PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Can the Arizona Diamondbacks bullpen bounce back after a disastrous 2022 season?

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

We are just 30 days away from Opening Day, and we are already thankful for the depth the Arizona Diamondbacks added this offseason. The biggest focus was on improving their bullpen for 2023. Did the D-backs add enough pieces to turn things around? We like what we’ve seen so far. 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.

There are just 30 calendar days until opening day, folks. That's right. Welcome in to the PHNX DBAX podcast. I am your mayor of PHNX, occasionally known as Derek Montia. This guy is the vice mayor of Salt River Fields, occasionally known as the Thunderstick, Jesse Friedman. Derek, baseball games will be played in 30 games. In 30 days. 30 days.

And those games will actually count. Yeah. And apparently I'm told that today is the last day of February. Correct. Which is still mind-boggling to me. I'm not sure if I fully believe that, but here we are. Well, I want to give a shout out to my friend Jared and his wife, Sam. Jared is just so happy, he just so happens to be cheap enough that he got married during a leap year. So their anniversary still does not count. They still, they've been married for three years, but they still haven't had an anniversary. So good luck to them next year, celebrating their anniversary when it eventually comes around. And just a tip for some of you guys, if you want to. to make it easier on yourself to do it during a leap year. Take Jared's advice. But of course, we have your updates from spring training. Jesse was out there at Salt River Fields.

And of course, we were pretty excited to see Zach Davies on the mound. He actually had a pretty good outing for this team. He only allowed one hit and two innings of work. And he also added some stuff to his arsenal. Yeah, he did. A four-scene fastball is now a part of Zach Davies Arsenal, which is a new thing for him, sort of a new thing for him. He told us that he actually threw the pitch a little bit last year,

toward the end of last year, which is kind of funny because if you go on baseball savant and look at his pitch arsenal from last year, you will see nothing about a foreseen fastball. It appears that he... No, you did not throw a foreseen. Yeah, apparently the system was not smart enough to understand what Zach Davies was doing in the latter part of last year.

But yeah, I thought he pitched pretty well today. His stuff looked good. his velocity was actually pretty, pretty high by Zach Davies standards. His sinker average 90.7 miles an hour is four seamer average 90.6, although I'm a little skeptical if baseball savant actually understands, which is his pitches are sinkers enforcing fastballs right now. But suffice it to say that his velo was, you know, kind of where you would hope it would be at this point. And he made some other mechanical adjustments over the offseason as well, kind of wanting to get his arm in tune with his lower half and adjust some things from a

timing standpoint as well. So yeah, I thought Zach Davies looked good today. Ben in the chat said, can someone explain why tickets to debacks spring training are more than regular season? Well, I think that that's a supply and demand issue, even though there was only 6,300 people out there yesterday on a Monday afternoon against the Cubs. I will also say that there, I believe if I'm not mistaken, there is a difference about who controls the tickets for Salt River Fields versus who controls them for Chase Field. I only know that based on the Diamondbacks telling me they can't give me free tickets to spring training games, which I bug them for all the time. I always bug them for free tickets. But I've also heard that this is the same reason why potentially them moving to Salt River Fields is not the best option because it's on tribal land.

and I don't know if they would have the same control over the facility as they would, if it wasn't on tribal land, basically. Yeah. I feel like part of that might just be that like spring training kind of has this like touristy aspect to it. Very much so. Like people travel to Arizona just for that purpose, right? Which I guess maybe some people travel here like during the season, you know, to watch their

team play the Diamondbacks. But it's much less of a thing because everybody knows that Arizona is beautiful in March. And it's the frequent. right? Like, not only can you come see your team, but you can see a dozen teams play here, right? And it's all within like a 30 mile radius. So it's a pretty great opportunity. And I think they're like, yeah, let's jack up the prices for all of the, all of the people from out of town. Concessions are also pretty dang expensive. Yeah, very much so. Training, anyone who's been out there in the last few days. I haven't gone over to any of the stands

myself, but I've heard stories of people paying quite a bit of money for not a whole lot at concession so far. Here's another thing too, just in regards to that. There aren't that many people out at the games. So there's a good chances. There's a good chance that these high ticket prices are more of the reason why you're not seeing Salt River Fields packed during some of these, you know, spring training games. I'm with the 100% because spring training games are kind of more of a social event anyway. You go out there to hang out with your friends, your family. You're you might watch the first couple of innings because that's when the starters are out there or somebody that you might interested in. And it's not to take away from the latter guys. Like we love the minor

leaguers. And of course, Jesse and I love the later innings in a spring training game when we get to see guys that we haven't seen in person yet. But not everybody has that same enthusiasm about seeing minor league guys getting in the lineup or guys that are just non-raster invitees that are trying to make, you know, kind of take an opportunity and make the most of it. But, you know, the pitching, of course, is something we've talked about quite a bit. We've talked about this, you know, spring obviously being very important when it comes to the rotation. seeing Davies go out and have the outing that he had. Like Jesse said, he was efficient.

He got the job done. He gave up one hit. And for the most part, he showed that his stuff was pretty good. It's very encouraging considering that we know that Davies is already kind of a lock for one of the starting rotation roles that he came out of spring and had such a good outing. Yeah, it's always concerning when you get into spring. And one of the guys that you know has a role, like there's really no way that they can back themselves out of, whatever role it may be, in this case for Zach Davies, it's a spot in the starting rotation. He's going to have a spot in the starting rotation as long as he's healthy. It doesn't

really matter how bad of a spring he has, but he looked really good today. And that's always, that's always a big plus when guys come in and they look prepared and they look ready. And you don't have any, any questions swirling around in your head about slotting them in to a starting rotation spot. Zach Davies throws five pitches now. It's just pretty crazy, right? four seam, cutter, sinker, change up. Of course, that's kind of his marquee pitch as well as a curveball. So it's not bad. I mean, Zach Davies already had a pretty decent year last year,

ERA of just over four, if I'm not mistaken. And so if he can build on that, I mean, he turns into a pretty decent, you know, number four starter for this baseball team. Yeah, I think somebody in the comments said it, but he is really, really is a good back end starter for this team. And I mean, again, it, you're going to have guys, in the starting rotation that you're going to kind of,

I'm not going to say villainize, but you're going to kind of have feelings towards because you do want to see the younger guys in the starting rotation. So you start feeling like those guys are blocking the young guys from getting an opportunity. Are you thinking of anyone in particular there? I'm saying Zach Davies right now is all I'm saying. So Zach Davies is not that guy.

What I'm saying though, Zach Davies is like you said, a plus four ERA and he's kind of guaranteed this role in the starting rotation when we saw at least in the very small window that we saw Drey Jameson and Ryan Nelson both have, you know, more success. However, I don't care. I just want them to go with whatever is the best option that's going to help this team win baseball games. And I think that that was, was Dre Jameson's feeling on it when he was on our show.

He said he's going to go out there and compete, but at the end of the day, he wants them to make the right decision based on who is going to help this team win ball games. Davies actually talked about adding the four seam to his arsenal and Jesse got a clip of it. here is what Zach had to say about adding that pitch. You know, mostly I'm a pitcher that stays down on the zone. The foreseam you're able to elevate a little bit and kind of change the hitter's eyes. Being able to change the elevation on it helps with off speed, but also helps them not sit low in the zone constantly. So mixing that in with a lot of hitters, whether it's the advanced reports where he will throw fastballs up.

So be aware of that. or if it's, you know, just an in-game adjustment for the hitter where he sees a pitch up that opens up the bottom of the zone for me. I think the biggest thing there's like when you talk about his arsenal, obviously, like he said, it's about the variety of pitches that he can throw now and how that's going to change a batter's eye, especially with Brent Strom's kind of, you know, tutelage there about, you know, keeping it high in the zone. Brent Strom loves him of an elevated four-seem fastball.

It's his favorite thing in the world. And I asked Zach Davies about that as well. You know, I asked him, was this more your doing or was this more of the coaching staff? He said it was kind of everyone together, which makes sense. But I have some suspicions that Brent Strom definitely was a part of. Have you tried throwing a four seam up in the zone? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because Zach Davies on paper, like not everyone necessarily would have success. throwing an elevated four seamer.

Like there are some guys that you figure like their four seamer just wouldn't play well up in the zone. Generally speaking, if you throw pitches up in the zone, you know, conventional wisdom is that guys are going to hit it out, right? If you throw pitches up that are hitable, if you throw it high but not high enough, then guys can get to it. So there is a little bit of risk here, I think, for Zach Davies. I mean, he's not going to be throwing 97 up in the zone.

He's going to be throwing about 91 up in the zone. And if he gets that kind of synchering. cutting action up in the zone, that's very dangerous. If you're getting that fastball to just have that little drop where it's at the top of the zone coming in. But right there on that meaty portion, things aren't going to go well for him. But hopefully, hopefully they do. What he talked about makes a lot of sense.

He's trying to like change the eye level. An issue that a guy like Zach Davies could have, which he talked about is hitters can just sit low in the zone. Like even if Zach Davies is executing every single pitch well, throwing all of them where he wants to. Generally speaking, he's going to be trying to throw everything down in the zone. And so hitters can basically just knock off the entire top half of the strike zone and just be like, hey, I know this, I know basically where this pitch is going to go. It's just a matter of picking which one it is. Cutter, curveball, sinker. They're all dropping pitches, basically, right?

They're all pitches that involve it dropping down. I mean, gravity will make basically anything drop. But those ones, those ones have a little extra drop. They do it on purpose. another interesting thing that came up today was that the D-BAC's coaching staff is meeting with Major League Baseball to get some clarity on pitch clock details. And I'm not surprised by this at all, especially after what we saw in yesterday's game, Tori made a very, very good point about Carson Kelly making the last out as a batter in an inning and then needing to get back to the dugout and put his gear back on. There's just still a lot of area.

And then, you know, again, he hypothesized about how a team could use that as a strategy to potentially get the, eventually get the count to one-in-one on purpose when starting an inning before a pitch has even been thrown, which isn't exactly a positive count for a hitter. So, and Tori had some words about them getting this clarity from MLD. The thing that probably has me most confused is if the, The catcher is, it's all regarding the time clock. The catcher is, yes, late getting back to the dugout to get his stuff on and without a dilly-dally. You know, without wasting time and nothing's done maliciously.

And he still gets out there and there's 36 seconds and he basically squats and throws one warm-up pitch and gets his reliever who's going to be catching for the first time to throw him one pitch. we're in danger of getting hit with a strike. So we don't want that to happen. I just feel like there's a part of that process has got to be addressed and we're going to ask questions of me personally around that specific area because I want to get it right.

I want to do it right. I want our players to be ready and be prepped. Yeah, and I mean, he's very right about that but it just goes to show how new this is. And honestly, a couple of things. Tori loves the phrase dilly-dally. He loves that. Yeah, I had to cut out a good 20 seconds from that clip.

He thinks it's delightful. He talked about, yeah, he was just fascinated by it. He stopped himself, was like, that's a great phrase. Like, I should use that more often. But no, what Tori's talking about there, of course, is in reference to what you just talked about before we played the clip about that situation yesterday where a count bizarrely started one in one. And I don't think that's the only thing that the Diamondbacks will be asking some of the Major League Baseball representatives in that meeting.

I'm sure there's other questions that are probably swirling in their minds as well. I also asked Tori separately, you know, are you surprised at all at like how complex this is? Like there's a lot of layers to these rule changes, right? And he said he's not, you know, he's not surprised that they're getting clarification. He kind of figured that would be part of the process that they would need to clarify some things. But he did say that this is different than anything they've encountered before, right? When you add, you know, a limit on mound visits or, you know, something like that, it's fairly cut and dry. Like, you might want to clarify a couple of very specific situations, but everyone kind of knows what that means.

Whereas with the pitch clock, there's a bazillion situations that you can come up with where you're like, huh, How like what would happen in this situation and and I'm sure the debacks aren't the only team having these kinds of meetings with major league baseball. They're not and they're not the only team that's trying to find a strategic way to gain an advantage. And that's one thing that Tori keeps bringing up is he wants to look at the rules. He wants to understand if these are a violation of the rule or if there's some way that they can use this to their to their advantage. And honestly, all teams in baseball are doing this. It's why it was hilarious to be in the rules meeting with Major League Baseball officials and have them openly tell you that the teams are trying to circumvent the rules

and they're bringing up their ideas to them, much like what Tori is asking and getting clarification about in this situation. It's new to everybody, and that includes the Major League umpires. I think that's the reason why, too, is that Tori wants to make sure that before we get out of spring training that these umpires have these conversations and they know what to be looking for, where they need to be giving leeway, where they need to be making small adjustments. Not everything when it comes to this pitch clock is black and white. But, you know, there's just a lot of, there's going to be things that happen.

I mean, Patrick Lyons, when he was on this show, brought up the idea of flopping in baseball. And not that we're going to see that often, but we're going to see it. You're going to see fake injuries all of a sudden pop up. Oh, interesting. Fake injuries. Is that what we think it'll be? Yeah, just like a little like, hey, I got a little ankle thing. I need to like step off.

Maybe a trainer needs to pop out here, mostly because there's no other way now to get that, relief that break. And it's not to say it's going to happen often or a team's going to necessarily abuse it if they do. I'm sure the umpires are going to let them know they can't. They're going to assess a penalty if they don't get back on the mound in time. However, there are so many times that in baseball, either a pitcher or batter needs more time than they're going to give them and they're going to find ways to get that time without getting a violation. I have heard that. I have, I can't remember who it was, but somebody mentioned that as like a strategy that that you could use is anytime you're in a bind as a pitcher just call the trainer out right just

they haven't limited the number of those yeah i mean like the how is the umpire going to figure out if the injury is real or not they they can't there's no way now like remember checking for the sticky stuff now they're going to have umpires that are medical professionals yeah assess the angle to see if it was actually let me see if that's really broken check this ankle out all is there any blood well another interesting thing that you talked about with tory lovolo was fatigue possibly setting in with pitchers due to the pitch clock. Obviously, they don't get to take those momentary breaks. Yeah. And everything is kind of expedited. And Tori did not, does not feel like that's going to be an issue for pitchers in Major League Baseball. I asked that question.

After watching a few live BPs, the pitchers are just getting it and going. Every pitching coach that I talked to from player development said it's not an issue whatsoever. Guys, guys will, they're getting in shape. They're all conditioned. they're going to get the baseball and go and perform. You get into that 35 pitch range, I think any pitcher starts to get tired. It might amplify because of the pitch clock at that number, that big number. But for me, I don't think it should be a problem. What do you think? Do you think we'll see it?

Yeah. Is this like when here's what I think. This will be an issue when a pitcher gets injured and blames it on the fact that he was like having to go too fast. Yeah, right, right. It's not a problem until one. One guy gets hurt and pins it on that. Especially if it's a big name, right? Especially if it's a marquee player in baseball, which is ridiculous because it should happen

if anybody gets hurt. But the bigger the name, it's like the bigger the situation. If we have what happened in the spring training game yesterday happened during a postseason game, people are going to lose their fucking minds about it. I'm telling you now. Yeah, I was a little surprised by Tori's answer. I kind of figured that there would have to be some undeniable effect. of this, right?

Sure. Like, some pitchers work faster. Some pitchers work slower. Maybe the guys who are used to working quicker. It doesn't matter for them. This is the pace that they like to work at anyway. But for guys who work slower, you know, a lot of that can just be controlling the tempo of the game.

But I'm sure part of that is, you know, just like their level of comfort with how often they want to be throwing the baseball. If you haven't thrown a baseball 95 miles an hour recently, which I personally, which I personally haven't. It's been, it's been a few years since I've thrown a pitch 95 miles an hour. Last week. Yeah, you have to go back to my high school days. Then I could throw 95. Not, not anymore. No, I mean, I like, high school days were like three weeks ago. Yeah, right, exactly. I mean, I think anyone throwing a baseball that hard, I mean, in having to like get it back from your catcher and get set and do it immediately right after that, you'd expect, you, you'd expect that a change of

pace like that, which I think will be significant for some pitchers, would have an impact on their level of fatigue. But Tori did say also that, like, in situations where a guy is throwing a lot of pitches in a particular inning, that maybe it would have a bigger impact in that situation. So maybe it doesn't change your fatigue like throughout a game. But in a particular inning, if you're at 30 or 35 pitches, maybe there's a little more concern just because of how quickly you're having to throw all those pitches. But yeah, it doesn't sound like a big concern for the debacks. It's much like my time in the gym, Jesse.

I go down to the gym here in this building for 60 minutes, but I only spend 13 actual minutes working out. You know, the other 47 minutes are me recovering from the various workouts, walking around. They usually have on one of the TVs, one of those lifetime shows about stage moms and like pageant children. Oh, man, that gets me pumped to work out. So, like, I'll try to watch some clips of that and just get... Do we need to bring a pitch clock down to the workout room?

It's not the worst idea. It would probably get me actually in shape, you know? But speaking of being in shape, injury updates are crazy right now around Major League Baseball. Some major injuries that actually do impact the Diamondbacks. And I don't want to say in a positive way. But wink, you get what I'm about to say. I mean, it is in a pot.

I mean, it's a positive way. I mean, you can't... It's positive. You can't get out of that. Right. Gavin Lux tours ACL. That's what happened. He's out for this season. So the Dodgers have lost their shortstop of the future for this year.

And more importantly, the Dodgers were really relying on Gavin Lux having a big season for them, I think, based on the fact that they obviously didn't bring back Trey Turner and didn't go out and score any big names in free agency at that position. Yeah. I mean, the Dodgers at shortstop have gone from Corey Seeger, pretty darn good. to Trey Turner, pretty darn good, to now Miguel Rojas. I mean, it's kind of the only guy that they have, right? Man, I bet they're freaking thrilled that they picked him up now, all things considered, right? Because that was a very, very late addition to their team. Yeah, yeah. So their depth chart in the infield is is a little bit thin now. I think you pretty much have to go with Rojas as your everyday shortstop.

Miguel Vargas, a big prospect for them. I don't think you'd never. necessarily see him at shortstop much, but he'll probably be a very prominent infielder for them this year, a very, very well-regarded prospect. So I think it'll be interesting to see how he pans out. But outside of that, the Dodgers don't have any other, you know, clear, like, big league, everyday player caliber guys who are, like, ready to go. So this is a, this is a pretty big loss for them. In past years, I think the Dodgers could have lost Gavin Lux and been okay. He hasn't really play, like, they haven't even given him that much opportunity the last couple years because it feels like he's always blocked by some superstar or something. And this was going to be his year to kind of

earn that role and take it over. And I feel bad for the guy because one of the quotes that came out from this situation when people were interviewing Gavin Lux as he said, you know, everybody dreams of playing shortstop for the Los Angeles Dodgers. And even speak for yourself. And I mean, I understand where he's coming from, right? Like if I were in his shoes, I would think That's pretty cool too. Yeah. And I understand. I mean,

apparently he was like holding back tears in that moment thinking about not being able to fill that role this year. Now I feel like a jerk. You're not very sympathetic to this situation. Not at all. And I'm not going to be sympathetic to this one either. Joe Musgrove fractured his big toe in the workout room yesterday for my understanding. Is that what happened?

Have you ever fractured a big toe? I have fractured a big toe. I almost fractured this damn pinky in the workout room. You remember that day. I got a smash between some plates. I have. hated life that day. But yeah, obviously a big part of the Padres starting rotation.

And again, at this point, considering that the Diamondbacks take on both of these teams so early and so often in the season, I'm not, I'm not upset about either one of these injuries. I don't know what the timetable is for Musgrove's big toe. I mean, maybe it's possible that he still is ready for opening day. But yeah, I mean, the Padre's rotation, frankly. Frankly, position players, scary, right? Very frightening. But starting rotation, I mean, you've got you, Darvish, you've got Blake Snell.

Those are, you know, two pretty solid guys. But after that, you know, Michael Waka, Nick Martinez, Seth Lugo, they're not, they're not necessarily hugely intimidating. So this is a big loss for the Padres. I don't think Musgrove's going to miss the whole season or anything like Gavin Lux. But for however long he's out, they're definitely going to miss him a lot. A couple other big names. Tyler Glassnow. is strained oblique so does say a Suzuki and the debacks have lost Horei

Barrosa for four to six four to six weeks with a ham string strain but yeah I think the one thing that this once again confirms is that the debacks depth is starting to look very important when you look around the league you're starting to already see these injuries you think about any potential injuries that could come up to this team it really feels like what they did this off season as low key as it is is might end up strategically being very good for them in 2023 if they experience the same level of injuries that some of these teams are already experiencing. The debacks, I think, I mean, you know, really unfortunate that Jorge Barrosa, this hamstring

strain situation, probably won't affect his season too too much, I wouldn't think. We weren't really viewing Barrosa as a candidate to make the big league roster or anything. So, you know, his season would start a little bit later anyway. So I think he'll still be on track to have a solid, solid year in the minors. But yeah, the debacks haven't been hit with the injury bug quite as much as some other teams have at this point. So a lot of injuries that come out at this point, you're not necessarily losing guys for a significant portion of the season because it's still. It's not the Gavin Lux's injury. Yeah, we're still, like you said at the top of the show, we're still 30 days from real games actually being played.

So guys should be able to come back from these things. but the debacks, hopefully, you know, Evalongoria had strep throat. But other than that, they're doing pretty well for themselves on the injury. Did you stay away from everybody? Did you wear a mask in the room? You didn't talk to any players face to face, did you?

I was careful. Did you stay away from Tori, god damn it? You stay away from him. I swear to God, I believe we were, I believe we were six feet apart at that, for at least the majority of that press conference. So you have no choice, Derek.

Although we could do, what is it? Is it, uh, TNT's inside the NBA. Is that what their show is called? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where during COVID, they were, they were all sitting, like, laughably far away from each other. It was like the world's like, too cam shot.

Yeah, like the world. No, but it wasn't a two cam shot. It was a one cam shot with the world's longest table and like four people sitting like 40 feet away from each other. And if it was up to Charles Barkley, he would have never changed it. He would have never changed it. Probably. Probably. Probably.

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But there's all sorts of other stuff going on. Of course, we talked yesterday about the M3F Festival. Jesse did not recognize a single artist. But, spoiler alert, neither did I. It was like a Saturday night live sketch to me. But our friends at Four Beaks will be out at the M3F Festival. March 3rd and 4th. So grab your tickets at M3FFest.com

and enjoy a wow wheat beer while you're there. Best beer to enjoy while you're at any kind of outdoor event. Must be 21 years or older to enjoy and enjoy responsibly. Well, I guess the biggest question mark, well, we have big question marks when it comes to this team and how this season is going to go. But the biggest question mark about the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2023 is, will their bullpen be better?

That is the one thing everybody asks me, every single person brings up to Jesse and I. And of course, we understand why. There's an understandable doubt in this team's bullpen after what we saw in 2020. And also the additions that they made kind of fly under the radar. There aren't these big names that people recognize. Not to say you're going to openly recognize relievers anyway. They're not the superstars of the baseball team.

But the Diamondbacks did have some key additions this offseason. More importantly, some of their use. young guys that we've kind of been waiting for to kind of, you know, bake at 350 degrees for two to three years and, you know, be a nice, you know, brownie color at the end when they come out and perfectly cooked. We have players like Corbyn Martin. We have players like Justin Martinez. We got these guys from the minor leagues that we've been waiting to see if they can live up to the potential that has kind of been laid out before them. And so far this this spring, we're seeing those guys live up to that potential. We're seeing some.

great stuff out of the young guys and the additions that the diamondbacks made also look pretty damn good it looks like yeah this bullpen has i mean it was disastrously bad in 22 it's kind of like the diamondbacks as a whole in 2021 there wasn't there's not many places to go but up from from how bad the bullpen was that's fair that's fair yeah uh i mean they had the most losses in major league baseball last year yeah you can't go anywhere but up from here but but you want it to go like up by quite a bit, right? At least 20 games, maybe? Yeah, you want the Diamondbacks bullpen to be quite a bit better in, in 2023.

And yeah, they did make some additions this year, as you mentioned. I kind of view it right now, Derek, as there being five guys that we know are going to make the Diamondbacks opening day roster as a reliever. Those five being Joe Mantiply, Andrew Schaffin, Mark Malanson, Miguel Castro, and Scott McGuff. Correct. Those are the five guys that take it to the best. bank right now, barring injury, of course. Those five guys are going to be in there. The debacks are clearly committed to those guys. After that, I think Kevin Ginkle has a really good

chance. So then that gets you to six. So you've got two spots left, right? You're probably looking at an eight-man bullpen. You've got two spots left. One of those, you figure, is probably going to be a long man. You're going to need a long reliever type, right? I asked yesterday if Corbin Martin could be an option for that role. And Tori Lavello said no. He basically said, Corbyn Martin, you know, he's a reliever through and through at this point. And it doesn't sound like they're interested in using him as a long reliever. He's going to be like a one inning, you know, maybe one plus inning kind of a guy. So even if he does make the roster, as you mentioned, being a possibility, you're not looking at a long man there. So you've got

those six that I mentioned plus one long man to be determined who that is. That only leaves one other spot for like a one-inning reliever. Yeah. And you've got a lot of guys in the mix for that one spot, right? Corbyn Martin would be in there. Some of the names that you mentioned, Justin Martinez, would be in there. I think Cole Solcer certainly has a shot as a guy the Diamondbacks acquired over the offseason.

Carlos Vargas. Carlos Vargas, who we saw pitched today. He averaged 100 miles an hour with his four seamer, much like Justin Martinez did in the game yesterday. Kyle Nelson is another guy, right? If the debacks are interested in having another lefty, Kyle Nelson pitched really well for this team last year. So it's, it's kind of a simple situation in my mind. Like, there's not that many open spots. And there's kind of a lot of guys in the mix for what I'm kind of viewing as one, like one inning reliever spot at this point. And like you said, if they're looking at long relief, maybe Tommy Henry might be an option in there. And I obviously,

We don't really think that whoever doesn't make the starting rotation that right now is up for a starting rotation spot is necessarily going to end up in the bullpen. There's a really good chance that both Ryan Nelson and Dre Jamison end up back in the minors. I mean, not saying there's a good chance of that, but there's a chance that both of those guys end up in the minors and Brandon Fott gets called up. There's also the chance that one of them goes down. Brandon Fott stays in Reno and only one of them gets that final rotation spot. Right. We are doubtful that we will see any of those three guys. utilized as a bullpen arm, even if it's the long relief bullpen arm.

Tommy Henry, in my opinion, is a much more likely candidate for that. But outside of that, I think it depends on, I don't know. I mean, I know they said that about Corbin Martin, but Corvin Martin, if you were asking me, would probably be the next guy behind Tommy Henry. That would be for that. It just depends. I mean, you got to stretch him out, right?

Yeah, right. You can't pitch him one inning all spring training and then come opening day. You're like, hey. We need three. Yeah, we need five innings today from you if you can make it work. Maybe the debacks don't necessarily feel that they need a long man. It feels to me like Tori Lavello has kind of always had a long man, especially at the beginning of the season when guys aren't quite stretched out as much.

It feels like you definitely want someone in that role. But yeah, I don't see any scenario where the debacks go to Dre Jameson, Ryan Nelson, or Brandon fought and say, you know, you didn't make the opening day rotation, but we want to keep you as a reliever. Mike Hazen has been very hesitant about that. I think he kind of views it as if you put a guy in the bullpen to start the year, then that's kind of where they're going to stay. And it's a little bit hard to convert them back to a starter at that point.

I guess if they stay stretched out, maybe there's a way to kind of build them back into being a starter later on. But I feel pretty strongly that Nelson Jameson fought. Those guys probably wouldn't be in the mix for that long man job. So yeah, it's like Tommy Henry. I could maybe see them being a little bit more willing to go that route. But I don't know. Like there's there aren't any other super clear options.

Tyler Gilbert, I guess, you know, could be in the mix for that. We saw him pitch pretty well today. But I don't really have any other, any other guys on the top of my head for that. No. And again, that's the reason why it feels like there's only going to be so many guys that make this bullpen. And honestly, it, it's, it's. It's reflection of the starting rotation.

It's the same problem. You have certain roles that are already assumed by guys that you know the team is committed to. Whether that changes throughout the season remains to be seen. But when they start the season and they invest this money in these guys, it almost automatically puts them, locks them into these positions, which sucks. Right. Like the idea should be regardless of how much you get paid that the best players, you know,

get those opportunities, right? But again, with the young guys, they know they have so much. more time, right? The bullpen last year, also, I don't know if they feel like the bullpen, even the guys that were there, if the results were a true reflection of those guys, right? 41 losses of 4.58 ERA. Not good either way that you cut it. Of course, the losses were tied with Texas for the most, the 4.5 ERA six worst in baseball. So I feel like that probably surprises some people. Like, hey, the D-BACs bullpen last year, ERA was only sixth worst.

Like somehow I'm pretty sure D-BACs fans hear that and they're like, no way. Like they had to be way worse than the next worst team. Like, no, there were teams that were worse. They lost a lot of close games. That's what really happened with the bullpen is they weren't able to, you know, close games. But like one thing Mike Hazen said at one point, it's not all on the bullpen because sometimes the team scored three runs and they were up by, you know, they were up by two runs most of the game, but they weren't able to add on.

They weren't able to keep their foot on the gas to give their bullpen more of a lead. right? Obviously, at the end of the day, we, you were all going to blame the bullpen when they can't hold a lead, period. But in their mind, there was just too many close games and they didn't have the guys that could come down and shut down the inning. There were far too many occasions where they were, they had two outs, ready to get out of the inning. That last guy gets on base. And next thing you know, the opposing team rallies and scores a run or two in that inning. And that was really the most frustrating part, not only for the front office, but for the team to see. all these losses and not even like the worst ERA in baseball.

Matter of fact, the Texas Rangers tied them for the most losses in baseball. And their ERA wasn't even really bad. It was, again, it's kind of circumstantial sometimes with these bullpens and how many losses they get tagged with. But again, that's the reason why we're praying. We're hoping. And I know Chris Melton said, be careful what you say out loud. But we're hoping. The only place we can go is up from here.

Jesse, my biggest question mark, obviously, is Mark Malanson. right mark malanson how he fits in and if mark malanson can come can find the success that he had in previous years and even at times last year yeah i mean i he was on my list of guys that you can take it to the bank he's going to be on the opening day roster as long as he's healthy and and i'm sure some people probably think that's crazy that the debacks are just yeah yeah maybe maybe derrick is saying that's crazy uh that you would just hand a guaranteed role over to someone who who who frankly, by the end of last season was kind of a mop-up guy. The debacks

weren't using Mark Balanson in high leverage situations anymore. But I think there's some belief there that he can bounce back. I know Mark himself has said that he's gunning for the closer role. He doesn't view that as being outside of the realm of possibility

despite what happened last year. So yeah, you know, hopefully he's made some adjustments and, you know, his commands a little better. We haven't seen him so far. in any game. So it'll be interesting to see what he looks like. But yeah, definitely something to monitor this spring is how does Mark

Balancid look? Does this stuff look good? Where's the velocity? And does it look like he's actually deserving of this role that he's probably going to get no matter what? Another name somebody in the chat brought up that was outstanding is Bryce Jarvis. He's a guy that was on our radar quite a bit and kind of disappeared a little bit. but he has looked very good in spring training.

So to be honest, I'm happy guys like this are giving them a lot of hard decisions to make. It's like both Lovallo and Hazen will say these are good problems to have, to have too much talent. However, it's like spending money. You can spend all the money you want, but if you don't spend it the right way, you're not going to win ball games. If you don't manage this situation, right, it can be a good problem. You can talk about it being a good problem all you want.

but if the team doesn't win games and you're not putting the best players out there on the field to help this team win games, then I don't know. I don't know if it's going to be the right decision or more of a big problem to have. Bryce Jarvis averaged 96 with his four seamers yesterday. Yeah, he looked incredible. His stuff looked pretty good. I don't know if there's, frankly, I think there are some guys who are in camp right now who are playing these games where it doesn't really matter what they do. They're not going to be on the opening day roster.

That's just kind of how it is. I think Bryce Jarvis is probably in there. that category. But yeah, I mean, he was a first round pick of this baseball team not that long ago. And even though the numbers and the minors didn't look all that great last year, this is a big year for him trying to bounce back. Well, and it's important to have a good showing because there is this limited opportunity for guys like Bryce to make this, to make this splash now, right? Like, you want to make an impression. You want guys like Mike Hazen and Tori Lavallo to notice you and remember you and think of you at a later time. They can get all the feedback.

on spreadsheets and notes and emails and everything that they can possibly get, it still doesn't always paint the same picture as physically seeing a guy throw. You know, like Tori, he's too busy during the season to ever go get to see these minor late guys in person. If he's seeing anything on them, it's video. And again, even that sometimes doesn't give you the same feeling as getting a chance to see these guys in spring training. And also, like, there's there's things that aren't measurable, right?

Like they really want to see a lot of the way that your attitude is and how coachable you are and other things that go beyond your performance on the field. So yeah, but you know, whatever, whatever happens, what we want to see is this bullpen improve. We want to see the guys that deserve an opportunity to get those opportunities. And most importantly, we want to see the guys that are throwing 102 miles an hour play major league baseball game. So let's let's hope that that's what we see. And just a reminder about last year's bullpen. it is now and forever will be our OG's performance to forget. Haven't we already made that the OG's performance to forget at least like five times?

Did you not hear the part where I said now and forever, Jesse? I think I just clarified that. It will forever be our OG's performance to forget. So that's it. So whole 2021 is a season. There's a lot of OG's performances to forget out there. So are we retiring the OGs performance to forget? Oh, no, no, no.

It's like retiring a number. You can't use it anymore. forget can apply to everything, Jesse. Okay. It can apply to our performances on this very show, which I could give out one last week to us arguing about BP on this show. But the thing is, is that an OG's performance to forget at its, it lives inside all of us. And it's easily accessible because whenever you have a bad day, whenever you have a performance that you want to forget, whenever you have, you know, a game that you don't want to remember, go out there,

Grab yourself some wonderful edibles from our friends at OGs. And enjoy, you know, enjoy. Make life better. Change your mindset. Change your outlook with our friends from OGs because they are all about flavoring life. They have a wonderful variety of doses, strains, and flavors to choose from. They also have their brand new strawberries and cream happy balance gummies. It's official.

OG's new strawberries and cream happy balance gummies are live on the shelves. As always, you can find them at your local dispensary by checking out OGsbrands.com. must be 21 or over to enjoy and over or over. I don't know. You got to be 21 or over to enjoy. But it would be hard to be both 21 and over 21 at the same time. Yeah, that'd be tough. See, this would be a performance to forget.

That phrase right there. See how easy that is. But make sure to check out those happy balance, especially if you're not a big fan of the euphoric feeling that you can get from gummies edibles. I know some people don't like that. And of course, this is just more of a calming kind of balanced effect. and you can find those, like I said, at your local dispensary.

Shout out to our friends from OGs. Of course, my favorite company to get edibles from. Also, my favorite company to have fantasy against Jesse. Like we play fantasy baseball, but it's only for one day. I don't have to put up with this season long Jesse beating me day in, day. Like, it's suffocating when you play baseball for an entire, or fantasy baseball for an entire season. I feel like any sport, we've covered this, but basketball, hockey, if it's not fantasy football, let's be honest. Fantasy football, that's the only one that's like truly viable for like an entire year.

It's why everybody, it's the most popular one, right? But even that can be too much at a time. You can win the same amount of money off of your friends in a night than you can off of a season of fantasy football. Draft your teams against five of your friends and the highest scoring squad wins cold, hard cash for that night. You can get six NBA players on your team and whoever scored the most fantasy. points wins it's that simple uh of course we are writing on pitch counts this season and everybody needs to ride with us on pitch counts i'm getting jesse on board with pitch counts uh he doesn't he still doesn't like the idea he still somehow he feels like that's like it's cheating or something it look

if it's a stat that i can pick higher or lower than on there it's it's it's underdog fantasy trying to make me into an overdog jesse there's a phrase that he still reminds me that that exists to be fair i will acknowledge that it kind of makes sense going for pitch counts because it's a little bit more cut and dry like you can look at pitch counts from recent games but like guessing outcomes of you know like how many hits is a guy going to have like that's pretty hard to predict you could have one you can have four yeah you know you can't you can't look at like how many hits he had yesterday like oh that necessarily means it's going to have this money today so pitch counts maybe a little You have an idea, especially early on in the season, because like Jesse said,

pitchers have to build up. So some of those pitchers aren't built up. You can see the gradual increase in their pitch counts from one game to another. Think it through, right? That's all you got to do. You could like teach a whole class on this. I'm going to do it. I'm going to have online sessions where we're all going to ride together on pitch counts and we're going to win money.

And it's this easy to get started. Go to underdog fantasy.com or download the app. Sign up with promo code PHNX and Underdog will match your first deposit up to one $100. Jesse, I know, I know for a fact that the Arizona Diamondbacks thought they were going to get away with this. I know they thought that they were going to get away with this, but not on my watch because it is time for us to throw some shade. Come on, David, let's throw shame. Who are we throwing shade at today, Jesse? I mean, I guess it's the Diamondbacks. I guess it's the Diamondbacks. I just said that when we introed the segment. Yes, we are throwing shade at the Arizona of Diamondbacks because I don't

care. We have given them enough credit where credit is due, I guess. They brought back the promotions. And yes, the Arizona Diamondbacks are giving away a bobblehead this season. It's a cool one. And it's a cool one. It's our friend, Zach Gallen without the K, of course, from your friends here at Fink's. And I'm fine with that. By a consonant, Zach. Yeah, yeah, by a K, Zach. Here's the bigger thing, though, the Zach Gallen bobblehead that is in honor of his scoreless inning street from last season. is the only bobblehead that the Arizona Diamondbacks have announced that they're giving away this season. And it would appear that they have officially announced their entire promotional schedule.

Do you want to know how many bobbleheads the Los Angeles Dodgers are giving away this season, Jesse? Is it more than one? 11 bobbleheads. 11 bubbleheads. 11. So you take the one that the Diamondbacks are giving and you make it double digits and there's 11. The Atlanta Braves are also giving away 11. They're giving away bobbleheads for their current stars, for past legends, for blooper.

Blooper gets a fucking bobblehead. More importantly, they're giving away this bobblehead of my favorite hip-hop duo in the entire world. Outcast, riding in a Cadillac, two dope boys in a Cadillac, Jesse. I hate this so much. I've never been so jealous of other franchises and other teams in my life. I want an answer. I want to, is this revenue based? Do we need to get out there just so that you can have enough money to give away Bobbleheads?

Please someone tell me the answer to this. I didn't think that this could happen. I didn't think that there could be this difference in Bumblehead giveaways from one franchise to another. Are we not one entity Major League Baseball? Do we not all do Star Wars Night? What the hell is going on, Jesse? Yeah, I mean, I, you know, we've talked about Major League Baseball introducing a salary

floor at some point. And I think what this shows us, Derek, is that we need like a bobblehead floor. We absolutely need a bobblehead floor. Teams like apparently the Arizona Diamondbacks are not putting enough investments into their bobblehead promotions. And so the only way to establish a quality in the game is to require not a cap because we all want more bobbleheads, but a floor that requires every team to have five. What would we put that at? Eight. Eight is the perfect amount of bobbleheads.

Eight. that puts them basically at one per month for the entire season. Yeah, a little over. A little over one per month. Right? Yeah. I mean, I don't think that that's asking too much. The bigger problem here is that I scoured the internet to find the team with the next fewest bobbleheads. Do you want to take a guess at what franchise it was and how many bobbleheads they're given away?

I don't know, like the Marlins. No, the Marlins are giving away a ton of bobbleheads. And you know I talked about the goya shirt. I love the goya shirt. That's right. That's right. And the Marlins did a fire-ass, like, slow burn on their bobbleheads. They had them up there, but they were like question marks and they were, they were revealing them one at a time.

No, Jesse, it's the Milwaukee Brewers. Interesting. They are the next team with the least amount of bobbleheads, and they are giving away three bobbleheads, Jesse. Three bobbleheads. That is two more than the Arizona Diamondbacks are giving away. That is 300% of the amount of the Diamondbacks bobbleheads. That's pretty crazy. I don't like this.

I'm upset. Are we broke? Is this like when you wake up as a child and there are no presence under the tree or you just got one and it was a basketball? You know, like is that where we're at? Yeah, I mean, okay, so to play devil's advocate. All right. Something I will say. And I'm sure that there is a counter argument to this.

But one thing I will say is that teams like the Braves and the Dodgers have significantly less, how do I want to say this? Teams like the Braves and the Dodgers have a lot more established players with their teams, right? Like, you can go have a bobblehead for Ronald Acuna Jr. and Matt Olson. Michael Harris won the rookie of the year last year, so he's a newer guy, but he obviously burst on the scene. Whereas you look at his DeBacks roster, Derek. You know, there's no, there's no David Peralta anymore. Kattel Marte is, I guess, has kind of become the face of the franchise in recent years. Nick Ahmed would be the longest tenured player on the team, but he didn't really play at all last year.

Does that help you? Does that make you feel any better? That there's kind of a lack of like continuity with the roster. And so maybe fans haven't established as much attachment to individual players on this team, maybe? The Amarillo Sad poodles are giving away Corbyn Beryl's bobblehead, Jesse. That's fair. It's Corbyn Carroll and a barrel.

It's a missed opportunity for the diner back, frankly. It fucking absolutely is a missed opportunity. So it's a lack of ingenuity. Is that kind of what we're pinning this on? The bigger thing that upsets me is the way that these other teams have embraced the culture of the city that they're in. And the city, the state has plenty of culture to embrace. Yeah. Right.

And I mean, I think that's the frustrating part is that we don't try harder, right? And I mean, again, yeah, that might be the case. What you're saying might be true. but there are so many things about Arizona that you could do. Not to mention most teams have a mascot bobblehead. And like what? You know, ever since Baxter got beheaded by Eduardo Escobar,

now we just don't acknowledge it. What are we doing there anymore? We don't even know. We're not putting out Baxter toys anymore. I don't know what's happening anymore. And there are other players the D-Backs could do bobbleheads for, even though they're not. I think the point I made earlier, like, makes some sense.

But like Christian Walker's still been here for a while. Merrill Kelly had a really good. year last year. Oh, dog. Yeah. I want a no dog. Oh, dog, by the way,

by the way, Orlando Hudson loves Jesse so goddamn much. I can't even express it. He just thinks I look like Nick Piccoro. He never said that he liked me. He just can't tell me apart. It's his favorite thing is to talk to Jesse. I feel like he loves Jesse.

Anyway, all right. Well, I guess we're done throwing shade. I'm doing the sunglasses. I'll put him away. All right. Done with this. But of course,

you guys should go check out our friends at draft king. they don't allow you to bet on bobbleheads, but you can bet on your favorite teams and on your favorite sports. More importantly, the same game parlayes, the more legs you add, the more money you win. You can win all sorts of money over at Draft King's Sportsbook. Of course, Major League Baseball bets are happening.

You can go in and get, right now you can do the future stuff, but of course, games are just 30 days away. So make sure you download the Drafking Sportsbook out now. Use R code of PHNX. New customers can bet $500 and get $200 in bones. bonus bets instantly only at the Drafking Sportsbook with code PHNX. Minimum age and eligibility restrictions apply. See show notes for details.

And of course, when you go out there for those baseball games, maybe not. I don't know if they have the spring, do they have the spring training games on game time, Jesse? Can they get those tickets maybe a little cheaper? This might go back to help you earlier. You were asking us why the spring training tickets were so expensive. Maybe go over to game time the day of that you want to go over there. You might be able to find yourself some cheap tickets, save up to 60% on tickets.

And that is by, of course, embracing. procrastination, wait until the day of, and you can save up to 60% on tickets when you buy tickets last minute. The best way to support us is by buying your tickets through the link in the description. Well, I'm going to go get upset about bobbleheads. I'm going to go hug the collection I have at home. Until then, you can follow both of us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore caveman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore Dbacks, but of course, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We Thank you guys again so much for joining us on behalf of Damon, Jesse, and myself.

We always appreciate your time. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you give away 11 bobbleheads.