PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Arizona Diamondbacks’ rookie pitcher Ryne Nelson continues to impress in second start of the year

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

Starting pitching continues to roll for the Arizona Diamondbacks as Ryne Nelson notches another scoreless outing in his second start of the season against the Los Angeles Dodgers while Zac Gallen continues to be a contender in the NL Cy Young race.SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeWebsite: https://gophnx.com PHNX Locker: https://phnxlocker.com/Head on over to The PHNX Locker to pick up one of our new PHNX hats!SOCIAL: Twitter: https://twitter.com/PHNX_DbacksInstagram: https://instagram.com/PHNX_Sports Score the best seats in the house at Gametime: https://gametime.hnyj8s.net/c/3442941/1410622/10874 Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now (https://bit.ly/3Jl1dMX), use promo code PHNX and make your first deposit and get a RISK-FREE BET UP TO ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. Minimum age and eligibility restrictions apply.If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL/IN/MI/NJ/PA/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO/NH), 888-789-7777/visit http://ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), 1-877-770-STOP (7867) (LA), 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), visit OPGR.org (OR), call/text TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA). 21+ (18+ WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/LA/MI/NJ/NY/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. Min. $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply. See http://draftkings.com/sportsbook for details.OGeez! We have free stuff for you! Enter the “Flavoring Life” sweepstakes. One winner will receive 3, YES THREE, bags of OGeez including Orange Creamsicle and Tropical flavors, an OGeez! Hat, a PHNX shirt of your choice and a PHNX annual membership. Sign up at gophnx.com or visit https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfIplqDYsxYeiotn5Zc6hRahaX0a5qG99eHVzkhOlGZDRdgUA/viewform Check out OGeez! online at ogeezbrands.com and on Instagram @ogeezbrands. You can also find their products at your local dispensary. Must be 21 years or older to purchase.Saturday the 18th, 12:30 Cardinals watch party at Four Peaks. Enjoy drink specials and a 220” screen experience.https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cardinals-watch-party-vs-las-vegas-tickets-416872034477Enter to win the “Toast of the Month” sweepstakes to win a $50 Four Peaks gift card, a PHNX shirt of your choice, and a PHNX annual membership. Go to goPHNX.Com or visit https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfOabxo8KQxOWwn9wTilMBuTMAJdrL0CaH9lzfuJqgKN9vfSg/viewform FOCO has you covered with the best Arizona Merchandise. They have officially licensed gear for men, women and kids and everything from bobbleheads to swimsuits to crocs. Head on over to foco.com. For all non pre-sale items use the promo code “PHNX” for 10% offSit in the same seats we do! Check out https://morfurniture.comSign up for Underdog Fantasy today! Go to the link https://play.underdogfantasy.com/p-phnx and use promo code “PHNX” to receive a deposit match up to $100When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to another edition of the PHNX D-BACs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia. Of course, I am your mayor, P-H-N-X. This guy's sipping LeCroy next to me. I am. Is the person you lodge all of your complaints with. It's the vice mayor, the one and only thunder stick Jesse Friedman. Ryan Nelson, Derek.

That was something. Pretty good. D-BAC's bullpen. That was also something. Oh, I hate you so much. This show is brought to you by the fine folks at the Draft King Sportsbook app. Download the Draft King Sportsbook app. Use our code of PHNX and get yourself all sorts of goodies.

Of course, it is America's top-rated sportsbook app. As Jesse brought up, of course, we are all Ryan Nelson fans today after he made his second career start in the big leagues, and we did not see any regression from him at all. Six scoreless innings. He sets a Diamondbacks franchise record now with 13 consecutive scoreless innings to start his career and counting, because that's still not over. And it's just been an extremely impressive, just not only debut,

but again, following up, pitching that way against the Padres, against the Los Angeles Dodgers, like he did last night. Yeah. The names that he has overpowered, the names that he left 04 in the lineup, there's a lot of big, big names in there.

So there's no fear in Ryan Nelson's game, and I think that's probably the one thing right now that's setting him apart. His ability to attack the strike, zone fearlessly it's almost like he has no concept of how good these guys he's madding against yeah like you might you might want to be a little more careful with some of them honestly if anything uh but yeah you you just love to see young guys come up and just attack the strike zone you know show fearlessness um you know his his major league debut he's facing manny machado and juan soto right

like right off the bat and then um in this start you know the first inning it's it's freddie freeman and Mookie Betts and Trey Turner. He had to face all three of those guys in the first inning. He just comes right after him. I think it was a 10 pitch, one, two, three first inning. And he just sort of continued from there. The stuff remained really good. It was around 95 miles an hour for his four-seem fastball throughout the game. Dipped a little bit at the end of the game. It seemed like his stuff did drop off a little bit in the sixth inning, but he was still able to finish a scoreless outing. And against a team like the Dodgers, that is very, very impressive. More importantly, he was still way more effective than the bullpen

once they came in after they left the game because holy shit they couldn't seem to get anyone out after that point. It was frustrating to watch especially considering that Ryan Nelson was only at I believe 80, 81 pitches, something like that when they pulled them from the game. I know what Jesse's saying and I think the idea there is the

opposite of what we've seen Toy Lovela do at times this season. I think when you are doing so well against a team like the Dodgers the last thing you want is your confidence to be shook by going out there for a seventh inning that might involve you getting rocked by this team that now is familiar with you. They've seen you a couple times through the lineup,

and now they might be ready to kind of match up between, like you said, just velocity dipping and them kind of getting to know him a little bit better. But I still feel like, I mean, you couldn't have a more encouraging out. We talked about Zach Gallen and how impressive what he did

for those six outings really was. Let's just take a moment to truly appreciate how impressive Ryan Nelson has been. I don't think anybody could have expected him to be this good, this fast. And to be honest, it already feels like there's this settling down about what the Diamondbacks are going to do about their starting rotation. Because if Ryan Nelson can continue to be this good or even close to this good, he is easily

a number three starter in their rotation. And I say that because now Madison and Bombkarner would need to be moved down to fourth or fifth in the rotation. Sure, sure. Yeah, I mean, he's more than a quarter of the way through to Zach Allen's, uh, that down. That's right. He's coming for you, Zach.

He's coming for you. He's got 13 scoreless innings. Well on, well on his way to 44 and a third already. No, I actually agreed with the decision that Tori made to take him out after six innings, although Tori said after the game that he probably had about 10 or 12 more pitches that he could have thrown. But he just didn't want to get Ryan into a situation where he started an inning that he couldn't finish.

The Diamondbacks bullpen obviously has not been reliant. to say the least as of late and unfortunately that that did show itself in this game. But it seemed like in the sixth inning, Ryan Nelson's stuff was just not not as sharp as we saw earlier in the game. There were some 92 mile an hour fast balls. It seemed like there was a decent drop off there. It seemed like the Dodgers were just getting better reads on some of his pitches. So I didn't mind the move at the end of the day. But it's on some level, Derek.

I mean, you feel like you'd rather just stick with your starting pitcher for nine innings given the state of the Diamond back's bullpen right now. And I don't know. I mean, Kyle Nelson comes in and he allows three runs and he didn't get an out. It was a brilliant move, though, right? They tried to fucking, like, slide a hand us and put a Nelson in for a Nelson, like, thinking the Dodgers weren't going to notice. Right, right.

Yeah, unfortunately, the Dodgers did appear to notice. Yeah. I mean, obviously the criticism is because then the team went on to do what it did. I know Tori gets a lot of the criticism for that. And honestly, it doesn't seem like he can do. the right move no matter what at times. And I don't know if that's his fault, right? Like he's putting the trust in arms in their bullpen,

big league pitchers who have been doing this for years to come in and be able to hold a game scoreless for one inning, half an inning, whatever they can do. And unfortunately, it seems like nobody can really be counted on out of the bullpen. And I don't know. Yeah,

like it just seems like no matter the decision he goes with is bad. And I'm not going to acknowledge that comment. But I'll say this. The bullpen does give up six runs and two and two thirds after Nelson went six scoreless, right? And I think that's the big thing is it's just hard to watch your rookie pitcher who is inexperienced, who was giving up runs all the time in Reno, come up and be this effective and have your entire bullpen shit the bed like that. Yet again, I mean, how many losses this season has the bullpen? 35.

Chocked up, Jesse? 35 losses. I mean, they've lost 74 games. Right. And again, it's like, it's not that there, like some losses are going to go on every bullpen. That's the way it works. But I'm just saying that it's, uh, it's the most in baseball. And it continues to be a terrible sore point for the Diamondbacks.

What another terrible sore point is besides that is Jordan Looplo. And we know what Jordan Looplo was doing in the minor leagues. And we understand why they, uh, they called him back up. But Jordan Looplo immediately gets. put into the lineup. A lot of people don't like that because obviously we already have a crowded outfield and that question seems to come up considering that he's slashing 187 272-473 against lefties. Well, that probably went down after yesterday.

And he had two inning and he double plays. You mean the guy who's hitting 160 on the season doesn't deserve a spot in an already completely an underly crowded outfield? Is that what you're saying? He's supposed to hit a guy. He's supposed to hit against lefties. I know, I know. Yeah.

And like, seven against lefties. I sort of get it. I mean, like that slash sign against lefties isn't good, but it's still, it's still like okay, I guess.

And so I can see where the diamond backs are coming from and that they're trying to, they're trying to figure out, frankly, they're trying to figure out Derek if Jordan Loeplo is worth bringing back for next year. That's what the diamond backs are trying to figure out right now. And maybe they've already decided that he's not.

And the answer is no. The answer may well be no. But if, If they don't want to bring him back, what they could be trying to do is maybe setting up a trade, trying to showcase him for other teams, which I know it seems weird to showcase a guy who's struggling. Keep him in Reno. That's how you showcase him. Keep him in Reno. I mean, he ranked in Reno.

I know. He did. He did. Well, not every game. Every game. Yeah, he averaged three home runs per game. No, that did not happen. But Jordan Looplo is the kind of guy that, that theoretically should have some value to a major league team at some point.

here. And I know it's been a down year form, but I think the debacks still have some belief that he can be the guy that they acquired, that he can be someone who can do some damage against lefties, which is something they sorely need. I understand the criticism. And frankly, this isn't the move that I would have made for whatever that's worth. But that's where the debacks are coming from. They're trying to figure out, like, is Jordan Looplo part of the future here? Is he someone that they're going to non-tender in a few months and just decide to move on from? Or is he someone that they want to bring back next year if he's able to show some some good things down the stretch.

Keep in mind, Tori has nothing to do with them calling him up. He does have to do plenty with him being in the lineup yesterday, however. Yeah, and he said, Tori said yesterday, and this shocked me. He said that Jordan Looplo will get every lefty. That's what he told Jordan Looplo. He told us that that's what he told to Jordan Looplo. What? Before or after the game?

Before, before the game. Before the game. I might have changed it after the game. Maybe, yeah, I mean, it was just so. It was an 0 for 3, but, but yeah, it sounds like, Two double plays that ended the game, Jesse, that they had guys on base. They had such little offense last night. I mean, three guys had a hit each, and then Cotel Marte, it was the only saving grace offensively last night.

Cotel Marte looked good. Is he back? Is he back? Is he back? I wouldn't go that far. Two for three with a double in a walk. He looked good last night. So it's something to build on.

Let's just say that. Something to build on. Definitely, if we want to keep being sad, the Dodgers become the first team in major league baseball to clinch a playoff spot. No dip in the pool this time, though, because apparently there was confusion as if they had clinched the day before or clinched yesterday or when they clinch. They have already clinched a playoff spot, but they could clinch a, they could clinch the NLS title today. That's what could still happen. That's gross. Don't jump in our pool again.

This is why we're bringing Derek. We're going to force Derek out to the ballpark tonight. And Derek is going to play guardian of the swimming pool. He's going to make sure that the Dodgers players do not jump in. The last time they did that, I was also there. And I could have stopped them. Yeah. Yeah, where were you?

That's a good question. I was busy getting champagne out of my eyes after Adrian Gonzalez sprayed me in the face with a bottle of champagne. Did you go in the Dodgers locker room? Of course I went to the Dodgers locker room. No, I went it was Pedro Gomez who actually gave me some sage advice. Pedro Gomez walked into the clubhouse. He proceeded to turn immediately and go to the farthest corner away from the scrum. And I asked him, are you not coming to the party?

And he goes, no. He's like, and if I was you, I wouldn't either. And I just went right in there. And let me tell you, champagne stings, folks. Champagne is one of the worst things. They didn't give you a pair of goggles or anything. No. No, when I came back, I think the fall, not two years later, I came back and I did bring goggles when the Diamondback celebrated the when they got that wild card spot.

So that was, I learned. See, shame on me. You know, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice. me. But of course, the best way to get fooled is with our friends at OG's gummies because they enjoy being fooled. You'll enjoy it and you'll embrace it. And of course, they have a variety of doses, strains and flavors, but most importantly, it's the flavors. They're all about flavoring life. They have wonderful, delicious edibles that, of course, are the best-selling

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And I was going to say for the Arizona Cardinals. There was a lot of stuff going on in my brain all there at once. But this Saturday, the 18th, we're going to be out for Arizona Cardinals versus the Las Vegas Raiders. I hope things go a little bit better this time than they went last time. But of course, you can join us out at the 8th Street Pub, Four Peaks. All their wonderful beer, all their wonderful chicken tenders are available to you. Enjoy drink specials, Cardinals ticket giveaways, and a 220-inch screen experience. Click the link below in our description.

Must be 21 years or older to enjoy and enjoy responsibly. And of course, you get a free beer with that $5 ticket. If you can't join us down at the Four Peaks Pub, make sure to grab some Four Peaks at your local grocery store and enjoy that while watching the Cardinals, hopefully kick some butt against the Raiders. I say hopefully now because I've lost all confidence. This weekend was filled with L's for me,

from Friday to Sunday to Monday. I lost against fucking Totry in fantasy football by half a point. That's rough. By half a point. Of all the people to lose to. Yeah, my goodness. Jesus Christ.

I mean, I could respect if you lost to, you know, Saul or Leah. Yeah, right. No, I could too. Or maybe Sean. Somebody of substance. Yeah, somebody of substance, right? Yeah. Tootry?

Oh, man. We love you, Tootry. We give Tootry so much, Shane on the show. He's in my phone as fucking Tootry. That's how he is, a little poop emoji. But anyway, more important, we have more important awards than just me winning my fantasy football games. We have the NL. Sa Young Award race heating up.

And of course, our baby boy, Zach Gallen, the milkman is part of this race. Let's take a look at some of the other contenders that Jesse has named. not only here, but in his article that you can read over at go p hnx.com, but Jesse, what are your thoughts on Zach Gallen's actual chances here at winning this award? They're not great, to be honest. I'll start there. I also have to acknowledge that Julio Urias had a very nice star over the weekend for the Dodgers and arguably should also be on this list, but he plays for the Dodgers.

You don't have to acknowledge that. We just throw his name off the list. Yeah, Sandy Alcantra, the name at the top of the list here, and these are in order of of wins above replacement. I took baseball reference war and fan graphs war and averaged the two. So that's where the war column comes from. Sandy Alcantra, as you can see, is, has a pretty healthy lead here. And his biggest advantage is the fact that he's thrown 196 and two-thirds innings.

He's probably going to throw like 220, 225 innings by the end of the season, which is very impressive, not something you really see that often in baseball these days. And you can see Zach Gowens thrown, 158.2. So there's about a 40 innings gap here between where Alcantra is at and where Zach Gallin is. So his hope is that he's just got to like, he's just like got to not allow a run for the rest of the year or like allow maybe one or two. I mean, that's sort of what it would take at this point for Zach Gallen to be able to overtake Alcantra. Right. The other thing is Alcantra hasn't pitched very well lately. He has an ERA over four in his last like four or five start, something like that. So that ERA is

kind of ballooned up technically. It has. It has. Yeah, Alcantor's ERA was 1.88 or something like that about a month ago. And now it's 2.43. So if his ERA goes up enough, so that there's like a decent gap between Gallin's ERA and Alcantra's ERA, you could see that maybe making up for the innings disparity, but between the two guys. But unfortunately, that inning's disparity is huge. And it's not just Zach Gallin, like Max Fried is still, you know, about 30 innings away there. Carlos Verdon. It's a huge gap. It's kind of like Michael McCorm had said, then a big gap to free. And it's also the same thing with, you know, the performances, to be honest.

I mean, Alcantra has been far and away the best pitcher in the National League this year. But like you said, he came back down to Earth here over the last four or five starts. Yeah, he was running away with it. Like as of a month or two ago, it's like, oh my gosh, like Sandy Alcantra is way ahead in the Cy Young race. But now the gap is narrowed, but he's still definitely the favorite for sure. So if we're being hopeful, what we do have to say there is that, you know, Alconra could completely, you know, kind of fizzle out here at the end. And maybe there's a chance that Gallant catches up to him.

Gallant still has the best whip in the league. And he has been on fire as of late. Like you said, that last start really didn't help his overall numbers. No, I mean, at course field, like six innings, three runs, 11 strikeouts. It's hard to be like too mad at that. Yeah, right. But it's still not perfect. It's still not lowering his ERA.

Like, as strange as it is and as someone who is, you know, has sort of bought into this analytics movement. I know that shocks everyone for me to say that I like baseball stats. This guy. I know, shocking. That's fucking crazy. Yeah, I know. But ERA is still king at the end of the day.

If you look over like the last five years or so of Sigh Young winners, the player who led the league in ERA wins the award, I think is won in the award about 70% of the time over the last five years. So Julio Urias actually has the best ERA in the National League. right now. His innings total is even lower than Gallens. So I feel like the disparity there is just so big that it would be pretty hard for him to overtake a guy like Alcantra. But as far as Gallen goes, he needs to pitch extremely well the rest of the way.

And he needs Alcantra to kind of continue to slip. And maybe if his ERA gets closer to three by the end of the season and Gallons is more of like a low two, you could see how there might be an argument there. Yeah. I would say the other thing about it is war is a bullshit. stat because if you can go to two major websites and they have different wars and you have to like average them out. Well, they're just, they're just calculating them differently.

They're just too different. It's a stupid stat. Yeah. I'm going to say it. I'm going to say, if you can calculate it multiple ways and come up to different answers, then that's a bullshit stat. That's all I'm saying. I'm calling you out statcast too because I don't believe in everything you do.

All right. Well, I'm going to, okay, if you're going to say that, then I have to nerd out and explain the difference between the two. Oh, my God. Nobody wants that. Oh, no, everyone wants that. I can just tell in the chat everyone wants it. So the difference is that Fangraphs, Derek's falling asleep next to me as I speak.

So FanGravs war is based on FIPP. So it's not based on your actual ERA or the number of runs you've actually given up. It's. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah, no, no. It's, and then baseball reference war is based on the number of runs that you actually give up. So that's the difference between the two. I prefer fan graphs war personally because FIPP tends to be more, have more predictive value in my mind.

Like I think it's a better. It obviously doesn't measure how many runs you actually gave up, but I think it's a better measure of like how well the pitcher actually performed. Whereas baseball reference war is just sort of like, here's what happened. So there's kind of, there's definitely room for debate in terms of which one you would pick. But I just averaged them together because I didn't want to have to pick between the two. So I'm done. Yeah, I'm back. I just, my God.

My question was going to be simple. Do we even want Zach Allen to win the Cy Young Award? Because isn't this going to further complicate the Arizona Diamondbacks trying to sign him and keep him here long term? Yeah, trying to keep him here. I mean, doesn't that just make it? Like, every award, every time he sets himself apart as being like this elite pitcher, I feel like it's just distancing the ability for the Diamondbacks to keep him here.

for a considerable amount of time. Yeah. Also, do you notice how many people in the chat said that they want it when we were talking about my explanation of the difference? See, the people understand me. I see three people, Jesse.

I see three human beings. There's just as many in this room. Nobody commented and said they didn't want it. That's all I'm saying. But no, it's a fair point. Scott Boris is Zach Gallen's agent, and you can bet you can take it to the bank

that if Zach Gallen wins a Cy Young Award, that's going to be a pretty big factor in contract negotiations moving forward. So I already think it's going to be pretty tough to get Zach Gallen to stick around here. It's going to take a big investment. I mean, it's not impossible. It's just going to take a really substantial investment at this point. And be willing to spend the money on the guy that's special, right? I mean, we've seen Zach Gallen be special ever since we traded for him, right?

It was one of the few trades that the minute that we were done, even though the Diamondbacks gave up one of their biggest prospects, one of their biggest names, they still found themselves saying, hey, I think we might have won this one, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, Jazz Chisholm, for those who are still, you know, keeping score between Chisholm and Zach down and trying to figure out who won the trade. Yes, I'm sure everyone will forever.

But Chisholm is not going to play through the end of the season. He's been out with injury for a couple of months now. But he was very good earlier in the season. I mean, he was an all-star for a reason. He's just an exciting player. Yeah, I mean, he's like. He is. He's a flashy, like.

Yeah. There's something about him that even his numbers aren't going to be as good as people think of him being. I think it sounds right. But speaking of award, speaking of Zach Allen, maybe winning that Cy Young Award, Rawlings has introduced a new Golden Glove Award for Special Utility, which is actually... It's called the Dalton Bar Show Award. We've agreed on that. It's an adult Barclash Award.

It's introducing a new Rawlings Gold Glove Award that recognized players with superior defensive ability to play multiple positions, according to Mike Thompson, the chief marketing officer for Rawlings. So, yeah, Dalton Varsho, congratulations on winning the National League. Special utility, Golden Glove. We're just going to give it to him right now. Sean DePaz, by the way, had the best idea I think I've ever heard when it came to the Silver Slugger Award and the Gold Glob. And that is that when a player wins those, they should be allowed to use a gold glove or a silver bat the following season. Are they made of, like, actual gold and silver?

or like, fuck yes, yes, they are. Now that you say that, that's absolutely what they are. Glove is dipped in gold. You're going to have to figure that out some way.

I don't know. No, you're not going to win two of them in a row because it's going to be really hard to feel the next year with that glove. Every time you win one, we dip it again in gold.

That's the way it works. It gets heavier every season. It's going to look awesome. You can, yeah. Brett Johnson in the comment says, no, it's the All the Tools Award. And yes,

that's officially what we will be calling that. There you go. That gold award. I like that. Make sure, by the way, can get more on Zach Gallen, maybe not, maybe winning the Cy Young Award over at GoPhNX.com. If you haven't signed up already, make sure to get yourself a membership. You can get an annual membership and you will get yourself a free t-shirt from the

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Or no, Instagram Reels. You can get a little tour of our office if you haven't had a chance to see it. And of course, we want to thank our friends at more furniture for hooking us up. This office has been a project of sponsors and a lot of people coming together to help us make this our new home. And we can't thank them enough. because these people, these companies, they've been so incredibly generous. And we've had a chance to try out a lot of...

Me and Jesse were just complaining that these chairs aren't for more furniture. And we're mad about it. We want some more furniture chairs in here. Because all the more furniture stuff is so comfortable, we're spoiled now. So we want to thank them and make sure to check out morefurniture.com. If you haven't had a chance to do so, if you're looking for some furniture, maybe redo your office, get some nice leather recliners in there in time for football season. Also, if you're here watching the PHNX YouTube channel,

Make sure to subscribe. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss whenever we go live. And leave us a little thumbs up because Jesse loves the thumbs up. That's his favorite part about doing the show. Yeah, it's how I mean, without the thumbs up on our videos, I would be. It's how he validates himself. That's where my self-esteem comes from.

So help me out here, people, please. But a lot of self-esteem, a lot of in abundance right now, I think in the minor league system for the Arizona Diamondbacks. If I was part of the front office, I would be over the moon with how things are going when it comes to, Ryan Nelson, Alec Thomas, Corbyn Carroll, all of these guys, Stone Gear, all of these guys in the season they're having, coming up from the minor leagues, kind of having this, you know, kind of this aura about them and like talking about them in a very mythological way, but then having them come up and contribute on this team in such a way. Yeah, it's like Corbyn Carroll was like a Pegasus or something it seemed like for a while there. But now what we're seeing is the next development, the next guys that we're excited about. and we have the minor league pitcher and player of the month. And of course, starting off things with our minor league,

I don't know, we got the player or the pitcher. What we got first? Let's go pitcher of the month. It's our guy Brandon Fott, of course, because he has just been incredible this month, last month, I should say, in August, 3 and O record 2.03 ERA. This is for the Reno Aces.

So keep that in mind. Yeah. Look at that 0.81 whip. Look at that 2.03. ERA and that 151 opponent batting average like this is these are insane numbers for a part of the country that we know it's kind of like Colorado like what we talked about Zagall yeah yeah it's bad runs are going to be given up and you know if you could keep it minimal that it's a good thing well those numbers right there would suggest that Brandon Foth been pretty

damn good uh not 32 K in three games no that would be that would be wild but he has three wins he has three wins but I want to say he made five starts in in the month all together. I have to check to make sure. But, but yeah, he was outstanding. He was just outstanding in the month of August. It seems like Brandon Fott is, his stock just continues to rise, really. I mean, I think people are still a little bit afraid to be bullish on a guy who was literally a division two relief pitcher about four years ago. And he wasn't even that good of a relief pitcher. When he pitched for Bellarmine in college, he actually wasn't that effective. first couple years there. So it's just remarkable what Brandon Fought has been able to turn into

in such a short amount of time. And he's the best, he's the best pitching prospect that Diamondbacks have. I know a lot of people say Blake Walsden has a higher ceiling, which I, which I agree that that could be a possibility. But Brandon Fought has a higher floor. I mean, at this point, when you're putting up numbers like that in Reno, you feel pretty darn good that if you're doing that in Reno, you can come up to the big league level and at least be, you know, a solid mid-rope. starter type. And I think he has potential for more. I mean, these numbers are not normal. Like, guys don't put up these kind of numbers in Reno very often. It is really extraordinary what he's done since being called up there. And the sky is the limit. The sky is really the limit as far as how

good Brandon Fott could be. He's had so many ups and downs in his career. Like when you look at his path, when his career path, his numbers from 2018 to now, they're all over the place, right? And I Are you looking at his bellerman? Oh, his bellarmine numbers? Oh, his bellarmine numbers are quite all over the place too. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I mean, we're talking about in 2018, he had a 6.67 ERA to 2020 where he had a 1.38 ERA.

Now, right now with the way. And that was like a shortened, like that was he made like a couple of starts. There wasn't, there wasn't even much to that season. Right. It was five games starts in that season for the 1.38 ERA. Well, seven games total for the year that he had a 6.67. So both are still pretty small sample sizes, right? Yeah.

I think what we've seen now, though, is a guy like Ryan Nelson kind of give us a different expectation, right? Like sometimes when we see these numbers in the minor leagues, I don't know how much stock to put in them until they come up and could be at a major league level. Tommy Henry had the best numbers of any minor league pitcher we had there for a while. And then he came up. And after a couple of starts, things started to fall apart a bit for him. But Ryan Nelson is hitting velocity. that we didn't even see him hit as a minor leagueer, right? And we suggested in the first game that it just might be to adrenaline and other factors,

being excited that you're here at the big leagues, maybe trying a little harder, digging that little bit deeper to get that extra mile per hour or two. But people don't normally do that. Like, people don't normally reach back and be like, oh, I'm going to hit 97 now, even though I've been hitting 95 consistently in the minor leagues. He did hit 97 in the minors,

but it wasn't with the consistency that we've seen so far. It's just like the 98 was like he's touched. it, right? So it's still not saying like he's pitching 98, but the fact is, is that what we're seeing now is him be able to have a higher velocity in major leagues, which is great and needed. But again, it does question, it does make you question whether that's still just a limited time frame for him to be able to do that. And if he'll come back down to Earth after a couple of starts. I mean, my thought, Derek, is if Ryan Nelson had a 5.43 ERA in Reno and hasn't given up a run yet in the big leagues.

Oh, that means? Then what is Brandon Fott going to do? He's going to DH and he's going to hit more home runs. He's going to score more runs than he gives up. There we go. There we go. Yeah. Does that make his negative ERA?

Is that how that works? If you don't give up a run, but then you get multiple runs batted in yourself. You have to ask. You have to ask what he has to say. I'm sure he has an experience. You let me down, by the way, yesterday. Showhey, don't even talk to me with your one base. I needed you to have two bases.

Of course. That's me on the Underdog Fantasy app. So that's a whole other thing. Jesse, though, we also have our minor league player of the month, which is our friend Leandro Sedano, hitting the cover off the ball, right? Absolutely doing some big things for the sod poodles. And honestly, just continuing this conga line

that we've talked about of Diamondbacks prospects that are ready to come up and ready to do big things in the major leagues. What word did you just use? Congoline. I have no idea what that means. You don't even know what a conga line is, Jesse? No, I'm no. Oh, my God.

I have no idea. I don't know why I say these things on the show. Because instantly, the moment I start a statement with I don't know blank, I'm basically just asking for it and this is the reaction. But go ahead. Tell me. What is it? It's a dance formation where people get in a line and they dance. Oh.

Yeah, I don't like line dancing. I don't like it. I don't even know how to explain it because there's no, I've never had to explain anything like this before. Anytime I say conga line, people know what I mean. Jesus Christ. So it's like a line. mind dance like formation no

you get in mind and you move around the floor you kind of like go around the dance floor maybe around the room it's done it like weddings and parties oh oh okay

yeah no I know I know what you mean I just didn't know what it was called I just I didn't know what it was I'm gonna leave there's some serious emotion going look at they're doing it I just see hey

this is the fucking god I know what it is please see this is a car god I understand now I actually get it. You know what? This is absolutely crazy to me.

This is the best possible explanation I ever could have possibly hopefully. Yeah, yeah, you go. You go. Yeah. That was incredible. I don't think there's a better way for me to learn these things. This is what I need. This is what I know during the show.

I need like a team of about 10 people who are willing and ready to explain things to me that I don't know. I'm dying. So yeah, that was that was. amazing. That was incredible. I'm so glad that we got that visual aid and don't say I don't give you guys enough visuals like that was that was fantastic. What are we even talking about? I don't know. You were talking about the player of the month. Yeah. There we go. There we go. There we go. What did this have to do with Leandro Cedainio again? I said that there was a conga line of young talent getting ready to come up to the majors. Then you said and I quote, what is that? And then I said what is what? All right, I'm caught up now I got it. So, Leandro Sedanio, 398, 453 on base of energy, slugging almost 700 in the month of August. He's also the guy who hit the 527-foot home run. That may be how most of you, how most of you know him.

Brian says, we need a teach Jesse sentence. I fully admit that there is some use to that. He knows like every stat thing possible that I would never know, but then doesn't know what a conga line is. No. No. Anyway, we were talking about Leandro. He's with the Reno Aces now, right? Is that right?

Or was he wasn't? He was just promoted. Yes. I want to say it's the, I want to say it's the Reno Aces at this point. Yeah, he is. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. So those numbers actually happen in Amarillo, but he has since been promoted, since been promoted to Reno. That's where I'll finish off the year. Well, another, you know, another fine acquisition for the Diamondbacks. And, I mean, again, it's fun to hear about what these guys are doing. So that way we know when they come up, what to expect, right? Like Corby and Carroll, Max Simpson says, just one demonstration for today. I hope I would have to demonstrate the horror for you.

My shoulder can't take that. Look, Max, one day at a time. One day at a time. You being here for us. But again, just some very exciting things from the Arizona Diamondbacks Farm System. And the one thing that we kind of noticed was that the Debacks do have a 40-man roster spot open. Their 40-man roster is currently at 39. So we have to wonder if that spot might be being held for Mr. Brandon Fott there,

who seems like he's ready to make his debut in the majors this season. So Tori Lavelle yesterday said that the Diamondbacks do not, most likely will not stick with a five-man rotation. It'll probably go back to a six-man rotation. which means there's some starting pitcher coming up that we don't know yet, right? There's somebody coming up. We talked, it could be Tommy Henry. It could be Tommy Henry.

Yeah, there's really three candidates in my mind. It could be Tommy Henry. It could be Brandon Fott or it could be Dre Jameson, who's also a pitcher with the Reno Aces, who we expected might get a call up at some point this season. So I think Jameson has an inside track on this. We've talked about this before. He is Rule 5 eligible this winter. and so he needs a 40-man roster spot before then, whereas Brandon Fott doesn't.

And so the Diamondbacks might sort of give him the edge in that. I know Brandon Fott also hasn't pitched that much in Reno yet, or we've seen the Diamondbacks tend to want to make sure guys play like a substantial amount of time in Reno before they call them up most of the time. So I think it's probably likely, I would say, that we see Fought next year rather than this year, as sad as maybe that is. but Drey Jameson will also be really fun to see Pish at this level. He hasn't had a great year in Reno all things considered,

but he has big time stuff. And as we've seen, you know, with Ryan Nelson, sometimes guys who don't have the best of numbers in AAA, but have good stuff can come up to the majors. And if things kind of click into place, you know, they can go from being a liability in Reno to being a very, very good starter in the big leagues pretty quickly. So I think that's also a possibility.

The Diamondbacks might make some strange roster moves, some that don't make sense, like not calling Brandon Fought up, purely because of the Rule 5 draft, right? Yeah. The Rule 5 draft is minor leaguers who were signed at 18 and have at least five years of professional experience or signed at 19 and have four years of professional experience. So the Diamondbacks just have to be careful

on who they leave out there available in the Rule 5 draft. And if you don't think they take it seriously enough, just know that when I was out there covering their minor league camp, they came up to me and specifically had a list of guys that they'd prefer that I didn't show off how good they were doing just in case scouts and things were watching, right? Like, they take this very seriously. They very much want to either protect these guys

or they want the other teams to forget that they even exist so that they don't think about coming and snatching them up in this Rule 5 draft. So it's going to be interesting to see what the Diamond Decks do here between now and the end of the season. And of course, we will be covering it. We're not going away. We're here all season long.

Of course, we'll be here through the off season. And, you know, we only have so many games left here at Chase Field. So make sure to go check them out. Jesse's going to be there tonight. I refuse to go again. You have to protect the swimming pool. No. Who else is going to do it, Derek?

Because that's the problem is they're going to put me in charge of protecting the swimming pool. And what can I do against? Oh, fuck, man. Are you saying you couldn't like form a conga line in front of it with the fans? There we go. That's a good idea. I'm going to bring the PHNX. They just continuously circle it while singing that song.

Yeah. Exactly. All right. But if you do want to come watch that, which I would suggest is a good idea, you might want to get your tickets from our friends over at GameTime, which is the hottest new ticketing app that makes it easier to ever to score last minute to concerts, sports, sporting events, and shows. Save up to 60% on tickets like Jesse has been doing for years when you buy your tickets last minute. It's great for us. It's great for you. It's great for everybody, especially if you're procrastinator and you want to get your tickets at the last minute. I don't even call people procrastinators. I just think it's like, it's like FOMO. Right? It's like fear of missing out last minute. You see your friends are going or you find out someone's in town and you're like, oh, I want to go out. Or you find out the Merrill Kelly and Clay Gershaw. Or you find out those two guys are on the bump for sure. And that's a great time to go get your tickets. If you love P.H.NX, you'll love game time. You love sports. You love concerts. You love all that stuff. Make sure to grab your tickets over at game time. It's the best way to support us is by buying your tickets to the link in the description below. And of course, make sure to check out that app that Jesse finds so aesthetically pleasing. He loves the eugene. He loves the eugene. I do. I do. Yeah, sometimes like I go on, you know, I don't need tickets for Diamondback schemes at this point, but sometimes I'll still go on the game time app and just kind of scroll through. Yeah, just because it's just, it's just really, it's just really beautiful to just like scroll through. They have like, they have pictures of like what your view would be from each seat and everything. So you really get like an inside look at what your experience would be like. So highly, highly recommend.

Tomorrow's the grand opening of cold beer and cheeseburgers over at Chase Field. And I'm going to be, I'm going to be out there. I think Jesse might be out there too. We're going to be checking out and investigating if you can still. Because I think from what I've heard, they're not going to have an entrance any longer to enter from the street to just go to cold beer and cheeseburgers like they did with the old TGI Fridays. Really? So it's like only open during games? I don't know. I don't know.

We'll see. I don't think that's the case, but we'll invest. Yeah, because so far there is no entrance right now. It just might be temporary. That might be part of it too. Right now it's requiring us to enter through Chase Field. So we'll keep you updated on how that's going to go. But that was always one of my favorite places to watch a game.

We were talking about that. Yeah, Friday's front row. I loved being at Friday's front row and just the atmosphere of being at the baseball game. You know what I mean? Like I didn't need a good seat. I didn't need to see the game. I just wanted to be there and eat some, you know, fish and chips and drink some beers and have a good time. So we'll be out there tomorrow.

So make sure to check us out. And we'll hopefully give you guys, if you have any questions, anything you want to answered about cold beer and cheeseburgers, shoot us an email or shoot us a tweet or whatever. I don't know how, how do people communicate these days? tweets, emails, how do we contact? Do we still phone each other? I don't know anymore, but I do tell you this. Underdog Fantasy, of course, broke my heart this weekend because so, and I'll blame Underdog Fantasy. I blame Aaron Rogers is who I blame, but I was so close to winning $500, Jesse. I was this close, and Aaron Rogers just had to have just a terrible performance, but it's been very fun on Underdog Fantasy. I've enjoyed all the different options. If you haven't had a chance to check out the app, it is the best way

to enhance your football season with pick-em games, as well as they have, like, drafts that you can do for, like, just a weekend with, like, a couple of friends and such. So there's lots of fun options over on the Underdog Fantasy app. But the thing I've been doing, you just look for a couple of players, you check out their stats.

They'll give you a higher or a lower-than total for a stat. For baseball pitchers, they give you, like, a pitch count. So that's one thing that a lot of guys run the office have been liking is doing the lower-than, you know, 102-pitch-count kind of thing for a couple of things. a couple of pictures. You wouldn't believe how easy it is sometimes to win your money over at the Underdog Fantasy app. Just don't include Aaron Rogers. That's my advice. You can win up to 20 times

your money in a single night. You can search in the app store or click the link below in our show note. Sign up with promo code PH&X and Underdog will actually double your first deposit up to $100. So make sure to sign up for Underdog Fantasy. That's promo code PHNX and get on the action today. And just like Jesse said, it's very aesthetically pleasing. It's a beautiful app. You got plenty of options. That's all that matters for me. You know what I like? I've gotten some betting apps, especially with all the sports betting that's going on now.

Some of them do make it too hard, I feel like, for you to find the options you're looking for. Underdog, it's got all the sports right there on top. Real easy click. It doesn't even give you like every game. They only have limited options that you can pick from for the higher and lower. So it kind of keeps it a little bit, like, I don't know. It's like sometimes there's too many options for me.

I don't know where to even start. Sure. And give me a smaller list. It's easy for me to figure it out. But get your money over at the Underdog Fantasy app. And make sure to use our code of PHNX. That's all we got for you guys today. But we're going to give something away.

You know, we're in the giving away mood. And it's getting around this time of the year, right? So we want to wind down. We want to make sure to honor you guys, the true DeBacks fans out there. So we actually have one of these Zach Gallen giveaway T-shirts from Zach Gallen night. I guess you could say it. Is that what it was? It was Zach Gallen Knight.

It's the silhouette t-shirt. It's got his beautiful. locks, it's got his glasses on it, and you can have it. You can win it by going to our Twitter account. We're going to put up a tweet this afternoon. Just retweet it, like it, share it with your friends, all that stuff, and we will make sure to... How many friends do they have to tag this time? Jesse, I don't, I'm not going to do that. I think we should do 10. This guys, I think they all have to tag 10 friends. You want you guys to start a new social media account and you want to do all sorts of stuff. I don't have 10

for, I'm just kidding. But you don't want to make it too many. That's sad. You know, you made me sad now. Like when Underdog Fantasy emailed me and said, Do you have any friends? Do you have any friends? Wait, Underdog sends you emails asking you if you're friends. Well, they said we have emails.

Mine was like, you have too many friends. I don't know who you're going to ask. They wanted me to share with my friends, but it was just funny because they said, do you have any friends? What is the subject line? That's funny. Oh, man, but good stuff. But all right, we'll have that on our Twitter account, so make sure to look out for that.

Of course, that Twitter account is P. X underscore Dbacks. I am at cap underscore caveman with a K. This guy is at Jesse and Friedman. But of course, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys so much for spending your lunch with us and joining us living through the misery that is this bullpen in this season when it comes to all of these losses chocked up by our relievers. But next season, right? Next season we got. We thank you guys again for being here on behalf of Jesse and myself. We always appreciate your time. And remember, kids, baseball is fun. But God damn it's so much more fun when your freaking bullpen can actually win a game.