PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Diamondbacks WIN BATTLE in State Senate, Prepare For MUST WIN Series with Rockies

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

The Diamondbacks moved one step closer to staying in Arizona on Thursday when the Arizona State Senate voted to approve HB2704, the bill intended to capture the sales tax from Chase Field and reinvest it into stadium repairs and renovations. We have more on the next steps and the importance of keeping the Snakes in downtown Phoenix. We also preview the upcoming series vs the Rockies and celebrate our Diehards on the final day of our ALLCITY Spirit Week. Jesse Friedman from Snakes Territory joins the fun! An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsportsMERCH https://store.allcitynetwork.com/collections/phnx-lockerALLCITY Network, Inc. aka PHNX and PHNX Sports is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by the City of PhoenixPHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/ALLCITY — including us here at PHNX — is teaming up with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America for an exciting three-year partnership. To learn more, visit https://www.bbbs.org/allcity/APS:  Find instant rebates, discounts and special offers on smart thermostats, energy-efficient appliances and more at https://marketplace.aps.com/default/heating-cooling/smart-thermostatsChicken N’ Pickle: Family friendly fun awaits! Visit chickennpickle.com to plan your visit today!bet365: https://www.bet365.com/hub/en-us/app-hero-banner-1?utm_source=affiliate&utm_campaign=usapp&utm_medium=affiliate&affiliate=365_03485317 Use the code PHNX365 to sign up, deposit $10 and bet $5 to get $150 in bonus bets!Disclaimer: Must be 21+ and physically located in AZ.  If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-NEXT-STEP, text NEXTSTEP to 53342 or visit https://problemgambling.az.gov/Branded Bills: Use code BBPHNX at https://www.brandedbills.com/ for 20% off your first order!Vme: Download the Vme app and play today using code PHNX! Available on the App Store and Google Play. Vme – Anyone. Anything. Anytime. https://getvme.com/?vmereferral=PHNXGametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.Shady Rays: Head to https://shadyrays.com and use code: PHNX for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people.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!Monarch Money: Use Monarch Money to get control of your overall finances with 50% off your first year at https://www.monarchmoney.com/phnxAll Pro Shade Concepts: Call 623-204-1476 or visit https://allproshadeconcepts.com/ now to schedule your free estimate!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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, the Arizona Diamondbacks move one step closer to staying right here in the Valley long term. We are going to talk about the Arizona State Senate passing bill HB 2704 last night, as well as a preview of the Colorado Rocky series and a debate about if it's a must win. Spoiler alert, it is. We're talking all of this in 30 seconds. Don't you go anywhere? As Derek Monti, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX, especially on a day when politics got the job done when we needed them the most. Of course, I'm joined on the ones and twos by the one, the only Damon dog himself,

Damon Farrell. He is the dog in us. And we are also thrilled to be joined by another guy who tends to maybe bring, bring a cloud around on postgame shows, but it's always sunny when he's here on a day like this. It's the one and only thunderstick Jesse Friedman from Snake's territory. Jesse, great day to have you here. It is our diehard day. We are here celebrating all of our wonderful diehards.

And I know you still love so many of them. It's a great group of folks who have really just been tremendous to have here watching our show and joining us every day. They've been tolerating you and me, Derek, for a while here. So they deserve all the props in the world for sure. They really do. They're a wonderful group of people. And of course, this show, by the way, is. brought to you by our friends at game time and bet 365 go use that code of phnx over at game time

you'll get $20 off your first purchase go download that bet 365 app use our code of phnx 365 when you sign up you'll get yourself some bonus bets there for your first deposit and first bet uh jesse of course uh like i said it's die hard day around here one of my favorite things about this and i know you and i've had conversations in the past is the fact that we do uh this this dumb little show at times or you know we we do what we do covering this area on a Diamondbacks team and it's amazing the connections that not only we make with the people that watch our show but the connections they make together and I don't know if we have it. Damon, do we have that photo?

Look at these guys. Damon or Jesse Damon, I guess I conclude you. Some of our diehards in Toronto together. A wonderful group of people who again have become friends there. This is Karen, aka Groundhog Mama. Abe, A.K. Elizabeth, her husband, and then, of course, Nicholas there on the end. Great group of people. And it's wonderful that, again, they met through this little show we do. And we're going to be highlighting the diehards here throughout the episode, including we have Stephen Bananas flashing his talent as well as some incredible questions.

I know it's not Mailbag Monday, but we're still going to get around to some questions from our Discord. But Jesse, the big story right now is that late last night, the Arizona State Senate voted by a vote of 19 to 11 to pass House Bill 2704. We have a quote tweet here from one of our state legislators on how important this actually was. This is Justin Wilmuth, a AZ state rep from District 2. He said, breaking Arizona State Senate just passed HB 2704 by vote of 19 to 11. now what? It comes back to the House for what's called a final read. If it passes the House, it'll go to the governor for her signature. So two steps left.

Jesse, this was the biggest hurdle getting through the Arizona State Senate. And there was a lot of opposition in the Senate to this bill. But the Diamondbacks, they get the votes that they needed. And now it moves on to essentially the House who already voted on it. And then the governor who has been in favor of not only the bill, but in favor of keeping the Diamondbacks right here, Chase Field. It was a huge step. I mean, just huge news for the Diamondbacks, huge news for the state of Arizona, really. We obviously saw what happened with the coyotes and how devastating that was.

And I think as much as I don't want to dwell on the coyotes on what really should be a fun and live show celebrating the diehards, I think that probably had an impact here, Derek. I mean, there were kind of interesting how there was bipartisan support for this bill. And yet there were also opponents on both sides of the aisle as well, just kind of an interesting mix of people who are in favor and against in this situation. But reading a story over at the Arizona Republic this morning, they had a lot of in-depth detail. And I think it was definitely a factor that, you know, people take seriously the idea of an Arizona team moving to another state because they've seen it happen. And now that they've seen it happen, it's like, all right, we're not going to mess around with this this time. You know, I mean, and not to say that, you know, Arizona lawmakers were responsible for the coyotes leaving.

That was a whole other mess of a situation. Right. But it's a reality. It's a cautionary tale. It's like you said, it's something we saw. It's something we experienced. There's times where these type of things happen to another city. You and I have done episodes of this show where we looked at what was happening to Oakland, both with all their sports teams and just went.

man, that's devastating. That's sad. It's sad to see what is happening to that city considering their history in sports. It's not just an athletics team, for instance, that, you know, has always been bad. This is a historically important team. They even made a little movie that we all love about them, right? So like, we know that it's real, but when it happens to us in our state to one of our teams, it's so much more real, right? And like, you're right, it sucks to bring up the coyotes, but it had to be a big reason that people were fearful that it was going to happen. I think to their credit, I think the Diamondbacks applied the right kind of pressure in order to get this done so that the, you know, that the legislators stopped dragging their feet

on this bill and stop trying to make little changes and kind of kick the can down the road. There wasn't a lot of time left in the Diamondbacks lease at Chase Field. So they needed to get this done and in place. And if not, it's, it's weird, but it's so similar to, what is happening with this team this year. It's like they needed to act now. They needed to get this done. They needed to get the job done or else things were going to get bad for them quickly. And again, it's that point where the organization,

the franchise starts taking those phone calls from other cities, starts listening to those offers in a more realistic like, okay, I'll hear you out kind of manner, right? It's the same thing with the team. If the team keeps losing Mike Hazen, despite his comments about wanting to be a buyer at the trade deadline, he has no choice but to start taking those phone calls and start listening to those, you know, those deals.

I'm sure as a good GM, he already is to a certain extent. But deep down inside, he's probably, you know, opposed to actually, you know, trying to, trying to work on any of those deals because he wants this team to be a winner, right? So it's like the team technically might even have a better situation in another city. Like the amount of money it's going to take to renovate Chase Field is a lot of money. and again, I mean, they could have a brand new stadium somewhere else, right? And a town that they maybe feel appreciates them more after hearing some of these lawmakers, Jesse, go at this bill last night, including people that needed to be writing poems

or maybe not writing the poems themselves, but having AI write the poems, right? So it's like this got weird fast. And there were definitely people that were opposed to it. yet I felt like those people never made a really good case as to why this bill shouldn't go through. I'm glad you mentioned the poetry, Derek. Am I allowed to read a few lines here? I would love it because we had we had Mitzie Epstein and her poem, but more importantly, we had Jake Hoffman who did in fact use AI to create his Casey at the bat poem.

Jesse, I would love if you did, please. Oh, did he was it AI? Is that where Hoffman got him? He admitted to Zach Buchanan from the New Times that he used, I think it was Chat GPT to write this poem. Okay. Well, Chat GPT is officially like smarter than any human being. This is brilliant stuff, Derek. We have the owners bold stepped to the plate.

Their smiles wide as day. They swung with charts and fancy talk to make the doubters sway. Economic boom, they thundered. This deals a home. run, see? But the crowd just yawned and muttered, not with our money. There was dial in their proposals slick as a serpent's pitch, pun intended. They dangled dreams of pennant runs to make the public rich. But when the facts came rolling, the truth was plain to see. The fans loved baseball plenty, but not a subsidy. That's Chad Gigi's a poet. It's art. It's art. It's art.

Jesse, what are, like, what would they do if let's just play this out? And, and this is the reason why I don't understand the case that they're making here. Um, is, is the idea here that you would let the team leave, then destroy Chase Field and sell the land, which I, I understand how valuable that land is considering where it's located, right? But still, you're going to sell the land for like high rise condos. or hotels or whatever, right? And I'm sure the city is going to make a ton of money off of that in a one-time sale. However, you know, are we not considering the amount of revenue that this team generates by existing and by being here?

And that's one thing that I just has felt, I feel this entire time has been so short-sighted. You know, when they talk about the taxes not going to these city services, but still some taxes are going to go to city services, right? It's like it's not that there's not a portion going to city services. It's just not as big of a portion. And again, every time someone complains about this being tax payers paying for billionaires, you know, stadiums, it's like, well, first of all, it's not owned by the team. And second of all, it's not like if you don't care about the Diamondbacks,

if you never attend a baseball game, you will never be impacted by this other than, you know, the team not giving as much money from its tax revenue to certain city services as they were before. That's pretty much the only impact on people who don't attend Diamondbacks games. and never would at Chase Field. Yeah, I mean, it's it's the age old, the age old debate, right? To what extent should public funding be used to, to help? You know, yeah, I mean, the Diamondbacks owner is is a billionaire for sure. But there are some other factors there.

You mentioned that the stadium itself is owned by the county, which is, I think, pretty significant that this is not the Diamondbacks asset to begin with. And so I think it makes reasonable sense for, you know, some sort of public entity to contribute to to keeping that stadium in good shape over time. And, and yeah, I mean, the other, the other factor here, Derek, is that I think beyond the money itself, there is value in having a professional, like, there's value in having a major league baseball team in Arizona that is hard to quantify. And maybe it is true that on paper, you know, the $500 million that will theoretically be contributed to this fund over the next 30 years to help with these renovations, you know, that's public money. Maybe on paper, you know, the math doesn't quite work. Like maybe you would, you're not going to get all of that money generated back to you in economic impact or whatever. But also like having a major league team is just a really, you know, it brings people together. it has a lot of cultural value beyond what the dollars and cents might say right um so i think that's

something that that people can can often forget about in these conversations oh and i and i hate the fact that it gets focused so much on like ken kendrick and and what his worth is here right like i understand that ken kendrick is part of an ownership group in fact that owns the diamondbacks he's discussed this and as we've seen based on reports the team puts they are one of the best teams in major league baseball about reinvesting the money they're making off the team back into the team. So there's no doubt about, you know, what they're doing there in regards to the money that they do make off of the team. But this is also a situation where the most significant factor here is the diamondbacks don't own Chase Field. If the Diamondbacks were to be sold, if the Diamondbacks

were to move, Chase Field does not go with them. It is not part of the franchise, not part of the organization. So there's a, there's a commitment you make by owning, retaining ownership of the stadium and leasing it out to the team in the way that Maricopa County is in regards to the stadium upkeep, right? And in regards to, you know, making sure that that stadium continues to be a place that not only is safe to go, clean to go, as Landon says in the chat, the east side of the stadium doesn't smell like sewer. You know, there's things like that that definitely need to be addressed. However, I think the other thing is, is you have traveled quite a bit, Jesse, and you have been to so many stadiums. You've been to stadiums that are newer than Chase for.

field, you've been to stadiums that are older than Chasefield. And I guess my question to you is, I mean, is it, isn't it a thing where like all the other stadiums seem better as far as their upkeep and the current condition of the stadium when you attend those games? I think that's pretty fair to say in general. I mean, the difference isn't huge. I think it depends on which one you're talking about. You know, I by no means what, would I say or I don't think you would either, that Chase Field is like

a terrible place to see. game or you know miserable atmosphere or anything but yeah i think you know i clearly there are aspects of the ballpark that are not as modern as you'll find in in other places you know the the scoreboards pretty much across the board like the center field board in particular uh doesn't look as crisp as most that you'll find around the game at this point obviously we know what happened to the out of town scoreboard they basically just have covered that over for for the time being um but i think a lot of the money that the Diamondbacks feel the need to spend here is stuff that we're not going to see. You know, it's stuff under underneath the building. It's the pipe. It's, you know, all sorts of things.

We're not. Yeah, air conditioning is a huge one for sure. So, you know, those are things that I think pretty clearly need some updates at this point. I mean, the ballpark was, you know, built around 30 years ago now. So it's just natural for any facility to need to be maintained in that kind of way. One thing I did notice in this bill, Jesse, was discussion over and over again about an entertainment district. And it does feel like even though that this is supposed to go towards maintaining and upkeeping and improvements and such, it does feel like in an entertainment district being built there in a very small area is likely, it feels like, because it is being addressed so much. I mean, it's not to say that the Diamondbacks have a ton of room,

but we could very easily see that front area of that building where like Guy Fietti's is the only business, only restaurant, quickly become very crowded through there and have maybe some other businesses be or buildings be built and some other businesses brought in. I know that's been a dream of the Diamondbacks. It's just been about the limited amount of space that they have there. Yeah, that's an interesting point.

I really don't know what this. means for the Diamondbacks hopes of building around the ballpark. I don't think this bill in particular really has any provisions for that. All of this money is just going to, you know, upkeep of the building. I don't think it's any of this is going to be used for, you know, building hotels or restaurants or facilities like that. But yeah, obviously that's something the Diamondbacks would like to do at some point. There's clear economic value in owning, you know, a lot of land around the building. you know, trying to make it sort of a cultural hub rather than just an isolated stadium. But, yeah, I mean, this bill is basically just up to $500 million of public money.

Just, you know, taxes spent at the ballpark. It's a combination of sales tax and income tax that's just coming out of the ballpark anyway. And then $250 million from the Diamondbacks themselves. But, yeah, from what we know, all that money is really directed toward upkeep of the building, renovations, those kinds of things. Which it's a lot of money, but I mean, again, it could make Chase Field, at least the experience overall, like you said, we might not see a lot of cosmetic improvements, though I would like to see, like, when you talk about those out-of-town scoreboards, I would love to see those brought

back in a modern fashion, not to mention the fact that they could do it in such a way where, you know, it's a vertical thing looks just like the old scoreboards because you can put like a, you know, an image up there that looks like that's the light bulbs that cost a whole ton of money and you know kind of design it to maybe maybe make it look exactly like it did but then also it could be utilized for you know home run effects and you know closer start of the game all that kind of stuff that they like to do around the stadium like they they could definitely use a few things in regards to scoreboards all over the place not only that main scoreboard you're talking about but i've i've discussed this ever since going to places like globe life field that just have really convenient

scoreboards all around the stadium. So no matter where you're sitting, there's a scoreboard for you to, you know, view and to see not only all the stuff you see on the big scoreboard, but highlights and all of those special effects. So I don't know. I mean, I think that what it does do is it allows, it makes the diamondbacks,

it makes it a little easier for them to spend the money on things like that. If those things aren't included in this budget, right? Because at least the industrial, you know, core things of Chase Field are being taken care of the core problems are being taken care And, you know, again, that allows the team to do things like they did with updating lights and and other, I guess, more, you know, more noticeable changes within the stadium.

But it just, it, it just brings me joy that we're one step closer. I didn't really feel panicked until I saw the Diamondbacks have a website set up about keeping Arizona Major League. And until I walked into Chase Field and saw them handing out postcards to mail into your legislators. and again a website to go fill out right like i started getting sweaty palms jesse i started getting nervous and i i felt like you know this whole time that this deal was going to inevitably get done it was far too valuable to both parties for the diamondbacks to stay here and for arizona to keep them in the city of phoenix but uh it did it did especially with the opposition growing and some of the feelings that people have about putting tax payer money in any way

shape or form towards a professional sports team. I started getting worried. I started getting nervous. But here we are at least one step closer. I think someone asked in the chat, Paul Urban in the chat said, okay, it got through the AZ Senate, but now I'm asking myself,

what other hurdles are there to get over? So in regards to the House, it goes back to the House for what was called a final read. It's not necessarily a final vote. It's just to ensure that the bill hasn't completely mutated since getting approved from the House because it has. I mean, the House passed it in one form, essentially, and it went to the Senate and went through all sorts of revisions.

I feel like it's a far more conservative version of the bill than it was when it went to the House in the first place. So I don't see any hurdles in the House doing a final review of it, final readthrough, and, you know, proceeding with it. From there, it would go to Governor Katie Hobbs, who has been very much in favor of getting this bill done. And I doubt would ever want to let it die on her. desk by her not signing it. So, I mean, I don't want to.

It's like, again, it's like this series with the Rockies that I'm going to preview. I don't want to suggest that it's a slam dunk because there's still some, there's still some minor hurdles in the way. There's still a professional baseball team in the way in regards to winning that series against the Rockies. But Jesse, it does feel like we're so much closer to this finally getting done and this particular saga in the Diamondbacks history being over. Yeah, you don't want to say it's done until it's done, given recent history.

here in Arizona. But yeah, this was this was really the hurdle that this bill had to clear. It kind of stalled out at the Senate. There was a little bit of concern there. As you mentioned, there was a website, you know, trying to keep Arizona Major League, that whole thing. But now that it's past the Senate, I think we're in a good spot. I think the Diamondbacks are, you know, here for the foreseeable future. I believe the bill has a penalty of some sort if the Diamondbacks leave at any point in the next 30 years. $250 million or something? Yeah, I don't remember exactly what the penalty is.

I don't remember. I don't think it was all that significant. But yeah, you know, maybe this bill doesn't technically keep the diamond backs here definitively. I guess there's still a way for them to get out of this, but it wouldn't make any sense for them after getting a bill like this done. They have the money that they need to get Chase Field back to being state of the art as they've been talking about.

And it's great news for Valley Sports fans, Derek, because they really is. And again, Valley sports fans that have experienced this before, right, Jesse? We don't we don't want to hear anything about team moving. But we are going to talk more about the Diamondbacks and that upcoming series with the Rockies on the other side of this break. So don't you go anywhere. You're watching the PH&X Diamondback show. Well, it's hot and it's horrible here in the Valley. And it doesn't feel like it's going to get any cooler anytime soon.

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Jesse, I'll start off by. saying we've discussed this 10-game stretch after the kind of devastating loss that they experienced to the Blue Jays in Game 2. Or you could even say game 1. Game 1 might have been more devastating considering the nature of the loss than what happened in game 2. But it felt like every game from that point on, including the finality of the Blue Jays, is putting them in kind of a must-win situation, right?

Not to say that they have to win every game, but it feels like over this 10-game stretch, they have to win seven, six to seven of those games in order for this. this team to feel like they were successful here. And in order really for them to feel like they've gotten things back on track before the All-Star break comes up. In theory, there's no must-win game. There's no must-win series at this point in the year. But also, there kind of is.

Like it kind of feels like the next nine games could really have a huge impact on what direction the Diamondbacks go at the. trade deadline and ultimately, you know, what direction they're going to wind up going this season as a whole, how far they're going to get. I mean, you've got three here against the Rockies, three against the White Sox, three against the Marlins. It's hard to drop a more advantageous set of nine games than that. DeBacks, you know, worked their way back up to 500 by salvaging the finale of that Blue Js series yesterday. This is their opportunity to really push themselves in a positive direction, try to build some momentum, get a few games over 500 and really make up

some ground in the standings. It's also the fact that once that All-Star break comes around, again, there's still two weeks after that. But the All-Star break is when those decisions are going to be made in regards to Mike Hazen and the front office deciding on what they're going to do in regards to this team, right? And so it's it's the caliber of opponents as well. And I'm not trying to put these teams down, but like you said, there couldn't be a more advantageous nine-game stretch for the Diamondbacks. And performance is crucial over this nine-game stretch, because if they can't step up, considering the nature of it, considering the almost playoff-like nature of it for the Diamondbacks at this point, that they, that, you know, that how can you

imagine this team competing in the postseason if they can't step up here when it's needed the most and beat some of the teams with the worst records in baseball over a nine-game stretch, right? Like, again, it's not going to be perfect. You're not expecting them to go out there and sweep three series, but you kind of expect them to win every series. And like there's a little room for it to not go that well. So there's a little room for it to not be one of those situations where they win every series. But, you know, a strong showing and at least two out of three series wins here over this three-game stretch is crucial.

I feel like in order for this team to continue, or at least for the front office to continue to think this team is, is competitive, right? Or at least a contender. That's how they have to think. And, you know, just making to the playoffs or just being a team that might win enough games to get there, I don't know if that's enough here for them to decide to not, you know, maybe make some trades, even if they don't become that like that fire sale, right?

Like even if they don't end up getting rid of all of their guys, they could still make some trades and move some of their best players in order to receive some pieces back. And even that could be decided here by this nine game stretch. I was talking about expectations for these next nine games with Jack Summers, my co-host, over on Snake's territory yesterday. And we were talking about, like, what is the threshold? Like, what is considered success over the course of these nine games? And I kind of felt like anything less than six and three and you kind of feel like something's gone wrong. And then Jeff was like, you know, I think I'd be happy with six and three. My expectation is

maybe more like five and four. And five and four, to go five and four in these nine games, that means you have to lose at least one of the series. It's impossible to go five and four and win all three series. And at first that sounded crazy to me. And then I thought back to the last time the diamondbacks had a stretch like this in their schedule you go back to this was may 26th to 1st when the diamondbacks had a week against the pirates and the nationals and people were going into that derrick you know you and i were probably included among them counting you know counting all right here you go you got a four and two week you got maybe a five and one week here coming up and the debacks lost both series and went two and four this isn't a team

that's been able to really beat up on the lesser opponents that they face. And even with the Rockies, like the last time the DeBacks played the Rockies, they did win the series, but they barely won the series. I mean, they won the finale one to nothing. Yep. Of course, they had that horrific meltdown loss where they, you know, were up 116 and then lost 14 to 12. So no lead is safe with this team, as we well know.

and no, you know, you don't feel too comfortable no matter who the opponent is right now. No, and to be fair, no matter how bad the Rockies have been this year, that's still in the past. Lately, they've been fine. I mean, they've been playing some good baseball, to be fair. So it's kind of unfortunate that the Diamondbacks are catching them here at this point. It's the reason why this team has to be taken seriously

and this stretch has to be taken so seriously. But we do have the Rockies here at a glit. Lance, a preview of or at least a up to date here viewing of of their season so far. Rockies currently are 17 and 58 with a minus 196 run differential. They're hot. They're super hot. Five and five in their last 10. So calm down there.

They are kind of hot. OPS tied for 26, which is kind of baffling. That's everything else here was expected. But their OPS being tied for 26 in Major League Baseball at 672 playing. 81 games or not they haven't played that many games obviously at course field but they played a lot of games at course field and they still have an OPS

of 672. They're starting pitching ERA is 6.23 which is dead last in Major League Baseball of course it is their relief pitching ERA is 4.62 which is 26 but ha ha ha ha it's actually better than the Diamondbacks and their outs above average is currently minus

6 which is 22nd in Major League Baseball. Not a great team Jesse and as you can see here They're bad in a lot of statistical categories. But the Rockies, again, they are the most important one there is that they're five and five in their last 10. Yeah, I mean, I think it puts in perspective just how terrible they were at the start of the year that even after, you know, playing 500 ball here for the last couple of weeks, the Rockies are still on pace for, I believe, the worst record in modern MLB history. they're on pace for 38 wins or 37 wins, pardon me. They're on pace to go 37 and 125.

Oh my God. And that's after, that's after, you know, nearly sweeping the nationals in, in D.C. over the past four games. So, yeah, this is still a very bad baseball team. It's a team the Diamondback should beat. I'm sure we'll look at the starting pitching matchups here at some point. They're, you know, the Rockies have their entire, there it is.

You know, Austin Gombers made one start. He has a nice ERA, but you've got Carson Palmerquist and Nio Sensitella with ERAs in the, you know, six and a half to eight range going in the latter two games of the series. So it's a it's a really big opportunity that they need to take advantage of. You got Zach Allen here at four and eight with a five point one one nine ERA. And that just still doesn't seem real to me. Mel Kelly, six and three with a three point four one ERA in game two. and then Brandon fought going again game three there eight and four five point three eight ERA just terrible ERAs here from gallon and fought but you also don't know what you're

going to get on any given night from either one of those guys and they still can both be fairly brilliant and I honestly I don't know what's going on with consistency with this team Jesse I know that a lot of flack goes to Brian Kaplan's way right and I do I do think it's odd that the Diamondbacks did add a guy that specialized so much in knowing the the human body and knowing how athletes need to what they need to do to recover and avoid injury and the Diamondbacks have had this kind of you know this this catastrophic run of injuries right like I in no way shape or form blame Brian Kaplan nor do I think it's because of him that the injuries have happened I I honestly at

times find it to just be a terribly ironic coincidence that he specializes essentially in biomechanics and that the diamondbacks have lost this many pitchers to uh you know to to not just injury but you know season ending injury where they're going to be gone not just this year but who knows when they're going to come back next year right but uh at the end of the day it's it's hard to not consider you know his tenure here in a very short time as pitching coach is an absolute disaster between the injuries and between the starting pitching ERA and the relief pitching ERA and everything that's gone wrong. At the end of the day, how much blame does a pitching coach take for all of this stuff? It's a really hard question to answer. I know Mike Hazen was

asked about Brian Kaplan on, I believe it was Wolf and Luke in the past couple of days. And, you know, I mean, he, as you'd expect, came out and, you know, spoke positively about the job what Kaplan is done. And I think it's just really too early as far as I'm concerned to be able to evaluate a pitching coach. And certainly when it comes to injuries, I mean, this is not a Diamondbacks only problem, right? I mean, there are way too many pitching injuries happening across the entire sport. It's become kind of an issue across the entire game. And, you know, while the Phillies had a lot of success with with durability over the past few years with Brian Kaplan over there, I think even that to begin with it, you know, it's always hard to, it's always hard to get to the bottom of like,

okay, how much of this was actually due to this coach's influence and how much of it is just that like Zach Wheeler's just like super durable. And it, you know, I don't want to say it doesn't matter who is pitching coaches, but like, you know, I, yeah, some guys just like that. You know, some guys are like that other guys are actively going against their arms nature to throw the way they throw. And I honestly, like you said, it is an epidemic. It's something that's been brought up in our meetings with Toy Lovello several times by journalists kind of trying to ask if, you know, the breaking stuff now being thrown at 95 miles an hour is, is the reason why, you know, I think that there is a higher demand for guys to, you know, throw harder and, and, and,

pitch better. And the level keeps getting raised. It gets raised by guys like you're talking about, durable guys, Jesse, or guys that are just honestly like gifted, you know, they, they're gifted with what, uh, what, what their arm can do. And because of that person being so gifted and being able to throw 105 miles per hour, you have all these other pitchers that would normally be able to max out at 95, 96 who are now trying to reach that level because science and this one guy shows them that you can pitch at 105 miles per hour, right? But again, I don't think it's the fastball. I don't think it's throwing that harder. It's it's the nature of the breaking stuff. It's how you have to grip it. It's how you have to throw it. I think the pitch clock plays into this as well. The fact that these pitchers

don't have the amount of time that they once did to just honestly, if they were feeling some tightness, kind of walk around and take their time and feel stretched out a little bit or whatever they needed to do. But it's a combination of things. And like you said, we really don't know the reason behind it other than it's not just the Diamondbacks problem. And again, I don't think it's a, it's a Brian Kaplan problem. I think it's a problem with Major League Baseball and what we're asking of athletes to do.

It just sucks that all of this happened at this time when the Diamondbacks added a new pitching coach. And then that pitching coach also happens to specialize in, like I said, in biomechanics. And yet even someone who completely takes the athlete's health into mind first over other things, still wasn't able to prevent these guys from, you know, being lost to injury, right?

So it just feels like it's an unstoppable problem, honestly. But I don't really think Kaplan deserves the constant attacks that he's getting. However, you know, this team was the starting pitching ERA was bad last year, relief pitching was bad last year. And that's actually more of the same this year than it is it being some sort of anomaly. We just expected it to be better and it's not. Yeah, I mean, I will say that if you look at like league adjusted, park adjusted numbers, this is the second worst bullpen in Diamondbacks history. Only, only 2010 did the Diamondbacks have a worse bullpen.

Thanks for that, Jesse. So it's bad, Derek. It's bad. I mean, you know, we were on our show yesterday, we were looking, we was looking at a list of all of the relievers the Diamondbacks currently have in the majors, you know, with their ER and their whip. And it's just startling. I mean, they have three guys in there with ERAs over nine, you know,

pretty much every middle relievers in the, you know, four to six range, except for Kyle Backus, who's thrown four innings and, you know, four, all of them are scoreless.

Like him and Shelby Miller. Yeah, Shelby Miller and Jalen Beaks at the back end. Like, they've genuinely had, had good seasons. Shelby's recent blowup, notwithstanding.

But, yeah, I think going back to the Kaplan conversation, I was talking to Nick Piccolo over from the Arizona Republic about this recently, and he made a good point, which is that I don't know how much we can say about Brian Kaplan right now, fairly, but I think we can say something about Brent Strom, and the fact that he probably was not at least as much of a problem as he was maybe perceived to be and probably wasn't really a problem at all. This is just an organization that has just had pitching problems for a long time,

And with Strom not here, things have only gotten worse as it's turned out. Strom strikes me as a kind of guy that wouldn't rest until he figured some of these issues out. I know I'm basing this strongly on the fact that he called Brandon Foughton in the middle of the night to tell him about switching the sides of the rubber that he was pitching from. But I feel like that's kind of what Brent Strom does. And I think that, you know, again, it's trying to always make adjustments. and trying to figure out little things that are wrong or whatever is what a good pitching coach does, wants to try different things out. But like you said, maybe the perception, maybe the way he was received was, you know,

like maybe too old school, maybe to, like, bother some family member that calls you all the time or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, I don't really know. I don't know what exactly it was that didn't mix with Brent Strong, but you're right. He's a legend in the game and I don't think he was the problem. them despite the fact that last year it kind of felt like again it was it was believed that he was I think ultimately at the end of the day for that that season and this season it's about expectations it's about looking at the guys we have and thinking that they should be performing much better than

they actually are and thinking that again that maybe maybe a difference in philosophy from a pitching coach is going to be the thing that changes it unfortunately didn't seem to be the case this year but we are going to talk about some guys from down on the snake farm, Jesse, that have been playing some good baseball. One guy, maybe that's been struggling that we want to play good baseball, but hasn't. But we're going to do that on the other side of this break. Don't you go anywhere? You're watching the PHA next Diamondback Show.

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you meet whatever financial goals you're trying to meet. When you open a free checking account online, you can get $200 and bonuses. Get started by visiting desertfinancial.com slash 200. All right, Jesse. Well, we got ourselves an update here from the good old snake farm. Of course, we still don't understand how Jordan Lawler is the best AAA player of all time, and yet that doesn't somehow convert to the major leagues. Jordan Lawler, again, another walk-off hit this week. He also is currently averaging 321 with a 997 OPS. He has 10 home runs and 18 stolen bases this year, Jesse.

Excellent player when he's down in Reno, but for some reason, we just can't get this Jordan Lawler at a major. major league level. Do you think it's mostly about consistent playing time, perhaps just that one position? Yeah, it's hard to say, right? I mean, Lawler is, to your point, has continued to be good down in AAA. I mean, since the Diamondback sent him back down, looking at the numbers now, he has a 1,0.11 OPS. So it's not like he was just great. And then, you know, he struggled in the majors and he's been struggling in the minors as well. He's gone back to being the same. He's, he's gone back to being the same guy. You know, I don't want to nerd out. I thought like two days after he went down, I saw a

notification from the Aces that he had to walk off like home run to win a game. And I'm like, what? Like, uh, it didn't even take him any time to get back into the full form that he is for the Aces. Yeah. I, you know, I think Diamondback's fans maybe get tired at a certain point of hearing about the hitter friendly environment in Reno. And I fully understand that and I'm sympathetic to that. It is a little dull after. while. But it's also, I think, just a really important part of the equation here. I mean, you know, Lawler has put up genuinely great numbers in AAA, but, you know, a lot of guys are putting up genuinely great numbers in AAA. I mean, you know, the catcher, the Diamondbacks

just called up from, from Reno, you know, I don't, I don't want to speak overly negatively about him, but Aramis Garcia is a guy who has not really ever hit in the majors in the past. You know, he has a major league OPS in the low 500s. And now he's the Diamondbacks backup catcher for the time being while Gabby Moreno is out. But he had an OPS over 900 this year, you know, hit 10 home runs and a pretty small sample size down in Reno. And so it just is really hard to make, to know what to make of those numbers down in Reno when they are really good.

And that's when I lean more on some of the underlying stuff. I look at some of the batted ball data down there. Something I've been saying for a while, Derek, and I know people maybe don't want to hear this, but Jordan Lawler's batted ball numbers down in Reno are actually really not anything all that impressive. They're really right around the league average. His surface level numbers are way, way better than what some of those underlying numbers say. I can just read off some basic ones. His expected batting average this year in AAA is 246 and his expected slugging percentage is 407. So you're talking about like way, way different numbers. You know, I'm never going to

take those numbers as as gospel in and of themselves, but that's a pretty enormous difference. Yeah, absolutely. And usually those expected batting metrics are the other direction, right? Usually the XBA and such is actually higher, considering that a lot of times you have plays made on balls that should fall down. I'm not saying every time, but that's, that's the difference, right? is that if you are, if you're expected batting average and such is outperforming your metrics, then you're doing well and you should be doing better than your actual numbers say, but, you know, some some great defensive plays have happened against you and some balls have been caught, right?

But, or might have hit a ball 150 miles per hour right out of guy. But this is, this is different. And I mean, again, there's just something about Lawler that I think, you know, it's, it's, it's like again it's almost the house bill thing right it's a metaphor for the diamond back season on paper everything would tell you that jordan lawler is the next great irasona diamond back player and that everything that's happening for him in reno and and and his defensive skills and everything should translate over him to him already being a big leaguer right and then you have a guy like tim towa who kind of didn't really feel like he had much of a chance and you know

again was maybe going to be just called up to like fill a roll here or there but tim tower has hung in and he's kind of become a good serviceable player at a major league level for this team in a way that Jordan Lawler unfortunately never became. I think we would have happily taken Tawa's numbers for Loller this year and considered it a success. But it was really bad. It was really bad. And I mean, obviously a big part of it is the breaking ball situation and things like that. But it just, it definitely feels like the D-BACs need Loller to figure that next step. out. Like how can you get this, you know, to translate over to a major league level where, yeah, maybe you're not hitting 300 and that's not what we're expecting. But we also don't

expect you to be batting zero, you know, and I think that's, that's it. Gertrth Jr.'s here, Jesse. Gertrth Jr. is growing up so fast right before our eyes. He says, I think Jordan Lawler will be a bust. He's going to be in Reno for years. Well, one guy that has been in Reno for years, going back to that, or at least in the dime back's organization for years, is Tristan English there. He's having himself a nice season right now, hitting 331 with a 925 OPS. He has six home runs.

He has 37 RBI. And he's kind of playing everywhere, Jesse. He's played first base this year for Reno, third base, he's DH, left field. He's pitched in two games. He has a 6.75 ERA, and he's also been in right field. So he's kind of does everything for this, team but uh definitely you know kind of growing into hopefully the first basement of the future

for the diamond backs and again that's what lawler and english both kind of feel like is that these guys are the potential future of the corner you know infield positions there and and we need them to to get there we need them to get there soon because it feels like we're going to need them by next season well i was going to make a joke about how maybe tristan english could help the bullpen but i will he does have a better he has a better year than several members of the bullpenso. I think Josh Naylor is younger than Tristan English. Tristan English is 28.

Yeah, Josh Naylor is 27. Is he really? Yeah. I don't know if it's fair to call him the future of the first base position. Never mind. Josh Naylor is the future of first base. Tristan English might be that guy that stays in. Yeah, I mean, I feel like he has been, he's been with the Diamondback since 2019.

Jesse, six years in the minor league system. What a cruel, cruel game this can be. Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, he has a shot to play in the majors. He's putting up really good numbers in Reno, as you said. Just to give people some context, if we look at his nerdy underlying stats, he is at a 283 expected batting average and a 458 expected slugging percentage down in Reno this year. Oh, PCL. I don't want the PCL to ever change.

Every team to play at the PCL. That's what I want. There we go. Yeah. So Tristan English, you know, I'm not sure that people will. would refer to him as, you know, a top flight prospect at this point given, as Damon mentioned, he's 28. But, you know, he's on the depth chart.

I know Trey Mancini has also had a pretty nice season. If something, God forbid, happened to the Diamondbacks where they needed someone who could play first base. I had a feeling that Mancini is probably who they would go to first. Yeah. And he's having a good season as well. Yeah, yeah, he is. But English is in the mix.

And, you know, I hope he gets an opportunity in the big leagues at some point because I think he probably deserves it. Well, one guy we really hope to see in the big leagues at some point is Yumen Lin, who has had a bit of a struggle this year, Jesse. Again, it is the PCL, so I don't know how this translates over. But Yumen Lin this year has a 5.87 ERA. He has a 1.4 strikeout to walk ratio, which is his lowest of his career, I believe. and he has a 1.8-00 whip.

So not a great season so far for you, and Lynn, but it's also like a weird season. I don't, I'm not, I'm not panicking about, you know, his ERA or anything because it's also the PCL. But he really has had a slow start and a lot of things happen in his life that I feel like impacted, you know, impacted him as a pitcher in Major League Baseball. So I think that he's still going to be okay.

but right now not not doing great he started there really well right i mean he had a 270 era in his first four starts in reno it was like all right like eum and lynn you know august call up or whatever here we go um but yeah he really has struggled since then looking at his game log he is allowed uh let's see this is 19 uh 19 earned runs over his last i think that's like 18 in the third innings. That's his last five starts. So yeah, it's been really rough for him here over his last five times out. Hopefully he's he's able to get things back on track because as we well know, this Diamondbacks team is wearing thin when it comes starting pitching depth and you've been Lynn's opportunity. You know, it really might not be all that far away even though he is

struggling right now. I remember when we had that conversation earlier this year, I felt like I I honestly was surprised to hear you say that. But now a lot has happened since then, Jesse, and we've moved closer and closer to Yumen Lynn, making his debut being a reality. But the Apple really doesn't fall far from the tree when it comes to the Rita Aces, does it? Because just last night,

the Aces blew an eight-run lead to fall to the El Paso Chihuahuas, I believe they still are, by a score of 12 to 11, an extra inning. so again at least at least they're learning how to deal with catastrophic comeback or blow blown games at a triple a level before they come up to the big league team jesse yeah you're right that's the silver lining it builds character you got to get those got to get those outings in where you learn out of bounce back but uh we are going to move on and talk about you our wonderful diehards in our final segment um excited uh to talk about some of this stuff and more importantly I'm excited to show you all how talented Stephen Bananas is.

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But of course, today, like I said, is all about the diehards, Jesse. And one of our favorite diehards, who I mispronounced his name the very first time he showed up, I thought his name was Stephen Bananas. It turns out it's just Stephen Bannas. But based on me making that mistake, I've called him Stephen Bananas ever since then. And I believe he even changed his avatar to a banana. But this man, he's not just a talented Diamondbacks fan. He's not just a talented commenter, Jesse.

Let's check out an original song from our. diehard Stephen Bannis, a.k.a. Stephen Banas. So the way that I have this set up is, I'm just going to play the song and you guys are going to still be on camera, live reacting to it. Let's hear it. Jesse is a music of Fictionado,

so he's the perfect person out on the show to hear this. Jesse's just evaluating, taking it in, one or you can buy the album. Talented guys, it's fire. It is fire. We were listening to it in the opposite. It's very good. Just vibe into it. Yeah, just fine.

Just fine. Again, this is the talent that our diehard to bring. We also have, like I said, we have more questions. I still don't know about the beer, but I do have one from Elise, who says that she wants a segment of who or what is on my can't stand. I love to hate list. She calls it her bitch list, which is not limited to Major League Baseball. Now, I hate a lot of things in life. Damon can attest to this.

He knows. He hears me complain about them most days. around here. But, Damon, I know for a fact that we've gone too far. We've got to go into extra overtime. We've already surpass our hour point, haven't we? Oh, that's because we were too busy listening to Stephen Banana song. Let's go on to overtime. Of course, if you're watching right now on your favorite app on TV, come on over to go toachinx.com. We'll keep the party going over here. But Jesse, back to this list of things I love to hate. I do want to say that I don't know if I love to hate a lot of things. I don't, I don't love to hate the Diamondbacks bullpen. I don't

love to hate traffic. But one thing I do love to hate is Robert Ory. Robert Ory notoriously is not nearly as bad of a person apparently as I make him out to be allegedly. That's what people tell me. But I love to hate Robert Ory more than most people just because I feel like that man ruined my childhood in so many ways and I'll never forgive him about it. Is there any, is there any, is there any particular players that you feel that way about? Maybe a Ryan Braun. Maybe, I don't know. Is there any play?

Maybe we all love to hate Yasmani Tomas. I don't know. What do we love to hate here? Robert Ori is a good one. I think he's probably the most universally hated player in Arizona sports history. I feel like that just kind of passed to be the right answer. Especially a guy that was on one of our teams.

He was on one of our teams. You know what else I kind of love to hate is, I love to hate how much the Diamondbacks feel that having a cool home run celebration actually curses or dams the team, right? And I know from personal experience how much these players hate when you tell them they're doing good or tell them that they have a hot bat as some players have been known not to like, right? But this very snake that we named after you, Jesse, came because the Diamondbacks cut his head off after trying to have a home run snake in the dugout.

And like we watched a Mariners team that did get sweat by the Diamondback. So maybe the home run celebration thing isn't great. But we did watch them bring a trident here to Chase Field and then paraded around when Randy or Rosarina hit a home run. And all I could think in that moment is, God, they're so cool. I wish we had that. Same thing with Toronto with their little best that I know we have one of, but nobody ever wears anymore.

And I think it's just because the Diamondbacks think. anything they do that like flaunts their their good times is going to come back to curse the team maybe maybe that's what they need to do derrick in order to really turn this season around i mean let's face it they made that choice last year and last year didn't end very well for them i don't i don't think there's a whole lot of evidence that uh they should be as afraid of the home run celebration that's what i'm saying so it's like me like you know how i am you know how I feel like if I start writing a postgame headline or description that involves it saying the Diamondbacks won a game before they actually won a game and then they go on to

lose the game that I realistically in my head actually think the words I wrote in Notion on my laptop computer sometimes not even at the ballpark was the thing that did the Diamondbacks in right so like feeling like what you did caused damage to the baseball gods or whatever is very real and I again that's another thing I love to hate. I love to hate how much people feel like the things we say on Twitter or this show actually impact the success of this team. It's funny to me because despite the fact that I'm a man of science and I don't really believe in it, I have a square in this office that we taped off. It's called the spot. Max isn't allowed to stand in it because bad things happen when he does. And again, I can't help but not feel a little superstitious. Maybe not superstitious, maybe just a little stitious. But I, uh, I, I do love to hate people being superstitious at times. But I got a couple of other questions here. And this one, you can help me out with. Tim's taco truck, Jesse, from our Discord, asks,

every year I make a copy of the best food at Chase Field. What should I make? Meaning he makes it himself as part of maybe his taco truck. He said, can you give us a full review of what you would eat if you were roaming the concourse? And I know things have changed a little bit, but I do have to give credit in the Discord. because our guy Brett brought up the filthy mac and cheese fries. And this was one of the items that I tried during their what's new at Chase Field event, Jesse. I thought I was going to hate it.

It was French fries covered in way too many ingredients. It had mac and cheese on top. It had coleslaw on top. I think there was bacon. There's other things. You just look at it and you thought it was a filthy mess. The name was very accurate. Yet somehow this particular item works so well.

It works so well together. And honestly, in eating even a little sample of it, I could see how this would probably fill me up more than a lot of items that you could buy at Chase Field, which can tend to be a little pricey. Right. So as far as like fun items, that one always struck me. But I know, I know, Hungry Hill. Hungry Hill would probably be a good suggestion for people to go check out.

That's a staple of Chase Field, I feel like, at this point. What's the name of the stand that has, I think, think it was like the million dollar steak sandwich or something like that. Oh yes. Yeah, you were a big fan of the million dollar steak sandwich. Was that that that was one of the stands like not a not a vendor stand but it was like like the carving stand off to the right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That million dollar steak sandwich was something special. Again, maybe not worth how much it cost but it definitely it definitely lived up to the hype. Yeah. There is a very a very nice guy working the sand who gave me a discount once and I was like man I think I found like the ultimate chase field

hack as someone who like is at this ballpark every single day and then that discount did not hold up you never got it again the rest of the year and yeah I think it's I think it's like a $20 sandwich but it's pretty darn good Derek as far as food you can find at Chase Field it was it was very yeah excellent yeah look at look into those two items Tim for sure we have a couple of underrated topics, Jesse, to run through fast. I know I've kept you for a long time. We'll get you out of here soon. But top five

underrated pizza toppings. I think this is one that I can actually get your input in on. Underrated pizza toppings. Usually those are vegetable related, right? Like usually vegetables don't get the same love that your meat toppings get. I personally love mushrooms

on a pizza. I think it's amazing. And a lot of times I feel like if I get like a veggie pizza, that mushroom can kind of fill the void that not having a meat on that pizza can fill. I like mushrooms. Mushrooms and onions to me are vastly underrated topics on a pizza. Yeah, I would, I'm not a huge mushroom guy. I can tolerate them onions, so I'm definitely on board with that.

Another one that I would throw in there is basil, which I think is just kind of universally great on just about everything. Riccate cheese. I'm a big ricotta cheese guy. I like white pizzas. White pizzas are pretty good. It depends on the pizza, right? Like I'm not necessarily loving ricotta on everything.

But I'm going to go, this might not be underrated or overrated or whatever, but I'm just going to say if you have the option to get little crispy pepperoni, the cut pepperoni over regular pepperoni, do that 10 times out of 10. There you go. Landon says bacon. Bacon, yeah, my daughter loves bacon on a pizza. Yeah, that's pretty good, pretty rocking. I'll also say chicken on a pizza is vastly. underrated because it's just good and I don't think it's as normal as it should be. Yeah,

I love like a like a barbecue chicken pizza situation where it's like a barbecue sauce base and then it's chicken and onions and maybe some pineapple. I don't know how we feel about that. No, no, get your pineapple off my pizza forever now then and forever. But now we move over into five underrated Diamondbacks players. We got this question multiple times. This one came from legendary-ish dad. Well, he said top 10, but we're not going to do that many. But let's discuss some underrated Diamondbacks players and why. I feel like underrated guys never have great stats,

but they're fan favorites a little bit, right? You know, like, I don't know. That's what I think of. I think of fan favorites are guys that are different. It's like a tap man, right? You know, like a guy that had some big moments, you know, maybe memorable moments. You look at his overall numbers,

they aren't as impressive as you might remember them think of them as being but the diamondbacks have had a lot of like underrated players i feel that kind of just disappeared on me i don't even know where they went yeah this is a this is a great question that i feel like i could kill like five hours researching this could be a whole episode alone this could be a whole episode one name that comes to mind for me right off the bat is Aaron hill oh yeah we were just talking about a cycle yesterday yeah he's still his two cycles in the span of like a week or whatever it was. That's still the last time any Diamondbacks hitters had a cycle.

And I mean, he was a second baseman who put up really, I mean, you look at his numbers in 2012. He had an 882 OPS with 26 home runs as a second baseman. He got like down-ballot MVP votes that year. He had several seasons that were really, really solid for the Diamondbacks. People in the chat are saying Jake Lamb. I think that's fair. Jake Lamb before the shoulder injury happened.

Like he was, I mean, he looked like he was going to be the debaq's third baseman for a really long time. Never quite figured out the whole hitting lefties thing. But, you know, he was really, really good against Ritey's and you can make a living that way too.

Yeah. No, I mean, and again, there's several guys that I think of just in general in the past that have always been, I don't know, um fun guys right like uh i i i think of um you know why can't i think of his name off the top of his head

edwardo oh edwardo eskabar edwardo eskabar not only was he incredible for the time on this team but uh it was uh just he was a very lovable guy you know and and again he's one of those guys that you almost you can almost forget how good he was in the stretch where he was with the diamondbacks he also one time was quoted as saying that he would die for tori lovelo and i think that's my favorite thing about edwardo in his entire career is the fact that he said like with all certainty it was like a very serious moment it wasn't jovial it wasn't joking it wasn't anything he was like i would die for tory uh so yeah it was a it was a wild thing uh anyway i also think it's easy to forget about some of the diamondbacks pitchers uh i know that matt mantai was a guy that

loved at one time. Also, Miguel Batista, another, both of the Batista, Danny Batista, Miguel Batista. These guys are way before your time, Jesse. I feel like an ancient old man talking to you about guys from the 90s and early 2000s. But, yeah, the Diamondbacks have had lots of underrated players simply because I think they were beloved by us here, but not adequately rated elsewhere. You know, hell, I can remember how long Paul Goldschmidt spent as being an underrated player. here in the valley despite the fact that he was setting every single like offensive record in franchise history it felt like i think brandon didn't talk about him i think brayne web is almost

underrated just because of how his career ended yes like people forget how great he was because he was genuinely a hall of fame caliber pitcher and and it just so happened that he lost it right in the middle of his prime yes some great names coming up in the chat landin brings up martin prado i loved Barton Prado and they brought him on this TV. He was great. Beef Wellington Castillo. One of my greatest tweets ever, beef mode. I'm still proud of that to this day.

Yeah, a lot of good guys. Parra might be number one for me. Oh, yeah. Parra. Parra. Barra. That is a winner if there ever was one. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Well, we got one more before we get out of here. And that is just Hanley asking

me to play a live version of squeeze play with him from Price is right. for a cesserva shirt i'll make you a deal uh handley we don't have the resources right now to put together a squeeze play game uh but i promise i will play this with you in the chat we'll figure it out and you'll uh get your shirt win or lose i have a cesser vases i do control the remaining cesservesa t-shirt stock so i'll make sure to get you one no matter what but that's because we love you guys we appreciate you as our diehards uh we wouldn't be here without our diehards i don't i don't mean like

exist on the planet earth but i just mean you guys make up so much of what has allowed phnx to uh thrive so we thank you so much for you guys uh being members for for sticking with us for rocking with us and most importantly for helping us build this community that's what this whole thing has been about i know jesse and i have have really taken pride in the fact that we have helped uh to create this community of diamondbacks fans that we have here and and and grow this community so again and thank you guys so much for being a part of it. Thank you for your donations for the Big Brother, Big Sisters program all week long. We appreciate that so much as well.

And Jesse, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you stopping by before you had a chance to make a game somehow end in terrible, terrible fashion for this baseball team. Stay away from the mic tonight after the Rockies game, or at least if you do it, just make it a surprise. Don't let the Diamondbacks know you're doing it. But make sure to catch everything him and Jack Summers are doing over at Snake's territory. find them on YouTube. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Everywhere we are, they are. So make sure to check out Snake's territory. Again, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate you guys in your time. Again, your time is your most valuable commodity.

We thank you so much for spending it with us and sharing it with us. So we will be back on Monday with another Mailbag Monday episode. I believe Sean in the Die Hard chat asked us to go live if the Diamondbacks win tonight. We'll consider it. But we'll see. No promises. Definitely not doing that and then not showing up and then having the Diamondbacks lose three games in a row because somehow that felt like that's what happened. But make sure to follow us all on Twitter. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman.

His show is at Snake's territory. I'm at Cap underscore Cape Man with a K. Damon over there is at Damon Dog. We are all Damon's dogs. That's with a DAWG. Bark, Mark, Mark. There it is. Show is at PHNX underscore DBAX, but as always all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports

on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys again so much for your time. We'll see you on Monday. Until then, have a wonderful weekend. behave yourselves and remember kids baseball is fun but it is so much more fun when the Arizona State Senate wants to keep baseball in Arizona