PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - C B no A

Episode Date: November 23, 2021

On this episode, Jesse and Derek are discussing MLB's pending lockout, what we could see out of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, and what we WANT to see changed in baseball by a new labor deal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to the PHNX DBAX podcast right here on PHNX. I, of course, am your mayor of PHNX, occasionally known as Derek Montia. And I'm thrilled to have you guys here. Of course, I'm joined by the vice mayor of PHNX. Jesse, people don't even know my name anymore. They just come up to you like, you're the mayor guy, right? From PHNX. Well, you've said that line so many times that my mind just robotically thinks, like, okay, yes,

his name is Derek Montia and he's occasionally known. And I was like, wait a second. That's not what he said. Something's wrong here. He flipped it around on me. Yeah, yeah. But of course, no matter how I flip it, this show was brought to you by the fine folks at Draft King's Sportsbook app.

Go download the Draft King Sportsbook app right now just in time for Turkey Day. And they have a brand new promotion just for you. New customers can bet just $1 on any Thanksgiving NFL game and win $100 in free bets. That's right. You can get $100 in free bets for betting on the lions to lose. And this year, you'll get something for it. So again, just $1 or more on any Thanksgiving NFL game for new customers to win $100 in free bets using our code of PHMX. Thank you guys so much for joining us.

We're excited to have you here. And we're excited to talk about this next phase of the baseball season. Jesse, yeah, yeah, I'm excited. Let's go. It's time to talk collective bargaining agreements. Yes, our favorite thing you talk about. Yeah. and lockouts and labor agreements and all of this stuff that's happening uh the current labor deal

ends on december 1st which is one week from this wednesday and a lockout appears to be inevitable between melb players association and the owners so jesse uh what what's happening here what are the two sides still far apart on as far as a new collective bargaining agreement i think they're far apart on just about everything and that's why that's why that's why a lockout seems inevitable here, right? I mean, every time, you know, every five years or so that this time rolls around when the CBA expires, there's always disagreements. There's always things, you know, that one side wants, that the other side isn't willing

to give. And, you know, they arrange some sort of a compromise. They meet the middle and we go on. But this year, the difference between what the owners want and what the players want is enormous. and that's why we are almost, I mean, anyone who tells you that we're not going to have a lockout a week from Wednesday, I mean, you're just saying that made me realize how inevitable this is. Oh, with it a week away? Yeah, absolutely.

And like not only that, but I mean, it's Thanksgiving this next week, right? Like, is the commissioner going to be on the phone all day on Thanksgiving, like figuring this stuff out, right? Is Tony Clark from the Players Association? Like, I don't think so. They're already on vacation. They're already feet up somewhere with a cognac and having a good time, probably, for their Thanksgiving week. For people that don't understand, by the way, and I am one of them. So I'm including myself in this group.

But the collective bargaining agreement is just basically that. It's pretty much sets everything for MLB. It doesn't matter if it's salaries, contractual structure, roster sizes, free agency impacts. travel protocols and the new you know the COVID protocols that they're going to have to continue to to consider and take into you know expand and and evolve as as the situation evolves. There's there's a lot here not to mention right all of the other stuff that people want changed about baseball some people want these rather impactful changes to baseball and other people are sticking to their guns about the traditional ways that the game is,

you know, been played over the last billion years that baseball has been in existence. I think about the NFL, though. I think the NFL made some pretty radical rule changes. And people did not like them at first, myself included, right? It took away parts of the game that we really enjoyed, parts of the game that we consider to be essential to watching football. Like what? run through some of those i'm not as familiar with the NFL side of things what have they i know they

changed like like where the kicker kicks off the ball right and so now you basically never like it's like returning the football is actually that's exactly exactly kickoffs they've they've almost eliminated kickoffs it's not to say that they don't happen but they don't have that same impact on the game you know and they also changed you know just a lot of rules in regards to a sport that needed to have its rules assessed. There were far too many people getting injured critically, like getting injured and being paralyzed, getting injured and having brain injuries

and other serious conditions that stem from playing a sport, really, at the end of the day, right? So I think that a lot of the things they did made the game much safer. And I don't really think of those changes that often. Like even as I sit here, You nailed the number one thing that I thought of, which is kickoffs. And it's not to say there hasn't been, you know, tons of changes over the last five to 10 years in the NFL.

It's just, it's hard to think of them now because so many of them are just the way that the rules went as far as the way players could play. You know, how a, you know, defensive linemen could sack a quarterback and all the ways that they, all the things they do now to protect quarterbacks in those situations. These are things that people raged at, you know, yelled at the. the sky over when the NFL made these rule changes. And now you don't hear anybody talking about them, right? So I feel like baseball has things like the designated hitter and other things that people are always going to argue about. But once they just pull the trigger and make it happen, those changes are going to be

easily accepted by people. I don't think that those are the major concerns right now in regards to the collective bargaining agreement. But I do know that a lot of this does involve, you know, things that they want to change about the game at the same time. And this is essentially the time to do it. This is, you know, the time for a new labor agreement is for them to go over almost everything about baseball.

You sent me a text message that said baseball is not going to be the same game in 2022. And that's why this collective bargaining agreement is kind of so important right now, right? Like this is going to impact the game in a big way. It's going to impact competitive balance. It's going to impact the playoffs. there's a lot of things they're going to, you know, set into play here. But they're not even, they're not even at those things yet, Jesse. They're still all of these other barriers in regards to salary and, you know,

how much teams can spend and everything like that before they even get to the potential improvements of the game. You're absolutely right. This really, I mean, as all CBA situations ultimately come down to, this is really about the money, right? I mean, and there's a genuine reason for that here. I mean, the issue is that the players are seeing a situation where over the last several years, player salaries have actually decreased across the game of baseball.

They've actually gone down, not up. And meanwhile, you know, teams are pulling in record revenues from TV deals and whatnot. And, you know, teams don't have an open book. So it's hard for us to really understand how much Major League Baseball teams are making, but just based on the size of these TV contracts, it's no secret that owners are getting richer on this game right now. And players are looking at this situation as, you know, why are our salaries going down when overall the game is becoming is as profitable as it's ever been, right? And so that's the fundamental reason behind all of this is players are asking for some pretty

significant changes. So, you know, we're talking about things like getting to arbitration earlier. As it stands right now, players have three years pre-arbitration where they're under team control, three years of service time, and then they hit arbitration in the fourth year. They want to move that up a year, which I think is a pretty reasonable thing to ask. I think there's a decent chance something along those lines happen. They want to get to free agency sooner. Generally, it takes six years of service time right now. That's sort of the benchmark in order to hit free agency. And these guys don't want to be hitting free agency when they're 30 or 31 and teams are kind of viewing them is, you know, kind of past their prime, right?

That happens a lot for a lot of guys. Unless you break the league at 21 or 22, it's hard to hit those six years of service time while you're still in your prime, right? Not to mention the fact that teams have that ability to manipulate the start of your career when you come up from the minor league. So that six years might be seven years, could maybe even be eight years, depending on how long they stretch out the number of call-ups and when they decide to actually get that clock started on your major league time. It's a really easy system to manipulate. And on the flip side of things,

the owners don't really like the arbitration process anyway. They want to just do away with arbitration, which for the record, arbitration is awkward. I don't know if people really understand fully what arbitration is. But arbitration, Derek, is where two sides sit at a table with a group of, you know, an objective third party. There's, I think there's three people who help make the decision. Mediators, yes. Yeah, mediators. And basically what happens is the owners, right, the team has a representative who

basically tries to argue why the player is not worth that much. Literally right in front of the player and their agent, most likely they're both there, right? It's tremendously awkward. Like, could you imagine. I would love that job. That would be such a great job. I would feel like you could just unleash. all of all of your stress in life on this player ladies and gentlemen of the court today sir it's

not a court i know it's not a court uh anyway ladies and gentlemen of the court i would like to address how christian walker has been ass over the last year let's do it first let's look at this batting average uh everybody turn page three in your pamphlet of why i think christian walker is bad at baseball now right like it's what a terrible like what a terrible experience to be a part of as a player where you just have to calmly and quietly sit there while someone drags your season through the mud and says all the reason why you're not worth the amount of money that you should be i'm with you it's a ridiculous process and yeah most of the time it seems fairly unnecessary because it doesn't seem like uh a lot has shifted it doesn't seem like we're we're not talking about millions of dollars a lot of

times usually it's a it's a small amount by comparison yeah right yeah so it's go go ahead Derek no I was going to say it's I could see how that's something that just more so than more so than anything else just seems like a ridiculous part of the process right like you agree to pay X amount of dollars over the life term of the contract right if if contracts were just simpler in baseball where you could reach objectives. And if you don't reach the objectives, you get paid this amount. If you do, here's your bonus. Here's your bonus. There's your bonus. Right. You got 100 RBI. We get paid an extra $3 million this year. You got, you know, 40 plus home runs. There's your extra, you know, two mill or whatever, right? Like that kind of stuff seems to make it easy. And it makes it

clear cut. It gives guys an objective. I feel like it dangles the carrot in the appropriate way. and gives, you know, players an objective to reach, right? And again, doesn't pay them this outright amount to just play baseball good or bad and get paid a whole bunch of money regardless of if their game, you know, slides off over two or three years into their long-term contract. I know it's not that easy, though. It's like gambling. It's like anything else.

Sometimes it's set a certain way because they know exactly. how to, you know, keep these guys kind of under the thumb of the teams, right? And they know how to do certain things that the players or even sometimes the agents can't necessarily predict how things are going to go, you know, for these guys and their performance over the years. I'm glad you brought up agents because that's another big piece of this. The issue with doing away with arbitration from the players' perspective, at least one of the issues, is there like, I like my agents.

Like I hired my agent and we have a good relationship. And if arbitration is no longer a thing, I don't need my agent anymore until I hit free agency, right? Like the agent's role in those early years is to negotiate an arbitration. That's the reason they're there. And if there's, you know, an objective system based on numbers where arbitration is no longer necessary, then agents sort of become obsolete, at least until a player hits free agency. So that's an issue from the player's, perspective, the players want an opportunity to negotiate their salaries and determine what they're

worth. And so it's weird because the players in a way are really the ones advocating for this ridiculous process where they have to sit there and listen to people talk about how they're not worth what they say they are. But that's the situation right now, Derek. And I mean, I could go on. There's just a lot of areas where these two parties are really, really far apart. and there's just no way that this gets resolved in the next nine days. You've said that the lockout is inevitable, but you've also said that a work stoppage is not likely. I wanted to get.

Well, a work stoppage in the sense that there is a work, a work stoppage is inevitable in that baseball is going to shut down. Correct. In the lockout situation, right. In the lockout situation, then there can be no further transactions. There can be no further free agency pickups or trades or anything. anything like that that occur, right? So I get that, but you don't think that there will be a delay to the season. Right. Yeah, both sides have a very strong incentive to make sure that we start this

season on time. There may be an issue with spring training. Pitchers and catch-rues reporting a little late. Yeah, I think there might be some contractual agreements with how many games of spring training have to be played. I don't know if they can just kind of say, all right, we're only playing 10 games of spring training this year and they were going into the season. I don't know if that can happen. So I think between February 1st and February 15th, that's what Jeff Passon wrote within the last week or so about this situation. That's kind of the consensus.

People seem to think this will be resolved by then. But what that means, Derek, is that between next Wednesday and the beginning of February, there won't be any free agent signings. There won't be much of anything that happens, which for one is going to make our podcast really interesting because I don't know what the heck we're going to talk about when there aren't even transactions happening. But that's why we keep you around, Derek. You're creative enough that we always wind up with something.

Jesse, Jesse, let's not forget. Let's not forget during the off season, during the regular season, it's still always tank season. It's always tank season to fall back on. I'm wearing a tank right now. It's tank season. It's beautiful here. How do we have that graphic still loaded right now?

I don't know what to tell you. I'll not tell you it's ready. There's a button I press and it goes at any time. It's just, it's, it's an emergency kind of situation. We have a speed dial. Yeah, I got it. I got it. I got it queued up at all times.

But yeah, no, I mean, I don't know. And I don't know what baseball is going to do if there is any kind of delay to the season. As it stands from the day that the labor deal ends, pitchers and catchers report literally two and a half months later, right? Like, we're talking about February 15. is what pitchers and catchers report. So they don't have a lot of time to work this out. That's why they got to get this done.

I mean, they got to try to get it done by then so that the whole schedule doesn't get pushed back. And that's the point when you'd risk actually losing games. And neither side wants that because that means both of them miss out on money. So obviously they have a pretty strong incentive there. Especially spring training. We talked about how lucrative it is, how packed it is. I mean, people can't wait for spring training,

despite the fact that they could have. have had a very, very fun spring training, very inexpensive spring training light during the Arizona Fall League as we told people. But, uh, you know, now we got to wait a couple more months. And the problem is we might have to wait even longer than that. And I, I really hope that's not the case because again, as we discussed on yesterday's podcast, I'm not going to beat it up again. I just don't think baseball is in a position right now to be, uh, you know, expecting people to hang around and wait for them. I think that there's just too much other stuff going on.

There's too many forms of entertainment. Nobody can keep up with their streaming watch list, you know. That few people have finished both Ted Lasso and Squid Game and I applaud you if you have, but I'm just saying there are a lot of things out there. There's a lot of alternatives for entertainment out there now, more than ever. You know, so baseball just needs to be very weary of that, both. the owners and the players association. But, you know, we're going to talk about some of the stuff that we might see next season.

And then we're going to talk about some of the stuff that we want to see next season. But what we want to talk about right now is Turkey. You want to talk about Thanksgiving. And we want to talk about the Draft King Sportsbook app being the official sports betting partner of Thanksgiving. No, that's wrong. They're the official sports betting partner of the NFL. I don't know holidays could do that. You know, right?

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New customers only, eligibility restrictions apply. See draft kings.com slash sports for details. Jesse, what do you want to see baseball change? I know, I know what I want to see. But let's first start off with what we could see, right? There's a lot of contractual salary stuff. I know that there could be a soft cap, or I think they have a soft cap now. They could implement a bigger luxury tax or all sorts of things to try to get teams to stop spending so much more money than other teams. But what do you think that we will see as part of this new labor deal? Not necessarily what we want to see, but first what we will see.

It's hard to say. I mean, as I wrote the other day on the website, I mean, there's still a lot of negotiation to happen. So honestly, the proposals that are out there right now are probably not going to be very similar, if at all, to what the final situation is. But if nothing else, they're pretty fun to look at and just kind of see what kind of madness, especially the owners are cooking up right now. The owners have proposed some bizarre things, Derek. So they've proposed that you hit free agency at age 29 and a half.

So it doesn't matter when you come in the league. If you enter the league at 28th, you become a free agent at 29 and a half, no matter what. And if you come in the league at 21, you become a free agent at 29.5. So there's some. Yeah, that's pretty weird. Yeah, check out my article for all the specifics of how that would affect the Diamondbacks. It'd be pretty strange. You would miss out in a big way on team control over a guy like Josh Rojas.

I think it was three years fewer team control over Josh Rojas because he came in the league at 26 years old. And so he's going to hit 29 way faster than he's going to hit six years of service time. So that would be a huge, huge difference. there was also a proposal honestly all most of what we know is from is from the owner's side well i guess my question is why why would the owners want that why would the owners want them like why would they want that 29 cap i think it i guess it's sort of uh i guess it's sort of a trade-off where like a lot of players most players will hit free agency sooner so they're saying all right, let's do this and that's going to, you know, that's going to make the players association

happy, right? Because most players will reach free agency sooner, right? The flip side is that, and the players disagreement with this is that most of the biggest moneymakers in free agency are the guys who get there at 27 or 28, right? Corey Seeger and Carlos Correa, right, those big name guys, those guys aren't that old yet. So they're younger, they're more exciting. They right market sooner. Right.

So the guys who make the most money would get to free agency later on when they're not going to make as much. And so the player's disagreement here is like, yeah, sure, you know, maybe most players in this scenario would hit free agency sooner. But the biggest money makers are going to hit free agency later. And they're the ones who ultimately set the market, right? The market is built from the top down. You know, what is Carlos Correa worth?

And that helps us determine whatever. everyone else is worth. Right. So, so that's, that's something that's been, that's been thrown out there. The player side of things,

we haven't heard quite as many specifics as far as what they're interested in. I mentioned the arbitration thing. There's some other competitive balance, things that they're interested in, in introducing. But from the owner's side, another thing that they threw out, which is especially interesting for the Diamondbacks,

is a salary floor, which is kind of a strange concept. but they threw out the idea of a $100 million salary floor where teams have to spend that as a minimum. And it's unclear what the penalty would be if you don't or exactly what the specifics are there. But what do you think about that, Derek? What do you think of baseball not having a salary cap, but having a salary floor? It shows how ridiculous they are with their spending money. I think a salary floor is a attempt at collective bargaining or not collective bargaining,

competitive balance, right? Trying to make sure that these teams don't just literally tank with their roster because they can't actually tank. It's too long of a season. But they can pay people very little and they can put out a very poor team on the field that isn't going to do very well. And they can do that for a number of years. That's the Astros blueprint, right?

The 100 plus season or 100 plus loss seasons for three years. years in a row to acquire as many top picks to your farm system and as many just pieces as you humanly can that are young, you know, pieces. That's something that the Diamondbacks are going through right now. You know, they, I don't think they thought this season was going to be that bad actively. I don't think that they tried to field a team that was going to lose a hundred games. But that's what, that's what the result was, right? So I get it because the Arizona Diamondbacks spent close to what like 20 million dollars less than a hundred million so by the end of the season it was pretty low i think they started at 96 million so i'm guessing you just i think they're around

84 million yeah right right like you can shed a contract or shed contracts right throughout the year but right like you said if you if you drift below 100 million do then you get penalized in some way right Well, my question is like, what do we do with the pirates? I believe the pirates spent 45 million last year. So like the pirates would just have to go out and sign like, I don't know, like that puts them in a particularly difficult spot because you can't just sign, you know, you can't just sign in a one year deal, you know, a guy who's going to fill up that much salary space.

If you have 55 million to spend, you're going to have to bring in some guys on some big multi-year contracts that you're not going to, right? Like if someone has that higher than average annual value. Right. That's what they're trying to, trying to force teams to do is to not let these franchises that want to just kind of do it. Like Pittsburgh's much different than Arizona.

Again, it's kind of like the position that Colorado Rockies are in. Pittsburgh is still going to pack that ballpark. People love coming out to that ballpark. I don't know. I mean, I've never been to a game in Pittsburgh. I don't know if they pack out. They don't. They don't. When they're very bad, they do not.

I will say that. They're usually pretty bad. But no, that when you see shots of that ballpark, even when they are bad, I mean, they might have a similar problem that the Diamondbacks have, that there's a lot of opposing fans coming out to watch their team play the Pirates, instead of it being this big support for that type of a franchise that's been bad for a while. However, it doesn't mean that a lot of people don't like to come out to that ballpark, because again, much like the Colorado Rockies experience, it's a beautiful night out.

I don't even notice how many people are at games in Pittsburgh because when I see pictures of that stadium, I'm just mesmerized by how amazing that stadium is. Just that just that view behind them, right? It's perfect, right? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think that teams do need to do a better job. However, it was kind of like.

like the looking on the bright side for the Arizona Diamondbacks. I could be mad that they didn't spend more money. But if they did and they were still this unsuccessful, what was the point? It was just money kind of thrown down the drain. Again, a team like the, I hate to keep throwing mud on their name, but a team like the Padres are very exciting.

And they spent a shit ton of money. And they still did not make it close to the playoffs because that's baseball, right? You have to find the right piece. You can't just throw money at something expected to work. You have to have a cohesive team. And obviously we saw with some of those certain things that took place in the dugout, they did not have very much cohesion on that team.

I'm sure the losing impacted those feeling strong. I'm sure there was a lot of frustration with that team. Their expectations were very high and they didn't live up to them last season. Who knows them? They have all those guys locked under contracts. and I think they're still got a good chance to have, you know, all of those expectations from last year fulfilled next year, you know, but we'll see.

I know that this collective bargaining agreement could change the game in a couple of ways that some people expected to. I know that the universal designated hitter has been talked about. I know playoff expansion has been talked about. And I know reduction of game length has been talked about. These are all things that I don't, I don't know at times if one is going to impact the other, right? Playoff expansion and moving that salary floor up,

that could solve some of the, you know, competitive balance issues we have in baseball. Just having more teams be able to make the playoffs and having, you know, more teams have to spend money. You never know when a team is going to be an unlikely, you know, 110 game winner like the San Francisco Giants were this year. But I just don't know if at the end of all of this, we're going to see all of these changes in baseball based on the fact that people still want things to stay the way they are instead of trying to change this game to gain some more traction, to make it more interesting. You know, just to get more people into baseball.

Right. I'm a big fan of reduction of game link. Let me tell you. I can't stand three hour plus baseball games. and it felt like every single Diamondbacks game I watched this season or was in attendance for was three hours plus. Those Arizona Fall League games, Jesse, let me tell you, when I looked up and we were an hour and five in and we were in the seventh inning, let me tell you. I wanted to go hug every umpire player on both teams, you know. Well, wait, I want to ask you because I think if I'm not mistaken, I believe they use the pitch clock.

I think they use the 15 second pitch clock. You use the pitch. What was that like? Did you enjoy the pace of the game? Did you notice or was it not even really noticeable? It just moved faster. That's all. It just moved faster.

And that's it. I think for me personally, I chalked it up to these being younger guys and not, and it not being as important. So guys aren't going up there. They're not arguing with the umpire about balls and strikes. As a matter of fact, the couple of times we did see guys argue balls and strikes.

You know, because most of these people out there watch of the game or like retirees and stuff at 135 on the weekday, right? They're yelling at the kid like, go sit down, it's an NFL game and stuff like, what are you doing? You know, argue balls and strikes here.

None of that matters here. Go sit around, you know. Right, right. So there's that kind of attitude about those games, right? But I mean, it's kind of a pleasant attitude to have where everybody's like, shut up, stop your belly aching and go into the dugout, right? Like, if baseball,

maybe was a little bit more like that. We wouldn't have these long games. The umpires were still checking players' gloves, the pitcher's gloves after the inning. So all of that stuff was still going on. There was no change to the regular process as a game goes. It just things just move faster, you know, and you don't have, you don't have them doing,

you know, card matching games in between innings, and you don't have the legends race. And you don't have all of this stuff, right? So it's like, I like some of that stuff. I don't want that stuff to go away, but without it, there's no actual pause for those things to finish up so that then they could keep playing baseball. They'll just get out there.

And as soon as, you know, everybody's out in the field, they take the field and they play and someone yells, let's go and they go. Right. So it's like the pace is just better. And I feel like all of that stuff in TV timeouts is what impacts the game slowing down more than the guys wanting to get back out there and play.

You know, I, I didn't see guys taking a long time. Like a guy literally just struck out. He went out, got his glove, ran back out there. Was that back out on the field in like, you know, 30 seconds? So sure. I just know personally, I don't root for the Diamondbacks to win anymore. I root for sub three-hour games as a member of the media. That's all I root for.

When you see me fist pumping in the press box, it's not because the D-Backs won. It's because we went 245. That's why. That's why. Yes. Oh, man. I might be able to still go hang. out with my friends tonight at the bar that they were at.

You know, that kind of thing. But baseball's average game length did increase this season. I think it was three hours and ten minutes, which is pretty significant increase. Yeah. It's honestly, I don't know. I'd have to look into that more because they're, I mean, they're doing things to try to make it better, right? The extra innings rule doesn't seem to be having a huge impact at the end of the day.

And, and I mean, they've obviously made changes in the bull. right lefty specialists are in a sense kind of a thing of the past with the rules there so they're trying but things so far just haven't really been haven't really been that effective and that's coming from the league side the players don't really care not much about the length of a game from what i can tell but the owners are interested in trying to in trying to reduce game length and they're also the ones responsible for playoff expansion i don't think the players want playoff expansion but The owners, of course, are interested because, you know, playoff expansion means more playoff games.

It means more cities involved in the playoffs, which ultimately means more revenue for the league. And so that's sort of their motivation there. So a lot of these things come down to money. I mean, at the end of the day, but I'd like to think that there's some bits and pieces here that we can truly just decide as baseball fans, right? Like what is best for the game rather than just what is best for the game rather than just what is best for for you know our wallets along the way but i'm probably being naive and thinking that's ever going to happen so jessie jessie from 2019 from 2019 which is when they implemented the three

batter minimum reliever for relievers yeah you know last season they did um they uh implemented the clock right uh yeah like the in between innings clock in between innings clock right it's not a It's not it's not like you can actually get, but, but they have a giant red clock counting down that tells you when it's time to play the game, right? Right. So all of these things tried to cut down the time of the game. Jesse in 2019, the average game time was three hours and five minutes and 35 seconds. In two seasons, it's up almost five minutes in average per game. I can't even understand this. In two seasons from 2019 to 2021, it is now three hours, 10 minutes, and seven seconds. my God.

I don't know how we like, why is that? I don't. I don't know. I don't know. It doesn't make any sense. You know, it doesn't make any sense. Is that in 2019, it was 305.35. In 2020, it was 307.46.

That was the pandemic season, Jesse. There were no fans in the stands. There's no reason for it to take longer. There is zero reason for it to have taken longer in that season than in 2019. It doesn't make any sense. It's the only thing that can account for that is like more extra innings games and such was played. You know, that's the only thing I can think of that would what would cause the average time to go up like that. But holy crap, man.

Four years ago, Jesse, four, not four, 40, 40 years ago, the average MLB game was two hours and 33 minutes. 40 years ago. Wow. The average game was two hours and 33 minutes. That's pretty wild. I mean, I guess it's probably because 40 years ago you didn't have, you know, so many specialized relief pitchers and starters went deeper into games. So that's definitely a big part of it.

But I mean, that's, I mean, that is a catastrophic. I mean, an enormous difference, right? Like, there's no way that just a few pitching changes makes up 40 minutes in a baseball game. So there's bigger, there's bigger issues here. And that's a big concern for the league is we want to make sure that the product we're putting on the field is something that fans really enjoy. can get behind. So that's a big, a big concern for them. So

I don't know. I think the last thing here is the DH, right? And the DH I think is pretty likely to happen. So for all of you. Everybody wants that now. And that's another thing that could impact, right? Like how many times they have to swap the pitcher out during the game to have

for those matchups, right? Which is something I actually like about the strategy of baseball. I like late innings when your pitcher's doing well or relievers doing well, but you have to take them out because you need that extra bit of offense. I think that is a part of baseball that I love, but I'm willing to sacrifice it for shorter game times, Jesse. I'm done with all of this because we've talked about the average pitcher batting average

and all of that stuff, you know, and I get how bad relievers are and I get that. But that's, again, that's part of the strategy I like. You essentially have to figure out how to go around these guys like a game of chess, you know, and generates. some offense if you need it when you might have a pitcher that's doing extremely well, but can't do, you know, lick at the plate, right? Right. But I don't know, man.

I mean, I'm ready at this point just to move in that direction. I know that higher scores interests people, even though that's not a big draw for me to baseball games. But, you know, again, if we can do anything to improve what people dislike about the game of baseball and make it better and make it more fun for fans to come out, then I say, let's do it. Right. So if a designated hitter is going to really impact the league and increase offense

and get people more excited about, you know, that long ball situation, then let's do it. Yeah. The Vbacks would also benefit from the whole VH thing because they have a number of positionally challenged prospects coming up through the system. You know, Seth Beer,

Andrew Young, maybe Buddy Kennedy, some of these guys that, where you're going to play them defensively is a little dicey, and that would certainly help them out. All right. Well, you can get all this great information about the collective bargaining agreement and how this could impact the debacks on go phnx.com.

Check out Jesse's article on it. Become a member. You can get an annual membership, which will get you a free t-shirt. Go over to the coyotes or the deback or, excuse me, coyotes of the sons. Check out their additional offers because you might just get more than just a t-shirt if you go through them. But definitely check out the PHNX Locker. our t-shirts are incredible i will be wearing them all week long i decided to go with this number

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But we appreciate you guys for doing that. If you are a member, we thank you so much. If you're not, remember, we also have discounts, buy one, get one T-shirt offers, our members-only Discord, all other things that we can get you into here to become part of our family and to chat with us and get away from all that BS on social media. But I'm going to give you some BS right now, Jesse. I want to talk about the things. I know these things aren't going to be part of the collective bargaining agreement, but I want to talk about some things that I would like to see as part of the collective bargaining agreement. Okay. First of all. I've seen your list, Derek.

I need I need some explanation on a lot of these things. All right. Oh, let's go ahead. Top of my list. Top of my list. Stop of my list. Stop of my list. Stop TV blackouts forever. Right. Okay.

That one makes sense. I think that's something everybody can get on board with, right? Yeah. I get it. Stop, you know, the TV blackouts. It doesn't do anything to help the game. It's unfair to people that want to watch, they want to get a TV package. They want to order MLB, you know, extra innings.

They want to do this stuff. And then you guys tie their hands and make it stupid. You guys make it restrictive. You make it hard to watch their favorite team, which is what you claim that they're supposed to be doing when they get this kind of TV package. So stop. Knock the shit off. Stop.

Fans in Las Vegas can't even watch the Diamondbacks when they have part of their package. If they're too close geographically, it's absurd. So knock that shit off. I want rain delays gone, Jesse. Just get rid of rain delays all together. Explain this one, Derek. Like, so when there's lightning, like, catastrophic lightning in the sky, you're just like, eh. Okay.

You just play through it. All right. Well, it's not a metal bat, Jesse, but fine. I will say if there's catastrophic lightning in the area, maybe we'll delay it a little bit. But some of these just downpours, I want this game played through it. I want slip and slide baseball. I want guys, you know, diving. And I want balls hitting the infield grass and just staying there, you know, not rolling.

I just wanted to hit the grass and just. That's where they are now is right there. There is something that would be enjoyable to see the players, like, just kind of having to deal with the elements a little bit. It's very, it's probably very unsafe, and that's why this is never going to happen. But it is amusing. Yes.

Hey, hey, am I trying to get my team that has a home stadium with a retractable roof and advantage? Sure. Yes. Sure. That doesn't matter. Here's another one I feel like we can all get on board with. This one isn't so weird.

Can we just stop this RBI's? shit. It's runs batted in. So I think we need to adapt a universal usage of RBI, period, as a singular, as a plural. It's RBI. It is RBI, Jesse. I don't disagree with you, Derek. I just don't know that. 50 RBI. I just don't know if that needs a RBI. Yes, just put it in the collective bargaining agreement. Too many people have a say in this. Do you know how many editors have changed my RBI to RBI's? I hate it every time. Unless I'm saying rib-eyes, and when I say rib-is, I mean the word rib-is and not RBIs. I do not want you adding a goddamn S on to the end of my terminology in my article.

So what does this look like in the collective bargaining agreement? If any individual in an organization says it wrong, then they immediately get a, you know, they immediately get penalized like $5.5. No, 75 bucks. I'm not trying to make it crazy. I'll tell you, if you get hit for a $75 penalty for using RBI's, never going to forget it ever again. Well, some of these guys who make like several million, they might not.

I think you're going to have to up your penalty a little bit. Whatever. We'll see what happened. I mean, first offense, $5,000, second offense, 75. How about that? Okay. All right. Most importantly, Jesse, we need to ban the wave, okay?

And when I say ban the wave, I mean ban the wave. Like, if, I'm not saying everybody that does the wave needs to be ejected from the ballpark. I'm saying that they can find that rap scallion, that trouble maker that started it and ejected for the ballpark. Okay. Okay. I'm saying we do the same thing with fan interference, right? If a fan interferes with a ball, you know, we go down.

We have a pleasant conversation, but it's an unfortunate conversation. They understand what they did wrong. We understand what they did wrong. And they are gracious most of the time about leaving without security having to arrest them. I am just asking, and I don't think it's too much for them to do this. same thing for the guy that started the wave. That's it. I'm just trying to envision all the poor, like,

guest services employees at Chase Field. Like, just constantly going. I'm like, that's that guy. 118 D row 32. No, no, in the white hat. That guy, there he is. Yeah, that's him. Get his ass out of here.

No more wave. I ain't having it. I think you just have to make this happen yourself. Do you know how many people have torn their rotator cuff doing the wave, Jesse? It's an unsafe practice and people shouldn't do it. It's a stupid thing. I think we should just take it. We should just take it upon ourselves, Derek.

Instead of sitting in the press box next season, let's just go out and let's just find all of the wave. Exactly. I'm with it. I'm with it. I'll get like wave hunter shirt or something. I'm going to find you. Ban the wave.

There's it. I feel like there is a T-shirt idea in there somewhere because that's something that true Diamondbacks fans are all on board with. Ban the wave. Arizona Diamondbacks A, right? The A in the middle of the band, ban the wave. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, we hit it.

We hit the nail on the head with this one. But you guys, thank you guys so much for watching and sticking through us. You can send us your ideas. We want to know what you want to be included in the collective bargaining agreement. And remember, you want Dutch brothers. back, it's in the CBA. You tell me, and we'll get it in there. All right. The Diamondbacks listen to this podcast, so we'll see what we can make happen. But don't forget, our code on draft Kings is PHNX. That'll get you that free $100 in free bets instantly on your Thanksgiving day games for betting just $1 on any team.

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