Bobby and Alex invite FanGraphs writer Michael Baumann to join them in drafting the most powerful figures in baseball, spanning executives, owners, players, politicians (??), and more.
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Songs featured in this episode:
Huey Lewis — “The Power of Love” • 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: You know, Alex, I’m always really wrong-footed by— by whenever we need to start a podcast, whenever we need to do a cold open, but we have like a full podcast already recorded and we really got to get to it.
ALEX: uh-hmm.
BOBBY: When we have like 90 minutes of already recorded audio, but here we are in the cold open, which is designed to be like the most meandering, the least effective, the least proficient and professional part of this podcast, but here we are. So all that to say, I don’t know what to say to you right now.
ALEX: What?
BOBBY: We— we have no new patrons, I have no questions, I have nothing. I’m just lost, just— I have 93 minutes of Michael Baumann.
ALEX: How— how are you? How are you doing?
BOBBY: I’m— I’m good. I mean, we just recorded—
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: —a good episode—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —that everybody is about to hear. It’s— it’s— the weather’s nice. You know, the Northern Lights are everywhere. Probably because of woke. You know, they couldn’t just be Northern Lights anymore. They had to be Southern Lights. And everywhere else.
ALEX: Right. Just a patient trophy. Everyone gets a Northern Light.
BOBBY: Exactly. Exactly. Beautiful weekend of weather, Mother’s Day.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I love Mother’s Day. What a great holiday. Mother’s, you heard it here first. Probably not, probably not.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: How are you?
ALEX: I’m— I’m well, I’d say. I’m doing well. I’m excited. We— we do have Paul Skenes today. I’m excited to lock in for that. It’s just—
BOBBY: He’s finally pitching.
ALEX: He is finally pitching—
BOBBY: He’s finally pitching a Major League Baseball—
ALEX: —after— after a month of push notifications.
BOBBY: —after 17 notifications that I got for his AAA starts. He’s— so that’s like Boy Who Cried Paul Skenes, you know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —I didn’t— didn’t actually know that that was today.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Bad [2:02]
ALEX: Yes, we got— we got duped a couple times.
BOBBY: We got hoodwinked, we got bamboozled, but it’s here. He’s here. He was in the car with Livvy Dunne, has a selfie.
ALEX: Yeah. We’ve all seen it a million times. It’s like every third tweet on my timeline right now.
BOBBY: I’m really proud of him for sticking to the mustache. You know, he’s holding it down.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: We’re all holding it down. Going strong.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Me, Skenes, Glen Powell. Actually, I don’t think Glen Powell has a mustache anymore.
ALEX: I don’t think— yeah, I think he lost it.
BOBBY: Bring it back, Glen, if you’re listening. I know that Glen is a big listener of Tipping Pitches.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: I’ve heard of that.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah. He’s like, “Not normal baseball content. Content that’s not about baseball.”
ALEX: Right. I— famously, I think he said on the press tour for anyone but you, baseball for the many, not the few.
BOBBY: Yeah, he wore the— he wore the shirt, yeah.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: It looks a little better on him than us.
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: And that’s okay. We’re working—
ALEX: But so does most things, I would say.
BOBBY: Okay. Today’s episode, we’re doing a fun exercise. We are drafting the most powerful people in baseball. I know that’s very broad, but we are going to give more specific terms about what we actually mean, and we’re calling it The Power Brokers Draft. I tried to make Movers and Shakers Draft happen, but you guys downplayed it. You guys didn’t want to talk about freaking—
ALEX: It just doesn’t roll off the tongue.
BOBBY: You just wanted to talk——
ALEX: Movers and Shakers Draft.
BOBBY: You wanted to talk about Robert Moses, I get it. Three white guys in a podcast talking about Robert Moses. Woo. What— what a revolutionary concept. Why don’t you tell me next that—
ALEX: Which made you uncomfortable because you like Robert Moses.
BOBBY: Right. Exactly. Exactly.
ALEX: You didn’t like the vocal pushback.
BOBBY: What are you going to tell me next? Those— those same three guys are going to bring up marks and angles? Oh, no. I’m shocked.
ALEX: Oh, wow. Wow.
BOBBY: I’m shocked.
ALEX: We’re nothing if not predictable here, Tipping Pitches. This segment that we’re about to do goes all over the place, and it’s entirely predictable, I would say.
BOBBY: Predictable in the way that Michael Baumann is never predictable.
ALEX: Exactly. Yes.
BOBBY: I’m excited for people to listen to it and I’m excited for people to yell at us about how wrong we are. I’m also excited for Michael’s first pick, which I don’t think you see coming if you’re listening to this podcast. Let’s go over to that draft. But before we do, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[theme]
BOBBY: All right, Michael Baumann is here. Hi, Mike. How are you?
MICHAEL: Hello. I’m—
BOBBY: We allowed you on the Tipping Pitches podcast for something other than the State of Labor in Baseball. Do you think that the— the world is going to end because of that?
Michae: I’m excited, but I’m also, yes, a little bit worried. I thought that you kept me in a box for 51 weeks out of the year and you’re letting me out. And I’m wondering what kind of emergency necessitated that.
ALEX: You’re like, “I’ve never seen the summer sun. This is new.”
BOBBY: Now that we’re here on a— on a public forum, I’d like to just point out I didn’t bully you for all those years. You were the one that was bullying me. Doing a little bit of hazing, you know? Senior to freshmen.
MICHAEL: I mean— so I’m— I’ve talked about us having— I hope I’m not overstepping my bounds. I’m just having a very fraternal relationship.
BOBBY: Yes, I think so. Yes,
MICHAEL: I have a brother your age and he is mean to me in the exact same ways that you’re mean to me. That’s—
BOBBY: Just like identifying the micro ways in which you seem ancient compared to me, you mean?
MICHAEL: Or not even ancient but insecure. You’ve got a good— this is— this is why I referred to you as a very small child because you have a teenager’s affinity for targeting people’s insecurities.
ALEX: I appreciate the— the— usually the first five minutes of your appearance on this podcast is kind of like a couples therapy session for the— the two of you, you know? I feel like we get one layer deeper now we’re going back to your —to your familial upbringings, I— and I— I value that.
MICHAEL: We didn’t— we don’t talk as much as we used to. We used to—
BOBBY: Right. True.
MICHAEL: You know, I used to have this guy in my ear every week and—
BOBBY: We used to work this out in the pre-show weekly.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
MICHAEL: So now we got to do this, you know, when we talk every couple of months. I do think the funniest part of that exchange is— was— was [6:09] coming and being like, “Was I mean to you as— as Bobby was?” Which first of all, it’s like— like, typically, like, shocker, overeager/needy. But also like, he doesn’t have that dog in him the way you do.
BOBBY: Oh, okay. So he— he didn’t have the fastball, you know? You— you were teeing off on him?
MICHAEL: I said like— what I meant was like, “You couldn’t do this, and if— even if you could, you wouldn’t, because you’re too nice.”
BOBBY: Well, I feel like one thing that’s under— maybe underrated about this trio that we have here on the podcast is that you guys are both older brothers and I’m a younger brother. And I feel like that locks things into place for someone [6:48]
MICHAEL: Hmm. Oh, that makes sense.
ALEX: Yeah.
MICHAEL: I’m a big believer in birth order.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Yeah.
MICHAEL: Yeah. I’m— I’m the oldest child. Both my parents are oldest children. My wife is an oldest child. Almost all of my best friends are oldest children. Like, I don’t trust—
ALEX: That’s you. [7:02]
MICHAEL: —youngest children. And a lot is falling into place.
BOBBY: Are you a big believer in birth order, Alex? What’s your subscription to that science?
ALEX: You know, I don’t know that I have— I have taken stock of my— the closest people around me, like Michael was just able to rattle off.
BOBBY: I mean, you’re— you’re a co-host for life as an older sibling—
ALEX: Is an oldest sibling, yeah.
BOBBY: —although I’m the youngest sibling.
ALEX: Right. Which is— which is weird, I think. I think it’s interesting that we were drawn to each other in that regard.
MICHAEL: Well, there is like an opposites attract element to it that sometimes works out, you know?
ALEX: Right.
MICHAEL: Like I’m— I’m very— very introverted and very, like— not very feelings-oriented and that’s made me a magnet for extroverts who have lots of feelings and think there’s something wrong with me. Like [7:52] shocker, for instance, right?
BOBBY: Oh, what a beautiful way to start this podcast here. Can— I think everybody could probably tell that we’re recording this on a Saturday morning as opposed to our usual Sunday afternoon. You know, we’re all just sitting around in our feelings starting weekend off.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
MICHAEL: UH-hmm.
ALEX: We have time, we’re not doing anything.
BOBBY: The reason that we invited you here today, Mike, is to do a really fun exercise, which I am colloquially calling The Power Brokers Draft. alternatively, The Movers And Shakers Draft. You. guys have any other alternative names that you’d like to call this?
MICHAEL: Power Brokers despite being derivative, I think, really does capture the spirit of the— the exercise.
BOBBY: Derivative of, what, the Power Broker?
MICHAEL: Of the power, yeah.
BOBBY: Be honest with me, have you read The Power Broker all the way through?
MICHAEL: No. Of course, I haven’t read The fucking Power Broker.
BOBBY: Alex, have you read The Power Broker?
ALEX: No, but I keep it on my shelf, so I can— I can— it’s aspirational.
MICHAEL: Right.
BOBBY: As clout, you know?
MICHAEL: Right. I was gonna— it’s like—
ALEX: It’s one of the ones whose spine is poking out, so there’s someone over who glimpses that they’re like, ” Power Broker?” I’m like, “Yeah, it’s there.”
MICHAEL: I’ve— I’ve carefully curated what’s— what’s visible behind me. See, I have Frantz Fanon over my shoulder and a bunch of Star Wars books behind the— the bobbleheads. But, yeah, no, this— this is like the kind of thing they— like The Power Broker is something you read if you went to Mizzou, Syracuse, or Northwestern.
BOBBY: You mean like for the tryhards is what you’re saying?
MICHAEL: Yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: Okay.
MICHAEL: I do own a copy of Infinite Jest that I got about 200 pages—
ALEX: Oh, God.
MICHAEL: —into and gave up. So, like, I— I will never try to read The Power Broker, but I— I did attempt and fail to summit Mount Infinite Jest.
BOBBY: Alex called me young Robert Moses on the podcast three weeks ago, that really cut to the core.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I was like, “Maybe I need to do some introspection and [9:48]”
ALEX: We’re going on like four straight episodes of you just advocating for car culture.
BOBBY: Well, let’s be honest, though. I have an ally with me here, Michael Baumann—
ALEX: It’s true.
BOBBY: —someone who understands the necessity of cars to the American identity, am I right, sir?
MICHAEL: Yeah, absolutely. And for better or worse.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Right, exactly. Where we can be reasonable about it. And— and you are also an anti-electric car person?
MICHAEL: Yes. I would love to not have to own a car, but it’s not really feasible, despite— by the way, like, I live less than two miles from, like, easy walking distance as the crow flies, from good public transit links that can get me into Philadelphia and from Philadelphia, anywhere in the world. And it’s inaccessible to walk. Like, just because of the way the streets are— are laid out where I live. So, like, even if I want to take the train somewhere, I have to drive to the train, despite living, like, a mile and change from train station. If this were Belgium, like, I just be on my fucking bike all over the place.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: If my grandmother had wheels, it should be a bike, you know? This is my Belgium.
MICHAEL: Yeah, I can [10:53] my grandmother, too.
BOBBY: Okay, Power Brokers Draft, what this is, is we’re gonna go around in snake fashion, and we are going to draft people who we think wield the most power in the baseball world, and that could be up for interpretation. What is that power? Is it publicity? Is it financial power? Is it the ability to have the final say on things that dictate the future of this game? You know, these— these people can come from any realm of the baseball world, but obviously, we look at this stuff through a lens of Major League Baseball, and its impact on American baseball, and— and thus, baseball all around the world. The only rules that we have set aside here are that we’re each going to draft four people. There’ll be one owner, one player, one executive, and then one wild card spot, so that we don’t all just draft four owners, because we all know that— who’s really making the decisions in this game.
MICHAEL: And for those of you listening at home, it sounds like I’m unprepared, it’s because— it’s definitely because Bobby sprung those criteria on us three minutes before he hit the record button, and not because I started doing homework for this at 11:51 AM when we were supposed to start recording at noon.
BOBBY: I did spring those rules on you guys, but you were all— it was— it was a unanimous thing. You were like, “I do think this is better,” and I think it will make this exercise a little better.”
MICHAEL: Because otherwise, it would just be a list of owners.
ALEX: That’s exactly right.
BOBBY: Right, exactly. And we— we all know everything there is to know about all of the owners because of the hard work the three of us on this call have done over the years. I’m curious to see which owners do get selected, though, that— that will be, I think, telling about how we—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —view the game. All right. Well, is there anything you’d like to talk about before we get into the draft, Mike? Or— or do you want to just kick us off here? Because we’re gonna let you first pick.
MICHAEL: No, we can [12:41]
BOBBY: We’re so generous, you come here on Saturday morning, we’re gonna allow you to have the first pick, but mostly, I really just am scared to make the first overall pick because I feel like I might be wrong. So you’re gonna have to do that.
MICHAEL: Yeah. Well, I mean, I— I take part in a fair number of drafts on Effectively Wild and I usually win those.
BOBBY: How were those going for you? Yeah, are those— you’re crushing those?
MICHAEL: Not so much this year. I— I’ve already been marked off for— so here’s the thing, last year in Effectively Wild, we did the prediction game where the— the listeners, the fans voted on— they— they assigned points, basically, based on how likely they thought a prediction was going to be. And I almost won this— this game because I predicted that an animal would be killed during a— a baseball game. And it was so ridiculous that Ben and Meg, and other Ben laughed at me and then it happened. So I think the listeners think I have the gift of— of sight.
ALEX: Of clairvoyance, yeah.
MICHAEL: They gave me—
BOBBY: You— you and Kyrie Irving.
MICHAEL: Like I predicted— I mean, there are a few differences between Kyrie Irving and me. He’s from North Jersey, for instance.
ALEX: Right.
MICHAEL: But—
BOBBY: That’s the primary one that I think of.
MICHAEL: Yeah. But, like, I predicted nudity this year, and they were like, “Oh, yeah, it’s basically a coin flip.”
ALEX: Hmm.
MICHAEL: And so I’m— I’m just gonna get crushed this season no matter what.
BOBBY: What constitutes as nudity? Is the— the see-through pants, I assume, does not trigger that?
MICHAEL: Oh, I said— I said the word gooch in my criteria in the—
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: All right. Wow. Uh-hmm.
MICHAEL: I said there will be a uniform failure such that— I forget the list of— of anatomy. I think— I think I said nipples, penis, balls, gooch, or butthole would be—
BOBBY: Uh-huh.
MICHAEL: —visible either through the uniform or outside the uniform.
BOBBY: Like, did you sing it— did you sing it like Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes? Like, were you—
MICHAEL: Yeah. Basically. But Meg and I, between the two of us said, we said gooch, [14:43], and perineum within the span of about 60 seconds on Effectively Wild, so—
BOBBY: You guys need to be stopped. Like, frankly, you just have to be stopped. We need to put a committee together to put— come up with a plan to stop you two, specifically. Okay. Well, you are on the clock, so that was an incredible bit of vamping while you get a little bit more caffeine into your system over there.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: I tip my hat— I tip my hat for you, sir.
MICHAEL: Yeah. Let’s see if we can—
BOBBY: But we have to make a selection.
MICHAEL: Yeah, we need to get this draft over before this giant Starbucks coffee makes me have to poop, so we are all on the clock in a manner of speaking. I’m going to pick— for my first pick, I’m going to take a wild card. I’m going to take former President Donald J. Trump.
BOBBY: Wow.
MICHAEL: Who’s the most powerful person in baseball.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: This is why you’re here. Like, this— this is why.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: That wasn’t even on my long list.
MICHAEL: It should have been. Because everything that happens in this country— everything that has happened in this country politically and economically for the past nine years, has been either inaction by a response to or in conversation with Donald Trump. And I think even beyond that, he’s given proof that there’s a level of power that you can amass at which Americans will just accept any level of criminality. And, you know, our country’s business leaders, including but not limited to the people who run baseball, have taken that lesson to heart, I think. To say nothing of just the changing the Overton window in terms of— of— I’ll just say, bigotry. You know, we’re seeing like, you know, objections to pride nights in a way that we wouldn’t— wouldn’t have had a few years ago. Everything that— that happens in this country is in some way conditioned by his presence. And, you know, I think that, in addition to, you know, this man, being the leader of a cult of personality, which I would say, the overwhelming majority of— of owners and a plurality of players adhere. So, you know, this is gonna be a very interesting election.
BOBBY: Alex, so you’re gonna go second and take Biden.
ALEX: Yes, I am. I’m gonna zag.
BOBBY: So that this graph follows—
ALEX: I mean—
BOBBY: —the order of the 2024 election.
ALEX: What’s fascinating is that I don’t think he cares about baseball. Like, he does to the extent that it is a— an American pastime—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: —that he can participate in to sort of raise up his like jingoism or whatever. But I— I think he could take or leave 162 games here.
BOBBY: What is happening? What is— what is happening right now?
MICHAEL: Oh, I think— I think that’s true, but that doesn’t stop him from exerting power.
ALEX: Absolutely. Yeah, I think it’s— I think it’s more fascinating that he has such power over a sport that he probably could take or leave.
BOBBY: Well, I’m— I don’t— I’m not going to spoil anything. I don’t— I don’t know if any of you guys intend to take any cinders [17:35] or anything like that. But obviously, something that we’ve been chronicling for years on this podcast and, frankly, is one of our favorite things to make fun of, and made it onto our 2024 Bingo Card list, is the repealing of the antitrust exemption, which is a senator or a person in the House of Representatives throws around every once in a while when they want to have like a culture war, an Easy-Bake Oven culture war storyline that they can tweet about, do a tweet thread about being like, “Oh, baseball is, you know, too gay, so we’re going to repeal the antitrust exemption.” And obviously, like, I feel like Trump could actually be the one to get that done if he was in the president’s office, and he just cared about it long— for longer than two hours or something like that, if MLB did something that pissed him off personally. And, you know— and then obviously, there’s like the long history of Trump tweeting about Justin Verlander or whatever, so it’s— it’s notable, I think, although, completely out of left field, I did not expect that from you.
MICHAEL: The other reason I picked him is because he— power in terms of individuals tend to be very decentralized in this country. And particularly if you’re looking into national or at least an indust— industry wide scale. So this is this is one place where the locus of power is obvious. And he controls everything.
BOBBY: Okay. Donald— Donald J. Trump off the board, Alex. Cross that name off.
ALEX: Amazing. Damn it.
BOBBY: Do you want to go second, or do you want to— do you want to be on the third?
ALEX: Oh, god, that’s a good question, because then I gotta— then I gotta go two back-to-back. I’ll let you— I’ll let you go. I’m not gonna [19:09] in that way.
BOBBY: Okay. I am going to take the control person of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Mark Walter, with my first overall pick. And I’m going to take that— I’m going to take him because I do think owners are the most— most powerful people in the game. I don’t think that there is a Jerry Jones type left in Major League Baseball anymore. Like I think if George Steinbrenner was still alive, I think he would be the obvious first overall pick for the owners. And I think that— you know, not to spoil any future picks, but I think that someone like Steve Cohen, who has come in with a lot of money, like throwing that around just had a— a large impact on the discourse around baseball. But in terms of the actual levers of power that owners are in control of, as we progress more towards a baseball— Major League Baseball that is controlled by private equity, Mark Walter is in control of one of the largest private equity firms, which also just happens to own maybe the most marketable, fastest growing team in the sport as well. And so I think that if you wanted to make a change among all of the owners, of course, there are owners who are— have been longer standing, who have more relationships within the game, and maybe have a bigger fascination with exerting the power that they do have than Mark— than Mark Walter does. But I think that he— as well as the rest of the Guggenheim Baseball Management, him being the face of that, are warping the game more than any owner right now, whether that’s the— the front— backloading the contracts, you know, deferring the money that has been a big storyline this past offseason, or whether it’s just the nature of the fact that MLB clearly cares so much about the Dodgers and everything that they do. I’m gonna take Mark Walter.
ALEX: Yeah, chairs the economic reform committee, kind of speaks for the big market teams, I think.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And— right, it’s not necessarily an intentional bending of the sport to his will, but when you wield that much power, when you have that much money to throw around, by necessity, any one action you take is going to have a ripple effect, and I think the Dodgers are a perfect example of that.
BOBBY: Baumann, what do you think about Mark Walter?
MICHAEL: I had a— when I was talking— I was writing about Steve Cohen a few years ago, and was talking to our friend, Meg Schuster, who was editing me at the time, and it was like, “Do you know who the best owner in baseball is? Like, do you know who the— the guy who owns the Dodgers [21:33]?” And I don’t remember if— if you knew or not, it was like the reason that he’s the best owner of baseball is you don’t know who this guy is.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
MICHAEL: So I think that— that’s a very interesting take on who the most powerful owner is. I definitely— it represent— I think it represents one of the two right answers.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
MICHAEL: But it is not the answer I would have given.
BOBBY: Interesting. I— I think that— I think the— who the most powerful owner is, and maybe we can have this conversation once everybody has selected their owner, and why or why not you might prefer one or the other. But there’s like— there’s money, there’s tenure and relationships, and then there’s just like, will power, you know? Like, to factor in—
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: —who gets the most done or who would— who would win in an argument if we were just— if we were debating an issue among the owners. Because I think that there are—
MICHAEL: Give this guy what he wants so he— so he’ll shut up.
BOBBY: Right. I think there are some wedge issues between owners now that have cropped up in the last few years that maybe they were a little bit more in alignment on in the early to mid-2010s. And I think who would win those arguments is a fascinating conversation, but frankly, I think that if the owner of the Dodgers was like, “No, we’re doing this.” I think he would win that. And we— we can talk more about that as we go through this list, but— so that’s— that sends it over to you, Alex. You have to make two selections.
ALEX: All right. Crazy to me that the— the— the name Rob Manfred hasn’t been brought up yet, the commissioner of the game, and I’m—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —I’m not going to bring him up. I’m not going to pick him. Instead, I’m gonna go with executive vice-president of baseball operations, Morgan Sword, who is most likely the dark horse candidate for the next commissioner of baseball. As someone who I think the casual fan probably has no idea exists, despite how influential he’s been, especially in the sort of the rule change element that we’ve seen over the last few years and kind of executing on the sort of one baseball vision that Rob Manfred has put forth. I think outside of labor, he has been incredibly influential in the partnerships that MLB has made in the growth of sports betting in the game. I— I— I thought about just picking the sports books writ large, because I think you could make a case that they are— wield a great deal of power in this sport. But short of that, I think having an ally in the commissioner’s office, who can do your bidding in that regard, is very powerful. So I’m gonna take Morgan Sword, the— the— the wonder kid, and the one— the— the heir to the throne, so to speak.
BOBBY: This is such a— this is such like an online, like, person who cares about MLB’s leadership structure choice.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: And obviously, he was on— he was on my list, too. You and I have had several conversations about Morgan Sword, including like three days ago when we were talking about this exact exercise, and we were both like—
MICHAEL: He’s on my list of coolest names in baseball.
BOBBY: Alex, did you read his Forty Under 40 profile in the Sports Business Journal?
ALEX: No, I didn’t.
BOBBY: They asked like a series of questions to everybody and— I’m just gonna read you some of those questions and some of his answers to that. By the way, Morgan Sword is 39 years old, so he’s gonna be around for a while.
ALEX: Was it— was this the most recent, like Forty Under 40?
BOBBY: Yeah, this was 2023.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: They asked you what is the cause that you support and he chose UMPS CARE, which is the charity of the MLB Umpires Union. Fascinating choice by him. They asked—
MICHAEL: Gotta court the— the cop union, if you’re gonna run for mayor of baseball.
BOBBY: They asked who the person in sports business that you’d most like to meet was, and he said Virginia Basketball Coach, Tony Bennett.
MICHAEL: Oh, God.
BOBBY: It feels like you could very easily meet that guy. It’s not like the Pope.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, Tony Bennett is just a guy. He’s just around. Most pressing issue facing Morgan Sword’s generation, according to Morgan— Morgan Sword is AI.
ALEX: Ooh.
BOBBY: And which— which side of the fence do you think Morgan Sword comes down on, on the whole artificial intelligence? Do you think he’s more of like a— it’s a whole new ballgame with AI guy or do you think he’s like, “AI is gonna ruin culture.”?
MICHAEL: Oh, he’s taking the blue pill.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah.
BOBBY: I think so. And then the sports industry needs to do a better job of… And he said, “Getting kids to play.” So I wonder if he had—
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: —anything to do with Let The Kids Play. Seems maybe like he did.
ALEX: Maybe, although I feel—
MICHAEL: That’s a little—
ALEX: —like he’s probably talking about like nine-year-olds, right? Like—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —how do we— how do we open up the pipeline? He’s probably the one who was like, “You know, Fanatics is what’s really going to help take perfect game to the next level. You know, that’s going to unlock the revenue streams, just open up opportunities for these kids. That’s what they need.”
BOBBY: We’re like— we’re like a couple of news cycles away, by the way, from Fanatics or MLB just like running a protection racket for young families, you know? Like, you have to pay us 200— you have to pay $200 to the MLB Commissioner’s Office just to play baseball anywhere here. Like, that’s really what we’re progressing towards.
ALEX: Mike, do you have thoughts on Morgan Sword outside of his name?
MICHAEL: So what I was thinking about is if you thought that— that this was an abstruse discussion to begin with, I’m going to draw comparisons to the 2008 Russian presidential race—
ALEX: Of course. No, that’s where my mind went as well.
MICHAEL: —back when— so like this— I was a student of— of international politics at the time, and I had a professor who was, like, one of the leading experts in Russian politics. And he— he actually taught Vladimir Putin at Leningrad State Law School in the ’70s. So you— you guys are now our two degrees of separation from— from Vladimir Putin through me and Dr. Gordon Smith.
BOBBY: You don’t know— well, you don’t—
MICHAEL: I’m not sure. I don’t know if you’ve—
BOBBY: I could be one degree removed.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: You don’t know that, but I can’t be reveal here.
MICHAEL: That’s true. But anyway, there was— there were two guys who were viewed as the potential heirs to Putin, Sergei Ivanov, and Dmitry Medvedev. And Ivanov was like the betting favorite, because this was back when people thought that Putin might adhere to something like term limits or whatever.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And, you know, Ivanov was like he’s the mini Putin and so he’ll just represent continuity. And Medvedev was sort of like out there, viewed as forward-thinking, maybe a little more pro-Western who can take Putin’s Russia into a more modern direction. And this is the— so my non-Rob Manfred guy on my shortlist was Dan Halem.
ALEX: Right.
MICHAEL: Not— not Morgan Sword. But I think, Alex, you’ve talked me into Morgan Sword being the Dmitry Medvedev of a Major League Base— oh, and, of course, as you remember, it was Medvedev and not Ivanov who succeeded Putin briefly as president of Russia.
ALEX: Yeah, I— I do remember that.
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: Very much so.
BOBBY: Alex was—
ALEX: I remember how it was on that day.
BOBBY: —crashing those Reuters articles when he was in middle school. I think that that is actually a really good comparison, because— not just because for a while Dan Halem was the betting favorite, but now it feels like people who are more, quote-unquote, in the know believe that Morgan Sword will be the next commissioner of baseball. Just because Dan— Dan Halem got a lot of headlines when it comes to labor negotiations—
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: —because he’s the person in charge of that and that was half—
MICHAEL: And he was in—
BOBBY: —that Rob Manfred took.
MICHAEL: Right. Right, exactly.
BOBBY: And obviously, the owners care— that’s what they care about above all else. But I think that when we talk about the next commissioner, baseball, like, all things is a reactive sport, you know? And so they react to the things that they did not like about Rob Manfred in his tenure. And one thing that I think that burned them from time to time is that Rob Manfred is kind of dumb. You know, he comes out and says stuff that he could easily avoid and starts new cycles—
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: —and causes all of this. And some people— you know, us at various times, we’ve argued that that’s an intentional strategy, that he is acting as a flak jacket for the owners, that he is absorbing the ire that, in theory, should be directed towards the owners, but they’re asking him to do it instead. Morgan Sword is— is a— is a smooth operator. From everybody who I’ve talked to, who has met him, he is more of a cool— he’s like— he’s like fun, he’s— he’s personable, he’s pretty young, he’s 39.
MICHAEL: He’s an actual, honest to God millennial person.
BOBBY: Exactly.
ALEX: He is.
BOBBY: And he seemingly really does love baseball, whereas we’ve had those questions about Rob Manfred, where he was like, “I would get it tattooed on my forehead.” Morgan Sword has been in charge. He— Morgan Sword is the pitch clock guy. He’s largely thought of as the architect of the pitch clock, and the person who pushed hard— hardest for it within MLB headquarters. So I think that as we progress towards a world in which the owners realize they need to, like, hide their cravenness a little bit more, because their— their actions are more on front street than they ever have been, bringing in someone who’s, like, a— a— a nicer face for their colder behaviors, I think will be a priority and I think that’s why a lot of people think that Morgan Sword is lining himself up for the job more than Dan Halem will. Even though I’m sure Dan Halem will wield a lot of power, and he was on my list as well, my long list.
MICHAEL: To that, I think that one thing that’s working in Morgan Sword’s favor is that the constituencies to which he has to play the nice guy, the players, the public, large swaths of the baseball media, are very primed to accept anyone who isn’t Rob Manfred as the good cop. And so he can just like, I don’t know, like, throw out the first pitch at Wrigley Field or— or, you know, like sing— sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame or some shit like that right after taking office. And he will be like, “Oh, my God, this guy actually cares about the best interest in the game.” Meanwhile, he’s like selling rookie league players into slavery. Like that’s— you could probably get away with that with any— like any kind of nicer face, I think that— that he’s going to walk into a very gullible public.
BOBBY: It reminds me of, like, whoever takes over ownership of a team after a really terrible owner’s tenure runs out.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: So like— it’s like the David Rubenstein thing. It’s the John Middleton thing. It’s the—
MICHAEL: Do you remember the time when— Bruce Sherman was— was viewed as a liberator.
BOBBY: I know. I know. This is like you’re—
MICHAEL: By basically everybody but me. So—
BOBBY: That was one of your biggest like, “I— I really was right about this. This guy is a schmuck.”
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay, Alex, you have another pick?
ALEX: Yes, it goes back to me. I think I’ll take my owner pic right here and go with Colorado Rockies owner, Dick Monfort.
BOBBY: Yeah.
MICHAEL: This was my guy.
ALEX: Who— who I think it— right, exactly. To your point, Mike, is kind of the other side of the owner power structure, right? He speaks for the small market teams. He heads up the Labor Policy Committee. He was also on that sort of economic reform committee and was, I think, one of the loudest voices in Rob Manfred’s ear while the CBA was being negotiated a couple of years ago. I think that a lot of the movement you see on the side of ownership to, I don’t know, strengthen the power of small market teams, or at least keep them from having to spend more— or to— you know, basically like supporting them, making sure there’s a welfare state that— welfare state that is supporting this class of smart market teams. And I think that Dick Monfort has been very influential in keeping that intact. Along with guys like— like John Fisher and Bob Nutting, but I think that, like, they wield significantly less influence when it comes to the actual labor policy, as opposed to Dick Monfort. So I’m— I’m happy to have him on my team because I’m a big fan, I already have his jersey, so I’m— I’m glad to lock it in.
BOBBY: The fighting Monforts—
MICHAEL: We’re crushing the names thing, by the way, because Dick Monfort also a great name.
ALEX: Yes, yeah. I got Sword and Dick.
BOBBY: I think that he— like the Game of Thrones spin-off. I think that he is like the type of owner that embodies what baseball ownership— what is different about baseball ownership than ownership in other sports. Like, there is no reason— his team sucks. They are an expansion franchise, so it’s not even like he has the legacy behind him. He is not the most successful business person by a country mile among the MLB owners. And he’s not particularly like bombastic or— or visible to the public. And yet, among this weird cabal of billionaires, he is the one who steps up for the 20 guys who don’t actually really want to put a good baseball team on the field. And I don’t— there’s not really like a comparison for Dick Monfort in another sports. Whenever you hear about owner—
MICHAEL: Well, not anymore. I mean, I can think of every owner in the NHL was like this 40 years ago.
BOBBY: Well, do you expect me to know about NHL ownership, Mike? Come on, come on.
MICHAEL: No, I know. I’m just saying, like—
BOBBY: [34:45] the wrong place.
MICHAEL: Dick Monfort is the 21st century Harold Ballard. [34:49]
BOBBY: Sure.
ALEX: Of course.
Bobbby: I know— I know exactly what you’re talking about. Yeah.
MICHAEL: Google it.
BOBBY: That— that landed for me.
MICHAEL: Yeah. So— so Dmitry Medvedev plays a Harold Ballard,[34:58] too.
BOBBY: You knew when you came. You knew— you signed up to come on this podcast on Saturday morning. Okay? All I know about the NHL right now is that the Rangers are cooking. Okay?
MICHAEL: They’re already [35:07]
BOBBY: And how does that make you feel? How does that make you feel?
MICHAEL: Yeah, I don’t feel anything.
BOBBY: Okay.
MICHAEL: At least it’s not that like— at least it’s not the Devils or the Penguins, that’s really—
BOBBY: This really has become a therapy session and you’re just out delivering I don’t feel anything lines. I mean, I think it’s a good pick. I think it’s— it’s telling—
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: —that we all kind of had Monfort on our list above a lot of the other owners. And I’m very curious to hear where you go for third place among the owners, Mike, but we’ll get to that—
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: —at some point.
MICHAEL: I’ve got— yeah, I can leave that now.
BOBBY: Exactly, you can.
MICHAEL: I have not decided where I’m gonna go. I have two— two options— oh, you asked me for a slogan for a baseball team?
BOBBY: I did, yes.
MICHAEL: Colorado Rockies. I don’t know if this joke is gonna play. This joke is hilarious if you were big into church youth group in the— in the 2000s. But the Colorado— Colorado Rockies, I kissed the World Series goodbye.
BOBBY: Sure. It didn’t land for me, but we’ll take it.
MICHAEL: If you’re out there, please tweet me @MichaelBaumann, if you thought that joke was funny.
BOBBY: I have a tough choice here, so it swings back to me. Okay. Let me ask you guys this, does Tony Clark count as an executive or is he a wild card? I feel like he counts as an executive, right? Like, he is an executive of sorts.
MICHAEL: I— I actually put— in my little notes, I put Morgan Sword down for executive, but I think that’s— should executive mean like—
BOBBY: No, I think Morgan Sword is an executive.
MICHAEL: —runs a team. Okay.
BOBBY: But Alex got him. So—
MICHAEL: Right. If— so if Sword is an executive, I feel like Tony Clark is an executive.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Yeah. I agree.
BOBBY: I’m— I’m gonna take Tony Clark in my executive slot here. This is the first representation of anybody who gives a shit about players, which do make up a large portion of the game. Now, whether or not Tony Clark wields his power in the way that we would like him to is not what we’re talking about here. It’s who has the most power and who could put it into practice in theory, if they really wanted to, and that’s— in— in keeping with how I selected Mark Walter, but he maybe doesn’t make all of these decisions that he could be about how to push the game into the directions that he wants to. But that things— that power seemingly is just— lands at his foot, because he’s the owner of the Dodgers. I mean, Tony Clark just survived an ouster attempt—
MICHAEL: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —which seemed like it had some juice for a little while there, and he squashed it effectively to the point where we’re literally not even talking about it anymore on the baseball labor podcast, that is Tipping Pitches. And he’s in charge of the union, which should they ever decide to get super militant, they could completely halt the game overnight in theory. I keep saying stuff like in theory, and I keep saying stuff like should they ever decide, because while Tony Clark is running it, it doesn’t really seem like that’s what they want to do. But circumstances could arise in which that is the right thing to do, and I think Tony Clark would be the consolidation of a lot of the more broader player power in terms of making the decisions on how to execute on those things. So I will take Tony Clark as my executive slot.
MICHAEL: And you teed up by player pick perfectly, because I’m going to pick Shohei Ohtani as the most powerful player in baseball.
BOBBY: Yeah.
MICHAEL: And I think there is an enormous gap between one and two. And like your point about power held and power exercised being two different things is so apt with Ohtani, who could like— he holds like a Taylor Swift, like, sway over public opinion and just because he’s so studiously non-controversial, his ability to— to put his thumb on the scale for— for any cause that he chooses, I think can’t be overstated.
BOBBY: Do you think he’ll ever do that?
MICHAEL: No.
BOBBY: Do you think there could be any cause in which most of the players support that Ohtani could push it over the finish line?
MICHAEL: I would be interested to see particularly now, how he might be deployed in a potential lockout situation in a few years. But again, I think he’s just so gun shy about— like, I also think, like, it’s possible just the personality is sort of like a more extreme version of Mike Trout, where like ball is life to the, you know, the exclusion of all other—
BOBBY: Ball and secret Japanese wife is life.
MICHAEL: Well, I was— look, you know, I was shocked that— that he got— got married not because, like, it was weird that he would get married, but that’s the first time the idea of Shohei Ohtani having sex, you know, popped into my head. Like it just—
ALEX: Speak for yourself.
MICHAEL: It’s true, I did work with Ben Lindbergh for a long time.
BOBBY: Yeah, you really did.
MICHAEL: But like he’s just so reluctant to show anything— you know, to— to have any opinion other than I think hitting home runs is good. You know, I think that’s probably a smart way to go about business, but I’m really fascinated by the amount that he could bend the scales if— that’s not the right metaphor. He— do something to the scales if— if he had even—
BOBBY: He could tip them. Tip the scales.
MICHAEL: Yeah, tip them.
BOBBY: Just like the pitches, you know?
MICHAEL: Yeah, if he had any inclination to do that.
ALEX: He— he reminds me of like— I— I think there’s like a— like a video, like a meme of like the baby and there’s like standing in— in front of a crowd, and every time the baby raises his arm, the crowd goes crazy.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
ALEX: And it’s like he doesn’t really know what he’s doing, but everyone is locked in, it’s, like, wrapped with a tension for whatever he’s gonna do next.
MICHAEL: And, like, in terms of would he stand up for whatever, like, I think the US and Japan would go to— could go to war again. And he will be like, “Well, I don’t know.”
BOBBY: He— man, he’s so fascinating. I— I don’t want to talk about him in comparison to a lot of other players who maybe use their power a little bit more actively yet, just because Alex and I have not taken players yet. But I— I generally agree with your sentiment that he is the most powerful player by sheer popularity and income. And the fact that the— the league itself, a lot of the people who we have talked about already have hitched their wagon to him.
MICHAEL: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You know, Mark Walter was like, “I hitched $700 million to him.” Morgan Sword, who has been in charge of— along with other people, making baseball more watchable and power— palatable, is like, “Look at this guy. We want you to watch this guy. We want you to see more of this guy.” You know? And without that guy, there’s a vacuum there, and that’s— that is power. If without— if he leaves, there becomes a vacuum. That’s power. And Ohtani is that right now, on the player side. You have another pick, though.
MICHAEL: Oh, I do. Oh, boy. Do I go— oh, I have no incentive to pick either, owner or executive. So for executive, I’m gonna go with Erik Neander.
BOBBY: Okay.
MICHAEL: Who runs baseball ops for the— what’s the name of the team? The Tampa Bay Rays.
ALEX: That one.
MICHAEL: I’m—
BOBBY: Not the Devil Rays.
MICHAEL: I think that there— well, we might be swinging back that way with the— the City Connects.
BOBBY: Yeah.
MICHAEL: In conversation with baseball being a copycat league, every team that wants to be successful is going to try to hire, like, the number two of the— you know, the— you know, this is how David Stearns got to run the Brewers. Like, you— you pick the— or— or Chaim Bloom, for instance, got to— to run the Red Sox. And— and this is where we run into— Neander’s Rays have been incredibly successful while spending no money. And that is like shooting the moon to owners. And so while he himself is sort of an Andrew Friedman disciple, and Friedman went— ran the Dodgers very successfully when endowed with not only his Rays voodoo, [43:12] but, you know, $250 million a year to spend on payroll. We’re seeing sort of second level Rays guys get poached by teams on the promise of, “Hey, we can win, but also we don’t have to spend the money to win.” And we saw that fail horrendously in Boston. And we’re seeing that fail horrendously in Miami. And I think that Neander being the— the blueprint for the kind of GM that everybody wants to hire is— I don’t know if he carries like— he can raise armies with the— you know, with a word, but it makes him a very influential person in baseball.
ALEX: Yeah. He’s like, what if Billy Beane shit worked?
MICHAEL: Yes.
ALEX: Like that’s powerful. Billy Beane has had a chokehold on baseball for the last two decades, and didn’t even have a sustained level of success. And Neander is saying, “What if we meld that with the advancements of the 21st century or whatever?” And actually just turned out a stable of— of bullpen arms that can throw like one-on-one or whatever.
MICHAEL: And— and it’s instructive that like the reason you go to him and not that the Theo Epstein guys— well, apart from the Theo Epstein guys occasionally sexually harassing reporters, is that— like the Theo Epstein model, the Jed Hoyer model needs money to work, and theoretically, the— the Rays model doesn’t. And— but the only time we’ve ever seen it successfully exported was when it had the most money.
BOBBY: It’s interesting, like— well, depends how successful you’re talking about, though, because it’s not like Erik Neander has won a World Series. You know, he’s made it and he’s done basically exactly what Stu Sternberg asked. I think that in terms of interpretation of power, I agree with your assessment that Neander— like what he does influences what other people does do, and so that— that is powerful. But among, like, people, like let’s say that Erik Neander and Dave Dombrowski were in a room together, like Dave Dombrowski is— is winning that. Winning that, whatever that means. He is a more powerful person, like, among baseball people, but in terms of what actually happens on the field, I think Neander is, I think, what you’re talking about.
MICHAEL: Yeah. I think Neander goes to Dombrowski and says, “The future is now, old man,” in that conversation.
BOBBY: Would he be right, though? Because the Phillies are better, you know? Like—
MICHAEL: Why does Dave Dombrowski keep getting fired after winning World Series? Like, he’s not the guy that people want.
BOBBY: Well, that’s— well, because all executives—
MICHAEL: It’s— it—
BOBBY: —are less powerful than owners, you know? Like, he loses the fight.
MICHAEL: Right. And so he just happened to— he’s just happened to float around to whichever owner wants to brute force a pennant winner at the moment.
BOBBY: I mean, I— but I feel like that is power, though. Convincing owners who, by nature, do not want to spend their money if they don’t have to. Convincing four different owners to spend a lot of money and build a winning baseball team in the 21st century. I mean, there’s something that he’s doing that is powerful. There’s like a track record.
MICHAEL: I don’t know that he really convinced— I don’t know that— I— like, I don’t know if I call that managing up in the same way.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
MICHAEL: Like, you know, the Red Sox, you know, empowered Ben Cherington to go spend, to win a World Series The Phillies empowered Ruben Amaro to go— come close to winning a World Series.
BOBBY: That was a good decision, right? You— you loved that. right?
MICHAEL: I— man, I see him around the press box all the time now and, like, I feel like— I feel like I owe him, like, a little bit of an apology for how I wrote about him when I was a blogger, but also he doesn’t make it easy. So—
BOBBY: You don’t owe him anything. That’s not what this is about, you know? Like when Alex sees Jomboy, he’s not gonna go apologize to him.
MICHAEL: And he should, by the way.
BOBBY: Sure.
ALEX: No. No. Never.
MICHAEL: What are you going to apologize to Jomboy for? Like—
ALEX: No, I have— I have nothing— I have nothing to say to that man, whatsoever.
MICHAEL: Yeah. Like—
ALEX: I’ll— I’ll film him from afar and then go back and do my own [47:03]
MICHAEL: You made fun of— you made fun of, you know, the j school thing, but one thing you learned there is it’s only liable if it’s not true. So—
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: What other lessons did you take from j school? And I was just talking about this last night. Do you feel like—
MICHAEL: What are the lesson—
BOBBY: —you use your j school education on a day-to-day basis?
MICHAEL: Somewhat. I think like— it— that’s an interesting question. I’m going to hem and haw about, and you’re going to have to—
BOBBY: More valuable, your time blogging about the Phillies or your time learning to write leads in j school?
MICHAEL: Probably for this specific job blogging about Phillies, but also, that’s—
BOBBY: Not the only job you’ve had.
MICHAEL: Right. Well, this is like one of the 1% of jobs in baseball where that’s true, and I wouldn’t have been able to blog about the Phillies as well as I had if not—
BOBBY: For journalism school.
MICHAEL: —for j school. I’d say like— arguably, I learned more from working the student newspaper and, like— and interning at— at a tech magazine when I was in college, and I did from, like, actual school. But I think that’s— this like— this isn’t an academic pursuit, it’s a trade, and so you— like, you learn through apprenticeship.
BOBBY: Right. Podcasting is a trade, too. You know, we’re—
MICHAEL: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —the blue collar workers of the future.
MICHAEL: We could go down this route if you want to.
BOBBY: Uh-huh. You seem unconvinced. You seem unconvinced, so I’m gonna go—
MICHAEL: No, yeah.
BOBBY: I’m gonna make my selection. Boy, this is tough. I’m torn. I feel like I’m going to save my player for last, because there are kind of a lot of players who are in the same zone in terms of their power. And I’m also going to try to screw you guys over on a technicality for that, but we’ll get there when we get there. I’m going to select Jason Robins, who is the Chief Executive Officer of DraftKings.
MICHAEL: That’s a good one.
BOBBY: And I’m going to select him in my wild card slot. DraftKings seems to be the— DraftKings as well as like MGM Casino, those two— seem to be the two favored sports betting partners of Major League Baseball. I would trust DraftKings to be the one to last throughout the long haul. There’s always a chance to fix—
ALEX: I do all of mine on— on Bet365.
BOBBY: Right, exactly. Right, exactly. And with— what’s his name? The guy who’s under federal indictment?
MICHAEL: Oh, I made the joke about him last time. Matthew Boyer.
BOBBY: That’s the guy.
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: Right. You can go way back. I think that DraftKings is the one that partners with like— that partners neatly with, like, MLB’s desire to continue to expand into the digital world and just, like, microtransaction their consumers to death. And if Jason Robbins is like, “This is what you need— this is the direction you need to push the game to be able to continue to get this sweet, sweet DraftKings money.” Goddammit. Everybody who we’ve talked about on this list is going to be like, “Yes, sir. I will do that, sir. Thank you for your advice, sir.” And he might not be the CEO of DraftKings for very long, but you know what I mean by choosing this. It could have been Amy Howe at FanDuel. It could have been any of these people in charge of these casinos. These people right now are the equivalent of even more consolidated cable executives from 25 years ago. And they are worse people than the cable executives, because at least the cable executives were like, “Yeah, we want to get really, really, really fucking rich, but it’s— it’s for, like, kind of a good thing to allow people— more people to watch baseball.” This is like—
MICHAEL: We want to— we want to do something. We want to get rich by doing something.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
MICHAEL: As opposed to getting rich from—
BOBBY: They wanna get rich—
MICHAEL: —from being the middleman.
BOBBY: Yes, by taking dividends on numbers in an app. And so, that— that— that is my selection. Jason Robins—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —from DraftKings.
ALEX: That’s a really— I think DraftKings— DraftKings was sort of really influential in, I feel like, the growth of daily fantasy sports.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
ALEX: Like, sort of laid the groundwork for, I think, the— the growth of sports betting that we’ve seen over the last couple of years.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: It feels like— it feels like it kind of primed the pump among a lot of fans to get comfortable with putting your money where your mouth is when it comes to baseball analysis or wherever. Not— not— not limited to baseball, but—
BOBBY: In the early days, like DraftKings, they were the ones that were, like, in legal battles against New York City, in New York State.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: You know, like they were the center point of the lobbying effort, frankly. Like, the— them and some other companies were, like, really on that front wave. Now, there’s a lot of places that you can do stuff like this, but I think DraftKings and FanDuel are like the alpha and the omega of like, “I opened my phone and placed bet.” I lament the amount of power that they wield, but it would be dishonest to go through this exercise without acknowledging it. It’s everywhere. I mean, it’s literally everywhere.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: And the other thing about DraftKings is that like they wield power in media, too. They have their own, like, media wing. They partner with a lot of, like, the league— the— journalists who have been pushed out of their corner of the world.
MICHAEL: This is a huge thing in the BBWAA right now.
BOBBY: Yeah.
MICHAEL: Is to what extent should gambling writers be allowed to be credentialed media? And—
BOBBY: I— I feel like— I’m— this is— is this like a hot take or is this like an anti-journalist to take to say that they shouldn’t?
MICHAEL: So— yeah. So, like, the— at the— the last meeting, like there were— some of the conversation was about, like, how to write rules, keeping them out of the BBWAA, that don’t, like, splash back on people who write about fantasy.
ALEX: Right.
MICHAEL: And so, like, which— I don’t know. Like, I— I guess, like, intuitively, I think of fantasy baseball is legitimate in a way that I don’t think of— of gambling. And I— I think that’s probably the majority opinion, but you know, if you drill down on it, like it’s hard to write a definition that includes one but not the other. But, anyway, like, this is— this is the next frontier, like— not next frontier, but like this is a rearguard action that— that actual baseball media is fighting right now. It is against people who just want to be in the club, ask for gambling information.
ALEX: It’s not good.
MICHAEL: No. No. So yeah.
BOBBY: Okay. That was my third selection. We now go to you, Alex, for your final two.
ALEX: Yeah. Oh, gosh. I wrote down one player, and he’s already been taken. So I’m gonna punt that to my last pick.
MICHAEL: That’s why I threw myself in front of Ohtani.
ALEX: That was— that was smart. That was—
BOBBY: Before you—
MICHAEL: I couldn’t believe my luck.
BOBBY: Before you do your final two picks because you still have to do your player and I think—
MICHAEL: Yes.
BOBBY: [53:38] is— is satisfied with the fact that he got Ohtani.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: Does this have to be an active player in your guys’ minds? Were you considering this like this has to be active players who are on rosters right now?
MICHAEL: You want to slide Tony Clark over?
BOBBY: No, no. I don’t. I don’t want to slide Tony Clark over.
MICHAEL: I— I would say it has to be like an active player or like someone who could credibly be called an active player.
ALEX: Right. So you have to cross Alex Rodriguez off of it?
MICHAEL: So not—
ALEX: Because I know that’s where your mind was going.
BOBBY: I mean, A-Rod—
MICHAEL: So not— John Smoltz or something like that.
BOBBY: Well, A-Rod was on my long list. Smoltz was not on my long list. Let’s— let’s not be fucking ridiculous here, Baumann. But Pedro and David Ortiz, I think, were two guys where it’s like they’re players. They’re also kind of like media members now.
MICHAEL: Yeah, tough shit. Those guys are media guys now.
BOBBY: Okay, fine. I’m happy with my Jason Robins wild card slot. I don’t need to replace him with David Ortiz.
ALEX: I’ll do my wild card spot first. This one is maybe a little bit more of, say, the equivalent of picking a prospect, but I’m gonna go with Diamond Baseball Holdings, who probably wield very little power at this exact moment. Although with each passing day, I feel like the scope of their— I mean, their scope of their involvement in the game and then their— their power over sort of the shape of the Minor Leagues grows. And I feel like it’s one of those things where like, you know, we get a— we get a story about them every sort of couple of months and I’m like, “Okay. They have their set list of— a dozen teams that they own. And then by the next time, a story comes out about them, that list has grown by another dozen. And then I logged into LinkedIn last— this past week and saw they acquired a couple more teams. And they feel like the sort of— I mean, they are the kind of ownership that can only exist in today’s modern game the way— in the wake of sort of the restructuring of the Minor Leagues and the allowance of being able to own more than like, I think, seven teams, I think was the cap last, right? They’re at 38, 33, and they can own, I think, up to like 58 or something like that. So they haven’t wielded any of their power yet, so to speak, but I feel like in the next sort of decade or two of how the Minor League sort of continues to— whether it’s consolidate or just calcify into whether it exists as right now. I feel like they will be influential in that, and also just like proof of concept of professional baseball as an investment vehicle. Like, they just snapped up a portfolio of baseball teams with relatively low risk in an insulated economic environment that broadly speaking is probably going to go up in value. I think they are in an indication to the market that like, yes, this is alive and well. This is a good investment. You can sell your team and make— make money from it. You can buy a team and make money from it. So again, that’s why I say like it’s not like they’ve done anything yet, besides like move a couple teams or upgrade some facilities. But I think the coming years will be very telling in sort of how they wield the power that they do for better or for worse [56:51]
BOBBY: Just for the sake of the list, would you like to choose one of the two guys who represent them in baseball holdings? It’s— that’s Pat Battle who’s the executive chairman, and Peter Froyen who, I think, is thought to be the guy who— he was the one who used to be an—
MICHAEL: That’s got to be Battle, right? Dick, Battle, and Sword.
ALEX: Yes. Sure. I will— I’ll pick— what— what is it, Pat Battle?
BOBBY: Pat Battle. He’s the money guy. Peter Froyen is the guy who’s— he’s the CEO—
ALEX: Oh, I always go with the money guy.
BOBBY: He’s the CEO. He used to be the— he used to be an owner of a Minor League team. And that’s why the league sort of like handpicked him as to pair with Pat Battle to— to push Diamond Baseball Holdings into the future and to enact MLB’s vision of one baseball across 38 teams for however many they own. Okay, great. That was a great note by you, Baumann. This is excellent work all around. I feel like we’re really humming at this moment.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: What do you think about Diamond Baseball Holdings, Mike? I haven’t— we haven’t talked about this.
MICHAEL: No, no. I feel like I don’t actually have a— a very good intuitive handle on— like how the— the way that the Minor Leagues are going, is going to affect baseball as a whole. I think my— this is— for instance, like, when there was Minor League contraction, I was very— I was alone in sort of lefty baseball circles and— and thinking like, “Obviously, having less baseball is probably bad.” But in terms of player development, like, I don’t know that it’s going to make a huge negative difference in terms of like keeping reserve list— or shrinking the reserve list and— and contracting a few teams. And it does seem like— I don’t know. There was the— the article about Jackson Holliday and, like, the lack of the reserve army of— of quad A pitchers and, you know, how left hand maybe unprepared for the Major League. So I don’t know. I— there’s an optimistic version of like a consolidated Minor Leagues that says like— you know, it’s run for its own sake, maybe it expands more, maybe it, like, you know, stands on its own two feet and— and attracts fans because like— you know, I was a person who— I was a baseball obsessed kid who— you know, going to Major League games was not financially viable all the time for— for my family, but we went to a ton of Minor League games, because, you know, it’s like a better place to introduce your kids to the— to the sport. And, you know, having less of that makes me upset. But any new investment vehicle just feels like a scam to me, you know, at this point in the— the history of the sport. So, you know, I don’t want to criticize people for doing things they haven’t already done, but I’m just sort of generally pessimistic about any change in ownership.
ALEX: Yeah. Well, the fact that we’ve learned so little about them, I feel like feeds that anxiety even more.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
ALEX: Like, I’d rather they just be up front. If they were just like, “This is just an investment vehicle.” I’d be like, “Okay.” At least I can mentally prepare for that.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’m just waiting for the other shit to drop where they’re going to be like, “And now, we’re going to develop a new artificial intelligence to develop Minor League baseball players. And instead of actually playing each other on the field, we’re going to create avatars of each player and then those avatars are going to play each other. And then we’re going to get more data about how they should perform when they actually do get to the Majors.” Like that— that— that’s coming. You know, anytime one investment firm owns this level of control over, like, a group of [1:00:17] I guess like it’s going to become a testing ground for all of their emerging technologies is what we would call them.
ALEX: That—
MICHAEL: I— I wouldn’t mind that. Like, yeah, I’m— I would support like—
BOBBY: You wouldn’t the AI-ification of Minor League Baseball? You’re on record about that now, is what you’re saying.
MICHAEL: Well, no. Sorry. In a— in a limited quarantine. You gotta quarantine the AI. I just did this mission of Mass Effect, like you gotta keep the— the AI off of the mainframe system. So, like, if you had like a lab leak, like that would be— that’s something that I’ve stopped my feet for. But, yeah, I mean, it goes back to like—
BOBBY: So what you’re saying is— is you want all the water fountains at Minor League Baseball stadiums to be replaced by soda streams?
ALEX: That’s— uh-hmm.
MICHAEL: I tell you what, that take that has— that has aged really well in not a lot of time.
BOBBY: Every time I see a soda stream, I think you every time.
ALEX: Yup. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It’s like— it’s— it’s like— that’s— it’s— that’s— your face is on there. I’m gonna start getting stickers with your face on them—
MICHAEL: On the face, great.
BOBBY: —and putting them on soda streams around America. All right, Alex, you have to make your final pick now.
ALEX: I know. I was letting you guys go.
BOBBY: You have to pick a player.
ALEX: I don’t feel confident about it. I have to pick a player.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: I— I think that Mike’s point is— is right, that the gap between Ohtani and sort of the rest of the power brokers among players, it’s grown significantly. I mean, I suppose I could pick Max Scherzer, who is—
MICHAEL: Oh, yeah. He’s still an active player, isn’t he?
ALEX: Who is still technically an active player, and has— at least, historically been influential on the players’ side of negotiations. I think he’s the only active player who I’ve seen galivanting around Capitol Hill. He is— I think among players seen as a level-headed, clear-eyed veteran who sort of understands the dynamics in the game and is not necessarily afraid to advocate for player rights. Now, I mean, how far that goes, I don’t really know necessarily, because I think the power ultimately lies with the— the— the labor lawyers and the— the— the Tony Clarks and the Bruce Meyers, et cetera. But I— I still think Scherzer— I mean, he played an outsized role and— and sort of being a conduit between the executive sort of committees. And I think the rest of the players on how the negotiations [1:02:50] go, so that’s— I’m gonna stop vamping, because I don’t have a ton of— more to say about Max Scherzer, but I think he has historically wielded power, even if he may be shortly on his way out.
BOBBY: So he is going to be your selection then?
ALEX: He is my— I said I could pick him, but I’m not going to.
BOBBY: [1:03:07] you will. I feel like—
MICHAEL: You’re gonna pick— not pick him after talking about him for—
BOBBY: Well, I feel like he’s a pretty obvious second selection—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —if we’re limiting it to active players, and he is who I was going to pick if you did not pick him.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: He’s like the— he’s like the union guy, you know? Like, he— the— he—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: It was the most the loudest and most, I think, clear-eyed voice in the room, the last negotiations through. He was the one who was like, “We can get these thresholds up for the, you know, for the— for the taxes. We can— we should vote no on this.” Like, he was the one who was leading all of these charges. I think the— the point about him being on his way out is well taken. Also, he’s the highest paid player in the league, basically. So he is a trailblazer, and he’s still active. And personality-wise, we’ve been talking a lot about the idea of, like, how much power do you have versus how much do you actually wield of that power? I think he probably has the highest ratio of that. He’s actually, like building that power. He actually puts it into effect. I gotta say, I’m pretty— pretty shocked that the name Scott Boras has not been mentioned yet—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —on this so far.
MICHAEL: It’s— I mean, he’s not as powerful as Trump, like— it feels like this is on you guys. Like, you created this taxonomy and then you— you know, you pick the fucking DraftKings guy. So—
BOBBY: I mean, I picked Tony Clark in the slot. I guess Boras is not—
MICHAEL: He’s not an executive. Like, Bor—
BOBBY: He’s an executive of Boras Corp. Where would you put him else in this— I guess he’s—
MICHAEL: I’ll put them in wild card. He doesn’t work for the league or the union. He works for his own separate business interest.
BOBBY: That is true. Do you think that Boras is more powerful than the DraftKings guy? Did it [1:04:54] with that?
MICHAEL: Well, no, I don’t.
BOBBY: Okay.
MICHAEL: So, like, this is like the actual answer to that question. I think this is the first time— so, like, I’ve been a baseball fan longer than you guys have been alive. And this is the first time in all of that time that I’ve felt like Scott Boras has been weak.
BOBBY: Hmm.
MICHAEL: I think he really took it in the chin this offseason. And I think that there is a—
BOBBY: You’re saying like physically weak? Like you could take him in a fistfight is what you’re trying to say?
MICHAEL: Boras is like— he’s got a good base and a low center of gravity, so I’m not going to—
BOBBY: What was your strategy?
MICHAEL: Probably not. I—
BOBBY: You’d take it to the ground then? Because—
MICHAEL: Yeah. Yeah, I have to. I mean, it’s not—
BOBBY: Grapple with him?
MICHAEL: —too dissimilar to my strategy for beating up Zach Kram, which is like I’d have to catch him first, but—
BOBBY: You’d never catch him. The guy can run for five hours straight.
MICHAEL: I know. Yeah.
BOBBY: You better get in your car.
MICHAEL: Hope that it’s a —it’s like in a boxing ring, like maybe we can talk. But like once I get him, he’s not getting away. Whereas Boras, I think, has the— like the low center of gravity and the tenacity to—
BOBBY: Right.
MICHAEL: —to really win a ground and pound—
BOBBY: And he could distract you with his—
MICHAEL: —out of [1:05:58]
BOBBY: —with his words, you know?
MICHAEL: Man, I would— first of all, like, this is the closest thing that— that we have in sports— I’ve said this before. It’s the closest thing we have in sports now to Muhammad Ali is Boras’ Annual Winter Meetings Pun Fest. Like, who else talks like that in the history of mainstream American sports?
BOBBY: Nobody talks like that.
ALEX: No one.
MICHAEL: Exactly. So in this very limited respect, Scott Boras is like Muhammad Ali. But I also think that there’s a sense from, like, the other big agencies that this guy has been steering the ship for too long. And we saw that reflect itself in the, you know, the Minor League Palace— or not the Minor League. Like the Union Palace Coup, and there’s a target on his back and for the— there’s been a target on his back, but for the first time, he hasn’t delivered the goods to back it up. So that’s— I mean, it’s one of 100 reasons why I think Juan Soto’s free agency is going to be so fascinating. But I don’t think that Scott Boras is even necessarily the most powerful agent in baseball at this moment in time.
BOBBY: Well, thank you for that beautiful segue, because for player, I am going to select Juan Soto because he, I think—
MICHAEL: That’s a good one.
BOBBY: —he’s actually going to sign the biggest contract ever if you price adjust Ohtani’s contract. I think Juan Soto is going to beat that in this offseason. And there is— there has been a litany of players who have had that moniker. I think Soto is one of the people who is young enough and good enough to live up to it for long enough that it continues to perpetuate this shape of contract. I think that there is a— a handful of guys who maybe I could have selected here, who are, you know, young and so talented, and on big contracts that, you know, they are powerful by nature of the fact that they got owners to give them $250 million, you know? Like— like Julio Rodriguez is on that list. I think Bobby Witt Jr. is on that list. I mean, maybe David Rubenstein will put a number of the Orioles players on that list. We’ll see. But Soto, you know, in keeping with the conversation that we just had about Scott Boras, he is basically like the avatar for Scott Boras’ power heading into this offseason, and I think Scherzer is that as well. So I think we’re all kind of talking about the same zone of power here in the Soto-Scherzer-Boras conversation. But it’s— it’s tough because like— there’s a— there’s a reason that Soto is so far behind someone like Ohtani, and even behind someone like Scherzer. And I think part of that reason is that, at the end of the day, he is kind of just a corner outfielder who’s not that involved in the union. But at the same time, like he could hold up the financial structure of a free agent contract and he could kind of redefine that. And guys like Miguel Cabrera, guys like Alex Rodriguez have done that in the past. And we’re still seeing the ripple effects of those kinds of contracts. So I do think that he does carry a lot of power among the players, on top of the fact that he is Dominican, and we do not have any player really representing the cohort of Dominican players and more broadly, Latino players in baseball, who have united interests on some things and very often try to push issues forward about player development internationally. And that’s why like— when I was talking about a guy like David Ortiz, I think one thing that’s underrated about Ortiz is that like he just has a huge presence in international baseball more broadly and how development gets carried out, and like what the international free agent draft might look like. Like, these conversations happen in circles that maybe we’re not always privy to in, like, public coverage of baseball. So I think that probably Juan Soto is— is third amongst the three players who have been drafted so far, but still extremely powerful if you were willing to, like, sit on it and not sign for a while, you know? He could change some things.
MICHAEL: I think if he doesn’t, the union’s in a tight spot in terms of the top of that market, because I thought Ohtani could— I thought, like, the sticker price, 10-year $700 million, like gave the rest of the league a lot of room to elevate those top tier salaries and finding out that it’s actually 10— practically like 10/4—
BOBBY: 50—
MICHAEL: Was it 58 or—
BOBBY: Yeah.
MICHAEL: Yeah. That doesn’t raise the bar as much as it should have, and Soto’s got to beat that or else it’s going to depress— it’s going to kind of do what the Trout— the second Trout extension did, which is depressed salaries at the top of the market for maybe five years. And I don’t know who the next guy coming behind him is, because now Bobby Witt Jr., and Julio Rodriguez, and Fernando Tatis or— they’re all locked into these long pre-ARB contracts. So I think there is a lot of pressure on Soto. My book— my second player pick probably would have been Francisco Lindor, because he’s—
BOBBY: Yeah, I thought about that, but like, is he actually that powerful? Like, he’s on the second most—
MICHAEL: He’s on the— he’s on the—
BOBBY: —important team in the— in the— in his own city. He’s on the executive subcommittee, but like, to what extent does—
MICHAEL: Yeah, he’s— he’s Scherzer now. He’s the— the most famous—
BOBBY: Yeah, I don’t know.
MICHAEL: —venerable player on the committee. And I also think two of the guys who are like not the superstars on that committee, Jack Flaherty and— and Lance McCullers are two guys who are good at the, I think, really underrated part of union strategy and execution, which is riling up the rank and file, and communicating to the— the player base. I mean, we saw— there’s a— a reading of the— of the— the MLBPA Palace Coup, that is like Jack Flaherty inspired this by accident.
BOBBY: Yeah.
MICHAEL: Just by being on the wrong Zoom call at the wrong time without realizing what he was doing. And so, you know, it’s—
BOBBY: And by— by hearing what they were saying and thinking, “Oh, those are some good ideas.”
MICHAEL: Yeah. And so, like, that says a lot in terms of the sway that he holds for not a very good picture at this point in time.
BOBBY: Yeah. Well, I— I thought— I really thought about all of those executive subcommittee guys and I just— I feel like I couldn’t get there with Lindor. I don’t— across the league, I don’t know that a lot of people really, like, listen to what he says, even though he’s in the point of— in a— in a position of leadership in the union, I think ultimately, like, pushing the top end of the market is so valuable to other players in the union that they consider those guys to be the most important guys. And Scherzer was both of those things.
MICHAEL: Yeah, true.
BOBBY: So he was like the mo— the highest paid player and the guy who was leading the charge in the union. So, like, I don’t know, it’s— it’s— I think I— I would listen to a compelling argument that Lindor could have been a— a player selected here. But maybe Soto—
ALEX: I think— I think he’s among a class of players who— it’s hard to [1:12:53] about two, right? I mean, we don’t know how these conversations are going in the back— Lindor may well be passing around—
MICHAEL: Yeah, he’s—
ALEX: —Communist Manifesto copies. Like, I mean—
BOBBY: That would be fucking awesome.
ALEX: Which would be amazing. And I— so much of this happens behind closed doors and in casual conversations, but I think that element is sometimes hard to— to quantify what power looks like in that regard.
BOBBY: Honestly, long list of players, Brandon Nimmo. You know, this guy is out here like moaning and groaning about the jerseys every week and, like, getting the PA to complain about them. And he is a player representative for the Mets, you know? Like, Mets with a lot of, like, weirdly top heavy representation in the MLB Players Association, and they’re very fascinating.
MICHAEL: Mets are coming to— coming to town next week. I’m gonna take this into the— into the clubhouse.
ALEX: For the listener, that was the Marx-Engels reader.
BOBBY: What do you think— do you think like Brandon Nimmo— if you put that in his locker, he would like ask them to de— like sanitize it? Like take it away and wipe it down with some Lysol?
MICHAEL: I think he would politely decline to touch it in the first place.
BOBBY: That’s what I’m— no, that’s what I’m saying. Like—
MICHAEL: Yeah. Like, I wouldn’t, like, just—
BOBBY: Like if you touch it—
MICHAEL: —drop it in his locker. But—
BOBBY: If you touch it, you’d be like, “I—”
MICHAEL: You know, it’s like, “Hey, Brandon, you should— you should read this. This red book I’ve got.”
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Well, you just put like a— like a Jordan Peterson like, you know, cover— cover like around it.
MICHAEL: Oh, yeah.
BOBBY: Like [1:14:14] on top of it?
ALEX: You know? Exactly.
BOBBY: That—
MICHAEL: Like that—
BOBBY: —is a really funny idea. Okay. I believe that leaves it at your feet, Mike, for the final—
MICHAEL: Okay.
BOBBY: —selection of The Power Brokers Draft.
MICHAEL: I’m gonna go slightly more fun and optimistic than, like, the most cynical interpretation possible. I’m gonna pick David Rubenstein for my—
BOBBY: Okay.
MICHAEL: —third owner. Jerry Reinsdorf is the other guy, but Jerry Reinsdorf just fucking depresses me. So I’d rather talk about the potential for Rubinstein to be a positive actor. He is maybe the last one of these we’re ever going to get, like the idealized sports owner. Like, the local kid who made his, you know, billions doing something. Not— not to single out Steve Cohen, but like not, you know, horrifically suspect. You know, it came back in the—
BOBBY: It’s not, not horrificly suspect, to be clear.
MICHAEL: Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s not like, you know, designing car bombs for bassinets [1:15:13] or something, which is like, you know how you— what you have to do to— no, because actually, it’s— it’s worse because if you make billions of dollars designing car bombs for bassinets [1:15:22] you’ve actually constructed something and, you know—
BOBBY: But, like— Rubenstein is like a private equity guy, too. So like he—
MICHAEL: Yeah, that’s—
BOBBY: —he— he was the one who was, like, moving the money through the accounts of the people who were designing car bombs for bassinets [1:15:36] so like—
MICHAEL: But he’s also never been, to my knowledge, under federal investigation, so—
BOBBY: Not yet.
MICHAEL: That’s true.
BOBBY: Not yet.
MICHAEL: So, you know, he’s the local guy made good. I— I listened to his interview on opening day on the Orioles broadcast, and I was— I was very heartened by the thickness of his Baltimore accent.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
MICHAEL: So he’s got the local bonafides. And, like, the idea of the owner is somebody as like a civic trustee, I think he fits that— that archetype very well and he’s very— that team is very well positioned to benefit from that kind of owner. I’m not saying he has to, you know, go blow the luxury tax away every year, but even, you know, taking the Orioles back into the top half of payroll with the amount of talent they have on the roster could— like they could win 105, 110 games every year for the next five years if— if he wants to. And so what we’re either going to see is a model of good ownership that raises the bar for small— small market teams in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, you know, other places where they’re theoretically building up to— to competitiveness, or it’s going to kill for good and all, the neoliberal myth of the— the good owner. Either that, or lung cancer is going to kill John Middleton. So it’s one of those three things is going to happen pretty soon, and then it’s gonna be end of things.
BOBBY: Now, you know that like executives never die from lung cancer. They live forever, because all of—
MICHAEL: Yeah, that’s true.
BOBBY: —all of the money. I— I have a very important question for you, Mike, and I feel like you are truly really primed to be the right person to answer this question. Alex and I have discussed at great length the historical documents that David Rubenstein has purchased. Is there a historical document out there— you’re— you’re aware of this, right? That he owns a copy of the Magna Carta?
MICHAEL: Who was— I was yelling at somebody about how overrated the Magna Carta was.
BOBBY: Well, exactly, so I know that you’ll have opinions about this.
MICHAEL: Yeah. Yeah.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: What document do you think David Rubenstein should pursue to purchase? Because this is on our— this is on our Bingo Card.
MICHAEL: And it can be had for the low, low price of— there’s not even a price listed. You can probably get this on Amazon for, like, 15 bucks.
BOBBY: Okay, but it has to be original copy.
ALEX: That’s praxis.
BOBBY: I—
MICHAEL: That’s praxis.
BOBBY: Yeah.
MICHAEL: How many copies of The Marx-Engels Reader could you— could you buy and put in Baltimore public schools for— for a billion dollars?
BOBBY: Enough, enough to make an impact.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: So what’s the number one document that you’d like him to go after?
MICHAEL: The Japanese Instrument of surrender for World War Two.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I mean, it does kind of fit with his preferences. He likes sort of, like, broadly, America’s good documents, you know?
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, he has the 13th Amendment as well and I think an Emancipation Proclamation, right?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Yeah.
MICHAEL: All I know is like the— the Magna Carta is like the— the really impressive one because it’s like— I think it’s the only copy in North America and the only copy that’s privately-owned.
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s true. Yeah.
MICHAEL: But that’s the— the limits of my knowledge of his— his collection. But it also says that he’s pretty easily—
BOBBY: Basic. Yeah.
MICHAEL: —impressed as if like— Magna Carta is held up, like, “Oh, this is the invention of— of democracy,” and it’s not democracy. And it wasn’t the first imp— you know, implementation of democracy and it lasted, like, about as long as Gunnar Henderson’s Major League career. So it feels like if you’re holding it up, it’s this, like, Titanic document of human history, you’re— you’re very gullible.
BOBBY: Well, it was just like the first document that said anything about kings not being able to do whatever they wanted to.
MICHAEL: I mean, apart from de facto democratic societies all across the world for thousands of years before that.
BOBBY: Sure, but we don’t acknowledge those because those aren’t the same Western people that we recognize.
MICHAEL: Right. Well— and— and I would say there was nothing less democratic than saying it only counted the English did it. Like that’s the—
BOBBY: Well, exactly.
MICHAEL: I think like that shows you— you know, you look at— you know, the Roman Republic was obviously not a democracy in any way that— that we’ve recognized, but it— it wasn’t the divine right of kings. I don’t— just imagine like being a society that culturally is 1,500 years behind the Italians. Like, I would feel— I would feel so much shame about that. Like, you couldn’t—
BOBBY: Slow down.
MICHAEL: The CIA could not waterboard the existence of the Magna Carta out of me, if— if my civilization had done that.
BOBBY: Okay, David Rubenstein by the Japanese—
ALEX: Well said.
BOBBY: —Instrument of Surrender challenge. That’s it. That’s all— that’s everybody’s selection. Let’s do a quick recap here. I— Mike, you went first. You selected—
MICHAEL: Yes.
BOBBY: —Donald J. Trump as your wild card.
MICHAEL: Yes.
BOBBY: Shohei Ohtani as your player. Erik Neander as your executive. And David Rubenstein as your owner. I went second. I selected—
MICHAEL: Bipartisan coalition, by the way.
BOBBY: Right, you just did.
MICHAEL: Trump— Trump and Rubenstein.
ALEX: Yes, exactly.
BOBBY: Right. You just passed the House budget bill. Congratulations. I went second. I selected Mark Walter as my owner. Tony Clark, leader of the Major League Baseball Players Association. Did I select him so that he will come on this podcast? Maybe. Maybe I did. As my executive, Jason Robins as my wild card. He’s the CEO of DraftKings, and Juan Soto as my player. Alex, you selected Sword, Dick, Battle, and Max. Congratulations. You did it. You really did it. Morgan Sword as your executive. Dick Monfort as your owner. Pat Battle as your wild card, and Max Scherzer as your player. How do you guys feel? Do you feel like we did it? We did this exercise? Long list, short list, honorable mentions of names that didn’t come up, or— or that maybe that you would have expected to be drafted?
MICHAEL: You know, I feel like we at least talked about most of the people. I— my— my one working member of the media that I had on my— my long list was Jeff Passan, because I think—
BOBBY: Hmm.
ALEX: Hmm.
MICHAEL: —he’s got the capacity to meaningfully shape public opinion, in a way—
ALEX: Yeah.
MICHAEL: —that very few, like, individuals do just by the force of their own argumentation, so—
BOBBY: If he stopped reading his mentions long enough, yeah.
MICHAEL: If he— if he stopped replying to Ben Verlander, definitely.
BOBBY: You considered choosing Ben Verlander first overall, Alex, right? But then you remember that he was banned on this podcast and that’s why he was DQ’d.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Right. So it was— right. It was mostly a technicality.
BOBBY: Right, exactly.
ALEX: Like, for the record. I was— you know, I’m maybe not surprised, but I— I had a good amount of like, MLBPA adjacent folks on my list. And I feel like— I mean, I think we had a good amount of representation in there. But you know, if we had done this draft six months ago, I think we would have been talking a lot about a guy like Harry Marino.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: And we were joking about that in our text thread before. You know, Bruce Meyer did not make anyone’s list as well because—
BOBBY: Hired gun. Hired gun.
ALEX: —fate is— is— is tied very closely to Tony Clark as well. And then there’s some other labor lawyers there who were instrumental in negotiating the CBAs, whose like names are never discussed, because why—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —we talked about general councils on this podcast.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: Dude, I gotta say, Rob Manfred was the first person that I wrote down, and he didn’t get picked.
MICHAEL: It’s not interesting.
ALEX: Right. Yeah.
BOBBY: I mean, it’s not interesting, but it’s— it’s also not accurate to say that he’s not
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —one of the— the 12 most powerful people in the baseball world. I mean, Morgan Sword.
MICHAEL: He’s more powerful than Tony Clark. No, he’s probably more powerful than Erik Neander, too, but—
BOBBY: Morgan Sword only does it if Rob Manfred says yes.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: You know what I mean?
ALEX: But—
MICHAEL: You know, I think maybe we all got to cute. I’ll— I’ll—
ALEX: But there is a— there is a bit of a— I— I don’t know. There was a sort of lame duck way of thinking that I was—
BOBBY: True.
ALEX: You know, when I was thinking about this sort of thing, right? It’s like, yes, he’s been very influential. I’m also kind of like, what else you have to do? At this point, you’re kind of tying up your loose ends and getting ready to transition out. When people are asking him about the A’s stadium stuff, and he’s kind of like, “Yeah, it’s not really our business.” Like, what— what do you mean not your business?
MICHAEL: That didn’t stop him from [1:23:39] taking insurance, you know? So—
ALEX: Yeah. That’s— that’s true. Yes.
MICHAEL: It’s selective.
BOBBY: Yeah, you were sort of between a rock and a hard place on pit players though—
MICHAEL: One—
BOBBY: —because players are not powerful at all.
MICHAEL: Yeah. One player— there isn’t a player like this yet, but if there were, I would probably pick him. A name that kept coming to mind was Max Clark—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
MICHAEL: —who nobody’s going to care about because he’s going to be a best— the seventh best player from his own draft class, but I— he is like—
BOBBY: Which makes him deeply, deeply interesting to you.
MICHAEL: So he’s interesting for a couple of reasons, but he’s, like, one of the first players to harness, like, his generation’s social media and like self-marketing. Like, the first—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
MICHAEL: —good big leaguer— and it could be him. He could be a good big leaguer, but the first star who knows how to think like a TikTok influencer, I think it’s gonna be huge. And there was talk about Druw Jones who might just not be any good. But when I—
ALEX: Yeah.
MICHAEL: —I interviewed Clark at the draft combine last year and, like, I have never been— no, that’s not true. I’m— not true. I’ve never been— but I was very aware that I was being worked when I was talking to him. And, like, this is like a 17, 18-year-old kid and like, you know what you’re doing more than most 35-year-olds that— that I’ve run into in the business. And he, I think, understands how to get, you know, attention from his generation in a way— you know, we think about like guys like Brandon McCarthy who were good on Twitter—
BOBBY: Yes.
MICHAEL: —in the previous generation. The first, like, superstar who’s good on TikTok or whatever comes after the government bans TikTok.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
MICHAEL: I think it’s going to be the second most famous player in baseball apart from Ohtani.
BOBBY: Yeah.
MICHAEL: Maybe it’s Paul Skenes just by virtue of getting [1:25:32] by living.
BOBBY: [1:25:33] Livvy Dunne.
ALEX: I was about to say I thought about putting on our— putting on my list, but that would have been too cute.
BOBBY: That would have been— that would have been way too cute. If you put Livvy Dunne on the list that would have been— like I— I would— I would have booed that.
MICHAEL: But if— I don’t know, like, if Wyatt Langford had Clark’s, like, innate media savvy, I think somebody like that could be very influential within the game.
BOBBY: One guy whose name came up who did not get selected, because he’s kind of like between influential positions right now was Theo Epstein.
MICHAEL: Yeah, I thought about choosing him— I think if we did this exercise two years ago, I probably would have chosen him in my executive slot, because they seem like they gave him carte blanche to be like, “Dude, fix this game,” fix baseball. And he could have taken it in a lot of different ways. And he was kind of like the— the media guy that they were trotting out to— to shape public opinion, which I think was a very powerful position for him to be in and he was, I think, really up to the task. Like, he did change a lot of hearts and minds. And he— he created the cult of personality around like the Wizkid GM, which—
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: —I think gives him a lot of cachet among the powerful people, too. Even if like maybe he doesn’t control how 100 million baseball fans think, he does really have the ear of everyone in the Commissioner’s Office, universal approval there. Everybody in the ownership suite, universal approval there. He could get hired in 27 GM jobs today, if he wanted to.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: And so I think that he is very powerful, but maybe dormant right now. And that’s why he didn’t get selected. Two other people, real quick for you— actually, three other people because it’s like a— a co situation. Jimmy Pitaro, who is in charge of ESPN. Television partners, the national television partners for baseball.
MICHAEL: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I mean, they’re powerful by virtue of the fact that they’re like, “We’re not that interested in baseball right now.” They are— they are watering down the power of all of the other people on the list right now. And as well as Mark Silverman and Eric Shanks, who run Fox Sports and just Fox more— more broadly. Their broadcasts [1:27:36]
MICHAEL: Yeah, one of the names on my long list was Luis Silva Rosser [1:27:40] from Turner—
BOBBY: Yeah.
MICHAEL: —for the exact same reason.
BOBBY: But I— I think that that side of the business is too spread out and too diluted for any one person to be powerful enough. Like, ESPN is not just—
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: —so dominant right now that Jimmy Pitaro is like, “Hey, Rob, Manfred, do this.”
He’s like, “What do you guys—”
MICHAEL: He doesn’t have a World Series. That’s—
BOBBY: Yeah.
MICHAEL: —the— yeah.
BOBBY: And even Fox like— do they care enough about baseball to tell Mark Walter to do this? No, I don’t think so. So that was kind of all of the people on my list, as well have like— I have like a more retired players than current players. Ken Griffey Jr., I mentioned Ortiz and Martin— Pedro Martinez, A-Rod and Derek Jeter. I think if we did this exercise five years ago, I probably would have chosen Joe Torre potentially, but that’s it. That exhausts my list.
MICHAEL: Joe Torre has been put to the Morgan Sword as—
BOBBY: Yeah.
MICHAEL: —like the on-field ops [1:28:35] guy.
BOBBY: How about you, Alex, any— any other names that haven’t come up yet?
ALEX: No. I started like just reading MLB.com’s Masthead.
BOBBY: Damn [1:28:43] yeah.
ALEX: —you know? That’s where I was like— I was like, “Oh, Noah Garden, the guy who came up with the— the on-jersey patches and the City Connect uniforms.” Well, he’s important to me.
BOBBY: He’s on my list.
ALEX: He wields a lot of power in my personal life.
BOBBY: Tony Reagins, anybody, Tony Reagins out there?
ALEX: Uh-huh.
MICHAEL: Oh, man.
ALEX: But— but then, again, we— I got into a place where I’m like— I’m picking like marketing executives.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like, they would— they would love if they were getting included on this list. I cannot— I cannot stroke their ego with— with that.
BOBBY: Okay.
MICHAEL: That was— that was a bit of a power move right there, saying like, “I would love to”— you could have gassed these guys up and you— you withheld your approval.
ALEX: Yeah, I’m not— I’m not going to do it. Uh-huh. You gotta earn that.
BOBBY: Next time we do this exercise, it will be The Power Brokers among Baseball Podcasters, and we’ll see how that goes. Mike, you teased a— a free consumer rant for the listener before this podcast started.
MICHAEL: We were talking about like the efficacy of government, and we’re gonna go back to—
BOBBY: As— as we do, you know, three guys, Saturday morning.
MICHAEL: It’s all you and I talk about, kind of like—
BOBBY: Uh-huh.
MICHAEL: —but I just want to say, like, I love going to the DMV. I think the DMV jokes are a psyop from Reagan’s CIA, because like they popped up around the same time. They’re talking about the DMV is like this unnecessary thing that— that takes up a bunch of your time, that it’s— it’s all this paperwork. And every time I actually go to the DMV or, like, have to do anything related to my car, which I’ve already admitted on this podcast is an unnecessary and expensive appendage of the urban design hellscape that we’ve all been forced to live in. Every time I go, it’s efficient. I go in there— like I go in there and get my car inspected to make sure it’s not going to kill the Earth or kill me. And I’m in and out, and it’s free. And, like, you know, I got to renew my registration, I can do that online. Like, you can make appointments. It’s— it just— I’d love to see the government working. And I just think about how horrific this would be if the cable company ran car registration. Just think about any private—
ALEX: Good Lord.
MICHAEL: —equity— or private entity that has to extract a profit from this process and they say, “Oh, you know, government is inefficient, government has waste, government has blope, [1:31:06] government has red tape, at least government is designed to work. Whereas private industry is— or private business is designed to extract your time and money from you. And just that ontological difference creates so much— so much buffer for the government to be inefficient, or to be whatever, you know, the Robert Moseses of the world want to accuse it of being. It— it just— every time I inter— interface with the government, it’s just so much better than interfacing with private service providers.
BOBBY: That was beautiful.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I truly believe in the power— power of government. However, your DMV take is extremely suburban privilege. You’ve never been to the Kings County DMV at the Atlantic Terminal.
MICHAEL: I’ve been to the Harris County DMV in— in Texas, like that was a nightmare. But in New Jersey, like we think that gov— that government should provide services, whereas in Texas, Texas is a—
BOBBY: People— New York also thinks that too. And again, if you go to the— the DMV in Brooklyn—
Michael. No. New York doesn’t think the government should work. New York elected Eric Adams as mayor. That’s not the act of people who think government should work.
[laughter]
BOBBY: You— you’re not— you don’t support New York being the Istanbul of America?
ALEX: Sorry, as of— as of yesterday, it’s the Rome of America.
MICHAEL: I think that’s really [1:32:24]
BOBBY: Oh, yeah. Dude—
MICHAEL: If New York fell into the sea tomorrow, I wouldn’t shed a tear.
BOBBY: Bro, okay, take it down a notch.
ALEX: It’s— oh, my God.
BOBBY: Eric Adams swindling New York to pay for him to go to Rome is probably actually the coolest thing he’s ever done. Like, let’s be real about that, Alex.
ALEX: Yes. And then just tweeting about it.
BOBBY: I know.
ALEX: And then like, “Here I am.”
MICHAEL: By the way, you want to know who paved the path for that level of naked graft? Donald J. Trump. Number one pick in the baseball power [1:32:54]
BOBBY: That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right.
MICHAEL: And we have Adams if we don’t have Trump.
BOBBY: No, I don’t think so.
ALEX: No, I— I actually don’t think we do.
BOBBY: We just have another de Blasio, you know? Hmm.
ALEX: Ripped.
MICHAEL: You’d saw off your arm for an ineffectual liberal as mayor in New York right now.
BOBBY: Yeah, man. We didn’t know how— we didn’t know how good we had it.
ALEX: [1:33:11]
BOBBY: This is bringing back old Tipping Pitches, where we’re just talking about New York City mayors.
ALEX: Local politics.
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah. Bill de Blasio, NYU grad. If Bill de Blasio were on this call, that would make you still the only person who didn’t go to NYU, Baumann.
MICHAEL: Well, you have to— you have to have me on to— as like someone who went to public school to—
ALEX: Right.
MICHAEL: —to speak for the common man on your labor podcast.
ALEX: Exactly. You’re our flyover state representative.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay. That is Michael Baumann, our flyover state representative. He writes at FanGraphs. He writes for a cycling newsletter, Mike, where can people find that good stuff?
MICHAEL: williesports.substack.com. I’m writing about the [1:33:54] Italia, which is going on right now. It’s $5 a month, although I do a lot of free posts, because not a whole lot of people want to read my cycling writing enough to— to pay for it. So— but if you’re one of those people, please come and pay for my newsletter, the Tour de France, The Olympics are coming up, so we’re going to have a hot summer.
BOBBY: Thank you for all of this free labor that you provided us, and I can’t wait to talk to you again.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
SPEAKER 4: The power of love is a curious thing. Make a one man weep, make another man sing.
BOBBY: Thanks to Mike. Thanks to Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev. Thanks to Marx and Engels.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Thanks to Glen Powell. Thanks to my—
ALEX: Livvy Dunne.
BOBBY: Livvy Dunne. Thanks to my mom. Thanks to your mom.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Thanks to the radiation wave that allowed us to see the Northern Lights—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —throughout the rest of the world, believing—
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: —in participation trophies. Thank you to everyone who’s a patron, even though there’s no new patrons this week. Thanks to you, Alex. Thanks to Morgan Sword for all his work on the pitch clock, which I was always in favor of. Thanks to—
ALEX: Former president, Donald J. Trump.
BOBBY: That’s exactly right. Trump wearing a Baseball for the Many shirt? Who says no?
ALEX: I think we could— I think we could get it to happen. Although, if we’re being quite honest, I don’t know that we sell shirts that would— would just, like, fit his strangely-shaped body.
BOBBY: Well, we need to change our merch provider then.
ALEX: Okay. All right.
BOBBY: President most likely to wear Tipping Pitches merch, Jimmy Carter, like living President most likely. Dead president, FDR, I would say.
ALEX: I guess. Yeah. I think he’d be like, “What do you mean you host a podcast?”
BOBBY: We would just tell them it’s like fireside chat.
ALEX: Hmm. All right. That’s true.
BOBBY: This is the fireside chat of 2024.
ALEX: That is true. You’re right. Okay. Okay.
BOBBY: Thank you. I think about these things.
ALEX: I actually think we could get Old Georgie to rock it.
BOBBY: W or HW?
ALEX: Well— well, W is dead.
BOBBY: No, no, no. HW is dead.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: Wow, we’ve been recording for too long. Fuck, I forgot about that. That really came and went. Now, I’m remembering it though, because it was like, “Oh, Obama and Clinton came out,” and they were all like hunky dory with W and Laura.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And it was all like, “This is real. This is—”
ALEX: Right. We’re putting— putting aside politics.
BOBBY: Right. This is what decorum is about. This is what Trump took away from us, yeah.
ALEX: Yeah. And they were right for what it’s worth.
BOBBY: Question for you—
ALEX: And I think it bridged the divide of this country.
BOBBY: Right. I felt— I felt more proud to be an American that day. Question for you, if Biden croaks it tomorrow, they put who—
ALEX: We have to rerecord this episode.
BOBBY: They put who— true. They put who up for the nomination?
ALEX: Jesus. I mean—
BOBBY: Don’t answer that. Answer it on the Patreon feed, patreon.com/tippingpitches.
ALEX: All right. There we go. Yeah. Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Thank you everybody for listening. Call our voicemail, 785-422-5881. Write us an email, tippingpitchespod@gmail.com. Buy a shirt, tippingpitches@myshopify.com. All that good stuff. You know where to find us tipping_pitches on Twitter. We will talk to you on the Patreon feed later this week and right here on the main feed next week, just like we do every Monday. We’ll see you, then.
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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