PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Are Diamondbacks PRICED OUT of DH market after Rhys Hoskins signs with Brewers?

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

One of the Arizona Diamondbacks’ free agent targets is officially off the market now that Rhys Hoskins has signed a two-year deal with the Milwaukee Brewers. We discuss how the deal impacts DH market for the D-backs and if they are now priced out of signing one of the top available names. We also discuss the newest additions to the Hall of Fame and who fell just short of being immortalized in Cooperstown. An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to D-backs Takeovers, Knockout Nights & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/phnx-56002330273 Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Michelob ULTRA: It’s only worth it if you enjoy it. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. https://www.michelobultra.com/Schedule a free in-home estimate with Empire Today! All listeners can receive a $350 OFF discount when they use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See EmpireToday.com/PHNX for details.Sign up for Gila River Resorts & Casinos $1,000,000 Big Red’s Showdown! Stay in the game and get rewards; it’s that easy! https://www.gilamilliondollarshowdown.com/Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Circle K:  Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: OGeez! is not your average cannabis-infused gummy. Head on over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find out where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow them on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. 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 in to another edition of the PHNX skibacks podcast right here on PHNX. Big ski to you all. Of course, I'm your mayor of this ship. Captain, mayor, mayor of the ship. I'm going with that. Derek Monta, of course, this is my first mate, vice mayor, and your Thunderstake, Jesse Friedman. We got a lot of talk about, Jesse. Unfortunately, one of the big names we've been discussing that isn't Justin Turner

is now off the board for the Arizona Diamondbacks when it comes to seeking out those free agency D.H. candidates. Reese Hoskins is now a member of the Milwaukee Brewers. And that is pretty good signing for the brewers, I think. They ended up getting him for, I don't know, what would you say, Jesse? Did they end up getting him for a fair amount? I mean, yeah, I think it was fair. Two years, $34 million.

There's an opt out after the first year. The construction of the deal certainly makes sense. Reese Hoskins is still relatively young. He's 30 years old, so this gives him an opportunity to go out and prove that he can hit coming off his torn ACL. And if he's able to do that, the Brewers might only wind up having Reese Hoskins for one season. He could hit the open market again next year if he chooses to do so. But yeah, two years, $34 million. I think this is roughly what I had in mind for Reese Hoskins.

It might be a tick higher, but not much. I think MLB trade rumors had two years $36 million. Fan graphs, I think, was projecting a one-year deal. I never really expected that to happen. He's a Boris client. Like anyone thinking that Reese Hoskins was going to sign for two in 25 or something, it just wasn't going to happen. When he first started to be rumored back in November,

there was even talk of him getting as much as $20 million a year, depending on how the contract was structured if it was like a one-year deal. That would have felt like a lot. If it was 20 million, I would be like, yeah, I don't know where the Diamondbacks stand in their DH search. Sure. Hoskins is getting 20 million. We'll get into that a little more here in a second. No, for sure.

But of course, the one thing about Hoskins is that he did not play in 2023. So there's that variable. But had he played in 2023 and put up the numbers he did in 2022, I feel like, I mean, this is this is a great pickup for any team? It's just that unknown of is he going to be as good as he once once. was. Yeah, I mean, Reese Hoskins, it's been pretty good, man. I mean, 2022 was kind of a downseason by his standards. Hit 246, 332, 462, 30 homers, 79 RBI. You look at his 162 game average for his career. He is averaged to hit 36 home runs with 98 RBI in a 162 game span. His career slash line 242, 353, 492. He's been a really good hitter. And he's only 336.

and, you know, I know he's coming off of the ACL, but again, anyone expecting Reese Hoskins to go for, you know, on a one-year deal for 12 or 14 million or whatever, you know, Scott Boris is his agent. And even if his agent was someone else, just with where the market has been, I would have been really surprised if that happened. Reese Hoskins is just really consistent, right? Very consistent. I mentioned 22 being kind of a down season by his standards. That's still a really good season. Yeah. And there aren't.

79 RBI. Yeah, and there aren't that many, there aren't that many hitters out there like that. He has a career, that career 125 OPS plus. He's only 30 years old. You know, all of these things lead to,

you know, again, him being a quality player, the Philadelphia Phillies miss him already tremendously based on the reaction I've seen. And he's kind of beloved. Like I even saw one account already, already dictating when the Reese Hoskins,

like, you know, standing ovation game is going to be. Yeah. for Philly's fans. And Elise is right. He is absolutely going to play first base regularly for them. And a little more than DH.

I agree with what Aaron Hughes says there. Reese was a great pick for the Arizona Diamondbacks for a DH candidate. And the reason why is just the versatility of the three guys that I'm most interested in. Most people are most interested in. No shade being thrown at Justin Turner here. But a little bit of shade. Absolutely their shape being thrown at Justin Turner. But no, I mean, his versatility definitely made him the best fit

based on what he could bring to this team, backing up first base, playing D.H. There's a lot of different areas he could play. And he still has a lot left, I think, to give potentially more than Saler or J.D. Martinez, for sure, you know, just as far as other assets besides just his bat, right? But yeah, yeah, I think Reese Hoskins does. He's in a little bit of a different bucket. then at least Jorge Saler and J.D. Martinez. Correct.

Like, Jorge Saler and J.D. Martinez, you really don't want those guys playing in the field much at all at this point. I did check yesterday. J.D. Martinez played three games in left field for the Dodgers last year, which somehow I did not. In my head, he was just purely deaching for them. I can't imagine he looked all that great out there. Jorge Saler played 32 games in right field.

For the Marlins, we talked about how there's at least enough value there. defensively where you know you could you could put him out there every now and then and he wouldn't kill you that would be okay Reese Hoskins is like a first baseman like Reese Hoskins i think can play first base for you and and be fine uh he is coming off a torn ACL which you know there's certainly some some work to be done defensively and you know making sure he's able to move around well but he's not a center fielder right i think i think it's a fairly safe bet that he can play first base for you and if the diamondbacks had signed rees Hoskins that part of it wouldn't have made a ton sense for them. They already have the best

defensive first baseman in the sport. It would have been kind of an unnecessary luxury to have a guy, you know, who is a pretty decent first baseman in his own right in Reese Hoskins. Corbyn Barrels in the chat is coming for me. He said, when are the elections for a new mayor? I don't like that

one bit. You're lucky... I love this guy. You're lucky your name's Corbyn Barrels because I can't ban you from the chat with that kind of name. Who do you want in replacement of me? Espo. It sounds like a dictator, Derek. Well, hold on. Banting people for the chat for speaking out against you.

I thought this was- I will ban you from behind the Mac for speaking out against me. But whatever happened to the first amendment. Espo, uh, who wanted to trade Grace and Allen is somehow the choice to be picked for mayor there. Is that who you really want in my place? I don't think so. Uh,

ESpo doesn't love weed nearly as much as me. Uh, anyway, I will say they're, uh, going back to the actual topic here is that Reese Hoskins definitely, uh, is, it's, it's, it's, it's dwindling down. We said that things were going to happen this week.

and they are starting to happen. Hopefully something happens here for the Arizona Diamondbacks before this guy goes on his vacation to Washington, D.C., but we all know that's not going to happen. The question here, though, is how does this impact, you know, obviously the Diamondbacks' chances of getting one of the available D.Hs. I don't feel like this really changes things dramatically because it's not like Hoskins got this tremendous amount more than he was projected to receive. Yeah, it's on the higher end, I would say. anything much higher than two and 34, I might have started to get a little concerned

about the diamondbacks. But yeah, I don't think this, I don't think this prices the diamondbacks out of the market. There are some differences between Hoskins and Solaire and Martinez, as we discussed a little bit earlier. And yeah, I think if the diamondbacks are priced out now,

I think they always were. I don't think that they're priced out because of the price tag that Reese Hoskins got. And frankly, we don't yet really have a read on whether the diamondbacks are priced out of J.D. Martinez and Jorge Salare. Based on the report we talked about yesterday, you know, Robert Murray has still said that the diamondbacks have been involved with

with Salar. I know John Heyman had the diamondbacks in the mix a few days ago as well. So it appears that they're at least, you know, at least close enough financially where they can be in this conversation. But yeah, I mean, you're going to have to be the highest bidder, most likely in order to come away with one of those guys. And that is still, I'm still unclear on whether the diamondbacks are going to be able to do that. The one thing is, and like Elise says here, I thought of Reese as a first base free agent, not just a DH. Yeah. The guys that the Diamondbacks are pursuing are much more of a primarily DH option, especially J.D. Martinez.

Yeah. I feel like as time goes on, the potential for these deals to work in the Diamondbacks favor is there, right? Like, because especially as we get close to, you know, spring training starting and beyond, the diamondbacks don't need to fill this D.H. role immediately. It's just something that if they really want to improve their offense, they need to try to get figured out here by the, you know, by the time that the regular season comes around.

So there's time for them to hold out on this a bit. The Diamondbacks sign Jorge Salera on March 26th or something. Let's not do that, Derek. I'm just saying, I'm just saying like there's there, you're, you know, this entire situation right now, again is still in the Diamondbacks favor, I think. And I still think it's a desirable landing spot with the improvements that they've made. I don't think that this team is viewed as a team that is regressing at all.

You know, I think that they're here to stay as a contender at least in 2024. And if that's what, you know, what interests either of these guys, then that could be big. Also, J.D. Martinez could get some revenge once again against the Dodgers. And, you know, maybe he wants that. But Reese wasn't the only move. We actually had three moves made in one day, Jesse. man, Scott, Scott Boris was a busy man yesterday.

Jeff Passa was a busy man. He was getting all of the calls on this. But per multiple reports, left-handed reliever Matt Moore and the Los Angeles Angels are an agreement on a one-year $9 million contract. And Joey Gallo has signed with the Nationals on a one-year, $5 million deal. None of those super earth-shattering moves. But Matt Moore on a $9 million deal for a reliever, that's pretty good amount of money. Yeah, we talked about Matt Moore a little bit on this show not too long ago. He was, he was among the waiver, the waiver wire roller coaster riders, if you will.

Matt Moore wound up playing for three different teams in 2023, the Angels, the Guardians, and then the Marlins. And he was, he was quite good. Matt Moore had a really good 2020 season. He would have been a valuable asset for the Diamondbacks had they been able to get him. We did receive some reporting that the team did submit a claim on Matt Moore, but he landed he landed elsewhere um yeah two uh two point five six er a for more last season in 52 and two thirds innings uh pretty good strikeout numbers like if if the diamond backs had brought in a guy like matt more he would have become their most formidable left-handed reliever um but yeah spending nine

million on on a lefty reliever i don't think that was ever in the cards for arizona uh but an interesting move for the angels uh they're they're kind of building up uh a bullpen now i guess that's what the the angels lost show Hey, It's honey. And they're like, all right, we're just going to, we're just going to put together the best bullpen we can and try to make up for, you know, the greatest two way player ever. I don't know how that's going to go for them. But a good signing. I mean, it's a one-year deal. No, no such thing as a bad as a bad one-year contract, as they say. He gave up after leaving the Angels. He gave up two earned runs the rest of the season when he was with Cleveland and Miami. Yeah, Miami picked him up toward the end of the season. And like in general, looking at his numbers, it's a bit of a head scratcher here as to, you know, as to why he was moved around so much there at the end. You know, I guess L.A. dumped him as part of that like salary dump that they did.

L.A. dumped him along with a number of other players. And then the guardians got him because the guardians were like, yeah, we're like 500-ish or a little under 500. But we play in the AL Central. So who knows? So he was there for a while. And then they wound up letting him go. He gets picked up by the Marlins. I don't believe he was postseason eligible at that point. But yeah, I pitched four innings with the Marlins.

Didn't allow any runs there. So he was good. He was good at every stop. One of the better lefty relievers on the market and a good get for the Angels, even if I still don't really understand what their big picture plan is right now. You have to have players take the field, Jesse, I'm assuming. And that's part of it. You got to actually have a team put together.

But I also learned Joey Gallo is still playing baseball. That was news to me. He's not that old. Good for real. Joey Gallo is what, 30? 30. Yeah, 30 years old. He's even 30.

I think he might be 20. He came up at age 21, I believe. Yeah. So, yeah, he's been in the league for a while. One of the more fascinating players in all of baseball. Nine seasons. I was talking to Damon earlier about how he's like the most, like the weirdest league average hitter that you could possibly come up with.

It's like, yeah, he's a league average hitter. It's 1-2 at 177 last year, but drew a bunch of walks and slug 21 homers in, you know, only 332 played appearances. And, oh, by the way, he strikes out nearly half the time. So, yeah, an interesting get there for the nationals. I kind of like the move for them. They certainly needed some power to add to that lineup. And Joey Gallo is a lot of things.

And power is, power is certainly, certainly one of them. Watch out for the Nats, man. Yep. They're all, they're putting it together. That seems disingenuous. CJ, C.J. Abrams, Lane Thomas, Joey Gallo in the middle of that line. Yeah. Yeah, it's going to be mediocre at best is what it's going to be.

But of course, we wait to see what the Arizona Diamondbacks do here. And hopefully something happens soon because I don't want to go to a press conference. That's why this guy's around. So either get it done soon or get it done like much later next week. But or get it done in a month when I am in the Bahamas. Either way, I'm fine with all of that except it happening this weekend. Of course, make sure to keep it locked right here for whenever that does happen. If you are here in the PHN Exports YouTube channel, we thank you for being here.

Thank you for being part of the family. Of course, if you haven't subscribed yet to the channel, do so now. Sign up for notifications that way you don't miss whenever we go live or any of the wonderful shows on this network. go live. We are a Sons Jr. So sometimes we talk about the Phoenix Suns on this podcast, but there is a Phoenix Sun's actual show. I'm sure you guys are aware. Also, Totri does an ASU show that just gets you of A fans riled up. That's his old purpose of existence. So make sure to not miss out. Calling it an ASU show is extremely generous.

Is it a territorial cup show? Is that what we're just calling it from now on? I mean, every single day, the headline has something to do with Arizona. Yeah. Damon's totally fine with this too, by the way. No, I'm not at all. He's not even mad a little bit. But if you like the show, if you like Damon being angry, drop us a like. That all of that is great. Of course, if you're listening on the audio podcasting side, make sure you're subscribe there.

We appreciate you listeners. Of course, also leave us a review. We appreciate those five-star reviews. They help us out tremendously. Another thing that helps us out tremendously, some burrows delicious food. I just had some burrows right now. We had some burrows earlier. That was leftover, some burrows, but we had some burrows yesterday.

It was tremendously. Oh, wait. It was actually two days ago now. We've just had a lot of leftovers. But those leftovers, man. They go hard. They go hard. And actually, there is a grand opening of some burrows up by me up over at I-17.

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some burros. Oh, that's fire. Yeah. Yeah, that's what all the players and all the people participating.

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Of course, get that FOMO and get those last minute tickets at game time. It is the place for last minute ticket deals. and it's the fastest growing ticketing app in the country for a reason. Not only is it very aesthetically pleasing, but it is also a very helpful app to get you the lowest prices on tickets that you can find last minute.

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And again, any surprises there for you? We have two first-time ballot Hall of Famers and somebody in their six-year making it. We have Adrian Beltray and Joe Mower getting elected on their first-time ballots. And on his six-time around, Rocky's legend, Todd Hilton has been elected to the Hall of Fame. Oh man, he was only good because of course. Let's be real here. How dare you? I could have been a Hall of Famer in that ballpark.

He might be right. He might be right. No, Todd Helton absolutely deserving. I get very irritated when people make that kind of argument. It's so stupid. I don't think it holds weight for a number of different reasons. But yes, Todd absolutely. The man has a career 953 OPS though.

I do have to question if he would have a career 953 OPS if he didn't play. Yeah, yeah. A lot of those games. It would be lower. Yeah. But you don't, you don't necessarily need, you know, you don't necessarily need 953 in order to get into the Hall of Fame. It's wild. For a 17 year career to have a career OPS of 953, a career average of 316.

Oh, hell yeah. That's a little stone cold reference for you, Jesse. I didn't get it. Yeah, I'm sure she didn't. But he hit 372 in the year 2000, Todd Helton. You can you can cause the situation all you want. I don't think that's going to explain a 372 batting average. You don't you don't see, you know, the Ezekiel Tovar and Ryan McMan's of the world.

It's quite quite approaching that. So yeah, Todd Hilton, outstanding players certainly deserved it. Gladdy finally got in. I think it took a little bit too long. Kind of pleasantly surprised, honestly, that both Joe Mauer and Adrian Beltrae also got in in this in this first ballot. No surprise with Adrian Beltray. The surprise is more that Joe Mauer got in immediately. Yeah.

And Billy Wagner also came pretty close. So close. So close. And I'm a little disappointed with that. I certainly would have Billy Wagner on my ballot and think he's deserving. Five votes shy. Yeah. He was really close.

But he's, I mean, he's in really good position to get in next year. I believe next year will be his last year on the ballot. And he should be just fine. Joe Mower is just the third catcher in history to make it in on the first time, on a first time ballot. And we know eventually Gabriel Moreno will be part of that list too. Who are the other first time ballot guys like Johnny Bench and Yogi Berra? I think it's Johnny Bench and Pudge, if I'm not mistaken.

Yogi Berra wins like what, like seven rings and they don't put them in first ballot? What do I got to do? Well, what does Gary Sheffield have to do? He receives 63.9% of the votes. It was his final year on the ballot. Yeah. He is just the eighth player in MLB history to get 60% or more in his final year on the ballot without being elected. And that just feels like a miss, right?

I know Gary Sheffield might not have the best career numbers. But I mean, whose batting stance do we all do right now when we get a like a wrapping paper tube in our hand? I don't. If you're not doing the Gary Sheffield batting stance, you're not holding a piece of cardboard tube in your hand correctly. This is, this is fair. But I will say, I think that purely based on the numbers, Gary Sheffield is a Hall of Famer, undoubtedly. It's just the steroid stuff, right? That's fair.

And I think I haven't dug too deep into this, but from what I know, it sounds like Gary Sheffield's situation is more defensible than other people who were part of that, hence why he did get as close as he got. But yeah, I mean, 500 career home runs, career OPS of 907, career OPS plus of 140. you know nearly 3,000 hits. World Series champion? Yeah, he's got the numbers for it in my mind for sure. But yeah, I think at the end of the day, there's just people are still on edge about those kind of narratives.

And I think that's why he fell short. Which is just crazy to me because I get the idea here of performance enhancing drugs, even in the time, separate those that are doing it in the league, right, from those that aren't. But in modern day era, we don't have drugs. We just have all sorts of enhancements that people can do as athletes, right? Not to say they're illegal, but I'm saying, like, some people just have better trainers than other people. Like, there's advantages to be had no matter what when you're talking in baseball. Sometimes those advantages are just the fact that some players have more money than other players to be able to essentially invest back in their career, right?

So it is kind of a wild thing when we start, you know, acting like that time that there was just a certain amount of guys that were, you know, part of the performance enhancing drug thing and that that was a big separator between them and the rest of the players in the league at the time. I don't know. But I get it with like I think A rod, I understand more. I mean, there's a reason that Arod is getting, he got 34.8 percent, you know, about half of what Sheffield got. if you will compare their numbers, it's obvious that A. Rod was the better player. But his steroid situation is not as defensible as Gary Sheffield. So yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's probably the difference there.

You have Andrew Jones, known father of future D-BACs legend and future Hall of Famer Drew Jones. Correct. He received 61.6% of the votes in his seventh year on the ballot. You think he'll get in next year? You think next year is? I don't know if next year is, but I think he's in a good spot. I think he'll get there eventually. He has the time to get there.

He's got some time. Unlike, unlike Billy Wagner, who only has one more year on the ballot. But at 73.80s, I think he's basically a shoe in for next year. I think, I think Billy Wagner will be okay.

I agree. Falling off the ballot, Jose Batista, Victor Martinez, Bartolo Colon. That's a miss. That's a tragedy. Matt Holiday. Adrian Gonzalez,

good riddens, Brandon Phillips, Jose Reyes, and James Shield. Adrian Gonzalez sprayed me in face with champagne. I'll never forgive him for that. But shout out to Brandon Phillips for getting a vote. Someone,

someone voted for Brian Phillips. Yeah, fun player, but yeah, not quite a hall of him. Manager Jim Leland gets the call to the hall, right? That's a legendary manager in the game of baseball.

I want to get back to Todd Hilton really fast, just because Todd Hilton, to me in my lifetime, was the first big outrageous contract in sports that I ever remember. I think it was... What was it? Nine years...

Nine years, 140 million, 141 million. Something like that. Yeah, nine years, 141. Yeah. And... That is a big contract. It was like one of the biggest contracts in baseball ever. It was one of the biggest contracts given to a guy

who had only been in the league for like three or four years or something like that at the time. But it was also like, I don't... I don't know. Like, it's funny because, again, Todd Hilton never really got the credit he deserved. When you look at his career numbers,

he was consistently good. Yeah. He was consistently good. He was consistently great. I mean, his first year in the league was like one of five seasons in his entire career where he hit below 300. That's crazy.

That's crazy. His second year in the league, he's hit 315, third year, 320, like you said in 2000, 370. 4663 698 with a 1.162 OPS.

He led all of baseball and batting average. He led all of baseball on slugging percentage. He led all of baseball in total bases, RBI, doubles. It was wild this season. And I mean, that was the season that they gave him that money, right? Like, you, a guy hits 372, you sign him. It doesn't care how many years or how much money you get. You know, the best part about that, that year, though, where do you think Todd Hilton

finished an MVP voting the year that he hit 3702 maybe you have this in front of you i don't know he finished fifth baseball was a wild place yeah if you go back and you look at like uh some of the awards voting from you know 20 30 years ago uh it'll make the the savor matrician in in me uh boil over but yeah in in 2000 uh jeff kent won the MVP award oh jeff um had had worse numbers across the board Barry Bonds. Barry Bonds was in second. Similar, similar numbers. I think Bonds maybe had a better case than Jeff Ken.

Obviously, obviously they were teammates. Mike Piazza, third. Jim Edmonds came in fourth. And then it was Todd Hilton at number five. Very Bonds. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. Yeah.

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Yeah, but we had a bond over Ontario. We made it a thing, you know? I hate this. I hate this. I'm not accusing anybody of anything, but it's a little fishy how he's so willing to say, Ontario, but then the second that Puerto Rico gets put into place. Oh, now we have issues. Now, now we're too good.

Now we're too good to harmonize. Yeah, what is the difference? You've never been to either place. Oh, man. Also, I want to know why there were accusations that a man that eats 100 milligrams and OG's gummies can somehow not be mayor. I think that person is in fact quite fit

to be mayor, you know, because that just means Do you want a man who consumes 100 milligrams to make the rules in our lives? Yes, this is a man that understands how to have a good time. But of course, what we're talking about is OGs has launched. There are two new products made with, one with live rosin and one with Rick Simpson oil, which I am a huge fan of, the OGs naturals and the big OGs. Now, the OGs naturals are vegan gummies made with that live rosin that we were talking about earlier.

The big OGs gummy is a mega version of Peggs Raspberry RSO, which of course is Rick Sims and oil and is one of the company's most popular products. It's preforated into 10 slices that you're supposed to break apart and eat individually. Now that I've said that, I will say you can also just eat the whole thing because why not? It's a fun time. We're not here for a long time. We're here for a good time. And make sure to check out all the wonderful things OG's brands has to offer, including their entire line.

Sleep Gommies. They have so much more, including their fruits and creams we talked about. And they always have special edition gummies, so do not miss out on everything they have to offer to learn more about OG's gummies and where you can find them head on over to OGsbrands.com. Shout out to all of our diehards. Of course, if you are a diehard, we appreciate you being part of the PHNX family. If you are not a diehard, make sure to join very soon. Of course, you can get down at go phtnx.com. You get a free shirt of your choosing over at the pHNX Locker.com.

And you get your new shirt in time for Major League Baseball season, which is right around the corner. We are literally, I think, 29 days now, 28 days possibly. Wait, it's the 24th. So we're like exactly. We are 30 days away from the Diamondbacks first Cactus League game. And we are three weeks away from pitchers and catchers. Right. So now's a great time to grab that shirt.

We're still a wagon. We're still fucking dangerous. And we're still all of those things that we claim to be during the playoffs. Make sure you grab a shirt of your choosing. As part of that Diard membership, you'll get Jesse's, all of Jesse's. all of Jesse's content, you get access to our Discord lounge with all sorts of diehard only content coming from all the beat in there. So sign up today.

And of course, you'll also get access to our discounts with our partners. And you will get discounts on our events like our upcoming diehard takeover at the pool over at Chase Field where we will be hanging out. Jesse will be lifeguarding. I will be taking 100 milligram OGs and it's going to be a great time. I'll be lifeguarding with just like talking Jake, right? Yeah. Yeah, we're going to make sure he has plenty of lotion on the nose. We'll get him a t-shirt and all that kind of stuff.

So sign up to become a diehard today. Jesse, as much as it pains me to discuss this, Sports Illustrated as we know it is on life support. And the prognosis is not good. Now, I will first off start by saying, Sports Illustrated as we knew it died years ago. Probably like eight, nine years ago is when, Sports Illustrated actually died off right around the time they decided to fire their last

photographer for a magazine called Sports Illustrated. Now, the company name itself is, it's kind of already kind of messy, right? There's this weird group. I fell into this whole rabbit hole. It's called Authentic Brands Group. They own Sports Illustrated after purchasing the magazine for $110 million in 2019. They purchased it from the Meredith Group. who owned Time magazine and all of the all the magazines that came under that umbrella including Sports Illustrated. So they are this weird company, Jesse, that just owns brand names. Like stuff we grew up with stuff that has a nostalgia factor, established brand names that have some sort of brand recognition. This company kind of buys.

They don't make, they don't bring the company back. They just license out the company named other companies who then in turn can make a product or a website, right? So they licensed Sports Illustrated out to the Arena Group, which owns other magazines like Parade Magazine, Men's Journal, other magazines. And it was a 10-year deal to publish and operate Sports Illustrated. So what you're saying is the Arena Group is to Authentic Brands Group, what Diamond Sports Group is to Sinclair Broadcasting. Oh, my God. Why did you even do that? No, you know, you made it more complicated.

What are we doing here? And more boring somehow because you're bringing two boring things together. No, that's really a very poor analogy. No, that is. No, no, it's not good. But so basically, yeah, so authentic brand just licensed out the name Sports Illustrated. And then the arena group is a company that actually runs magazines and then they can run Sports Illustrated as they wish. And basically what happened to that that has ended Sports Illustrated.

and kind of brought this news into the mainstream, is that authentic brands group has since revoked the license, which is early because there was supposed to be a 10-year agreement. And they cited that the arena group has not essentially been running the brand properly, which they own and license out. I'm sure there's terms which it appears the arena group is kind of fighting. This isn't a done deal yet on the whole licensing because this agreement was supposed to be for 10 years, but it could be revoked if authentic brands group felt like the arena group was mismanaging the brand or doing something to cause harm to something that they own.

So that caused arena group to lay off the majority of their staff and that basically caused this to be the end of Sports Illustrated as we know it. But it's only Sports Illustrated as we've known it for the last couple of years. Like the arena group never did a good job of running the brand. they never properly adapted to like the digital space you got to give credit where credit is due and somebody i want to give a lot of credit to is jack summers uh because they are part of sports illustrated and the kind of like name only but they're like a separate brand and there's or they're separate like kind of like entity when it comes to their yeah they're part of the fan nation network and and it's websites like theirs that has actually brought sports illustrated credibility

and digital like footprint. Like people are coming back to Sports Illustrated. It just took time. In fact, they've had more traffic over the last year or growth in traffic than they've had over the last four years. It's just the rest of it. You know,

like I said, the joke here is that the illustrated part of Sports Illustrated, which was the photographers, hasn't been a part of the company since 2015. That's when they fired their last photographer that they had on staff. And since that, They haven't hired any photographers.

They haven't done anything. This is a magazine that when I was a kid, I was telling Jesse this because Jesse, I had to explain a lot to Jesse today. What's a sports illustrating? Jesse really didn't understand how sports worked before there was an internet. Jesse didn't think that pictures were actually taken of sporting events or that. There was anywhere you could see. Cameras weren't invented until at least 2007, Derek.

That television was maybe before cameras, which I don't understand because he's a smart guy. I didn't say that. He was like, oh, pictures and cameras. There was a lot of confusion. So for you young people out there, I will say magazines like Sports Illustrated were very important to us, especially the fact that at one point it was a weekly publication. It was your aggregated news. It was your internet, if you will, for going on and finding out what's happened in the sports world.

It was your, like, it was your way to tiptoe into like lots of different, you know, sports and lots of different teams and a lot of stuff all at once. Prior to that, you actually had to go to, like, newspapers and local, beat reporters and local, you know, television news and stuff like that in order for you to stay up to date on it. Yes, ESPN was around. ESPN was like what Sports Illustrated was in a way just as a television program. You know, it brought all the scores and highlights together.

It was my favorite show. Sports Illustrated at one point was my favorite magazine. As a kid, I used to take these beautiful images that they took of sporting events and rip them out of the magazine and put them up on my wall and stuff. Like, this was important. Well, it was like, because they were art. They were art. Like these weren't just like snapshots of stuff happening during the game.

These were photographers that knew how to take a picture and make it look incredible, you know? And honestly, I did the same thing. Like I used to like cut out pictures that I liked of players. Oh yeah. And I made like a collage. I had like a bulletin board.

And I'd collage it together. Yeah. I used to get mad when there was too many words on a good picture because I felt like it ruined it. Like I was like, I wanted to cut this out and put it up. But damn, they put all this words on top of it. This is ridiculous. I tried cutting an.

image off of an internet article at one point and it just didn't it didn't end well for me so this just get out just get out if you're not going to take this seriously why are you even here no but uh that's what i'm saying though sports illustrated did serve a purpose and some of its purpose like there was a time before the internet as many of you might not believe uh where we needed things like this in order for us to get our news in some way and you know again the the the services it offered kind of phased out you know we were able to get that elsewhere. We were able to get our aggregated news elsewhere. Hell, we could even aggregated ourselves based on search engines and the ability just to access all sorts of information based on the internet. But they just, again, they, the cost cutting measures reduced

the magazine from a weekly publication to a monthly. So it wasn't that thing anymore. You had the AI scandal where even though it wasn't really a major like AI scandal, it was stupid. And it was one of those things that makes you as a publication look bad. It tarnishes your reputation. And that's the thing is. It's been a rough few months for the SI PR department. Right. Oh, no kidding, right? And journalism is one of those things even, and you can attest to this very much based on how much you reject things that I want to do and say to you that journalism, your reputation and journalism is important. And people value that, right? And it's the reason why you have so quickly become a trusted source for Diamondbacks News. It's because of your professionalism and it's also because you do you know you do a good job of bringing you know a certain

respect to it and when you have something like an a i scandal even when it's as stupid as just coming up with fake writer profiles so that their real writers don't get hit or it's dumb product articles that aren't really that important but still you're saying a human being wrote it you know you're that was kind of the final nail in the coffin for them it was all they had left was kind of their reputation and I feel like that is the point where things went too far for authentic brands group and they revoked the license on that but authentic has released a statement they said authentic is here to ensure that the brand of sports illustrated which includes its editorial arm continues to thrive as it has for the past nearly 70 years so hopefully this isn't the end it might not be the end it might not be the

end and arena sports group has also issued statements saying that they would like to be part of it that you know i i don't know if that partnership is necessarily done for forever but yeah i i just want to emphasize what it meant uh not that long ago to be on the cover of sports illustrated my god if you're an athlete i don't know if there was like a greater honor in in all of professional sports than being the cover athlete on an on an issue of sports illustrated i mean that was like you were you were the peak of the sports world for that week and given the scope of Sports Illustrated and I mean the variety of stuff that they covered that was I mean that was huge it was career making it was it could make you a superstar overnight right and and honestly I think

the one thing I remember being kind of like a kid sports fan in the state of Arizona was we hardly got any credit we hardly got that acknowledgement to be uh you know on the cover of sports illustrator have one of our team. Sure. Be that. In fact, let's take a look at some of the best

Arizona Diamondback Sports Illustrated covers. You have those two legends right there. One we like a little more than the other right now, but the sportsman of the year, they had to share a lot of,

a lot of accolades together, right? Like that season, they were just tied at the hip. They might as well have been what I tried to do when I tried to mash J.D. Martinez and Jorge Saler together into one person,

but, There's those two. Let's see what else we got. This guy, the best he's ever been. Arizona's Randy Johnson. That's just a classic Sports Illustrated cover right there, man. I don't know if it's just the color of the lettering,

the simplicity to it. Everything. That one's clean. That's clean. With the green background. With the green background. Yeah. Yeah.

And that jersey combo, that fire ass Arizona Diamondbacks jersey combo. But it was always Randy. Randy was always on there. Let's throw another one up. There's Randy, sizzling, sizzling series.

Randle? Oh, good old Randall Johnson. Yeah, he throws heat at the Yankees. And of course, the greatest Sports Illustrated Arizona Diamondbacks cover in history. Unforgettable.

The Diamondbacks stunned the Yankees in a World Series that had it all. Hell yeah, it did. That shot is just magical. This is exactly the type of shot I'm talking about when I say as a kid, I put these images up

on the walls in my room. Like, this is just something that, like at times, again, Jesse, with, with,

without 4K cameras and without all of the stuff we have now, you, you didn't always get to see these moments, especially on a blurry black and white 13-inch TV. Sure. In the kitchen of my parents' house. But, uh,

this was definitely the way that we got to capture some of those moments and revisit them and man, holy shit. They also had the special commemorative, uh, issue from the world champs. Uh, I have the,

the black leather bound version of this. That's the other thing Sports Illustrated was great for, man. We didn't talk about it enough, but Sports Illustrated used to make the best commemorative stuff. That was almost the thing that got you to get the subscription. There would be a commercial and you had to dial a $100 number. And if you were a kid, your parents had to order it for you, obviously.

But they would always be like, order now. And you will get the full Arizona Diamondbacks commemorative collection. And it would be like this fucking leather bound book and we have this and we have that like the football phone The football phone was the item by the way that was the evergreen that was just all the time like if there wasn't a championship that just happened The football phone was of course the most alluring item You're gonna have to explain that to me what is the what is the what is the football Jesse in the 80s and and and even earlier than that in order to be on the phone it had to be plugged into a wall and They just couldn't take it everywhere with you.

And it was a football. Oh, okay. See, we got fancy with our phones back then because, you know, we got bored and we had a lot of time on our hand. So we'd make them into footballs or sometimes we made them into Garfield. I was going to say, yeah, the Garfield phones. Garfield went hard because when you picked up the receiver on the Garfield phone, his eyes would like, he'd wake up and stuff. It was great. Like 300 Garfield phones just like wash up on an island shore.

I don't know. I don't know, but that's amazing. Yeah. No, there is some incredible, incredible stuff that comes from Sports Illustrated. And of course, just the importance to the sporting world. Let's hope it doesn't go away. Let's hope that somebody can treat this brand correctly. And I don't know, maybe sell it off to somebody that's going to take better care of it.

Yeah. I don't like, I don't like, I'm not going to lie. I don't like the idea of a company just going around and buying like brands and IPs and LLCs, Not to like actually like revive them, but just to hold on to them until somebody else wants them, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Sports Illustrated was such a, such a great thing in its time. And I honestly, as a sports fan growing up, I feel like I very much missed out.

And I'm pretty, I'm pretty sad about that. I don't really remember having much Sports Illustrated around in my house growing up. It was such a fast. It was such a quick chain. You know what I mean? We went from so quickly from these really high quality magazines like Sports Illustrated being a huge part of lives to just all of that being replaced with the internet. And I mean, literally, it felt like overnight. And I mean, that feels like that's why Sports Illustrated as an entity is in this position

is because Sports Illustrated when magazines were big, like they were the thing. That was their space. That was their thing, right? But then now that we're using the internet for basically everything at this point, magazines just don't translate to the internet really all that well. Yeah. Suddenly Sports Illustrated, you know, in recent years, their website has looked a lot like a lot of other sports websites. Very fair. Not to say it's a bad thing. They, you know, they've hired excellent writers.

You know, Tom Verducci, you know, there's a long list of Sports Illustrated writers who are, who are fantastic at what they do. And that's kind of what's kept it afloat for the last few years. But, yeah, unfortunately, there just isn't that space for magazines like there used to be. And, I mean, man, when there was Sports Illustrated was really at the top of the world. We just kind of find things to be obsolete after a while. I don't understand how, you know, looking through beautiful sports images is something that doesn't translate well over to an internet website.

But I feel like certain things complicated and, you know, it's too easy to steal one picture from one website, put it on another one without crediting. That is very true. You know, money isn't there anymore because it's just, it's just not the same as it once was. but I don't know. I definitely feel very strongly that Sports Illustrated is still a valuable brand, and I think that someone will find a way to do something positive with it. But of course, we do appreciate you guys being here for this chat, as we always do.

Dean says Lips Phone. Yeah, there was a phone that, like, there are certain phones that every single person that had a phone, like telephone line, they had to have one of in their house. There was a clear phone that you could see, inner workings of the telephone that's cool and sometimes it had some neon inside of it so when it yeah i feel like i feel like i have seen one of those and there's the lips phone garfield phone football phone those are standards one of those four uh they were sent out in the mail to people once you

registered i think as a voter or something i don't know but that's that's so cool it's it's it's it's it's the way things used to be but hey we appreciate you guys being here of course you can follow us on twitter uh for more on all this wonderful stuff uh and just to hear our thoughts i am at cap underscore caveman with a k jesse is at Jesse N. Friedman. The people's producer, Damon, is at Damon Dog. That's D-A-W-G. We are Damon's dogs. Bark, bark. Of course, our show is at PH&X underscore D-Backs, but all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you so much for stopping a bye. We do appreciate your time. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it is so much

more fun when the Diamondbacks finally get themselves a DH.