PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Can Diamondbacks stay afloat waiting for Montgomery & Rodriguez?

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

Reinforcements are coming for the Diamondbacks starting rotation, but can the Snakes trust their young arms to perform against some tough opponents? We are joined by fellow snake aficionado Dalton Feely from Jomboy to discuss how he became a fan of the D-backs, his predictions for the season and for Derek’s lifespan, and what worries him about Arizona’s chances of making it back to the World Series. We also discuss our first MLB Power Rankings of 2024 and why the Oakland Athletics moving to Sacramento is bad for everyone who loves baseball.An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to Suns Takeovers, Coyotes & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://gophnx.com/events/Factor Mealkits: Use code PHNXDBACKS50 to get 50% OFF your first Factor box and free wellness shots for life with any active subscription at https://factormeals.com/phnxdbacks50Arizona Lottery: Visit http://www.AZAdventure.com for more information on how you can take an adventure with the Arizona Lottery and for a chance to win $1 million in cash and Arizona travel prizes! PrizePicks - Download the PrizePicks app today and use code PHNX for a first deposit match up to $100! Pick more. Pick less. It’s that Easy!Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Empire: Schedule a free in-home estimate with Empire Today! Receive a $350 OFF discount when you use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See https://empiretoday.com/phnx for details.Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Circle K:  Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: OGeez! is not your average cannabis-infused gummy. Head over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Someburros: 20% off your order of up to $100 when you use code PHNX at checkout for the whole month of March at https://www.someburros.com/When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome in and ski to you all. This is another edition of the PHNX D-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX. This is my vice mayor near Thundercstick, the one and only Jesse Friedman. And of course, we are going to be joined here shortly by one of our favorite Diamondbacks fans. But Jesse, what are you doing with yourself on an off day for the Diamondbacks? Do you even know what to do with yourself? I don't know.

I was like kind of looking forward to it because I've been working entirely too many hours. over the last week and a half. But now that it's here, I don't know what to do with myself. I bet you drove to Chasefield today by accident. I did. Yeah, I drove into the, I pulled up to the Chasefield garage. There were no parking attendants. I had no way to get in.

And then I realized that we just have a show today. And there's no actual Diamondbacks baseball happening. It's a sad day, Derek. It is a sad day. And it comes after a sad loss that we would like to forget. But we're going to probably talk about some more. And we are going to talk about it with our guest and somebody who we're a big fan of. It's one only Dalton Feeley from John Boy.

Dalton, what's happening, sir? Thank you so much for joining us. What's going to you? I am so pumped to be here. Thank you, Derek Jesse. Damn dog, baby. Let's go. Yeah, man.

Thank you so much for joining us, of course. It's wonderful to have another snake affixionado in the building. And, you know, we know that you have been promoting our fine diamond backs quite a bit over there, John Boy, along with that guide that was wearing. the half jersey thing that he had going on there that was nuts we were texting before the jake and i were texting before that series and i said you have to be like one of the moms who has the split jerseys because it's your snake so you got to pick and he goes i'm splitting it halfway that's awesome don't i feel like diamond backs fans i mean every baseball fan loves what you guys do at john

boy i've been following for a long time it's it's it's fantastic fantastic stuff But Diamondbacks fans are not used to getting much love from, you know, national shows, national media. It's not something that they're really familiar with. And yet you guys, it's not only you, obviously, Jake. It seems like there's a lot of snakes people over at John Boy relative to like other national outlets. How did this start? Like, how did you become a Diamondbacks fan yourself? Where do we trace this back to?

So when I was really young, like this is like the early 2000s, the mid-2000s, I was. a young kid love the purple and teal love the big unit randy johnson i was just enamored with a six foot 10 six foot 11 left-handed pitcher throwing nearly a hundred miles per hour and it was just electric stuff uh ironically i'm from new york my my whole family's yankee fan so it's you would think i would be a yankee fan that would be the impression uh that that's not the case um and i just became a dime back fan and then like when i was early teens uh wade my leigh was my guy from MLB draft, Southeast Louisiana University, and then Dimeback's draft home,

has that great rookie season in 2012, and then I was hooked the rest of the way. So I guess, I mean, I guess this past series between the Diamondbacks and the Yankees. I mean, that must have been big around the office for you guys out there. I have to ask, Dalton, what part of yesterday's game from the Diamondback side

like made you the most angry or just like broke your brain the most? There was a lot of chaos happening on here. on the diamond back side yesterday yeah usually we get the good chaos you know the small right right right yeah it's confusing for the other team but i'm gonna say the jace peterson pinch hitting for blaze in the ninth inning was my biggest uh issue blaze obviously had his first for home run earlier in that game they hadn't had somebody get on base and uh since that walk blaze had which by the way was a very poised at bat i think he was down oh two works and he'll gets the walk for us rodon um i think he earned

at that I understand he's been a platoon guy prior to the prodomo injury, but I would have given him a shot in that situation and no one's predicting the predomo injury. You can't predict injuries. That stunk. But I think you let Blaze hit there and the domino effect wouldn't have happened at that point. This is no disrespect to Jace, but I feel like, I agree with you and I feel like Blaze has done more to prove that he earned it, at least in that moment, at least right now in this period of time with the way he's been playing since you know spring training started his entire performance during spring and even the way he's played so far this season is it just it felt very much like he at least deserved that that spot more than what you had as as an option right and again

that is it's no slight to jace it's just felt like you know why not just give blaze a shot in that in that situation oh 100 percent i mean the guy had what the second highest average in spring training of all major leaguers at that point. He played, he's been a leasing so far since spring training. Let the kid get a shot. I mean, I personally was fully expecting Scott McGuff to come through in that, in that situation. And to be fair, that pitch was outside. Yeah, no.

He touched on this on our post game show yesterday. Scott McGuff clearly has, you know, one of the, one of the better eyes on this team from a hitting standpoint. He wasn't wrong. He knew. He knew that was outside. Home plate on part. It was a bit of a bit of a rough day for him.

I did want to see him. walk off the Yankees that would have been that would have been one of the greatest stories ever foul ball he hit he slaps one down the yeah and i'm like oh my gosh this could be like a double the winning we got it we got a dog at the plate we got a dog yeah i will say um it was a great i mean it was a sloppy series to begin with but i think the bright side out of it out of it though we only won one of three was that the yankees is supposed to be one of the best teams in baseball this year and we're this up-and-coming team still even though we made the world series last year. And we were competitive not playing our best ball. So I think that's a bright side to take

something from that. And the Yankees were red hot coming in. Like we kind of said obviously the Diamondbacks were two to an extent. But the Diamondbacks didn't come off of just sweeping the Astros. The Diamondbacks came off of taking three out of four from the Rockies. And again, no disrespect to the Rockies, just like none to Jace Peterson, but they're definitely not the Astros. And so for I felt like for the Diamondbacks to kind of come in, you know, not have that great of a game but still be in the first game of the series and then smoke them like they did in game two like it was a very encouraging sign the results aren't great when everything is said and done but i still feel like what you said they're like they gave they gave it a good uh they gave it a good fight they gave

it a good effort even though a lot of mistakes kind of piled up on them especially in in the finale yeah um it was funny watching that game i was an enemy territory i was surrounded by yankee fans So usually it's not the case. And I'm watching a Snakes fans. I have their allies in the office. You know, getting some texts. But during a series, I was not a friend of anyone, apparently. And they made that very clear.

Well, speaking of that Rocky series, the finale of that one had something special happen where you missed the game, the game they lost. And then you made up for it by sending this tweet out. Damon, if we could get that tweet up. He said he takes full, I take full blame for last night's loss. In return, I'm watching in a full, today and the D-backs will win five to one this afternoon.

Dalton, the Diamondbacks did win five to one that afternoon. So I guess my question for you is, how am I going to die? Because I need to know, I've been trying every time I come across somebody that's psychic or, you know, that, that, that, that, that, uh, can tell the future. I try to get this information out of them. Uh, were, were you even surprised by your ability to predict that outcome of that game there a little bit? Oh, yeah. I'm just, I can't leave that actually happened. The win, I wasn't really like, I knew they were going to win that game.

I thought like if we took two of four in that series, that's not good. It is kind of a disaster. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought we're going to win. Five one was kind of just, you know, let's throw a dart at the dartboard. And ironically, it hit. I guess I've been taking lessons from Trev Fluv when he made that World Series prediction

a couple years ago right on the money. I guess that was rubbing off on me a little bit. And it was a great score prediction, I guess. I mean, naturally, I'm tempted to ask you, like, how many games will the Diamondbacks win? Will they win the World Series? Can we know that? You know that. Surely you have answers to all these questions.

But on a more serious note, it was a pretty big offseason for the debacks, right? I mean, especially at the end, getting Jordan Montgomery on top of all the other additions that they made. And I think that's a big reason why fans are really optimistic right now, even with the series lost to the Yankees, is that Tommy Henry and Ryan Nelson aren't going to be in this rotation for very long, theoretically. You've got Montgomery, you've got Erod, you know, theoretically just a few weeks away. So what were your thoughts about this team's offseason coming in? And what was going through your head just like a little over a week ago when the Diamondback sort of shocked the world by signing Jordan Montgomery, you know, two days before the season started? I'll start with Monty. Because that's like the most recent news.

I cannot believe he got $25 million guaranteed. And that's it. Yeah. I was guessing he would make nine figures over 100. million. I'm shocked that another team that especially a playoff caliber team didn't make that offer because Monty is a pretty durable guy. He's been getting better and better. So it's awesome to have somebody of Monty's caliber join that rotation and a rotation that's got Gallin, got Merrill Kelly. Brandon Fawkes up and coming E. Rod who's hurt obviously right now, but has high expectations.

His ERAs dropped over the last three seasons. I would, the only downside I would say is that we don't have them right away. So we have Tommy Henry still we still have Ryan Nelson but when Monty gets that workload back up it's going to be very exciting to watch and pitch because I think that's a huge boost for the rotation. It's wild to me that we were kind of satisfied with what the diamondbacks had as far as acquiring Erod and the rotation with Ryan Nelson or Tommy Henry in it. But now after both of those guys have started and really struggled in those starts, I mean it almost makes us feel like the diamondbacks kind of might have known this and that might have been the reason for that push for Montgomery despite the fact that we thought they would not spend that

kind of money even for one year that this late in the off season I guess it wasn't even the off season it was basically right before opening day right yeah I it's shocking because we've got a couple surprises in dime back trade and see like the Zach Granke signing when that when that happened to six for 206 I was my remember I was I was in standing in this room I got the alert and I'm like oh my gosh dime backs made a big like a big big move yeah mad bum move which obviously didn't have the same working effect as the granky move but so we've seen some moves in dime back for agency history that's like okay they've made some moves Randy too but that was before uh my time as uh as a in in-depth dime back getting making moves like you know even guri yel we're getting garyl back

Jack Peterson, Gritchick, who haven't seen yet since he's been hurt. It's been a fantastic off season in terms of the moves we got, and I'm super excited to see everyone all together. Once everyone's back, you're not healthy, Monty Healthy. It's going to be huge. It feels like there is a little concern now, though, about getting to that point of when those guys get back. I mean, we were kind of looking at the math on it,

and it seems like Nelson and Tommy Henry both have about three more starts, maybe more than that left in the rotation. Any concerns from you there in regards to, making it, I guess, to that finish line where we do have all of those guys in the starting rotation? A little bit more, I guess more concerned, as you said, now than I did going into the season.

Right, right. I'll start with Tommy Henry because I had more hope going into the year for Tommy Henry than Ryan Nelson. The one thing that gives me hope for Tommy Henry is like last season he ranked in the 89th percentile in hard hit percentage. So he's inducing softer contact, which is great, especially when you have a great defense behind you, too,

who you can trust to make plays. the only thing I always worry about Tommy Henry, he's not an electric pitcher. Like he doesn't register as nearly as many strikeouts. Early in his career, he's never had a season where he's had over a 7K per 9 season. And that's a little worrisome, like a guy who can strike out some badders,

get those whiffs. Hopefully Tommy Henry, if you can give five innings, two runs and pass it off to now a strengthened bullpen, especially when Seawalls comes back, that would be huge. I do have a question about you guys. for you guys for Tommy Henry. Should he use the four seam less and maybe turn into a sinker pitcher?

Because I feel like that four seam, every time I see him throw that fastball, that's the pitch that gets hard, not that curveball, not the change up. That's fascinating that you asked that because I actually asked that to Tommy Henry after one of his spring training outings, just like maybe two weeks ago or something. So we're on the same wavelength here. He didn't really seem like that was something that he had really. given much consideration to. This sinker is kind of a new experiment sort of a thing, something that he's using to really dust left-handed hitters off the plate is what it sounds like. He's trying to

use it inside to lefties. It doesn't sound like he really plans on using it a whole lot outside of that. But yeah, the same thought went through my head because Henry definitely doesn't have, you know, one of those electric forcing fastballs. And a lot of times guys in that situation start throwing a sinker. and, you know, suddenly they're at least dialing up some ground balls. So you're getting a little bit more, a little bit more movement on the pitch horizontally. So, yeah, I mean, maybe you and I should be that, I mean, Brent Strom, like, he's pretty good. But I think, I think you and I would maybe be better at that, Dalton. But, yeah, apparently it's not, at least for right now, I don't think that's something that's in the works.

Okay. We got to ask this. We need to know, we see all the beautiful stuff behind you there. Who's your favorite Dinanac? I mean this year, obviously you talked about your history of loving this team, but particularly this year, who are you really just behind as a fan? Ooh, okay. Going on current, like I like Blaze, especially he's young. I like seeing.

Blaze is great. Yeah, so that's awesome. He just got hurt in front of the IL. Alec Thomas for me. Yeah. And it's kind of a funny reason why he's Corbyn Carol Light, which, you know, very similar to swing. Played very similarly. obviously Corbyn's more of the superstar.

This is going to be such a silly story. As a high school baseball player, I think I resemble if I had to choose someone I played like, it would be Alec Thomas. Great, I would consider myself a great high school baseball defender, had speed, the power. I don't know about that,

but the qualities that Alec Thomas brings to the Diamondbacks is something that I'm like, oh, that's something I would love to bring if I was an LB baseball player. So that he's a guy to me that's like really easy to root for. And obviously him as a person, the energy that he brings is is very electric, but it's contagious is the word of it. Yeah. Yeah.

It's funny. It's funny you bring that up because one of the reasons why I'm a huge fan of Christian Walker is for years I made a creative character in MLB the show that kind of looked a lot like Christian Walker. And so then eventually I was like I just got the real thing in real life, I guess. So yeah, I'm with you on that. He's mashes. and it just like my guy that I played with in the game he mashed.

Obviously last year was an incredible year storybook season a little bit for this Diamondbacks team. Can you take us through your recollection of last year's playoff run, at least for you? Could you actually believe what you were seeing when this team was advancing past, you know, the first round, past the Dodgers and into the World Series eventually? Yeah, I'll start with this early going to the season. I think the over-under was like 73 and a half wins. And I thought this is an easy over. Like I did I think they were a playoff team? No, I'll be, I'll be blatantly honest.

I did not think the snakes were going to make the playoffs last year. I thought they would be better than 73 wins. I guess like 78 to 80 wins, but not a playoff team. Jake, I just have to, I have to stop you there, Dalton, because we had Jake on right before the start of last season. And he took, I guess he took the under. He told us that the Diamondbacks after winning 74 games in 22, He had the D-BACs winning 73 games last year.

So I guess I think Dalton is the new I mean he's the new favorite right now We got to get him an invite to the pool party. He's got to come out here and light Party now I'll protect the pool There we go I am the one thing I'll say with that too is that me and Jake had an argument about earlier in the season last year He had the Giants over the the dimebacks and I'm like Jake the giants are just blah Like, they have every guy that they had was like a six-titter, or not like a rotate, a thumper in that lineup.

But anyway, off of that NLS fight between Jake and I. When we matched up against the Brewers, I was like, I was pretty positive about that. The bullpen was one of the best in baseball since September at that point. The batch were starting to go. I had faith in the top of the rotation. And they line up with the Brewers. They sweep the brewers. and then you face the monsters in L.A., the Dodgers, and I was worried.

The bright side was, and this is a little toxic, we're playing the Dodgers, and I just know postseason success is something that has eluded them in non-COVID years. So I'm like, okay, maybe there's a shock. There's a Cinderella story that could happen. We were doing baseball, streaming the games on JM baseball, John Boy, baseball on YouTube, and the Lance Lynn game was maybe one of the greatest baseball moments of my life. far not one not two it was special yeah four home runs off of lance lynn yeah i live a little brawn me not one not two is absolutely electric i was going nuts and nLCs beating the

phillies come back three to philadelphia twice it's a journey obviously to win the world series but the journey was one heck of a ride it was awesome you you bring up that four home run game and i think for me it might be the same thing i just to tell you my experience I went down. I told Jesse, I'm going to go try to get some some pictures like just closer. Yeah, yeah. You were in the press box. Then you went down. I was in the press box. And the Perdomo, it was Perdomo that's turned off. Right. So it was the Perdomo home run. Right. Happened while I was in like the elevator going down. So when I got off and walked out, you know, the crowd was kind of going crazy and stuff. So I was like, damn, I missed it. Right.

So then at that point, I'm like, I just need to go get as close as possible right now and get myself a picture. and then the other three home runs happened. I have at times when I've been on the pro wrestling podcast that I've done, have talked about how when Dwayne the Rock Johnson comes out and the crowd loses their mind, I could actually kind of feel the electricity they talk about in the air. That is the only other time I have felt it. Like the crowd losing their mind, especially after, you know, the Moreno home run, it was like any, I haven't experienced anything like that in my life.

It was the most electric atmosphere that I've ever been in at Chase Field. And like, it was just wild to look around at the crowd and have so many people have this overjoyed but bewildered look on their face. Like, what is happening right now? Like, everybody was looking at each other with their arms like this. What is going on? And it was, it was amazing. It was very much my favorite moment. I think I've ever been evolved in myself.

Yeah. Last thing for me, Dalton, we're about to unveil. fail are power rankings after the first week of the season, which, I mean, power rankings at this stage of the season, it almost feels silly. But do you, I mean, do you have this Diamondbacks team? Like, are they top five for you? Or they, I mean, I imagine maybe they're somewhere in the top 10. Like, where do you think they rank roughly here as the, as the season gets underway? If we're going like health for health roster constructed as is through one week of play, they're definitely not in my top five.

I would put them closer to nine or ten. I think as the season progresses, my thought would be Monty and Evo being back, Seawall being back, we're in the top five. I think this is truly a potential, like shockingly, 92 win, if not more team, if everything goes right.

But for the time being, I think, you know, like the tigers have played out of their mind right now, still undefeated. Pirates have looked really good. Yankees, as you mentioned earlier, Dodgers are the Dodgers. I think there's a lot of teams early on that have looked, I guess, better and healthier than us. But that said, I still have high expectations going into the year.

I think that depth really paid off pretty quickly for this team, considering that, you know, it was a good problem to have at one point. And now here we are in this situation where they've already lost so many pieces so early in the season. Yeah. I guess that kind of leads me into my final question for you, which is, is there anything that worries you about the Diamondbacks this year? Is there anything particular that you think, you know, might be. might be a roadblock for them this season. The NL West itself is going to be one heck of a dog fight.

I think Jake had mentioned it with you guys and it had told me after like there's four teams. There could be, you know, one team that misses out, even two teams that could potentially miss out in the playoffs. And it's going to be devastating for those teams. I think so our series versus the Padres,

Dodgers and Giants is something to watch for. And I'm not worried about this, but I would like to see Corbyn get going a little bit. He's had a rough first week. The high fastball looks like it's been giving him a little bit of an issue so far. I think that will click, but I would just love to see him hit his first home run. And you're like, okay, we're back. We're good.

He was rookie of the year for a reason last year, and everything will start to roll. He is Dalton Feeley from John Boy. He is the head researcher for John Boy Media and talking baseball. And of course, more importantly, above all, a snake's fan. So we thank you, sir, for joining us. You can follow him at D. Feely 14 on Twitter. I think that's correct. and of course make sure to continue rooting for the snakes young man we need you in that we need you over there at john boy holding it down for us

i do want to say before i go i really appreciate what you guys do as a as a di mac fan on the east coast it's really hard to follow you know to really follow and be in depth of the community and you guys do such a great job with all the coverage that you put out and i love following through with you guys because i feel like i'm a part of it so thank you very much we appreciate you thank you so much for coming through dalton we appreciate it Appreciate it, guys. Thank you. Later, buddy. All right. Well, of course.

I feel like that was a missed opportunity, Derek, because we did discover that the man can predict the future, and we didn't go nearly as far with that as we probably should have. Oh, yeah, no, I know. Well, see, that's the thing is, Jesse, we're kind of giving the show away for free right now on YouTube, and that's, like, paywall stuff. You know that.

Yeah, that's fair. If you want the special, like, supplementary segment where Dalton is willing to field your questions and tell you about the future, that you will have to become a PhD. H&X diehard. That's right. You want, I was going to say,

do you want the lotto numbers? I still call, that shows how old I am. That's two times in a row I called it a lotto. You want the powerball numbers? You want Arizona lottery numbers? Make sure to follow up and become a diehard. You'll get that as free,

or not free, but paid for supplemental content. Of course, really do become a diehard, by the way. We do offer you all sorts of wonderful additional content that you don't get on this show, including articles from Jesse.

Show is from us. We do whole shows, including a game show we did, do not miss out on all of that wonderful stuff. Make sure to sign up today. Get a free t-shirts from phtonxlokker.com and so much more. And of course, this entire show is brought to you by our friends at Factor Meal. Factor has literally been saving the lives of me and Jesse Friedman. I don't know about the rest of you.

You guys might know how to feed yourselves. You might know how to eat or when to eat. We don't. We actually do a very bad job of taking care of ourselves. And luckily, Factor meals have been clutch. I have a like my little catchphrase that I say my wife says I say it every time I take the first bite which is oh my God this is amazing. They're really good Derek. Like I'm being 100% honest.

They're really good. I know. Yeah, I know we're doing an ad. These are incredible. The gap between what I would make at home and the factor meals I eat. Yeah. It's a significant. It's a significant.

I eat like a hamburger and French fries or, you know, chips and a sandwich almost every day for lunch. The only vegetables I eat are the Factor meals that I do pretty much. I'm not going to make myself vegetables. Like, I'm not going to choose to do that. Who does that? But again, I've said this in the past. Factor has these amazing sauces with every single meal. And again, they also like put the meals together for you.

Like I would not choose to get a creamy tomato pork chocolate. That didn't really sound super appealing to me. Yet when I ate it, it was incredible. Yeah. It was incredible. The protein is always on point. Right. It's like if I were to choose myself, I would probably just choose a bunch of the same things.

And the fact that they have, you know, like their chef curated meal, you just pick chef's choice. And then they pick out the meals for you and send them to you. It's great. And there's more than 60 add-on. So it's not just meals. They have smoothies, which are incredible to take with you on the go. I right now am getting their little nutrition shots, which, which is. Jesse is like I'm not drinking that.

I'm not doing that. That's a little too healthy. They are delicious. And let me tell you, I feel better than ever. So it only takes two minutes to heat them up. I think our biggest problem has been finding a refrigerator at times to keep them in, to be honest, because they're not frozen. They're always fresh. And of course, that's what I think sets them apart, right?

So make sure to sign up and save. We've done the math. Factory is less expensive than takeout. And every meal is dietitian approved to be nutritious and delicious. So head to factormeals.com slash PHNXDBax50 and use code PHNXDBax50 to get 50% off. That's code PHNXDBax50 at factormeals.com slash PHNXDBX50 to get 50% off. Also, enjoy some, enjoy baseball with our friends at Bedham gym. They make baseball more fun.

You got a little skin in the game. Like I said yesterday, you had Shane actively rooting for Josh Rojas pitching for the Mariners just so that they would hit the under for them. And they did. And that's the kind of joy you can have in your life with BetMGM Sportsbook. Right now, if you sign up and use our code of PHNX, you can deposit $10 into your newly created account. And if you bet that amount or more, you will get that amount back in bonus bet should your bet lose. You can get up to $1,500 back in bonus bets if the bet loses.

If the bet does lose, your bonus bets will be available once your initial wager is settled. So sign up right now for BetMGM and use that bonus code of PHNX. Place your first BetMGM Sportsbook wager through the mobile app for at least $10. you'll receive $1,500 back up to $500 back in bonus bets if the bet loses. Check out the show notes for full details, and now listen to Shane. Talk about the disclaimer. Bonus bets expire in seven days. One new customer offer only.

Gambling problem. Call 1-800-Gambler available in the U.S. Call 8778-N.Y 467-369-N-369-N-Rexchino-N-N-G plus. Call 1-800-N-Nexap, Arizona. 1-800-BETs off Iowa. 1-8-8102-P-RRRICO offer for new customers only. Subject to eligibility requirements.

Bonus bets are non-wwithdrawable. In partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. See betmGM.com for terms. U.S. promotional offers not available in New York, Nevada, North Carolina, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico. Well, Jesse, we are done with week one. Some up, some downs. But I know we have some takeaways from this first week.

I know one of your first things has been the Diamondbacks having some pretty solid at bat quality. Yeah, yeah. We're just going to run through five things real quick. Sometimes I would put this in an article format that wasn't possible yesterday. So I figured I'd bring them on the show. We'll do it this way instead. So, yeah, my first takeaway from the Diamondbacks first week. is that the quality of their bats on the whole, obviously there have been lapses here and there, right?

I mean, you could argue during moments of that Yankees game yesterday, maybe not the best. But on the whole, quality of their bats has been really good. And I have some nice nerdy stats to help to help back this up. Do I have to wear my glasses? Let's show I bought my glasses. Yeah, you need your game Catholic glasses for this. The Diamondbacks through their first seven games have the lowest whiff rate in all of baseball at 19.2%. Let's go.

For those who are not familiar, that means that WIFRAE is the percentage of swings that result in a miss. So only 19% of the time the Diamondbacks hitters have swung, have they missed? And the next lowest in baseball is the Guardians at 21.6%. So they're more than 2% lower than the next lowest team, which of course, the lower the number, the better in this situation. That's what happens when Geraldo Perdomo is on your team. Haraldo, I will give Haraldo Prado his flowers in this regard. Although Haraldo Pardomo did swing and miss Yesterday a couple of times

Twice in one at bat Twice in one at bat And those were sick Those were his first two whiffs of the entire season Can I give the percentage rate? Can I give the percent? You can, yes, his whip rate 4.8%

4.8% Wiff rate Yeah, that's incredible Yeah, that's wild I mean considering that the next closest guy on the team is Corbyn at 14%. Yeah, 14% is also really good league average whiff rate so far this season the league average is 26.4%.

So the debacks as a team about seven percentage points below that. By the way, by the way, Jesse got really excited to show me this yesterday. I did. It meant more to him than it did to me. But the whiff rate, a lot of these league averages, they don't not change very much from year to year. It's so beautiful. It's like 1%, half a percent. Like it's a fairly standard percentage across Major League Baseball, which is one.

Why if, you know, over the course of 162 games season, your average whiff rate can be substantially lower than that league average. I mean, it just shows how good you are at the dish. Yeah, 26.4 is the league average. The debaqs being in 19.2 is very, very good. Another guy that really stands out to me so far is, obviously, it's so early to really be reading a ton into these numbers. Sure.

But Gino Suarez has a whiff rate of 18.4 percent so far this season, which is well below the league average. And for those not familiar, Gino Suarez has some history with swing and miss. He led the league in strikeouts last year. Yeah. And at least the American League. And yeah, I mean, this would be a big development for him if I don't think he's going to keep his whiff rate this low the entire season. But if he could just cut down on the swing and miss at least a little bit this year.

And not have it be pretty much a weakness for him like it has been in the past. Yeah, because his weakness in the past, the reason he strikes out so much, isn't really the he chases out of the zone a ton. We're going to get to that in a second. His weakness has just been that when he swings, he just misses a lot because his plate coverage is just not particularly good, but it's been a lot better so far this year. He's also been a lot better at spreading his hits around,

and we've seen him spray a lot more singles than we expected it to see. Yeah. It felt like he was kind of a feast or famine guy, but so far what we've seen out of him as a diamond back has been him kind of taking what's been given to him, which we know that that's approach that most of the hitters on this team tend to have. We've talked about Gabby really succeeding with that approach, but it really does feel like that's kind of what, what we've seen out of them early on, which is very good for this team that

kind of needs more guys that can kind of, you know, do what they've done in some of these early games, which is just keep that carousel going. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, we'll see if it's sustainable. I mean, I don't think 18.4% is sustainable, but even if this is just a sign that Suarez has made, you know, minimal improvements in that regard. That would be big news. My other nerdy stat on this real quick is the debacks have the third lowest chase rate in baseball so far at 24.2% league average is 28.1. And that's just exactly what it sounds like. What percentage of pitches outside the zone are you swinging at? The Diamondbacks, as I said, 24.2% the third lowest mark in the league. Last year, they were also pretty good at this. They ranked eighth lowest last season.

So, you know, they were a pretty good team last year in terms of swing decisions as well, but they've been even better so far this year. And I'm sure Damon, of course, will love to hear that Geraldo Prudomo is also right at the top of the list for the debacks in this one. His chase rate is just 16.7%. He has seen 48 pitches out of the strike zone so far, and he has only swung at eight of them. It's pretty good.

It's really good. I mean, the patience is a big key, especially for the younger guys right now, because that's who we're seeing, have patience, right? Corbin, Perdomo, you have in here. blaze with his 18.8% whiff rate, right? Like, most likely not sustainable as the season progresses, but showing that early patience when instead you're typically a little amped

to be out there at the start of the season. Yeah, that's true. You're very excited to kind of show what you're able to do. He's sticking to what, you know, basically got him here, which is, you know, some very consistent at bat. Were you going to say something, Damon? Do you have some perdomal flowers to give? that like as much as I love the guy if he didn't do that if that wasn't stuff that he was doing he would be like objectively bad

this is like that's big of you to admit Damon that's kind of where his value lies I feel like that's some maturity for david dog right in there it's pretty impressive I mean I'm always an honest guy I just like that is where his value lies is that he's like he's a nine hole hitter who sets the the table for your big dogs and then he gets on base and sees a ton of pitches he's also just that that's something he takes some great at bats Even when he does not get on base, he still takes some great at bats, which is one of the frustrating things that we saw, especially in yesterday's loss. A lot of first pitch swings for contact that were pop-ups and, you know,

things like that that you just, especially against Carlos Rodon, you wanted to see them, you know, take a few more pitches, try to extend that, you know, his out and try to get him out of there as much as possible. But the Diamondbacks have been very good at not striking out and walking because they have the third lowest strikeout rate in MLB. get in the seventh highest walk rate. Their strikeout rate is 17% walk rate 10 and a half percent. Both very good.

Both very good. I mean, even their team slash line, 290, 3774.73 with an 843 OPS. Let's go, Jesse. I'm going to guess that one's not sustainable. Shut up. Yeah, I mean, if a team could hit 290 with an 843 OPS for the entire season, yeah, you'd do some, you do some real damage there. Yeah, the offense, I think, has been really,

everything you could hope for up to this point in the season, with the exception of probably Corbyn Carroll, and we'll get into him a little bit more in a second. I do want to talk about Blaze Alexander. My second takeaway is the Blaze is doing the thing. He's come up. He's been everything that you would have hoped him to be. Blaz is Blazzein.

Blaz is Blazin. As Dalton said, he's five for 12 to start his big league career, obviously a very, very small sample size, but he did hit his first big league home run yesterday. And I think I said yesterday, I thought all of us at Batswear against lefties, but I went back and looked and he actually has had three against righties.

He's gone two for three against righties. He's gone three for nine against lefties with that home run that we saw yesterday. And one silent treatment. And one silent treatment. Yeah, that was pretty funny. He like went through the dugout trying to get high fives from everyone. And then, yeah, he told me after the game that it took him a second, but he did eventually realize what was supposed to. You know why?

Because Glaze's personality, which everybody has talked about, is like he's just so, excited he's so amped and it's something that i never want to see changing him but like yeah i can only imagine how excited he was to get back to the dugout and celebrate with his teammates only to have them do that to him it's so great it's so great that they did jody jackson had an incredible video yeah yeah make sure to check that out for sure uh yeah did you just you're not a lot don't call it x i don't want to hear you call it x on here ever again but uh you did bring up corbin carroll uh struggling And, you know, I still feel like even with the mistakes he made yesterday, yesterday was definitely a step in the right direction for him. But it was still grounding choppers.

It was still. It was still wasn't great. I mean, a double was great. The stolen base opportunity was not. And so far, not great. Yeah, I touched on this a little bit yesterday. I have the more exact numbers in front of me now. So he's had 21 batted balls so far this season.

Five of them are pop-ups. That's what we've seen a lot of. recent days. So all of those launch angles of around 50 degrees or higher. So I mean, those are, those are always going to, you know, find the gloves of infielders. He's hit three line drives. Only one of those was 95 miles an hour higher off the bat. I think he's maybe gotten one hit off of those. Believe all three of those liners came in the Rocky series. And then 13 ground balls. And out of those third, like ground balls can go for hits. Ground balls, you know, you're going to ground ball down the line wind up at third base. Those things happen. But as I touched

on a little bit yesterday. A lot of these ground balls have been choppers that, you know, it can be tricky plays for defenders sometimes. Like, you know, sometimes you can find your way on base that way. But generally speaking, it's not a, it's not a good sign from, you know, a batted ball quality perspective. If you're hitting the ball like straight into the ground, that means that you're, you know, you're well over the top. So 10 of his 13 ground balls have had launch angles of minus five degrees or below. And a lot of them are, you know, minus 40, minus 50, minus 60 degrees, balls that are just going straight down off the bat. So, yeah, it's been rough.

As Dalton mentioned, we've really seen teams attack him with high in and heaters, and he hasn't done a great job of laying off those pitches. We saw that particularly in that Yankee series. So there are adjustments to be made, and it's seven games. No one's, no one's all that concerned at this point. But something, maybe Derek's a little concerned, but something to monitor moving forward for sure. Average exit villa right now is 81.7 miles per hour. off the bat.

Yeah, that's, he has, he's only had four batted balls of 95 plus out of the 21. I know, I know they don't get a lot of barrels per, you know, per season,

right? I know the barrel percentage is typically pretty low, but he has zero. And I think that when you talk about the launch angles and everything that's going on with him, that's, that's a lot of it is not getting the barrel on the ball. Yeah.

Yeah, it's been rough. He's a pretty big part of this diamond back team. And yet they still look pretty good without him. And I think that's the thing about this team having so much depth is, you know, again, Lourdes goes 0 for 13 in the series against the Yankees and they still almost won two out of three, right? Did he go 0.13? He went over 13 with a walk. Yeah.

Lordus, especially after being the National League player of the week, absolutely disappeared in the series against the Yankees. Well, we do talk a lot about Lourdes being the streakiest hitter on this team. I brought that up. I brought you up saying that, right? We talk about it a lot. That's how everything averages out. It's like he'll go insane for a week and then it'll have a week. week like this, right? But again, the Diamondbacks are able still to, you know, to still get production

somewhere else right now. And that's the thing about this team. Like, Gino, you know, Catell obviously is continuing to just be Catell. But I mean, it feels like even when Corby is struggling that they're able to get it. And that could be the calling card of the team this season, that they kind of have somebody different doing it every single night. It was a bit of their identity last year, two and even in the playoffs right but two guys that were absolutely incredible have been and continue to be are zack gallon and maryl kelly yeah they've they've been outstanding to start the year i think it's an event in front of me i think it's 24 and two thirds innings and four earned runs between those two guys it's a pretty pretty good way to to start off the year and and uh we did

talk before gallant start on tuesday about some concerning signs with his fastball and it not having the velocity and the life that it used to have. We didn't see the velocity jump up a ton in his start against the Yankees, but it did go from 91-8 to 92-2, which was a pause, obviously a move in the right direction. And in my mind, more importantly, we saw his induced vertical break. It's basically a fancy way of saying the upward ride on his fastball, which is something that has been, that's been a big part of why Gallin's been so good is his fastball so much life. And after being at 16.6 inches of his fastball,

induced vertical break in his first start. That was back up to 17.7 in his start against the Yankees. So that was a very, very big improvement. And signs for me, the gallon is, you know, maybe the, maybe he gets all the velocity back. Maybe he doesn't. But as long as his fastball has that kind of life on it, I think the pitch can still be pretty effective. Meanwhile, Steve Gilbert still doesn't care about vert. No, no, he doesn't. He doesn't. Yeah, I took a lot of flack in the press box for all of my induced vertical break comments. And he'll continue to. And I will continue to.

Probably fair criticisms. But yeah, Gowlin, you know, certainly a step in the right direction. And then Merrill Kelly just doing Merrill things. He's looked great in both of his outings.

I know he made the mistake to Aaron Judge yesterday. But it's hard to argue with what he's done so far. And feeling good about that? I feel pretty good. My bold prediction on this show a little over a week ago was that Merrill Kelly would finish higher than Gallin in Sy Young voting. And the Merrill Kelly's Cy Young campaign is off to a pretty good start, Derek. That's all I'm saying.

Not feeling very good about any of my bold predictions for sure. But, of course, that brings. I mean, Blaze Alexander becoming a household name. That was one of them, right? That one was one. You could argue he's already there. Yeah, he is. Well, he is the talk of like at least the Diamondbacks world, right?

Like you got Dalton talking about him. You got everybody. Don't mention Blaze before he mentioned anybody else. I mean, I think one thing we've, we've grown used to with this team is getting excited about these young guys when they come up. Because in baseball, typically,

it is kind of a bit of a fluke, right? And especially with this team, they've had some guys come up and be very good, both on the pitching end and at a position player end where they can fizzle out, right? Like they get here. They're hot for a minute. It's happened with guys that have experience like Emmanuel Rivera.

It's happened with new guys like Jake McCarthy, right? where they come up and you're just so excited about them and how good they are for a period of time and then they come back down to earth because that's how baseball it does to us. It beats us down. It drags us down. That's what baseball does to us.

But yeah, it's exciting to see someone come up and be able to sustain that level of performance, sustain that level of excitement that we're all seeing in Blaze. And we are very thankful for his presence because that brings us to our final takeaway

from this week. And that is that the Herdomo injury really could put this team in a tough spot. This team has experienced quite a few injuries already this young season. And luckily, nothing seems too drastic or nobody's being lost for extended period of time. But there's still some question marks as to when we're going to get Paul C-Wald back and when Eduardo Rodriguez is going to be healthy and ready to go again, right? So not to mention Alec Thomas injury, not to mention a few other key pieces that the Diamondbacks are missing right now. So luckily, Blaze does make it.

little easier if we do lose Perdomo, but not, it doesn't make it any easier on Damon. And it doesn't make it any easier on the vibes because Perdomo is the one that gets all, he gets them all started, you know? Yeah, I mean, from what we heard yesterday, Tori, Tori called Perdomo day to day for now. He said that he would give a, you know, more of an update once the team gets to Atlanta tomorrow. So we'll certainly be keeping an eye on that. I don't think it's inevitable by any means that Perdomo is going to hit the injured list. but just thinking for a moment, if he did hit the injured list,

the debacks would be in a bit of a bind because you can have Blaze step in and become basically the everyday shortstop. I think a lot of people would be excited to see that. That would be, you know, I'd certainly be curious to see what he would look like in an everyday role. But from a depth standpoint, it would put them in a tricky position. If you look right now in Reno, the diamondbacks don't really have a whole lot of options in the shortstop area. Jordan Lawler, of course, is hurt. He tore a ligament in his thumb and is going to be out for a couple of months.

So he would not be an option to come up and serve as the primary shortstop, the backup shortstop, none of that. They did bring back Kevin Newman on a minor league deal. So he is down in Reno. That would be sort of my expectation that they would just reach down and bring Kevin Newman to the majors. Didn't Newman opt out of his minor league to? Yeah, Newman brought him back, right? Newman opted out. And then, yeah, I guess he re-signed on a minor league deal.

He's, you know, been playing games down in Reno for the Aces. The tricky thing with bringing Newman up is that he is not on the 40-man roster. And the Diamondbacks would be forced to make another 40-man roster move in order to get him on the team, which would be tough. The debacks are, this is a more talented 40-man roster than they've had in a long time looking through some of the guys on that 40-man that are in the minors. I mean, I see some guy named Jordan Montgomery. Like, I mean, he's like a quad A prospect, right? Like, they could just DFA Montgomery. Yeah, I mean, I don't, like, I don't know how likely we're going to see him in the majors this season.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Montgomery seems like, you know, I mean, how old is he, Derek? He's, he's 31 years old and in AAA. Like, all right, end of conversation. Yeah, what do we cut bait on some kid like this, right? No, but it could, I mean, pitch. Pitching-pitching-wise, like you're not going to DFA, you know, not going to move on from Mena or Saul-Frank or Walsden or Walsden or J.

I mean, Pavin-Smith would maybe be the guy at that point, which is something that I, you know, whatever people in the chat are thinking, I think that's something to diamond backs themselves would very much like to avoid. They've called it a good problem to have in the past, but now it seems like it's becoming a bad problem for them involving how many guys they have on the roster, how many bodies they need, and how, you know, the level of health, I guess you could say. Not to mention, you know, making that roster spot for Jordan Montgomery,

bringing, you know, the guys that are currently injured back when they return, Randall Gritchick, there's a lot of questions there to be answered. But there could be trouble ahead for the Arizona Diamondbacks in Atlanta. We do know the Chicago White Sox did beat them one game. So I guess that's encouraging if you want to take something away there. But let's take a look at the probabilities for this series because. P.U. Oh.

Oh, no. This isn't right, right? Is that right? Is that right? I mean, my biggest takeaway looking at this is that Max Fried sucks, man. Like 40.5. Have some respect for yourself. Yeah.

No, Max Reed, he did have a pretty rough first outing. I think that was against the Phillies. But yeah, Tommy Henry against Spencer Strider in game one. Brandon fought against Max Fried in game two. Ryan Nelson against Chris Sale in game three. The problem here, Derek, is that the Braves have had not won. but two rainouts so far. And that's messed with their rotation.

And so we get everybody. And so we get sale more. What is like God damn it. What the hell? The diamond backs had been slated to get the three through five pitchers in the Braves rotation. Which would have been Chris Sale, Charlie Morton and then Reinaldo Lopez. Right. Because of these two rainouts, the diamond backs three through five starters are matched up against the Braves one through three starters.

And yes, the Braves do have a pretty darn good starting. rotation. Not to mention that the Diamondbacks have three more starts this season from Tommy Henry and Ryan Nelson. Most likely we look ahead. Unless Tori does something to change the lineup, things are heading in the direction of that kid. Jesse was talking about Jordan Montgomery making his debut for the snakes on what would appear April 19th against the Giants or maybe April 20th. That's what he said. He said April 19th. Jordan himself said April 19th. But when you look at the schedule right now, Merrill Kelly would pitch on April 19th. So unless Tori moves Merrill to essentially like the third spot in the starting rotation. Yeah, it might have to maneuver a little bit. Because Tori has discussed in the past wanting to go righty, lefty, righty as far as the starting rotation goes. That would allow him to maybe bring Eduardo Rodriguez there at the end of things and then have, you know, I don't know. This rotation is going to be nuts when those guys are back.

But unfortunately, it's going to be a while before we see that rotation all. together. And again, I don't know if we should be concerned about Henry and Nelson at this point. I don't, I don't want to go just completely based on their first starts of the year. But I am going to say that like from what we've seen so far, I'm very thankful the Diamondbacks made their move to bolster their starting rotation because this seems like it might have been an ongoing issue throughout the season if these guys continue to struggle. Yeah, Tommy Henry just, I mean, he looked really sharp for a couple of innings and then he just kind of lost his way. against the Rockies. You know, I still think Henry can be, can be decent, you know, especially against teams like that, you know, the lesser offenses in the league. Ryan Nelson, I mean, the Yankees are a tough. I mean, that's a tough assignment for your first start of the season.

And Nelson obviously really struggled. He threw a whole bunch of pitches. He wasn't able to put guys away, things we've seen time and time again. I am very curious to see whether it's Montgomery who comes back first or Erod. It sounds like it will be Montgomery. but I guess that's not official. I'm very curious to see which of Nelson or Henry the Diamondbacks replace. You know,

certainly seem like Nelson was trending as the winner for that final rotation spot in spring training. They wound up having to put both of them on the roster. I don't know if now when Montgomery or Erod, whichever guy comes back first, I'm not sure it's a given that, you know, Ryan Nelson stays and Tommy Henry goes. Yeah. So we'll have to see how that plays out. A home slice in the comment said this team are just completely different team against opponent's bullpins. That's a fairly accurate thing.

Like lately they have really struggled again. They make the opponent's bullpen look much better, I think, at times than they do. And honestly, that's probably a problem that you could say went back to last year because I remember that being an issue for them at times. Yeah, it was. They really did make opposing teams bullpins just look outstanding. So hopefully that's something that they can get over at least this year. They've been doing very good offensively early, so they've been able to build themselves up a bit of a lead and hold it.

But we'll see. We do have our power rankings here to discuss. But before we do that, we want to let you guys know to check out Heila River Resorts and Casinos because no one does it better. They offer an authentic and immersive experience. I've said this before. I've said this almost as many times as Damon has attempted to leave me out of the boys trips to Heila River Resorts and Casinos. Forget going on a vacation. I hate traveling.

I was going to go to Philadelphia this weekend, Jesse. Really? The part I hated the most was the thought of traveling. I don't like traveling. And in fact, because of the expense, they were going to have me like flying to like New York and take a train to Philadelphia. It sounded awful.

It's Megarin again? Of course it's Megarin. He always gets me into these things. But yes, it's definitely one of those things that I like to take the vacation without all that traveling nonsense. And Heela River Resorts and Casinos is the place to do it. They offer an unprecedented level of entertainment

and their state-of-the-art gaming floor has it all with over 800 slot machines, 15 blackjack tables, and of course, Arizona's largest casino sports books. So head to Heela River Resorts and Casinos with or without Damon and let them show you what next level is all about. You do you at Heala River Resorts and Casinos. Visit play atheela.com for more details. You got anything over there? No? No. You're good?

You're sad still, huh? I'm going to leave Damon alone because he's still in mourning over Erraldo Prodo. well, and he might just change the shot to get more of my knees in it, and I don't think anybody wants that. Of course, we already are seeing. There's just so much leg. It's a lot of leg. I'm not that tall to have that much leg in the shot.

But of course, I do want to thank Desert Financial Credit Union because they got me started on my home ownership journey, and they can help you out as well. For more than 84 years, Desert Financial has been Arizona's largest, most trusted local credit union, and they are dedicated to creating exceptional services, experiences by giving back to the community and providing financial services that make your life. better. Desert Financial, they have financial experts that you can trust and that's something that you can't say about every bank or institution that you put your money with. So look to Desert Financial for checking and savings accounts, mortgages, loans, credit cards, investment options, and so much more.

And when you open a free checking account online, you can get $200 in bonuses. Get started by visiting desertfinancial.com slash 200. It is time, Jesse Friedman, for us to reveal our very first power rankings of 2024. I don't think we even attempted to do like preseason power rankings because we felt that was silly and unfair, right? What's the point? We have no idea how any of this stuff is going to work out until actual baseball games are played. And now that's happened. And there are some surprises in these top 10. So Damon, if you would, can you reveal the top 10 players in major league or teams, I should say, in major league baseball right now? I guess the biggest, the biggest news here is where the Arizona Diamondbacks fall, of course. That's what everybody wants

to know. We have them at number seven to start in our first go through here. That's fair. Yeah. Teams in front of them will run through real quick. Dodgers number one, Braves number two, Orioles number three, Rangers four, Yankees five, Astros six, and then it's the Diamondbacks at seven, Phillies eight, raise nine, and the Cleveland Guardians. Lead baseball and run differential, Derek, after one week, they are plus 28 and have gone five and two. We've got them at number ten. Central teams in both the NL and AL are going crazy, but of course. The Central, the Central Division teams, Derek, they heard the haters.

Yeah, especially the pirates, which you completely left off this list. Yeah, I mean, and the pirates last year, if people remember, the pirates were like, weren't they like 20 and 8 or something ridiculous to start last season? I guess there's something about the pirates that they always seem to, at least the last couple of years, they've gotten off to strong stars. At least they give their fans hope, unlike the Rockies. Yeah, the Rockies, yeah, they tend to nose dive pretty quick. All right.

So these rankings, I think a lot of people would agree with, especially the Dodgers, Braves, and Orioles up at the top. The Orioles might not lose a game in the month of April with their damn schedule. Rangers and Yankees, that's pretty agreeable. He got the World Series champs who have had a great start to their season. Yankees, excellent start to their season, not to mention the fact that they just beat the debacks. They swept the Astros and then they took two out of three from the debacks. Hard to justify them not being bad by, right?

They didn't have a great 2023 season, which made me hesitant to put them up so high. But when you do that against the Astros and then take two out of three against the good D-BACs team, this Yankees team seems a lot better than the one we saw a year ago. Elizabeth's very mad at you in the chat. She says Dodgers at one gross, hard not to argue with the Dodgers being at number one. Yeah, I mean, it's between the Dodgers and the Braves, right? Well, Astros got swept by the Yankees and the Diamondbacks didn't. Explain yourself. Explain yourself.

Oh, my gosh. gosh, the Astros are the Astros. And I just don't feel like I have to say much more than that. Yeah, if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying. And we know that the Astros are trying every single year. Talking about disrespect to the Tigers, though, right? Yeah. Yeah.

I thought about the Tigers. They are 4 and O, but they've also played all of their games against the White Sox and the Mets. And it's, I am open to the. possibility of the tigers being on our top 10 at some point, but I'm going to need to see them play a competent baseball team before I, that's disrespectful. The Mets might be okay. The Astros are two and five, but they did outscore the Blue Jays 19 to two.

Yes. So, all right. The Astros are really good. I just think that they, yeah, it's close. I mean, I'm not saying the Astros are way ahead of the Diamondbacks, but, you know, they made it to the championship series last year like they do every year. I know what you're doing. You're trying to motivate the Diamondbacks.

Correct. Yes. You should just left them off the list. Just disrespected them completely. We know that we know that the majority of the clubhouse. Like when they're traveling, when the Diamondbacks flew to Atlanta yesterday, we expect that they were watching our show as they do every day. We know Jerry P. was definitely, he was watching.

100%. He wanted to see if he's hurt. They all gathered. They all gathered. He was or not, and he needed to note from our show yesterday. Yeah, they all gather around their device of choice, and they watch the PHNXD back show, which today they have an off day, so they're going to be especially dialed in today. I'm pretty sure C5 is Christian Walker. I don't know that for sure, but it could be.

Yeah, I mean, I guess there's some honorable mentions to give out that didn't make this list. I mean, I think that any of these teams could have probably found their way on. The Tigers undefeated. They did play the White Sox on the Mets, though. Yeah, right. So that's like playing the Rockies twice in a row. Again, that's a little disrespectful to the Mets, I think. Although the Mets haven't won a baseball game this year, I do expect them to be better.

Reese Hoskins has wrecked that organization. Correct. Correct. Yeah, number 10 on our list was really tough for me. I went with the Guardians just because of how much they demolished, have demolished their opponents through seven games. Sure. But they did open, you know, with I think it was four games against the A's.

which is obviously a pretty nice way to start the season. But the Cubs are out there. They're off to a four and two start. I'm a little concerned about Justin Steele missing time for them and what that could mean. That was sort of my deciding factor there. The Reds are off to a good start, thought about them for number 10. You know, they certainly could have been there.

The Mariners are another team. They have not started well. They're two and four to start the season, but a team that I still like in the long run. So if they wind up back on this list within a week or two, it wouldn't surprise me at all. Well, we will see how things change. And of course, we got a long season to go.

This is just the beginning of it. But unfortunately, for one team in baseball, even this season isn't joyful. Even this season isn't exciting. And that's the Oakland A's. Like, we know the situation with the Oakland A's has already been terrible. But I don't know if it could have gotten any worse than the fact that Oakland announced that they are going to be moving to Sacramento for two seasons. Damon, did you have that tweet by chance?

This is ridiculous. Oakland A's put this out. Of course, they disabled comments as you kind of have to. I'm going to guess that we took the liberty of including this photo, that the Oakland A's did not. No, no,

that's probably not a photo that the Oakland A's would have attached to a tweet, Jesse. See, that's a fair assessment. The Oakland A's tweeted out. Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento will host the A's for the 2025 through 27 seasons ahead of the team's move to Vegas in 2028. Ugh. What a what a disaster. I mean, this is a shout out, shout out hockey. Shout out local hockey team, coyotes.

This is sort of like the, the Mollet arena of Major League Baseball. Yeah, only they're not taking the coyotes out of Arizona yet. Yeah. But yeah. Did you really? Did you say yet? I mean, I'm just throwing that out there. Who knows what the hell the, the point of this, though, you know, is that this could happen to any team.

Like, do we do we have Will's tweet by chance? Because Will, who I've known for a while, right field will, he's an Oakland A's fan. He tweeted this out. Oh, no, this isn't. This is actually good. Leave this up, Damon, because we found this tweet. And this, I think, this summarizes everything perfectly. The athletics were a charter member of the American League, have nine World Series championships tied for third most, 15 AL pennants, serve as the primary team for 14 members of the Hall of Fame, and have had strong roots in Oakland for 50-plus years.

If this is happening to them, it can happen to anyone. And I think that gives me goose bumps just reading that last part but it is so absolutely true at the end of the day this is a business that the people who own these teams care about the business side of things way more than they care about fans about history about tradition with the Oakland A's going through what they're going through considering the history that that team has this can happen to any team I'm not trying to be apocalyptic I'm not even trying to tie this back to the the Diamondbacks, but I'm trying to say is that when it comes down to it, we know the Diamondbacks are having their stadium issues. And we know that there have always been those swirling rumors around that team.

We know what I just joked about with the coyotes. This stuff can happen to us here in the Valley. And that is why it's important to support these teams. Even if you hate the owner, even if you feel away, if you love baseball, if you love your team, you have to support it. And even then, even then it might not be enough. even then it might not be enough because you might find a document one time floating around. Do we have Will's tweet by chance? Because this was a document that was found.

It's kind of hard to see there because it's just instructions to people at the stadium on handling this situation. There's a discussion here in the comments about basically like staying positive and still trying to provide an experience for, you know, for fans. That's a positive one. But it's the part here that says product that is really concerning, I think, to everybody and especially to Oakland fans, is that they see here that says, if you see anything that says rooted in Oakland, it must be taken down immediately, meaning merchandise, meaning signs, meaning anything, which is a catchphrase of theirs, right? That was a catchphrase the team was using. And they also say, try not to highlight products that focus on the name Oakland. that part fucking kills me Jesse

that they literally had to say stop referencing as much as possible the name of the city of this team and that's that's disgusting it's that's but it's like ah I also get it I understand why a document like this needs to exist

but really can't we do it digitally in this day and age can't we just text like can we email people do we really need to have this printed where a fan could see this and then put it up on the internet because this is just a bad look all the way around And it's a terrible situation that every sports fan should be concerned about.

Every baseball fan should be upset about this. And this is just, it's awful. It's awful for fans of Oakland. These people have had their entire sports history, you know, kind of taken away from them at this point. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the reporting that came out today, this team is going to be called VAs between 2025 and 2027. No. no descriptor in front of that.

No, no description. Maybe athletics is still okay. Yeah, but I get what you're saying. The A's not the Oakland A's, not the Sacramento A's, not the Vegas A's. It's this, it's this, you know, this really weird situation where this baseball team is going to be playing in a minor league facility for three years that holds, I think it's around 14,000 people. And it is, I think, one of the nicer AAA baseball fields, which I guess is a, I guess is

good. I also will just, there aren't many positives to this situation, but I will give the people of Sacramento a shout out that it's going to be pretty sick for a few years for the people of Sacramento. To have Major League Baseball games

in their backyard. Stop it. Stop it. I'm not trying to say that any of this. It was going to be like cool spring training games and the people came for him, Jesse. Look, I know what you're saying. And it is still that the team is playing. If you live in Sacramento, you you could now like go watch mooky bets play baseball in your in your town like that's really

cool that's really cool that's all i'm saying yeah i get it but i'm also saying like good lord like that still is like salt in the wound for people that are oakland a's fan you know i mean 100% and i get it too that coliseum is awful and people much would would much rather watch baseball anywhere else at times than there not to mention that the resentment towards the franchise in the city of oakland is going to prevent people from actively going. We're seeing them already organized essentially another boycott against the team this year and not one where they showed up and tried to vocalize it, not do the reverse boycott thing where they filled up the stadium and showed them how much people love this team, a real

boycott where we could be seeing an absolutely empty baseball stadium, you know, for an entire, you know, season. So it's just a terrible situation that I think everybody wishes wasn't happening. But again, let's not forget that if this does happen to a team with as much history as the athletics have, it can happen to any franchise in sports. So hopefully what we can do is get rich enough for Jesse or I to buy the team and just be a sole owner and then we'll never move the Diamondbacks as long as we live. Way we can get there is with Arizona lottery.

Now, it might not be extremely likely, but we are, have an opportunity to win a million dollars in cash in Arizona travel prizes with their brand new Arizona Adventure Promotion. There's three ways to play it, including with their brand new tickets that feature some iconic Arizona landscapes. You can also enter tickets online for a chance to win $1 million in cash and travel prizes. But the most exciting way is to check in at 10 geolocated locations across the state that from Flagstaff to Yuma. You can visit ASEAdventure.com for more details and directions on how to do that. But all of that will give you a chance to win some big cash.

Arizona Lottery says proceeds from ticket sales support environmental conservation efforts, among other important initiatives across the state. And they are not just about playing games and winning prizes. Arizona lottery is also about giving back to the state and its communities. Visit AZadventure.com for more information on how you can take an adventure for a chance to win that $1 million in cash and Arizona travel prizes. Of course, a great place to get your Arizona Adventure lottery tickets is at Circle K. You can go there, maybe win some money, fill up your car with some gas, fill yourself up with some snacks. And right now, if you join the Inner Circle program for free by downloading the Circle K app today, you can see.

save 25 cents off per gallon on your first five fillups and then three cents off per gallon every day after that. Terms and conditions apply at participating locations. Visit circlek.com for details. But of course, also get those snacks. Buy five, get a six one free in that circle K.

I'm losing my train of thought because I'm looking at a picture on Twitter right now, Megarang, with this wrestler Jade Cargill. And if you know who Jade Gargill is, you understand why I can't keep an active train of thought right now. I thought you were losing your train of thought because you were looking at the ump scorecard from yesterday's. No, I'm not going to do that.

I refuse to do that. I refuse to do that because I have a feel like my blood boils just, uh, just you telling me about that. You want to get me one step from that? No, no, but you want to give me one factor from it? I mean, I think the only number that you need to know is plus 1.28. No! Which is the number of runs that the New York Yankees were apparently given courtesy of

uh, courtesy of the home plate. The top two most impactful missed calls were both against Scott McGuff. One as a hitter and another as a pitcher, which is just the perfect encapsulation of yesterday's game for the Diamondbacks. I did want to take a moment to welcome Chris Crane to the Arizona Diamondbacks Bandwagon. He is an Oakland fan who is very sad and understandably. So we are here. We are here for you, my friend. There's plenty of room for you here.

We love you here. Of course, we love all of you. We thank you guys for stopping by. To make sure to follow us on Twitter. I am at K-Ur-N-K-M-A-K. This absolute maniac next to me is at Jesse N. Friedman. Of course, the people's producer, Damon. He is at Damon Dogg, as Dalton Feeley said earlier, that's D-A-W-G.

We are Damon's dogs. Bark, bark. Of course, our show is at P-N-X underscore D-Backs, but all roads do lead to at P-HNX underscore Sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys so much for your time. appreciate you stopping by. Make sure, yeah, drop a like. Why not?

Before you leave, before you get out of here, Gabby would love it if you drop a like. He said maybe he'll hit more dingers and try to help me out with my future predictions or my bold predictions that I made. That one's not looking so good. But again, yes, welcome, Chris. We're happy to have you. Again, we thank you guys all for your time.

We'll see you tomorrow. We have a Friday post game show. We'll see after tomorrow's game. Tommy Henry against Spencer Strider, Derek. Here we go. Buckle up, folks. Buckle up. We thank you again. We appreciate your time and remember kids.

Baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when your team does not move to Sacramento for a few years before moving to Las Vegas permanently.