PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Can Mike Hazen & Diamondbacks hit the free agency jackpot at Winter Meetings in Nashville?

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

Things are progressing slowly during MLB’s Winter Meetings in Nashville. Is Broadway to blame or is this just a typical part of this annual tradition? Jesse Friedman has more from Mike Hazen on Diamondbacks moves as well as your updates on the Rule 5 Draft and the Draft Lottery. We also discuss how badly we want to see Shohei Ohtani sign with anyone except the Dodgers.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/200Get 10% off your first order of Hero Bread at https://www.hero.co/ by using code PHNXSchedule 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.

Hello and welcome in to another, I guess, pointless edition of the PHNX Debaks podcast. I mean, the winter meetings, nothing's happening. I need something to happen. I'm bored out of my mind. But hopefully our guy, Jesse Friedman, will have something for us here. Of course, I'm your mayor of PHNX, occasionally known as Derek Bontea. And I'm joined by the mayor. I'm making him the mayor of Nashville.

Mayor of the winter meetings. It's the one and only Jesse Friedman. the mayor of Nashville, Derek. I figured you would have claimed that even though you're not actually here. That just seems like a title that you wouldn't have let slip to anyone else. Totally on brand for me. I have no idea what I'm doing when I just relinquish that to you. But you're doing a lot of work.

You're following Mike Hayes around here. You are thankfully tweeting about everything he's eating and the condition of his tummy, which we are very thankful for. But Jesse, of course, we know that there is not a lot happening. just got some breaking news from Jeff Passon that the New York Yankees and the Red Sox completed a trade for Alex Verdugo that's going to send him to the New York Yankees. Surprising to see these two teams crossing, I guess, their lines of hatred and accomplishing a deal. Yeah, it is pretty weird.

I mean, at the top of my head, I really can't think of that many trades at the Red Sox and Yankees and made with each other. Right. I mean, it was really, I mean, yeah, I just like, you would think that that sort of thing just wouldn't really make sense. But it's a real, it's a real, the, the, the, the enemy of my enemy as a friend situation, I feel like, they're like seeing what the Orioles and these other teams are doing are like, we got to figure this out, man.

And even if it takes us working together, we'll do this. Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's kind of a weird time in the ALE East where neither the Red Sox nor the Yankees at all run the division. In fact, I mean, those, those two teams. teams are arguably the two worst teams in that division at this point. So yeah, it's, you know, it's a weird time. And I guess, I guess, yeah, you're right. They're just, they're just kind of trying to help each other out at this point. Yeah, it makes sense from that perspective.

But, of course, it doesn't really make sense why there aren't more deals happening with other teams, right? We could analyze that deal, but we don't care about the Boston Red Sox for the New York Yankees. We care about the Arizona Diamondbacks. And that's really what I need to see happen when I'm talking about the lack of of moves. I know that, you know, things take some time. I didn't expect this to be, you know, suddenly out of the gates. But are you, are you surprised? Not just for the Diamondbacks for, from a Diamondbacks perspective, but are you surprised by how long it's taking for some of these

big names to kind of, or some of these big deals to kind of start happening? I feel like it's, it's almost an annual thing where we're kind of, you know, sitting around at the winter meeting. It's only my second time being here. And, singing in person, but it seems like the off season in recent years has just gotten off to a bit of a slower start. I don't really know exactly how to explain why that is, but yeah, this isn't necessarily uncharted territory with the winter meetings, maybe not being the most exciting. We certainly, we've seen at least a little bit of movement. We did eventually find out about 24 hours after the initial report where Eric Fetty was headed. So,

Congratulations to the Chicago White Sox on landing Scott Forrest's most highly sought after client. That's right. Odd landing spot for him, right? That's an odd landing spot for him. Yeah, I mean, you know, the white socks are just, I mean, they're in a spot where they just need to fill out their rotation and, you know, they've lost some guys there. And it does make sense to, you know, maybe sign a guy who's not costing you a ton of money. It doesn't really make sense if you're the White Sox to be investing in one of the big name free agents. At the same time, I think there might be some upside there, just given that Eric Feddy was really good in the KBO.

Very, very good in the KBO. We've talked about it before. His numbers in the KBO this past season were way better than Merrill Kelly's numbers in the KBO. So, yeah, I mean, two years, 15 million. I don't think the expectations for Feddi are all that high. There's a really big gap between the KBO and the majors. but for the White Sox, I can see how taking a flyer on him could make some sense. Yeah.

Well, and of course, you know, he wasn't very good last time he was in Major League Baseball, but that doesn't mean that he hasn't come around and that what we saw out of the KBO wasn't more, you know, of what you're going to see out of him. You know, again, there's there's this weird thing with like the KBO and some of the leagues, you know, like the Japanese League, the Nippon, you know, some of that stuff where it feels like there's been they've been discredited a little bit like they're not necessarily seen as as being as good as major league baseball and i don't know i don't really think that's the case especially after the way that we saw merrill kelly kind of bounce back and then you know

come back here and do what he did so like you said uh this is this is definitely something uh that we could see out of him and and if if he is nearly as good as he was uh he it could be a value It could be an absolute steal for the Yeah, and I wouldn't, I don't know if I would say that like the NPB and the KBO are, are necessarily being discredited given, I mean, the KBO is, is, you know, on a lower tier for sure. But there are some guys from the NPB who are going to make a heck of a lot of money. Yes. I'm saying.

I heard it referred to as like double A talent. And I was like, absolutely not. I, I cannot sign off on that. But, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I do understand because, again, you can't directly look at any of these guys, Yamamoto or any of these guys, and know that they are going to have the success they're currently having in Major League Baseball. There's no way until they start pitching here and actually facing this level of hitter here in the United States. But again, I don't think that the winter meeting should happen in Nashville with Broadway being as close as it is. I know you said you just went out there and got some food, but I don't, I don't trust this.

I don't think this is helping at all. I think we need the winter meetings to be in some place with, with less things to do. So these guys are forced to be around each other, Jesse, and they're forced to have to talk. That's, that's all I say. But I'm an impatient person. I'm an impatient person. But I know you. I think it's safe to say, like, I don't think Mike Hazen is, you know, hanging out on Broadway every

night. No. And I don't, I don't think that's exactly the situation. From what we know, Mike Hazen is just spending his days in his hotel room, uh, pen up there with, uh, you know, Mike Fitzgerald. And they're just eating Mike and Ix, Derek. Yeah. They're just eating Mike and Ike themselves.

I don't think they're spending too much time on Broadway right now. Yeah. Well, no, I'm not, I'm not saying they all are. I'm not blaming Mike Hazen. As, as we got a video of today, Mike Hazen professed, uh, that he doesn't even have any hobbies. That this is just it. He doesn't play golf anymore, Jesse. He doesn't do anything. It's just baseball. It's his family and then it's baseball. But here's what I think we have a clip of Mike talking about not having any hobbies. We're not great at it. In fact, we're probably

terrible at it. We do the best we can. I do the best I can. I think about it 24 hours a day. I wake up in the middle of the night and I think about it. I wake up in the middle of night and I look at my phone. I text down me yelling fits in the middle of the night. I don't think any of those things classify as having a nice balance. I try to offset that by working out a lot when I can to try to stave off the probably inevitable massive coronary that I'll have at some point. But, you know, it's, I basically have two things in my life, my family and my job. And I don't have much room for anything else. Like I don't have time to golf. I guess my balance is, I don't have any hobbies.

This man, Jesse. My God, I know he's joking, but there's a lot of sincerity in the jokes we make sometimes. And, yeah, I don't like to hear about Mike, you know, fending off that massive coronary. But it is understandable when you're a GM of a baseball team that there's not a lot of hobbies that you can have considering this sport is so long, the regular season, so long, the, the preseason, so long,

the postseason, also very long when your team goes to the World Series. So it doesn't leave you a lot of time to do things like put up Christmas lights or golf. No, it really doesn't. And it's very clear to me that Mike Hazen, you know, I mean, every GM, of course, there's a, there's a huge time commitment that's involved with being a general manager of a major League Baseball team. I think we can all openly acknowledge that. But it does seem like Mike maybe even takes this to another level where, you know, he'd be the first one to tell you. I mean, as you heard there, like he's, you know, he is constantly, you know, texting people in the DeBax front office in the

middle of the night. And as he said there, you know, he's thinking about it 24 hours. It really is an all consuming kind of job. And yeah, even from his own perspective, I think he, you know, it may be consumes every hour, at least of his mind, more so than maybe it would for other people. But yeah, I mean, you certainly don't get into this business in order to, you know, have time to like go golfing on the weekends or whatnot, especially if you're going to go all the way to the World Series, in which case, your time to figure things out in the offseason is significantly shorter. And, yeah, I mean, Mike was very open in telling us that he felt very behind when the offseason

and began for the Diamondbacks. It didn't really begin until early November. Yeah. I also understand working out to stave off a massive coronary. People ask me why I work out. And some people are even surprised when they look at my physique and say, you work out. It's not, Jesse, to look good. It's not to be attractive to members of the opposite sex.

And it's really not for any other reason than I know. I'm never going to change the way I eat. So cheeseburgers, the bacon, the, the fries. I had I had grilled cheese, seasoned beef, French fries tonight from Taco Bell. I'm just, I'm just, I'm playing a game with my health that I shouldn't be playing, right? So it's like, I get that. Like, that's the only reason why I work out so that I can drink all of the beer that I drink and, and still feel somewhat responsible about what I'm doing. But Mike does have still a lot of work. We've talked about that.

We still don't even understand how he's going to make all of this happen. And we hope he does, but it doesn't seem very likely that he's going to be able to acquire top tier talent for all of the positional needs that they have and spend the amount of money that they are rumored to be spending. But we do know that one important factor is left-handed hitting. Yeah. Left-handed pitching. A lot of left-handed pitching.

I mean, yeah, there are elements of both of those. So on the left-handed pitching side, you could make a case that in the Diamondback search for a starting pitcher, maybe they should target a lefty given that, you know, Zach Allen, Merrill Kelly and Brandon Fott are all right-handed pitchers. There's a case you made. You'd maybe want some variety there. It doesn't really make a huge difference within like an individual game. But, you know, if another team.

especially, you know, if you get into the playoffs and you've got a team with a lot of left, a lot of really good left-handed hitters. It can be beneficial to have a left-handed pitcher in your rotation who would start one of those postseason games. It's obviously, you know, far off in the future. The debacks are probably more thinking about just getting through the regular season, getting themselves back into the playoffs in the first place right now. But yeah, and on the left-handed hitting side of things, a question that I asked Mike Hayes in

today is, would you be comfortable with every outfielder on your open? day roster being left-handed. Because that's exactly how things stand right now, right? You've got Alec Thomas in Centerfield. You've got Corbyn Carroll. You've got Jake McCarthy on the roster. You also have Dominic Fletcher, Pavin Smith, serving as depth options. Jorge Barrosa's on the 40 man.

He is a switch hitter who I believe, you know, would be, is better from the left side than he is from the right side. So that's a lot of guys who are better at hitting, you know, right- handed pitching than left-handed pitching. And when I asked that, Hazen's response was, yes, he was very emphatic, that he is comfortable. Not that this is necessarily going to happen, but he is comfortable with a situation where the diamondbacks only have left-handed hitters in the outfield, as long as the stipulation was that, you know, there's some right-handed depth options.

So you wouldn't want to have, you know, all left-handed hitting outfielders. And then, you know, your backup options or depth options at other positions are also. left-handed that would be a bit of a problem but it does it does seem like a possibility here you know we've heard about the debacks pursuing a right-handed bat that's not necessarily a right-handed outfielder that could just be a right-handed dh in which case the debacks enter the season with all lefties in the outfield um we have a lot of talk about fast food in the chat by the way and i want to hats off to all of you guys michael is talking about the baconator with the pretzel bread fantastic Waterburger Green Chili Double.

I know Jesse's hungry. I can tell. Just looking at him, just knowing the day he had, I just don't even have to ask you. I know you're hungry. So I just wanted to throw out how some of this delicious food people are talking about just to upset you. But Justin says,

are the debacks going to trade for a designated hitter? And we don't really know at this point what the Diamondbacks are going to do as far as fulfilling these positional needs, whether it's going to be through trade, whether it's going to be through free agency. We discussed yesterday, Hazen's comments that it sounds a lot more likely that they are going to do these transactions through free agency.

And we discussed that it's because money's easier to part with than talent, right? And that's usually the main reason why, especially when you're a team right now that's trying to get better. But we do know that they have some prospects that, you know, they've been rumored in trade packages. And today, Hazen kind of directly. said Drew Jones is pretty much untouchable.

Yeah, this was a really interesting comment that Hazen made. He was basically just asked about he wasn't asked about what you know, would you trade you drones? He was just asked about Drew Jones and kind of how the Diamondbacks long term outlook has changed on him based on the way that this 2023 season went, which was not so good.

Here's what Mike Hazen had to say about that. Oh, wait, hold on one second. We're we had an issue there with our video. coming up, as you can see on the first one of us being behind the video a little bit. So we'll get to that in one moment. But yeah, I mean, like you said, he wasn't directly asked about Drew Jones being off the table. But we do know that there's a lot of guys as far as prospects that, I mean, might not be as untouchable. But still, it doesn't feel like based on any of his comments that he's made, that that's really an avenue that they're pursuing.

I know some people are concerned about losing someone like Jordan Lawler or some of these guys like, you know, that the Diamondbacks have. I mean, even even Ivan Melendez has been a name that's kind of been thrown out of there. And there's a lot of people that that don't want to see him out of the organization either. Yeah, I think, I mean, you know, like we said yesterday, I think that Tommy Troy, Jordan Lawler, Drew Jones, those guys are kind of in a class of their own. as far as, you know, trade assets are concerned. I mean, I think those are the pretty much the clear cut top three prospects in this farm system, not to say that other guys like Ivan Melendez could contribute. But I'm not really sure, frankly, if Ivan Melendez has, has an enormous amount of trade value right now,

even though his numbers and the miners were pretty good last year. He's, you know, a little bit older. And then the strikeout rates were really, really high for him. So I'm sure there are teams that would be interested, but, you know, not on the level. of, you know, a guy like, a guy like Drew Jones. And I do think we have that clip now. Here's what Mike Hazen had to say when asked about Drew Jones is 2023 season and how the outlook for him has changed.

In terms of how we looked at the way he finished, he is going to be my take on the situation that I think a year from now, it's going to be untouchable if he's not already for us. So in fact, it probably is. And a year from now, I think we're going to look back. and say he's more on touch a bit. It's the way I look at it. We just swings totally the same.

Swings power, changes power, athleticism. Probably going to be the best defensive center field around our entire organization. None of that was changed one bit. First, get your damn microphone out of the shot, Friedman. All right. Second, I have to, I have to defend myself, but if you're going to say that, the way that I filmed this was actually with a tripod. So there's a tripod, like sitting sort of next to me.

But the problem was Mike, like, kept swaying, you know, like in different directions. Different people would join the conversation. So I kept having to adjust it. And I also, like, I couldn't, I couldn't see, you know, like whether my hand was in it with the microphone or not. So. All right. All right. I'll let you go on that one.

You just have to put up with the one. I'm not going to let Mike go on on the idea of a guy being untouchable and then more untouchable next year. But, yes, I get what he's saying. here as far as like he feels like Drew Jones is going to make a big leap from what we're seeing. Like you said, kind of with Ivan Melendez, his numbers right now weren't great. There's plenty to still be excited about and he still has plenty of potential. The potential is through the roof. But, you know, you wouldn't really potentially get nearly as much as he's actually worth right now based on, you know, some of his early numbers.

And some people are already kind of frustrated with him when he's just, just now, just in a very early stage in his career and hasn't even started to blossom as a major league athlete. It was a really interesting comment for Mike to make, just the way that he answered this question. Again, he wasn't asked about a trade of Drew Jones. And yet one of the first things he said is he's talking about, you know, Drew Jones being untouchable. And how an interesting way of putting it, right? that Drew Jones is, you know, will be untouchable next year if he's not already.

You know, in fact, I think he probably is. So, you know, he's just kind of going back and forth on whether Drew Jones is untouchable or not. It's not necessarily something that I would read into as, oh, the Diamondbacks are definitely trading Drew Jones. But it did, if I'm being totally honest, it kind of struck me. It's like something that would at least make sense to say if you were trying to trade Drew Jones, like the suggestion that, you know, he's a guy who, you know, he's he's untouchable

a year from now. He, you know, actually he's untouchable now, you know, at least like pretty soon, you know, it's just the way that he answered that. It just made me think like, I don't know. Or D. Chess. There's something going on there. Well, and like you said, especially when he wasn't prompted necessarily about that as a topic, but he used the, the opportunity and speaking to the media to throw that out there, right?

So yeah, I could see that. Mike Hazen's not, he's, he's no dummy, right? There's no way that he got the Toronto Blue Jays to trade Dalton Varsho for Gabriel Moreno and Lordis Gurriel without being a bit crafty. But of course, you did also, or media had a chance to talk to Tori Lavello yesterday. And just before we moved on, I wanted to once again show everybody how relatable Tori Lovallo is. he was asked about basically did he go back and watch the World Series? Did he go back and review the games or pick up anything? And this is what Tori had to say about going back and watching any of the World Series

or any of the Diamondbacks postseason run, in fact. I haven't watched one pitch. I saw it pop up on some of the replays, but I haven't watched. I'd get on it, watch, you know, a commercial, and then turn the channel. So I didn't watch one thing. I don't think I will, to be honest with you. I don't have any desire to right now. Why?

Probably because it wasn't the final destination. You know, maybe if it was and we had won, I might look at it a little bit differently. I don't have any desire to because it seems like that whole entire week. plus however long it was didn't go anywhere close to what we anywhere close to the the original script we had planned so i don't have desire to it's interesting it's interesting to hear him say that and i i just wanted to get your thoughts on on not wanting to go back and watch that i think that's probably what i would have expected him to say tory is tory and he was also asked a follow-up like is this normal for you? Would you normally go back and, you know, watch game film after the fact or whatever?

And, you know, he said, you know, of course there are certain things he would want to watch for, you know, just from a coaching standpoint. But by and large, he said, no, almost never. Does he go back and, you know, watch games over again? He kind of seems to like to focus on the future and what's next and, you know, how things can be, can be better moving forward and just sort of keeping the mindset there rather than looking at what's happened in the past. So I wasn't surprised if I were him, I would like at least watch some highlights of the DeBacks Dodgers series

because that was an especially glorious time to be Tori Lavello. One would at least think the Brewer series. I mean, there were some really, you know, remarkable moments for this team there as well. But yeah,

I mean, you know, as a manager, I guess your job is to be even keeled, never too high, never too low. And so, you know, even in those, even in those moments where the debacks were seemingly on top of the world, you know, we saw my, or we saw Tori give some some pretty fun clubhouse speeches. But by and large, he's, you know, he's kind of trying to keep a level head in all of this. And, you know, moving forward, it doesn't sound like he's planning to bask in some of those wins that the debacks had.

Oh, that, like you said, that's very on brand for Tori. He has always been a guy that has preached about not getting too high on the. wins and not getting too low on the losses. You kind of have to flush everything and move forward. And there's some that might disagree with that philosophy and say that there is a lot to be learned even from the losses, right? But I think from Tori's perspective, he learned it in real time and doesn't need to go back and just review his mistakes and decisions that he made over again and, and, you know, kind of relive something that probably caused him in all sincerity, a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of moments of just questioning, you know, your, your actions,

your decisions as if anything at any point could have gone differently that you could have impacted it, anything you could have done to make be, maybe, you know, especially when you get that close, right? It's, it's so much harder to live with when you were that close rather than when you still had maybe, you know, like, hey, we lost in the NLCS. And, you know, I, who knows what would have happened in the World Series. So there's a lot of that that's still. just wonder, but you're, you know, you can only question that series that you were in, right? To be in the World Series and be that close, you know, like I was always trying to look at it very positively. You know, if they lost, I was always trying to look at it from the perspective of,

man, so proud of these guys for getting this far. But, you know, from, from Tori's perspective, he might feel like a couple of decisions here or there and we might be talking about the team we cover being the world champions. And who knows if that's the case or not. There's a lot of interesting comments, by the way, Jesse in the chat of people talking about essentially prospects being cool, but World Series rings being cooler like our guy, Brute Squad barbecue says.

A couple of comments here, Benjamin Hunley talks about like he'd be more excited about Dylan C's than Drew Jones. He also says, why are Laller and Drew still debacks? We should have traded them for starting bitching by now. So a lot of people here, I mean,

I'm sure there's some mixed feelings from the fans in regards to the diamondbacks making a big move, big trade, especially if, you know, if they can't financially figure out a way to improve this team and fill all the positional needs they have. But, you know, as much as we talk about starting pitching, I think the diamondbacks can get by for now with the starting pitching they have. I think they can actually be a good team with the guys that they have in the rotation if Tommy Henry is able to come back. And we can kind of get Ryan Nelson and Tommy Henry pitching the way that.

if they were last year. I don't think anyone wants to see that, Derek. Yeah, nobody wants to see that. And I get that. You know what I mean? I get that. But I also think that there's actual, you know, players that they're losing that they need to do something about as far as,

you know, an outfielder and some other needs that like they're, they are. I mean, yeah, they can call some guys up, but they have a lot of work to do. And again, starting pitching, even though it's the focus and is the thing that could probably improve

this team the most, might not be the thing that they need to get done as much as some of these other things. So anyway, they were linked to Lucas Gialito today. Oh. For whatever that's worth, it was a J.P. Morosi tweet that they came out at some point during the middle of the day. But I mean, at this point, you know, from what we've heard from Mike Hazett,

the debacks have been engaged on. I mean, what he said yesterday was basically all areas of the free agent market. right that presumably the guys at the very top i know nick decor reported that the debacks made a run at sunny gray and yeah i mean in some ways it just feels like common sense the lucas gilito would be someone that they'd have some level of interest in sure report didn't you know it didn't indicate that anything was close or anything like that so it almost feels like with every passing day those kinds of reports just mean less and less like oh the debacks checked in on you know jack flirty like sure you know like not surprised at

Are they going to sign him? Are they really interested? You know, these reports don't often say. They just indicated there's some level of interest. And from what we've heard from Mike Hazen, it sounds like there's probably some, or at least there has been some level of interest in a lot of different guys. And what you brought yesterday was that Mike Hazen wasn't necessarily just

looking for one starting pitcher, but for two. And when you talk about some of these other guys, these are guys that could maybe fit that fifth, you know, spot in the starting rotation. and then whoever they get as far as maybe the bigger name or, you know, whatever, that could be the person that factors in at three. Who knows? I do understand Hazen's comment about not needing to replace Zach Gallen

and not needing to go out there and get an ace. So that could also be the reason why they're checking in on some of these. I don't, like I feel like, you know, you're disrespecting them by saying like, some of these lesser pitchers. But yeah, like some of the more mid-tier pitchers, some of the other guys available market that aren't going to fetch as much money as as someone like Jordan Montgomery, which, by the way, we have this tweet from Gambo. And Gambo apparently says that the Diamondbacks are not in on Jordan Montgomery.

Gambo says, I would say that Jordan Montgomery is unlikely for the Diamondbacks in free agency. I'm guessing a big part of that is the cost of Montgomery. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of what also what we expected, right? I mean, we've been saying that, you know, that top tier of the market while, while according to Mike Hazen, the debacks are seemingly engaged in all areas. I guess we assume that includes the top of the market. But yeah, for them to be the highest bidder, like you said yesterday, I mean, he said yesterday,

there's a lot of competition out there. And you don't know how those things are going to go. And it was always far fetch. It always seemed far fetch that the debacks would be the highest bidder on someone like Jordan Montgomery when all is said and done. And that might not be the worst thing, right? I mean, giving Jordan Montgomery six years and 140 million or whatever it is when all I said it done, that's a pretty big contract for a guy who's, I don't think I've ever viewed as being a true,

you know, number one, maybe even number two starter. I think Jordan Montgomery is a solid mid-rotation guy, you know, one of the better mid-rotation guys out there. If he's your three, that's a really good number three. But, you know, a few years from now, once you get into the middle of this contract, is he still that guy? Does it become more of a number four, number five starter type at some point? There just be a lot of risk there. And I'm not sure that Montgomery is good enough. He's not granky, right?

Like he's not quite at that level where it would make sense for the debacks to go above and beyond in order to try to make that work. Well, we thank you guys for bringing your opinions here in the comments and being here in the PHN Sports YouTube channel tonight. Of course, if you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, make sure to do so now. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss whenever we go live. leave us a like. We always appreciate those addaboys. We are not anti-adaboy around here.

If you're a listener on the audio podcasting side, we love you too. Make sure you drop us a review. We always appreciate those five-star reviews. And of course, make sure you're subscribed on the audio podcasting side. Of course, this holiday season, Circle K is the place for you to stop wherever you need to fill up. I know you're doing a lot of running around. I know you're trying to get some decorating done, some presents done. I know Jesse hasn't even started. He's not even. even thinking about what presence he's got to do. But I know there's going to be a day where he is going to run himself ragged to get all of his shopping done.

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That is 5.0% off your total order by using pH and X. So do so right now. The Rule 5 draft, Jesse, takes place tomorrow night. And normally the Diamondbacks are kind of beneficiaries of it, more, more. But in this case, the Diamondbacks, much like we'll be talking about the MLB draft lottery, we were runners up in the World Series. So now, now, now are we the team that other teams are going to pick our good players off of? Is that what's going to happen to us?

Is that what being at the top is like? I mean, I guess being a serious contending team means that you're not as likely to protect guys because you're trying to keep 40-man spots open for guys who you really feel are going to make an impact on your major league team. That's something that Mike Hazen has talked about. The backs are aware that they have left some, you know, some solid young talent exposed. But, yeah, I mean, you know, the debacks haven't been all that active in the Rule 5 draft. recent years. There was a report last year that Dominic Canzon was going to be taken first overall

in the Rule 5 draft, which is a really, really interesting thing to think about in retrospect because he wound up being a, you know, not the headliner of the Paul CWall trade, but a piece that was presumably needed in order to get the Diamondbacks a closer. That was very important for them down the stretch. And they could have lost them in the rule 5. Yeah, the back should be quite grateful, I think, that Dominic Canzone was not selected number one overall in the Rule 5 last year, as some people may have suspected. But yeah, there are some guys on this roster that could be, that absolutely could be taken

in the Rule 5 draft. I don't know if I would pinpoint any one guy as being super likely to get taken. But, you know, when Mike Hazen was asked today what his level of concern is about Rule 5 and having some talent plucked away, he said it is high, that it is higher than normal, given, you know, like what I said earlier about how they wanted to keep. these 40-man spots for making improvements to the major league roster. They left exposed more talent than they normally would. And we'll see if they pay the price for doing that.

The Atlanta Braves, Jesse, are reportedly flipping Marco, Marco Gonzalez, who they got in that trade we were talking about to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Yeah, I mean, stuff's happening, by the way. The stove is, the stove is really hot now, Eric. Yeah, it's on fire right now. Now that Marco, Eric Betty broke the dam. Now that Marco Gonzalez has been dealt, but you said this is the Braves,

right? That's what you said? Yeah, because they got him in that five-player trade they made on Sunday, right? So another, another situation where the Braves are doing something. And, right?

I mean, it seems like we were joking yesterday about the Braves have been involved in like everything that has happened. so far. I hate them so much, which is kind of funny. But, yeah,

I mean, I guess that kind of makes sense. The Braves weren't going to have any use for Marco Gonzalez. He struggled quite a bit last year in Seattle. I think I'm not quite sure off the top of my head what the story was there. He was not good in the majors. That's what I can say for sure. And the pirates are a team,

you know, maybe looking for some rotation depth. So I can see that making sense. Now that Marco Gonzalez has gone, Derek, now the floodgates are going to open, right? that's all going to happen. I just feel it. Everyone was just waiting for Marco Gonzalez to get dealt.

Now the hot stove is hot. Now things are going to get crazy. Now it's going to be the winter meetings after dark, Jesse. Just like it was mailback Monday after dark. But the only guy that Diamondbacks protected here from the Rule 5 draft was Blake Walson, right? He was the one that they added to their roster. And then we have all these, of course, some names that people are going to be familiar with

that are exposed, if you will. and players of the diamondbacks could potentially lose, including Davison de Los Santos, Mitchell Stumpo, and Christian Robinson. Yeah, I think Davidson de los Santos is probably, he's one of the higher profile prospects available in the Rule 5 drafts at large. So I think of the guys that come to mind is guys that DeVax could conceivably lose. He would be someone that would certainly stand out.

I still don't know if I see it happening. De Lo Santos had an interesting year in AA where he just really struggled, didn't hit much at all over the first couple months. DeBacks put him on the development list, had him go out to the complex. He spent a couple weeks away from AA, just working on a swing, trying to figure things out. And he came back a much better hitter. He put up good numbers in the second half down in AA. But in the second half, he still was only walking about 3% of the time. Strikeout rate was still a little on the higher end.

I'm not quite sure that the team is going to look at those numbers from AA and believe that that guy could stay in the majors for an entire season, which is what you have to bet on. I mean, if you're picking in the Rule 5 draft, you're like, all right, which guy out of this group do I think could actually stay on my major league roster throughout the entire season? I mean, that's how this process works. If you don't think someone can do that, you're not going to select them. So I have my doubts about De Los Santos being selected, but it is. It is possible. He's one of the bigger names for sure. We also had, like I said, the MLB draft lottery taking place today, which I forgot all about.

Because why? We don't have any reason to care about it. Am I right? Am I right? Am I right? I'm just breaking now. Yeah, you are. You are right, Derek.

You are right. All right. Well, of course, you were very excited that two teams from Ohio, got pick number one and number two. I was much less excited about this. I mean, I wasn't like excited necessarily. You thought it was neat. I don't think it's neat.

I don't think it's neat. I don't think it's neat. Cleveland Guardians get the number one pick. And the Cincinnati Reds, Jesse, who were very close to making the playoffs and having themselves potentially an insane run with a very young team, get the number two pick.

So that is a team that is filled with young talent. They were already going to be a problem down the road. And now here they get the number two pick in the draft. So less excited about that, but good for the Cleveland Guardians to get that number one overall pick. Did you know that in fact, this was a very fascinating story over on baseball America? Neither.

Well, so the Cleveland Guardians, they won the draft lottery, presumably, right? In reality, the Cleveland Guardians did not actually win the draft lottery when the whole ping pong ball process was going. Cleveland Guardians were not first. The team that was first was the Washington Nationals. The problem was that in the new CBA, there is a stipulation with the new draft lottery rules that a revenue sharing payee,

so a team that is paying into the revenue sharing program, cannot have back-to-back lottery picks within the top nine, I believe it is. So the Washington Nationals, even though they, even though they rightfully won the lottery, you know, through the whole ping pong ball process, they are picking 10th instead because of the stipulations of the CBA. Yo, pretty crazy. That's especially considering all the help that that franchise currently needs, I would not be

very happy about that decision if I was a Nats fan. So I think the, um, unfortunate for them. I believe that it's two years for teams that play into revenue sharing and then three years for teams that don't that are recipients. So the Oakland A's, I want to say landed fourth in this year's draft lottery. We have the image. Here's the, Damon, let's throw up the image of how things, this is how everything ended up working out. The top six were the, right, the top six are the, are the draft potential draft. number one pick, right?

So, so, yeah. The top six are part of the lottery. Because, because the, um, the Oakland A's landed, I mean, they could have landed higher, right? I mean, fourth was not a very good outcome for, for the A's, uh, in this process. And not only that, but because they also were a, a lottery team last year, um, they, it's a similar thing to what, what I was describing with the Nats, except they get an extra year because they're not a revenue. sharing payee their recipient of the program.

So, yeah, that means that next year, the Oakland A's cannot pick any higher than 10th in the same way that the Nats were in that situation this year, which is really tough for the A's because you're not exactly, you're not exactly trending upward. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. And you'd like to maybe get things figured out a little bit by the time you make that debut in Las Vegas, but probably, probably not going to happen. But, yeah, again, these are problems that we don't concern ourselves with. As you can see, Diamondbacks nowhere there in the top 18 because they won't be picking there.

But they will, thanks to Corby and Carroll winning the rookie of the year, they will have a couple of draft picks fairly close to each other there right at the end of the first round and after the first round ends. So hopefully the coming back. 29 and 31, what the devs have. And then they have something close after that. exactly sure yet where it falls, but somewhere around 35-ish. Yeah, because of the competitive balanced round as well, they'll have a pick there. So they're going to have three picks, you know, kind of cluster it all together.

Nothing super high. Their first one is 29 because they made the mistake of making it all the way to the World Series, thus dealing a serious blow to their draft prospects next year. But I think it was a fair tradeoff for them. I don't think they're too disappointed about that. All right. Well, let's see here. That doesn't make any sense. That can't be right. All right. Well, I got for you guys, of course, BetMGM Sportsbook. There's things that are changing around here. And I mean, again, I could be wrong. I could be wrong. But I'm looking at my ad read, Jesse. And if you haven't signed up for BetMGM yet, this can't be right. But I'm going to read it because that's what it says.

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Visit Play at Healy's at Healyves. hila.com for more details. Well, Jesse, it tis the season once again to take a look into the future with our friends from Arizona lottery. And of course, uh, we know that's we, we know we're not getting Shohei Otani. And I know a lot of people know they're not getting show Hey Otani, but show Hey, Otani really hasn't broken the winter meetings. Uh, we make all these jokes about these hot stove, stoven going on, but we know what we all want.

We know what information we want. Meanwhile, Otani's at home completely unaware of the stress that he's causing on all of us, the sleepless nights that it's causing, everything that's going on. He's probably playing with a dog, enjoying his time,

you know, doing something wholesome. But the Dodgers, Jesse, I'm happy to report are officially out of the running for Shohei Otani, thanks to Dave Roberts. Because Dave Roberts, as Dave Roberts apparently today told the media that the Dodgers did, in fact, meet with Shohei.

And according to a previous statement that Otani's camp sent out, any team that was going to talk about meeting with Otani was going to have that held against them, which has turned this whole thing into just such a weird situation. What an absolute nightmare for the Dodgers, right? I mean, Dave Roberts, Dave Roberts is down bad, Derek. Dave Roberts is going to have a long night. This is going to be, it's probably going to be tough for him. No, I mean. He reportedly got a call right away. Like someone said that he was like basically immediately on a phone call,

probably with someone from the organization telling him about the huge mistake he had made. Yeah, I, I very much regret my decision not to be present for Dave Roberts Presser because it was actually, it was right here. I mean, we're a stones throw away from where Dave Roberts would have been sitting, or at least I am right now. So, yeah, this is a statement that, you know, it had been reported that, you know, Otani's camp was going to hold it against teams, as you said, if they leaked any of this stuff. I don't know if, I think it would be outrageously petty on the part of Otani and his agent

to pass on the Dodgers because of that, frankly. No, I don't know that at all. I completely disagree with you. I think that would be a great reason to pass on the Dodgers. Any reason to pass on the Dodgers is a great reason, Jesse. That's what you got to keep that focus, okay? Got to keep that energy. I just, I think that this whole situation with Otani,

where everything is so mysterious, is getting old. Yeah. And I don't know that it is, now granted, you know, there is a universe in which reporters don't exist, I guess, and we find out about all this stuff via, like, team press release, which would probably result in a lot of fans leading much happier, you know, more fulfilled lives when they're not constantly worried about like the latest report from John Heyman or whatever, right, about who their team is showing interest in. I get a good night of sleep finally. Just one good night's sleep. I don't wake up worrying about a trade happening while I'm asleep. But yeah, I think that there's something fun about this time of year where those reports are circulating.

And obviously there's a limit to it, right? I mean, there's only a select few of people who are usually breaking these kinds of stories. And, you know, I certainly wouldn't want a world in which we knew everything about all of the negotiations. with every player or actually I kind of would want that world if I'm being totally honest but I recognize how ridiculous and absurd that world would be um but yeah there there's something fun about just knowing like oh the reds met with otani or oh the you know there's probably stuff behind the scenes that i mean just think of all of the the new cycles that we're missing out on right now as an industry because there's just so much mystery surrounding the situation there have been a few reports that

have come out right um you know i think ken rosenthal reported that that there, you know, it had appeared that the, the Blue Jays, you know, met with Otani and his camp in Florida. So, you know, these things are still out there. But I just think the need to protect this information to this decree, I just think is kind of dumb, frankly. I know that Otani is more of a private guy and he doesn't really like to speak to the media as evidenced by the fact that he did not show up to a phone press conference.

I think it was billed as being technical difficulties. But Shohei Otani, when he won the ALMVP award, did not show up to that phone call. I've heard that reporters were there for a very long time waiting for him to show up and he never did. I'm not so sure that I believe that it was technical difficulties that led to that. There just has to be a reasonable limit to this stuff. And, you know, I know that feeding information to reporters, you know, I don't want to say that there's like a necessary minimum of that. Like I, you know, I respect people wanting to keep negotiations a little bit more private.

But doing it to the level of like holding it against team or not signing with a team because of a meeting that Dave Roberts was legitimately a part of. It just seems really, really silly to me, even though, yes, if you're a Diamondbacks fan, you probably would absolutely love to see Hotani and his camp pass on the Dodgers just for this very reason. Yes. Otani has kind of been bulletproof Teflon. He's such a good player. He's such a unique player that. And then you mix that with his childlike wonder and his charisma and just how wholesome he is.

And he's just really never come under fire for anything he's done. I'm sure, you know, even Angels fans when when he wasn't, you know, perfect and had his bad outings or whatever, I'm sure they wouldn't. hold anything against him, right? So, uh, this is like the first kind of pretentious type thing that's, that's ever kind of come out about him. And this might not have any decision. This might have a thing to do with him. This might be completely, you know, his management team and, and his agent making this call or making this decision. This, this probably isn't a show hey, Otani decision, right? But, uh, it does come off as looking a little, like you said, silly. It comes off looking.

looking pretentious. It's a little exhausting at this point, right? You have Bob Nightingale today reporting through a tweet that the Chicago Cubs optimism of landing Shohei Otani has now significantly waned. One high-ranking executive said, leaving the LA Dodgers, Toronto Blue Jays, Los Angeles, Angels, and San Francisco Giants as the likely finalists. And who even knows if they're the finalists considering all of this mystery that these meetings are shrouded? in, right? But yeah caused a reported conflict between Bob Nightingale and and, you know, the, the Cubs, right? And so like, yeah, yeah, and him and Hoyer. And so like, it's one of those situations where like it's, it's such a problem now that it's, it's like trickling down and causing

conflict and causing a lot of problems between, you know, some of the best reporters in baseball, you know, legitimate. well-known reporters and the clubs themselves over the reporting of this and over this situation. You know, it's just, it really has. I mean, I joke that it broke the winter meetings, but it really does feel like nothing can, nothing can happen. You know, we have these small deals being done, and it feels like this is the kind of stuff we're going to see until, like,

the show, Hey, Otani deal gets done because the contenders that are in the Otani sweepstakes are teams with a lot of money that if they don't go at up, they have other directions that they can go. And so there probably are a lot of players and agents kind of waiting for that decision to be made before those teams and those talks can even be had. You know, like, do you want to sign your guy right now to a deal knowing that the Dodgers have money in hand waiting to just spend it on a free agent? But they're kind of like they want to make, they want Otani. And if they don't get Otani, they're going to have a lot of money, you know, kind of still. budgeted for Otani that they have now to spend on possibly several free agents.

So I as an agent wouldn't even want my guy signing until all of that gets figured out until the teams that miss out on him are now looking for other players because you can really get your guy a lot of money potentially. You can get your player a lot of money at this point, pretending on how that, potentially on how that goes down. But yeah, I'm waiting. I'm wanting it to be over. I want Otani to sign.

and when I hear that the Blue Jays are in the mix, I am 100% Jesse rooting for the Toronto Blue Jays to win this situation. It is the best possible outcome at this point for the Arizona Diamondbacks, aside from us getting him ourselves. Yeah, I mean, of all the teams that are in the mix, like yeah, you wouldn't want,

you wouldn't want the Cubs to get him because even though they're not in the same division as you, they are, they're still, you know, if you're in the wild card race, they figure to be in the wild card race as well. we saw how close that race was this past season. You don't want that. You obviously don't want the Dodgers or the Giants,

given that they're your direct competition in the NOS. And, yeah, I mean, I guess the Angels is fine. I mean, I think as a baseball fan at large, it's maybe a little bit sad. It would be a little bit sad to see Shohei go back there because you just know that it probably means that we're just never going to see Showy O-Ton, play a play-off game.

I'm also okay with that, Jesse. At least for the, I mean, but I want to see Oton, just as a baseball fan in general, I want to see Shohei Otani in the postseason. I think it would be good for baseball for that to happen. And the Toronto Blue Jays seem like a team that is sort of in this, sort of in this prime area where they would benefit very much from having Otani. Like they have a need for Otani in a sense.

This past year was not what Blue Jay's fans hoped it would be. And yet also, they're not a team that just has such an absurd amount of wealth or, you know, the Dodgers are going to, the Dodgers, if they do not get Otani, will still be widely expected to win 100 games next year. The Blue Jays are not in that situation. They're a team that would have a good chance to get to the postseason and, you know, make some memories with Shohei Otani in the postseason, something that I want to see while also not being a team that it's just like, all right, well, you know, that's,

team has all the money or you know that team is already outrageously good so you know here we go that that team's just going to get all that much better the you know the rich get richer if you will um so yeah i'm with you i think uh just overall from like a larger baseball fan perspective i think otani on the blue jays would be would be a win for a lot of different people unless you root for an i l east team then then you might not be too happy about it i'm so tired of talking about otani that i just tuned you out that whole time and I just was dealing with this scratcher ticket, right? And I just want to report, Jesse,

that five seconds into scratching this scratcher ticket, you and I collectively as a as a team won five dollars. And that's without me even scratching off the rest of it. That's literally just the first line. And let me see, we got 38, we got 40.

I got a lot of math to do on there because these are a lot of fun and I can't wait to figure out how much more money. I probably shouldn't be telling you how much money I won, especially with the 50,000 one on there. I'll probably keep that to myself. But again, Arizona lottery, tis the season for... If you ever do win 50,000 on one of those,

I know that you're just going to tell me about like the $5 part and then you're going to keep... You're going to keep a close eye on that. I would probably audit me. I would probably audit me. That's probably a good idea. And I mean, really, when it comes to buying these holiday scratchers for other people,

I'm pretty bad at it because I was going to put some in stockings and then I was like, there's time. These can be for Dare, Dare, these are Derricks, and these might win. I don't know. Every lottery ticket I buy for someone else, as much as I want to give that to them, I think this might win half a million dollars. Why am I giving them? Do I like this person enough to just give them half a million dollars?

Well, you might do that very thing this holiday season. So make sure to check out holiday scratchers from the Arizona lottery. They make last minute shopping easy, as Jesse can attest to. They make a perfect gift. They make great stocking stuffers. There's a scratcher for everyone on your list. They cost as little as $1. And again, they can win you up to a half a million.

So go out and buy your holiday scratchers today. And if you got some company coming over like I do, I just found out last night, Jesse, that it is my turn to host Christmas at my house. And that is an absolute nightmare for me. I am not happy about that. So I'll tell you, if you have family coming and you want to make your house look as nice as you possibly can, great ideas to finally get that flooring done with our friends at Empire today. I've been telling you about how easy it is to shop at home.

with Empire today, but it's because they have their virtual floor designer. And again, we all know. Nobody, there's like certain things in life we don't like to do. We don't like to go to a car dealership and deal with all of that haggling all day long. None of us like to do that. Well, Jesse seems to kind of be an odd fan of it, but the rest of us are not. But there's other things we don't like to do. Like go sit in a floor room all day and talk to a salesperson and have to look through books and make all these decisions. And of course, Empire Today makes it easy for you that you can do that all at home. They pride themselves, in fact, on their convenience shop at home service. They help customers shop for floors where they use their floors so they can see exactly

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So anytime I get to do that, it's a pleasure. But, Jesse, Tim is very anti-Lucas Gialito in the chat. Oh, he said, you know, it's not a good stocking stuff for Lucas Gialito. Well, you might not be wrong about that. But we'll see. Diamondbacks still have some upgrades that they need to make. And again, with Mike Hazen going after two starters, I don't think anything's off the table right now. They did bring in at one point, you know, I don't know if you guys remember, but Zach Davies, who was our ace for a week.

So anything can happen. But we do appreciate you guys, of course, being here. Jesse, what do you got on the schedule for tomorrow? More monitoring, you know, Mike Hazen's eating habits. Yeah, that's priority number one. Absolutely. What was on the menu? When we were in his hotel room yesterday, there was Mike and Ikes there as well.

So apparently Mike and Ix are very prominent in the Diamondbacks front office meeting. The official sponsor of the winter meetings, Mike and Ikes. There you go. No, we have a manager's breakfast tomorrow. All right. Which actually Diamondbacks manager,

Tori Lavella, we're told, will not be able to be present for that. Instead, we will have breakfast with bench coach Jeff Bannister. Oh, Hey. Hanging out with hanging out with Banny in the morning.

And then the Rule 5 draft is at 1 o'clock, I believe Nashville time. So I think that would be noon for you guys. I do want to add real quick. We touched on some guys. The debacks could potentially lose. I also asked Mike Hazen about whether the diamondbacks would make a selection in the draft.

They do have, as of right now, two open spots on their 40-man roster, so they conceivably could. Mike said probably not, though. he did mention, you know, they're going to, you know, go through all the names and do the research. He mentioned that, you know, if anyone, it would be a relief pitcher. But at this point, yeah, I'm not, you know, like a reliever, a reliever with top-notch stuff. Those are the kind of guys that do get taken in the Rule 5 draft from time to time.

Maybe the D-X would have some interest there. But they also already know who's available. It's not like, it's not if we have to wait until tomorrow for Mike to know. I mean, I guess there are other teams picking in front of them to be sure, but a lot of times in the Rule 5 draft, whether you're making a pick is not as much about who's picking in front of you as like, do you actually want anyone, you know, based on your own and how scouting reports and whatnot.

So my guess is the debacks don't take anyone tomorrow. All right. Well, we will be back roughly at 2.30, depending on media availability with Mike Hazen and when Jesse gets all that wrapped up. So make sure to join us at a more reasonable hour. for many of you, or at least for me, I'm, like I said, self-professed early. I go to bed early.

I'm an early sleeper. Yeah, it's terrible. This is sucks. I don't like this at all, Jesse. This is taking me back to getting drunk at 11 o'clock at night on Champaign after winning, you know, the NLCS, but or NLDS. Wait, CS. I don't know. I got drunk after a lot of those series.

So we'll see what happens. But, yeah, after Jesse has biscuits with Bannie and we get that Rule 5 draft, we'll be back. You can follow us in the. meantime on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore caveman with the K. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs. Of course, our producer is always the people's producer.

It's the one and only Damon Dog. We are Damon's dogs. Bark Park. You can follow him at Damon Dog. That's DAWG. Of course, all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore Sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We appreciate you guys so much for

stopping by tonight. We look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Thank you for your time. And remember, kids, Baseball is fun, but it is so much more fun when Otani finally signs with a team.