PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Does Blake Snell Signing With Giants Signal TROUBLE For Diamondbacks In NL West?

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

The San Francisco Giants continue to add weapons in the NL West arms race, signing Cy Young winner Blake Snell to a two-year, $62 million deal. What does this mean for the Diamondbacks in an already stacked division? We also check in with the D-backs aces and their spring starts over the weekend and give our thoughts on the first episode of the Snakes Alive documentary series. SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to Suns Takeovers, Coyotes & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://gophnx.com/events/Arizona Lottery: Visit http://www.AZAdventure.com for more information on how you can take an adventure with the Arizona Lottery and for a chance to win $1 million in cash and Arizona travel prizes! PrizePicks - Download the PrizePicks app today and use code PHNX for a first deposit match up to $100! Pick more. Pick less. It’s that Easy!NASCAR Weekend at Phoenix Raceway: March 8-10! Find more information at https://www.phoenixraceway.com/spring/ on the Shriners Children's 500, and be on the lookout for racing content from PHNX!Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Empire: Schedule a free in-home estimate with Empire Today! Receive a $350 OFF discount when you use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See https://empiretoday.com/phnx for details.Sign up for Gila River Resorts & Casinos $1,000,000 Big Red’s Showdown! Stay in the game and get rewards; it’s that easy! https://www.gilamilliondollarshowdown.com/Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.Circle K:  Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: OGeez! is not your average cannabis-infused gummy. Head over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Someburros: 20% off your order of up to $100 when you use code PHNX at checkout for the whole month of March at https://www.someburros.com/When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and ski to you all. Welcome in to another edition of the PHNX Debats podcast, regular on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia. Of course, I am occasionally not as your mayor of PHMX. This maniac next to me is my vice mayor in case anything happens to me. That makes him the interim mayor during that period of time. But he is always, no matter what time of year it is, your thunder stick, Jesse Friedman.

And Jesse, it just keeps getting worse than the NL West. Oh, man, we have so much to talk about. But, of course, I did want to give a shout out to. Our guy Gerald from P. HNX, of course, Gerald got married on Friday. We were all there. It was a wonderful ceremony. We just wanted to once again say congratulations to Gerald and Amy on their wedding nuptials and an amazing party where all of us except Jesse got way too drunk. And Jesse voted me the most coherent drunk, though.

And I really feel like I've made it. It was an award that was going to be given out at the end of the night. I feel like I'm really winning lately. But of course, our PHNX fund didn't stop there. We also had an amazing annual event that we have over at Craig Morgan's house is St. Patty's Day Party, which was, again, just another wonderful time. We spent a lot of time around each other this weekend. Yeah, what you're saying is we're all sick and tired of each other at this point.

I've had it with these people. I've absolutely had it with these people. That is definitely true. But another thing I've had it with Jesse is all of these amazing baseball players playing in the National League West. because once again, big news is that Blake Snell signs with the Giants for two years, $62 million with an opt-out after this year, right? So it could essentially just be a one-year contract. Correct. Definitely not what Scott Boris was seeking in his return for the Sigh-Young winner right now, right?

Yeah, yeah. You know, when you see a two-year $62 million contract for Blake Snell, the initial thought is, well, you know, he's coming off a bit of a down year. you know, take a season, reestablish the value, then go hit the market again next offseason, and then he realized he just won the freaking NL. Sa Young. Right. That's not really his situation at all. So, yeah, it just continues what has been a pretty brutal offseason for one Scott Boris, which we're going to talk about a little bit later.

But yes, as far as the Diamondbacks are concerned, not great news to have the reigning NL. Sa Young award winner staying in the division, but also going to the San Francisco Giants and joining forces with a guy who, finished second in Syong voting last year in Logan Webb. The San Francisco Giants starting rotation looks very formidable. And suddenly, you look at the offseason that they've had, Derek. It's not just Snell. It's not just Matt Chapman, who is the other recent development.

They got Jordan Hicks. They traded for Robbie Ray. They signed Jorge Solair. They signed Junkhulis. Look pretty good in spring training. Suddenly, the Giants have had a heck of an off season. And they look like a pretty formidable playoff contender in the National League. You said you were very worried about Blake Snell going to the Giants.

I said I was very worried about the Giants having essentially Shohayotani money and not getting Shohayotani. They are the team that I have kind of talked about doing this. Like if a team did budget potentially for Shohayotani and didn't get him, they could spend half the amount of money that they budgeted for him and put together a pretty damn good team of free agents. Now, when you look at this, the Giants have done a better job than most teams based on the fact that they did get these guys that were all projected to go for crazy contracts under relatively reasonable deals that aren't long term, which is the key here, because it gives the Giants a chance to be competitive without really mortgaging their future or having a guy

on their payroll for 14 seasons. Yeah. So Blake Snell last year, like he was pretty good, right? 180 innings at 225 ERA, a 11.19 whip, 11.7Ks per nine. and he continues to strike out a ridiculous number of opposing hitters. What I will say about Blake Snell is I don't think he's going to have a 225 ERA again. Last year, his FIP was 344, his expected ERA was 377, his ex-FIPP was 362. I don't think he's really a 225 ERA pitcher.

You know, not to say he couldn't have a season like that again, I guess, in some world, but it's not my baseline expectation. He just came on very strong at the end of the season. It felt like as the season went on where guys like Zach Gowlin and other, you know, notable Sigh young candidates kind of faltered a bit or had their bad outings, he didn't. He got stronger. In fact, his last 22 starts of 23, 130 innings pitch 1.18 ERA 482 opposing OPS. Like that's outrageous.

That's insane. 22 starts is more than like that's two thirds of a season where he had a 1.18 ERA. That's crazy. And that's why the giant. I think, or I'm sorry, not the Giants, that's why the Padres were able to stay in the hunt. I mean, they, they were a team that were very good at times and very bad at times. And they had a crazy run differential, but it was like Blake Snell was, you know, that that pitcher, especially down the stretch that when, when they started creeping back into things, when it looked like the Padres were out of it, next thing you know, they're breathing down the Diamondback's neck. It was because of Blake Snell.

It really was. And, yeah, Blake Snell is is not, you know, for as good as his stuff is. he's not necessarily the best watch in baseball. It's not always going to look pretty. He led all of baseball in several categories last year, hits per nine, ERA, ERA plus, and walks. He also led all of baseball in walks with 99 of them. So yeah, it's not always pretty with Blake Snell's command is not always the best. And like I said earlier, I don't really see a 225 ERA being sustainable for him.

but he's still a really good pitcher. And you look at the Giants rotation right now. Once they get healthy, I know Alex Cobb is coming back from some sort of a hip injury. Robbie Ray still working his way back from Tommy John as well. But you've got Logan Webb, Blake Snell, Alex Cobb, Robbie Ray, Kyle Harrison. Harrison, for those who don't know, one of the best left-handed pitching prospects in all the baseball. You also have Jordan Hicks that they said they were going to stretch out.

Yes. As a starter, I imagine he's going to take the place of Alex Cobb or Robbie Ray. early in the season. Yeah. Do you think that they put Hicks eventually back in the bullpen? Yeah, I don't know. Right. Like, I mean, they have options now.

They have good options. And I mean, the Jordan Hicks things was almost, almost a little laughable when they did it because it was like, wow, you're getting one of the best relievers on the market. And then you're turning him into a starting pitcher. That seems. So the Braves did the same thing with Rinaldo Lopez. It's like the trendy thing to do. Yeah. Like the Astros keeping Josh Hater as a reliever was just a massive mistake.

Like the Astros absolutely should have stretched out, Josh Hater. Well, you said this the other day. Well, we weren't even talking about what we were doing the show. You said every pitcher is a starter when they start pitching. Nobody is like, I'm going to be a pitcher, but I'm going to be a one-inning reliever. Relievers are technically failed. Technically failed starters. If you like go trace their career back far enough.

Of course. But yeah, the Giants have a lot of rotation depth. Yes. Keaton win is a pretty good pitcher as well. I suspect he'll also be in the rotation to open the year with both Cobb and Ray out. But yeah, the Giants offensively, you know, but still say the Diamondbacks are a better team offensively for comparing those teams. But from a pitching standpoint, it's hard to argue, honestly, that the Giants of full strength don't have about as good of a rotation as any team in baseball. I mean, I think the Dodgers would still be up there.

The Mariners come to mind, you know, maybe there's another team or two in that mix. But it's a really, really good group that the Giants have now. It's mostly it's the fact that you have the number one and number two vote getter for the Sy Young Award now on the same team. Yeah. And it's the fact that the National League West, I think, just it continues to get more difficult to manage. They have to do this, though, because as much as we as the Diamondbacks are trying to keep up with the Dodgers, so is everyone else. And now teams are even, in fact, trying to keep up with the Diamondbacks. So it's no surprise of the team like the Giants went out there and spent this money.

But what's more of a surprise is how they were able to get both Blake Snell and Matt Chapman for what they were able to get them for. Yeah. Jesse is Scott Boris washed? I think he might be. I think he might be. Did he lose his magical hat or whatever the hell he uses that power over people? Yeah. If we look at this, we have a tweet about that that does make the claim that Scott Boris has watched.

This is from Addison on Twitter. Cody Bellinger, it says, wanted 200 plus million and got. 80 million. Matt Chapman wanted 150 million and got 54 million. Blake Snell wanted 270 million and got 62 million. The tweet concludes with the word washed and a picture of Scott Boris. I mean, what else do you say to that? Yeah. I think this is a necessary thing that needed to happen. I think, I think teams needed to tell Scott Boris no to these outrageous contracts. I think he needed to be taken down a peg, right? I mean, of course, there's a vested interest. for us as Arizona Diamondbacks fans for Scott Boris to in fact be watched.

And that's because we would like to get Zach Gallen on a $52 million two-year deal with a third year option at $17 million. That's what we would like. Can we get that? Oh, man. And he absolutely does look like a Bond villain donkey. You're right. I did want to take a moment just to address our known baseball GM, Elise.

Happy birthday, Elise. Yes, yes. Very good to have you here on your birthday. Are you blessing us with your presence? We appreciate it. We know you have a lot of trades, free agency stuff, stuff you're working on as a known baseball gym. So we appreciate that. And Michael's asking if I'm drinking a beer.

Well, even though Elise is a Pisces and I'm an Ares, we still celebrate our birthdays this week together because mine's on Sunday. This is your birthday week. This is my birthday week. So what I decided, Jesse, is since I got so drunk at Gerald's wedding that I'm just going to keep drinking. Okay. Like, I'm just not going to stop drinking the whole week. I feel like once I stop drinking, that's when something terrible is probably like some hangover or something is going to catch up to me. But if I keep the party going, hopefully that'll work out.

Scott Boris, by the way, he's taking a lot of L's. He's getting hit on Twitter quite a bit. Our guys over at Cuspitus Family Barbecue had this absolute classic of a tweet. And that was, here we, do you got it, Damon? Is it the farhand tweet? It is the tweet about the Golden Sombrero. Do we have the tweet about the golden sombrero? We can read it too.

No, that's fine. I think they're just labeled weird and I didn't make them. Oh, okay. It's actually labeled Jordan Montgomery. It's Jacob's fault. Oh, it's Jacob's fault. Yeah, this is Jacob's fault. We'll go ahead.

Why would you guys not say that it said Jordan Montgomery in it? I don't, because it's not, because it's not, Montgomery is not really like what it's about. It's Boris is one, Jordan Montgomery, two years, 52 million with an opt-out away from an off-season golden sombrero. Which is just, that's just facts, Derek.

That's just facts at this point. I mean, the contracts that, the contracts that we just discussed with Matt Chapman and Blake Snell and Cody Bellinger, right, Bellinger was 80 million, Chapman 54, Snell 62. Yeah, if Jordan Montgomery does sign a contract in a similar, that has a similar format, it is going to be another L for Scott Boris. It is going to be another strikeout for Scott Boris, if you will. And for strikeouts, as we all know, does make a golden sombrero. So yeah, I think Scott Boris just, I mean, it's been pretty clear for

weeks now. And this deal just continues the narrative that Scott Boris overplayed his hand this offseason and did not read the market well. I think in, in situations where the biggest spenders around the league are not very active, Scott Boris struggles a little bit, right? The Rangers aren't spending a ton of money. They're not sure about their RSN situation. The Yankees apparently made an offer to Blake Snell in the $150 million range a while back, but they were not willing to do this deal, apparently. We heard about the Astros being interested as well. There were other teams certainly at play here,

but a lot of the top spenders in the market, the Mets or another one, were not willing to go to the nine years, $270 million, or I believe that was the initial ask from Boris for Snell. So it's been a rough off season for Scott Boris. There's no way around that. I think we all understand that. He didn't read this market well.

He tried to wait and wait and wait and hope that teams would get desperate enough to just pay the prices that he was asking. And that did not happen. And he is, yeah, I mean, Scott Boris is never going to come out publicly and say that he took these Ls. He's never going to admit it. He's going to spin it as positively for him as he can. But the reality is that he has taken. and three pretty clear Ls so far this offseason. Farron Zahidi, it's the GM of the Giants.

Yeah, I think he's the president of baseball operations. Played his cards pretty well here because there's a tweet from Bob Nightingale, and that's the one Damon was referencing. Bob Nightingale goes on to say, is it Farhan Zaidi? Am I saying that right? Yes, I think so. Reiterates Giants will likely will not add another marquee free agent. The quote says,

we have talked all offseason and have been very consistent that our plan was to continue to graduate some of our young players. The offseason is really over as far as I'm concerned. Jesse, that was on March 3rd. Yeah. That was on March 3rd that he said this or that that's when this tweet is from. So here we are 16 days later. Liar. Do you think that it was a negotiating tactic?

Do you think that something changed over that time? Because I feel like maybe with the investments that they've made, that they were probably done after Matt Chapman, but then you find out you're not that far out of the market for someone like Snell. And, you know, again, when you take a look at this NL West, what the Giants had done prior to adding Snell

was not enough to keep up with the Dodgers. It was not enough to keep up with the Diamondbacks, to be honest. Yeah, yeah, I think that's fair. Yeah, I mean, Farhan Zaidi, like, props to him, man. He's a good, he's a good thing. He's dealt with Scott Voris before. He knows how these situations play. with your game, sir.

He is familiar with Scott Boris's game. And if you're, if you're interested in a Scott Boris client, the last thing you do is you go out publicly and you say, you know, we would really like to add X, you know, right.

You don't do that. You go out and you say, we like what we have in house. We've maintained the whole loss season. We just wanted to open the door for our young players. And meanwhile, you add Jordan Hicks, Robbie Ray,

Jorge Solair, young Hulie, Matt Chapman, and Blake Snow. Yeah. That right there is like a fairly formidable team that you could put other players around and not spend that much on the rest of the team and probably have a decent team. Like I'm not saying that's a contender, but just with those guys that they added this offseason makes a team a pretty good team. Yeah.

Yeah, it does. And it just goes to show that, you know, markets will work themselves out at different paces depending on the year. Sure. And not that long ago, Giants fans were very unhappy with Faron's IED and the, you know, what the giants had done or really not done this offseason. And suddenly you look up and, you know, Solair, Chapman, and Snell are all giants. And it's like, yeah, they, they had a pretty darn good offseason all of a sudden.

And again, maybe part of that is in the past that the Giants were connected to players that they missed out on. Right. And then that makes you look like you are that much worse as a GM. when in fact, I think a savvy GM would look at some of these contracts and wonder, like, does this really worth, you know, impacting the future of this franchise in such a significant way in order to assign a player to this amount of money, right? Sure. A lot of these GMs aren't even going to be around at the end of these players contracts, right?

Like, can you imagine GM being like, I'm going to be here in 13 years to see the end of Fernando Tatis's deal, right? Like, that's not happening. So why would you even care? Like, screw it. Just acquire as many guys as you can and just go all in. play monopoly with someone else's money, right? And I mean, that's something that you have to balance as a GM is the future of your franchise and also trying to make, you know, your team as formidable as you can right now.

The Giants have done that. But the question is, are they better than the Diamondbacks? Did the Giants do enough to theoretically without a single regular season game being played, kind of move up in the hierarchy and kind of get in between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks? Yeah, I mean, we got to we got to play the games to find out, right? But on paper, we can at least learn a few things. If you go over to fan graphs and their projected standings right now, the Giants did not leap over the Diamondbacks with this move, but they did get pretty close. As far as close as you can humanly get it feels like. The Diamondbacks are projected to win 83.6 games.

The Giants are now at 83.2. The Padres are right behind them at 82.6. How do the Diamondbacks get better and then get projected to win less games? Yeah, I get it. No, it's just point four less games, but still it's less games. Yeah. And I mean, it's because the Diamondbacks last season or a minus 15 team in the regular season. Right.

As far as run differential. Yeah. As far as run differential goes, you know, computers will be viewing the baseline for the Diamondbacks as being about 80 wins last year. Sure. Not as being a true 84 win team talent wise. And so, you know, you could still make a case. Like, haven't they improved by more than like three and a half wins this off season?

and I understand that, but yeah, that's what the computers are saying. And they're saying the Giants are right up there with the Diamondbacks. They're saying the Diamondbacks have a 46.8% chance to make the playoffs. And the Giants have a 44.4% chance to make the playoffs. So basically the Diamondbacks, Giants, and Padres are a rounding air apart from each other. They're all in basically the exact same position in the National League as far as these projection systems are concerned. And Elise, again, who knows entirely too much about baseball once again, says the giant signing

Snell was a good distraction for the fan outrage at them letting their beloved PA announcer go their same day. Yeah, that's Rinell Brooks Moon, who was very popular. Yeah. With San Francisco. The staple of the San Francisco Giants. Was this signing just damage control? Is that how this was?

It's a brilliant movie. It's a brilliant movie. That's what it was. but of course I agree with what is it I'm just going to say pond donkey is that what it is I'm sure that's some sort of terrible reference I shouldn't be saying on the show but he says this is good news the more disrespect the better the debacks do which is a great point like the diamondbacks do play well from a position of being the underdog I think that's what fueled them so well through the playoffs until they got to a point where they truly like the Rangers were the favorite I'm not going to act like they weren't but when we got to the world series that's the point of time where it finally felt like people were looking at the two teams evenly. Up until that point, the Diamondbacks had just been expected to lose every single series. When they got to the World Series, then the narrative changed to like, hey, these are two teams

that were 100 lost teams two seasons ago. They both fought their way here. Rangers had their ups and downs. They had their ups and downs. Neither were really favoreded to get to the World Series once the playoffs started, but yet here they are, right? And so now, you know, you have the fact that the Diamondbacks do kind of get put back in a position.

They already were. They were already the underdog in the division. compared to the Dodgers. And I'm not sure if a lot of people were going to give them a lot of respect based on last year's postseason run. However, I don't want them to get that respect. Besides in MLB the show, which happy MLB the show 24 date, all those to celebrate, by the way. It's a wonderful day. I'm amazed you're here, Derek.

Oh, I told Jacob, I almost called out this morning. It was very, very difficult for me to actually put on clothes and drive into work with that game being on my Xbox. But of course, you know what, Damon, do we have some shots? of MLB the show, by the way. Oh, we're just going for it. Yeah, we're just going for it. This was me today. Just out there just doing work

against the Texas Rangers with Zach Gallen, by the way, eight strikeouts, two walks in a win, two one victory for the Diamondbacks. You got, you had, you had our guide tea time. Yeah. Came in. We had Kevin Ginkle. We had Seawald closed the game down.

Of course, the best thing is that they got all of the parts of Chasefield right, as they always do, including, Cold beers and cheeseburgers, which has the correct name of Eat Food Now, or Eat Food Here. Can they, I think they get this. I think they do this on purpose, right? Like, they want us to mock the names of the eatery. They could name it something that's close. Yeah.

It doesn't have to be cold beers and cheeseburgers, but they could just have cheeseburgers up there would have been fine. And you know those folks over there, cold beers and cheeseburgers will have loved it. Yeah. The only person that would have hated this is Max because of how much free advertising I'm giving out right now. But that's not going to stop just that. We're doing that a lot in the show. because Max isn't in the office

so I can do what I want. Of course, I do appreciate you guys being here right now in the PHNXports YouTube channel. If you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, make sure to do so now. Sign up for notifications. That way you don't miss when any of our wonderful shows go live. Also, leave us a thumbs up. We always love those likes. Drop those likes for us.

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Terms and conditions apply at participating locations. Visit CircleK.com for details. Well, we talked an awful lot about Blake Snow, and I don't want to talk about him anymore. I want to talk about our aces. I want to talk about our pitchers because these guys are moving. moving at the right speed now towards opening day. We know that at times we saw Zach Gallen kind of have a little bit of a struggle there in spring training, but both Zach Gallen and Merrill Kelly absolutely cruised in their outings

on Sunday and yesterday. Zach Gallen went four and one-thirds innings pitch, gave up one hit, no runs, no walks, 4Ks, 58 pitches, inject it directly into my veins. He's ready for the opening day, which it's now official, by the way, if you had any doubts, Zach Galen will be the Arizona Diamondback starting pitcher on opening day just in case you were wondering about that. Shocking. Shocking. Absolutely shocking.

Merrill Kelly, meanwhile, three and a third innings pitch, four hits allowed, no runs, one walk. Seven Ks. Let's go, Merrill. Yeah, he had 11, 11 whiffs in that game, I think. He had really good stuff. Gallon average 92.7 with his four seamer on Sunday, which I thought was interesting. That's higher than we've seen it in recent days.

So that's a big development. And his slider and curveball were oddly like three miles an hour lower than they were last year. Maybe we'll see that Velo tick up in the coming days. Saw an interesting thing from Chris Bassett over on foul territory where he was talking about how he thinks like the demand for VLO is why we're seeing so many injuries to the pitchers and why there's so many Tommy John surgeries that are required. And especially when it comes to this time of the year where you're still ramping up, you know, to getting there. Sure. Like one thing, getting back to MLB the show that I really liked is that as you. get warmer in the game, it gets a little easier to throw those pitches and right in the zone like you're supposed to, right?

So it's like, yeah, I mean, you know, you got to warm up, got to warm up video game's trying to teach us these things. But Merrill Kelly's already hot. He's been hot since his first outing. And he might have gotten a little hotter yesterday because as he was exiting one of the innings, there was a trivia question. As he was walking out on the mound. Oh. For one of one of the innings in this start, I'm not sure which one. This is pointed out by our friend Nick King over from channel three.

And yeah, at one point, while Merrill was walking out to the mound to start a new inning, the trivia question, who is the oldest player on the Diamond Back showed on the screen? They're doing like trivia questions and hires and lowers and all that stuff in between innings. And of course, the answer to that question is Merrill Kelly. And that's just got to be a hard moment for him, you know? Trust me. I deal with that difficulty every single day on this podcast. But this is what Merrill had to say about walking off the field and being a trivia answer. I don't know if Elvis is older than me or not.

I feel like he probably, I feel like he should be because he's been around forever. So if he makes a team, then I won't be the oldest. But as of it sits right now, I'm the oldest guy in the squad. So definitely got some old man, some grandpa comments when I got back into the dugout from that one. Were you aware of that? Yeah. Yeah, I'm aware of that. Is that a badge of honor for you at all being as good as you are and being the oldest one in you?

I don't know about a badge of honor. It's, it just kind of is what it is. I think it's cool in a way that it means that I've still at it, right? I'm still going. You know, we obviously have a fairly young team. We've got a lot of guys that are 28, 25 and under. So to be kind of on the way I kind of put it now, I'm definitely closer to the end of my career than I am in the beginning.

But the fact that I'm still here and, you know, I got drafted in 2010, I think it's my 14th full professional season. So that's definitely something to hang my hat on. And the fact that I'm still producing is always fun. I think when you start getting to the older ages and the production isn't as high as you'd like it to be, then I think that's when you start asking questions about what am I still doing here. But, you know, none of those thoughts coming to my mind yet. Was that Teo that asked him if it was a badge of honor?

No, no, that was Nick. Okay. The badge of honor. Derek, is it a badge of honor that you're the oldest person in the room right now? No, I hate that. I don't want to be. Get it? That is not an honor that I want to be.

It was a fair question, though, because it was, is it a badge of honor to be the oldest person on this team? And it'd also be like really freaking good at baseball, right? Yeah. I mean, that is, I think, in some way, at least for me, if I were in my shoes. That's how you needed to word it, though. That's how you needed to word it. Not just, is it a badge of honor.

Is it a badge of honor to be this old and also a badass of baseball? Is it a badge of honor to be rated as an 83 and have your 24-year-old teammates rated as a 72? Is that a badge of honor? because yes, yes, it is. I'm better than them even at this age. I also want to say this is the same reason why I need Rich Hill to get signed by a team, Jesse. I cannot be older myself than every major league baseball player.

I just can't do it. I cannot do it. I need Rich Hill to get signed by a team as soon as possible. I think he was like he wanted to be part of Little League with his son or something like that. No. He was maybe interested in signing later on in the season or something like that. Absolutely not. Can't have it.

Was it a badge of honor when you got sat at the old people table at Gerald's wedding? Shut up. I got sat next to Emma and I got her chicken tendies and macaroni and cheese for her meal that night because that's what she wanted. Well, Jesse and I were at the young people cool table. We were. Yes. Although there was talk that my rightful place was at the old person's table.

I was at the legends table. I'm willing to acknowledge that. It was the legends table is what it was. Legends versus stars. Yeah, legends versus, you know, rookies, I guess is what I would call it. Can I see what you were a rookie? best player on the team. Yeah.

So real quick. Elvis Andrus, just to be clear, is 49 days older than Merrill Kelly. So if, as Merrill said there, if Elvis Andrews does make the team, which I think he has a decent chance of doing it, then Merrill Kelly would in fact not be the oldest player on the Diamondbacks. Also, yeah, impressive that Elvis Anders isn't like way older than Merrill Kelly, given that this is his 16th season in the league. He debuted at 20 years old. So Merrill Kelly has less miles on his body for sure.

Maybe. Yeah, you could probably make that. You could probably make that case. Well, one guy who won't be making the opening day roster is Corbyn Martin. He was part of the group that was optioned this weekend, including Slade Cicone, Blake Walston. They were all optioned to AAA Reno. And then outfield of Kyle Garlick was reassigned to minor league camp. That means that the fifth starter spot is down to Ryan Nelson and Tommy Henry, along

with Bryce Jarvis. And obviously, yeah, we know that this entire time it's kind of been between Tommy Henry and Ryan Nelson, but Bryce Jarvis continues to pitch well recently. And he has made a case for himself to still remain in that group,

or at least in that, in that staying stretched out and part of that competition for now. Yeah, yeah. I think I'm still a little skeptical of Bryce Jarvis being a real candidate for the fifth starter spot, but I do think he's still in camp for a reason and is probably one of the guys they'd consider as a long relief option.

If the debacks want someone who can give them some length from the beginning of the year, he'd make a lot of sense. It looked really, really good. The other day, when he pitched out of the bullpen, I think it was three and a third, three and two-thirds, something like that. Five strikeouts, his stuff looked good.

He talked about adding a sinker and a cutter, which are new pitches for him. So, yeah, I definitely keep an eye on him. As far as Corbyn Martin is concerned, it sounds like this was really just a matter of him not being ready physically, which is kind of what we suspected would be the case.

Martin had just started pitching in games about a week ago. He's made a couple of appearances in Cactus League games at this point. But if you're going to have someone on your opening day roster, you need to be able to use them confidently, you know, more than once every three days. You need to be able to like, all right, we need a back to back from you or, you know, God forbid a back to back to back. Like those things do happen in the regular season. And especially at the beginning of the year when starters or their workloads are maybe

going to be a little bit less, you want to make sure everyone in your bullpen is, is ready to go and, you know, that you can confidently rely on it on them in those situations. So, you know, there might still be some things for Corbyn Martin to work on. I don't want to say it's this had nothing to do with him kind of continuing to hone his pitches and whatnot. But it doesn't seem like it because he is, he's had some success. He's looked very good. And we know that he is a guy absolutely on Torrey's radar. But like you said, it felt like Tori's kind of been setting us up to expect this, right?

It's like Randall Gritchick, because there was another guy who, whose status for opening day looks more and more doubtful as we get closer to that date based on his activities and based on how ready he is for the opening, for opening day. But that doesn't mean that he won't still be a part of the roster in the month of April, you know, going forward. Same thing like Cortman.

I don't think Cortman Martin. It'll take very long for them to turn to Corby Martin to have him come back up. So I think both of these guys will be on the roster fairly, soon, but that does leave, you know, the, the, the question about, you know, who's, who's going to stay on the roster, who's going to stay up a major league level, who gets sent down. Slate's coney still, I think still very much an asset for this team. Tori said it's still to be determined whether he will be a starter or work like, yeah, relief essentially.

Yeah, yeah. Tori said that Slade Sikoni will work bulk innings in the minors, but that it is not yet determined if he will actually start games in Reno. We have a clip here of Tori talking about Slate Sacconi. He's going to get bulk innings. Let's put it that way. So if he piggybacks with somebody, we're trying to figure that out. But he's going to get multiple innings.

And he's going to be as versatile as he possibly can be for us if there's ever a need here. Why is the idea of him as a potentially more interesting than with Blake? Yeah. to do with maybe his stamina, his ability to get through the line of three times. We just, we want to talk about it a little bit more to figure out what it'll look like. Can you maintain the stuff? That's also very important. You know, say any profiles as a reliever, but we want to put them in the best position to be

able to come up and help us out and win baseball games. So if it shows up as a starter, there's going to be a good reason for it. If it doesn't, there'll be a good reason for that as well. that's a confusing that's that's some confusing manager speak there right because like i get what he's saying right now it looks like slade is ready for the majors but really doesn't have somewhere kind of at this point that he fits in it right so if it comes to a point where one of the starters gets injured or maybe isn't playing well they might turn to slade at some point to actually start but it sounds like for the most part they're just trying to figure out how they can use it's just the part where he said

He doesn't profile as a reliever. Like, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of guys that have weird profiles on this team when it comes down to it. Jake McCarthy profiles is the greatest AAA hitter in the history of this franchise at time, right? But that doesn't mean anything at a major league level. Is he going to be a starter at a major league level? It doesn't sound like it. It sounds like he'll only be used in the case of some sort of emergency need. But it sounds like his chances to be a long.

reliever for this team are a lot more likely, at least in 2024. Yeah, absolutely. You know, Slade didn't have a great, a great spring overall. 648 ERA and four appearances, eight in the third innings. He was good in his first outing and just didn't really, at least from a box score standpoint, didn't really put together another good performance after that. So, yeah, I think the concern with Slade Sikoni is his ability to maintain his stuff, as you heard about Tori. So you heard Tori talking about there. People will probably remember when Slate

Sacconi came up last year, the Diamondbacks were very wary of having him face opposing teams for a third time. He was only throwing like, you know, 70, 75 pitches and a lot of his outings. So I think they want, I think they want more evidence that he can, that he can maintain his stuff deep and starts. And I guess this is a sign that they haven't seen that. Maybe for a while now. I think this is something that has shown up in prospect reports before for Slate Sikoni, that maintaining the stuff deep into outings, you know, has been a challenge for him. And in that situation, that doesn't mean that Slate Sikoni can't be a valuable pitcher. It just means that, you know, maybe you want to use him in these short bursts instead. Right.

Maybe he's kind of the, you know, the Dre Jameson from last year, or we can come in and give you two or three innings and be pretty effective in those two or three innings. But not, you know, you're maybe doing yourself a disservice if you try to drag him out for. five or six innings like a normal starter would. Well, a guy that knows a little something about going from a starter to an electric reliever is the beloved Diamondbacks pitcher Archie Bradley. There you go. And we saw Archie the other day walking around Salt River Fields just hanging out, just the vibes. He went and said, hey to Tori and such. But he actually made his webcast debut, which is probably more of the reason why he was roaming around that ballpark.

But here's what Tori had to say about Archie. as a broadcaster in his future as a broadcaster. Yes, very much so. Archie is one of a kind. He's full of energy, full of insights. He's a little bit different, a little bit different color every once in a while. But he's got a very competitive streak to him, and I know that he still wants to pitch. So I know he's had conversations with me in that office as of a couple days ago saying that while he's still recovering and getting his game back together,

He wants to explore and go down this road and see what it's all about. He belongs in Arizona. This is the right place for him. He's got a lot of fans in this town. So if he's going to cut his teeth in this industry, in this particular industry, I think he's in the right place. What does that be, Jesse? Is Archie going to be a reliever for this team? Is that what that means?

I don't think so. But I do think he could be a color commentator for this team. And that is what we saw yesterday for the first time. Mike Farron was on the call. accompanied by Archie Bradley on a webcast. Oh, that must have been pure chaos. Yeah, I heard a, I heard a little bit of it. And yeah, it was great. Archie, I think, is really just built for that. I mean, obviously talking with the media, talking about baseball has been that that comes very naturally to him. And it seemed like it did yesterday. I told you that yesterday or today,

actually, earlier we were talking that Archie was one of my favorite people to interview. Just because he was always very interesting. He did a great job of not. I guess always kind of staying even keel. Like when you went to him after a loss or bad performance, he was still able to come up with some great answers. He was still very open to the media and things like that. So there's a lot of things about Archie that I, you know, I mean, I've always loved.

He was always very charismatic and I think that that would transfer over very much to being a color commentator. He has a level of excitement about baseball that few people have. And like Tori said, he's loved here in Arizona. So I think that's something, I think that's something that for sure is, is a commodity for the Diamondbacks to explore, you know. Yeah, yeah. Archie, I mean, the Diamondbacks have made a practice and a lot of teams make a practice of, you know, bringing, hiring your, your legendary players after they've retired.

Players that people love like Tuffy Go Switch, who wasn't a great player as far statistically, but has a phenomenal. baseball name just for that alone. But he's been great too on the commentary as well. He's tough he's been calling some games as well. So yeah, Josh Colemanter. We saw him do. Oh, yeah. Josh was great too. Saw him do a little bit last year.

He did. Yeah, this spring too. I was well. I think Josh Mulnerger's been on the call a few times. Yeah, I think you're right. So yeah, I think this is great for Archie. And as you heard Tori say there, I don't think Archie is closing the door on pitching again. I think that's something he would like to do.

I knew that's what he was there doing. I knew it. I didn't need to be told that. I knew he was like. He still got it, boss. is what I feel like. Archie told him. He really just wanted to talk to the Diamondbacks about like, you know,

picking up a role as a reliever. And he's just using his services as a color commentator as a way to get to them, right? Is that what we feel like is happening here? Yeah. Well, I love Archie and I think that would be great. I would love to have Archie on this show. Archie needs to come chat with us because that would be a great. Great addition.

Some injury notes, by the way, everybody's okay. Gabriel Moreno, he returned from lower back tightness yesterday without any issues. Jerry P. expected to play tonight in the 6 p.m. game over at Sloan against the Cubs. So no worries, no concerns. Just Randall Gritchick. I've almost closed the door, frankly, on Randall Grishick being ready for opening day. We haven't seen him play in a game. Try to get more clarity today on exactly where he is from a running the basis standpoint.

Obviously, that's a box he's going to have to check and he's going to have to play in some actual games. So I think it's pretty likely at this point that Randall Grishick is not ready for opening day. Shouldn't be too long after that where he could be ready to go. But he had some bone spurs and his ankle cleared up in late January. and coming back from that has been maybe a little bit slower than we thought it would be. Once again, I think the mantra there in the clubhouse is different. I think the mindset is different. Like we can start off slow.

You know, of course, we've been warned by Paul Seawald and even Gino about how the slow start thing can really come up and bite you like it did the Mariners. But I think that they're looking more at this being, you know, a marathon than a sprint, which is exactly what the 162 game season is. Sure. They can start the season without him, but they can't afford him to kind of be injury prone and struggle with recovering from that injury all season long. So take your time, you know, as far as that's concerned, right? And I think that makes the most sense. Of course, we'll see how all this stacks up tonight.

Jesse will be out there at Sloan Park. If you're out there, make sure to give us a shout. And I think, by the way, I know we didn't do Mailbag Monday this week, but I think we might do that as a diehard only thing. this week. So of course, if you haven't signed up to become a PhNX diehard, make sure to do so over at goPHNX.com. We're bringing you all sorts of diehard only

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adult entree to redeem illegal Pete's sound check deals. Illegal Pete, your go-to spots for burritos, buddies, beer, and Damon, who's always there at the Tempe location. Baseball, Jesse, technically starts in like 15 hours in Seoul, Korea. Are you going to do it? Are you going to set an alarm for 3 a.m. and watch the Dodgers and the Padres? Am I not going to set an alarm for 3 a.m.

to watch the Dodgers and the Padres? I absolutely. Look, if I get up in the middle of the night on January 4th, just to watch pro wrestling in Japan. I'm definitely going to get up at 305 on tomorrow morning. I might just stay up that late. It might be the same thing as the beer. But yeah, Padres, Dodgers.

The Dodgers played a Korean, like, national team. They also played, I think, the Kawhom Heroes. So they've been out there playing baseball. But this is it. This is real. It starts. Are you going to stay up until 305 or get up at 305? You would be staying up until that time.

I don't imagine you'd be waking up at that time. Yeah, if it were me, you would probably be staying up. Um, we'll, we'll see. We'll see how my energy level is like. Maybe I can rally and stay up until three. I don't, I don't really anticipate watching the entire game because it's not, like the diamond backs are not playing, right? I don't know.

I don't make like a regular practice of like waking up super early or staying up super late to watch other baseball teams that I don't cover play. But I am at least a little intrigued by it. Maybe I'll, maybe I'll watch the first inning or something and then go to bed. We'll see what happens. But yes, baseball is, we're like scheduling postgame shows out because that's apparently happening like a week from now. There are actual real postgame shows coming up that we don't know when it's going to end.

We don't really know when spring training games are going to end. But we have a good idea at least of when we can go live. But yeah, post game shows next week. Baseball is back. Cannot wait. WWE, once again, I have to talk about pro wrestling. They are getting you ready for the baseball season with some gorgeous looking hardware. they released a series of title belts for all 30 major league baseball teams.

Let's take a look at the Arizona Diamondbacks one because it's absolutely gorgeous. Here, give me one second, sorry. Oh, okay. This is really right up your alley, Derek. These were made for you with you specifically in mind. They really were. This is one of those situations where I feel like they're paying attention, they're listening, and they're going very hard for my disposable income.

I don't have nearly $600 to spend on. this brand new belt jesse but um i feel like we can convince saul maybe to expense it it's as a needed purchase for the set this is what the belt looks like right there and that's just absolute fire absolute fire those are removable side plates on there jesse uh those little snake heads come off so you can you know uh throw on your your john sina or your roman rain side plates of course i know you're big side plates guy a big side plates the one thing i really liked about this damon if you could pull up the website is that their webs, the belt designs for all teams are very different. And I think that that's something unique that we don't necessarily see sometimes when they do this kind of stuff.

Every team kind of has its own unique shape. There's small details to each one that really just make them stand out specifically for those teams. I think they did a great job with these, which they don't normally do. Like someone who was a Pirates fan was pointing out that they have like the Roberto Clemente Bridge on it. There you can see on the Giants one. It has like the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. Yeah, that's cool. Oakland, you can see an absolutely empty stadium in the background.

It's wild. They included all the details that you needed to see. That was unnecessary day. You know what? The Rockies shouldn't have one of these, and I'll say it out loud. But the Mariners one is dope. That is incredible looking. See, that's what like some of these side plates or some of the designs I can see what like

championship belt they're actually stealing it from a little bit because I'm that much of a wrestling nerd, but I don't care. I love the work that they put into. these. I think they did some NFL ones and they were a little bit more cookie cutter. So I give them a lot of credit for that because that's those are some pretty fire championship belts, which we all should all. We should all have the Diamondbacks one, right? I mean, so I understand that I'm not exactly the target audience for these particular things, but $550. I don't know if I would pay $50 for one of those. I'm being totally honest. He doesn't understand how heavy they are,

that they're made with real metal and jewels and leather that you can strap it over your shoulder that was what he asked me was like where do you wear this too yeah yeah like from like you bring a fashion standpoint like am i supposed to act like no you can't actually wear a belt that's that big you can't sit down in the seats and do it that's where you have to like throw it over your shoulder or something like that but that's you know wear it around your neck like a necklace there's a lot of options that's bad ass yeah see he gets it um it's not it's not it's not just it's not just the thing that you wear around your waist but uh it's it reminds me once again of the Hannibal Burris post when he said he never understood why people come to wrestling shows and

bring a championship belt with them until he did it. And then he understood. You just can't understand until you're there at the event walking around with that hardware on your shoulder. You really just can't understand it. So yeah, make sure if you want one of those, you go check it out. The Mariners one looks like the colored inversion of the current heavyweight title. See Pedro gets me.

I saw that. I caught that. But yeah, those are amazing. and Bravo to, I guess, fanat. No, we're not giving fanatics any credit. We'll give credit to WWE. I want to give credit to Fanatics, but everything, every fiber of my being doesn't allow me to do that. And it did look a little transparent to me.

Maybe that was just me. I'm not sure. If you wear it with like, if there's patches and stuff on your clothes behind it, you're going to see right through that belt. Of course, we thank you guys for being here. We will be back tomorrow with our 6 p.m. show after tomorrow's game. But like I said, make sure to follow Jesse. He'll be out there at Sloan Park tonight, giving you guys updates from Diamondbacks versus Cubs. In the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter.

I am at Cap underscore Caveman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs. Of course, I was about to leave him out because I'm furious with him right now. But it's Damon. He's Damon at Damon Dog. We are Damon's dogs sometimes. Bark, bark.

But of course, our show again is at PHNX underscore Dbacks. And all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore Sport. on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We thank you guys again for your time today. We will be back again, like I said, at 6 p.m. tomorrow. In the meantime, you guys have a wonderful night. Go D-Backs and remember kids. Baseball is fun, but it is so much more fun

when you keep your goddamn Tsay-Young winners out of the NL West.