PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Diamondbacks introduce Eduardo Rodriguez as third-biggest free-agent signing in franchise history

Episode Date: December 12, 2023

The Arizona Diamondbacks introduced their biggest free agent signing of the offseason, starting pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez. We have more Rodriguez’s decision to sign with Arizona, why he turned down being traded to the Dodgers, and Ken Kendrick’s intriguing comments on team spending.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/200Get 10% off your first order of Hero Bread at https://www.hero.co/ by using code PHNXSchedule 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. WYNK Seltzer + THC: Go to https://drinkwynk.com/ and use promo code “PHNX” for 50% off. 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 welcome to another edition of the PHMX debacks podcast right here on PHMX. My name is Derek Monta, occasionally known as your mayor of PHMX. This man next to me is my vice mayor. I feel like we haven't been in the same room together in weeks. It's been a while. The one and only thunder stick, Jesse Friedman. And we are very excited to be discussing Eduardo Rodriguez's introductory press conference today. Of course, you guys are all here.

We appreciate you guys being here in the chat today. Make sure, of course, if you haven't done so, to subscribe to the channel. sign up for notifications. Make sure you're a diehard member, all that good stuff. But we are amped and excited for baseball. We want it back already because after being out there and listening to Erod speak, I can't wait to watch this guy play baseball for the Arizona Dynambacks. Yeah, well, first of all, I have to say that I saw Derek without a hat on today,

which I think it's been months. There's hair under there. I think it, wow, you did it on the show too. I think it has been since before. purple hair days. I'm not mistaken. Probably. I mean, there was there was some permanent damage there done to my hair based on the purple. That's fair. Jody Jackson today gasped at the site of my hair. She was like, it's back. It's not purple anymore. And it's also not as bad as you made it out to be. And I was like, look, I know. It took some time.

Well, wait, we'll see. We'll see. Anyway, yes. We are here. Wait until it's lime green. Yeah, it's only a matter of time. You're going to follow after one Gabby Moreno in that regard. But yes, we are here to talk about Eduardo Rodriguez and his press conference today, which I believe was live broadcasted on MLB Network, at least a portion of it was. So maybe some people were able to see some bits and pieces. But yeah, he had his family with him in the front row.

We had to move because of it. We did, yes, we did have to move to make way for Eduardo Rodriguez's family, which is one of the better reasons I've ever been asked to move from one place to another. I'm not moving. I'm not moving for. some of those other, you know, media guys, but I'll move for family. Yeah, Steve Gilbert wants me to move. Steve Gilbert, absolutely.

That's not moving for fucking Steve Gilbert. But I will say this when it comes to family and his family being there present, us moving for his family. That was a very big part of everything that was important to Eduardo Rodriguez when it came to his future, his career in this game. We know at one time, we discussed his family, lived in Miami while he was playing in Detroit. And I'm sure that was very difficult. It's never easy on a team.

We discussed a lot of things with him today. But of course, the one thing on everybody's mind was why he signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks. First, we got to get a shot of him putting on or holding up that beautiful new home jersey. Here's the official handshake. It's the official, here's my jacket. Mike makes a comment about the jacket being very expensive. He says, no, no, no, it's not. But we get the cream-colored jersey.

Interesting to me, I thought, when he held it up, Jesse, was that. I'm like, that must not, that's not too different from the Detroit Tiger's jersey that he's used to putting on currently as far as the look goes, you know, the pinstripes, the logo on the side, everything like that. I guess there's some overlap there. Yeah, but all smiles for Erod making his first appearance at Chase Field today. Yeah, some people, I think you posted a picture on Twitter, right, of him, like him with the jersey on when he was out on the field. Yeah.

And some people weren't happy because they thought that the lettering was a little bit too small. Which, as you can see there, I can kind of see where people are coming from. I wonder if this jersey was like, oh, man, we got to like throw together a jersey that says Rodriguez on the bag of the last minute. You know, maybe they didn't know what number he wanted or whatever. Are we discussing how small the font is on the back of the jersey? Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. It's going to be interesting to see if that's the actual size. I'll be very curious to see.

Yeah, maybe it won't actually look that way on opening day. But a number of people were saying that on Twitter. I agree with two BMC, by the way. I think the home off white jersey has grown on me too. I think seeing in person. That was my first time seeing in person. Yeah. Not impressed.

No. No. I'm being totally honest. I'm kind of with everybody on the letter. Yeah. Which I think probably was more of a temporary thing, but I did like the logo placement. I liked everything else on the jersey as well. But it's just so it's just a little plain.

That's just crazy coming from you. It's just not much there. And I recognize as I admitted to Bo. in the office earlier when we were talking about this, that the black jersey, the alternate, is like one of my favorite Diamondbacks uniforms ever. It is exactly identical to the white one. It is simply in a different color scheme.

So I recognize my hypocrisy in that regard. Also, the fact that you wear the same jacket on this show almost every single day. I wore a different jacket yesterday. I'll have you know I wore a different jacket yesterday. I can't even. Well, we do know that the jerseys aren't the reason that Erod signed here.

but we did get the reason why he did make the decision to come to Arizona. Here's what he had to say. I will say the family with the family wise because I can stay here in Arizona the whole time. It's been training the season is here. Probably like the biggest reason. The second reason for me was I know these guys are just coming out of the World Series. You know, I know they're hungry for winning the World Series, and I want to be part of it.

I know how they're preparing them, they're getting ready for, for this next season and I want to be part of that team. They're going to bring a well series year. Oh, fire me all the way up. Fire me all the way up. To all the talking about. I mean, there was a certain sincerity to the way he said that, a certain confidence that I know that that's, in my opinion,

something that you probably should say in every introductory press conference. Sure. But I felt like he meant it. Yeah, if you sign with the team that was just in the World Series, you're sort of obligated in your introductory presser to talk about yes, the team who's just in the World Series, and I like that about that. Yeah, yeah. Well, and I mean, the fact that he says, like, I want to be a part of the team that brings

the World Series here, right? It's not if it's not, you know, I want to try. He almost just said, like, I want to be in a parade. And I think these guys are going to happen. And I just want to be there for it. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's also clear that we've talked to, we talked about this several days ago when the move first happen that his family is very, very important to him. And yeah, his ability to come out to Arizona and live in the same place full time was was very clearly a big part of this. Of course, if you're a pro athlete living in one place full time is not what it sounds like, he's still going to have to travel to a bazillion road games and whatnot. He's not exactly going to be in Arizona all the time.

But yeah, I mean, we touched on it the other day how his family was based in Miami throughout at least most of his time in Detroit, it appears. And I can't really imagine personally what that's like to have your, you know, your family somewhere else, you know, even on those, those rare occasions that you are, you know, you are playing home game. So I'm sure they, you know, I'm sure they traveled over there and, you know, still had some interaction. But he seems really excited about the opportunity to move his family here to Arizona from Miami.

And to just kind of, yeah, just have a nice setup for his family that he hasn't. been able to have in other places. Playing in Arizona, that's one of the draws the Diamondbacks will always have, is that spring training is in the exact same place as your home games during the season. It allows for some continuity that you're not going to get anywhere else. Well, and we also know that he took some time away due to personal issues. We know how important family is. We know that his family was apparently living in Miami and he was playing in Detroit.

And then eventually his family did last season move right before he was potentially. eventually traded to the Dodgers and like all of that like the idea here that you want to kind of stay in one location so hey maybe your first house you purchase or whatever is in Miami and the way baseball goes you're going to be moved around a lot so it might just be easier to stay in one location as an athlete I know we hear a lot about a lot of athletes that don't play here that have homes here in Arizona right especially baseball players due to the fact that they do play spring training here yeah and you know it's just it's just a place that people tend to live they it does just make it harder, you know, for for you to have a normal family life when you're not coming home sometimes during the very long baseball season.

I like my wife is incredible when it comes to allowing me to do all of the ridiculous things I do with my friend Megaran and just take random trips to Chicago and Philadelphia and such. But like it's sometimes it's the family support that then makes me want to be with my family even more, right? Like the fact that my wife is so amazing that she does approve of me doing this bonehead stuff at times makes me be like, that's why I married her. And I don't want to go sleep at hotel room with this guy. I want to go hang out with my wife. Right. So like, again, there's there's something about that time away and the support of a family, right, that that helps you here.

But there's a lot to be said about Erod and what he can offer to the seam, the stability. I know Mike Hazen talked about that, that it was just there's still a lot of question marks about starting pitching. and the stability that Edward Rodriguez will brings to a lineup that has still a lot of questions about it is, is at least something that gives him peace of mind that this team is going to be better next year. He also has all the confidence in the young guys that were competing for a starting position last year and were in the starting rotation last year to come back like Tommy Henry and Ryan Nelson and be potentially big assets for them for that final fifth rotation spot. He was asked about that today.

You know, if the spring training were starting tomorrow, you know, what would that fifth starter spot look like? The assumption being that it would be, you know, a competition between Tommy Henry, Ryan Nelson, Slate Sacconi, Bryce Jarvis, you know, all those guys who got some time in the big leagues in 2023. And he did say that incumbency does matter to some extent there. And there are some guys who would maybe be higher on the list than others. He mentioned Tommy Henry specifically. Certainly no surprises there. Henry was pretty good for the debacks while he was healthy. I mean, Tommy Henry, I know the, you know, there's not necessarily a ton of swing and miss there.

You look at the peripherals, things look maybe a little shaky, but he had a low four ERA pitching in the rotation and, you know, starting every fifth day. And he was good for the diamond backs. Like he was a pretty consistent pitcher for them. And even though the peripherals weren't always the shiniest, you know, there's something to be said for going out there and getting job done and give some length. He was able to pitch relatively deep into games as well. So yeah, it seems like he's, you know, maybe the front runner for that spot. And Mike also talked about Ryan Nelson and what he was able to give the diamondbacks in the World Series, even though it was more of a mop-up capacity. So yeah, but also apparently the

diamondbacks aren't necessarily done adding starting pitching, which I guess is something we'll get into here. Mike seemed to still be looking at that as well. As well as Ken Kendrick might be willing to open up his checkbook still in Spencer. more money. But back to Eduardo Rodriguez and this press conference. I think there is a lot to be said about his confidence during

this press conference. It's not easy to get up in front of a bunch of us gas bags and sit there and have the lights and the cameras all in your face and deliver answers the way he did. I felt like he answered things in a confident way that makes you feel confident in him

being added to this rotation. He was asked about his slider. I think our friend Jack Summers, who filled in for me yesterday, asked about his slider. And he gave an amazing answer essentially that, like, you haven't seen anything yet. If you thought the slider was good last year, wait until you see it this year, baby. And like, again, maybe some changes that he has in mind, maybe like something that he kind of learned as the season progressed. And maybe it was like later on in the season that he was able to get even better with the slider. Maybe it's just the idea here that he is going to be working with the best pitching coach and all baseball.

And it's going to get better. I don't know, but there was just something about he didn't even want to address how good his slider is because he was like, it's going to be so much better in 2024. And that's very exciting considering that was his best pitch by far. Yeah, his arsenal is interesting. It's a three more sliders and fastballs, right? No, no. He doesn't throw sliders often. He threw a slider 7% of the time last year.

His arsenal, four-seamer, cutter, change-up, sinker, slider. He threw his four-seamer 44% of the time last year, which I want to say not necessarily a career high, but fairly high to throw his four-seamer that much more than in recent years. The cutter he threw 18.7% of the time to change up about the same, and the sinker and the slider were kind of like the distant fourth and fifth pitches. But yeah, it was a really effective pitch for him, that slider. Opposing hitters hit 0-89 off of that pitch in 2023.

and he had a 39.5% whiff rate, which is pretty legit for an out pitch. I imagine that maybe less is more in a sense with that pitch, where if he were to show it to opposing hitters much more frequently, it might get hit a little bit more. But in this sort of, you know, relatively small dosage, it seems to work really well. And yes, as you pointed out, he was like, yeah,

just wait until you see it next year. And then tell me what you think about it. So that was a funny moment for you. And we've talked about so many free agents starting pitchers that I'm 100% sure I'm now mixing him up with somebody else that there's a lot of sliders. Yeah, we talked about so many. I know. But I mean, yeah, that is something, I don't know, pitch deception, you know, things like that are

things that Brent Strom is very much into and also cultivating someone's slider like that, that was effective even if it was just effective due to limited capacity or limited usage is an exciting thing. One other thing I want to point out on this, I asked a question about, you know, what is it about Erod that makes you confident that he'll be effective, not just in 2024, but in the years following that, I asked this to Mike Hazen. And, and yeah, Mike talked about Erod's, just the proven track record, of course, which is something you'd expect, Hayeson, who have talked about. We've touched on this as well. Erod has been a pretty consistent pitcher throughout his career, but he also talked about adjustments that could be made and Erod's willingness to make those

adjustments, which kind of, I mean, at least made me think of Madison Bumgarner and how We know that he was not willing to make those adjustments with sort of the story there. And that seems to be, at least from the Diamondbacks perspective, so I mean, they do trust Erod to do. As he ages, he will continue to evolve in a way that Madison, Bumgarner was not willing to do. And, you know, that could be a really big difference between these two guys when all said and done. If, you know, if you see Erod coming out next year with a new look slider, you know, mixing up his pitch mix or whatnot, yeah, I think that, you know, that's going to be a really big part. of him continuing to be effective in this league. It's always going to make us think of Madison Bumgarner because that's one of the most

preposterous things that you could ever hear about anybody in any field at any time. You know, I mean, unless you are literally leading your league and you are the best player by far in the sport that you play. And even then, you should probably still be trying to get better every single day, trying to adapt, trying to adjust, trying to get better. The very concept that Bumgarner wasn't coachable any longer to me is by far the biggest red flag more so than his performance or anything else. And I can only imagine how frustrating that is when that's your entire job as a pitching coach. And you're very experienced.

You're very knowledgeable. And all you really want to do is try to help. But the Diamondbacks are moving in that younger direction. And that's something that helps with a lot of these guys. But Erod, again, that coachability, that relationship, right? That was talked about a lot to get today to his relationship with Mike Hazen from their days in Boston together, even though, as Mike pointed out, it was kind of a short window, you know, and you also have the relationship with Tori Lavolo. All of that was reasons why, you know, he is here as a member of the year's on the Diamondbacks. He referred to, he referred to Tori as El Hefe, which is totally what we're going to call him from now on.

That's the coolest thing I've ever heard. Oh, yeah, he's a lot of. Yeah, we got to put that on his shirt. Yeah, because he was saying he's his boss on the field, right? he's the boss in the dugout and like he was just saying how excited he was to work with with tory and to work with all of these guys but again yeah you know that's that this is just day one right this is the getting here this is the adjusting uh by the way again with the family concept here's family was there his absolutely incredible beautiful family uh and the diamond backs it was very cool to see

them uh they had they had pictures of the family on the scoreboard up welcoming him when he was got to walk out to Chase Field as a diving back for the first time. All of it was very nice. It was very heartwarming and especially if family is big to you, I can see how much that would matter when you're being welcome to the team like this. They also did an incredible photo shoot with poses and stuff out on the field. Jesse hypothesized that there's a good chance of those are going to be the Christmas photos because I absolutely would be using those as Christmas photos. They're not. That wasn't for the D-backs.

That was because the Rodriguez family. They didn't have enough shots for the family, you know, the annual Christmas letter, whatever. So, you know. It's a good way to, it's a good way to, that's a humble brag sending out to the rest of your family. Yeah, I mean, if we had. Here's my new $40 million job, by the way, or excuse me, more than that, $80 million job. $80 million. $14 million in 2024.

That's right. That's right. But here, again, going back to the family thing, here is what Rodriguez had to say about the big question, right? The big question is why didn't you accept that trade to the Dodgers? And it's not as, it's not as exciting as we want it to be.

We wanted it to be scintillating. We wanted to be some sort of deep-seated rivalry. You wanted him just come out and be like, yeah, I didn't like that team. I hate Freddie Freeman. I hate Freddie Freeman more than any other human being on the planet. That's all I'm going to say at this time. Like that would have just set the world on fire.

But no, this was his reason. And everybody asked me, now, just want to be clear on that part. Like, I literally decided to say no, because I was, I was moving my family to both, I mean to boss, sorry, to Detroit right away. On that moment, I was moving my family over there. And it was hard for me to leave my family over there, like my wife and my kid, they don't do know too much

about Detroit and about the region over there. So I decided to stay with her. You know, like, I know the team was in a good position over there too, and the organization was fine, and I decided to stay over there, you know, because I don't want to leave my family, so far away that's what that's why I was talking about the West Coast because it was so far four hours five hours fly almost five hour flight to from there to to the Dodgers I mean to LA so I don't want to leave them alone over there you know like they don't know too much over

there and everything so I decided to stay over there like how little it was was planned just a little bit you so let's say yes to a trade was just kind of close like two three hours if no I'm out you know so that being honest with you guys like that was part of what I say no like the biggest part of what I say no so it makes a lot of sense right I mean he wasn't with Detroit very long he only pitched for Detroit for two seasons yeah so you know you knew potentially a move was coming up once you hit free agency and and then on top of that you just moved your family to Detroit and now here you are being traded midseason to to Los Angeles like right again as as as much as we wanted an exciting answer it

it's pretty logical to not want to have to make your family move around that much, especially when that seemed to be what they were kind of preventing by staying in one place and not making those moves to the different cities that he was currently based in. It is interesting. I was looking at some of the reporting that was done at the time earlier today, just about, you know, were the tigers expecting him to be willing to waive the no trade clause? Or,

because it's just weird. I mean, the tigers didn't wind up. up trading Eduardo Rodriguez, which frankly didn't make any sense because why, I mean, if you're the tigers, you certainly weren't contending. Why wouldn't? I mean, I guess the tigers were like oddly close because AL Central shenanigans. Anything could happen. Anything could happen. But I mean, they traded Michael Lorenzen. It didn't really make any sense to keep Erod. And yet they wound up keeping him because, I mean, I guess maybe they were expecting him to be willing to wave that no trade clause in a way that he wasn't, going back and looking at some of the stories that were written, it's a little hard to tell

exactly what happened there. Maybe there were some indication he would be willing and then, you know, he kind of decided that he wasn't. But you can certainly understand from that explanation why that wasn't something that he wanted to do. You know, they're athletes, but they're also human beings and they have families and you can understand why he wouldn't want to be that far. I mean, you know, Miami to Los Angeles, that's about as far away as you could possibly get in the U.S. So it makes sense. And yeah, we'll say, I mean, it sounds like the debacks have the exact same no trade clause on on this deal here with Arizona. So, you know, maybe down the road, the Diamondbacks are looking at trying to get him to wave a no trade clause or whatnot, but certainly not anytime

soon. What are you doing? Why are you doing that right now? The introductory press conference isn't even cold yet, Jesse, and you're sitting here talking about trading him already. This is why people are in fury they love you but this is what it's purest people about you. The no trade clause that he had with the tigers is the same one he has with the diamond backs and who knows maybe but yes. Just drop it there. Not anytime soon there. Not any time soon.

That would make no sense. Yeah, because we're building and we have more on what Mike Hazen and Ken Kendrick are building towards because according to their comments today, it sounds like they are far from done. And it also sounds like money ain't a thing. We'll see. I don't know about that. But if you love money, a great way to make yourself.

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Get started by visiting desertfinancial.com slash 200, and who couldn't use free $200 around this time of the year? We thank you guys, of course, if you're here in the YouTube channel, also if you're in the audio channel, I didn't mean to leave you guys out earlier. Make sure you're subscribed. We love you guys. We appreciate you for being here.

Also, make sure to leave us a review, five-star reviews. Help me fulfill my Christmas wish list of increasing our Apple iTunes rating, whatever it is. I just like five-star reviews. I'll stop getting drunk and screaming about the playoffs if you guys give us five-star reviews. But anyway, Ken Kendrick did speak to the media today. Also, Mike Kazen. Ken's was a little bit more impromptu outside in the hallway there. Mike Hazen was in the press conference room with Rodriguez,

but Hazen did make some comments about the Diamondbacks still looking to add to this team. He brought up the bat once again. He brought up an outfielder. He brought up more pitching. And he said by far they are not done adding pitching at this point. And he also made it sound like there's a chance that they don't add anybody else. It's not to say that they always succeed in their pursuits. He, in fact, had a question about if they pursued Erod via a trade during the trade deadline that he would prefer not to answer.

We know the answer. We know the answer is yes. We get it. Just tell us, Mike. Just be honest with this, Mike. It's okay. He's been so honest with us about other things in the past. So, I mean, that's, of course, a big thing.

But, of course, it's very good for the Arizona Diamondbacks, especially with all of this news about Shohei Otani. Being added to the Dodgers roster, obviously the Diamondbacks need to make a move to get better. I know some of the questions you got asked yesterday in Mailbag Monday was about like, does this make the Diamondbacks now kind of have to increase their spending? Does it make them have to, I guess, not get desperate by any stretch of the imagination, but, you know, kind of be a bit more aggressive now that the Dodgers did in fact land the biggest free agency of the off season. Yeah. And I mean, I think our answer there was pretty clear. Just be pretty surprised at the debacks are changing course just because of just because of just because of showing. Ohio Tani signing with the Dodgers.

It might help things if there's a little bit of a, should we spend that little money? Maybe it pushes Ken Kendrick to spend a little bit more money. But he also said today something very interesting that I know a lot of Diamondbacks fans want to hear that we got some footage of, Jesse. And that is that the Arizona Diamondbacks will have the highest payroll they've ever had. This is what Kendrick had to say. Yeah. Watch our team play.

And we're going to reinvest. I mean the nominbacks are going to go on the field this year with the highest payroll in the history of the team. I'm not going to tell you what it will be, but it'll be the highest payroll that we've ever had. And we're, as I think Mike alluded to, he's more careful with his words than I am. We have more to do. And he's been given the authority to go make the team better than it is as we sit here today. Do you think the Rodriguez move would have been possible from a financial perspective if you hadn't had the World Series run? It could have been.

Some of what we've done and we've made two. That was an interesting part there at the end, especially. Like he still felt like the moves that they've made, including Suarez and obviously here with Erod, that they could have been possible. But even his answer sounded like they would have been a little less likely had the Diamondbacks not had the successful run. Didn't completely rule it out But kind of seemed like I don't know if I'd bet on it I don't know if I'd bet on the Diamondbacks

Being able to do the Swaraz move as well as chasing after a pitcher The caliber of E-Rod If that hadn't happened And then talking about adding more here right Like now we're talking about potentially adding more He said he's not going to tell us what the budget is Which again I mean Obviously they're a

They're a multi-billion dollar sports franchise guys, so they are most likely going to have a plan in place. But like I said, at times when we were discussing how much money they may or may not have left to spend in free agency, that's a fluid situation. I mean, they might have a range. They might say we are willing to spend from this amount, maybe to this amount. But the fact that he did say that the Diamondbacks will have the biggest, you know, biggest payroll in team history is both reassuring and also not surprising because that was most likely going to be the case. based on their spending. This team just hasn't spent that much money in the past.

And even when they did way back in the day when we won ourselves a World Series, a lot of that money was, guess what? Deferred. Sorry, I just need to throw that out there. We're going to talk about that later.

Jesse are going to fight later. I'm still very curious what your side of that is going to be because I know that I'm right. But yeah, I wouldn't put a whole lot of stock into Ken saying that they're going to have the high payroll not because it's I don't expect it to be true but because I think that was kind of a foregone conclusion anyway frankly the moment that they signed errod they weren't they weren't done yet

they still needed a right-handed bat it's it's pretty difficult to pinpoint exactly how far away they are from that highest payroll that they've ever had that highest number came back in 2018 when the diamondbacks were kind of pushing the chips in of course they were you know had some success in 2017 made the playoffs thought they had something going trying to get back there in 2018. Obviously, things didn't quite work out. But according to COTS, they had an opening day payroll in 2018 of 131.5 million. And currently, again, it's hard to do an apples to apples comparison because it's not totally clear which, you know, which number we're looking at.

Are we including the injury replacements? Are we including the 40-man roster guys that you have to pay a little bit more even though they're not on the active roster? But I think right now the diamondbacks are somewhere in the range of maybe 125, I think is at least a reasonable estimate. Yeah. So if you're at 125, it's not a shock that the debacks are going to end over 131. I don't think, not to say the debacks couldn't really spend like some serious money here over the next couple weeks, but him saying that doesn't really mean anything to me because I kind of expected that anyway. Yeah.

No, I completely agree with you. And not to mention the fact that I know this, I know we're talking about pre-opening day, payroll but arbitration is also going to be rough on them this year based on who is in arbitration and how well those guys did especially being big parts of this team making the postseason like they did in 2023 I love talking to Ken Kendrick and again I just there's we talked about it before the show today there's just something about Ken that's so honest I mean maybe to a fault right like with a lot of this stuff he even said Mike hazen or Mike's you know Mike's going to give you a much a different answer than I am.

We noticed Derek Hall standing very close to him just in case he said something that he shouldn't or whatever. But I like the fact that Ken Kendrick is a very transparent person. And there's things when he talks about this stuff that feels like, you know, I know there's always going to be the perception by fans of almost most franchises that they're not spending enough money or doing enough for their team to win, especially when you have the Dodgers spending $700 million on a single player. It's going to be hard by comparison to ever look like you're competing with the Dodgers

when it comes to their payroll in this NL West Division. But I just, I really do feel like at times Kendrick really does, you know, want the best for this team. And much like Lavallo at times when he's managing with limited resources, I feel like Kendrick and the Diamondbacks are just operating with limited resources by comparison to some of the bigger market teams and they are doing their best. But that he did speak about the economic windfall from the postseason quite a bit. And I think that's going to help things for this team, especially with spending and being

a little bit more liberal with the spending. Another big thing that's going to impact that, though, is what the Diamondbacks do for a new TV deal. And Kendrick also brought that up. He brought up that they had several deals or several options basically before them and that they still haven't decided, but here's what he had to say about a new TV deal for the debacks. You know, I mean, it's not something we would have wished to happen, but we're overcoming it. We'll have a, you know, a very viable regional television deal going into next year.

We're still looking at exactly how we're going to do it. I think the fans would be concerned and should know that our games are going to be available to them, as they have been in the past with we would like to think high quality broadcasters on whatever platform we choose and we have several choices that we're looking at I'm furious with Elise Jesse were you there she's stealing your thunder did Ken say anything about a new TV deal I feel like she's just she's leading us right like what are we doing here what should we talk about next to yeah what should we talk about next do you want to talk about Ken Kendrick and some ballpark news, perhaps.

We will. Hold on. But of course, the, you know, there was kind of some jokes about the Diamondbacks maybe ending up on channel three, channel five like the like the Sons did. And Kendrick wasn't, that wasn't completely out of play. He made it sound like that was even maybe one of the options that they were considering. So he said along with other ways to watch it, like a streaming option, it sounds like, or something of the sort.

But it didn't seem to me that there was much concern. That was kind of my biggest take. away from that. You know, you could hear it there. We're going to have a viable TV situation. It doesn't sound like the Diamondbacks are losing. Probably going to lose some money. I mean, that seemed like it was going to happen no matter what from the beginning.

But it doesn't seem like their losses are so significant that they're, you know, in a really tough financial situation, hence the investments that they've been able to make. Obviously, the World Series money certainly helps with that. He spoke about that as well. But, yeah, there's still some options on the table. he also was asked about blackouts and you know how that could factor into this whether the diamondbacks are trying to avoid that and certainly are um derrick hall was was standing right next to him and referred to that as a preference that the diamondbacks would like to have a tv arrangement where blackouts are non-existent if possible uh they certainly you know talked about how they want everyone who's interested in watching diamondbacks baseball to be able to but that's not something they've they've committed to just yet we all want that in every sport. We just, we all want that in every sport. We all want to be able to buy the package for the entire season to be able to watch every baseball game and have that also include

our favorite team that we live in the city of and root for. It's insane that this ever became a thing in sports. You know, I remember back in the days sitting down as a kid without the prior knowledge of if Sun Devil Stadium sold out or not, getting ready to watch an Arizona the Cardinals afternoon game only to be sadly disappointed by the fact that it was blacked out simply because it wasn't a sellout at the stadium. Right. So like these have just been bad for sports, you know, forever. And of course, you know, I'm sure the teams don't want that. The teams don't want to limit people's access to watching them. The teams don't want to act, limit like partner in advertising relationships as far as, you know, reach. And, you know, again, if I'm an advertiser,

I'm not advertising locally for a team that's going to be blacked out the people here in town. Right. I'm going to see my ads, right? Yeah, I mean, teams don't like get a kick out of blocking out their fans from their games, right? Like, this isn't something that they love to do or anything. I've never viewed it that way. I'm sure there's at least three owners out there that get a kick out of it. Maybe.

We can speculate on which ones. I'm going to believe the best and say that that's not the case. But, yeah, I mean, there tends to be a financial component to this where, you know if you're if you're selling off your regional TV rights then you want it to be exclusive right if you can if people can just go and and get MLB dot TV or whatever and have access to in market broadcasts well those people aren't as inclined to subscribe to whatever you know cable network or whatever that channel is being sold to so as much as it's clearly blackouts are clearly bad for baseball and i don't think that teams like them but there's a

financial component to this that is a little bit hard to get around. But it seems like there is maybe some momentum toward doing that. This is something that Rob Manfred has talked about recently and that the Diamondbacks certainly seemed to place some value on as well. So yeah, I mean, hopefully for the for the betterment of the game and fans here in Arizona, hopefully that's the outcome. He had a real Tommy boy chicken wing pizza in the trunk kind of attitude about, you know, the TV deals. He definitely did not seem like he was a man concerned at all about what the Diamondbacks are going to do next year. And I know that's a reference 100% this man next to you didn't get.

That's why I throw it out there. I do these references just so that Jesse doesn't get them. It's movie reference. Say it again. Are you asking if Damon got, Damon, did you get my Tommy boy reference? No,

no. Oh, I might be sore. You're on an island by yourself today. No, I am absolutely not. You need to know your audience. You know what, ESPO got it and that's all I needed.

I just needed one guy to get it. I will whittle my job. jokes down till just one person in the chat finds that one person in the office. That's it. That's all I need. It's a low bar to clear, man. All right. But of course, Elise also demands baseball renovation news. And we got to see some of those with our very own eyes. Some of you also did too when attending some of these concerts at Chase Field.

But it was very bright. The lights were very bright at Chase Field today. And it was actually a very nice sight in that big airplane hanger of a stadium to see it so well lit up. definitely look like an improvement. I thought it looked like the roof was open on a cloudy day when we first kind of, because it's cloudy out, right? I thought maybe, like, is the roof open? And it was simply just the lights,

which don't look much different from their old lights. Like, you're not going to. No, yeah, you can't like looking up at the lights. You can't. I think I could tell the difference, but it's pretty subtle. There's some lines in them and stuff. Yeah, they do look stylistically. They're slightly different.

Yeah. But they were very bright. I wish my, I wish I had my shady rays. Yes. As I was walking into Chaseville. Oh, don't do that. That's not.

I was like, man, this place is, this place looks different. Look at Max is hovering. He's waiting to make sure he's always hovering. Max is like the boogey man. He really is. You say a partner. If you say any partner's name, weird, we're trying synergy. We're trying to integrate our partnerships naturally in our conversation.

Here's a reference for you. He's the undertaker behind. He is. Behind your back. Yeah. It just pops up out of nowhere behind the producer. The light flashes and you just see Undertaker just staring behind you. God,

bid we say another company that isn't a partner, Jesse. That's really when Max loses it. Yeah, see, we're going to start endorsing the lights company to put in the LED lights and stuff. See, there you goes. No forgets. Anyway, we definitely. We didn't even say the company. I know.

I didn't even say. That's what I'm saying. Sensitively. But yeah, there's definitely some renovations going on. Maybe not a whole lot. But I did very much notice the improvement in in the lighting and how bright it was in there. And it's definitely, definitely a step in the. the right direction.

Kendrick brought up Chase Field and he brought up like, he made a great comparison to it being like a vintage car where you sometimes with those old vintage cars, they're awesome looking, even to this day after all these years. You don't want to look under the hood necessarily at all of the engines, but the public doesn't see under the hood. The public sees, you know, the car on the outside. And I might even be- I don't know if Chase Field on the outside is quite like to a classic car level of cool.

I don't know. Maybe it's not bad. Maybe it's like one of those old jeeps or something. Yeah. Like jeeps used to actually be like meant for military combat and not for driving around the streets. Yeah, it's like like a car from like the 90s where they're not quite old enough to be like cool just because they're old. Yeah. They're just like kind of old but like still functional.

A 1992 lime green nice Toyota to sell. Okay. There we go. That's a chase. Just trying. But yeah, no, for sure there's definitely some things going on. Kendrick spoke about ballpark and potentially moving. It did sound like things were leaning in the direction of them staying in

his field. He was the beginning of this question or the beginning of this he was asked is staying at Chasefield the most likely outcome. He goes from there and then talks about some other stuff relevant to the situation. So yeah, here's what Ken had to say about that. Staying at Chase is kind of. I'd say that's the more likely event. but it isn't a final decision.

We do have flexibility in our lease. You know, it's a public document, so there's no secrets in the lease. You know, we have the freedom to move today with no penalties at all in our lease, one year's notice. And, you know, I wouldn't probably be appropriate to go there, but we couldn't leave Arizona, and there are some penalties if we were doing that.

Well, that ain't going to happen. You know. I don't want to be ridden out of town on a rail. And with tars and feathers, which is probably what would happen. You goddamn, right? What are we doing? Why are we even bringing up leaving Arizona?

You're as bad as Jesse can. That's what Jesse does. He brings us down with this stuff after we were in the World Series. Not you. Don't say that. But, yeah, I mean, he said it ain't going to happen. He said it. He said he would get tard.

He followed it up. Yeah, and I know he has no desire to do that, but he definitely, I mean, it's, it's weird, right? Because it is an ongoing negotiation and part of the negotiation is played out in these questions that we, the media ask. So he does have to take kind of a stance if they are still negotiating about that because you don't want, you just don't want the car salesmen to know that you're going to buy the car no matter what, right? Like you got to try to play it cool. And if you don't, then, you know, you're giving up too much of the information. I'm sure the Diamondbacks want to stay in Chase Field. Not only does it make sense like geographically,

especially with everything that's going on with the coyotes and the mess that that situation has become. But you also just have the history of being in that building. Now that we've played in two world series, you know, the longer that we stay here, the longer that it makes it harder to want to be somewhere else. You know, it's like we don't have a lot of things in this town that we kind of hold on to historically.

You know, we kind of modernize everything. You know, Roosevelt Road doesn't look. the way it used to and you know parts of this town kind of just continually get updated and chase field should too but it would just be nice to have that that you know like like what footprint center has become like i still call it america west arena i still call it the purple palace and people don't even know what america west is anymore they're like what was that yeah it was an airline kids um i'm gonna say as a bank you know it was an airline god damn oh man anyway yeah but uh It does seem, though, like, based on the renovations, based on everything that we've heard, that they're not going anywhere.

It seems like Chasefield is the place. Yeah, I would. I mean, and Ken said it there as well, that that seems to be the most likely outcome there. Yeah, I mean, renovations are going to be expensive. And so I think, you know, he referenced local politicians that, you know, maybe the Diamondbacks having so much success in the World Series. Maybe that influences. Maybe help us out a little bit. Yeah.

You know, so it just seems like they're still trying to secure some help financially with, with renovations. That's at least my understanding. And those details aren't, aren't super clear at this point. And the option of going somewhere else in the valley is still, is still on the table, even though it doesn't, it's not on the center of the table. It's like barely on the table, like kind of about to like, yeah, like you're getting nervous and you're watching if a dog or a small child walks by the table because you know they're going to knock it off kind of. Right, right. Exactly. To the edge of the table.

Piece of Yoshi says Derek's ancient LMAO. Can we just, is it time to block Yoshi once at all? I think I think I hold that power. And now that I'm back, I feel like fully abusing that power and making sure that you can't spread your fire, Derek nonsense. I saw you up there earlier saying you should replace,

replace me. I'm not down with it. But Connors says what was bank one, a gas station? That's what I thought. I don't know. Derek, Derek was around. He might know. No, no, it was a convenience store, of course. Of course, we thank you guys for being here.

Elizabeth says Fire Yoshi. Yes, that's a hashtag I can get behind. Of course, make sure you guys get that diehard membership. Right now is still the best time to become a diehard member. So grab a diehard membership now. Join us, become part of the family. Get Jesse's newsletter. You get that free merchandise from the PHNX Locker. com so much more do that today also check out bet mgm right now is a great time to get down on a great offer can get up to $1,500 back in bonus bets if your bet loses on your first bet with mgm all you got to do is download the sportsbook app on ios or android or visit betmgm.com sign up and deposit at least $10 into your newly created bet mjm sportsbook account use our

code of phnx to sign up of course place your first wager and you can receive up to $1,500 back in bonus bets. If the bet loses, if the bet does lose, your bonus bets will be available once your initial wager is settled. Of course, sign up for BetMGM now and use that bonus code of PHNX. Get those free. Bonus bets back. If you lose, place your first Bet MGM sportsbook wager through the mobile application of at least $10. If that bet loses, your bonus bets will be available once your initial wager is settled. Check out the show notes for full details. And now listen to Shane. Talk about the disclaimer. Gambling problem call 100 gambler. Colorado, D.C., Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming.

Call 8778-Hope-N-Y or text Hope & Y, 4667-3-6-6-9-6-0-0-0-0-0-0-1-Masachusetts. 218-1-1-1-1-1-7, 4,000, Michigan, 1-8-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1. In partnership with Kansas-Rocin-Haw in partnership with Kinse. Visit at MGM.com for terms and conditions, U.S. promotional offers not available in D.C., New York or Ontario. Ontario. Jack didn't do that with me yesterday. I imagine he didn't. Did he bark for Damon?

No, he didn't bark for Damon. We're never allowing Jack on the show again. He's not invited back ever again. He doesn't know our inside jokes that we don't share with him. He obviously doesn't watch the show. Yeah, he clearly should have known all those things. Kevin Gingle should have barked for Damon too.

That's a big miss on our part. Also, it looks like piece of Yoshi. What's that? I think Ginkle might have let out a little. He let a little rough? Yeah, it was not spirited. Yeah. I think Damon imagined that in his head.

He just wanted it to happen so bad that he was blinded in the moment. That's a fact. Yoshi's telling on you guys, by the way, he is telling. See, look, he's tattling on everybody. He said, you didn't do the Mailbag Monday intro, which I'm infuriated. I tried to not do the whole feel before Mailback Monday. I got us, Eric. I got us.

Everyone got so angry. And then we also have him telling, he told Coggs who just showed up, by the way, thanks for being on. time again, Coggs. He told Coggs that you guys talked about trading Alec Thomas yesterday, which Coggs is not going to be happy about at all. But, oh, and Roger Bessions is here. So everybody, the entire family's here. Thrill to have them. Also, speaking of the whole family, great place for you to go. Have a great time this holiday season. If you want to get out of your house and not have your family there to have everybody meet up at He-Liverr Resorts and Casinos.

I speak as a man who is currently dealing with having Christmas Eve at my house. And I did not plan on that. I was looking forward to going over to someone else's house, one of my brother's houses and enjoying that. Instead, now I have to host. And I don't want to host. I'm a terrible host, as most of you can attest to who watch this show. So what I can say is, is a better alternative is just to have everybody meet at Heel of River Resorts and Casinos. They have some amazing fine dining options. They have so much to do. They have that top golf swing suite. You have an unprecedented level of entertainment. You have the slot machines. You have the slot machines. You have everything that you could ask for.

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because I know I deserve it after my family comes and spends Christmas Eve at my house. So I will be looking forward to my. staycation. What I'm not looking forward to is the next discussion that we are about to have. I am not looking forward to Shohay Otani being a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers for the next 10 years, Jesse. This was, as you put it, our worst nightmare come true. This was the one thing we didn't want to happen. This was the one thing that we didn't want to see one place. We didn't want to see him go. We were even like, go to San Francisco. Go Colorado.

I guess. Colorado was right in the thick of this discussion. I know they were in the thick of it. But I mean, there is something to be said about this. I know that it has become the talk of the Major League Baseball world is the deferrals. That, you know, there's 10 years of 68 million after Otani's contract is up. There are $2 million. He's paid $2 million a year for the next 10 years, which is just crazy.

I can't believe we're allowing this, Jesse. But you know the thing that I keep coming back to you is we allowed this to happen. And when I say we, I mean, Major League Baseball, because you and I have no vote in what they do when it comes to CBA negotiations and stuff like that. But it really does feel like when it comes to this Otani situation that this might be the thing that causes them to take a look at all of these deferred payments, deferred contracts. I don't think so. But not for a long time. And I mean, again, it's, it seems wrong, but show me where it's wrong. Show me where there's a rule against the Los Angeles Dodgers doing this thing.

There is no rule. First of all, the collective bargaining agreement is very clear that there is no limit on deferrals and contracts. And I wrote a column about this. Some people already know how I feel about the situation. Shoha Tani's deferrals are not a problem with Major League Baseball whatsoever in my mind. The reason that limiting deferrals is completely unnecessary, at least in my mind, is that they're not in players' best interests, right? If you're deferring substantial money in your contract, you are walking away from money, right? That's how money works.

A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. Correct. So Shohei Otani, in walking away from that much money and deferring that much money in this deal, $680 million of the $700 in this deal, Otani is foregoing a significant. significant amount of value here. You can have a gripe with that. You can take it up with Otani and his agent, right? There's a case to be made here that Otani actually signed a contract that's well below market value. The current day value of this deal is actually $460 million, not $700. That $700 figure, honestly, is not very meaningful. This deal is not a $700 million

deal. It's a $460 million deal. And yeah, I mean, the deferrals, I guess, help the Dodgers in that, you know, their competitive balance tax, you know, that's been sort of the talk of the whole situation that, you know, they're not going to pay, they're not going to have $70 million, you know, toward that competitive balance tax threshold. They're going to have 46. But again, that 46 figure is just a reflection of the current day value of the deal, which is $460 million, not $700 million. So I don't think there's really anything wrong with the deferrals here. I just think that Shohei Otani only got $460 million. And that's kind of surprising to me.

I thought Otani was going to get more money than that, right? It kind of felt like the floor here was $500 million, you know, somewhere between $500 and $600. Maybe things go a little bit north of that. I'm a little bit surprised, given the deferrals here, that he wasn't able to get a little bit more when all was said and done. But he did get $700 million. He did.

Yes. Technically, I will acknowledge. This is your goddamn ex-wobah all over again. I don't care about your ex-webush. expected stats, Jesse. And I agree. In the end, this, the only person that this does hurt is show hey. I agree with that.

And he understandably is able to do it because he's getting so much money. $40 million in endorsement deals or whatever. Yeah. So, yeah, you can pay him $2 million. Just the new balance deal, right? It's like one of the biggest deals, endorsement deals in sports history. That alone. Yeah.

But you have, right. Like you, you just get to a point where you have so much money that what do you need? more money for like if I gave you two billion dollars and gave you a Brewster's million type deal which is another movie I know you have no fucking clue what I'm talking about but if I told you you need to go spend two billion dollars in the next 48 48 hours you couldn't you literally couldn't not in a way where you didn't have assets that were worth the money that you paid for them under your ownership thus giving you not actually spending the two billion dollars right

and you just go give it all the charity it's part of the rule But anyway, there is something to be said about having enough money. Otani has an ungodly amount of money, I'm sure, already, not to mention the fact he's going to keep making that year after year after year. What's more important to him is to be able to potentially walk away from the game of baseball when he still can while his knees are still good, while his hips are still good, while his back still good, and be getting paid $68 million a year to just sit around and do nothing for 10, 10 years.

That's crazy, right? And it's kind of like the Bobby Bonilla Day thing, right? That's what we all compare Otani Day to, and that's what Otani Day will be like. But Bobby Bonilla is sitting fat when he gets those fucking checks. You know what I mean? That man is a happy man. Those checks aren't for $68 million. No, you're right.

But still, that's the point. The point is that they're still for a million dollars. And could you imagine just getting sent a check for a million dollars every single year? That's nuts to me. That's just nuts. you wouldn't get me to do anything. I wouldn't even change out of sweatpants. I might just be in sweatpants and a tank top and a zip up hoodie every single day for the rest of my life with no shoes.

Because I get sent a million dollars randomly in the mail one day every year. But I think the thing here is once again, and we might disagree on if Major League Baseball is ever going to actually do something about it. I don't think they need to. Otani only deferred. more than 97% of his contract because he makes a bonkers amount of money and endorsements. Yeah, other players wouldn't be going to happen for other players. But still, it's terrible and it shouldn't happen.

You shouldn't be able to defer that much of your contract period. But regardless, we disagree on that, but we both do agree that this isn't, there's nothing you can do to stop this. There's nothing like there's people that literally want Rob Manfred to come in and stop the decision and somehow reverse it and not allow it to go through. It's literally in the collective bargaining agreement. It doesn't exactly have good. legal ground to stand on what otani did here Derek is otani signed a 10 year 20 million dollar contract

with the greatest retirement pension in human history that's basically what he did right he's making two million dollars a year for 10 years and then he's going to make 68 million dollars a year for 10 years thereafter these are things that like we're used to in our day-to-day lives not not a 68 million annual pension. But we're used to the concept of like 401Ks, right? Like retirement accounts. When you have a full-time job, they're not literally giving you, they're not putting in your pocket all of your compensation immediately.

Sometimes they're putting it in some sort of retirement account or pension or whatnot, money that you get later. This is just obviously a very, very extreme case of that. Going back, Tim had an interesting comment about the no state. He says, you guys aren't thinking about Otani's deferrals in the right content. context, his take home pay is higher than he get with a non-deferred contract because he doesn't have to pay California state tax on it right now. Well, I mean, that, yeah, as long as he moves out of the state of California, where he lives, yes, when $60 million. But yeah, he goes on to say if he moves to Miami or another state, then not no state tax, but just not the same amount of state tax.

But yeah. If he goes back to Japan, for instance, that's another thing that could be obviously different. That's a good point about potentially. But you're not, if you're Otani's camp, you. you're not taking less money because you're like, oh, you're right, like, you know, California taxes or whatever. That shouldn't, I still think that Shohei Otani probably should have come away with more money here, given the volume of deferrals.

Did you want a $1 billion contract, Jesse? Do you think you should have gotten a $1 billion contract? I haven't done those words. I haven't done the math to figure out exactly what it should be, but it should be somewhere between $700 and a billion if you're going to defer that much. Get out. I'm just, I'm telling you, Derek, there are people in the players union.

Go, you take that, take the jar, you get out. You take the money, go pay your money, go pay your billion dollars to Otani. My God. There's only a few dollars in there. You have a whole lot more money that you need to put in there. I do. But yeah, like, it's, there are going to be people in the union, frankly, that are not going to be happy about this.

Because this is showy Otani taking a present day value deal of $460 million. Like, yes, he's trying. trying to do the Dodgers of favor and all that stuff. But in doing the Dodgers of favor, he is walking away from substantial money, as I said earlier. This isn't just like a loophole where the CBT allows you to hide the actual value of a deal.

The actual value of this deal is $460 million. And the CBT simply reflects that. So this is just Otani kind of just taking a lot less money than I expected he would get. And yeah, granted he's going to be okay. I understand from his standpoint. He doesn't necessarily need to maximize every dollar. I think honestly, there's probably a reason for him doing this that he's not publicizing.

And there's probably a plan in place that is beneficial to him that we don't really know, like what he plans to do with the money or where he plans to live after the contracts over, whatever the case may be right. He will be, he apparently was offering this to everyone. So that's another thing I want to make clear. This wasn't just like, oh, this wasn't just like, oh, the Dodgers deal. This isn't just like, oh, the Dodgers, like they, you know, they're always right up against the luxury tax. Then we try to help him out.

This was according to report, something that he was willing to do for any team. And obviously the Dodgers were the beneficiaries of that. But frankly, the Dodgers were the favorites in this from the very beginning and not totally shocked that that's where that's where things landed at the end of the day. I'll tell you this much. There's going to be a point in the future where it's going to hurt to be paying a player that's not on your roster, $68 million. I mean, they're paying Mookie Betts as well, like well into the 2040s. Freddie Freeman has deferrals too. They're going to be paying like $80 million in 2043 to Shohai Otani, Muki Betts.

Maybe Freddie Freeman, I can't remember if he's still on at that point. You can charge that credit card up all you want, but there's going to come a day where you're going to realize the debt that you're in. There's going to be a day where you reach your maximum, you know, limit, right? You're going to see that credit card hit the max. And you, I mean, again, it's the Dodgers, right? They're like the Yankees or like these other teams. They're just always going to have a competitive advantage over the rest of baseball, based on how popular they are and based on a lot of factors,

based on how much money they bring in, you know? And that's, yeah, I mean, that's kind of what I wrote today is like the, if there's a problem with baseball being exposed here, it's not that you shouldn't be able to defer 97% of your contract. that's weird and bizarre and I get it. But at the end of the day, that was just Otani being willing to just sort of leave money on the table in this situation. That's his choice to do that, even if some people from the Players Union aren't super happy about it.

The bigger takeaway for me is just that, yeah, the Dodgers clearly had a leg up in these negotiations, right? You know, even at $460 million, like there's a lot of organizations. Say what you will about, you know, some owners should spend more. I certainly understand that view on things. But there are clearly some organizations in the sport that just shouldn't allocate $46 million of true value to a player every season. Given the constraints that they have, it just wouldn't be wise. Whereas for the Dodgers, it's something that they're just able to absorb.

And the Dodgers will still have to pay this money, by the way. It's not the way that the Dodgers will actually finance this money. They do not just pay Showy Otani $2 million a year. and then suddenly they pay him 68, although I guess that is technically what happens. But behind the scenes, they have to finance. Yeah, they have to finance that money. I think within like a year or two,

they have to start putting away that eventual deferral money right now, basically. But as Ken Kendrick discussed today, they also get paid if they do it in a way where they get paid interest on that money, then the team does make money off of that interest that they're putting into that account and considering the size of it, right? Like you and me putting $100 into an account where we get like 2% cashback ain't really moving the needle. But when you're talking about putting $68, $70 million into that account every year

and getting that same 2% cashback, then maybe that does go a little bit longer, right? But here's what Kendrick had to say about the Otani deal and not really being that mad about it. Yeah, there's some interesting stuff. He starts talking about how it does help the Dodgers from a luxury tax standpoint, which is true. Like, you know, if it was just straight 10 years, $700 million, you know, that obviously would have had significantly different. Yeah, different tax implications, which of course, as I said earlier, Otani basically

walked away from money by doing this. But yeah, he starts talking about how it helps them from a tax standpoint. And then he talks about just Otani as a player in general. 10 times 24 million. Last time I looked is 4.8 million. So they do get. that savings, it's not as though they're not doing something attractive for all themselves. But you've got to put it in perspective.

Now, he's, as I said and would repeat, he's a great player. Actually, I think it's good for us that we get to compete against him. You know, he's, his last I looked, he's one of nine. And the last I also looked, he's a designated hitter. It's a great player. Is he the second coming? I would suggest not. would you like to have a player of that talent on your team?

Of course, everyone would. And, you know, we'll have fun competing against them. We already did have fun competing against them. He's so reasonable there. You know what I mean? Like, everything he said is so sensible, and it just is what it is. The Diamondbacks made their appearance in the World Series, but that still doesn't mean that they are just a Shohei Otani away from being back and winning it, right?

In fact, Cheye Otani on this team would complicate things quite greatly in a few years, even with the deferred payments because of the $46 million hitting the CBT for this team, right? But did you, did you catch Ken saying his little, his little last side checked, he's D8? Should we get some sunglasses for throwing shade? Is this? I remember a shady race read today. This is the second one. He very quickly after that said he's a great player. I think he realized like, oh, I don't want to be the guy throwing shade at Showy Otani.

Like, let me. What is meaning, especially next season, just the implications of next season. And we don't know beyond that. It's nobody's hoping Shohei Otani doesn't pitch again, nobody. But what we're saying is you just never know if Otani coming back from what, his second Tommy John surgery. Yeah, although we don't know if it's Tommy John. It's just elbow surgery. Just elbow surgery.

But again, you don't know if he'll be the same pitcher he was, right? So. Yeah. And that's the reason why this is a huge risk. and only a certain number of teams could take on that risk. But what what Ken says is dead on. He is technically in 2024 just a DH, right? And like he's not going to hurt you in the in the two ways that he was able to hurt you before.

Still probably going to hurt you from an offensive standpoint quite a bit. But it's still just one guy. And again, one guy doesn't make an entire team. What we saw with the Angels was in fact, they had two guys. and they still didn't equal the team being good. So I mean, from that perspective, as Diamondbacks fans, maybe this isn't good for the Dodgers. Maybe them pursuing Otani and having them on this team isn't that vast improvement

that, you know, that everybody thinks it's going to be. I think it has to be good for the Dodgers. Like, I just can't talk myself into it not being good for them. Oh, it's like that. Just from like a brand standpoint and they're going to, you know, they're going to, they're going to rake in a good amount of money just because of him being on their team as well. Not to mention it's a team that already does that well with like big name players internationally and things like that. His brand is going to grow pretty well in Los Angeles for sure.

But yes, there is at the same time. We talked about this a little bit yesterday with when Jack was on the show. There's a valid case to be made here that, you know, when all is said and done, showy Otani adds two wins to the 2024 Dodgers. I don't think that's an unrealistic outcome. J.D. Martinez was their DH for most of 2023. and soon will be ours. And he was really freaking good.

And Otani was even better. I mean, Otani was still substantially better than Martinez in 2023. But, you know, is he going to have a 180 OPS plus again coming off of surgery that theoretically wouldn't interfere with his hitting? But might,

you know, to some extent, at least it might take him a while to kind of get back into the group of things. We saw that with Bryce Harper coming back from Tommy John earlier this year with the Phillies. So yeah, it's possible that,

you know, There's not a huge benefit here from a standing standpoint, at least in in 2024. BC in the chat has been trolling us because he's a Dodgers fan and then he wants to know why his comments were put up on screen. I think you answered your own question when it comes to that. Connor Mormon says Dodgers doing all of this just to stop one man, Corbyn Carroll. God damn right. Well, someone I saw some I think it was Major League Baseball posted a picture of Betts Freeman and Atani on on Twitter. said like who is who is stopping this trio and someone quotes tweeted it it was like some number four

starter you've never heard of in the first round of the playoffs or something like that i was like well let's see that has that has happened oh god him got their ass that's fantastic well of course we implore you if you are out about doing some christmas shopping to stop by our friends at circle k fill yourself up get some gas in your car of course uh circle k is america's third stop they also have some of the cheapest gas you can find. But if you sign up for their Inner Circle membership program right now, you can save 25 cents more per gallon on your first five Phillips. I saw it was down to below $3 over here on 7th Street.

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They will service the warranty for you. You can schedule a free in-home estimate today. All listeners can receive a $350 discount when you use promo code PHNX, restrictions apply see empire today.com slash p hnx for details that's all we got great day shout out tim shout out to tim Tim says just want to thank you both for keeping us all

informed there was a large void and debacks coverage until you guys came on tim thank you so much we appreciate you guys of course for being here you guys make it fun there was a time where jessie and i were basically talking to just each other and i think elizabeth in the chat and and chris and now you guys are here and you make this so much for more fun for us. Was I not good enough for you, Derek?

No, Jesse, you know you weren't good enough for me. You know that for a fact. I'd sit here and do all sorts of movie references and quotes, and you didn't get any of them. It made me sad. Well, nothing's changed on that friend. After two and a half years, nothing's changed. But we appreciate you guys for stopping by. Of course, you can follow us on Twitter.

I'm at Kapp underscore K-Man with a K. This maniac next to me is at Jesse N. Friedman. Damon is the people's producers. You can find him people's producer. There's only one people's producer. You can find him at Damon Dog. That's D-A-W-G. Of course, we are Damon's dogs.

Roof-Roof. We're never going to get that one right. But of course, our show is at PHNX underscore D-BACs and all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore Sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Again, we thank you for stopping by. Very excited to have E-Rod here in the Falley and can't wait to see what this Diamondbacks team looks like

once spring training rolls around. Of course, we appreciate your time. And remember, kids. Baseball is fun, but it is so much more fun when you get paid $68 million per year every year after you retire.