PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Biggest surprises of Fangraphs’ ZiPS projections for 2024 Arizona Diamondbacks

Episode Date: January 4, 2024

It is time for Jesse Friedman’s favorite day of the year: 2024 Arizona Diamondbacks ZiPS projections day! We take an in-depth look at Dan Szymboski’s projections system and its outlook for D-backs hitters and pitchers for next season. We also discuss not throwing a first-pitch breaking ball to David Ortiz during a gender reveal party.An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to D-backs Takeovers, Knockout Nights & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/phnx-56002330273 Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Schedule a free in-home estimate with Empire Today! All listeners can receive a $350 OFF discount when they use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See EmpireToday.com/PHNX for details.Sign up for Gila River Resorts & Casinos $1,000,000 Big Red’s Showdown! Stay in the game and get rewards; it’s that easy! https://www.gilamilliondollarshowdown.com/Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Circle K:  Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: OGeez! is not your average cannabis-infused gummy. Head on over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find out where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow them on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. WYNK Seltzer + THC: Go to https://drinkwynk.com/ and use promo code “PHNX” for 50% off. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and happy Zips Projections Day right here on PHNX. My name, of course, is Garek Monti, occasionally known as I guess the lesser half of the guys that are going to enjoy today's numbers. But I'm also joined by my vice man, your thunderstick, the one and only Jesse Friedman. Welcome to the PhDs DVACs nerd. The nerd cast. This is the greatest day of the year. Well, and of course, for those of you that might be unfamiliar with what Zips is, our old pal Dan Zimborski over from Fangraphs has a projection system that is so well known that it is literally on MLB.com's glossary page as far as what Zips projections are.

And the Zee stands for Zimborski, even though his name starts for the Ness. It's weird. Yeah, that does kind of bother me. But, I mean, you clearly pronounce it with a z-s-s-s-s-s. His name is not Dan Simborsky. Yeah, it's Dan Zimborski. But a big ski to you all, a ski to you, Jesse, ski to you, Damon. And, of course, we're excited to take a look at what Damon calls, I think, those bastards over at Zips.

I don't know. He's very upset about these projection numbers. But, of course, Jesse, can you explain to them what we expect to see and why the numbers are what they are? Yeah. So I guess just big picture, if you have no idea what Zips Projects. are or why on earth are we even like spending most of an episode talking about this. I get it. Zips is a projection system, as you said, created by Dan Zimborski, which is widely regarded

as one of the best out there. There's a lot of different projection systems that exist publicly. There's steamer is one that's available year-round. Zips projections. Dan kind of drops this gradually as the season gets closer. We just had the Diamondbacks dropped, I think, yesterday the day before. here in the last couple days, which is why we're doing this today. But there's a lot of value in this.

Behind the scenes, major league baseball teams have similar systems that they're using, right? When the Diamondbacks go out and they give Eduardo Rodriguez four years and $80 million, if you're going to make that investment, you have to have some kind of in-house proprietary system that tells you that he's going to be worth that money, right? Projection systems are very important in the inner workings of Major League Baseball franchises and the ones that are available publicly are presumably not as advanced as the ones that teams are using in house but dan does a great job i couldn't really tell you much about like the formula behind this right how it works i'm sure there's a lot of AI involved he loves a i yeah yeah

yeah i'm a big AI guy um but yeah just think of it as a system it's it's it's waiting the most recent numbers the players put up most heavily uh it's taking into account the trajectory of those players careers before that, including their performance in the minors, all of the underlying data, the batted ball metrics, all that stuff. Postseason performance is included in this as well. It just puts all this stuff together in an effective way to give us some numbers that are valuable. They're not gospel. This is not like a prediction necessarily, but they give us a good idea of what we can reasonably expect from all of these players going into 2024. Part of it is because baseball just kind of is a statistic.

driven game and more so than any other sport. Yes. You can forecast what a player is going to do based on their past performances and maybe how they would factor in. Like you said, it's not gospel. It does not mean that it is 100% correct. But what it does give you an idea, at least, of what you can expect out of a player. Like, they could be worse than that.

They could be much better than that. However, it at least gives you a baseline on what to expect out of them. And honestly, it also gives you, I guess, an opportunity to then, kind of determine how well they're doing based on those projections because if the projections are that someone's going to hit 235 and they're hitting near 300 I mean obviously you know that's good but you can also see how much better they're doing than you expected them to be yeah absolutely yeah it's a it's a good bar for uh you know not necessarily that we're like holding players to their projections uh oh we absolutely are god damn it but it's a good especially for especially for

especially for minor league players, it's valuable. Like if you have a guy who doesn't have a lot of majorly experience, you know, this system has done a lot of this where it sort of takes all of a player's minor league numbers and throws them into this machine and then spits out, you know, what you could reasonably expect from them in the majors based on past performance. So we're going to get into some guys that don't have a lot of majorly experience at all. Those are some of the most interesting cases. Another thing that you talk about quite a bit is peripherals and numbers, what expected numbers,

versus actual numbers. Sure. And I know that a lot of people understand it, but this is, again, why Zips is valuable because a guy can have a great year. But there's information there that tells you sometimes that that great year wasn't all a reflection of their personal performance.

Sometimes it's a reflection, especially in the game of baseball, of luck and just situational defense, like just lining up and like, for instance, helping a pitcher. have better numbers than maybe their stuff actually, you know, says. Yeah. And again, like you said, this is the information in-house that teams look at when, especially someone like Mike Hazen is trying to find a Ryan Thompson from another team,

trying to find a guy where even though the numbers aren't great for them, they can take a look at some internal data that tells them otherwise that maybe this guy can really turn things around. And that's also part of this whole process when you talk about those, those projections internally. Yeah, so let's get into this, shall we? Let's take a look at the team. Yeah, so we'll start just from a team-wide perspective.

They have this handy graphic, which is basically just, it puts a little number at every position next to the names of players that are expected to play that position. Sometimes there will be a few names if there's multiple guys expected to get playing time. But you can see it right here.

This is the Diamondback sort of, team wine projection system. All the numbers are wins above replacement numbers, which most people are probably familiar with. It's hard to be a baseball fan and not get slapped in the face by wins by replacement at some point. You're going to be dragged, maybe kicking and screaming into it at some time or another. But yeah, I guess the place I'll start here just to give a general guide for people who

are less familiar. A role player would be somewhere in the like one to two war range, a good, solid starter somewhere in the two to three war range once you're up into the four to five's you're talking about a potential all-star type player and anything above five i mean that's like superstar you know approaching MVP territory at that point so for people who who don't know looking at this those are some some ideas to just kind of have in your head so the image that we're looking at for those of you listening on the audio side does show the position players the starters and relievers and it kind of goes around the diamond first starting over i guess we could start with christian walker

at first base they have him as a three war player projected they have kattel martay at four they have perdomo slash laller at shortstop coming up with a 2.7 wins above replacement and then uh you henio a heueno suarez over at third place with a 1.9 which seems honestly just a little a little disappointing and again this is just a projection we will get into his numbers that kind of back up why Zips feels like that's where he's going to be. But my favorite part about this, Jesse, is behind home plate, Gabby Moreno there as a four-war player with Jose Herrera backing him up. But this kind of like you said, going back to the reflection of these numbers

and what it feels like Zips is saying about these players is that Moreno and Marte are potential all-stars already looking forward and forecasting for 2024. Yeah. And you might be a little, so looking at it. in the outfield, we have 3.8 and left, 2.9 in center, 3.2 in right. They list Carol at the top in left field, Thomas at the top and center, McCarthy and right. But if you kind of look under the hood, they basically just have Corbyn Carroll playing like. Everywhere. Yeah, they have him playing everywhere. So his value is kind of split between those three positions. That's why you don't see an especially

big number like in left field where we expect Corbyn Carroll will make the, well, I guess with Lordis Gurriel, it might be more in right field. They're sort of making some guesses about playing time in here that are not necessarily accurate. But I want to go back to what you said earlier about Moreno and that 4.0 behind the plate. Yeah. That's a big number. That's a huge, right? That's a really big number.

Especially for a catcher. Yeah, Gabby Moreno this past year on Fangraphs, according to Fangraph's war was worth 1.7 wins above replacement. And to project him for four, basically. I mean, there's, you know, you're also getting some value from Jose Herrera, whoever they expect to get the backup opportunity there as well. but a lot of that is coming from Gabby Moreno. So Zips is a big believer in the Diamondbacks

and the Diamondbacks young catcher for sure. We all are, aren't we? That is fair. If you take what he did this year, the experience that he basically has under his belt now, the experience he has playing in the playoffs, and how he performed during the postseason run, I think that we are looking at a potential all-star behind the plate,

especially when you factor in, again, not to attack catchers, But, you know, catchers around the league don't typically, you know, stand out like this. Yeah. There's only a few. It's, yeah, it's not, it is not normal for sure. And that's a big reason why when the debacks were trading away Dalton Varsho or, you know, trying to find a trade for one of their left-handed hitting outfielders, catcher was a position that I think it made a lot of sense to target, right?

It's a diamondbacks didn't really have a whole lot of guys in the farm system that projected to be, they didn't have anyone who projected to be anywhere near the catcher, the Gabriel Moreno. has already turned into he's certainly one of the most exciting players on this team in 2024. And that's what makes that trade going back to it just so impressive, especially now that they are able to keep Lourdes here in the organization, right? But, yeah. I mean, for the Diamondbacks, it really doesn't matter because their outfield is so talented that the loss of Dalton Varsho really doesn't impact them nearly as much as the gain of Gabriel Moreno alone.

You know, but I mean, again, you factor in how he matured, how he came along, the big hits again that he had during that amazing postseason run. And it really does feel like the Diamondbacks anchored themselves with a catcher for a very long time behind home plate. And that's something that I mean, we've had sporadically throughout this organization's history, but not something that we've had like, hey, remember those six, seven, eight great years we had of that guy. And it really feels like he could be that as well, you know, along with Corby and Carroll.

Yeah. And we also have talked about the possibility of the Diamondbacks extending Gabby Marino. So I wouldn't I wouldn't rule that out. When the Diamondbacks have signed extensions, they tend to happen in this, this window between the start of the new year. And when the season starts, sometimes these happen during spring training, sometimes shortly before opening day. So I think that window is still very much open for the debacks to try to get something done if they're able to find a way. And maybe that's something we haven't even really addressed. But the importance of.

of bringing Lordus back in regards to keeping Gabby. It's not like it's going to be a major factor, but it could be something that since Lordus is staying here, somebody that Gabby is very close to and very familiar with, that might help him feel more comfortable to sign an extension and stay in the long term or just in general. I mean, maybe a little bit down the road.

I think that. Lordus's deal will be expired by the time Gabby would have created. Oh, for sure. But I'm saying, like, you want to get that contract extension done as soon as possible. taking care of my my good friend then you know maybe I'll let you take care of me too you know I guess that kind of dies that kind of idea and it's also the fact that the team is taking care of these

guys that helped get them there right so I mean that's something that when you sure when you see that reciprocation when you see the team and the organization giving back to you and awarding you with those contracts or awarding your brothers your teammates with those contracts it's something that you want to be a part of instead of kind of thinking of what your next move is going to be in your career potentially. But let's take a look at that Zips projection for the war again and look at some of the pitchers in regards to the bullpen and the starters ski to you, Kevin, glad you're here. Starters here got Zach Gallen at the top of the mountain with a 3.7 war. Interestingly enough, you got Gallen, Zach Merrill Kelly, I'm sorry, here at 2.7. And then Eduardo

Rodriguez at 3.1. They are projecting Eduardo Rodriguez to have a very, very good season next year. Yeah, they really are. And that's something that Dan writes like a little blurb about each team when he, when he releases the Zips projections. And that's one thing you mentioned is that the projection for Eduardo Rodriguez is very strong moving forward. And he specifically went out of his way to draw a comparison between Rodriguez and Madison Bumgarner back when that deal was signed. And he talked about how Rodriguez, his projections are much better now than the projections were

for Madison Bumgarner, you know, back in the day. So yeah, that's a, that's a promising sign. 3.1 projecting Erod for a 3.1 war season. That is a, that is a very favorable projection. Projection systems have never really seemed to like Merrill Kelly all that much, which in some ways is understandable, like, you know, the season he had this past year, he did still outperform his peripherals. He's done that back-to-back seasons now.

So maybe you feel like that's something he can just do every year. but yeah I mean with with those three guys at the top with Brandon fought projected for 2.1 which is lower but still indicative of a of a solid major league starter and then you've got Ryan Nelson and Tommy Henry 1.1 and 0.6 at the bottom there

those guys part of that is just is just playing time who are you giving those innings to you I think they're giving more of the innings to Ryan Nelson than Tommy Henry sure but if yeah as your number five starter those are those are totally fine numbers to have in that in that number five slot the starting rotation as a whole this is as good as I've seen for the diamond backs in in quite some time meanwhile on the other side the relievers

actually have a lower projected war than they did to start last season as a whole they're giving my bullpen and I say my bullpen because these are my guys 2.6 a 2.6 total war for the entire bullpen or war I don't know I like to say it funny just because it's not war war war or war. War, we'll say war. Relievers, though. I don't like this, Jesse. I don't like this. I believe in Paul Seawall, Kevin Ginkul,

Miguel Castro, and a lot of these guys more than them being worse than they were to start last season. But the projections aren't always correct. So. Yeah. I mean, projecting relievers is kind of dumb, honestly. And we're not going to dwell too much on relievers at this point. Fine. They're so volatile.

I mean, you know, one, one. really bad game can skew things in the you know in a very negative direction but yeah if you look at this same graphic from uh prior to the 2023 season the diamond backs bullpen as a whole was projected for 3.6 war as opposed to 2.6 in this year's projection and uh yeah i wouldn't i wouldn't i would have time i wouldn't time yeah tea time out there they have ryan thompson projected for an RA just over four. Hate it. And yeah, I mean, I think Mark Malanson last year maybe still had a somewhat favorable

projection. Obviously, he wound up not pitching at all the entire season due to the injury. So, yeah, I wouldn't really put too much stock into that. Although it is, I mean, this Diamondbacks bullpen is clearly better than the one they had at the start of last start of 2020. So, I mean, it's just kind of funny to see the numbers come out that way. Well, and again, it's a computer. And computers can be dumb sometimes and they don't know what they're talking about.

Not Dan Zimborsi's computer, Derek. Mr. Sparkle says where's J.T. Martinez. J.D. Martinez soon. We'll get J.D. Martinez soon. There's a little chat about best catchers or if we've ever had a franchise catcher before. And yeah, I agree with Chris about Miguel Montero. But I mean, there's Chris Ianeta. There's been some decent catchers in this team's history.

But absolutely none have the. potential to be a franchise catcher the way that Gabby is in position to right now at this point. And Elise says it feels like we just have had mid to below average catchers, especially offensively, more often than not, which is why I would be all for a Gabby extension. And I think we all would at this point. I don't need to see anymore. I think the way he performed again in the postseason, it's just he performed like a guy that's been doing this for 10 years.

You know what I mean? Like he's just, he was fearless out there. He's bat flipping against the Dodgers and hitting dingers and, you know, doing all the stuff that he did. I, I've seen enough to believe 100% in this guy and put all my confidence behind him going forward. But what we will look at because surprisingly enough, we are not going to look at Gabby's numbers because they are projected basically to be the same as they were last season. Yeah, which is honestly weird for me. Like they're projecting four wins above replacement from the catching position and yet they're expecting Gabby to have basically an identical. offensive season in

2024 as he had in 2023. Which he caught, which he started a lot of games. So it's not like he's going to start less or more games this year or have more of an important role. It's not really a playing time thing. So I don't really know how to make sense of that

exactly. But we will look at some other specific players projections. Let's do it. We'll start out with Corbyn Carroll who these numbers feel underwhelming, I think you could make a case. They're very good numbers, but they probably feel overwhelming. I understand that. It's hilarious to say that, though, because again, at the start of last

season, we would have been like, oh my God, do you think you could actually have a season like this? Yeah. This is a fairly, fairly good season for any major league baseball player, but I think we just, we expect Corbyn to kind of be more than that. Right now they have him with a 272 batting average, a projected on-base percentage of 354, slugging 460. They have him hitting 20 home runs, 87 RBI, with a 4.6 war. And I mean, all of that sounds great. Yeah. What's disappointing there to you?

Not having more home runs, not having more RBI, or not having a better, like, a better, like, batting average. He was just a slightly better player than that across the board last year. So you're looking for an improvement. rather than a regression. Yeah, well. Or expecting it. Yeah, I mean, I think I understand.

Like, I don't know if I would personally say that I think Corbyn and Carol will be worse in 2024 than 2023. But if you look at some of the underlying numbers, like he did outperform his expected stats by a decent margin. He also, according to a base running metric over a fan graphs, he had like the most valuable base running season in Major League history. And, I mean, I don't really expect him to get slower, but I guess some people would be eat it. Yeah, I guess it would be like, okay, you're probably not going to do that twice in a row.

That's fair. Which, which I think is, is, I understand where people are coming from there. But. And part of it is that the, that there's more information available on him now than there was previously. Like, not only are we talking about Corby and Carroll being a rookie, but we've also said this in the past quite a few times. He moved through the minor league organization very fast. Yeah. And it does limit the amount of information until that people have on you as a player. And there will be everybody, everybody will be scouting Corby and Carroll better next year because they know once they're playing the Diamondbacks

that that's the big offensive threat. So he is going to have be game planned around more. But the thing about Carol is, do you really want to walk him? Do you really want to pitch around him and then put him on base and now have him on base as that on base threat? So like he is a little different as far as having that scouting report and trying to do something against him because you're not exactly going to pitch around him.

just to get him on base and have that, you know, that base running threat out there. Yeah, that certainly is not the solution with Corby and Carroll. No. Yeah, I mean, he had it, he had an interesting rookie season. It was not as if Corbyn Carroll was the same player throughout the year. I think it's important to point that out.

He, between the start of the season and mid-June, when the Diamondbacks were on top of the world, Corbyn Carroll was arguably the best player in baseball. If you go back to 300, right? If you go back to the MVP chance days, right? Those MVP chance were not hyperbolic. Like that's, that's legitimately the kind of season he was having.

If you look at the Wins Above Replacement Leaderboard for June 13th, Corbyn Carroll led all Major League position players in Wins above Replacement as of June 13th, which is also a day where the Diamondbacks had the best record in the National League. He was a really big reason that that happened. But then from that point, through mid late August, Corbyn Carroll had a sub 700 OPS. There was this period of time

connected somewhat to the shoulder stuff that happened, which we touched on a little bit yesterday, where he was just not as good of a hitter. And he struggled a little bit. It kind of seemed like hitters were figuring him out a little bit. It seemed also... Pictures were figuring him out, not hitters. It seemed like it wasn't like the injury was multiple things

because not only was the injury and injury where then you have to be worried about potentially aggravating it again or having it become worse, right? You also have the fact that it seemed like he changed his mechanics during that time due to that injury. Right. So now you weren't seeing him do the one-handed swing or follow through as often.

And, you know, again, when any any player in baseball, whether it's a pitcher, hitter, anybody changes any kind of mechanics to their approach at the plate or on the mound, there's going to be, you know, a growing period. And there's obviously going to be, you know, some lack of success, right, with it. And it felt like that was what he went to. And it wasn't even the case that he was completely abandoning that one-handed swing.

And it's not like he did it at all. I mean, it was never, there was never a clear delineation of like, oh, Corvin now swings different. Yeah. It was always like, well, like kind of like sort of always varied things a little bit. Sure. It was unclear exactly what kind of changes were being made at that point in time. but the results were not there to the degree that they were earlier in this. And it's hard not to imagine that that injury was on his mind a lot of times when he was at the plate until enough time progressed where he was back to just not thinking about it. But that definitely impacted him at the plate.

It seemed like at least that's just me speculating. But I'm sure he would never say it impacted him mentally or anything because he's always ready to go out there in game. But Corby and Carroll, it's weird because he is projected to have the highest war. on this team even higher than Gabriel Moreno. So, I mean, it's still very good. The outlook is still very good. He had a six war, a six war season last year. So, yeah, 4.6 is on the low end, but there could be some regression there.

I wouldn't say that's impossible. I don't think it's a crazy prediction, although our projection, but I would probably take the over on that if I was to, if I was to pick right now. Another player that Zips likes quite a bit is Catelle Marte. We talked about him when we showed that image earlier, but let's take a look at Catea's projected stats for 2024. Zips has him with a 279 average, a 353 OBP, and a 473 slugging percentage hitting 19 home runs, 72 RBI, and 3.6 war.

What do you think? It's pretty good. It's pretty good. I mean, very similar to his numbers from 2023-276, 358, 485. I mean, very similar across the board. I'm starting to think the Zips is bullshit. You keep saying it's copying and pasting. This one's also similar to last year.

What are you just copying and pasting Sips? What are you doing? Just like varying the numbers like six points each or something. I promised scientific process. But yeah, I mean, this was interesting to me that they were projecting Ketel to have a very similar season because he hasn't been the most consistent on a year-to-year basis. 2019 got MVP votes was outstanding. 2020, obviously the weird pandemic year.

He was not the same hitter that year. The power wasn't there. 2021, he was hurt a lot, but he was basically the same hitter he was in 19. And then 2022, he wasn't all that great. He's about a league average hitter. So he's had this kind of, I mean, I guess he has the like even year versus odd year thing going. There is that odd years tend to be good for Qatar.

There is that. Which worries me about next year a little bit. But Zips isn't buying that. Zips believes that Cotel will be one of the best second baseman again. Zips is just copying off of last year's homework is what Zips is doing. One thing I'll say about Cotell during that weird pandemic here is I've never seen somebody. Like, it seems like Cotel is powered by fans the same way that like Superman is powered by our yellow sun. Like I felt like he just wilted away without the adulation of fans out there.

It just wasn't the same Catell, you know. He didn't look like he was having a. is much fun, but obviously there were probably injury things and other things going on around then. But it'd be like us doing the show without Damon here watching over us every day. I mean, what would be the point? Whenever Jacob comes and produces, I just, I don't care. Yeah.

I don't feel like when Jacob produces our show. It's like I'm, it's like I'm in front of a stadium of thousands, but there's nobody there. It's empty as, it's empty as hell. All right. Well, when we talk about the projections copying last year's numbers, one guy that they didn't seem to do that with. One guy that they think is going to have a down year is the one of the newest Arizona Diamondbacks, AUNO Suarez. They have his numbers projected to be essentially one of his worst seasons of his career right now. They have him with a 227 batting average,

a 319 on base percentage, 403 slugging, still hitting 22 home runs, 75 RBI with a two war. Yeah, it's, it's not great. I, I mean, I, I, I think this is sort of similar to 2023, honestly. I mean, in 2023 slash 23, 32, 323, 3991 with Seattle, there's a bit of a park difference there. Seattle is obviously a really hard place to hit. Yeah. But yeah, they're not projecting a Eugenio Suarez to bounce back. They're kind of projecting him to continue on a, on a slow downward trajectory as he continues to age.

The strikeouts are obviously kind of extreme for him, and I imagine that was part of this. I was going to say, is it just safe? Are these projections typically just on the conservative side of things? So it's like if you're just always in the middle, like they're just, they tend to be kind of boring. Like if a player was just really, really good, they're going to be like, all right, he's not that good. If a player was just really like, really out of down year, they're going to be like, all right, he's not that bad. So what you're telling me, Jesse Friedman, is that Zip's projections are the Jesse Friedman's of projections. Yeah, I mean, I think that's fair.

Is that what you're doing? I mean, I think all projections kind of work that way. But yes, they do, they do sort of follow a Jesse Friedman line of thinking. Then he wasn't willing to give you a blanket. Right. He was like, well, all projections are pretty similar. Let's pump our brakes on calling it the Jesse Friedman of comparison systems. But yeah, okay.

Again, I think that that does set a little bit of a low bar for Suarez to clear. But I do think Gino is going to be better than that. And I also think that he's going to be better than whatever option they would have had at third base. 100%. Regardless. So I don't I don't care if they want to just give them that little credit. I think the, you know, being here at Chase Field, I think playing on this team, being competitive, and maybe just the change of scenery. You know, sometimes that gets guys amped.

And considering what a clubhouse guy, they've talked to him about him being and things like that, I think these projections are going to go to the other. way. I think he's going to have a better season than he had last year, especially playing, I mean, come on, you get him with Tori Lavello. That's going to be, there's going to be some, it's going to be some F bombs dropped. It's going to be a fire conversation. I think that some of the regression here for Suarez is on defense. I think that's an important thing to point out. He was over a three war player on Fangraphs this past season, which is quite good. But a lot of that is because he had like this career year defensively. His defensive metrics are really good this past season. He played 162 games. And he played 162 games. Yeah. Like sometimes that's just going to give you the advantage to have a higher like war sometimes, especially if you are performing. I think they do. I think in this projection, they do have him playing.

I don't think it's 162, but they do have them taking a lot of played appearances. So they are kind of factoring that in a little bit. But yeah, the reason that the war ticks down here, offense very similar to what what he was in 2020. But the defense is what they have kind of taking a step back. Cable in the chat actually has a really good question. And fast forward to 2025, would you pick up his option if he did, in fact, live up to these projections? That's a really good question. I think a lot of it would depend on what the debacks have in house at that point.

Like, what kind of step forward have you seen from Jordan Lawler? What have you seen from Tommy Troy? What have you seen from Ivan Melendez? Great point. If you don't have someone else waiting in the wings to take that spot, maybe you are okay, kind of overpaying a little bit. I think it's a $15 million club option, which is a lot for, you know, like a league average. hitter and defender at third, but it's kind of hard to find good third baseman in baseball

right now. There's just not a lot of them. And, you know, even finding a league average guy, as we said earlier, that's a pretty big upgrade over what the Diamondbacks had in, in 2023. Especially after he helps contribute to next year's team winning a World Series. Right, 100%. Yeah, you won't want to, you won't want to break up the World Series winning team. So clearly, they might as well pick up the option right now, right, Derek.

Well, Zips does like the young guys And one of the young guys that Zips is projecting to have a bounce back season is a favorite of ours The one and only Jake McCarthy Let's take a look at his stats projected for the 2024 season Yeah, that's a pretty good numbers, right? 264 average 327 on base 403 slugging percentage Actually pretty similar to Aohenio Suarez in terms of the OvP and the slug are pretty much right there Only nine homers obviously not the home run hitter that Suarez

is 56 RBI here, 1.8 wins above replacement. This would be a big bounce back for Jake McCarthy. And again, it's kind of how these systems work. If a guy has an extreme down year, which is sort of what 2023 was for McCarthy, they're going to see that probably bouncing back. And this is an even bigger bounce back than I probably would have expected. This is Jake McCarthy being about a league average hitter. And, you know, I think it's well documented what he brings on the bases.

and he's a pretty decent corner outfielder as well. So this would be a really positive outcome for the Diamondbacks. He's also just a great dude. Yeah. He's a great dude. And you can tell that like again, these young guys, they all get along and they all want to experience this success together. You know, I know they know it's not likely, but it does add something to the fact that Jake McCarthy is, you know, really close with the other young fellas. And all of those chaps are getting there, you know, they're coming into their own.

They have the, again, another guy that they have having a great season next year is Alec Thomas. Yeah. They have Alec Thomas here projected to be slashing 258, 310, 411 with 12 home runs, 63 RBI, and a 2.2 war. I think that his defense might make that war even higher next season because we've already seen what he can do. And I feel like Alec Thomas is just continuing to get better defensively as time goes on. Yeah, I mean, at first glance, this might not. look like a huge improvement offensively, but it really is. I mean, Alex Thomas did, he at 230, 273, 374 last year.

That was a, he's had a 75 OPS plus on the dot in both of his first two years in the majors. This is an OPS plus of 97. That's a really big increase. I mean, if Alex Thomas gets to a point where he is a league average hitter and also one of the best defensive center fielder in the game, I agree with you, 2.2 might be, might be a little on the low side for for alec thomas i feel like that is based more on the offense and not really factoring in his defense uh being what we know he can achieve uh and what we've seen out of him but yeah uh like this is this is all very very good news and these projections like we joked about

you know all the numbers looking very similar to last year but for at for alec thomas and jake mccarthy to take this leap forward offensively uh to and contributing this much uh that These are all very good things for this team in 2024 because those are the guys that they need doing it. You know, they have very talented players in house that unfortunately at times can't always contribute on both sides of the ball. But if they can get that out of them, then that really does. I mean, it just it changes the need for the Diamondbacks to add that much more this off season as far as, you know, free agents or through trades. Yeah, absolutely. And I do think with Alex Thomas will be interesting to see how much.

much opportunity he gets against left-handed pitching. I imagine built into this projection, they probably have him not starting all that much against lefties, which is maybe part of the reason why these numbers are ticking up. But yeah, I mean, if Alec can get to a point where he is, you know, not hurting you offensively and, you know, what he is in center field, that's a, that's a pretty valuable major league plan. We saw it during the playoffs. We saw it during the playoffs where there was no need any longer to platoon Alec Thomas.

And I mean, I know he didn't always have the best. I know, but whatever. He was 2 for 14 or something like that against lefties in the playoffs. I don't know if that changed my mind a whole lot. I'm taking it. But yeah, there was also this sense in the playoffs of like, do we really want anyone other than Alec Thomas playing center field and the most important games of our season?

No. No. Like, we don't, you know, maybe he's not going to give you anything offensively in those games. In that situation, with the stakes that high, that was a sacrifice that, you know, felt like you were probably willing to make. The last offensive player we're going to take a look at is another very encouraging projection for a young guy that we're hoping to see this exact type of performance out of next year. But that is Jordan Lawler. Let's take a look at his projections.

Yeah, this is fascinating. It's one of those players like I was talking about earlier where they've, I mean, the sample in the majors is so small. It's interesting to kind of know what these, what the computer has to say about Jordan Lawler in 2024. And it's pretty good. I mean, at first glance, it may not excite you too much. 247, 322, 380 slash line. It's basically right around a league average hitter, 11 homer, 61 RBI, 2.4 wins above replacement.

That's obviously with him getting a pretty decent chunk of playing time. Yeah, like if Jordan Lawler did this, it wouldn't be, you know, it wouldn't be his peak. It wouldn't be the full on breakout rookie of the year caliber season that maybe some people are dreaming he could have. But this is a really valuable major league, major league player in a season in which. which you're, as of right now, you're maybe hesitant to really count on Jordan Lawler being an everyday guy in the majors at any point in 2024. So if this happens, the Diamondbacks are in pretty darn good shape at shortstop in 2024. Absolutely. Absolutely. And like you said, it's it's just so hard because Corbyn Carroll changes the eye level on every rookie almost.

And you have to block it out of your mind. You do. You have to put on the blinders and you have to realize that like nine out of 10 guys are going to. have a much lower progression and it's going to take them a little bit longer to adapt to the major leagues and jordan lawler doing this in essentially his first full major league season would be impressive and especially if he's able to play regularly beyond the be on the roster stick around on the roster you know i'm sure he's going to have his ups and downs especially when they want to you know when when when they need some maybe some additional arms for their pen or for the starting rotation or whatever jordan lawler's going to be one of those guys that they're going to want

to get him as many at bats if he's not playing regularly. But that's that's very encouraging. So excited, excited. These projections get me excited for 2014. Yeah. See, look what we've done,

Derek. You're getting excited over a computer. I thought I was going to nap during the first segment of this show. But we do have some more projections for pictures. So no promises that I won't fall asleep during that part. But we do appreciate you guys for being here and staying awake during the show. Of course, if you are here in the PHNX Sports YouTube,

we thank you. We love you. We appreciate you being here. Make sure to subscribe to the channel. If you haven't done so already, sign up for notifications. Drop us a like. Gabby will always tell you to drop us a like. And of course, he also tells me to dye my hair purple, which I'm tired of getting those voicemail messages. But if you're listening on the audio podcasting side, make sure you leave us a review.

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Download game time today. Last minute tickets. Lowest price guaranteed. Well, we have some more numbers to take a look at for 2024. Some more Zips projections than this time. We're going to take a look at pictures. Jesse can't get enough of this. I can totally get enough of this because these are fictitious numbers that aren't real,

folks. Computers aren't real. Projections aren't real. Computers are real. Yeah, I guess they're probably, I guess you could say they're real, but their opinions don't matter to me. Let's take a look at what they have though for some of our starting pictures and of course

the one we're most curious about is Zach Gallin. What does Zips have in store for Zach Gallin's 20 24 season? Yeah, 13 and nine record, which means nothing. That means nothing. Record is a, obviously a fairly useless stat during the season.

The idea of like projecting it is kind of hilarious to me. But yeah, 186 innings with 3570 RA 118 whip, 55 walks, 175 strikeouts, a solid year all the way around. This is an ace caliber projection, I would say. Not the highest that you would see for like every pitcher in baseball, but one of the better ones that you would see. but also like kind of a down year in some ways right a 3 570 or a 118 whip that's that's

those numbers are both higher than I think what we realistically would probably expect from Zach Gallant and yeah I mean I think that he is one of those guys that you know exactly what you're going to get out of Zach Gallen I know there were times where he had some pretty crazy splits I imagine

you know hopefully we'll see that kind of even itself out and not be so drastic in 2024 Sure. Like home, home road. Is that what you're thinking of? Yeah, yeah. But I hope he still stays as good as he's been at home. That's for sure. Because he was incredible last year. And I mean, again, it's Zach Gallen, who is essentially not in a final year of his contract. But I think that the next two seasons, the Diamondbacks don't have to worry about Zach Gallen being motivated. I think Zach Gallen has plenty of motivation to go out there and be the best version of himself for the next two years, knowing that that contract, he's going to get out after that, whether it's from the Diamondbacks or another team, is probably going to be the most lucrative of his career. Yeah. He doesn't need any further motivation.

I think he's going to stay at the top of his game for the next two seasons just based on that alone. Yeah, I mean, we've talked a little about his season. We did a deep dive on Gallin and kind of how he can win the Cy Young Award potentially next year, like or this year, what it would sort of take for him to take that next step. He had a bit of an uneven season in that, you know, It kind of looked like he was going to win the Sy Young Award as of August, like mid-August. His last six weeks or so were not what he hoped it would be.

There was the Chicago Cubs complete game shutout, and then there were all the other starts where he just wasn't really himself. He did finish the year, the regular season on a high note. The playoffs was a little bit up and down for him as well. So, yeah, there are some, his peripherals were not as shiny in 2023s as they have been in past years. his expected ERA on Stackass was actually above four. He gave up a lot more hard contact this past season than he has in years past. But yeah, you can see Zips here is not fully buying into that.

It's expecting him to kind of bounce back and be a pretty darn good pitcher once again, as he pretty much always has been since he, since he, you know, made his way into the majors. There's some questions in the chat. I don't like one bit. Chris wants to know what Derek's performance projected projection for the season is. We'll get into that later. Let's put that one off. There's too many four peaks consumed.

Oh, God. That's the main one that people are interested in. I mean, the plastic. There's a reason we didn't put the plastic beer bat into the time capsule. That's for sure. Danny Phantom, which I know it's you, Danielle, wants to know who we think is the best player, Ph. I get it.

It's obviously Dan. It's Damon. It's obviously David. Oh, get fucked, Danielle. I know. I don't know if I. Danielle is an incredible baseball player. She wants me to admit it's her. And I refuse to. She also wants me to claim she's faster than Corbyn Carroll. And until I see a even foot race, I'm yet to call that race. But let's take a look at Merrill Kelly's projected stats for next year because they have Merrill continuing to do. I mean, not as good as he was last year. But again, still Merrill the mainstay there with a sub four ERA at 3.9. they have them projected at a 9-9 record pitching 154 innings with a 1.27 whip, 47 walks, and 132 strikeouts. Yeah, the underlying numbers, as I alluded to earlier, have never, have always been skeptical of Merrill Kelly. If you look at his 2023 season, the 329 ERA, which is obviously excellent.

But his FIP was 385, a lot of the other peripheral numbers were more indicative of like a high 3ERA pitcher. than a low 3ER8 pitcher. And Merrill has never really gotten over that hump. He's never really had the kind of season that would sort of change that. The computers are going to remain skeptical of Merrill Kelly until he manages to do that. But yeah, as I said earlier, I mean, he's kind of made this practice, at least over the last couple seasons, of outperforming a lot of those numbers and just being this guy who finds ways to just not give up runs, you know, even if he's not, you know, he's not an elite strikeout guy.

his walks ticked up a little bit in 23, but he still manages to be a really effective major league pitcher who can pitch deep in the games. And it's another situation where, yeah, 3970 RA, that's not a bad projection. But for Merrill Kelly, I think you kind of have to bet on the under there given what we've seen the past couple of years.

Agreed. Now, the next guy is probably the one I'm most excited about besides Gabriel Moreno. And that is, again, one of the newest Arizona Diamondbacks, Eduardo Rodriguez. Let's take a look at Erod stats for 2024 because if you came here, if you came here to be happy, if you came here to get excited, get excited. They have Erod going 11 and 8 with 138 innings pitch, which might be a little bit on the

low end, a 3.65 ERA, 1.3 whip, breaking ball 43, breaking ball walks, 43. I cannot read today. My brain's broken. B stands for breaking ball. I just keep thinking about the David Ortiz thing that we have to talk about later, but there are 135 strikeouts and 43 walks, yeah, is what I meant there. Base on balls is what BV stands for. But yeah, I mean, aside from the innings pitched, which does seem a little low for him having an 11 and 8 record.

I mean, I know that doesn't really matter or factor in. I think that the computer, once again, is taking into consideration that he had that time off and didn't have that many innings pitched last season, which most likely, isn't going to be the case, but those are some numbers to get very excited about with them projecting to Eduardo Rodriguez to essentially be the number two pitcher in the starting rotation. The computer thinks that E-Rod is good, Derek. Yes.

The computer thinks that E-Rod is good. And at the end of the day, that's all that matters on January 4th. The computer thinks that E-Rod is going to be good. Yeah, I touched on it a little bit earlier that the projections here are much more favorable than they were with MadBum a few years back. And yeah, as far as the inning count is concerned, I think a lot of that has to do, as you alluded to, with his 2022 season where he stepped away from the team for a couple months, only through 91 innings. In total, in 2022, Zips is going to look at that and see that as some sort of an injury or, you know, it's not going to understand the context of that situation. And, yeah, that's why it's only projecting for a hundred degrees don't understand human emotions.

That's why they're computers. Yeah, is it? Dan's still working on that pretty soon. And Zips will understand the inner workings of the human mind and, you know, factor that in and everything. But we're not, we're not quite there yet. Zips has four starting pitchers in the Diamondbacks rotation with a sub four ERA. Yeah. And another one of those guys is Brandon Fott, whose numbers look very, very much like Merrill Kelly's here.

He has a 9-9 record with 147 in the third innings pitched at 3.97 ERA, just like Kelly, a 1.21 whip, 36 walks, 143 strikeouts. It's pretty good. I like it. the computer also thinks that Brandon fought is good. And as I said earlier, right about that. It does, it does know about Brandon fought,

uh, his postseason performance. It is aware of what happened over those 22. Oh yeah. The computer. Um, it knows all about it. And yeah,

this is why we listen to the computer, Derek, uh, because this past season, Brandon fought at a 5772 ERA. And the computer, uh, looks in his eyes and sees a much better picture than that.

Savage. going into, going into 2024. Um, I don't know. I bet the computer still pronounces it Louisville. I'm saying. I do remember, so Brandon Fotz Zips last season was also quite favorable.

And I think Dan had a blurb in his story about the Dback Sips where he talked about wondering if Brandon Fott's family had like hijacked the Zip system or something and like somehow messed with things. But that's what happens when you when you put up the kind of numbers that Brandon Fought did in AA and AAA to very hitter friendly environment. That's why the computer loves Brandon fought so much. And we saw toward the end of last season in the second half in the regular season, plus the playoffs, how effective he can be when things kind of come together. And yeah, I mean, 397.

If you get three, if you get a 3970 RA from Brandon fought in 2024, that is huge. And I'm not sure it would just be over 147 innings or whatever we have here. He's a guy who's been durable in the past. if he's pitching effectively, I think he could probably be in the 170, 180 range by the end of the season. And that would obviously, I mean, there's a ton of value there, especially in your number four rotation spot. The debacks are one of not that many teams. Once we have all the zips, I'll go through and look, but not that many teams are going to have four starting pitchers, as you said, with sub four ERA projections. That's pretty impressive.

And again, that's something that when we talk about how the bullpen evolved, during the season last year. That's something that the Diamondbacks at one point only seemed to have two starting pitchers last season to now have four guys in the starting rotation that you can almost immediately pencil in with a competition for the fifth spot. That makes me feel like the starting rotation

is much different from what the Diamondbacks started out with last year. And again, remember my purple hair? They were very good in April, right? Like they still managed to win a lot of games even though they had, you know, Madison Bumgartner making a few starts in there. And they had, you know, a real lack of, of, like a real lack of personnel to fill some of those holes that they had in their starting rotation. Yeah. It's completely different now.

Yeah. The narrative has absolutely changed. And a lot of that too has to do with the next guy we'll talk about, who is Tommy Henry, a guy who, we don't know if he's going to win the fifth rotation. out of spring training, it kind of sounds like Mike Hazen didn't specifically say that Tommy Henry is the favorite for that spot, but he did talk about incumbency mattering and how, you know, Tommy Henry was a better pitcher than all of those other, you know, young starters in 2023 figure he's probably the most likely option for that number five spot. And these are not great numbers, Derek, but they're pretty decent numbers for a number five

starting pitcher. Yeah. They have him at a 5-and-5 record, 111 and 2-thirds innings, which again is just kind of taking a stab in the dark at how much opportunity he'll get. A 4-4-3-E-R-A, 1-4-0-WIP, 45 walks, 86 strikeouts. If that's your number 5 starter, you're totally fine. Well, the other guy that they have potentially factoring in here is Ryan Nelson, who had, you know, obviously he had that run in the playoffs.

He had that experience in playoffs. he even had a really, really good outing for sure. But Tommy Henry last year was, it seemed like he went from kind of being at the back of the pack of those guys to get a starting spot to kind of leading the way a bit, right? Before he got injured. So it's going to be interesting to see how he bounces back from that and what the Diamondbacks can get out of him.

But we can also take a look at Ryan Nelson's projected stats for 2024 because they have, it seems like right now the computer is factoring in that those two guys are, both going to receive starts and both might kind of might my platoon that fit starting role a little. Yeah, this is where this is where things don't make a ton of sense. Like is there how does Tommy Henry get 111 innings and Ryan Nelson gets 143? I don't. Well, because Eduardo Rodriguez only has 100.

I guess that's true. I guess that's true. There's all sorts of crazy assumptions built into this. But yeah, Ryan Nelson, according to Zips, has an actually better projection than Tommy Henry in 2024, 432 ERA, a 133 whip. both of those just to take better, you know, coming off of 531 ERA season in 2023, where he struggled, right? It was a bit of a rough go for Ryan Nelson throughout much of the 2023 season.

Based on the minor league numbers and, you know, his very early, you know, brief introduction to the majors so far, Zip sees a guy who could still be a pretty productive major league starting pitcher. And I, again, like you said, even though it doesn't make a lot of sense, it definitely feels like the competition is going to be down to these two. These guys are the ones that are going to fill that role for the Diamondbacks. And hopefully what we see is one of them step up, you know, more and deliver the way that we've seen them, I guess, at times deliver a little bit more consistently. And I think Tommy Henry could end up being that guy surprisingly just because I felt like we saw him have some pretty good stuff last year.

Yeah. Yeah, Tommy Henry was, he was consistent. He was pitching fairly deep in the game. His actual ERA last year was just a little over four. Again, if, I mean, if that guy is in your number five rotation spot, you're in a pretty good spot. And I mean, that's kind of my biggest takeaway from looking at all these starting picture projections is the Diamondbacks rotation is not just pretty good,

but it's pretty deep as well. Yeah. And of course, there's a lot of volatility. There's the error bars around these numbers is very, are very big. But there's, it's not just the you're banking on Tommy Henry, you know, being great. You have Ryan Nelson. and you have Slate Sacconi, you have Bryce Jarvis. This list goes deeper than, you know, the guys that we have time to talk about today.

So there's a lot of options there. Well, of course, you can get your projections in on the bet MGM app if you want to by going to place some future bets on MLB. You can also get down on the NFL action, college football and so much more. Well, I guess college football is a wrap, isn't it, Damon? There's one more game. There's one more game to bet on, isn't there? Yeah, it's the national championship.

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raspberry orange RSO, and so much more. To learn more about OG's gummies and where you can find them, head on over to OGsbrands.com. And if you're embarrassed to ask questions or look things up, I'll be your weed Sherpa. You know, hit me up on Twitter and I will happily direct you for whatever your needs. are when it comes to checking out OG's brands and their wonderful products. We also appreciate you guys for being PHNX diehards, those of you that already are. If you're not, join the family. Come over to go PHNX.com, get down on a membership.

You will get Jesse's newsletter and you will get so much more, including a free t-shirt from the PHNX Locker.com. You'll get a wonderful little membership kit sent out to you, get access to some amazing discounts as well as our Discord, which is the best place to be in Arizona sports fan. And we're also going to be bringing you some great diehard only content this year. So make sure to sign up so you don't miss out on anything we have to offer. In the chat, I think there was a question from Chris Melton who wanted to know if Jesse

was a computer. And I'm not sure if you guys missed this, but just to cover it, we did make a short about it with Dan Zimborski's AI and everything going crazy. Here is actually a proclamation I made, or I guess you could say, me owning up to the fact that this man isn't real. Sports Illustrated has been accused of using AI-generated content on their website. I might have a confession to make myself. For meetings with the mayor, I'm your mayor, PHNX, occasionally known as Derek Montia. On Monday, an article from futurism.com dropped alleging that Sports Illustrated has not only been using fake AI-generated writer profiles, but fake AI-generated images for those writers. In an effort to get out ahead of this and any allegations towards PHNX, I want to here and now admit that we have in fact been using AI-generated images for those writers.

In an effort to get out ahead of this and any allegations towards PHNX, I want to here and now admit that we have in fact been using AI-generated content. My co-host, Jesse Friedman, is an AI-generated person. He is merely a digital model created by Jacob Franklin and his production team. All of his articles were written by Chat GPT, and every single one of his tweets were written by me. And I hope that we can regain your trust. I also hope this explains his robotic responses

and his lack of empathy about the Paul Goldschmidt trade. I hope that explains everything. I hope that clears things up. We did have one more thing we did want to talk about, by the way, which was just kind of funny. Went around the baseball world. I appreciate it as a parent and, of course, also as a baseball lover. But David Ortiz welcomed the, I guess the gender reveal of his fourth child by whiffing on a pitch thrown to him during the gender reveal party. think we have the clip.

Oh, you can't. You can't do that. So just to be clear, he did not make contact. He did not make contact. He swung a miss. But they had like a cannon device in the back. It seemed like there were canon devices, yes, that were then shot off revealing that the gender of his four child is a baby boy. So congratulations to Big Poppy and his family.

He definitely earns that name Big Poppy with having his. fourth child at 48 years old. But I will say this, you can't expect David Ortiz to hit a first pitch breaking ball or off speed pitch in this situation. There's a lot of pressure there, right? You're expecting him just to make contact? Like, we know how hard it is to hit a baseball with a bat. We talk to you about it constantly.

Not to mention that just to appease Jesse, we dug into the numbers a little bit. And in his last season as a baseball player, David Ortiz indeed did, indeed did have. have a 26.9% swing and miss on first pitch breaking pitches in 2016. He also had a 22.2% swing and miss rate on the first pitch for off speed pitches in 2016. That was definitely not a fastball. That was an off speed. That was off speed. Yeah.

This was an off speed. It was definitely an off speed pitch or breaking pitch of some sort. And it was, it was nasty. Yeah, it was nasty. I'd like to see some spin rate metrics on that. Yeah. David or T's cannot be blamed for this. No.

It was a nasty pitch. Absolutely cannot be blamed. Who possibly could have hit that? It's an at bet, Jesse. And you don't set off the fireworks just because you assume he's going to hit a home run in the first pitch, right? Like, I blame the person operating the cannons. That's the person at fault here because the person operating the cannon obviously had no patience to wait for this to play out. This is a scenario that you absolutely cannot launch those cannons off until you see the blue powder smoke in the air.

from him destroying the gender reveal baseball. But yeah, I don't blame David Ortiz. He tried his best. He went out there and did what he does, which is basically swing and miss at 27% of the time on breaking pitches. But I want to say congrats to the 40-year-old dad and good luck on keeping up with a two-year-old at 50 years old. So much love to the Ortiz family.

But much love to you guys. Of course, we thank you for being here. Make sure to follow us on Twitter or X or whatever you want to call it. I'm at cap underscore caveman with a k. This maniac next to me is at Jesse N. Friedman. Of course, the people's producer, Damon. He is at Damon Dog. That's D-A-W-G.

We are Damon's dogs. Park Park. Of course, our shows at PHNX underscore D-Backs, but all roads duly to at PHNX underscore Sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys for putting up with my terrible reading today and Jesse Zips projections that might have bummed you out a little bit. We had so much fun today, Gary.

It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. But again, we thank you guys for stopping by. We appreciate your time. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when the computer is wrong.