PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Breaking point

Episode Date: February 18, 2022

On this episode, Derek and Jesse are discussing the latest CBA meeting that lasted only 15 minutes, Josh Rojas' value to the D-backs in 2022, and the many faces and emotions of Derek during the lockout. 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.

and welcome to another edition of the P HNX D-BACs podcast right here at PHNX. My name is the mayor of PHNX, occasionally known as Derek Montia, and I'm joined by my vice mayor, the one and only thunderstick Jesse Friedman. I like how you switch that around, Derek. You are now more commonly known as the mayor and just occasionally known as Derek. I mean, that's the way it rolls. That's the way it rolls around here. You know how it goes.

I'm not, people don't know my name. for a long time. There were several individuals that just called me Captain Caveman when they saw me, and that's all based on my Twitter account. So people don't remember my name, but I'm fine with that. I'd prefer that than mispronouncing it, that's for sure. But of course, this show is brought to you by the fine folks at the Draft King Sportsbook app. Go download the Draft King Sportsbook app now and get their latest hoops offer for the NBA.

They are an official sports betting partner of the NBA, and this offer is too good to pass up. Brand new customers can get bet just $1 on any team. to win their game and get $150 in free bets if they do that. So go download the Draft King Sportsbook app now and get down on some NBA action. I have some picks of the week that I'm going to give you. They're not mine. They're from Shane, but I'm still going to give you anyway. That way I have no liability in the matter,

and I can just blame it on him if they don't come through. And yeah, if they do, then I'll take credit. Just how I like it. That's how. Blaming Shane does get you pretty far. It really does. No, it really. Well, Shane's, Shane accepts blame well.

And that's the reason why he's, he's, I'm like a dormant. Yeah, he's stepping on me as well. But Jesse, we have some news to talk about, of course, today. Do we really, Derek? Lockout season, Jesse, we have lockout season, Jesse. We have lockout season news. Oh, or as we've called it around here, Jesse, not just lockout season.

We've called it the dramatic as the cactus turns. So let's see as the cactus turns or in this case, maybe as the cactus league turns. as we take a look at what happened today, Jesse. Per Jeff Passon, the two sides met today, and they met for 15 whole minutes, Jesse. Wow. Wow. They met for 15 whole minutes. Apparently, the Players Association backed off

on its request for arbitration for all players with two plus years of service, requesting instead 80% of players go into the system. Additionally, the union, this is my favorite part, requested an increase in its pre-arbitration bonus pool, ask from $100 million to $115 million. By the way, the owners are still currently offering $15 million for that pre-arbitration pool. A couple of areas where there's still also a far apart on. MLB wants to raise the minimum salary to $630.

The PA is looking for $775,000. Players are offering two nine-figure revenue streams additional that the, that MLB does not currently have. Those two revenue streams would be playoff expansion and ads on uniforms. So the players are offering ways for them to make up this money financially. So not at least it feels like the players are trying to actually come up with solutions to this problem instead of standing staunchly in their request. But it's still funny to me that their request for that pool goes up from $100 million to $115 million.

Yeah, yeah. I also found that pretty amusing. I mean, in some ways, in some ways, I mean, they kind of went the wrong direction, right? They did reduce their ask from all of those players down to 80% of players in those situations. However, the total amount of money that they want for those players went up. So at the end of the day, they're really asking for more, not less. Which in any negotiation, when one side starts moving the wrong direction is certainly not a good sign.

It's not good. And the owners are doing the same thing, right? The owners are asking for one thing and then they're sort of making up for it by changing something else. Right. And so this is something that both sides have done. I think both sides have really, they're not really moving at all. But the reality remains that what the players are asking for, their baseline ask, is a lot more, a lot more reasonable than what the owners are asking for. And so although I think it's it's very fair that both sides aren't really moving, right?

Neither side is really budging right now. I think we have to be real about that. But, you know, the position that they're each approaching this from on one side with the players is pretty reasonable. Whereas on the other side with the owners, they're just trying to continue this system of the revenue, increasing significantly and salaries that players receive not increasing by nearly as much of a margin. And that just has to stop at this point. Brett Johnson in the comment says, wild prediction. The owners cave into a majority of the player's demands request by March 14th. I don't know the actual probability,

but got to try to have some hope. And I'm with you there. I'm actually surprised because I think what we've seen now is the first time the players have basically stood strong on one of their demands and actually went backwards more back to what they were originally requesting. I feel like this entire time has been concessions by the players with the owners moving in the smallest increments, right? You know, the players are moving $15, $20 million. They're moving 10% or the, you know, from top 30, top 20. They're, they are moving in significant direction towards what the owners want, while the owners are just moving in these tiny increments. it seems like they're still so far apart and honestly there's a part of me that that has to

respect the players a bit here because they they have been conceding this whole time it it is finally time that they stand strong on something that they believe in the biggest problem for them is a lot of these things they're wanting are coming from nothing right they're coming uh where they're not even giving these players currently any of these things uh the salary increases is a salary increase. You know, like so a lot of these things they want are, you know, obviously trying to do more for guys that make less, less than about the guys that make more, right? It's still right. Interesting to me that they are pointing out here ways that this deal is going to, could increase their revenue and things they're willing to do to increase the revenue like ads on the jerseys. Would that bother you at all

to see ads on the jerseys like we see now in the NBA? Or we just used to that at this point? Honestly, I don't really notice. Are there ads on NBA jerseys right now? Yeah. The sons have PayPal on their jersey. Oh, interesting. Yeah, as long as it's not like super like super obtrusive on the uniform, I don't, I don't really care. In fact, I honestly don't know why people would pay so much for that ad because like I just said, I honestly had no idea. It was even there. I'm so beautiful. But, yeah. Michael in our comment says, thankfully, college baseball starts this weekend because this lockout is a drag. And he's not wrong, man.

ESPN is going to air over 300 games, college baseball games this year. And I almost feel like, I don't know. I don't normally follow this. Does ESPN usually air that many baseball games? Because that seems like a lot for college baseball. I do know ESPN tends to grab onto something because they've lost access to so many sports

that they actually air. live on their network now that when they get the rights to something like college baseball i know know they aired a lot but yeah i mean that that could be where we turn if this drags on right i mean if this lasts longer than then we hope it does that could easily be the source of our baseball enjoyment college baseball's super fun anyway it's either that or the the nc dinos right over in the over in the hey don't mess around with that i'm ready i'm gonna order a dino's jersey i'm down for that But, Jesse, the meeting lasted 15 minutes today. 15 minutes.

Like, what progression is there that really, like, I mean, are they actually talking? Or did the Players Association just come in? Hi, Bob. Hi, Jim. Slip down their proposal and sip some coffee while they read through it. And they go, yep, well, we don't accept this, but we'll let you know. And then that's it. Like, it feels ridiculous at this point.

How many things did you do today that, like, lasted longer than 15 minutes. I know it took me longer than 15 minutes to get out of bed. I did very few things today that took less than 15. 15 minutes is not very much. I had arguments. I had fights with my siblings over very trivial things when I was young that lasted far longer than 15 minutes. Absolutely. Well, I will say that a 15 minute fight with the two sides moving farther apart definitely sounds like an argument with my wife. And I'm only saying that because she doesn't watch the show. But I will say that there are many things that I did today that last long than 15 minutes.

It took me longer than 15 minutes to make a sandwich, Jesse. And if you're talking about that, if you're saying I take too long, then you're not making good enough sandwiches for yourself. Treat yourself better, is my point about that. What kind of sandwich did you make that took longer than a tri-tip sandwich? It was a tri-tip sandwich. It was involved, but I'm just saying it took more than 15 minutes. A lot of things take longer than 15 minutes.

and definitely a negotiation to get the baseball season started should absolutely have taken longer than 15 minutes. We've almost been recording for 15 minutes. Oh my God, don't even get me started on that. I lose track of time when I talk. I could just go on forever. Michaela Perkins murders people in 15 minutes.

She does. It takes her less than 15 minutes. That's a whole other thing. It's the covering it up part that takes longer than 15 minutes. but yeah he's see he he gets it she's scary um but yeah jesse i i don't know man it's it definitely doesn't look good it doesn't feel like uh see sandwich isn't worth it if you aren't cutting up some onion first sean gets it uh i i don't know you don't put onion in every sandwich like honestly there are very few sandwiches that i make when i put onion inside of i don't know onion's pretty

good get yourself some pickled onion put it on everything it'll change your life i'm telling you uh But we have nine days, nine days until the debacks first spring training game that's obviously not going to happen against Colorado Rockies. And yeah, it's kind of depressing, right? We definitely feel, I felt, I felt hope today. I felt like there was going to be more progression than there was. Feeling hope is just not. It's silly, right? I thought, I'm generally a hopeless person.

But yeah, no, we'll, we'll get to, we'll have plenty of time to discuss this because, man, it doesn't, doesn't seem like that date of the season starting on time is going to happen. And it doesn't seem like this spring training is going to happen anytime soon. No, I don't think so. And we have some, we have some official dates that have been thrown out there by Major League Baseball, right? February 28th, I believe it is, has been thrown around as the day. for us to be able to start opening day on time, for us to start the season on March 31st. And I know we've been looking forward to hopefully, you know, being out there in Milwaukee for the Diamondbacks opener against the Brewers. But as the days go by, Derek,

I'm, I'm less and less optimistic that that will actually come to pass. I know. I know. And then from there, you know, like that, that basically is for spring training to be unaffected, but we would still have canceled some spring training games. the debacks first one is on February 26. Yeah, that would be with everyone reporting like two weeks later than they should,

but it's still possible to swing it in about a month and have, you know, everyone having enough time to build up and whatnot. Yeah, a week-long camp and then we get to the four weeks of spring training. Right. But once we get past that, it's still going to need, I don't even want to get started on this. I'm so sad because, yeah, then it's like, no matter what, once we get past, past the end of February, there's going to be some alteration to it. At that point, it depends on when players start going back to, you know, where their team is,

but players might start doing that sooner than later if there's no spring training. A lot of them, obviously, almost all of them are either here or in Florida right now. So we just have to see and hope. Like, I've seen these guys huddle around a TV to watch other teams on the playoffs. I wonder if they're kind of doing the same thing when it comes to like this negotiation. I know I was at 1 p.m. just refreshing my screen. And honestly, I was kind of joking about it around 115, 120. And then news actually started to come in.

And I was so like incredibly saddened by how little time they took to try to correct this situation. But, you know, we'll try to brighten your day. That's what we're here for. Not to not to be sad. It's hard for us. We're sad. but it is what it is. If you go over to go phtonx.com,

I'm going to have a new article up ranking the D-BACs jerseys. We gave you the top five, but I'm giving you the top, all of them. I'm putting them all in order. So you're going, you're going to also rank the worst then. Basically, that's the worst.

I'm ranking every jersey, yeah. And spoiler alert, the gradient jerseys did not, they didn't do well. But yeah, definitely check that out over at go phtnx.com. If you're not already a member, sign up to become a member. get in on the annual member deal where you will get that free t-shirt over at p hmx locker.com.

Once you become a member, you'll also get members-only deals at phnx locker. There are some incredible shirts, including this beauty that I'm wearing right now. Jesse also has on. We are Twinsies today, and I'm not mad about that one bit. I told Jesse, get out of your suit, get in the shirt. He did it today. Or he wore it to school. I don't know what happened, but I'm going to have to investigate that further.

you can go over to p hnx locker.com and get yourself the sticker pack your free shirt all of that once you you become an annual member if you're not interested in that if you're not interested in getting a free well-fitting comfortable t-shirt and i understand uh definitely sometimes you don't want to uh don't want to get in on the on the full deal just yet you can get the first month for just 50 cents going month to month so try it out decide you like us and then stick around you can come over to our discord and get in on that uh obviously we have uh you guys have uh you guys have help us plan the show sometimes that's where the ranking of the jerseys came from so uh join us on the discord ask us questions chat with us again um yeah uh bobo fet peacemaker uh righteous gemstones

any any television shows you also want to talk about uh you we'll do that more more than baseball because we don't have you'll do that i'll take care of that just you'll handle any stats you need them to figure out or look up or explain to you so don't ask me about movies people because it's just a really sad that end. It's depressing. Like, I, I age easily a year and a half every time I talk to Jesse about any kind of pop culture stuff. Here's an idea.

Jesse watches a movie that you tell him to watch and he takes stats on it. Most of them will be how many people died in this movie. That'll be most of the stats I'll have them take. Oh, man. Yeah, that's the kind of movies that you enjoy, Derek? You just want all the blood and. Not all the time, but it's the movies I would have you watch specifically. We'll start with Cabinette Woods and go from there.

You guys definitely need to join us. And if you are a member already, we thank you so much for being a member of the family. And yeah, give me a movie that I'll make Jesse watch and we'll figure it out on the Discord. But getting back to our next topic, we were going to discuss where Josh Rojas fits in with this team in 2022. It's an interesting case because Josh Rojas, Rojas has been a utility player. Obviously, there's going to be a lot of value there with the way that Tori Lovolo runs his lineup, the fact that he can plug him in, have him play different positions, fill in for guys.

I think he'll be great as far as that goes. But I guess the question we want to discuss here is, is he more than that? Is there a position that Josh Rojas could take over on this team? And is he part of the D-BAC's core moving forward? I kind of think, yes, Jesse, not so much. I would just say I'm a little bit, I'm not there yet, I guess is what I would say. It's not that he can't get there. It's that I'm not totally convinced just yet that he's there.

I have some concerns about Josh Rojas, Derek. I'm going to be fourth right here. He had a solid season, right? He had a two war season, according to Fangraphs, 264 average, 11 homers. he was arguably the Diamondback's most consistent hitter. Partially by virtue of the fact he's basically the only one who stayed healthy throughout most of the season. But also he was just solid, right?

He just had a solid season overall. He started out a little bit rough, but he really picked things up in the second or third month of the year, and he wound up with some pretty solid numbers in the end. My concern, Derek, is that he had a 25% strikeout rate, which is fairly high. and on top of that, if you look at this hard hit rate, that was also in the lower echelon of the league. And when you take a guy who strikes out more than an average player and hits the ball hard less than the average player,

there's some reasons to be concerned there, right? It's hard if you're striking out a lot and you're also not hitting the ball that hard. It's difficult to figure out where your offensive numbers are going to come from. So I actually view Josh Rojas as someone the Diamondbacks might consider trading at some point. Just because I think his value right now is pretty high. He has a number of years of team control remaining. He plays all these different positions and he plays them reasonably well. I think there could be interest in him from another team, you know, in a relatively young player.

But I don't know if I see Josh Rojas blossoming and taking, you know, that next step into a Cattel-Marté type role. I don't know if I see that in his future at this point. What I will say is I hold out hope for him, and I think this season will be the litmus test for what his ceiling might be. I think under the coaching that the Diamondbacks will have this season and the opportunity he's going to have, he will definitely be somebody that, you know, again, we could see the improvement for.

The Zips projections that we talked about yesterday for 2022 for him aren't great, one and a half war, 251, 326, 395 slash 721 OPS, 13 home runs, and 49 RBI. And that seems conservative. And that's what Zips typically tends to be, especially when you didn't have a great season. But like you said, one of the more consistent guys on this team last season, especially because of his health. The thing I liked about Josh Rojas last season specifically is that he was, an instigator at times in all the right ways. He's an emotional, emotional player, but he's also very cerebral.

He does things in a way, like there were times where he kind of got in the heads of the pitchers or whoever he could on the opposing team just to try to make something happen. And that's probably the biggest problem with this team last year. and sometimes you could even say historically, there's times where they've played with a chip on their shoulder. There's times where they've kind of had like an attitude, but at times there's a certain toughness that's missing from this team, and Josh Rojas brings that.

It's also like this almost sounds like I'm talking about going in the Astros' route of cheating, but there's also like a certain intangible about like doing whatever it takes to win, right? Josh Rojas sees that a starting pitcher is kind of dominating them. And he tries to do something. I think it was Stroman on the Mets where he kind of, you know, mixed it, started Jarn with him from first base when he got on base and started like, you know,

getting a little bit of an argument with him. And afterwards said it was on purpose. Like he did that on purpose because he was trying to get him his head out of the game and he was trying to do something because they were struggling against him. Right. And it's like, I don't know, somebody that's willing to do that as a different level of player. You might view it as dirty. You might view it as part of the game.

But I just like the fact that Josh Rojas at times has that, that, like, nature to want to win and do what it takes. I think that switching players around, obviously, there's a lot of guys in MLB that do that quite often. I'm not going to act like Lovolo's the only manager that does that. But I would like to see some of these guys find a natural home, whether they start there, whether they're just the backup there, you know, but find a consistent place that they play either as a backup or as a starting player on the field. And, you know, see what these guys can do once they get that consistent playing time at one position.

It might benefit them both defensively. Where would you put, where would you put Joshua Haas? I'm curious if you had to stick him somewhere consistently, where would that somewhere be? Right now with no roster changes at all, I would probably have him playing a platoon position at third base and see how he could do there. Okay. I mean, he could also. I don't know if you want Joshua Rojas is your everyday third base.

I know. I know. But again, like there's, I mean, what other position has he played super well? I would probably say right field. That would be my first. Because I think he's a solid corner outfielder. The Diamondbacks don't really have a super clear, you know, front runner. No, that's valid.

They need a third baseman 100%. But I really hope. He plays third base better than Roas, and I get that. And, like, you know, that that's probably a better fit. But, you know, wherever, wherever he can play where he's going to consistently see time. If it's going to be the outfield, then, you know, have him stay in the outfield, wherever he's rotated in that. But, you know, keep him somewhere where he can just get that consistent playing time.

I think he's the, he's the one player that I do think. So we've talked about this, right? We think the Diamondbacks are going to operate with that philosophy. Like, let's try to give players more of a regular everyday position, you know, compared to what they did last year. Do we or is that just our hope? Are we just making that up? I, that's fair.

That's fair. I do. Are we just creating that? I personally do think that we'll start to see that because I think it's just sort of common sense that especially with younger players, if anything, when you move them around constantly, you're probably not improving their development as a player. Maybe you're not damaging it a ton, but you're certainly not doing that player any favors. I think Josh Rojas is the one guy where the Diamondbacks actually view him as,

okay, this guy is kind of your super utility, Ben Zobrist, Chris Taylor type player, who actually succeeds moving around. a lot. But I think he likes to. He does like to. He said that. Yeah. He seems to enjoy that role.

And I think even when he came up as a minor leaguer, that's kind of what people viewed him as. Like, hey, this guy can play a number of different positions competently. Haven Smith, on the other hand, did not have that sort of projection when he was a minor league player. Right. It's like, okay, this guy is a first baseman, maybe a corner outfielder. That's where he should play.

and the Diamondbacks came out last year and we're like, all right, we're going to have you play center field on Tuesday. We're going to have you in right field on Wednesday. We're going to put it, right? Like that's what they did. First base on Friday. Yeah, yeah. And I don't think Pavin was ever meant for a role like that.

So I think they'll dial it back with Pavin Smith. They'll dial it back with, you know, Josh Van Meter. Josh Rojas is the one guy where I actually think they might actually, you know, stick with that and see what kind of value he can provide. Because frankly, last thing I'll say, Derek, frankly, I don't know if Josh Rojas is that valuable as an everyday right fielder. Like if that's what he does, if he just plays right field every day and hits 260 with 11 home runs, like that's not a very valuable major league player, right?

But if he hits 260 and 11 home runs, but he's able to play five different positions well, that makes him a much more valuable player that I think a lot of teams would be interested in. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. And honestly, you know, the Diamondbacks got rid of Tim Castro and Josh Rojas and LaCastro kind of have a similar role as far as who they are being a Sparta at other other worldly levels of speed though which which Josh and again but he's had that same intangible of doing whatever it takes to win I remember when we interviewed him about getting hit so

much and he had such a casual attitude about it he was like if they're going to pitch in on me why wouldn't I step in and take it and it's like well because they're throwing a 90-7 mile an hour fastball at you. That's why you wouldn't step in and just take it. But good on you. I mean, shit. All right. Well, you know,

but the sincerity in which he said it was also let you know. He wasn't joking. He meant it. He'll do whatever it takes to get on base and win a ballgame. And you don't get a lot of guys in Major League Baseball that have that attitude. You might get them when they're new as a rookie. But, you know, Josh Rojas seems to have that like in his DNA. he was a huge part of that Grankey trade as a matter of fact he was the one piece that was holding it up before it was done and he seemed like such a throw-in at the time compared to the other other you know prospects that the diving back got returned j bukowskis and corbin martin it was like oh josh rojas is a other guy who you know probably won't turn into anything yeah and of course he's been the one playing at a major league level consistently pretty much since that

that trade. So he's definitely the kind of person that takes advantage of an opportunity. And that's something that Tori Lavolo was desperately seeking last year. It's why he was one of their most consistent players, because when given an opportunity, he was doing, you know, everything he could to help this team win. And that's, again, a big reason why he might not be like one of the best players to build around, like not a Cattel Marte, but I just still feel like he's part of that Diamondbacks core that they might be able to kind of, you know, mutate with these young prospects that are coming up very soon. Probably as early as, you know, opening day, we'll probably see some of the prospects we haven't seen on the main roster or at least by the

middle of the season. All depends on if they get that service time manipulation thing ironed out and we don't have to wait, you know, a month and a half for Alec Thomas once the season starts. We'll see what happens for sure. PA, make sure you negotiate for that. But of course, this show is brought to you by the Drafking Sportsbook. Drafking Sportsbook is an official sports betting partner of the NBA. And right now, they have some great deals, too good to pass up, all sorts of same game parlayes. I'll give you my Draft King's pick of the week right after this.

But new customers right now can bet just $1 in any team and get $150 in free bets should you win. It's that simple. Betting on the suns again seems like a very good idea. lately. So if you need a jumping off point after the All-Star break, that's where I might go. You can combine multiple bets from the same game for a bigger payout if you are an existing customer and can't get in on that deal. But you can get in on some great same-game parlay action, which is what I've been doing. Again, we discussed yesterday. Derek was wrong day and how I should not have even been betting on National Derek was wrong day because, yeah,

there it is. Derek was wrong. I missed it by just the assist. is just the Chris Paul assists. We laughed at him with his 13 and a half assist and he went 14. Well, yesterday he had six, I think, because he got ejected. Before being ejected, that would have been a good day to do it. I would have been a good one. Draft King is safe, secure, and reliable. Best of all, you can deposit and withdraw your cash whenever you want.

Download the Draft King Sportsbook app. Now use our promo code of PHNX, bet just $1 in any NBA team and get $150 in free bets instantly if they win. That's promo code PHNX. at Draft King's Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. 21 and over only, Arizona only, gambling problem, dial 1,800 next step, new customers only, minimum $5 deposit, eligibility restrictions applies, see draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. And Josh Hunt is in our comments right now.

I know he's watching live, and Josh is a troublemaker, by the way, and we love him here at PHNX. The other day, of course, he's wearing the shirt. triplets, my friend. I know he's wearing the shirt with us. We of course had National Derek was wrong day. You can throw that back up. But Josh took it a step further.

So now we have a wonderful gallery of emotions for what I'm experienced. Surprise, Derek. Obviously, that's how I'm going to feel if a deal gets done here before it impacts spring training. We have mischievous Derek. That's me thinking about

all the negative things I'm going to say about Rob Manfred probably on this podcast. We have angry Derek. That's how I feel every single day. It's day 78 of the lockout. And it's been 78 straight days of angry. And 78 days? Oh my God.

78 days, Jesse, of the MLB being locked out. Silly Derek, this guy doesn't come out much, but, you know, maybe one edible too many and you'll get silly Derek. Most importantly, sad Derek. This is also 78 days of sad Derek because of the last. lockout. My favorite one is though Dorok Monta that's the guy that'll tell you you look like 10 pounds

of monkey crap and a 5 pound bag he'll insult your mother and then he'll tell you know he'll ask you like questions like do you care about the lockout and then you start to answer he says it doesn't matter what you think and all that

kind of stats that guy but shout out to Josh Hunt on obviously the many feelings I'm feeling. I'm feeling all of those emotions all the time, basically, over this lockout, Jesse. And I'm not super happy, but I'm going to give you my Draft King's pick of the week. It's for right now soon. I don't know, get in on it.

Draft Kings has Bucks versus Sixers tonight. I'm going with Yannis going 46 and a half points, assists and rebounds total, over on that. Wait, they had. You're taking the over on 46. and a half points. It's points, assists, and rebounds combined is what. Oh, okay. I didn't clarify that. My problem. I kind of ran through that.

It's like, wow. And then they also had Embedd and Janus at 35 plus points each at plus 600. So, and C. Michael knows it. We all know that P. H.NX smells what de Rock Montia is cooking. That's right. Mostly it's brisket.

But yeah, there's my pick of the week for draft kings. I don't know. I guess I'm just I feel defeated, Jesse. I feel at times like you and I are putting more work into this negotiation than the owners are, at least. Yeah, that's fair. There are baseball podcasters out there who do five shows a week during this nonsense. So we're really the ones who are suffering the most.

We're out here in the trenches. But yeah, I mean, that's why you have angry Derek. That's why you have sad, Derek. That's why you have all of these emotions. And it's because, yeah, we should be out there. Luckily, Monday, I will be out at Salt Riverfields for minor league mini-camp, whatever they're calling that. We'll get to see some of the young prospects that we've been talking a lot about.

So hopefully we'll have some more information and some great news to share, maybe even an interview or two. So we'll see what turns up out there. It'll be nice to go see guys throwing the baseball around. It was supposed to be this week. And again, it started, I think it started this week. But they did a couple of, I think, media-free days before we're permitted to come out there. So I just can't wait to see, you know, guys playing baseball.

I'm pretty jealous, Derek. I have to say, there are very few places in the country right now where you can see professional baseball right in front of you. And Arizona is one of the few, right, with minor league mini camps happening. Obviously, no major league pitchers and catchers reporting just yet, but that is still a treat for you, my friend. I'm very jealous. The non-raster invitees thing is interesting because apparently per comment we got on Twitter, they are permitted, but there's kind of a weird thing with them being seen as kind of crossing the line right now, the kind of the lockout line, I guess you would say. So I wonder, you know, if there will be any in camp. or if that's kind of a thing that will cause them to stay out of it. It kind of sucks because I don't know if I was an athlete,

I would do whatever I could. If I could use the facility and be around the coaches and start training, I'd be there. I'd arbitrary reasons aside, I'd be taking whatever, you know, coaching and assistance to get ready that I could take. But we thank you guys for checking out the show. Being here in the comments, thank you to Josh Hunt for being the wonderful,

precocious troublemaker that he, is you can follow us on twitter i'm at cap underscore caveman with a k jesse is at jesse n friedman of course our show is at p h nx underscore debacks uh but all roads lead to at p h nx underscore sports and that's on instagram twitter and facebook uh if you're watching us right now on youtube we hope you are tell your friends get more people to watch us we'd love to i know i know we get it lock out baseball nobody wants to hear it get them to come over tell them we're having a good time over here get them in the comments we'd love to have you guys join us uh if you're watching us right now make sure to subscribe to the PHNX sports channel.

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On behalf of Jesse and myself, we appreciate you for tuning in and remember kids. Baseball is fun, but it's so much more productive when your meetings last longer than 15 goddamn minutes.