PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - All too well

Episode Date: February 4, 2022

On this episode, Derek and Jesse are discussing how far apart MLB and the union currently are on the competitive balance tax aka the soft salary cap, Jesse's ideas for fixing the D-backs in 2022, and Brad Boxberger's emoji jersey reaching the Hall of Fame before Barry Bonds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to the PHNX DVax podcast right here on PHNX. Of course, I am your mayor, occasionally known as Derek Montia, but always known as your mayor of PHNX. And I'm joined by my vice mayor, the one and only thunder stick Jesse Friedman. Phoenix Rising shirt looks good on you, Derek. Isn't that? Look at that. Look at that. It's a beautiful day here at PHNX.

Whenever we can add a new sport, it's great. But especially when we add a sport that I am such a huge fan. If you've never been out to a Phoenix Rising game, you absolutely have to do it. There's nothing. I have never. I have never been to the Phoenix Rising game. I mean, there is this weird Arizona aspect of it that these games take place during the summer in Arizona during the nighttime where you would think it. They play outside and you would think it would be cool enough, but it's not, Jesse.

It's so hot, but it's amazing atmosphere. The fans are great. Phoenix Rising is outstanding. So shout out to our new. brand new PHNX Rising account. Please make sure you're following them and checking out their new podcast. It's an incredible sport, Phoenix Rising,

one of our most successful teams here in the Valley. So if you haven't been following what the Phoenix Rising have been doing, now you can do that right here at your home on PHNX. Of course, this show is brought to you by the fine folks over at the Draft King Sportsbook app. Go download the Draft King Sportsbook app now, right now on the road to Super Bowl 56,

and you can get 56 to 1 odds on any team. I guess not any team. There's only two teams you can bet on here, but either team to win the big game. Great odds. You bet just $5 and win $280 in free bets if your team wins using our code of PHNX. Jesse, we've talked about how things aren't really moving the way we want them to, as far as the lockout goes between the MLB owners and the players association.

But the one thing that's coming out recently has been the talk of the biggest hurdle right now. We've talked about service time. We've talked about, you know, some of the arbitration issues that they want to change. So far, MLB owners are standing firm. They're standing their ground. It seems like the players are presenting proposals and having the backtrack or at least relent a bit on their requests, on their demand. but the one thing right now that seems to not be moving in any direction is the essentially what we call in baseball the competitive balance tax but realistically it is the salary cap

owners in baseball have wanted a salary you know that sort of right it's the best that the owners could get in regards to a salary cap and that's that's who wants it right the owners they've wanted a salary cap. This has been a fight going on between owners and players since the 90s. It's what caused the strike in 1994, essentially, was this idea that owners wanted to implement a salary cap to keep teams from spending. Players, obviously, especially with the size of baseball, wanted to ensure that guys could still get paid as much as they deserve, as much as they should. Obviously a cap prevents that. The union had a proposal that would raise the competitive balance tax, which is what essentially they did agree on back in 1994 and has kind of been the

standard in baseball since then, right? The no salary cap, players won't let that happen, but they have this competitive balance tax or a luxury tax. So when owners do go, when teams go over the threshold, then there are. taxes on them and if they continue to do it for multiple years those taxes increase i think it starts out at 25% increases to 50% and if you if you do it three years in a row you get like a hundred percent tax on whatever you spent over the limit right um so the union has actually proposed just raising the competitive balance tax threshold right now during this negotiation to 245 million next season and have it raise inclement by you know inclements to 273 million by 2026.

And meanwhile, the league wants to start it next year at 214 million, which is a difference of about $30 million and have it only get up to $220 million, which by the final year of the CBA, whenever that would be. So we're talking about like a $50 plus million difference at the end, right? Pretty much owners trying to keep other owners and themselves from spending too much money without paying this ridiculous tax. Owners also want to like switch the order of it so that the first year you go over, I think you get taxed 100%. And then it goes down from there or something like that. I don't know.

Oh, interesting. Owners are trying to do everything they can, I feel like, so that they can turn around and say, this is all the money we can spend, right? And not have other teams also say, or have other teams go, well, we don't care about that tax, right? Which is what the Dodgers essentially did for the last 10 years is say, we don't care about that tax quite a bit, right? But I don't know, Jesse, this issue has been described right now as the biggest major hurdle to get over for the CBA.

And I don't know, but do you see any other course here other than once again, the union relenting on their demands and succumbing to what the owners want, which is a much smaller amount for the threshold for the CBT? Yeah, I mean, I think it is important to try to be fair and say, I mean, the owners are willing to increase it. They're just not willing to increase it as nearly as much as the players want, right? It's not like the owners are pushing for it to go down or something like that. But you're right.

I mean, the increase that they're proposing is a very insignificant increase, right? You're talking about just a few million dollars. Can you control the background? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, Jesse. If you're listening on audio, you're really missing out right now. You're listening out on our logo being up in the background. It's like, Derek can like control the TV in his background just by thinking about it or something.

I swear it just listens to whatever you, whatever is in. his head. But yeah, so I mean, you know, the owners are willing to do something here, just not nearly as much as the players want, which is understandable given that, you know, we've talked about it before. The player's slice of the pie has gotten smaller over the last few years when you think about, you know, the revenue the baseball teams are making and the fact that player salaries have actually decreased recently. That's a bit of a problem, right? And so I think that's what they're that's what they're fighting against i personally feel like that issue is more it's more an issue on the lower end probably than it is on the higher end right like the reason

that players are making less money i don't think is because the dodgers and yankees aren't willing to spend it's because the diamond backs and the pirates aren't willing to spend and so in some ways i think the i mean you call it a salary cap um in some ways which is it's kind of true right that's kind of what it acts as. But a salary cap, Derek, isn't going to make the Diamondbacks spend any more money. And so, or the absence of a salary cap isn't going to, right? It doesn't really make a difference for a team like the Diamondbacks or the Pirates or the Rays or some of those teams that generally spend a little bit less.

And just from a Diamondbacks perspective in general, right, we want the setup that baseball comes up with to be something that allows the Diamondbacks to compete. The problem, Derek, is that it doesn't matter if there's a salary cap. If you want a salary cap in this game, it's not going to matter because the Diamondbacks are spending more than a hundred million less than what the salary cap would be. And so who cares what limitations you're putting on other teams if you're going to put yourself $100 million below that anyway. So I think that's the bigger problem here.

That's what boggles my mind. And also the owners are the ones that are kind of in favor of themselves being taxed for going over this amount, like as if there aren't owners in the league. It's like they want an excuse to try to stay under it, I guess. Sure. Yeah, I guess. But there's other teams. Obviously, there's owners that have no problem going over this.

So I feel like this might be one of those one of those things they could negotiate on and have some of the owners actually be on the player's side. The Dodgers, the Yankees, there are teams that aren't going to spend below the threshold, no matter what they're going to swing for the fences as far as spending goes. and probably be taxed by this competitive balance tax. So wouldn't they want the threshold to be higher so that they don't have to be taxed if they reach this amount? I don't feel like this necessarily is like primarily an owner-favored issue, right?

The owners are the ones that have to pay this tax should they go over, right? I get that it's a soft cap. I get that it doesn't really mean anything. And I get at the end of the day, you're just being taxed for, having an expensive lineup, right? We've seen in baseball how spending money does not correlate over to winning World Series and winning championships. So it's not even like it's a guarantee that if you do spend the money like the Dodgers

have, that you're going to win the World Series and be the champion. Yeah, you can win a shit ton of games and you can be probably the best team in your division. But really what it comes down to is baseball being a marathon and catching the right kind of, you know, fire at the right time and having things kind of like. line up. It can happen for any team once September and October comes around, no matter how many high price free agents you have on your team, right? I just, this is considering this is the biggest hurdle, this is kind of crazy to me. This, to me, seems like one of those situations where the players are almost allowing for the owners to spend more on the actual team and less on taxes that are then

going to be distributed to other teams and the MLB, right, versus it going to, players that you could have on your team under your roster. This, again, this one is just crazy to me. Another thing, though, that is crazy to me is our pal, Mike, Mark Feinstand over at MLB.com. He's added again, Jesse.

What is Mark? What is you written this time? Jesse's added again. Yesterday, or excuse me, on the first published an article and let me get the exact verbiage correct on how he opened this article up. Oh, no. Here we go. Jesse, hold on. Hold on to your

fucking asshole. Less than one week after Major League Baseball made proposals with the hope of creating a path toward a new collective bargaining agreement, the MLB Players Association countered Tuesday with minimal movement on a number of

issues. Per sources, the MLPA offered to reduce its figure for a pre-arbitration bonus pool from 105 million to 100 million. Oh, Jesse. That greedy MLB MLBPA, they only dropped their requests by $5 million.

How dare they? Like, just the wording on this is incredible. And don't get me wrong, I am someone who often allows my feelings to come across in my writings, no matter how biased it might be. I'm actually writing an article right now for go phnx.com, which if you're an annual member, you will get, but if you're not, you can go sign up, become an annual member. You will get this article for free where I am very much blaming the owners. in baseball and I'm not really hiding my feelings about it.

I personally feel like the owners are holding the 2022 season hostage. I honestly feel like that was their intent when they decided to proceed with the lockout on December 1st. And I don't see this going anywhere any time soon. The season's going to be impacted. The spring training is going to be impacted.

We as fans are going to be impacted. And that's the way that this is going to go. and I feel like that was the owner's intentions this entire time, right, to essentially hold this season hostage and wait for the players to stop making demands. So instead of the owners making demands, they're just holding the season hostage to stop the players for making demands. That's what it feels like at this point. But when I read on MLB.com,

what seems like propaganda like that? Like it only furthers to galvanize my feeling on this that MLB.com is one 100% trying to present their position as MLB and the owners being the kind-hearted souls that just want baseball to get back to it. And these greedy players keep stopping us from doing it. That's just good solid journalism, Derek. I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about. I mean, it just sounds, just sounds good stuff to me. I, I didn't learn traditional journalism. Jesse, what can I say? I don't know what's going on here. There you go. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. If we both had journalism degree,

officially, then, you know, maybe we'd be able to do what Mark is doing there. But, but yeah, I mean, that is, that is kind of what we'd expect, right? We talked about Mark's writing before MLB.com, ladies and gentlemen, probably not your source of lockout related news. Unbiased lockout news, definitely not. One thing I will, one thing I will mention, though, I don't know if you saw this. This came out just a couple hours ago here before a live show. apparently major league baseball has requested a third party mediator i can't remember exactly the words

that were used but jeff jeff pass and just came out with this report within the last couple of hours the major league baseball has requested some sort of federal organization to to intervene and to help work out the negotiations between the players and the owners i don't really know a whole lot about what that entails. But to me, all that says is these differences are significant. Like, like, yeah, I mean, you know, you can blame whatever side. Yeah, blame whatever side you want, but they're far apart. And that doesn't exactly bode well here as we're about, you know, a week away from when

pitchers and catchers are supposed to report. And unfortunately, there's just no way that happens at that. this point. Oh, boy. It's not, it's not great. Our pal Chris Melton in the comment says, we need to sell our owner. Sidebar, I swear I'm more intense about Booker snubbing because of the years Goldie was here. Am I alone? No, you're not alone because I think we as Arizona fans tend to think we don't get the national recognition that our players deserve, especially when they're performing well. I mean, and I think that's objectively true, right? I mean, Arizona is just kind of small, yeah. It's like we said, it's not an actual small market, but yet at times for some reason, it's still considered to be.

When you're in the shadow of Los Angeles in the southwest part of the country, you feel like a small market. It's kind of how it works. It's very true, very true. But we know how beloved our Arizona sports are here, and we are with you 100%. Booker should be a starting guard on the All-Star team, and everybody knows that. Chris Paul, too. Chris Paul should be highly considered in the MVP voting, and I don't know how he's not.

It's nuts to me, but whatever. Moving on. We don't cover that sport here, Jesse. But if you do want to hear more about that sport, go over to go phnx.com. Like I said earlier, sign up to become a member. You'll get all of this great content from the PHNX team, not to mention the fact that you can subscribe to our YouTube channel

and sign up for notifications, that way you don't miss any of the content coming out. If you're not interested in annual membership and saving money and getting a free t-shirt from the PHNX Locker.com. I don't understand you, but I get it. And you can still get your first month for just 50 cents over when you do the month-to-month option. So either way, sign up to become a member. Check out our content at go-PhNX.com.

Become a member of our family. We can talk about Book of Boba in the Discord. It's members-only Discord. That's what I'm here for. I don't want to talk about baseball. Baseball is depressing me right now. So let's talk about television shows that I'm watching. righteous gemstones,

peacemaker, Book of Boba Fett. Any of these things you guys want to talk about hit me up in the Discord. Talk to me about baseball and talk to Derek about whatever.

Don't talk to Jesse about pop culture or movies or anything like that. You're going to lose me pretty quick. I'm bringing a federal mediator in here to work out our problems, Chris, trust me,

because Jesse keeps telling me stuff he hasn't seen. Oh, and yes, good point from Chris. ASU baseball is not locked out. Not to mention the fact that neither is minor league baseball. So if you are listening to us right now from one of those areas where minor league is big and you have a team, you guys are still going to get this. And I'm still curious, Jesse, to see how this plays out for spring training.

There has been a lot of talk here. Again, the local news is starting to buzz as we get closer to spring training about this is going to not only affect the local economy, but about the season being delayed. And I'm happy for it. I think that one of the. biggest problems with this lockout right now is it's not really moving the needle as far as news is concerned it's easy when there's no updates and no progressions for this to kind of slide into the backstory and not have people angry about it right i think that again public pressure and people being upset about it helps to move these negotiations along hopefully a federal mediator will also help to do that what i want is a federal mediator that doesn't have time for their bullshit and doesn't allow this like oh we're meeting on tuesday and then we'll meet

next Thursday. Now he's like, no, we're meeting on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. I have stuff to do on Thursday. We're going to get this shit figured out by Wednesday is what we're going to do. Because this is just preposterous, the way that this entire process has taken so long between proposals. I get it. Like, they have to come up with a new proposal. They have to meet. There's a whole other, you know, besides the negotiation themselves, there are owners meeting about what their stances are. There's players and representatives meeting about what the players want and how they want to proceed.

So I get it. It's a complicated thing of moving parts and it's not as easy just to make it happen that quickly. But on the flip side, it definitely feels like they are taking way too long to get this stuff done. Jesse, we need to not worry about that, though. You and I have too much on our plates to fix. to worry about what is going on with Major League Baseball.

We have to fix the Diamondbacks. So that's part of what we got going on right now. I know I proposed my idea for fixing the Diamondbacks, which, again, was a little far-fetched, might have been. I think they could sign Chris Bryant, Nick Castiano, San Carlos Rodon. I think you could do that. might say that I may have gone too far as far as exactly what I was expecting this team to do, or what I'm asking of them to do, what I'm asking of them to spend.

But the point of our conversation, Jesse, was obviously to fix the Arizona Diamondbacks. And you can't just go out and fix them without spending a whole lot of money, right? So again, let's take a look really fast at, like you said, what I chose to do. and that was just spend all the money. Nick Castiano's, Chris Bryant, Carlos Rodon, whatever, no big deal, just three of the best players in baseball with the highest wars to bring it over to Arizona

Diamondbacks and make them a successful team. I also suggested, which I don't think you and I disagree on here, of going back to the purple and teal and having that be a big part of whatever you want to call this relaunch. Maybe, maybe again, maybe we wait until, what, the 25th anniversary would be, next season, 2023.

Maybe it waits until then so that they can put official, you know, square number on it. But I want a relaunch of this team. I want them to come back in the purple and teal and copper and all of that. And I want them to do it all like in an exciting time, right? You know, they did the big jersey reveal when they switched over to the weird snake skin gradient and all of that. Give me a runway.

you know, debut of the old jerseys coming back and have these guys that I threw all the money at be part of it. But you, you wanted to go a little bit different of a direction. You wanted to more maybe trade. You wanted to maybe be a little bit more reasonable. So I was going to say is, how, how is Jesse Friedman fixing the debacks? Oh, you, you might want to prepare yourself, Derek. Are you feeling ready for this? I am not ready for this, not one bit, but you can give it to me anyway. Let's do this. Okay.

So I'll start by saying I don't know if my proposal is a whole lot more reasonable than yours. I don't know if that would be the way I would describe it. Let everybody know. You took the train route. I went with the free agency route. So again, the one difference there. I have a mix of both. I'm still spending a pretty substantial amount of money here.

And again, it's all continuing. on these trades being approved and going through, which we haven't had a chance to do through the OTP simulator yet. But we do plan on making these changes in the official OTP simulator. By the way, OTP simulator, the official simulator of the PHNXDVX podcast. We will be throwing all of our ideas in there and seeing which one of us can improve the diamondbacks the most.

But Jesse, please, Mr. Friedman, Mr. owner of the team, you have the floor. Okay, all right, here we go. So I'm going to start out by rectifying what many people view as a mistake a couple of years ago when the Diamondbacks let their star first baseman walk. I mean, I guess they traded him. They guess they didn't technically let them walk, but that's essentially what they wound up doing in the end. Correct. And I want them to steal a star first baseman from another team. So my first move, Derek, is to sign Freddie Freeman.

Oh, my God. year, $170 million contract. So there you go. That's how we get this thing started. And this comes from, I know, it's exciting, right? This comes from Christian Walker's a bit of an unknown. I think I was a little surprised that they even tendered him a contract. Pavin Smith is still kind of a floater for me.

I don't know if he's really, especially for us in, you know, in this exercise that we're doing. we're kind of trying to make the team competitive next year, right? And if that's the case, I don't think, I don't think, I don't think, I don't think I don't think I want pavement as, as necessarily the everyday first basement from the very beginning. So that's the first move. I think the way I put it was we had terminal diseases and we wanted to see the team win a championship before we could be. Right, right.

So that's pretty much the sense of urgency I'm putting on these moves. Sure. All right. So the next move I have is a trade. And this is one also, it is very difficult to decide what, what trade proposal is. is reasonable. So I don't know, I don't know if there's any Pirates fans out there. I'd be curious what they have to say to this. Most likely they're probably going to think I'm crazy. But here it is, Derek. The Arizona Diamondbacks are going to send a package of four players to the Pittsburgh

Pirates in exchange for center fielder Brian Reynolds. No. Brian Reynolds is a guy that some people might not have, might not really know much about because he plays for the Pirates. So, I mean, we all have been there. But Brian Reynolds last year hit 302 with a 912 OPS 24 homers 90 RBIs and he was also a finalist for the Gold Glove Award in center field and he is under team control for four more seasons Derek so you get him through 2025 a career career 10.6 war there you go and he's only been the league for for yeah this is he just finished his third season yeah so he's really been he's really been something. So are you ready to hear who the Diamondbacks are sending to the Pirates?

Yes, I want to hear the back. This would be my viewer of seeing this on ESPN or whatever. Come on my God. Who did they send? So, and honestly, I think this, I think it's a little light. I think Pirates fans are going to be angry at me here. But here it is. The Diamondbacks would send Utility Man Josh Rojas, outfielder Christian Robinson, pitcher Corbyn Martin, and shortstop Ryan Bliss. I hate this. Draft pick they recently. I hate this. So there's a,

I mean, you got to give something to get something. You're not going to get four. You're not going to get four years of Brian Reynolds for cheap. Honestly, my guess is they wouldn't even bite on that. I think they'd want Alec Thomas. They'd want Corbyn Carroll.

They'd want at least one of those bigger name guys. Sure, sure, sure. But Christian Robinson would have, Christian Robinson would have been a very valuable piece at one point. But unfortunately, due to the complications with that entire arrest and everything that he went through, definitely throws off his back. value at least for the time being until he gets back on the field and right can prove that he

can play at an elite level again so there's some yeah there's some logistical things there with christian robinson hopefully he's able to you know get all those things figured out but um but yeah i think this at least gets the conversation started and who knows maybe yeah i don't i don't i don't like that at all like i do like it but i don't like it at all like i hear what you're saying but i feel like there's definitely some key pieces being given up in that in that deal especially corbin martin that's a guy that we haven't really had a chance to even see yet and uh like him and christian robinson when i hear that trade my mind immediately goes to oh well i can't wait to see how good those two fucking guys are once they're not a part of our organization anymore yeah well brian

reynolds is 26 and under control for four years that's what i say to that that's and i mean that's an amazing like he literally is he's the kind of guy that if he played on a bigger team, everybody would know his name. Everybody would know his name for how good he is. But he just, again, when you are on a Pirates team that's as mediocre as that, it's kind of like people forgetting Cattel Marte hit 320 this season as a member of the Diamondback. And he always hits 320. Yet it's just easy to forget that he's over here doing that when the team is as mediocre as they are.

Right. All right. Here we go. Motion says I didn't know Brian Reynolds played center field. and yes, big, big, huge, gigantic need for the diamond bags. All right, let's go. Only does he play center field, but yeah, gold glove finalist. All right, here we go. The next move, it's another trade. This is with the Miami Marlins.

And I'll take it from the top here. So the diamond backs would trade to Miami, left-handed pitcher Blake Walston, righty, Dre Jameson, and third baseman, A.J. Vukovic, all pretty darn good prospects. You're just a mortgage to our entire. goddamn future, aren't you? Not, not the whole thing.

You're just ruining our farm system. All right. And in exchange for Sandy Alcantara, the right-handed pitcher for the Miami Marlins, who is under a team, he just signed an extension. He is under control on a very team-friendly deal

through 2027. Yeah, like five years, six years? Yeah. Holy cow. Yeah, six seasons of Sandy Alcantara. And he's already really freaking good. So I think he would be a tremendous addition into the rotation and he wouldn't necessarily cost a whole lot since all of those his contract is

already determined for all of those years um all right and then i've got three free agent signings here to capitol off um i'll do the biggest one first uh this is kind of the last like big big move that i have so i would sign short stop Trevor story to a six year 120 million dollar contract whatever here's the thing i would not play Trevor story at shortstop if he would be so willing i would slide Trevor story to third base yeah and i would have hasn't he played third base before i i'm not actually sure that's a good question he's an excellent shortstop so you know that if he went to third base he would be excellent there as well right essentially it's a easier position to play right that's what the idea there is yeah and we all

have seen Trevor story hit at chase field and come on he absolutely rakes in that building so delicious Yeah, that's a delicious proposition. I think you're also kind of getting him at a bit of a discount because he really didn't have a good walk year in Colorado. It was really kind of a down year for him. So six years, 120 million. Although that is a lot,

20 million a year is not bad if Trevor Story comes here and, you know, is a monster hitter and plays this good defense that I think he really could. So that's the other like super big move. I would cap it off. I would sign Kenley Jansen just for fun. Oh, come on. That's good, though.

I like that. That brings, man, that would, that would piss off Dodgers fans to see him succeed here with us as a closer, right? That's like 60% because I want him and 40% just to smite Dodgers fans. Right. Well, that was my Kyle Seeger, Chris Bryant decision there, had a lot to do with how the fans would react to it. It's not to say that Diamondbacks fans don't, they love getting a former Dodger and having them be a part of our team. Oh, you mean, you mean Corey Seeger. Corey Seger

What I said, Cal Cigar. Sure. Yeah. But like, you know, again, the idea of Chris Bryant coming here is, I feel like a much more favored fan decision. And really at the end of the day, a big part of making all of these big money moves

is bringing people back to the stadium, right? That's why you would do the things you would do. I just wonder if all of those trades of younger players at this point would influence. would infuriate Diamondbacks fans or if they would be okay with it. I say that just because. I mean, this team that I think would be pretty darn good. I'm not disagreeing with that.

I think your team would be very good. I just think in the grand scheme of things, we've been so patient waiting for some of these prospects to pan out. Right. And man, I've still got so many, right? Like you've still got Corbyn Carroll. You've still got Alec Thomas.

You've still got some of the pitchers. I didn't trade Ryan Nelson. He's about the only one who's left. But there's some other ones, too, if you dig deep. The biggest thing there is, the biggest thing is that if you can transition prospects into proven major league talent, it's a big deal. And I don't think people understand that because of- And controllable major league talent, right?

Controlable major-le-legged people. You're not getting a rental for half a season, right? But the bigger thing there is that you never know how good a guy can be, and the Diamondbacks, we've seen this, right? As fans of this organization, we've seen top prospects. never reach that same level of where we thought they would be of, you know, the, the aspirations for them for their career. I think that honestly, if you can get guys that are phenomenal young talent under team

control, you pull that trigger, right? That's the point of also having a very good farm system is the farm system is the farm system is the gamble, but when the guys have played in the major leagues for two seasons or more. and I've proven to be consistently good. That's such a different level of knowing what you're getting versus what you could potentially get out of a prospect that's never played a single game in Major League Baseball. Yeah, there you go. So I have one last move.

One last move here. It's just Josh Harrison. You got to have a utility player in place of Josh Rojas. So I'm bringing another Josh, Josh Harrison, two-year deal. He had a pretty good year last year. So, yeah. So the lineup. Replace a Josh with a Josh?

That works out. Yeah, of course. So what you'd wind up with is I won't try to give the batting order. But at first base, Freddie Freeman, second base, Cattel Marte, shortstop is a platoon. Maybe Geraldo Pardomo takes over eventually, but Nick Ahmed is still there. Third base is Trevor Story. Left field, David Peralta and Jordan Looplo are kind of in a platoon situation. Centerfield is Brian Reynolds.

I should mention he's a switch hitter. So hopefully not compounding the diamond. back's left-handedness problem. Adds the right-handed. Better in there. Yep. And then Dalton Varsho, I would put every day in right field. I think you'd play a really good corner outfield.

And then Carson Kelly is your catcher. And then, you know, you can fight it out between Zach Allen and Sandy Alcantara. These two, we just like to steal pitchers from the Marlins. You are going so good until you put Dalton Varsho in right field every single day. That's the part where all of a sudden things were all. Well, he can fill in other places. He can fill in other places. but I want Dalton Varshow to have some continuity,

and I don't think I want it at catcher, and I don't think I want it in center field. Like, he's a good center fielder, but I think that's just a lot of pressure to put on him. I would rather him develop his bat and stick in a corner and let Brian Reynolds, who's an excellent defender, handle that job in center. There you go.

I like it. I like it. Let's plug all of this into the simulator and see who's DBAX T is better. I don't think OTP will accept any of my trades. I don't care. I'm going to make it. I'll use, yeah, we'll use the force trade feature if we have to. But we'll see what happens.

By the way, go over to Draft King's Sportsbook if you haven't already done. So sign up to become obviously a new member over at the Draft King Sportsbook. Use our code of PHNX. And all new customers will get 56 to 1 odds this weekend on, well, not this weekend, next weekend. This weekend, you have nothing. This weekend we have nothing. I'm going to give you a Draf King Sportsbook. of the week, but I'm telling you, my pick of the week, my heart is not in it because football

is not here anymore. Baseball has not started yet. I don't know what to do with my weekend. This should be Royal Rumble weekend. And the W.W. screwed us out of that by putting it on the same weekend as an amazing conference championship weekend. But we got the, we got the Super Bowl. You know, it's number 56. It's a big one. So they're giving those 56 to one odds on either team. You bet just $5 and you get $280 in free bets if your team wins. If your like me and you're not a new customer, you can get down on those same game parlayes, combine multiple bets no matter how crazy they are from the same game for a bigger payout. The more legs you add, the more money you win.

And let's get nuts with it, right? It doesn't matter. You throw $5 on there. But if there's 13 legs, you might be walking away with more money than you imagine. Biggest thing, of course, is draft kings is safe, secure, and reliable. Best of all, you can deposit, withdraw your cash whenever you want. It's really what separates your draft King Sportsbook from all the other apps. Download the draft King Sportsbook app.

the official sports betting partner of Super Bowl 56 and use our code of PHNX to get those 56 to 1 odds on either team. That's 21 and over only, Arizona only, gambling problem dial 1,800 next step, new customers only, eligibility restrictions apply. See draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. And Jesse, before we go,

I just a funny tidbit this week, Brad Boxburger's emoji jersey from Players Weekend in 2018. Like the box and the burger. The box and the burger emoji. That jersey is in the Hall of Fame before Barry Bonds. Wait, what? How does a jersey make it to the Hall of Fame?

Apparently, his jersey is being honored as the first jersey with emojis being used for the name on it. So since it's historic, it belongs. in the Hall of Fame. Do we see the irony here that you're telling me a jersey with fucking emojis on it is historic. So thus

it belongs in the Hall of Fame. But Barry Bonds, no, no, you don't belong in the Hall of Fame. You haven't contributed enough historically to this game as this jersey with emojis on it. So

you don't get to be in the Hall of Fame. Thoughts ironic? Are we sure the emojis didn't take steroids? Oh, way. Whoa. Oh, that burger is on PEDs. There's no way. That beefy?

That meaty? Look at how meaty that burger is. Oh, my God. I don't know. I think we should run it through a test before we allow it to go in. I think we need to make sure. I investigate Brad Boxberger's busy and see exactly what it's on. No, here's the wild thing.

Brad Boxburger, right? Career 3.52 ERA. Losing record in his career, 27 and 34. Not a great career, as many people remember, in his one season. Wasn't good in Arizona. No, that's very true. One of his worst seasons was with Arizona. he also had some very bad seasons with Tampa Bay and the Kansas City Royals as well.

So just an all-around not great performer when it comes to Brad Boxerberger, yet somehow honored in the halls of the greats because he was smart enough, I guess, at the time, to know he was making history. Do you think he knew he was making history when he decided to do that? Or do you like, I know how this thought process works. They kind of like run some ideas past the media guy that works for the team. And they're like, yeah, we can do that. And that's it, right? But in researching this, I actually kind of laughed because this was a very popular idea in 2018 when it came out. People were very fond of the fact that Box Burger did the box and burger emoji on his players weekend jersey.

But not to Diamondbacks fans. No, no, no. We knew at the time what was going on. But again, Boxburger before bonds. Just throwing that out there. Just putting it out there. I want that to live in your head forever as a baseball fan. All right, before we go, I want to give you our draft king's pick of the week.

Obviously, with Super Bowl 56, still another weekend away. We're going to turn to the NBA. Suns, unfortunately, had a rough night. If you're listening to this on Friday, I'm going to give you guys the New Orleans Pelicans versus Denver Nuggets on Friday. I'm taking the Nuggets to cover the spread at six points. And I'm taking a same game parlay. So I'm going to throw in there, Joker scoring over 24 and a half points.

I'm going to take Will Barton making over three, three pointers. And you can also take the combined stats combo for Nicola Jokic. You can take 30 plus. I think he's going to score 30 plus as far points. and assist combined. There's your same game parlay. There's your Draft King's pick of the week for this week. And we appreciate you guys checking out all of the content on go phnx.com.

Obviously, we would love for you to become a member. If you aren't already, sign up to become an annual member and get yourself a free t-shirt over at phnx locker.com. PhNX Locker.com, by the way, the official home of my Valentine's Day presence for my wife. Like I said, she was hinting to me how much she wanted, a little bit of this Booker in a low rider action and the PHNX classic

Western font shirt. So I had to stop and make some Valentine's purchases myself. Also selfishly purchased myself. Are you just spoiling her gift like on a like on a YouTube channel? She's not a man of this show. Okay.

She doesn't like one of the hosts and I'll leave that up to you to decide which one of us that is. But again, Okay. You can go over to PHNX Locker.com. Get your significant other wonderful Valentine's Day gift. Get yourself a sticker pack or vice versa, whichever way that works out.

And again, sign up to become a member over at go PHNX.com. If you haven't already done so, code over at Draft Kings is PHNX. And of course, we thank you guys for checking out everything we do over here. If you haven't subscribed to YouTube already, please go over to PHNX Sports, subscribe to our YouTube channel and sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss any of the content from our PHNX. team. Also, if you're listening to us right now on your favorite audio podcasting app, please subscribe and leave us a five-star review. As we've discussed, Jesse is an eight-star man.

I'm a three-star man. Together, we average out to a five-star show. So again, leave us a review. We would appreciate you doing so. You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore K-man with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Our show is at P-H-NX underscore sports, but of score, excuse me, underscore debacks, but all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports. And that is on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Again, thank you guys so much. Boxburger, congratulations to you on your jersey being in the Hall of Fame before Barrymore. You know, what can you say?

Just got to applaud people sometimes. We thank you again so much for checking out the show on behalf of Jesse and myself. We love you. We love baseball. We love our PHNX family. And remember kids, baseball is fun. But it's so much more fun when you make fun of the fact. that Brad Boxberger's jersey is in the Hall of Fame before Barry Bonds.