PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Diamondbacks’ offense EXPLODES against Rockies in second consecutive game

Episode Date: March 30, 2024

If this is a dream, please don’t ever wake us. After a monstrous offensive output on Opening Day, the Diamondbacks followed it up on night two of the season by beating up on the Rockies for the second consecutive game. We discuss another history-making night by several D-backs players and if the team celebrating their 2023 National League championship with the presentation of rings is deserved. We also discuss Jordan Montgomery’s introductory press conference and some very interesting comments on adding to this roster at the trade deadline.An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to Suns Takeovers, Coyotes & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://gophnx.com/events/Factor Mealkits: Use code PHNXDBACKS50 to get 50% OFF your first Factor box and free wellness shots for life with any active subscription at https://factormeals.com/phnxdbacks50Arizona Lottery: Visit http://www.AZAdventure.com for more information on how you can take an adventure with the Arizona Lottery and for a chance to win $1 million in cash and Arizona travel prizes! PrizePicks - Download the PrizePicks app today and use code PHNX for a first deposit match up to $100! Pick more. Pick less. It’s that Easy!Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Empire: Schedule a free in-home estimate with Empire Today! Receive a $350 OFF discount when you use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See https://empiretoday.com/phnx for details.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 over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Someburros: 20% off your order of up to $100 when you use code PHNX at checkout for the whole month of March at https://www.someburros.com/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.

Hmm, mm, yeah. Ski to you all. Welcome in to another edition of the PHNX Diamondbacks podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia. This is my steak, Jesse Jr., because I miss the real Jesse. And I'm occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX. Of course, Jesse will be joining us shortly, my vice mayor, your thunderstake from Chase Field. But a big ski to you all, a big ski to the Arizona Diamondbacks.

franchise win number 2000. JA in the chat says, Sons, who? Exactly. Listen. Listen, listen. This is hurtful to this man, all right? The Sons, man.

He has to cover ASU and the Sons. Listen, every single game, I had to watch the Sons game on camera today, which was great. It was a fun time with SBO and Flex, but do you notice the fit that I had to rock when I was doing that still? He tried to bring some of our energy.

We are a fucking wagon. A fucking wagon. Thank you, sir. Of course, we thank you all for being here tonight. And of course, it's another big win for the Arizona Diamondbacks against the Colorado Rockies. A lot of good energy hit the ballpark tonight. It was the night where the Diamondbacks received their National League Championship rings, which, by the way, I want to take a moment just to address that.

I know that there is a lot of people who have kind of commented on the Diamondbacks receiving rings. You know, some have called it participation trophies. Some have mocked it. Some have said why coming in second place, you know, do you want to give yourself, you know, some sort of memory or trophy of it? This team, I think, in their attitude towards what they accomplished last year is exactly in the right place. They are proud of what they accomplish and they should be and every single one of us should be. And when they received their rings tonight, those guys were loving every minute of it. They loved having that ring on.

The ring is beautiful and it was in part design. by Ken Kendrick. I know he had a lot to do with this ring. And I felt like this was the ownership's way of thanking these guys for their effort last year. And I personally loved to see them receiving them. I love to see the way that everyone reacted to it. If you go to our Twitter account, you'll see Tori Lavala holding his ring up for me like a proud Papa. And I mean, of course, this means a lot to these guys. You know, you can you can say they didn't get the job done, but they are still the champions of the National League. And the way that they are playing baseball right now

is not a team that is just satisfied with what they've done. They are going out there and they are absolutely demolishing the Rockies. They did it for the second game in a row. They win tonight, seven to three. I guess maybe not as dominant as 16 to 1, but still a dominant victory for this team. And everything was just falling into place for them, much like it did last night.

And of course, Damon Dogg is. here. He's on the ones and twos. I'm going to bring him in here shortly, but just in, from the get-go, this team once again had an early lead, thanks to Lordus Guriel Jr., who was absolutely on fire right now. It's his second night with a home run in his first at bat. He put the team up early. And honestly, the offense at times just continued to roll, just like we've seen this offense do. Or see like this offense did in game one. Maybe they didn't have quite the success, right? But you're still talking about a team that accumulated four. 14 hits tonight and seven runs against, you know, the Rockies.

I get it. It's the Rockies. Just like you don't want to get too high on any win, you especially don't want to get too high on two wins against the worst team in the league. But what they're doing is the worst team in the league is probably fair to say. That's probably not hyperbolic. But what they are doing is going out there and taking care of business against a team that they need to take care of business against. And I think that's the important thing here.

they're not going out there and surviving these games against the Rockies. I mean, they are going out there and putting it to the Rockies. Merrill Kelly was excellent tonight. He makes his first start of the year, and he, once again, is the mainstay for this team. Merrill goes six and two-thirds innings. He allows three hits, one run, one earn run, zero walks, and eight strikeouts. And of course, you know, Merrill is, you get out of Merrill what you're going to get out of Merrill. And once again, he continues.

to be one of the most consistent pitchers in baseball. He recorded his 30th consecutive start of going five innings or more, with five innings or more, which is the longest active streak in Major League Baseball. So it's his 30th consecutive start of five innings plus. And again, the only pitcher that he is behind there is Mitch Keller, as far as an active pitcher. And who cares about Mitch Keller?

But I know Damon doesn't care about Mitch Keller. Damon, come in here, though. And I want to get your thoughts, of course, on what the Arizona Diamondbacks did tonight. I believe my exact words to you or who is Mitch Keller to this game. Yeah, you said that. Merrill Kelly is a National League champion. He is a National League champion.

He's a national treasure too, by the way, Merrill Kelly. I'm still going to call him Old Man Merrill because he deserves that and he does want you to get off his lawn. But, you know, I mean, Merrill just at one point was just mowing down batters. And I think that is the one thing that, you know, Merrill continues to do well. The eight strikeouts tonight. I mean, he was what?

He was like it's 69 pitches, I think, at one point through five innings. There's six innings. He threw 69 pitches. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of wild. And it's also very nice. But yeah, this team is just a wagon right now. This is the definition of a wagon. They are in a role.

It seems effortless for them to be doing the stuff that they're doing right now. And, you know, Damon made a point to me about how they're not exactly, this was just a four-run victory. So it's not exactly, you know. a landslide against the Rockies, but I think what we're seeing here is a team that is playing supremely confident baseball. They believe in each other, and they're just locked in. I mean, tonight,

the number of franchise records that they set, just like last night, was impressive. Jock Peterson is now the first player in franchise history to record a four-hit game in his debut. Then you also have Ketalmarte being the first D-BACs player in franchise history to start the season with back-to-pack three-hit games. and Merrill Kelly again.

He recorded that 30th consecutive start, five innings or more, and has the second longest active streak. This team is playing some excellent, excellent baseball. Huenio Suarez has been an excellent addition tonight. This man continues to hit the ball extremely well. He goes two for four with an RBI and a run scored. Cotel Marte, three for four.

Corbyn got his first hit of the season. Lordeus Gurriel, again, had that big home run. And I don't, I mean, this, this team, I don't know what to say about what we've already seen so far. I think that it's whatever your best expectations were for this team, you know, this is probably exceeding those. The only thing that you could probably, I guess, touch on here that was a little rough, was the bullpen.

Joe Manteply wasn't very good tonight. And of course, you know, we know we have a lot of questions about the bullpen. Manteply went in one inning. He gave up three hits, two earn runs. It did strike out too, but again, he was just kind of shaky. But yes, Contreras Kelly absolutely killed it. Carlos wants to know what did Tovar do to Jack Peterson, though, to cause him to go after him like that? I don't know.

What, what, what, did I miss that? Well, Tovar had just like got eaten up by like those two John Peterson ground balls. Yeah. Like he just could not field them at all. They should have been errors. Me and Damon got a whole thing about those. being errors. That's not the game that I love.

That's not the... Those are errors, guys. Jock, good job. It's the reason why Jesse absolutely hates errors as a stat. And I'm not even joking. It's so subjective that if you are just a non-athletic player, you might not get many errors because you just weren't in the vicinity of the ball, which is just a crazy thing to say.

You're basically kind of, I guess, penalizing guys for being more athletic and other guys. But this was just a well, well-rounded win. Doink the Clown says Tovar unplug Jock's hoverboard when it was charging. He also dinged his cyber truck from what I understand. So not chill at all. That's definitely not chill. Jock does not appreciate that.

See, Nicholas said Tovar talks shit about a cyber truck. That's definitely for sure. No, I don't really know. But maybe Jesse will have some more information on that when he joins us from the bullpen. But after a win like this, it's hard to decide. on who deserves the king's snake, right? Ketelmarte definitely deserves it. Lordus Gurriel, just absolutely on fire with the power,

hit the hell out of that home run ball. And Jack Peterson going for four for four in his first night as Arizona. Alex Thomas. Alec Thomas got his home run. Pimping of the absolute shit out of a home run. He absolutely pimped the hell out of that home run. We had Christian Walker also got his first home run of the year. So overall, all around, great performance from this team.

And probably, again, if there's anything to kind of have concerns about here, a little bit there the bullpen, especially when it comes to Joe Mantiply. I love Joe Mantiply as a person, as a player. I think he's fantastic and has been fantastic for this team. But going back and looking at his performances, even going back into the, you know, middle part of last season, Mantiply has not been performing well. He's not been one of the best parts of the bullpen by any stretch of the imagination. We've talked about the Diamondbacks not adding to the bullpen.

But today at Jordan Montgomery's introductory, press conference, there was some very interesting comments from both Mike Hazen and owner Ken Kendrick in regards to possibly making some moves at the trade deadline and maybe tapping into the farm system in order to improve this team. Those moves, when you look at the way that this team is rolling right now, might be involving the bullpen. You know, that might now, but right now with the loss of Paul Seawald and, you know, just some of the performances we've seen might be the one area that we are going to address. But no, Mark, friendship.

Well, actually, yes, he's kind of right, right? He is kind of right. Friendship is the King Snake tonight because we're given the King Snake to the whole entire goddamn team. That's everybody. Everybody gets the King Snake because everybody deserved it. This team has outscored the Rockies 23 to 4 through two games. And this tonight was their 2000 franchise win.

It's absolutely incredible. The boys are buzzing. I feel like I've watched all 2,000 of those wins. I feel like I've watched every single one of them. You probably have. Oh, God, I'm old. You are pretty old. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Charles Woodall Pike is absolutely right there. He says, Mantiply hasn't been the same since the All-Star game. That definitely feels like. We were talking about that. Like, ever since he went down at the latter part of that season,

like it just has not been the same. And, I mean, it'll be, it'll be interesting to monitor, but it's one of those things where it's like maybe, maybe like that is a move that we could possibly find a new lefty bullpen piece at the trade deadline but it's too early to talk about that we're we're two now yeah undefeated yeah undefeated yeah I would say also if there's another area of concern is that Corby and Carroll hasn't gotten off to a super hot start but I think that's something that he's absolutely going to but he's a walk

god he is a walk god are you like no one wants to pitch him the ball that's the problem I I'm not concerned he what does he have like four walks already through two games or something like that. That's, I'm not concerned. Dylan in the chat says, Ahueno Suarez's nickname is now Don Vibris, FYI. I also like the Razor Ramon combinations. I think we could just start calling Gino the bad guy. He got, I'm going to tell you guys a little story. I probably shouldn't tell you. But today I was getting in the elevator to go down for the Jordan Montgomery introductory press conference. And I purposefully dilly dallyed just so I could end up in the same elevator as Gino Svarez.

And I was glad I did because when he came into it, after all of our comparisons and talk in the Discord yesterday about his resemblance to one Razor Ramon, the man had a toothpick in his mouth. He had a toothpick in his mouth. It's like he knew. All he needed to do was throw in my face and call me Chico, and I would have lost my shit.

But, of course, there is absolutely a lot to be buzzing about when it comes to this team. And a big part of that is Jordan Montgomery, added to the roster officially today. We had the press conference. We had Jordan come over. He got his jersey. We have video of him putting on his beautiful new Diamondbacks jersey.

Damon, can we roll that, please? And of course, I think I need to speak of you guys to the Diamondbacks and tell you that how excited we are to have. You're going to see here, Mike Hazen basically admit that he doesn't know how to put clothing on another man, which is fine. That's understandable. That's not a skill a lot of us really know how to do at times. but here he is getting his brand new 52 jersey.

That was Scott Boris sitting over there next to him, of course. Another supremely charming man for the reputation that he might have as being all that is evil in agents at times. But yes, this is a, that's a powerful trio up there. And Jordan Montgomery looks, not only does he look really good. So he's a man of very few words. didn't have a lot to say, but he did talk about how excited he was to join the Arizona Diamondbacks. He has a lot of guys that he knows here. He actually trained with Brandon Fought in Louisville for a little bit. I had to make sure I said that right. He was teammates with Christian Walker at the University of South Carolina.

So there's a lot of connections. He's very, he's very familiar with Joe Mantipa and Paul Seawald. So he knows these guys very well. And he said he was excited to reconnect with those that he knows. and he's excited to meet, you know, his new teammates that, you know, he's meeting for the first time. But they're just, you can't, there, there isn't enough that can be said about what Gino and, or not Gino, excuse me, Jordan and, um, Erod returning to this lineup when he comes back are going to do for the starting rotation. Uh, this starting rotation is going to by far be one of the best, uh, in baseball. And of course, you know, there's a lot of things that could impact that health, you know, obviously how they adapt to this team and performing. but there just seems something very special about, you know, what not only is happening in the present for the Arizona Diamondbacks in the future, but it's like almost it's almost an embarrassment of riches

when you think about the reinforcements that are now coming to join this team that aren't even currently slated to pitch anytime soon. But here's what Jordan Montgomery had to say about why he chose the Arizona Diamondbacks. I mean, super talented group of guys. You could tell just by the way they were playing all through the playoffs at tight-knit group and good winning culture, so I wanted to be a part of it. Did this come together as quickly on your end as it did for all the rest of us looking at it from the outside? Yeah. I feel like it took two days, and before you know it, I was on a flight headed here. Had the time it's been under radar all prior to that?

Yeah, no, not really. Apparently, there were a lot of teams on his radar, right? But when I say that, I mean, it sounded like Jordan really wanted to come to a competitor and that some of those teams that were actually offering a deal that might have been more of what he was looking at weren't necessarily going to be a very competitive team. And then once word got out that he was kind of going with a shorter term deal, it was kind of open season on on you know everybody kind of checking in and seeing if they might be able to add jordan mcgomery to their team uh that obviously ends up working out very well for the arizona diamondbacks considering he chose to come here and this is where he ends up a lot of the talk today especially with scott boris was about how that short-term deal you know gets him the the annual value that he's looking for at least for one season and the way they structured it especially with him signing after opening day where the diamondbacks can't make that you know that that offered the qualifying offer to him at the end of the year it's it puts them in a

it's almost beneficial all the way around the diamondbacks according to ken kendrick weren't really looking to deal out any more long-term contracts after what they went through i guess most recently with madison bumgardner not necessarily most recently with corbin carroll but it sounds like you know one of the things that they were looking for was a short-term deal and that's the reason and why that when they checked in with Jordan Montgomery earlier in the free agent signing period, uh, it didn't sound like a deal was going to work out based on what he was looking for as far as years ago. But now he is here on a one year deal and it almost feels like the Diamondbacks window

to compete for a world series has never been more open. It's also a short window, you know, but it's, it's like, it's like the, it's like the little drive-thru window at Taco Bell. I mean, it can get wide open, but it's still a very, very small window. Diamondbacks don't have a lot of time here. Who's to say? Who's to say that, though? I mean, the foundational pieces of this team are pretty young. Sure.

So I don't necessarily think that that's fair to say that it will. Here's why, though. It's a short window. The reason why is because there's two periods of time that Arizona Diamondbacks are looking at. The shorter window, which is that period of time that they have Zach Gallin and Merrill Kelly for, Christian Walker is a free agent after the end of this season. There's a lot of pieces here that are key pieces to this team that aren't. No question about it.

No question about it. You can't plan, right? So I'm saying that's why it's wide open now based on the youth of this team being so successful with those, I guess, more crazy to even say this, more veteran pieces like that Gallon and Merrill Kelly? No doubt in the world. I think I guess I'm just projecting growth from our young players that they will take even more bigger roles. And then Mike Hazen's going to continue to do his thing. Tori Lovolo is going to continue to have like instill this culture. I think the window is just beginning.

I'm, I think last year was the beginning of the window and we're about to see a decade plus of, of at least competitive baseball. You're not wrong about that, but what it is is you have to start looking at it as two time frames, right? You can't be thinking that you're going to sign Zach Gowen to an extension. You can't think that like there's just a lot of guys that Diamondbacks are going to lose over the next two seasons. That's the reason why this year isn't a must win because the future. is still very bright for this franchise. But what it is, in my opinion, is you got to start looking at it that you're only going to have certain guys on this team for the period of time that they're currently signed

for, right? You're not going to necessarily be able to do what the Braves did and extend everybody and have everybody here for the next 10 years, right? But I will say that I get what you're saying. And that's the beauty of this team right now because- players like Merrill and Christian Walker and those type of got Gino leave like that but I think that there's a world where we keep Zach Allen and then we have Zach Allen Corbyn Carroll Gabriel Moreno uh Alec Thomas who's you know looks great to start this season and and you you just

write it you write it until the wheels fall off yeah tell more taste still got a plenty of time I feel like as a in his prime as a hitter yeah um and jay is right he says Derek we thought that way with lordis I absolutely thought that way with Lord as myself. But I think that there is something to be said about even that, right? Like the younger guys might be on this team for who knows how long. But for now, you do have to start looking at some of the expiring contracts. And then like there is going to be another incarnation of the Diamondbacks beyond that, right? Paul Seawald probably won't be here beyond his contract.

Who knows what's going to happen with Christian Walker, Zach Gallen and Merrill Kelly? there's just a lot of questions as far as the future beyond those guys. And that's the reason why the Diamondbacks have to look at this as a perfect opportunity to build around this team now. They know what this team can do. They know that this team is confident in themselves. They know Tori Lovelo is the right guy for the job. So now that's the reason why Jordan Montgomery makes a lot of sense for this team for one year. Yes, it's a lot of money in $25 million, but it's only for one year, right?

I think the bigger surprise for me is that this is the season that, you know, the final, final season for Madison Bumgarner's contract to still be on the books for this team. So obviously that, you know, that changes quite a bit that, you know, I thought that they wouldn't be able to make a deal just like Jesse didn't think they would be able to make a deal like this $20 million, $25 million for a single player this year. It's crazy. But of course, we have some more in regards to the comments that were made today by both Mike Hazen and Ken Kendrick about spending money and about.

possibly making some deals at the trade deadline that could impact some of the young players from the minor league system but also might help bolster this roster for this season which it very much appears the diamondbacks are like pushing all of their chips into the middle on this season right and it's a it's a good gamble they have a good hand they're not pushing all their chips into the middle of the table on a bullshit hand where they're bluffing they fucking have a good hand and this team might absolutely walk out of this poker tournament with the title, the bracelet. I feel like I've gone too deep into this metaphor. This is what I need Jesse Friedman here for to laugh at me and bring me back to reality.

But of course, forget about reality. We're all about fantasy sports around here. And there is the number one daily fantasy sports app out there, prize picks, which you can get down on for baseball. And this team right now, it's a great team to smash that over for the PHS. and X or for all of their more or less than kind of options. That's what prize picks is all about. You pick more than.

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money roll in. go to prizepix.com slash PHNX and use code PHNX for a first deposit match up to $100. That's Pricepicks.com slash PHNX and use code PHNX. Pick more, pick less. It's that easy. Of course, we are going to have Jesse here joining us soon and all of our updates from Chase Field. Brought to you by our friends over at Factor Meal Kits. Factor meal kits is the only way that Jesse and I can properly feed ourselves.

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and every meal, once again, is dietitian approved to be nutritious and delicious. Head to Factor Meals.com slash PHNXDBax50 and use code PHNXDBax50 to get 50% off. That's code PHNXDBax50 at FactorMeals.com slash PHNXDBACT to get 50% off. And of course, now joining us, I guess in the Factor Square, we're calling Jesse's Square, the Factor Square. Jesse Friedman, the one and only Thunderstick, is here from Chasefield. Hello, my friend. Looking looking a little less orange tonight. That's good.

Do we have no microphone? Jesse, you have yourself muted. Do I? He says, no, he does not have. Yes, have themselves. It says in e-cam that you've muted yourself. I don't know what that. Get him out of here.

I don't want to look at. Let's leave and come back. I don't want to look at him anymore being quiet. I need to hear the words coming out of his mouth. In the meantime, we can take a look. at the count from tonight's game. Damon, if you wouldn't mind throwing up the numbers because it was once again,

this is incorrect. They scored three, four runs, three runs tonight, not one. Yeah, all right. That's fine. 14 hits for the Diamondbacks to the Rockies seven. Diamondbacks have the four walks. Rockies did not walk at all. Diamondbacks hit three home runs tonight.

Rockies just had the one. And neither team was very good with runners in scoring position. Again, And I think that's what illustrated why tonight, last night's victory was so insane. The Diamondbacks tonight with runners in scoring position were three for 12. The Rockies just 0 for one in that one unfortunate opportunity. There we go. There's their numbers for tonight.

Again, not, I mean, I don't know. The four, doubling up the Rockies and outscoring them by seven to three is still very good. But, you know, the Diamondbacks there just do. doing everything well. Three for 12. You're right, though. What is this? Shariah Kiba, she's only three for 12

with running a scoring position. Amateurs. Amateurs. I agree. All right. Well, and yeah, Zand, first of all,

I'm not saying some of your names, by the way. So you're just XL 69, I guess, which that's not any better either. But says that Jesse don't work and incorrect numbers. Yeah, you're right. Jesse's not here and everything goes to shit.

but he is back jesse friedman can you join the show now and can i hear you can you hear you this time can you can you this time let's go hey yeah it was it was my it was my fault it was my fault i should never i should never have doubted damon's producing abilities but i did just want to say on the front end i do look a little bit less orange today uh but these LEDs behind me uh i just want to say that they're they're brighter they're brighter than the old lights but they're not as bright as they currently appear behind me right now. So I just want everyone to know that in case you're afraid of coming to the ballpark for fear of losing your eyesight.

I wouldn't be too concerned about that. They also put one of those like we discussed the other day in the men's room in the press box lounge. And it's like I can't go in there anymore without really burning my retina. But another dominant win for the Arizona Diamondbacks tonight, Jesse. And they set a lot of a lot of records or a lot more, you know, first in franchise history. We have Jock Peterson being the first player in franchise history, record a four-hit game in his debut, Catelle Marte, first D-back with back-to-back three hit games to start a season.

And then you got Merrill Kelly now with 30th consecutive start of five innings, which is the second longest streak in baseball. This team is just absolutely on a role right now. Yeah, they are. And, you know, I think everything good that happens to the Diamondbacks in the series has to be, it comes with the caveat of it happened against the Colorado Rock. And the reality is that the diamondbacks could sweep this series. They could they could sweep the Rockies. They could, you know, double up what they've done so far and outscore them 46 to

eight in this series. And people still would be like, oh, you did it against the Rockies. Right. To prove it against someone who's actually decent at baseball. And that's going to be a pretty fair criticism. But for right now, all the Diamondbacks can do is take care of business against what very much seems to be a lesser opponent. And they, you know, they've certainly.

done that so far. We brought this up yesterday. We brought this up when Tori said it, but Tori said their most difficult opponent is the one, that next one that they play. And right now, their most difficult opponent is Colorado Rockies. Do you believe him? I mean, I believe, I believe him in the sense that like the Dodgers cannot beat the Diamondbacks today. Right. Like the Orioles can't beat the diamondbacks today in a very literal sense like the only team that can hurt them is the Colorado. Yeah, the only team that can hurt them is the Colorado Rockies. But, you know, I mean, that's the way that they're always going to, going to view things. And that's the way they should view things, right?

I mean, you have to take care of what's immediately in front of you. The diamondbacks love to talk about going one and oh today. And, you know, they check that box once again here on day two. Nate Cleveland in the chat says still an MLB team. And he's absolutely right. And an MLB team at times that look like they were. we're going to kind of come to life here against Merrill Kelly. It wasn't often.

It wasn't like they had, you know, a tremendous amount of, of chances. They only went 0 for one with runners in scoring position, which just illustrates what a great job the Diamondbacks pitchers did of keeping, you know, the, the players off base. But Damon's cracking up over here. David, you want to fill us in on what's going on? I just, I just saw your messages in Slack, Jesse. How dare you? How fucking dare you?

What happened? He goes, he goes, quote unquote, I was 100% not muted. And then less than a minute later goes, never mind. It was me. Yeah. I just have to defend myself here really quick. It turns out that not only can I mute myself on the computer, but I also can mute myself literally just on this microphone,

because this is one of those funky microphones that has its own muting feature. And it's a touchscreen. And so everyone's why I like accidentally tap it unknowingly and I'm just like the microphone is muted. So it doesn't matter what I do on the computer. So, you know, am I an idiot probably? But maybe not as much of an idiot is is that made me look. So not as much of an idiot is setting the record straight. Okay.

So Diamondbacks tonight obviously did their thing. But and you're right. Like they can't get too high. It's just like on their accomplishments from last year. Right. You can't get too high on what you did because what. is in the past means nothing in 2024. So I get that.

And it's kind of the same thing here. Like you can't overlook the Rockies because they are an MLB team and they will beat you if you suddenly think that you don't have to come prepared on any given night. That's not what the Diamondbacks look like though. The Diamondbacks are coming out in these games

dialed in. It's almost like they're losing interest as the game goes on because they get up so much early that they're kind of bored. You know, like you pointed out Zach Gallin's performance yesterday, based on the performance itself, might have some things to be concerned about. However, it also might just be the fact that Zach was up by 15 runs and was just cruising,

you know? I mean, there just comes a point where you got to wonder if, like, would the team have performed like this if it was a close game? Or would they have, you know, taken their foot off the gas a little bit late in some of these games like they kind of have? I mean, we straight up have people complaining to us that game one. was boring, was boring based on the fact that the Diamondback scored so many runs. And the sad part is, is I can't really argue with them because, yeah, I started like listening to music and stuff during that third inning yesterday just to pass the time.

So, yeah, I mean, this team right now is, you know, obviously the beating the Rockies doesn't mean a whole lot in, you know, in the sense of the rest of the league. But it's exactly what you want to see out of them if they're starting the year against a team like the Rockies. They're not just coming out winning three to one or two to one. They're dominating this team. And it's a team they absolutely should dominate on paper. And they're doing it actually on the field and on paper and inside of television screens. Yeah. I mean, unlike yesterday, this game was at least like reasonably close for a while.

Right. I mean, it was three to one going to the bottom of the sixth inning. And then, you know, Gino Suarez, it's an RBI single and a key moment. Alec Thomas follows it up with a three run dinger. And suddenly you look up and it's seven to one. And the Rockies did score a couple of runs. They made this game closer than maybe it should have been. The Diamondbacks in the eighth inning did have the bases loaded with nobody out and did not score a run, which was not ideal.

Diamondbacks fans would probably be very, very, very frustrated with that sort of thing on a different day when the team didn't already have a four run lead against a clearly inferior opponent. But yeah, I mean, the dime, I think I heard you guys earlier talking about, I think I heard. you guys earlier talking about how they were only three for 12 with runners in scoring position today, which is fair. I mean, that's not great, but that's also a 250 batting average. I mean, that's far from horrible. And I believe they were 12 for 15 with runners in scoring position yesterday. So I think they're still hitting over 500 with runners in scoring position on the season. It's hard to be too mad about them, you know, not coming through at a big moment, particularly with what we saw in the game yesterday.

Jack Peterson, by the way, Jesse, currently has a batting average of 1,000 with an OPS of 2.250. Lordus Guriel has a Ops of 1.611 with a 444 batting average and Coutel Marte hitting 667 with a poultry 1.367 OPS. I love early season numbers. You got to love these numbers. You got to love them. Yeah. So one wild number that I just discovered shortly before joining the show, the Diamondbacks through two games, I believe, I'm hoping I'm getting this right.

The Diamondbacks through two games have 34 hits, if my math is correct. The Colorado Rockies have 13 hits. So we talk about run differential a lot, right? Like that's how many more runs you've scored than the opponent. The debacks there, I think, are plus 19 through two games, which is also pretty good. But in the hits column, their hit differential through two games is plus 20. 21, right, 34 to 13, which is outrageous through two games. I mean, that's an enormous difference.

And it just so happens that that plus 21 is the second largest hit differential through two games in the modern era of Major League Baseball, which I believe goes back to 1901. The only team over the last 100 plus years that has had a greater hit differential than plus 21 through two games is the 1901. five New York Giants. So that's a pretty, that's a pretty wild, pretty wild stat here through two games. That's pretty exciting. Any, I know you got some videos here that you sent from the clubhouse after the game.

You want to let us know what, what these are about? Yeah, I mean, I guess, first of all, we'll just start with, with Tori Lavello. He always gives kind of an opening statement before anyone asks any questions in the press room. So here's what Tori Lavello had to say after this game. emotional day with a ton of energy in our dugout and in the stadium, the support of fans out there, you're always concerned of a little bit of a letdown, but our guys came out in the first inning and we're ready to perform. And that seems to be the theme early on. And that's very pleasing to me.

When your team walks out on the field and they're ready to make statements from the first pitch until the last pitch, that's the tone that I'm most. interested in. You know, Merrill had a fantastic night tonight. It was six and two-thirds. I was concerned about the up-downs, to be honest with you. The pitch count was extremely low. I had some conversations with him about the seven up-downs, first time being there on that emotional day. I felt like, let's not force it. Let's get you to a pitch count. I decided that pitch count was very close to 80, and then we started a maneuver into the bullpen. So probably not a very popular decision, but when you're dealing with the athletes the way that I am and you're trying to protect them and their first start with the up downs, a concern of mind, that it just made a lot of sense.

But it was just a really nice night for him. He did set that tone, and the offense was real good again. A couple loud home runs, Gurriel and Walker in the first innings. It was just really clutched timely hitting, building the innings, and then AT hits a big bomb. breaks the game open. So it's the pitching the defense and timely hitting with a little bit of slug. And that's always a good remedy for a W. And look, we were playing good baseball.

I want that to continue tomorrow. I want us to absorb what happened today, understand what we did right, the few things that we did wrong, and then be ready to play another fine game tomorrow. This is the standard, Jesse. This is the standard that he's talking about. This excellence, this, you know, this way. that they're playing baseball. I feel like he's used different names to describe it.

Like when he talks about like, we weren't playing Diamondbacks baseball. That's the standard that Tori's trying to set. And like now I feel like the vision or his vision is possibly clearer than it is for anybody because of what they accomplished last year, what the front office did for this team to believe, to show their belief by spending the money and adding the pieces that they did and by already in these first two games of the season having this team just click the way it has it's

it it is the vision it is the tori lavalo 108 culture that is like kind of happening before our eyes i mean look the diamondbacks have been better than the rockies for a while right i mean a few years ago that was actually a conversation it's you know maybe hard to remember that you know you go back to like 2018 the rockies are actually a pretty darn good baseball team but this year it just feels different. The diamond backs look worlds better than the Colorado Rockies, right? It's not, it's not even remotely close. You know, we were having a conversation in the, up in the press box. If Cal Quantrell is on the diamond backs, like, where is he on the starting pitching depth chart? He's number two for the Rockies for the Diamondbacks. He might be, like, after Jordan Montgomery,

he might be like number nine. He might be like deep, like very deeply in AAA. This team is, this team is just in a complete different place. And obviously, like, yes, you should be way better. better than the Rockies. The Rockies are one of the worst teams in the major leagues. But like we were saying earlier, I mean, this is what you're supposed to do against, you know, against these kind of teams. Right. Diamondbacks through two days have lived up to the bill. They've looked every bit like the reigning national league champions, you know, as you

might have hoped. And today was a, you know, today was a big day at the ballpark. They got their rings before the game. Evan Longoria was here throwing out the first pitch, which, you know, I think a lot of fans really, really just love Evan Longoria, even though he didn't necessarily have a fantastic season numbers wise his offense really slipped toward the end of the year but he's still had some really special moments in the playoffs and everyone has so much respect for what he meant to this clubhouse and this organization so it was fun it's fun to see people in the building kind of rally around him tonight he showed me his ring jessie in the box and he felt and while he was doing it he told me sorry my kids got their fingerprints all over it already because they had like a little glass window and they like it already touched it but i'm i absolutely would want to hold and touch my dad's, you know, National League championship ring like that. That's such a cool, you know, accomplishment, such a cool achievement. And the Diamondbacks probably wouldn't

have been there without Evan Longoria. That's why it was so, I think, important for him to not only be here tonight to throw out the first pitch and be out there in that team picture that they took together, but just in general to thank him for that. Like, again, the Diamondbacks are kind of moving through players on these short-term deals where maybe after this season, there's a of guys that aren't part of the team anymore that have to come back to get their World Series rings and take that picture with this team. Who knows what the future holds. But like right now, the team is in a mode of not, you know, not trying to be, I think, emotional or as emotional about their players, you know, trying to view it more in that way of like trying to get this team to

where, you know, they know it can go now to that championship level. And, you know, of course, when I say that getting emotional ball players, I mean, you know, the long-term deals, keeping guys around forever, not, not, you know, not trying to hurt feelings, I felt like at times.

And I'm actually, we're just trying to, like, let guys that were struggling work their way out. And mostly it was because they didn't have a better option. Now they have much better options. And a lot of times those options are young guys in their system that are coming up

and kind of being blocked and not allowed to play. And like, all of that changed last year. Everything, the entire direction for this team changed. last year when the philosophy seemed to be we are going to go with whoever makes us better. And now we're talking about a team that spent the fourth most money this offseason and is arguably, you know, one of the best teams in the National League right now on paper

based on their roster and the, especially the addition of Jordan Montgomery. Yeah, I'm excited to get into that here as we get toward the end of the show. There were a lot of interesting things said today by Jordan himself, by Mike Hazen. We talk with Scott Boris for a while, which is, which is always fun. I really appreciate times when I can talk with Scott Boris, when I can be part of a scrum with Scott Boris, where I'm not one of like 200 people and in my arms like in a fall off because I've been holding my recorder out like 25 feet to try to get to him. So it was nice to actually be able to hear what he had to say today.

We also talk with Ken Kendrick as well. Scott Boris knows so much about the game of baseball. he knows so much about the contracts and he like when you get him in the you know kind of the scrum that we had today where it's like you said the smaller scrum and he's kind of being pretty open and honest with us about the stuff he's sharing yeah he was just straight up like being very like about the you know jordan montgomery deal about the qualifying offer and why why they weren't going to you know sign with the team that was going to do that why they didn't want to do it why you know the team didn't have to give up trade picks so they shouldn't get a

trade picks, you know, or draft picks or things like that. Like he had so many interesting things to say, but I think the biggest thing I took away was, man, this, this man knows more about the business side of baseball and contracts than I could ever even hope to imagine to learn. Like he just is so knowledgeable about the game of baseball. You could say that's the reason why what Scott Boris does a lot of times dictates the market and that he's a big part of a free agency. And you could also say on the bad side.

of things. He's the reason why, you know, players are, you know, contracts are so massive and, you know, why some of these teams that only have the money can only get the best players, right? So there's a whole other conversation we had about that. A conversation you and I had yesterday as a joke was that if Zach Gallen

maybe should have been taken out of the game after the third inning considering the lead that the Diamondbacks had, because why not? It was kind of a joke. But it was also true because there wasn't much more for Zach Gallen to do in a game where the Diamondbacks are up by that much. today it's not quite the lead but merrill kelly was also removed from the game a little bit early uh he only

had 79 pitches six and two-thirds innings pitch and he was removed from the game from tori lovolo uh this is what marl kelly had to say after the game about only throwing those 79 pitches all the way through yeah yeah i was okay with coming out right there um i don't think i made it through even five innings in spring i think marriville i was i can't remember what it was four in a third or four and two thirds, whatever it was. So the fact that, you know, it was two more updowns than we had, I was definitely more okay, more than okay with coming out right there. Are we seeing a new mature Merrill Kelly, Jesse?

Because I don't feel like Merrill Kelly would have been okay after 79 pitches last season. Well, I mean, the difference, right, is that last season he wasn't coming off a world series in which, you know, he made his last appearance in late October. Like that's a really big difference. I think it, yeah, I think it's a combination of maybe he has matured a little bit in that way, or at least he's more willing to kind of see the other side in these sort of situations. But the Diamondbacks took he and Zach Allen and Merrick and Brandon fought all three of those guys, slow played in spring training.

And it seems like, you know, everyone is in a full agreement that that was that was the right move. And, you know, it seems to be to be working out pretty well so far. But yeah, I mean, Merrill, the updowns is a very real thing, right? Merrill, as you heard him say there, he did not exceed or maybe even reach five innings at all in spring training. So even though the pitch count is low, when you're building up for the season, it's not just about building up your pitch count capacity. It's about building up your up down capacity. You'll see, you know, you'll see teams add one more up down with every spring training outing, even if, you know, the pitch counts are crazy. If you're, you know, throw a 35 pitch inning or something, that's why.

they're taking you out and bring you back in because they want you to hit that pitch count target and they also want you to hit the up down target and merrill kelly i mean even even coming out for the seventh i wasn't necessarily sure the debacks were going to do that were they going to be willing to jump from you know five up downs to you know having him do enough up downs to to come back out for the seventh inning and they decided they were comfortable with that but as you saw merrill kelly was was certainly okay with it and he got a very nice a very nice standing ovation here at chase field as a result that of course is the other the other perk that comes with coming out in the middle of an inning. He didn't have to go throw in the batting cages while the Diamondbacks batted around twice, though.

So a little bit different outing that Zach Allen had on night one. Tonight, of course, was the ring ceremony night. And we know that the Diamondbacks had a very beautiful ring designed for this team that they gave out to all the members. They gave it out to it was great to see Schulte getting his in the broadcast booth. Yeah. And it was just, it's just an amazing overall experience. That's why he's the goat.

That's why he's the goat. There was some criticism, you know, from some people, even some Diamondbacks fans that said, you know, why are they celebrating second place? And I think that's just something very odd

when it comes to baseball, considering that you do win a pennant. You do win a division. When you win a division, like there are victories along the way during a very long baseball season that I feel like you should celebrate, even if it doesn't culminate in you making it to the World Series and winning the whole thing,

I still think there's things to, you know, applaud your team over. I mean, this wasn't the team going out and chipping in on rings for themselves. This was Ken Kendrick doing it for his boys and for this organization. And I felt like it was a big thank you to them for all of their hard work and all of, you know, everything that they did for this organization by just being this upstart team in the playoffs that made it as far as they did. I thought it was really interesting what Alec Thomas had to say, you know, on the subject of an NL pennant ring, not a World Series ring, it is kind of an odd dynamic. We talked with Alec Thomas about how he felt about receiving a ring and kind of what it meant to him.

Let's go ahead and let's go ahead and roll that clip. You know what? I'm not really sure. I think it's, you know, for me, it's something cool to look back on when I'm older. like this is what we did, this is what we accomplished. And, but for right now, like, it's, it's, it's like, man, we didn't, we didn't finish, you know, what we had started last year. So, I think if we would have gotten a World Series, I think it would have been a little bit bigger and a little bit more eye style. So that's just motivation for us, so, you know, to get, to get there.

We are all witnesses to how fucking locked in Alec Thomas is, injected into my veins. And I look, I get it, right? And I mean, that is kind of the mantra, I think, Jesse, that we heard over and over and over again during spring training, right? They're proud of what they did, but the job isn't done. And they're not, they're not super happy with coming in second. You know, I think the happiness comes from maybe Tori a little bit, even though Tori is trying to manage them and manage their, you know, manage the expectations for this year and manage the fact that. that they need to stay hungry and stay, you know, trying to stay on that path to trying to get that title. But it also feels like this is more of like an ownership thing, you know, of thanking the team.

Because from an ownership perspective, what the team did in the playoffs allowed the ownership and the franchise itself to go do all of the stuff they've done this offseason, including that sound system and those amazing lights in that, in that stadium. but mostly the money that they spent on the players they've added to this roster and the product they're putting out there on the field is a big result of the income that they're getting back from not only a pack chase field during the playoffs but from their pool of making it as far as they did in the world series so in one way ken kendrick is is is thanking these guys for the fact that their success is helping make the franchise as a whole much better and i mean even even the even the in-game experience that we get to go there and enjoy. I mean, the ripple effect of the Diamondbacks making the postseason and then once they got

there going as far as they did is is just off the charts insane. Like, I'm very, very fascinated by the question of what does this Diamondbacks offseason look like if they had won literally one fewer regular season game last year. Yeah. If they had 83 wins last year, they made. miss the playoffs, they don't go to the World Series, they don't get a penny of postseason revenue. Do they, do they even get Eduardo Rodriguez? Do they, I mean, do they add 20 million to the payroll?

Jesse, do I ever drink a whole bottle of Japan and take my shirt off? Does sexy red ever acknowledge and quote tweet us as an account? Who knows? Okay, so maybe the postseason run wasn't all good. Maybe there were some bad things that came from them, too. But yeah, I mean, the ripple effect for this team. is just off the charts. I mean, even back when they signed

Eduardo Rodriguez, it seemed like a question, like, do they do this without the postseason money? Certainly now, I mean, Ken Kendrick was pretty upfront today. I know we're going to get into this more in a moment, but he was pretty up front that like the postseason money was a pretty big factor in the debacks being able to go out and get Jordan Montgomery. So, you know, thank God if you're a Diamondbacks fan,

that they, that, you know, Evan Longoria managed that ungodly slide or that God tier slide in that, game against the Chicago Cubs without so many little tiny moments throughout this this course the course of the 2023 season the direction of this franchise would look very very different potentially that's such a good point and I mean there's so much more that you could say about that especially about Evan and Lungoria right I mean Tori went on and on about Evan today and talked about how like even to this day there are these little moments where they'll ask one of the players who taught you that And the answer is Longo, you know?

And that's something that we brought up last year, not to Pat, you and I on our backs too much, but we talked about sometimes you just can't quantify what guys like Longo and Tommy Fam bring to this team because we literally don't know. We don't know how they're inspiring their younger teammates. We don't know how they are sharing information with guys that are incredibly athletic that when they pair what they're able to do on the field, you know, physically with with the knowledge that someone like FAM or Longo can help them with. Or in FAM's case, just sometimes the empowerment, right? The fact that he can make these guys feel so confident by telling them they shouldn't be

scared of anybody out there, you know, and that those dudes over there are just some dudes in a shirt, right? Like, that's the kind of like mindset that you get from a veteran player that then helps you for the rest of your career. You just never know when that spark's going to come from. Yet you always hear from players how like, oh, one time I played with, you know, no name player from 1998, you know, and like now that guy had just a huge profound impact on my career.

So like, again, Longo, so many factors. Like last postseason was so special mostly because so many of those moments really, you know, they just added up for this team and they came from so many different guys at so many different times. you know this team this year feels very much like that because this team this year just feels like it is just filled with dudes and all those dudes can all do something special and all those dudes are going to do things at different times that are going to help this team win but they just don't have you know four or five it feels like they have a dozen a dozen dudes and all the dudes

can do it jessie it's amazing i thought it was very funny uh we talked with when we were talking with Alec Thomas, I asked him about Evan Longoria and him being back in here and, you know, it being good to see him and whatnot. And, and Alec did say, you know, he gave the usual pleasant trees of, you know, he's a great guy. It was great to see him. And then he very quickly pivoted to did Evan Longoria throw a strike when he threw out the ceremonial first pitch. This was clearly a chief concern of Alec Thomas. He was, you know, he was very well, he was clearly prepared to throw some shade at Evan Longoria, you know, if he was a few inches off the outer part of the plate or something. I don't have an answer. I don't know. I think you were you were here, right? Do you do you feel like

you have a sense of whether it looked maybe a little up and away to, you know, I think, I think it might have been an arm's side miss. Yeah. I was awesome. For sure. Yeah. That's I think, I think that's true. So I don't know if Evan's going to be able to make the bullpen like he might be trying to plan to. But I don't know. That guy is he still hasn't, he still hasn't announced his retirement. I don't, I don't believe. I don't think that there's any official news there, but it sure feels like that's where this is headed. Bees, uh, Bs makes me sad here in the chat because if you scroll up a little bit, David, I think Bs said, Longo really gave us the last little bit of youth he had in him. Oh my God.

He did. That's like Derek on this podcast, Jesse. Yes. I'm leaving it all out on the field for you, Jesse. I really am. I hope you know that. I hope you appreciate that one day when I'm long gone. But, uh, of course, right now.

is a really good time to go watch Arizona Diamondbacks play baseball. They got two more games against the Rockies and then a series against the Yankees before going on the road. That Yankee series should not be missed. If you want to talk about a real test, that's going to be a test. It's going to be an early season test. The Diamondbacks go up there and put 16 runs on the Yankees. I'm ready to crown this team the champion. But that's only because, of course, I go out and watch these games in person and you can too with our friends at Game Time.

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Jesse, the Jordan Montgomery signing became official today. Of course, I talked about it a little earlier. We showed the clip of Jordan talking about how it was a really expedited time frame. He knew about a couple of days ago. We've kind of heard a couple of different timeframes. Scott Boris gave us about four to five days ago is when talk started. I think Tori said five days ago is when talk started. So it seems like, you know, this is how quick.

This week is when the Diamondback struck up a conversation with Scott Boris about acquiring Jordan Montgomery. and then just a few short days later, Jordan Montgomery has been announced as a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks roster. I mean, what blows my mind, if Scott really meant four to five days ago from today, I mean, we heard about this move. Jeff Passon tweeted about this move three days ago,

which means that the Diamondbacks didn't even make contact with Scott Boris until one to two days before the move actually happened, which is pretty mind-blowing. And that also checks out with what Jordan himself said. He talked about it being just like a couple days before the move was, I guess, not made official, but a couple days before he made the decision to sign with the Diamondbacks where the Diamondbacks were even on the table as an option. This was very, very much a last-minute addition, you know, a last-minute decision for the Diamondbacks.

And, you know, I don't think people are, I don't think people are too mad at it, Derek. We did have a lot of discussion, though, with Scott Boris, like you said, and I still just needed to reiterate what you said earlier. It really is. It really is very, very interesting, considering how powerful Scott Boris is when it comes to Major League Baseball, the number of clients that he has. The man has his own logo. Like, everybody that worked for him was wearing a logoed, embroidered shirt or hoodie that had. had Boris whatever the hell the name of his, it starts with a B and it's his last name. I believe he also, yeah, I mean, it's the Boris Corporation, right? And I believe he also gives backpacks.

I'm pretty, I want to say I've seen like a Boris branded backpack and like, it's amazing. Zach Allen might have had one of those at one point. And he talked about his facility in Florida where Jordan Montgomery was training. And just the way he referenced this made me realize how powerful this man truly. is in the game of baseball. You know what I mean? Like he, he is a one-stop shop as far as client.

Like, that's why he has so many of the best, you know, players in baseball as his clients is because he does such a good job of taking care of these guys. And he is so far beyond an agent. Like, you are just getting such a next level of service and everything when it comes to being a Scott Borer's client, right? But it was really interesting, again, to hear him talk about the business, to talk about these contracts. I mean, he was asked about the fact that he has had so many of these shorter-term deals this

off-season. And none of it seems to bother him because this man knows that these clients, they're going to get their money. He's not letting them go to teams for a three-year deal for $10 million total. You know, Jordan Montgomery signed a $25 million deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks. That has a lot of money. If it was extrapolated out to a five-year deal, it would be what he was looking for. The problem is he wasn't getting that long of a time. term. So he went with the shorter term that he could get the money now. And then Scott Boris knows he'll

get him another contract next year. And next year's contract, he does well with the Diamondbacks will probably be that little bit longer term that they're looking for. But if it's not, damn it, he'll get him probably another $25 million contract next year and the year after that. And if it takes Scott Boris literally doing it every single year, he will get that man his money. And that's what you get when you sign with someone like Boris. I don't I think that any indication that Boris gives of being okay with how this transpired I think is maybe not an accurate reflection of how he really thinks I don't think Boris is at all happy the Jordan Montgomery a guy with a 3-2 OERA in almost 200 regular season innings and was

you know a very very important part of the team that literally won the world series last year 31 years old, right? That's a, yeah, yeah, I mean, and he's gotten better, too. That's the other thing we haven't talked about with Montgomery is you look at his numbers, the last three seasons. He's not declining. He's actually improved every year over the last three seasons. So you've got a guy who's getting better, who's coming off the best season of his career,

who has a track record of being able to pitch very well in the playoffs. It was a heck of a walk year for Jordan Montgomery. He really couldn't have done anything more than he did in his walk year. And at the end of the day, even though, you know, $25 million for 2024 sounds pretty good on paper, at the end of the day, these contracts are evaluated off what the guarantee is. How much guaranteed money did the player get? And in this contract, it's not a whole lot, right? If he makes 10 starts, then the guarantee goes up to $45 million.

It can get up to 50, depending on how many starts he makes. But as of right now today, the guarantee of this contract is only $25 million for a guy. who just had the best season of his career. And this is the year that he normally should get that deal, right? This is the year that he should get that big, longer term deal because that's the age that usually a guy that's had the success he's had on the mount gets it. It sounded like, according to Scott Boris,

those longer term deals, which according to John Heyman and a few other experts on Twitter, that it sounded like Montgomery was getting an offer from the Red So but didn't really want to go play for the Red Sox considering how where the state of the franchise is right now and how competitive they are. He also, as many people knew, was in contact with the Yankees quite a bit. And according to reports by Jim Bowden, the Yankees wanted to show Hey Otani his deal and basically defer payments for the next 15 to 20 years. and that wasn't something that Montgomery was interested in for obvious reasons, as most people that doesn't have Shohei Otani's endorsement money would not be okay with, right? But whatever the factor is that allowed Jordan Montgomery to sign here,

just like Tori Lavolo was asked if the Erod injury impacted this team signing Montgomery. For the most part, I feel like the answer we've heard out of both Ken Kendrick and Mike Hazen was no, because Erod, they weren't expecting to lose Erod for a long term. So that wasn't exactly the reason why they started looking at Montgomery. But when you asked Tori Lovolo, Tori was like, I don't know about that. And then Tori basically was like whatever reason led to him being a diamond back, he doesn't care. He's just glad he's a diamond back, right?

But he does understand that sometimes bad things happen like an injury to Erod that makes the franchise panic a bit. And they don't know. Maybe they don't know when they pick up the phone and call Skyron. Scott Boris that Erod's injury isn't something that might be a persistent nagging injury. Maybe they just fear that they might lose this guy longer term, considering that once a latch strain goes from a grade one to a grade two, now you're talking about weeks and months instead of, you know, or months instead of weeks, just like with Paul Seawald.

And if it goes through to grade three, we're talking surgery, right? At least according to WebMD and my limited knowledge of latch strains. But I will say that whatever, just like Tori said, whatever the reason is that led the ownership to go back and add another piece to this rotation, God bless whatever happened. You know, I'm thankful for it, right? Because this now went from a situation where we were very unsure if Ryan Nelson or Tommy Henry

was going to be the fifth starter for this team and how that was going to go and how long term it was going to be, if it was going to be a rotating door, the Diamondbacks were just going to constantly be searching for that fifth starter in their rotation. Now it almost puts the pressure on brand, Brandon fought to make sure he performs.

And if, you know, not to say that Brandon Fought would be going anywhere, but now like Brandon Fought is kind of the new young pitcher in the rotation that could potentially, I mean, if he doesn't perform well, lose his spot. And we don't really know because we still don't know what to expect out of Brandon Fought during the regular season. Yeah, I mean, I think the D-BACs have a lot of, a lot of confidence there. I think they feel very differently about Fought than they do about Nelson and Henry. Not to say that, you know,

not to say that he couldn't have his struggles or whatnot. He's still very young and very new to this league, but I think the leash there would probably be pretty long. I felt like a few things stood out as far as how the Diamondbacks were able to pull this move off. One was, this is from our conversation with Ken Kendrick. One reason was that the Diamondback just made all that money, which we touched on moments ago. That was clearly a very, very big factor.

I don't think this happens without that. Another reason is the fact that, as we were saying earlier, earlier, Jordan Montgomery's price tag fell. Ken was very open that the Diamondbacks were interested on some level in Jordan Montgomery at the beginning of the offseason, but the ask was very, very different several months ago than it was now, which of course, no surprises there, but we actually got Ken, you know, coming out and saying that on the record. And it also, another thing that stood out to me from Ken was he talked about this move

being a sign that the diamond backs believe in their young players right and that's really the time when it makes the most sense to invest and push the chips in when you have a lot of players who are good at baseball and you don't cost very much if you have a good you know assemblage of those kinds of players on your team at the same time you know you push that payroll up a little bit and suddenly you're looking at a potentially elite baseball team and the debacks are going to have to they're going to have to prove some things you know before we before we get to that point but You know, they have a chance to be really, really good, obviously, with this move. Gilbert in the chat says still can't believe Vegas thinks Cubs and Cardinals have shorter odds and snakes to win the pennant.

I think what Albert says is very true. He says, I'm guessing that's because both St. Louis and Cubs have a better chance of winning their division than AZ does. I also think, you know, obviously they're just, you know, there's something to be said about the fact that so few of teams have actually repeated when it comes to, winning the pennant over the last 50 years. So it's just not likely percentage-wise based on the fact that I think only three teams have done it in that time period where they've come back and repeated as national league champions. But here's what Scott Boris had to say in regards to Jordan Montgomery's signing with this team and how competitive this team is being a factor on why he chose Arizona.

Oh, yeah. The, once it was known that, you know, Jordan was available, we were getting a lot of, you know, proposals that were in line with what we did here. His decision to come here largely was competitiveness. This is definitely a nice that he felt, yeah, we had a chance to win. happens to be a place he did win something on. You said that field is a place he did win something on. So unnecessary. Yeah, I didn't like that little. I didn't like that.

But I mean, he did. He's right though, right? I mean, there's probably plenty of teams that are interested. And I mean, plenty of those teams probably are competitive. But, you know, when you start looking at the landscape of baseball and you start seeing exciting teams to play for, the Diamondbacks have to be one of the most exciting teams out there that actually, made it very like there's a lot of like the reds are an exciting team there's a lot of exciting teams

of baseball the mariners are always an exciting team right but it's like how how much can you trust the ownership of the mariners to actually get that team to the playoffs and and to the world series right i would say not very much with what we've seen out of the last few years and especially based just on the pieces the diamondbacks have gotten from him but uh you know i mean i'm glad that Jordan Montgomery wants to play somewhere where he can win. You know what I mean? Like that that not only sends a message about Arizona, but I feel like that sends a message about Jordan Montgomery.

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, this is clearly a place where he wanted to be. As you heard Scott say, their competitiveness was really big. Something that stands out to me about this Diamondbacks off season, which has been so incredibly good, is that they really didn't tap into their farm system at all the entire time. Like this team got way, way better.

And yet the only prospect that they traded is Carlos Vargas. And I'm not sure you'd really even consider him a prospect at this point. They lost Davis and De Los Santos in the Rule 5 drive. And they got him back, right? They really lost absolutely nothing from their farm system. And I asked Hazen about that during the press conference, whether he expected to be able to pull this off. And here's what he had to say.

Not necessarily. really, but you never know the way the offseason is going to shake out for you. And now we're in a position, hopefully come through the middle of June and July that we are going to tap into that farm system. What was that last thing he just said, Jesse? What did that mean? What did that mean? What did that mean? I think it means that Torre, that, not Tori Lavello, that Mike Hazen means business, Derek. I think it means that Mike Hazen means business.

And the Diamondbacks, especially with how good this roster is on paper, they fully expect to be in the postseason. and they fully expect to be adding at the trade deadline. And it's not only what Mike said there about his willingness to tap into the farm system, we also talked with Ken Kendrick about whether there was even more payroll flexibility for the debacks to add at the trade deadline. And he said, absolutely. He pointed to when the team out of J.D. Martinez back in 2017 and how big of a move that was. He said that the diamondbacks are very much, very much in on making a similar investment this year,

if the team is competitive, which, you know, of course we expected to be. We actually have Ken saying that right now. Let's get Ken up here. Absolutely. If we're competitive, and we've even done that in the past, maybe in a lesser setting, you know, Mike is exceptionally good at analyzing the setting leading up to the trade deadline. And we've been sellers and we have been buyers. I mean, think back and you all remember, it's a little less significant number than maybe now.

But we brought J.D. Martinez in at the trade deadline. that was a pretty good move. So we're prepared to do that yet again. If we're at a place where an extra player or two could make a difference depending on exactly what the competitive landscape is. I hope we'll have that problem. I hope we will have that problem too, Uncle Ken. I love it.

I'm here for it. I love that he brought up J.D. Martinez, too. You know that brought a smile to my face when he did that. But yes, Jesse. I mean, it's wild to think that a team that is suddenly, this stacked is already thinking about adding more at the trade deadline. But that's what good teams do, right? Good teams don't.

And Ken brought this up. They don't hope that they make the playoffs. They know they're going to make the playoffs. And I think Ken said that's the difference between last year and this year with them as a front office with the players in the clubhouse with Tori and the coaching staff with everybody. They know that they are going to win. and that is such a big difference from, I think, every team that Tori Lovolo has managed. It's just a completely different vibe.

Yeah, I mean, I think like maybe no is is almost like uncomfortably a strong word. Like I think they're confident. I think they also, it seems, are realistic about how baseball is and the fact that anything can happen. But yeah, there's certainly an expectation there. There's certainly, you know, a big, a strong sense. that this team is going to be good, that this team is going to be in the postseason. It's the same thing Tori said a number of years ago

about his team himself. And he said that the opposing team knows that they can go in there and beat them. But that at times the Diamondbacks team was going in there hoping that they don't lose, right? And there's just a difference in mentality between hoping you don't fucking lose and knowing you're going,

to win, right? Like, yeah, I get what you're saying. They don't know they're going to win. And I think maybe that might be a bit strong as far as being a little too cocky or confident or too arrogant about it, right? But knowing you can win, knowing that there's never a night, there's never a game that this team can't go into and compete and win. That's different. And I, again, you get into those times like when they had those losing streaks and Tori had those sleepless nights where you are just, hoping you don't lose again. And this franchise is in just such a different place from when they, a short time ago when they were at a point where they were just hoping they didn't lose

games. A big question for me is whether, I mean, the D-Box payroll at this point, I don't have it in front of me. I think it's like $175 million, which is absolutely insane considering our expectations at the start of the off season. My big question is, is this sustainable? Is this the diamondbacks just kind of? going all in, you know, taking a financial hit maybe for a year. Ken kind of made it sound like

this is because of them just, you know, the ticket sales have been good. They're the way that they're projecting out their attendance and their revenues for this season. He made it sound like they're expecting to really be able to fund, you know, this additional $25 million in payroll. But, you know, when we asked him the question of, do you feel like you can do this again? Like, can you continue to spend in this range? And, you know, he wasn't, he wasn't willing to say like, oh yes we need to get back to the world series and you know get the big 30 million dollar check or whatever it was in order to do this but you get the sense that that you know maybe they don't have to get to the world series but i think part of this was they they saw the impact of that postseason check

and you know how just how big of an impact that could have and they really really want to get back there and try to get in a rhythm of just doing that every year and jordan montgomery is a great way to do that right jordan montgomery is a great way to to to you know, increase your confidence level that not only you're going to make the postseason, but once you get there, you're going to, you're going to, you know, do some actual damage. So, yeah, I mean, the hope here for the debacks is to kind of start this cycle where, you know, they're spending a little bit more money now, but they're hoping to reap the reward of that on the back end, just like they did this past off season. And if they do that, I'm not saying 175 million

every year. I think I have my doubts about that. But, you know, we haven't seen this team. contend consistently. We haven't seen this team go deep in the playoffs for back to back years. This is kind of uncharted territory for Ken Kendrick and maybe he's really willing to spend more than a lot of people think he is. I think when it comes down to it as much as we don't want to believe an owner in Major League Baseball or in any sport, I feel like I've been around Ken enough to start truly believing and maybe I'm drinking the Kool-Aid. Maybe I'm just, maybe I'm just enamored with his, with his, you know, charismatic nature, Jesse. But at times, there's times where Ken says specifically that, you know, he, he doesn't,

he puts everything that they make back into this team. And I feel like this off season, that was, there was proof of that. And I feel like that's why we saw them make this big investment. Who knows how it works out. But at the very least, this team hasn't mortgaged their future like you asked Mike Kaysen and they haven't committed to long-term deals with these big names for, for, you know, for years and years and years that if they don't work out, those contracts are going to forever impact this franchise the way that like Mad Bum's contract kind of has. Luckily, they were able

to get over that contract during this time where they were so successful and so unexpectedly good. But who knows, you can't do that too much, especially when your team in a small market like this. And don't even get me started on the goddamn small market argument with you guys. guys, because I don't make the rules about what a small market baseball team as other people do. But we do thank you guys for joining us here in the chat tonight. If you haven't subscribed to the PHNXports YouTube channel, do so now before you leave. We would love it if you did. Make sure you subscribed on this side, on the audio side.

Leave us a thumbs up. Drop us a like before you go. We always appreciate that. And drop a like because we got Jesse's audio back working. Just that's worth it alone. If you're on the audio podcasting side, subscribe over there. Leave us a review. We always appreciate that feedback and those five-star reviews mean the world to us.

So thank you so much for that. Of course, you need to take an adventure. Now is a great time to do so. If you don't have a sick rat for you can take your adventure with Arizona Adventure over Arizona Lottery. It is their brand new promotion. You can play in a variety of ways, including purchasing Arizona Adventure lottery tickets. You can also enter tickets online for a chance to win $1 million in cash in Arizona travel prizes. Or you can also check in at geolocated adventures at 10 destinations.

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make sure you worry about your financial future and your financial initiatives. And of course, a great place to help you out with that is Desert Financial Credit Union. For more than 84 years, Desert Financial has been Arizona's largest, most trusted local credit union. They got me started on my home ownership journey, which I never thought I would get added to. Jesse, his computer died, by the way, so he's gone now. But we love you, Jesse. We'll miss you. Rest in peace. Of course, Desert Financial Credit Union, their team are financial experts who are committed to their members and the community. And they offer financial solutions tailored to helping real people achieve their financial goals and dreams.

Join a credit union that is committed to giving back to the community and sharing success with its members. When you open a checking account online with Desert Financial, you can get $200 in bonuses. Get started by visiting desertfinancial.com slash 200. Jesse, you're back alive. Yeah, unfortunately, I don't have enough ports on my computer to charge my laptop while also having my mic and my webcam plugged in. So I guess we're just going to run.

We're just going to run into this issue every now and then where if the show goes long enough, I'm just going to like arbitrarily drop off. But hey, at least it happened toward the end. It's fine. When they smoke the Rockies like this, neither one of us could really stop talking about baseball. So it's hard to do so. But I'm so glad to have you out there. Of course, tomorrow, Corbyn Carroll Bobblehead night.

So another packed house at Chase Field. Make sure you do not miss it. You need to get those tickets. Use game time to do so. If you need to continue to, to follow us on Twitter. For more of all of this wonderful baseball information, we're sharing with you guys.

Make sure to follow me on Twitter at cap underscore K-Man with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Of course, for all of your emotional takes, follow the people's producer, Damon at Damon Dogg. No, not me.

Not you, not you at all. Oh, it's a, there's a whole thing with you-O-A and stuff. Jerry's double tonight? What was the exit below on that double? I didn't see that,

Damon did, I mean, what was it maybe like 72 off the bat? Like a, you know, a jam shot down the line or something. 99.6, brother. 99.6 off Jerry P's bat. It's basically a hundred and fourteen. Put some respect on his name, Jesse. That's what Damon wants you to do. Put some respect on Jerry P's name.

He's our favorite. I'm just saying, Derek, like, like, all the, you know, all the people on the internet are saying about the feedback strong start. It did happen against the Rocky. So, you know, talk to me next week and the beat back. You're more competent of a team. David's furious. What about doing it against the Dodgers in the playoffs?

By the way, he's Damon Dogg. And we are Damon's dogs. Bark, bark, bark. Yeah. All right. There you go. He really made us sweat that one out a little bit. I didn't know if he was going to do it or not.

I mean, Ryan Thompson tried to rock bottom me in the clubhouse today. So I don't know if I could be Ryan's dogs, but then we talked for 25 minutes. about WrestleMania, at which point Jesse was disgusted with both of us. So it's fine. I don't, I don't like it. I don't like it when you're talking with a player and I just have no idea what you're talking about. We were talking about Mandarin.

He was like, what's, what's the bloodline and why does Roman Raines need to come out on top? I don't understand. You guys are speaking in code, Derek. Like, is that what I sound like when I'm talking about statcast metrics? Like, is that what I sound like to you? When I tune out about ex-Wobicon, that's the reason why. So I hope you've gained a little bit of perspective what it's like to be me, Jesse.

But of course, our show on Twitter is at PHNX underscore D-Bax. And you guys all know, it's the best debacks account that exists. So go follow it. Of course, all roads do lead. I think I proclaim that in the ninth inning. Several people stopped me at Chase Field to tell me that. But of course, all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

We thank you guys so much for your night. Christopher with the 11th hour Super chat. Thank you so much, Christopher. He said spent $2,000 on plane tickets taking leave from Okinawa to come back for opening day. And this series and the damn debacks made it worth it. Let's fucking go, Chris. Let's go.

That's the fan of the night. Sorry to the rest of you, but this man spent $2,000 on plane tickets. Kingsnake, Christopher. Christopher is our Kingsnake tonight. Of course, we thank you guys all. for joining us every single one of you. But Chris, we thank you just a little bit more. Of course, we will be back on Monday with a 1 p.m. show.

So make sure to join us for that. In the meantime, follow all the social media stuff I said earlier. And also make sure you have a wonderful weekend. As an Arizona Diamondback fan, let's go for the sweep on Saturday and Sunday. That's going to be fun. But in the meantime, again, we thank you guys so much for your time. We thank you for stopping by. We hope you have a wonderful night.

And remember kids, baseball is fun. but it's so much more fun when Jesse stops questioning Jerry P's exit Velo.