Bobby and Alex banter about colds and cold opens before delving into the disastrous discourse that is Shohei Ohtani’s whopping $680 million of salary deferral and what it means for the Dodgers competitive balance tax bill. To close, they tell you everything you could possibly ever want to know about the Mariners and ROOT Sports and why you might actually not need to know any of it.
Links:
Shohei Ohtani Contract Explainer
Mariners to take full control of ROOT Sports NW
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon
Tipping Pitches merchandise
Songs featured in this episode:
Oso Oso — “reindeer games” • Booker T & the M.G.’s — “Green Onions”
Transcript
Tell us a little bit about what you saw and be able to relay that message to Cora when you watch Kimbrel pitch and kind of help out so he wasn’t typical pitches. So tipping pitches we hear about it all the time. People are home on the stand what tipping pitches all about? That’s amazing. That’s remarkable.
BOBBY: Whenever we go to start this pod, and I start writing my notes, you know, like five minutes before the pod starts, I’ve organized the notes in my head, but I first write Tipping Pitches, and then the date of the episode. And then I put cold open underneath it. And then I leave myself some space to write a cold open, and then I write a list of all of our topics. And 98% of the time, I just write cold open and then don’t write what the cold open is gonna be—
ALEX: That’s it.
BOBBY: —and then we start rolling and see what happens. But today, when I wrote cold open, I still haven’t written it down.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: But I thought the irony of writing the phrase cold open, as we’re about to begin talking, and both of us have a cold.
ALEX: It is quite the cold. I— I want to be fair, I— I think the cold open works best when you’re going off the dome. Like, that is— that is in effect, the cold open, right? If it’s planned out too much, you’re doing yourself and the listeners a disservice, I think.
BOBBY: So you think that this podcast needs to become more freewheeling? Do you think it’s too structured as it is?
ALEX: I think there’s too much structure. Yeah, I think there’s too much planning that goes into it.
BOBBY: Well, you know, we recently got word from none other than the man who is your father, that the Patreon episodes are better precisely because of this, because they are not— there’s no structure, there’s no point. They don’t need to exist, but they’re fun. So if listeners are listening to this right now, and thinking, “Damn, Tipping Pitches is way too structured for me.” I have a place for you. I have a place. It’s the URL, patreon.com/tippingpitches. Just getting straight to the plugs, you know? I haven’t even really made a joke yet.
ALEX: That was— that was great. That was good. I— as you— as you mentioned to me, I think that’s possibly the best pitch we’ve received for this podcast, which is there’s— there’s no structure. It’s just a little dumb and a lot of fun, and that’s the Tipping Pitches promise that we bring to you every week.
BOBBY: Today’s main topic for the episode that we are about to record right now, we did briefly broach it in the Patreon episode that came out on Thursday, and that is Shohei Ohtani’s contract and its structure. However, you told me that we were legally required to not discuss it. And I just blew straight through that stop sign.
ALEX: You did. I was proud of you for that.
BOBBY: We’re— yeah. We were talking to each other, we’re gonna not talk about it? So Ohtani’s contract chat, which you know, if you follow us on Twitter, you saw me having it with many members of our replies. We also got a little bit of RSN News. More RSN News, it’s December 17th. Baseball games will not be broadcast for at least four months. And yet, we discuss regional sports networks. And then, of course, anything that comes up over the course of these conversations. But before we do that, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I’m Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[theme]
BOBBY: Do— do I sound bad? Do I sound like a frog?
ALEX: You know, you didn’t sound great when— when I first hopped on this Zoom. We are recording remotely, a rarity these days for Tipping Pitches. But you snapped right into it. I gotta say.
BOBBY: That’s called preservation, you know?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I’m like a pro. Like a professional.
ALEX: You— you are like a pro.
BOBBY: I’m— I’m like Taylor Swift, basically.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Just complete voice rest between pod recordings. It’s all one big pod. I— I had this thought that I was testing failed a couple of days ago. Because in my head, I was like, “Man, I’ve recorded so many pods this week, and I just have like four more to do next week. And then I’m off.” No pod recordings, until January 2nd. And then like 12 hours later, I got sick, started to lose my voice. And I was like, “Fuck. Who’s doing this? Who’s listening to my thoughts?”
ALEX: That’s rude, but maybe the best possible timing.
BOBBY: But like these last four pods, I gotta hold out strong.
ALEX: I don’t know. Is it— is it better to— to— to be sick, like, during your work when you— when you have— have work to get done? Or like when you’re supposed to be off? I don’t— I don’t know.
BOBBY: Oh. You’re saying that the best— best possible timing because then I’ll— I’ll be healed up right before my time off?
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: You’re always thinking in a— in a pro worker sense. I love that for you.
ALEX: That’s— that’s— I try.
BOBBY: I love that. Thank you this week’s new patrons, Tom, Rachel, and John Kolicius. [05:00] We appreciate your support. Thank you. Again, I want to reiterate thank you to everybody who has upped their pledge because there are a handful of you every week that just do not get filtered into this way that I name new patrons, but we see that, we notice it. We appreciate it. Can I— before we talk about Ohtani’s contract, because that’s gonna make me mad, I need to warm myself up. Wore my emotions up before we start talking about this thing that is going to get me— get me fired up. Can I tell you that, like, a decent to high to alarmingly high percentage of my emotional sanity over this holiday season, depends on where Yoshinobu Yamamoto signs over the coming days?
ALEX: Right. You were at the dinner, actually, right? The dinner this weekend at Steve Cohen’s house?
BOBBY: I cooked, yeah.
ALEX: Yes? Right. Okay.
BOBBY: So if he comes to the Mets—
ALEX: Your famous [05:52]
BOBBY: —it was because of me. The [05:55] I canceled for you coming over on Friday night. I made that instead.
ALEX: Right. I— it makes sense.
BOBBY: The biggest Japanese pitching free agent we’ve ever had.
ALEX: I— I— I was a little mad at the time, but now I understand. We’re good.
BOBBY: Had to cantel— cancel under auspicious circumstances and that was the— that was the circumstance. No, I just— here’s where I’m— here’s where I’m at. We’ve gone from the Mets are the front-runners, to the Mets aren’t contenders, to the Mets are now the front-runners again. And it’s all because Andy Martino is just parroting whatever his sources want him to say. And I’m just sick of it. I’m just sick and tired of it. I just feel as though— at this point in my life, after having consumed so many Andy Martino tweets, there’s like long-term damage that’s been done to my brain. And I feel like I should be entitled to financial compensation for it. What do you think? Can we file a class action lawsuit sponsored by the MLB Fans Union? In your capacity as president, you say what?
ALEX: Yeah, I say let’s do it. I think there’s a strong case. I can— I— I have borne witness firsthand to the emotional distress that— that you have gone through over the last few years, that has been inflicted by that team from Queens. And so—
BOBBY: Look, we don’t have to win the case. We don’t even have to get me a settlement. I just want to help the next Mets fan that comes along.
ALEX: Right. Exactly.
BOBBY: You know, I just want to pay it forward.
ALEX: You’re looking for the next generation.
BOBBY: Exactly. I want to pay forward.
ALEX: That’s what this is all for.
BOBBY: Get Andy Martino out of my x.com feed. All right? I don’t even follow this guy.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: I don’t follow him. And even if I blocked him, people just share screenshots of it all the time. And then like SNY, who I have to follow because they tweet out like Mets highlights and interviews and stuff all— all year, and I like them. And I like many people who work for them. They’re tweeting like, “Our Mets speed reporter reports.” And I’m like, “Goddammit.”
ALEX: Damn it. It’s really unfortunate. It’s been unfortunate, I think, seeing the sort of rollercoaster that Mets fans have been taken on this offseason when nothing has happened. I think this applies, frankly, to most teams. Mo— I think this applies to most fan bases right now that this offseason has been like a very turbulent one, emotionally, and very little has happened so far. Like—
BOBBY: Nothing has happened to— to the Mets. Here’s what the Mets have done this offseason, signed to Joey Wendle.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And hired a new manager.
ALEX: A’s legend, Joey Wendle.
BOBBY: That’s right. Was he on the A’s before this?
ALEX: I don’t— I don’t— not directly before this, no.
BOBBY: What was he doing last year? 2023 Joey Wendle, 297 at-bats,. 0.2 WAR. He was on the Miami Marlins. Nah, you know, that tracks. I remember that now.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. It’s very Marlins player.
BOBBY: That team— what a mess that team was. What a mess. What a mess. Not a fun story. I will not let this go.
ALEX: No, that’s why you were pro getting rid of the GM, right? “There had to be some changes in that organization,” Bobby said.
BOBBY: For the love of God, save jokes like that for the Patreon feed, okay? There’s thousands of people listening to this. Save it for the— save it for The Few, The Proud, the patrons. Putting that on the shirt. Okay. Can we talk about Ohtani’s contract?
ALEX: Let’s talk about Sho— Shohei Ohtani.
BOBBY: So what— what, last— last we talked, did we not— did we know about the deferrals? Or the extent to which these were deferred? I guess we did, I guess we did. But we’re— we’re—
ALEX: Yeah. We did talk about—
BOBBY: —focused on doing that episode with Jake and Jordan, Overrated and Underrated. And—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —we talked about the deferrals. We talked about the weirdness of the contract. We didn’t really know about how this would impact the competitive balance tax, average annual value of Ohtani’s salary.
ALEX: No. We also didn’t know about the clause that tied his fate to others and the Dodgers organization, namely Andrew Friedman and Mark Walters?
BOBBY: Walter.
ALEX: Walter.
BOBBY: Walters. Mark Walter, Walter. Singular, Walter.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like Walter White. Mark Walter White. That’s gonna how— is how I’m gonna remember it, the mnemonic phrase that I’m going to remember it by. That’s what he looks like? I think that we should do a game on the Patreon feed where we play a— like I show you flashcards of owners, pictures of them, and you have to tell me who they are.
ALEX: I think that would be fun. I’m on board.
BOBBY: Okay, great. I would have 1,000,000% said John Sherman, if you showed me a picture of this guy.
ALEX: Yeah. Uh-huh. See, I would have said John Stanton but we’ll get to that later.
BOBBY: Okay. That is fucked up that those dudes have names that sounds so similar, but we are gonna get to John Stanton later. So Ohtani’s deferrals, he is deferring $68 million per year of his contract, of his tenure, $7— $700 million contract. This means that, by the terms of the CBA, there is no limit on the amount of money that you can defer in your contract. We can talk about the reasons for that, we can talk about why the Players Association might have wanted to agree to that. But before we do, I think we should at least establish the facts. That means that in order to calculate— in order to avoid this being a massive loophole in limiting the average annual value and allowing teams to treat it like it’s $2 million per year, even though it’s deferred to the future, and in order to prevent the Dodgers from having to have a dead cap hit of $68 million on their contract for the 10 years after Ohtani retires or is not on the team anymore. They— the way it’s treated is they determine what they call the net present value of the contract dictated by the terms outlined in the CBA, which are, they use the IRS’s inflation calculator, economic inflation calc— so not just inflation, economic value calculator to determine how much $700 million in 10 years in the future would be worth now if you had it, and could invest it, and could have it gained interest, could have it multiply via the ways that money multiplies in our world. The formula is complicated. It’s not really important for the purposes of this conversation. What is important is that, that formula delivers you about $460 million of value, which means you divide that by 10 for the average annual value of Ohtani’s contract, it’s going to be a $46 million hit for the Dodgers for the next 10 years, and nothing after that. That’s a lot of CBA mumbo jumbo, which usually you and I get really worked up about, but no one else cares. But in this case, everyone else cares. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not really that worked up about this.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: So why? Why? Why is everyone mad is my question.
ALEX: I mean, there’s a lot at play here. I think, chiefly, a lot of it is jealousy, frankly, at the fact that he ended up with the Dodgers, and the Dodgers notoriously have been big spenders. And so, there’s this sort of hand-wringing about how they’re skirting the luxury tax—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —by signing this contract, affording them basically an extra, you know, $30,000,000.
BOBBY: 24, but yeah.
ALEX: $24 million.
BOBBY: Whoa, a whole $24 million. They couldn’t even sign Aaron Nola with that. Sorry, I mean— I don’t mean to— I don’t mean to—
ALEX: That’s—
BOBBY: —muddy up the waters with my opinion already. Just continue, finish.
ALEX: But I think a lot of it is like that, you know, of course, he was gonna go to the Dodgers, the big spenders, the Yankees of the West. Like, you know, us other small market teams never had a shot, which, like, I want to be very clear, as this contract very clearly shows, is not really the case, right? If the Dodgers were able to offer him this sort of deal that— the terms of the contract that have been laid out here, that word should be noted, suggested by Ohtani. In fact, I think Andrew Friedman came out and said, “No, we— we didn’t have the balls to offer him something like that.”
BOBBY: Amazing quote.
ALEX: Amazing quote. I’m— I want to— I want to note that I’m paraphrasing there. It’s such a unique structure for an incredibly unique player, and— and one that he brought to the forefront because he wanted to be on a competitive team, right? Perhaps in contrast to, say, the lacs— last six years of his career, right? I think he wanted to know that he was going to be surrounded by a cast of players who were actually going to push them into October. And so he was willing to sacrifice effectively a quarter of a billion dollars to make that happen. And the fact that he was willing to do that suggests that the other teams, I think were not as far out of the running as we would have been led to believe. Now, do I think necessarily every team could have turned around and just offered that to him carte blanche, and he would have said, yes to whoever came first? Like, no, probably not. I think you recognize that the Dodgers have seen a level of postseason success, or at least regular season success over the last decade or so. They’ve shown that they’re willing to spend to improve their team. But I think it’s important to point out that, like, most teams could have done something very similar, and I think made similar headway. Except for the Giants, because San Francisco is a hell written like shithole, and no baseball player wants to play there, right?
BOBBY: Please do not distract from the point at hand here, please. San Francisco will come up, because they are actually the most direct comparison that I want to delve into. But first, you said something that— that I’m glad you said it, and I’m glad you phrased it this way, every team could have offered this contract. Ohtani made it easier for teams to compete to sign him. Now, I don’t think he would have gotten 700 million if it had to be paid all immediately. So I’m gonna slightly, like, amend your statement that he sacrificed a quarter of a billion dollars, because he’s still getting 700 million, so he’s not sacrificing a quarter of a billion dollars. He’s sacrificing the opportunity to do better than that by investing his money better than the IRS thinks that it’s worth. But if— if it had to be all paid out on a normal timeline with zero deferrals, probably would have been more like 10 years, 500 million. Would people have been happier with that? Would people—
ALEX: Right. That would have been a very reasonable contract, I think. That would have been a— a below market contract for Shohei Ohtani.
BOBBY: That would have been harder for other teams to sign.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: And it would have been a higher CBT number, right? But not that much higher, $4 million higher. So I guess I just don’t see it that way. I don’t see this as only a big market team could have done this. I think that like the way that it’s structured is that— is such that this is extremely beneficial to the team, regardless of what team it is. The Dodgers are not any more uniquely situated to defer that money into the future and make sure that it’s going to be there than really any other team. Now, do the Dodgers make more money than other teams? Yes, but they also pay revenue sharing checks to the other teams. And those other teams are supposed to be taking the Dodgers, and the Yankees, and the Mets, and whoever else is revenue sharing checks and putting them onto the field. But you know what they’re doing? They’re putting them into their owners’ pockets instead, so that they can’t— so that they, quote- unquote, “can’t offer contracts like this to big free agents.” If the Cincinnati Reds said, “In three years, we are going to demolish Great American Ball Park, and we need a new ballpark. And it’s going to cost $2 billion to build this ballpark in Cincinnati. We’re going to do it on the cheap.” And they said, “We want $1.3 billion of public funding. We’ll put up the other 700 million.” Literally, zero people in the entire world would bat an eye at those financial figures. That’s how much money they just gave Ohtani. So is it more okay when the Reds invent the need for a new ballpark and spend $700 million? Do— do they— does that money— that’s more certain that that money is there for that purpose than for players. It’s $700 million, or $700 million, whether you’re spending it on real estate development, or you’re spending it on payroll. Now, there’s this perception among fan bases, who believe what owners feed them, that money that you spend on payroll is all lost, that it’s just gone, it’s going directly to the players. You’re not recuperating any of that money because you’re giving it straight to another person. But you are recuperating money when you put it into real estate, like the Braves or the— the Cubs. It’s just not true, and it’s especially not true for a player like Shohei Ohtani. Which if you put $700 million into that investment, you’re getting probably more than that back. You’re at least getting half to two-thirds of that back in just like rote [19:16] merchandise sales. You know, like not even the softer or harder to pin down numbers of, like, creating new fans, lifelong investment, being a big player in the international market as well, becoming one of the more desirable franchises, not just for the fan base that you already have cultivated and built in LA and in the United States, but across the world. So he is a gigantic financial boon for any team that got him. So 10 year, $700 million, if you are a small market team that can’t make that investment with the def— and even with the added benefit of the deferrals that Ohtani came up with himself, you just shouldn’t own a team. Like, you just should not have the luxury of owning a baseball team. Because if you are that bad at finance, and you can’t make that math work, get— get out of baseball. And I don’t know why fans would be mad at the Dodgers for that. Of course, he did sign with the big, bad Dodgers, with the Evil Empire West, right? But you know why he did that? You know why he was willing to defer that money and he— why he wouldn’t have done that for the Royals, or for the Marlins, or for the Rays? Because the Dodgers actually try. They actually—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —put money onto the field.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: They actually develop players, homegrown talent, and spend in free agency. And they play in a great ballpark, and they have a great fan base, and all these things that we know that are built in advantages for the Dodgers. But Ohtani didn’t go there because— he didn’t go there instead of somewhere else because of the weather. You know, like the other contenders were, I don’t— I don’t know. The Blue Jays were probably in second based on the reporting or based on, like, what the rumors were. He went there because he believes that they can put a winning team around him. And as part of that belief, because the Dodgers have shown that they’re willing to compete, yes. But if you don’t like that, then this contract is not the thing that exposes the Dodgers advantage.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: The Dodgers advantage is literally everything else, so why it came to head for this? I find it kind of hard to reckon with and understand.
ALEX: Yeah. I think it’s a lot of misdirected anger that should be directed towards your own team’s owner. Why didn’t the Mariners do this? I— we’ll— we’ll get to why they’re saying they didn’t do this, but like they could have.
BOBBY: Even more than why didn’t the Mariners do this, because, like, I don’t think Ohtani wanted to play there. Frankly, I don’t think Ohtani wanted to play anywhere besides the Dodgers.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: But that’s like, one, his personal prerogative. If he had just signed with the Pirates, which would be like, it’s so unfair that he defer all this money, and now the small market Pirates get to get the biggest star in baseball, because that’s your logic, you know? Like, that’s— if you want to stand by that logic, then stand by that logic, but nobody actually feels that way. They want teams to compete, they want players to put winning first. But then when a player does it for a team that wants to compete, they’re mad. And, like, it’s less than, “Well, why didn’t the Mariners get him? Or why didn’t the Orioles get him— get him?” It’s more, why did they take themselves out of the running before it ever even started?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That is the more—
ALEX: Why is there a market that is— that is creating these conditions that mean that the Dodgers were going to win no matter what?
BOBBY: According to FanGraphs, Roster Resource, which is an unbelievable resource, no pun intended, for fans who care about this stuff. The Baltimore Orioles estimated 2024 payroll, would you like to take a guess at what their current estimated 2024 payroll is? But obviously before free agency has resolved, but doesn’t really seem like they’re gonna make a big splash.
ALEX: 120.
BOBBY: 85. So, yeah, they’d be around 120 if they literally got Ohtani. Maybe around 130.
Like, just save it. It’s like—
ALEX: That’s a pretty reasonable payroll number.
BOBBY: Just— just save it, you know? Just save it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s a great team with a great fan base and a great ballpark. And to me, there’s no reason why they can’t go up to 130 to get the best player in baseball with the best, most exciting young roster in baseball. And the real answer is that John Angelos wants to save money. But the answer that you’re gonna hear from everybody’s favorite, beloved Mike Elias is, “Well, we have to have the payroll flexibility to sign all of our young players when they come up in five years.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Okay. So are you going to do that? Five years from now, are you going to have all of those players because you didn’t go in for big free agents like Shohei Ohtani? No. The answer is no. That’s a lie. That people are not going to remember five years in the future.
ALEX: Yeah, it’s a lot of excuses, honestly, that— that don’t really make sense once you start try— holding them up to the light. We saw that the Angels, supposedly, were in the conversation to the very end. And that Arte Moreno simply wasn’t willing to go that extra mile, and give him that extra— whatever, 50 million, 100 million, whatever it comes down to. It kind of doesn’t even matter. You’re making a— you’re making a statement on how you run the— how you run the business that you own, and you’re saying, “This investment, I don’t think it’s worth it for the long term.” Even when we’ve seen that that’s— that’s not how that’s borne out in real time. That Ohtani is quite literally a— a once in a generation player in terms of getting fans into the ballpark, in terms of growing your market. Every owner should have been chomping at the bit to try and get a player like him in the ballpark. So I don’t know. I— I— my eyes started to glaze over at a lot of the, like, discussions on, you know, how this is feasible for the Dodgers and how it might be for other teams, and— and what are the, you know, reasonable critiques of this deal? Because, like, it kind of doesn’t matter to me. If you’re mad about it— if you’re mad about it, like, go out— go outbid the Dodgers. Bid 700,000,001.
BOBBY: Touch grass if you’re mad about it.
ALEX: Low key.
BOBBY: Alex Bazeley, touch grass. Luckily, dear listener, my eyes did not glaze over. My third eye is open. And I— so many people shared, what I think on its face, is a reasonable take, which is that this is the type of thing that feels like accounting loophole nonsense, but it’s not.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: This is actually how the Players Association wants it to function. Because if you think about it, does this help the Dodgers in this one instance? Yes, but do money— do— do deferrals that the player elects to take help players get more money in the long run on the aggregate because it lowers the amount of penalty that teams have to pay in CBT? Yes, definitely. That’s why the Players Association did not agree to eliminating this exact thing when the owners proposed it, because it allows Ohtani to sign for 10-year, $700 million, instead of 10 years, 460. Those numbers are just different, and he’s guaranteeing himself the 700 million no matter what happens to the market, and that’s what he wanted. That’s not what every player would want, but the flexibility to do what is best for the player is what the union is trying to maintain. That’s why they want to agree to a salary cap so that they can limit what players make and what teams can spend. It’s why they’ve been so anti-CBT in the first place. What this is functionally doing is meaning that the Dodgers don’t have to pay as much the CBT. Players don’t want the CBC at all. They don’t want—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They don’t want the luxury tax at all. We just spent a whole fucking lockout talking about this. I— I don’t know how people who are so misguided to say that this is like anti-union the way that this is functioning. People who I think that, like, largely share our sympathies towards the players unions fight, think that this is unfair. And I don’t really get that. And then it’s always comes back to this idea of parody, parody. What is parody? So say you got rid of this, would— would bunch of teams have gotten— gotten Ohtani because the Dodgers couldn’t do this, but a bunch of teams have been in the running? No. He still would be with the fucking Dodgers because he wanted to go there.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He wanted to go there.
ALEX: Well, the other thing about like— there’s been this conversation about what is the precedent that, you know, this sort of thing, sets, that these big market teams can do these massive contracts? And it’s like, you have to remember, like, how unique of a situation this is, but the Mets aren’t going to Joey Wendle and saying, “Hey, we’ll defer a majority of the, what, $2 million or whatever he signed for.”
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: 20— 20 years down the road so that— so that we can save a little money in the short term, you know, and— and build our team. Like, this sort of thing is— is only going to come into play when you have a player of Ohtani’s caliber, for whom it actually makes sense to do this. Now, is there a possibility that teams feel emboldened to go to other big— go to other, you know, big stars and say, “Hey, well, Shohei Ohtani do this, why won’t you do this? Why aren’t you willing to”— like, maybe— but again, it feels like another issue that’s kind of dead in the water.
BOBBY: It’s infantilizing to think that— as a fan or as an analyst of this situation, to think that other big free agents don’t understand what happened here and that their agents will not be able to tell teams to go kick rocks—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —if they try to tell them, “Defer 98% of your contract.” The idea that this sets any kind of precedent is totally nonsensical. And maybe I’ll be— maybe I’ll be wrong. Maybe— maybe Juan Soto will be asked to defer all of his money. Guess what? Juan Soto was already asked to defer 60% of his contract by the Washington Nationals two years ago when they were negotiating this. This is already happening. Teams that don’t want to—
ALEX: Yeah, it’s not good.
BOBBY: —spend the money, don’t want to spend the money. That’s why Bryce Harper is a Philly, newsflash. That’s why Max Scherzer actually did defer his money so that he went to the Nationals. And guess what? They won the World Series. The Nationals actually, in good faith, spent around him to build a good team because he deferred that money, win, win, win. Why is everybody so mad? Helped the Nationals. And the idea that like the Dodgers have this built-in advantage because they play in LA and everybody wants to live there. It’s like, what’s going on in Philadelphia, then?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: This Philadelphia, this great, desirable city, that everybody just talks all the time about how rich— rich celebrities want to live there? Absolutely fucking not. No, no. And I can say that, I’m from there. But they actually spend and they want to win. And they’re doing well. And they can make a case. So in the existence of the Giants in this whole situation, that they offered the exact same contract and Ohtani didn’t go there, kind of like unravels that entire argument that other teams couldn’t have done this. Like the Giants, I mean, they’re not actually a small market, but the perception of them is not that they’re like this big, bad market with all these big built-in advantages that the Dodgers have. So, where— where did the money come from? Is it unfair that they got to offer that contract? I’m going to come out with a take that’s like completely unfair that the Giants could offer this contract and the Royals couldn’t. It means that the Giants could come in fifth for Ohtani and the Royals came at 28th, and that is unfair.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: I’m putting my foot down. That just seems wrong. The Royals should have been in the top five. They should have finished fifth for Ohtani. It’s like these people sound so stupid. It’s just so dumb.
ALEX: Once again, I think it comes back to jealousy.
BOBBY: You’re right.
ALEX: Like— and, like, at the end of the day, I think that this offseason has been just a particular brand of, I think, like broken baseball brains on baseball Twitter, and I say that with all the love in the world. I— it just— it just feels like something’s in the air right now, like that— you— you have— there’s always a dearth of conversation pieces in any given offseason and so fans go a little bit crazy. Astros fans, like, ran a new beat reporter, like, off of Twitter because she called Jose Altuve a cheater, like whatever. You know, like they’re— like Astros fans are like doing their own thing, like going like batshit crazy over there, you know? And I just feel like we need something else to talk about.
BOBBY: So should we move on or— or are you interested in discussing the— the— the one piece of this that we did not discuss, which is maybe not as contentious is just kind of like a weird, intriguing thing, was the— the piece of the contract where if Walter or Friedman leave, Ohtani can opt out. You alluded to it.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: But we didn’t really discuss what that means and what— that actually sort of renege on what I said earlier about how this contract sets no precedent. That is kind of like a precedent— that— that is kind of like breaking through the ceiling of something in a contract. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that. That’s very strange, very weird. The more I think about it, the more I think it’s sick.
ALEX: Yeah, it’s dope.
BOBBY: Like, he’s not saying that if they leave, he’ll leave. He’s saying that if they leave, you better consult him on who you’re bringing next.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yup.
BOBBY: This is codifying the kind of soft power. The word codifying is— over the year, you’re going to hear me use over— a lot over the next couple of months, because codifying into contract language is a very popular thing when collectively bargaining CBA, which is what I am doing right now. That is codifying the kind of soft power that someone like LeBron James has, or someone like Kevin Durant has, or whoever. Someone like Leo Messi has. That’s codifying that into contract language, which is pretty sick. You usually don’t see that. That’s usually like a handshake agreement. Ohtani’s like, “No, put in writing. You want to sell the team? I reserve the right to not be on the team.”
ALEX: Yeah. I think my— my favorite part of all this was the kind of, like, subtle implication that he very well could parlay this into a Dodgers ownership stake at the end, you know? He’s basically giving the Dodgers, you know, a whatever dollar amount loan interest free, right? And—
BOBBY: $680 million loan.
ALEX: Right, exactly. A large sum, like a— you know what— a— a quarter of the Dodgers— that’s a fifth of the Dodgers worth. Whatever it is at this point.
Mike: Less than a fifth. They’re probably worth like 7 billion.
ALEX: I think it’d be dope if 10 years down the line, Ohtani’s like, “Okay. I know that you guys are scheduled to pay me all of this money. However, let’s make a deal.”
BOBBY: I’ll forgive it, for 25% ownership stake. Okay. Final question on Ohtani, when the contract expires and he’s set to start getting those $68 million checks per year, will he still have residency in the state of California or will he moved to Texas so that he doesn’t have to pay 50% income tax on that money? You are on the record. Now, you say what?
ALEX: I say I don’t know jack shit about taxes, or accounting, or whatever. Is that how that works? Is it really that easy? You can just say, “Hey, pay me my paycheck later.” And then I’ll move. Because that— you want to find loopholes? That seems like a loophole. I— me, I know nothing about the IRS, but—
BOBBY: But, like, is it really a loophole, though? Because it’s like money that you’ve earned—
ALEX: Even though if it’s—
BOBBY: —in the state—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —for that year. So if he can get by on two milli a year from the Dodgers, he can scrape by on that small amount, plus his $50 million in annual marketing.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Right.
BOBBY: Which he will have to pay taxes on while he’s in California. I think it seems fair that if he’s just getting a check for $68 million from previously rendered services from the Dodgers and he lives in Texas, why does— why does Shohei have to pay that [35:00] to Uncle Sam?
ALEX: I know. Fuck those California taxes, right?
BOBBY: What’s Newsom gonna do?
ALEX: That’s why you left California.
BOBBY: That’s exactly why, and I moved to New York City, a place where you pay more in taxes.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: You know what the IRS said to me last year when I filed my taxes my first year back in New York?
ALEX: What did they say?
BOBBY: They said, “We would like you to give us $2,400.” And then I did.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Dear listener, I did, because I’d like to keep making this podcast, not from the walls of prison.
ALEX: Should’ve moved to Texas, bro. I don’t know what to tell you.
BOBBY: Just thinking about how much further my money would go— the money that I get paid by my job remotely, where it doesn’t matter where I work. Even in Philadelphia, let alone Texas or Florida, you know? I get it. Rogan. I get it. We’re moving Tipping Pitches Studios to Austin. Time to keep Austin weird, Alex.
ALEX: Cursed words. I get it, Rogan.
BOBBY: I’m trying to say, he had some figured out, you know? Every time I see a video from his podcast circulating, I’m like, “Is this AI?” Because there are so many fake ones that are out there. I’m like to the point where I don’t even know if the guest is real, if the guest even did the pod. Like I— if I saw— someone needs to make an AI video of you on Rogan.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Just so that I can really, in my head, to be like, “I know that’s not real. I know it’s not.”
ALEX: It’s definitely, like, every time a video pops up, I’m like, “Hasn’t he like done this bit already?” I’m like, “Are you still— you’re still just like doing the same stuff? You haven’t grown.”
BOBBY: What’s so fascinating about the Rogen boys is that they all seem to just love him so much, and like he is easily, from an objective point of view, the least interesting part of the show.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: All the guests there— every time I’ve seen a Rogan clip where I’ve been like, “Okay, that’s kind of funny.” Or like, “That’s kind of interesting.” It’s always the guest. And anytime he starts talking, I’m like, “Shut up. Let the guests talk.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You know, Jordan Peterson.
ALEX: Right. Robert Kennedy?
BOBBY: Yeah. Some interesting points he made.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Ben—
ALEX: I know you like Ben Shapiro.
BOBBY: —Shapiro, yeah. What— real quick story for you guys— maybe I shouldn’t tell the story. I’ll save this for the Patreon. Save that for the Patreon. Okay. Should we talk about the Mariners and Root Sports?
ALEX: Let’s talk about the Mariners and Root Sports because I was hyped to talk about this and you were—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —like, “I literally don’t know what you’re referring to.
BOBBY: I— I did read one article, one article explaining the situation in the Seattle Times.
ALEX: Seattle Times, Ryan Divish and his colleagues over there have been doing Yeoman’s work covering this over the last few years.
BOBBY: One time, Ryan Divish got mad at us on Twitter. Do you remember that?
ALEX: Really?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: No, I don’t.
BOBBY: I was saying, like, the Mariners should be spending more. And he was like, “You’re being unfair.”
ALEX: Oh, I do vaguely remember this, yeah.
BOBBY: And I was like, “Okay.” This is kind of our whole thing, but I get it, you know? You want nuance, I don’t.
ALEX: Right. You’re a— you’re a columnist who, like, has a reputation to uphold, like, okay.
BOBBY: And I just want to shout at John Stanton.
ALEX: Right. We verbally ship posters.
BOBBY: You know who has been increasingly real on our mentions?
ALEX: Who?
BOBBY: Eno Sarris.
ALEX: That’s right.
BOBBY: He’s one of us, one of us.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It’s nice to see. That thread that I did about Ohtani’s contract attracted responses from Mike Petriello, Eno Sarris, Kyle Boddy.
ALEX: Yup.
BOBBY: What is going on? People—
ALEX: All the legends.
BOBBY: Twitter is back, bro.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Twitter is back. Okay, tell me about Root Sports.
ALEX: Let’s talk Root. There’s a really interesting story going on in Seattle right now, and [38:55] fans are— are pretty livid. They’ve been doing some unloading over the last few weeks. Obviously, you know, the— the recent sort of short-term story is— is Jerry Dipoto talking about the 54% benchmark and trying to win over 10 years, et cetera, which pissed a lot of fans off. Then they’ve kind of— he— he’s alluded to the fact that, you know, they’re not really going to add very much to payroll this year. There’s these, quote-unquote, financial uncertainties. They’ve— they’ve already made some—
BOBBY: Maybe next year.
ALEX: Right, maybe next year. It’s always next year, you know? Wait ’till next season. They’ve gotten rid of guys like Jarred Kelenic, Eugenio Suarez, Marco Gonzales in an effort to shed some of that payroll. But the circumstances around all of this seem a little convoluted, especially given that the Mariners historically have been, I would say, if not one of the better run franchises, like one of the better run, like, businesses from a straight business standpoint. They— Forbes has reported them as the most profitable baseball team. They have a publicly funded ballpark.
BOBBY: Just to be clear, so you support the publicly funded ballpark?
ALEX: I do.
BOBBY: You’re saying that that’s how teams should run their business?
ALEX: I think it’s good— I think it is good business, yes.
BOBBY: Okay. Just wanted you on the record about that.
ALEX: Yup. And so they’ve— they’ve made these sort of business moves that you— you think are supposedly sort of setting them up for the future— for future wins, for future investments and creating a foundation of, like, an actual, big market team like they could be. And at the center of this whole story of financial uncertainty, is there RSN, right? We’ve talked ad nauseam about RSNs on this podcast and— and Valley Sports, and how the model has largely been caving in on itself in the last few years. Although, it— it’s a— it’s a trend that has been taking place over the last decade or so, right, with the rise of streaming and the decline of cable. Which is a really interesting timeline, because it’s about a decade ago, the Mariners, at maybe the peak of RSN revenues, said, “We’re going to buy Root Sports northwest.” The RSN that is produced by DirecTV. “We’re going to own like 71% of it.” And basically just raking all those profits, right? They recognized— they— they looked at teams like the Angels and— and the Rangers who were negotiating billion dollar deals, and they said, “We want a piece of that pie, too. And this is going to help us fortify our team for the future.” And it hasn’t really turned out that way. Root Sports has grown in the last decade or so. They brought on the Seattle Kraken. They brought on the Portland Trailblazers to their network. So they are the home of Seattle sports at this point. But all of this is— is done in partnership with actual, like, cable providers, right? The Mariners are not getting up there and filming these themselves, and broadcasting themselves, right? They have a distribution partner effectively, who is producing all of these games and— and negotiating with cable networks to—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —distribute them to various—
BOBBY: That’s— that’s an important sort of convoluted part of this, which is that— so the Mariners own Root Sports, which is like the— the channel, basically. The— the sports network that people can see on their televisions. However, the games themselves have been produced by Warner Bros. Discovery, who dropped out of live sports this past year, because they’re trying to cost cut, because they’re trying to become like a streaming giant, basically. And so live sports is now part of their— the David Zasloff plan, the CEO of Warner Bros. discovery. But then also, there’s distributors like Verizon and Comcast and, you know, your— your normal—
ALEX: Like, DirecTV, AT&T.
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: YouTube TV.
BOBBY: These places that you can actually watch these things, who have to negotiate the rights from Root Sports to be able to put— to be able to provide that channel to their customers. So the Mariners are not the Mariners and Root Sports, and the way that our essence work is that they are not the person who gets to decide whether these channels are on people’s TVs, and how much they pay for them. They just charge the rights to give this channel to Verizon, to Comcast, whatever. So these are all these sort of like convoluted web of deals going in every direction.
ALEX: And what these cable providers are slowly realizing is that RSNs are charging us so much money for these— for the rights to broadcast these games. And to be honest, a sliver of the viewership are actually the ones watching it, right? If you sign up for a cable package and Root Sports is included, you— you may not be a Mariners fan or a Kraken fan or a Blazers fan, but it’s part of your channel whether you want it or not, right? And that’s kind of how’s it been, right?
BOBBY: Yeah, it’s part of your bill, like if you look at an—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —itemized bill of what you’re paying for, you’re paying a live sports fee, more or less.
ALEX: Right, right. And— and for the cable variety, specifically, those fees are high, and that’s part of the reason why the RSN bubble grew to the size that it did. Now back in 2021, the Blazers were being broadcast on Comcast RSN, which is like NBC Sports Northwest. The Mariners acquired the rights to the Blazers, NBC Sports Northwest folded, right? So Comcast RSN just had not— had nothing left to broadcast, right? So there’s kind of this underlying thread of competition between these RSNs and these distributors of, how much money are we making? How much money are you making? What are the rights that you have versus what we have? And it’s kind of come to a head this year with Comcast announcing back in October, that they are jacking up— they are moving Root Sports to their highest subscription tier, right? So people are gonna be charged 18.50 more a month to be able to watch these games. And everyone else will have their bill lowered slightly. And— and— and this is a kind of microcosm of what’s happening all across the RSN landscape, but it feels like a particularly salient one, because of how the Mariners are employing this to excuse their lack of movement in the free agent market, in building up their roster. The latest development, as you mentioned, is that Warner Bros. who was the one— Warner Bros. Discovery, who have been producing the Root Sports broadcasts, are getting out of the business entirely. So by January 1st, the Mariners own Root Sports, top to bottom, 100%, all of it. And they have to figure out how they are broadcasting their games next year, whether that’s going into business with another cable provider who will produce for them, or turn to Major League Baseball and say, “Hey, you’re building up your own streaming arm, we’ll get in on that with you.” Meanwhile, Comcast subscriptions have been plummeting over— basically since the Mariners bought Root Sports, right? Because people are cutting the cord. People aren’t watching their sports via cable writ large anymore, right? There are all these other ways that you can access that whether it’s MLB.TV, whether it’s YouTube TV, whether it’s Hulu, whether it’s FUBU, whether it’s boo-boo, or poo-poo, like whatever it is. But what you’re seeing now is the Mariners say, “We have to tighten the belt, or RSN is not making”— I want to point out, they’re not going bankrupt. It’s not a Valley Sports thing, where they are going bankrupt, or they’re losing millions of dollars. They are making less money than they thought they would, which like sometimes happens in business investments, right? But they’re turning around and saying, “We were counting on that revenue. It’s not coming through in the way we thought it was. We’re going to have to be frugal until all of this gets sorted out.” And I— I’m curious to hear your sort of reaction to— to all of this convoluted as it is, because to me, it feels like another excuse.
BOBBY: What we had for the last 20 years was a live sports rights arms— arms race, and it was,
depending on your perspective of the Cold War, kind— kind of mutually beneficial to people with money on both sides, people in power on both sides. So on the side, the RSN side, so your SNYs, your YES networks, your Root Sports, your— whatever these artisans have— have existed as. What’s the one in the— the Cubs? What— what— what is theirs called?
ALEX: Marquee.
BOBBY: Oh, I love that one. Marquee.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: On the RSN side of the picture, they could just keep charging higher rights fees to broadcast baseball games, or basketball games, or hockey games or soccer games, or— not football. Importantly, not football. Football just broadcast straight on basic cable. They are not part of this equation, because they are just so ubiquitous and so successful that they don’t need to be. They— they subsist solely off of advertising more or less for their games. And on the— on the other side of the puzzle, we had cable providers, we had Verizon, Comcast. I don’t know the entire— entire cable provider landscape, but directTV, places like this, that were saying— that were— were the conduit to the customer, and they were saying, “This is how much you have to pay for us in order to have the live sports channel on your TV.” Ironically, sometimes both of those sides were owned by the same parent company, like both of those sides could be owned by Comcast, which is a more complicated factor in this, but not relevant to what we’re talking about with the Mariners. And in the middle of that, in the middle of that business transaction, were teams, saying— essentially dictating how much money the RSN would have to charge in order to make a profit from the cable provider. Because teams were like, “We are selling you these rights, then you are basically reselling these rights to the cable providers. And your business model is such that you think that you can monetize our rights better than we could or with less of a headache than we could. Because that’s what you do. You do live television, you do live television broadcasts, you do advertising. You do this all, this is your thing.” And as that has sorted— that has started to consolidate over the years, these RSNs, teams have taken bigger roles in them and they’ve realized that there’s a lot of profit to be taken in letting out the middleman, because then they determine how much to charge for the rights, and they can keep raising that because they’re like, “We are the— we are the whole kit and caboodle. We are the team, we are the provider, we are the— we are making the broadcast. We don’t need to pay someone the convenience fee of being able to do this for us, we already understand it.” And now the problem has become that enough people on the customer side got fed up with increased fees to see these things and they cut the cord, because it’s convenient for the rest of their life as well. Because it’s all been slip streamed into this world, where Hollywood has tried to move away from this distribution model for television and movies, and they’ve tried to make streaming as part of the Internet era, the default for new customers. You are pushed more towards a streaming model than you are towards a cable bundle. And the problem is that the RSN business model, the existence of RSNs is no longer a functional business model, period. Like just to be an RSN, there is not— there— it’s too— too expensive from the rights fees side. The— the cable providers know that they don’t have to give you as much money anymore, because people are cutting the cord and they’re trying to save money on that side, too. And they have such an economic advantage because they are conglomerates. They are trusts, essentially. Verizon and Comcast are so big that this is not their whole business. They’re selling internet to people. They’re already making money. So it doesn’t matter that they drive away these live sports things anymore, because they probably have their hand in other live streaming sports businesses, too. They have their hand in letting Hulu run their products. They have their hand in letting YouTube TV run their product. And their— their revenue streams are differentiated enough that it doesn’t matter. And so now as teams started to take over the RSN model, because it made them more money in the short to medium term. Now, they’re starting to realize that that model is broken. But ultimately, where I come out and what’s so frustrating is that this is just a piece of the pie.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s not like how the RSNs were, where this was their whole business model. They had to make money on live television, and they had to make a lot of money because they wanted the executives to get rich, and they also still wanted to not go bankrupt. It’s important to understand that like Valley Sports going bankrupt, that was one part of the company that they spun off into a bankruptcy and probably everyone involved with it got incredibly rich. It wasn’t actually that they were, like, losing money on live sports. They were choosing to lose money long enough to the point where they could close up shop and walk away clean, and not have to deal with whatever headwinds were turning against them. And ultimately, where I net out with the Mariners, with these other teams that are having these issues is I don’t really care. Not my problem.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You guys want to run all of the aspects of baseball. You guys want to control it all. You want to set price points. You want to gouge me, left and right to experience your product, and you can’t figure out how to get it to make you enough money to get good players? If we boil away all the other nonsense, so we’ve just spent the last 30 minutes explaining, seems like a you problem.
ALEX: Yup.
BOBBY: It’s a skill issue. Get better at running your books. But the thing is, like, they’re fine.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: They’re just using it as an excuse. And that is sort of like the silver bullet of all of this, is that they’re not actually hurting for money. But an MLB owner would never conceive of the idea of dipping into profits in order to sustain long-term likeability of the franchise, long-term success, long-term roster health. There might be like two or three organizations that’d be willing to do that on a short-term basis. And guess what? They’re the Mets, the Yankees, and the Dodgers. And they’re getting all the good players because of it.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We just spent 40 minutes talking about how that— that got the Dodgers Ohtani. So, it’s a lot of complicated elements that are important to understand if you care about these things. But at the end of the day, the answer is there’s a lot of money in broadcasting live baseball, whether it’s streaming it through MLB.TV, or whether it’s putting it on cable, or whether it’s this weird world where we’re doing half and half. Ultimately, where the business people decide is the balance point of the seesaw, don’t really care. Just— the thing that is most frustrating is how hard it is to figure out how I’m supposed to get these games.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: And it’s gonna be like at the end of the Cold War, when there’s like a massive liquidation of assets, and I don’t know who’s gonna get what. But at the end of the day, I do feel as though the viewers are gonna get screwed somehow. Hopefully, it’s just that we can use MLB.TV to stream every game, because as we talked about last weekend, with Jake and Jordan, it’s a pretty good product when they allow it to work, how it’s designed to be worked. And whatever finance needs to work, whatever finance needs to be ironed out to make that possible, whatever. We’ll see where we net out from that point. But these, like, complicated big business deals, I know it affects fans, but I don’t know how much fans should be caring about trying to resolve them, or like fret— fretting about resolving them.
ALEX: I completely agree. I think fans are forced to think about this sort of stuff because either their cable bill is hiked up, or their teams front office is saying, “Look, this is the deal. This is why we have to scale back.” And then fans are forced to, you know, swallow those results, you know what you never hear? The business is good.
BOBBY: Yeah, we’re signing— we’re signing our RSNs—
ALEX: They never come out and say, “Our RSN— our RSN is a cash cow over the last few years. And so as a result, we’re scaling up. We’re doing more. We’re going bigger and better in the 21st century.” You just hear, “Ah, COVID put a damper on our profits. You know, not having fans in the stadium that year means, you know, we’re gonna have to tighten the belt a little bit. Oh, you know, we’re— we’re gonna have to do a strategic retreat. You know, we— we’re— we’re building for the future, right? We can invest all this money right now. It’s a long-term project. Ah, the RSN model, you know, we just weren’t able to foresee that it wasn’t gonna work out.” Even though we bought in right, right at the very top, right as people started saying, “Hey, this might be a bubble.” You know what it sounds like to me? Is that you’re not like great at business.
BOBBY: That’s what I mean. It’s a skill issue.
ALEX: At doing— at running your business. And, like, you might be, right, because you’re still raking in profits. I know you are. Whatever you put the value at— Roots Sports at, right, maybe a couple hundred million dollars, the Mariners valuation is still skyrocking— is still skyrocketing, and has continued to skyrocket since Stan took over ownership of the franchise, right? They are still worth multiple billion dollars. So, like, what’s the issue here, then?
I know you have other streams of revenue. I am positive you have other streams of revenue.
BOBBY: My whole thing is like— well, first of all, I— I love what you said about you never hear that things are going well, because even if you did, that owner would be, like, sniped out of the press conference so fast. If Steve Cohen came out and was like, “TV is doing great. I got a lot of money. We’re set. Selling lot of tickets. Season ticket packages, crushing it.” They’d be like, “Dude, what are you doing?”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: “You’re— you’re— you’re giving the game away, man.”
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: “You’re giving the game away. We didn’t let you in to hear this. You just— your benefit is that you are making money. You don’t have to tell everyone.” But his actions and the actions of a few other franchises have already given the game away to people who are paying attention. The problem is most people are not paying attention. Most people don’t— I mean, I think that there’s like a general better understanding that owners are lying to you, and that they could be spending more and they should be spending more. But I think there’s like a resignation about it, because every owner is doing it for the most part, or 26 owners are doing it. And I also think that there are sort of levels to it. People understand that their owner could be spending more, but honestly, a lot of people don’t believe that their owner could be spending that much more.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: There’s a lot of people out there who believe that what’s going on with the Mariners right now is causing them a liquidity problem, but— and that might be true. The Mariners might have a liquidity problem, but the liquidity problem is not because they didn’t meet expectations with Root Sports. The liquidity problem was exposed because of that. That was the thing that opened it up and made it glaring, but I would venture to guess, if we looked at the Mariners books, we could find ways to help them with their liquidity problem, like don’t take as much year over year profit. Johnson, don’t waste as much money investing. Don’t waste as much money trying to buy up real estate. Like, remember when I went to the Mariners game this year and I paid $65 in parking that didn’t solve your liquidity problem?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: 81 times a year, you charge people to pay— to— to park there. 81 times a year. And I know, Mariners fans, that there’s a lot of good public transit options to get there. I understand that, but that there are— there were still people in the garage, you know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: All the Ken Griffey, Jr. jerseys that you still sell, all the Ichiro jerseys that you still sell across the world, that’s not helping with your liquidity problem? Again, it’s a skill issue.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Or it’s an intentionally tying one hand behind my back issue. And either way, it’s not because baseball is not making you enough money, it’s because you are taking too much of the money, and it should be going elsewhere.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah. You are too bad at your job to be recouping these profits, or you think fans are stupid and won’t notice.
BOBBY: Yeah. You’re too bad at your job—
ALEX: What’s— what’s worth—
BOBBY: You’re too bad at your job to make it a rising tide which will lift all boats. It’s— it’s— you’re just lifting your own boat.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Which, you know, that’s how they became billionaires. You siphon profit off of industry for yourself.
ALEX: One bootstrap at a time.
BOBBY: Every time an RSN deal blows up, an angel gets his wings. God. An angel at JP Morgan just gets his wings.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Flies into the air and is like, “Ooh, boy, we could write a lot off of your taxes right here, Mr. Stanton.”
ALEX: Yup. I’m getting— I’m getting the specialty milk in my latte today.
BOBBY: Oh, man, that was fun. I fucking love talking about business, you know?
ALEX: I do, too. This is— see, this is when we’re at our best.
BOBBY: Offseason, you think there’s nothing to talk about?
ALEX: No fucking chance.
BOBBY: We’re cooking.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: We are cooking right now.
ALEX: Yeah. I’ll— I’ll go for another hour talking about John Fisher selling, like, $33 million of Gap stock this week.
BOBBY: What do you think he needs that for? Maybe a new forest has grown since the last one he chopped down. And he was like, “We can’t have this. Time to get more liquid.”
ALEX: Exactly. It’s— the timing of it was weird, or maybe not weird. More not so coincidental that the— that the city of Oakland just came to them and saying, “Hey, remember when you said you were buying the— the— half— half of our lease to the Coliseum and then you can pay in installments unless you’ve leave, in which case you have to pay it all immediately while you’re leaving. So you have to pay it all immediately.” $45 million that A’s are on the hook for. And I think it’s so relatable that he was like, “I— I need to move that money around a little bit. I can’t pay you just yet.” These are my favorite episodes that we do, right? We talked about, like, evading taxes by moving to a different state.
BOBBY: Legal.
ALEX: Which is legal. We talked about bad investments, we talked about selling stocks. Like baseball is accounting.
BOBBY: Legal. You’re talking about a lot of—
ALEX: All of this stuff is legal.
BOBBY: It’s all legal activity. But here’s the board, those activities are right above it. They’re above board.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah. You would do the same.
BOBBY: Not all of us are cut out to be billionaires, you know? As you once famously said.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: A hard truism here on this podcast. Maybe billionaires got the right idea.
ALEX: Maybe billionaires got the right idea. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Preach.
ALEX: Tattoo it on my forehead.
BOBBY: Preach.
ALEX: Call me Rob Manfred.
BOBBY: Preach, brother, preach. What do you think Manfred thinks about Root Sports? See, this is the kind of thing where, like, if we got Rob on, he would have to [1:02:50] us because we’re— we’re in there, dude. We’re in the weeds. We get it. It’s not like if you— if he went and talked to some schmucko about how the Mariners should be spending more money, but you guys don’t get it? No, no, no. No, Rob, we do get it, and we still think the Mariners should be spending more money. So what do you say?
ALEX: Yeah. We’d— we’d be like, Rob, what do you think of the— the fact that DISH Network dropping Root Sports back in 2021 meant for the long-term viability of the RSN sports model with regards to distribution and— and viewership and— and whether or not it boded poorly for the future of— of this business venture?
BOBBY: Rob, when we eventually transition to a full streaming model, what do you think are the KPIs to make your teams the money that you want, you know? What are the relevant data points? What exactly is the price point that, in your head, you think is both fair to the consumer, but also reasonable for the business side?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Let’s not lose sight of the point here. I’m trying to make money.
ALEX: Right. Two sides every story. Rob, open invite, it’s— that is all I’m saying.
BOBBY: Never been more open. It’s never been. And frankly, if he thinks that we’re misinformed, I love him to inform us.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Teach me—
ALEX: Correct the record.
BOBBY: Teach me, Rob, teach me.
ALEX: Right. We want to do the work.
BOBBY: What are we forgetting? What are we leaving out? I started this pod in a bad place because of Yamamoto.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I’ve been doing a lot of emotional hedging recently, trying to do things to get me in an okay place, so if the Mets don’t have Yamamoto, I’m like, “It’s also worth it.” We just watched Lady Bird this morning. Great film.
ALEX: Great film.
BOBBY: Great film. Put me in a good headspace before this pod.
ALEX: She was in her bag for that one.
BOBBY: She is always in her bag.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: I’m not sure what’s going on with this Chronicles of Narnia thing, though. Are you aware of this?
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Greta has, like, signed on her next like two movies. She’s contracted to direct Chronicles of Narnia adaptation.
ALEX: Oh, I did vaguely hear this, yeah.
BOBBY: She’s in her like— she’s really in her Spielberg, like, big IP era.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park. Although, he, like, made that IP, but you know what I mean.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: It— it was adapted from a novel, but big blockbuster hits. That’s what she’s trying to do, so that she can free up some political clout to be in her minority report, AI, Artificial Intelligence era, which I want to fast forward to that.
ALEX: That’s right. Like, I’m— I’m so stoked for that.
BOBBY: We’re gonna be eating good, bro, the Gerwig Hive. We’re gonna be fed. We’re gonna be fat and happy.
ALEX: I never know where this podcast would go. You know, that’s the joy of it.
BOBBY: That’s just a little taste of what the Patreon is like. Speaking on the Patreon, patreon.com/tippingpitches. If you want more bonus episodes, whole— whole episodes, they’re just whole episodes, like hour-long, twice a month, every— they’re every couple of weeks on Thursdays. They take different formats. We’ve explored a new format. And just to be transparent, we— we did a movie watch-along that we recorded last week, which was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. Alex did some ASMR, eating on the mic, you know. That’s the selling point. That’s the number one selling point.
ALEX: That was the number one selling point.
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah. Sign up to hear that. Actually, no, the number one selling point is that it’s a movie that many of you will be familiar with, because it is emotionally and auditorially tied to this podcast. That’s dropping on the Patreon feed in a few days. I said the word transparency because that will also be next week’s episode on this here, public feed as well. We’re going to take the week off. We’re gonna take the next two weeks off, actually, but you will get an episode on the morning of Christmas, and that will be the movie watch-along that I referred to. And then on New Year’s Day, we will be off fully. We’ll be back on January 8th. TBD on what that episode is. Could be state of— could be state of labor and baseball, could be a normal episode, just depends on balanced schedule. So that is the programming over the next couple of weeks. Next week will be a— a watch-along, movie watch-along and we’ll explain more in that episode about what that means and how you can watch along with us. And then for New Year’s, we will be off. Anything else I’m forgetting?
ALEX: There is other cool stuff on the Patreon as well. There’s a— a newsletter that comes out regularly, which I think Bobby’s on tap for next. There’s— there’s a holiday card, which I’m— I’m just— I’m— I’m— I’m owning up to the fact that it’s on me to get that out there, right? I’ve been— I’ve been dragging my feet, but the holidays are a great time for me to do that. And there’s some— there’s some drafts in the works right now, that— that, Bobby, you may even see later today. We’ll see.
BOBBY: Oh, great.
ALEX: There’s a Slack channel. There’s a— there’s all sorts of— just go check
it out. The link is in the description. You know, I won’t tell you everything. There’s fun stuff there, if you like what we do here, and somehow want more of it.
BOBBY: The beauty of the Patreon episodes are that even if you’re a few weeks late, doesn’t matter.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: Doesn’t matter. And I could be doing timely dives like this one into Root Sports on the Patreon. We’re going to be chillin’. We’re going to be chillin’. The movie watch-along, so it was just you and me this time around, but— and I mentioned this on the pod itself. But we have some guests on tap for that. Some guests that, I think, many of you listening will be very excited to hear in— in a format such as this. And that— more on that in January. That’s it. You know, we did our holiday sales pitch. I think we’re good to go. Thank you for a wonderful year, everybody listening.
ALEX: Oh, wow. Yeah, I just— I just connected the fact, you said a few minutes ago that the next two episodes are bagged, [1:08:43] that I didn’t really realize that this is the last episode of the year we’re recording.
BOBBY: Anything you wanna get off your chest? Would you like— is now the time where you reveal that you’ve been a sleeper agent for Rob Manfred’s Commissioner’s Office all year? That he blackmailed you at the end of last year over something that we don’t need to get into. And that you spent all of 2023 amassing information about the Tipping Pitches community to provide in the dossier to Rob himself.
ALEX: Right. I wasn’t going to reveal it here. I was going to wait ’till the new year, but—
BOBBY: Save it for our Patreon episode.
ALEX: —since it’s out there— what I— what I was going to mention is that— I— I should note that I am actually an investor in Root Sports. This is just my disclosure at the end of the podcast. That’s where all of the Patreon money is going. I own the other 29%.
BOBBY: He bought it straight from Zass.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: You just shook hands. You got in that room together. You’re like, “Zasloff, making it happen.”
ALEX: So if you have complaints, you can— my DMs are open.
BOBBY: That’s what— that’s why— that’s why Zasloff wasn’t solving the writer strike. He was too busy making a 29% deal with you for the rest of Root Sports. You’re the reason that we don’t have our television and I’m the—
ALEX: Uh-hmm. I’m the reason for the Dune delay, sorry.
BOBBY: Have you seen Dune 1?
ALEX: I have.
BOBBY: What’s your takes?
ALEX: It’s a good flick.
BOBBY: Should we do a watch-along of Dune?
ALEX: Jesus. Yeah, but the original.
BOBBY: I mean, that’s a hard movie to talk through.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s bat shit.
ALEX: It’s a hard movie, period.
BOBBY: It’s a hard movie to watch, so it’d be hard to watch along. Dune, what a picture. That was my first movie back in a theater for— after the COVID-19 pandemic.
ALEX: That’s a good return.
BOBBY: It was so great. Warner Bros. lot. Writers Guild screening move. Ooh. We were cooking. We were— I might—
ALEX: Music to your eyes.
BOBBY: —I might move back to LA just for that. Unlike Ohtani, I am not afraid of paying California taxes. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Thank you, everybody, for listening all along, all year in 2023. We hope to provide an even better year in 2024. Happy Holidays. Enjoy, and we will be back— oh, you’ll hear another episode from us next week, but we will be back later in January.
SPEAKER 3: And I mean if you want, We can just stay here. Wrap me in your claws,
I can be your reindeer. When they turn out the lights, that way I can write your name here.
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!
ALEX: Oh, I haven’t even had coffee yet. Wow. No wonder. Fuck.
BOBBY: All right. You want to pause to go make some?
ALEX: No, it’s okay.
BOBBY: You sure?
ALEX: I’m gonna pause and go make on. Is it okay?
BOBBY: That’s fine.
ALEX: Give me two minutes.
BOBBY: That’s hilarious.
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