PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Can the Arizona Diamondbacks overcome a tough NL West and MLB.com’s preseason predictions in 2023?

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

 It’s PREDICTION SZN over at MLB.com, and we are breaking down all of the hot takes about the Arizona Diamondbacks and what their 2023 season could bring. Also, the Winter Classic is delightful and we stand in solidarity with our icy brothers from the NHL. 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.

Well, hello there and welcome in to another edition of the PHNX DeBex podcast right here on PHNX at PHNX in PHNX. My name is Derek Monti, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX. This guy next to me, the one and only vice mayor of PHNX, the Thunderstick Jesse Friedman. And there is no, by the way, we have no connection to the bad guys from the new Avatar movie. I just want to get that out of the way immediately because I'm tired of people DMing me about that. Wait, what's the, so are they named like the mayor and the third? No, it's worse than that. Their Project Phoenix and the way that they abbreviated on their little uniforms is PROJ, P-HNX.

Ooh. Yeah. It's a clever marketing scheme on our behalf of the biggest movie of the summer. Of course, we're that brilliant. But we thank you guys for joining us. Welcome in. This show is brought to you by the fine folks at the Draft King Sportsbook app. America's top-rated sportsbook app.

So great to see you in person. Back alive and in person, it has been way too long. It has been two weeks almost. Oh, I hated it. It's been forever since you've been in here. I was glad. I mean, I guess I'm okay to be around my family, but come on. Like, I can't spend that much time away from you.

It reminded me of you being in Seattle again. And now here I go, trafstein off to Seattle later this week. But great to be back in studio with you. And of course, before we get to talking about ridiculous sports and things that don't matter, obviously we want to send our prayers out to DeMar Hamlin, considering what happened in last night's football game. We know all the entire world sends out their prayers, and it's been said many times, but sports are entertainment. And the health of well-being of these athletes should be everyone's top priority.

I think that the right call was made last night. And all I can say is I hope to hear the best about that young man. Yeah, yeah, it took a little while for them to make the right call. But logistically, I guess there's sort of a lot that has to go into that. But yeah, it's so true. I mean, there's a lot of reminders. builders built into life of, you know, like value every moment. And yesterday was was definitely one of them.

It's not promised, man. Nothing's promised tomorrow is not promised. Remember that in 2023. And just enjoy the time that you have a little bit more. You know what I mean? Remember that this is a fragile thing that we got going on here. But of course, we have to talk about baseball, even though it's kind of hard to considering everything that happened.

But MLB.com has their way too early power rankings out. the very first power rankings of 2023 for 20203. And it's not great news for the debacks. There's no earth-shattering prediction there about what they're going to do next season. I think that they have them finishing around basically where they were at at the end of this season. Something like that. Yeah, yeah, they have the debacks ranked 21st, which is fine. It's fine.

It's whatever. It's, yeah, I mean, 21st, I think maybe a. a slight improvement from where they were last year, finishing 74 and 88. But frankly, it's going to take some time. Like, it's going to take the D-backs proving themselves before, you know, the larger baseball universe is really going to buy in on them improving in a meaningful way in 2023. So no shock here. I think 21st is about what I would have expected.

If someone's putting the D-Bex 15th or, you know, like right in the middle of the pack, that's kind of a bold move, you know, after a team just won 74 games and his zone. only two years removed from winning 52 games. Like that would be pretty bullish. So even though I think we have, you know, higher aspirations for this team and higher expectations for this team, 21st is probably going to be par for the course as far as far as what the expectation is from a national perspective. And obviously this is quite different than like Zips projections and other projections

that we've seen out there that obviously have the Diamondbacks with a winning record and probably be like you said a little bit more in the middle of the pack. probably more around 15th or so, but I guess the big question is, do we care about this? I know we're the ones putting this out there on this show for you guys to care about, but should we care about preseason predictions? Does this mean, anything in the grand scheme of things? Not really, not really. I mean, I feel like in general, we've talked about it before.

The debacks when they have expectations do not tend to perform particularly well. I don't like that other thing about Tori Lavolo being manager of the year. Yeah, yeah. I don't like that. I don't like it. MLV.com is in an odd place right now where they're simultaneously saying the devax are going to finish 21st. And they have 20, they have them 21st in the power rankings.

And yet they also think Tori Lavella will win manager of the year, which I don't really know how those things coexist. But I guess they have more than one writer working on these sorts of things. Very true. That's probably the only explanation we need. But, uh, but yeah, the debacks historically,

when they don't have expectations, those are the years where they actually have been able to kind of rise to the occasion. So maybe that's, maybe that happens this year. That same writer, Anthony Castro-Benz, predicted that the Dodgers would win the World Series next year over the New York Yankees and what I think all of us consider to be the darkest timeline.

Like, that's not a World Series anybody wants, especially not after watching what these Phillies did in last year's playoffs. To be fair, though, like the Dodgers and the Yankees, there would be a lot of eyes on baseball. Like, it would attract a lot of attention. It would be kind of like a Lakers, Boston, Celtics, NBA finals, something like that. That's kind of your marquee

like MLB World Series matchup. But yeah, Diamondbacks fans would be miserable and I understand that. I'd be miserable, that's for sure. I know that for a fact. But that's not the only prediction MLB.com is dropping. They are dropping all sorts of hot takes. They have also named who they think

will be the best player on each team in 2023. And for the Arizona Diamondbacks, they have named Corbyn Carroll as the best player next season saying, Carroll might take the NL West and maybe the whole baseball world by storm this year. That's bold. That is extraordinarily bold. Yeah.

I mean, in a sense, it's not, right? Like Zips literally has Corbyn Carroll being the most valuable Diamondbacks position player. So on paper, like, yes, there is some, there is something here. But also, it's bold to take a guy who has, you know, played 30 games in the pick leagues and say, hey, that's the part about it. He's going to be the best player on the team. Like, it could happen. And in some ways, I don't think it's all that unlikely. But it is a bold prediction to come out and make at this point.

Well, and here's one thing. Let me pronounce war correctly for you guys when it came to war, right? Dalton Varsho was the highest position player on the team. And now Christian Walker, I believe, is left as the highest position player. I think you had a 5.4. In terms of Winds above replacement. Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

So it is a bit open there, right? I mean, we know that Zach Allen is always going to kind of lead the way. But now as it stands with Varsho being gone, There is the possibility for someone to come in and fulfill that same role that that Dalton Varsho was playing, right? Corbyn Carroll could easily step into that right field role and have the same kind of defensive season that we saw out of Dalton Varsho, but could be a big upgrade there at the plate because we saw him do some big things in the minor leagues last year.

Yeah. We have a wild comment. Restructure the entire league have divisions based on pay. Wow. What are we doing here? I don't hate that. Based on payroll. I don't hate that.

Do I hate that? I don't hate that. You hate that? I kind of hate that. I don't hate it. It would just be weird like having the league like segregated based on how like wealthy your owner is. Yeah. I don't know.

But it would also require it to restructure, right? Because there's not going to be, you know, like the Rangers all of a sudden start spending half a billion dollars out of nowhere last year. But they weren't exactly. Every time a team gets a new owner, they'd have to change divisions. change the visions. Yeah, I mean, on paper, like, sure, it'd be nice if, you know, teams were competing by and large with teams who spent a similar amount. But I don't foresee that happening any time.

I think the one thing about baseball is even though the payrolls are terrible, the situation with, you know, competitive balances all over the place. Yeah. At the very least, how often do we see the team with the biggest payroll win the World Series? Not often. And so it's not exactly a guarantee to spending money and having that equate to success. That's one thing that we have seen time and time again, and not just baseball, but all sorts of sports. If that was the case, there would always be some team just trying to spend a crazy amount of money just to try to buy their way into a championship. It doesn't feel like that's not a thing that can happen anymore.

I'm the Larry says, Pirates, Rays, Marlins in the same division. Nobody wants to watch that. Nobody wants to watch those teams play. I mean, the Rays would just absolutely destroy. Roy. Yeah. Maybe like the Yankees of that division. If you go to the guardians in there.

Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Like, let's get a little competition going in. Going back to Corby and Carol, is the pressure building too much for our young stud?

Is there too much for Carol to live up to? And I mean, we are obviously adding to that when these preseason, you know, expectations and all of our discussion about him kind of being the savior of this franchise, right? But is it too much? Or, I mean, based on your, basically. Based on you knowing him, do you think he's the kind of guy that can kind of handle this? I mean, yeah, based on like, and I'm not going to say that, you know, I know Corbyn Carol so, so well to the point that. Jesse and Corbyn are like this.

No, I mean, he's a great, he's a great guy. You know, he has a great head on his shoulders, one of the more cerebral guys in the clubhouse. And the kind of guy we've talked about it before where he thinks more than he speaks, more than just about any athlete I've ever seen. He's just very deliberate with his words. But I do honestly think that there's a lot of expectations on this kid. And in a sense, rightfully so, like the debacks need Corbyn Carroll to be all that in order to get, you know, where they want to go. He's going to have to be a big part of this in a lot of ways. But I also think it's important to note that like Corbyn Carroll, I don't want to say that scouts are divided on him because everyone has him as a top flight prospect.

But there is a contingent of scouts that look at Corbyn Carroll and see a player who is. is good but not great, I guess is maybe how I should put it. It's, I mean, you don't see guys that are his size become stars in this league very often, right? And there's, there's sort of some stereotypes to like, what is the ideal build for a major league player? But I do think there's some validity to that. Like, in order for Corbyn Carroll to really, you know, become the player that Diamondbacks fans want to see, you know, he's probably not going to do it hitting 35 home runs a year.

that's probably not going to be his MO. And I think there are some concerns about his swing and miss when he was in the big leagues last year. He did strike out at a pretty decently high rate. And it was such a small sample that we're not putting too much stock into that yet. But it wasn't like he came up to the big leagues and had a 10% strikeout rate and was destroying the baseball. The numbers were actually, the surface numbers were good. But if you look at some of the underlying numbers of how hard he was hitting the ball, how often he was swinging and missing, he actually wasn't all that great, relatively speaking.

So it's not to say that, like, you know, he can't come out and have the season that we've been talking about here. But it's not a guarantee. And I think it's important to be realistic about like not all scouts necessarily see Corbyn Carroll as like a seven war, you know, just all out superstar every year kind of a player. They think that's a possibility, but there's certainly no guarantees. I'm Larry. I'm the Larry in the chat says, isn't Muky like 5'8?

He's 5'9, which I question is actually 5.9. You can't, like, Moogie Betts is an anomaly, right? That's the point you're kind to make, right? Like, it's not to say guys haven't had that success at Corby and Carroll's size. It's just as they're the outliers. It's uncommon, right. But baseball is a game where there are a lot of guys of different size that all have their own success. Jose Al-Tuve, I'm sure got a lot.

There was a lot probably said about Jose Al-Tuvei not being big enough to play major league baseball, right? So it's like we're not even going to get into. you know, size impacting things. But it does. It's one of those things that scouts people in baseball that kind of try to figure out how long of a career these guys are going to have and how impactful they're going to be. There are things like size and strength and such matter when in reality we've seen guys that are 150 pounds soaking wet, you know, be able to crank a baseball over the, over the fence. So yeah, I just think Corby and Carroll is a special guy. I think he's very mature beyond his years

like Jesse said about him being very cerebral. I think he is somebody that very much is ready kind of for this challenge. I don't think that he's going to shy away from the high expectations. I feel like a lot of guys that are in his position, probably guys like Gabriel Moreno too, they have always been considered one of the very best players in whatever league or whatever baseball they play. So it's not like it's anything new to these guys for them to have this kind of pressure on that

about being the best. But I will say that, you know, of course, there is a lot of baseball to be played. And it's going to be very exciting to watch this team. It's going to be so much fun to watch this team. Honestly, I am so excited for opening day, for the Cactus League, for all of the things. It's going to be a fun year of Newbacks baseball. Pitchers and catchers report. We're going to be throwing confetti and stuff on our way out.

It's only like a little more than a month away there. I know, so excited. It's pretty crazy. And we're excited to be with you guys. But in regards to that, I just want to point out, I'm wearing my team Marlene shirt today. And it was coincidentally enough on the same day that we received a very special gift from our friend Chris, who I hope is still here in the chat. But Chris sent us these wonderful, wait, should we sit on the other side of each other? Like, wait, no, this is right, right?

This is right. Yeah, there we go. That's cartoon Derek and that's cartoon Jesse. And we were sent these for all of the shows on PHNX. And we can't thank Chris enough for helping us decorate this place, even. more than it already is. We love it and Jesse was very concerned about his his neck size and that there's a lot of neck in that one. I am fine with my picture. I think it looks just like me. So I have no complaints. But of course, we want to give a shout out to Chris. We thank you so much for being

our day one die hard. And of course, if you guys haven't had a chance to grab yourself a diehard membership, do so over at go phtonx.com. You'll get to read Jesse's wonderful articles as well as his diehard only pieces. We also have a tremendous. amount of things to offer you as well. Saul wants the picture now. So here you go. It's going to go up in our office and be forever a part of PHNX. But of course, if you get that membership, not only are you a part of PHNX, but you also get a free t-shirt or hat from the PHNX Locker.com, as well as discounts over at the PHNX Locker. You get access to our diehard Discord lounge, which is the best place to be in Arizona Sports fan, as well as 20% off of our events and special invites to events that will be

for diehards only. But speaking of events, we have our upcoming inaugural Four Peaks, PHNXT party out at Dobson Ranch Golf Course. You will get a discount as a diehard for that, so right there, it's worth the money. Kids 10 and under play free, and there's also going to be

a free kids clinic provided for all of those youngsters as well. That entry fee will get you a limited range balls and a set of rental clubs, as well as one free hour of range time and golf balls at Dobson Ranch to be used at a later date. We will be hanging out with our friends from the PHNX Sons to watch the Sons.

versus the Timberwolves. Hopefully they can get their shit together by them because I am not happy, and I don't even cover that team. But if they are bad, we will have all sorts of ways to distract you, including Jesse whooping your ass and ping pong, of course, so much more.

Contest entries, including longest drive, putting challenges, highest score or more. The golf range is absolutely beautiful, state-of-the-art stuff that I've never played on before, but had an absolute blast out a couple of weeks ago checking out the golf range. So make sure to join us. Of course, we are going to be wrenched.

out the entire driving range, hanging out with our friends from Big Drive Energy, and all of our fellow diehards for a night of golf food, drinks, contests, prizes and more. We will be having food and drink available for purchase, as well as our friends from Four Peaks will be out there providing beer samples and swag. So check the link in the show description to reserve your spot right now. And for our diehards, check the Discord for your special link where you'll save 20% off on this awesome event. Gabriel says, I'm going to humble Jesse and ping pong. I can't wait for this. I'm so terrified. I have been saying, I've been talking. I've been talking. So much shit.

I've been a hype man for Jesse for weeks on this. You've been talking it on my behalf. That's what really concerns me. You say I've been talking, you know, but really what I'm doing is amplifying your voice. I'm amplifying the amount of confidence this man has in his ping pong game. You should hear the shit he's talking when we're not on air. It's incredible. But if you can't join us, make sure to grab yourself some Four Peaks beer.

Wherever you get your beer, join us remotely and in spirit, grab that beer at your local grocery store. And of course, make sure you're 21 and over to enjoy. enjoy responsibly. Let's do things, let's do things responsibly in the new year. Speaking of responsibilities, Andy McCullough has a new article. I know we're still harping on MLB articles and things writers are saying, but their baseball writers were making predictions about New Year's resolutions for each team. Yesterday, some of you guys said that we didn't understand the assignment when we were talking about our resolutions or resolutions that the Diamondbacks would make based on Mailbag Monday, but I don't think Andy understands.

the assignment here. I feel like you really miss the boat. Basically, to sum up his article, or his piece on the Diamondbacks, he suggests it'll be damn near impossible for them to win the NL West. He makes that clear. But he does suggest that the trio of young pitchers, the debacks have emerging, could give them a fighting

chance. And by trio, he means Dre Jameson, Ryan Nelson, and Brandon Fott. So I think going back into last season, an interesting thought experiment, obviously I know the Diamondbacks aren't going to remove Madison Bumgarner from the starting you know, rotation.

I mean, at the beginning of the year, probably not. At some point during the year, possible. It is possible because it's going to be based on performance and who can help this team win games. That's what it's going to come down to. But if you insert those three guys in the last year's, you know, starting rotation, right, behind the two studs of this staff in Merrill Kelly and Zach Gowan, what would last year look like?

I mean, I know we've attributed so much of the losses to the bullpour. And obviously there's so many things there that you could talk about about how the bullpen would be impacted by moves, Madison, Bumgarder, maybe being in the bullpen, whatever the case may be. But there's just something very exciting to think about those three guys. If they can perform the same way that Ryan Nelson and Jameson did when they came up last year and they can be that consistent throughout the season, adding Brandon fought to the fold, that's a very exciting proposition. And that, I don't know, there's just something about the uncertainty that they had last year, the number of starts where they didn't have, you know, they had to have six guys. What's going on with covering the Rockies and spring training? Patrick Lyons is causing some problems here. I see that. I see that.

I can't wait for Patrick Lyons to go ahead and challenge you in ping pong. But what do you thoughts on this starting rotation, though, if we think about those three guys with Galen and Kelly? It's interesting. I mean, the way that, like, his word for word resolution. for the debacks in 2023 is figure out if James and Nelson and Fought are for real. Which for one is kind of an odd resolution.

That's not real resolution. That's not really how resolutions work. Like resolutions are like very tangible. Resolved to give the young guys a chance. It's not just like figure out this existential question. Yeah, yeah. But but yeah, I mean, I do think

this is something the debacks have to make a priority in 2023 is kind of figuring out what they have in these guys. You got a, you know, a cup of coffee in the big league. last year from from from ryan nelson and dray jameson and they were very very good right there's there's no there's no disputing that for sure but it was only about four starts other teams are going to get more information on those guys the scouting reports are going to get more refined and both nelson and jameson are going to have to make some adjustments and as always in sports you know the key for these young guys

is figuring out how well can they adjust uh you know when their opponents are are starting to adjust to them so that's going to be a big question they have to answer frankly if you're a D-Bags fan and you're picturing like, you know, this future trio of aces with Ryan Nelson, Drey Jameson, and Brandon fought. That would be, that would be Derek. I would maybe caution you a little bit. We've seen some, you know, putting together four starts is impressive, but it's really just the beginning of a lot of work that I think both Nelson and Jameson still have to do.

And then Brandon fought, you know, having not pitched a game in the big leagues, we think he'll do well. I mean, there's a reason that Zips basically projected him to be like a top. top flight mid-rotation starter from day one because his minor league numbers were just that that insane. So there's a lot still to prove here, though. There's things that the minor league ball clubs don't want to say like that either of those ballparks are hitter-friendly ballparks, but we know what's going on down there, right? So I think that there's some ballpark factors to take into consideration with Bradford and

what he's faced and how well he's done, his strikeout rate. A lot of positive things there. But like Jesse said, we haven't seen him pitch one one inning in making. yet. So there's still that transition to make. I am very encouraged by Dre Jameson and Ryan Nelson. And I'm encouraged by the fact that they both came up and they both had such, you know, an impactful start to their MLB careers. It makes me feel confident about how prepared these guys are, how prepared the Diamondbacks as an organization are making their young guys. And I'm very excited and very confident that Brandon Fott will have a similar debut in the Major League Baseball. It's just how,

like Jesse said, again, scouting reports and having more than just four or five starts in the major leagues. We already saw Ryan Nelson start to get figured out a bit towards the end of the season last year and his last start. So there is that to be said about like, you know, these guys are still new and there's not a lot of information on them available. Yeah. I'm just excited. And I hope that their actual resolution is to let all of these young guys play and have that time. There were questions in the chat earlier about Evan Longoria if he's going to be a DH. I think that that is a likely spot for him to play.

He'll get a lot of the bats at DH, I'm sure. Yeah, as will Kyle Lewis, as will guys that... Kyle Lewis, people keep talking about Kyle Lewis, like, oh, how dare you put together a projected lineup without Kyle Lewis in it? Yeah. And it's like, hold on here. Like, he wasn't all that great last year for the Mariners. And they sent him down at the end of the year for a reason. Not saying that he couldn't bounce back, but we have to be.

real about his current status. Like currently, Kyle Lewis is not someone you should betting on, you should be betting on to bad cleanup or something, right? It could happen, but it's a pretty bullish thing to bet on at this point. Well, and to be honest, a lot of people were bagging on Evan Lagoria. We had our question yesterday. Our topic is he washed, basically, right? But to be honest, a week ago, MLB.com had an article about the best available player on

the free agent market at every position. He was the best available third baseman. I know it's after a lot of the top. their basement have already been signed, but they're like center field, there wasn't a lot of options out there to begin with in the first place. I think the Diamondbacks did the thing that they should have done.

I think it was smart to bring him in at such a low amount of money. And I am still cautiously optimistic about his future with this team. There's a lot of Zach Grinke chatter happening in the chat right now. I don't want to acknowledge it. Do I have to acknowledge it? What's going on? Zach, wouldn't it be

wild? I'd like to smoke a blunt with Granky. What is happening if you degenerates in your chat. How did we get there? A Diamondbacks rotation, though, with both Zach Granky and Madison Funbler in the second time? No. I, fuck, no.

I refuse. I refuse. I refuse to go in that locker room, Jesse. I am not covering those two fucking guys with how they are going to, no, absolutely not. Frankie is a treasure, there's no, there's no disputing that. He is a treasure. And he was one of the ten guys I brought up in my article of free agents that could make sense for the debacks.

I think that one in... You had like four X Diamondbacks on there, though. I did, I did. But I mean, it's odd, but there's a lot of former diamondbacks left in free agency right now. I want Andrew Chafin. I want Andrew Chaffin back. Give me him. His hair fits in with the lineup.

Wade Miley. It's perfect. Wade Miley was a good guy, too. Wade Miley, I think, makes some sense for the D-backs too. Wouldn't shock me. All right. Well, it's going to be exciting to watch this team. And, you know, where you can get your tickets next season is on the game time app.

If you haven't done so already, Check out the GameTime app. You can save up to 60% on tickets when you buy them at the last minute. So you, me, we're all procrastinators. We know about this guy fucking shopping last minute for Christmas. We already know about that. It works, Derek. It does work, and it works with Game Time.

You procrastinate and you win. You get 60% off of tickets and not just the sporting events, concerts, all sorts of special events, go on to Game Time. I've been telling my friends about it. Like, I literally tell them because we are procrastinators. we don't do a good job of buying tickets on time, but you get the FOMO, right? The day comes, you want to go, you see other people going. Get on game time, get yourself some tickets and save money last minute.

And don't worry about these, like me, where I buy my tickets six months in advance. And now I have to worry about how many events I have going on the weekend of February 25th. I literally have to go to Penn and Teller on the 24th. And then the innings fest on the 25th. And then somehow, Jesse, I'm supposed to be the wrestling commissioner for a pro wrestling event on the other side of town. Don't do this to yourself. Go on game time and get your tickets

when you know what's going on. And also, have yourself a fun time after you come back from the concert, grab yourself some OGs. What a night. That sounds like a perfect night. Get home. Enjoy your favorite flavors from OGs

because they're all about flavoring life. Obviously, I need them because I'm all agitated about all of these tickets I have on the weekend of February 25th. But get them for someone you love. Get them for someone you feel that needs them. They have a wide variety of strains and doses for you to choose from.

And you can always find them at your local dispensary. Must be 21 or over to enjoy and enjoy responsibly. And it's Mark Salara's birthday that weekend, too. My God, now I have to get you a present. This is too much. I'm getting emojis. That's what I'm getting them. I'm telling you that now.

I'm sorry. It's not going to be a surprise. Jesse, I will say this, though. I love having Leah here. I love having Leah back. We are so glad to have you and to be in the same wonderful room as Leah. Because, of course, we all know hockey and baseball. We're like this, right?

We are one. You know, these football and these basketball guys, they have it easy. We have to scrape by here in the valley when it comes to getting people to enjoy these sports. And we do it together in unison. And of course, baseball and hockey absolutely is the perfect match when you talk about the winter classic. We had the winter classic yesterday at Fenway Park. And once again, it's hockey's love letter to baseball. That's what it is, right?

Yeah. We have our guys showing up. Let's take a look at these teams showing up. and we had the, here is the Boston Bruins showing up in the old school Red Sox Unis. They had themselves a catch out there, Jesse. They went out and had a catch before the game. Oh, look at this. These guys are ready to go.

They're ready to play baseball. Let's get the one of him swinging the bat out there. Oh, there's the, and this is the penguins. Penguins showing up in Pirates a gear. I loved this so much. I mean, obviously I'm a baseball guy, so this is going to get me right in the heartstrings. But I love these guys showing up. And like they could have just done the hockey thing, but they didn't.

They went all out with the baseball. They are. The baseball jerseys were sick and the hockey sweaters were very sick as well. I like the old school hockey. When did this turn into a Leah appreciation chat? Let's get back to hockey. Thank you, everyone. I appreciate you.

But let's take a look. One of my first favorite things was they did have Red Sox players there. Jason Veritech was in attendance as one of them. They're opening ceremony, like honorees, and Bobby Orr hit a first pitch. What was it? A puck pitch is what they called it. Like a slap shot pitch sort of that. Yeah, it was kind of a slap shot thing.

Beratech fielded it very nicely. The man has still has the skills. I love it. They got Jason Veritas. Oh, it's so great. Yeah. And he really fielded it exactly like we knew he would. But this was awesome.

There was incredible drone footage of the event. Check that out on my Twitter account. But look at this beautiful. This is just gorgeous. I did see the view from some of the close seats and they weren't great. The farther way seats. You go for the vibes. Yeah, you definitely go for the vibes.

It turns out that a hockey rink is just shaped very differently. It is shaped very differently. But I will say, I've heard feedback from people who've been that the viewing is better in a baseball stadium than a football stadium. Okay. They do it sometimes in football stadiums. And I've heard baseball stadiums are better. Interesting. However, however, however, I don't think if Arizona got one, it should be at Chase Field.

I think it should be at Sundable Stadium. Oh. Hot take. Hot take. It's not a hot take on the peach next thing. Well, here's the thing is no other sport has an event like this. Let's be honest. Yeah.

Like nothing else has an event that unique. I mean, we've seen sports try certain things, but there's just something about the winter classic. that I feel like even if you aren't a hockey fan, you're enjoying this, right? Like, you're going to check this out. It kind of feels like a holiday, like, parade or something, where it's like the game has very little interest in itself, but it's just all the pageantry that goes on around it.

Charles Woodall Pike says, this has always been Alia appreciation chat. Derek, I'm sorry. I apologize. And if, if, Veritick can catch for a knuckerball or he can catch a puck. He absolutely did too. You're absolutely right about that. Sorry, Derek.

I didn't show the photo that you were actually queuing up. No, that, look at that guy. Look at that man. I don't even, can you tell me what a hockey player this is? That's Brad Marsha. Okay, thank you. Because he doesn't look like that. He looks like a baseball player from like the 1930s.

He looks like perfectly transported in time to Fenway Park. This is like the new, this is great. I love this so much. Next year, they're going to have the two. newest teams in hockey face off in Seattle at T-Mobile Park where the Seattle Mariners play. Interesting to see if they close the roof because it's going to inevitably be raining, right? It has to rain. I looked at the forecast for the next two weeks.

It's raining every single day, you guys see. Yeah, this time of year. I'm just mad because Arizona, Seattle's been in the league for two years and they get an outdoor game in their third year. Yeah. And the coyotes have been here for 26 years. Yeah. And they don't have an outdoor game yet. Yeah.

There's only like four NHL teams who've never had one and the coyotes are one. I think Seattle was one. Now they're getting there. So I'm just salty. And they're going up against the Golden Knights. Have they had one, the Golden Knights? I don't think so. But they've, I think they've participated.

Sorry. Well, no, it's fine because the weather here is beautiful. And I mean, I wonder if that is actually the reason why. I think it might be because they want that aesthetic, right? They want the snow and all that. But they did one in Nashville and they did one in Dallas. Yeah. Phoenix is a little warmer than naturally.

Did they put down fake snow? I will say that Craig Morgan was promised and was told an outdoor game. Sean is shining a laser at me. Okay. So like this word from a Leah appreciation chat to there being like an assassin like red dot on her while we're talking to her. I don't like this. I don't like this. We need to get done with this.

But of course we want something else. Like how can we get baseball in on this? I mean, it feels a little bit like the, Yeah, does baseball to return the favor now? Yeah. We have to play a baseball game on ice. On ice? Yes. You should, oh my God, you know like the lakes that freeze over.

Yes. Oh, my God. A baseball game on that? On ice, they have to be on skates. I look. We played broomball. We know we can run on the ice on ice. True, if it's choppy.

I fell quite a bit, but you can play sports on ice and shoes. Baseball would be like it would be really hard to hit if you were on ice. Because, like, planting your feet and having, like, a solid foundation. The hardest part of broomball was actually hitting the ball. It wasn't the running part. It was stopping and actually swinging. That's when I landed on my hip enough times to go get an x-ray. Like, how could you throw a baseball as hard as you possibly can and not just inevitably start skating toward home?

Like, your momentum would carry you. Slides would be sick, though. Yeah. Like, slides would be amazing. Start halfway and just make your way all over. You keep going. Yeah, you never stopped. It wouldn't work for a second, only for.

It is actually kind of a hilarious image. Corbyn Carroll's sliding into second. You just slide right into the outfield. Just out of the outfield. Oh, man. Let's make this happen. This should at least be a sports center commercial or something. Anyway, if you guys haven't done so already,

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His confidence is shook. Now it would be a great time to play him in ping pong because who knows how he feels. He might feel like he looks like a raptor out there or something. I don't know. But if you're listening to us on your favorite audio podcasting app, we thank you guys for doing so. Please subscribe to us there if you haven't done so already.

Leave us a review. We always thank you for doing so. Well, again, we want to give a shout out to our friend Chris. They are out there hanging up your wonderful pictures. So we thank you again. Ours is now on the wall. Ours is on the wall. Seebacks and coyotes after we just.

had a whole conversation about hockey and baseball. I love it. See, like this, like this. But of course, we thank you guys for being here. We thank you, Jesse, thank you for holding things down. While I'm gone this week, make sure to tune in. Don't think me yet, Derek. Oh, he's going to do terrible things while I knew.

But thank you guys for being here in the chat. Of course, meantime, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm at Kapp underscore K-man with the K. This guy is at Jesse and Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore D-Bex, but of course, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter. Instagram and Facebook. Again, we appreciate you guys so much on behalf of Leah, Jesse, and myself, we thank you for your time. And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun

when you play it on ice.