PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Diamondbacks emerge as potential frontrunners for free agent Jorge Soler

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

According to reports, it would seem the Arizona Diamondbacks have become one of two finalists bidding for designated hitter Jorge Soler’s services in 2024. We discuss how well the slugger fits in the D-backs system and the impact he could have on their offense. We also have the results of Jesse’s fan survey, including your grades for the Diamondbacks offseason, where you want the team to play, and more!An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to D-backs Takeovers, Knockout Nights & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/phnx-56002330273 Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Michelob ULTRA: It’s only worth it if you enjoy it. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. https://www.michelobultra.com/Schedule a free in-home estimate with Empire Today! All listeners can receive a $350 OFF discount when they use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See EmpireToday.com/PHNX for details.Sign up for Gila River Resorts & Casinos $1,000,000 Big Red’s Showdown! Stay in the game and get rewards; it’s that easy! https://www.gilamilliondollarshowdown.com/Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Circle K:  Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: OGeez! is not your average cannabis-infused gummy. Head on over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find out where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow them on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and ski to all. Welcome in to another edition of the PHMX Teabacks podcast. Righty on PHNX, of course. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as the Pillsbury Go Boy, occasionally known as Lewis Rich, occasionally known as Daddy Fat Sacks. Those are all in my gambling circles. Occasionally known as sexy red.

Yeah, that's right, sexy red ski. But, of course, you guys know me as your mayor. This man is my vice mayor. You're a thunder stick. the one and only Jesse Friedman. And we have a lot, a lot of stuff to talk about, Jesse. And there's not even any transactions that have happened. We just got a crazy amount to talk about, including Jesse getting into his nerdiest with survey

results and data and numbers that he collected from you guys. Yeah, but I'm disappointed because Jacob didn't make pie charts. He's so mad about the pie charts. And I really wanted pie charts. The pie charts was a whole issue, a whole ass issue. But of course, before we get to that, we do have some news that. it might appear that Jorge Soler to the Arizona Diamondbacks is becoming a real possibility, Jesse, and I am trying to be okay with it. I'm trying to be okay with it.

I'm still hung up on the duty. My brain and my heart are two different things, but what do we know about Jorge Soler coming to the Diamondbacks, potentially? Yeah, yeah, this was Robert Murray. He does a show every couple days here on YouTube, and it's called the Baseball Insiders. And on that show, it's about halfway through yesterday. He said that the Blue Jays and the Diamondbacks are teams he's aware of that are involved. And Jorge Salary talked about the New York Mets. Having been among that group at some point, he did express some doubt about the Mets, given that I think there was some report that they only wanted to spend $10 million more

this offseason. And you wouldn't really expect Jorge Saler to sign for an average annual value lower than that. So yeah, Blue Jays and Diamondbacks are basically the two teams that he mentioned as being involved. at this point. I don't know if finalists is necessarily a safe word to use at this point. It's a little bit unclear. But the Diamondbacks clearly have been involved in conversations for Jorge Soler. And he's not J.D. Martinez, as I know a lot of people are hoping for him. But we touched yesterday on some of the reasons why Jorge Soler would be a good fit for the Diamondbacks in a lot of different ways. You know, we talked yesterday about how projection systems favor Jorge Soler quite considerably over. over J.D. Martinez, Soler has some defensive flexibility. He can play some outfield for you.

He's not a particularly good outfielder. He, in fact, is a quite poor outfielder at this point in his career. Yeah, but at least he can play outfields. He can play outfield. He can occupy the position and he could catch a ball. Yes, I would, I think so. I think he could do that. It's the jury still out on if J.D. Martinez can still do that or not. So that's definitely. JD Martinez hasn't, you know, been catching pop flies out there in a long time at this point. But yeah, if you had Jorge Salar starting one day a week in the outfield or whatever, it certainly would not kill you. So, yeah, there's a lot of reason why this could make sense for the Diamondbacks. We haven't necessarily known if the Diamondbacks were willing to make the kind of investment that it would take.

The team is already around $140 million in payroll. If they sign Horacellaire, that probably goes up to 150, which is very much uncharted territory for the Diamondbacks would certainly represent a pretty big investment. investment being made from ownership. Two things that causes me to speculate that this move might be happening soon. One is that Robert Murray said on his show that he also, that designated hitters would be moved soon like this was going to, this was going to happen soon and we were going to start seeing the market for designated hitters finally start to, you know, kind of dwindle down and have some of these free agents find homes. Also from a source it sounded like the Diamondbacks might be close to something happening soon.

So all signs indicate that this might happen potentially here in the next week or so. I don't know if that's the case, but I will put my personal feelings aside and say Jorge Soler does give you more flexibility, obviously, than Jay Martinez. The projections are better. And, you know, his numbers were really good. Do we have his graphic for his numbers from last year? There we go. There's his 2023 season.

And we already looked at Soler a number of times as a free agent target for this team, as a trade target, as whatever they could get to kind of bring him over. It really does feel like he would be a great fit to, you know, enhance the power of this team. He averaged 250 last year with a 512 slugging percentage in an 853 OPS, 36 glorious home runs, 75 RBI, and a 1.8 war. He also had a lot of injuries, Jesse, a lot of injuries. the man was the man was broken in almost every possible way last season yeah well it's kind of weird like fox sports has this has this uh injury tab for major league players where they keep track of every every injury report i guess that's made and yeah if you just look at that report it has horace saler like basically every every bone in his body uh breaking uh at at some point during 2023 some part of his body

he also i think it's uh that list i think overstates it a little bit he still played 137 games he was actually quite healthy in 2023 compared to 2022, where he only played about half the season dealt with bilateral pelvis inflammation, which who hasn't been there? Every single morning. Yeah, Derek knows exactly. Derek goes all about this. And he also had some back issues in 2022 that kept him out for considerable time. So he did miss quite a bit of time in 2022.

In 2023, he had a right oblique strain toward the end of the year that kept him out for not all that long. It was pretty close to the minimum 10 days there. So, yeah, by and large, for Jorge Saler, a guy who hasn't necessarily been on the field super consistently throughout his career, he's coming off a pretty healthy season. Gabriel Ferrer in the chat says five years, 65 million. Let's get it done.

Hazen. Is that the neighborhood of what you would think of it would think? That's a lot. Yeah, I don't think Jorge Saler is going to get five years. He's already 31 years old at this point. he's about to turn 32. Three years? Yeah, I think it'll probably be three or four would be my guess, maybe three with an option

of some sort. Maybe the diamond backs would want to structure it, kind of like they did the Lord of Steel where it's a lower dollar value in year one, and then it ticks up in years two and three. The splits against lefties and righties, though. Are extreme. Yeah, extreme. Yeah, last year, Jorge Salere slash 277, 393, 688 against lefties, pretty much. I haven't looked this up, but I imagine he was basically the best hitter in baseball against left-handed pitching last year.

It's hard to do much better than a 1080 OPS and a 181 WRC plus. That's pretty remarkable production from that side. And then against Rides, he was still productive, a 788 OPS, a 110 WRC plus. He certainly would bolster the Diamondbacks against lefties more so than he would against Ritees. I don't know if that 100% makes sense to me. We broke down kind of what the diamond backs have right now against righties and lefties, and it kind of looks to me that their lineup against lefties is maybe a tick better at this point. Yeah.

But Jorge Salar is an upgrade against both righties and lefties and would be an asset for the team regardless. So if this deal gets done, it would be a huge addition to the diamond backs lineup for sure. And you just have another guy mash in the ball, right? Like you bring in a guy that kind of takes that pressure a little bit off of Christian Walker to be their only power hitter. And their power kind of is spread around. I think I would prefer the way that they are, you know, in regards to the fact that everybody there can kind of hit 20 to 30 home runs. Yeah. Especially now that you have Suarez in the mix.

Right. Debacks have a lot of guys who could hit about 20 home runs. It's funny. You bring up A. U.N. Oswares dating back to, I believe, 2017 as far as home run hitters, our friend Patrick Lyon said us a thing. He would rank sixth amongst all diamondbacks at home runs in that time frame dating back to 12. 2017, something like that.

He's, he, he's definitely a guy that, that transaction happened. And when we're talking about projections for the Diamondbacks, we don't bring up Gino nearly enough. And, and what he can add to this team as far as power already there. But you have him. You have Christian Walker. And then you bring in a guy like Soler. That's a lot of power.

You know, there's a chance you could get close to, what, a hundred dingers out of those three guys, you know, total. And that's, that's, that's, that's, that's incredibly. tantalizing when you take a look at this team and what they were able to produce last year in kind of a small ball role you know creating runs doing it with their legs doing it by the creating that chaos on the base path like yeah Jorge Soler doesn't he doesn't exactly fit like the diamond back he doesn't create chaos in the same way but a lot of other guys on this team yeah but yeah if we look at his savant page from 2023 that's certainly a pretty nice thing a pretty

nice thing to look at. There's a whole lot of bread here, Derek. An ex-wobe of 374. Pour it in a 64 ounce cup for me. Let me drink it in. Let's go. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, this is, it's not, it's not quite as bright red in certain areas as J.D. Martinez, but it also is not as bright blue in, in certain areas. JD Martinez, a little more swing and miss there. But, yeah, I look at a 15% barrel rate as, that's really high.

Yeah. Barrel rate for those who may not know. Think of these is just like the ideal batted balls. These are the ones that are consistently going for doubles and homers and whatnot. Basically couldn't hit it any better than barreling up. Yeah, it's it's good stuff. And he was at 15% there. That means that 15% of his batted balls were that.

That's in the 91st percentile. For reference, Corbyn Carroll and Cite were around 8% last year. Christian Walker, I think, around 11%. So Jorge Soler at 15%. he would become by probably a considerable margin, the most formidable power hitter on this team. There's something interesting there about his only weakness, which is essentially his whiff rate and his strikeout rate, right? Yeah. His chase percentage is not bad at all.

Neither is his walk rate at all. So it almost is like, like that's something. Some of these things are intangible. Some of these things are just something that guys do well, like barrel up the ball. But, you know, there's a potential that, you know, with some. coaching that he could even perhaps make that strikeout rate a little bit better and you know of course you you want him swinging for the fences so he is going to strike out a lot when you are a power hitter that's swinging for the fences i will absolutely take that uh and considering what the rest of

the team does well as far as getting on base and uh the got a lot of guys that don't strike out quite like that that it'll it'll be a great combination should they pursue that now uh it remains to be seen but hopefully Robert Murray is correct. He also wanted us to know. I think we fall into the category as aggregators here, maybe a little bit. I don't know. We do report on the news, but we also aggregated in time. In this particular situation, yes.

Yeah, we have to preface this by saying he said it was the one that made like the most logical sense. So he wasn't really saying he had any insider information, particularly that the Diamondbacks and Toronto Blue Jays are the ones like it just like it makes the most sense for what they're pursuing. He did report, however, that the Diamondbacks and the Blue Jays and the Blue Jays are the ones like it just like it just like it makes. and the Blue Jays have been involved in those conversations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was just, he was saying logically based on them being involved in the conversations and their needs that those are the two right now that he feels like have the money to get Solair and and the definite interest and the need there, right? Both of those teams are trying to keep up with what the other teams in their division are doing and are trying to

improve themselves. The Diamondbacks have already done that. The Blue Jays maybe not so much and still are looking to do that. But yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited for that. And I will just say that, again, I joke a lot about J.D. Martinez, I just want the Diamondbacks to get somebody of this caliber, really, at the end of the day. I would be very happy even with Reese Hoskins based on the fact that he could, you know, maybe not have the power that someone like Salar has, but still a little bit more consistency and just somebody that can help this offense drive and runs when they kind of fall flat at times. It seems like that right now is that's what they need, is that big bat that can kind of get them out of that. So it feels inevitable.

that it will happen soon because I'm going on vacation in a few days. That's our insider information. Yeah, I said I had an insider earlier. It's Jesse saying that he's going to go on a trip to Washington, D.C. I will be gone from Saturday to Wednesday. And it is inevitable that the Diamondbacks will make a movie. Saturday afternoon about the acquisition of a DH and then the press conference will be Monday, Tuesday, probably, yeah, whatever it can do to ruin his vacation.

So, but that's, that is exciting. And hopefully the Diamondbacks are part of that talk. And again, even if. They aren't the one that get Salar, even if he does end up with the Toronto Blue Jays. JD Martinez is still a very, a very nice acquisition, and it would still just make me happy, right? Like, and I only, sometimes I'm selfish. I only care about me. So I think I went either way here.

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and sharing success with its members. When you open a free checking account right now, you can get $200 in bonuses. Get started by visiting desertfinancial.com slash 200. Jesse, you got very nerdy with your annual 2024. for it's it's it's an annual survey now. Fans surveys are not that nerdy. Oh,

come on. Him going over the data. It was disgusting. It was gross. We talked about what, him and the baseball savant website when he wasn't here. You guys know about that. But he very much enjoyed asking all of you,

your thoughts and getting all of that information together. Speaking of aggregating, right? This is what this is aggregating data. And Jesse really wanted to dig in to see what you, the fans thought about this team. what they did during the off season, who your favorite players are, and so much more. Really, Jesse wanted pie charts.

Like bad. And I didn't get them. He was begging for pie charts guys. You guys see this guy on the show all the time. Maybe the most frustrated he gets is with me at times. You have no idea the anger, the fear that Jesse, the levels of anger he gets to over not getting his pie charts. We should have a quote graphic. This is, everybody loves a pie chart.

Everybody loves a pie chart. It's just Jesse. Yeah, because he said that at one point. It's true, Derek. I mean, multiple times. People love pie in general. And pie charts just beckon memories of the last pie. There's some circuit K pies right over there.

They're not the shape that you're looking for. But now that you're talking about pie, I want a pie. Okay, so go ahead. Go on with your thing. I'm hungry now. All right. So question number one was how many games with the Diamondbacks win in 2024? Damon has a handy graphic here that shows results from said question.

And here we are. We got nearly 800 responses to this. So there's a decent sample behind all of this. Really appreciate everyone who filled out this survey. So yeah, how many games with the Diamondbacks win in 2024? There were six different buckets. We have 1.3% of people choosing 74 or less. That's boy.

0.6% 75 to 79. Let's go. 6% 80 to 84, 46.1% 85 to 89, 39.6 for 90 to 94. and 6.4% of you are crazy enough to think the Diamondbacks will win 95 or more games in 2024. Maybe that's not so crazy. Those are my favorite people. Those are my favorite people. You were probably one of those people.

I was not. I was the 85 to 89 bucket, which I felt like was fairly reasonable. What I'm surprised about here is not more votes for 80 to 84. You guys are true fans here. Like everybody thinks they're going to win 85 games or more pretty much, it seems like. And that's cool. I hope that's the case. I mean, the diamond back.

The Diamondbacks won 84 games last year, right? So if you voted in the 85 to 89 bucket or higher, you are expecting the Diamondbacks to win more games in 2024 than 2023, and over 90% of you were in that category. And I can understand that for sure. I just expected more naysayers. I expected more negativity. Thunderbolt?

Where's Thunderbolt? Thunderbolt has to be in the 70 to 74 range. As long as Tori's the manager. Yeah. This team's cooked as far as he's concerned. Well, we will get to people's thoughts on Tori here in a moment. But our next question was, who is your favorite current Diamondbacks player? And this was also a fun one. Obviously, I expected Corbyn Carroll to be number one.

That was, in fact, the case. But there were a lot of other guys getting votes. Corbynman was number one at 37.7%. Gabby Moreno coming in at number two, 14.9% of the vote. That is amazing. At 11.9, Alec Thomas comes in fourth year at 8.9%. Zach Gallen at fifth, 6.6%. And then we had over 150 votes for other players as well. That took up 20% of this question. That is interesting. It's interesting to me. Gabrielle Moran, no surprise. I'm surprised that Lourdes didn't have enough votes to make really an impact on this.

I have the full. I have the full list here in front of me. Lordus was seventh. Christian Walker came after Gallen at six. Lordis was seventh with 3.4% of the vote. Then it goes Kevin Ginkle, Merrill Kelly, Geraldo, Perdomo. That's your top 10 right there. You got two essentially rookies leading the way as far as who are the Diamondbacks best players. Yeah. Or favorite players. Yeah, favorite players.

Yeah, favorite players. Yeah, favorite players. How many Jerry P guys are there? We have 17 votes for Geraldo Perdomo. It's an army. It's a 3%. Um, other. The Jerry P brigade.

Other players receiving multiple votes, Jake McCarthy, Brandon Fott, Joe Mantipli, Paul Seawald, Tommy Henry, Dre Jameson, Ryan Nelson, and Pavin Smith. What about Christian Walker? Christian Walker, I said him earlier. He was six. He was right behind Zach Allen. That's the Bang Bang Gang right there. That's the Christian Walker fans are the Bang Bang Gang. Gang. I'm sorry, who on earth said Joe Mantiply was their favorite Diamondbacks player? His family? Maybe. Maybe he's Joe himself. I respect it. We also had one vote for Jordan Lawler and one vote for Joe Mather, which that That one I haven't quite figured out what happened there.

That's got to be Don's bread. No, he voted for paper. For sure. The question specifically says favorite player. I probably should have thrown out the vote for Joe Mather entirely. But yeah, someone, someone's a big, big Joe Mather fan. That has to be Joe Mather himself. I respect it.

Our next question was how would you grade the Diamondbacks off season? Certainly expecting pretty positive feedback here. D and F were in fact options, although no one picked either of. them, which I was not surprised by. So we have 39.7% of you saying A, 55.9% giving the diamond backs of B and then 4.1% C. Derek, any surprises here? No surprises, no surprises, though I think is, is Jacob over here patting himself on the back for his graphics?

Because I'd like to point out that as we get to some of these, the highlighted number makes zero sense. At one point, it was the best thing or the one that got the most. but then he just went rogue at one point and started making random things. So I don't know how much padding on his back he should be doing. But yeah, no, I mean, I think, I think that is a very solid mix. I think, I think B is a good grade. That's probably where I voted at.

You know, like, you can't say it's perfect because they didn't get everything done. But you get that DH done. And we might be talking about an A for sure. And again, it's, it's just exciting for them to have built. enough on the team that went to the world series for fans to be this excited about the moves they made during the off season right it really shows that they're building uh and and that fans are excited about what they're building yeah i'd be i'd be really curious if the diamond backs do sign a horace soler jd martinez a rice hoskins i would love to put this poll out maybe just on

twitter and see what the results are i imagine that we'd get like 70 plus percent of people giving the diamond backs in a for the offseason at that point i mean i don't know realistically what what more you were you were really looking for. Along those lines, our next question, which free agent hitter? Do you want the Diamondbacks to sign most? No surprises here. J.D. Martinez is at the top of the list.

Do you, Martinez? 61.3% of people said J.D. Martinez, Jorge Saler, who we just talked about at 19.6%. Reese Hoskins in third place there at 7.3%. Justin Turner at 5.4%. And then we had just over 6% of people, select someone else. This reminds me of when I watch a reality show and it's down to the final four people

and I'm like, you know what? I'm okay with three out of these four winning. So that means the one I hate is going to win it. And that's why Justin Turner is going to be our next DH. How dare you? I don't want that, Damon. I don't want it. I don't want it.

But I'm just saying that's the way that things work out for me. JD Martinez, that's an overwhelming amount for him. I'm actually surprised about that because I do feel like from what I've seen from a lot of people their response is that they they're leaning towards so lair i think they like or at least they're like very happy with so later no i think again i think people would probably be happy once again when you talk about that grade and how getting a dh would impact it i feel like any of those four would would impact it enough for diamondbacks fans to feel like they got an a during the offseason but i i know that people probably aren't nearly as excited about justin turner as they are about those other three

choices. Yeah. Which really, it's just about the team getting better. And Justin Turner does, in fact, make this team better. It's just really about,

you know, what he's going to cost in relation to what those other guys are going to cost. And I would rather, I would rather have one of those other guys. We had several write-ins for Cody Bellinger. There were probably three or four of those.

Why not? Let's see what else there was in here. Someone said trade for Josh Naylor, which the question specifically says free agent hitter. Can't follow the rules. Some people can't follow the rules, but not really. Okay.

That really shouldn't count. We probably should have thrown that out. But not a totally unreasonable suggestion. We may talk about Josh Naylor at some point on the show, even though I don't expect that to happen. But let's go ahead and move on to our next question, which was the aforementioned, how do you feel about the job that Tori Lavello has done as Diamondbacks manager? Certainly strong approval ratings here, Derek. No surprises.

is 53.6% approved, 33.8% strongly approve. So that's almost 90%, you know, with pretty positive feedback there for Tori Lavello. We did have 10.1% neutral, 1.9% said they disapprove, and 0.6% said they strongly disapprove. How do you strongly disapprove? That I don't know. How do you strongly disapprove? Again, that's got to be Thunderbolt. I think that's probably like three or three.

four people. And there are. I mean, we do get that right. Like we get some and I'll, I'll say it. I'll take the strong stance and say it's a ridiculous response when I see people saying, fire LeVolo, you know, like as if he's the direct reason why. Like I know Tori Lavello does not manage this team in the way that people like all the time. But Tori Lovolo knows exactly what he's doing when he manages during 162 game season. He knows how much rest guys need.

He knows what he needs to do. No, he's not sitting guys. when they're hot on purpose just to piss all of us off. He really does have a method to do his madness. And actually, it's usually road mapped out so far ahead of time that that's the reason why he sticks to it regardless of how people are doing.

He tends to be like, all right, I'm going to pencil of you. And after 50 games, you're going to have a day off or something like that. And that is, you know, what he's going to stick to. But Tori's just a wonderful manager. And I don't know how you could disapprove,

strongly disapprove especially, of what he was able to do with this team in two of the seasons. he's been here as a manager the way he has led this team the way that he kind of gets these scrappy underdogs to be uh you know the team that overcomes and achieves and even if they don't ultimately win the world series which is the end goal that is the that that is what you're supposed to do you you still have to applaud what he's been able to do given the roster he's been been given over the years and the way that he's been able to lead this team uh to

especially the the mountain top that they that they got to last year that nobody expected them to get to. Would you guess that the approval ratings for Mike Hazen are better or worse than I would guess better? You are, you are correct. Okay. I mean, still very positive, like Tories were very positive. But yeah, if we look at the, uh, this question about Mike Hazen, how do you feel about

the job that Mike Hazen has done in his seven years as Diamondbacks general manager, uh, very positive here as well. Strongly approve up to 48.3% here, approved 45.3% This makes sense. And then neutral 5.9% disapproved 0.5% and not a single person said they strongly disapprove here. I get like this is what I expected to see more for Tori, but I understand it because Tori's maneuvers day and day out, they get scrutinized. And sometimes you can get it stuck in your head after a stretch that you really do think he's a bad manager. And that's how you view them whether the team does well or doesn't do well, right?

But you got to, you know, I think the perception with the Arizona Diamondbacks is that they, have no money at all right and my kaysen is like a chef that can make you know just this amazing meal out of nothing i went on and on to you about the fact that i went to a place the other night jesse i'm not going to give away a free ad because i know max would kill me for that but they used a hamburger a fried hamburger bun as a dessert they put sugar and and cinnamon on it they added some nutella on top they put a little orange zest a little sea salt a little uh a fried hamburger bun cherry like a compote on top yeah they elevated the shit out of a fried hamburger bun and again it's what you can do sometimes with the ingredients that you're given my kazen is not necessarily given this huge budget

to go out there and get the best talent that money can buy however he has been back like they like he was able to put together a roster good enough to do what they did last year and now that they have seen what he has done it feels like they are giving him they are empowering him this offseason with those finances that we've kind of been dying to see them put out there to go out there and make this team better and try to replicate what they did last year. I'll just say, though, at times, teams spend money just to spend money, right? And it's like you can't just always be happy that your team's spending money when they're spending it the way like the Mets did.

And it ends up being a complete disaster, right? So you've got to give credit where credit is due. And Mike Hazen doesn't have that kind of budget. Yet he is still able to do bring this. team, you know, together. So it's, it's been impressive. Yeah, I feel like both, I mean, both the questions about Tori and Mike, there's a ton of recency bias in this, right? I mean, it all depends on when you ask these questions. I would take a bullet for both of these guys right now. Coming off of Run to the World Series, I'm not at all surprised that, you know, the ratings

here as positive as they were. If the debacks, you know, have two bad weeks to start the season or something and we take this pull again. I'm not taking a bullet anymore. The numbers probably tank. So we'll see how this evolves over time. But the next one is which player do you want the diamond backs to extend the most uh everyone thinks it's going to be zach gallon and yes it is that gallon of course came came out on top here gallon at 53.9 percent uh gabby morano though in second place at 26.8 percent which was higher than i expected it to be definitely christian walker in third at 11.8 percent merrill kelly who has a couple more years of uh of time with the diamondbacks before he gets free agency he's in fourth at 6.5 percent um and then in the

other category we had we had 1% there as well yeah absolutely and gabriel merino again that uh that just shows how people are not only in love with these young players that they they've they've become huge fans of theirs but you know that's a priority like keeping that young core together like feels like it's becoming more of a priority than even you know keeping someone like christian walker around and now that might also be recency bias as well because i know that a lot of people were kind of upset with Walker's play during the postseason and really felt like he was, you know, that piece that was missing during the World Series. But I don't know.

I mean, I think that, again, all of those guys are very important. It would be just great. It would be great to see him pull a Braves move and just extend every one of those guys on that list. Merrill Kelly's interesting, though, because I don't feel like we talk about him enough. And I don't know, like even if Merrill Kelly was to be extended, how long you're going out on Merrill Kelly considering his age. It's a good point. Yeah, Merrill Kelly right now,

um, 34 year, 35 years old. Um, he'd turn 35 in October. So he'll be 37 at the end of his current contract. So he would be 37 at the end. Yeah.

And it's, do you, do you want to extend Merrill Kelly through age 39, age 40? I, you know, that there's not, I would be kind of surprised if the diamond backs

wanted to do that at this point. I could maybe see next off season. If, if, I mean, if he just, if he gets Cy Young votes in 20, is another fantastic season.

Maybe entering next off season, you're like, hey, we're going to not only pick up the club option for 25, but we want to sign you for 2026 as well. I could maybe see them tacking on one more year, but yeah, you're not talking about like a four or five year deal with Merrill Kelly at this point.

Elise asks who were the other 1%, which is kind of interesting. There were a few write-ins here. Someone wrote in Alec Thomas. Kevin Ginkle was mentioned, Geraldo Pardomo. Paul Seawalt also mentioned here, as well as Jordan Lawler.

Jordan Lawler would be, you know, obviously bullish to extend him at this point. But, yeah, I mean, we've seen teams sign big extensions to guys that they haven't even seen at all in the majors. The Brewers, of course, just did that with Jackson Cherry. They want that Corbyn Carroll move. They want to do it before he breaks out so that it doesn't end up costing them way more money.

Corbin feels a little bit more of a can't miss guy than Jordan Lawler does, though. I think there's some truth to that. I mean, yeah, but I wouldn't have thought that when Corbyn Carroll got drafted, honestly. Like, I didn't... But that was more throughout the minors. Like, it just felt like that guy was like a superstar in the making,

especially his call-up last, like the year before, like, he hit pretty well. He sped through the miners faster than any human being I've ever seen in my life. Agreed. And so I'm saying that he's on a different planet. Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah, because you're saying the speed in which he made it to the majors when he's here already. It's like, yo, yeah, we need to sign this guy. I mean, Jordan Lawler made it to the majors at a younger age.

I mean, Jordan Lawler is still younger now than Corbyn Carroll was when he made his big debut. It was in part due to necessity of cutting Nick Omick on that rather than necessity of like trying to, yeah, trying to find some answer at shortstop against lefties. Yes, I don't know if Jordan Lawler gets that call up in other scenarios. But yeah, Paul Seewald, I think that's a reasonable suggestion. I mean, Seawald only has one more year and the Diamondbacks don't have a closer beyond 2024 at this point. certainly you could talk about Kevin Ginkle moving into that role for sure. But yeah, there aren't any super clear answers in that regard at this point.

So I thought that was a reasonable suggestion. Ginklemania runs wild. Our next one is where do you want the Diamondbacks to play long term? This of course. I'm guessing Henderson, Nevada got zero votes. Yeah, Henderson, Nevada did not get any votes. I don't think I had an other category. I forced people to choose between renovated Chase Field or another stadium in the Phoenix.

Metro area. They've said they're not leaving Maricopa County, right? Yeah, I didn't even feel the need to put in something about Nevada or whatever because the Diamondbacks have said that's not happening. And that wouldn't get any votes anyway. So yeah, renovated Chase Field, 80.3% of people said that they want the team to stay at Chase Field and just fix it up over time. The other 19.7% said they want a new stadium somewhere in the Phoenix Metro area.

I'm going to give you one reason why I think it's important to keep Chase Field. is the history and the fact that we in this town don't often have things that have stuck around for a while. You know what I mean? Like all of our classic places here in town get demolished and replaced by something new. You know, there's all these memories. We have all these like, oh, come visit metro center

and do a car drive around it for the last time or like just staples of the valley. When you go to other cities, there are restaurants and buildings and places and stadiums that have been around for 50, 60, 70, 80 years and they're like a staple of that city. And like we don't really have a lot of that here. I think that's fair.

It's important to keep Chase Field, you know, as a relevant, you know, sports facility here in town for multiple reasons. I feel like it's still the most cost effective. Renovating that place is not going to cost you more money than building a goddamn new $1.5 billion stadium somewhere else. I just think that, you know, again, it's one of those things that is part of our history now. I mean, that's the reason why I felt like it was important for the, them to do what they did to, to America West Arena, which I'm going to call it that,

and make it into whatever the hell it is now, Footprint Center. But like, I love that it's still that building. I've gone to that building my entire life, my entire life I've attended, you know, shows in that building. And I didn't want it to go the way of Veterans Memorial Coliseum, where it's just this sure thing that's there that nobody goes to anymore. I like, I mean, taking down Chase Field would be quite an ordeal. No, but they have a feeling that it will stay there for a long time. The stuff they're doing downtown, the diamondbacks do.

Hell, though. They would smash that thing and make it into high-rise, you know, high-rise apartments in no time. You think it'd be a high-rise apartments within a year or two. It would be some sort of thing where they could really juice as much money out of a centralized location like that downtown Phoenix is possible. It'd probably be some sort of combo of office space and apartments or something. Yeah.

You know, again, it's like I love the renovations that they did with, footprint center as well. And I felt like that was something that made me realize, like, you can do this. You can take Chase Field. You can change it. You can make some cool party deck areas, change some of the seating, make some of the suites different and make it an alluring draw for people to want to come to. But most importantly, make it more alluring for the common person to attend baseball games. You know, again, like standing room only seats where there's actually places to stand where you're not going to get yelled at by an usher for being there. And things like that is what people want. They want to be able to attend these games cheap.

I think that ballpark pass is a huge step in the right direction. But like again, we weren't huge fans of them making fan fest an exclusive thing for season ticket holders. We do have something to talk about though in regards to that. But again, this is this building is just very important. I want them to stay there just like 80 plus percent of the people vote. Yeah. And it certainly sounds like that's the way things are trending when we talked with Ken Kendrick just about a month ago now. He said that things are trending in that direction.

that is the most likely outcome. So book is not entirely closed on that yet. We'll still have to wait and see when the Diamondbacks make a more official announcement. But yeah, Connor says it's an airplane. That's my mantra too. It's an airplane here. It's our airplane. It might be an ugly building, but it's our ugly building.

There are some things that renovating Chasefield would not fix. And getting rid of the airplane hanger vibe would be difficult, I think. But yeah, there are things that you could do to that building that would make it a substantially better place to watch. into the airplane hangar vibe. Jesse just have a helicopter coming through the roof straight right down on the center field

and drop off like the like you know I don't know. Randy Johnson to throw out the first pitch on opening day. That would be fucking incredible. There you go. All right. We've got two more.

Next one. How confident are you in the Diamondbacks overall direction? I was hesitant to even include this one because duh, people are probably pretty confident after the theme was just in the world series.

Yeah, we had 65.1% is a very confident. 34% somewhat confident, 0.8% unsure and not a single vote for not very confident or not confident at all. I don't know how you couldn't be confident in the debacks overall direction. We knew this team was a team they're building towards in the future. We couldn't have expected them to do what they did last year and be there as early as they were. And it feels like the team is all in on improving, like I said earlier. And the moves are good too.

You know, like everybody feels good about those offseason moves. So, I mean, it's hard not to be confident when this team has developed a young core that is playing really good baseball right now. And they went into this offseason and made some really key additions to the weaknesses of this team. Starting pitching was good, but they just didn't have enough of it. And that third base situation was a goddamn nightmare. You know, so it was like to now have a guy that started all 162 games for the Seattle Mariners. is at third base or played at least all 162 games. I'm not sure if you started all at third,

but a guy that played that much over there and able to handle, you know, the hot corner like that. It just feels like this team. Yeah. Is definitely moving in a better direction. And again, how is what,

what better direction can you go than, you know, appearing in the World Series last year, you know? I'm really curious what this would have looked like if the Diamondbacks had like narrowly missed the playoffs or, or just, you know,

made it in the first round. and then and then bowed out after that. I feel like the difference would be pretty significant. I do think there's quite a bit of... Do you think so? I think there's quite a bit of recency bias going into this. But yeah, I mean, the question is... I think if they didn't make the playoffs, it might have been different.

But if they made the playoffs, I don't feel like anybody would have been upset that they lost to the brewers. It would have been a bit disappointing, you know? You would say like, here we go again, getting into the playoffs, but not being able to do anything, you know? Yeah. And the question is how confident are you in the team's overall direction? it's not like, you know, do you think the team is going to make the playoffs next year or whatever? So, yeah, I understand pretty much everyone being confident in the team's overall direction. Obviously, the Diamondbacks are trying to, you know, build up a young core of players that can be here for a long time.

And there's a lot of things to like about the team's direction in the bigger picture. So, yeah, the fact that more than 99% of people said they were somewhat confident or very confident, no huge surprises there. The last question is kind of a fun one and an outrageous one. Will the Diamondbacks win the World Series in the next 10 years? Obviously, they got very close in 2023. Weren't quite able to pull it out. 83.5% Derek say that the Diamondbacks are going to bring a title to the Valley in the next decade. Just one?

That's it. I voted for three. Yeah, no, that's, it's hard not to feel that way. How do you expect me not to feel this way? How did you not expect me to feel the suns were going to go back the next year after they were in the finals against the bucks and win the championship? How did you expect me not to feel that way? It sure didn't happen, but I still feel that way and I still feel that way about this year's team after watching their comeback last night. But again, this isn't a sun show as much as I want it to be.

It's a diamond back show. And I agree with this very much. I do think that Diamondbacks will win the World Series in the next 10 years. I will say this. I say this confidently. I think that they at the very least will. appear in more than one world series in the next 10 years. Wow.

Two or more. Wow. I'm, but I'm delusional, Jesse. You know that. Yeah, I had a feeling that after the team got to the World Series in 2023, the people would get a little greedy on this. I didn't, I didn't quite see it going as high as about 84% of people.

But I mean, 10 years is a fairly long time. A lot can happen in 10 years, both good and bad, right? on average a baseball team the chance that a given MLB team will win the world series in a 10 year span is about a third just like mathematically like of all the teams were equally talented and whatever um so yeah it's not it's not a totally outrageous thing um but i mean the reality is and we talked about this a lot after the world series once you once you get to that spot and you're not able to get over the hump and win the thing it's really hard to get back to that spot yeah right even even if the Diamondbacks in 2024 do win 96 games or whatever, right? A whole lot of things can go right. And you still in the postseason, like maybe you get through the first round and then you hit a roadblock and you can't, you know, you can't find your way into the NLCS or whatever. Maybe they're undone by their own, you know, hoisted by their own potard, if you will.

Next year, maybe they have a good regular season. And then some upstart team that barely makes it and gets hot at the end and, you know, sweep some or whatever. The Diamondbacks did that exact thing. And it's the flaw of the playoffs. but yeah, it's too random. It's too. It's not like other sports where you can,

you can feel like a team is set to be like a contender for a number of years. The sons are title contenders and it almost doesn't matter what happens. I mean, they need to put themselves. They need to make the playoffs. But after that, the sons are like, they're okay. They can win the thing. The devax, it's, it's, yeah, it's different. It's different in baseball.

The field is, is large and it's not as top heavy. You know, if you have a few star players that doesn't do four, you in baseball what it does in other sports. The good thing about the experience that these young guys got this particular year is seeing that sometimes things aren't going to go right. Sometimes you're going to have your ups and downs during the season. You're going to have your Julys. And then all you got to do is make the playoffs.

Hopefully for the Diamondbacks, they don't ever have a July again. Yeah, but I'm just saying, right, you know, you can see that like, just like in life, just like as a hitter, right? Like you are going to go through your struggles and you're going to bounce back, but you got to keep a certain mindset because it's, part of the game and I think them experiencing the fact that they just got in to the playoffs but we're still able to make that magic happen during that run it's it's just something that will stick with them that like hey guys as long as we can make it in as long as we can get there

anything can happen and that's a good attitude to have but like usually you're you're seeing that from like an outside perspective you don't get the chance to experience it yourself and be like hey remember remember what we did like we can do that again right so like it feels like whenever they kind of need that that experience of making a run and and just getting to playoffs and allowing that anything can happen factor is that that they've done it that that's a very that instills a lot of confidence in you uh i will say though that uh this was exciting i love these results and i'm very excited about the way that diamondbacks fans feel about this team next year you know it it's that's something that's exciting hopefully

we'll see the fans support this team because that's the key ingredient that's missing right now is that fan support out at games. But I will tell you, we are doing our takeover event out at the pool in July. Speaking of July's, we're going to make this July a lot better by having our takeover out the pool. So, of course, if you are a diehard member, you will get a discount on joining us at the pool. If you are not a diehard member, join us now over at go phnx.com. You will get a free t-shirt of your choice over at the p.nx locker.

But you will also get discounts on events like that takeover. You also get access to all of our content, all of Jesse's articles, get access to our Discord lounge where we were doing some exclusive diehard only content, including Squeeze Play, our fun game show that we were doing with diehards and, of course, city council meetings where I'm going to fix all of your problems. Do you need more contestants? I know COGS is one. Cogs is already secured. Yeah, it's going to be three contestants per episode. Winner will win a PHNX shirt of their choice. So that's a great reason.

You don't get to participate for that exact reason. We'll see what happens. I might throw Elizabeth in there because she said she's camera shy. I know she said that earlier. And she's also said earlier, the flaw of Jesse's survey is that he did not ask what color we should die. Or we think Derek should dye his hair. Now, I like my hair actually being on my head instead of in my sink. So can we not?

Boring, Derek. Can we not dye my hair blonde anymore? on your head is overrated. Everyone knows this. It's so traumatic to my scalp. Of course, there's, all these are good reasons to be a diehard. But of course, if you haven't signed up yet, make sure to do so, go sign up at go phnx.com. You also get discounts with our partners. So join our family today. Another great place, another friend of ours is our friends over at Heila River Resorts and Casinos. And it is a great time for a staycation. Of course, it is for us, because we are about to go back to full-time work,

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That's that he was leaving. Puerto Rico, you missed that one because you're so busy talking about Damon. And Damon's disclaimer is so fast. We have a bit of time to talk while our microphones are muted. But Jesse has things he wants to talk about that I have no interest in. And of course, that's the Dodgers. Jesse wants to discuss the Dodgers signing James Paxton to give them a little bit of depth there.

and they signed Paxton to a one-year $12 million deal plus incentives. His fan graphs had him projected at one year $8 million, so of course the Dodgers overpay to get him. But he was not very, very bad in his last 16 starts last year, Jesse. Well, it was first 16 starts. Oh, it was first 16. I was sorry. The way he ended the season.

Last 16 is very strong. Not so good. His first 16 starts in 2023. Paxton was 7 and 3 with a 3-34 ERA. Very good. strikeout rate, very good walk rate, 1.14 whip. He was a good pitcher in the first half for the Boston Red Sox. We talked about him on this show as a potential target for the Diamondbacks in the second half of the season. Turns out it was good that the Diamondbacks did not trade for James

Paxton and it worked out for other teams like the Dodgers that were reportedly interested in Paxton at the time. The Red Sox probably should have traded him and gotten some sort of value, but he wound up having a really rough second half finished the year with a 4-50 ERA. but yeah this basically rounds out the Dodgers rotation the final move of their rotation they've they've certainly done a lot in that regard I actually think this is it I actually think that it's going to be because if they pick up anybody else what are they going to do with the other start there's actually it wouldn't actually be room for that person anymore so yeah Yamamoto glass now Beuler Bobby Miller

James Paxton is on paper how the Dodgers would line up to start the season they also have Emmett she and Ryan Yarborough Gavin Stone among their options available for depth. That doesn't scare me. None of that scares me. I think it's a little outrageous if that doesn't scare you, but I guess I'm glad for your optimism, like some of our survey respondents.

It's not great. That's definitely not great. But yeah, I mean, it's what we have to deal with. And, you know, again, then what we have to deal with after that is that James Paxton's replacement is Shohei Otani in that starting rotation. Correct. Yes, that's not far away. Walker Bueller is

slated to become a free agent after 2024, so theoretically he would slide out. Clayton Kershaw, I guess there's maybe a chance that the Dodgers still bring back Clayton Kershaw. Yeah, Ryan Pages, does this mean their Kershaw era is over? Yeah. It definitely means his ERA is over.

That's the era. Anyway, I will say that there is definitely some value in like maybe the Atlanta Braves picking up Kershaw just to spite the Dodgers just to hurt them. I've been saying this. Like, I feel like you could get him at probably a decent price. Yeah, I mean, he's only going to pitch for, you know, about two, three months probably. He was great before he got hurt last year.

Yeah. Great. Yeah, he was still very productive. It was like 24 starts of a sub three ERA. His FIP was quite a bit higher than his ERA, but he's Clayton Kershaw. And that just feels like it doesn't really matter at this point. Shut him down in the postseason. Yeah.

Yeah, he's strictly, he's strictly, like, I mean, he's just had, like, a pretty significant shoulder procedure. So if you're shutting him down in the playoffs, he's basically like an August and September pitcher. Like, you're getting like eight weeks. That's what we need a. We're getting eight weeks of a Cy Young level pitcher. And then we're shutting him down. And then he gets everybody in the rotation a little bit of a break. Everybody can kind of rest a little bit and then get ready for the playoffs.

He's giving you six, seven innings. The bullpen's getting a nice rest. I do. I just want to hurt Dodgers fans. That's all I want to do. I think the Paxton thing is interesting because, yeah, you look at, you look at his ERA from last year and where he ended this season was not good. I mentioned he struggled in the second half. When healthy, James Paxton is still, I think, one of the better pitchers out there.

I thought about James Paxton as an option for the Diamondbacks before they made the Eduardo Rodriguez move. He's not reliable innings, really, at this stage in his career. There are some real durability concerns there. But, man, when he's right, he's throwing 97 miles an hour from the left side. RAA, a 3.69 expected FIP, 26.3% strikeout rate. Like, these numbers are incredible. Yeah, his first half was very, very good in 2023. And we all know what happens when, when pitchers are players who are perceived to be washed, signed with the Dodgers.

They tend to be not washed anymore. So we'll see what happens with James Baxter. Stay tuned for that. He'll probably be the best pitcher in that starting rotation. Well, we do have news about maybe a potential replacement, not for show Hey Otani, but a replacement for Fan Fest because it would appear that this Saturday, the Arizona Diamondbacks are holding the Serpientis Fiesta at Chase Field. And this fiesta is open to the public. And of course, it's absolutely free, right, Jesse? It is not free.

Oh, my God. Tickets are $20. VIP is $75. What do I get for VIP? I'm not entirely sure what you get for VIP. That has to come with a Madison Bum Gardner, Serpiente Jersey, for free, right? That's how they're getting rid of the rest of the stock. They might have some extra ones that they need to push.

So $75. What are we doing here? I do know Gabrielle Moreno is going to be there. Does that involve as a VIP Gabby dying your hair purple? Because if so, now maybe we're talking. Maybe, yeah, I did see the Gabby Moreno is expected to be there. I think like signed some autographs, take some pictures. I don't know if VIP is, is part of that or gets you into that or what the deal is there.

But yeah, music performances starting at 7 p.m. this Saturday. The event begins a few hours earlier at 4 p.m. There are World Series and National League trophy opportunities, photo opportunities. Man. So I guess, yeah, if you want your picture taken with the 2023 thing doesn't look quite like the 2001 thing. But still cool, right? still still a cool thing to have your have your picture taken with it is the royal rumble jesse i won't be anywhere except in front of tv taking my friend's money but uh that does sound like a good time it does

also seem like this was kind of thrown together uh pretty hastily because i don't remember hearing about this prior to this i might have missed it but yeah we might have missed it i don't know it just seemed to kind of come together pretty quick and here it is you know this saturday so i just wonder if it is a replacement for that i mean it's going to be outside so you're not going to get to go and chase field it's going to have like food trucks and stuff like yeah valley favorite food trucks low rider legacy car show oh that's awesome those of you who are into that my brother's car will be in there baxter and legends racers will also be present so i have i have some in craig morgan maxis and cala perkins and jacob franklin that's that's who uh that's where they're going to be

that's perfect yeah if you are a fan make sure to check that out especially if you are missing out on you know fan fest and want to go celebrate i will tell you that you'll be able to be right there in the presence of that beautiful National League champions banner that's out front. If Gonzo is walking with a limp, you'll know why. Legend Gonzo, that is not maybe actual Gonzo. If Gonzo is walking with a walker, you know, it's Craig Morgan underneath that mask. But we do appreciate you guys, checking us out, of course. You can make sure to follow us on Twitter.

I am at cap underscore Cape Man with a Gay. This absolute maniac next to me is at Jesse N. Friedman. The people's producer, Damon. You can get him at Damon Dog. That's D-A-W-G. we are Damon's dogs. Bark, of course, our show is at PHNX underscore Dbacks, but all roads do lead to at PH&X underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

We thank you guys so much for your time. We appreciate you stopping by. And remember, kids, baseball, it's fun, but it's so much more fun when you get over JT. Martinez and just accept Jorge Salair.