PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - D-Rox 'N Roll

Episode Date: November 12, 2021

On this episode, Patrick Lyons from DNVR Rockies joins us (maybe forever) to discuss Mike Hazen's comments on free agency, how the new labor agreement with impact the D-backs and the Rockies, and the results of our D-Rox Snake Draft. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to the PHNX Debax podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as the mayor of PHNX. And I have replaced Jesse with my new vice mayor of PHNX is Patrick Lyons. Ladies and gentlemen, sorry, Jesse, I hate to break it to you on the show like this. It might be awkward. But of course, this show is brought to you by the Draft King Sportsbook app. Go download the Draft King Sportsbook app now. Use our code of PHNX and simply for betting $1.1.

on NBA or NFL to score a point? What? As long as either team does score a point, you will get $100 in free bets. And again, the last time, the last basketball game I could find that ended, still ended in a two zero tie. That was Bibb County versus Brookwood in Alabama high school play.

So your money's probably pretty safe on betting on an NBA game. But thank you guys for joining us. Of course, I am joined by Jesse Friedman. I don't want to, I don't want to. I don't even want to talk to you, Derek. I don't want to hear it. I know. I'm still mad at you for, you know,

drafting Daniel Descalso in the first overall pick in our DRock's draft. But we'll get to that, obviously. Got of the taking Matt Reynolds. All right, Derek. Hey, yeah, I lost because I took Matt Reynolds, right? Next to me, of course, from the DNVR Rockies podcast, it's our pal. Who are we acquiring in the draft? It's Patrick Lyons.

A player to be named later. I don't know who we're sending over. But, yeah, I'm excited for you to be here. Thank you, sir, for joining us. Thank you. I thought my title was going to be comptroller. Okay, I can, yeah, we can make you comptroller. That's kind of a meaningless position, but there's a lot of paperwork behind it.

But yeah, we got the comptroller of PHNX now. That's perfect for me. Yeah, that's awesome. So, yeah, no, guys, we had some baseball. Me and Patrick, we're still having some fun at AFL games. The Arizona Fall League has been a blast. I am not as sunburned today and not as dehydrated as I've been. It says 81 degrees, but it feels like 100.

in the sun directly. But yeah, we've been watching the debacks and Rockies prospects on the rafters, the rafters who have kind of been losing quite a bit. So that's something we're used to around here. We are, yeah. And again, when you're dealing with prospects, it's not so much about the wins and losses. It's about development.

At least that's what you tell yourself. You say that. When you don't have the wins and losses, see that. Rocky's minor league affiliates did pretty well. Like in A ball, they went to the championship series. Series, the Arizona Complex League, they won that, Dominican Summer League. Rockies did really well. So we are very excited about the 2025 roster, baby.

We're taking it all. We are taking it all. All right. All right. Well, that's when both of our team's time will come to shine. But right now, there's a lot of free agency news, obviously. As Jesse and I talked about on last night's podcast, so much of this is impacted by the new labor agreement and everything that's going to happen with that.

But yeah, just a lot of rumors, right? You have some news about some Rockies players being connected to some new homes, potentially. Yeah, John Paul Morosi from MLB.com reporting that the Tigers have some interest in John Gray. And I think they may have even thrown a contract out there, thrown a couple bucks out there, floated some numbers. And, you know, that was my draft king's sports book pick of the week last week. on the DNVR Rocky side was an early Tigers to win the World Series. It was like plus 4,500.

You know they're going to be in on a shortstop. Is it Carlos Correa going over there? But they're going to have some money to spend. Their tank is pretty much over. And John Gray would be a perfect little piece as number two, number three starter, a veteran guy with all the young pitching that they have in Detroit right now. And Detroit is really, I mean, they are connected to several free agents. It seems like they are going to be spending some money this offseason.

We don't know if they'll be successful in landing any of those guys, but it does seem like the Tigers are connected to a lot of the free agents out there. I know Carlos Correa, they were one of the teams that seemed like for a moment there, rumors had him going to the Tigers. Yeah, I like that. It seems like a natural fit to reuniting with A.J. Hinch, but, you know, J. Baez, you know, playing some time in Chicago,

if they want more of a short-term deal, I'm not exactly sure what their prospect situation is at shortstop going forward. if they've got someone. They just need to keep that seat warm. Of course, Trevor Story, I think, you know, could be a fit Colorado guy, whereby, again, it might not totally blow up the payroll, if you will, with a $200, $300 million deal, which is something that Carlos Korea could expect. You know, with the Yankees out there, they're already right now over the luxury tax.

Like, even if they sign nobody, I think they are already over. And yet, they're still like, hmm, do we want Corey C. Or do we want Carl's career? Who are we going to spend, you know, more money on? It really is, you know, and again, we spoke about this. Jesse and I talked about, you know, does it translate over? And at what point do you stop giving up, even if you have all of this money like the Dodgers and the Yankees?

Is there a point where you stop going after the biggest names on the market and trying to find pieces that are just potentially a better fit for your team, just not the most expensive, you know, players on the market? it's a really weird concept to me because other teams like the race have built their entire philosophy on not paying guys, right? But the reason why is because baseball really is one of those games that there are few elite players in this league that can stay consistently good throughout the majority of their career like a like a Buster Posey, right, who's retiring a year after having one of his better batting average seasons, you know, as of late, right? So, like, it's just wild how few of guys, you know, really deserve those big contracts, but teams are willing to throw it at them when they think, you know, this is, this is the next big super star. I know Jesse is probably going to, is going to have an answer on this one.

But how many of those big $200 million free agent contracts? I mean, you don't even necessarily count Tatis, right, because that was more of an extension. But how many of those big deals have translator correlated to a World Series? Obviously, you know, the Angels with Poo-Hulls, Josh Hamilton, you know, C.J. Wilson wasn't even a hundred million, I don't think. But that was certainly a lot at the beginning of this decade. That nothing came of that. So I don't know that these big deals even translate to championships. Can you think of any at this point, Jesse, that what's the biggest one that's really worked out? They don't jump out. Like, oh, this is the final piece. It's not like the NBA, where if you can bring in that big contract, that, that final guy that you need for the big.

three, whatever it is, you know you're going to the finals. It's just, that's not the case in baseball. I think, I think those big contracts in some ways you could make an argument do more damage than good at the end of the day. Because not only is it, you know, you might only have a few year window where you can really go out there and try and win a world series, which is hard to do in baseball. Like baseball, there's a lot of volatility in the playoffs. Even if you do have, you know, a really top-notch team going into the postseason,

there's no guarantees of anything, right? And the problem with a lot of these big deals, especially like the Pujols deal that you mentioned, is that on the back end of that contract, it's hard to do much of anything for, you know, four or five years because your, because your salary is just completely bogged down. Your payroll is bogged down by paying a guy, you know, 35 million or whatever it was, who actually is like not even a viable major league player anymore, right? Yes. So even like like yesterday, Patrick, Derek and I, we went, we went ahead.

we spent Ken Kendrick's money all over the place. We were just like throwing it around. Yeah. We basically just dreamed up like, okay, if money was no object, which obviously it is, but if money was no object, who would we go out and sign if we got the diamondbacks? And Carlos Correa's name didn't come up because we don't want to give 10 years and 320 million, even if we could, right? So like those deals come with a lot of, a lot of risk.

And like you said, Patrick, we don't really see them work out very often. I mean, shoot, the Raki's only spent $70 million on Ian Desmond, and that's like this contract that's like laughable. Like, oh, man, that was just atrocious. And it didn't really, you know, cripple them financially, but it was still, you know, viewed as one of like, oh, man, you'd love to have that one back again. Like, that's how critical a $15 million annual salary can be to a smaller market club like that. But the one thing that the Diamondbacks have and Arizona has is a little bit more certainty when you sign a guy to a free agent contract. You pretty much know what you're going to get. Still probably are not very happy with Madison Bumgarner just yet.

But I think wait, wait for this bad boy to play its whole way out and it might be okay. You know, Desmond did a good job with some of the younger guys and helping out and was a good leader in the clubhouse. Again, is that worth the contract? I don't know. But Bumgarner, what he does as a leader, you might find that out. years later on down the line with what he does with a guy like Zach Gallen, the umbertoes and all that. Yeah,

we've, we've speculated quite a bit about that, right? Because again, we don't really know shit about what's really going on behind closed doors, right? I've had a very, I've had very few instances where I felt like I was in the clubhouse with,

you know, the core couple of guys that, that the Diamondbacks players sometimes felt comfortable being themselves around, right? Baseball players, athletes in general, the reason why some of their interviews after the game are boring is because they are canned. They've been trained to say certain key phrases that will keep them out of trouble and word things in a certain way that are boring,

but at least answer your questions enough without, you know, making any kind of controversial remarks, right? But man, when the cameras are off and they're just being themselves, some of the ridiculous, funny stuff you hear from these guys is amazing. You know, I've talked about Zach Granky's finest moments being when all the cameras were off and we were just kind of hanging around for a bit too long and he started calling like Archie Bradley a loser and stuff like that. You know, it was it was a very memorable moments, right? And things that we miss that Granky around here. Yeah, we really do. Right. And so Madison Bumgarner is one of those guys that I don't know if like he doesn't seem to me like the mentor type, right?

but he also does not tell very much information about his personal life. He doesn't even want to give up his game plan during a media meeting. If they want to ask like, you know, how are you planning on approaching this guy that's a hot hitter? He'll openly say in the meeting like, I don't want to discuss that, right? Like, I'm not giving you guys my team plan. I mean, that's pretty fair though. Like, I don't know if that many pictures are going to want to disclose. You'd be surprised.

Oh, yeah. I'm going to. Well, because people just. Didn't they ask that to Garrett Cole? Wasn't that, wasn't that like famously asked to Garrett Cole about how he was going to face Shohei Otani? Yeah. He just had like the most hilarious answer to that.

Like, how do you answer that if you're a pitcher? Are you supposed to like actually tell him like what you're actually planning on doing? Some do. I think it depends on your maturity or time in the league. Like some guys are honestly just going to tell, you know, the truth. And then there's going to be guys like Madison Bumgarner that have zero problem telling us, you know, no. you know, no, I'm not telling you that information, right? I think, would it be Justin Verlander?

Was that maybe the last big contract that added to a team that put them over the hump for the Astros? Well, of course, that was, you know, in a trade. Oh, you're talking about like a free agency signing straight up. Yeah, that's good point. I mean, AROD's contract did, you know, net the Yankees a World Season 2009. That was a while ago. Exactly, right? So it's, you know.

Well, and it's kind of like the correlation. I understand the idea of spending, right? When you look at spending and especially something that's going to come up with this labor agreement is spending and how much teams should be allowed to spend. It's egregious that the Dodgers literally spend almost $100 million than the next closest team and that next closest team is the Yankees. Like that's insane. And then those two teams can kind of just run away with things financially. But it still doesn't obviously translate over to them being the most dominant teams in the league. The Dodgers have just won, you know, the one world series.

The Yankees have not won a world series since that 2009, right? They won a World Series, quote unquote. It's 60 games. There it is. He's an asterisk guy. He's an asterisk guy. Yes, yes, yes. For the purposes of the podcast, yes, yes, why not?

Let's go ahead and say that. Hey, do you got another one of those 60 games seasons? Yeah. Yeah. And to your point, with these larger market clubs, they've got all the advantage. And we talked about a couple days ago on our crossover about how if you make a mistake, you can pay for it, literally, financially, and get away with it, whereas the smaller clubs can't, which is why they say, you know what, we need to compress our years of contention

into a much shorter window because we can't guarantee that we can rebound. Think about the Red Sox in 2020 during the short and season. I think it was almost brilliant. They said, you know what, let's kind of tap out of this thing. And we can get a really good pick, which they got the third overall pick. and stole Marcel Mayor, high school shortstop, which was fantastic, replenish their farm system a little bit, and then they can still recharge and go back out the next year.

Well, the small market clubs, they need to tank, and that's something that's being addressed, or we think might get addressed in this upcoming CBA, if there should be a salary floor. But if there's going to be a floor, that almost could change the salary cap, the soft cap. They might want to bring that down. The owners would,

and then that's going to thereby then really tamp down the contracts, I think. Like I think it's a good thing. I like how Scott Boris's idea, though, is to make teams spend more money. Like, no, no, it's not capping the teams that spend too much. It's these damn teams that spend less than $100 million. They're the real problem, right? I don't know. I mean, I think that it was a question that was proposed in a recent Arizona AZ Central article

that we're going to get to some comments that Mike Hazen made, right? But I mean, at times when you look at a team like what the Diamondbacks did, were they going to be competitive this past season? No. So in the long run, both business-wise and team-wise, organizationally, doesn't it make sense to just keep some of that money in your pocket and wait to spend down the road versus now when you know you're not going to be

even close to a contender with what some of these teams are spending? Absolutely. The problem is you never know when a team is going to be the Giants. Right. The Giants were expected to be good, but they were, you know, they were expected to finish third in the division. And they won more games than they ever have in franchise history with that team. Baseball is a sport like that. You have no idea when teams are going to catch fire or when, you know, players are going to all of a sudden, you know, reach that next level. It just seems like, you know, right now, as we discussed last night, you know, 17 teams are trying to compete next season. According to Mr. Scott Bowers. according to Mr. Scott Boris. Is he wrong, though? I mean, is he wrong? Is it not, like,

we said that about the Diamondbacks before this season even started. It was blatantly obvious, them, the Cubs, and a whole other litany of teams were not going to even try to compete in the 2021 season. That made a little more sense because of the financial insecurity, right? The lack of financial security, the lack of knowing when fans were going to be led back into stadiums this past season,

and when they were going to be able to get back to full capacity and all of that, right? So that made a little bit more sense, but going back to things being back to normal, now it just seems like teams don't want to even try to compete before the seasons even started. Yeah, and I think they, you know, provide a tough bargaining table, so to speak, when it comes to free agents. That's why the qualifying offer was half a million dollars less than it was last year, because, you know, since the last CBA was negotiated, at start of the 2016 season, you know, the teams have really helped tamp down contracts in a major way.

I think, I think maybe the 2017 offseason was really the first time that you started to notice that guys were getting a lot less money in free agency and was like, is there some kind of collusion going on here? Because it really seems like it. And there was after the 17, 18, even 19 off season, guys were just not getting the money that they thought they were And again, I think Mike Mustakis might have even signed two one-year deals back-to-back before he finally got his money. And again, I think those players will still get paid overall.

But instead of a five-year deal, it's, you know, a one-year pillow contract. And then I'll get my four-year contract. And when there's too many free agents out on the market, that's when the contracts go down. That's why Marvin Miller, when he was, you know, the head of the Players Association basically said, no, no, no, we don't want everyone to be free agent all the time or, you know, every single year. After six years, that's perfect because then it's a slow drip. And then you talk about classes where you're like, oh, who's the best free agent available? You're like, eh, you know, that guy's all right.

Well, because that player is the best one in his class, he's going to get $150, close to $200 million. And that works out great for the Players Association. I think now ownership is really starting to fight back. And then again, I don't know that it's collusion, but they're getting smart enough to realize, hey, if we just stay firm with these shorter-term deals, then it's going to kind of lower the expectations and flood the market. And you used to think about guys where they would want six-year deals and they would get six-year deals.

And now that same player is hoping to get four, but they've really only only been. get three. Isn't it crazy, though, to sign a guy to a 10-year contract? I mean, isn't that crazy? Yeah. It just seems insane to me. And I am a big, trust me, I'm a, on one hand, I understand what athletes give and I understand how much money these franchises make off of them, right? You know, just not the endorsement deals they get separately on their own, but essentially the endorsement deals with the ball club and how the ball club uses them to sell tickets and merchandise and all that stuff, right? It just seems crazy to me, though, with so many variables in a game like baseball that you would give anybody that much time, you know, and not have several out clauses

or ability that if that player isn't performing to the level that they do something differently, right? Maybe something with more incentive-based contracts and less for a base salary, but if you reach 30 home runs, then you get like an insane extra amount of money, right? Like, not like, oh, hey, you get $300,000, $400,000 extra. Like, oh, if you hit 30 home runs, you're getting $15 million extra a year or whatever, right? So I don't know.

I just, I feel like with baseball, it's too easy for guys to get that money, find themselves to not be as motivated and hungry as they were, just like in any sport and not perform. It's funny you're here because one of the first big, huge contracts that didn't even seem to make sense. to me as a baseball fan was Todd Hilton. And wasn't, that was a, that was a big contract for the time, wasn't it?

I mean, even Troy Tulitsky's deal was big at the time. And again, you know, to your point, as far as, you know, longer term deals that are very lucrative, you know, we don't, we don't know how much money these teams make. Like, they don't open up the books. Correct. So the fact that they give these deals out kind of willy-nilly tells you all you need to know about, you know, the game's doing all right financially. So there's probably even more money. Especially you guys in Colorado. I've seen the videos of, you know.

We sell plenty of the Brett Brews and Rocky Mountain Oysters, although I've still yet to meet anybody out there that has eaten the Rocky Mountain oysters that they sell at Coors Field. But with the Todd Helton deal, with the Todd Helton deal, you know, again, when players signed those kind of extensions, you've got to remember that in five years' time, what is considered a, you know, a large, say, $13 million deal, that now becomes small potatoes, right? So you can look down the line and say, hey, okay, this veteran player might not be, might not have as much value, but we're, we're going to pay him at the back end, so we maybe don't

have to pay him as much, you know, in the front part of the deal. And if you're, you're talking about a guy who's, you know, I wouldn't say it was a statute contract. I love that, that bit of selling by Scott Boris last year for the Tatis deal. He called it a statue contract because if you sign a player to a $300 million, 13-year deal. You better be able to make a statue. Exactly right. And so if it's a guy that's been in your organization for the entirety of his life

and is on a Hall of Fame type trajectory, you go, well, whether he makes a Hall of Fame or not is kind of irrelevant. This guy's going to be an ambassador to our organization and we don't want him to go away. And there's kind of a rare few that really get that designation. I think all across baseball. Sure. But for Colorado, Helton's been the only one. They locked up Tulwitzky to a long-term deal.

And then, hey, the money wasn't right anymore. They offloaded him to Toronto. You know, Walker already had a career in Montreal. Nolan Aronado was the next guy where he was going to be the next Todd Helton. And I think he may have, you know, essentially stepped in and said, I don't know that I want to be the next Mr. Todd Helton because of a lot of the trials and tribulations Todd had to go through and the fact that, you know, he is a Hall of Thamer. and yet he may have to wait all 10 years just like Larry Walker did.

And so that kind of changed the course of history as well. And Paul Goldschmidt would probably be our closest thing to a statue player, I think. I just, again, sometimes when you are, when you put your feelings aside, right, for your fandom and try to, you know, you put on your fedora of business, your business fedora, right? And you try to think in that way, you know, it wouldn't have made. sense to keep someone like Paul Goldschmidt with a huge contract around during this period of time when they knew that most likely they were going to be rebuilding. It also, though, makes me question signing Madison Bumgarner to the big deal when you also knew a similar, you know, kind of thing, right? But here's the thing, guys. You guys could go to Draft King Sportsbook. Go to Draft King Sportsbook app now,

download it, use our code of PHNX. And again, using just a dollar. on any, any NFL game or any NBA game, you'll get $100 in free bets, should that team score a point. And as long as you're not betting, obviously, like I said, on the Alabama High School League, you shouldn't be worried about if those teams are going to score any points in a basketball game. But I am, Mr. Parlay. I'm a big fan of doing Parlay. Same game parley's, multiple game parleys, multiple sport parleys. I'll never be as cool as this guy, though, Big Papa Parlay next to me.

I'm still mad I didn't think of that. nickname and I lost sleep that night when you told me that that's what people call you. He's really jealous, Patrick. No, I know. Jesse knows. Jesse knows. I texted him. I'm like,

I can't believe he's big Papa Parley, but you can be a big Papa Parlay too. Don't call yourself around this guy, though, because he'll say gimmick infringement. Combine multiple bets from a same game for a bigger payout. Combine multiple bets from multiple sports for a big payout, whatever you want to do. But Draft Kings is safe, secure, and reliable. It lets you do all of that. Best of all, it lets you. deposit and withdraw your cash whenever you want to.

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See draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details. And also become a member over at our go-PhNX.com website. We got lots of great content up there for you guys to check out. If you're an Arizona sports fan, it never stops. All right. Right now, we have some updates from the Arizona Fall League up there. Jesse had a great piece that we've both thoroughly enjoyed about Zach Granke. Zach Granke's contract coming to an end.

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That's just a little appetizer for you guys. And hopefully you'll enjoy the content enough to stick around. We appreciate the support and everybody already signing up. We've surpassed a thousand subscribers and we're thrilled about that. And to be honest, right now, we are just enjoying our two-month anniversary here at PHNX. So we've really enjoyed talking sports with you. Is it today? The two-month anniversary?

What's that? Is it today? I don't know. I guess it was September 9th. Was that a lot of much day? We were close. We were close right around then. He does have been a lot in two months because when people ask me where I'm from or what,

who I write for and I say DNVR, they go, is that any relation to PHNX every single time? That's awesome, though. That's amazing. Yeah. We get that. We get that. You know, we get the DMVR stuff obviously. And people, you know, the thing that people typically follow up with, which I like is that, you know, they're like, we love what those DNVR guys are doing.

So you guys definitely leading the way for us. And I don't know, man, we talked about it in our meeting today, but it's just been a lot of fun to be a part of this. It's been an absolute honor to be a part of this. It's so great to be able to talk about sports like this. I've worked in traditional media for a long time. And to be honest, it's just not the same as being able to speak from the heart, give your opinion and really enjoy talking about sports instead of, you know, trying to be fit under the confines of professional journalism. You guys know me. I know most of you are like professional journalists, that guy. Yeah, exactly. So that's why I'm here. And that's why

why Jesse is going to be with me as my vice mayor. I'm bringing you back as my vice mayor. Jesse Patrick's been degraded to comp troller, but Jesse's with me for the rest of my life, just like my iPhone 13 that has a terabyte of memory. I bought that for that purpose, so I would die with that phone in my hand. And again, Jesse will be at my side when I die. But interestingly enough, I thought the Arizona Diamondbacks were dead in the water this season. Their talk about free agency has kind of dashed our hopes. We analyzed Mike Hazen's statement. from the end of the season where he talked about not looking for external candidates to fill positional needs. And we've found enough qualifying statements and words in that sentence to keep

them out of really saying that they switch their position or, oh, well, we did go after some free agents, even though we said we weren't going to. But my thing- Under-promise and over-deliver. Is that kind of the strategy? I think so. I think it's setting expectations the right way. And I think it's also setting expectations that if they do bring in free agents, it's not going to be the ones that Jesse and I were doing yesterday when we were spending Ken Kendrick's money, right? It's not going to be, I mean, there might be a couple of gems. Jesse was very reasonable.

Jesse was like when you give a kid $10. I gave one, I gave one reasonable. You were pretty reasonable even in your unrealistic ones. I said they should bring back Max Scherzer. I don't think that's going to happen. And Robbie Ray. And Robbie Ray. We want to have a good reason.

Oh, that's all. We want to bring back all the free agents that we lost, basically. Well, no, but you were reasonable. And Jesse is like the kid. You give $10 and he spends it responsibly, bought multiple things at the store and didn't just buy candy. So I'm very proud of him. But yesterday, Mike Hazen said in an interview with AZ Central in regards to this team,

and basically 2022 being another, you know, 2021 type season, he said, and I quote, yes, he said, I want to move the ball forward. All right. Guessing football terminology there. Weird for a baseball guy. But he said, yes, I get it, which maybe it's about the football terminology. I don't know what we're going to be able to buy.

I don't know that we're going to be able to buy 40 wins in free agency. I'm not sure if that's realistic, but we want to move the ball forward. We are going to try to put better players on our team. So, Jesse, I'll start with you. This sounds like that. They're going to go after some players in free agency. It does. Yeah.

I think so we broke down Mike Hazen's initial words, right? On the press conference that he gave the day after the season ended. And it had a different tone to it, right? He was talking a lot more about internal, the internal workings of the organization. Yes. And I think that makes a lot of sense. I don't necessarily think that Mike Hazen is, you know, making a U-turn here and completely going a different direction with this.

off season and suddenly, you know, he wants to spend money. I think this has probably been the plan all along. And on the day of that presser right after the season ended, I think his focus, and rightfully so, was more on what's happening inside the organization. Because let's face it, even if the Diamondbacks did go get Carlos Correa, they still would not be a contending baseball team after winning 52 games. That's the bigger point. Yeah, they have bigger problems than the amount of money they can or

cannot spend in free agency. And so I think it was, I think it was right for Mike Hazen to address, we need to first figure out how we're going to maximize the talent that we already have. I think that is, that is priority number one for this baseball team. And now as the offseason goes on, and, you know, Mike has probably had more conversations with ownership about, you know, what might, what might happen this off season. Obviously, earlier we talked about the salary floor, which would certainly change some things that might even force the diamondbacks to spend some more money.

they are going to spend some money. And I think Mike, now that he's sort of talked about how internally we need to improve what's happening here, yeah, also externally, you know, the Diamondbacks, they're not going to go and do something crazy, but they need a third baseman and they desperately need some bullpen help. And I do expect that the Diamondbacks will spend probably conservatively in both of those categories and bring in some external candidates. I swear at one point you said they can ha spend some money.

and I know what you were getting out there. But yeah, no, absolutely. I think that they are going to bring in some guys. I think that maybe fit the timeline somebody along the same, you know, like you, you and I have agreed in the past that if we are going to build around players on this team, it's Zach Allen. It is Cattel Marte and it is Carson, right?

So if we can get to a point where this team is bringing in guys in that age range, in that group, and can, you know, add young talent around it, it could be the nucleus that they're looking for to actually build around, right? I'll also add that in an interview Amiel Saude, who works underneath Mike Hazen, mentioned the possibility of trading for a third baseman that the Diamondbacks might look to acquire, you know, a younger, controllable talent at third base. And that's something I could totally see.

Like, that actually could be a pretty, you know, you're not necessarily talking about a bottom to your third baseman. They actually could go for it and try to find a third basement as long as they're controllable and I'll still be around here for a few years. And so Josh Rojas is just better as more of a utility guy then? Because right now, I mean, you probably have to pencil him in and he has only a little over a year of service time. So, I mean, you've got him for four more years. He's getting he's better as the first guy off the bench. Well, Josh Rojas, he, you know, I think they've played him entirely too many places, you know.

He's played it basically every. Everywhere. I mean, he just hasn't, I don't think he's pitched and I don't think he's caught. But aside from that, he's played everywhere. And I think the thing with Rojas is it, it's that case of we don't know what he can really do at a set position because we really haven't seen that out of him. What we've seen is maybe him being spread too thin and being utilized like that too much where he's serviceable to good, you know, maybe even okay at certain positions, but not great anywhere where that's. where you would want to see him at, right? And I think with Rojas, he suffers from the same thing a few guys on his team suffer from. Now, Lovolo has said in the past that he likes to play that way, right? So that's the thing. I think Rojas is a guy that you can expect to have some sort of a utility role moving forward. I don't think you have to pin him at one particular position.

The question is just, is that position third base? And I think the answer is, I don't think third base is a place where he's going to probably back up as a utility guy. but probably not somewhere that they're trying to have him settle long term. I still would love to go back and look at the depth chart for this team before the season started because I swear to God, I swear to the Bible, they had like the same guy backing up several positions. And again, this might not be the official depth chart that Tori Lavello is considering or using, but it was the depth chart that they had on the team website. So when you looked at it, you couldn't help but wonder, how the hell is this,

really going to work out if two of these guys get injured at the same time, which is exactly what happened all season long to this team. So it was maddeny. You knew just from the go that they weren't deep enough and forget, forget being competitive. There were times where you looked at this depth chart before the season started and thought, what is going to happen if they have like any kind of injuries? And if you, if you even thought that for a moment, it definitely came true. You know, it is what came true, right? But the team already wasn't necessarily competitive, even at that point. It was just like, wow, even your starters, even your lack of depth here seems like you're getting yourself into a problem. That's when we knew that the Diamondbacks weren't really, especially when all they added was, you know, bullpen arms, veteran bullpen arms to this team during the off season and spent a whole whopping $8 million on it, you know, versus listening to the whole whole.

that some teams got during the off season. It's just crazy. I'll say this. Looking at the Diamondbacks roster and their death chart and their prospects, you guys are in a worse spot than the Rockies. I'll say that. Yes. And I think,

thanks Patrick. He's not wrong. You're welcome. He's not wrong. Because the talent at the major league level is better for Colorado right now, especially the starting rotation as far as depth goes. I mean, if we're talking. Yeah.

Death is a disaster of the Diamondbacks right now. Yeah. I know Mad Bunneman. has been, you know, less than stellar, but I'd probably rather have Bumgarner and Galin over Marquez and Freeland. Not by a lot, but I would. But then when you get the third, fourth, and fifth guy in the rotation, I definitely would rather have what Colorado does.

And again, with the players that are coming up through the Rockies pipeline, and the fact that there are a few more younger contributing players to the Rockies where while McMahon, Tapia, and Freeland are all going to be free agents. after the 2023 season, there's still going to be, you know, Brendan Rogers will still be around, Antonio Sinsettella,

Austin Gomber. There's still going to be other guys that are there, whereas in three, four years for the Diamondbacks, a lot of these guys will be moving on. Zach Allen could be in his final year before free agency. And then, you know,

I think the Diamondbacks have done a good job in the draft and acquiring some prospects. Obviously, their big draft, what was at in 2019, where they had 98 of the first, first 99 selections. I think they drafted the entire,

the entire amateur draft went to the card. The entire University of Texas at Austin baseball team. I was drafted. So I think in that sense, Rockies are in a better state now, but with a couple of the right moves and maybe some freedom to, I'm not going to say tank,

but if they do want to go more of a full rebuild, then you're going to get something really nice, a good return on. I could tell Marte, you know, you can get Nick Ahmed off the books if you need to and kind of look further on down the line. Yeah, that's probably a bad example. But Zach Gallaud. Nick Ahmed, unfortunately, I mean, they're paying him more than at least for this last season.

They paid him more than he was worth. I don't think you're going to get much of anything. No, they may have to deal a prospect with him in order just to have him. Which I don't think, I don't think this regime is going to do. Dave Stewart would have done that in second. I don't think he would have done whatever. I hear Shelby Miller is making a comeback. Shut your mouth.

Two episodes. Two Shelby Miller references. Sorry, guys. I need the DNVR Rockies to take this guy back. I'm sick of him already. Especially we're going to get to our DROX snake draft and the results of that. Where you cheated. Basically, you cheated.

But before we get there, I just want to once again remind everybody to use our code of PHNX, not this guy's DNVR, but PHNX over at the Drafking Sports. app, bet $1 on the NBA or the NFL for either team to score. It's a ridiculous promotion. You're going to get your money and get your $100 in free bets. Then you can turn around and make more money with our Draft King's picks of the week. I am going to give you one for Thursday night football tonight. And that is Devonta Freeman over 45 and a half rushing yards.

It's not going to make you a ton of money. You might want to match that up with like, I don't know, Marquis Brown. anytime touchdown. That's why I like. Lamar Jackson also probably have some rushing attempts. I think I took the over on rushing attempts at nine and a half. Another thing that I want to tell you guys to pick is bet against the coyotes. Just do it.

Maybe not against the Blackhawks. I might avoid that particular game. But I have made so much money. Are they hot right now? Okay, well, then bet against Blackhawks too. Definitely bet on the Predators to beat them on. on Saturday, though. I really haven't lost a whole lot of money betting against the coyotes.

So God bless them for being terrible. Again, I've said this about the Diamondbacks. You guys have heard me say it before. Just because they're losing doesn't mean you have to. Go get the Drafking Sportsbook app now. Let's also talk a little bit more about losing. We had our D-Rox snake draft the other day. Snake Draft in D-Rox.

We had our pal-patrick. join us. And let's show our teams really quickly. We took to social media, had everybody vote on this. Jesse's terrible team that had Daniel Descounso is the number one pick. But nobody's team is worse than mine because apparently I selected a guy named Matt Reynolds for the overall pick, my number one overall pick. So I guess I deserve very much so to lose. but we're taking a look at our poll results. Of course, our winner is this guy over here. Patrick, I hate you, and you've ruined my game.

But Patrick wins with 46% of the votes. I mean Patrick is the only one who had a viable first round pick. Yeah, that's true. Matt Reynolds isn't getting it done, I guess. But Jesse, I did come in second. over you with 30% of the votes. You had 24%. Much like the D-Backs and the Rockies, though,

if we team up and gang up on this guy, well, then the PHNX-D-Backs podcast won with 54% of the votes. Yeah, we won. You could do it that way. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'll give you this.

Matt Reynolds was a actual player that did play for both the Diamondbacks and Rockies. So that's a real guy who does exist. So it doesn't look that. at atrocious. No, it does. It does because it's no, you can't make it better by saying that. It's, it's, it's not that. It's Mark Reynolds. That's, that's why I lost. If they would have seen Mark Reynolds up there, they would have known. That would have been helpful. Jesse, since you're short on nicknames and you did finish in third place here in a central election in which

46% you know, ended up winning, you can be the Ross Perot. So, you know, I don't know if that's a great nickname or a reference that even some people get. He's not going to get that. No, he's not going to He doesn't know television shows from the 90s. He knows nothing. His mustache looks like it was at least born in the ladies. All of his information is just baseball stats and math. The mustache is from the late 80s. I can confirm.

Yes. By the way, I really appreciate having two math teachers on my show today. This is fantastic. That's where I'm the comptroller, man. I know. I know. This is great. I feel very inadequate when it comes.

to trying to do stats around you two guys. But Patrick, I've had an absolute blast around Arizona Fall League with you. Jesse, you know, I have a blast with you every single day. But you guys get out to Arizona Fall League. There's not a lot of time left. There is, what, seven days left? I mean, there's one week from this Saturday is the championship game. So not a lot of opportunities to go out.

This Saturday is the Fall Stars game. The D-backs only have one representative in the Fall Star game. That was on my list of things to get to. Yeah, absolutely. And it was essentially who the heck is Shumpay Yoshikawa? Well, Yoshikawa is one of what six D-backs players. He's a reliever. And I'm pretty sure that Slade Chikoni was going to be their representative.

However, he reached his innings limit and was pulled. So he was the one that really was kind of the big name that people were interested in. And he didn't disappoint. He had a pretty good fall league. So I'm not too mad about that, but I also don't, you know, it's the fall league. So I'm not surprised that there's not a lot of representation. Like I said, they haven't been having a great.

The rafters have not had a great season as far as the fall league is concerned. This relationship is working out well, I think, for Rockies fans, and for me, too, as someone who's covering the Rockies, because we can look and say, as rough as things are for Colorado baseball club, and as difficult as it can be, to follow the team and see what they do. Just look down on the bottom of the standings

and see what's going on with Arizona with their one prospect of the Fall Stars game. Get out. Get out. No, get out. No, we're done. Hey, we got two guys and a fan vote for Michael Tolia. I'm sending you back to Colorado.

This is Patrick D. Lyons on Twitter. You can get him at Patrick D. Lyons. Jesse is at Jesse N. Friedman. Everybody's using their full name and middle initial round here except me. I am cap underscore caveman with a K. But the show can be found at PHNX underscore DBEX. All roads lead to at PHNX underscore Sports. That's on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Please follow us everywhere. If you're listening to us right now on your favorite audio podcasting app, subscribe to us there, drop us a five-star review. Again, I know, I'm not a five-star man. This guy over here is definitely a five-star man. And you know Jesse Friedman is a five-star man. So drop us a five-star review.

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