Alex and Bobby discuss Shohei Ohtani’s free agency and the resulting media frenzy, Juan Soto’s heel turn, and a prospective Orioles sale, then bring on Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman of Céspedes Family BBQ for a game of Overrated/Underrated that includes MLB.tv, Jumbotrons, ballpark flyovers, Jackie Robinson, and more.
Links:
John Angelos says the Orioles aren’t for sale
The doomed search for a perfect Statcast data interpretation
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon
Songs featured in this episode:
Spiritual Cramp — “Talkin’ On The Internet” • Taylor Swift — “Mastermind” • 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, how was your week? I know you’re doing some traveling last week. I heard that you— you went on vacation with a man by the name of Robert Herjavec, Herjavec? I was for vacation with him and his family?
ALEX: I don’t even know who this man is, so I don’t— I don’t even get the bit.
BOBBY: Goddammit. You’re ruining my jokes, bro.
ALEX: I’m sorry.
BOBBY: You’re ruining my jokes. That’s the guy who was on the plane that everyone thought Ohtani was on.
ALEX: Oh, the— the Shark Tank guy.
BOBBY: The Shark Tank guy.
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: You didn’t even bother learning his name. It’s— it’s effectively—
ALEX: He’s— he’s the one Shark Tank guy who I’m just like, “Ah, you’re just kind of flimsy piece of paper that stick at the end of the [1:14]
BOBBY: He founded BRAK Systems, a Canadian Integrator of Internet—
ALEX: Oh, no way.
BOBBY: —security software, and sold it to AT&T Canada in 2000 for only 30 mil. And then he founded another company and sold it for 200 million.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: He’s gonna keep funding— founding companies, you know?
ALEX: You— you really do. I mean, volume shooters.
BOBBY: One of them was bound to break through.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: Like, it just so happened that Zuckerberg, you know, Facebook was the first one but, you know, if it— if that didn’t work, he would— time to move the irons in the fire.
ALEX: He had other— he had other ideas in the [1:44] uh-hmm.
BOBBY: So how was your trip? That bit was ruined. It’s— it’s all over. We— we have a long pod in front of us [1:51]
ALEX: Like, it was— it was great. It was great. My passport expired.
BOBBY: Rewind, re—
ALEX: It was really awkward when I got to the customs control.
BOBBY: And they detained you. Your passport— how— how is everything in your life expired? Answer that question for me.
ALEX: Mostly just because— that— that’s a really good question, actually. If we’re ever being honest. I’ll reflect on it for more than two seconds. Mostly because I— I— I kicked the can down the road to my future self, but that future self often does not appreciate that very much, and I think maybe even spitefully refuses to— to engage with whatever task has been kicked down to me. So I just— it’s a continual game of me, like, spiting myself, you know? And being like, “Well, I’m not—”
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: “—gonna do this to prove a point to Alex six months ago. You know, that he’s gotta get his shit together.”
BOBBY: How’s that working out?
ALEX: It’s not working great. I still don’t have a passport.
BOBBY: You need one though, right? You’re doing in—
ALEX: I—
BOBBY: —you’re doing some international travel next year.
ALEX: Some might say.
BOBBY: I’m just at the MLB one [2:54] game with myself and a cardboard cutout of you. All right. We have— we have a lot to talk about. We have a wonderful episode coming up with Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman of Cespeders— of Cespedes Family BBQ. In which we— the four of us just tossed out a ton of topics, and we debated whether those things were overrated, or underrated, or properly rated.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And it went wild and wonderful places. And— I mean, anytime I have Jake and Jordan on, it just turns into a lot of digressions, and fun and hilarious bits. So I’m excited for everybody to hear that, but we have some business to attend to first, and that is talking about Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto, two players who were on the move this week, just kind of remarkably, all in the span of the time period since we recorded last. We’re going to do all of that, but before we do, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I’m Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches. Alex.
ALEX: Bobby.
BOBBY: $700 million. Hang on, wait, I forgot to thank the patrons. The patrons are really who’s going to get us to $700 million, so I gotta thank—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —them first. Thank you to Ben and Kyle, and to anyone who’s edited their pledge, you know, to— to join the top tier, to get access to the bonus feed. Thank you to all you people. It doesn’t really, like, collate you guys at the top of list the way that it says with new people. But I want to just give a blanket thank you to anybody who has upgraded their pledge to be either in the seven tier— $7-tier or the $12-tier. We thank you very much. That’s patreon.com/tippingpitches. We don’t have time to do the whole spiel on this episode. We got— we got a lot of business to attend to. Dude.
ALEX: 700 million.
BOBBY: Underpaid, underrated?
ALEX: Yes to both of these. I know you already did that bit on Twitter, but like I— the— here—the thing about—
BOBBY: You’re so back on Twitter, bro. You are so back.
ALEX: I’m— I am so— I am so back. Yeah. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Elon got your ass.
ALEX: He really did, yeah. I was like, “You know, Elon might be turning this place around.” I actually— I actually liked the blue chatbots in my mentions. Here’s the thing about, like, trying to put $1 amount on like—
BOBBY: 50 times a day we get tagged. 50 times a day—
ALEX: That’s—
BOBBY: — we get tagged by bots. Like, 50 times a day.
ALEX: Like, of course, $700 million is a fuck ton of money. And of course, it is, like, drastically underselling his abilities still, somehow
BOBBY: The thing that’s remarkable for me about the number— and then we can talk about him landing on the Dodgers. And of course, we can talk about just the week that was in ridiculousness. But the thing that’s remarkable about the number to me is that no one even came close to sniffing—
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: —suggesting that high of a number. Nobody was like— nobody was even like, “It’s gonna be over 600 million.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I mean, there were people who were like, “It should be, or it could be.” But there was no one who was, like, coming— going out on a limb and being like, “this is how much he’s gonna get. Or this is the ballpark that I’m hearing.” And that’s probably a testament to how under wraps these negotiations were, or under wraps Ohtani’s camp is, in general. But most people were like, “I don’t know. Like, 550 million?” You know, we look at what Mike Trout got, 465 over 12 years, like, maybe you just add 100 million on that, whatever. And people— dudes were just guessing, basically, because the—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —number blew that out of the water. And of course, there’s some discussion about a lot of that money being deferred, and that changing the average annual value, which changes the calculus, both for Ohtani’s camp, but also for the Dodgers giving this type of contract. But aside from that, if we just look at how much money he got from the Dodgers, it’s— it’s way more than anyone thought.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Which I guess is a good thing, right?
ALEX: I— I— I liked— Jon Heyman tweeted out a word from supposedly one of Ohtani’s other suitors who said, quote, “We certainly were not at 699 million.” Which is kind of a bar.
BOBBY: Because when you’re the Dodgers, the—
ALEX: [7:04] you can do that. You can just say, “We’ll go a couple standard deviations above what everyone else is offering.”
BOBBY: Well, especially when you’re the Dodgers and you’ve been clearing the decks for three years to do this exact thing.
ALEX: Exactly. Like, you kind of have to do that.
BOBBY: this is like— this is the project, you know? this— this is what it was— this is what it was for.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I— I read an article on The Athletic just to make this about the Mets for a couple seconds.
ALEX: Of course.
BOBBY: In which Steve Cohen had a quote saying, “The agent never made contact.” Which I thought was pretty telling that he had no interest in playing for the Mets, and he— he didn’t even have enough synthetic interest to use the Mets to drive up the price. He didn’t feel—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —like he even needed to do that. So it was never gonna happen, but more money for Yamamoto.
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: Let’s get 350.
ALEX: Back up the dump truck.
BOBBY: Don’t care, don’t care. Not my money. Give it all to— give it all to Yamamoto. Don’t care. Cannot have him anywhere else. Certainly can’t have him on the Yankees. Back to Ohtani, just one of the dumber weeks in baseball history. Actually, really just one of the dumber single days. It was really only a day, if you can believe that.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: this is where the speculation started where— where Jon Morosi reported that he was hearing that Ohtani’s decision was most likely to come today, and this was Thursday.
ALEX: Yeah. Well, let’s— I mean, be— before that even— let’s back up a little, because there’s— there’s the important context of, like, you know, there was word coming out of Ohtani’s camp that he was going to potentially ding teams if they were leaking details about the contract, right? And—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —and there’s already all this speculation about they don’t want to reveal the dog’s name because it might have something to do with the resulting team. And so that coupled to the fact that nothing has happened at the Winter Meetings, as a result of basically everyone waiting for the shoe to drop, right? So you’ve got all these factors of like non-news coming together, setting the stage for what will ultimately be one of the dumber days on baseball Twitter. Amazing but dumber days.
BOBBY: I think you left out—
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: —that’s my favorite small detail on this whole story, especially now that he signed with the Dodgers, was Dave Roberts not knowing that and coming out and telling reporters directly that they met with Ohtani at Dodger Stadium for three hours.
ALEX: Okay. Here— but here’s the thing—
BOBBY: [9:22] what a king. He is so— he’s like— that’s such a sigma move. He’s like, “Fuck your little needs. I don’t even know about them. That’s how important I am. I’m— I’m the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Who? Ohtani, who?”
ALEX: Yeah. Here’s the thing— it’s like— like, there were a lot of people who were really, like, upset by that. They’re like, “Why would Ohtani— why is he really— is he that dumb that he’s gonna pick a team based on, you know, what they’re saying to the media?” And the answer is no. He’s not. I mean, like—
BOBBY: Obviously not.
ALEX: —that is obvious now in hindsight, but that was never true. Like, what a great way to make sure your shit doesn’t leak. That’s—
BOBBY: It’s— yeah, it works.
ALEX: It worked, right?
BOBBY: It worked.
ALEX: And it sent everyone into a frenzy. But I— I don’t know. I— yeah. I respect the fuck out of Dave Roberts for that. And— and for Friedman coming out afterwards and being like, “Whoa. He said what? I— I— I can’t comment on that.”
BOBBY: I don’t know if this is real, but I saw someone tweeting that apparently it seemed like Roberts received a text message after saying these things, that elicit data that he should not be sharing this information. And then he got—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: He stopped talking at the time, which— if that is true, I’m just gonna not even look into that— whether or not that— that’s true, because I want to—
ALEX: Right. Choose to believe.
BOBBY: —believe [10:31] so bad. That’s so funny. Dave Roberts, he’s still cooking. That takes us to Thursday. Thank you for providing that context, where Morosi shares that he believes that Ohtani will be making a decision on this day. At which point, kind of like the best and worst parts of the internet coalesce in a weird Venn diagram that lasted for 16 hours. Because flight tracking has become a thing in sports free agency. It’s very— it’s a very popular thing to happen on NBA Twitter, because that— that league is driven by transactions. It’s become a popular thing amongst Swifties, that they’re tracking her private jet and where it’s going and what that means for her and her relationships, and her business deals and all these sorts of things. And there was a flight going from Orange County to Toronto, a— a kind of a— a weird flight path. A lot of wealthy people don’t fly out of Orange County’s airport. A lot of them would fly out of, like, smaller LA airports. And so that led an enterprising Twitter user to deduce that this could be Ohtani’s plane and then people took that and ran with it. And there were hockey players tweeting vague congratulations at the Blue Jays. There was rumors about— there was rumors that Yusei Kikuchi had rented out an entire sushi restaurant for 50 plus people in Toronto. This is such a ridiculous thing in hindsight.
ALEX: But like the Swift— the Swiftification of this whole thing—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Like, there were people who are like— there was a lot of hand wringing over the fact that this is bad for the game, you know? The—
BOBBY: So— yeah, yeah.
ALEX: The media can’t report on this. He’s holding up the Winter Meetings.
BOBBY: this is what I’m most interested in talking about, yes.
ALEX: Right. I know. Yeah. And— and there were very prominent members of the baseball media who were making the case that this is bad for the sport. It’s bad for fans who want to know what’s going on. It’s potentially bad for teams who are trying to negotiate in good faith. And most importantly here, it is bad for the media members who need to report on something right? Let’s— let us not forget the Ken Rosenthals of the world. And I just gotta say, looking back, like— it— again, it was— it was stup— a stupid argument in the moment, but I don’t know how you can now look back on the last week and think that it was not wildly entertaining. Dumb, over the top. Like, not— not worth any of our times. But while the inter—I was reading Reddit threads. It was like, “Oh, the Mariners offered him one year 65 million you to do this or whatever.” Or, “Oh, let— like let’s break down— let’s read the tea leaves into what his dog’s name could be. And I— and I was in on it. I was like, “this— let’s fucking go. Let’s do this.”
BOBBY: I would like to shrink the aperture even more on the media conversation and how it was bad for the media, because yes, there was— there was a whole like, “Oh, the Winter Meetings are boring, because Ohtani’s not signing, and he should have signed so that more things could have happened at the Winter Meetings.” Which was like bad faith but in like a— in like a— a hottie myopic way that the media— I’ve come to expect from the media. The way that the media responded, like, Thursday evening after it became clear that he wasn’t actually on a plane going to Toronto, and he wasn’t most likely going to sign there on Thursday night, even though it was still a potential thing. And there was a— a couple reports that he had already agreed to a contract with the Blue Jays, which turned out to be wrong, obviously, now that it’s been confirmed via Ohtani’s Instagram, which is one of the underratedly funny parts about all of this too, which is that he broke his own news on Instagram. On Thursday night, the way that the media was like, “this is a dark day for baseball media. this was an embarrassment to be a part of. We as journalists, capital J, Journalists need to do better, capital B, Better. We need to be seekers of truth and we need to be more careful with what we share and circulate.” And this has— this is a dark mark on our game, and our offseason. And I’m embarrassed to be on twitter.com today. Like that is truly, earnestly some of the dumbest shit I’ve ever read. The idea that, like, society is worse off because there were 100,000 tweets about Shohei— jokes about Ohtani going on a plane to Toronto is absurd, frankly absurd, borderline offensive in a world that actually has bad shit going on.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: To suggest that this is any kind of serious problem is ridiculous. And there were serious people doing that. Serious people, whose work otherwise I support like— were like, “this is bad for our game.” Our— capital O, Our, capital G, Game.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, please, please, for the love of God, I know that being a baseball reporter, it’s mandatory that you pretend, like, baseball is the only— the center of the universe, but it’s really not. It’s really not. No one’s gonna die because Ohtani signed with the Dodgers. No one’s gonna die.
ALEX: I— my theory about all of this is that Ohtani’s camp was orchestrating all of this. Like, I have to believe they were leaking to Morosi that they were setting up sock puppet accounts to tweet out flight paths, which I just also want to say is fucking brilliant. Like, I— I think that— in the spirit of this podcast, the— the— the resulting— the— the episode that will come, I think Ohtani’s prowess as a mover of markets is underrated.
BOBBY: I agree.
ALEX: Not that that was up for debate necessarily. But, like, the idea that— that all of this was just kind of happening feels a little too good to be true, you— like in the best way possible. I admire— I admire him and his agents for— for doing all of this. And again, I think it was far more entertaining than learning on, like, the third day of the Winter Meetings, that, like, getting a report from Rosenthal that said, “Dodgers and Ohtani are making progress, and waiting on a physical.” And then us just moving on.
BOBBY: You’re so right. You’re so right.
ALEX: Like, I— this is a once in a lifetime free agency bonanza anyway. Like, why not make it weird as fuck?
BOBBY: Oh, yeah. Why not? Why not? I— the Correa saga was objectively more like drawn out and hard to follow than this. There was really only, like, two competing theories going on for the Ohtani thing. One, that he was flying to Toronto to close the deal, and that he was on this specific plane that was being tracked by 4,500 people in real-time on the flight tracker website. And that he was gonna go have sushi, celebrating with Yusei Kikuchi afterwards. That was all one thing. And the other competing theory wa— was shared by Bob Nightengale who [18:08]
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: —on the Patreon version of our conversation with Jake and Jordan. Was shared by Bob Nightengale, which is that he was not on a plane to Toronto, capital— capital NOT on a plane to Toronto. He was at his home in Southern California. And that turned out to be right, another Bob masterclass, another—
ALEX: God. What a fucking legend, man.
BOBBY: Go off. Go off, Nightengale. And then it was all resolved the next day, the next afternoon when Ohtani just posted on— posted on Instagram that he was going with the Dodgers. Apologized for all of the back and forth. Apologized as if any of it was really his fault. So funny.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And with Correa and like— even with Judge— when Heyman got it wrong, Arson Judge, there was almost more confusion when— when that stuff happened because Correa had a deal with the Giants, then he had a deal with the Mets. And then neither of those deals stood up. And then he went back to the Twins. Like, that is harder to follow, because it was like confirmed by the big reporters at first. this would have been like if Rosenthal tweeted, “He is on that plane. He is signing with the Blue Jays.”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Then that would— then I could have seen a world in which it would have been, like, journalists would have some serious reservations about how we are all rushing to try to be first, and we’re getting it legitimately wrong to— to the point where people believe it. But I’m not sure that the conspiratorializing over him going to the Blue Jays was ever to the point where like people felt— felt hoodwinked that he didn’t sign with the Blue Jays. Like, we had circumstantial at best evidence [19:45]
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So that wouldn’t even hold up in a fucking movie, let alone an actual court.
ALEX: I love that he broke his own news. I just— I— I’m— now, I will say, of course, Passan was the one who broke it to me, because he’s on that shit and I have the notifications on, right? And so he broke the news of the Instagram story— or the Instagram post. But it’s— so legendary, just tweet out a photo of the logo, like a mid-res photo at best.
BOBBY: I know. Not even like a photo of Dodger Stadium or like the field. It’s just—
ALEX: Right. Exactly. Or like— or him in— in, you know, like, mocked up in a uniform or anything like that.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: No, he just said— he just said, “You— this is what you need to know. Shohei Ohtani, LA.”
BOBBY: All— all the data is there. I’m happy for—
ALEX: It’s—
BOBBY: —all of the Japanese reporters who moved to the United States and settled in Southern California who now don’t have to—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —leave and maybe get a new work visa to live in Toronto. I’m happy for those people as well.
ALEX: I’m— I’m disappointed in Shohei that he couldn’t get further away from Ben Verlander.
BOBBY: That’s— it’s— that’s the second time you made that joke to me and I don’t get it. Does Ben Verlander live in LA?
ALEX: I— I don’t— I don’t know. I just— I— I would assume that there would be some part of Ohtani that feels compelled to maybe see if going to another country would help.
BOBBY: Maybe Ohtani loves Ben Verlander, because all of Japan loves him.
ALEX: That’s— that’s true. Right. He is a bit like a Beatle over there. Ben Verlander to be clear, not Ohtani.
BOBBY: Not Ohtani. Not Ohtani. It’s— Ohtani is small potatoes on that side of the world. Alex, another thing happened this week. 25-year-old Juan Soto who was on pace to have a Ted Williams-like career was traded for the second time in 17 months.
ALEX: What are we doing?
BOBBY: this time, it was to the bad place.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It was all fun and games when the Nationals botched it, and they traded their generational superstar to the Padres and, “Ooh, he gets to go play with Machado and he gets to go play with Tatis, and the Padres are all in, and they’re making a push, and this is— look how thrilling this is. Another Preller masterclass and look what we brought.”
ALEX: You—
BOBBY: “Look at what we sewed.”
ALEX: Last week on the pod, I think— I don’t— actually, I don’t remember if this was on air or off air, but you asked for my quick reactions to— this is prior to the trade being completed, but there were names being thrown around about the prospects that would go over. And I think I said something to the effect of, “I literally don’t care. I don’t know who any of these people are beyond like Michael King.” And then that was most—
BOBBY: Like Higashioka shade.
ALEX: Right? Yes.
BOBBY: Slander.
ALEX: No. Well— well, he was not— I think [22:35]
BOBBY: Put some respect Jhony Brito’s name.
ALEX: —on the initial crop of players. But, like, I— I look at this trade, and I’m like, “For Juan Soto”— I— just to be clear, this— we’re talking about the same Juan Soto, right? The guy who—
BOBBY: John Soto to you.
ALEX: Yes, it is. Kind of— kind of legendary social media Yankees person. Kind of [23:00]
BOBBY: Juan Soto and Trent Grisham headed to the Yankees in exchange for Michael King, Jhony Brito, Randy Vasquez, Drew Thorpe, and Kyle Higashioka. Four right-handed pitchers or starting pitching prospects, and one backup catcher—
ALEX: Sure.
BOBBY: —in exchange for Juan Soto and Trent Grisham who the Padres are just trying to get rid of as much money as possible. That whole project is cooked, books by the way.
ALEX: I guess so, yeah.
BOBBY: We need to do like a Padres episode, just like what—
ALEX: We do.
BOBBY: —what went wrong in San Diego—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —in many ways. Okay, that’s a weird city to be in. That’s a weird city to live in, I think. And—
ALEX: Strange vibes.
BOBBY: —it’s just strange vibes in San Diego, California. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about. We’re here to talk about the fact that our long national nightmare has begun.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: The Yankees might be fun and good again. And we’re just gonna have to deal with that. In a way, isn’t he like the perfect Yankee? I hate to— I hate to, like, make this more palatable to the wider baseball world, but, like, isn’t his cockiness— his like fresh, clean face, he’s like way younger than you expect. He’s gonna look perfect in the pinstripes. He’s left-handed. He’s gonna hit it to all parts of the ballpark. He’s going to hit frustrating short porch home runs. He’s going to hit insane light tower bombs to Monument Park. Like, he’s going to do it all. The fans are gonna love him. His— his— the Soto shuffle in pinstripes is going to hit unbelievably hard, I hate to admit it. He’s like kind of a perfect Yankee. I don’t know if he’s going to sign back there. His agent is Scott Boras, who will be discussed on this podcast. And so that means he will hit free agency. But the Yankees will be first in line to talk to him because he—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They— they’ll have him for this past year— or for this upcoming year, and that gives them a unique opportunity to pitch him on what the vision is. You know, playing the rest of his career alongside Aaron Judge and taking that mantle from him as like chief Yankee. I refuse to call it the captain. I refuse. I just refuse.
ALEX: I— I agree that he is the perfect Yankee, parentheses, (derogatory).
BOBBY: Yeah, exactly. He— he’s like— now, I’m seeing like— it’s not like I’ve never liked Yankees before, you know? Like, there’s plenty— there’s been plenty of Yankees who I love as players. But becoming a Yankee pulls all of the annoying villain shit out of you and cast it in a different light. And I think that Juan Soto was kind of on the borderline for a lot of people in terms like how much of his stuff is like cocky and villainous, which is to be clear, not bad for the game or anything like— in— in this sort of like retro grade sports radio way that people talk about it. But it’s fun to dislike, you know? There’s stuff about him that’s fun to dislike. Same way with Bryce Harper, who’s another one of my absolute faves, but it’s really fun to root against him. And now, he will have the most possible people rooting for him and against him. It’s perfect— it’s kind of perfect.
ALEX: It is. I’m kinda— I’m kinda hyped for it. Like— and yet also, is it good for the game that the— the biggest stars are being consolidated into, like, the two biggest markets of the game? Like, maybe not, but I’m— I—
BOBBY: Also, is it good for the game that, like, literally no one else wanted him?
ALEX: Right, exactly [26:18]
BOBBY: What if no one else—
ALEX: Like, there are—
BOBBY: —was even seemingly in the running for this?
ALEX: There are some red flags there, and chiefly maybe that— that team wanted to get rid of him in the first place. I think that’s a bad place to start from. Also bad, again, when you can’t find any suitors. I don’t know. I was more like— like a little viscerally mad about the Soto trade than Ohtani. Ohtani, I was like, “Thank God. this is like— this is amazing. Like, super team complete. It’s going to make them getting bounced in the NLDS all that much more funny, you know? Like, this is great. And we get Ohtani in the playoffs, whatever. Soto, I was thinking, “Ah, fucking [26:53]”
BOBBY: It would be so, so funny if this was the first time the Dodgers missed the playoffs in the last 18 years.
[laughter]
BOBBY: Yeah, I was mad about Soto. I still am in some ways.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I wanted Ohtani to go to the Dodgers. That was my preferred outcome of any—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —of the other teams that it seemed realistic. I mean, obviously, I wanted him go to the Mets, but—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —I want every good player to go to the Mets. Beyond that, it was Dodgers for me. And I just gotta say Dodgers fans out there, you’re welcome.
ALEX: Yeah. You manifested it. You’re taking credit for this one.
BOBBY: I just would like to say my checks have cleared from Dodgers nation. I have been stumping for them. I’ve been normalizing Dodgers culture. I’ve been representing them as the best fan base, best place to see a ballgame, best place to play, probably. Probably the most satisfying place to be a player 81 times a year. And then all of a sudden, Shohei Ohtani signs with the Dodgers, and I’m just supposed to not take credit for that. He didn’t sign with the Phillies, the team that you got— you— that you put your wa— lot in with.
ALEX: That’s true.
BOBBY: So ye have little power.
ALEX: So why didn’t you will him to the Mets then, if you— if you do have this power?
BOBBY: Don’t need him.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Right.
BOBBY: Yeah, we want to win fair and square.
ALEX: Too much— I mean, like, we don’t— like, I don’t want my team spending all that money on him.
BOBBY: Yeah. Well, we can’t afford it.
ALEX: Right. Where does it go to— sports books not built yet.
BOBBY: I have one final question for you before we move on and talk about the Orioles because we have a long conversation with Jake and Jordan to get to, as I’m sure you guys have seen from the length of this episode. But one final question for you, just based on the salary cap,
just checking in.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah, I think they do, frankly.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: All these players getting all this money, it’s bad for the world. And I— I think they should— the owners have clearly worked hard to build up their own net worth.
BOBBY: Yeah. And the game.
ALEX: And the game.
BOBBY: Great.
ALEX: I don’t understand why we’re just min— minting new billionaires now, you know?
What has Shohei Ohtani done?
BOBBY: Speaking of new billionaires in the game of baseball, David Rubenstein reportedly in talks to acquire the Baltimore Orioles. John Angelos, no. What’s he going to do? How’s he going to use this pulpit to reinvent education in America without the O’s?
ALEX: I— first of all, I just want to say I love the fact that our maybe most defining bit about John Angelos’ ownership tenure come— is like a throwaway line in the New York Times profile about him that mentions his interest in, like, building an elementary school or something like that, like that is fucking sick.
BOBBY: I just—
ALEX: What a legacy to have.
BOBBY: Dude, the whole point of this project for you and I—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —is to, like, identify and make sure that people know about how coked out all billionaires are. Even if they’re not taking the drug cocaine, how— just the nature of being that makes all of your ideas sound like coked out thoughts? And if John Angelos thinking that he can use the Baltimore Orioles to start a school is not the most coked out thing you’ve ever heard in your life, then why are we even doing this pod? Why— why are we even here? What’s the point? What was it all for?
ALEX: It’s really fascinating whatever is going down in Baltimore right now, Peter Angelos, who is the, you know, now former chair of the team indicated that he would like the team to be sold, right? Because he basically is like, “We built this up. I want my wife and my family to be able to cash in on this.” Right? So this is kind of a sentiment that he has expressed privately. And I think John Angelos is like, “No. Wait, dude, are you kidding? We have the potential to turn this into a cash cow.” And he, actually, I think— there’s been a lot that happened this week, because there was also the announcement of a new lease in Baltimore for Camden Yards as well that was like, I think, then maybe put on hold with— with the news of this potential sale, at which point Angelos called the governor of Maryland, and said, “No. Don’t worry, I don’t want to sell a team.” I’ll— we’ll put— I’ll throw some links in the description. The Baltimore Banner has done some good reporting on this. But— but interesting note, which is that the team being sold prior to Peter Angelos’ death would mean it’s subject to, like, hundreds and millions of dollars in capital gains tax. So—
BOBBY: The look on your face right now, it’s like— that’s— that’s the first time I wish we did this pod on video.
[laughter]
ALEX: Regardless of what happens, it’s not happening yet.
BOBBY: Oh, man. Great note, great note. By the way, I’m just gonna give you a little context on the guy who wants to buy them. He’s 74. That’s the first thing.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: He is the co-founder and co-chairman of the Carlyle Group, which is a global investment firm that deals— that manages net assets worth $373 billion. Can I read you my favorite section header on his Wikipedia page?
ALEX: Please.
BOBBY: Mobile home parks controversy. Who hasn’t had a little mobile home parks controversy?
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: You know? You hang out— you’re in the game long enough, that’s just gonna find you.
ALEX: What— so— wait, so what was the controversy?
BOBBY: ” Rubenstein was publicly criticized for the work of The Carlyle Group of which he is the chairman, which owns a number of mobile home parks and has been pushing poor people out of their mobile homes by hiking up the rental price.” So just evict—
ALEX: Well, that’s just— that’s just good business [33:05]
BOBBY: —evicting people from their mobile homes.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You know?
ALEX: My favorite bit about the Carlyle Group is that in 2001, they had their, like, annual investment meeting, which happened to take place on September 11th, 2001. And who feat— whose guest of honor was Shafig bin Laden, a member of the bin Laden family, because they had millions of dollars invested in the Carlyle Group. So I’m just going to throw that out there. Let it sit. I’m providing no analysis. I’m not pro or against that.
[laughter]
ALEX: I just— a little context.
BOBBY: Do we think—
ALEX: That’s all.
BOBBY: Do we think that this is the same Carlyle that the dorm that we lived in, in our sophomore year of college is named after? It’s spelled the same.
ALEX: That’s a really good question, actually.
BOBBY: I was trying to look that up, actually, before we started, but I couldn’t find anything definitive. Thank you for providing context. That’s what you’re here for. He also hosts a TV show and a podcast. Do you think we could get them on?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He go— he go— he goes to shows on Bloomberg Television. The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations and Bloomberg Wealth With David Rubenstein.
ALEX: I just want to say— I mean, if we want to have him on, we got to do it now, right? We have to do it before he—
BOBBY: He becomes the owner.
ALEX: —actually buys the team.
BOBBY: Yeah. I think so. Okay. Are you ready to go to our conversation with Jake and Jordan?
ALEX: Yeah, I am. this is a fun one.
BOBBY: Before— before we do, on this episode, you’ll hear most of our conversation, our Overrated and Underrated segment with Jake and Jordan, if you want some more bonus rounds of that, you can head over to our Patreon feed, where later this week, we will be dropping in a bonus episode where we speed rounded a couple extra ones that didn’t make it into this episode for length. And we’ll talk about whatever happens between now and Thursday on that Patreon bonus episode. You can find that on pat— at patreon.com/tippingpitches if you sign up for our top tier. So without further ado, let’s go bring in our friends, Jake and Jordan.
SPEAKER 3: Think I’m getting sick of always hearing about it. You’re always talking on the internet.
BOBBY: We are joined by frequent guests, Cespedes Family BBQ, Jake Mintz, Jordan Shusterman. You know, I don’t know if you’re the most often, the most frequent guests in the history of this podcast, but you’re up there. You guys are up there. You’re counting some stats, racking them up, trying to get inducted into the Hall of Fame. Hello, guys. Hello, friends.
JORDAN: Hey, guys.
BOBBY: It’s great to see you.
JORDAN: Yeah.
JAKE: It’s great to be seen. The best ability is availability. And you can tap us and bring us off the bench at any moment, at any time. We’re recording 75 episodes of Baseball Bar-B-Cast a week. So we carve out just enough in the schedule for you, beautiful folks.
BOBBY: You know, I’ve been— I’ve been using the phrase, you know, “He posts or I post a lot,” at work, and no one is catching on. They think that I’m talking about, like, posting on Twitter. And I’m like, “Guys, get with it. Get with it.” this is why I need you guys here. this is why I need to be amongst baseball friends, because that is a great phrase, and encapsulates so many good things in life, and no one understands it.
JAKE: You know, it’s a related one that I tried to take from baseball to the larger world that doesn’t translate is banged. Like, not in terms of anything sexual remotely,
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Right.
JAKE: —but in terms of canceled.
BOBBY: Yeah.
JAKE: Like, “Oh, it’s raining, so they bang the game.” Like, I— I once was like, “Oh, yeah. You know, my friend has COVID, so we had to bang dinner.” He was like, “You had to bang dinner?”
JORDAN: I agree. That one— that one like— if you were as post [37:10] people are just confused. They’re not uncomfortable. But I agree with you, Bobby.
ALEX: Right.
JORDAN: I think there’s probably a lot of— it’s— it is a fantastic phrase—
JAKE: Yeah.
JORDAN: —that is— is complimentary in a lot of senses, so I agree.
BOBBY: You can get through your whole life by just posting, it’s all you have to do. Show up.
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: Just show up.
JORDAN: Showing up, man. Just keep on showing up. That’s— that’s how we view any advice of this podcast. The quality is irrelevant as long as we’re here, as long as we’re available.
JAKE: Just come by.
BOBBY: You guys are here for a very special reason. It’s to play a little game of Overrated or Underrated with literally anything tangentially related to the baseball world. You guys have eclectic interests when it comes to baseball far reaching, far and wide. And so we thought that you would be great guests. this would be a great idea to have you guys back on to do since it’s been so long since we chatted. Two years ago, we had a very fun episode of this podcast called The Least Terrible Owners Draft. Alex, would you like to let them know how they did in that? Do you think we should do that before we get into Overrated and Underrated?
JAKE: Yes, please. I want to know how we did it.
ALEX: We can’t. I don’t have the list in front of me, actually. But if I recall correctly, I mean, Bobby, you and I were discussing this offline, and— and I think the consensus was that we may have wiped the floor with y’all. But I— I— you know, I’ll leave— I’ll leave that to the—
JAKE: So—
ALEX: —listeners to decide.
JAKE: Yeah. So the big [38:33] on our end was drafting Brewers owner, Mark Attanasio simply because he looked schlumpy—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JAKE: —and we thought that was cute. And that’s a loss—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Yeah, you drafted him first overall.
JAKE: That’s a loss. Like, I’m willing to [38:45]
JORDAN: Yeah. I think that— I think Jake was pounding the table for— for Mark on that one.
JAKE: We all make mistakes, friends, but—
BOBBY: You guys really saved your asses by getting Middleton. Let me tell you—
JAKE: I was— which was—
BOBBY: —here’s who you have, Attanasio, Ilitch, Middleton, John Sherman, and the Lerners.
ALEX: The Lerners is the one that really took me out of it if I’m being quite honest.
JORDAN: Well, we remember. We had some Lerners [39:09]
JAKE: Who’s biased. They were biased. Right. Of course, yes.
JORDAN: They— they’ve certainly blinded us because they built our synagogue. But, you know, I agree, though, like we had— the Sherman— I stand— I actually stand by the propane king. I think we got time for that one to—
JAKE: Yeah. Yeah.
JORDAN: —to kind of come back around.
BOBBY: Let the propane cook.
JAKE: [39:24]
BOBBY: Let him cook.
JAKE: Yeah. Literally, let the man cook. Middleton was such a win. He has emerged as the best owner.
JORDAN: Middleton is second round— like second round.
JAKE: Third pick.
BOBBY: Third round.
JORDAN: Third round. Wow. So— yeah.
BOBBY: Third round Middleton.
JAKE: The only owners you could argue are better than him, the only ones you could argue are the Dodgers’ unlimited pool of money. The—
BOBBY: Yeah, we got them.
JORDAN: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
JAKE: The Mets’ limited pool of money.
BOBBY: We got them, too.
JAKE: And then the Yankees probably not.
BOBBY: Yeah, but we got them too just for the record.
JORDAN: Yeah. No, this time [39:52]
JAKE: Wow. Congrats to Bobby and Alex for drafting the Yankees, Dodgers, and Mets. Congratulations, guys.
BOBBY: We got the owners on our side, you know? That’s—
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: —famously what everybody says about the Tipping Pitches Podcast, is like they—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —got the owners with them, behind them.
JAKE: The billionaires— billionaires have something going on over there, yeah.
JORDAN: Yeah, yeah. For sure, for sure.
JAKE: So the one story— I— I have a story that I— is on my, like, to write list that I may never write, so I’m going to share it right now. So John Middleton, his money comes from Black & Mild Cigars, and I want to know the last time he had one. Or is it, like, don’t get high on your own supply situation?
ALEX: He does look like a man who may traffic in those every once in a while.
BOBBY: He does. Just— so the— just to let the record show, we also got Peter Seidler and Bill DeWitt. Wild— Bill DeWitt, wild choice.
ALEX: Bill—
BOBBY: I can’t believe we did that [40:50]
JAKE: Peter Seidler is a great choice.
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s like I was under some kind of spell. I don’t recognize the person who was stumping for Bill DeWitt on that pod.
JORDAN: So I’m— I’m realizing, did we do that, like, literally like a week before the Rangers signed Corey Seager and Marcus Semien?
BOBBY: It— it had to be. It had—
ALEX: Yes, yeah.
JORDAN: Right. I’m pretty sure it was like right before that.
JAKE: I was weary of what Ray Davis because of his participation in the Keystone Pipeline project.
ALEX: Right.
JORDAN: Yeah, but that’s still would have been right. That’s still should have been higher on the board for all the same— but we just had no idea. I’m— I’m pretty sure that’s what it was, because otherwise, I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t have been. You must— we’re being way too cognizant of, you know, moral malfeasance.
ALEX: Yeah. Too— too politically correct, some might say.
BOBBY: Maybe when we do the Worst Owners Draft, the thing that we like— the whole time we were recording that pod, we were just like, “We’re not here to do the Worst Owners. We always talk about those guys. We always do.” We had to like caveat it 1,000 times. Maybe you guys can win that one. That’s not what we’re here to do today. We’re here to do Overrated or Underrated. You guys— have you guys—
JORDAN: Properly rated, also an option, right?
BOBBY: Properly rated is an option.
JORDAN: Also an option? Yeah.
BOBBY: Yes, properly rated is an option. You guys got a list? You guys ready to do this?
JAKE: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I’m checking it twice.
JORDAN: I— I’m— I— I— yeah, I’m— I definitely have three I feel really good about and then we’ll see how— how interesting— how— how— how far we can go from there.
BOBBY: So the way that this is going to work is that each one of us is just going to present a topic in the forum, and then we’re just going to discuss whether it’s overrated or underrated. You can share off the bat what you think about it, if you’d like, or you can just kind of let it— let it eat. JORDAN: Yeah. Some of these, I’m like looking for consensus here, you know? I— I’m not even sure how strongly I feel. I— I— when I was thinking about these, I was like, “Ooh, that’s a fun one I want to— I want to hear discussed.” So— yeah.
BOBBY: this is— this is the marketplace of ideas, Jordan. This is where we come—
JORDAN: Well— right.
BOBBY: —we reach consensus.
JORDAN: Wonderful.
BOBBY: Four white baseball podcasters on Zoom. this is the spot.
JORDAN: Hmm. These are the opinions that mean the most, so—
JAKE: This is America.
JORDAN: —hopefully, at the very least, we could spark intrigue and— and maybe even outrage from the fine listeners of Tipping Pitches, of which I’m sure we’ll hear.
JAKE: Or enraged and outrigged. [43:05]
JORDAN: Yes.
BOBBY: That’s an option as well. That’s an option as well.
JORDAN: Any order.
BOBBY: Jake, I think I kind of want you to go first, honestly.
JAKE: All right. I’ll go first, Jackie Robinson.
JORDAN: Ooh, Jackie Robinson. Okay. So I’m trying to think about on what scenario we would land on overrated for Jackie Robinson. Like, I guess if you don’t know anything about history, and you pull up his Baseball-Reference page, and you just heard that he’s a baseball player, and you’re like, “All right. Like, what’s the big deal? The guy only”— but then— even then I’m struggling, right? I’m like he only played—
JAKE: He only played— he only played 10 years in the big league. He played.
JORDAN: Yeah. What the heck? How good can he have really been, right?
JAKE: Yeah.
JORDAN: He played the same— fewer big league seasons than Seth Smith.
JAKE: Yeah.
BOBBY: Tough.
ALEX: Hmm.
JAKE: I would probably say he bunted way too much, right? And I know like—
BOBBY: Yeah, true. Analytics hated Jackie Robinson, quote, “Jordan Shusterman.”
JORDAN: Yeah, and he—
JAKE: 28 sacrifices.
JORDAN: What is Jackie Robinson, who had endured so much to get to that point? What the hell is he doing trying to help his teammates? Are you kidding?
JAKE: Yeah.
JORDAN: Plenty of times—
JAKE: Swing away.
JORDAN: —he was advancing runners. this dude should have been swinging for the fences every time because he earned it, and he would have hit—
JAKE: His teammates—
JORDAN: —definitely would’ve hit more than 12 home runs.
JAKE: His teammates were like looking the other way while he’s in— like, subjected to just the worst things in the history of the world, and then he’s like, “I’ll move ’em over. I’ll move ’em over in a second.” That’s worth it. I’m just saying.
JORDAN: Outrageous. So in that sense, otherwise, I mean, eternally underrated, I would think.
JAKE: I think the reason I chose this was to obviously—
BOBBY: I’m fascinated to hear that.
JAKE: —hammer home the underrated aspect of it.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JAKE: Because I think— I don’t want to say like— again, I’m not gonna sit here as a caustic [44:59] individual and say too much attention is thrown on to Jackie Robinson, the person. But I do genuinely believe that, like, his accomplishments off the field at times overshadow how fricking unbelievable of a baseball player he was. And then his talents as a baseball player sometimes overshadowed a lot of the things he did off the field, particularly in the later end of his life. And so, I am— there are, like, 75 different things about Jackie Robinson that would have made him a— an historic and monumental person. And I think too often, it’s— he broke the color barrier, full stop, and like that’s why kids in school know about him, you know? So I think that— I think Jackie Robinson maybe the most underrated thing in baseball is why I brought this up to begin with.
BOBBY: I feel like MLB has a huge hand in this, honestly, because MLB is content to talk about Jackie Robinson within a very small box.
JAKE: Oh, yeah.
BOBBY: And afraid of talking about him in ways that pierce outside of that box. And so therefore, like, his whole career kind of just gets shrunk down to that moment, because that was like the championing moment. And everything after that was kind of like— that was like one huge step forward for the baseball world, like the collective comfort of the baseball world, and the fans, and the teams, and Major League Baseball. And then they took, like, two, or three, or four steps back in the immediate aftermath, and they don’t like you to talk about that part. And so on Jackie Robinson day every year, we just hear about this huge, phenomenal triumph. And then the rest of his career is sort of, like, shrouded in this fog of mystery about what actually happened from that moment on.
JAKE: Yeah.
BOBBY: Because they’re afraid that if you talk about the— that career in its totality, and how good he was on the field, and what kind of person he was afterwards, that you’re gonna have to talk about the fact that, like, people were not acting well.
JAKE: No.
BOBBY: And that is a stain on MLB’s legacy.
JAKE: I highly recommend to anybody who has not read it, I Never Had It Made, which is Jackie’s autobiography. There is so little, like, baseball in that in a way that I find to be very refreshing. There’s a lot of baseball, but relatively less than you would expect.
ALEX: Right. Well, that’s the thing is like if you start talking about his legacy, it all of a sudden becomes very implicating on Major League Baseball itself, right? It’s like he broke the color barrier. Logical next question might be, who put the color barrier there? Who had the hand in that?
BOBBY: Right.
JAKE: It’s like an episode of— it’s like an episode of Jimmy Neutron, where Jimmy creates a problem, and then he fixes it at the end of the episode. And then it’s—
ALEX: Right.
JAKE: —like, “You did it, Jimmy.” And no one is like, “Why— why were we stuck inside of a, you know, goat brain in the first place—”
ALEX: Right.
JAKE: “—that Jimmy had to get us out of here? Why were all the pants attacking?” Well, because Jimmy did it.
BOBBY: The second logical question is, how did that go when he broke the color barrier?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And the answer to that is also not very good and—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —doesn’t reflect very well on the people in power at the moment.
JAKE: Yeah. So I guess the reason I brought this up, one was to laugh at the idea of four white guys trying to argue that Jackie Robinson was overrated on a podcast is, like, hilarious to me.
BOBBY: That’s why we have the Hall of Fame for.
JAKE: I know. Exactly. I just thought that was a funny idea. But also to prove a point that he is incredibly underrated. I will kick the rock to you, Alex.
ALEX: Oh, to me? Let’s do it. All right. First up on my list, high-definition jumbotrons, the— the— the tricked out jumbotrons with all the new stats. You’ve got the— the big video board where they show the highlights are in games. I— it’s— it’s kind of in vogue among teams at the moment. There was much— much ado around the new Mets jumbotron, so— so I’m— I’m throwing it out to y’all, jumbotrons, overrated, underrated?
JORDAN: Well, the first place to start is they keep getting bigger and I do wonder—
ALEX: They do.
JORDAN: —after seeing the Mets one in person for the first time when I was there for the [48:49] series, I was like, “Man, like, that is so large.” And there’s something about the Mets one with it being directly straight away, which not all of them are, right? Some of them you have them in left or right where it doesn’t feel as distracted or— distracting or almost menacing, especially if you’re—
BOBBY: Or both. I love when it’s— there’s one in left and one in right.
ALEX: Yeah.
JORDAN: Right. So I would say that, like, part of me does wonder it’s just a constant opportunity for teams to, like, spend their money not on players, which is funny to build giant video boards. But, like, I don’t know, I don’t— I’ve never seen one where— as they keep growing and keep getting flashy and stuff, I’m never like mad about it, but I’m just like, “Whoa.”
BOBBY: Yeah, these are [49:39]
JORDAN: [49:40] I guess it— it maybe has reached a level of distraction that I guess is maybe what you’re potentially aiming.
JAKE: No.
JORDAN: What do you think, Jake?
JAKE: No, I think they’re properly rated. I— I don’t— I think that there’s a new standard, and whenever you go to a stadium where the video board has kind of meh like Arizona. When I went there this year for the first time, it’s kind of a meh video board. For me, selfishly, as someone in the press [50:02]
BOBBY: To be clear, you were there for the baseball games not to check to see if the votes were counted correctly, right?
JAKE: Well, I was— yeah, I just thought I’d, like, kill two birds with one stone so, you know, it was— it was— just made more sense. But the votes, I would just say stop the count. But anyway, it’s much easier— like it was a difficult part to see the stats on, like it— it was less intuitive. And so that made—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JAKE: —for a worse experience for me. But however, there is a limit here, okay? There’s a limit to how big these jumbotrons should be. You know how when we’re talking about skyscrapers, the terminology for skyscraper height is like tall, super tall, mega tall, big boy tall? Like, I don’t think we should call the Mets thing a jumbotron and, like, a little rinky dink one at the A’s stadium, respectfully, a jumbotron as well. Like, I think we need—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JAKE: —new terminology for this if we’re going to continue down this path of society.
ALEX: The Overton window is shifting on jumbotrons.
BOBBY: Right. Exactly. Is JumboTron like Kleenex? Like, is that a brand that started this whole thing?
JAKE: Yeah, I believe so.
BOBBY: And then that’s why we call it that still? But that’s probably not the brand that’s still making the Mets jumbotron, most likely.
ALEX: What is the tron? What’s— what’s the tron part of jumbo? Does anyone know?
JORDAN: Hmm. I’m just— sorry. I just found the Wikipedia page List of Largest Video Screens. And I will just— before you guys look this up, where do you think Citi Field ranks in the world?
BOBBY: this is in the world? In the world.
JORDAN: this is in the world. Largest screens, okay. So—
JAKE: 23rd, 23rd.
JORDAN: 23rd, very good guess. 27th.
BOBBY: Wow.
JORDAN: 27— it— it does appear to be the largest—
BOBBY: 27 screens, bro.
JORDAN: —in a— in a baseball stadium. We have some football stadiums on here. Now, unsurprisingly—
JAKE: Can I guess? For me, whenever I guess something that’s really big that we don’t know about, I’m gonna say North Korea has got a— got a big-ass Jumbotron.
JORDAN: Ooh, that’s a good question.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JORDAN: So it’s not listed here. I’m sure they—
JAKE: Damn.
JORDAN: —think they have the largest screen, but—
BOBBY: Kim— Kim Jong Un’s secret Jumbotron.
JAKE: Dude, you’ve never seen it. You don’t know.
JORDAN: But—
JAKE: Go ahead, Jordan.
JORDAN: —do they know about the Las Vegas Sphere—
BOBBY: True.
JORDAN: —in Pyongyang because that is number one by a lot.
ALEX: Does that— does that count as a jumbotron?
JORDAN: It is—
ALEX: I mean, I guess— I guess—
BOBBY: It’s a screen [52:23]
ALEX: —it is a— it is a screen, technically.
JORDAN: It’s a LED screen and it’s— it’s— just because it’s round, doesn’t mean it’s not a screen.
ALEX: What’s number two?
BOBBY: This is perfect. Thank you so much for bringing this up on the podcast because now this gives Alex an excuse to use business money to go to the Sphere. We’re— we—
JORDAN: So—
BOBBY: —investigated the Sphere.
ALEX: this is market research. That’s all it is.
JAKE: So to be clear, JumboTron is a brand owned by Sony and the largest jumbotron ever—
JORDAN: Uh-hmm.
JAKE: —was in Rogers Centre in Toronto.
JORDAN: Oh.
BOBBY: How about that?
JORDAN: So JumboTron is— this is just like a Kleenex situation?
JAKE: Yeah, actually, it’s— yeah, yeah, yeah.
JORDAN: this is actually fascinating.
JAKE: Yeah.
JORDAN: Because most— so most of these other big ones are— are different things. They’re not jumbotron like— we’re still calling it something that it isn’t. That’s the—
JAKE: [53:04] vision.
BOBBY: I like— there— there is a dispute among Mitsubishi and Sony over who invented the JumboTron.
JORDAN: Oh.
BOBBY: How was that a dispute? Whoever fucking sold it first. That’s who invented it.
JAKE: Dude, I would watch a Showtime documentary, like dramatic docuseries about—
BOBBY: Yeah.
JAKE: —who invented the JumboTron, all that intrigue.
BOBBY: Like the Black— the Blackberry movie, but for the JumboTron?
JAKE: Oh.
JORDAN: Right.
JAKE: Yeah.
BOBBY: See, I came into this thinking that the jumbotrons might be slightly overrated in their— in their size—
JAKE: Hmm.
BOBBY: —and stature. And now, I think I’m coming the other way. Now, I think— I think maybe we’re not leaning too hard into jumbotron lore.
JAKE: Because here’s what I’m also a sucker for is, “Yo, you know, plug in the HDMI to the Citi Field jumbotron so we can play Mario Kart.” You know?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah.
JORDAN: Like that— that never gets old.
ALEX: That’s sick. Yeah.
JORDAN: Never gets old, right? The notion that that screen is really technically not actually different than the screen that I’m looking at right now in my office is very funny, right? So in that sense—
BOBBY: It’s all just pixels row.
JORDAN: Yeah. Now, again, it depends on the kind of game you’re playing, because I imagine, you— you know, Super Smash Bro. professionals will tell you that the lag, the input there is—
BOBBY: Oh, big lag. Yeah, big lag.
JORDAN: —cannot be playing on a screen that big. You’re gonna be having all kinds of issues if you’re trying to, you know, throw in some— some real you know, wombo combo type moves.
But— but in general, the— the kind— the premise that you could use any screen like that for anything is— is delightful. So in that sense, underrated, but I agree with Jake,
I’m landing on properly rated.
BOBBY: You could play like N64 Mario Kart on there. You don’t have to worry about the lag when it comes to that. Like, we’re just vibing on that. We— we don’t— we don’t need to do a competitive Super Smash Bros. tournament on that screen, though it would be pretty hilarious. But you— you’d probably get away with a lag on that front. Well, I guess my final word on the jumbotron is that I don’t know how— I have a hard time gauging how the rest of the world rates them, so I don’t know if they’re overrated or underrated.
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’ve never just been like— like people are just amazed by them, so I guess that means they’re pretty highly rated. I— the— the amount of people that had talked to me about the Mets new jumbotron, I was like, “You guys care about this? Like, this is a thing. this breaks through to the rest of the world?”
JORDAN: Right.
BOBBY: this is so bizarre. I’ll go next.
JORDAN: No, I agree with that.
BOBBY: I’ll go next.
JORDAN: Go ahead.
BOBBY: My first— the first thing that I would like to post to the group is MLB.TV.
JORDAN: Hmm. The most underrated. I’m going underrated beyond belief. I—
BOBBY: See, that— this is why I wanted you guys on for this because I know—
JORDAN: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —that you guys are mainlining MLB.TV in the top— 0.1% of people.
JORDAN: Now, the first— I understand there’s a healthy number of people listening to this that the first thing— when you said that— or when I said it on where it is, “But what about the blackouts?” And you’re right. That’s fine. That’s fine.
JAKE: That’s not the product.
JORDAN: That’s fine. That’s not the product. That is an unfortunate, you know, side issue— big— big problem, right? But the product that Major League Baseball has produced, that is MLB.TV, is so good and such an absurdly good deal when you consider the number of baseball games that you can watch. It is like not even a frequent question. Now, I understand we are in a unique position as people who get to work in baseball for a living. We can kind of always be watching baseball, and it’s not whatever, right? But at the same time— so I know that people don’t necessarily— like the number of games in Houston that we get to watch is maybe beyond what the average person can realistically or wants to realistically consume. But I think even if you adjust it down, it’s a steal beyond belief. And that’s— that’s— it’s not that complicated. I think it’s an incredible product. And by the way, also having dipped my toe into such similar products in other leagues like NBA League Pass, which absolutely stinks—
BOBBY: And never works.
JORDAN: —that it’s not even close. It is— it is an incredible product, and one of the best things that our stupid league has ever done by a factor of a million [57:17]
ALEX: They didn’t do it. They just bought it for themselves, or someone— or someone else bought it.
JORDAN: They just bought it, but they didn’t screw it up.
ALEX: Yeah.
JORDAN: It is— it is not— I know there have been moments with some slight changes over the years where it’s like, “Oh, they change that. I don’t like it.” In general, it’s not even close. It’s freaking incredible.
JAKE: When something is good, let it be good. We got enough wrong with this planet.
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: Alex, what’s your take on MLB.TV?
ALEX: Yeah. I think that— I think— I get turned off by all the sort of little accessories in there. Sometimes the— the— the, like, box score pops down if I’m watching on my phone and I’m like, “What is going on?” Again, big— big UI, UX guy over here.
JAKE: Look, brother, man, if you can’t control the horse, don’t ride it.
ALEX: Right. I know. That might be a user error problem.
JAKE: Yeah.
ALEX: But I will— I will agree that the fundamental core product of broadcasting baseball games to whatever device you’re on—
JAKE: It’s amazing.
ALEX: —works— it— it works very well. Like, I— I— I don’t know that I would go so far as to say it’s underrated, but I— it feels— it’s— it’s good. It is one of the few good things I think we have in the sport.
BOBBY: I think that— this is my— this is my take about MLB.TV. I think that the— things that people are most mad about it for are, like, the secondary aspects of it. So like I’m mad because there’s no MLB.TV app on Samsung’s interface.
ALEX: Right.
JAKE: Boo-hoo.
BOBBY: That I can’t put it on my TV, but MLB didn’t decide that. Samsung decided that.
JAKE: That’s the [58:43]
JORDAN: And that’s because you want to experience MLB.TV more.
BOBBY: Exactly.
JORDAN: Like that is— that’s the thing. So—
BOBBY: Let me cook.
JORDAN: Yes.
BOBBY: Also, the fact that you can just have any broadcast booth in the entire—
JORDAN: Oh, my God.
BOBBY: —United States—
ALEX: That is really— really good.
BOBBY: —besides your own, besides your own, besides your own, for the record.
JORDAN: Yes. Besides your [59:05] you want to listen to, yeah.
BOBBY: It’s pretty amazing. Like, the— like the fact that I would have developed opinions about Don Orsillo and Joe Davis living in New York, that’s— that’s amazing. The internet won.
JAKE: Previous generations could never.
BOBBY: Exactly.
JAKE: [59:15]
BOBBY: Previous generations would be like, “Who’s that? Who’s that?”
JAKE: My grandfather would walk to school both ways uphill in the snow—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
JAKE: —and in typhoons in Brooklyn, and he never made it through his childhood hearing—
BOBBY: And it’d be like, “Did you guys catch that Jackie Robinson sac bunt last night? That was sick.”
JAKE: Well, that he would have heard. But I’m saying like he didn’t hear like Joe Castiglione up in Boston spitting fire, you know?
BOBBY: Exactly.
JAKE: We live in a different era.
BOBBY: This is Tipping Pitches pro MLB.TV era.
ALEX: I know. It’s gonna be quite— quite the shock to our listeners.
BOBBY: This segment is brought to you by ML—
JAKE: Don’t bring Jake and Jordan on if you don’t want a rational positivity, okay?
JORDAN: I—
JAKE: You’re the one who said— Bobby, you’re—
BOBBY: Yeah.
JAKE: —the one who called Jackie Robinson overrated. It’s all I’m saying.
JORDAN: Uh-hmm.
JAKE: That’s what I heard.
BOBBY: Check the transcript. Check the tran— check the transcript.
JORDAN: It’s— I will say World Series OPS, you know [1:00:05]
BOBBY: Leaving a little bit [1:00:06] desire.
JORDAN: I don’t know.
JAKE: Jordan.
JORDAN: How badly did he— did he really want to win? All right. My first topic before I go a little bit more baseball, but again, we have the baseball going experience. this is something that I feel like Jake and I, we’ve talked about and— and had the experience of having gone to a lot of big, important games. And what do they do at big important games? The flyover, the flyover.
JAKE: I have on my— I have it on my list, dude.]
JORDAN: I— I had a feeling, I had a feeling, but I am very excited to hear Bobby and Alex’s take on this.
BOBBY: This is one of the most overrated things in American society.
ALEX: Of course.
JORDAN: Perfect. So—
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: Not just in the baseball world.
JORDAN: That— and— and I know this extends beyond baseball.
BOBBY: It offers nothing of value to anybody except the Department of Defense.
JORDAN: 100%. And I will say as someone who was once in Cleveland when the Blue Angels were just going for it, I mean, it was so— have you guys ever been around when, like, the full-blown air show? Have you guys ever experienced this?
ALEX: I have, yeah.
BOBBY: I have— I don’t think I have.
JORDAN: It is one of the most absurd loud— like this— the noise is so— like, again, you think about flyover and you’re— that— that two and a half seconds when it— but then for like hours on end with like— at, like, unpredictable intervals, and especially if you’re just in the part of the city where you can’t actually see what’s happening and you’re just hearing these ridiculous noises. Not to mention, again, you’re— you— I know we can talk about the expense part of this that is a— you know, abhorrent, I get that. But try to focus on [1:01:39]
BOBBY: What are we gonna spend money on? We’re gonna spend money on big LED screens and fucking fighter jets.
JORDAN: Exactly. Exactly.
JAKE: All right. Bobby, I have a—
BOBBY: We can’t afford Ohtani, but we can afford fighter jets.
JORDAN: Same thing. So— so Jake, I’ll kick it to you, I’ll kick it to you before I say anymore.
JAKE: Yeah. I got a rebuttal. Bobby Wagner—
BOBBY: Yup. I know what’s coming.
JAKE: —am I correct—
BOBBY: I know what’s coming.
JAKE: —am I correct that you enjoyed Top Gun: Maverick?
BOBBY: You’re goddamn right I did. You know why I enjoyed Top Gun: Maverick?
JAKE: Why, Bobby Wagner?
BOBBY: Compelling story that I can sit, and watch, and enjoy.
JAKE: Bobby, Bobby.
BOBBY: I’m not looking at the fighter jets like this looks like Top Gun: Maverick.
JAKE: Bobby, Bobby. Bobby, shut the fuck up.
JORDAN: Now, that’s a pretty funny response.
JAKE: You watched Top Gun: Maverick and you were like, “Boy, that plot was superb.” Get the fuck out of here, dude.
BOBBY: Dude—
JAKE: The— no way.
BOBBY: —the— the— the fighter jets, the flyover is like if Top Gun: Maverick, they put an iPhone on the ground with a selfie camera up and you saw it go over one time. That’s a flyover. That would be a bad movie.
JAKE: Bobby, have you ever— have you ever been to— I—
BOBBY: I would have rated that movie a half star on Letterboxd.
JAKE: I understand, Bobby. I understand. Have you ever been to a flyover?
BOBBY: Have I ever seen a flyover?
JAKE: In person at a sporting event?
BOBBY: Yes. But never like the full, like, Jordan is talking about.
JAKE: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, it’s opening day, we’re having like a fleet flying over.
JORDAN: No, no, no. Well— well, again, I’m [1:02:51]
JAKE: Okay. So the thing I’m— let me— can I finish my point?
JORDAN: Yeah.
JAKE: I think it is important here to hold multiple thoughts in your head at the same time, okay?
BOBBY: Okay.
JAKE: Is this a good use of taxpayer money? No. No, it is not. No. Is— is it part of— is it propping up the military industrial complex? Yeah, absolutely. Do planes go brrr when they fly over your head? And do they look sick, and make a lot cool noise, and amp you up? Yes, they do. And for that reason, they’re properly rated.
JORDAN: My biggest beef is, like, the difference between the flyover being executed perfectly and not does very much contribute. Now, that being said, like that’s part of it when you’re thinking about like, “Wow. Like, how are they actually doing this? Like what it take”—once you— once you ignore how much of a waste of money it is, all those things, that’s fine. I— I— I can’t refute any of that. But when you think about the premise of these planes flying ridiculously fast and flying over this very small amount of a space when this person is singing this part of the National Anthem—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JORDAN: —I am—
JAKE: Awesome.
JORDAN: —intrigued by that sequencing of events. However, when it goes wrong, and they are too early, or the song is over, now you’re really angry. And you’re like, “Come on. Now, I just heard this loud noise at this weird time [1:04:10]
BOBBY: Greatest military in the history of humanity [1:04:10]
JAKE: Yeah, that makes me feel bad— that makes me feel bad. Like, how did we get Osama if we couldn’t coordinate the flyover?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JAKE: You know?
JORDAN: But then I’m like, is this the singer’s fault, right? Now, I’m wondering—
JAKE: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Oh, yeah, yeah.
JORDAN: —like how much did the— but why would—
ALEX: Right. Did they hold the note too long?
BOBBY: Or if the [1:04:23]
JORDAN: Yeah. So—
JAKE: So while we’re on this stuff—
BOBBY: It’s like how it was never deGrom’s fault when the Mets lost.
JAKE: Exactly. The National Anthem in the regular season, overrated. In the playoffs, underrated. That’s my take.
JORDAN: Hmm. Again, I’m— I— I’m not— this is—
JAKE: Incredibly overrated, I—
JORDAN: —this is [1:04:38] commentary for me. I’m just—
JAKE: I know.
BOBBY: That was a little bonus content for you right there.
JAKE: [1:04:43]
JORDAN: [1:04:43]
BOBBY: A little speed round.
JAKE: I understand. I’m just saying National Anthem every single day in the regular season is ridiculous, right? They don’t do that in Premier League games in Europe. Like they do the anthem before, like, international games. That makes sense. In the playoffs, though, love it. Love it. Playoffs anthem, amazing. Proud to be an American. Regular season anthem, hate it, like moving to Europe.
JORDAN: All right. You want to just do anthem as over— no. Jake, back to [1:05:08]
BOBBY: No. Jake, you\re up next.
JORDAN: I’m— I’m— also I’m properly rated for— for—
JAKE: Properly?
JORDAN: [1:05:13] flyovers.
JAKE: Yeah.
JORDAN: But Jake, back to you.
JAKE: The—
JORDAN: Unless you guys— you guys are both overrated for [1:05:18]
BOBBY: Yeah, overrated.
ALEX: Right. Yeah. No, I mean— I mean— I am— I’m pro using jet fuel just kind of, you know, with— with no remorse. Just burn that shit.
JAKE: Attaboy.
ALEX: Right? Like, it’s gotta— it’s gotta go somewhere else.
BOBBY: Exactly [1:05:33]
JAKE: Well, with Kessinger gone, a new one rises.
JORDAN: Okay.
ALEX: All right. Just place— just do what Citi Field does and place your stadium next to an airport.
JAKE: Yeah.
ALEX: There are flyovers every— all fucking day.
BOBBY: Dude, exactly. Dude—
JAKE: Can they not do—
BOBBY: [1:05:46] their flyovers— their flyover last year on opening day, the fucking roof was closed for the flyover. You can’t even see it.
JAKE: Can they do— can they do a flyover at Citi Field or is the airspace too [1:05:56]
BOBBY: No, definitely not. Definitely not. I don’t think they can.
JAKE: Yeah.
JORDAN: Yeah. I don’t— I never thought about that. They have to have—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JORDAN: Well, I don’t know.
JAKE: Well, then good thing they’re never in the World Series. All right. Back to [1:06:05]
JORDAN: No, we can— let’s ask someone that was at— you were at the 2015 World Series, weren’t you?
BOBBY: No.
JORDAN: Oh, you weren’t? Okay. Let’s ask someone that was.
BOBBY: I was a— I was a sophomore in college. I had $63 to my name.
JORDAN: Yeah. I’m actually curious. We should find out. I know who we can ask, Jake. We— I— I definitely know who we can ask about that. All right, Jake.
JAKE: Okay.
JORDAN: Now, back to you.
BOBBY: Pete Alonso. You can ask Pete Alonso about that.
JAKE: Overrated—
JORDAN: [1:06:26] think about the Mets in 2015.
JAKE: Overrated or underrated? The 2020 MLB season.
BOBBY: Ooh.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: Ooh, that’s kind of juicy.
ALEX: This— this is a good one.
JAKE: The 2020 MLB season in its entirety.
JORDAN: It wasn’t very entire.
[laughter]
JORDAN: 60 games.
BOBBY: [1:06:48] so bad, but it’s funny. That was a funny joke.
JORDAN: Hmm.
BOBBY: So— okay, present— present some data points for us, Jake.
JAKE: Trevor Bauer won the Cy Young.
JORDAN: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That’s what you start with?
JAKE: He was— you asked for—
JORDAN: [1:07:01] okay. Can I just say?
JAKE: You didn’t say present uplifting data points. You said present data points. Trevor Bauer won the Cy Young.
JORDAN: [1:07:06]
JAKE: We had baseball while we were all stuck inside.
ALEX: True.
JAKE: Okay? That’s a data point.
BOBBY: True.
JAKE: There was Jack Flaherty throwing a bullpen into his mattress.
BOBBY: Yup.
JAKE: There was MLB completely miss handling the entire situation. There was Justin Turner on the field having COVID after the World Series.
BOBBY: That was awesome. Cardboard cutouts.
JAKE: There was all the empty— all the empty stadium stuff. There was Thom Brennaman. That was a data point.
ALEX: Wow. That was that year?
JAKE: Nick Castellanos, that was that year.
JORDAN: That— so that’s— but that’s just one that happened during that time that could have happened during any other season.
JAKE: That is true. That is true.
JORDAN: That would be one—
JAKE: I’m just thinking of—
JORDAN: It did happen during that— I will say my experience recently with the 2020 season—
JAKE: Yo— I’m sorry. Yoenis just disappearing.
JORDAN: Yeah.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
JORDAN: Well— well, I’m glad you— I’m glad you mentioned him because that’s an example of a player where that’s the last time we saw him play Major League Baseball. And I’ve had a couple experiences recently where I’ve just like been looking at careers, and I’ve been like, “Holy shit. Like, that guy played in 2020. Ryan Braun played for the Brewers in 2020. That broke my brain a couple of days ago.
ALEX: I don’t believe. I refused to believe that, actually.
JORDAN: Yeah, yeah. 39 games.
BOBBY: Dude, I— I’ll break your brain with one. Evan Longoria played for the Diamondbacks in 2023.
JORDAN: Okay. But, again, like this is— 2020 for me, it— like it’s— it has broken us in so many ways. It’s not just the stats, right? Dom Smith, 160 OPS plus, or whatever. Like, there’s— you can pick those. But to Jake’s point, like when you— when you find those stat— particularly like the achievements, you— you referenced Trevor Bauer, does that make me feel good or does that make me feel bad that these— these small sample seasons occurred?
BOBBY: It just in— will never cease to amaze me how much of an unforced error the fact 60 games was. Like 60 games, they could have at least played half the season. They could’ve at least played 81 one and they only—
JORDAN: And it was so possible.
BOBBY: Yeah, it was so achievable, so achievable, and they just— MLB totally botched it. Weirdly, though, I think that I’m gonna say underrated. Like, the fact that it was still somehow kind of entertaining, even though it was bizarre, and they’re like piping in crowd noise, and with the fake cardboard cutout fans and all of that stuff.
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: And the announcers every game had to talk about how— how— how real it felt. They were like, “this is— this is real baseball.” And every single game was really weird. But for me, I think the baseball was still pretty good, and so I think it’s underrated because I think nobody ever even considers it a realistic thing. Also, the fact that the Dodgers won is just objectively funny. Like that— that is—
ALEX: That’s— yes. Yeah.
BOBBY: —really funny.
JORDAN: Right. I do like that. That was— not just that it’s their only one within this run because that’s the funny part in my opinion, but like, they were the best team, too. It was like the one time everything could have been as weird as possible, and the best team did win. And that’s why it was like this is what it takes for baseball to spit out a normal outcome is for everything else to be as, you know, screwed up as possible. So—
ALEX: Yeah, there’s something about the possibility of that season too, that always just lingers in my mind. I’m just like, would Shane Bieber have struck out 400 people? Probably not. I don’t think so.
JORDAN: Yeah. The—
ALEX: And yet— and yet—
JORDAN: But it’s— I mean, the awards are one thing, but again, it’s— it’s like those amazing seasons just below that, that really—
ALEX: Right.
JORDAN: —blow your mind. Because the— the awards will kind of sustain as we remember those things and we remember some of the postseason things, right? But, boy, were there a lot of incredible seasons that just— but they weren’t seasons, right? They weren’t seasons.
ALEX: Right.
JORDAN: They— they weren’t— to call them seasons is a— is a farce. And so that’s the part where every time I say, “Wow. He did that during that season.” I still have to be like, “No, he didn’t. That’s not what happened.” So in that sense, I— I— I don’t know. Oh, I— I— I enjoy a lot about it, but I— I’m gonna say overrated because I think people point to it as a real data point way too often, in that sense. That’s [1:11:27]
JAKE: I’m gonna say properly rated, because everything—
BOBBY: The same thing you said for everything so far.
JAKE: Why don’t you just go fuck off? All right? Except for Jackie, Jackie’s underrated. Here’s why, everything Jordan said is true, and I’m leaning overrated. But Amed Rosario hit a walk-off home run in Yankee Stadium as a member of the Mets, and so that can’t be overrated, and so it’s correctly [1:11:53]
JORDAN: It was— just, like, looking like the Rangers had the worst offense in the league by a lot. Like, by a lot somehow, right? Like, that wasn’t that long ago. Like— but, yeah, there’s just a lot of pretty tremendous— I guess the Pirates were worse. But, yeah, it’s 60 games. 60 games happens, you know? We— we have 60 games, it happens all the time, but this one will live forever on its own.
BOBBY: One thing that’s generally happening, like in larger society with things that happened in 2020, is that they feel like now, you just get to carry them with you still. Meaning like if it happened in 2020, and it got cut short, and it was weird, and no one talked about it or no one acknowledged it properly, then we could just get— get to still pretend like it’s happening. Because at the— I was at the movies this morning and AMC celebrated their 100th— 100-year anniversary in 2020, 1920 to 2020, and where no one was going to the movie theaters at all. So now, they just still put that logo up before every movie. That was three years ago. Like, how long do we get to coast off of that? And I do feel like a little bit of that happened in the baseball world, where they were like, “That was supposed to be our time. This was supposed to be our year or— whatever. Like, I was supposed to have a career year that year.” And people are just kind of still coasting off of them. And that was like— that was three— that was three years ago, you know? A lot— a lot of turnover on the Dodgers roster since then.
JORDAN: Well said.
ALEX: I think it’s kind of sick that it’s just a question mark in baseball history. That like you can paste your own ideals onto about the sport at that time. It was such a fever dream, like— but get— like the games were coming back and we’d be like, “All right. The Yankees are playing the Nationals. Let’s go, everyone, Oh, first pitch is in four minutes and half the team has COVID.” Like—
JORDAN: Also— it’s also like we’re literally forever be a demarcation just in time.
ALEX: Right.
JORDAN: I think a lot of it too, when we think about like the juiced ball and stuff like ’17 and ’19, and how ridiculous home runs got in 2019. And then, like, there is— I— I don’t know how long it will take for us to, like, start acknowledging in the way that like— I— I do wonder if, like, in 20-30 years, you know, when we’re on Baseball-Reference, you know how like when you stare [1:14:03] at something, you search— like they have different— they refer to different eras. Like, I do wonder if one of the eras will be— will end in 2019—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JORDAN: —in that sense. I— or there’s, you know, there’s a few other ways you could kind of demarcate it. But, anyway, yeah, overrated, but I [1:14:18]
BOBBY: Do you remember when— do you remember when people were like, “Oh, 2020 being only 60 games is really going to hurt Mike Trout’s chances of becoming the greatest player ever and amassing the most WAR over the course of his career in the history of baseball.” And then— since then—
JORDAN: I mean, I would still buy the ticket at the time, but it’s pretty— pretty [1:14:36]
BOBBY: Well, I think everybody did, but now, it’s looking a lot different.
JORDAN: Alex, what’s your next topic?
ALEX: Next— next topic that I’ll put forth for the group to consider, overrated, underrated, retired numbers.
JORDAN: Hmm.
JAKE: Underrated. I love moments in the sun. I love flo— looking at people getting their flowers while they can still smell them.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JAKE: I love ceremonial commemoration. Retiring a number is an excuse to have someone back out and give them a day to have the fans cheer their name again. Like—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JAKE: —Barry Bonds’ jersey retirement, oh, yeah. That was fascinating [1:15:15]
JORDAN: That— that’s a good— yeah.
JAKE: Now, I— think some teams—
ALEX: Yeah.
JAKE: —are too precious with them. You know, like the Orioles are going to face a real conundrum here where they only have Hall of Famers numbers retired, so that’s Earl Weaver, Frank and Brooks Robinson, not related, Cal Ripken. Eddie Murray. Did I name them all? Earl Weaver, there’s Earl Weaver, Jim Palmer.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JAKE: So they have six, right? And like Adam Jones is exactly the type of player who’s not a Hall of Famer, but you retire that guy’s number. You know what I mean? So I’m fascinated— I like thinking about that. I think it’s fun. So underrated.
JORDAN: It— it is interesting. You— you learn about the different organizations, because the time like, when they do it is always— is very different for each players. And that can tell you a lot about org— how— how kind of high and mighty organizations think they are. Which sometimes is a good thing, but sometimes it’s like you roll your eyes and you’re like, “Nah, screw it. Like, let’s just retire a bunch of numbers.” And in a way that isn’t like the Yankees, because they had 500 Hall of Famers before 1970, you know?
ALEX: Right.
JORDAN: That’s— in that sense, but I don’t know. You— you brought it up, where— where— are you leaning one way or the other?
ALEX: I mean— I mean, a part of me wants to say overrated because I think I proximity to the Yankees gives a little bit of bias, but I— but I do think them as an exercise of celebrating a team’s history is a really fascinating way to sort of bring folks back into the fold. I— I don’t know that it’s necessarily the only way— a lot of— a lot of people are like, “Oh, like this player is done. They meant something to the organization, like retire their number.” And I don’t know that that has to be the first sort of route to, like, celebrating someone who was important to your team. But I do— I do value— there’s— there’s value there, so I think they are maybe slightly underrated.
BOBBY: I think they are overrated. I think that the concept is wholesome and interesting. Like, the concept that because this person was so great while with your organization, wearing this number, that it would just be wrong for anyone— it would just feel wrong for anyone else to wear that number. Like, to me, like that’s what retiring a number is. If you want to talk about like drafting— or, like, taking this person into your or— your team’s Hall of Fame or whatever, whatever— ’cause every team has that bullshit, too. They just don’t put the numbers up for all of those players. And then, like, that’s one thing, but to me, like, just because a guy was good for a while and a fun guy to root for, it doesn’t mean that no one in the future of that organization should get to wear that number.
JORDAN: Correct.
BOBBY: So I think that retiring numbers is actually overrated. That person should also be like a special type of person where it would suck if an unspecial type of person was wearing that jersey number again. Meaning like if Hunter Strickland wanted to wear number 17 for the Mets, like that would be fucking bad. We should not let that happen. So, yes, Keith’s number should be retired.
JORDAN: But I think that, like, the player’s element— this is another great example of, like, we make shit up as fans that we assume the players care about, in some cases. Sometimes there probably are players who are like, “I am the best. I gave so much to this organization. No one should wear my jersey number.” Right? But I bet half of them don’t give a shit, right? They’re not thinking—
BOBBY: Probably not.
JORDAN: They don’t even— they might turn on to [1:18:38] and be like, “Oh, look, this random reliever is wearing my number. That’s pretty funny.” But then the other half are like, you know, brutally disrespected and are just like— would then become pissed at their— at their old team. So— but like try— but we— we assume that every guy thinks that like, “This is the greatest honor one could have.” And that’s probably— that part is almost certainly overrated.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s gonna be so funny when the Yankees retire number 99, which is such a joke number to begin with. It’s gonna be so funny.
JAKE: Wayne Gretzky-esque—
BOBBY: No one can ever wear 99 again. That’s gonna be great.
JORDAN: It will happen. Bobby, back— back to you.
BOBBY: It’s— it’s definitely gonna happen. Next thing that I would like to post is robot umpires.
JORDAN: Hmm. What they will— what they are now or what they will be?
BOBBY: Their ability.
JORDAN: Their ability, hmm.
BOBBY: To call a fair version of the game.
JORDAN: Hmm. I can’t— I can’t decide—
ALEX: That’s a very loaded— very loaded question.
JORDAN: I can’t decide like—
BOBBY: No, it’s not. I— I want to hear what you guys have to say.
JORDAN: I’m gonna say— I’m gonna say pro— hmm, I’m gonna say probably, because I can’t decide if— are we talking about like the— how good is the technology or the premise, the concept of the game being called perfectly? Because that is its own concept that we could argue about. As for the actual technology, I mean, it’s like—
BOBBY: Well, I think that the technology’s goal is to call a 100% perfect game.
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: So I think that—
JORDAN: Okay. Well—
BOBBY: Or however you want to think about it.
JORDAN: —the technology, I’m gonna say is underrated, because I think that people will— I don’t think a large section of fans understand not even necessarily how accurate but how quick and seamless it is already. And in that sense, I think that we are like— I think people don’t— have not fully understood the degree to which you wouldn’t even notice a lot of these games. And if done properly, there’s like a good way that it works. And in that sense, that is like a legitimate technological achievement that has happened even the last five or so years that maybe I’m even impressed by. So in that sense, I would say underrated.
JAKE: Now, I think having an entirely perfect game called is uninteresting and removes various components of— from the fabric of the sport that I quite like. Pitch framing arguments but not—like arguing with umpires is awesome.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JAKE: Like, that’s entertaining as hell.
BOBBY: Yeah.
JAKE: You know? And we would lose some of that. I think you— each team should get three challenges per game and throw in a fucking red hanky on the field, whatever you want to do. But I would say the— the unimpeded insertion of robo umps into the game is overrated. The thoughtful insertion of robo umps into the game is underrated.
BOBBY: Alex, what do you think?
ALEX: But depends, in other words.
BOBBY: Yeah.
JAKE: Yeah. So it’s really properly rated.
ALEX: [1:21:28]
BOBBY: So it’s really properly rated.
ALEX: Right.
JAKE: That’s why I’m a hedge fund manager.
BOBBY: You’re a good risk analyst.
JAKE: [1:21:35] call me Austin Hedges.
ALEX: You got any more in the chamber?
JAKE: Jake— Jake, the hedge dog.
ALEX: I— I do think that— that the idea of a perfectly called game is overrated. I think it’s an aspiration that, like, isn’t necessary that kind of— that undercuts a certain part of the sport that has been there for a century. Now, Bobby might come back to me and say, “Okay. Well, what about the DH? You can argue, that does the same thing.”
BOBBY: You could. You sure could.
ALEX: But— but— but to your point, Jake, I think removing the human element of umpires is like a net negative for the sport. I— I am willing to concede that. I do think the technology is like— like people are upset that it’s not 100% perfect already, and that may be an unfair characterization, but it just feels unnecessary to me. Like, I— like, I still don’t understand, I think, why we haven’t tried getting better umpires first before just automating their jobs away entirely?
JORDAN: Well, that’s the—
BOBBY: Underrated Hoberg.
JORDAN: That’s also the really sad part. Like, when you say try to get better empires, like the better empires are the ones that are already being replaced in the Minors. That’s the craziest part. Like—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Right, right. Exactly.
JORDAN: —those are the ones that whenever they come up, it’s like, “Oh, yeah, all the best umps are, like, 34 years old. Like, what a freakin’ shock, you know?
ALEX: Yeah.
JORDAN: Sorry, if that’s ageist but like— it’s— I mean, it’s not complicated. Like, every— every— anything public’s eye that is tracking how good umps are at calling balls and strikes, there is a direct correlation between have you been in the league for 35 years and—
ALEX: Yeah.
JORDAN: “—have I never heard of you?” It goes the other direction if you want good umps, so [1:23:23] replacing. Uh-hmm.
ALEX: I— I— i almost feel like— I almost feel like this question— the— the— the real question being asked here is Umpires Union, overrated or underrated in their— in their role in the sports.
BOBBY: Way underrated, bro. They are throwing around some weight. The Umpire Union is powerful.
JORDAN: Yeah, they are. You— they are truly like, “You can’t get rid of it on me in a way that is—”
BOBBY: Don’t tread on me, sir.
JORDAN: “—is admirable. I— I definitely agree with that.
BOBBY: I think that— I think I— it actually might surprise you guys. I think that the technology is underrated.
JORDAN: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like, the— the existence—
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: —of the ABS and how it calls games. And how fast it could function—
JORDAN: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —is underrated. What I think is overrated is the idea that MLB is going to be able to implement this in a way that makes sense or doesn’t fuck up repeatedly.
JORDAN: Right.
BOBBY: Like they— they— they find ways to make mountains out of molehills all the time, with things that are much simpler than a technology that will affect literally every pitch of every single game. Now, was a little bit buoyed by the fact that the pitch clock seemed to work pretty well and was not a total nightmare in terms of implementation in the Major Leagues, like a lot of us thought it would be? Yeah, maybe. But also, that could be— a— a broken clock is right twice a day, you know? They might screw this up royally.
JORDAN: Fair enough. I’m pro challenge system, pretty easy.
BOBBY: [1:24:44]
JORDAN: It’s my next topic, you just hinted it to unions and whatnot. I’m gonna go pretty hard labor here. Scott Boras has—
BOBBY: Ooh.
JORDAN: —is— is the topic. Scott—
BOBBY: Ooh.
JORDAN: —Boras. Bobby Wagner, is Scott Boras overrated, underrated, properly?
JAKE: Jordan, Jordan, I didn’t think anyone could provide a more fuego prompt than Jackie Robinson that you’ve done it [1:25:13]
JORDAN: Bobby, what do you think?
BOBBY: I think Scott Boras is perfectly rated. Like, I think he is the most—
JORDAN: Perfect? Not even properly rated, okay.
BOBBY: — properly rated person in the entire baseball world. He gets so much credit all the time constantly from all corners of the baseball world and he signs the biggest clients and gets them the most money. I think he’s a pretty textbook properly rated case. Now, is he overexposed? Yeah. Is he oversampled in the world? Do we talk about him too much? Yes, but we also rate him correctly. He is the best agent, getting the players the most money.
JAKE: I think something that is underrated is how much other agents fucking hate him. Like, I think that— right, Jordan? We talked to agents from time to time, and the overall level of disdain for Boras is so funny. Some of it is legitimate because he takes up so much air.
BOBBY: Yeah.
JAKE: And when he says something, people take it as gospel. But there is undeniably an element of jealousy that goes along with that, right? That he is the best at the thing and people want to be him, right?
JORDAN: Right. He is the ultimate example of [1:26:28] to you, Alex, of in the agent space, don’t like it, play better, right? I mean, like the guy— like, what are you supposed to say? It’s not even that like— because you say like, “Oh, he has the best clients.” Okay. Yeah, sure. But how many contracts do we need to see him get for guys that, like, are good, or really good, and we’re still like, “Oh, my God.” Right? Like, that has happened so—
JAKE: 2 15 for Erick Fedde, baby.
JORDAN: —that happened so— at all levels, right? At all levels.
JAKE: [1:26:56]
JORDAN: While we’re recording this, Austin Hedges is one of the worst baseball hitters in baseball history just got four more million guaranteed dollars from a team in Cleveland that doesn’t have any money. Like, I— again, like that’s the thing— that’s why when I see those, I’m like, “I actually still think we’re not totally understanding how good this guy is.” But to your point—
JAKE: I will say this—
JORDAN: —when we start talk— when we start leaning into overexpose and some of the elements of it that— I mean, I’m also interested in from the standpoint of like, we, of course, some [1:27:28] whatever. No one’s gonna say he’s doing a bad job. But the people that argue that there are some elements that are damaging to other parts of the [1:27:35] because of the way that he acts and the way that he talks, and all these things. We— that’s a bigger conversation, but that is part of the trying to decide whether, you know, rated— overrated, underrated, but now, it’s pretty [1:27:43] yeah.
BOBBY: That— that I think is actually really true, though. Like, the fact—
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: —that Boras doesn’t— like won’t even look at some kind of guys because like he doesn’t think that they’re going to be the type of client that he wants to represent. They’re not going to be the type to, like, hold out, play tough, go to free agency every time. Like— but I think people understand that now. Like, the evolving understanding—
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: —of Boras is that he is that, so he’s almost somewhat of like a known quantity, which is why I leaned immediately into properly rated. He’s like— and meshing into the PA, I feel of— some type of way about that we have—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —discussed in fits and starts on the pod over the years. Like, I think that it’s pretty existentially bad for labor—
JORDAN: Right.
BOBBY: —that Scott Boras is like setting the tone and he’s sort of, like, judge, jury, executioner on how the market is functioning at this moment.
JORDAN: Right.
BOBBY: That’s— that’s weird to me. That shouldn’t be that way.
JORDAN: Right.
BOBBY: But—
ALEX: Yeah. I— I do think that like— that his visibility, his exposure has made him that sort of de facto like representative of, like, the market in the— you know, the labor market. More so, you could argue that a guy like Tony Clark, right, who— who is leading the— the Union, but when Scott Boras opens his mouth, everyone listens. I do— I think that his— his puns are a little overrated and the intern who writes them—
JORDAN: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: —is underrated.
JORDAN: Hmm.
ALEX: I think I want to see more shine given to the team who— who workshops them.
JAKE: So I was there this year in the front row for this.
ALEX: Okay.
JAKE: Like in the mix, I asked some questions that led to punts.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JAKE: And boy, you want to feel power in your fingertips, people. And I think the press conference is underrated, because he has no notes, guys. He’s up there going off the dome.
ALEX: Yeah.
JAKE: He’s not holding any paper. There is no— it’s just him, and then like when something comes, he’s— it’s 45 minutes. He’s doing a 45-minute standup set. It’s unbelievable. Like, that is underrated. The jokes suck.
ALEX: Right.
JAKE: Most of them. Now, there was one banger this year, which was like, I think a lot of teams are going to be pressed into the belly button and we’re gonna have a lot more innies than outies. Like, that’s— that’s funny, dude. You know?
JORDAN: That’s [1:29:59]
BOBBY: Okay.
JORDAN: But the— that part of it, which is— obviously has become a real element of our offseason experience. Like, I think the reason why not just the level of, “Oh, my God, he’s managing to get these deals that, you know, blows way all the time.” Even though I do agree that to this point, more of a known quantity. Like, the thing that I like about him is that he, as a character, for better or for worse, makes me feel like— again, like when I, you know, read Lords of the Realm for the first time, I was like— this doesn’t even feel like— and this is true with a lot of things when you read about something in history, whatever, 40-50 years ago. It’s like— this doesn’t even feel like the same universe. Like, it doesn’t— but there’s something about him that like, is this character that feels like it’s in this alternate real— like this— it feels like a production, and it reminds us not just that everything is entertainment, but that he is playing this character, that is— is a character and then is also doing the thing, which is getting players more money than anybody else ever. And so in that sense, I just— I liked that— while it is potentially very problematic, I think him as a character in some ways is actually underrated, and I never get tired of it. So that’s why [1:31:05]
BOBBY: I love just— I— I love that he just gives us countless opportunities to be like labor legend, Scott Boras—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —did it again. Let Scott cook.
JORDAN: Yeah. So— and by the way, we got a long offseason of that— ahead of us, right? We— we got [1:31:19]
ALEX: Yeah. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I know. Now, that Ohtani finally signed. It’s time for Boras to shine.
JORDAN: It’s just— you— that— so I’m telling you, and we’re gonna do— he’ll— Yamamoto will sign first who’s now with Boras and then we’re gonna go the Bellinger, Chapman, you know, Montgomery, Snell numbers. It’s so great because all four of those guys when they— when they when these numbers come out, you will have arguments, it’d be like, “Are you crazy?” Like, all four of them, right? This isn’t even like—
BOBBY: The fact that—
JORDAN: [1:31:45] like Bryce Harper, right?
ALEX: Yeah.
JORDAN: Even Bryce Harper, we were like coming up with reasons why teams shouldn’t— whatever, which was stupid.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JORDAN: But it was Bryce Harper, right? And next year, we’ll have Juan Soto and that will be the— but, like, these four are so perfect for people to just be— have their mind blown by the amount of—
BOBBY: I know.
JORDAN: —money that they’re going—
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
JORDAN: —to sign for, it is— it is— it is— hmm, can’t wait.
BOBBY: Well, he’s the reason that the Bellinger MLB trade rumors thing happens, because he’s a Boras client. Like, that would have happened if he was CAA. That would— that would have been nowhere near that, nowhere near that.
JORDAN: It’s so great. It’s so funny. So I— yeah, anyway, there you go.
BOBBY: Also, like, one— one thing that we didn’t even mention, which maybe actually makes it slightly underrated in my mind is that every fucking person who’s about to hit free agency, who’s had a good career so far, fires their agent and hires Boras.
JORDAN: They just would—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: They all do it.
JORDAN: I know. I know.
BOBBY: Everybody does it. Even Pete just did it.
JAKE: Correa, Pete.
BOBBY: Yeah, they all do it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They all fired their agent in their fifth year—
JAKE: Bregman— Bregman [1:32:38]
BOBBY: —in their fifth year of team control and then hired Boras.
JAKE: [1:32:39] had him— [1:32:42] had him, left him, and then went back when he got closer to [1:32:44]
BOBBY: Exactly, exactly. You just got to have the right tool for the job and— and Boras is the tool for free agencies.
ALEX: Yeah.
JORDAN: All right. Anyway.
BOBBY: Jake, Jake, you’re up.
JORDAN: All right, Jake, back to you. I know we’re going a little— I don’t even know what long means to Tipping Pitches anymore, but—
BOBBY: It’s okay. It’s all right.
JORDAN: Go ahead, Jake.
JAKE: Alex Rodriguez.
JORDAN: Hmm.
BOBBY: Oh, man. He’s so fucking underrated, dude. He is so underrated as a baseball—
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: —player, as—
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: —a person to follow, as an internet personality, as a dad, as a celebrity, as a weirdo.
JORDAN: Yes.
JAKE: As a girl dad.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —as a girl— as a girl— I’m sorry.
ALEX: As a girl dad.
JORDAN: As a girl dad.
BOBBY: As a businessman, as a burgeoning guy who unders— who learned what feminism was about three years ago.
JORDAN: As a Shark Tank investor.
BOBBY: As a Shark Tank TV personality.
JORDAN: Yup.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
JAKE: I agree.
BOBBY: He is one of the more underrated people in the baseball world.
JAKE: It’s what I just said, right? He— somehow after hitting 696 home runs, his character has elevated and expanded and evolved like 50 times since he— his final home run, and that is an incredible achievement. And you can say, “Oh, but he’s so— so annoying. I listen to him on TV.” Yeah, but guess what? He’s— he— you are reacting, right? And that’s the other thing, you know, when we have— especially in sports media now, it’s like, “Oh, well, he’s just saying that to get a reaction out of you.” Not the case with A-Rod.
BOBBY: Like, he really believes it.
ALEX: Nope. No.
JORDAN: Not the case. It’s not a Stephen A. Smith thing where it’s like, “Oh, man”— or— or Russo, right, because— Russo, right? Or like, “Oh, like you’re getting riled up again. That’s the whole point.” No, dude’s just out there saying stuff and we’re like, “Oh, my God, he sees it like that.” That’s a special kind of— of personality. On top of the fact that, like, you have to remind yourself that like, “Oh, my God. Like, steroids, yes, clearly, but holy crap, this career is so overwhelmingly impressive on so many levels.” That if you’re just a basic baseball dork, you pull up the BRF page and you’re like, “How is this real?” So, yeah, so many— so many layers, underrated.
ALEX: Just the— the roller coaster that has been his public image is a pretty remarkable story to take in. The— he’s— he’s had the— as you— now you mentioned the— the steroid debacle and— and everything that went down with the Yankees. And then he had his like comeback tour, post retirement, where he was getting like magazine covers. And then people soured on him again, and they were like, “We know. Actually, you don’t have to give Alex Rodriguez credit.” And now— and now he’s just back and now he’s just here. I think that he’s largely underrated, except for his business acumen, which I—
BOBBY: Yeah, he’s a dummy.
ALEX: —bores me bores me to death.
BOBBY: He’s such—
ALEX: I’m like, “Really? You’re doing real estate investments. Come on, bro. 1:35:25] “
BOBBY: When you start with $500 million, anybody can be a business genius. Like, you don’t—
ALEX: Like— yeah.
JORDAN: That’s the best— going back to Shark Tank, I love the moments where it’s like they’re— someone’s giving a pitch and— and then they’re like, “How did you start this company?” And they’re like, “Oh, yeah. Like, my dad gave me $500,000.”
ALEX: Yeah.
JORDAN: It’s like, “Oh, okay. Okay. Got it, got it, got it, got it.”
JAKE: I’m gonna rain on a parade, I think, a little bit.
BOBBY: Hold on, wait.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Before you do, can I just— the last float needs to come through. The last float is un— Alex Rodriguez’s Baseball-Reference page is one of the funniest things ever. 2014— like all just bold, italics, bold, italics everywhere. 50 home runs, 40 home runs. And then 2014, the line is just blocked together. Did not play in Major or Minor Leagues, parentheses, (suspended). Fucking awesome. I love that.
JORDAN: Oh, man.
BOBBY: Okay, Jake. Please [1:36:13]
ALEX: All right, Jake. Do it, do it.
JORDAN: [1:36:15]
BOBBY: Do it to us.
JAKE: As the only person on this Zoom call who has interviewed Alex Rodriguez twice. Jordan, just once, me twice. I— I cannot emphasize enough, respectfully, how not real he is.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: That he has— one day, he was real. He has evolved into a synthetic concoction of jargon and well-tailored suits, and lunch meetings with Warren Buffett. There is no there there. Now, wheth—having a conversation with A-Rod is like talking to yourself. There is no— how do I say— like, I’m trying to say this in a way that is kind. When— when you talk to A-Rod, like I think that there are things where A-Rod is genuinely insightful. Like, I— I don’t want to come across as being anti A-Rod. But when you put—
BOBBY: At least of all on this— on this podcast.
JORDAN: On this podcast. When you input into A-Rod, the output from A-Rod may have nothing to do at all with the input, whether it’s in conversation. Like, did you listen to the interview I did with him where I was basically just like—
BOBBY: Yeah, dude, of course.
JAKE: I think I said something like, “Why did you bunt? Why do you like to bunt?” And he was like, “Warren Buffett is one of my best friends.”
ALEX: Right.
JAKE: Here’s like how he responded. Like, that—
BOBBY: That’s so funny, though. That— that’s so funny.
JAKE: That’s what I want to say. That’s what I want to say. For us, it’s so funny, dude. Like, as a character, it’s amazing if you have enough perspective. If you’re someone who is in like a day-to-day role, where you are having to talk to A-Rod about actual things, that’s probably a difficult job. He is the only example of that level of celebrity that we have in the baseball world where he is so famous, and so much his own thing that he almost operates on a higher plane than the rest of us, which is both sad, like— and incredibly entertaining.
JORDAN: I just also want to add like not just— yes, who— like interviewing him is one experience. And I know that part of the frustration with having him on TV sometimes is there are better options, more deserving options, but I— I— totally, 100%. And— and part of that too, is like, people hate this guy in the—
BOBBY: Yeah. Yeah.
JORDAN: —game so much.
BOBBY: Equal hate.
JAKE: Yes.
JORDAN: Players do not like him at all for so many reasons. And I—
BOBBY: Do you know who hates him? Derek Jeter. No matter how much they try to pretend, that dude hates A-Rod.
JORDAN: I can’t— 100%. And I can’t—
JAKE: We can’t— we can’t comment on that, can’t comment on that, Fox Sports employees [1:39:06]
JORDAN: None of this is to say that any of that is— is incorrect, right? That’s fine. I’m not going to tell them they’re wrong, right? But again, I still lean where it’s like from my seat when I don’t have to interview him. And also just like in general, it’s just like— this is an incredible character that— that continues to evolve. And from where it began to begin with, makes it all the more— all the more stunning. [1:39:26]
JAKE: But if I was a big leaguer, he would really piss me off.
BOBBY: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
JORDAN: Yeah, but the—
BOBBY: But— but I think that like on our show though, I— I think he’s properly rated on our show, obviously, because we’re psychopaths. But like—
JORDAN: Yeah.
BOBBY: —he might even be overrated on our show in terms of how [1:39:37] he is.
ALEX: Not just a little bit maybe.
BOBBY: But, like, I think in the baseball world right now, for whatever reason, most people’s opinion about A-Rod is about him as like a— as a color commentator—
JORDAN: Totally. [1:39:47]
BOBBY: —on— on live broadcasts, and he’s not very good at that. So you underrate the fact that—
JAKE: Yeah.
BOBBY: —there’s like all this other insanely interesting shit. Like, when he punched the ball out of the glove, going to first base, like that is crazy—
JAKE: Amazing.
BOBBY: —villain shit. Like, when he wanted to get traded to the Red Sox, or he wanted to get traded to the Mets, like, three years after signing the biggest contract in baseball history to play in Texas, like, what was he doing in Texas? Like— like, why was he there? Why was he on that team?
JAKE: Right.
BOBBY: I feel like I don’t have any gauge of that, why he would do that. And, like, he just has all these moments throughout his history, all these weird celebrity moments, like all these weird tabloid— the— the— the— the painting of him that’s in his house, like all this weird shit. We underrate him.
JORDAN: But also—
BOBBY: We underrate him.
JORDAN: Also— right. But also, again, I’d say players like— I’m talking about players who have, like, interacted with him directly, like players of his generation who crossed paths or ever had to be teammates, whatever. But at the same time—
BOBBY: Right.
JORDAN: —the generation right below, you know, steroids or not, like, yeah, A-Rod was one of my favorite players, or was my favorite player, because how could he not be? He was an absolute, you know, force of nature of on— on the field in a way that no matter how, like, it happened, you watched it happened, right? How— how real it was, because it [1:40:57] like that didn’t change how it felt when you watched him when you were 10. So—
BOBBY: Yeah.
JORDAN: —that’s— then that part is just totally lost to a lot of people now who just listen to him on TV. So—
ALEX: Yeah. I do like— I do—
JORDAN: And that’s [1:41:09] that’s what you get, so—
ALEX: He’s a little bit like— like a— like a— his career is a little bit like a— like a graphic novel series, right? Where if you just read the latest edition, you’re not going to have the context. Like, as an average— as an average fan, if you’re just coming in right now and seeing him on TV, I think you’re gonna think he’s overrated because you’re like, “This man adds nothing.”
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You need— you need the lore, you need the backstory, and I think that’s— that’s what we’re trying to do on this year—
BOBBY: Lore.
ALEX: —podcast, is—
BOBBY: Yeah, we’re trying to quantify the lore.
ALEX: Exactly. Exactly. Put him in the cannon.
BOBBY: He— you gotta be in for a penny, in for a pound with A-Rod. You got to know it all.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, he got the centaur paintings, the 696 home runs, like those have to be of equal weight.
ALEX: Exactly. So if you’re a patron, head over to the Patreon feed later this week, and you can listen to another bonus— another couple bonus rounds. But if you’re not, say goodbye to Jake and Jordan. Thanks, guys. This was fun.
JORDAN: Hey, thanks for joining us.
JAKE: You can listen to our podcast. If you like this podcast and you want to hear us more often, you can do that. Baseball Bar-B-Cast records three days a week, three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And that’s a lot of days a week.
BOBBY: These guys post.
JAKE: We show up.
BOBBY: [1:42:20]
JORDAN: We don’t bang shows, baby.
BOBBY: Thanks, guys.
SPEAKER 6: —of a chain reaction of countermoves. To assess the equation of you. Checkmate, I couldn’t lose.
BOBBY: Thank you to Jordan. No thanks to Jake. None, none to Jake. He was a little antagonistic on this pod. He had a little—
ALEX: A little fire.
BOBBY: A little aggro energy behind him. I kind of liked it. Good for the pod. Good for the pod.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: But he doesn’t get [1:42:47]
ALEX: Good— good— good for our— our burgeoning beef with him, right? He’s not invited back next time.
BOBBY: No, I think it’s burgeoned. I think he’s burgeoned. Jordan only next time. Maybe he was just mad that we watched him so bad in the Least Terrible Owners Draft.
ALEX: I think so, yeah. There was a bit—
BOBBY: Yeah, they were lashing out about that. Thank everybody for listening. As a reminder, you can always call on our voicemail, 785-422-5881. Share thoughts about your— share thoughts about things in the baseball world that are overrated or underrated, ask questions, give notes. You can also do that via email, tippingpitchespod@gmail.com or Twitter. Now, that Alex is back in, he will be reading all of our mentions and DMs.
ALEX: Yup.
BOBBY: So if you want to get in touch with Alex directly, that is tipping_pitches on Twitter. Other than that, thank you, everybody, for listening to this very long episode. And we will be back next week.
SPEAKER 6: I laid the groundwork, and then just like clockwork, the dominoes cascaded in a line. What if I told you I’m a mastermind?
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Hello, everybody. I’m Alex Rodriguez. Tipping Pitches. Tipping Pitches. This is the one that I love the most. Tipping Pitches. So, we’ll see you next week. See ya!
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