Bobby and Alex bookend the 2024 season with a conversation about the ways it felt unique in comparison to the seven other seasons they’ve covered on the podcast. Then, they talk through some of the upcoming content plans they have for this offseason, including some exciting Patreon experiments and “Main Character Month,” a series that will drill down on some of our faves with single episode features about the figures who’ve captivated the attention of the podcast over the years.
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Tipping Pitches features original music from Steve Sladkowski of PUP.
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 tipping his 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: Alex, do you consider the end of the baseball season the beginning of the Tipping Pitches season?
ALEX: I absolutely do. I mean, we were just talking before we started recording this pod and saying, “I’m so happy that we’re finally free.”
BOBBY: April through October is our spring training.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: And then when the months get real cold, that’s when we get really serious.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. No, we’re cooking up some good stuff.
BOBBY: Yeah. We got some good stuff. Do you want to announce any of that stuff on this episode? Maybe save it for the end?
ALEX: Save it for the end.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: There is at least one announcement I think we should make.
BOBBY: Yeah. Yeah. We’re being folded into MLB. Rob has finally brought us home.
ALEX: Yeah. I had a dream last night.
BOBBY: Is this the announcement?
ALEX: This is the— this is the announcement. No, I had a dream last night that, like, I was taking a class at NYU and Rob Manfred was the professor.
BOBBY: I have dreams like this all the time.
ALEX: Yeah. Well, it was— and I was watching a baseball game, like, on my phone or something like that.
BOBBY: Uh-huh.
ALEX: And it was, like, A’s-Rangers and it was like the 30th inning. And they had implemented new extra inning rules, so now it was like sudden death. Each batter gets one swing.
BOBBY: Oh.
ALEX: And if you don’t get a hit, you’re out.
BOBBY: I kind of like that.
ALEX: And I was like—
BOBBY: How does that speed the game up?
ALEX: I don’t really know how it speeds the game up.
BOBBY: That makes it go longer.
ALEX: It does. I get— I mean, you get through batters more quickly.
BOBBY: Yeah, but how do you score?
ALEX: Well, that’s— that’s why it was in the 30th inning, because no one was scoring.
BOBBY: It was in the 30th inning, but it only went, like, five extra minutes.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: Don’t give Rob any ideas.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: So I— I recently talked to somebody who works in the baseball world, that’s all I’ll say. And I got the impression that it’s not the most absurd idea to think the— to think that Rob might be sent to our pod from time to time.
ALEX: You say this so often.
BOBBY: I just— it just doesn’t feel right to me. And then when I think about the subject matter, it does feel relevant enough to the point that it could overcome the fact that we’re a small pod.
ALEX: Right. So you think in his roundup tomorrow morning—
BOBBY: His roundup?
ALEX: Or, I guess today, the day this podcast released.
BOBBY: Like this— the way that the President gets the roundup from the NSA?
ALEX: Right, exactly. First line on that sheet of paper. So the Tipping Pitches boys talked about their dreams last night.
BOBBY: Hmm.
ALEX: Guess who was featured prominently?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: You, Robert.
BOBBY: Can’t ever meet him. Can’t ever meet him. But do want to have him on. So if anyone is listening, I will retract all of that. I’ll honestly delete it from the record if you want me to, and we’ll have him on. But he does have to come to the studio the same way that Joe Rogan will not have Kamala on unless she comes to Austin. He’s gotta come here and he’s gotta face this gauntlet, man-to-man, face-to-face, mano a mano. What do you think about that?
ALEX: I’m on board, yeah. Should we do some skits with him, too?
BOBBY: We do have a mirror in here.
ALEX: Two online. [3:21]
BOBBY: Did you watch any of the Kamala Harris SNL appearance?
ALEX: No, I didn’t.
BOBBY: Okay, great. Me, either.
ALEX: Did you?
BOBBY: No.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: No. I saw a bit of that skit, and it was so painfully unfunny that I had to shut it off.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I’m about to be confronted with things that I can’t shut off, so I’ll shut them off while I still can. That’s my take. All right. So on this here podcast, I know we just did an episode a few days ago, summarizing the end of the World Series. So this episode is going to be a little bit more of a bookend on the 2024 season as a whole. We’ve got a couple little news items. We’ll see if they come up here on this episode, and then we’ll spend the last few minutes talking about what the offseason plan is, both here on the main feed and on the Patreon feed. Before we do all that fun stuff, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches.
[theme]
BOBBY: Alex, thank you to this week’s new patrons before we get going. Those patrons are Jojo, Christopher, and Jen. Season’s over. World Series is over. The Los Angeles Dodgers had their parade, at long last. The parade that was five years in the making, four year— four years in the making, has finally arrived. Looks like a fun time. I would like to go. Not in the budget.
ALEX: One of the— maybe the only reason I was pulling for a Yankee win—
BOBBY: Was to go to a parade.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t think I would have gone to that.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: I don’t think I would have [4:56]
ALEX: No interest.
BOBBY: I wouldn’t have wanted to be around the people that were at that parade, no offense. To any of our friends who are listening, whoa are Yankees fans who might have gone to a hypothetical Yankee parade.
ALEX: We could have met our boy, our boy Austin.
BOBBY: Austin?
ALEX: Wasn’t that his name?
BOBBY: Oh, the Capobianco guy.
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: I was like, “We have a friend named Austin.”
ALEX: Your brethren.
BOBBY: “I think that he would have been here for that.” And then I was like, “Austin Wells?”
ALEX: Also him—
BOBBY: Did we particularly talk about him? I don’t— I don’t know. Yeah, we could have. Maybe he went to the LA one and he tried to grab the trophy. I wanted to do this episode because I wanted to put more of a bookend on the season as a whole, not just the playoffs, not just the World Series, which we kind of talked about throughout the month of October in our last episode, too. Because I have— here’s my big theory about the 2024 season, and I’ll throw it to you, and you tell me if it stands up. I do think that this was a transitional baseball season for a couple different reasons. Number one, the biggest star in baseball switched teams and signed a 10-year long contract. So to me, there will be a before Ohtani on the Dodgers and an after Ohtani on the Dodgers. And the fact that they won the World Series just starken to that fact. Number, two, this season and overlapping with the last couple seasons, it feels like there’s been a little bit of an evolution in team building. And when I say that, I mean not that we’re working with different philosophies, but that we’re working with different organizational appetites for competition, I think we’re in a slightly better place than we were when we first started doing this podcast. We still have a lot of problems, but we have the sort of gold standard. The gold standard now is not the gold standard that it was when we first started doing the show. The tank to get the cheapest possible, really competitive team that you can have. What I’ve seen over the last couple years, and this is a little bit of selection bias based on the teams who actually ended up on top, which are the Dodgers and the Rangers, is compete smartly, pay the fair value for the guys who are at the top, top, top end, and then try to fill in the rest of the roster by doing more savvy roster building. And more of the top, big market teams are fully bought in on that theory, that I do think that it is having sort of a knock on effect on the rest of the league in competition, and I look forward to the future now a little bit more optimistically than I would have a year ago. Now, you tell me if you think that holds up to scrutiny, or if I’m allowing the transition of my own team to having a competent front office and an owner who wants to spend shade a little bit too much about how I feel about the rest of the league and the season as a whole.
ALEX: I mean, I definitely think there has been a coalescing of power among the sort of biggest market teams—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —in— in a way that maybe has not been as prominent over the last 10, 15, 20 years, where you really have two or three heavyweights in each league, and frankly, they’re— the ones that you might think would be the heavyweights.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm. That’s certainly— I think that’s good for the game. I think it’s fun when the Dodgers are a good baseball team. I think it’s fun when both the Phillies and the Mets are good baseball teams, right? I do think it’s fun when the Yankees are around, because it means you get to see them, you know, get washed. Like that being said, I don’t— I don’t know that I agree entirely that, like, there’s a broader league-wide shift towards that. I still think it seems like it’s the usual suspects to me.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: We’re still seeing teams like the Chicago White Sox put up historic losing seasons. Teams like the A’s just completely disinvesting in their franchises. And obviously, those are very unique cases, but I think it does speak to an underlying power struggle, almost, in the sport that I think the league doesn’t fully know how to reckon with yet.
BOBBY: Yeah. I agree with that. So I think the one thing that’s characterized the entire seven years of us doing this pod, and really, like, the— baseball changed post-2012, we’ll say. I like to think of it as, like, the time period that it changed was, like, maybe this is too player-centric way to think about it, what I just named the similar thing for Ohtani. But, like, when Albert Pujols left the Cardinals and went to the Angels, it felt like stuff changed a little bit. And it’s not just the fact that, like, he signed a big, long contract that then became like a culture war for a really long time. Similar with Miguel Cabrera, even though he didn’t switch teams, he stayed with the same team and signed a similar long contract. It’s also just that, like, the type of team that was successful then is— was not successful by the mid-2010s. And the type of team that was successful in the mid-2010s started to be the prototype for the type of team that’s successful now. I do think that that is changing a little bit, you know? Like, simply hoping that you do your best with the guys that happen to get drafted to your team and then, like, not really being all in on guys that you could overhaul your whole franchise, is like not good enough anymore. More teams are going all in for bringing Bryce Harper to Philadelphia from Washington, bringing Manny Machado to San Diego from Baltimore, bringing Francisco Lindor to New York from Cleveland. These— these type of things that bringing Mookie Betts to LA from Boston, that shouldn’t have happened. But these type of things where it’s like, we’ve identified our guy and we know that we need to have someone that both the fans are invested in, that the team can set a level of foundation with, and that we should pay, like, market to above market value to have, because there is intrinsic value there that can’t necessarily be explained by wins above replacement year over year. I think that that makes for a better league. But one thing that is true of the entire time that we’ve been doing this pod is that there’s been a race to each poll, more or less. So good teams have been getting better. I remember one of the very first episodes that we did was about the fact that the Dodgers and the Astros were both having historic seasons and early on, but— I’m talking like June, July even. It looked like both of those teams had a chance to break the 116 win record in the same season. So this polarization that we’ve been talking about for over half a decade now, I think, is— is still true. And you mentioned the A’s and the White Sox, and these teams going in the wrong direction, intentionally not trying to win. I think something that’s interesting, like, for our purposes, is that the owners know that too, and they’re not totally on the same page about that. This level of solidarity that we see from ownership, where it’s like they all agree about everything. We have seen some splintering with that in the last couple years, with the negotiation of the last CBA, where it’s like, how many of these things are really hurting big market teams, just to allow guys like the Rockies, like the Monforts, and the Jerry Reinsdorfs of the world to continue business as usual and not trying to build good baseball teams? I think the one thing that feels different to me now is that it feels like the big market teams are winning. It feels like the league is more behind the big market teams, whether that’s just because, like, it just so happens that the stars aligned, and Ohtani and Freeman and Betts ended up on the World Series champion, and they happen to be playing against Aaron Judge, the other face of baseball, nominal face of baseball. It could just, again, be sort of selection recency bias, but it feels like the cultural center of the game is now with those big market teams. Where, like, when we started, I don’t think it really felt that way. And to be clear, I think that’s a good thing, because it— it felt more like a little bit disjointed. The stars were spread out. Some of the stars were on bad teams, stuck, wasting away and not trying to compete, you know? And now, it feels a little bit more like— if you have this guy on your team, you could do it. You could— you can make it to the playoffs. You can win the World Series, just because you have, like, a foundation of a couple good players, and the rest of the league, it’s like— it’s like homogenous enough that you can do things on the fringes that other teams are not going to just, like, beat you at easily because they’re smarter, because we’re all trying to do the same thing here. So if you’re willing to pay for it, you can have the reliever because you wanted to pay him $2 million instead of league minimum. You know what I mean? Like, that’s not to say that there are not, like, bad situations that don’t look like they’re getting better. It just feels, like, in the race— in the war between small market and big market teams, I do feel like a slight shift in that the big market teams feel like they’re winning that war.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, I think that when we—
BOBBY: Totally qualitative thing. I don’t have any quantitative analysis for that. It’s just like a gut feeling that I have.
ALEX: When we started doing this podcast, I think there was a strong, like, austerity mindset along— among like a lot of—
BOBBY: Yeah. Like, why spend it all?
ALEX: Right. Why spend it all?
BOBBY: You could have Andres Jimenez for 120 at the cost of Francisco Lindor.
ALEX: Right. Exactly. And I mean, frankly, I— it’s hard not to think about Steve Cohen when we talk about this sort of thing.
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: Like, as far as who started pushing other owners outside of their comfort zone and maybe changing the narrative around what it meant to, like, build a franchise, you know?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: All of a sudden, you have let—
BOBBY: Like the wolf in the hen house.
ALEX: All of a sudden ,you have guys like John Middleton being like, “Hey, look, it’s our job.”
BOBBY: Fox?
ALEX: “It’s our—”
BOBBY: Fox in the hen house [14:39]
ALEX: Fox in the hen—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Well, you don’t let the wolves in the hen house, either.
BOBBY: They let the wolves—
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: —the wolves come after the sheep and the fox go after the hens, right?
ALEX: I think wolves would— wouldn’t mind hens, though.
BOBBY: Yeah. Probably not.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah. Well—
ALEX: But it is true, they like— they recognize each other’s sort of—
BOBBY: Right. Game recognize game, as they say.
ALEX: Yeah. They were like, “You take them. I’ll take these.” And— and I— I don’t think it’s, like, completely unlinked to broader fan sentiment in the last few years of being like, “Wait, hang on a second. You’re worth how much money? And this is the choice you’re making not— not to sign this player in favor of, you know, recreating an aggregate or whatever.” It was kind of, like, just— you have— you have fuck you money, go build—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: —a baseball team that reflects that. And I’m not saying John Middleton went out and signed Bryce Harper, because there were a bunch of people on Twitter being like, “All right. You know, cigarette bro. Like, go spend that fortune, man.”
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But also, I think there’s a recon— a recognition among some owners that, like, if you can actually follow through on this, you can execute on this, like, it’s— it’s good brand building.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: It makes you— it makes you look pretty good to be the— to be the guy who saved the Phillies, right? Who brought the Phillies back to contention— or who brought the Mets back to contention.
BOBBY: It does feel like— well, I— I— I agree with your point that I don’t think John Middleton signed Bryce Harper because of people tweeting. But I —I’m not totally willing to give up on the idea that, like, this type of mindset, that like you need to invest upfront in order to reap the benefits— the long-term benefits of becoming a team like the Yankees or the Dodgers. That process has to start somewhere, and I think that acknowledgement, that mentality, self-selects for people who are more like John Middleton, you know? And there are always going to be a plurality, if not, majority of owners who have the austerity mindset, because we’re never getting away from that in America, really. But part of it— and far be it, for me to say that it’s a good thing that we’ve allowed Wall Street types into the game. But part of the Wall Street mentality, right, is like you have to buy on the front end in order for your stock to go up, or you have to own the stock when it goes up. And when I look at like— when I look at Steve Cohen, he treats the team like an investment, you know? He doesn’t treat the team solely— he has a bigger plan, obviously. He’s trying to use the team to create soft and hard political power in the New York area for him to diversify his income streams via, like, casino and real estate, and all these other things that he’s trying to do that, so many other owners are trying to do that.
ALEX: Right. I love baseball.
BOBBY: Honestly, like, kind of despicable behaviors, but at the same time, he also like— and it’s the same thing with the Ricketts too, right? Like, maybe they lucked into it a little bit more, because the Cubs are this, like, long-term brand, and they just happen to be owning the team when they actually finally broke the curse. But any owner who would look around and see what’s happened with the Cubs, what’s happened with the Braves, what’s happened with the Dodgers, their increases in value, their increases in financial footprint, the only conclusion that you could come away from that is, like, you have to have, like, generally positive sent— sentiment for that stuff to work. And you can allow that sentiment to— to decay over time, because you’re just, like, too big to fail after a certain point, like the Ricketts did. But you still have to create something on the front end. And I see more teams that are trying to, like, turn a page or are trying to generate excitement around them than I did before, still not— again, still not a majority of the teams in the league. Which speaks more about how bad— how bad and dire it was during the capital strike of, like, the late 2010s. But I have, like, a— a cautious smidge of optimism about the direction that the league is headed. Granted, there are, like, a lot of macroeconomic trends that feel bad and might sort of stop a lot of those owners in their tracks if they don’t change, or if the league doesn’t figure out a better way to handle them. Which is why I’m still curious about the next collective bargaining negotiations, the next five years of Rob Manfred’s tenure, how he handles some of these things as he passes the baton to the next person. But still, we banned the whole, “Is Baseball Dying?” conversation for a good reason, because one, it wasn’t dying, and two, the people who were having it are not really on the level about it. They’re like people who already aren’t watching baseball. But I do think we’ve sort of, like, petered that conversation out, and now we’re at more of a stasis point. And the audience size is smaller, but I— I still think that there are teams competing and trying their best to excite that audience more than they were three years ago, five years ago, if that makes sense.
ALEX: No, I think you’re right. And— and, like, the fans are showing up, you know? Like, I mean, we don’t need to get into, like, a ratings discussion, but for—
BOBBY: Why not?
ALEX: But for all the discourse around, like—
BOBBY: I mean, it’s a relevant data point, it’s not the only thing.
ALEX: —who wants— who wants to watch the Dodgers, Yankees, you know, like, really the two power— a lot of America as it turns out.
BOBBY: And all of Japan.
ALEX: And all of Japan, exactly.
BOBBY: Which is, like, not super pertinent to what we’re talking about here, but it’s still an— an— a not insignificant data point.
ALEX: Yes, exactly. Well, and— and it is interesting. I mean, it’s that reminder of how global this game is, and that MLB for— MLB who is interested in homogenizing the sport, right? And— and being the purveyors of baseball, do have a vested interest in opening up more pathways for engagement with the game. Like that interest is there, whether it’s stateside or globally. The appetite is there for a— a league that is willing to platform its superstars.
BOBBY: They got to make a deal with Netflix, bro.
ALEX: What? So, like a— like a Hard Knocks type?
BOBBY: No. Like a MLB.TV now available on Netflix.
ALEX: Oh. Oh, I see, I see.
BOBBY: Because when I think of the, like, type of viewership that Netflix encourages, it’s kind of passive, you know? Like, the type of shows that they make. This is not to say anything of the movies that they fund or acquire, or the, like, prestige shows that end up on the platform or whatever. Like, I’m not trying to insult the artists who are making these shows in any way, shape, or form. But a lot of the, like, schlocky Netflix bullshit stuff, they’re like, “We just want consumption hours. We don’t care what you’re doing. We don’t care if you’re doing your if you’re doing your dishes. We don’t care if you’re on your phone. We don’t care if you’re working. We don’t care. Just like have Netflix on. Have a subscription.” What does that sound like? Sounds like baseball, you know? Sounds like what baseball has been for the last 40 years. We don’t really care if you’re watching necessarily. As long as you have it in your cable package. As long as the TV happens to be on when the commercial plays, whether or not you’re paying attention to it. I know that it’s like, “Okay. Wow, genius. Yeah, you want to get your product in front of the 600 million international subscribers, obviously, but there are like, uni— unified incentives between the two products.” Was like— I’m not trying to say that baseball should be on Criterion, you know? Even though it should. Like that— we should make high level documentaries about baseball that show up on Criterion. That would be sick. But if baseball was on— like baseball was on Max during the playoffs, or Fox, or whatever, it’s so splintered around. I actually kind of think that, like, the person who would throw on Friends for nostalgia from the 90’s, what sport are they most likely to throw on for 90’s nostalgia? Baseball. You know? I’ve always been, like, kind of pushing this idea that baseball needs a reframing, which is why I was, like, sort of against— nominally against the pitch clock at first, where I was like, “We’re— we’re trying to make baseball more like basketball, where something happens every 10 seconds, 15 seconds.” First of all, people don’t watch basketball anymore. Their— their ratings are a disaster through the first couple weeks of the season. And second of what— men’s basketball, I should say. Women’s basketball is crushing it. But I never really felt like there needed to be such a crisis over like, does baseball have the stickiness that TikTok has? Like, it doesn’t need to have that. It needs to, like, hang out with you. That’s the appeal to die-hards, and it should be the appeal to casuals. If you’re like, a die-hard who’s like, “I need to see every team— I need to see every pitch that my team threw this whole season.” You— you need help.
[laughter]
BOBBY: You know what I mean? Like— and I’m like this too at various times, but like, it’s just not that kind of game, you know? There’s 162 of these damn things. Like, we need to re-casualize baseball, is my take. And I think that, like— I think that I’m, like, more optimistic about that than I have been in a little while. And again, does part of this have to do with the fact that, like, my team is heading in a better direction? It was more fun to tune in, it was more fun to hang out with my team than ever before, basically. Yes, obviously. That has— that has definite impact on it. But I think that, like, long form hangout content works, and that’s, to me, baseball.
ALEX: I can’t wait to get my healthcare from Amazon through my banking with X, the everything app and get my baseball through Netflix.
BOBBY: Well, you’re already doing two of those at least.
ALEX: Right. I am already doing two of three, so—
BOBBY: Right, exactly. Yeah. Netflix is just cable now, dude. What streaming services—
ALEX: Have you—
BOBBY: —do you have?
ALEX: All of them.
BOBBY: All— like, every single one?
ALEX: Just about, yeah.
BOBBY: Okay. The only—
ALEX: Name a— name a streaming service.
BOBBY: Well, I’ll name Peacock at first, because I know you have that one, because I don’t, but I have the password.
ALEX: Right.
[laughter]
ALEX: Just sharing economy, baby.
BOBBY: Do you have Criterion?
ALEX: Ooh.
BOBBY: You don’t, right?
ALEX: No, I don’t.
BOBBY: You can have my password for Criterion.
ALEX: All right. Sick. Sick.
BOBBY: I need you to fire up these fucking Fellini films, bro.
ALEX: I will. I just need an excuse.
BOBBY: I need you to fire up use Jonathan Glazer experimental short film collection that’s on there.
ALEX: This is— I mean, this is like—
BOBBY: That’s some good shit, bro.
ALEX: —what our texts are mostly, is like me texting you and being like, “Dude, you need to check out this album.” And you responding and being like, “You need to check out this movie.”
BOBBY: For every album that you make me listen to— not make me.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: For every album that you share, I’m like, “You have to watch this movie.”
ALEX: Yeah. Did you—
BOBBY: Any new album that you want to fire up? Want me to fire up? I forgot to tell you this, nut my co-worker— my friend and co-worker who plays in a— in a band, he played a show with Combat.
ALEX: Fuck yeah. What band is he in?
BOBBY: His band is called Dog Ears.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: They played a show with Combat, just like in a music store. Like fluorescent lights still on, like 30 people there. It was kind of fun.
ALEX: I’ll fire it up.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Have you—
BOBBY: [25:38]
ALEX: Have you watched the Red Sox documentaries? We go to Netflix.
BOBBY: No. No. Is it all the way— is it all available on there?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: How many episodes is it?
ALEX: It’s three episodes.
BOBBY: Okay. 45 minutes or—
ALEX: More or less, yeah.
BOBBY: Okay. I could fire that one up.
ALEX: Do it.
BOBBY: Or should I save it for some offseason content?
ALEX: True. I’ve already watched it, so—
BOBBY: Okay. Is it good?
ALEX: Yeah. Well, actually, I should note, I haven’t— I have, like, 20 minutes left, so I don’t know how it ends. Don’t tell me.
BOBBY: Dude, they win the World Series.
ALEX: This is what— oh, my God.
BOBBY: I hate it when we’re at different points of the baseball season.
ALEX: It’s good. Sure, yeah, they have a lot of good archival footage, honestly.
BOBBY: Okay. Archival like—
ALEX: Like archival as in, like— as— like, they knew they were shooting a documentary back in 2004. Like— like, stuff from the sidelines. You know, the video camera footage from the clubhouse.
BOBBY: Hang on, wait. Is this documentary about 2004?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I thought the Red Sox documentary was about this season.
ALEX: I think that is also happening. I should have clarified.
BOBBY: Oh, okay. Okay.
ALEX: No, this is— this is like a three-part examination called the comeback about the 2004 win.
BOBBY: What win? I’m just kidding. Oh, that’s more interesting. I’m more interested in watching that than the 2024 Red Sox season.
ALEX: I see— I see why the— the phrase archival footage [27:01] you were like, “What do you mean a couple months ago?”
BOBBY: I was like, “Archival from— from— I feel like May was pretty long ago.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: “But I don’t know that I would call it archival.”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: All right, yeah, I could watch that.
ALEX: You do have to sit through, like, an hour of Kevin Millar talking, so—
BOBBY: Was it a union crew that made the documentary? Because if so, I’m surprised he talked to them.
[laughter]
ALEX: There’s some Dave Roberts as well.
BOBBY: That’s my king, bro.
ALEX: Obviously.
BOBBY: That’s my king.
ALEX: My wife, who was watching it with me, is watching him.
BOBBY: You’re what?
ALEX: In all Dodgers gear. He’s given the interviews in Dodgers gear, and she’s like, “Is he, like, still playing? Like, what is he doing?” And I’m like, “No. Like, he’s—”
BOBBY: In a way.
ALEX: In a way, he is.
BOBBY: I received some positive affirmations from other Dodgers fans about my kind words about Dave Roberts.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: They were like, “You’re— you got it. You nailed it.” And that’s nice to hear, because I’m glad that I wasn’t just, like, gushing about some dude that the Dodgers fans [27:56] fuck this guy.
ALEX: [27:56]
BOBBY: I mean, they just won the World Series, so I’d be surprised if that were the case, but what are some things that are going to stand out to you about the 2024 baseball season?
ALEX: I— the year of Ohtani, frankly. This kind of felt like the year of Shohei, like his coming out party after close to a decade in the— in the majors so far. Not a decade, but like, what, six years?
BOBBY: This is year seven.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean—
BOBBY: It’s crazy how weird it looks to see him in an Angels uniform.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He was on the team. He won the MVP for them last year.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Last year, 2023.
ALEX: I kind of don’t believe that.
BOBBY: I know.
ALEX: White Sox as well. I mean, I mentioned them earlier.
BOBBY: Yeah. Take the good with the bad.
ALEX: Some historic highs and lows, you could say, from this year. I— there are some other memorable moments of it, but those moments may come up in— in the next episode that we do.
BOBBY: Yeah, the first thing that I wanted to say was, like, the number one thing that I want to talk about next week. So next week— I believe I mentioned this last week or definitely I’ve talked about it on Twitter, the upcoming schedule next week is going to be the Dumbest Things of 2024 with our friends at Batting Around. That’s Stephen, Jane, and Lauren, who— if you don’t listen to that podcast, I would suggest checking it out if you like this one. We’ve done a lot of stuff with them over the years. We’ve been on their show. They’ve been on our show. They come on our show at the end of every baseball season and we talk about just the dumbest things that happened in the season. Just things that otherwise would be forgotten to the sands of time, but that we want to commemorate, because they are just incredibly silly things that happened with a particular flair for things that happened for discourses and— and things that unfolded on the internet, mostly. Like internet sense of humor kind of stuff, like I can’t believe this is a real thing that happened. And that’s going to be a lot of fun, so I would suggest firing that up. And if you love that episode and you need more of it, and you’re not a patron, we will be doing bonus rounds on the Patreon a couple of days after it comes out. So that’s just something to flag if you’re looking for things that are— if you’re looking for a different type of time capsule for the 2024 baseball season. I don’t think Ohtani’s 50-50 season will be coming up on that, but it could.
ALEX: I don’t think so.
BOBBY: You never know. That someone could be like, “This is dumb. We shouldn’t have cared about this.”
ALEX: I mean— I mean, it was dumb. Are we serious? That was freaking ridiculous. Stupid.
BOBBY: I wasn’t impressed.
ALEX: No.
BOBBY: No. I wasn’t impressed. Of course, he should do that. Of course, he should have 50— he’s a fucking pitcher the rest of the time.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: He didn’t have to do that this year.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Think about how— how great this pod could be if I didn’t have to do other pods for my 9:00 to 5:00. Taking all the energy into this pod. This pod would have a 50-50 season if I didn’t have a job.
ALEX: Right. Every good pod that we do is just proof that we could be doing so much better, if anything.
BOBBY: Now, you’re starting to sound like A-Rod.
ALEX: That’s the hope. Dude. I’ve been knee-deep in transcripts over the last few weeks.
BOBBY: Oh, my god. I’m so excited for this. I mean, I think what’s gonna stand out to me this season is that this was the most fun Mets season—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —of my life. And more broadly, for like— if you’re not a Mets fan and you’re listening to this, that it can just catch you by surprise sometimes. That, like a collection of people, a collection of human beings, a collection of personalities can just hit so close to home and so close to the heart, and can reinvigorate the feelings inside you that reminds you why you actually care. Like why you actually care about this collection of 26 players on any one team. I mean, we all know why we care about baseball, because it’s like a game of failure, and when you succeed, it’s absolutely glorious. And it passes the time, and it’s silly, and it’s ridiculous, and it’s random, and it’s hard to predict, and it’s like a metaphor for life itself. We know all of that stuff. And when that happens, when that feeling that’s so hard to pin down, happens to line up with something that’s just so positive, that’s what I’m gonna take away from the 2024 season. I hope the Mets resign Sean Manaea. Of all these guys, bring back Sean.
ALEX: Bring back Sean.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: It’s crazy that Pete Alonso is just, like, not technically on the Mets.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That’s crazy.
ALEX: Dude, we got an offseason ahead of us, man.
BOBBY: What player are you most excited to see where they signed, besides Soto?
ALEX: Besides Soto, yes.
BOBBY: Yeah, yeah. Because he’s already a Met.
ALEX: I mean, I— we saw that Gerrit Cole opted out— opted out of his contract, which would be interesting. He may try and renegotiate with the Yankees anyway.
BOBBY: Yeah. The— the opt out— the technical— technicality of the opt out is that the Yankees have the right of first refusal on that opt out so they can tack on an extra year at $36 million—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —and override the opt out. So this is as much a contractual negotiation as it is him saying that he wants— this is more a contractual obligation than it is saying that he wants to leave the Yankees. This is like he’s represented by Boris, and Boris is never gonna leave money on the table.
ALEX: Right. I mean, I think the Bregman signing will be interesting.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: But it’s gonna be really weird to see him not in an Astros uniform, assuming that, again, is the case.
BOBBY: Yeah, he’s an A.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Oh, my God.
BOBBY: He saw what they’re doing to that field in Sacramento.
ALEX: He was like, “I gotta get there.”
BOBBY: He was like, “Please, lay it on me.”
ALEX: I don’t know. Who are you excited for?
BOBBY: Christian Walker.
ALEX: Okay, okay.
BOBBY: I’ve been thinking about him a lot. He just was the best first baseman in the league last year.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Like, by a long shot.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: He was better than Olson, slightly better than Freeman, even though Freeman is better than him. Like Freeman had kind of a weird year because of all the stuff that he had going on in his personal life. He was still good, but not great Freddie Freeman, not MVP level Freddie Freeman like we’ve seen in the past. And he’s in a weird spot because he has thrived so much in Arizona. And it was such a big story when he slumped as badly as he did in the World Series. And when they really needed his bat after having such a great season in 2023. And he has been so good for them for the last couple years, but like, they just won’t pay for— I mean, Ken Kendrick just won’t pay for it. And so a number of teams who have a gap at first base, who could really use a power hitting right-handed bat will be in for him, and it’s sort of, like, the duality of where he ends up versus what happens with Pete Alonso was a really interesting question to me, because you could see like— you could see like Milwaukee wanting these guys. You can see the Mets wanting these guys. You can see the Yankees wanting these guys, because there is a hole there. The Yankees just chose not to exercise their option on Anthony Rizzo, so they’ll have a hole over there. So I don’t know. Christian Walker is the guy that’s on my mind recently.
ALEX: Oh, yeah. Why not?
BOBBY: He could be a Met. Sign them all. Who cares? Sign Pete and him.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I don’t care.
ALEX: Put someone a third.
BOBBY: Keep Winker.
ALEX: Keep Winker. That’s—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Winker everyday left fielder?
ALEX: Who says— where does— oh, Ty plays center?
BOBBY: Yes, Ty plays center.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: I think Ty is a free agent. I could be wrong. I’m gonna have [34:56]
ALEX: I— I mean, I think— I think you are right, but I think he’s coming back.
BOBBY: If by coming back, you mean signing with the A’s?
ALEX: Yes.
BOBBY: Ty signing with the A’s actually sounds kind of perfect.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Like they’re one of the teams that might let him play every day.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: The A’s got some good players, man.
ALEX: What are you talking about? Sure.
BOBBY: Lawrence Butler is good.
ALEX: Okay. All right. Yeah. Sure.
BOBBY: They got some interesting guys. I don’t know what to tell you. They’re not gonna finish last in the AL West.
ALEX: All right.
BOBBY: Even though the Angels are in a crazy win now push, apparently.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: I don’t know what’s going on with that.
ALEX: Yeah, man. Nick Allen leading the A’s to a title in 2025.
BOBBY: I don’t know who that is.
ALEX: Yeah, right. There you go.
BOBBY: All right. Do you want to talk about our plans for the offseason?
ALEX: Sure, yeah.
BOBBY: So I already mentioned Dumbest Things of 2024 next week. We’re having our mortal enemy Richard Staff on the podcast at the end of November. Do you feel conflicted about that?
ALEX: I do. Well, he poached our best friend Sean Doolittle from us to start his own pod.
BOBBY: This is sort of like when they let Bernie go on Fox News.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I guess that makes us Fox’s nemesis.
ALEX: Right, yeah.
BOBBY: Can’t think of a better example.
ALEX: This is—
BOBBY: This—
ALEX: Frankly, this is sort of like when AOC and Tim Walz play like Crazy Taxi on Twitch, that’s sending staff over here. It’s kind of like, “Okay, sure. Play— do your little Twitch scream— stream.” Not gonna touch that one?
BOBBY: I just don’t have anything left to say about AOC. I’ve said everything— every thought that I could possibly have about her, I’ve thought it.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Nothing left. That’s my thought. December is going to be a big— big thing for us. Before I talk about December, let’s talk about the Patreon. So on Patreon in the offseason, obviously, during the regular season, we used it as an opportunity to do Three Up, Three Down every couple weeks. That is a segment— an old segment that we’ve been doing for a while. It’s a way of talking about three things that bring us joy and three things that take our joy away in the baseball world. Life is about equilibrium. We do that every couple weeks, and we just talk about little stories that we don’t necessarily have the time or don’t neatly fit into our regular episode. And the offseason is a little bit harder to do that because there’s a lot less news, a lot less things going on. So in the offseason, we’ll be doing a little bit more creative executions on the Patreon episode. We are going to be doing more movie watch-alongs, which was the thing that we experimented with last year. We did a watch-along of Sandlot and Moneyball with David Sims. And that’s essentially like we watch the movie and do a commentary track of it, and you can listen along at home while watching the movie. It’s a fun time. It’s really fun for us. Don’t know how fun it is for you guys. It seems like that we got generally positive feedback, so we’ll be hoping to get some good guests for that. And then another thing that I wanted to mention now, because it’s something to keep on people’s radars, is we’re gonna be doing a book club this offseason. Once a month, ideally, we’ll be doing a book club on the Patreon feed, and it’s just to be a way to fill Patreon episodes, and we’ll be chatting with patrons about those books, and getting some input on what you guys want us to read and talk about. And the other thing of note on the Patreon feed is we’re going to be— I mean, making a good faith effort at doing a couple more like reported pieces, reported and designed pieces, like we did with the betting pod. I know that wasn’t technically reported. It was all made up, but stuff like that. And we’ll be doing, you know, bonus versions of that, extra content on the Patreon feed. That’s what’s on the ledger for the Patreon feed. Now December, on the main feed, I’m not— I’m calling this main character month. Now, what is main character month? Main Character month, Alex, we’ve talked a lot on the show over the years about a specific subset of people. They’ve become sort of the main characters of the show.
ALEX: You may be able to guess who some of those folks are.
BOBBY: If you’ve listened to the show for a while. We’re just gonna dedicate December to doing specific episodes about individual people and why we find them interesting in the baseball world. You might be able to guess who some of those people are, and some of those may come as surprises to you. We’re just— we’re dedicating the whole month of December to that. So we’ll have 1, 2, 3, 4 episodes, five episodes on the main feed in December, five Mondays. And each one of those will be— will focus in on a different person or a group of people that we would consider to be the main characters of the Tipping Pitch universe. There’s more stuff coming up later, more fun guests, more ambitious ideas about big topics in the baseball world that we want to try to cover. But I don’t want to really get into too much of that stuff yet, because a lot of it is TBD. But I thought that this episode, before we dive into Dumbest Things and really launch into the off season content, might be a good opportunity to just tell people, like, what the plan is. The feed’s not going dark, like we thought— we think a lot about the offseason. We think a lot about using this as an opportunity to talk about stuff that we don’t have time to talk about during the year. And just try to, you know, keep people appraised, what’s going on over here.
ALEX: Yeah. I— I mean, I’m really excited for some of these episodes. Some high concept ones, some ones that are just very us coded. And it’s a good opportunity to flex your creative muscle a little bit, you know? We are not bound by the balls and strikes, the— the whims of the day-to-day of the baseball season.
BOBBY: You’re gonna be doing them in ASMR?
ALEX: I— I— I finally might.
BOBBY: Would you like to roll out that preview?
ALEX: No, Patreon.
BOBBY: Okay.
ALEX: Patreon only.
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: If there’s something you want to see covered on Tipping Pitches—
BOBBY: Great point.
ALEX: —please write us in. Please— please write in. Let us know.
BOBBY: Please write us in on your ballot on Tuesday, November the 5th.
ALEX: Please write us in on your ballot. Uh-huh.
[laughter]
ALEX: Who is the— who’s at the top of the ticket? Who’s the running mate?
BOBBY: I don’t— don’t want to answer that.
ALEX: All right.
[laughter]
BOBBY: Historically speaking, I mean, you’re the top of the ticket. You’re our editor-in-chief.
ALEX: It’s true.
BOBBY: We keep referring back to that.
ALEX: If there’s something you want covered here, something you think we should look into, please write in, let us know, tippingpitches, pod@gmail.com. Leave us a voicemail, 785-4225-881. @tipping_pitches on Twitter— sorry. X, the everything app.
BOBBY: The everything app. Have you checked recently to see if we can get rid of the underscore? I was thinking about that yesterday. I don’t know why. Check it out. Maybe we could do it live here on the pod.
ALEX: Well, tipping non-underscore pitches is suspended.
BOBBY: Oh.
ALEX: So I have a feeling we may not be able to snag that one. Do you— unless you know anyone at X. I know you’re in a group chat with the engineers.
Bobbby: All two of them? I did use to have a connection at Twitter. You used to have a connection at Twitter, too.
ALEX: Yeah, that’s true. Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s how I got my Twitter handle and how I got verified before you just paid for the blue check.
ALEX: Right. You earned that blue check.
BOBBY: I fucking did, bro. I’ve been creating content on X, the everything app for so long. Good content, you know? I’m a member of the esteemed media. I find it really funny when you go on our Twitter— I’m sorry, on our X profile and it says, like, media and news outlet.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: That’s what we are.
ALEX: That is what we are.
BOBBY: Is there a better option?
ALEX: Hey, let’s find out right now, you know? We’re confirmed Tipping Pitches. We can— we can’t have.
BOBBY: That’s fucking bullshit.
ALEX: It is bullshit. What would you say we are, an event venue?
BOBBY: Not yet.
ALEX: Commercial and industrial? Financial Services?
BOBBY: We make sure it’s— financial services, definitely yes.
ALEX: Non-governmental and non-profit organization?
BOBBY: No, we’re all profit, baby.
ALEX: Social media influencer, okay. That’s it.
BOBBY: If I’m being dead-ass with you, we’re more of a social media influencer than we are media and news outlet.
ALEX: How about media personality? I don’t know why that’s a different— okay.
BOBBY: Again, that’s closer.
ALEX: Yeah. Mobile application.
[laughter]
BOBBY: That’s good.
ALEX: Maybe we leave it up to listeners.
BOBBY: Why haven’t you ever invented an app? You would be such a good app founder. Like, so good at these fucking dinners and shit that you have to have when you, like, invent something. You’re just, like, wearing a hoodie, talking about how your app’s gonna change the world. I think you would be so good at this. They put your ass up on the stage at TechCrunch. Oh, my God.
ALEX: Oh, my God. Can you imagine me ringing the— the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange?
BOBBY: You’re already going public?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: What would your app be? Don’t tell me you’ve never thought of this.
ALEX: No, I— I have. I— I mean, I— there was one years ago that— that was just like a public bathroom finder.
BOBBY: Genius.
ALEX: And then someone actually made it.
BOBBY: Hmm. Probably not that well.
ALEX: I think I could do better.
BOBBY: I agree. The best apps are apps that someone already made and were made better than the second version.
ALEX: What about an app where you can— so you know families— fantasy sports, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: What if—
BOBBY: Famously, I refuse to play them.
ALEX: What if you could actually buy stock in an athlete and see that stock go up or down based on how the player is performing?
BOBBY: And coming on to talk about that next, it’s Alex Rodriguez. I got an idea for an app for you.
ALEX: Okay.
BOBBY: It’s like DraftKings, except it’s for real-life scenarios. So you, like, take a video of something that’s happening, you upload it to the betting app, and you say, “What are the odds that this thing happens?” But for everything in life.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: So you’re, like, walking down the street, and you’re like, “Odds that somebody gets hit by a car on the street— street corner today.”
ALEX: Jesus Christ.
BOBBY: And you just— you make a book. What do you think about that? Why not sell everything in life? Why stop at the stuff that we’ve decided to stop at?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Why not sell everything?
ALEX: Over under coffees today from Bobby, line at 1.5 hammering that over.
BOBBY: Well, today, it doesn’t count. I already hit the over.
ALEX: Oh, okay.
BOBBY: This is only number two.
ALEX: So you’re saying it would have hit?
BOBBY: Yes, it would have hit. It would have hit. But tomorrow, who knows? Tomorrow will probably hit. Tuesday, also will probably hit.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Maybe not Wednesday, though.
ALEX: Maybe not Wednesday.
BOBBY: I’m just being realistic. In college, I— when I first started drinking coffee, because I was not, like, an early adopter. I was not one of those people who was, like, really cool, posting selfies at Starbucks in high school. I really just didn’t like the flavor. But then when I got to college, I was like, “Here’s the thing, I don’t really sleep, and I have a lot of work to do.” There’s an answer for this.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: It’s called Ritalin. Just kidding. It’s called coffee. And I started drinking coffee, but I— I made rules for myself because I’m a disciplined guy, raised Catholic, you know? I have to assign rules to everything in my life that I follow.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Arbitrary rules that no one else knows about but me and only I punish myself for not following. And I decided that I would only ever drink coffee on days that I had class, because I had class, like, three or four days a week. I didn’t have it every day. And then it became days that I had class or had to write a story for the newspaper, and then it became days that I had class or was editing at the newspaper, and then that just became every day.
ALEX: Right. Every day.
BOBBY: And that’s how I got to this point. So kids, following at home, make a better rule.
ALEX: Don’t go to NYU.
BOBBY: Well—
ALEX: That’s the rule.
BOBBY: —that’s definitely true. Definitely, I would never tell anyone to go to NYU.
ALEX: Now, NYU, Tulsa.
BOBBY: You sent me that? Did you see— send me that on Twitter?
ALEX: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BOBBY: I opened it and just didn’t respond because that’s just like, “Okay, man.”
ALEX: It’s like, why do I do this?
BOBBY: You can study abroad in Tulsa. Tulsa seems cool. What’s wrong with Tulsa?
ALEX: Not a damn thing.
BOBBY: I always mix Tulsa up with Omaha in my head, because every time Tulsa comes up, I’m like—
ALEX: Fly over mentality.
BOBBY: Yeah, every time to— you don’t even— you’ve never even been to any of these states. You have never passed through any of these states, so you don’t have room to talk. Me on the other hand, I’ve driven between— I’ve driven through them, when I was going from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. So I know about flying [47:04] the country.
ALEX: You do, yeah.
BOBBY: No. But when I—
ALEX: You have to roll down your window at that drive-thru.
BOBBY: At the Whataburger.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: When I hear Tulsa, I think, “Oh, that’s where Conor Oberst is from.” And then I’m always like, “Nope, it’s Omaha.”
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I just— ending in A. I don’t know what to tell you. That’s how my brain works.
ALEX: Sure.
BOBBY: Omaha is cool. Never been.
ALEX: College World Series.
BOBBY: We should go to that one of these days.
ALEX: The College World Series?
BOBBY: Yes. As like a this is how the other half lives kind of situation. Like, this is how people who care about college baseball live.
ALEX: Shoot a man on the street, just being like—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —”So tell me what really drew you here today?”
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: “What’s the reason that you— you got in your car—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: “—and started driving?”
BOBBY: We are baseball fans from New York, and we’re trying to understand how the real America experiences baseball.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: What do you have to say about what motivates you to go to the poll— I mean, go to the College World Series?
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: That could be a good bit.
ALEX: Here is tonight’s starting pitchers tweets from 2014. Tell me what you see. It’s like a Rorschach test.
BOBBY: Oh, boy. Okay. That’s gonna do it for this week’s episode of Tipping Pitches. Thank you for listening. Please stay tuned for the offseason. We’re going to put a lot of effort in. Frankly, we’re going to keep doing the work every week and every two weeks on the Patreon feed. We appreciate all the support. patreon.com/tippingpitches to go check out the different options that you can get. We’ll be back next week with Dumbest Things of 2024. 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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