Alex and Bobby run through a grab bag of topics from the last couple weeks, including David Stearns as the prodigal son, meet the new Trop (same as the old Trop), some certifiably Bad Vibes in San Diego, the end of The Chaim Bloom Era in Boston, the finer points of uniform typography, Yusei Kikuchi’s sleep habits, James Cameron’s “Titanic,” and more. They also talk to Allison McCague from A Pod of Their Own about their annual Dollars for Dingers fundraising drive in support of the National Domestic Violence Hotline and this weekend’s raffle in New York.
Links:
Follow A Pod of Their Own on Twitter
Yusei Kikuchi’s need for sleep
Rays announce new stadium deal
Neil deMause on the Rays stadium news
DEA documents show A-Rod named names
Rangers announcers roast Mariners uniform kerning
The Padres are facing an “institutional failure”
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon
Songs featured in this episode:
Smash Mouth — “Walkin’ On The Sun” • Jay-Z — “Change Clothes” • 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, I’d like to start today’s podcast by reading you a post, formerly a tweet, a post from X, formerly Twitter.
ALEX: Wow, you’re buying into that, huh?
BOBBY: I’m not buying into it necessarily, but that’s just— that is what it is. There’s nothing to buy into now. It’s just we’re— we have journalistic principles here. You know, we like to be an accurate—
ALEX: [00:52] updated style guide and you said, “Well, I— if it comes from Elon, I— I shall follow.”
BOBBY: I like how you say his name different every time you say it. You’re kind of like Elon.
ALEX: Elon.
BOBBY: Isn’t it just—
ALEX: Elon? What—
BOBBY: Elon? Elon?
ALEX: What’s your post, the last tweet?
BOBBY: Kaitlyn McGrath, staff writer at The Athletic for baseball, “Blue Jays starter Yusei Kikuchi thinks he’ll be fine for his next start after he left the game with cramps. The biggest revelation was that he said it may have been caused by only getting 11 hours of sleep last night instead of his usual 13 or 14 hours.” 14 hours a night? At that point, like we need to start talking about whether or not you’re, like, missing out on life. 14 of 24 hours. That’s like more—
ALEX: Right. That is more than half.
BOBBY: Way more than half your life. Way more than half. Have you ever slept for 14 hours in a row?
ALEX: I think I— I have. I think you probably know the— the— the times on which that has happened, right? Certain flights back from Italy via Russia.
BOBBY: You slept for 14 hours? That’s not a 14-hour flight.
ALEX: No. Remember, you— I— I come back from that flight and I was, like, wiped—
BOBBY: Oh. Oh, yeah.
ALEX: —and I just, like, crawled into bed, and got in trouble with some people close to me who hadn’t heard from me for an extremely long period of time.
BOBBY: Oh, I did forget about that. Yeah.
ALEX: Outside of that, no.
BOBBY: Now, we have iPhone locations. They would have known that you’re fine.
ALEX: I know. I don’t know— have you— I mean, have you?
BOBBY: No. No. We just talked last week about how briefly in the 300th Episode— which by the way, 300th Episode, a lot of fun.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Had— had a great time.
ALEX: Blast.
BOBBY: So we’ll be running it back every week from this point forward, Power Hour every single week.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I hope everybody’s ready for that energy. No, I’m just kidding. But thank you to everybody for the kind words. Thank you everybody for the congratulations on reaching 300. Thank you again for everybody who submitted questions, it made the episode a lot more fun. And it made it flow much nicer than if we just tried to do a Power Hour and make conversation, you know?
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Like when we’re trying to— sort of losing in the thread of it at the end of the podcast—
ALEX: Yeah, we were just like, “Let’s just talk baseball.”
BOBBY: —in the last 37 minutes, you know? Not just 2 hours— 2 hours and 37 minutes. I said on the pod last week that my sleep schedule is, like, back to— back to square one, you know, in a bad way.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So I’m not sleeping for 14 straight hours, and I’m— I don’t know that I ever have. I slept in, like, late— I still do sleep in late because I work West Coast hours—
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: —on the East Coast. But when I was, like, a teenager, I would sleep in late into the afternoon, but that was only because I would, like, stay up— up until 3:00 in the morning. So I wasn’t just going to bed at midnight and waking up at noon.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: If I went to bed at midnight every night, I would wake up at, like, 6:00.
ALEX: I— important— important background to this— this piece, McGrath had a— had a follow-up tweet where she noted that—
BOBBY: I’ll oppose. [03:55]
ALEX: Or— or—
BOBBY: Follow the style guide.
ALEX: Kikuchi clarified that— that— that is only the sleep he aims for on his nights before starts that he makes.
BOBBY: How do you control that, though? Like, how are you just like,” Oh, tonight I will sleep 13 hours.”? It’s not like something where you can just like— you don’t just press it into a program when you sit down to go to sleep.
ALEX: Right. Don’t— don’t wake me up until—
BOBBY: Like, don’t— yeah.
ALEX: I— well, I don’t know. Maybe that is how it works with him. Maybe he, like, sleeps until proven—
BOBBY: Maybe— maybe he goes into a cryo chamber?
ALEX: —otherwise, like—
BOBBY: Wow. That would be really— we should study him, then.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: If he can do that. How’s your sleep these days?
ALEX: You know, weirdly improving. Now that—
BOBBY: Oh [4:34]
ALEX: I mean, I— now that I— I’m commuting into the office more than I—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: —have the last three and a half years, which means I have to get up at a reasonable hour, which means I have to go to bed at a reasonable hour. So all that to say I’m working towards, you say, Kikuchi’s routine.
BOBBY: You are such a sellout. You’ve given up on the over-caffeinated, under sleeping lifestyle.
ALEX: Yeah, I’m not the one calling them posts out here, bro.
BOBBY: This episode is sponsored by Twitter.
ALEX AND BOBBY: By X, formerly Twitter.
BOBBY: Actually, no, the reason that I’m doing it is not because Elon asked us to, it’s because the— the New York Times did it and we follow all things that the— all journalistic practices of the New York Times here. This is like a New York Times adjacent podcast.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: We strive to be more like The Daily.
ALEX: Right. We— actually, when I— whenever we talk about, like, MLB on the podcast, for example, I need you to visualize that there is a period after each one those letters.
BOBBY: M.L.B. Yes.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: We’re gonna start calling him Mr. Manfred, instead of Rob. We’re making a lot of wholesale changes to the way we do the show.
ALEX: We really are. 300 episodes and we’re like, “Let’s— let’s throw the playbook in the trash bin.” Right?
BOBBY: It’s just like Top Gun: Maverick, a film you haven’t seen.
ALEX: That’s not true.
BOBBY: Oh, you have?
ALEX: I have.
BOBBY: What’d you think?
ALEX: We’re a little late on this— on this cycle, but I enjoyed it. I think that’s not a surprise to say.
BOBBY: That’s great.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t know. I mean, it kind of cuts against everything you stand for, you know? You’re a real anti-Department of Defense from what I know about you.
ALEX: That is true.
BOBBY: Me too, though. You know, some— sometimes it’s nice to have your enemies represented on screen in an exciting way.
ALEX: Exactly. It’s nice acknowledging you can hold two thoughts in your head at once. Like, yeah, Department of Defense—
BOBBY: Plane—
ALEX: —is like— and— and, like, US imperialism is objectively bad, but like plane go fast and loud—
BOBBY: I literally was gonna say plane go fast.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Engine loud. This is like when I’m watching Ford versus Ferrari and I’m like— I’m rooting for Ford.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Henry Ford II, I support what you’re doing here.
ALEX: Yeah, same—
BOBBY: He kind of cooked at this one.
ALEX: Big— big Ford guy. Big GM guy?
BOBBY: Yeah, I actually— I don’t love union-busting, but when Henry Ford II did it, it was okay.
ALEX: He was— he was kind of trailblazing.
BOBBY: Okay. Today, it’s gonna be a little bit of a grab bag episode. We’re going to talk about a lot of the things that we had not had an opportunity to talk about over the last couple of weeks. There’s weirdly been a ton of— ton of news in the baseball world, like long-term news that the Tipping Pitches Podcast would care about. So we obviously weren’t going to delve into any of that stuff on Episode 300, because it was an idea all unto itself. And we wanted to— and we wanted that to be a time capsule that we could return to, not one that we were talking about, like, the A’s— or the Rays stadium renderings on. So we’re gonna—
ALEX: These days, that’s evergreen content, honestly.
BOBBY: I know. They’re just gonna keep making renderings, you know? For all of eternity. Just keep running it back. Scared money don’t make money. Just keep pouring money into those renderings.
ALEX: Just a side— side note, it’s gonna be like a money laundering scheme, right? Because, like—
BOBBY: The renderings—
ALEX: —the— the teams, like, turn out these renderings every, like, six months, you know? And like they don’t have any bearing necessarily on what the actual project will look like. But you get to drop little people onto the walkway.
BOBBY: They actively show you what the project is not gonna be like.
ALEX: Yes, exactly.
BOBBY: Like you see and— see that, you can guarantee it won’t be anything like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are definitely going to, like, their friends.
ALEX: I think maybe we’ve actually had this discussion on the podcast before.
BOBBY: I think— well, with the—
ALEX: I think we should get into this business.
BOBBY: Yes, because with the A’s, they said that they spent $100 million in investing in what it would look like to build that stadium.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And, obviously, all of that didn’t go to renderings, although maybe it did. But that’s a lucrative business, 100 million—
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: —even if it’s like 10% of that was on renderings, that’s $10 million. We could do pods forever, we could retire.
ALEX: Yeah. And then they came out into the press and said, I think close to verbatim, “You can basically throw those renderings in the trash.”
BOBBY: Dave Kaval is so sick, so sick. You really clicked with that one. So we’re gonna talk about a lot of things we haven’t had the opportunity to talk about over the last couple of weeks. We’re just going to trade back and forth, nominating topics. This will feel a lot like Three Up, Three Down, but it is not quite as structured as like these are good things, these are bad things. These are just like the main headline news items. This is going to be more like Pardon the Interruption, you know? Later in this episode, we’re going to take a— a brief break to— to talk to Allison McCague, who’s one of the co-hosts of A Pod of Their Own. Some of you will remember that Allison came on the podcast last year to talk about Dollars 4 Dingers, which is a fundraiser that Allison organizes every September to raise money for the National Domestic Violence Hotline. It is associated with the amount of home runs that the Mets hit in the month of September, so it’s like a signup sheet that you can sign up for and, you know, you commit to do the donation yourself. We’ll talk more about that with Allison. She’ll explain, like, how you can participate in it and just how it’s grown over the years. So we’re gonna take a quick break in the middle the episode to talk about that, and then we’ll finish out the grab bag. But before we do, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I’m Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[theme]
BOBBY: Alex, I would like to give a very heartfelt thank you to this week’s new patrons. The new patrons who signed up because they heard that episode last week. They heard Episode 300 and they were like, “You know what?”
ALEX: Sold.
BOBBY: “Sold. I need to be a part of this.” That means the world to us. I’m not even being ironic. I love that. Thank you to Elisa, Kyle, and Hannah. Anything you’d like to get off your chest before we start this exercise, this grab bag exercise of serious news items over the last few weeks? Any takes that you want to share, you know? Any movies that you’ve seen, that you— that you liked?
ALEX: Well, Bobby, I— I—
BOBBY: Any TV shows you started?
ALEX: I— I— I recently watched the movie— and you may have— I don’t know if you’ve seen this already or not. But this is— for the first time, I watched the movie Titanic by James Cameron.
BOBBY: You’re such a Cameron hater.
ALEX: I’m not. I was a fan.
BOBBY: Of Titanic?
ALEX: I am now. I mean, I wasn’t— you know, I’m— historically, have not been a fan of the Titanic but—
BOBBY: Like the ship?
ALEX: Well, that’s like—
BOBBY: Have you ever been—
ALEX: Hang on. Hang on.
BOBBY: Being like I love the Titanic as the ship would be like, “I just love the 1962 Mets,” you know? Like, I just— I loved what they were doing there.
ALEX: Yes. It is—
BOBBY: Like, that ship has sailed, literally. So, what— what— so what’s your— what’s the upshot? What’s the review?
ALEX: The man knows how to make a movie, huh? He was—
BOBBY: Did you— did you log this on— on Letterboxd?
ALEX: No, I’m really falling behind on Letterboxd these days, man.
BOBBY: Dude, log back on is my advice for you.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: And everything in life.
ALEX: Log back on—
BOBBY: You need to log back on to X formerly Twitter.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You need to log back on to staying awake late at night, so that I have someone to talk to when I have random thoughts at 3:00 in the morning. You need to log back on to three— three to five coffees per day, you know? Like, get back on— get back on the same level that we were at when this podcast started seven years ago.
ALEX: I— I appreciate that this podcast is basically tracking, like, one of our progressions towards, like, developing healthy habits, and the other one, like, trying to— trying to pull them back, you know?
BOBBY: Right. But, like, on different planes, we’re going in different directions, though.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Because it’d be like— I’ll be like, “Oh, you know, I’ve been like— I’ve been really focused on like— like gut health and like eating a lot of, you know, protein, being in the gym and everything.”
ALEX: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: And you’ll be like, “I had some Cheetos and I got up once today.” But meanwhile, you’re like, “I’m sleeping so well. I’m not drinking too much coffee.” And I’m like, “I have three ulcers.”
ALEX: Right. I’m like, “You got to pick your battles.”
BOBBY: And the bags under my eyes are starting to go all the way down to, like, my top lip, you know?
ALEX: So things are good.
BOBBY: This is just the— it’s the diary of, you know, two men in their late 20s, figuring it out.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Last week’s episode was certainly diaristic, in a way.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: A lot of revelations about our lives on that— on that episode, and I think people enjoyed that. But we don’t need to do that every week, you know? I’m glad you saw Titanic. Why did it take so long? Because you hate women? Because you hate love? Because you hate history?
ALEX: It’s really— really gendering that movie upfront, huh? I mean, it—
BOBBY: It— it is a movie that was beloved primarily by women—
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: —at the time of its release.
ALEX: Got it. Got it.
BOBBY: So, do you hate things that women like? Is what I’m asking.
ALEX: Jimmy was in his bag on this one.
BOBBY: He always is.
ALEX: He always is. And I went and watched—
BOBBY: Like he’s— he has, like, no misses.
ALEX: I went and watched the, like— you know, 25 years later, like Nat Geo documentary afterwards where he’s like, “I’m gonna revisit that”— like, he’s such a nerd. That’s what I love about him.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: He’s just—
BOBBY: What was the impetus? Like, why did you finally fire it up?
ALEX: I— it— the choice was made largely on my behalf, and— and I had no reason to say no. It— it has been a blind spot in my, you know, pop cultural awareness versus the one time—
BOBBY: Was this last night that you watched this?
ALEX: This was— this was yesterday, yeah.
BOBBY: It’s just— way too long for you to answer that question.
ALEX: It’s—
BOBBY: I’m not gonna edit that pause out because I want people to hear how long it took you to decide whether or not you watched this yesterday.
ALEX: Well, you asked me last night. I— I did watch it yesterday, but yesterday was all— all kind of happened at once, you know?
BOBBY: True. And also this podcast is not coming out until Wednesday, so you really watched it, like, five days ago.
ALEX: I didn’t even consider that.
BOBBY: Four days ago.
ALEX: I don’t know when I watched this movie.
BOBBY: Anyway, time is fake. The movie is good. How did he make the ship sink, you know? How did they do that? How does it look that good? Made in the ’90s.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Big Jim.
ALEX: Right. Especially— I’m just gonna say I was— I was watching that movie and was like, “And George Lucas did— did all that with— with what he had?” Like— like James Cameron, CGI looked great.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I don’t know. I just feel like George Lucas could have made the Star Wars prequels a little better.
BOBBY: Wow. That’s such a hot take. The Star Wars prequels came out— oh, the prequels.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Okay. Okay.
ALEX: Oh, no, God.
BOBBY: I was like— I was like, “How are you invalidating the original Star Wars which, like, invented CGI?”
ALEX: Which happened 20 years earlier.
BOBBY: That, like, created the world in which James Cameron could make Titanic. How are you gonna talk shit on that? So— so you’re anti-prequels?
ALEX: I’m not necessarily anti-prequels, but like—
BOBBY: Come around— come around to the pro prequel side, my friend.
ALEX: But like Lucas—
BOBBY: You know, like global trade? You know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Hayden Christensen.
ALEX: Religious— religious fanaticism. Like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —it’s all there.
BOBBY: Revenge of the Sith is kind of good.
ALEX: Yeah, it is good.
BOBBY: Kind of.
ALEX: No, I just— I think it’s funny—
BOBBY: [15:10] words like needs to be stricken from the record.
ALEX: I think it’s really funny that Lucas was like, “I have these ideas for the prequels. I don’t want to make them until the CGI is, like, there.”
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And then he was like— he, like, saw Titanic and was like, “It’s here.”
BOBBY: Yeah, but this is the— this is the folly of thinking that you can be—
ALEX: James Cameron?
BOBBY: —Big Jim.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, he— he bends time and space to him, when it comes to like technology and film.
ALEX: [15:32]
BOBBY: Like no one— like I don’t think that Marvel is looking at Avatar 2 and it’s like, “All— all of our stuff is gonna look like that now.” I think Marvel is looking at Avatar 2 and being like, “That’s too much work.”
ALEX: Yeah, I mean— yeah.
BOBBY: And that’s too much money.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So—
ALEX: There’s too much storytelling there.
BOBBY: Well, you’re not pro— you’re not pro Marvel, recent Marvel?
ALEX: I don’t— how much time do you have? Do you— do you want to do a baseball podcast today?
BOBBY: I do. I— I actually do. I’m— I asked you if you wanted to get anything off your chest, and you did.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’m proud of you.
ALEX: Titanic is good.
BOBBY: Titanic—
ALEX: You can fine me for it if you want, guys.
BOBBY: I don’t think anybody listening would fine me for it.
ALEX: I don’t think so.
BOBBY: I think it’s a pretty universally beloved movie.
ALEX: I think so, too. Look, I’ve— I’m— I am trying to— I’m trying to hold myself accountable here, right? And—
BOBBY: Hmm.
ALEX: —and let the listener know that I didn’t have this appreciation, this exposure until now, right? That’s just—
BOBBY: What other gaps are you going to be filling in, in the near future? Can I start throwing out some movies for you?
ALEX: Yeah. You— you know my gaps arguably better than I do. It was— it— you can, like, leave it at [16:36] it’s up to you.
BOBBY: Just powering through. Have you seen the film 13 Going on 30?
ALEX: I have, yeah.
BOBBY: Okay, good.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Have you seen the film Pride and Prejudice with Matthew Macfadyen and—
ALEX: See, here we go. No, I haven’t.
BOBBY: Banger. Banger. I’m thinking of sweeping romantic epics.
ALEX: Right. The notebook, number one.
BOBBY: 13 Going on 30 is not a sweeping romantic, either.
ALEX: You just [17:00]
BOBBY: I just started out with, like— because like— I was, like, recently thinking about watching the movie again—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —because I was in the conversation with someone talking about how 30 is the best age you can be. Like, 30 is the best age to be, which is like a core tenet of—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —13 Going on 30.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: 30, flirty, and thriving.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know? Anyway, you haven’t seen The Notebook? That feels sexist.
ALEX: That— that one is— is—
BOBBY: That’s pretty sexist.
[laughter]
ALEX: We just had— we just had the other movies on our watch list growing up, man. I was like—
BOBBY: Like what? Like what? Name them.
ALEX: For a dollar, name a movie.
BOBBY: Spider-Man? You know you’re watching all the boy movies. This is—
ALEX: I’ve never really—
BOBBY: —because you didn’t have an older sister.
ALEX: I mean, yeah.
BOBBY: I’m— we’re gonna fire up The Notebook together.
ALEX: You might get in trouble for that one if you are the one who breaks the seal on that.
BOBBY: Well, I didn’t break the seal. I didn’t say that like— I didn’t say that your co-host for life couldn’t be there at it.
ALEX: Got it. I love that this name is sticking.
BOBBY: I’m— I’m keeping it going until she asks me not to, which means she would have to listen to the podcast. I— that one is like you got to do it, because Gosling is like one of your dudes, right?
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, don’t you like Gosling?
ALEX: I do.
BOBBY: And McAdams is fucking goated.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: She’s like the best to ever do it, you know? Of the modern era, so—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —we got to fire that one up. I think it could open some doors for you, you know? You could, like, take some style from them. Be one of those guys that dresses like it’s the 1930s as you’re walking around Brooklyn.
ALEX: Well, here’s the thing, it’s like Leo in Titanic was getting fits off left and right.
BOBBY: I’m— it’s so weird watching him in that movie, because it’s like pre everything, you know? It’s like pre-celebrity culture Leo. It’s pre, like, climate activist Leo.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s pre, like, headphones on during sex Leo.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like all the stuff that we know about him now and so hard to white— wipe that away from your brain when you watch him in that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Bizarre.
ALEX: Bizarre. Good.
BOBBY: Winslet is also goated too, though.
ALEX: Oh, I mean, she—
BOBBY: She’s the best.
ALEX: —kills it in that.
BOBBY: She crushes it. Okay. Anyway, now that we’re done talking about movies for 20 minutes at the beginning of this podcast, would you like to—
ALEX: A movie that have been out for like 25 years.
BOBBY: Yeah. Any the other movies from the ’90s that you want to share thoughts on? Is there a baseball tie-in into any of those movies? I don’t think there’s a baseball scene in Titanic, The Notebook. There’s not— nothing in 13 Going on 30. There’s a hockey tie-in 13 Going on 30.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: There’s certainly not baseball in Pride and Prejudice. It’d be funny if there was. There’s a baseball tie-in in the— in the romance movie Brooklyn. Have you seen that one? Saoirse—
ALEX: Yeah. Saoirse Ronan? Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah. I just watched that for the first time, recently.
ALEX: Ooh.
BOBBY: It’s a good movie.
ALEX: It is a good movie.
BOBBY: It’s a good movie. It’s very powerful. I feel like non-self-consciously romantic, and the 2010s is, like, tough to pull off. You know, like everybody wants to be ironic and witty.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I felt kind of attacked, like, kind of scene when the Italian guy— when they talk about how all the Italian dudes in New York talk about is their moms and baseball.
ALEX: You know, like, “Goddamnit.”
BOBBY: I was like, “Fuck. I’m hit. I’m hit. I’m taking damage.” Please nominate a baseball topic that we can discuss, preferably one that doesn’t have to do with movies from the 1990s.
ALEX: Bobby, I want to take us to— to— to Boston, Boston Red Sox.
BOBBY: Shipping up to Boston, you could say.
ALEX: Well, we are— we are shipping up to Boston.
BOBBY: You know who’s—
ALEX: One can argue.
BOBBY: —shipping out of Boston?
ALEX: I do. That’s one Chaim Bloom.
BOBBY: We got him. We got him. Yeah, tell me about it. Look how they massacred our boy.
ALEX: Yeah, seriously. So he was brought in four years ago, right? After Dombrowski won the World Series, and was subsequently fired for it a year later. “For it” maybe a strong word, but I don’t think it wasn’t in spite of it. And Bloom came into the institute some level of, I don’t know, sustainability, efficiency, right? All these words—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —that we throw around.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: He was the kind of wunderkind who came over from the Tampa Bay Rays. And I think this is the Red Sox attempt at basically creating a leaner and meaner machine, right? That— that succeeds to some degree on developing players, and putting a competitive team on the field without necessarily having to push all your chips into the middle of the table. Like a guy like Domb— Dombrowski is clearly willing to do. And so Bloom came in and did exactly that, right? And argue— and— I mean, and arguably the most defining move of that tenure is the Mookie Betts trade, right? But—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —but it doesn’t end there, right? Because outside of that, there is also nothing else you can point to that suggests that there was an organizational philosophy propelling them forward, right? There was a lot of, “Let’s strip down and really, you know, kind of retool around the edges and— and build this sustainable”— again, which— it always comes back to sustainable, right? Franchise year over year and—
BOBBY: I’m still waiting for the first franchise to go out of business, by the way.
ALEX: Right. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: What do we need to be sustainable about?
ALEX: I don’t know.
BOBBY: They seem to be sustaining themselves just fine.
ALEX: Well, I guess not well enough, because here, Bloom finds himself out of a job, right?
BOBBY: Yeah. Before we talk about Chaim and— and his legacy, to the extent that there is one, I— I— I find this story fascinating, by the way. But I— you mentioned Dombrowski and Chaim taking over for him, I think it’s so interesting that he was the GM right before him and how the Red Sox won the World Series in 2018 with, like, a high-priced super team, basically.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That was one of the best teams of the 21st century, if not the best team of the 21st century. They steamrolled everybody on the way to that World Series. They beat the Dodgers in five games. Is Dombrowski the greatest GM who has ever lived, who will never get credit for being a good GM? Because no owner wants to valorize the type of GM that he is?
ALEX: I think it kind of— depends on what happens with Philadelphia, right? I mean, I— I think—
BOBBY: He’s taken— like he’s taken three different franchises to the World Series.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: One with the Red Sox. He just got to the Phillies two years ago, two, three years ago.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: So, like, he’s basically like Theo if Theo was, like, slightly less lucky. And, yeah, we talked about Theo like— without him, we wouldn’t have baseball anymore.
ALEX: Yeah. No, I think Dombrowski is, like, in— I— by any measure one of the most successful GMs, like, in— in the last 20 years.
BOBBY: Yeah. He just does not get nearly the credit or, like, coverage that somebody like Billy Beane gets.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Despite Billy Beane never coming anywhere near what Dombrowski has done with three different teams. And Billy Beane— I— I— I named Billy Beane specifically because he— the Red Sox, clearly John Henry, the owner of the Red Sox—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —has, like, flirted with this style of leader before, and then he wanted to recruit Billy Beane to come do Moneyball plus a little bit more money, you know, in Boston, and that never amounted to being actually coming, despite like a decade of rumors that he was going to do it. And then I think, like, you know, Theo was the logical follow-up to that, and then they strayed a little bit away from that when Theo moved on. And they went for Dombrowski, which is like a— certainly a different flavor of GM and not nearly as interested in, like, prospects, not nearly as interested as, like, in building out the farm system and having more years of team control. He’s like, “I know who the good players are now and I would like to have them on my team now. And we are probably going to win because of that.” And all of that leading back to Chaim— it’s funny because I feel like the— the consensus about him was that he— his tenure was doomed from the start. And I think that is true to some extent, because the first move that Henry made him do was trade Mookie Betts. But I also think that we maybe shouldn’t let him off the hook, because, you know, your— your hands are tied behind your back when you have to trade, like, the best player in the league as your first move or, like, this— one of the three best players in the league is your first move. Like, that’s never—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You’re never going to win that trade. But also, when you’re the guy that gets hired because you were running the Rays in this specific way, this specific like, “We don’t need superstars. We just need to win around the edges and we need to have team control, and keep payroll down.” Like, you get hired to do the Mookie Betts trade because of who you were, because of where you chose to come up, because of how you were running that team. Because of the different influences on your professional career up to that point. And then you don’t get that job if you come in and say, “I don’t think this is a good idea.” Or, “I won’t do this.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Or, “There’s no way we can win this.” Like you either had to, like, lie and say, “I think that we can win this trade or that this can be a beneficial way for us to compete by trading Mookie Betts, or you don’t get the job.” And he got the job. And then it didn’t work out, because big market teams are supposed to act, like, big market teams.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And then that’s the only thing that they can and should be doing. You can’t turn the Red Sox into the Rays. This is what’s been happening to the Yankees for the last 10 years, too. They’re just, like, so obsessed with trying to beat the Rays at Rays stuff, as opposed to just being the Yankees and actually winning.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, I see more World Series rings for the Yankees than the Rays in the— in the time that the Rays have existed, so I don’t know.
ALEX: No, I think you’re right to point out that Bloom really was set up to fail in some regards, because this is not the type of model that has a “successful outcome” in the eyes of a lot of fans, right? If you have been brought in to modernize things, and streamline things, and strip things down, that’s not the stuff that necessarily bears out in the players you’re bringing in, or in your record at the end of the year. It might be borne out in your bank account, right? And— and, like, the overall worth of the club, maybe Bloom was gonna— I— like, I really don’t know. I’d have to assume that the net worth of the— the Red Sox has not dropped dramatically in the last three or four years. I think to some degree Bloom really is kind of that sacrificial GM that you need to bring in, knowing you may not find long-term sustained success with him, but as a way to sort of hit reset from the Dombrowski era, which is that kind of GM a lot of teams are moving away from.
BOBBY: But, like— then my question, though, is like where do you go from here? I— like any GM can— even Dombrowski can handle some lean years.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know? Like you don’t build— it’s tough because it’s, like, really hard to evaluate a GM just as a GM. Like I— there have been so many GMs over the years where it seems like they are a very qualified candidate, and it seems like they are going to bring, like, all of the right tools for the job. And then it’s impossible to divorce, like, their performance from whether or not the organization was, like, ready for that person to be in that job.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So, like, if the Red Sox spent the years between 2013 and 2018, being like, Death Star evil empire, because John Henry, like, didn’t care about Liverpool for those five years and wanted to actually win games with the Red Sox, and all of a sudden, overnight, you fired Dombrowski and bring in Bloom. Like, are they just going to instantly turn the ship around? No, there’s, like, organizational momentum to how a franchise is run, and entrenchment in those practices. And they don’t just change overnight. And so was the plan always for Bloom to come in and just like be, you know, like catch flak, just basically be, like, the flak jacket for, like, the owners— the ownership group to— to use to, like, signal their desire to run things a little bit differently. To, like, spend a little bit less and be more sustainable, and get under the luxury tax, and do things more like the, you know, the Orioles are doing, or do things more like the Rays are doing, or do things more like— I don’t know. Name any one of these teams. But it’s like you can’t really just, like, ping pong back and forth between doing these different strategies. Like, the owner can’t say, “I’ll give you $280 million to spend one year, and then the next year, we need to be at, like, 190,” because it’s just like— that’s not the way the contracts work.
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s not the way that, like, prospect evaluation works, and it’s not the way that, like, long-term, longitudinal, like, drafting strategy works. Like, these things all have to be working in concert, and that’s why it works so well for the Dodgers, because they’re like, “No, we’re just going to spend every year. Like, there might be a couple years where we don’t— we’re not the number one team, but we’re going to be over the— we’re going to be in the luxury tax every year. We are going to have high salaries every year, and we’re also going to develop prospects at the same time. We’re going to try in all aspects of being an organization.” And that’s what always like— that was always like a catch-22 and how I— I saw people talking about Bloom, because it was like— there was no way to talk about him, like, getting hired and his performance without talking about the fact that the ownership group made him trade Mookie Betts. But also, like, I didn’t— I don’t see— the list of candidates that they interviewed were all types of candidates whose organizational philosophy for running a baseball team might include something like trading Mookie Betts.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And, like, you bring that on yourself as a— as an executive if you subscribe to that philosophy and you, like— your, like, contributions to, like, the landscape of the game is like Rays shit, for lack of a better term. You know, like, that— this is what’s gonna happen. It’s a square peg in a round hole for like a Rays executive to go to another team and try to run it like the Rays. Like, Andrew Friedman is not running the Dodgers like he was running the Rays. He’s like taking some of the skills that he had from when—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —he ran the race. But the way that the Dodgers do stuff is nothing like how the Rays do stuff. Like, they don’t try to trade players away early. They don’t try to stay under the luxury tax. They don’t, you know, try to manipulate service time like this. Like, they don’t— I mean, of course, every team manipulate service time, but it’s not like all about that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So I just— it was doomed to fail from the beginning.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, you can’t be a big market team who tries to act like a small market team and come out in the middle and everyone be happy with that. Like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like I didn’t— like no one is actually going to be satisfied fully by that sort of compromise, and I think John Henry is finding that out in real time.
BOBBY: Okay. The next topic that I would like to nominate is twofold. It’s just like all of Mets stuff from the last couple of weeks—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —which we haven’t had the chance to talk about. I’ll get the 2023 Mets stuff out of the way first. There was an article in The Athletic by Tim Britton and Will Sammon, and it was— it was well-written. It was like essentially a cross section of how everything went wrong this year. And there was some stuff in there that like I had not, you know, maybe thought about or, like, that was a little bit revelatory to me. But ultimately, like the upshot of the article was, like, they don’t know how it went wrong. Everyone was just bad. Which I read it and I was like, “Yeah, no shit. Everybody sucked this year. Everybody was bad.” That’s number one. Number two, obviously, with regards to the— the Chaim Bloom conversation and the Red Sox and John Henry, the Mets got their guy. They hired David Stearns. Stearns, most notably in his professional career, ran the Milwaukee Brewers for the last five or so years. He has been— he had stepped down from that role for the last year, but prior to that, he was their president of baseball operations, and he was their GM before that. The Mets also tried to poach a guy named Matt Arnold, who is— who is their current— the Brewers current GM after they felt like they couldn’t get Stearns. So the Mets have had their eyes on the leadership group of the Milwaukee Brewers for quite a while. They’ve just been like, “We’re gonna hire these guys away at some point or another.” And they finally did it. Stearns comes from the Astros world. He is a— he’s a feature of Evan Drellich’s book, Winning Fixes Everything. He left the Astros before any of the cheating stuff was unearthed or going on and so he— his reputation is not quite as tainted— or not tainted at all, really, by some of the stuff that other Astros front office executives have been linked to. Him and Mike Elias both kind of left, like, before shit hit the fan in Houston. So, he has all of these, like, bonafides in the, like, cutting edge front office industry, you know? Like, he was at the Astros, like, breaking shit and, you know, disrupting. And then he went to the Brewers and he proved that, like, his philosophy could run a whole organization that doesn’t spend quite as much, and he can make clever trades, and he can have a positive impact on player development. And now, he’s coming to New York, and it’s just like a totally different job. And it— it— in some ways, like I— I’m apprehensive to say this, but it does kind of remind me of the Chaim Bloom situation, but there is one big difference, which is that I don’t think Steve Cohen is going to hire him with the expect— with the explicit expectation that he can’t spend money.
ALEX: Right. No.
BOBBY: You know? Like— and, you know, Bloom was able to spend money. He’s signed Trevor Story to a big contract. You know, they extended Rafael Devers. Like, they’ve— they’ve spent money, but certainly not to the extent that they used to spend and to the extent that Steve Cohen will be willing to— to give some leash to Stearns with the Mets. But fa— it’s fascinating to me how he’s basically, like, pre-anointed as, like, the next Friedman. You know, that was how he was described in Jeff Passan’s article about this hiring, that’s how many of people have been— that’s how many people have been describing this— what seemed like a faded situation where he was going to be hired by the Mets and he’s going to be given this huge bevy of resources to— to run a team that he never had in Milwaukee. I just— it just— it can go wrong in so many ways. You know, like, I’m happy about it. I’m pretty excited that the Mets have someone who’s gonna be running the team for, like, five years, and I feel confident that he will at least have, like, the time to implement a vision that isn’t just spend as much money as possible on, like, 34-year-olds. Which has been the vision for the last few years. But do you find it weird how a guy who got Milwaukee to the playoffs a couple of times and to one NLCS, is now being talked about like Andrew Friedman? A guy who was part of the Rays front office that went to a World Series and didn’t win, but went to a World Series. And then went to the Dodgers and has had, like, unprecedented levels of success. Like, it seems like a really high bar to set.
ALEX: I mean, yeah, I— I don’t know anything about those comparisons, necessarily, and it does feel like far too early to anoint him as such. I mean, I think, you know, he— he checks the boxes of a lot of the modern general manager archetype, right? He’s got the, like, political science degree. He’s young— you know, he’s 38 years old. Is he— so he’s— he’s a millennial, that makes him a millennial.
BOBBY: Yeah, and elder millennial.
ALEX: Hell yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah. That’s an important representation.
ALEX: You know, he— he has cut—
BOBBY: He’s younger than Max Scherzer.
ALEX: He’s cut his teeth and some of these like, you know, organizations that have been known to be, you know, on the “cutting edge” of— of various levels of player development with, like, the Guardians and the Astros. And so, I— I think it’s like— I can see why Mets fans would be excited about this sort of thing. I can also see why Mets fans such as your health— such as yourself, maybe apprehensive to, like, say, “Hey, like it takes more than just a GM. Like, the team, they got to play good.” And as we’ve just seen, that’s not a given, right? So, like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —I do think there is that sort of organization— or I do think there’s that kind of disconnect sometimes with fans where it feels really easy to feel like the GM will be the guy who saves you. I mean, it feels like a lot of treading the same ground that we saw when Cohen came in a few years ago, right? Where it’s like he is the one who will lead us to salvation.
BOBBY: Well, it feels like— it feels like when fans and honestly, media think and talk about GMs, they think that, like, every decision that happens in an organization is like rubber stamped by the GM or, like, created, ideated, executed by the GM.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And it’s just like it’s not that. And now, certain GMs who are empowered as like— I would say like the— the, like, visionary, like strategist GM, not just like the executing routine baseball operations GM, like the cult of personality GMs, which I think that like giving Stearns this contract, having recruited him so intensely over the last few years would lead you to believe that they will let him do what he wants to do. And they finally cleared house, they finally fired everybody. And they’re going to let him hire who he wants to hire in terms of like directors of player development, you know, like, assistant GM. So you know, like, there are no longer leftovers from the Sandy Alderson era—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —inn the Mets front office. And so I think that— because of the way that, like, the media shapes the conversation around what GMs do, we often are just like— they are making all of the decisions, and every good thing that happens is because of them, and every bad things that— that happens is because of them. And I just don’t— I don’t know that it’s— it’s healthy to, like, have those expectations on a— a GM higher, you know? Because I just like— I feel like I’ve been down this road before, you know? It seems like there’s like an— an— a never ending list of, like, extremely qualified candidates whose resume looks a lot like Stearns that just didn’t have that run in Milwaukee, where like they made the playoffs a few times.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You know? And, like, how materially different is that for an organization? I think is an interesting and hard question to answer, but I think most people act like it’s an easy question to answer. And I think most people act like it’s a huge difference. And I just don’t— I don’t think that there is like a laundry list of examples of guys who like— and it’s all guys, by the way, except for Kim Ng who finally got a job and her contract is up at the end of this year and, like, the Marlins haven’t extended her yet, despite the fact that they overperformed every year that she has been the GM. And I think maybe she might run the Red Sox, but I don’t really know. There— it seems like there’s like a laundry list of guys who they felt are, like, the next guy, you know? Like, the next Theo, the next Friedman. And there’s like— where are all those guys now? Like, what are all those guys doing?
ALEX: I mean, yeah, I don’t— I don’t know the answer. I— but I think it’s a folly to think about it in terms of like, “Well, if you’re not the next Theo, then— you know, then well—”
BOBBY: No, dude, he’s got to be the next Theo.
ALEX: He—
BOBBY: I’m just being real with you. Like, the way that he’s been talked about, like the way that he has been essentially crowned, like, before he ever got here.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: If he’s not Theo, if, like, they don’t win the World Series in the next five years, like people will be like, “I was sold— this is false advertising. Like, I was told that this guy is Andrew Friedman. I was told that this guy is Theo.” And I just don’t— It’s so much more nuanced than that, is basically what I mean. Like, if Steve Cohen doesn’t say yes to some idea that Stearns has, and everything goes wrong because of that one alternate, you know, sliding doors moment, like does that mean Stearns was a bad GM? If Steve Cohen has a short that goes wrong, and he has $40 million less to spend and the Mets don’t get a starter one year, like does that mean Stearns is a bad GM? I don’t— I— like I genuinely don’t— I don’t know. I— almost like at the point in thinking about front office executives, where I’m like, “Is it— is it correlation or causation?”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like I— I— I— I almost don’t know, whether it even matters how good of a GM you are. Because I look around at some teams and I’m like, “Are you well run or do you just have like— or— or did your owner decide that he wanted to, like, let you spend money on a player that happened to work out and it was like more luck than skill?”
ALEX: I mean, I think you’re— you’re right to some degree that we overstate the— the impact of a GM on maybe they’ll, like— day-to-day ups and downs of a team. I think they have much more to do with, like, institutional philosophy and like stuff that like we don’t even necessarily get to witness as fans, right? On how you’re running your risk analyst team. I think Mets fans will not be shy about sharing their ire if— if things don’t work out in the next few years. I think we can trust that Stearns will not be the only one to get an earful.
BOBBY: I just think it’s a lot of executive performance, feels a lot like 20/20 hindsight to me. Like, we look back on these executives and like, “Oh, my God, they were actually so visionary.” When they were actually just making the same exact decisions that other executives were making and those— the players didn’t play well on those teams, so it didn’t happen to work out for them.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, I’m not— I’m not fully convinced, frankly that just because the Nationals won the 2019 World Series that that makes Mike Rizzo a better GM than, like, if they had lost in the NLCS, you know?
ALEX: I— no, I fully agree.
BOBBY: And so, like, I looked back at the last, I don’t know, 10 to 15 World Series winners and I’m like, “There were other teams that were behaving exactly like those teams. It just so happened that the players on the team that won played better in October.” And I— so when we talk about, like, forward-looking discussion about results and like what will come of Mets fandom, I’m not like— I don’t know why there’s— there’s like a collective, like, rejoice from, like, fans and like media, I guess, because it just makes it a better story to have, like, a new guy—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —come in and be like, “Oh, my God, this could be the next, like, cult of personality, like, GM that—
ALEX: And he, like, grew up in New York, is a Mets fan like—
BOBBY: —that— that we write books about. It just feels like a backward incentive structure to be like, “All right, now we’re saved.” You know?
ALEX: I think you got to give the fans something to be excited about these days.
BOBBY: We’re one year removed from the Mets winning 101 games with Billy Eppler as their GM, a guy who I know is not a good GM.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So none of this matters at all. It’s all I’m trying to say. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Was Dayton Moore a good GM? I have no fucking idea. Dayton Moore was doing dumb shit all the time.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He did dumb shit leading up to when they won the World Series and certainly did dumb shit afterwards. But was he a visionary because they won the World Series in a weird way that no one else really has done in the 21st century? I don’t know.
ALEX: No, he was a visionary because he was anti-porn.
BOBBY: I don’t know. Maybe it sounds like I’m having a little bit of a mental breakdown, but, like, I just don’t get it, man. I just don’t— I don’t get it, because, like, when the Phillies hire Dave Dombrowski, I think like intelligent fans who don’t really give a shit about, like, owners’ pockets were like, “This is fucking huge. Like, this is gonna be a huge thing.” But I think everybody else was just like, “All right, we’ll see.” I’m like, “That’s a guy who’s actually brought three different teams to the World Series.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “And won a World Series.” And I just— David Stearns, cool resume, man. Like, congrats on getting to the NLCS once. Honestly, honestly, it’s not like he’s won two World Series with three different organizations [44:52]
ALEX: Well— well, but is that not—
BOBBY: But you would think that he has.
ALEX: But is that not an— an argument in favor of sort of what you’re saying that the playoffs are a crapshoot in a certain sense, and so he may very well be a good GM who just got outplayed in the playoffs, right? And, like, is one of those guys who would be anointed the future— the ones in future GM, you know—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —if he had gotten that win.
BOBBY: I guess. But if Billy Beane won the World Series and the A’s would have won the World Series, you know, Moneyball would have worked, but it didn’t.
ALEX: Well— no, I know. Yes. Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, it just didn’t. The Rays are still waiting on their first one, you know? I don’t know. I don’t know.
ALEX: I— I do think that, like, when you get to— like, you ultimately end up splitting hairs between a lot of— like, I think that in the fans’ mind, they’re discreet groups of GMs, right? On— on— and what makes them good and what makes them bad. And I do think that on the whole, they’re all grouped very closely—
BOBBY: Yeah, There—
ALEX: —together.
BOBBY: There’s, like, maybe like one standard deviation among, like, the best GMs and the worst GMs.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But— I mean, maybe that’s not true. Maybe I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. Like, maybe— maybe David Stearns is gonna come in, and he’s gonna change everything, and the Mets are gonna be perfectly run, and they’re never gonna make mistakes. It— I just think it’s weird, and I’m not— I’m not even trying to zag. I’m not even trying to, like, protect my heart or anything. Like, I just think it’s weird how, like, the second the guy is hired, it’s like unanimously like, “This is the dude, this is the one. He’s the next Andrew Friedman. Like, we’re all gonna do this.” Like, I don’t think Andrew Friedman got to the Dodgers and he was like, “Here’s every decision we’re gonna make for the next 12 years, and it’s all gonna go great.” I think there’s a lot of really smart people that figured out how to make the Dodgers the Dodgers.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t know. Let’s move on to the next topic, because we’re like almost an hour into this and we’ve covered two topics. I told you I had a lot of thoughts about David Stearns.
ALEX: I— I know.
BOBBY: I said that last week. David Stearns—
ALEX: I didn’t— I didn’t know what I was asking for, yeah.
BOBBY: I just call him David Stern like the NBA Commissioner. It just— just occurred to me how similar those names are.
[laughter]
BOBBY: Now, that’s a visionary.
ALEX: That is a visionary. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: David Stern was a visionary. The dress code, you know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: The potential— no, maybe [47:02] I didn’t mean to go down this road. I’m not gonna slander the David Stern estate. Please bring up the next topic.
ALEX: This next topic has nothing to do with GMs, or the way that their decisions play out on the field, or the successive of teams. It has to do about font— it has to do with fonts.
BOBBY: Fonts?
ALEX: Bobby, I think you know— you— you know that I’m—
BOBBY: You’re a big fonts guy.
ALEX: I— I’m a fan of the— the— the finer points of font usage, general user experience and design.
BOBBY: Serif or sans serif?
ALEX: Is it— I don’t know, is it printed or digital? Right? I mean, that’s like—
BOBBY: Great question.
ALEX: I—
BOBBY: What’s your favorite font right now?
ALEX: Well, the one I’m using a lot at— at— at my new job is Raleway.
BOBBY: Raleway?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I don’t think I’m familiar with that.
ALEX: It’s cool. It’s a little funky. You know, the— the— it’s got some curves. It’s one of the ones where like the— the— the L’s like come up a little bit.
BOBBY: Oh, okay.
ALEX: You’re— you’re perusing the font right now.
BOBBY: I’m looking at it, yeah. I gotta say I don’t love it. I don’t love it.
ALEX: You— you can take that up with my employer.
BOBBY: I don’t think I need to, unless they’re listening. I’m forever and always a Georgia man.
ALEX: Yeah. I do— I do like Georgia— Georgia a lot. Cooper Hewitt is another one. Did— we don’t have to go down this road.
BOBBY: Everything I write is in Georgia.
ALEX: Yeah, I guess that’s true. Yeah. All the Google Docs we work off of—
BOBBY: I changed all of our Google Docs to Georgia. Like, I’m not working in Arial, sorry. It’s— Arial is depressing. Do you know what Arial makes me think of? Washington Square News.
ALEX: Yeah. For better for worse.
BOBBY: For worse, mostly.
ALEX: Georgia, I like, but it’s also really big. It feels almost like—
BOBBY: I like it.
ALEX: — goofily big.
BOBBY: Bold, brave. Dream bigger.
ALEX: Fortune does favor the— favor the bold, though.
BOBBY: Fortune favors the bold, I’ve heard that. How is fortune working out for the bold these days? If you don’t know what we’re talking about, that was the copy of an NFT ad. I don’t know if it’s NFC or it was just cryptocurrency in general, that Matt Damon did at the Super Bowl in 2022, 2021, 2022. And there was a report this past week that all NFTs are basically worth nothing. It’s just worth $0, so I don’t think fortune did favorite the bold. I actually think fortune favors the normal, like the— just the normal people. Like the—
ALEX: Right. Just— just going about your day.
BOBBY: Just keep your head down and fucking keep to yourself. Fortune certainly doesn’t favor people who will try to get in— in on get rich quick schemes.
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: Like it never has. You know, fortune didn’t favor the Madoff Ponzi scheme.
ALEX: Fortune also does not favor having poor kerning on the back of your jerseys, at least if you watch the Texas Rangers broadcast. Can I— can I just play a clip for us real quick?
BOBBY: Yes. Sure.
DAVE: One issue with Seattle, there’s this thing called kerneling?
C.J.: Say it again.
DAVE: The— the distance between letters like—
C.J.: Oh, yeah.
DAVE: —the font, right?
C.J.: What is it called?
DAVE: Kerning, kerning.
C.J.: Gosh, darn. I just told Goldie too, I learned, you know, a handful of new words from you in our seven years together. Put that one down.
DAVE: Yeah. So kerning, it’s that space between letters. It should be uniform, right? When you look at Haggerty’s name on the back, the H to the A, there’s too big a gap.
C.J.: Yeah.
DAVE: And they do that— they— they have this problem on all— and maybe it’s— maybe it’s their shtick, right? Maybe they’re— maybe it’s just a Seattle bit that they do, where they like to make the— the back of the jersey looks so goofy. But this— the names are just laid out terribly. And frankly, it drives me nuts.
ALEX: So that was Rangers play-by-play announcer Dave Raymond talking with the color analyst C.J. Nitkowski about the Mariners Jersey kerning on their names, and to be very clear—
BOBBY: Broaching the important topics.
ALEX: —I agree with them. I— I’ll show you a photo of this— of this— these photos like—
BOBBY: Oh, it’s horrible.
ALEX: It’s awful, right?
BOBBY: I can’t even look at it. Get it out of my face.
ALEX: I— I see what Dave is talking about.
BOBBY: Get it out of my face. It’s terrible.
ALEX: I— I just have to respect the commitment.
BOBBY: It’s a long season.
ALEX: It is a long season. There could have not been a lot of positives to talk about in— in Texas in the last couple of weeks.
BOBBY: So a font— that’s true. Thank God. So a font aficionado that you are, so it’s called kerning when it’s like letters within the same word. Is it also called that when it’s like the space between different words? So for example, like when we— we used to work in newspapers, really it’s just one— I guess multiple newspapers and then you went on to work at AM New York and I went on to work at Newsday. This was back when you could actually get paid money to work at a— at a— at a newspaper and write stuff.
ALEX: Yeah, different times.
BOBBY: Now, you just have to do pods. This is where the big bucks are. Raking in that sweet, sweet Patreon cash. Like, when you would have an article and there’d be like a large gap— there’d be like a line where there would only be like two words that fit on it and there’d be like a large gap between them, because it has to fill the columns in a straight line, in the actual print version of a newspaper. Did that bother you? And also, is that called kerning or is there another word for that?
ALEX: No, it didn’t bother me. I actually thought— I think that’s one of the— the cooler things that newspapers do is when all the spacing and like— and I’m saying [52:30] as ironically.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: They do the thing, right, where the columns are aligned and they— and all the words go all the way to the— the right. I think it makes it very aesthetically pleasing to— to read. And sometimes you’re—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —like, “Oh, this line has nine words, and then the next one has four. Ooh.”
BOBBY: It was really—
ALEX: What are they gonna throw me next?
BOBBY: It was really painful sometimes when we’d be like trying to fill a column and our designer would be like, “You need 100 more words in this article.”
ALEX: Yeah. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like, there just has to be 100 more words. Like we can’t make it work. And it’d be like, “No. No. I have to add 100 words to this article about a NYU press release.” This is so painful. This is so painful. Harder to cut words, too.
ALEX: Yes, it is harder to cut words. Although—
BOBBY: You could just add, like, two quotes.
ALEX: —although preferred to cut words.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Like, that’s— I mean, it’s less— it’s a little harder to cut words, right, because it’s hard to kill your darlings. Far worse at 1:00 a.m. to be forced to write 50 more words for an article that—
BOBBY: Superbole.
ALEX: —you did not even really read that closely.
BOBBY: And then you’re like, “Should I share the byline? Like, I wrote basically half this article.”
ALEX: All that to say, I— I— I don’t believe that is— that is kerning.
BOBBY: That’s just spacing.
ALEX: I think that’s like— like word spacing, yeah.
BOBBY: It— it— it does kind of bother me, actually. You know what? I think it’s funky-looking.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: Sometimes I would add a couple of words into my article just to make it look better on the page. Just like a word here and there.
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Never knew this about you.
BOBBY: I was going up to crazy stuff, you know, when you would look away. And the designer [54:01] add— added random shit in there. You said a phrase just now.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Thank you to the Texas Rangers announcers, by the way, for getting us on this topic.
ALEX: Of course.
BOBBY: You said a phrase just now “Kill your darlings.”
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: That’s a very important phrase in journalism.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And writing in general. Prose writing poetry. You know, you want to— I guess in poetry, you don’t really kill your darlings, like all darlings. But it means from— for those of us who did not waste all of our money at J-School, go into debt for J-School. It just means that, like, trim the fat from your story. You know, like you don’t need you— don’t need all this fluffy language that you could just say in a more direct and succinct way—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —in journalism. Like, get to the point, basically. Obviously, in different kinds of writing, it matters more. Like in news writings, it might— you don’t need to have like a paragraph in the middle there where you’re doing, like, scene setting and, like, really flowery prose necessarily. But if it’s like a personal essay, maybe keep my darlings in. Or if it’s a Tipping Pitches newsletter, for example. Is— is podcasting the exact opposite? Is podcasting like birth more darlings?
ALEX: Right. Provide your darlings?
BOBBY: Would do you say we’re killing our darlings when we do this pod?
ALEX: No, I— I definitely would not. You may kill— kill ones occasionally in post. Although, I think that’s a rarity. I think you keep all the— all the darlings in here.
BOBBY: Yeah. I keep most of it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Most of the stuff that I kill in post is, like, just dead air.
ALEX: Throat clearing.
BOBBY: Right. Literal or figurative. I think that maybe— maybe this is like a boomerang effect a little bit. Like, we were told to kill our darlings so often that we were like, “What if we created a podcast?”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “Then we didn’t have to kill our darlings. The whole thing was darlings.” What if we did a Power Hour on the 300th episode and put a two-hour and 37-minute episode out? And people were like, “Yes, I will listen to this more than the other episodes.”
ALEX: So what you’re saying is you— we actually maybe have our upbringing as journalists to blame for this podcast.
BOBBY: Yes, this is a reactionary pivot. The last 300 episodes are a reactionary pivot.
ALEX: This is us pushing back on everything we’ve been taught.
BOBBY: Yup, pretty much. Although at the top of the show, I said that we were following New York Times journalistic principles by calling it X formerly Twitter.
ALEX: Hmm. Yeah, that’s tough.
BOBBY: So we’re being pulled in different directions. Okay, I’m gonna bring up a new topic.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s also about a GM.
ALEX: Okay, great.
BOBBY: Here’s a really good example. Is A.J. Preller a good GM? It’s like the perfect opportunity for the— the like— is A.J. Preller a good GM forum.
ALEX: Right. The— the longest debate.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: yeah.
BOBBY: Locked by moderators. Because he is, like, certainly— he is like a cult of personality.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You know, like people were Preller jerseys—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —to Padres games. And he’s kind of beloved by the industry, like the— by media. Fans really liked what he did. It was, like, exciting that he was able to, like, convince Peter Seidler to invest in the team, to sign players long-term. It was exciting that he was able to develop enough young talent to be able to acquire these star players and trades. Like, if David Stearns performed like him, would that be a success?
ALEX: I— I think it— I mean, it depends on what your definition of success is, right? I think that— I mean, I— I won’t speak for Padres fans. There’s been a lot to get excited about over the last few years. Obviously— obviously, there are no banners hanging, and internally, the organization is in a little bit of disarray, which is I know kind of why you— you brought this up. But I do think—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —it makes it really hard to— to judge because I look at them, I look at the team that’s been compiled, and I’m like, “Banger of a team. Oh, my God.”
BOBBY: Yeah. And they stink.
ALEX: And they’re just not very good.
BOBBY: So the reason I bring this up is because there was an article co-written by Ken Rosenthal and Dennis Lin. Dennis Lin is the Padres beat reporter for The Athletic. And Ken Rosenthal is obviously the national— senior national baseball writer, whatever his title is.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, he’s Ken Rosenthal.
ALEX: [58:09]
BOBBY: One of the 30 most famous people in the baseball world, according to Tipping Pitches Podcast. Put it on his movie poster, you know, like, in quotes. “One of the 30 most famous people in the baseball world.” Bobby Wagner and Alex Bazeley. They— they wrote an article about the— similar to the, you know, the article that was written about the Mets that I brought up already, about how things went wrong, and what is going wrong in San Diego. They called it an institutional failure, and people within the organization anonymously called it an institutional failure, described it as toxic. They call it a shaky foundation. And essentially, the thesis of the article is that Preller is a very gifted talent evaluator. He’s a very hard worker. He has obviously improved the star power and, like, the potential of the team on the Major League field, but that his working style, his cold approach to how to build a team, which is, like, trade away as many prospects as possible. Don’t worry about organizational depth in favor of building the most talented roster that you can in the present moment. It has left a lot of— by— you know, by this article’s estimation, and by talking to a lot of people within the organization, there is an internal rift about whether or not— there’s an internal rift among managers, players, coaches, and other team officials about whether they are steering the team in the wrong direction because of that. And how the vibe is just kind of rancid, toxic around the Padres, and that has contributed to a feeling of malaise and a feeling of pressure over how the team is performing. And if they’re not performing up to the expectations of the talent, of the roster, then like is that a failure? Is there anywhere to go after that? Is this all A.J. probably knows how to do? And it seems like— like where the article meets out is that I don’t think that there’s really one conclusion or the other. Like, I think there are some people within the organization who feel this way, and then I think there are other people within the organization who were like, “He’s done a good job. He’s built a good team, and the team is not doing well.” But it seems like, again, we get to this— the— we get into these murky waters about, like, how much control does the GM actually have over how things play out. Because, like, at every level of every organization, there are people who make decisions, and they don’t make those decisions all of the time, pretending that they— or have the GM’s brain inside of their head, you know? Like they make conscious decisions for themselves, because they are people who have a view on how baseball should work. And those views are often changing. Like Preller hires Bob Melvin— or rather, he trades for Bob Melvin from the A’s, which was weird, to be the manager and— because he’s the most competent guy available for the job of, you know, bringing the Padres into the— the present moment. He’s experienced. He’s a veteran manager. He knows how to handle big personalities. He’s been through a lot of different situations with the good teams, with bad teams, with young players, with older players, whatever. And he is a proven manager. And now he comes in, and he and Preller don’t speak, according to this article. Like, they don’t see eye to eye about how the— the lineup should be constructed, about how the organizational depth plays out in real time during a season. And I’m just like— when I see stories like this, it just makes me question as to whether or not like— it really even matters that you were, like, good at player development three organizations ago, or whether you’re like— can evaluate young talent and make an important trade to get Juan Soto on your team, if you can’t even figure out how to get your manager to, like, get the team to play well. You know, I just— I— it just— I have myself, like, questioning as to not— whether or not like— any of this even matters, or whether it’s all just luck as to whether teams get good.
ALEX: Yeah. You know, I wish I had the answer for you.
BOBBY: It’s just— it’s confounding. This Padres story is confounding.
ALEX: It’s— it is really remarkable kind of what’s happened over there in the last few years, given that this is as much of a window as they have ever had in terms of, like, on paper talent, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I think without being inside, there’s no way for us to speculate on— on— on where that friction is coming from and why it’s like not happening. It does strike me as being like— I do think it’s an— it’s an interesting comparison to the Mets situation where it— it feels similar and that you have this wealth of talent that’s not necessarily bearing fruit on the field, but it doesn’t feel like the Mets have like a— a level of toxicity that’s in— that’s like feeding that, right? I mean— and maybe they do, but it feels like everyone’s more just kind of down bad right now.
BOBBY: So Tommy Pham accused them of being the least hardworking team he’s ever played on, but also Tommy Pham is like— you take what he says with a grain of salt because he’s like notoriously a really intense guy.
ALEX: Yeah. Also, I don’t— the—
BOBBY: Entire [01:03:21]
ALEX: I don’t— I don’t care.
BOBBY: Entire [01:03:22]
ALEX: Like, I don’t— okay. Sure. You can still have 40 bonds in a year, like it doesn’t matter to me.
BOBBY: It— I just— so Stearns has been described as like a— like a cold an—
ALEX: Yeah, we’re back on Stearns.
BOBBY: He has been described as like a cold, analytical GM. Like, he’s gonna— he comes from the Astros, you know? Like, they make choices based on what they think is the right process, regardless of how the people who have to execute on this vision feel about it. Whether that’s the players, whether that’s the coaches. You can’t hire an entire organization of people who think like you do, you can’t, and you shouldn’t, you know? And Stearns won’t, because Peller can’t. You know, no GM can hire a bunch of people who, like, 100% of the time are going to believe in the choices that they’re making. That’s just not how, like, workplaces work, if you have more than, like, three people in the workplace. And so I’m almost like— all of this talk about different GMs and the ways that they— their— their philosophies are like these modern analytical approaches to the game, like how they play out in practice and whether or not they work and why Preller’s team has not been able to perform up to the expectation of the team that he put on paper. All of it has been, like, in a horseshoe theory kind of way, being like, was Theo just good because people liked him? Like, was Theo just as great as he was as a GM because he’s like as smart as these other guys? But, like, he played pickup basketball with them, everybody on the weekend, too. And they like— they like genuinely, like, wanted to work hard and, like, wanted to hang out with him and, like, win. Because it doesn’t seem like all of the people who are following in the Theo mold really give a shit about any of that stuff. They’re almost like— it’s been kind of like bastardized a little bit by, like, the— the Rays and Astros, for lack of a better encapsulation of it. Where they’re just like— it’s like the stock market baby. Like, baseball is like there is a right answer and there’s a wrong answer, and then there’s a mathematical approach to figuring out which is which.
ALEX: Yeah, the— I— the emotion from a lot of this has been really stripped, which I do think to a certain extent is maybe something that Theo got. I mean, he’s an interesting sort of bridge between the older generation of GMs who were like all vibes-based and the new— and the new GMs who are just, like, all spreadsheet—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —based. And, like, the— the— the Bloom— that trade is a really good example of, like, when that goes awry, right? Of like— and— and you can [01:05:49] Bogaerts into that as well of like— if you’re going to completely blow up like that— that amount of goodwill that you have with the fans, like you need to bring something else to the table, right? Like you need to bring a team who’s going to succeed around the edges, or who’s gonna make a push for wildcard spot, or whatever. A lot of that is alighted and in favor of—I don’t even know what. Nothing, right? Like, there’s nothing necessarily that fills that gap of, “Here’s how we actually build meaningful relationships within the organization and like— like outside of the organization,” if— if that makes sense.
BOBBY: It does. It’s really hard to assess from the outside. Like, it’s really hard because you get these occasional glimpses into something like this Padres story, where it’s like people admire like his base— like Preller’s ability to evaluate and acquire baseball talent. But it seems like they all hate being on the Padres. Like, top down. Like, it doesn’t— like the players maybe don’t— not all of them, obviously. But like, it doesn’t seem like the players really want to— want to be there. It doesn’t really seem like— and not just because they don’t want to be, like, in San Diego, or like members of the Padres, or because like they don’t want to play in front of the fans. Like, I actually think that they have a great environment and, like, they have a really good— like they have a great broadcast. Like, they have— they sell out a lot. They have a great ballpark. Like, people want to live in Southern California. Like, I don’t think that— I’m not saying that to say that, like, players don’t want to go there, because, obviously, these players are signing contracts, like long contracts to be on that team for a long time. It just— it feels like the fun has been hammered out of it. You know, like that team was fun three years ago, and now—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —they are— they’re like joyless. And I— I can’t figure out how a team with Manny Machado, and Fernando Tatis, Jr., and Xander Bogaerts, and Juan Soto, and all of these other players who are, like, fun to watch individually. It’s hard for me to, like, find another element in this equation that doesn’t have to do with the fact that, like, they seem to be run a little bit like on a spreadsheet, honestly.
ALEX: I mean, I this conversation and the ones preceding it about various GMs, I think are sort of— like the proof is in the pudding there about how small the differences are between these teams and— and between GMs, and as fans, like, the limited degree to which it really does us any good to celebrate the hiring of a— of a GM or the firing of another G— you know, like, I think you can make some educated guesses about how certain people will behave in roles based on their past experiences. But like, ultimately, as much as the powerbrokers of this game would like to— like— like, I— I hate to be that guy but, like, you still gotta go out there and play the game, right?
BOBBY: I— yes.
ALEX: And it’s like I do find myself oftentimes coming back to this period of like, “All right. Yeah, you can do all the legwork upfront you want, and get all your ducks in the row, and have the best analytic system, whatever.” But at the end of the day, it’s a game of— of 9v9, you know? And someone asks a scoreboard runs.
BOBBY: I think that if I had to synthesize my admittedly, like, scattershot thoughts about all of— everything that we’ve talked about in relation to GMs and executives today, it— it would be that I just think that they are having much less of an impact on what— on results than we give them credit for. I think that it’s like— it’s something to talk about that people— it’s a person that they can look to and they say that this person is the person that made the decision that led to the players being here. And then the players, it’s like, “Yeah, we could— we could blame them, right? Like, but the GM should have known that the player was going to play bad or the GM should have known that that other player that they could have signed would have played better, you know? And it’s like, why should they have known that? They don’t make the decisions on the field. Like, they don’t play the game. Why are we giving so much credence to these people? Why are we giving so much, like, clout in the baseball world? Like, they are doing like 10% of the work, maybe.
ALEX: I— if that.
BOBBY: Like, I’ll give them 10, you know? And I’ll give it like the coaches like—
ALEX: I would say they are responsible for 10% of the work, right? As in like they are still working within a system in which, like, dozens and maybe hundreds of other people like feed into that and present, right?
BOBBY: Yes. I don’t know. That’s— that’s all I wanted to say about Preller and the Padres. I feel bad for Padres fans because like it’s gone so quickly from so much hope so much excitement, a really feel-good energy to it three years ago, to now it’s like, now what? You know? Now, we’ve tried a lot of things. Our real— our only real option is, like, run it back and hope that the vibes are better. Like, imagine if the Padres had the Phillies vibes. That team would win 120 games.
ALEX: God.
SPEAKER 5: Let’s get it in. Yeah, ma, your dude is back, the Maybach Coupe is back. Tell the whole world the truth is back. You ain’t gotta argue about who can rap. ‘Cause the proof is back.
BOBBY: Okay. We are now joined by Allison McCague once again to talk about Dollars 4 Dingers. But before we do, I do need to ask you a very important question, Allison. How are you—
ALLISON: Yes.
BOBBY: —sharing this Zoom with a traitor named Alex Bazeley?
ALLISON: I don’t know, but it’s rough. It’s rough. Especially considering he was— the two finalists were the Phillies and the Orioles, and the Orioles are my second favorite team.
ALEX: Oh, my God.
ALLISON: They’re my American League team.
ALEX: Wow.
ALLISON: So I was double betrayed as a Mets and Orioles fan.
ALEX: So I really zagged in there.
BOBBY: Uniquely backstab. You know, you’re the first other Mets fan who’s been on the pod since Alex chose the Phillies, so you’re the first person who can harangue him with me.
ALLISON: Yeah. Well—
ALEX: Right. At least— at least on air. I’ve been— I’ve been wronged—
BOBBY: Oh. Oh.
ALEX: —many times while your family, I think.
[laughter]
BOBBY: Yeah, you really have.
ALLISON: Well—
BOBBY: Well, we’ll just wait ’till the tailgate next year, bro.
ALEX: Yeah, I know.
BOBBY: You actually might get, like, beer poured on you or something, or like—
ALEX: I think they may not let me in. Yeah.
BOBBY: I mean, you better come correct. You better not come with the Phillies jersey. That’s all I gotta say.
ALLISON: Much like Bobby, I’m a Mets fan who is intimately familiar with Phillies fan culture as someone who went to college at the University of Delaware—
BOBBY: Oh, boy.
ALLISON: —which is prime— prime Phillies territory. Delaware is very Phillies fan heavy, and so many of my best friends from college are all Phillies fans, and so it was— it’s— it’s rough scenes. It remains rough scenes. My best friend is a Phillies fan and she’s coming to Dollars 4 Dingers out of the goodness of her heart, because it’s a Mets-Phillies game, and she’s gonna be wearing Phillies gear, so—
BOBBY: Oh, my goodness. It’s— it is a Mets-Phillies game. I didn’t even think about that.
ALLISON: It is. It is a Mets Phillies game.
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: Wow.
BOBBY: The stakes have been raised, Alex. That means that you have to— you have to do something— you have to do something big, you know, to support this year, to— not only because it’s a great cause and something that we care deeply about, but be— because you’ve done harm in the world by choosing the Phillies.
ALEX: Right. This is my penance?
ALLISON: And the Mets will be playing your beloved Philadelphia Phillies who just swept them in four games.
BOBBY: Well, that— that doesn’t count. Actually, that’s something else I wanted to ask you about, Allison. How— does it make your life harder to do a podcast that like— it’s not all about the Mets, but heavily features Mets conversation with— with everything that’s been going on for the last five months?
ALLISON: Yes. And this year, I feel is uniquely hard because there have been other years where the Mets have been bad and, you know, I have to podcast about them. But usually, it’s funny and so— and so like you could just, like, do bits and, like, you know, just be like, “Ha, ha, ha. It’s so funny. Lol, Mets.” But this year, it’s like not— they’re bad and it’s not funny, so like what are you supposed to do with that?
ALEX: Right. You can— you can laugh in a— in a much different— much darker— much darker way. No— no one really knows what— what goes on behind— behind that laugh.
BOBBY: Much of this episode features— frankly, I did edit it, Alex, by the way already. I edited the rest of this episode, which is coming out—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —tomorrow morning. It features a frankly un— unstable conversation about David Stearns and the future of the New York Mets. Like, I would describe my headspace as like manic, to be honest, in editing it and going doubling back on it, so where— where are you at?
ALLISON: David Stearns, you’re our God now.
[laughter]
BOBBY: What— are you— are you fully bought into the David Stearns’, Theo Epstein’s savior narrative?
ALLISON: I don’t know. Like maybe— like no, but also like he’s probably— probably, at least on paper, the bets— best GM the Mets have ever had in my lifetime, so—
BOBBY: Well, that’s— that’s definitely true. That’s sad, but true.
ALLISON: Which the bar is in Hades but, like—
ALEX: Right. It’s like— it’s like him—
ALLISON: Like—
ALEX: —like Brodie Van Wagenen, and then 50 feet of shit, and then everyone else.
BOBBY: Put some respect on 2012 Sandy Alderson’s name, Alex.
ALLISON: Yeah.
BOBBY: Put some respect—
ALLISON: No. Sandy Alderson was good at first.
BOBBY: Good at first.
ALEX: Yeah.
ALLISON: And he just was around for too long.
BOBBY: There’s like a whole subsection of Mets fans who are like Omar Minaya defenders, because Minaya like drafted a lot of the players that built the Sandy Alderson teams that made it to the playoffs. And I’m just like— when you really have to, like, split hairs like that, I’m like, “None of them were good, then.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know, when you really—
ALLISON: And now all those people were vindicated, Because Omar Minaya is the one who wanted to hire David Stearns, and they’re all like, “Oh, Omar was right. Omar’s team.”
BOBBY: We are very unhealthy— a deeply unhealthy bunch of people.
ALLISON: It’s so sick.
BOBBY: Deeply, deeply unhealthy. Okay. Tell— tell the people about Dollars 4 Dingers. Number one, when— when is the event? How can they support? What’s— what’s the best way? What are all the deets?
ALLISON: Yes. So Dollars 4 Dingers is an annual campaign that my podcast, A Pod of Their Own does, where we— first of all, it’s kind of two parts. It’s a pledge drive and then it’s also an in-person raffle event. So the pledge drive portion starts at the beginning of the month and runs the entire month of September. It’s not too late to participate in the pledge drive through the miracle of Google Sheets and my exceptional Excel skills— no, we won’t call them exceptional, but, you know, I— I’ve worked very hard on perfecting the sheet over the years. I’m very proud of it. Through our public Google sheet, you can enter a pledge for a certain dollar amount per home run the Mets hit in the month of September, and that goes toward the overall fundraising effort, and that kind of accumulates over the course of the month. And people also do a bunch of fun extra pledges that you can pledge for your favorite player. You can pledge if something really weird happens. A lot of people pledged about if Edwin Diaz returns this season, which we lost a lot of money on that day, that they said Edwin Diaz is not returning this season. And Francisco Lindor, a 30/30 season. Francisco Alvarez matches Johnny Bench’s record. All those sorts of things, and people get really creative with it, so there are also really weird ones. But, yeah, the weirder you make it, the better. You can put it in an extra pledge, but you don’t have to. So that all goes towards the, like, fundraising total. But then in addition to the month-long campaign, we also have an in-person raffle event, which is taking place this Saturday, September 30th at EBBS, at Citi Field prior to the Mets game against the Phillies, and all the proceeds from that raffle event go to the overall campaign and benefit the National Domestic Violence Hotline. We have so, so many cool prizes to raffle off. We have, like, kind of two tiers of prizes. There’s the regular tier, which is really cool in and of itself. A bunch of stuff, prize pack from EBBS, a prize pack from the 7-Line Dugout Mugs, a bunch of yo— signed [1:17:41] Records, very famously Mets adjacent content.
BOBBY: That’s right.
ALLISON: And a whole bunch of other cool prizes that we have for everybody. Bobbleheads, et cetera. So there’s those prizes, and then we have, like, kind of the premium tier prizes, which is signed memorabilia. We have a signed Starling Marte baseball from the Mets. They gave that to us long before injuries derailed his season sadly, but it’s still really, really cool. And we have signed Rumble Ponies, four— four balls from the Rumble Ponies signed by Mets prospects. Luisangel Acuna among them, Drew Gilbert among them.
BOBBY: Wow.
ALEX: Okay.
ALLISON: And so— Logan— Logan Gilbert. I— I messed up his name. I— I’m not a prospect— we’re not the prospect podcast. We have a prospect podcast. It’s not ours. But, yeah, four— four Rumble Ponies signed balls. We have— we also have a Home Run Apple neon from Athlete Logos and those are— will also be part of the prizes. So all the proceeds from the raffle tickets go to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. We call out the winners around six o’clock before the game, so that folks have time to file into the stadium. It should be a really fun time. And also, we just get to hang out with all— all our community that make our podcast and this fundraising event possible. And we really enjoy seeing everyone’s faces and it’s— it should be a really good time for a good cause. So if you are local to the area, especially, please— please come out and support us. It’d be really awesome.
BOBBY: Alex, did you win something last year at the raffle?
ALEX: I won a— a couple things. I think I—
BOBBY: Wow. Rigged, rigged, rigged.
ALEX: Yeah, I— I know. I went home with like— I think I needed like a bag of stuff and I was like, “Can I leave this with you guys?”
ALLISON: Which you can do. You can leave the stuff at EBBS, and EBBS is so kind to us. And they stay open after the game too, so if you have too much stuff, if you’re somehow very lucky and win a bunch of things like Alex did, then you can keep the stuff at EBBS and come back afterwards.
BOBBY: I feel like—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —EBBS might be the best kept secret in Queens.
ALLISON: Yes.
BOBBY: You know?
ALEX: Yes. Uh-hmm.
ALLISON: Oh, my God. I know.
BOBBY: Like, around Citi Field. People don’t know that you can just go to EBBS and hang out before and after the game. And it’s like an easy way to buy beer that’s half as expensive as it is 20 yards to— to the right in the park.
ALLISON: And twice as good.
BOBBY: Yeah, and twice as good, exactly.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So you want—
ALLISON: And nobody knows that— that no one goes in the right field gate, which is the gate that’s right next to EBBS, and so I always— on the bobblehead giveaways, I go to EBBS, like, two hours before the game, and then I go in that gate, and everybody else is waiting, like, hours and hours at the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, and I’m, like, zipping right in with my little bobblehead and I’m like, “Deuces.”
BOBBY: It absolutely is—
ALLISON: “Suckers.”
BOBBY: It’s such a— it’s such a hack. You know, you gave that information away last year. I remember—
ALLISON: Yeah, I know.
BOBBY: I remember that. And— and ever since then, we’ve been utilizing that. It was so much fun to be there last year, by the way. I— I unfortunately cannot—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —be there this year at the September 30th game against Alex’s Philadelphia Phillies, because I will be in Seattle for— for a family wedding, attending a Mariners game for the first time in my life.
ALLISON: Ooh.
BOBBY: But I’m really excited to see what comes out of it and who— who you rig it for this year, you know? Since you rigged it for Alex to win multiple prizes last year.
ALLISON: Which he now has to forfeit since— especially if they’re— especially if they’re Mets prizes because you’re a Phillies fan now. You have to give those back.
ALEX: I know. I really—
BOBBY: The—
ALLISON: No, you don’t have to give them back.
BOBBY: The Athlete Logos neon sign is a real— that’s a big-time prize.
ALEX: That’s a winner, yeah.
BOBBY: I actually—
ALLISON: Yeah.
BOBBY: I want to say last year after we saw you give away that Athlete Logos, the— the— the LED sign, we were like, “We should just get one of those ourselves.” And now we have one in the studio.
ALLISON: They’re awesome. They’re— Dan is incredible. He does such good work. And the— the neon and the Starling Marte signed ball, for those two items only, we’re accepting, like, online raffle ticket purchases. We can’t do it for everything, because we are just a team of very few and we can’t manage online raffle and in-person raffle tickets for all the— all the awesome prizes that we have. But we try to give folks an opportunity who either, A, can’t attend in person or B, are not local to the area and logistically, it’s impossible for them to come. We don’t— we want those folks to be able to have an opportunity to win something. So for the Starling Marte signed baseball and the— and the Athlete Logos neon, you can— if you go to our social media @apodoftheirown on Twitter and Instagram, and all the places, you can find a link to a Google form that we tweeted out, and the Google form you can purchase online— tickets online that way, just for those two things.
ALEX: I— I think one of my favorite parts of this every year is seeing all the creative sort of pledges that people make, right?
ALLISON: Yeah.
ALEX: As you mentioned, the standard is— you know, you can— you tie it to a home run total or something like that, if the Mets hit X number. But people get really crazy with it in— in the best way possible, right?
ALLISON: Yup.
ALEX: So there’s some— there’s— there’s Japanese baseball represented here.
ALLISON: Yes.
ALEX: I— I— there was— I think I saw Gary mentioned CBGB, I don’t know if— if that spawned from anything or if that was just a— a hope and dream of one particular person.
ALLISON: I think it’s an inside joke from one broadcast where he did that once and—
ALEX: Right.
ALLISON: —and they’re hoping he does it again. Yeah, but— Michael’s— my partner’s brother-in-law gets very, very creative with his pledges and— this year, because we have a nephew named Luke, his son is named Luke. He’s pledging extra for home runs by any player in Major League Baseball named Luke. So—
BOBBY: Oh.
ALLISON: —Tampa Bay Rays Luke Raley, looking at you, kid. You’re like the most, like, prolific home run hitting Luke in the league currently, so pick it up, Luke.
BOBBY: Yeah. It’s about Luke Voigt— Luke Voigt fell off the cliff, otherwise we’d have—
ALLISON: I— no way.
BOBBY: —some more money donate towards it, yeah.
ALLISON: I know. When the Mets were playing the Reds recently, I was like, “Luke Maile, come on, man. Let’s go.”
BOBBY: Serve them up— serve up some meatballs for them, Mets pitchers, Mets relievers.
ALLISON: For Luke Maile.
BOBBY: That— that shouldn’t be too hard for you guys. You guys have been doing it all year, you know?
ALLISON: And there’s a guy who pledged for getting hit in the beans, and Jeff McNeil literally did that.
ALEX: Wow.
ALLISON: He fouled the ball off—
BOBBY: Yeah, he did.
ALLISON: —off himself.
BOBBY: That was—
ALEX: Winner.
BOBBY: That was kind of tough to watch, but I’m glad it was for a good cause.
ALLISON: Yeah, it was.
BOBBY: Thank you, though.
ALLISON: [1:24:01] Beane.
BOBBY: Alex, any— any ideas for some creative integrations this year? I don’t remember what I did for mine last year. I think I— I think I jumped on the— you know, set amount for every home run plus an— an extra dollar for every Braves lost or something like that, which a lot of people were doing at the time. Unfortunately, the Braves lost, like, twice last September, and they chased the Mets down and won the division, and it’s been all downhill since then. So—
ALLISON: We lost so much money last year because so many people had, like, postseason-based things, like Mets win the division, we lost a ton of money—
ALEX: Hmm.
ALLISON: —because they didn’t— like how far the Mets advance in the postseason, they did not advance in the postseason. Ron Howard voiceover.
ALEX: So what you’re saying is don’t be too bullish—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —with your predictions.
ALLISON: Yeah.
ALEX: Don’t look too far down the road.
ALLISON: Right, exactly. But, yeah, we love creative pledges. We love it. I think I have Lindor a 30-30 season, which is not super creative, but at least still is possible even if the—
ALEX: It’s obtainable.
ALLISON: Yeah, even if the— even if the chances are dwindling by the day. He’s got to hit like three— he’s got to hit three more home runs in the last week of the season.
ALEX: Easy money.
BOBBY: One— one dollar for every million dollar that Pete Alonso gets an extension from the Mets. Let’s manifest it, baby. Come on.
ALEX: Yeah.
ALLISON: Let’s do it.
BOBBY: Get that done.
ALLISON: Come on.
BOBBY: David Stearns, it’s time to get to work, baby.
ALLISON: Let’s go.
BOBBY: Dollars 4 Dingers is great. Please, if you’re listening to this and you are able to, go check that out, the link to the spreadsheet— spreadsheet where you can just participate in the fundraising portion of it, even if you’re not coming for the auction portion. That’ll be in the description to this episode. And also it’s available on— pinned on the top of Allison’s Twitter, which is also in the description to this episode too. So it’s easy enough to find, if not just search A Pod of Their Own Dollars 4 Dingers and sure it’ll come up in some form or another. If you’re local to the New York areas, Saturday, September 30th against Alex’s Philadelphia Phillies. That is forever how they will be known on this podcast going forward. And come out to EBBS, it’s a great place to hang out and it’s also a— a really good reason to go there for the first time if you’ve never been there for this event. That was really fun for us to go to last year. So, Allison, thank you for organizing and thank you for coming on and talking about it. Tell people where they can find A Pod of Their Own. What is the best way to search for that, to subscribe to it, to listen to it?
ALLISON: Yeah. Sure. Thank you, guys, for having me on. You can find A Pod of Their Own on— you can find us on social media on all the places if you just go at— search @apodoftheirown. You can find us on Twitter, on Instagram, on TikTok, on Bluesky, we are there. If you go to homerunapplesauce.com, that’s where we are hosted. We are a group of Mets podcasts that were formally associated with Vox, before Vox cut all their MLB podcasts, and then we went independent. So it’s kind of more important than ever that we get support from folks, because we’re doing this all on our own. So, yeah, homerunapplesauce.com, you can get us— you can get the Minor League Pod who knows more about the Rumble Ponies than I do, clearly. And you can get Chris and Brian show. You can get like a whole bunch of Mets pods if you go to homerunapplesauce.com. We also have a Patreon, patreon.com/homerunapplesauce to help us keep the lights on and whatnot. We appreciate the support, so— yup. And, you know, we are, as far as I know, the only all-women led Mets podcasts out there, so—
ALEX: Go listen to A Pod of Their Own. Allison, thank you so much for coming on and chatting with us. We really appreciate it.
ALLISON: Thank you. Thank you, Alex. I’ll try not to hold the Phillies against you, too.
BOBBY: He’s still a good person, deep down in there somewhere.
ALLISON: Yeah.
BOBBY: He’s still a good person, even though he’s chosen to do bad things to us.
ALEX: You know, I’m— I’m wrestling with my choices a lot at night these days.
ALLISON: You’re a good man, Alex, but you’ve hurt us. You’ve hurt us deeply.
SPEAKER 7: Hey, I know it’s just a song, but it’s spice for the recipe. This is a love attack. I know it went out, but it’s back. It’s just like any fad, it retracts before impact. And just like fashion, it’s a passion for the with-it and hip. If you got the goods—
BOBBY: Do you have any— any other topics you want to talk about before we wrap this up? I’m gonna circle back to Titanic. I was like, “I can’t believe you didn’t get on that door.”
ALEX: The— the last thing I wanted to bring up, and you might have to brace yourself because this has to do with actual baseball that was played in the last week. So it won’t take too long. And this is just— just cool. Again, I was watching baseball and saw Ronald Acuña hit a 40th home run.
BOBBY: Dude, it was so sick that it was off Patrick Corbin.
ALEX: Man, that was just incredible stuff.
BOBBY: Amazing touch. Amazing touch.
ALEX: 40-40 season, 40-50 season, 40-60 season. He’s the first player with a 40-60 season. I don’t know. This is my palate cleanser for today—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —of like— once again, despite everything that may happen at the— at the top level of organization or whatever—
BOBBY: No, no, no. Alex Anthopoulos did that. Alex— Alex Anthopoulos’ 40-70 season. In that case, he actually kind of did that with the Braves, though. Like, he’s— he did get all the—
ALEX: Well— well, yeah. I know. I know.
BOBBY: —good players and then they all played good.
ALEX: But again, they all played— I mean, just— I don’t know. There’s been a lot of discourse around this too, because of, like, the changes to, like, the— the base— again, because of the rule changes that can’t be mentioned yet, because the season is still going on.
BOBBY: When will the season end?
ALEX: I— I don’t know. I find myself thinking of, like, the— the meme of, like, the— you know, the two people sitting in the bus and one’s looking out the, like, really dark side and they— you know? And, like, they’re all people who are like—
BOBBY: I’m not familiar with that one. Can you keep explaining it? Can you keep describing it?
ALEX: Yeah, I can.
BOBBY: What’s the other one, then?
ALEX: So there’s— there’s a school bus and there are two people sitting on it, you know? And it’s like you— and there’s also no—
BOBBY: There’s only two people— there’s— no one— no one is driving the bus?
ALEX: No. I think that’s why it’s so scary. That’s— it strikes fear in my heart. I don’t know. I just— people talking a lot about— well, this— this feat literally would not have been able to be accomplished before, right? It’s just like— I mean he has— he has a leg up, because he’d— and you’re yawning as I talked about this, and frankly—
BOBBY: [1:30:08]
ALEX: —that’s about how I feel when I hear people talking about that, too.
BOBBY: I’m sorry.
ALEX: I’m like— it’s just kind of sick that he stole that many bases and hit that many home runs.
BOBBY: Yeah, but—
ALEX: More people should do it.
BOBBY: —Mookie Betts is still the MVP, though.
ALEX: Well, yeah.
BOBBY: I said this to someone— I don’t remember where I was or why I was talking about this, but I said that Mookie Betts should be the MVP and they were like, “Are you— are you joking? Like, are you— like, I think it’s pretty clear it should be Ronald Acuña, Jr.” And I was like, “I don’t think the Braves should have anything.”
ALEX: Right [1:30:43]
BOBBY: Like, we should give them nothing. Like even if— even if they do deserve it, like don’t— don’t let them have anything. You should never argue on their behalf, is like my guiding philosophy at this point in baseball fandom.
ALEX: I agree with that, which is why I say with no disposition one way or another, whether it’s a good or bad thing, Ronald Acuña does have a 40-70 season. I’m just putting it out in the world.
BOBBY: It’s impossible to say it, but he did it with the Braves.
ALEX: It was impossible to say whether it’s good or bad.
BOBBY: So it’s impossible to say whether it’s good or bad. He’s amazing. You know who else is amazing?
ALEX: Who?
BOBBY: I’m not even gonna say it actually if it’s mean to you. It’s mean. Like, Matt Olson.
ALEX: Olson, yeah. It’s all right.
BOBBY: He’s—
ALEX: It’s okay.
BOBBY: Is it okay? You know who else is amazing?
ALEX: David Forst.
BOBBY: Yeah, man, he’s just executing the vision.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: See, like—
ALEX: Taking that baton from Billy Beane.
BOBBY: David Forst is probably getting as good of a performance review as Alex Anthopoulos, because he’s doing what the owner wants him to do.
ALEX: Yes. I would love to see the internal performance reviews of GMs from owner perspective.
BOBBY: I would pay no less— I would— I would pay like at least $1,000 for that, like per review.
ALEX: I would pay no less than basically everything we made off the Patreon. I’d also probably made no more than that, but—
BOBBY: Okay. If you would like to contribute to the buying documents from the A’s fund.
ALEX: Right. Is that— I think that works.
BOBBY: You can sign up for the Tipping Pitches Patreon, patreon.com/tippingpitches. There’s three levels of support and they get you different things. And we appreciate everybody who is already supporting us or who has supported us in the past, of course. We do not begrudge anybody who has to tune in and tune out from the Patreon from time to time if, you know, there are other economic needs in their lives. Totally understand that, and that is totally okay with us. We appreciate all support at all times, no matter how long or short that support is. I just want to say that because, you know, we shout-out new patrons a lot and, you know, plenty of people will have, like, maintain their level of support, like, the whole time that they have been signed up. But, like, when people need to cancel that Patreon subscription too, just know that we appreciate the support that you did share with us, and we don’t say that enough. Thank you again to Allison McCague for coming on and chatting about Dollars 4 Dingers. Please go sign up for that. The link is in— the link is in the description. Some of you will remember that we did this last year as well. We talked with Allison and— and we shared that you can sign up to be part of Dollars 4 Dingers. It’s a— it’s a really important cause and it’s a really cool thing that is, like, organized completely and independently by fans, but uses the community that is baseball for good. And I think that if you have a couple extra bucks, then you should commit to being part of this. Alex, anything else to add?
ALEX: No, I— Is don’t think so. Thank you everyone for tuning in. From— from here on out, we’re going to try and make every episode at least two hours long. That’s— that’s the goal. So you only get two-hour episodes.
BOBBY: This— this is what you wanted. No, this episode is not going to be two hours. Come on, it’s going to be trimmed down.
ALEX: I put my faith in you.
BOBBY: As you should. It’s never let you down to this point. Thank you, everybody, for listening. We’ll be back next week.
SPEAKER 8: How’d I ever know you quite like I was told to? Make sure you love each other nice now. Oh, I was hypnotized, caught up in the northern lights.
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Hello, everybody. I’m Alex Rodriguez. Tipping Pitches. Tipping Pitches. This is the one that I love the most. Tipping Pitches. So, we’ll see you next week. See ya!
BOBBY: Did you see that Taylor Swift was at the Chiefs game?
ALEX: Yeah. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: We got to take the clout away from Travis Kelce at all costs.
ALEX: Travis Kel— I— I don’t have the words for it.
BOBBY: They’re not actually dating.
ALEX: No, I know. But also, like, what is the benefit here for either of them? It’s not like she’s raising her profile.
BOBBY: I genuinely don’t know.
ALEX: The only thing I can think of is— it’s like a— it’s like a little Super Bowl performance like— like working her way into that world.
BOBBY: Hasn’t she— has she done the Super Bowl before?
ALEX: No, she has— no, she hasn’t.
BOBBY: Well, I would support that.
ALEX: I— I mean, I would too.
BOBBY: Isn’t she supposed to be an Eagles fan? Why not got to Jason Kelce’s game instead? Anyway—
ALEX: Who— who are the— I don’t even [1:35:25]
BOBBY: Do you want to do some Chiefs chat? The Bears? They’re 12 and a half point favorites, just so you know.
ALEX: The Bears or the Chiefs?
BOBBY: The Chiefs, bro.
ALEX: That— me asking that question tells you a lot about how much I follow football.
BOBBY: You wanna place a wager on the over-under?
ALEX: What’s the— what is it?
BOBBY: 48.5.
ALEX: I think they’re gonna hit it on the money, actually.
BOBBY: Push. Barely gonna score a half a point. All right. Bring up your first topic.
Tipping Pitches 
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