PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Did Diamondbacks fans expect too much from Brandon Pfaadt in his first major league start?

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

Are the Diamondbacks actually good? And can they be good if their pitching continues to struggle? We take a look at how hot the competition is in the NL West and what the D-backs will need to do to keep up with the Padres and the Dodgers. We also look back at Brandon Pfaadt’s first start and start the “Geraldo Perdomo for MVP” campaign. WATCH YOUR FAVORITE TEAMS HERE: https://www.fubotv.com/phnx SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports Keepin It 100 Golf Scramble: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/phnx-keepin-it-100-classic-scramble-golf-tournament-tickets-617328515207 Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Manscaped: Save 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code “PHNX” at Manscaped.com. BetMGM: Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code PHNX (betmgm.com/phnx). Place a pre-game, moneyline wager in the amount of at least $10 on any market at standard odds price. You will receive $200 in Bonus Bets instantly regardless of the outcome of your wager! Just make sure you use bonus code PHNX when you sign up!Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (CO, DC, IL, IN, LA, MD, MS, NJ, OH, PA, TN, VA, WV, WY). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-327-5050 (MA)21+ to wager. Please Gamble Responsibly. Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (KS, NV), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-270-7117 for confidential help (MI). Visit BetMGM.com for Terms & Conditions. US promotional offers not available in DC, Nevada, New York or Ontario.Knockout Nights: Join our cornhole league during the 1st Friday night of every month! They’re free to enter and will include food and beverage specials, giveaways, and BetMGM prizes: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/622016186157Pins & Aces: Check out pinsandaces.com and use code PHNX to receive 15% off your first order and get free shipping.PHNX: Join us at the BetMGM Sportsbook at State Farm Stadium for all Suns’ away playoff games. Our PHNX Suns watch parties, presented by NUTRL, will feature food and drink specials, PHNX giveaways, and BetMGM deposit matches. Join us by grabbing your free ticket: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/616706063437Circle K: Text PHNX to 31310 to join the Circle K SMS subscriber club and get BOGO 32 oz Polar Pops! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: Learn more about OGeez! at https://ogeezbrands.com//. Must be 21 years or older to purchase.Rotowire: Get your free trial and unlock all the best fantasy sports news and analysis at https://rotowire.com/phnxFour Peaks: Enjoy a refreshing Four Peaks’ Red Bird Lager during the NFL Draft on April 27th. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Roman: Go to https://ro.co/PHNX today to get 20% off your entire first order. When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome in. Happy May the 4th to all those who observe. This is the PHNX D-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as... There it is. A Jedi Master. That's not coming up as purple as I wanted it to because it really is very purple. It's the color of my hair.

It matches very pretty pretty. Jesse can attest to this. It's much more purple. He is my Padawan, by the way. He's also my vice mayor and your thunder stick. It's Jesse Friedman. I don't know if I do observe May the 4th. I know you don't.

I'm tired of the whole Star Wars thing. Oh, no. There's no Star Wars thing. It's just the greatest story about space and laser swords and Ewok's little furry bears that's ever existed. Get out of here, Jesse. I'm not going to let you bring me down today. They're really corny.

You know, you know that I have the holiest of days. I have very precise taste for movies, Derek. You know, I've really refined that over the last few months. Bad taste. I'm just saying the acting is really corny in all of the start. They're all very corny to watch. The acting is corny. I mean, okay, the acting is all right.

The audacity. Just like the absolute fucking unmitigated call of you. The quality of the CGI is very poor. You're going to attack the CGI. CGI wouldn't even exist if it wouldn't be for the leaps and bounds and Star Wars as a film franchise took in special effect. That may be true. I can't even do this with you.

I can't even do this with you today. Welcome in. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not going to acknowledge him for the rest of the day. Thank you guys for being here and those who appreciate Star Wars more than this guy does. But I know something he does appreciate. And of course, that's baseball. We have lots to talk about, not only about the Diamondbacks,

but around Major League Baseball. But of course, we have to, we have to ask the question. question once again, because we still don't know the answer. Are the Diamondbacks actually good? Jesse, are they good? And I don't, I mean, we're going to talk about the several ways they are good and are bad. But I guess first thought, hearing that question, are the debacks good? We don't know yet, right? I mean, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, jury is still out. That's, that's the reality of the situation. And I know that's sort of a, that's sort of a cop out answer. But yeah, after 31, after 31 games, we don't. don't know much about any team, right? It's not, it's not just the debacks. It's true. Have they played well up to this point? Yeah, they've played pretty well. Have they played extremely well, could you say, based on the schedule that they've played? They've played pretty

well. Yeah, because we did not have very high hopes for April. And we talked about if they could just get through April, if they could just be 500 in the month of April, if they could just kind of eke out, get out of this, you know, month where they had essentially so many games against the Dodgers and the Padres, you know, what can they do after that point? You know, some people were so, so convinced that they were going to be poor in April that they made a ridiculous promise to dye their hair in color because of it. Stupid, stupid, stupid idiots. Clearly, they defied some expectations in the month of April.

But, yeah, I am talking about you. But yeah, the debacks are a plus eight. They've scored more runs than their opponents have. They are no longer in first place. The Los Angeles Adjurs have caught fire over the last week. They've won six in a row. They're now 19 and 13. The debacks trail them by a game and a half.

The Padres are now also right on their tail at 17 and 15. But at the same time, debacks have played pretty well up to this point. And a lot of that, Derek has to do with their offense. The debacks have scored the sixth most runs in baseball at 161 up to this. point in the season. They're averaging five point two runs per game, which is a lot. Like five point two runs a game.

If you maintain that over a full season, you're going to be one of the probably five best offenses in the game. So it's still too early to know if the debacks are going to be able to do that. But if we're talking about just the offense and you know, you certainly saw this yesterday in that game against the Rangers, there were a lot of things that went right. You're starting to see Christian Walker break out a little bit. You're starting to see Lordus Gurriel. Yeah, of course.

You're starting to see Lardis Guriel break out a little bit. Corbyn Carroll, of course, has been outstanding. The debacks have a number of hitters in their lineup who are above average, and they don't really have any holes in their lineup most days. So you have to be really encouraged with what you've seen so far from an offensive standpoint. Fangraphs currently gives the Arizona Diamondbacks a 28.4% chance to make the playoffs, not so great, but much higher than it was prior to the season, right? Weren't they like below 20% as far as an opportunity to make it?

I don't know if I would say it's like a huge increase, but yeah, they started like just under 20% maybe. But yeah, I mean, like things like fan graphs, they're going to, you know, they're basing that off of their future projection and their future projection of the debacks is probably the same as it was before. So it's basically just the difference between them going 17 and 14 in the games they've played so far versus maybe 14 and 17 like the system would have expected. So there's not going to be a huge difference in those three games. And even if the debacks do, you know, ultimately make the playoffs this season, it's going to take a while for these projection systems to ever really buy into that. Yeah, because numbers. Numbers suck. And remember, numbers don't decide baseball games.

We didn't. I mean, they quite literally do decide baseball games. I'm told that the team scores more runs against the game. I guess. I mean, if you want to get numbers of all, I was thinking bats and balls decide games. But pitching also decides games, and pitching has been still quite bad for this team. It just has moved from the starting rotation being very good and the bullpen just being the worst to the terrible outings kind of being kind of, you know, tossed around there a bit. They rank 23rd in baseball currently with a 4.88 team ERA and have been out homered 39 to 31, which they've given up quite a few homeruns.

Yeah. They're still not hitting a lot, but still, they are offensively like we talked about. They are still very good in a lot of categories offensively, but pitching seems to be the thing right now that's bringing them down. Yeah, it really is. And somehow there have been a lot of these games where they've given up. Quite a lot of runs and still come away with wins like yesterday, right? You allow seven runs in a game. It's going to be tough to win a game like that most of the time,

but the debacks still come away and score 12 runs. And, you know, somehow we're talking about a series split where the Texas Rangers says, wow, Sean is out here doing Bosa delivery. I needed a frosty beverage and Sean knew it. Did you order this? Did you put a request in? Sometimes I multitask during the show, Jesse. It's all right.

Just keep going on with it. Thank you, Sean. That's why he's the MVP. You get it? I mean, part of it is work-based, but a lot of it is, like, you know, attitude-based. And the fact that he goes to-me- If I wanted anything. Well, yeah, I know. Just because you didn't give them the MVP, Jesse.

So, I mean, again, that's kind of on you. But anyway, you picked a poor MVP. That's all I'm saying. Who did I pick for my name? I think I picked Max, didn't I? Yeah, that's not. He probably deserves it, but Max isn't bringing you Bosa. What else we got?

The Diamondbacks actually have been pretty good in stolen bases, which I think that maybe we expected them to do more, even though they've been pretty good. I'm not going to say middle of the pack, but they're tied for ninth right now and stolen bases with 26. And Corbyn Carroll has a decent amount of those. So surprised that you're not seeing them steal more bases

because we thought that would be a big, you know, strength of this team this year. Yeah, I mean, Corbyn has 10 of them. So he does have more than almost half of the team's stolen bases. I think sending down Jake McCarthy, obviously you were going to kind of take a bit of a, step back in the run game. So not necessarily a huge shock.

I think they're always going to be in the top half of the league. And I wouldn't be too surprised if they inch their way up into the top five when all is said and done. A couple more things on the pitching front that I want to talk about. Zach Gallen has two wins above replacement at this point, according to Fangraphs, all by himself, which is an insane number at this point in the season. The rest of the pitching staff has minus point one. So it's literally Zach Gallen.

is, you know, just an absolute stud, even though he obviously he didn't have his best stuff in his last start against the Rangers, but he still had an outstanding season. The rest of the debacks pitching staff has been below replacement level. And that's not to say there aren't a few guys who have stood out in that mix, right? I think Merrill Kelly still had a good season. Ryan Nelson has still had his moments. They've had a few relievers, Andrew Chaffin, Miguel Castro, Kyle Nelson. Scott McGuff at times, not as much recently. Scott McGuff at most times, unless the game's on the line.

Yeah, it hasn't been great in some of those high leverage situations. You're right. But yeah, they've had some good performances from some of their relievers in those most important situations, even though their team bullpenny RA is 4.50, which is also not very good. So from the pitching side, Derek, that's where the biggest questions are. You can kind of see things coming together offensively. You can see this team being a playoff caliber team offensively. I think we're at that point where you can see those pieces coming together.

On the pitching side, I don't think we're there yet. I think we need to see Brandon fought, you know, get a little bit more comfortable in the big leagues. We're going to talk a little more about his debut a little bit later in the show. And you need, you know, Ryan Nelson to maybe take a step forward. You need Zach Davies to come back and provide some stability. And you need maybe some other guys in your bullpen to step up a little bit more. than we've seen so far. Those are the questions that are kind of looming the most as far as are the

Diamondbacks actually a good team? Is this actually a team that could make a playoff run this year? One thing you could say about the ERA when it comes to both the team ERA and the bullpen IRA is they have been impacted by a few guys. Obviously Madison Bumgardner is not a part of the starting rotation any longer. So he was a big reason why that ERA is so high. You had a 10.26, right? So yeah.

And then we also talked about Peter Solomon, who did not really find success in the bullpen And he wasn't really put into situations where the team expected him really to have success. It felt like he was just put into blowouts and games that the diving backs were already behind. But his ERA was also pretty atrocious as well. So you have two guys who right now aren't part of the bullpen or the starting rotation that impacted those ERAs being so bad. Hopefully we can still see these guys, you know, get back on track. Like you said, Merrill Kelly has been good as of late. And Zach Gallen and Merrill Kelly, we just, we need them to be solid.

It can be a bit sporadic after that. But we really do need Ryan Nelson. We need Zach Davies to come back and be what he was in a few games this year. But he also wasn't tremendously successful to say he's going to come back and be a big savior to the starting rotation. We know what we're going to get out of Davies when he returns. Defensively, this team continues to be incredible. And I mean, it's just a team. You don't want to run on Gabriel Moreno.

there's very little that can get past the outfield when they have a competent outfield out there playing and I don't mean to say competent but I guess I should say when they have their better players out there in the outfield that outfield is incredible but right now the Diamondbacks lead the league with 10 outs above average

and they are tied for third with 15 defensive runs saves so defensively they've been incredible and that is a big reason why they are in the position at the current land. Yeah, it really is And I mean, I guess those numbers are kind of already baked into some of the pitching stats that we talked about, right? That 4.88 team ERA does factor in that the debacks are one of the best defensive teams in the game. Absolutely.

It's a little scary almost. It almost just kind of accentuates the pitching a little more. Right. And they need their pitchers to be a little bit better moving forward. Sure. Or if their defense doesn't hold up and isn't this good, then this team doesn't have, you know, the results that they're currently having. Right. So, yeah, the defenses has been great.

Josh Rojas has been a big part of that. We talked a lot early in the season about how great he's been defensively. That's continued. He still is up there, you know, among the best defensive players in baseball right now, according to some of the defense metrics. So really impressive stuff from Rojas at third base. Really all around the infield, the debacks have had a really strong defense, except for, you could tell Marte, had a bit of a rough.

one yesterday at second base and his defensive metrics are below average at this point. So he's kind of the one guy along with Lordus Gurriel when he's out there in left field. Those are sort of your weak links defensively. But outside of that, it's a really solid group to devax. You're not even going to bring up Payvon Smith, huh? Well, Pavon Smith has played two games in right field. So I don't really consider that as being like a huge, huge problem. But yes, if they do run Pavan Smith out in the outfield more, that will continue to be a problem.

Of course, we take a look ahead at this upcoming series at home with the Nationals, those Serpienti's jerseys being given away on Saturday night. And the debacks actually play their next 13 games against teams that you could say are very winnable. Winnable series, winnable games. They have three against the Nationals, three against Marlins, four against the Giants, and three against the Oakland Athletics. But looking forward at this series, this one's going to be a bit tough. the youngsters, Ryan Nelson and Tommy Henry both need to really step up in this series for the Diamondbacks to have a chance to win this one at home because National's starting pitching has been quite good.

Yeah, yeah, we talked about it a little yesterday. Josiah Gray, McKenzie Gore, Trevor Williams. It's actually a pretty decent run of starters here for the Nationals. Patrick Corvin is starting for them today, I believe. So the debacks won't get a Patrick Corbyn reunion at Chase Field, not in this series. But yeah, the Nationals have some decent starting pitching going out there in this series. And it's really just a matter of the deba-bax pitching coming out and taking care of business. The Nationals have been a very poor team offensively. So that's kind of been their issue as many people expected entering the season. So, yeah, you've got 13 games here, Derek, against the Nats, the Marlins, the Giants, and the A's.

I know the Marlins have an above 500 record at this point still. I don't necessarily expect that to continue in the long term. But no matter what, like you've got 13 games that are very, very winnable here. The four games series and theirs against the Giants, they have not played well at all to start the season. So I don't know, like how many of these 13 games you feel like the debacks have to win in order to feel good coming out of this thing?

Okay. No, I'm just joking. Dang. I would say, honestly, with the series ahead, I would say eight wins seems very reasonable. Yeah. And I think anything less than eight, you know, you just can't go around 500 with this particular group of teams, right? Yeah. You got to be greedy, as our friend Bob Brenley would say.

And now is the time to get greedy. Now is the time to not even just win series, but sweep series. They haven't done that yet this season. And I think it's a good time for them to get on a. a roll, right? You get on a roll, you get that momentum going, even though momentum's not a real thing, but you get that momentum rolling. And, you know, you can come out of it. You know, the Marlins are a tough team. So the Marlins are kind of in there aren't exactly. Marlins are one of two teams this season that's actually beat the debacks in a series. Correct. And I think they're only one of a few teams

that has a winning record right now in this month that they have on their schedule to face. But things have changed. You know, we've talked about what do the Diamondbacks? need in order for them to make the playoffs, right? And we talked about those playoff chances earlier. One of the big things that we had penciled in was the Cardinals and the Phillies both being better than the Diamondbacks. And right now, that is definitely not the case, especially for the St. Louis Cardinals, who we will talk about more later.

But again, this is what the Diamondbacks need to do. They need to take care of business against these teams, against nationals, against the teams that right now aren't playing good baseball. Yeah. You know, because, again, some of these teams are too good to be this bad for for this long. And some of these teams are just destined to be bad all season long, like the Oakland A's. My apologies to any A's fans I'm attacking with that statement.

But it feels very much like the A's as a team that if the Diamondbacks go into a series with the athletics and they lose it, people are going to melt down. That would, yeah, that would be able to. People are going to absolutely lose their shit. I think someone in the chat, Brett said, if they don't sweep the A's, I swear to God, Brett right there, right? Brett's going to come down and settle things himself if they don't do it. And the Nats did just beat the Cubs.

So things are just kind of weird. Baseball is weird this year. So many teams have kind of swapped positions. And the best teams in baseball right now were not very good last year. And some of the worst teams were some of the best from last year. Yeah. I mean, the D-backs have been hovering at like three to four games over 500 for like a week or two at this point. Right.

I think they got to 11 and 7. So they were four games over 500 a couple weeks ago. This is your chance to kind of build that separation. It's always a little concerning when you see a team get out to three or four games above 500, and then you look back a month later and you're like, oh, we're still there. We thought we were on pace to be this great playoff team and we're and we're just staying. We're just kind of staying where we were. This is a chance if you're the debacks to get out to, like you said, if you win,

if you win even just eight out of these 13 games, which I think is a reasonable goal, at that point you'd have, you'd have 25 wins, right? And you would have 19 losses. you'd be 25 and 19. At that point, you're like, okay, we seem to be a pretty good baseball team, right? And if you're able to find a way to go nine and four, which I also think is not a crazy, like I think that could happen. You know, then you're looking at 26 and 18, which would be a really good record for the

debacks to have coming out of the stretch. And their schedule will get more difficult in the months to come. So this is a really, really crucial point of the year for them. And something you brought up before we were on air today, which we were talking about the padded lead that the Tampa Bay Rays have now. Jesse kind of shocked me with saying that the raise at this point, this early on in the season, could play 500 baseball for the rest of the year, and they would still get 90 wins, right? They would get 91 wins. Because they're 20 games over 500. They're 26 and 6.

It's ridiculous. So like with the Dynabacks, that's kind of why we say that's important, right? So far we've seen them kind of play down to their opposition or kind of just, you know, basically play at the same level as who they're playing. We've seen them hang with some of the best teams in baseball this season already. And we've seen them barely eke out a win against some of the worst teams in baseball. So, you know, that Royal Series was a bit eye-opening because with how bad the Royals have been, we really felt like they should have not only swept that series, but maybe had a little bit more,

you know, space distance between them and the Royals and some of those wins. they were all very close. So again, this is that time where it really doesn't matter how big the wins are. They just need to stack some wins against beatable opponents because, like Jesse said, from June to July, things get a bit harder. And then August gets very tough because that's when the Padres and the Dodgers come back around. And that's when this National League West might actually be on the line where the Diamondbacks have a chance to either be playing for the division, which I can't believe I just said that, or playing for a wild card spot, which at this point seems like

a very reasonable thing for them to accomplish with how they're playing so far. But one thing we want to do is thank you guys for being here right now on the PHNX Sports YouTube channel. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to the channel,

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This guy next to me has a brand new piece on Brandon Fott and his start, his first start, his major league debut. And that's unlocked. Everybody can check that out. But if you want to make sure you get all of Jesse's pieces, make sure to get yourself a diehard membership over at go phtonx.com. Now, not only will you get access to Jesse's newsletter, full count, and all locked content over at the website. You will also get free piece of merch from the phnx locker.com every year you're a member, as well as 20% off all future purchases. You also get access to our members-only Discord. You get members-only invites to our events, members-only discounts, and so much more.

So join us today. Of course, you get access to our members-only Discord Lounge, which is the best place to be an Arizona sports fan. But like I said, you got to check out Jesse's piece on Brandon Fought because he will tell you why we need to stop worrying. And I had to read it in order for me to stop worrying. But, yeah, why, Jesse, why do we need to stop worrying after Brandon Fought's first start, not going as planned? Not going as well as we would like it to go. I mean, mostly because it was one start, and it doesn't really matter how bad any one start goes. It doesn't comfort me. It doesn't comfort me. I'm ready to overreact. I'm ready to be angry.

So you're going to need to do better than that. His stuff looked as we would have expected it to look. It looked good. It was a tough strike zone that day. I'm not trying to cop out on that, but it was a tough strike zone. And I only say that because it was all over the place. There's one thing with a consistent strike zone, even if it's wider than what the television shows is supposed to be. the strike zone or shorter or longer or whatever. But I felt like the home plate umpire was calling a very erratic strike zone, which doesn't help a young pitcher who's trying to establish his edges and the corners

and all of that with his pitches. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. I thought he missed some spots and not even so much like missed spots out of the strike zone. Like I wrote about in the article, he just threw a lot of strikes in bad places. We have a, I think we have a graphic here of, Brandon Fotz pitch chart for the entire game. And there's just way too much stuff here in the middle of the zone, right?

There's a lot right there in the middle. And I do, I want to preface this and say like, you know, if you look at a chart like this for a show Hey, Otani start or, you know, some of the better starters in the games in the game, you will see pitches in the middle of the zone. Like no pitcher goes out and throws a hundred pitches and they're all just painting the corners perfectly. Like that's not a realistic goal. but there's a lot of stuff here right in the middle.

And not only that, but if you look at his breaking pitches, the slider and the change up. The slider especially is not, it was not working for him. Yeah. The slider and the change up in particular, you see some here that are in the middle of the zone. That's not good.

But what I really don't see much of is those pitches just kind of right off the edges, especially the slider, like in places where hitters would be likely to swing at them, but also not like. to hit them because they're out of the zone. There's a few of them that you see way off down and into lefties here, but those are just so far away from the strike zone that nobody's going to actually swing at that. He threw a number of sliders that were just uncompetitive and a number of changeups that

were just a little too far off the plate to get anyone to swing at. So I think finding that balance with his breaking pitches outside of the strike zone, trying to get them out of the zone, but trying to make it so they're not so far out of the zone that nobody's actually going to swing at them. He just didn't have a really good feel yesterday for putting those pitches in those spots. The clutch Canuck in the comments that had the debacks not teed off on the Rangers either, then I would be a little worried. And that's a great point.

The ball was flying. They hit a lot of home runs in that game. And he also said the umpire scorecard was 98% accuracy, actually only one miss call against Derrick. I didn't think the umpire was all that. There might have been a miss call here or there. I didn't really notice that. I mean, you know what I noticed was, in some cases, it might even been an air.

Arizona's favor because he was calling some of Brandon Fott's low pitches that were out of the strike zone as far as the strike zone on TV is concerned. Sure. And I always have to preface by saying that because who knows, right? But then he threw other pitches in the exact same spot and then it wasn't a strike. So again, maybe that one was the one off call. Maybe that one caught more of the edge and was considered an actual strike. I don't even know what the accuracy, you know, determination is with that because, again,

if the pitch touches the strike zone, right? Like if we see it on TV, touch a line or something, that's considered potentially a strike, you know, even though it might not look like it's there. But the off speed pitch, especially his slider,

which we saw in one of the strikeouts look very nasty. Yeah, that's his best pitch. Yeah, I think that was his first strikeout to Josh Young. That was a beautiful, a beautiful pitch.

It just on the outside part of the plate. It wasn't working after that, right? He just wasn't able to get it in the strike zone in that same way. But that one, he buried, like, right in the corner perfectly. And it was just a beautiful bitch. It's just consistency, right? Being able to do it. There were a lot of factors, I'm sure.

I'm sure there was a lot of nerves. He had a lot of people there watching him, too. There was, like, over 30 members of his family and friends and coaching staff. Yeah, he had quite a showing. Yeah, they were interviewing his mom and dad when, like, right as he gave up a home run, which is kind of a hilariously awkward moment. But yeah, there were a lot of people, a lot of people out there to support for sure. One other point that I made in the article is I think he should try to get out of the strike zone a little bit more often, just in general.

He threw 60% of his pitches in the zone, which might not sound like a lot. You're used to seeing pitchers throw about 60% strike, 65% strikes, and that's a good thing. But that strikes, though. That's not in the zone. That's not necessarily in the zone, exactly. And yesterday you threw 60% of his pitches. in the zone. The debacks, if you look at their team as a whole, more than half of the debacks pitchers have zone rates under 50%. So generally speaking, a major league pitcher is going to throw

pitches in the zone less than 50% of the time. Fought was 60% yesterday, which is really high. And that's something that's been a trend for him in the minors as well, is when he gets ahead in the count being better at expanding the zone, like rather than throwing that slider and that change up on the edges of the strike zone, which would be good in itself. But like getting it off the edge, getting it down below the zone, those are really where your swing and misses come from. And that really helps you induce more weak contact, get more swing and misses. And he just wasn't really all that great at that yesterday.

It seemed like even when he was getting ahead, he was still attacking the zone in a way that was sort of unnecessary. They weren't swinging at his other stuff. He wasn't fooling anybody with his other stuff outside of the zone. it felt like. But like you said, looking at that chart of where his pitches landed, it felt like it was because they were so basically so far out of the zone that it wasn't even something that wasn't even a pitch that looked like it coming in that it was going to land there, right? And so I don't know. I don't, I don't want to panic. I feel a little panicked, but I'm not going to

No, I wouldn't. His stuff is good and his command has generally been good. So this is a totally fixable problem. It's just, hey man, welcome to the big leagues. When you, You know, when you make those mistakes, they're going to get hit even more so than they did in AAA. And he just made those mistakes. And I don't think anyone's surprised that, you know, you throw a change up that's kind of middle, middle. Even if it's a little bit toward the bottom part of the plate, it's going to get hit by these major league hitters, especially against a Texas Rangers offense, which is we talked about yesterday has been one of the best. Very, very good.

Zone in Arizona says having Brandon fought getting help from Gallin, Kelly, Mantepley, Chafin and Strom will probably be a huge help to get him acclimated to the next level. And yeah, that's a great point. And we already know that this coaching staff is very, very good at getting these youngsters acclimated to a major league level. It just, it doesn't always go as smoothly as what we saw with Ryan Nelson and Dre Jameson last year. And even then, the results that they're having this year are a bit more of what we expected to see. and that that excellent start that they had was almost more of the fluke it's not to say that they can't get back there but again based on the numbers that we saw in the minor leagues what we're seeing out of ryan nelson and dray jameson unfortunately lines up more with what they were doing at the triple a level and double a level then the success they had when they came up and debuted so maybe i'd rather it the other way maybe i'd rather that brandon fought comes up and struggles a bit in the beginning and then gets online and then ends up being able to be that consistent third starter in the rotation that the diamondbacks have been desperately seeking.

But again, you got to factor in that that was a very tough Texas Rangers team that has been smashing the ball against a lot of good pitching. So a very, very difficult debut to make against the team that that's that good offensively. We have been, yeah, DVX fans have been utterly spoiled by Dre Jameson and Ryan Nelson. Those two just incredible starts with each had coming up. It's like, no, that's not normal. That's not how this normally goes when you call up a guy from AAA. They should have waited until they played the Padres, but that would have been August.

Yeah, surely if they had waited until August to call up Brandon Fott just so he could pitch against the Padres in his debut, then it would have been seven scoreless innings. No, I mean, this was kind of the other extreme where you didn't expect to see Brandon Fott get rocked in the way that he did. I've seen a lot of people tell me on Twitter like, no, he was actually really good for four innings and then the fifth inning everything blew up. There is some truth to that, but there's also not. because if you look at the exit velos of some of the batted balls from those first four innings, he was kind of getting rocked all over the place for four innings. Fortunately, a lot of them were at guys. You know, there were the two home runs in the second inning and the fourth inning.

He was able to work around some other situations. There wasn't that much traffic on the bases. But I thought the full body of work wasn't fantastic. But it's okay. Like his stuff is good. everything, the velocity, all that was as advertised. It's just a matter of being a little bit more fine with where he puts those pitches. And that's a skill that he's shown that he has in the past.

I'm kind of sad because Saul Bookman was in here just a second ago. And I know he would have gotten very excited about this next topic. But I'm going to phrase it the same way I would have had he been in there. And I'm going to ask you, Jesse, is it time to bench Nick Ahmed and make Geraldo Perdomo the everyday starter at shortstop for the. Arizona Diamondbacks because boy I'm ready to start talking MVP can we start the Haraldo Perdomo for MVP campaign I want some posters made I want buttons made let's get this man because he's incredible he is incredible like the numbers it you watch him as a Diamondbacks fan

you see the numbers he's putting up you feel like he's good but Jesse how good is Heraldo perdomo I want you to tell everybody you You're painting me into a corner. I want you to tell everybody the numbers. Yeah, no, I mean, Geraldo Perdomo is hitting over 400, which is ridiculous, right? I mean, there's no way around that. He is seventh in baseball in Winds above replacement. Above who.

According to Van Gogh, among position players ahead of Mike Trout. There it is. And this isn't like, oh, early season, bad start Mike Trout. This is legit, like how you'd expect Mike Trout. to play Mike Trout. Yeah, Perdomo is seventh in the league in wins above replacement for position players, which is even more incredible,

considering he has literally been in a platoon all season, right? He is not starting games against left-handed pitching. You wonder where he maybe could be if he was starting those games. It's wild. It's wild because it's not to say that his numbers don't dip against left-handed pitching, but he's still hitting 357 against lefties, Jesse. 357.

Yeah, it's not that many a bat. I think most of those are like when opposing teams have brought lefties and games late. And early in the season, Tori would pinch hit Nick Ahmed in those situations. He's kind of laid off that the last few weeks. But yeah, I mean, Nick Ahmed is here to hit lefties, right? I mean, that's why the debacks have him on the roster, play a good defensive shortstop, and to hit lefties in a way that they assumed was going to be better than how Geraldo Perdomo would hit lefties.

That has not happened. As you said, Pardomo is sitting 357 against lefties with a 429 slugging percentage. Nick Ahmed is sitting 229 against lefties, has not drawn a walk and has a 286 slugging percentage. So Pardomo right now is outperforming Nick Ahmed against lefties. Granted, it's a very small sample size. And beyond that,

Perdomo has better defensive metrics across the board from Nick Ahmed. It's really not close. It's pretty clear Geraldo Pardomo has played a better shortstop this season that Nick Ahmed has. So it's a valid question. At a certain point, it's like, man, I know we're paying Nick Ahmed, I think it's $10 million this year. But if Ferdomo is just better in every way that you have to entertain the question.

It's a question a lot of people want entertained. And of course, Perdomo had a chance last year to be there every day shortstop. And it's not to say he didn't have his struggles at times. But man, it just goes to show. He had a lot of struggles. A lot of struggles. But, I mean, again, that's. It was almost like Gabby Moreno getting more starts possibly than he would have.

I know they're still platooning him with Jose Herrera. But again, it's due to necessity. But we've seen Moreno just really come online as a great defensive catcher. And I mean, we talked about Zach Gallin's comments where he said that Moreno is the kind of guy that's in the war with you. And I love when baseball players use unnecessary metaphors and adjectives like that. You know, like I'm still thinking about the time Eduardo Escobar just unnecessarily said he would die for Tori Lavello. Like I'm like, I'm still, did that come up? Has he ever had to protect Tori in some way?

I don't understand where that even came from. But there's a lot of good young guys. And because of injuries and other things, they're getting that opportunity. Prudomo, he's our risk king for a reason. He hits well with runners on base. It's not. It's not just, he's not just the risk king right now, man. I'm sitting in all situations.

He's the king of war, Jesse. He's the king of war. There you go. Let's go. But Nick Ahmed hitting 229 against lefties, that gets our OG's performance to forget because it should, because that's what he's here for. He's here to hit lefties. So make sure. It's tough. I mean, you're paying him $10 million. Are you going to like, I feel like he's too good of a player. You're not going to like release Nick Ahmed. I mean, he's too, but I don't know if you're going to get much for him in a trade either. So. I have an answer, Jesse. What are you? No, we'll work this out. We have ways to settle this kind of thing. But going back to our friends at OGs brands, make sure to check them out if you need to forget a performance

or if you just want to have a great time. OGs is all about flavoring life, and they are all about flavoring edibles to taste delicious. So definitely suggest them to someone who you know might need OGs. And also check them out if you need to get a good night's sleep. They have their Aquaberry Sleep Edition gummy, which has a 2-1 CBN-the-THC ratio that just absolutely will give you a wonderful night's sleep.

And the one thing I say about those is it doesn't take long for them to get you back on track sleep-wise. So if you're having troubles having a good night's sleep like we all do from time to time, check out the sleep edition gummy from our friends at OGs. You can find them at your local dispensary at OGs.com. Must be 21 or over to enjoy and enjoy responsibly. And also got our friends from Four Peaks Brewing Company, another way to escape bad performances. And also enjoy yourself.

You can go see some performances, speaking of which with the Four Peaks, four seats giveaway. One lucky winner will get four seats to an upcoming Diamondbacks game. Tickets come with D-Bucks. Again, those are like Disneyland dollars. Grab them for some food, get some ice cold wild wheat in you. And you can enter by going to Four Peaks Brew on Instagram. The link is in the bio. They're also doing some great stuff for teachers.

Teacher Appreciation Week starts on May 8th. So you can thank a teacher and nominate them to win grants, four peak swag and a grand prize of a custom makeover of their teachers lounge at school. Did you have a teacher's lounge at your college there that you used to teach at? I didn't teach the college. Not college. High school, right? My students would have been older than me.

That's true. We sort of had a teacher's lounge. Yeah. I mean, it was a fridge and a copy machine. Yeah. See? I bet Jesse owned the teacher's lounge. Oh, I'm sure he did.

He just worked that counter, you know, that one counter with the microwave on it. a teacher's lounge would have just meant that you were using the copy machine all the time. Yeah. See, it needs to be nicer than that, and Fort Peaks is going to hook some lucky winner up with a custom makeover of their teachers lounge at school. Go to Forpeaksforteachers.org denominated teacher order to donate, and you can check out at Four Peaks brew, excuse me, or at Four Peaks Pub to keep up with the latest at Arizona's hometown brewery. Must be 21 or over to enjoy and drink Four Peaks beer. Please drink responsibly. The league has been very weird, Jesse. There's been a lot of things going to.

going on. The pirates have lost every single game since sending Drew Maggie down, and we talked about the good fortune, the good, the way that they appease the baseball gods with that decision, and they have seemed to anger them since. Meanwhile, the other team that we talked about earlier, the Tampa Bay Reyes, they seem to be going nothing but to the moon. Someone asked earlier, are the Texas Rangers going to be our rival every year? And I once again implore MLB, MLB to consider our rival team to be the Tampa Bay Reyes. But with the way they're playing

right now, I do not want to play them in a baseball game, so I guess I'm fine with that being the case for now, Jesse. Yeah, I mean, that's how they have the schedule built. The debacks and the Rangers are quote-unquote rivals. I don't like it. They play four games against each other this year rather than, rather than

well, I guess it's two separate series rather than just being the one series that they play against all the other AL team. It's dumb. It's dumb and I don't like it. But Another thing I do like is the Cardinals being so bad. And you just, you love to see it. You love to see it, don't you? Paul Goldsmith plays for the Cardinals, Derek.

I'm aware of that. I'm reminded about that every single time we play them in baseball. You want him to do well? You want the Cardinals to struggle? I never said I wanted him to do well. Oh, wow. Okay. Nope.

Wow. Nope. Nope. I'm petty like that. The Diamondbacks traded the man, Derek. He didn't ask to leave. We knew he was going to go. I mean, I think it was pretty clear when it all happened.

One of the biggest mistakes they've ever made. But anyway, we were talking about that, though, earlier. Again, Phillies, Cardinals, a couple of other teams. The Diamondbacks need some of these teams to be bad in order for them to find their way into the playoff hunt in some way. Or, you know, right now, if the season ended today, the Diamondbacks would be in the playoffs, and they would be playing Milwaukee in the first round, am I right?

Yes, yeah, they would be playing the Brewers. It would be Braves. winning the NL East, the Pittsburgh Pirates, winning the NL Central, just as everyone expected. The Dodgers winning the NL West, and then, yeah, you have the Brewers, the D-BACs, and the Padres in the Wildcard spots. And yeah, I mean, there is, I think from a D-BACs perspective,

there are some things to be encouraged about. The Cardinals not playing well is a big one. Chris said it. I'm fine with Goldie struggling. Interesting. I just didn't think that was something that DeBax fans necessarily felt. Oh, we're petty, Jesse.

We're so petty. I guess you are. Absolutely. The Mets are 16 and 16 and have not played well. That's one team that you kind of feel like is going to figure it out at some point. I know they lost Max Scherzer for some time because of the whole debacle with the umpire and the whole thing. But yeah, some of the teams that you expected to be right in the think of this haven't been so far. The Cardinals have gotten off to really slow start the Phillies as well.

Another team of debacks will see for the first time later, month. They've really struggled, although somehow Bryce Harper just came back from Tommy John's surgery. I swear he had the surgery like two weeks ago and somehow he's already playing games, which is insane. It is different for position players than it is for pitchers, but man, he is, he really came back. He really came back quickly. But yeah, I mean, from a debaaks perspective, there are some things to be encouraged about here. One thing that we have to talk about that is not Diamondbacks related, but is Tampa Bay related is Wander Franco's, uh, Ball flip.

Flip, I guess that's what you call it. Well, Jesse, Jesse wrote controversial ball flip. Jesse, so let's talk about this. Why does Jesse Friedman think this is a controversial ball flip? Well, I mean, that's just subjective. It's controversial. I mean, have you looked on Twitter recently?

You told me. Have you seen how much controversy there is about this thing? Let's go. Let's go. What are your thoughts on this? Jesse did not like this. Well, so, okay. So I, I do not like.

this in a pivotal, you know, late game situation. If it's a playoff game, there are some situations where I feel like you would not want to do this. Honestly, I think it's okay in this situation because I believe the race had a significant lead in this game. And you can kind of tell that Wander Franco sort of knows what he's doing, that this is something that he's done in the past. We were having a conversation here in the office earlier and Saul Bookman compared

it to, you know, Zion Williamson doing a windmill dunk or something, like in a game where they're up by a wide margin. Regular season game early in the season. Yeah, at a regular season. Yeah, like I. 12. I do understand it then. So I would, this is not a situation where I'm like, okay, universally let the kids

have fun. You know, this is okay all the time. But I do think it's okay in this situation because the stakes were not particularly high. the race had a significant lead. Yeah, go have your fun. And I am absolutely all for, you know, players celebrating more, players doing these kinds of things that just make the game more enjoyable. He's got to defend himself because he does like player celebrations.

He does like, he was a huge fan of the play, of the dugouts celebrating during the fall league games when they were testing the balls and strikes. The system. Yeah. The ABS challenge system, right? The Ball Street Challenge system. Like there's a lot of things in baseball that make things more fun. There isn't technically a lot of windmill dunks.

There isn't a lot of, you know, showing off. It's the reason why it's absurd that anybody gets mad about bat flipping. Because bat flips really are one of the only ways of just really celebrating your achievements in a game like this. And there's still people out there like, what was it? How do we say this now? Do we say previous Diamondbacks pitcher Madison Bumgarner? One of those guys. It's not a fan of that kind of stuff, right?

But I think all of this thing. That's different. That's different to me. Like a bad flip has no impact on the game. Right. You are not going to negate your home run by celebrating it. You're not going to get a penalty or a foul or something from the umpire for doing it. You're not getting kicked out of the game.

I mean, I hope not. It's showboating. You're gone out of here. Those things are great and I think all of those things should continue and I honestly wish more players would do them. I think it just makes the game more fun. This is different though. Wander Franco is taking risk here because if he if he bobbles it on the way down, if he drops

it on the way down, he's going to look like an idiot. And I don't think that his teammates and his coaching staff would be all that happy about that. No, that's why I love that. That's why it's great because there is a risk involved. And if he does drop the ball and the runner reach. his first base and you do look like an idiot. And that is... And that's great. That's good?

Yeah. Well, first of all, Wander Franco doesn't play for my team. So yes, that's always going to be good. I don't care about how they do as far as record-wise or if they win their games. I just think it's funny. It's just funny to me. And if he were to screw it up, I could laugh and point and say, ha-ha, idiot. But he didn't. So I say, what a badass, right?

And that's what risk and reward is all about. In this case, there is very little reward for doing something like this. purely admiration and excitement for the fans. And that's why I love it is because it's just such an unnecessary risk. And I don't care. Baseball needs more of this. Needs more guys doing things, especially when it's something that hardly anybody can do.

They're just so talented that they can do this stuff. I want more of it. I don't care if it's going to maybe cost a runner to get on base or whatever. But like you said, the biggest thing is it's not late in the game. We're not talking about a playoff. game. We're not talking about the game being on the line. We're literally talking about him doing a little fucking cool flip to himself to throw the ball and it's just a little extra pizzazz on it, you know? Yeah. But like, okay, if you put this in the, like, let's say this was

a Diamondbacks play. Let's say this is Geraldo Pardomo or Nick Ahmed or something. Do you feel differently about it if it's a little bit closer to home or are you still fully supportive of doing it? I'm fully, I am fully in support of doing it because again, we're not talking about so. Like, this is something probably a lot of guys could do and don't because of it being unnecessary, the scrutiny, the fact that they could screw it up and they don't want to. They just want to make a solid play. But there are some cases where transferring the ball to yourself like that might even be faster than you kind of digging it out of your glove, but there's just an unnecessary risk involved

with flipping it up in the air to yourself while you're running and making an incredible play like he did, right? But I don't know. I just don't care about anything that people do if they want to do stuff to make the game of baseball more exciting, right? If it's going to be a highlight play, if it's going to be something cool that happens. And then again, I don't even give a shit if he does also not make it because then that's funny. And we can all point laugh and say, what an idiot. So Brian Reynolds wasn't impressed.

He was the guy who. Brian Reynolds definitely was the guy who was not impressed. He said, I saw it. It didn't impress me. Yeah. Well, that's usually what you say when you're the one. that's on the negative end of it, right? On the receiving end of it.

But whatever, I don't care. Let's do more of that. Let's all. And then the Diamondbacks can play fundamentally soundball and then hopefully they'll win games because of it. I love it. I just, there's just a limit. It's just in game six of the World Series

or like even in a pivotal, like if the debacks are in a playoff hunt late in the season, you're in a close game. I don't want to see that shit. Like, no, don't do that. Even if you're 98% sure that you're going to nail it and it's going to be awesome and the fans are going to love it, it's just not worth the risk in my mind. But in this situation, totally fine. I think it adds some fun to the game.

Is there something to be said for the electricity, something like that can create? Like if you're at home, you're in a big game like that. And let's just say you're down. Let's not even say you're up. Let's say you're down by a run and you do some stuff like that. Isn't there something to be said? Isn't there something to be said about Archie Bradley's triple that literally made Chase Field sounded away? Like I've never heard Chase Field sound.

I'm just saying sometimes there's a way to rev that motor on the car. And maybe this is it. I don't know. Archie Bradley's triple was like a real thing. Like he hit a triple. This is a real thing. He threw it to himself. He grabbed it.

He threw it and he got it out. That's a real thing. It really happened. Play on a ground out. Like, it's not the same. Look, my hair could also be. black, but it's not. Or actually salt and pepper is what I should say. But instead,

it's this wonderful shade of purple. And sometimes you just do things in life to make things more exciting, Jesse, including dye your hair, stupid purple. Anyway, we thank you guys, of course, for being here. If you haven't had a chance to check out our friends at Foco, they make these little beautiful works of art down here in front

of us. They're a leading manufacturer of sports and entertainment merchandise with a product line that includes apparel accessories, so much more. Mostly, these bobbleheads are just flat out incredible. Spring, it's baseball season. You need some more. Diamondbacks are only given two away this year, and you probably already missed out on one of them. So go grab yourself some bobbleheads over at Foco. And Foco always has our back for Arizona Sports. They have yours too. Get the best gear by visiting

Foco.com and using code PHNX. For all non-presale items, use promo code PHNX and you will get 10% off. Also check out our friends at more furniture. These recliners out here that we got, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, more comfortable than my bed. And Damon can attest to that because Damon was sitting next to me when we're watching baseball the other day. And I just flat out just was open mouth snoring in the recording. During the game? Oh yeah, during the game. Yeah, middle of the game.

One conversation, maybe, you know, me and Derek having some fun talking about the game. We were talking. I look over maybe five minutes later and Derek's taking a half, half inning power now. Getting ready for the show. I mean, it's just what more furniture does. It does. It's so comfortable. Well, the next thing you know, your Ted Lasso's son from the Lest episode where he fell asleep while they were chatting.

And they'll also bring those recliners in for you so you don't have to lift a finger. They got their white glove delivery service. And that's how we got these things up to our floor up here in this building. Nobody here was going to be putting in that kind of work. But More Furniture will put it in for you. So save big on the best furniture in the valley when you head to morefurniture.com. Baseball coming up. We got our takeover event very soon.

So make sure to join us. If you haven't grabbed tickets for that already. You can join us for the game on May. When is it May 12th, I believe? Do we have that? We have our list of our show or our games that we have coming up. May 11th, sorry, May 11th against the San Francisco Giants. And then a game every month for the rest of the season after that.

But make sure to join us on May 11th. For that, you can get that takeover pass in our show notes. So make sure to check that out over at Ventbrite. And let us know you're coming. We'd love to know who's going to be there. Somebody joined us. us last time and didn't even bother to introduce themselves or say hi to us. But they did take pictures of us from behind while Jesse and I were looking up stats, I think, on my phone. So

make sure to say hi to us. It's weird and rude and we want to know you and want to be friends with you. So don't just hang out behind us in the row behind us. Talk to us. That's what we're there for. You really called them out, dear. I am. Hey, I love you for being. Thank you so much. We always appreciate you guys for coming out. But also, just like we're contractually obligated to do this show. You're contractually obligated to say hi to us, and that's the way it works. So, join us for our PHNX takeover events. In the meantime, you can follow

us on Twitter. I'm at Kappa underscore K-man with a K. You can direct all Star Wars related content my way. Do not send any his way. He does not appreciate that series. He is Jesse Friedman. Damon, he appreciates Star Wars, and you also have to roo-woo, when you get him. He's the leader of our

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when the force is with you.