talk radio is obsessed with them, and sports talk radio is very quote unquote, “anti-analytics,” like there’s been this never-ending conversation with the Yankees organization about how they rely too much on analytics, without even like— without even diving into the fact that that doesn’t mean anything. Analytics is just everything. Analytics is, like, how you evaluate the player, whether people are what— really— really what people are talking about is, like, large data numbers, sabermetrics. It’s obviously like a— it’s a— it’s a farce that that is the reason that the Yankees are not beating some of these other teams. Like, who are the teams that have outperformed them in the division? The Rays. They’re using sabermetrics more than anyone else. Who— who are the teams that have eliminated them in the playoffs? The Astros. This is a team that is famously dedicated to data above all else. Like, that part of it doesn’t stand up to logic, but I find it interesting how the owner can come out and use that dichotomy as shorthand for just hiring what is likely to be like McKinsey, I guess, to come in and find ways that they can, like, slash payroll or slash expenses on the staffing side in order to do anything— exhaust every single opportunity, exhaust every single possibility, that the problem isn’t just the owner. The guy signing the checks who did not want the Yankees to pursue Manny Machado, or did not want the Yankees to pursue Bryce Harper, or did not want the Yankees to pursue Carlos Correia, or Trea Turner, or Xander Bogaerts, or any of these players that would have, like, filled the need that the Yankees have. It’s like— it is so modern baseball— pause for necessary laughs about me saying the phrase modern baseball. It’s so modern baseball of them to just be like, “Well, it— it— it couldn’t possibly be me. It couldn’t possibly—”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: “—be the obvious answer that just involves, like, paying players’ market value.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It has to be something else much smaller that only a consultant could come in and figure out.
ALEX: Yeah. I’m just a little curious how Brian Cashman has managed to weasel his way out of being on the chopping block himself over the last, like, few years. I don’t actually have a strong opinion on, like, how good of a GM he is, or whether his vision for the organization is— is right. But he’s been there 25 years.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Right? Like, that’s a long tenure for like a good GM, right? Much less someone whose success over the last decade or so has been middling, to say the least.
BOBBY: Wow. I don’t— see— okay. I don’t agree. I don’t think that his success has been middling. I mean, the team is, like, around 90 wins every single year, in the playoffs every single year. It’s not— is it Brian Cashman’s fault that they haven’t won the World Series? I don’t know. I feel like he’s certainly not blameless, and if they fired him as a way to just— to use your phrase like revitalize the vision for the organization or to bring someone in who maybe has more of a defined take on how an organization should be run rather than like— it seems like the Yankees are just— every decision that they make is because they’re the Yankees like— for the institution of it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like they’ve— they don’t feel like they can do any wrong, and I think he’s probably a large part of that. But it’s not like— it’s not like Brian Cashman didn’t think it was a good idea to have Trea Turner on his team, or Bryce Harper on his team. It’s not like he was like, “Nah, we’ll pass. You know, I’d much rather have Aaron Hicks back.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, he’s not stupid.
ALEX: No, of course. I— I think he’s a— he’s a perfectly fine and even good general manager, but it’s striking to me given— especially, the Yankees, you know, sort of self-described high bar for their executive, for their players, right? To really stick around, right? It’s— I feel— yeah, he’s their longest tenured GM or verging on it. I do think you’re right that like— because like, pre how— it was just like depending on what side of the bed George Steinbrenner woke up on, right? Like—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Like, they were just running through GMs and managers like kind of every couple years reevaluating. Sometimes you’d get a guy who’d— who’d stick around and then he’ll be out the door, right? Because of this sort of the— you know, they’re the Yankees, right? We don’t accept failure. We only accept greatness. And I don’t know, man. I think the Yankees accept failure now. There’s my take.
BOBBY: I—
ALEX: think Hal is soft.
BOBBY: I— I like that take, because I think that Cashman just sings whatever tune the owner wants him to sing at the moment.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Like, I think he is a very— this is gonna sound like a criticism of him, but I’ve— I think he is a very, like, political operator. I think he handles the New York media really well.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I think he takes the air out of, like, whatever storyline, quote-unquote— is running on and on about the Yankees really well. Where it’s like there are— there are obvious things that the Yankees have done in the last five years that are mismanagement. And, of course, the buck should stop with the GM— I mean, the buck should really stop with the owner, right? But, like, it’s not like— it’s not like Hal was like, “Alright. You have $150 million to work with.” The Yankees are still running at $270 million payroll.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s just that they have been less willing to do the quote-unquote “irrational thing” than they were in the past. And so now every decision that they make, feels like very canned and an— an— and uninteresting. Like a fear for taking a George-esque swing and missing.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It feels like— not to armchair psychologist Hal, but it feels like he is very afraid to be like his dad.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Honestly.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That he has to have some new NBA style management technique that his dad didn’t have, because otherwise, people are going to continue to criticize him for just being the team that, like, throws around money and is not actually smart.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And the— the current climate of baseball is to not throw around money, to not just, like, randomly flash the wallet the way that Steve Cohen has. You have— you have to win on the edges and, like, you have to win via making frugal smart trades all of the time. And that’s the thing that we talk about, and that’s the thing that we reward. And that’s the world that, like, Moneyball has created, despite the fact that who were the Moneyball teams losing to, they were losing to the Yankees who are signing off the good players. It’s like they have such a— I remember Lindsey came on— Lindsay Adler came on the pod and talked about this where they— it feels like they have this— this complex about not wanting to actually be the Yankees. And Cashman has just been around the whole time and has been willing to just be like, “Alright, fine. We’ll do that. Okay, we’ll do it your way. We’ll do it— we’ll do it that way and I’ll do the best that I can within the confines that you’ve given me.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And it feels like a very— it must be— it must be, must be a frictionless relationship between the two of them, otherwise, yeah, I think he would be gone.
ALEX: Yeah. No, I think you’re right about that, that Cashman is— and is like an above average GM who doesn’t push back on the owner. That’s like the— the dream, right? But it does put you in these weird situations, because I feel like the last three or four years, we’ve seen these narratives kind of come up over and over again, and I do wonder when it reaches that breaking point of, like, your institutional weight doesn’t matter as much if we finished, like, outside of the playoffs multiple years in a row or something like that.
BOBBY: I think he’s an above average GM if you grade him on the performance of the Major League Baseball team. Like just above average.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like, he’s— he’s good, maybe really good, but he’s not like Theo or whatever. Like, this dream—
ALEX: That’s right. That’s right.
BOBBY: —this dream that the Yankees have that— that— that Theo is going to come in and save them the way that Theo came in and save the Red Sox and the Cubs. I mean, multiple fan bases have this dream, too. The Mets fans have this dream about the Theo as well and they— they also have this dream about David Stern, the guy who has, like, gotten the Brewers to the playoffs a couple of times. Fan— GM worship is a whole different thing. I was watching the Padres-Phillies game last night, and there was a— there was a guy sitting behind home plate who had a jersey— a custom jersey that said Preller and— where the number should have been, it just had dollar signs.
ALEX: God.
BOBBY: It made me wonder whether or not we should really ever do anything related to baseball—
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: —ever again. But setting that aside, I think he is above average when it comes to, like, the actual day-to-day job of putting together a 40-man roster. The Yankees have been good.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I think where he is great is that the Yankees have been on the cutting edge of basically every trend of the last 25 years. They are on the cutting edge of, like, the international market, of— of putting— pouring resources into baseball colonialism, which has worked out really well for, like, the value of their organization. They have, like, three teams in the DR to every one team that the other— that the other organizations have. They’re like leaps and bounds ahead of everybody else in terms of international scouting and signing off players. And that has yielded a lot of, like, all-stars on their team, basically. I mean, like, how did— how do you think they found Jasson Dominguez? The guy that they just called up, who were just talking about. They have been able to turn mediocre relievers into, like, some of the best relievers of— some of the best relievers in the league, like seemingly at will over the last 10 years. So they were, like, on the forefront of, you know, pitching development and maximization of, like, pitcher’s repertoire, as well. I just think that they have made so many obvious mistakes, and then, of course— you know, and then of course, they’re always like in the lead when it comes, like, branding of the team and, like, being successful as a business. And so when you— when you factor all of that into the rubric of how— how Hal probably thinks about Cashman, I think he’s probably like, “Yeah, he’s like A minus.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Where the fans would probably be like, “Eh, it’s been, like, more like a C plus over the last 10 years.” And that’s just like the obvious example of the dissonance between how owners judge GMs versus how fans judge GMs. And the Yankees fans are just, like, the most judgmental of the fan bases in terms—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —of the performance of the team and the performance of the people making the decisions for the team. Like, they— they seem like they hate everybody who is front-facing. They hate them all. They’re like, “Cashman is terrible. Boone is terrible. All the players are bad. I hate this.”
ALEX: At least you wake up and you know what you’re gonna feel, you know?
BOBBY: They’re .500.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: They’re .500. They’re the worst team in the league. I— you haven’t even talked about the, like, the outside consulting angle of this. It’s the— it’s the absolute— it’s the inevitable and logical conclusion to what happened with the Astros.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Where they were doing things the old-world way. They had all these scouts, and it wasn’t working. And they brought in outside consultants to tell them that they needed to focus more on analytics.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And they need to fire all the scouts and they needed to use TrackMan or whatever.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And the Yankees who have been using TrackMan too much apparently, according to their owner, they are hiring outside consultants to come in and tell them the opposite— the exact opposite thing, which is what they want to hear, is that “We’re using too much analytics. We need to go back to doing things the old way.” It’s truly hilarious, and I think one of the more— like, for the purposes of our podcasts, one of the more indicative ways of looking at the role of consultants in modern business. They just— you hire them, and you pay them a lot of money to come in and tell you exactly what you already wanted to hear and know.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Just [57:44]
ALEX: I know. It’s— it’s— it’s ridiculous. The fact that this is happening so closely— coming off the heels of everything that happened in Houston feels both, like, absurd that they can get away with that. And also perfectly rational, right, because you know what the Astros did, they won. And you know what winning does, Bobby
BOBBY: I have heard.
ALEX: It does fix everything.
BOBBY: Man, I would love— I would pay not like a million dollars, but like a lot of money to be able to see the report that the consultants draw up for the Yankees. I think that it would be like a— it’d be like the— a sacred text for us.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Like the Rosetta Stone of this podcast.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: To be able to read about the inefficiencies in the Yankees analytical operation—
ALEX: Oh, my God.
BOBBY: —according to [58:36]
ALEX: You know how people get, like— like the Declaration of Independence tattooed on their back, like that would be— that would be my version of that.
BOBBY: So if anyone’s working for the Yankees or is working for McKinsey listening to this podcast, just let us know. We could get you on a secure line. We could meet in person, you can do whatever you need. Okay. I think that does it for this week’s episode of Tipping Pitches, Alex. A— an important programming note for everybody— well, first things first, obviously, this podcast is a— is a little bit later than usual and we appreciate— appreciate everybody’s patience and we hope everybody had a very nice Labor Day. Happy Labor Day to everybody involved. Even though it’s the co-opted United States Labor Holiday. That’s okay. We all get a day off and we can talk about unions for a little bit. That’s nice. That’s number one. Number two, we have a very important milestone coming up. I’m just going to reveal here on the podcast that it is our 300th episode, which if you’ve been paying, you know, acute attention, you probably could have deduced this fact on your own. This is the milestone that is coming up. It is happening in two weeks. So it’s not going to be next week’s episode, it’s going to be the episode the week after that. We do have to record it in advance though, because Alex and I are going to be a part for when we would typically record for that week, and it is something that involves us needing to be in the same room together. I’m not going to reveal exactly what this idea is, but if you’ve been listening or paying attention on Twitter, or whatever, if you’re in Slack, you’ve noticed that I’ve been asking for short answer questions or yes or no questions to field as many as possible of these, because we need a bunch for this episode. We’ve gotten a ton of questions and we’re really thankful for people, but we do want to give people a final couple of days to submit those— to submit those so that we can get the best possible questions for this episode that we’re working on. So there is a Google form in the description of this podcast where you can submit questions for our 300th episode, the milestone recording, and we’ll explain more about why we need so many questions and why we need them to be yes or no or short answer in the future.
ALEX: Because we’re being the change you want to see in the world and asking Jerry Reinsdorf these questions himself. He’s gonna be here in the flesh.
BOBBY: I would—
ALEX: You know, I will be in Chicago, actually.
BOBBY: Hmm, well, maybe you can— maybe you can hit them up and see if he wants to join. I would rather have Alex Rodriguez for this one but, you know—
ALEX: I do, too.
BOBBY: —I think he would be a better guest.
ALEX: Alex Rodriguez is still on his way back from Burning Man, so—
BOBBY: Was he there?
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Okay. Which owner do you think would most likely be at Burning Man? It’s probably Steve Cohen. He’s an art guy.
ALEX: I mean, like half the Dodgers ownership group, probably.
BOBBY: Oh, true. The Guggenheim?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Guggenheim Baseball Management. Okay. Well, much to ponder.
ALEX: All of the Phillies.
BOBBY: Much to all of the players—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —that Castellanos—
ALEX: I absolutely think Castellanos, Harper, Schwarber, and maybe Marsh.
BOBBY: Schwarber? May— I think he’s more of a, like, blue-collar American than that.
ALEX: Yeah, I think so too.
BOBBY: Marsh, yes. Turner, no.
ALEX: I feel like he would just do it for the vibes—
BOBBY: Bohm—
ALEX: —to hang with the boys.
BOBBY: Bohm, yes.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Bohm, yes. Realmuto, no.
ALEX: No way. No way. No way.
BOBBY: Much to ponder. Think about which owner you’d like to climb out of the mud at Burning Man with.
ALEX: Or not.
BOBBY: Thank you— thank you, everybody, for listening. Let’s leave them behind. Leave them behind, Stevie is parking her way through this. She’s like, “No, don’t climb— don’t help them out.” Thank you, everybody, for listening. We will be back next week.
SPEAKER 3: But an ache in my body and regret on my mind, but I’ll be fine. ‘Cause I live and I learn. Yes, I live and I learn. If you live, you will learn. And I live and I learn.
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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