PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - BREAKING: Torey Lovullo RETURNS as D-backs Manager on Two-Year Deal

Episode Date: October 1, 2026

Was 2026 the beginning of the end for this era of Arizona Diamondbacks baseball? We take a closer look at the future of the group that led Arizona to the 2023 World Series and ask whether this is when things have to change in order for the organization to reach the next level. With Kevin Ginkel apparently saying goodbye to the D-backs as he becomes a free agent, we react to his departures and what it means for the bullpen moving forward. Plus, the Wild Card Round is underway, so we have the latest from October baseball, including which teams are moving on in the race for the World Series. And while MLB attendance continues to rise, the D-backs are moving in the opposite direction. We break down the league-wide attendance numbers, Arizona's decline, and what that could say about the state of the franchise heading into the offseason.BECOME A DIEHARD: gophnx.com/join JOIN THE SUPPORTERS CLUB ➡️ https://tinyurl.com/yc6km2r4An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports MERCH https://store.allcitynetwork.com/collections/phnx-lockerALLCITY Network, Inc. aka PHNX and PHNX Sports is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by the City of PhoenixPHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/ALLCITY — including us here at PHNX — is teaming up with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America for an exciting three-year partnership. To learn more, visit https://www.bbbs.org/allcity/ACE HVAC: If you are having an AC, Plumbing or electrical issue, call our friends over at ACE: [phone] , tell them PHNX sent you, they’ll take great care of you!Branded Bills: Use code BBPHNX15 at https://www.brandedbills.com/ for 15% off your first order!Husband & Wife Law Team: If you’ve had a serious injury, Call The Husband & Wife Law Team first at 602-783-8841 or visithttps://husbandandwifelawteam.com/?utm_source=allcity-padcasts&utm_medium=digital-phx&utm_campaign=allcityShowNotesGametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.Shady Rays: Head to https://shadyrays.com and use code: PHNX for 40% 2+ pairs of off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people.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!New DraftKings customers sign up with code PHNX, spend just five bucks, and get two hundred in rewards within 21 days. That’s code PHNX. In partnership with DraftKings. The Crown Is Yours. Gambling problem? Call one eight hundred NEXT STEP. Twenty-one plus. Arizona only. Eligibility restrictions apply. Fifty dollars in non-withdrawable Bonus Bets issued every seven days via click-to-claim for twenty-one days. Bonus Bets expire seven days after issuance. 1 football Boost per customer. Maximum bet limits and restrictions apply. Tokens expire at the end of the final select game each day when offered. Terms at d k n g dot c o slash offer.  Limited time offer.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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Kevin Ginkle made us sad with what is apparently a goodbye on his Instagram yesterday. And it can't help. We can't help but wonder, is this the end of the era for the 2023 World Series team? We are talking about it today. Don't you go anywhere. We are starting right now. For the PHNX Diamondback Show, ski to you all. And welcome into another edition.

Presented by our friends in Circle K. I'm a NASCAR guy now, by the way. This is a NASCAR podcast. I mean, anything else that we can cover besides. that our baseball team isn't in the postseason is on the radar for me. But thrilled to have you guys here. Welcome in to another edition of the Ph.NX Diamondback show. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX.

I am thrilled, of course, to have you guys with us here and thrilled to be talking Diamondbacks baseball, kind of. We're also going to update you on the postseason. Whoa. Whoa. We really, is that real, real? Is as we're starting the show and I am unprepared. prompt is that Damon? Yeah.

Damon, he's back. Damon, he's back. Sunday dinners are back on. Back on a two-year deal and I'm finding this information out right now. That's crazy. That's great. Way to ruin the topic for the show today, right? Yeah, I'll start rebranding things over here.

Yeah, you rebrand everything because here we were prepared to start discussing if this was the end of an era for the current Diamondbacks team, I guess. this particular era for this 2023 World Series team and a managerial change would have been probably at the top of that era being over. And yet here we are finding out that Tori Lavallo has now is returning on a two-year deal. I'm actually not surprised by that. I am only surprised by that because I do think that Levalo could have gotten a better deal, a longer term deal with another organization. and I think that this shows exactly what Tori was talking about as far as wanting to stay here. This actually makes a lot of sense for the Diamondbacks overall. We have ourselves a manager at least through 2028 or most importantly a manager through the mess that is going to be the 2027 season.

I said that before. I said one of the most appealing factors about bringing Tori Lobolo back on a short-term deal would be the fact that next year is a terrible season for a new manager to start building whatever they were going to build going forward. So, I mean, a two-year deal makes a ton of sense. And while a one-year deal would have made a little bit more sense just for the temporary factor of it and truly wanting to, you know, give Tori, you know, one more year to see if you can, you know,

improve the results and possibly get this team into the post-stop. season. You could argue, though, that that wouldn't really be fair considering what 2027 could be. We might not even have baseball in 2027. So giving him a one-year deal doesn't necessarily seem very fair when it comes to that. I think two years is the shortest term deal that you could have done. And again, I am thrilled personally based on being fed at least one of the seven days a week that Tori Lavallo is going to be back with this organization. I know there's a lot of people that aren't happy about that. And again, I have kind of, I've given my thoughts as to why I agree with that thought process.

Really, when it came down to it, it's the track record over the last three seasons. I know people want to compare his 10 years here and say he's only taking this team to the playoffs twice. But I will say that overall, my bigger gripe is bringing us all the way to the end of a regular season, a 162 game season, getting us there where they have a chance in the final week of the season to win their way into the postseason and play in the playoffs. And instead, they did not. They were not able to do that in 24, 25, and now 26. The idea that you want something new, it resonates.

I understand that. You know, and again, it does feel like we've been living kind of in Groundhogs Day over the past three seasons. However, I will stand firmly. And Portsport is asking what source? Nick Pocoro, according to Nick Pocoro on Twitter today, Tori Lovallo is coming back on a two-year deal. So, and that's a pretty good source. I tend to believe anything Nick says ever. Nick knows when I'm going to die.

He doesn't, he won't tell me, but he knows when I'm going to die. But when it comes to Tory Lavallo coming back again, there is just so many reasons why you would want Tory to return. I think you would want Tori to return because of the fact that I still feel like his managerial style bodes well for what this organization has to do, which is built from their farm system. I think Tori does an excellent job at giving these prospects a great landing, you know, in the major leagues when they make their debuts. In fact, you could almost argue at times that Tori or the players themselves, I can't put this on Tori completely, but you could argue that the players are sometimes so good when they come up that the biggest problem with their rookies is that eventually they come back down to Earth, right? But we still have the blueprints for the Jose Fernandez statue. Don't

forget that. We might not build the statue, but we're keeping the blueprints just in case that that two-week span that he had when he debuted becomes a regular occurrence over a full season. But Tori, again, is he is a guy that does a lot with what he is given. I think the adversity that he's been through with this team had him managing, as some others have said, had him at his best managing this season. And that's where a lot of people are very, there's a lot of fans that would do. disagree with that. In fact, they'd be wrong, actually, because I, you know what, like as mad as I am about the Jose Cabrera thing, and I think that is a little bit of a stain here on his season,

Tori had an unbelievable season. I think it's inarguable otherwise, truthfully. You know with that? I think the big thing is like, Tori or I don't think anybody knew that Corbyn Burns wasn't going to be available for that second game until, obviously, the like Sunday before that announcement was made. My biggest gripe with that was them not pivoting in a better manner in game one against the Padres to make the guys that they knew that they would need available in game two available. You had Ryan Nelson, you had Zach Gallen. Both of those guys could theoretically give you three innings each.

And instead you turn to Jose Cabrera. That still is the biggest probably managerial blunder that I feel like he had this entire season. And you're right. Due to the fact that it happened at a critical time and happened so recently, it is a little bit of a stain on his season. and it does feel like this is one of those situations where, you know, the body of work is damaged by how important it was to win there late. I still believe what I believe, and J. Mark kind of confirmed that he thought the same thing, which was the season was lost when they lost those games against the Rangers and the Marlins at home. they did a good job of somehow putting together their longest win streak of the season after that and fighting hard to put themselves in a position to win right but um again it once again came up just short

i i still like a lot of people don't think that lavello is the primary blame for the way that the season went and i think he was more about his managing and getting this team to be competitive that, you know, that's the reason why people credit him for having one of his best seasons as a manager this particular season. I know that they never try to use injuries and other excuses as to the reason why, you know, or to blame. But I feel in past seasons it's been hard not to bring those injuries and such up. And even Tori had to do that at times. What I feel like about this season is this truly was a season of no excuses, you know. It was a season of no excuses.

And they pressed on and every time that they had to add somebody that was DFAed from another team or bring up another rookie to make their debut, they just kept it pushing like it was another day. Kellen in the chat says his lefty, righty bull annoys the hell out of me too. I don't even know, Damon, if the lefty-righty matchup stuff is on him. That's one of those decisions that you and I have discussed. more of a higher level committee decision that involves analytics more than it's just Tori LeBolo doing his thing there. It seems as though, right? I mean, I guess truthfully, we're not in the room.

We don't know. But, yeah, I don't, Tori's not making line up decisions. That's for sure. Like when it comes to like who's going to sit that day and whatnot. And I feel like that kind of goes under that umbrella as well. So I'm with you there. Obviously, Tori's not the perfect X's and O's manager. I think that we all know that.

But again, as I kind of outlined yesterday, or two days ago, I guess now, like, that's, to me, that's not the primary goal of the manager in Major League Baseball these days. And I think Tori's really good at what the primary goal is. And that's culture setting and building a locker room and building a culture. And I just think that he's good at that part of the job. So I'm excited to have him back. I know a lot of people probably are frustrated or kind of indifferent. And then there are others that are probably pretty excited as well.

it's it's got to be about as mixed of a reaction as you will possibly get for a move of this magnitude. It's weird because it was such a divisive topic amongst the fans. I said that before. It's not just divisive. It feels like there's very few people that are like, me, I don't care. You know, like I literally. I'm not saying I don't care, but I do feel at times like I'm in the middle where I can see both sides. We're like after that Jose Cabrera mix up, if you want to move, people want to move on from Tori, I'm not.

I'm not opposed to it necessarily, but I also think he's a good manager and I'm happy to have him back. I hate, I kind of hate the idea more of also firing the coaching staff considering what they have built here and starting over from scratch with a new manager and a new coaching staff.

I like this coaching staff very much and I think that they've done a good job. I don't think that they get the credit they deserve for doing as much as they did without little they were given. But I like them. I like people that some of you probably, would hate for me to even admit I like because they're all great dudes, but I also respect them.

I'm just saying. I wonder who he could be talking about. Nobody in particular, David, but I will say that again, this is, this was, you know, this was a show that we were getting prepared to talk about Kevin Ginkle saying goodbye because of his Instagram post yesterday

and now things have kind of turned around here, right? Don't know if Kevin Ginkle is saying goodbye, Damon, but based on that Instagram post from yesterday that he put up, he thanked the fans, he thanked the organization, and it very much sounded like his time in Arizona is done. Now, Ginkle is a free agent after this season, so this could just be, you know, just him thanking everybody for his time here without knowing what his future holds, but it very much felt like this was the end of, you know, or is the end of his time as a Diamondback, right? and Gingles part of that group that Tori Lavello brought all the way to the

2023 World Series and without Tori it felt like this very much could start to unravel. A new manager coming in might not want to put up with Cotel Marte and the drama that he already knows exists plus maybe new drama that he experiences as a manager of this team and not to say the manager has the decision to trade a player but it feels like we're trending in that direction. I feel like Tori Lavello is staying here even though the relationship between Catell and Tori isn't exactly perfect, obviously, based on what happened. I do feel like it's, Tori understands Cotel Marte far more than another manager would. I don't know if Tori is getting the most out of Cotel that another manager might be able to get out of him,

but I do feel like Tori understands him, you know, more. And like when you're talking about this team, you know, starting to split up or starting to become a different team, I think that already started in 2026, you know, And we're starting to see those pieces kind of peel away here. But, you know, the gradual change from what we were in 23 to what we could be in 27 would have started with that managerial change. And then you don't know where that leads. Obviously, Gowan's time here is up.

And Ginkles seems like he's not returning. Marte could potentially be traded if, you know. And then you start to see more significant changes based on free agent moves or trades. Marino still hasn't signed any kind of extension. So that would mean that would at least signal for the time being that his exit from this franchise is coming in, you know, two years. And then beyond that, you just kind of have Carol, Perdomo, and Fott locked under contract. And that would become the new foundation of this team for whatever the next era would be potentially. That kind of sucks.

And I think that that's another reason why I'm glad Tori is coming back. I am not ready to say goodbye to the era that was the chaos diamondbacks, you know, the answerbacks. I'm not ready to move on from this team and see what another, you know, what another version of the diamondbacks would be going forward. I kind of love this team. And I think that this team deserves another run. I think they deserve another playoff run. I think they deserve some additions to be made to it. I think they deserve Mike Hazen to be aggressive in the offseason and improve this team.

But, I mean, I don't know. Coolbro says, how is Derek Hall going to say you didn't give Tori the best roster and then keep Hazen? Well, the roster not being the best roster doesn't necessarily fall on Mike Hazen either. I know decisions did not work out. And I know there are a lot of people out there that actually want Hazen replaced more than they wanted Tori replaced. And I do agree that the roster decisions made are what impacted the wins and loss. this season far more than Tori LeBello's managing. But what I also feel like is

Mike Hazen took a swing on a few things and they really worked out and then he took a swing on a few things and they ended up being a catastrophic waste of money. Well, then he didn't take a swing on a few things. And then he didn't take a swing on a few things because at that point, that wallet was empty. Not empty, but now we're going to be spending extra money even on Gino Suarez at the trade deadline

and putting ourselves potentially into a luxury tax situation where we have to pay far more than $3 million because we added Gino to the roster. I actually have far more of a problem with the swings he didn't take than the ones he did that he whiffed on. Yeah, because you feel like at least he tried when it comes to bringing back Merrill Kelly and Zach Gallen. Correct.

And again, we had limited options and a limited budget on how to figure out what this roster was going to be in 2026. See, that's where I still credit Mike for the fact that we were doing post-game shows, or not post-game shows, off-season shows, not around this time, but probably close to this time a year ago, where we were talking about what the hell is this team going to do to fill out the roster next year? They have no money. They have no starting pitching and things don't look good. And then Mike Hazen found a Michael Soroka in the bargain Ben and they brought in Jeremy Blyche, who taught Eduardo Rodriguez into an ace and they added

Nolan Aronado on basically a next-to-nothing deal where the Cardinals ate the majority of his contract. And suddenly those guys became your top performers this year. So, I mean, I don't completely feel like Mike Hazen is a terrible GM and I don't feel like every one of his moves was a complete disaster. No, he's not a terrible GM and his moves were not an unmitigated disaster. But I do think that, you know, like when it comes to roster stuff, he definitely wears more of the blame than anybody else. Yes, especially the first base DH thing, which never got addressed in the first place. And again, got addressed by bringing on Carlos Santana, which fractured the relationship between Damon and I in a way that can never, ever be repaired ever again. You should have heard the way he was speaking to me this morning, guys.

Oh, God. I'm so sick of him and just his face and the words that come out of his mouth. And that's all because of the argument over Carlos Santana. But, Tori back. Tori back. Tori back. Tori is back. We are back. and I really wish

Killer X was awake right now. I really, I know he's somewhere having a bad time right now. Even if he's not awake, he's dreaming and his dreams are nightmares and he's going to wake up in a cold sweat and then he's going to watch this show. Yeah,

it's going to ruin his day. He just note like inherently, like he can just feel it. God. I, it is pretty sad that he's not here right now. Right? Right.

It's like if there was any, a time when I really wanted him here. Yeah. It's right now. This is your time. This is your thing. Oh, man. And where were you when the people needed you most?

It's funny because Tori Lavello was starting to get a lot of positive talk. I felt like. I felt like what the conversation started to turn. The Diamondbacks fans were obviously upset with the way the season ended, and I know a lot of them were split on how they felt. about him, but the feeling from other fan bases and the feeling like in our comments on our show started to be like, if this man is this coveted by other teams and we are like two days into the post, you know, into the post season, his off season, and there's already talk about him going to

Seattle and other places, then, you know, again, it's, it's, it means something. And we said that from the beginning. We knew that, uh, if Tori was let go from this team, that there definitely would be a line of other teams waiting to interview him and add him as their manager. And, you know, again, we're talking about this being 10 years, 10 years now. 2017, he won the National League Manager of the Year award as the Diamondbacks manager after they defeated the Rockies in the wild card game before losing to the Dodgers in the National League Division series. Then we had a competitive, non-competitive stretch where the Diamondbacks finished

82 and 80 in 2018, 85 and 77 in 2019. And then there's the low point, which was the pandemic and beyond where the Diamondbacks finished 25 and 35 in the pandemic year. And then the worst season in franchise history, essentially, there in 2021. But everything turned after that. And, you know, again, we obviously have the winning the pennant and reaching the World Series. But the last few seasons have just been disappointing, right? I mean, last year, especially finishing 80 and 82.

But, you know, the Diamondbacks missed the playoffs in 24 with an 89 and 73 record. And then they, you know, finished this year with 10 games above 500 and they still can't win or get into the playoffs. So, you know, again, 10 seasons, sub 500 record, which is one of the things that people focus on. Two postseason appearances, one in L. Pennant, one World Series appearance. and one National League Manager of the Year award for Tori Lavello. And he's back as our Sunday dinners, and I cannot wait. We're going to have to film the next one, for sure, just so that you guys get to finally see what Damon and I have been doing

every Sunday this season. But we're going to take a quick break on the other side of this break. We have more to talk about. I think I'm not done talking about Kevin Ginkle, that's for sure. But we will be right back. Don't you guys go anywhere? You are watching the PHA next time and back show. Well, if you ever have checked out Wayfair, you know that it already helps you create a home that stands up with some amazing quality products, great value and trusted reviews.

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to you as their client, including that you can cancel your fee agreement with them at any time for any reason, that you may speak to one of their lawyers as often as you choose about anything you want to discuss, including Tori Lobolo coming back to this team on a two-year deal, and you have the right to trust that as your lawyers, they will tell you both the strengths and weaknesses of your case so that you can make informed decisions. If you've had a serious injury, call the husband and wife law team first at 602-783-8484-1 or visit their website at the link in our show notes and tell them, Ph.NX, XENG. Well, Damon, again, the good Tori Lavallo coming back, at least for me and for Damon and for our bellies and for Arizona and for the Diamondbacks.

Maybe not for some fans that don't really appreciate him for what he is, but it's good to have Tori back. And more importantly, I feel like it's good to have one less thing for this organization to worry about this offseason. One thing Steve Zinsmeister said yesterday that he got 100% right is this team is in such a better place this offseason than they were last. offseason. As I was just saying earlier, Damon and I didn't even know what they were going to do to fill out their starting rotation, let alone add the position players that they needed to add to fill the roster up. And somehow they found a way to do that. And somehow they found a way to finish 10 games above 500. Unfortunately, they couldn't finish 12 games above 500 to get their way into the postseason. But what we do have now is to address the needs that this team has during this offseason. And one of

those needs would be Kevin Ginkle not returning to this team. And Damon, I don't know, do we have the Instagram post by chance? I'm grabbing it. Okay. This was a sad message that Kevin Ginkle left us yesterday on his Instagram post. Again, that thanked fans. It said, thank you, Arizona. Every inning, every bullpen night, every moment in this uniform meant the world to me.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to play. for this organization and this city. To my teammates, you've been my brothers, the laughs, the grind, the wins, and the tough ones. I wouldn't trade any of it. To the coaches, trainers, front office, clubhouse, staff, and everyone behind the scenes, thank you for pushing me and having my back every day.

And to the fans, you showed up and made Chase Field loud. You carried us, and I felt it every time I took the mound. Forever grateful, hashtag, thank you, Arizona. I've never heard of a goodbye. That was more of a blatant goodbye than that. And that sucks. because Kevin Ginkle has always been one of our favorites. We had him on this show.

We had him in studio. One of the rare diamondbacks to come in studio and join us here at P.HNX. So not only is he a diamond back, he's a wildcat, and he's just been an Arizona guy. So obviously nothing is finalized. I think, again, once again, this is just Ginkle basically saying he's going to test out free agency, and most likely the result of that testing out free agency is going to be moving on to another team. However, nothing is necessarily set in stone.

And I think that, again, there's a good chance that Kevin Ginkle could be returning perhaps. I mean, but that just sounds so final. It's so final. So I don't know. But that means the Diamondbacks still have to figure out a way to replace Ginkle and build on this bullpen. But they do have a good foundation for that bullpen. The Latin Kings are still here and are still strong. And that's Juan Murdo, Brandon Garcia, who's from Connecticut.

And Justin Martinez. I just had to throw that in there about Brandon. But again, it was, it's still a strong bullpen. But if Ginkle doesn't return, that's definitely an area that they're still going to need to address and still figure out. But as it goes for the other teams in Major League Baseball, we got to see a number of teams get eliminated yesterday in the wild card round. Unfortunately, one of those teams was not the Philadelphia Phillies that were very much rooting against just, for not only personal interests because we hate that team, but also because it's where the Diamondbacks would have ended up.

And deep down inside, I think we all want to know whether or not the debacks would have been eliminated in the wild card round in an alternate universe or if they would have made it through. And the game last night was the wildest game of the night. Atlanta was up 3-1, thanks to a mistake made by one Bryce Harper. And then right here in this office, in the producer's office, after we finished yesterday's show,

but we all witnessed Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper going back to back on home runs to almost the exact same spot, except Schwabber hit his much harder and much farther. And then rookie Andrew Painter came in. Both were no doubters, though. Oh, they were no doubters. Like, both were like, oh my God. Schwabers hit off that brick wall so hard. I thought his was going to go out of the stadium. I've never seen a ball, like actually hit a wall and then bounce back that hard.

But you got Painter coming in. He gave three scoreless innings. in his postseason debut and then in the 10th, Alec Baum hit a solo homer with two outs to give Philadelphia the win. It was kind of refreshing to not see the ghost runners out there. But I won't lie for a minute. I was like, why isn't there a guy on second base?

No, no, no, guys, why isn't there a guy on second base? Guys, anybody? Anybody? I was like, oh, yeah, we don't do that in the postseason. I think they forgot. Yeah, yeah, they forgot to put a guy out there. But, I mean, it's Philadelphia stars finally waking up for the first time in what feels like a month.

So they did what they had to do. when they, you know, at least fend off elimination. And now we have a win or go home game between the Braves and the Phillies today, which is going to be exciting. But all of the other games already sent their opponents home. Our beloved White Sox beat the Astros, and they by score 7 to 3,

and they win the series 2 to nothing. They're calling it one of the biggest surprises of the first round, but that's not what we're calling it. We knew the White Sox were going to come through, and we knew the Astro's. without trash cans were just going to absolutely crumble. But again, there was a kind of a back and forth here. Got a little close, but the Houston Astros never led at all in this series.

And Chicago got a massive three-run home or late from Chase Midroth in the 6th to put the game away. So Chicago moves on to face the Cleveland Guardians in the ALDS. I think we have an updated, we got an updated bracket there, Damon. The Houston, or excuse me, White Sox move on. We got Guardians. We got Tampa Bay now taking on the Yankees after the Yankees beat the Red Sox by a score of 9 to 2. Yankees win that series, 2 to nothing. There was never a moment where Boston was even in the series at all.

You had Cody Bellinger crushing a three-run, home run, and finishing with four RBIs. They had a sixth run, sixth inning, and they just blew the game open at that point. and the Yankees did all of this without Aaron Judge, who missed the series with his calf injury, and still remains uncertain for the ALDS, but, I mean, again, it's, it's, it's, it's, this Boston team was so good for a stretch. This just goes to show, as we've talked about before,

they got hot at the wrong time. I mean, Boston got hot when they needed to as far as overcoming the deficit that they were in and how bad that team, uh, was kind of out of things. And so that was impressive. They had an incredible stretch at the same time. The Diamondbacks were playing some of their best baseball of the season in July.

But it's like getting hot in July and August. It was too early. And eventually it kind of ran its course a little bit for the Red Sox. And now they have exactly as many postseason wins as the Arizona Diamondbacks do. As do the Cubs and the Houston Astros. So if you want to feel good about anything, there you go. The Padres finish off the Cubs. And that I never even got to put.

put on my Cubs hoodie, not one time before they were eliminated from the postseason, which means that goes right back into the box under the bed. But San Diego completed the two games sweep and ends the Cubs season. Mostly PCA season. I think that's what...

I think most of us are just thrilled at PCA. We have to look at PCA in the postseason anymore. But San Diego, man, they're just on a roll. Talking about teams getting hot at the right time. San Diego's got hot at the right time, but they've just stayed hot for like over a month straight. If you really want to know the reason that we didn't make playoffs, it's it's,

it's those bastards over there in San Diego. It is. It is. Because they do this all the time where Derek, they just, they go from being mediocre as hell. They were what they were literally the worst offense in baseball for like the first like 70 games of the season. Yeah. And then they've been the best.

And the worst OPS record in baseball since the All Star break. Like they're they're ridiculous, man. And I, as we talked about with the debacks when they were. catching fire to go into the playoffs potentially. You don't want to play that team if they had to win their final eight games to the season to make it. You don't want to play the Padres who had to have a better record than every team in the

sport in order to be in the position that they find themselves in now. And then they just take it to the Cubs who are a really streaky team themselves. And now, you know, they have a massive series upcoming with a Brewers team that is consistently really good. but I feel like doesn't necessarily perform in the playoffs. Like if I'm a Padres fan, I'm feeling real good about our chances to make the NLCS here. I really, really am.

I agree. I agree. And then you're a team that's kind of been built to beat the Dodgers. I mean, I almost feel like that's what every NLS team has to be built for is to beat the Dodgers. They lost to him last time that they played them. I know. So, you know,

that series obviously like it means everything. I've been to Padres Dodgers games like in recent years. Dude, electric. Postseason series between those two teams, someone's going to die. I would love to go. PCA and Alex Bregman went 0 for 15 in the series with eight strikeouts. I'm the guy who bet on Alex Brighman in game one. I mean, the man hit two home runs with a broken face.

He was also seven for eight against Michael King all time. And then he went over four with three strikeouts. And I had to watch every one of them like this. All my money got evaporated in front of my face. You said that about the Padres' offense, right? Waking up, the Padres pitching was suffocating. I mean, this is a Cubs team that has had no problem scoring all year long. I mean, I think I saw 850 runs they scored during the regular season,

and they're held to no runs in the two games that they get swept in the postseason. Crazy. Plus, you know, the Padres bullpen is just on the next level. Yeah, it's a really good bullpen. I know his name isn't Brad. But I still just can't get enough about the idea of naming a dog bradjley. I'm going to name my next dog braddley for sure, but not naming a Mason Miller because... And then you can call your dog Brad.

That's kind of hard. I like bradge. I like bradge, you know, because it's name's Bradgley. No, that's stupid, bradjley. Anyway, they're very good. And it's going to be interesting to see how everything goes. It's kind of like the, like the Yankees and the rays have to take on each other. And then whoever wins that White Sox Guardian series takes on probably a team that's gone to war.

Like, I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I feel like the Yankees are playing really good baseball right now. And the Tampa Bay Rays are incredible this year. So that feels like that's going to set up to be a huge battle. And I mean, the White Sox could the White Sox could make the World Series. The White Sox could make the World Series realistically. I love it.

I love it. It's just crazy to think about that. I'm all in. It doesn't even sound like it's that. I'm signing all my. chips to the middle of the table, Derek. It's White Sox baseball. Yeah. I love it. Well, we got a winner take all game today. That was the only baseball game that we have on deck. And then we got the Vision Series round coming up next. And then hopefully we're all Braves fans, every one of us.

Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. But I know I am right now. I mean, let's let's let's hope because I don't want to root for the Phillies. I just want both teams to lose at that point. I don't want the Padres to win. I don't want the Dodgers, the Phillies. I don't like the Brewers either because of Ryan Brown. I feel like. No, for sure. We get to the world series. Derek, like, I think that the best thing about sports when it comes to rivalries is the rivalries that you build up by

playing teams in games that matter, right? Like, as a Miami Heat fan, I hate the Celtics, not because they're in the heats division, but because we play them in the playoffs all the damn time in the Eastern Conference. And that leads to a lot of hatred. When you're, the Diamondbacks, you know, obviously we haven't made the playoffs a whole lot, but when we do make the playoffs, we play the Brewers every time. When we do make the playoffs, we play the Dodgers every time.

We always have to go through the Dodgers every year no matter what. The Phillies were the team that we beat to win our last pennant. And those guys seemingly like will never get over the loss of 2023. And so because of that, we have to hang it over their head. Like, these are all of our ops. Yeah. In the National League right now. We are. We have. We have. We have. We have. We Let me be honest. We don't have that many ops. We are not an old enough franchise or a good enough franchise to have that many rivals that we can clearly say like that's the those are the bad guys. Yankees have to be an op, right?

Yankees are one of our ops. We beat them and I don't know. I don't have any got it. We're more one of their ops is what you're saying. Probably more so. Yeah. Because we kept them from a 4P in the 9-11 World Series and everything. But like this I feel like when it comes to our ops in the National League,

They're all outlined in front of us except the Atlanta Braves. And that's why I'm like painting my body, navy blue and red. Yeah, no, I get it. I get it. I'm all for the Braves making it all the way to the World Series. Let's go Ronald Ocuna Jr. Jacob is here in the chat. That always feels good when Jacob's here.

Jacob wants to know if he can join us for Sunday dinner. He says, are we all invited to Tories for Sunday dinner? First of all, all 100 of you that are here in the chat right now? Are you willing to maybe produce a little bit? Are you going to bring like a... We can't just bring extra bodies that are not going to provide. Are you going to bring like an Osabuko is what I'm saying. I like we're not like Damon, he's got dives on the garlic bread, right?

So if you want to come, you got to bring like, I don't know, like a like a lemon stuffed grilled Brent Branzino. You know, like a nice. That sounds fantastic. You know what I mean? Yeah, like a nice like risotto, like a seafood risotto with like lobster and shrimp in it or something or like a. butter, nut, squash, raviol. You got to get fancy, is what I'm saying. Don't just show up with a pack of dry noodles and expect to get in on this meal.

That's for sure, but I was, you know what? Like, I think that you're in a good spot there because you're trying to make this more of a potluck situation. So it doesn't all fall on Mrs. LaVos. Oh, 100%. There's no way I'm putting this on. No, she's an amazing woman. And she's an amazing cook, but she's not here to cook for everybody.

Jacob, bring food, but also bring yourself ready to work because someone's going to need to start switching cams and stuff. You know what I? That's kind of where I was going at with the production angle. And in the kitchen, it's one of those like we clean as we go situations. So we need someone hitting up those dishes, hitting up the pots and pans while they come off the stove and keeping the operation moving along, all right? Man, we made him, we gave them the dish, dish boy job. I'm just saying, if you're going to come, you got to pull your own weight around here. We know one of us on this show doesn't when he comes.

Killer X is not invited. Tori has a restraining order against Killarx, actually. A hundred percent. Derek actually was the one that facilitated it. He pulled Tori to the side after a media availability earlier this year and said, Hey, Tori, I just kind of wanted to talk you about something real quick. There's this guy in our chat. His name's Killer Rex.

I would pursue legal action towards him, potentially. And Tori went through with it. I'm seeing who's invited in the chat. Jason's going to bring, he says to bring a cheap box. of Trader Joe's house wine. He's bringing two buck, Dubuck Chuck is what he's bringing. So if as long as you bring enough bottles of two buck chuck, we're good with that. Um, Coach Henry's also bringing wine. That's good. Uh,

Debra's bringing in the canoles. We got, um, Lando bringing a 30 pack of 805. We're, we're on board. Uh, excuse me, a 30 pack of brand redacted beer. Everyone here is invited except for cool, cool bro. A hundred percent. He's the one guy who unfortunately, he, yeah. We just ran out of it. We ran out of spots. Sorry, man. Sorry about that. but Tori's going to be, again, it's going to be an interesting, you know, next few years because even though the preparation for this episode was to discuss, you know, if this was the beginning of the end for the 20-26 team, I feel like you can kind of identify now,

even though it's probably a little drastic for me to say that. Like, they kind of have to get the job done, you know, in these two years or else it probably truly would be the end of. For sure. Not only like Tori's tenure, obviously. even saying that. I'm just talking about. The Tory haters are like if I was, if I'm putting on my Tory hating mask right now,

hearing that you just got another two years. And I'm, I'm playing devil's advocate to push back against what you just said. The whole thing was, D-Backs better make the playoffs this year. Tori's gone. Or else. And then the D-Backs obviously were the last team that could have made playoffs in all of Major League Baseball who did not make it.

And so, you know, the margins are so thin. Is that really the one thing that, when a team's 10 games over 500 about and you're going to be like, no, I mean, that would be good enough to make it in 90% of years, but not this year. So you're fired, Tori. But I think that a lot of the Tory haters would say we were told this year it was playoffs or bust. And now he's getting an extension. So what's to say that if we don't make playoffs the next two years, that he's not going to get extended again because everybody's going to be like, you know, it wasn't Tori's fault that this team isn't super. It's actually this person and this person's fault.

Here's what I would to actually play devil's advocate to my own devil's advocate, Derek. I would say that if they don't make playoffs in the next two years, Mike Hazen is gone because that's when his contract is up. Yeah. And if Mike Hazen's gone, Tori's gone. Well, okay. Now, Tori and Mike Hazen are clearly tied together at this point now. And that's where we're at. And if one of them is going, the other one is going as well.

And so, you know, if that's basically like this is an all in type of situation. whereas the differentiator would be that Mike Hazen was not necessarily gone after this season and clearly they weren't looking at firing him. So they're bringing back Tori who they believe was not the problem this year. 100%. Mike Hazen is signed through the 2028 season with a club option for 2029. So again, it would be similar to Tori where it would be more about giving Mike Hazen the respect of allowing his contract to come to an end.

And if they felt like at that point, they truly needed to go in a different direction, they can do it respectfully. Like I said, it's about at this point the fact that even with how fans feel about these two guys, the organization feels like this, both of them have given so much for this team for this franchise. And at the very least, with how they have been tied together, their friendship, their connection,

Tori getting a two-year deal now, like you said, lines them up to essentially ride off in the sunset together. Either voluntarily should they want to try something, new after 2028 or based on the team not wanting to bring you know either guy back and change direction i don't know if i mean i do feel like 10 years the i feel like the amount of time they've been given i think it's a fair amount of time for them to have you know have tried to make this team into a winner right and in that time we're also at mercy of our division though is as i know that people don't want to hear that and i know that sounds like loser talk and that's coming from the guy

who like who like is the most anti-loser talk guy in the world but it's just frankly the truth man when you play in a division with you know if you're either in the a l east or the nl west you're a little bit screwed just by way of man it's going to be tough to win the division yeah because the red sox the yankees are spending a ton of money and the dodgers are spending even more and i know that people are going to be like what about the raise the raise are really good yeah the raise are probably the model organization in all of baseball if everybody wants wanted or could do what the raise are doing in terms of talent just like in and out and continuing to be good year after year they would do it but you know what the raise don't have

you know what the raise don't have a world series title they don't no they don't and and and guess what like they've made the world series as much as we have recently right so you know and they don't make the playoffs every year either like somebody was saying to me like the rays don't need that excuse and i was like i mean looking at the raise the last two seasons they were pretty bad and then they had a good season this year, but like the debacks were better than them the last two years. All of that being said, it's just you're, you're in a tough spot when you're going up against the teams that you're going against playoffs. Playoff spots get almost taken away from you, like, or you're, you just have way less

of a chance to get that playoff spot than, you know, say like, if you're in the AL Central, you're probably not making a wild card ever, but that's because all it takes is three games over 500 and you win your division and you're good. you're in the playoffs. So it's just like I do think that the debacks, you know, the standard has definitely raised under Mike Hazen and Tori Lavolo. There's no question about that. We used to be kind of a joke, kind of a disaster.

I remember those days. Oh, we're going to talk about throwback Thursday being this being actually a week in this team's history. Obviously. Yeah. I mean, Dave Stewart was like the biggest disaster. We were a circus. But even before that, we were a circus at times, losing a ton of games.

losing a ton of games. And under this regime, have there been a couple years that have been bad? Yes. But under this regime generally, this team, this franchise has taken the next step of being, like, truly competitive. People respect the Diamondbacks. Like, when you look at like core rankings, they're like, the debacks are 12th, they're 10th in baseball in terms of their core.

Like, people think this team has a lot of talent. And so I think just completely lighting that all on fire is probably not the right move. I know it's been a long time coming. I know that there's a lot of years that have been put into this build, but I still think that overall a good job has been done and that this team is still moving

in the proper direction, even if, you know, like, it hasn't necessarily culminated in the way of postseason appearances in the last couple of years here. I agree. I agree. Well, we're going to take a quick break on the other side of this break.

We're going to adjust these colors a little bit and still celebrate the fact that we have a manager right now and will for the next two years. But we're going to talk about some important dates on in this particular week, which it's postseason time. So you know it's a good week in Diamondbacks history. Don't go anywhere.

You're watching the PHNX Diamondback show. Am I ready already for October 16 through the 18th? Yes, the answer is yes. I have my Phoenix Raceway hat on. I got this amazing Phoenix Raceway shirt on. And I cannot wait for the chase to return to Arizona right here at Phoenix Raceway. That is October 16th through the 18th. NASCAR championship contenders battle at the freeway insurance 500 and one of the most

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Must be 21 or over to play. And Damon, you know what day it is around here. It's not Monday. It's Thursday. And you know what we do around here on Thursdays? We tend to throw things back to what has happened on this date in Diamondback's history with another edition of Throwback Thursday. And yes, ah, those colors.

Putting on those colors feels like putting on some slippers and a comfortable house clothes. It just makes me feel better. It makes me feel comfy. On October 3rd, 1999, basically two days from now, way back in the second season of this team's existence. The Diamondbacks notched their 100th win of the year in the season finale. They won 100 baseball games in 1999.

Bernard Gilkey and Rod Brahas hit back-to-back home runs into 10 to 3 win over, you guessed it, the San Diego Potraise that we played in the last series of the year again. What is with that? At least it was here, not San Diego. But yeah, 100 wins, just two seasons after becoming a new franchise in Major League Baseball. It's nuts. I wish I could be a fly on the wall in that room when Jerry Colangelo looked. at the rest of the owners and told them they were a bunch of chumps and idiots and that they needed to win.

They wanted to fill this ballpark and not have this idealistic, you know, kind of almost fairy tale view of the ballpark being a place. The families came together to have picnics and enjoy time with one another. We don't want to enjoy time with one another. We want to watch our baseball team win. That's what we want to enjoy. There was a lot that happened in 1999. A lot of firsts on October 5th, the Diamondbacks had their first postseason appearance and they dropped an eight to four game to the New York Mets.

And then on October 6th, the next day, Todd Stodmire scattered four hits over six and two-thirds innings to help the Diamondbacks win their first post-season win, a seven-to-one win over the Mets. Steve Finley had a two-run single in the third inning that put the Arizona Diamondbacks up to stay. But they did not advance very far that year. But in 2001, as you may know, as you may remember,

they very much did. And it started on October 5, 2001, when the D-backs beat the Brewers 5 to nothing to clinch at least a tie for the NL West Crown, the Giants fell to the Dodgers later that same night, giving the Diamondbacks their second division title in three years of existence. Four years of existence, but second in three years, 99 and then 2001. Also, it's wild to think that they were still playing regular season baseball games on October 5th, but that was the year of 9-11 and baseball games and everything was at a standstill here.

this country for a period of time until they got back to baseball being the first thing once again that made us feel normal and made us feel like we were going to be okay. Speaking of ending of eras, the end of the Diamondbacks World Series team era kind of happened there in October of 2006. On October 1st, 2006, Luis Gonzalez, Craig Counsel, and Miguel Batista all played their final games in a Diamondbacks uniform in a 7 to 6 loss against You guessed it, the San Diego Padres in the final series of the year. This is an ongoing theme that will never stop until one of these two teams doesn't exist. That had a franchise record crowd of 48,946 people at Chasefield.

Let's see. October 6, 2007, they completed the National League Division Series sweep with a 5-1 win over the Cubs to advance to the NACES. LCS. On October 3rd, this is a little different changing directions from postseason mode to losing seasons mode. This was in 2016. The Diamondbacks announced that they did not renew the contract of senior vice president and GM Dave Stewart, and they relieved manager Chip Hale of his duties, which is very much the opposite of what has happened today. Today, Toyo Lavello extended with a new two-year contract, and apparently, based on the email I just got, we're going to be talking to him at 3 p.m. today over at Chase Field. So keep it tuned to our social media channel for that.

But the Dave Stewart and Chip Hale era was kind of like, well, not necessarily the Chip Hale era, but I mean, the Dave Stewart era, that was like my first years of covering this team. And let me tell you, it wasn't easy to be a new guy there and witnessing all of the, all of the disastrous decisions and things that were happening with this team during that stretch.

I don't think I've ever in my time as a fan of the Diamondbacks ever been so relieved as to when they relieved Dave Stewart of his duties here. On October 4, 2017, the Diamondbacks defeated, as you may remember, the Colorado Rockies by a score of 11 to 8 in the wild card matchup at Chasefield becoming the first wild card host to win since Pittsburgh did it in 2013. Boy, what's that a game.

Damon, you were at that game, right? The wildcard game, the Archie Bradley. Of course, brother. One of the greatest moments of my young life. I remember you talking about that a lot. Yeah, influential moment in my life. It's amazing, right? Can I tell you something that I don't even think I've shared with anybody on this one?

Sure. the day I introduced my my parents to my girlfriend was at that game your current girlfriend yeah yeah oh that's special I know that's special and then we witnessed one of the greatest games in be backs history together my wife she saw me screaming AVP at Paul Goldschmidt in the first inning and she was like what have I gotten into what is this guy 100% of crazy yeah I met my wife the year that they went to the world series and won it and I have to say that baseball played a huge part in our, like, dating life that year. We went to a lot of baseball games together.

It was the one, it was the way I knew that she was the one. When she suggests, let's go to a baseball game. Oh, hearts in my eyes, hearts in my eyes. And what a game, what a game. We need, we need to get Archie Bradley back in here. He's like DJing in a Biza right now or something, but we'll get him back in here one of these days. October 5th, 2002, Merrill Kelly reached the 200 plus innings pitched mark. for the first time in his career becoming the first D-back pitcher to reach the feat

since Patrick Corbin at Zach Granky did so in 2018. I know that was very important that year to Merrill, and it was great to see him achieve that. And then last but not least here, just one more time for the haters in the back. On October 3rd through the 4th, back in 2003, the debacks swept the Milwaukee Brewers 2-0 in the 23 NL Wildcard series to clinch their first NLDS births since 2017, and they're you know how that went against the Dodgers. It was the first time the Diamondbacks had won consecutive postseason games since October 4th through the 5th, 2011,

when they also did it against the Milwaukee Brewers. Fantastic. Rex is here. Damon, let's go to a commercial, and then I'm going to just talk to Rex for the last few minutes of the show. That's all we're doing. Thank you guys. You're watching the PhDx Diamondback show.

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All right. Well, I'm here just to Raz Killarex for the final moments of this show because I know it's a terrible day for him. I'm sure you're wearing black and I'm sure you're boo-hooing into a pillow somewhere. He says the people who are satisfied with more mediocrity are happy today. and I will say that I think it's the people that think that this team is still building towards something and haven't given up on it are happy today. You know, I understand, though, there is a general portion of this fan base that's bigger than most people would believe that do not want to see Tori return. And Killer X isn't the only person making those comments in the chat today, right? And I understand.

I just, I hope that if I'm being honest, I hope that if you are in that camp, that they bringing to, Tori back isn't as big of a turnoff as some of you have perceived it to be or have at least projected like it was going to be for you and make you not want to watch this team because again really what it comes down to is we don't know what the new CBA is going to hold for the Arizona Diamondbacks. However, if the owners get their way with their proposed salary floor and salary cap, there is a good chance that this Diamondbacks team is going to be able to maneuver in a completely different way as far as the roster is concerned once that is decided. I'm still reluctant to believe that the MLBPA will ever agree to a salary cap, so that feels like

still a far off distant dream. But a salary floor and more money to spend for the Diamondbacks, I think would be a very positive thing as far as building this roster and going forward. So the future could be very different for this team. As it stands right now, you know, they gave Mike Hazen as much money as they could for him to max out the budget. And in some ways, he might not have spent that money in the best way. And in other ways, he found some tremendous value for, you know, a guy like Michael Soroka and a guy like Nolan Arnato. But I will say that overall, I kind of understand how, like, upsetting it is when really what people wanted at the end of the day was a change. and we're not getting that when it comes to the manager.

Remember what Damon said, though. I think what Damon brought up and has brought up on a few shows is probably the most important thing when it comes to blaming Tori Lovela for the way this season and the past three seasons has gone, is that MLB manager really is not as impactful as you may think when it comes to the wins and losses for a baseball team. If that was the case, I feel like Dave Roberts would have managed,

the Dodgers right into multiple losing seasons, no matter what that roster was. Dan says next year will be peak. At the very least, I mean, if next year happens, there's a good chance that now we're talking about no more excuses, as Coolbro was saying earlier. And I don't really believe in the excuses, but I do believe in assessing blame

as to the real reason why this team didn't win enough games to make it into the postseason. And really, at the end of the day, that's, again, something that, and I hate giving him this much credit because I hate him as a person and I hate his face. But Damon said since day one before this season even started, which was do something about your first base DH situation, which they never did.

But again, there definitely have been some management issues throughout the season. And I'm not to say a manager doesn't impact a game. We started off in segment one talking about the Jose Cabrera decision primarily being one of the things that's hardest, that is the hardest thing that happened to get around to make a claim that Tori was better this season than he's been in past seasons. Yeah, it almost wiped away a lot of the goodwill that I think that he, like, maybe not from like the crazies, like Killer Rex, but the good, the goodwill that maybe he built up with more some of the more rational people in this fan base,

like a Sean, for example, who I think was very much like Team Tori this year and was like, he's having a good season, he's not the issue. And then after the Cabrera thing has been like, get me a new manager, I'm sick of this guy. And I think it was hard for even for me and you to be like, yeah, I mean I. I don't know. But we place blame or we place blame. That's kind of been the thing is we blame Tori throughout the season.

And we definitely blamed him when it came to that game. Right. Yeah, that was a disaster. It was a disaster. I have nothing for you there. I guess, you know, my thing would be like I'm seeing a lot of sentiment of like, get ready for another September collapse, guys.

We went 13 and 10 in September. We didn't collapse. lapse, that's a 90 plus win pace over the course of 162 game season. Yeah. We were in an unfortunate position where there was a four-team race for three spots and all the other teams around us unfortunately played just a little bit better this season. And, you know, I don't think that that makes it where your whole season is black and white. Oh, my God, you guys were horrible. It's like, no, it's not the case.

The team was pretty good. Yeah. They're not far off of being very good. but you know is is tory the right guy to get them there i don't know some that you know i'm i'm going to be able to answer that question otherwise i'd be a gm in in baseball if i was smart enough to know that but um i think that this team is not far off of you know making consistent playoff runs and it's just kind of been a matter of circumstance more so than anything that they haven't which i know a lot of people don't want to hear but that's context that's the reality that we live

Like, I know that you want to just wipe your magic wand and be like everything's better and this team makes the playoffs every year. But unfortunately, it just, it's, it doesn't work like that. I think that you're still building something positive. And this, this year was a good season. It just unfortunately didn't end in a playoff appearance. I agree. I agree. And unfortunately, that's just the way things go.

And factors matter, you know, nearly winning 90 games wasn't enough to get them into the postseason. And this year, this wasn't enough. right and yeah there's there's there's there's a lot of games you could go back and pick a park but I also think that overall what it comes down to is is that this roster was not enough and had no business probably winning even 86 baseball games this year and I mean with all the rookies and all the pitching injuries and everything like I honestly like I think it's impossible to say Tori didn't do a good job overall but again that doesn't mean that he's infallible he has missed he has issues and some people think that you could go get a better manager elsewhere.

I don't have anything to say to, you know, really push back against that because we don't know what another manager would look like, I guess, who they would even hire. But I think that from my standpoint, this is a manager that we can win with here, right now. We have one. And that's why other teams that are competing for playoffs would go and hire Tori in two seconds. if he was truly available on the open market, but he wanted to be here. And I feel like, you know, like the manager was not the issue. There are a lot of things that we got to fix.

Overall, though, Tori's like number, you know, 25 on the list of things that went wrong with this season, in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I agree. And, and again, that was like, I think Zinsmeister's metaphor was like, he felt like firing Tori was like going into a mechanic with a, with a, flat tire and the mechanics like we got to replace your engine and you're like oh no it's not my

engine it's not the engine it's the tire i can say the tire's flat and they're like now we got to replace the old engine you know so again but i i know there's not going to be people that are that are happy about it and it's going to take this team winning next season if there is a next season for them to uh for their you know opinions about it to be changed and even then someone like rex is never going to change his opinion this team could win the world series and he would somehow still blame Tori and say he would be rooting against it the entire time so again if you call yourself a fan of a team don't root against the team just to make yourself right I mean I think flea ball this is something that we haven't really hit on as much here but

flea ball is right like I think that we both agree with this I think Tori's job is almost to be the punching back yeah for the team to take to take the to take all the blame the the the spire of all of you freaks in the chat who are like ah Tori it's like That's exactly why he's paid the big bucks. It's because now everyone points their fingers at Tori and is like he's the bad guy. And yet, like, you know, there's a guy on the team who's, you know, Catal Marta is a 750 OPS.

And you're like, that's not good enough at all. According to anyone that is looking at his stats over year by year by year and going, I mean, that's a big outlier. I'm sure that really hurt the team this year. And meanwhile, all the other people that all they see is red, they go, Toray! It's like that's kind of the point to keep the pressure off of everybody else. And I feel like Tori knows that.

And that's kind of part of his job description almost. It's also insane. Professional punching bag. Rex is here saying the players would be responsible for a World Series chip, not Tori. He would never be responsible for getting the end of injury. But the blame is on Tori when they miss the playoffs by two games. Make it make sense, Rex. But anyway, I'm going to get out of here before I have to hear from him at all and work.

That goes to exactly what I just said right now. Yeah. And Tori's fine with that. agreed like Tori will be like yeah it's all the players they did it they did it and like give them and then he would accept the blame if they didn't do it and say it was his fault because that's what a good manager and a good leader does and I feel like that's why this organization continues to bring him back and that's why the people in the locker room love him because he is willing to wear that stuff for his people and I and and that's what a good manager does at the end of the day so I agree that's why

I like Tori but I know that a lot of people don't I like him because of the egg plant Rajan and you know it. Super chats, Damon, I think we got one from a very, very special diehard. Deborah Owens celebrates a year of membership. We love you, Deborah, so much. One of the greatest people in our chat, one of the kindest people in our chat. She says, thank you both Derek and Damon for all you do and continuing through the offseason. You are appreciated. You are appreciated, Deborah. You truly are. We appreciate you so much. Jesse Gordon, thank you so much for your super chat. He said, happy to be here live for once. Glad Tori is back despite everything that has happened. Cheers to the offseason fellas. I mean, again,

I will say that one thing that sticks in my mind after the conversation yesterday is what a different position this team is in heading into 2027 than they were heading into 2026. We don't have players missing until the last few months of the season with injuries that have kept him out for a year. We don't have all of these questions about how we're going to fill out the starting rotation. If there are no changes to the Diamondback starring rotation, they have a five-man rotation, which is crazy to think about. Might just be for just next season, but still, that problem is at least solved for the time being as long as Corbin Burns returns. And I do think that Tori Lobello returning to this team as manager will help that as well. I don't think that

regime change and having all sorts of upheaval right now would be something maybe that Corbin Burns would want to deal with. I think that could be one of the factors that would cause and perhaps to opt out. So let's hope that isn't the case. And let's hope Burns can get back to being the ace that he was. Because if that's the case, I do think that. I mean, this team is night and day different. This team is a different team.

You're looking at them different going into next season because you feel like they have a front line starting pitcher that could like almost go toe to toe with any pitcher in baseball at that point. But yeah, I mean, I think that this is something that we hit on before Killer X got here in the chat, Derek. and like it i do just kind of want to reemphasize it where he said they have to at least pack hazen up now at least do that much and it's like they're tied together now that that is clear after all of this is you know i think that the moral of this whole story is that tory has now been extended

for two more years which has his contract expiring at the exact same time that mike hasan's contract expires and they're tied at the hit and if mike hasen is successful in terms of his decisions to help improve this roster, that will likely keep both him and Tori employed for the foreseeable future. And if he fails in doing so, then that will likely see both of them getting fired together. So, you know, I not to say that like you should be rooting for that, but like if you want, if you're an anti-Torri guy, I think that would make, almost make you just an anti-regime guy of this whole organization because that's where we're at with, with, you know, kind of this

brain trust at this point. Yeah, I'm angry, man. I agree, man. I agree. But we thank you guys, all of you for being here today. And again, we thank the Diamondbacks for dropping this news for once. Or not the Diamondbacks. They didn't do this. Nick Piccora, we thank Nick for dropping this news right as we went live today.

We'll be back again tomorrow with another 12 p.m. show. Until then, follow us on social. I'm at Cap underscore Caveman with the K. Damon is at Damon Dogg with a DAWG. And of course, we're all Tori Lavello's dogs. Bark, Bark. our shows at PHNX underscore D-Backs, but all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore sports

on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. And if you're hearing a live chat, you're now one of Tori Lavallo's dogs and there's no getting out of it. You're part of the gang now and you'd have to be jumped to get out of the gang. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules Tori Lavallo does.

But again, thank you guys so much for your time. We'll see you back here. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The player to be named later and then Lars New Bar Trade just got announced. Is that Brian Curley? It is. That was what they were talking about?

Yeah. I mean, did we, like, that's one of the craziest trades I think I've ever seen in my life. I like Lars Neupar, and I'm happy he's on the team next year. But we traded three really quality prospects for like a pretty average outfielder. I just, I don't, I don't, you don't see that kind of overpay happen too often with, at the deadline. do this tomorrow. I have to analyze this all together. But I mean, I'm with you, man. I mean, I felt like I mean, we can we can just kind of do it surface level off. I mean, like they, Daniel Egan was a top 10 prospect on this organization before he got traded. Brian Curley was a third

round pick right out of Georgia like two seasons ago. And Sandra Santana was the best relief pitcher the organization had from top to bottom according to the people that are very, very locked in on this kind stuff. I mean, I thought the player to be named later was going to be just some like throwing Visalia guy who like, you know, could be something maybe. I don't know, but he's so far off it that we, you know, we will really not care that much. I mean, like, this is a, I feel like you just used almost like a pretty premium draft pick on a, on a guy that you just traded away very, very soon as a player to be named later. Well, again, we'll talk about. tomorrow we're in the off season we have plenty of time this off season to talk about it and uh yeah

that's pretty crazy but uh again thank you guys for your time appreciate you we'll see you back here tomorrow until then have a wonderful rest of your day and remember kids baseball is fun but it's so much more fun in october