PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Day 1 of D-backs spring camp

Episode Date: March 15, 2022

On this episode, Jesse and Derek discuss the first day of the D-backs 40-man roster in camp, the D-backs bringing back Ian Kennedy, and why the free agency frenzy hasn't been much of a frenzy at all. 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 another edition of the PHNX D-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as your very sunburned mayor of PHNX, and I am joined by my pasty-skinned vice mayor of PHNX. It is my co-host. I don't know what he wants me to call him now, but I refuse to call him any of his prognosticator nicknames, but it's not Friar Friedman or Freedman or whatever, but he is Thundersting. Jesse Friedman. Do you do you burn easily, Derek, have we had this conversation?

You know what's weird is like I was surprised I hadn't burned before this just because I'm not taking great care to like put on any kind of sunblock or anything like that. I don't typically burn. I'm Latin. I'm Hispanic. I'm Puerto Rican. So I shouldn't burn easily. But my mother, my mother and her damn, my mother and her damn skin.

Right. So, like, I burn fairly easily. And I was surprised that it took this long, but I was also standing out in the sun today for just unknown amounts of time. And it's, it's starting, Jesse. It's starting to get to that point where you start to realize very quickly why spring training games would already have started and been in full swing by this point on a normal year. But before we get to that, we want to remind you guys that this show is brought to you

by the fine folks at the Draft King Sportsbook app. Go download the Draft King Sportsbook. app now and new customers can get in on the biggest tournament of the year. There's only a few days left to join in on all the action before the first team tips off on Thursday. Draft King's Sportsbook is giving new customers a shot to bet $5 on any team to win, and you will get $200 in free bets using ARCO to PHNX if your team does. It's that simple if they win you win at the Draft King Sportsbook. Jesse had a fun day out at the first day of Arizona Diamondbacks Major League camp.

spring camp. All the guys were out there reporting. So there was no, there was no difference like there normally is of pitchers and catchers reporting early. There pretty much were drills and things going on. Got to see Mad Bum out there with his magnificent beard. His beard is incredible. He is not shaved a little, a little fluffier this year. He had not shaved since last year. Yes, since last, uh, last, wow. He is letting both, uh, both the hair grow and, and, and, and, the losses sit inside of a very dark place inside of him because he said he has not forgotten what happened last year. And I kind of like that. I kind of like that. It's a little bit of it's a little bit of a killer mentality. And I think that again, it's a team that's been counted

out already probably for this season. So at least last season, they were not projected to be as bad. So now they're projected to be very bad, or at least people project them to be bad. I don't think the actual projections project them to be as bad as people think they're going to be. I think that now with zero expectations, the coaching staff in place, and an honest to God chip on their shoulder

about proving people wrong about the talent of this team, I'm a bit excited to see what we'll get out of them. The drills, though, you and I were talking beforehand, the drills are a bit laughable. But it just shows how important fundamentals of baseball are. They were doing the same drills that I did when I was in Little League. And it's just incredible to see, you know, these major league players,

a lot of them who have been still doing this type of work on their own and player organized practices are still doing these really basic drills that no matter how good or bad you are, we're all required to do. The Diamondbacks have received a lot of credit over the last several years just for being a fundamentally sound team. I feel like, I feel like that's something that you hear other teams say about them a lot. And maybe last year is the exception to that. There's a number of, number of outfield miscommunications and different things like that that I think they wanted to clean up. And hopefully they'll be able to do that this season. But that's been a calling card

of this franchise for really a long time, particularly during Tori Lavello's tenure. So yeah, I mean, it might be kind of hilarious to watch all these grown men like, you know, do this drill where they're running from home to first base and that's it. Like there's nothing else to it. And then they get back in line and they do it again. Those are, I mean, you start at the very basics and then and then you work your way up. So I'm sure if you're out there, that's what you're seeing right now. We started from the bottom now we're here, Jesse.

to start from the bottom, I guess, no matter what. I will say, though, that, and there were some fans coming out. There were some restriction to watching it, but fans could still watch from the bridge, the major league practice, or they could park in the center field lot and watch the minor league guys on the cloverly fields over there on, I think, the east side of the facility. Is that a, is that a COVID restriction? Is that why that's in place? I don't, I think so. We were required to wear masks when we went into the clubhouse, but we did have clubhouse access returned to us.

So we were able to go in the clubhouse. We got to see Catelle Marte. We got to see a lot of guys. And that was great. For me, as somebody that has been doing this for a while, I joke about how easy the Zoom meetings made it on us, right? But I really missed the opportunity to just go in there, to talk to people, hear stories.

Merrill Kelly had a baby. So congratulations to Merrill Kelly. and his family. This was news to me. So this is the type of stuff you hear and you guys get to get a chance to talk to these guys. And, you know, again, kind of, I think for me personally, it's always made them into normal human beings for me. You know, it's easy for us as fans and even as journalists to think of these guys as like superhuman comic book characters. Yeah.

Especially as a fan. I know that's how I idolize players. So, you know, again, just seeing them on good nights, bad nights, seeing them be excited right now as they are. You know, the talk of camp was how excited they were just to be back to baseball, how little they really cared about the work stoppage. You know, none of them wanted it. Nobody wanted to not be playing baseball.

So they're so like, and they're being very nice. So they're answering all our questions about it when it comes to how they felt and what they were doing and all of that. but there was definitely a feel of like we just want to put that behind us now and get out there and play baseball and hopefully talk more about baseball and less about the lockout let's let's try to get people you know back on just being excited about the game uh tori lovolo spoke to media uh weird like again that you talk about a moment for me personally jesse just sitting next tory watching the live BP uh he was chatting with us about how fast we as writers write, especially when we're transcribing quotes and interviews. Nick Picoro is a madman, so he was over there doing one, and he was just typing a million miles a minute. I was telling him how it would take me 20, listening to his interview 20 times for me to make sure I didn't misquote him, you know, so there's definitely a difference between

myself and Nick Piccolo. But in a surreal moment, you know, we're just sitting there watching live BP and it's almost like a sandlock game of watching Merrill Kelly pitched to David Pralta and you know Caleb Smith uh I believe it was Carson Kelly took Caleb Smith super deep for a home run and that was just exciting to course it was a course it was against a lefty oh yeah it was always against a left it was just cool though it was very cool to be there again just I'm you know it's like I've kind of grown used to it you you grow used to it when you go out to Salt River Fields and you're seeing just baseball players play baseball, right? So we've had a chance to see that for the last two weeks and it being minor league guys.

The major league guys, though, are just so much more fun to watch. I think their attitudes are different. They're so much more relaxed. They're excited to be there. They know each other more. So there's a lot more joking. You know, when guys were getting hits in the live BP, there's this peanut gallery of waiting hitters that are talking about what it would have been, you know, like Whist's.

at it, be like, that's a double. That's a double. You know, stuff like that. All of that, I get a kick out of that. But it really, the atmosphere was great at camp. You know, these guys seem loose. They seem ready. They seem excited to play baseball. Interestingly, interestingly enough,

Tori Lavello does not have an opening day starter decided yet, just in case anybody was wondering about that. That's shocking. Tori Lavello always names his opening day starter on day one. On day one of camp. We're being sarcastic. Tori Lavello never names his opening day start around day one and understandably so. Yeah, but we also had him reveal that there will not be any of the 40-man roster guys or any of the holdout,

anybody that couldn't be at camp will not be involved in the first two spring training games. It might extend beyond that. That's just the plan tentatively. It's to be determined yet when those guys will get into games. But right now, if you're planning on going out to the first two games on Thursday and Friday, I don't want to say it's disappointing because I know a lot of Diamondbacks fans are excited about seeing the minor league guys. But there's a good chance if they haven't been in the mini camp involved in the mini camp that they won't be in the game. There's a good chance, though, that you could still see Alec Thomas, Corbyn Carroll, all of those kind of guys.

Alec Thomas is actually part of the non-roster invitees right now that's part of the major league camp. So that's very cool to see him at that level, kind of getting this time now that he's been at the mini camp and all of that. But yeah, it's just, it's great to have baseball back, Jesse. It's great to be out there and it's great to see, again, Madison Bumgarner throwing pitches and being active on the first day. He still takes a reluctant leader role. And someone even asked him a question about that, about being a leader. And it's just so not him. You know, you're never going to get Madison Bumgarner like,

the mentor. But, sure, you know, at the same time, he's definitely, I think, a lead by example kind of guy. And I just think that he's doing an excellent job as far as just being there on the first day. And having a pretty positive attitude, I guess you could say, for old Madison Bubb Garner. One of the not so positive things from camp today that I think we should mention is we did hear some news regarding Zach Gallin that was unfortunate.

Tori Lavello, I think he's the one who said this. Zach Gallin over the offseason was diagnosed with Bersitis in his shoulder. He was having some shoulder issues. And of course, he couldn't go to the team doctors for an MRI because, you know, they were cut off from each other at that point due to the lockout. So he got an MRI on his own and he was diagnosed with Bersitis. And I'll have our listeners know that my. My dad is actually a retired physician.

And so we have a resident medical expert whenever we have need. Granted, in order to really know anything about these things, I think you have to, like, examine the actual individual. But for the state, I texted him and we had a conversation and I found out more about what persitis is. So again, I can't really guarantee that, you know, obviously there's information about Zach Allen's specific situation that we have no way of going. Get us, get us an update here, Dr. Friedman, on what.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Dr. Friedman says that versitis in itself is fairly benign, if not accompanied by structural abnormality may be treated with a steroid injection. The repeated injections could lead to injury to rotator cuff tendons. And he says something about several weeks downtime being a necessity in order to recover

from that. I don't know if you, I don't know if you know from what Tori said about when exactly this happened, because obviously this wasn't something that like just happened now. Do we know if this is something that happened that he was diagnosed with like a week ago or a month ago or what the timeline is? I want to say he said in December, but I would have to go back and listen to it again for sure. Okay. If that's true, then it's possible that, you know, this few weeks of downtime time that Dr. Friedman has warned us of. Maybe, you know, maybe Zach Allen is already on the other side of that. Again, this is all, you know, general speculation.

Well, I don't know if, I don't know how this would affect him, but Zach Gallen was out there doing defensive pitching drills today. I, I saw him with my own up. Like, what do you, what do you mean? Like just like fielding grounders off the mound sort of a day? Yeah, yeah, yeah, stuff like that. Yeah, like. So he wasn't, I mean, at the very least, he wasn't like down.

I could tell Marte, for instance, he had scratched, I guess his eye or like did something with like a contact to his eye. He wasn't dressed or practicing or anything today. He was wearing like actual glasses, which we don't see him in typically. And he was just in street clothes. So Marte wasn't like practicing due to that. So with with Galen, it's, it's different because. even if he's in uniform and he's still participating yeah he's still out there participating in defensive drills and stuff so that's at least a good sign right because i don't think

if the injury was serious uh even even if for the time it's going to prevent him from pitching he at the very least is still uh you know completing you know physical activity is this the type of injury like where that the name is that a condition or is that some sort of abnormality that forms on tendons or something what is what is the name like what is that yeah yeah it's called it's called bursitis and it it seems like something that's treatable that that goes away i'm not going to try to give like a precise medical no no no that's so it's like yeah but the take i think the takeaway is that you know when i first saw this news about gallon immediately you know the alarm goes off because we all know that galen had um a slight issue with his ucl last year uh which we were told cleared up

up and he came back and didn't seem quite like the same guy down the stretch, but from from what we knew he was healthy at the time. And you always wonder if, if, you know, that's something that could flare up again. So this is the shoulder. Versaitis seems completely unrelated to any of the elbow issues that gallon would have had. So that's the good news here. This isn't, you know, this isn't an injury that is, that is like stacking on top of another injury or anything like that. It seems like something that's separate and something that should be treatable and probably doesn't change his outlook for this season drastically. It's good to know, but it's still concerning, right? It's still concerning.

Yeah, it still sucks. I mean, it's still, like, I feel so bad for all the Diamondbacks fans who are going crazy on Twitter today because it's like, all right, here we go. And so it begins, right? Yeah. I mean, this is just par for the course last year. and to see this happening before the season even starts, like it did last year. I think Gallin's gallon last year was also held out for a starter to right as the season began.

Right, because of the micro fracture, because that happened in spring training. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, of course, that was because he was swinging a bat, which we hopefully won't have issues with now. But, but yes. Someone asked Tori if the pitchers would be doing any kind of. of. Did you ask Tori if Mad Bum is going to D8? Of course we asked Tori. I didn't ask him, but the question was asked about Mad Buh. He is not going to give me Mad Bum as a D.H.

He's not even going to give me Mad Bum as a pinch hitter. He's pretty cemented on that. But he definitely said if it's up to him, it doesn't sound like the bad, the pitchers will be lifting a bat at all, even in a practice kind of capacity. So yeah, that's definitely something that's going away, it will be interesting to see how that correlates to pitchers now being able to go deeper into games. Just between not only the physical, like, because especially someone like, let's say someone like Madbum or Zach Granke who like to get on base, right? Like they like to get on base.

They like to run. Like that's just more physicality that your pitcher doesn't necessarily need to be out there doing that they're doing. That's mentioned the fact that in, you know, nationally games. as I've talked about, that's part of the strategy. But the double-sided sort of it, I guess you could say, is that you also have times where in order to generate offense, a manager is forced to pull a pitcher that's doing well out of the game

just so that they can make that move to try to get a pinch hitter in or something of the sword. So, yeah, we won't be seeing that anymore. And I'm okay with it, but I'm still not okay with seeing Mad Bum, not hit. That's not cool. I want to see Mad Bum hit. But by the way, like I told you guys earlier, new customers right now can get down on the biggest tournament of the year over at the Draft King Sportsbook. There's only a few days left Thursday, same day as the first Arizona Diamondbacks spring training game.

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Old friend alert, Jesse. Old friend alert. Speaking of beards. Speaking of beards. Speaking of a jersey that I had hanging in the back of my closet that I bought on clearance one time at the Arizona Diamondbacks yard sale. I don't know if you guys are familiar with that, but at their fan fest, they have a yard sale where they tend to sell old players that have moved on, their jerseys, their stuff.

I got myself a whole chestworth of Ian Kennedy goods. And look who's the smart man for doing so now. I bought a $15. Ian Kennedy jersey, Jesse. And that bad boy is back in style. The red beard is back. in Sedona Red. He is.

He is back. $4.75 million, $2.35 million in incentives. And Nick Picoro also posted after the fact that apparently there's a $4 million mutual option for 2023 as well. So it does have potential to be a two-year deal. Ian Kay represented by Scott Boris. So I feel like Diamondback's fans should feel a sense of,

I have a Boris client plays on. But yeah, I wrote a move today. You can get my full thoughts over on go p.hnx.com. But yeah, Ian Kennedy is back. And what's wild to me, Derek, is I don't think I realize how long Ian Kennedy has been in the majors for. He debuted in 2007. And this upcoming season will be.

his 16th in the majors. That is wild. Which is so weird because I, those types of players that last, you know, 10, 12, 14 years, everyone knows their name because at that point, you've just been around for so long. But somehow,

I don't know what it is with Ian Kennedy, but I feel like he's kind of flown under the radar as one of the more durable, reliable pitchers, uh, in the game. And of course, he is a very,

different pitcher now than he was back in 2013 when the Diamondbacks did him to the Padres. He's a reliever of course. Longer's a starting pitcher. He's been firmly supplanted as a reliever for the last several years. He's a closer. He had 26 saves last year, saving both for the Rangers and the Phillies. His numbers across the board were pretty solid.

A 3.20 ERA, 1.10 whip, 62, strives. strikeouts, only 17 walks. That's covering 56 in the third innings last year between the Phillies and the Rangers. So by and large, I mean, it's hard to dislike something. I view this, Derek, and, you know, there's some some underlying parameters that do a little bit concerned that maybe Ian Ken isn't quite the picture that those numbers might indicate. But nonetheless, I mean, the diamondbacks have two viable closers. Like, when's the last time? The Diamondbacks were in a position where they entered a season with two guys who were viable closers the year before. I don't know if I can really ever remember a time where that was the

case. I think the bigger thing here is just the back end relief help, right? It's the fact that the Arizona Diamondbacks have never had quality relievers that they could rely on. I feel like that has become a priority for them. I think they looked at how many one game run, one, one, one one run games they lost last season. I think that they looked at a lot of things that went wrong last season. Sure. I truly believe that the Diamondbacks are of the mindset right now, that the coaching is the thing that's going to win games for this team,

that they feel like the talent that they have, the actual physical bodies, the muscles on guys, is enough to get the job done if properly coached. I saw Brent Strom already out there today on day one telling pitchers how they needed to do things in order to help out with the defensive game and such. And that was in the middle of, again, these very minor league or not minor league, little league-esque, you know, defensive drills that are, you know, the keys here. but Strom is out there telling the pitchers what their role is in this. He is active on day one. And I mean, I'm sure there was no doubt that he wasn't going to come in

or any of these coaches were going to come in firing and ready to go. But, you know, again, there is no holding back. I saw Jeff Bannister out there leading guys. I saw, you know, Strom out there leading drills. So these guys are already very active in this team and already passing their knowledge on. And so I feel like the mindset of Mike Hazen at this point is that they really can coach this team to being a team that wins. And I don't know how crazy that is. You know, there's something to be said at times about baseball teams and the fact that there are these teams that, you know, their players average 250 or below.

yet somehow they win their division and go on to, you know, make noise in the playoffs and such, right? Sometimes it is a team effort. Sometimes it's about getting the most out of guys and not having necessarily those high paid superstars. I'm not trying to get too ahead of ourselves here, you know, with this situation. But like someone like Ian Kennedy, there's something about the fact that he was a part of that anybody, anytime team and that mentality. having him back here in the locker room is might be that leader you know i think he is kind of one of those guys that doesn't mind taking on a bit of that leader role and like you said with his experience with his resume with his time in major league baseball he really can offer a lot to

a team comprised of a bunch of young inexperienced guys that haven't really seen much success and playoff experience and things like that you know experience and things like bad. I don't even know if you could say that about Ian Kennedy because it's not like he's a he's been a multi-time champion places he's gone and things like that. But his experience, I think, could be invaluable. That's something that you might have thought you were getting out of Bumgarner, but his experience or his personality doesn't really lend to that. More importantly, though, it feels like the bullpen has always been an afterthought for this team. And they've tried to fix it in kind of the ways they fixed their center field problem last year by sticking someone who didn't even

really want to be out there out there and it went as badly as you could have hoped it didn't. Right. So at this time, the bullpen finally feels like something that they are understanding is a key, is a weakness of theirs and something that they need to actively put money towards resolving. I still think they'll do something about third base. Yeah, I need to you. That still seems to be something to me that even when asked about it,

Tori Lavallo and others don't really shy away, but they don't give any kind of direct answer as to how they're going to fill some of the positional needs. And LaValle always gives those same kind of answers when he goes, you guys know, like, you know where we have positional needs at. You guys have been watching. You've been paying attention for the whole time.

So like they know that we know. know, but there are other options, I think, for them as far as some of their positional needs, like the, like right field versus third base. I still really don't like any kind of proposed plan of a, yeah, Drew Ellis, Josh Van Meter, Josh Roas battery. I don't think that that is good for anybody. It was nice to hear today, though, LeVolo say that they are going, one thing they're going to work on is guys getting more consistent time at their position. So even if, if some guy plays first base, they're going to try to keep them, you know,

in right field at the most, right? Like that's the most they're moving. First base to third base, that kind of thing. But, you know, except for Dalton Varsho, who's going to play... Donald Varsho plays everywhere. He's going to play eight positions every week for Dalton Varsho.

The entire diamond by himself, and he would still bunt on the shift, even if the shift was illegal and it still existed, he'd bunt on it. All right. Well, Ian Kennedy, though gives up a lot of home runs there's still a downside there he's uh yeah a lot of home runs and he he's become a pretty one dimensional um but like almost in a good way his best pitch is his four seam fastball and and he just uses the hell out of it now and he just uses that pitch he threw so

last year ian kennedy threw 83% of his pitches 83% of them were four seam fastballs uh which is far in a way the highest number of his career. He's started to recognize that's his bread and butter. He's not really wasting his time with the change up and the curveball as much anymore, although you will see those from time to time. He has a really good fastball. And now that he's a reliever, the velocity is more 94, 95 than it was when he was a starter. If fans remember, he was sitting usually around 91 miles an hour was pretty average for him.

So his fastball velocity is ticked up a few. miles per hour. And he also, for the baseball nerds out there like myself, he also is near the top when it comes to spin rate, which it basically just means that his four seam fastball plays up. So from 94, 95 miles an hour, it's getting on guys quicker. It has sharper movement than a lot of other, you know, forcing fastballs that are even around that same velocity. So there's a reason that he's still successful, even though he's kind of throwing the same pitch over and over and over again. He's throwing it mainly up in the strike zone. And like you mentioned, that's going to come with, you know, he's going to be prone to the long ball.

That's going to be part of the of the deal for him. But he's also been reasonably effective. And I'm not sure of a 320 ERA is, is necessarily something I would, I would project for him again. But he certainly is going to provide some stability at the back end for the debacks. and that's something they really need right now. I'm really liking this bullpen and the way it's shaping up. I won't lie. It's really not that bad on paper.

It's really, it's really actually somewhat formidable. You've got Ian Kennedy. You of course have Mark Malanson, which I guess we have to address the fact that the diamond backs have two guys who closed last year. I'm going to venture to guess that Mark Malanson is probably the choice there. But, you know, Ian Kennedy certainly could fill that role as well.

And then you've got Taylor Widener, you've got Noe Ramirez, you have J.B. Wendelkin, you have Caleb Smith, who was not particularly good in the starting rotation last year, but was quite good as a reliever. Yeah, really, yeah, he was pretty impressive. He, that my only concern there was like part of the fire that burned inside of him to make him that good was like him trying to prove that they were wrong for removing him from the starting role into the relief role, right? So I'm interested to see once he's kind of been given that role without, you know,

obviously the door is always open for any reliever to return to being, you know, a starter, right? If they do good enough and they can stretch them out and all of that, I just wonder how he's going to do. And I really like Caleb Smith, mostly because he's a maniac. And I think that every team needs a maniac. And he absolutely is that for us. us, but I like this bullpen. I like Noi Ramirez a lot and I like the addition.

Yeah. I mean, if Noe Ramirez is your seventh inning guy, that's pretty good, right? Like, you feel pretty good about that, at least compared to what this team has been going with the last few years. I also felt like last year especially what we saw was Tori just given anybody a chance. And that giving anybody a chance also. I mean, when you have that many guys on the injured list, yeah. He did.

But the problem was, is at a point, it seemed like he had no plan. And that's probably because no offense to him, he didn't really have a plan. He didn't, he didn't, you know, know, who he could put into this role, who he could rely on, who he could count on for Wolf Relief pitching. I think he very much wanted to see guys, you know, maybe go give that, you know, ra speech that gets the guys all hyped up and see which guys can, like, step up. up and take the opportunity and no one really did, right? Caleb Smith did, though. And Caleb Smith was a guy that was very good for them in that relief role last year.

So he probably is one of the few that stepped up and grabbed that brass ring when Tori was asking for it. But then they needed to get him back into a starting role eventually, right? Like they needed Caleb Smith as a starter and couldn't even keep him in the relief role because they needed bodies. last year was such a disaster that I really find it amazing. People really felt like that was a reflection of what this team is and could be. I get it.

I mean, I watched it. I know why people think that. But man, with all the injuries and everything that they went through, this team was lucky at times to not forfeit games due to not having enough, like, warm bodies to field a team. You know,

so I'm surprised that they won as many. games as they did. But you can get Jesse's piece on this exact subject, not losing games. Nobody wants to read that, but on Ian Kennedy over on go-PhNX.com. If you're not already members on- This one... This one is unlocked. Oh, never mind. You can actually...

Just go read it. Just go read it. Whether you're a member or not. But while you're there, read Jesse's article, realize how good it is, decide that you would love to get more content like this. Sign up to become a member. You can get an annual membership, which will get you a free t-shirt over at the pHNX. Locker.com or you can sign up to become a month-to-month member and we'll hook you up with the

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members here over at PHNX and hopefully you join the family. Jesse, last question I had for you is are you a bit disappointed by the free agency frenzy that we haven't had yet? Today, Matt Olson

was traded from the Oakland A's to the Atlanta Braves, which apparently spoiler alert means that Freddie Freeman is in fact leaving, which I don't think is a surprise to anybody. Where he goes, though, still remains up in the air. We still haven't seen a lot of guys land anywhere. And I know we talked a little bit about like, okay, maybe it was because no teams wanted to be those teams on the first day signing guys and making it look like potentially they might have spoken to agents or players during the lockout. Yeah, that's over at this point. Now we're

totally over that. And we're still kind of seeing things, not. not it's not like nothing's happening but things are happening at at kind of a mild pace yeah it hasn't been it's not like it's been slow it's just not been it hasn't been how crazy we thought it was going to be right yeah yeah we thought it was going to be just straight madness and that hasn't really happened yet um look i'm kind of surprised i mean Carlos cray doesn't have a team Freddie Freeman doesn't have a team Chris Bryant still doesn't have a team. The Colorado Rockies apparently are one of the front runners for Chris Bryant, which still baffles me. I think the Rockies are still a 75 win team, even if they get Chris Bryant.

But if they're going to pay Chris Bryant all that money, didn't they already have Nolan Ironato? I know. It's utterly contradictory. It's like, no, we don't want to, we're not willing to pay for our own homegrown players. But, you know, now that we're at rock bottom, we're going to throw 150 million at someone that, you know, from outside the organization. It doesn't make any sense at all to me. I would love to get Patrick Lyons take on this because that is something that, again, I can see that might infuriate the Rockies fan base. It seems to me not infuriate them. I mean, they're probably pretty happy that the team.

They'd be happy about, right. But they're also like what, like, how do we reckon this? how do we reconcile this with the decisions the Rockies have made over the last few years? It's just completely inconsistent. Well, and because especially they, you know, one of the complaints has been that they're not paying money to players, right? So then they do this, but then they do it in a time where adding a player of his quality isn't really going to be enough at this point to get them over that hump,

especially if they're letting their good homegrown players walk and then just replacing them with another guy that no offense i mean he might be a little bit of an upgrade might not whatever but it just seems kind of like uh like it would be like if the diamondbacks went out and paid another guy a hundred thousand or a hundred million dollars to uh be uh the first baseman you know what i mean like for for the team like right after letting goldsmith go it would be like why not just pay him we wanted him keep him like how is this guy better than him like we've already attached ourselves to this guy's star and now you're taking him away from us

and still replacing it like I understand if there was friction between the franchise and the individual and they had to leave because things just weren't good but yeah that one's definitely a head scratcher as far as Chris Bryant I don't know what's going to happen

it seems like we're still waiting for like the big piece to fall so then the market can adjust itself to whatever the hell is going to happen and once one of these guys get signed, right? Especially Carlos Correa. There's just been so many rumors.

Like, I feel like there's been a lot more talk than there's been actual action up to this point. We're constantly hearing which teams are pursuing which guys almost more than we're used to seeing in the past. But yeah, I mean, I think John Paul Morosi about three or four days ago now, tweeted that Freddie Freeman was expected to decide within 24 hours, you know, and here we are and we still don't have a decision. So I don't know. I don't know exactly what's holding up this entire process. Maybe it was the Braves. Maybe it was them coming to terms with the fact that they

actually were going to bow out in the Freddie Freeman sweepstakes and trade for Matt Olson instead. And maybe that situation will resolve quickly. But yeah, I don't know if the Diamondbacks are going to be in on on any of those big names but hopefully from from their side of things hopefully there's there's still some some interesting stuff to come as well well and i was thinking about that they definitely had a i don't know probably they they have another 10 to 15 million maybe to still spend on yeah that's a good that's a good question so yeah ian kennedy this year is is that to make 4.75 with 2.35 potentially an incentive. So the Diamondbacks payroll right now sits probably a little bit under 90 million.

And Derek Hall pretty much guaranteed that it would be over 90 and that he could see 100, 105 even. So I don't know if they'll necessarily get there. But yeah, the Diamondbacks theoretically are not done. They still should have about 10 million, 15 million that they're willing. to spend. It's just a matter of, you know, do they find the right third baseman? I think that's the biggest question. Are they, are they in on Jonathan VR? You know, are they trying to bring back as Drubo Cabrera? I don't know exactly what their plans there look like, but I have to think that's

going to be their biggest target now that they've shorted up some of their their bullpen issues from last year. Well, we will definitely keep you up to date on any moves with the Arizona of Diamondbacks and any other moves probably to happen in baseball just because we love baseball. And it's exciting to figure out where these guys are going to go and talk about it once they do. You can follow us on Twitter. I'm at Kapp underscore Kman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse N Friedman. Our show, of course, is at PHNX underscore D-Backs.

Please follow our show. I've been posting some very fun videos. And, you know, they're not for anybody else. They're just for you guys. They're for D-Bax fans. Nobody else is going to enjoy them as much as we do. So I hope you guys, I've been playing with the slow-mo camera. been doing stuff out there.

Yeah, that was cool. That, that's slow-mo video of Caleb Smith throwing like a high and in fastball to Dalton Varsho and Varsho just couldn't, couldn't get wood on it. That was like, it just put into perspective how hard it is to hit a baseball. It's ridiculous. I don't know. Like, how do you get your hands in on a pitch like that so that you can actually make contact?

How do you keep your eye on the ball? How? Like, how? How do you not just run back to the dugout? fear. Most importantly, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports, and that's on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Please

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