PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Does Major League Baseball NEED a free agent signing deadline?

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

It’s time for the annual nighttime spring training game between the Diamondbacks and the Reds! We preview the matchup and discuss if the Reds are poised to be the next big thing in 2024. Also, with so many top tier free agents still available on the market, does MLB need to institute a free agency signing deadline?An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to Suns Takeovers, Coyotes & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://gophnx.com/events/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.

And welcome in to another edition of the P. HNX Diamondbacks podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Eric Montia, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX. And of course, welcome to another edition of this wonderful show. I'm joined here by my vice mayor and your thunder stick, the one and only Jesse Friedman. And again, happy Friday to you all. We got our annual Diamondbacks Cincinnati Reds night time game out in good year tonight. Big event. Some huge event.

It's the talk of the baseball world right now, of course. And Jesse will be out there because that's what he does. He does, he does. Whether it's bringing the information back to the show or just going for his own amusement. Jesse is always out there watching baseball. And yeah, we have a lot of good things to talk about when it comes to that Cincinnati Reds team. I don't know if you want to call it good. Might not want to call it good.

We knew they were going to be a problem. And it very much feels like a lot of people, including ESPN, think that that Reds team is going to, in fact, be a problem in 2024. Yeah, they had a story today about the Reds. Like, who could be the Diamondbacks of 2024 and the Cincinnati Reds are, I think the most natural answer to that question. That's sort of what ESPN seemed to think. Young, exciting.

Yeah, a lot of young players with pretty high-level potential. And honestly, I mean, I think the Reds Young Corps is, I mean, I think they have more potential star-level players than the Diamondbacks even do. But they also don't have Zach Allen. They, you know, they don't have Merrill Kelly. They don't have the star power at the top of the rotation that the Diamondbacks do. So there's some interesting comparisons there. I could see the Reds taking a big step forward in in 2024, but they still have,

there's still some questions to be answered there as well. Well, shout out to OG's brands. Of course, the official sponsor of Flavoring Fridays. Head on over to OGsbrands.com to see their full lineup, including their two newest gummies, the OGs naturals, and the big OGs, and find out where you can purchase those. And, of course, it's a wonderful time of the year because baseball, OGs can enhance watching baseball. OGs can enhance everything, but there's so much baseball to be had here in Arizona.

Of course, we do know that this Diamondbacks team, like the Reds team, continues to kind of get younger, continue to evolve and allow some of their guys from the minor league system to come up and now become their everyday starters. But the Diamondbacks did lose some of those starters during the off season, and we just wanted to take a moment to do a little spying on our exes. So we wanted to check in, and let's check in with some of these former Arizona Diamondbacks just to see where they've landed on, of course, another edition of spying on our exes.

The first guy, Jesse, of course, I mean, a lot of these guys are unsigned, and, of course, we are going to talk about the Major League Baseball signing people, period and kind of how maybe a deadline is needed, something more than this soft deadline that they currently have. But a lot of the former Diamondbacks, especially the ones that help this team get to the postseason and have that success in the postseason, we're still unsigned. Evan Longoria right now, still unsigned, perhaps contemplating retirement. That might be the direction he goes.

Perhaps, yeah, yeah, no Evan Longoria deal just yet. at the end of last year he was certainly, certainly sounded like he was interested in playing another season. If he found the right opportunity, I guess he hasn't found that at this point. I know Mark Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times earlier this month had, I guess I should say last month, early in February.

Right. So we're now in March. This is a whole new month. It's a whole new month. Opening day, opening days this month. It's in this month. We hit opening day and my birthday in the month of March.

It's great. It's everyone's favorite month. Of course. But yes, Longoria, according to Mark Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times, was still weighing his options. That report came out about a month ago now. So presumably he's still in that process. We haven't heard anything official in terms of, you know,

him wanting to retire. But I could see that happening. I mean, Evan Longoria in the second half of the 2023 season, really struggled for the Diamondbacks offensively. We saw what he was able to give them in the playoffs and especially defensively, what he was able to give them in the playoffs. He was an enormous part of the clubhouse and I think still played a big role on the Diamondbacks doing what they did. But on the field, you know, teams are going to want to be able to count on what they're getting on the field from him as well.

And based on what he did toward the end of last year, I think there, you know, there might be some doubts about what he could really give a team at this point. Well, when the Diamondbacks brought him on, his two options at the time were pretty much places where he currently lived, which was here in Arizona and in Tampa. And, you know, of course, both the Tampa Bay Rays and the Diamondbacks are teams that are kind of moving in a direction where, you know, Longoria wouldn't really fit in on the roster wouldn't have, you know, that opportunity to play. So I'm not sure what what his plans are for the future. I feel like after seeing him do what he did for this team last year, he still has a lot left in the tank. But again, it's sometimes it's, you know, it's that time. And I think Longoria is one of those guys. He has a great personality.

He has a lot of other interests. Huge card collector. And I say, like, he's the kind of card collector that when you're in his orbit, he kind of brings you into his love for card collecting. So honestly, I would, I'd love, give Evan Longoria some sort of baseball show where he is, you know, telling us all about card. Because he literally breaks down for people what the worth of cards are and why they're worth so much money.

He just seems to be very, you know, very into that world. We need the Evan Longoria car. art collecting show. Let's put it on P.HNX. Yeah. He'll come on right after the Gabby and Lourdes show that Jacob Warnard. He lives in Scottsdale. It's a, you know, a nice easy trip to downtown.

We figured it out. We'll sign it. We'll sign it basically is what we're saying. We'll take him. Another guy will sign that's currently unsigned. Tommy Pham. Let's bring him in here to co-host that show because that's electric. But fam obviously definitely has some more interest there.

Tom, Bob Nightingale five days ago, outfielder Tommy Fam, who just four months ago help lead the Arizona Diamondbacks to the National League pennant, continues working out every day in Las Vegas, waiting for someone, anyone to just make a contract offer. I don't feel like Bob needed to put that anyone part in there. I feel like just reading that out loud. That's really the part that sounds super negative about that tweet.

But yeah, let's, of course, Tommy Fam again, another guy, he's at the tail end of his career. He definitely still has, you know, a lot, I think, left to offer a team. but it's it's just baseball right i mean at this point it does feel like the trend is moving towards

the direction of of younger players i feel like more last year we saw more young superstars from the minor league come up than we have in a number of years right and so i could definitely see there being a lack of roster spot sometimes for some of these veterans that can still especially if you have a young team that that still can you know help in in various ways that definitely don't show up on the stat sheet yeah i think i think the issue you for Tommy fam is that he really wants to play every day. That's kind of what, you know, the news that came out from him from the beginning of the offseason. And I think it's going to be hard to find that opportunity. Apparently, it hasn't found it to this point. I suspect that if Tommy

Fam were willing to be a fourth outfielder or, you know, kind of a part-time player, I think he probably would have a contract offer that he was happy with at this point. But if you go out and you say, like, I'm only interested in playing every day. That's going to really narrow the field. And, you know, I think Longoria is maybe dealing with some, you know, a similar situation where I don't think he necessarily needs to play every day. But I think Evan Longoria, you know, he doesn't want to sign a minor league deal with the pirates. Like, you know, he wants to at least have a path to playing for a team that could win, at least

that's what I would want if I were him at this stage in his career. And I don't know if you're going to find that at this point. Right. And that's fine. but sometimes I feel like, you know, I guess it depends on how much you want to still play this game in some form, right? Is it better to just not play at all? Or is it better to take that minor league deal with some team? And, you know, realize that this is the tail end of your career.

That sucks. It's a hard thing to come to terms with. I think athletes, any sport, it's hard to get to that point where you have to kind of move from being, you know, know, one of the superstars to being a role player, to being a guy that maybe isn't going to start, to being a guy that is going to contribute in other ways but isn't going to play every single day. I will give a lot of credit to Nick Ahmed, for instance, because Nick Ahmed signed a minor league deal with the Giants.

And very quickly, Nick Ahmed, through spring training, has kind of moved up and could end up being the Giants starting shortstop. So, I mean, taking that minor league deal doesn't necessarily mean that you're not. not going to end up on the major league roster, especially when you're a veteran guy with experience that potentially they're an injury or maybe even a young player playing badly away from calling you up and having you have a more significant role. I mean, yeah, the Giants just didn't get much from shortstop last year. We saw Marco Luciano in the starting lineup yesterday and he didn't look great defensively. You know, he's never really been a premier defensive shortstop. So,

yeah, if you're the Giants, you know, you might be kind of at the point where maybe we're not expecting to get much from Nick Ahmed offensively, but if he's, you know, a significantly better shortstop defensively than anyone else that you have, there's a path there. So, yeah, good, uh, didn't get to see Nick Ahmed in the lineup yesterday.

He didn't play when the Diamondbacks face the Giants, but it does sound like there's legitimately a role for him, for him there. A lot of these guys that the Diamondbacks have parted ways with that's kind of the key here is, is that they do have to accept a role. And again, the Diamondbacks didn't just,

designate guys for assignment just because they weren't going to be starters again. You know, there's a point where your role is going to diminish so much with a team that releasing you might just be the best option, not only for the team, but for you to go find an opportunity to play

elsewhere. Another one of the Diamondbacks X is Carson Kelly. He was released by the Diamondbacks in mid-August and he was picked up by the Detroit Tigers and still with the Tigers as their backup catcher behind Jake Rogers. And the Tigers exercise, sized their $3.5 million option for 2024.

So they must like what what Carson is doing as a backup for them. Yeah, I was maybe a little surprised by that. I mean, Carson. Picking up the $3.5 million. Yeah, I mean, you know, maybe you'd want him, but, but maybe you could have him in a lower dollar figure. Did you have a $2.8 million buyout or something? Because sometimes that's it, right?

Yeah. We're going to pay him that much money. We might as well just pay him a little more extra and keep him on the roster. He, uh, he slashed 173, 271, 271, 269 after. going to the tiger. So he was actually even a little bit worse with Detroit offensively than he had been with the Diamondbacks. And of course, he was struggling offensively with Arizona too.

So yeah, a little, maybe a little surprising to see the Tigers willing to pay that kind of money for him as a backup catcher. But it did at least cross my mind, like what the Diamondbacks like to still have Carson Kelly in the fold right now is we're having these backup catcher conversations. It's not necessarily a super high bar right now with Jose Herrera and, you know, or Barnhart, the season he had last year, the struggles that he had also, you know, being DFA'd in the first year of a two-year contract. So, yeah, I mean, I don't know if Carson would necessarily give the Diamondbacks much of an upgrade, but he's still out there.

And he's also only 29 years old, which kind of, kind of blows my mind. I think we view Carson Kelly as being this, you know, this grizzled veteran at this point. And he's really not that. He's still a pretty young guy who just is with the injury last year. year and some of the struggles he's had offensively. His stock has really fallen here in the last year or two. Tucker Barnhart had put up better numbers last year than that for sure. He slashed 202, 285-257, 541 OPS. It's pretty pretty similar. Pretty terrible. No, I know, pretty, still pretty bad, right? But the point being is that the Diamondbacks are going to pay Tucker Barnhart nearly $3.5 million for that catcher backup catcher role, right? So I don't know. Carson Kelly is a guy that

course a lot of diamond backs fans you know still love and and understandably so he was a big part of some magical moments for this team he just couldn't stay healthy unfortunately a few other guys still haven't been signed uh we have kyle lewis debacks non-tendered him in november he's still unsigned uh let's see we got um yeah i mean zach davies was released by the diamondbacks uh he signed a minor league deal with the Washington National. So the Diamondbacks, when you look kind of at these guys, at this collection of players that the Diamondbacks have moved on from this, not this offseason and last year, there's really not like a, oh man, I feel like we're going to really miss that guy.

And that's no knock to any of these players. I just mean as far as their production and what they gave to this team, usually you do lose some guys that leave kind of on their own and they go sign elsewhere because they paid more money and it feels a little bit more like a loss. I don't feel that with this, you know, particular set of players. There are still some young guys like Diego Castillo and stuff that could still end up being good and, you know, whatever.

Well, Diego Casillo is that a rough off season, man. The Diamondback's DFA, Diego Castillo in December. Everybody DFA. He was claimed by the Mets, DFAed by the Mets, claimed by the Yankees, DFAed by the Yankees, claimed by the Phillies, DFAed by the Phillies, claimed by the Orioles, and just not that long ago. It's like two weeks ago, DFAed by the Orioles, but this time, Derek, he cleared waivers. So he is now, I guess, in the kind of the minor league portion of the Orioles system.

You know, I don't want to feel happy for him that he cleared waivers because that makes his path to the majors a little bit more difficult. But at least he's not going to be bouncing from organization to organization for another two months. He's free. He's free. It's been a rough. It's been a rough. There's only one person I can think of that had a rougher, I said, think off season, if you will, than him.

And that was Will Ferrell back in 2015. Yeah, yeah, that was rough. Real Farrell had a rough day because Will Ferrell, he was signed by the Oakland A's as an undrafted amateur free agent. Same day, traded to the Seattle Mariners for a comedic actor to be named later. Then he joined the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for an unknown amount. He was traded to the Cubs for a washing machine. Then he was traded to the Diamondbacks.

That was an egregious over. It's a huge egregious over. Because they traded him to the Cubs for a washing machine, right? But then he was traded to the Diamondbacks for a Churro dog and a debat dog. Jesse, that is a value of about $33 American. Then the Diamondbacks DFAed him. Then he was claimed off waivers by the Cincinnati Reds. They released Norm McDonald and a transaction related to that.

Granted, unconditional release by the Reds. And he was signed by the White Sox as a free agent. traded to the Giants for unknown compensation, then traded to the Dodgers, and then traded to the Padres. And all of that happened on March 12, 2015, all in the same way. Where are you getting all this information from? It's from baseball reference.com. Where would I get this information from? Of course I'm getting it from baseball reference.com.

It's crazy to even ask that. But anyway, yeah, the only guy that got a worse offseason there than Diego Castillo. But again, the Diamondbacks, much improved. I feel like when we kind of look at a lot of those names. Like I said, I mean, it just, it makes you feel like, especially with the success that they ended up having, that they really did move in a direction, shedding that skin a little bit and kind of getting away from some of those players that weren't contributing as much, but are hard to move on from because they are family. They're family within the organization.

Their family to the fans, you know, it's not easy sometimes to make those decisions, especially when a guy's not doing anything wrong other than just kind of struggling. You kind of wait for him to come out of it. You wait for him to show that he can still contribute in a way. And then you just have younger guys in the minor leagues that are sitting there waiting for their opportunity. You know, I mean, it just really does feel like even though it kind of sucks that the Diamondbacks did make the right decisions. I guess we should add Madison Bumgarner into this conversation and say that. Is he unsigned?

He is. Unsigned? There has been no news about Madison Bumgarner since the day that he was. to Eduardo Rodriguez, and then that's news with me, because that upsets me very much. But anyway, he might actually be done. You know, we haven't heard anything official, but it, certainly there were no reports last year of,

you know, him being in contact with any teams or trying to find a job after the Diamondbacks moved on from him. And we haven't gotten any of those reports this offseason either. So, yeah, you know, maybe this is, maybe this is the end for Madison. I want to give him some credit. What a legend to literally ride off into the sunset. You know? I mean, he's going to make $14 million just here no matter what.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Why wouldn't you just do that? But I mean, like, no podium, no retirement for Madison Bumgartner. He'll get no accolades. There will be no celebration. He'll just be on a ranch somewhere and his agent will message MLB and say he retired. That's it. That's the most pomp and circumstance you're going to get from him.

And that's fitting. It's fitting for him. But I did like all of the rumors of people thinking that a playoff team. was going to pick him up right there at the end last year though that was hilarious of course that didn't happen there were there rumors about that maybe it was jokes i don't know sometimes i don't know the difference between jokes and rumors really uh but i that's why i need you guys here for and i'm so glad you guys are here of course we appreciate you guys being here in the phnxports youtube channel if you have not subscribed to the channel yet make sure to do so now sign up for

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every day after that. Terms and conditions apply. Visit CircleK.com for details at participating locations. Also, check out our friends over at PrizePix because PrizePix is making it so much fun for you to get down on, of course, all of the basketball action right now. We are big basketball guys. We are our son's podcast at times, and we love getting down on the basketball action. You can get in on the excitement with prize picks, America's number one fantasy sports app, where you can turn your hoops knowledge into serious cash. And that is why I wait for Jesse's son's tweets at night.

Yeah, it's been a while. It has been a while. And it's because there's nothing for you to be negative about. There is. There is. They won five in a row. I almost sent out a negative tweet last night because the Suns, like, they lost to the Rockets last time. And last night they had one of the more uninspiring.

I think they won by five points over one of the worst teams in the Western Conference. So, yeah, the pessimism continues for me as far as the Suns are concerned. Yeah. Rattlebacks wants to know when you're going to move to Good Year full time. And I'd like to know that right now. Whenever he starts getting negative on the Suns, I just want him to move to Good Year. in this moment. I think that'd be closer to you, wouldn't it?

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Pick more, pick less. It's that easy. Jesse, why are there still MLB free agents available on the market? Because of Scott Boris. It's all his fall, right? Yeah, forget MLB's rules and everything. But yes, no, Scott Boris is absolutely to blame. Most of his clients are the ones still available.

And, of course, we just want this to move along faster. That's all. We just want, I feel like players should be with their teams by the time camp starts, but maybe they should at least be with their teams by the time spring training games actually start. Yeah. I don't know where the cutoff is, but I do feel like baseball needs some sort of signing deadline so that we don't get into, you know, actual regular season baseball games with some of the top players in the game still unsigned. And maybe even just looking to see where, you know, where's a, but if you can't get the contract you want,

maybe see who's doing good and where you can sign that you'll immediately kind of fit in with a contender. Yeah. It's not good for baseball that this is the case. Like we're going to get into some of the nuances of MLB having a signing deadline and some of the very valid challenges in that process. But I think we can all agree that it is bad for baseball, that it is March 1st. And opening day is now just a few weeks away.

Spring training has been underway for multiple weeks at this point. And Jordan Montgomery is still a free agent. Blake Snell is still a free agent. Matt Chapman is still a free agent. Like these are not guys who are going to get minor league deals. These are marquee free agents. These are really, really good players who can have a big impact on teams in 2024 that are still out there. And it's not only the fact that these guys are still out there that is bad for baseball,

it's the fact that baseball has a hard time really commanding any kind of news in the offseason because it's just so slow, right? I mean, Otani signs in December. And these free agent storylines, they just, you know, drag on from December. to January to February, now into March. There's no, you know, there isn't like this, this two-week period of chaos or whatever that you see in some of the other major sports.

And that's not a good thing for this game. Well, and we talked about it. I speculated on it. And I was, I couldn't have been more wrong because I felt like once Otani signed, that was the main piece. That was the thing that once. Yeah. Remember when we all thought that?

Yeah. Like, we just thought that teams understandably so, that were in the Otani sweepstakes, if you will, that missed out, that weren't the Dodgers, would have that extra money that they had set aside budgeted for him to spend on other free agents. So we thought, okay, that's where we'll see a Blake Snell sign. That's what we'll see Jordan Montgomery sign.

And it's just, it's taking much longer for some of these guys because there is so much uncertainty out there. Like teams were willing to put that money up for, show hey, but they're not necessarily willing to put anywhere close of that, anywhere close to that amount up for a for a blake snow right you know and and understandably so but it's it's just odd that with this with the way that the free agency period went that that these guys aren't picked up now it's not uncommon we've seen it in the past yes and that's the reason why i think major league baseball needs to take a look at this and think about instituting some sort of deadline

michael mcdermott in the chat asked us if it would be january 31st or february 15th i feel like if you want to extend it out if if the amount of time is a factor here February 15th is a good period is that's a good date because that is usually when pitchers and catchers report and I feel like by that point you should have all of that offseason you know free agency acquisition stuff all kind of settled so that your can your team can focus on coming into camp yeah figure out what their new pieces are where guys you know what positional battles there are like there could be guys fighting for a spot and then some team brings in a free agent and then all three four of those guys are just screwed because they thought they were going to get a starting

role on a team and now they bring in somebody that just takes that spot immediately. Right. Someone in the chat says the signing the signing season is disconnected and lethargic. It needs to be connected and dangerous. There you go. Yeah, enough said, right? I mean, I couldn't have said it any better myself. Chris are of course, PHNX10 mom.

She says, hear me out. All free agents and GMs get on a cruise. Must sign before you return. Agents provide onboard entertainment. Derek is the mayor of free agency. Let's go! Captain mayor of free agency. That's the only mistake you made.

I'm the captain mayor of free agency. But yes, look, we all get on a cruise. We all drink lava flows and pinia colladas. We get smashed. And then we make bad decisions together collectively as a group. That could be one of the most entertaining free agents signing periods of all time. No, well, Mike Hazen, you talked to Mike Hazen about this a few weeks ago. And Mike Hazen kind of gave his thoughts on the idea of a deadline.

Yeah, this was pretty funny. This was Mike's initial reaction. And then I asked a follow-up question. Here's what he had to say about the idea of a signing deadline. We get to go on vacation? Yeah, there you know. I mean, that'd be great. Love to go on vacation.

I don't know. I don't know. I would need to sit down and think about it a little bit more. I'm sure there's certain cons to it. It's an interesting concept. I think the most interesting thing that's happened over the last few years was when we came out of COVID. Or it was out of COVID, but it was in the deadline that,

the signing deadline that happened prior to the lockout. That was an interesting time. I've never experienced anything like that before. And I'm sure it'll obviously be much different with different rules and everything else, and it certainly won't be in that same space. but it was a much different dynamic that it had been in the past. I love new things, so I don't care. Sure.

Yeah, it'll make it more interesting. What were those dynamics like if you find that certain players really wanted to sign before the lockout? We didn't really know. I didn't know that it was going to be as chaotic as it was. We weren't really anticipating that happening. It just ended up tons of guys were signing. We weren't as active coming out the season that we were, where we were in the cycle. Like, we weren't as into, like, that part of the free agent market as much.

It was like, but it was very interesting to watch. I, you know, I just. Remember, remember the lockout, Derek? Wasn't that fun? I just don't ever want to talk about the lockout. You started during the lockout. Yes, yes. Yes, basically.

At the end of the worst season, one of the worst seasons of Diamondbacks history, and right before a lockout started, that was good times. That was good times for me and Jesse. But, yeah, no, I mean, Gabriel has a comment here. He said a salary cap and floor is the only way a deadline can happen. And that's true. Like major league baseball overall needs a bit more oversight, a bit more restrictions on everything. The amount of spending that's allowed, the amount of spending that teams don't do,

the signing deadline, like they just need like free agency and salary reform is what major league baseball needs. And I mean, of course, you know, at the end of the day, I'm not sure the PA really wants all of that, right? Like players association definitely doesn't want any kind of salary cap or floor, but I'm sure the PA would be more in favor a little bit of some sort of signing deadline so that players and agents, no? Well, I mean, anything that impedes them getting money, right? Exactly. Like Cody Bellinger, right? Could Cody Bellinger have gotten more money if he had more time potentially? So I, yeah, there's a few factors here.

First of all, just the unions, the unions perspective on this. they don't want any part of a salary cap, a salary floor. Maybe there's a little bit more of an opportunity there, but that didn't work out in CBA negotiations last year either. And they also don't want a signing deadline. Yeah, Manfred wanted it for like December, right? Wasn't that his original comments was like, we should have it be? Yeah, right.

Yeah, like during Christmas time and during holiday season. During CBA negotiations last time around, the MLB made a proposal toward like in the very early stages of negotiation process, more than a year before the CVA had actually expired. They proposed a multi-year contract signing deadline that was at the end of the winter meetings. So basically like around December 6th or 7, something like that, players would no longer be able to sign a multi-year deals after that date. So you could still sign a one-year contract after that date. But if you were a big name free agent, you were going to sign by December 6th or whatever

that date was. that wasn't particularly well-received MLB later revisited the idea and proposed a seven-day signing window for multi-year deals that was also around the time of the winter meetings. And, yeah, Rob Manfred said a couple of weeks ago out in Florida. Those proposals were not warmly received. Yeah, because it's too extreme. Yeah, December is a little like, I mean, I think there would be some benefits to that. I mean, you could really command, you know, there's something to be said for it being in December.

as opposed to in February, because if you set the deadline to February, then it's like, all right, you still kind of have the same issue where these things are going to drag out. Right, right. You said it in December, then that's only about a month after the World Series ends. And the idea of signing a multi-year deal being something that needs to be done faster than signing a one-year contract, almost feels like you are punishing the player for not signing a deal faster. Like, better agree to that multi-year deal. Right.

So you're just applying pressure to them in order to get those deals done, which all of that seems so silly. The seven-day signing window for multi-year contract seems silly. I can understand why MLBPA, it doesn't receive these things warmly. And honestly, it almost feels like Major League Baseball doesn't want to get them done because of how extreme everything has to be. It's almost like the way that MLB changed the rules of baseball. People were not really on board, but they were like, okay. And then everybody was fine with it. So now here they are again this year being like, oh, we're going to make the pitch clock.

We're going to do it even more extreme this year, right? Like stop, stop extending stuff out to the point where a good idea becomes a bad idea. And that's the thing is the signing deadline isn't a bad idea. But these things, a seven-day signing winner for multi-year contracts and essentially like punishing someone for not signing a multi-year deal faster doesn't seem like the way to go. Like just let contracts be signed regardless. of the length of them up to a certain date. Like you don't need to make it all weird and have it have tears based on, you know, the length of the contract.

Sure. Yeah. It's a, it's a complicated thing to try to figure out. The union, yeah, definitely not on, not on board with this.

Rob Manfred said he would like to revisit the idea. But it doesn't seem like something that the union is going to agree to you, the perception for the union. And there's some quotes from, from player agents as well in a story that just came out at ESPN. agents feel that if they are if they have to get their client signed by a certain date that they're going to lose leverage and it's going to favor it's going to favor teams more than it favors players sure um and i i understand that i will also say going back to the cody bellinger

comment that you made earlier i still have to at least wonder if there's a signing deadline in december or january whenever it is does cody bellinger really only get three years and eighty million it kind of feels to me that Scott Boris has just waited so long and maybe overplayed his hand here that he's actually kind of backed himself into a corner and that's why Cody Bellinger didn't get paid more money. Where the only team that was interested in him any longer was his team that he was already with. Yeah, I think at a certain point, teams just kind of are like, well, if they're going to be

unreasonable in their, you know, in their ask for Cody Bellinger, we're going to go another route and we're going to figure out what we're doing. and then eventually the tide kind of turns for Scott Boris and you're like, oh man, I've actually kind of lost all my leverage in this situation by waiting as long as I did. I have a lot of metaphors to make and I'm just trying to remember which ones I want to make. First of all, when it comes to that, you know, like I don't know. I think we've all been a position where something was so expensive that it's not even a consideration for me, right?

Like you go over and look at a hoodie like I did this weekend in Miami on a rack and it says it's $225 and you're just like, moving on right like there and teams could do that essentially when scott boris is asking price is so high that they're like oh yeah i can't even like even if you cut down what you're asking by 50 yeah it's still not in our in our range as far as budget so we don't even have the ability to consider him as a player that we're going to go after right when it comes to that deadline thing another metaphor i was thinking of is like you know you might think of it as being like ebay right where people wait to the last minute and then they get all crazy

get the 11th hour and start bidding and trying to get those, you know, trying to win that player from someone else because they know it's the 11th hour. They know the deadline is here and they know other teams are interested. So if maybe an agent is savvy and is brave enough to like wait that out, he might sit there and go, no, no, no. And then maybe get what he was looking for. But it doesn't work that way. Like teams are going to wait to truly negotiate until close to the deadline so that they have all the leverage and a player is left literally thinking I might not play baseball in 2024 if I let this go on any longer. And again, that might be why Rob Medfred, once again, is in favor of this deadline. I know we're just in favor of it because other sports have it.

It makes sense. Well, they don't like necessarily have it. Other sports just have so much more structure that like in the NBA when a, when a marquee free agent is available and they want the super max or, you know, whatever it is, there's only a couple, there's only a few teams usually that can actually give them that. And so the, you know, players and teams have those conversations early on. And then once the official signing period starts, a lot of times those deals have already been ironed out. But in baseball, there's there's no, I mean, there's basically an infinite number of options, right? Yeah.

And so that that leads to situations where the, you know, these things just don't resolve nearly as quickly as they could. Well, and how does this relate back to the Diamondbacks is that the Diamondbacks really did get a lot of their moving. done kind of earlier, right? And I mean, it didn't feel like they were negotiating against any kind of time period. They weren't really going after any Scott Borris clients. You know, it did feel like bringing Lordus back was one of those moves where they explored free agency. They got they got to see what was out there. They realized that he was one of the best options available. And Lordus got to do the same thing. Go out there, see what other teams were offering him, see what things were going on, realized that he wanted to still be here and that the, you know,

contract was right and it worked out, right? But again, it seemed like the Diamondbacks, even with some of the things that took longer, like acquiring Jack Peterson, didn't take nearly as long as some of these other teams in baseball are taking to make some sort of significant free agent addition during the off season that's going to improve their team. There's a lot of teams that have really done next to nothing

when it comes to adding to their roster. And again, I think that maybe that's, that's part of it that could benefit baseball is just to make sure that everybody knows when this signing period is done and we can have our rosters full and move on with baseball um michael mcdermott says boris has his long earned his infamous reputation he sure has isn't this this is this is true somebody says he's hoping GM shops like jesse shops for christmas they that's a rattled backs that's a great point maybe maybe like scott boris loves this the way that because Jesse gets amped for this.

It's not a matter of like, oh, Jesse just doesn't find shopping to be important. No, I've realized much like baseball savant in the bathtub, Jesse gets hyped for last minute shopping. Like it excites him. It gets his bloods boiling. It's a little adrenaline rush. Yeah. It's his favorite time of the year. I will.

Maybe that's what Scott. Maybe Scott Boris has done everything in life so much so to the point that now the only adrenaline rush he gets is by making both players and teams think that they're just. just going to go ahead and not sign these guys and then getting that call at the last minute, realizing he has them under his thumb. But, I mean, that's kind of what we're saying, though, is that agents don't want the deadline. Boris doesn't want this to look like my Christmas shopping because my Christmas shopping does have a deadline.

Scott Boris does not want a deadline because he feels that if you have a deadline, you're going to wind up with, you're going to wind up with less money, right? And I understand where that's coming from. I do think that the lockout deadline that we had, the owner and post deadline for, you know, players to sign. I think it was December 2nd of 2021. We did see quite a bit of action leading up to that. And players still got paid, right?

That's when Marcus Semion, I believe, was signed. That's when Corey Seeger was signed. Those were late in November right before that deadline. The New York Mets also committed a whole bunch of money to Max Scherzer and Starling Marte and Mark Canna, there were players that signed. I think the Diamondbacks got Mark Malanson at that point as well. They got their closer right before that deadline as well. So there is something to be said for deadlines that increase prices rather than lower them, right?

I mean, that's the whole eBay thing that you were talking about earlier. Everyone comes through with their biggest offer and they do want that offer to be the highest one. Well, especially at that point, right? Like when you're at the absolute last minute and you know, like there's no more, there's no more space for negotiation, right? So it's like teams do have to come with their absolute best offer. And if they don't, there's a good chance they're going to lose out on that player to somebody else. That comes with a better offer.

There's just not a lot of time for, you know, for renegotiating and coming back, you know. Yeah. Like, so, I mean, there's something to be said for it. But I feel like at the end of the day, it does essentially put, because it's, it's a matter of making the, like the team is going to play baseball. Like maybe they'll be without that guy that they're trying to, but the team's going to play baseball. Essentially,

that player might not play baseball because they don't sign by the end of the signing period. And they might have to do something stupid and sit out an entire year just because they didn't, you know, accept the team's offer. And, you know, at the end of the day, that's like the,

that's where the leverage is completely with the teams and not. That's a fair point. Or the agents. Yeah. The players are like, or the team is like, yeah, we still,

we still will find a way to get, you know, someone to play right field for us. We got short stops in the market. Finally, baby, don't worry about like, we don't need you, but do you want to come play for us? If you do, this is how much money we're offering. But on the flip side, like, you know, going back to the eBay thing, at least for me, in my experience with those kind of websites, like, how many times have you put in a bid that

you felt was good and, like, might actually get you the item? And then, and then you find out once the deadline passes that someone bidded, like, way more than you were even considering putting out there. And in that, in that case, like, I think, I think deadlines sometimes. do push prices up rather than, you know, rather than causing, it's a great point. In this case, players to be to be backed into a corner. Because it essentially has to be your best offer.

You can't counter offer. Exactly. Yeah. If you want Blake Snow, like, if you really want Blake Snow, you've got to come out and really put together a good offer and you're not going to know what other people are offering. So you're going to offer a pretty good amount of money. But yeah, there's no way for us to really test this. The lockout situation was different because at the end of the day, both.

teams and players knew that the market was going to open up again. It wasn't like if you didn't sign before the lockout that you just weren't going to be able to get a contract. And so there's no way for us to really test this out and see how it would play out. And the union seems really concerned about what it would look like. And I can understand those concerns. And yeah, all that to say this probably isn't going to happen. Have you ever got curious and just started increasing your bid just to see and then maybe get stuck bidding higher? I've had that happened where I've gotten stuck bidding a little bit higher than I wanted to just because I was curious. And that, again, maybe that happens to a baseball team.

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My wife has been trying to get me into it for a number of years now. And this might be successfully the year that it happens because we will be out at Phoenix Raceway on March 8th through the 10th, the Valley of the Sun will roar to life this spring when NASCAR returns to Phoenix Raceway for the Shriners Children's 500. They offer the best in class fan experience, and that meets racing's toughest drivers for three days of action, all surrounded by the beautiful Astray Mountains.

Shout out to our guy Blaney, my wife's favorite rider, driver, whatever, writer, driver. See, look at me. I'm an idiot when it comes to racing, but I'm hoping to educate myself more on that and check all the fun that they're having out at Phoenix Raceway. Get your tickets to the Shriner's Children's 500 at Phoenix Raceway, March 8th through the 10th,

promises to be a weekend of good vibes for the whole family. Get your reserved grandstand tickets now at phoenix raceway.com. And of course, we thank you guys that are already diehards. And if you're not a diehard yet, make sure to join us over here. We're having so much fun over at go phynx.com. Jesse just dropped his new diehard piece. Of course, we have our discussions going on in our Discord lounge,

all sorts of other fun stuff like our game show. We have, of course, city council meetings with your mayor and maybe sometimes your vice mayor and so much more. So make sure to join us over here, get a subscription. Not only will you get all of that wonderful stuff, you'll get discounts on events like our pool party coming up on July 31st at Chasefield. So join us and become part of the PHNX family right now. Speaking of family, one guy that I'm very, very happy is part of the Arizona Diamondbacks family,

is Brent Strom. And I think ever since the Diamondbacks brought Strom over, you and I have been talking about how big it was. to get a coach like this, how much experience he brings over from Houston and all of the other teams that he's been a part of. And not to mention the fact that he's just very highly regarded around baseball. You rarely hear anything but amazing incredible things about Brent Strom. And then usually the other stuff is just that he's a rascal and he's hilarious and that he always has some. He's a great interview. He's a great interview. He's a great person. I mean, I talked about

it last week, but I couldn't believe in a moment out at, you know, Salt River Fields that I got a chance just to take a little stroll with Stromi and talk about how much we love baseball together. And for me, that was a religious experience. It really was. The man is a legend. The man is a legend. He's a living legend. But he actually, there's an incredible article over at ESPN with another Jesse writing that one. And, you know, he of course kind of highlighted what a special individual Strom is and how lucky the Diamondbacks are to have him considering where he was when when they made that call. Yeah, there's,

there's some really interesting anecdotes about Brent Strom in this story. And Brent Strom is one of those people who has probably an infinite number of fantastic, fantastic anecdotes. Any day generates interesting, like a day and a life of Brent Strom is interesting anecdotes. Yeah, he, so Brent Strom has now been a pitching coach for four teams that. have made, that have made the World Series. He's, he's one in three. He did win one and during his time with the Houston Astros. But he said that I, he said, I'm like the Buffalo Bills

because he has lost several World Series now on his home turf. Of course, he had that experience with the Diamondbacks in 2023. So that was, that was pretty funny. But yeah, there's some interesting quotes in here also about the, the 2023 Diamondback season. This was an interesting quote that stood out to me. He said it's imperative that we realize. there was some luck involved last year and we got hot at the right time i don't want this to be a

one and out type of thing yeah that's a great point because we've tried to stress that at times we've tried to stress that like their attitude about last season their mentality about last season seems to be in the right place which is we ain't done shit yet that's like their attitude like their attitude was we were one game away from being eliminated from playoff contention so we cannot sit here and pat ourselves on the back about the postseason run and how we got to the world series we have to figure out the success the formula that got us there a little bit set that standard as they've been talking about a lot but more importantly they have to realize that they still have a lot of work to do and a lot of room for improvement you know and I think that's

the it's a it's a hard mindset to have after you come off of a successful postseason run like that but it's definitely the right one yeah yeah absolutely And this is something that, you know, they're maybe not going to say it from the podium too much. But I do think the Diamondbacks internally have an understanding that there was some. I don't know if I would call it luck necessarily, but just really getting hot at the right time. It's because luck's not a baseball savant stat. So yeah, right, right. There's no baseball savantifier for luck.

So it's dead to me. But yeah. And, you know, it's something that Mike Hazen even said at the beginning of spring training. Like we had a great run last year, but it's over. And we have to move on. And we only won 84 games and, you know, squeaking into the playoffs with the last postseason spot is not something that we want to be trying to do on an annual basis. So, yeah, there's an understanding here that the Diamondbacks want to be in more sturdy position getting into the playoffs moving forward. And that's certainly a goal of theirs in 2024.

Well, I'll tell you, Elise said it up there in the chat. But Brent Strom was a franchise changing coach hire. before him our pitching coach position felt like a never-ending revolving door and i mean it goes beyond him just being a good pitching coach he is a mentor he is a legend he does things differently and he can literally change careers you know it remains to be seen what brandon fott's career will be from this point going forward but if he has a successful career if he can end up being one of the elite pitchers in major league baseball what what a what a legend that story of him getting that call from Strom in the middle of the night to change the side of the bump he was

pitching from. Yeah. Yeah. Like 11 o'clock at night during the all-star break. Brandon. Brandon Fott was back home in Louisville. Louisville. I think I think I said that right.

I don't know. I don't think we ever say it right. But at least according to Fott, we don't say it right. I'll say, though, that I just, especially with what the Diamondbacks have been building and the personnel they brought in, not. not players, but coaching personnel. You know, it's, it's going to, like a lot of things with this team, that's something that you can never quantify Jeff Bannister's importance to this team of young players that can use the wisdom and guidance of someone like that.

You know, these are all legends in baseball, including Tority now at this point. So to have that, you know, to have that level of mentorship above you, to have that level of coaching above you is something for a team that's going to build their franchise on young players probably until the end of time is imperative you know and like again last year there's some other factors too i think that helped and we talked about Tommy fam we talked about Evan Longoria like how much their experience impacted it but you just you just can't say enough about run strong another quote at the very end of this story that that stood out to me um he strong is talking about his plan moving forward and kind of how long he plans to do this.

He said the body will accommodate the goal that's required. Strom said seemingly referring to himself as much as his pitchers. He continues, I don't know how much further I want to do this, but there's some unfinished business here. That's why I came back. So Brent Strom just signed a two-year contract. So he is under contract for the Diamondbacks for 2024 and 2025. But yeah, I mean, Brent Strom is, as he said,

It's unclear if he is going to do this for a long period of time moving forward. It really might just be these two seasons. And Diamond, if you're the Diamondbacks, you certainly want to take advantage of, you know, every minute that Bernstrom is your pitching coach. I just, again, in that wonderful moment that I shared with him, the way he said, is there anything better than baseball? Like, we just both immediately answered the question like, nope, not right now. Not in this moment. Not with this sun in my face. Not with this weather.

Not with this grass. Not with that sound of that bat cracking in the background right now. And these guys all getting ready for regular season. There's nothing better at times than baseball. And like, again, that's the thing about this guy is he just loves the game so much. He loves being able to shape the future of major league baseball and pitchers the way that he does. I just, you know, there's something to be said about like how guys.

guys like that, especially with the way that Strom is good at like kind of using levity in situations to, to kind of make you realize that you're just playing a game and this is all should be fun. And like you might be just too far up. You might just be too anxiety riddled right now in the moment, right? But I don't know. I don't know how to put into words how important he is for this team. But I guess it's very is the answer. You're very important for this team.

Of course, we can't wait to get out and watch some baseball tonight. Slade is on the bump tonight for the Arizona Diamondbacks. The lineup was just announced. Well, what do we got? Corbyn leading off. Jerry Pee hitting in the two hole. Gurry in the three, Pavin at first, Emmanuel Rivera at third, Jake McCarthy and Wright, Jose Herrera, behind the plate. Is it Kyle Garlic?

Is that his first name? Kyle Garlic in the D.H. And Blaze, Alexander, getting another start at second base. I like, Blaze is getting a lot of attention this spring. That's an exciting thing for him because you got to figure out what you got. You have to figure out something to do with him. It's time. Like, he doesn't need any more time in minor league baseball.

The man needs to, needs to get some playing time, or he needs to be seen enough where he becomes some sort of part of a trade and, you know, his value can really be assessed by another team because I think he's just one of those guys. I know he's Blaze Alexander's one of those guys. We were going to let go at some capacity, trade him, whatever, and he's going to be great somewhere else, and it's going to piss me off. So it's why baseball is great.

Anyway, you got anything else? What do you got? Anything else for tonight? It's interesting. Corbin Carroll is playing center field today. It seems like we'd heard that from Mike Hazen that the Diamondbacks would like to get Corvin Carroll kind of settled in one position, but it doesn't really sound like they're committing to doing that just yet. So, yeah, you might see Corbyn Carroll kind of floating around between right field and center field. it looks like.

Maybe he gets some time in left field as well. So yeah, he can do it. I mean, he certainly has the speed for center field. He's not quite Alec Thomas out there, but something to watch for sure. That arm scares me out there.

Yeah, I mean, I think in center field, the arm, I think in center field the arm matters less than in right field. It's like Alex Thomas says, we hit the cutoff man. What are we even talking?

Yeah, yeah. In center field, you're, yeah, I mean, you don't want to have a terrible arm in center field, but you can,

you can stomach it a little bit more than in, than in right field, where it's definitely not ideal. Jesse needs to get out of here because that drive to Goodyear takes about an hour and a half. I will be on the road for the next two hours. You should get out to good year. And if you do, make sure to check out the brand new Some Burroughs location out there in good year. If you're going out to that baseball game, I know some of you haven't had a chance to go because they've been mostly day games and they're almost all day games.

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Well, that's all we got, but not really because me and Jesse are going to stick around and do an audio podcast right now for your listening pleasure on Saturday. We're going to talk about realignment of Major League Baseball and why for some reason the Diamondbacks are being blamed in some way for how. having to restructure what is going to go on in the playoffs. I can't wait to get into this because I'm going to yell about some stuff. But of course, in the meantime, you can make sure to follow us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore K-man with K. This maniac next to me is at Jesse N. Friedman. Of course, our father, Overlord Jacob.

You can find him at Jacob underscore Franklin 4 because he's the fourth best Jacob Franklin. And we don't know what those other three. Unfortunately, we didn't find the other three. We've been searching for those other three. And if you know a Drake of Franklin and it's not this Jacob Franklin, you let me know I need to have a problem. to judge whether they're better than me or not. What's their Twitter ranking? Are they Jacob underscore Franklin?

One, two, three. Let us know what their Twitter handle is and we'll get this solved. But of course, our show is at PHNX underscore D-Bex and all roads do lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We appreciate you guys so much for stopping by and we thank you so much for your time. Go enjoy some baseball tonight out in good year with this man. And until we see you again, remember kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much. much more fun when Brent Strom is your pitching coach.