PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Are the Diamondbacks on verge of trading Geraldo Perdomo?

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

Geraldo Perdomo posted a bunch of pictures with teammates on his Instagram story on Tuesday night. Naturally, we’re reading way too much into it. Plus, the Diamondbacks came out well in the newly released PECOTA projections. We take a look at team projections across the National League and player projections for the D-backs. We also take a sneak peek at the Snakes batting practice caps. An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to Suns Takeovers, Coyotes & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://gophnx.com/events/Arizona Lottery: Visit AZAdventure.com for more information on how you can take an adventure with the Arizona Lottery and for a chance to win $1 million in cash and Arizona travel prizes! PrizePicks - Download the PrizePicks app today and use code PHNX for a first deposit match up to $100! Pick more. Pick less. It’s that Easy!NASCAR Weekend at Phoenix Raceway: March 8-10! Find more information at https://www.phoenixraceway.com/spring/ on the Shriners Children's 500, and be on the lookout for racing content from PHNX!Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Empire: Schedule a free in-home estimate with Empire Today! Receive a $350 OFF discount when you use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See https://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 over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Let Someburros cater your next meal big or small! Order online or find one near you by visiting someburros.comWhen 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 Keybacks podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montaia, occasionally known as a worrier. I am a warrior. This man next to me is a much more reasonable person than I am. It is your vice mayor and your thunderstick, the one and only Jesse Friedman. Jesse, I did not sleep well last night. I stayed up very late texting you and Damon, especially Damon. We went off on our own low conversation after.

you dropped off because of Damon's feelings about this whole situation. Of course, a big ski to you all. I got to get that out of here. And we thank you guys for being here. Am I overreacting, Jesse, to what we saw on Geraldo Perdomo's Instagram story yesterday? I mean, I feel like I have a standing answer to whenever you ask me that question. Whenever I say, Jesse, am I overreacting to Blake? It's generally safe for me to just say yes.

And I do think that that standard response applies in this situation as well. Although I will admit that there were some rumblings about this on Twitter. I went over to Harald of Prudhomo's Instagram story and took a look for myself. And I was like, all right, I see where you're coming from. Okay, I'm not crazy. You're not, you're not crazy now. This is what we saw last night. This was just something that started.

around I guess like 10 o'clock like 8 o'clock 7 o'clock sometime around that time in the evening sometimes in the evening he just started posting pictures to his Instagram story of all of his teammates yeah and they all had captions they all had individual kind of and he's in basically as you can see he's in basically all of these pictures with these teammates right and he's tagging every one of them he's saying stuff uh you know about about each guy a here's alec thomas a t with the handshake Corby and Carroll, the man. This is the kind of post you post when you are leaving a team. This is not something that, oh, it's the start of spring training and I'm feeling a little emotional.

I'm glad to be back around the boys. Let's post some stuff up here that just gives a shout out to all of my teammates. Like, he almost, he didn't miss anybody, Jesse. There's Josh Rojas. He didn't miss anybody. This is infuriating to me how much this makes me worry that this is the end of Rolando for Novo's time and a Diamondbacked uniform. But I feel like that's very overreactionary.

I feel like it is an overreaction to, of course, this. But I mean, come on, he didn't miss. Evan Longoria is covered. I mean, El abuelo. I do think that there are some players in here that are no longer on the team, which was one, you know, if you were being trained. then you know you'd you'd say farewell to the there's this video in here which just it's funny but yeah like if you were being traded in your Instagram farewell story you

would probably include the players that you are that you are actually leaving as opposed to like would you include Evan Longoria when you weren't you weren't likely going to be playing with him anyway so I was I was really you know trying to read into this alongside you but yes if Geraldo Perdomo were to be traded, I imagine this is something, something like what his Instagram story would look like. That is kind of undeniable. But I don't, but I don't think it's like if he were traded, I think this is what it would look like.

But just because he did this on Instagram, I don't think that means he was traded. So it's like the arrow goes one way, but not the other in my mind. Elise says, I mean, Lourdes posted a whole goodbye post and he ended up resigning with us like a month later. So maybe it's just their thing. We know that. But that's different because Lourdes was a free agent. Heraldo Pardomo is not at all a free agent. Right.

And so I feel like everything about this because Pardomo wasn't here in the United States. Cotel Marte wasn't here in the United States. And these guys are all back. They're all around each other. They're here early. They're here voluntarily. and I think that there's just a palpable excitement amongst them about what they accomplished last postseason and, you know, what this season could look like for them. I mean, this is an exciting time for a team that still kind of was coming together last year in August, right?

And now not only have they pretty much solidified all those same pieces that got them as far as they got, but now they're adding those pieces to it. If I was a player on the team like Jerry P, I would be very excited about the additions that they made and coming back and being around all my teammates. I mean, hell, who am I? Like, I literally can't go anywhere without posting pictures of me and my friends being out doing stuff just to, I guess, prove that I still live life. You know what I mean? But like, I get it. It's just it was concerning. And it concerned didn't concern me, just me.

There were a lot of people online who were because of the most concerned. Do you realize that we would have just had to find a new producer? If the Diamondbacks ever trade Heraldo Pardomo, Damon, Damon is going to, is going to know, he's no longer going to be producer of the show. That would, that would be the end. Groundhog Mama says he's just a happy guy, which I think is probably the best explanation for this.

Like Heralda Pardomo just really seems to love his teammates. And, you know, when you love the people that you play with, when you enjoy being around them, you'll post on your Instagram story a whole bunch of pictures with some nice words and whatnot on any pictures of Jesse on there. That's right. Yeah, right, right. Yeah. It makes sense the other way as well.

Absolutely. You dislike people, but you certainly wouldn't have, wouldn't have done anything like this. It would be crazy to do that. It would be crazy to do that. I guess to place devil's advocate as we do so often on the show. The other question here is, is that why would Perdomo no longer be a problem? part of this team if that was the case it would be obviously be a some sort of trade and what would a trade for perdomo even look like where is his value at i feel like his value is potentially fairly

high based on the fact that he was an all star last year again the team went to the world series it's it's a time for pretty much every player on the roster's value to be fairly high after the run that they had and especially all of those guys that ended up on the all star team last year it also feels like, you know, the diamondbacks do have Jordan Lawler waiting, you know, as their future shortstop. So there are some things that make sense, but the timing doesn't make sense. And, you know, of course, what would they get back for him? Yeah, absolutely. I agree with all those things. You know, they're very well may come a day where it does make sense for the diamondbacks to at least explore a trade for Geraldo Prado. But it doesn't feel like that day is today. If the

Diamondbacks traded Heraldo Pardomo tomorrow, it would be like, all right, well, you know, maybe you were able to add some sort of piece that is that is helpful. You know, you'd expect to get a decent amount of value in exchange for him. But, I mean, at this stage, if you trade Heraldo Pernomo, who's your opening day shortstop, right? You're putting a lot of pressure at that point. That's on Jordan Lawler. And, you know, there's some other guys in the mix there as well.

There's Blaze Alexander and, you know, Kevin Newman. There's some other guys. there as well. But yeah, the debacks don't seem nearly stable enough at shortstop right now to move on from Pardomo and not bring in someone to replace him. So in that sense, a trade doesn't really make sense to me right now. And then as you also said, what would the diamondbacks get? Like at this stage in the off season, if you were to trade one of your better young position players, what are you getting it for? Yeah, what are you doing it for? Like, are you getting another starting pitcher? I know, you know, Mike talked at the beginning of the offseason about wanting to get two starting

pitchers instead of one. I guess you're maybe kind of trying to build a super starting rotation at that point. Sure. Are you, you know. Dylan C's for instance or something like that. Yeah, I mean, I think it'd have to be more than just Perdomo for Dylan C's most likely. I know that. That's definitely the case.

But that would be my point is, is that I feel like the only case, the only instance where they would even consider that would be to maybe make one of those trades that they think. you know we kind of have to pull the trigger on this we don't have any other choice sure you know this is too good to pass up in this moment and maybe like a back end reliever i i could see like if you're trying to really add some some bulk to the back end that's something i i you know have kind of always wanted to see the team do this offseason but even that it's like all right you're going to trade a shortstop so that you have a better bullpen but then what are you doing it shortstop right um we did talk about perdomo as uh when the randy a rosarena uh rumors were floating

around a little bit. There was a day. I think you were, I think you were out of town. Patrick Lyons was filling in. And he and I had both come up with Geraldo Prudomo as a potential centerpiece there. The race have some questions at shortstop. I know they've made some moves this off season. But yeah, even then it was kind of hard to see like, okay, if the Diamondbacks traded for Proto. Traded Prudomo for Rosarena, you know, what would they do at shortstop? Yeah. Those same questions certainly exist today. Joey had a great question. He said not on topic,

but it is something we've been asked several times lately, and we haven't really addressed it because we don't have any concrete answers. But he asked any news on games being aired on TV yet, been screwed by Ditch Network, having to listen on the radio for the last few years. I am so tired of being in the middle of petty squabbles between satellite providers and channels.

We didn't do it. All right. Well, no, I mean, I feel that way, too. I went through this with Channel 12, on direct TV for like months. Every time I turned on Channel 12, it was just some BS thing up there. I don't know.

As it stands right now, I think the last word we had was the Diamondbacks have a lot of suitors for potential regional sports network partners, but no decisions yet. They did say Arizona sports is one of their options. Or Arizona family sports. So they could end up on the same channel right now as the Suns, but nothing there.

For the most part, it sounds like, They're going to proceed this season as they did last year. So there is still that channel. Like I know they've added that extra channel for it to air on on cable and such. So however you were getting it, unfortunately, like you said, you were screwed by DISH Network. So I think for at least the short term, that's how they're going to proceed. But hopefully we have some change in direction to that or some update before. Yeah.

At the end of the. We're still waiting on a few updates, man. We're just the ballpark news. Ballpark stadium. Still haven't gotten a ton of clarity there, the TV situation. Yeah. Hopefully, I mean, we will be talking with, at least based on what's happened last year. And I think they've done this generally.

We typically hear from Derek Hall and Ken Kendrick at some point in February, like toward the beginning of spring training. So we might only be a week or two from talking with them again. And, you know, maybe they'll have some update at that point. Yeah, we are what, one week of, way now from one week from one week from today Derek one week from today um Gabriel says I need the I want my diamondbacks chant on three TV again we all need that we all absolutely need that uh I don't remember that uh what was can I don't remember that you don't remember that what was it chanted for me

Derek it was it was I want I want what do you mean I was I'm not I'm not chant I'm not chanting on command for you but it was uh the the sons and the Diamondbacks have always been kind of like TV partners and I I do kind of want them to be on the same channel as the Sons. And of course, we have this delightful photo that Jacob pulled for us of speaking of Sons and Diamondbacks Action. We got Corby and Gabriel Moreno, our very own Yo Gabby Gabby and Corby. Just looking adorable. That's an incredible. That one is an incredible picture. I believe Merrill Kelly was also at the Sun's game yesterday. Zach Gallin and

Brandon Fott, I believe we're at the We're out golfing Doing that whole thing So they were out there golfing We did do we have that incredible shot of Zach Gallin missing the pot? I can get it You get that for me because we need to show the world that But I love this brewing friendship

Between Gabby and Corbin I love the idea of there being a language barrier But them both potentially teaching each other like English and Spanish better like like Corby's getting better to Spanish and Gabby's getting better at his English there like sure yeah that's a delightful relationship and again the there's a lot of participation from the Diamondbacks and all this stuff here is here here's a hilarious picture of is that Gallen missing a put in front of all of the mascots it looks like I don't know who's more disappointed in him Baxter or or himself

yeah I mean even Baxter's in on this you'd think the Baxter would put have his back, right? No, no. You know Baxter, Jesse. He has nobody's back. He's a, he's a scoundrel, that Bobcat. You're saying he doesn't back the D-backs? He doesn't know. I mean, he's gotten a little tired of that after. They called him Baxter, okay, what do you expect? He's going to go the other direction. That's fair. Yeah, Danielle, with the crack, whack, I want my D-backs. There's your chant for the channel three thing. That's, that's that. But, yeah, let's stop speculating about Erraldo Perdomo because Damon is going to be very, very angry at us. So for now, this is just Perdomo getting excited about the season.

Yeah, this is just a kind of funny, very wholesome, very Geraldo Perdomo-esque kind of thing. And yeah, it probably means absolutely nothing in regard to a trade. But we had to at least mention it because it doesn't, it was a little weird. And I understand why some people were wondering about this. I have a late night tonight, Jesse. I did not need to lose sleep over this. but I definitely did. I just found myself waking up around, you know, like at one and then again at two,

just thinking what a trade would be. I cried a couple of times. It wasn't a good night. But Harold O'Prodomo, he means a lot to this team. And, you know, of course. He does. He does mean a lot. That's the big thing about a guy like that is someone said he's a clubhouse guy.

He absolutely is a clubhouse guy. Yeah. He really emerged as kind of a leader, you know, even though he was, you know, obviously only 23 years old, one of the younger guys. Maybe he's 24 now. One of the younger guys on the team nonetheless. But that was kind of a narrative throughout the season, Prodomo taking charge in certain situations and helping pitchers,

you know, kind of rain things in when things weren't going so well. He does mean a lot to the Diamondbacks. He was an all-star. He didn't have a good second half of the season. But yeah, he's a big part of this team. And as we said, I don't think it makes really any sense for them to move on from him right now. He was in the mix of everything. In the postseason, it felt like, like every rally got started with Fergal Mo.

He was great in the postseason. He reached base in the vast majority of the games the Diamondbacks played. And he was in the nine hole. He was really setting the table for the top of the lineup for Corbyn Carole and Kutel Marte really well. So, yeah, I don't think people need to be too worried about this. Pedro says Tio Derek has scissoring and cursing to do later tonight. Didn't need the stress. He's absolutely right about that.

I have pro wrestling to attend. But, of course, I'll take a nap or something here at the office. I do appreciate you guys being here in the PHNX Sports YouTube channel. Sorry to have worried you with our episode title. I think Haas said it right away. He said to click pay work. Click may work on the edge of my seat now. Gotcha.

We got you. Well, thank you for being here. Of course, if you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, make sure to do so now. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss whenever we go live. Drop us a like, as Gabby said. He always loves when you do that. If you're listening on the audio podcasting side, make sure you subscribe there as well.

Leave us a review. We always appreciate those five-star reviews. They help us out a ton. Of course, if you want to help yourself out a ton, stop by Illegal Pete's because illegal Pete is your go-to spot at all times of the years, from caterings to gift cards. They have the perfect thing you need, whether it is to feed yourself, feed your family, or you just want to stop by and check in on Damon because, of course, as we've addressed, He's always there on the patio.

And maybe after this episode would be a great time to stop by and console him for what we said and what we speculated on. But Illegal Pete's has, of course, the strongest margaritas in Arizona. And they have mouthwatering food that will fill all of your heart's desires. So make sure to check out all of Illegal Pete's weekly deals. Kick the Monday blues with $3 margaritas all day long or ease your way back into the week with $2 tacos every Tuesday. If you work in the health care or education field, take your team to launch. at Illegal Pee's every Tuesday. Enjoy buy one, get one free entrees, and don't forget to unwind after a long day at their

happy hour, 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. every single day. Illegal Pete, your go-to spot for burritos, buddies, and beer. Do they have it in Vegas? I think Damon's okay right now? He's probably not. I'm surprised he's not here in the chat yelling. Well, he's on a show right now. Yeah, he's busy.

But, you know, he's probably for the best. He's not okay. I can tell you that much. I know he's not okay. But he will be okay. Do you want I got like my last text message from him was at 3.45 a.m. Yeah, he's not okay. And it was a lot of curse words.

There were a lot of curse words. He texted you hit 345 a. It's a long. I think you texted me at like 2.30 a.m. the night before. Yeah, he was a he's a worried guy. The Cardinals crew, man. They, they work him hard. Yeah.

I mean, he's in Las Vegas. You don't really sleep in Las Vegas. You don't even know what time of day it is in Las Vegas. That's fair. I bet he thought both of those texts were going out at PM. I bet, you know, based on, based on, the Circa atmosphere and everything they got going on. Of course, you got to join us for some baseball games this year.

We have all of our takeover events that we're going to be offering. But of course, great way to get your tickets to all events, including concerts, shows, musicals, like I took my daughter to one that was probably way too old for her at 12 years old, but still had a great time. She had a blast. So make sure to check out all of the wonderful events you can attend through game time. It is the place for last minute ticket deals. And it is the fastest growing ticketing app.

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Again, create an account and redeem code PHNX for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. If you want to join me at ProRRour. wrestling tonight. Maybe a great place to get your tickets would be on game time for that show that starts, I think, at like five o'clock. So get down and check out what game time has to offer. Jesse, we've talked about projections at times, really liking parts of this team, really not liking parts of this team, but the Pocoda projections have dropped. And there's some things that

favor the Diamondbacks quite a bit and a couple of things that are fairly ugly that we don't really want to talk about but we are going to have to address. Let's take a look though. Do you want to start off with the standings? Do we want to start with standings? Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, let's go. Let's go NOS.

What do we got in the NOS here from our friends over at Pocoda? This is done by a baseball prospectus for those who don't know. The L.A. Dodgers are projected for 101.9 wins. That's such a crazy projection. Yeah, that's outrageous. That's ridiculous. Because a projection is supposed to be like conservative. Like the 50th percentile.

It's the mid-range outcome. Yeah. Right. It's not saying that every team is going to win this exact number of games, but it's supposed to be like right in the middle of kind of all the possible. Basically what the highest likelihood of them winning is, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Essentially. And to put like that middle ground for the Dodgers at 102 wins is kind of outrageous, but says a lot about how talented that team is. No huge surprise there, frankly. They're just men, Jesse. They're just ordinary men. They are not just ordinary men, Derek. But the Diamondbacks are in second place here at 85.3 wins projected.

So 85 and 77 is essentially the record projection for the debacks in 2024. The Giants, a few wins behind that at 81 and 81. Padres at 80 and 82. Pocoda has them in fourth place. And then the Rockies at 58 and 104. That is, that's even. As good as the Dodgers projection is, that is even worse than like how good that one is. Yeah.

That is exceptionally poor. The amount of despair, the lack of hope there as a Colorado Rockies fan, you already know your team is bad. And you already know your owner isn't going to do much in order to make that team better. Right. But then you have to look at that. And like you said, that's the median outcome. You mean to tell me there's a darker outcome? There's a darker outline.

Yeah, there are a lot of darker outcomes for the Rockies. It's a bad baseball team. But yeah, I think Fangraphs has the Diamondbacks a little below 84. I think it would maybe round up to 84 wins right now. So Bacota is a little higher on the Diamondbacks, putting them at just over 85 wins for 2024. And 85 probably doesn't sound all that great. I mean, we saw the results of that survey that we took. You know, a lot of people, about half of you voted for the voted that the Diamondbacks would finish.

with 90 or more wins. So 85 might seem a little bit low even to some people. But in terms of a mid-range outcome that these computer things are projecting, 85 is really pretty strong. Yeah. And honestly, that's that that would appear based on other projections in the National League to get the Diamondbacks into the playoffs. I think with the way that the NL West is and the way it's going to be for a number of years, that's all that we can really play for at this point. Winning the division on a year where maybe the Diamondback or the Dodgers slip up

and aren't as good as they're projected to be might be a possibility, but it feels like this is the path that they're always going to kind of have to pursue. Yeah. Yeah. And it does have playoff your percent chance of making the playoffs. It had that at 60.6% for the Diamondbacks. So entering the season with a greater than 50% chance of making the playoffs, I know everyone is really expecting this team to make it at this point.

Sure. But that's still, I mean, that's still pretty good. That's something we haven't seen in a long time for this team. I think in 20, 23, their chance of making the playoffs was somewhere like 15, 20 percent, depending on which outlet you looked at entering the season. So 60 is an enormous, an enormous upgrade over where they've been recently. We also have the National League Central and East standings from the Pocoda projections. Let's take a look at the central standings. These are interesting.

These are interesting because what you got here is not a lot of good baseball being played in the National League Central. The St. Louis Cardinals right now being projected to win that division with 85 wins. You got the Cubs going 80 and 82 and being the second place team, essentially every team in the division outside of the Cardinals having a losing record. The Milwaukee Brewers being 79 and 83. You have the Cincinnati Reds at 78 and 83, which is a little egregious. I would say a little for a team that kind of has been on the rise and probably, I mean, I would imagine would forecast to be better next year than they were this year, but who knows? And then the Pittsburgh Pirates at 72 and 89 or 90, 72 and 90, basically all kind of right there together.

Yeah. Like a whole difference of eight games between second place and last place. But an odd selection for the Cardinals to be the number one pick. I mean, obviously last year they were kind of the favorite and then they had a pretty terrible season. But have they really like done enough during this offseason to be projected as the division winner? Yeah, I mean, I guess. I guess they have. I mean, they have.

Obviously, the computer thinks so. Yeah. Do you think so, though? It's just a, it's a bad division, obviously. You know, those top four teams are all clustered together very, very closely. There's a lot of a lot of, I mean, I could see the Reds winning the Central. I could see the Brewers, I could see the Cubs, the Cardinals. All of those are very, very possible in my mind.

I do think the Cardinals are probably at the top of the list for me as of today. No, they, you know, their starting rotation additions weren't the best, but they do have Sunny Gray at the top now. You know, Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn should at least be able to eat some innings that the last year's staff wasn't really able to do as well. And I still believe in Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Aeronado and Lars Neupar. and Nolan Gorman and what Jordan Walker could be. When I look at the Cardinals lineup, I see not only a decent ceiling,

but a decent floor too. Whereas, you know, you look at the Reds lineup, for example, the ceiling there is exceptionally high, but the floor is probably lower. You don't know exactly what L.A. Daly-Cruz looks like in year two. You know, can Matt McLean come back and be as good as he was, you know, in year one before getting hurt? There's more questions with Cincinnati.

Whereas with the Cardinals, it's like, all right, this isn't, you know, they didn't have the offseason that I'm sure Cardinals fans would have wanted, but they did enough to win or to at least be favorites in a division that is just not very good right now. It's fair. All right. Now let's take a look at the NLE standings projections from Pocoda because, again, some interesting things here, including, obviously Atlanta Braves favor to win that division. they are projected to have 100 wins so we got two 100 projections seasons from from two teams in the national league because of course then you have the Phillies at 85 and 77 New York Mets at 83 and 78 or 83 and 79 Miami at 80 and 82 yeah then Washington at a distant distant fifth place with 58 wins Philadelphia being projected to have 85 wins. Jesse, what are your thoughts?

Yeah. On that, on the Diamondbacks having that edge. I absolutely. It was a little surprised to see that. Yeah, they have the Diamondbacks at 85.3 wins. Philly's at 85.0.

Does that make them the first wildcard team? Technically in these projections, yeah, in these projections, the Diamondbacks are the first wildcard team. They also have the third highest win total projection. They beat the Cardinals by point one and the Phillies by point three. So, yeah, technically, according to Pocoda, it's the Dodgers and the Braves and then granted a pretty sizable gap.

And then the Arizona Diamondbacks is the third best team in the National League, which is, I mean, if you're a Diamondbacks fan about as good as you probably could have seen as playing out. And the Phillies in particular, like I think of the Phillies, if I'm being honest, as being a little bit better than the Diamondbacks in terms of just the talent on that. roster. I think the bullpen in particular, the Phillies bullpen is just so deep in a way that the Diamondbacks isn't. But looking a little closer at some of the numbers, Pocoda just doesn't like the Phillies position player group as much as it. There's a big difference there between, it actually likes Phillies pitchers better than the Diamondbacks pitchers, but it likes the Diamondbacks position player group way more. You know, you have guys like Nick Castiano, so you don't know how much you're going to get there. Brandon Marsh is someone that Pocoda is not really very high

on, you know, Kyle Schwarber, the offensive projections there are good, but obviously you're not getting much defensively. So on the whole, the Diamondbacks just have, you know, a lot of valuable players who can run the bases, who can, you know, play good defense. And the Phillies are, you know, it's more of a hit first profile. There's not as much value, you know, from a defense and base running standpoint. And that comes through here. Pocoda sees that the Diamondbacks is the better team. When you talk about valuable position players, of course, everybody knows Corbyn Carroll is going to be up there for the Diamondbacks, but he is, in fact, the most valuable position player on the Arizona Diamondbacks, according to Pocoda.

And he is tied for the fourth best position player in all of baseball. Yeah, in terms of Warp, which we don't talk about Warp much, but there's FWR, there's BWR, there's F-WR, and then there is actually a third war metric, which is Warp that comes for baseball prospectus. That one isn't used as often. It's when you leave a player out in the rain, basically. But they do have Corbyn Carroll projected for five warp in 2024, which, yes, as you said, was tied for the fourth most of any position player in all of baseball.

So they certainly have a very, very high view of Corbyn Carroll. Their projected slash line for him was 268, 355, 482. they project him for 20 homers 77 rbi i 30 stolen bases which feels really low it does these systems are always going to be uh pretty conservative on that front but yeah that's a that's a pretty solid projection for for corbin carol for sure and i'll say this like word is out about the diamond back stealing and they were kind of a team that uh at times was kind of highlighted last year as being one of the better stealing teams so yeah with that know with that being part of you know the scouting report and things like that.

It is possible to see a regression from him in stolen bases. I don't know if he'll go back down to just getting 30, but these are conservative, you know, projections. And again, that's still very good for, for Carol to have that kind of sophomore season. And yeah, again, it continues with the whole team. Like they have like they have what, one, two, three, four, five, six, six guys projected to hit somewhere between 252 and 268 on this team. which actually feels very much like how the Diamondbacks found success last year.

You didn't have necessarily one guy standing out, head and shoulders above everybody else, as much as it was a team effort from a bunch of young talented players and Evan Lungoria. Yeah. I'm not going to throw him in there with young and talented. He's in a bit of a category of his own for sure. To get a Willow. But anyway. But what are your thoughts here on the rest of the squad's projections and what kind of

stood out to you from from those guys yeah um just pretty solid across the board like the diamond backs as we've said many times that a lineup at this point is is solid there's there's not really holes in in the lineup uh you know one through nine it's going to be pretty competitive all the way through especially against righties um you know against lefties there's there's maybe a couple spots that that we're less sure of but against lefties they also have guys who just absolutely destroy the baseball, I could tell Marte and Gabby Moreno, who could, you know, maybe help help make up for that. One guy who does stand out to me is Aohenio Suarez.

Why does, yeah, why does Pocoda hate A.U.N.E.O.S.W.S.W.S. What does Pocoda have against Gino? Yeah, that's hard for me to say. 209, 300, 381 slash line. It's not a great slash line. There's still 21 homers there, which I guess makes sense. They're, you know, they're probably projecting him to. He's a power guy. He's, he makes contact. He's going to hit it far. Right. Right. But yeah.

69 RBI. They have a baseball prospectus has like their own, they have their own stat for everything. They don't do WRC plus. They do DRC plus. Yeah. That's, that's their whole, their whole thing over there. And they have Suarez projected as the worst hitter out of the diamondbacks kind of front nine hitters, Carol Marte, Guerrille, Moreno, Walker, Thomas, Peterson, Pardomo.

Suarez is, is the worst out of that group with a 91 W, uh, D. DRC plus projection. So yeah, I think it's just, you know, it's just the aging curve and Suarez getting a little bit older and the season he had last year. Computers are ageist is what you're saying. Yeah. Yes. I mean, and they probably should be

in professional sports. But, you know, there's some evidence that players as they age or tend to not hit quite as well. But I don't know if, I don't think it's a sure thing that Suarez will fall off to this extent. The diamond backs are certainly

hoping for things to go the other way where, you know, he was really, really good for the Mariners in 2022. Is he able to find a way in 2024 to kind of get back to being that player, at least maybe split the difference between the player he was last year and the player he was the year before? I've said it before, and I will say it again, there's a good reason why old players come to Arizona. We got the Vortex in Sedona. We got Mayo Clinic. We got lots of advantages in medicine and things here. Get them better, get them back on track. Excuse me.

All jokes aside, I think Gino is going to have, excuse me, sorry, Gino is going to have. Which one of us getting over a cold again, Dan? I know, I was sick from being around, Jesse, all the time, huh? That was straight in my ear. I'm glad it was. I'm sure it's in their ears, too. But Gino is one of those guys that I think is going to benefit from not having to play as often. You know, he had that anomaly last.

year where he played all 162 games and that's one thing that will never happen in a toy level lineup yeah probably not and and I I think again there's something to be said about hitting here at Chase Field versus you know in in Seattle that is gonna maybe have things go the other way so I feel like this is one of the projections that I'm I'm definitely hoping is way way off but Perdomo's projections not great either he has a 92 DRC plus a slash line of 229 3 33, 47, six home runs, 38 RBI. 330 on base percentage is low-key pretty impressive for a guy who's projected to hit

229. Yeah, yeah. The fact that Pardoma walks as much as he does, it allows him to really get the most out of kind of who he is as a hitter. Of course, you'd like to see him develop into some more power, be able to impact the baseball more. But as Damon has advocated many times on this show, Perdomo has, you know, he does a lot of those little things.

The fact that he does take so many walks makes him a lot more valuable player and helps make up for some of those deficiencies in other areas. Pocoda also doesn't like that trade that we made with the Seattle Mariners very much because they have old friend X, you know, spying on our X, do a little spy on our X's here. Dominic Cairnzone. They have him slashing 261, 317, 437 with a 110 DRC plus, so an above average player, someone that the diamond. Backs maybe shouldn't have parted ways with based on that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that slash line might not jump off the page. But again, these numbers are generally run pretty conservatively.

That 110 DRC plus that you mentioned is higher than what is projected for Lordus Curiel. Yeah. It is the same as what is projected for Jock Peterson. So, yeah, that's actually really pretty good. Like, like, Picota is a big believer in Dom Kinsone and what he can become. I know, you know, he had a few big moments with the Marin. in the second half last year, the numbers as a whole weren't great. But I think the Diamondbacks to some extent, like they, you know,

I know they'd be shocked if Dom Kanzone turned into a pretty decent hitter. You know, he's not giving you as much defensively or base running wise. So his profile has kind of always depended on the bat. And there's a reason he's been, you know, he's someone who's been on our radar quite a bit here over the last couple of years. It's also hard to argue against that trade, considering it brought Paul Seawald here. Yeah. And we know the Arizona Diamondbacks probably wouldn't have gotten nearly as far.

Yeah, the Diamondbacks clearly needed to do the trade. Yeah, we're not saying that that wasn't the case for sure. Speaking of another trade, another guy that we parted ways with, Dalton Varsho, he is projected to have a 233, 303-424 slash line and hit or be 100 DRC plus players. So basically, right, like 100 league average, right? Yeah. Again, a guy that another trade that you have to say, the Diamondbacks definitely won, considering Geryl and Moreno are both part of this team. They're both projected to have a better season than Varsh.

And their value is, it's hard to explain what Moreno's value to this team is. Don't make me put that picture of him in Corbynup again, because that alone is, the power of friendship alone is worth it. Moreno, speaking of Moreno, his projection that doesn't jump off the page here, 261, 3203, 382. Very similar to the hitter that he was in the first half of the season before he came back from the shoulder injury. Why do projections not believe Gabriel Moreno is going to be a power hitter?

What is it about his peripherals? What is it about him that? Because I, yeah, I, maybe, maybe I'm just delusional, but I have Gabby as being more of a power guy, right? More of like a 20 home run kind of player. And all the projections I see for him, and honestly, last year, it's not like what he did kind of backs up what I'm saying, but I just feel like as he gets better, you know, he's going to be more of a power guy. He feels like a power guy. So what is it about him that keeps his projected power numbers so low, keeps him at eight home runs for the season next year? It's a little, yeah, it's a little hard to say with Gabby. I mean, you look back at his numbers in AA in 2021. This is only 32 games. He got hurt, wound up, wound up missing. time. But he slashed 373, 441, 651 in the Blue Jays double A system. That is a guy who has some

pop. I mean, a 651 slugging percentage is pretty insane, especially, you know, obviously from a catcher. His numbers in the minors as a whole, he had a 481 career slugging percentage in the minor league. So it's not like you didn't see Gabby Moreno show some power in the minors. I think it's because, you know, as he got closer to the majors, it seems like he started to favor his hit tool a little bit over over the power yeah we saw in good old belay yeah yeah absolutely you know going the other way uh you know being a little bit more of a slap hitter type in 2022 before he came up with the blue jays um he at 315 and slugged 420 that year with uh with toronto's triple a team and that's that's actually not very much power at all

That's actually well below kind of the average. I guess I'm looking at isolated slugging there. That's on the lower end. So more recently, we haven't seen Gabby hit for as much power. But granted, we did see him show power in the second half of the 2023 season. And we certainly saw him show power in the postseason as well. I think between that second half and the playoffs, I think he had nine home runs. And that was in the span of like 50, 55 games.

So you look at that over the course of a full season, you're like, Well, that's, that's a 15 home run player, you know, over the course of a full season. So I still think there's some power in here. I don't expect Gabby to be a seven, eight home run a year, kind of a guy for a career. But the projection systems are going to take a while to catch up to that. So, yeah, we'll see what happens in 2024. Well, and Eric Krat said that's one thing that he very much likes about Gabby is the fact that he kind of takes what's given to him and doesn't try to do too much.

He just tries to get that hit. with especially with runners on and i mean we saw him have a lot of success with that last year i i get that it just like you said the the numbers in double a triple a what we've seen out of him in short stints uh it feels like he has more pop to his bat than that and uh yeah there's some there's some raw power in there for sure we saw that in the playoffs i remember last spring training he hit like a 450 foot home run at salt river fields we were all kind of like we sure this guy doesn't can't hit for some powers so i mean it's in there for sure i I've never in my life

and a lot of people have never ever seen right like a baseball player hit a ball like a mile foul and then the very next pitch like and not just foul not just foul close enough foul that it had to be reviewed and there was a whole time thing about whether or not

it was fair or foul it was originally called a home run and then it was foul and then the very next pitch he hits for a home run like I've never seen a human being ever do anything like that. So pretty wild. It's just incredible what he can do. Of course, on the other side of the ball, the Diamondbacks have some very good pitchers.

Again, kind of all lumped relatively close together there. Outside of Zach Gallin, Zach Gallen, kind of being the ace of the staff, according to the Picota projections. Yeah, Paco da doesn't love the Diamondbacks pitchers. Not at all. It just doesn't. I mean, yeah, even Gallin, a 371

projected ERA there. That feels a little on the high end. I can understand where it comes from, his peripheral referrals weren't quite as good in some ways in 2023. His expected ERA at Staccast was actually over four just because there was a lot more more loud contact against Gallin last year than there's been in years past. Especially on the road. Yeah, yeah, man.

I still, I can't believe that game in San Diego toward the end of the year, I was in San Diego to cover it. And I think it was like six innings one run or something. And the Padre's average, their average exit Vila was like, 99 and every single ball was hit on a line. There were like no ground balls whatsoever. Gallon obviously still had a very good season

but I can understand projection systems, you know, being maybe a little concerned about that heading into 2024. But yeah, other guys, also these none of these are going to feel all that great. Merrill Kelly, a four ERA four right on the dot.

Eduardo Rodriguez projected for a 448 ERA. That's considerably higher than what we saw over at Zips. Brandon Fott 451 ERA, also quite a bit higher than Zips. And they have Tommy Henry and Ryan Nelson, both in the mid to high five range. So I'm probably not going to get too, too, too excited about any of those numbers. I have a, I do have a remedy to this, though, and I think it's something the Diamondback

should look into. Sure. Maybe they could have Brandon Fott's family hack the Pocoda projections. Clearly, yes. The same way they hacked fan graphs last year. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Okay. Yeah, they just, they dropped the ball on that and, you know, weren't able to figure out the algorithm in time or something.

If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying. Okay. If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying. Although Dan Zaborski made a really good point in that, you know, if they were hacking into the system, why would they just be hacking into it so that Brandon Fott was projected for like a high three R.A. Right? If they were going to hack into the system over at Zips, they should have made Brandon Fought like the best picture on the planet by a wide margin. And that's not quite what we saw. Maybe if he was in a contract negotiation, you go for that.

Yeah. Maybe what you're trying to do is go unnoticed, right, Jesse? Sure. Just test the strategy, see if it works. In the movie, see if you know how to do it. I know you haven't seen office space, but when they decided to go through with their plan to steal fractions of a cent, it was so it was such a small amount that nobody would notice. But if you're stealing $100 at a time, people are going to notice. So it's like you can't go in there and give Brandon fought a 1.26 ERA because someone at FanGraphs is going to go, what the hell?

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regardless of the outcome of your wager. The Super Bowl is the best time to get down on these crazy prop bets. We were talking about it today here at the office. Gatorade flavors. what song, you know, Usher is going to sing. Most of these people around here don't even know Usher songs. It was very disappointing. I certainly didn't.

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And now listen to Damon, who is calm down a little bit, talk about the disclaimer. diehard over at go phtonx.com. Our game show SqueezePlay is tomorrow, and I am going to be selecting some diehards in this chat right now to be part of our game. So if you want to participate in our first edition of SqueezePlay and play against Cogs Thursday night at 7 p.m. in our Discord for a free t-shirt from the p.nx locker.com if you're choosing, just drop a smiley emoji of your choosing in the chat. And I will make sure to grab someone here at the end of this segment.

And of course, like I said on Twitter yesterday, you don't have to be on camera. You don't have to do anything like that. So if you are a diehard member and you want to participate in our first episode of SqueezePlay, drop that emoji. And if you, if I get nobody, I'm just going to force some of you to do it. So that's the way that's the way Justin said, the class works. Yeah. He says you just have to force students to do it sometimes. But one thing we didn't have to force is other people to like the Arizona Diamondback spring training cap as much as we do.

because the score.com ranked all 30 MLB spring training caps now that they have launched. And according to their ranking, the Arizona Diamondback Spring Training cap comes in at number three. This, we're going to call it this baby blue badass right here. Number three, Jesse. What were your thoughts? I mean, I was glad to see the Diamondbacks get that love, see their hat because we really like this hat. So it was great to see it ranked as highly as it was. What were your thoughts?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a great hat and number three Not bad hard to beat hard to beat that You don't like one you don't like one of the ones above it though I don't know if either of the ones in front of it are actually better Okay honest there are some behind it that I might think are better Let's think there's any that they have ran tire Number two is the Guardian's hat Here is the Cleveland Guardian's hat

Pretty fire people really really love the Guardian's logo Yeah I get it Especially after figuring out the history and how relates to Cleveland and everything like that. I really like it. I really dig it. But again, not a lot to it. Like the Diamondbacks hat is pretty, you know, significantly different than all of their hats.

I don't know how close this is to the Guardian's other hats, but I feel like this would be something that they already kind of have, right? You know, like something similar to this? Yeah. Yeah. It's not, it's not all that different from, you know, kind of the normal look that you see from from the Guardians. So it didn't it didn't feel all that unique to me, but it is it is a cool hat for sure.

No, no doubt. And then they had this at number one. This is the Washington Nationals. This is their new W logo that they're going to be using this season. Just I like it. I think it's cool, but it's very plain. It's just what is that? Like a dark, dark blue and it's a dark blue W with an outline of white and red around it.

Real simple, real clean. But I like it. I just don't know if that's like the number one spring training. I would definitely put the Diamondbacks hat above that one. It's clearly not. It's clearly not the best. And I want to know how much the Washington Nationals paid the score. Like, hey, we've got these new uniforms.

Yeah. We need you to promote them for us. Oh, they're boring as well. The polls are looking so great. So it's out here. There's no way that that's the best hat out of all of these. I think the Nationals as a whole, their whole rebrand. You know, I think there's some good stuff in there.

but I would have preferred them to brand themselves off of D.C., like make D.C. kind of the big thing. I agree. The W.U. is like, oh, this is Washington. D.C., there's Washington State. You know. I like, I think because, like, the wizards, they call it the district, right?

I saw that the other night when the Don of that. Yeah, yeah. Like, when the suns were beating the brakes off of them. It's like the district is cool. D.C. is cool. Washington. Like, there's another Washington. Yeah.

That's our, that exists. Like, it's got to be weird to live in a place. place where every single time you have to clarify which Washington, right? Like I imagine people in North and South Carolina just don't say Carolina. They say the North or South Carolina. Yeah, that would be pretty weird. And then they had to be like, like, do you see your state? But yeah, you don't have to specify if you say D.C.

No one's getting confused with that. He's right. He's right. I've solved the problem. But wait, there's more because the Arizona Diamondbacks batting practice caps. have leaked and if you want to talk about some absolute fire jacob would you do me a favor and provide that said fire look at this hat you cannot look at this hat and not tell me that that is a gorgeous hat i don't care what era of diamondbacks fan you are whether you are a new diamondbacks fan whether

you have been here since 98 whether you staunchly believe that sidona red uh was a violation of some sort of sanctity this hat has to appeal to everybody this is the exact thing we were saying on the one show we did with Damon in the last what month, where we were talking about turquoise and copper coming together as friends on a hat and living peacefully. And look at this. Look at this is such a great hat. Yeah, it's beautiful.

It absolutely is. I'm getting a little confused, honestly, with the hats. Like, how many hats are they going to unveil? Shut up. What are you doing? What? But I think I have it straight. There's the spring training hat, which is the baby blue one.

we were just talking about it's aqua according to pedro he said MLD shop has it listed as aqua whatever we're gonna call it and then there's that batting practice hat which in my opinion is the best of all of them correct and then there's also a clubhouse hat that's been floating around it's just a fancy name for a hat i don't think that that's going to be something they actually wear in the club could you imagine the irisota diamondbacks players coming in and changing hats like there Mr. Rogers getting home to talk to the kids. Like they come in and it's a beautiful day in the name or put on the other hat.

I probably shouldn't even sang that much of the song, right? But anyway, they have to call it something else so that they haven't, you know, they can call it something else and they know what to name it when they put it in the shop. That's true. They're just trying to get to get people to buy the thing. And I kind of like that hat. It's kind of got like some brown too. It's got like a little

like stitch like a baseball stick. Yeah. Yeah. It's not bad. But that's a bad thing. question though jesse have you been to the team shop there are so many hats in every color imagine well i'm not saying that like i wasn't aware that the diamondbacks sell out of hats it's just all of these are being revealed right now right well and that actually was a leak so that's that has not been announced yet that not has at least when we were talking about you mean the batting practice one yeah the batting practice the batting practice the batting practice the diamond backs kind of

showed us first right on their instagram this was from uny watch so uny watch is the one with with this leak and according to my sources that will be available in two weeks so that's how long we have some people already asking when when that batting practice cap will be available so there you go and then tomorrow we'll be unveiling the dugout cap right that's how this works it's got to be more right it's not like we're done now this is why i handle the jerseys on the hats he doesn't take it seriously you need a hat for you need a different hat for all this stuff Well, I mean, this is this is what I was talking about, right? We need merchandise. The Diamondbacks are at an all-time high potentially in popularity right now, or at least a high over the last like 15 years in popularity. So, I mean, you have to do everything you can to capitalize on it. And honestly, they have been very lacking of merchandise.

They have been, they have not been providing their fans with enough stuff. And people have money in hand ready to buy this stuff. It just makes sense to provide them when the demand is so high, right? Tim says we need to do a show with all-time top-10 hats, which I believe you just did, but you're going to have to do it again. I already did that, but now I've got to go revise it because both of these hats need to be in that list. So maybe I will figure out how to do a new one of those. Of course, we thank you guys for stopping by. We appreciate your time.

And we're very glad that we could make so many of you worried with this particular show title. As worried as Perdomo made me last night with his Instagram story. So, of course, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore cape man with a k. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Fage, Father Overlord Jacob on the ones and twos. You can get him at Jacob underscore Franklin for because he is the fourth best Jacob Franklin. Our show is at PHNX underscore Dbacks, but all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

We thank you guys so much for your time. We appreciate you stopping by. We'll see you tomorrow at 1 p.m. And in the meantime, have a great day. And remember, kids, baseball is fun. But it's so much more fun. when players think about my feelings before posting on Instagram.