PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Can Ketel Marte continue his excellence from the Diamondbacks postseason run in 2024?

Episode Date: January 5, 2024

The MLB offseason moves continue to happen slowly, with many of baseball’s top free agents still on the market. We discuss the moves that have happened, the Braves magically being able to extend another star player, and what the current temperature is with the Diamondbacks franchise. We also take a deep dive into Ketel Marte’s 2023 season and discuss if he can continue his superstar performance from the D-backs postseason run in 2024.An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to D-backs Takeovers, Knockout Nights & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/phnx-56002330273 Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Schedule a free in-home estimate with Empire Today! All listeners can receive a $350 OFF discount when they use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See EmpireToday.com/PHNX for details.Sign up for Gila River Resorts & Casinos $1,000,000 Big Red’s Showdown! Stay in the game and get rewards; it’s that easy! https://www.gilamilliondollarshowdown.com/Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Circle K:  Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: OGeez! is not your average cannabis-infused gummy. Head on over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find out where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow them on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. WYNK Seltzer + THC: Go to https://drinkwynk.com/ and use promo code “PHNX” for 50% off. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Happy Friday, do you all? Welcome in to the PHNX Divenbach show. Shout out to OGs brands, the official sponsor of Flavoring Fridays. Head on over to OGsbrands.com to see their full lineup, including their two newest guffies, the OGs naturals and the big OGs, which you know I'm a fan of, and find out where you can purchase these wonderful products. Of course, welcome in to a Friday edition of the PHNX D-Back show right here on PHNX. I am your mayor of this joint, occasionally known as Derek Montia. there's a photo of me in Studio B now proving it, so you can't refute that I'm the mayor of

PHNX any longer. This man over here tried to claim that while I was gone. But if you come for the king, you best not miss. This is the one and only vice mayor, Jesse Friedman. He's your thunderstick, by the way. But what's up, buddy? Happy Friday. How's it gone?

You know, things are good. We're processing a recent trade. We're trying to figure out what Jerry Depoto is doing, which is kind of just, I mean, that's sort of what the baseball community at large. exists to do is make sense of what Jerry Depoto is one of our favorite games to play but let's just get into it we got a little spying on our exes to do David can we get with it let's go let's spy on our exes yes we found out breaking news per Jeff Passon that the mariners have traded former Arizona diamond back Robbie Ray to the San Francisco Giants so we have to we have to deal with him a whole

lot more now what was what was the return here Jesse what's the whole whole trade. Yeah. So it's Robbie Ray to the San Francisco Giants in exchange for another old friend here in Arizona, Mitch Hanager. That's right. Spine on multiple X's here. Yes. He signed with the Giants as a free agent last off season and then right-handed pitcher Anthony Di Schlafani. Also heading over to the Seattle Mariners in this deal. What is happening? What is this? Can you make any sense of this deal? Robbie Ray, former Salliard winner, right, who really didn't get a chance to have a lot of time there in Seattle. before being injured and having a season shut down. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think I kind of get it from the Giants perspective

in that Mitch Hanager was not, he was hurt a lot as he often has been throughout his career, right? He was hurt a lot in his first year in San Francisco was not particularly good. He had, I think, the worst offensive season he's ever had an OPS plus around 70. And then Anthony DiSclanee also was not particularly productive. for the Giants in 2023. So they get rid of a couple players who, I guess, moving forward, maybe they didn't really want to have to rely on Mitch Hanigur, Anthony Diash Gifani, all that much.

And in return, they're getting a pitcher in Robbie Ray, who won the AL-Sai Young just a couple years ago and is coming off Tommy John surgery. So Robbie Ray is not going to pitch for the Giants until June, July, maybe right after the All-Star break, something like that. but he is a at his best he has the ability to be a front line starting pitcher of course there's there's some risk coming back from Tommy John surgery but for the giants I guess you're you're kind of getting rid of two pieces that maybe you didn't really see a big future for de Chofani just one more year on his deal Mitch Hanigur has two more years on his deal and return you're getting

theoretically three years of Robbie ray although I think he has an opt out after the 2024 season so maybe there's a world in which Robbie Ray just, you know, kills it in the second half of the 2024 season and then leaves in free agency. But yeah, I don't think either team is like a big winner here. It's just a weird trade. And for Jerry Depoto, this is, this is a par for the course. Well, I mean, again, when you talk about adding Robbie Ray to Logan Webb and Ross Stripling for the Giants rotation, I mean, you can see why they did this and maybe they feel

like it was a low risk, high reward kind of situation with bringing Robbie Ray back. They know what he has been. They know how good he was for the Toronto Blue Jays, at least, once he became a member of that franchise. And he was very good for the Diamondbacks. He just, he became a different level pitcher when he went to Toronto, I feel like. And that was something that was a bit disappointing, considering that we always knew he could be good. But it always felt like watching Robbie Ray on the debacks was like watching a guy that always

got left in for just one inning too long. It felt like, you know, you'd have these masterful performances through four innings, five innings, but things would fall apart for him. But yeah, it's going to be interesting to have Robbie Ray back in the division now and be playing against him once he returns. And I think the Giants still have a lot of money to spend considering the rumored free agents that they were connected to at times and how much money they were looking to spend on this team. And I mean, obviously, you know, they did bring over the grand.

son of the wind. So that right there is a big, a big hit for them. Yeah. But I mean, they definitely could be looking to add to this team that was like underrated, but still surprisingly good at times. Like this Giants team was,

was in the mix for, for a wild card spot there for a while when they really like looking at the roster, didn't really look like they had any business being. Yeah. Elise also touches in the comments on the contracts in this trade. which I want to talk about real quick. None of the contracts to any of these players are good right now. Robbie Ray off Tommy John surgery.

I mentioned there's an opt-out after 2024. But beyond that, it's three years and $73 million remaining. So it's about $25 million per year for Robbie Ray. And I think there's a world in which he could be worth that, but there's obviously risk coming back from Tommy John surgery. You don't know exactly what you're going to get there. Mitch Hanager two years and $32.5 million left on his deal for a guy who, as I mentioned earlier, had a 73 OPS Plus in 2023 and did not play all that many games as he tends to do. That's not exactly an enticing contract. And then Anthony DiScoffani, after, you know, having an ERA of almost five in San Francisco this last year, a pitcher-friendly ballpark, he has one year and $12 million remaining.

So none of these contracts are good. I guess the Mariners are taking back a couple of not so good ones. But there's some upside with Mitch Hanigur. You feel like he can maybe bounce back. And the Mariners are getting rid of a bigger contract in Robbie Ray, which goes over to San Francisco. And the Mariners don't necessarily need Robbie Ray. I guess that's the other big part of this.

The Mariners have a pretty full, solid rotation as it is. Luis Castillo, Logan, Gilbert, George Kirby, Bryce Miller, Brian Wu. That's a pretty solid one through five right there without having a guy who, you know, won the Sayung Award a couple years ago. So the Mariners have the ability to make a trade like this. It is kind of funny in some ways that, you know, Mariners were,

I think a lot of Mariners fans have been talking about, you know, potentially trading off one of these young starting pitchers and trying to get some young stud hitter in return, right? The Mariners need to add some offense. to this team. And Jerry Depoto did trade one of his starting pitchers. And he got Mitch Hanager, which is probably, obviously someone Mariners fans are familiar

with. He had some good seasons there. But that's not exactly the prize of the offseason when you're looking to upgrade your offense. Well, we do have some other transactions, even though the MLB offseason continues to kind to crawl along with the big, big transactions. This one actually today is one of the bigger ones. But Harrison Bader did sign a one year 10 and a half.

half million dollar steal. I mean deal with the New York Mets. I'm not. Are you calling that a steal? No, I'm not implying that he's stealing money from the Mets at all. But no, Harrison Bader,

10 and a half million dollar deal with the Mets. Again, not huge, just more money than I thought he would get. And like not, you know, not a risky deal for the Mets considering how much money they've been throwing around.

But trying to add some depth and almost like, like it's a weird move for the Mets. considering that, you know, they haven't had that big free agent splash. And I don't know if they're going to be looking to do that. Like we know that they were connected to some of the big names. But so far they've been unsuccessful. So, I mean, they just, they have a lot of things to fix with that team right now. Yeah.

Yeah. It is interesting with Harrison Bader. There was some reporting during the season that the Diamondbacks claimed, attempted to claim Harrison Bader during that insane period of time. with a bunch of, right, a bunch of teams were letting some of their players go on waivers. And, right, it was all in reverse order of your record. So I think the diamond back, you went to the Reds, Bader wound up landing with the Reds. The Diamondbacks had like the next selection spot immediately after that.

So theoretically, they almost had Harrison Bader. Almost. Bader, you know, played some games with Cincinnati, only 14, 34 played appearances. He had a 429 OPS in his time there, obviously a very small sample. simple size. And overall, he had a 622 OPS in 2023, and he signs for more than $10 million with the New York Mets. But I get it because Harrison Bader is arguably the best center fielder in the sport, at least one of the best center fielder in all of baseball. And he destroys lefties. You know, don't be fooled by the 622 OPS. That is him being basically, yeah, basically the worst

hitter in baseball against right-hand pitching, but also like very good against lefties. and OPS just under a thousand in 2023. So in a platoon kind of a role, he makes a lot of sense and I think can be an impact player and he certainly got paid like it. You don't see short side platoon players go for over

$10 million. I guess that just speaks to Bader's defense and you know, kind of a lack of talent in the position player market right now. Teams continue to look overseas for ways to improve themselves. The Padres have signed. Is it

Wu Sukgo? Is that how you pronounce it? Yeah, I'm not sure I'm the person to ask there. I think that I think that's right. I feel like I'm I feel like that's like not correct, but I'm going to go with it because I do know Sissuk would be different by it's Wusuk or Wusuk go. He's a right-handed, 25 year old right-handed reliever from Korea to a two-year deal worth $4.5 million. That's the Padre signed him to that with a mutual option for 2026. and a little surprising that teams are willing to honestly commit to overseas players for any length amount, you know, anything longer than like a year or something like that. But again, that goes back to, I think we're past that period of time where people don't think leagues like the KBO or leagues like in Japan are as competitive as Major League Baseball. They are willing to sign the stars from those leagues, even a middle reliever like this.

Yeah, and bring him over and Iglese give him a multi-year deal. I don't, yeah, I think middle reliever is probably what he translates to in the majors. He was closing some games over there in Korea, a 368 ERA in 2023, which coming over from the KBO is not a very exciting number. He did have a 1.48 ERA the season prior. He's relatively young. He's only 25 years old. So, yeah, you feel like there's not a ton of risk here for the Padre. It's just a little over $4 million over two years.

You know, if you find yourself with a decent right-handed reliever, you know, paying $2 million a year for that would be a big win for them. But yeah, the numbers in Korea are not real impressive there. Yeah. Well, the MLB trade deadline is a little sooner now. According to reports, the trade deadline is now set for July 30th instead of August 1st. Yeah. Weird? Yeah, very interesting.

We're not going to end the month with it. We're just going to pick a 30 one day month and then end the trade deadline on the 30th, just to be weird. Yeah. So in the CBA, the commissioner actually has the ability to pick any day between July 28th and August 3rd, which is kind of a weird thing that a lot of people might not know about. And it doesn't, it's not like it gets used all the time, right? You don't see the trade deadline like switching days on an annual basis or anything. but it sounds like the goal here was to avoid having the trade deadline on a weekend day. You don't want to have an afternoon trade deadline at a time when a lot of afternoon games are

happening and then you wind up in this awkward position where players are actually playing. Yeah, the whole hug watch thing. So yeah, they moved the day and I think this is a Tuesday that it would land on now. So yeah, just trying to avoid having. having it on a day where day games would be more likely. Okay. Well, that makes sense. You got you got me on that one.

But what you won't get me on was believing that this other move that we're going to talk about wasn't going to happen because in the most Atlanta Braves thing to have. Yeah, we should have seen this coming. Chris Sale has been extended by the Atlanta Braves. And I mean, again, should we be surprised at all? Should any player be surprised? Like if you go to the Atlanta Braves, whether by choice, or by trade. Do you just instantly know that you're going to be extended to a long-term deal with the team

and you're just going to become a cornerstone of the franchise? Because that's what it feels like every single one of their players is now. Yeah, this is interesting. Chris Sale had been slated to make, I think it was $27.5 million this upcoming season. So a pretty big number, but $10 million of that was deferred. We know we've gotten to know a lot about deferrals. We're all experts on deferrals now. But in that trade, the Boston Red Sox sent over $17 million.

So they basically covered the current day portion of Chris Sale salary. And then the Braves were just on the hook for the deferral of $10 million, which I think was like way down the road. But now with this new deal, it locks in a lower dollar value for 2024. So basically the Braves are no longer going to have to pay that deferral payment way way down the road. but in return they're tacking on an additional guaranteed season for Chris Sale, which, you know, a pitcher of his age with as much volatility as he's had in his career. There's a lot of value in that for him. So yeah, it's nothing, it's nothing too crazy.

It's 16 million in 2024. It's that tacked on 22 million in 2025. And then there's a club option for 2026. So maybe there's some world where Chris Sale is durable over the next couple seasons and pitches well and the brave is want to bring him back for for a third year can the diamondbacks ever can we do this can we ever be this can they ever actually do this can they do this with this team at this point like we talked about extending gabby we've talked about obviously at length extending zack gallon but it just feels like especially with what this team built together last season that now is the time to strike

when it comes to spending money i mean i'm almost satisfied with the offseason moves they've made up to this point. Greenie in our chat asks, will the Diamondbacks add another starter? Fought is good, but still young and a bit of a wild card. Henry Nelson Shikoni, Sikoni, as a fifth starters, doesn't seem too appealing. And you're not wrong about that,

but I think going back to what I was just saying, I would almost prefer, like, that they just committed some money. I mean, I know they want to extend these guys. I'm sure there's no doubt about it, but what do you think the likelihood is that the Diamondbacks can lock in at least the majority

of this core to some extensions, including maybe not Zach Gallen, but like Gabby Moreno and Alec Thomas and some of these other guys. Yeah, I mean, I think there's only a handful that would really make sense for an extension right now. Gabby Moreno is one that we've talked about on this show, a decent amount, someone that I think makes a lot of sense to extend if the Diamondbacks can find a way. He came into the league so young that he would hit free agency at 28. You don't necessarily want to extend a catcher out until they're like 32.

33 years old. Catchers tend to age a little bit worse than than a lot of other players just because of the toll that that role takes on your body. But yeah. You do when he's our version of Yadi, you know? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that you would totally want to have Gabby Moreno here through his age 29 or age 30 season.

So I think that that definitely makes sense. Zach Gallen is the other obvious one that you mentioned. We've talked about that a little bit and how it doesn't seem super likely, although I wouldn't say it's totally impossible. Something the Diamondback should do if they can, right? Yeah. I don't know exactly what the ask is there, but it's probably very, very high,

given how good Zach Allen has been. Pay it. And then we talked about Christian Walker within the last week or two on the show as well. He is set to become a free agent after the 2024 season. And we talked then about how there's kind of this disconnect between, you know, what projection systems say Christian Walker is worth

versus what Christian Walker has actually done. He has been one of those players throughout, really all of his Diamondbacks career, was just constantly outperformed what like the computers said he was going to do. And that makes it tough because moving forward, the debacks are going to probably want to pay him based on what the computers say he's going to be.

Those damn computers. But he's also been a four war player in back-to-back seasons. I don't know if you're signing someone like that, you know for 13 14 million dollars a year for a couple more years so uh it it seems unlikely that that would happen but the diamondbacks don't have any clear options at first base after 2024 as of right now there are some guys in the system who could certainly emerge but it's unclear at this point who those guys are and if you could get another year or two of christian walker to kind of bridge that gap it definitely could make sense well we appreciate you guys being here in the phn exports youtube uh channel

now in the chat we thank you so much ski to you all of course if you haven't subscribed to the channel now we suggest to do so it's a it's a great channel we're big fans of it uh you can also sign up for notifications that way you don't miss when any of our channel because we think it's great yeah we think it's great we think it's great and uh you know stick around hang out drop a like like gabby says there's gabby we want we want to extend him he wants to extend us it's a mutual extension thing of course uh make sure if you're listening on the audio podcasting side that you subscribe there as well leave us a five-star review we always appreciate and love that of course a great place to check out this uh this winter i guess you could say if you want to call

it that around arizona is illegal peats because it's never really too cold to sit outside on the patio jesse might tell you otherwise we might have a disagreement about that but uh this temperature around here is beautiful these days are beautiful so check out illegal peats they got their patio bar uh they have of course the strongest margaritas in all of arizona irresistible drinks and mouth-watering food. And, of course, kick the Monday blues with $3 margaritas off all day long or ease your way back in the week with $2 tacos every Tuesday. If you work in health care or education, take your team to lunch at Illegal Pete's every Tuesday. Enjoy buy one, get one free entrees.

And don't forget to unwind after a long day at their happy hour, 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. every day. Illegal Pete's your go-to spot for burritos, buddies and beer. I love that place, man. I'm there once a week. I know you are like at least yeah they know him by name I I show up and they go they're like damon dog bark bark you want the damon burrito I go absolutely I'll take the damon burrito thanks man you have you have a food named after you then that's uh it's a whole other level of participation is there actually a damon burrito we're gonna have to try it okay I don't even want to know what's in it

I just want to order it and try it I want to order it and see if they say yes or if they go who the hell is damon then we'll see but imagine if they were like oh yeah bark bark and then they just start making it they are damon's dogs I would lose my mom A legal piece is absolutely Damon's dogs. Yes, they are for sure, Damon's dogs. Of course, I'll tell you who else is Damon's dogs. OGs brands, which sponsors our flavoring twos, or flavoring Fridays. OGs has launched their two new products that I am a big fan of, made with live rosin,

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Feels like this season would be one to have it with how much revigorated interest there is in the team. She's definitely not wrong about that, Jesse. They absolutely should. We have not heard anything about a fan fest at this point. But we will find out. We'll get back to you with that information. If they're doing it, it would probably happen fairly soon, right? Like within the next month or so.

Yeah. I know last year it was a season ticket holder advantage member, I think they call it. Exclusive event. So we'll see if that continues. But another thing we're hoping that continues is Catelle Marte's excellent season from 2023. And more importantly, the role that he went on during the 2023 postseason into the 2024 year. And we would love to see that. Ketel is considered hitting right-handed.

over the off season? Yeah, this was a story that can't. I think Nick Bacoro wrote this, right? During spring training, maybe the beginning of spring training. They could tell Marte actually was, was interested, at least interested in trying what it would look like if he just hit right-handed instead of being a switch hitter. It's been this narrative for him for a while that he destroys left-handed pitching,

batting right-handed. And his exit veloes as a right-handed hitter have been off the charts for years. seems, but his ability to hit left-handed, to be it, to hit right-handed pitching has kind of come and gone. And it was not there for him in 2022. So entering 2023, gave it a shot. He did, he did some work back home and kind of tried some things out. But eventually came to the conclusion that seeing a slider from a right-handed pitcher is a heck of a lot more difficult when you're batting right-handed than when you're batting left-handed. It's just, and that's a really, I mean, that's an adjustment that maybe he could have made years ago,

but at this point in his career, that's a pretty big adjustment to try to make, to try to make all of a sudden. And with how his 2023 season played out, I think he made the right choice and just kind of keeping it as it is. He had an outstanding 2020 three season. Let's take a look at his numbers from that 2023 season. He averaged 276 with a 358 on base percentage and 485 slug.

He hit 25 home runs with 82 RB. and a 4.2 for. And yeah, man, I mean, I don't think you could ask for much more than not only that consistency that he had throughout the season, but then the carryover into the postseason, the hitting streak, the historic hitting streak that he went on, the everything he was able to do for this team offensively. I mean, he was just a huge part of the reason why we saw this team advance to the World Series. Yeah, he really was. And I mean, his breakout this season was so big for the Diamondbacks and solidifying the middle of this lineup. He was, I mean, he was just a, he was a pretty consistent hitter. Like, Cotele was kind of hitting from the get-go in a way that not, right?

Lordus Correale, we've talked a lot about his extreme ups and downs. Corvin Carroll, we touched on yesterday, how he was so good for, you know, a good chunk of the season, but then kind of fell off for about 50 games or so in the middle. and Christian Walker was pretty consistent. It had some ups and downs of his own. But yeah, Kattel Marte, one of the most consistent offensive contributors

for this team throughout the season. And a big part of this breakout for him, going back to what we were talking about earlier, was being able to hit right-handed pitching again. And if we look at this graphic, which has a breakdown of Kattel splits against lefties and righties, he was really good against both.

He was still better against lefties. I don't think that's ever going to change. Kattel is always going to be able to roll out of bed and just destroy the baseball against left-handed pitching. He did that in 2020, 313, 3802, 497. That was a slash against lefties. But against righties, he slashed 259, 348, 479, 20 of his 25 home runs, 70 of his 82 RBI came against right-handed pitching.

And that's really what unlocked this incredible 2023 season for him. He just is average exit below against righties. from 89.1 miles per hour in 2022 to 91.1 miles per hour in 2023. And his hard hit rate went from 40.1% to 44.1%. I mean, these, it's, it doesn't sound like that big of a improvement, but it really is quite the jump, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, looking at his season in 2022, he did, he just was not good against right-handed pitching. It wasn't that Ketel was a round league average or a little above league average. He had a 696 OPS against Ritey's in 2022.

And that's tough. Like most pitchers are right handed. You just, you become a much less valuable player if you're doing, you know, a big portion of your damage against lefties. And even going back to 2021, a season where Kattel was really good, right? He wasn't healthy all that much.

He only played 90 games. But his splits in 2021, he had a 792 open. PS against Ritey's, which is good, right? He was good against Ritey's, but he had an 1171 against lefties. Like, it was just so outrageously imbalanced. This year he found a way to kind of bring things together a little bit where, you know, he maybe he wasn't quite so crazy good against lefties, but he actually was better against

Ritees in 2023 than he was in 2021. And that's huge for him. I mean, the more that he's able to kind of, you know, find a way. to be well above average against right-handed pitching. That's really the biggest thing for Kattel. And he did that in a huge way in 2023. He's been a member of the organization for seven seasons now. Yeah, 2017 through 2023.

He's played seven seasons with the Diamondbacks. And his best seasons, 2019, 2021, 2021, 2023. This doesn't bode well for 2024, Jesse. I hope that he breaks the trend finally. Yeah, we touched on that a little bit yesterday. He definitely has the even year, odd year thing going. But those odd years, those were pretty damn good years. Yeah, those odd years are pretty good.

And the even years weren't, you know, they weren't terrible. 2018, he was pretty good. So, yeah, we'll see if he's able to overcome that this season. And I was going to say, do you think that that is what we'll see? Do you think that we will see? Because, you know, something to be said about some of those seasons like 2022 was he was impacted by injuries. And we saw how that did, you know, obviously limit him offensively and it limited him defensively. They had the whole center field experiment.

There's been a lot of things that haven't worked out. But I feel like this is the most consistency that he's going to have going from 23 to 24 being healthy coming off that run, you know, and hopefully still being hungry to want to get back to playing in that postseason considering he. did what he did during the playoffs and made that history. Yeah, I mean, he was, he was a star in the postseason, right? I mean, he was, he was right at the center of everything the Diamondbacks were doing in those first few rounds of the playoffs, World Series, a little bit of a different story for a lot of hitters in this lineup. But yeah, he was the NLCS MVP for a reason, as you said earlier.

And one of the better players in Diamondbacks history. I mean, he certainly has some kind of a longevity factor at this point. having played those seven seasons, as we said earlier. And he ranked sixth in Diamondbacks War of all time. Every player who's ever dawned a Diamondbacks uniform. He is sixth and wins above replacement. And he's in some pretty good company, right? It's Randy Johnson.

It's Kurt Schilling. It's Brandon Webb. It is Louise Gonzalez, who is ahead of him as well. Paul Goldschmidt, of course. He's right behind all of those guys. He has had a solid career as a Diamondback. And yeah, as far as whether it's going to continue in 2024, Kattel, he's been a little unpredictable, right?

I wish I could come out and say that I have utter confidence that Kattel will come out in 2024 and be the exact same player he was in 2023. Zips, as we saw yesterday, seems to think that that's exactly what's going to happen. So, you know, that at least said something to me that some of those underlying numbers are supporting Ketel coming out and having a good 2024 season. but health is a big factor.

And as you said, he was not really healthy in 2022, even though he still played a good number of games. He was healthy in 2023. Probably the healthiest season he's ever had in the majors. I think that was a huge part of his success. And I guess that's a lot of what this comes down to in 2024. Is Ketel healthy throughout at least most of the season, not trying to like play through stuff the whole year as he kind of was in 2022.

Gabriel in the comment says Ketel's number, will be retired mark my words i hope you're right uh i think of michael's question from mailbag monday or tuesday or whatever that was where you know he asked about kattel maybe playing you know dh and again it comes down to the health like i don't hate that idea due to health but you have to have somebody that's capable playing second base i know his defense hasn't been you know stellar at times but he's still been a pretty damn good second baseman out there and he's also been a lot of fun to watch uh and i have the utmost confidence that he will still cut you off in traffic at some point on the way to the ballpark in the 2024 season.

So I think that's going to happen. Basil or Basil in the comments is asking about Uruguio Dorazo. Are you signing a minor league deal? Is it just like an honorary deal? That man is going to be 50 years old this month, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, later this month, he turns 50. His nephew, who's my friend, listens to this show? I don't think that's him, but I'm sure he'll get a kick out of that.

You know what? I would love to see it. I love to see it. Bring him back. Let him have one big swing of the bat. There's the, there's the solution at first base. There we go.

What are you doing for Christian Walker? We figured it out. Sign a Ruby Alderaza to a minor league deal, get him some reps in AAA, bring him up next year. Put your money on. Actually, don't put your money out. Put your money on something more likely than that.

But you can go to bet MGM and put your money on lots of things. Of course, listen to Damon over at our bet show because he will guide you sometimes. Sometimes he'll, he won't. Sometimes they'll lead you astray. Positive days every day this week. We'll be going live later.

Let's go. Hit that notification by you. Yeah, hit that notification by you. Don't miss out on Damon Dog, giving you the bets. But you can use his advice over at the BetMGM Sportsbook app. And you can also get down on your first bet if you haven't done so already and have a free bonus bet back if your bet does not hit.

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If that bet loses, your bonus bets will be available once your initial wager is settled. Check out the show notes for full details. And now listen to Shane, talk about the disclaimer. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler, Colorado, D.C., Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Jersey, New York. Call 8778, Hope and Y, or text, Hope and Y, 467-369-3-6-9-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-Masachusetts. 218,000, please gamble responsibly. Call 1-800, next-step, Arizona. 1-800-1-1-1-7-1-1-7 for confidential help, Michigan.

1,800-9-0-3, Puerto Rico in partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel. Visit at MGM.com for terms and conditions, U.S. promotional offers not available in D.C., New York or Ontario. least kind of alpha at gabriel's comment here with hers where it says katel will one day will replace one of the legends in the legends race someday that would know can you so incredible can you replace one of the legends uh yeah you can replace mark grace i think we need a modern day legend he's taking enough grief over the years in that role maybe maybe he wouldn't miss it's time to retire race and gracie could tell would like the dreads hanging out the back and like the black and teal jersey that would go fire you want to run is katel a few a few years from

now. Yes. You're asking me, I accept. Would you run the way that Cateau runs out of the box when he walks? Oh, yeah. But only on walks, only on walks, not the way he runs on singles or doubles. But, uh, okay, another great thing that you guys can do is check out our friends at Desert Financial Credit Union because for more than 84 years, Desert Financial has been Arizona's largest, most trusted credit union. And I can speak from experience. I got started on my home ownership journey, my house that I'm still into this day, a long time from when I purchased it. I got started on that through our friends at Desert Financial Credit Union. They're dedicated to creating exceptional experiences by giving back to the community and providing

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We want to hang out. We want to send you Christmas cards and stuff like that. Speaking of Christmas, which it's always nice, temperature-wise, around here. We had an ESPN article drop talking about the temperature

of each franchise. Can you explain this more? I can try. Temperature of a franchise is, Jesse. What is your favorite temperature, Derek? We should start there. Eighty-four degrees.

is my favorite temperature. Wow, you're a true Arizona. That's a little warm. Oh, 84 is beautiful. 84 in the shade I can go with. 84 in the sun. That's a, that could be a little warm.

It just, it reminds me of the old Lewis black bit where he talked about, imagine being a weatherman in San Diego where your job every day is just to go on TV and go, it's nice outside, back to you. Right?

So, yeah, like when I go to San Diego and it's 86 and I'm on the beach, I'm in a really good mood. When is it 86 in San Diego, though? Is that hot? I don't think, I feel like San Diego never reaches 86. 76? 76.

76. Yeah. San Diego is the place for it is 70. I like in Arizona. You guys are skinner hairs for me because it's all nice under 90 for me. So I don't know what we're talking about. 78 is like beautiful. Yeah.

Give me somewhere in the high 70s. Yeah. I mean, again, I'm with Damon there. I want to go on the water though. I want to go in the water is what I'm. It's the Puerto Rican and you. You absolutely right. Right.

Yeah. I want to eat fried foods and drink liquor and go in the water. So, The idea here, Derek, is that every team starts at 72 degrees, which they're defining is like room temperature. Okay. So when the diamond backs were birthed. That's what every hotel room is set at when I go inside. Yeah, yeah, right.

Room temperature. So when the diamond backs were birthed back in 1998, they were born at with a body temperature of 72 degrees, which I think is a medical emergency. It worked out. It was all right. They did. They weren't so great in 98, but they, they bounced. back and doctors used to be weird yeah doctors were weird back in 98 I guess uh yeah they were they were maybe a little chilly when they were first born but they warmed up uh pretty quick

obviously with how things turned out so this scale starts you at 72 it starts you at 72 and then you kind of i think you you you get 90% of your previous year's temperature automatically and then beyond that you get bonuses for uh for making the playoffs or having a 95 win season or they just have all these different things based on team success that bump your temperature back up. So you might wind up, you might wind up losing temperature over time or you might wind up gaining it. And it kind of all averages out to 72 degrees to perfect room temperature. If you have like a drought of not making the playoffs and experiencing a significant number of losses every single year.

Sure. You're just essentially temperature is going to go down by 90% every year with not much to. Yeah. Well, and you would lose. I mean, I think you'll lose points in other ways to. Oh, okay. Um, that, that part is a little unclear to me. This is a weird formula.

I think this is based off something that Bill James did back in the day. So, of course, it's going to be very heavy mathematical and odd. Um, but yeah, the Arizona Diamondbacks, Derek, uh, are very comfortable, uh, very cool and comfortable at 70.1 degrees. Okay. Uh, so just a little bit lower than they started out at back in, back in 98. But obviously the world series run. helped them gain, gain some ground in 2023.

And we're back close to close to room temperature. That ranks 13th in baseball. That is the 13th highest temperature in baseball where, of course, the best teams are, have the highest temperature. So they're slightly above average in that sense. That actually makes quite a bit of sense because this franchise as a whole over time has not had a tremendous amount of success. Right.

They haven't had a tremendous amount of playoff runs. Rarely have we put together. I don't, if we, I don't think we have even put together, was back to back. playoff runs? No. Well, I mean, not, yeah. Not since the very early days. Right, right, right, right. Right. So I mean, I think that's the big thing, right. Not a lot of seasons

where even though we won a lot of games, we fell short of the division or making the playoffs. Most of the time the Diamondbacks have been fairly mediocre. They've been around an 80 win team, it feels like the entire time this franchise has existed. There's been a lot of middling seasons. Except the early

on times, right? Like, it's hard to think back and remember how good like 90 was in 2000 and 2001 was and how many games the teams were winning around that time. But yeah, no, I mean, this makes sense. You said ranks 13th in baseball, considering how young of a franchise it is. I guess that's pretty good. But I guess it also really doesn't matter much because most of these teams have had so much history behind this temperature index that I imagine that it fluctuates a lot more based on how many years

they've existed for. Yeah. And that might be the best part of this is all based on. on ESPN article, by the way. You can go check this out if you're interested in finding out when all the teams' temperatures are. It's kind of a bizarre but sort of fun thing. They have each team's franchise peak

and then the lowest point that each franchise has ever been at over the course of their history. So the Arizona Diamondbacks, if I go back to them here on my list real quick, the Diamondbacks peaked. When do you think the Diamondbacks peaked? 2001 yeah yeah it's about as obvious as you yeah so 125.6 degrees so the diamondbacks were scalding hot in 2001 and obviously it wasn't wasn't just that season it was the success that they had leading up to that 1999 a huge season for the franchise 2000 they were still above 500 2001 winning the world series will that'll that'll warm things up nicely fairly certain that's the same temperature my mother-in-law likes her steak cook too yeah she's a rare girl

125 yeah that seems that seems pretty low i'm not an expert in but it's still hot enough for a steak to be cooked on the outside i'm thinking but yeah no i mean yeah they didn't they had that instant success we've talked about it a lot we talked about jerry colangelo's uh you know obviously impact on the diamondbacks going from the kind of families hanging out at a park fairy tale that they originally kind of seem like they were going to try to be to a winner that won fast and uh since then not lot of winning, you know, or at least the winning has been sporadic. That's what makes this period of time so exciting. We were looking forward to the 2025 season. Gabriel right there on screen, I think at one point was like World Series champs 2025. I remember that. And that was just like

something that we kind of threw out there because we felt like this team was finally getting something, you know, cooking to start the 2023 season. And man, how far they came in just one year. I think this could be that period of time where the Diamondbacks are able to put together some potential successful postseason runs in back-to-back years for the first time in franchise history. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I guess we can also talk about the lowest point ever in Diamondbacks history, which came in 2022. I was going to say, did it coincide with the start of this podcast?

Because I feel like you're back. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, they say 2022. I mean, it feels like 2021 would. would have been, I guess they were still a losing team in 2022. So that was going to. They lost less.

It was still a bad year though where they didn't make the playoffs, didn't have a winning record, didn't really do much more than at least start pushing the ball in the right direction from the terrible 2021 season. Yeah, they were at 42 degrees. That was their lowest point. Which means it is never frozen.

Diamondbacks have never frozen. Yay. And that's actually saying. something because Cleveland Guardians back in 1993 reached 10.7 degrees. The Oakland A's 9.8 degrees back in 1967. I was going to say, what was that now? That feels like the Oakland A's now. Yeah, yeah, honestly.

Yeah, I mean, they've got to be the Oakland A's are actually right in the middle. The Oakland A's are 15th on this list of 56.5 degrees. I think, I think going back to what we were talking about earlier, I don't think you, I think you were right. in that you drop the, you get 90% of your degrees from the previous year automatically, but I don't think anything takes points away. So the A's aren't getting like destroyed for the fact that they've been just abysmal the last few years. They're just kind of dropping in the way that a lot of other teams would.

So I guess it kind of makes sense why they'd be sort of in the middle here. Who do you think is the hottest team in all of baseball right now? Ooh. I want to say the St. Louis Cardinals. It's not the St. Louis Cardinals. they are sixth. They're up there. Okay.

Teams that have a lot of especially recent sustained success. Dodgers, Astros. Dodgers are two, Astros are one. Yeah, the Astros are at 195.6 degrees right now, which is, feels, feels pretty, pretty outrageous. Sportion. Yeah. I mean, because they do it every year. They do it every year.

They don't win the whole thing every year, but they get those positive, you know, they get it moving in. They get some good bonus points every year. ski to you Nicholas great to see you here in the chat we appreciate all of you guys for being here hope you guys have a wonderful weekend by the way speaking of weekend we have a very special episode dropping tomorrow on Saturday so make sure not to miss that uh I don't know when it's it's am I am I peeling back the curtain too much by like telling them it's pre-recorded or did I already do that I mean you just did it right now I think now that's what time you want that to drop one What time should we drop it at one?

Yeah, we'll drop it at one. What do you think? Tune in at 1 p.m. I don't know. Should this is actually what we do. I think last Saturday we did it at 1 p.m. Yeah. We'll sit.

We'll probably stick with tradition. One o'clock. Pretend like I didn't just tell you any of that. We'll see you live tomorrow at 1 o'clock on Saturday. You know nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Just men in black little device thing.

I was thinking Jedi mind trick, but we're on the same way of length there. I disappointed myself. I should have gotten Jedi mind trick. Yeah, for sure. The show is not going to be. pre-recorded. All right. Well, we will see you guys, of course, tomorrow, but in the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at Kapp underscore Caveman with a K. This absolute maniac next to me is at Jesse N. Friedman. Damon is the people's producer. You can find him at Damon Dog. That's

DAWG. We are Damon's dogs. Bark, bark. I just didn't. It just didn't have feeling it today. I don't have an explanation for that. My, my brain just like didn't work. He was a He just wants to quit early. He just gave up on me. I got Derek. I got my friends at illegal Pete. That's all I need. Yeah, that's fair.

Damon doesn't need me anyway. But you know what? You're still taking him to Healer River, right? Not included me on the boys' trip. So whatever. But anyway. We're rethinking. All right.

Well, you should. But we thank you guys, of course. You can follow our show at PHNX underscore Dbacks, but all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We will see you tomorrow. In the meantime, we appreciate you for stop. by today thank you for your time and remember kids baseball is fun but it's so much more fun when you say bark bark when you're supposed to