PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Baseball is back! Tommy Henry impresses in Diamondbacks’ spring training opener

Episode Date: February 24, 2024

The Diamondbacks played a real-life baseball game, and it didn’t go great. Nonetheless, Tommy Henry still threw well, Blaze Alexander was good on both sides of the ball and Eduardo Rodriguez — who was originally slated to start the game — pitched well on the backfields at Salt River Fields. We also clarify some details on the new TV situation, and look back on five questions that we said in November would define the Diamondbacks’ offseason.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 http://www.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.

Welcome in to the PH&X Diamondbacks podcast. Is this thing on, Damon? Be going. You're here? We're on. Okay. Welcome in to the PHNX Devak show. And before we get into everything else,

shout out to OG's brands, the official sponsor of flavoring Fridays, which I'm told today is Friday, even though all of the days have completely blurred together for me at this point. OGs is not your. average cannabis infused gummy. They absolutely knock it out of the park when it comes to flavor. And the effects of their gummies are a total slam dunk as well. Head on over to OGsbrands.com to see their full lineup, including their two newest gummies, the OGs naturals and the big

OGs and find out where you can purchase. My name, of course, is Jesse Friedman. I am your host today here on the PHNXD Back show because one Derek Montia is out on a ship going from Miami to the Bahamas, I'm told. Apparently, he does have internet, so I'm going to guess that Derek is is in the chat right now because he just can't help but be away from all of us. But Damon is here. Damon's going to be going to be chiming in here from time to time. He is indeed behind the Mac. And we have an actual spring training baseball game to talk about, which feels good, as much fun as PFPs and all of the lovely things, all the lovely drills that we observe at Salt River Fields are on a daily basis. We got an actual baseball game today between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies.

This game did not go especially well for the Diamondbacks from a result standpoint, a 3-0 loss to the Colorado Rockies, which of course means that the sky is falling and that the Arizona Diamondbacks are not, they're not good anymore, Damon. All of the hype, it's gone. The Diamondbacks aren't going to be able to defend their pennant because they lost to the Rockies in spring training. I I mean, what are we doing here, right, Damon? It's just like we were saying all, all like playoffs with every pitch. It's over. Yeah.

Like, it's done. And then if we win again, then we're back. That's just typically how it goes around here. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I mean, that's pretty much the whole show that we have. It's just, you know, the Diamondbacks lost with the Rockies. They got shut out by the Rockies, in fact. And that's all you need to know.

The season is basically over. No. In all seriousness, there were some positives here for the Arizona Diamond for sure. We'll go ahead and start with Tori Lavello and the comments that he made after this game. Of course, some positives and some negatives. Here's what Tori had to say right after this one ended. We did some things right and we did some things wrong. And I think those are just making those mistakes of the type that you're going to make when you're just getting back out there,

getting back in the flow and the rhythm. And there's a couple of plays that took place today that probably will never happen again. such as the not reading the count, thinking it was strike three. We were all confused, but it's good to be back out there. I thought Tommy threw the baseball really well. He gives two quality innings. It looked like he worked into his velocity a little bit through, I think, a two-two fastball at night, a two-two fastball.

Yeah, sorry. And the was probably the second inning of work that really got him locked in. after that, he started to really pound the zone with an aggressive heater, quality secondary stuff. So that's what we're looking for. Great, great outing for him. A couple nice plays. Blaze played really well, a couple hits, and made some really nice defensive play. So there were some things we did well, some things we got to clean up, and that's what

spring training is all about. Yeah, not a pretty game for the Diamondbacks, for sure. 16 strikeouts and 32 at bats is not exactly what you're looking for. I know Riley in the chat mentioned there definitely needs to be less big swings tomorrow, which is, I think, a fair criticism. Of course, you're getting, you know, kind of this odd hodgepodge of major leaguers and minor leaguers playing in these games. So, you know, you're not necessarily expecting all of these guys to come out and look great.

But I want to start with Tommy Henry and his outing from a number standpoint. Really good stuff from him. Two innings, one hit, no runs, no walks, three strikeouts. pretty solid line. He threw 22 pitches, 15 strikes. He did tell us afterward that he went out and threw some extra pitches as well, got up to, I believe it was 35 pitches just to make sure that he's continuing to build up and get stretched out for the season.

I do want to show Tommy Henry's pitch chart for this game just so we can see where all of these pitches were. I think Tommy pitched well, but I will say that if you look at this, there's a few more pitches in the middle than I think you would like to see. You know, there's a slider that's sort of middle up there. There's a few fastballs in the middle of the zone. There's some breaking balls in the middle here as well. So I think Tommy got away, got away with some stuff if we're being totally honest here.

But he also, he also pitched well on the whole. I think from a movement perspective, he threw a curve ball that was probably the nastiest curve ball I've ever seen Tommy Henry throw in his career, at least what I've seen up in the majors, to this point, a front door, a breaking pitch to Amador, I believe it was of the Rockies. That was a really incredible pitch for a strikeout. And you know, you know something about Tommy Henry, or I guess what you know about Tommy Henry is that he has a very viable pitch arsenal. He has a variety of weapons that, you know, you compare him to Ryan Nelson, which we're going to be doing that comparison, pretty much all of spring training. Those are the two guys that we expect to compete

for that fifth rotation spot, you know, and some other. guys as well, but those are certainly the two front runners. Tommy Henry, there are fewer questions about the arsenal. You saw the forcing fastball. You saw the curveball, the change up, the slider. You also saw a sinker in this game. Tommy Henry, this is something he revealed to me a few days ago. He started throwing a sinker over the off season and is looking at trying to incorporate that into his arsenal. He said it's primarily going to be a weapon against lefties, in particular the inside part of the plate just trying to kind of dust off, dust left-handed hitters off the plate a little bit. And he did throw one of those in this game.

If you look on statcast, you're not going to see this. I think it had shown a sinker at one point. And then I don't know if they like cleaned up the data and we're like, oh, he doesn't have a sinker. But he actually does have a sinker. He threw one of them to Nolan Jones. The first pitch to Nolan Jones was a sinker. He wasn't so happy with it necessarily.

He said after the game, he was aiming for that pitch to be on the inner half of the plate. wound up sailing on the outer half of the plate. It was a strike, but it wasn't at all where he was trying to throw it. So he got away with that. But on the whole, it was a really good start to spring training for Tommy Henry. And I think we have to remember, like Tommy Henry has not thrown in this environment in a long time. He last through for the Diamondbacks in August last season. He had the elbow issue, which was originally only going to keep him out for a couple of weeks.

And then, you know, before you know it, he not only. misses the remainder of the regular season, but he misses all of the postseason as well. He was nearly able to come back toward the end, was building up, you know, throwing off a mound, throwing in sort of simulated games at Chase Field by the end, but the opportunity ultimately didn't present itself. But Tommy did talk after the game about what it was like

to be back on the mound in front of actual fans, which is something he hasn't experienced in a while. Here's what he had to say. It felt good. warming up today, honestly, was the first time I realized it would be the first time in like a stadium setting since August. So it felt good. I had a little bit of pregame jitters, which felt good. That's always fun. And there was a great crowd out there today. So it was fun to just, you know, be a part of the buzz, get the feet wet and settle in. Yeah, this is,

this is just something, something a little bit new right now for Tommy Henry, given that he hasn't thrown in front of an actual crowd since August. So that's sort of where he started when he was talking about this after the game. Henry's Velo, I can look that up real quick. He ranged with his, what Stadcast is showing is just his four seamer range from 89.3 up to 92.6 and average of 91, which is pretty similar to where it was last year. They have it at 90.7 last year. So I don't think we're still trying to figure out who this pitcher is that Tori Lavello is talking

about whose velocity is elevated here in spring training. Don't think it's Tommy Henry, at least not from what we saw today. You know, he did get up to 93 miles an hour, which is good for him, but, you know, pretty similar to where we saw him last year. Who do you think it is? I don't know. I, I, it's, it's the kind of an impossible thing for me to really speculate on. No doubt, but I mean, you could take a guess.

If I just had, if I just had to take a guess, I would guess that, It is, I don't know, Damon. It's Brandon Fott. Like, sure, it's Brandon Fought. Let's just go out and throw out just absolutely rampant speculation. No, I don't know who it is. But yes, if it was Brandon Fought, it would be. It would be a very significant development.

With that, like, rising high fastball hitting in like 97? That would be pretty nasty, dude. That would be a game changer for Brandon Fought. Someone asked in my last mailbag, like, what is the ceiling for Brandon Fought? Could he be a front line starting pitcher? And I talked about some ways where maybe he could get there. And I didn't really think that, you know, a significant fastball velo jump would be in the cards for him at this point. But who knows?

We'll see in the coming days when he pitches in a spring training game. Tommy Henry also after this game talked about what he's been working on this offseason. Of course, he didn't have exactly a normal off season. He did build up and was throwing off a mound at the end of the year. But with the elbow and whatnot, certainly wanted to take some precautions coming into this season. But here's what he had to say about some of the mechanical adjustments that he was working on. Let's see when you took them out today. I've really tried to clean up some lower half mechanic stuff, which is, you know, without getting too down the rabbit hole, like really focusing on my hips and sturdying up my front side in order to make my hand, you know, come out in a more consistent pattern more often.

And so, you know, today small sample size, but I felt like the misses were small. I felt good. I felt efficient. And, you know, putting more of the stress in the big muscles, you know, and more in my shoulder rather than my elbow. And yeah, so I'm glad I'm healthy and, you know, that stuff felt good too. Yeah, this is something that Tommy talked with me about as well, about a week ago toward the start of spring camp, just trying to get as much stress off of the elbow as possible, you know,

Based on your mechanics, your mechanics do have an impact on how much stress you're putting on your shoulder, your elbow and whatnot. You see Tommy there talking about wanting to put more of it on his shoulder and less of it on his elbow. So he seems to be feeling good from that perspective. Tommy was also asked after this game about what his next step is in terms of his development and contributing as a pitcher in this organization. I found this answer to be especially interesting. impact this organization. Yeah, I think it's kind of continuing the trend of getting ahead of hitters. And it's as simple as that.

I think for a big part of my career, I've kind of pitched and battled from behind. And at sometimes you could chalk that up if you want to be positive to being effectively wild. But, you know, when you're in command of the game, it makes pitching way easier. And I think it allows you to be more consistent every fifth day and get more consistent results. So I think that that's the next big step for me, and that's, you know, the goal moving forward. I think we think of Tommy Henry as being a command guy. And, you know, I think that working around the edges is certainly a part of his game. And I do think that's something that we've seen from him.

But purely from a walks perspective, Tommy Henry actually hasn't been so much of a command guy, either in the majors or really even in the minors. You look at the season he had last year. He was at 3.5 walks per nine. And the PCL, he was also right around 3.5 in 2022. And we saw him in the majors. He was at four. So he's basically always been in the like mid threes to mid fours in terms of his walks per nine

innings, which is on the higher end. And I think, you know, the future of Tommy Henry and him at his best is going to be a guy who's not only working on the edges, but also throwing a lot of strikes. And that's something that we did see today out of Henry's 22 pitches. I believe it was 64%. I think that's 14 out of the 22 pitches were in the zone. So, you know, there were some misses location-wise,

but he was really lighting up the strike zone. And that's one of his key things that he came away with from this game was just, I want to throw strikes, I want to get ahead of hitters. I want to, you know, really maximize my stuff in that way. And that's something that we definitely saw from Tommy Henry today.

Outside of him on the mound, there were a couple of other, impressive performances that I want to mention. Blaze Alexander went two for two in this game, a single and a double. I think Riley mentioned in the chat the single at 108.6 miles per hour off the bat, the double at 97.7. Both of those were hit well. He also helped turn a pretty impressive double play alongside Kevin Newman in the middle infield.

So, you know, it's one game. You're not necessarily facing the highest quality of competition, especially here early in spring training when teams are using more. of their minor leaguers. But this was, this was an impressive game for Blaze Alexander. Blaze was playing second.

Blaze was playing second. Is that, that could be big. Yeah, yeah, Blaze was at second. I think they just want to get Kevin Newman as many looks at shortstop as possible. And so they had Kevin Newman in it short

and they had Blaze in at second. So do you think that it would be smarter to, if Blaze continues to perform throughout this spring training to have Blaze as the, on the opening day roster? Yeah, that's an interesting question. Tori was asked after this. this game, you know, what are you looking for from Blaze to really make this team?

And Tori emphasized that like Blaze is in the mix here. Blaze Alexander is not just here to, you know, play some games and then get sent down to minor league camp and just sort of be buried in Reno forever. I think there is a path for Blaze Alexander to make this team. We've talked about the Diamondbacks likely having two bench infield spots available to them. And I think Blaze Alexander absolutely could be could be one of those guys. I wouldn't, you know, if I'm trying to like chart out who's at the top of that list and, you know, kind of where the list goes from there, Blaze probably probably wouldn't be at the top of the list, but he's certainly someone who with a strong spring training, you know, could come out and, and, you know, really vie for that spot. So, I mean, he's performed in the minors pretty much everywhere he's bent. Yeah. And he's at the age now at 24 where like it's pretty much put up or shut up time you would think. You know what I mean? Like you're either a tree. Yeah, that's fair. Or you're making the roster. I really like. I really like. place. I think he could provide some value for this team and I think he's, you know, got some potential

as a player for sure. Yeah, that's that's very fair. I mean, you look at the numbers he put up in AAA last year. He hit 291 408, 457, an 865 OPS. Of course, you have to do the conversion, the whole Reno thing, yes. He struck out more than you like 83 strikeouts in three, see if I can get this, 305 plate appearances. So that's it. That's a high strikeout, right? That's over 25 I think that's maybe the primary hesitation with Blaze at this point is cutting down on the swing and miss. But defensively, you saw a little bit of it today. Defensively is going to be great.

Not only at shortstop, but he can move to second base. He could probably play third base as well. He has, you know, potentially the best infield arm, one of the best infield arms of anyone in this system. So, yeah, Blaze Alexander absolutely is a name to keep an eye on, even if he's not necessarily at the top of the list. One game in. I'm salt.

All right, there we go. Welcome to the squad, Blaze Alexander. You're the backup shortstop. This is why we love Damon piping in on the show because everything is also reasonable. Chris wants you to bubble yourself, Damon. Can you make that happen? I will make that happen, Chris. All right.

Damon's going to bubble himself so we can see him in the corner. On the sort of negative side for this, again, I'm not going too crazy with anything on day one of spring training. Ivan Melendez went over three with three strikeouts. Not great there. Christian Robinson had won and bat toward the. the end of this game. He struck out. Jake McCarthy, 0 for three in this game with a couple of strikeouts. Jake McCarthy is in a really rough spot at this point. We've talked about how, there we go. Are you on? You're coming on? Jake McCarthy is in a tough spot from a roster

construction standpoint. The diamond backs, obviously, by bringing in Randall Grishick, by bringing in Jock Peterson, they made his path to the majors pretty difficult. Tori did talk about having six outfielders potentially, and there may be a path for him to make the roster. He didn't mention Jake specifically when he said that, but he did talk about potentially having six outfielders on the roster on opening day. So I don't think it's something we should rule out, but Jake is going to have to perform well in spring training to force the team's hand to kind of construct their roster in that way. And it wasn't a great start today. Yeah, at least as Jake's at bats did not look great. They didn't. Yeah, he was chasing out of the zone

a little bit. So yeah, that's something to continue to monitor. Again, it's one game. I wouldn't be too, wouldn't read too much to do it at this point. Kutel Marte went one for two with a walk in this game, made a really nice play at second base. He looks to be in good shape and ready to go at this point. Again, it's one game. But Kattel, Ketel look good.

As far as the upcoming schedule, what can, what you can expect from the Diamondbacks here in the next few days? We have Ryan Nelson pitching on Saturday, once again, against. the Rockies. It's going to be Slade Cicconi on Sunday against the White Sox, Blake Walston, on Monday against the Oakland days. So no Erod here. He pitched on a backfield today. We're going to get to that a little bit more here in a little bit. And then Brandon fought. I think you'll see eventually, although I'm not totally clear on exactly when his first outing in an actual game will be. I do think the Diamondbacks are maybe trying to hide pitchers a little bit from teams

that they will face early in the season. Tori said that that wasn't the reason that Erod threw on a backfield today as opposed to starting in this game. The debacks, of course, opened the season against the Colorado Rockies, the regular season. But Tori said that was more just Erod wanting to get some work in in a more controlled environment. So, but yeah, we do expect to see those guys certainly in actual Cactus League game soon.

As far as the lineup is concerned, Tori said that Corbyn Carroll will start in right field. Lordus will start and left to Alec Thomas in center on Saturday. I don't know what the infield will look like, but those that's starting outfield group will will be in there for sure. So that's sort of what to look what to look forward to here in these next few days. Speaking of what to look forward to, Circle K, you got it, if you got to go get some gas, you need something a light refreshment or whatnot while you're on the road. Circle K is certainly the place to go. You can join the Circle K inner circle,

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Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the CircleK app today. Terms and conditions apply at participating locations. Visit CircleK.com for details. I also want to tell you about our friends over at PrizePix. football season may be over. I'm not so sad about that. Full disclosure. That means baseball is here.

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PHNX use code PHNX for a first deposit match of up to $100. That's prizepicks.com slash PHNX and use code PHNX. Pick more, pick less. It is that easy. I do want to get to Eduardo Rodriguez shoving on the backfields over at Salt River Fields. This happened about an hour, hour and a half before the game today. Of course, Erod was originally slated to start the Diamondback Spring Training opener. As I mentioned earlier, he wound up throwing on a backfield instead.

wanted a more controlled environment to work on some things and whatnot. And we have some video of Erod throwing in this game. Damon, shall we? This is Erod against Lordus Gurriel Jr. He faced a number of different Diamondbacks hitters. There were six hitters in all. But he was pretty impressive. I know he talked a lot about Yumen Lin and the job that he did yesterday.

But he's somewhat carved up several Diamondbacks hitters. Caleb Roberts, he struck out on three pitchers. which is you see him facing Lordus Gurriel Jr. here. This, I will spoil it. It will end in a strikeout here in a few short moments as well. Erod looked good. You can just tell his mechanics seem to be in sync. You see a breaking pitch there that Lordus swings and misses at.

And yeah, I mean, this is certainly, it's very early in spring training, but the Diamondbacks made a pretty big investment in this guy. And you'd like to see him show up to, camp and perform well right off the bat, something that Madison Bumgarner, of course, when the Diamondbacks made that investment a few years ago, that was sort of disastrous from day one. So he struck out Lordus Gouriel Jr. He also struck out three other Diamondbacks hitters. He struck out four of the six batters he faced through, I believe it was 28 pitches altogether. So really impressive showing from Eduardo Rodriguez all the way around. If you want to

watch the full live BP footage, we have that over on our YouTube page. So be sure to do that. We also have full live BP footage of Umin Lin as well, which has gotten tons of traction, which is phenomenal. The pride of Taiwan. He is the pride of Taiwan. The debacks might be the pride of Taiwan because we got Corbyn as well. That's fair. It's a good point.

I mean, we need this whole nation to get behind this team. That's really what it's coming down to. Yeah, I mean, the Dodgers, right, they've got Japan at this point. but if the Diamondbacks have Taiwan, I mean, you know. Taiwan's always been clear of Japan. Yeah, oh, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, so lots of, lots of hype surrounding that UminLynn video. But be sure to check out the Eduardo Rodriguez one as well if you want to see.

This is basically like watching Eduardo Rodriguez pitch in a Cactus League game, except instead of, you know, other teams hitters. It is just he's facing his teammates instead, of course. So yeah, was Caleb Roberts, Corbyn, Carol, Jordan Lawler, Alec Thomas, Lordus Gurriel Jr. and Jose Herrera. He struck out all of those guys except for Corbyn Carroll and Jose Herrera. Carol, I believe, walked, drew a walk, took some tough close pitches. Jose Herrera hit a fly ball down the right field line that probably would have been caught

pretty easily by the second baseman of the right fielder. So yeah, all the way around, impressive stuff from Eduardo Rodriguez. I also asked after Erod's session, I asked Tori Lavello, who was out there watching. I asked how he felt about Erod throwing on the backfields, and here's what Tori had to say. Real good, real good. He's just so good at landing pitches. He is a pitchmaker.

He can drive pitches on both sides of the plate. I watched him throw two fastballs down and into Corby and Carroll and pretty much dotted up. Timing has to be really good when you're doing something like that, and that's how I've known. He's just really good at locating and figuring out when, two, and where two throw pitches? Obviously, Tori Lavello is no stranger to Eduardo Rodriguez in his game.

But yeah, the mechanics really looked in sync. As Tori said there, he was really, seemed to be really dotting his spots. The command was on point, which is certainly a big thing for a guy like Eduardo Rodriguez, who isn't necessarily going to blow you away. So, yeah, really good stuff on that front. I suspect we'll see him in a Cactus League game here pretty soon. have a final date on that just yet, but I think it's fairly likely that his next outing comes in an actual Cactus league game. Marcos asked, do we know who is pitching on Sunday? And yes,

we do. It's Ryan Nelson Saturday, Slate's a Coney Sunday. That games against the White Sox, and then Blake Walston Monday against the Oakland A's. Those are the starting pitchers that we know for certain right now. But yes, good stuff for Erod all across the board. I do want to talk about Jock Peterson here real quick as well. Peterson drew a couple of walks. in this game. And he had very high praise for Dave McKay, just talking about as he's getting acclimated to this team and what he's working on and whatnot. Jack Peterson referred to Dave McKay as the goat of outfield and base running coaches.

That is a word for word quote, I believe. So Jock Peterson clearly is enamored with Dave McKay. And frankly, I mean, if you're a member of this Diamondbacks team and you're a position player. You probably are pretty enamored with having Dave McKay around as, you know, a resource in the outfield. And as far as base running is concerned as well, he certainly has brought a lot to this team. But Jock went on and on about how Dave has really helped a lot already with him getting good outfield reads and whatnot. That's a big reason we heard initially why Jock chose the Diamondbacks in the first place. So yeah, Jock is clearly happy with that. Jock is also, this was interesting to me,

he's also very happy with Salt River Fields. He called it the niceest. complex are one of the nicest complexes at least in all of spring training, which of course we've already established here. Salt Riverfields is the nicest complex. I think we can safely say across all of spring training year in Arizona or in Florida. And something I didn't realize is that it's Scottsdale Stadium with the San Francisco Giants where Jock was previously, they don't actually have backfields there. It is just Scottsdale Stadium because it's like right in the middle of the city.

It is just the main field. And so if you wanted to do some sort of live BP or, you know, drills or whatnot, and you play for the San Francisco Giants, you would have to drive a little ways over to the Papago Park area where they had their actual backfields. So he talked about having to kind of drive back and forth between those places where it's at Salt River Fields, the minor league facility, everything is all in one place. It's super easy. And I think we all know that Salt Riverfield is outstanding. Jock is certainly appreciating that at this point. you all should come out and join us because we are going to be doing some fantastic takeovers this season out at Chase Field once the regular season, once the real game start. We have three takeovers that we have officially announced for the 2024 season.

The first one is on May 4th against the San Diego Padres. That is Gabriel Moreno Bobblehead Night. I will be there. Derek will also presumably be there as long as his boat brings him back safely to the U.S., which we hope is the case. July 31st against the Washington Nationals, that game, we are doing our pool party takeover. That's, of course, the highlight of our slate of takeover days for the 2024 season. So be sure to join us for that one in particular. Don't miss that one.

That one. You'll really regret missing that one. It's really hard. For those of you who don't know how the pool situation generally works, you can't normally just buy one ticket to go and hang out at the Chase Field swimming pool. You have to rent out the whole thing. thing with a group of people and it is not cheap. So the opportunity to go and just buy a single ticket and not drop several thousand

dollars on reserving it for, you know, your family or your group or whatever. Only comes around every so often. It only comes around every so often. You said it. So, so yeah, be sure to join us. That's July 31st. We'd love to see you out there. I'm sure Derek will be doing cannon balls and whatnot.

I'm sure Derek will have like the perfect outfit. You will. For a pool day. Like he'll have the exact pair. of shirts and shorts that we've never seen him wear before, that you're just like, wow, you really dressed for the occasion. He'll probably have his own floaties and stuff. Like, Derek will show up ready to go.

Yeah, I mean, he might. Of course, if he gets back from this cruise. If he gets back from the cruise, right? Yeah, I mean, he might be dressed like a four-year-old. Like, you might mistake him for some child based on how he's dressed. He's going to have sunscreen. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Although, I don't know if he'll need sunscreen because the Chasefield roof

is probably going to be closed on July 31st. Stay tuned. Who knows? Weather is unpredictable. We also have a takeover on September 10th against the Texas Rangers. That, of course, being another really big game, the Rangers coming back for a World Series rematch. So we have a really fun slate of takeover games

for the 2024 season. Be sure to join us out there. And if you want to get a discount on all of these things, as well as a bunch of other benefits, be sure to become a PHNX diehard. You can do that now on our website at GoPee. Ph andx.com. Doing so gives you access not only to discounts on events like these, but also it gets you a free t-shirt right away up front. And it also provides you with a whole

lot of content from all of our beats here at PHNX that you won't be able to get if you're not a die hard. We do every week. We do an interaction with some people in our discord. Derek does the city council meetings. We'll do Q&As. We'll do other other fun interactive things like that. We also have diehard only content over on our website articles that I write. There's a couple of those every month that we have scheduled for the foreseeable future. And it's not just from our D-backspeed here, but Cardinals, Coyote, Sons, so on and so forth. So if you're not a diehard already, please be sure to get down on that as soon as possible. And I'm told that the Valley of the Sun will war to life, not long from now, because NASCAR,

is returning to Phoenix Raceway March 8th through 10th. I'm pretty stoked for this. Jesse, you were telling me the other day how stoked you were for this. I am pretty stoked. I prior to Phoenix Raceway is, I mean, I think growing up, I always loved cars. I was always a car guy, but actually like going out there and experiencing it in person, experiencing it in person is something that I didn't get around to doing. So I'm pretty stoked to actually see what that's like in person.

I hope you are too. It is the best in-class fan experience meeting. There's all sorts of cool action out there to be had. And of course, with the backdrop of the beautiful Estreya Mountains, which are extraordinary. If you haven't spent a whole lot of time in that part of the Phoenix Metro area, it really is nice out there. So get your tickets to the Shriners Children's 500 at Phoenix Raceway,

March 8th through 10th. It promises a weekend of good vibes for the whole family. get your reserved grandstand tickets now at phoenix raceway dot com all right well to finish off today's show i want to revisit an article that i wrote a long time ago this is back on november 11th so this was several months ago i wrote a story that was basically five questions that will define the diamondbacks off season and now that spring training has started the diamond backs off season is over and we can look back on what the Diamondbacks were able to accomplish this offseason by pretty much all available measures.

I think it was successful. But I thought it'd be interesting to look back at these questions and kind of see how we view them in retrospect. First of all, how much will the Diamondbacks spend? That was the first question that I had on the docket. And the Diamondbacks spent a lot more money than I think we anticipated. They opened the 2023 season with a payroll of around $1,70,000. $16 million.

That is now $144 million, according to Cots. That's approximately where they sit right now. That's a much bigger jump than I think I really envisioned the Diamondbacks, you know, being willing to do entering the season, even given the fact that because of the World Series and the extended postseason run that they went on, they were able to, you know, they certainly made some money on that, but I still think they spent more than we were expecting. We had heard talk of $20 million, the team would be willing to spend $20 million this offseason in addition to what they already had on the books.

Ultimately, it wound up being significantly higher than that. The second question that I had was, will the Diamondbacks solve their third base problem? Of course, last season, third base was tough for the Diamondbacks. They started with Josh Rojas. He got the majority of the reps at third base. And, you know, Emmanuel Rivera certainly stepped in. Evan Longoria, of course, was part of that. Rojas started the season really well.

But ultimately, third base was a rough. It was just rough for the Diamondbacks. Wasn't it like 29th or something in the league in total output? Yeah, it was pretty rough. The Diamondbacks, their third baseman slashed 234303-340 throughout the 2020 season. It was a 75 WRC plus, which ranked 27th in baseball. So yeah, basically right there at the bottom. We don't know exactly what it will look like in 2024.

Aeohenio Suarez is there and he's the guy. You know, there's been some swing and miss. We saw some swing and miss today in the Cactus League. We've seen a little bit of it in live BP, but this is only a handful of plate appearances. I wouldn't read too much into it at this point. But yeah, I think they did, I think they did solve their third base problem, you know, reasonably well.

trading Sebi Zavala and Carlos Vargas for Ehuhenio Suarez. On paper, it's a trade that made a lot of sense for the Diamondbacks. They basically just took back money. And the two guys that they traded away, you know, Vargas has good stuff. But the command, there are some big questions there. He really struggled both briefly in the majors as well as in the minors in 2023. And then Sebi Zavala would have been a candidate for that backup catcher role, but not a huge loss for the Diamondbacks, all things considered.

So yeah, I trade that made a lot of sense. We'll have to wait and see how it turns out. But on paper, you know, even if A. E. Johani Os Juarez isn't quite the guy that you would hope him to be in 2024. You're still probably looking at a sizable increase in production from third base. So that's certainly promising. The third question that I wrote back in November was, what caliber of starting pitcher will the diamondbacks acquire?

And this is one where I think we can also safely say that the team shot a lot higher than we would have we would have expected. You go back and listen to what Mike Hazen said at the beginning of the offseason. He didn't want just a starting pitcher who, he didn't want a starting pitcher where you didn't know what you were getting. There were certainly some guys out there like that, Lucas Gialito, you know, Louis Severino, those kind of guys where you didn't really know exactly what you were going to get, even if the ceiling of what they could give you was high.

the Diamondbacks wanted someone a little bit more proven, more of a veteran. And I think they got that in Eduardo Rodriguez. I mean, Eduardo Rodriguez, you know, coming off the season he had with the Tigers last year, a 3.30 ERA. He put up big numbers. He's coming off a really strong season. The Diamondbacks paid a hefty price to get him, four years and $80 million. I mentioned earlier, that's not a small investment.

But it is, you know, I think it is a reasonable one. and it's one the Diamondbacks are willing to make. And we'll see, we'll see how that, how that turns out. But certainly, from what I was expecting, that is the team shot higher in that regard than I thought they would. The streets won't forget you comparing it to Madbum the next day. No, yeah, they won't. I won't ever forget that, Jess.

I'm not going to live that. I'm not going to live that down. Yeah, that's, that's, I probably deserve that. I did come on our show the day after the Diamond Vex sign of Warder Rodriguez, and we showed a graphic comparing Madison Baumgartner's stats with Erod stats. You made me make two separate comparisons. Yeah, I think I did. One was like the year, like the year immediately prior to them joining the Diamondbacks.

Then there was like the three years, the three preceding years or something for each guy. The streets remember. Yeah. They do. Damon's not going to forget anytime soon. That's for sure. But yeah, we'll see how it goes. You know, on paper looking at the production.

projections moving forward. Erod is a pretty strong investment for the diamond backs and, you know, should be a really solid mid-rotation starter for them moving forward. The fourth question that I asked way back in November was how much right-handed thump will the diamond backs add? And of course, at this point, Lordus Gereal Jr. was presumably gone. So he would be one addition that they made here. They also, of course, added A. E.ohenio Suarez earlier as well, which I mentioned earlier as

well. So you've got those two right-handed bats. I think we were a little surprised maybe that the Diamondbacks went for a left-handed designated hitter instead of a right-handed one. This is something we've had a lot of conversations about. Jack Peterson is not right-handed thump, but he is thump. Jack Peterson does have a considerable amount of power. And I think all in all, in terms of just thumped to the middle of the lineup, adding some guys behind Christian Walker and Cattell-Marté and Corbyn Carroll. The Diamondbacks also did pretty. well in that regard on paper. The last question, which is still an interesting one and one that we could probably do

an entire show discussing, is will the diamondbacks extend Gabriel Moreno? And this is something that we, of course, do not have an answer to necessarily because while the diamondbacks have not extended Gabriel Moreno at this point, I don't think that it is necessarily impossible. Last year we saw the team strike an extension with Corbyn Carroll, believe it was right or around this time of year, you don't usually get too deep into extension talks until all of the other big offseason transactions are taken care of. At this point, I think the Diamondbacks big offseason transactions are taken care of. And presumably, this would be the time to circle back and really start

thinking about an extension with Gabriel Moreno. I know Nick Picoro over at the Arizona Republic reported that he expected the Diamondbacks to at least make an effort to make this happen. So we'll see. We don't know much on this front at this point, but it's a question that I view as still being very much open. I still think it's possible that this is a maneuver that the Diamondbacks try to make. Gabby Moreno, of course, is not slated to hit free agency anytime soon. He is very young. He is very early in his career. As things stand right now, Gabriel Moreno would not be a free agent until after the 2028 season.

So there's not necessarily a huge urgency with this. As you saw with Corbyn Carroll, if you wait a little bit to sign these kind of extensions to players who are really good when they're young, you might wind up paying a whole lot more to do it. We saw that with the Kansas City Royals, them giving Bobby Witt Jr., nearly $300 million guaranteed, as opposed to the Diamondbacks who signed Corby and Carol to a $11 million extension. There's more years with Bobby Witt, but there's also quite a bit of risk, you know, buying out years well into his mid-30s.

So yeah, I think this still makes sense for the Diamondbacks. As of right now, Gabby would walk at age 28. I think there's a lot of reason to want Gabriel Moreno again for age 29 and age 30. This is something I again expect the team to try. It's just a matter if there's a match and if the numbers work out. Damon, I suppose it's safe to say you're pretty on board with the team pulling that off. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where it's like until 2028, I'm not going to be you know, freaking out about it necessarily.

If that's how long it's going to be until he reaches free agency. Yeah. Like, it's hard to sweat it as a fan because we know we have him locked in for so long. That being said, I think it would, it could be smart to lock him down for, get him some extra money earlier in his career and then, you know, get him at a, at a, what you would consider to be good value for those last few prime years of his career. Yeah.

Yeah, it'd basically be an arrangement where, you know, you could kind of project out what Gabriel Moreno would normally make over the next five seasons going through two more years of pre-arbitration and then the three arbitration years, the diamondbacks would guarantee him more money than that. That would be sort of the benefit for Gabby. And then the diamondbacks in sort of exchange for that, they would want, you know, a couple of extra years at maybe a reasonable price, you know, $16 million or something like that. Chris is not happy, Damon, that you're not in the bubble in the bottom, in the bottom corner.

at the screen. Understandable. Ryan said in the chat, would it be better to extend Gabriel Moreno or Zach Gallin? Is it possible to do both? The Gallin one again continues to be, I mean, you know, he's talked about liking Arizona and, you know, certainly being interested in sticking around. The difference with that one is like you're paying, you're paying top dollar. Like you're not getting, you're not getting a potential discount on, like you might on Gabby

for his prime of his career. you're paying Gowen for a long time and you're paying them top money. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, Zach Gowlin is someone that is so close to free agency that, yeah, it's exactly what you said. You're not getting a huge discount on Zach Gowan for anything. You just don't, I mean, you know, there's only two more seasons left at this point. So there's not really any place for you to like guarantee him so much money over the next two

years that he's willing to give you something on the back end of that deal. it would cost $200 million, potentially north of $200 million, to do the kind of extension that I expect that Gallen would want. So, yeah, it's such a, it's not really an apples to apples comparison. It's kind of hard to compare Gallin and Gabby directly, but I do think that Gabriel Moreno is one that, it's one that doesn't have as much risk. Like whatever, whatever the deal would look like, you know,

a Moreno extension probably just, like I said, you're guaranteeing him a little bit more money over the next few years than maybe he'd project for otherwise. But you're, you know, you're maybe not even tacking on guaranteed years. Maybe you're just tacking on club options. So you have the ability to bring him back for his age 29 and age 30 seasons if you want to. So there's really, there's really not a lot of risk with the Gabby deal. Whereas with the Zach Gallen deal, as much as people are like totally on board, absolutely, you know, and understandably so with extending Zach Gallen, there's a lot of risk. If you extend, a pitcher, you know, it was going to be 30 years old when he hits free agency and you sign him to,

you know, six or seven guaranteed seasons beyond that, there's a lot of risks there. Even if it's a decision that absolutely makes sense. And, you know, in some ways I think it is, I'd be curious what exactly the numbers look like. But yeah, there's just going to be way more risk if you, you know, if you try to extend a guy like gallon at this point. Chris says pay the pitcher and then complete the battery. There you go. Doing both.

doing both would be difficult. We did get a little bit of TV clarification, which is one thing I wanted to touch on just real quick. Yesterday, the Diamondbacks made an announcement. We talked about it on the show, D-Backs TV.

You know, the Diamondbacks are working with Major League of Baseball again for their TV broadcast. Some of you might have been able to watch today's game, not necessarily through D-Bax TV, but through Rocky's TV. Today's game was broadcast on the Rocky side. That was free.

Derek Hall, the Diamondbacks president and CEO did go on on wolf and luke today and clarified a little bit about this announcement he said and i quote people are going to be able to watch on cable and satellite just as they did last year it's a big question that people were asking on social media he continued on saying melb is in the process of negotiating with the distributors like hawks and direct tv and then the same platforms that everybody has used then they'll get the smaller distributors around the state that we're also carrying our games. So you might have noticed yesterday's announcement was really just about a streaming service. And Derek Hall today clarified, we are still going to be available on, you know, the various

cable providers and streaming platforms as well. Some of those negotiations are just still happening. And so, you know, those details aren't finalized yet. We don't have channel information and all that. But I think you can be reasonably confident. Most likely if you were able to get the games last year on your cable provider or streaming service, excuse me, you're, probably going to be able to get them this year as well. Those details are just being finalized at this point. So if any of you were thinking that you just had to buy this streaming service and you can no longer watch the Diamondbacks on television, that is not the case.

Derek Hall clarified that today. Well, Derek is going on a crazy adventure and I am a little jealous as much fun as spring training baseball is. The Bahamas does sound nice this time of year. But you can go on a fun adventure of your own right here around town with our friends over at Arizona Lottery. They're introducing a unique new ticket and promotion called Arizona Adventure. There are three ways to play and win Big In.

So first of all, play Arizona Adventure lottery tickets featuring three iconic landscapes, Piccichoke, Monument Valley, and Camelback Mountain. These tickets have prizes of up to $50,000. You can, of course, win some money along the way. You can also check in at geolocated adventures at 10 destinations across the state from Flagstaff to Yuma. There's a full list over AZadventure.com. Jesse, you're a big outdoors guy.

I am a big outdoors. You might have to partake in some of this. I might. It's good scenery. Yeah, I've been kind of dying to get out of town and go on a hike or something, but all I do is think about baseball and write about baseball and talk about baseball.

You should consider Chuck Huckleberry Loop. I should. I should. You would know about Chuck, whatever it's called, because it's in Tucson. Anyway, yes, be sure to get down on this if you haven't already. The Arizona lottery is not just about playing games and winning prizes.

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like, sign of a good place. Yeah. It's good food, and it has a drive-thru. No doubt. And of course, you can also let them do the cooking for your spring fiesta's bigger, small, easy party platters to feed a crowd. You can find those with our friends at Sumburros. They have an all new taco bar as well to impress your amigos. Margaritas to go as well. All sorts of wonderful things to be had over at Samburros. They have locations throughout the valley and in Flagstaff as well. So you're never far away from delicious time-tested Sonoran-style recipes lovingly prepared since 1986. Let Samburros cater your next meal, big or small order online or find one near you by visiting some burrows.com.

So yes, the Colorado Rockies did strike out the Diamondback 16 times today. And as we said from the top of the show, the sky is falling. You know, we should we should read into this game to the nth degree and everything is going bad. No, it, this is this is day one. Day one of Diamondback's spring training is in the books. I personally just enjoyed watching a baseball game. I especially enjoyed having statcast data to look at because you all know how excited that gets me.

It wasn't working though. I will say, Damon, it was a tragedy. Stadcast data was down for like the first inning, maybe inning and a half. How did you even manage? I was struggling. I was struggling up in the press box. Jesse.

I was not a happy camper. I was not happy about it. But magically, a couple of innings into this game. the stackcast data started appearing and not only that but it like populated for for all of the baseball that had been played up to that point so we got our stack cast data it was lovely now i'm just hoping that you know diamondbacks pitching prospects some of the guys that were really excited to see we need as many of those guys to pitch as salt river fields as possible just so we can collect as much data on them as possible uh am i a nerd yes but you guys already knew this uh but that is all that we

have uh here for this friday evening edition of the phnxie You Back Show. Thank you all for joining me here today. Derek, again, he will be back, presumably, we hope. Derek, I hope you're drinking enough water because that's the thing you always say when I'm out of town and I'm simply returning the favor. But anyway, you should follow all of us here on Twitter or X, I guess I should say. You can find me at Jesse and Friedman. You can find Derek at Cap underscore Caveman with a K. I am told that he actually does have Wi-Fi on this ship. So you might be seeing a little bit more content from his ex platform. Wasn't he trying to convince people he was leaving his phone?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think we all know that Derek was never going to survive without his phone. What was that about? For a period of several days. He said that he was like looking forward to being without his phone. Like, he was like, I'm leaving it is what he was saying. He said, I'm leaving it. And we were like, no, you are not.

Yeah, he was going to be happy without his phone for about two hours. and then he was going to really have to check Twitter. So for his sake, I think I'm happy that the Wi-Fi thing worked out. But anyway, follow him there. You can also follow Damon on Twitter at Damon Dog. I am Damon's dog. Bark, bark. That doesn't feel right.

You can also follow us at PHNX underscore DBX. That's our beat account. Be sure to give us a follow there for a lot of footage. Derek just texted us right now. Did he? He said leave me be. Yeah, well, yeah, I told you to be watching this show. He just can't get enough of us.

But yes, of course, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports. That's on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Again, thank you all so much for joining me here on this Friday edition of the PHNXD Back show. We'll be back tomorrow. Derek will be back from the past for a special Saturday morning show, which we recorded on Thursday. So be sure to get that over on your favorite podcast.

platform that should be dropping in the morning. We did a little bit of research into ticket prices for spring training games, which, as some of you might have noticed, have gotten a little bit outrageous at this point. We did a little fun deep dive into what those are looking like so far. But yes, we'll be back here on Monday with another live show at 6 o'clock following the Diamondback Spring Training Game against the Oakland Days. So be sure to join us back here on YouTube then. But until then, remember kids.

Baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when spring training baseball is officially underway.