PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Ep. 11: A Lost Ace, a Found Farm System, and Big Questions About the Future

Episode Date: August 23, 2019

We look back on every significant Diamondbacks trade from the deadline, praise one of baseball's best farm systems, and explain why the future is bright--even if we're not totally clear on how they will get there. 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.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 11 of the Rattle podcast. As always, I'm your host, Jesse Friedman, along with Jeff Weiser, who is a big-time world traveler. Of course, now, ladies and gentlemen, he has returned from the honeymoon days in Italy. Jeff, before we talk baseball, how was your trip? It was great, man. I went to the places. I saw the things. It was fantastic, yeah.

All right. It's hard to come home. Yeah. Oh, no, it sounds perfect. Let's go ahead and jump in to this 2019 Arizona Diamondbacks team, which, Jeff, it feels very fitting. I think the team, I don't have the number in front of me. I think they were right around 500 the last time we recorded. And sure enough, as we record here late on the night of August 22nd, the Diamondbacks are exactly 500 at 64 and 64 after dropping the finale to the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday.

So the Diamondbacks, they are sitting in this kind of position of mediocrity. I think that's probably an appropriate word to use at this point. They are currently sitting at five games out in the wildcard race, which is actually a number that has grown pretty significantly. For a while, the Diamondbacks were playing 500 ball, and they were able to squeak by because a lot of the other teams in the race were also struggling. But those days seem to be behind us as the Cardinals, the Nationals, the Mets, have all really caught fire as of late.

Those teams are in the lead as we speak with the Phillies and Brewers also standing in between the Diamondbacks and a potential playoff berth. Jeff, I know it's been a while since you've been around and dialed in with the team, but coming back, give me your impressions of the Diamondbacks and did they perform as you expected since your trip? You know, it's really interesting. When I got back, I thought, you know, the good news was that in the time that I was gone, the Diamondbacks were basically a 500 ball club.

So I couldn't be blamed for their downfall or demise. The bad news is that they were about a 500 ball club and hadn't really made any progress. And what's interesting, Jesse, as I'm looking at this, you know, they're run differential. We visited this topic, you know, probably a good six. weeks ago. Yeah. And they were something in the neighborhood of, you know, plus 60-some, you know, runs in the run differential column.

All that time has passed and they're still plus 64 runs. So, you know, some of that, you know, mirage where maybe, you know, there was some discussion there, you know, even maybe before the All-Star break right around that time that, you know, there was enough there that you thought, hey, maybe this team's actually better than they, you know, have played. But at this juncture, you know, that. That number hasn't changed at all. And of course, they've played about 500 ball over that time.

So maybe we're seeing some things even out. You know, in terms of expectations, I mean, we were just talking about this. But I looked at the schedule, and they had that stretch there where they had three against the Orioles and four against the Marlins there in late June or, excuse me, late July. And I just felt like if they were going to make a push, that was a time they really needed to, like, you know, master an oath. own their schedule. And that didn't really, that didn't really work out. So there have been some opportunities certainly left on the table. And I think that's kind of why they are, where they are.

Yeah, those two series that you mentioned with Baltimore and Miami in late July, as you said. I mean, that's, that's leading right up to the trade deadline. And it was very, very clear to us that Mike Hazen was kind of waiting and seeing what the diamond backs were going to do as the trade deadline drew closer. And I think if the Diamondbacks had rattled off, you know, maybe six out of seven of those games for victories, I think the trade deadline could have maybe gone very, very differently for this team. But I guess now that I've said trade deadline, I've got to go ahead and break out all the

moves that the Diamondbacks made since technically, Jeff, we haven't actually talked about these trades, even though they're not super recent history. So we won't treat them like their fresh news. There's been plenty of commentary around about these deals already, but we'll give you at least a quick take about each of these. The Diamondbacks went ahead and acquired right-handed pitcher Zach Gallen from the Miami Marlins in exchange for shortstop prospect Jazz Chisholm, who by many accounts was the Diamondbacks number one prospect in their system at the time of the deal.

In addition to that, the Diamondbacks, of course, the big trade, which was basically a buzzer-beater from what we've heard, both this and the Mike Leak trade happened right literally in the seconds leading up to the trade deadline on July 31st. The Diamondbacks went ahead. They moved Zach Granky to the Houston Astros along with $24 million that they will go ahead and retain of his contract. In return, they got right-handed pitcher J.B. Bukascus. They got right-handed pitcher Corbyn Martin. They got first baseman slash a semi-outfielder, Seth Beard.

and then they also got a super utility guy who has since made the Major League roster in Josh Rojas. And then the last major deal, the Diamondbacks made a couple other ones. I think John Ryan Murphy was dealt to the Braves for cash considerations. But the other significant trade was Mike Leek being acquired from the Seattle Mariners in exchange for infield prospect, Jose Cabarello.

So, Jeff, obviously, these are names that you have heard and news that you have, that you have come back to. I'm curious, Jeff. I was beside myself trying to figure out what all of these different deals meant. Things, the narrative of the day really changed dramatically because it really felt like the diamondbacks were buyers at one point. They went out, they got Zach Allen, who was clearly a more a for now guy than Jazz Chisholm is.

And at that point, we all thought the diamondbacks were basically going for it. And then a couple hours later, they went ahead and traded their nine. number one starting pitcher. And it just kind of resulted in this murky picture of trades that each and themselves seem to be pretty fair value, but overall kind of a puzzling picture that Mike Hazen has left us with. Yeah, if there's anything, you know, that Mike Hazen hasn't done, it's provided us much clarity, whether that's, you know, really been the direction of the team.

It doesn't really seem to be his thing. No, and, you know, I can appreciate him not painting himself into a corner. I can certainly appreciate that. So you and I talked a number of times as the deadline approach that if there were moves to be made, they were going to be moves made based on value. I think we could really see some value moves there. The Zach Gallin trade for Jazz Chisholm was probably pretty surprising. Gallen has had a really nice rookie season.

has some serious flaws to his game, but also has some, you know, pretty supreme and frankly kind of rare talents. So it's, you know, maybe a bet on, you know, what you see presently, you know, versus what may transpire in the future. But, you know, finding cost-controlled, young, effective, you know, starting pitching is always difficult. And if we really look at what's in the Diamondbacks's system right now outside of guys like John de Plantey. There's not a lot, there's not a lot of pitching depth really close to the majors that appears to be, you know, a really like obvious major league quality. So that was, you know, that one really caught my attention.

But the Granky deal, you know, you know, saying it was walking out of a dinner in Rome and, you know, check the phone. and couldn't believe it about throughout my dinner when I saw that day I traded Zach Grady. Just didn't really see it coming. But you know, honestly, I just don't think that was a move you were ever going to see coming. I think it was the kind of move that that was going to be a GM to GM thing and they were going to push hard for it.

And I'm frankly pretty impressed that they only ate $24 million and they were able to get four guys back. And I'd say, you know, if I had just looked at it on paper, I'd have said three of them are probably major league caliber players. And the fourth one would have been Josh Rojas, who's already been in the majors. So they did pretty well for themselves. And again, you know, just a credit to Mike Hazen for, you know, for finding the value. And, you know, while there's not like a top flight process.

there. There's a lot of quantity. And if they can hit on, you know, like two of those four guys and really get something from them, you know, while also freeing up a whole bunch of, a whole bunch of salary that they can spend elsewhere, you know, they did pretty well for themselves. Yeah, of course, the irony with this trade is that, as I'm sure many of our listeners are aware, I took the liberty of writing an article about why the diamondbacks should keep Zach Granky roughly. I think I was less, I think I wrote it the night before the trade deadline. So we're probably talking about 16 hours before this deal went down. I laid out a full-blown argument for why the Diamondbacks should go ahead and keep Zach Rankie on this team.

And I will say that in accordance with what you were just talking about, Zach or Mike Hazen, excuse me, did a lot better. in this trade than I think I really anticipated was possible. Absolutely. And so it wasn't, I'm not going to go as far to say it was a slam dunk. I would have, I would have liked to see Kyle Tucker or Forrest Whitley in this deal there. I think clearly the two best prospects in the two best prospects, excuse me, in the Astros system. But you know, you got four guys and like you said, all of these guys have intrigue.

I think all of them are a little bit flawed in their own way. Seth Beer doesn't really have a position. Corbin Martin is just underwent Tommy John's surgery a couple of months ago. Josh Rojas has kind of been a non-prospect for most of his career, although he's kind of risen as of late. And then J.B. Bukascus has really struggled at the AA level this season, despite flashing some pretty good stuff. So I think all of these guys are flawed in their own ways.

But at the same time, that assessment that I gave about why the diamond backs should keep Zach Ranky was based on this not being possible, on you not being able to give away $53 million in salary and get four at least viable prospects in return. I'm still not, I'm not 100% in on this trade, but I think Mike Hazen did well for himself. This is far from an embarrassment for the diamond backs. pretty much everyone supports the diamond back side of this trade from what I can tell. Yeah, and I can see why. And I'm with you. I didn't see this as within the realm of possibility. And let's face it, they didn't rip off an organization that's behind the times.

I mean, they made a deal with the Astros and the Astros have been well advanced. At times, you know, light years ahead of where the Diamondbacks have been, you know, in years past. Right. You know, to see that happen and just even factor in who the trade partner was is pretty interesting in itself. So I think that's just kind of an aspect of it where, you know, I that I think, you know, even push it, you know, puts another feather in the cap of Mike Hazen, you know, per se. So it'll be really interesting to see what they do with it. You know, you mentioned Seth Beer. You know, he's a first baseman.

Um, he's, you know, splitting some time in double A with Pavin Smith right now in left field and first base. They seem to be kind of alternating. Um, I don't know that that's really a matter of trying to groom one of them for left base so much as it is a matter of trying to get their bats in the lineup in the same game. Um, and make sure they're both getting, uh, you know, consistent at bats at the double A level. So right. You know, where does that fit? Um, has Christian Walker done enough to kind of cement his spot? Uh, what?

comes up with Jake Lamb, Kevin Cron is there, and Pavin Smith is actually playing pretty well. So there's kind of a lot to settle out without a DH spot. There's bound to be some movement. So I think it's kind of a value proposition where I wouldn't be surprised to see, you know, some guys from that crop, you know, move along from the organization in some capacity because they don't, they don't need presently three first baseman with two more. on the way. Yeah, I think another thing that was interesting about this trade, I don't know if you saw this, Jeff. This is something that came out kind of right after the deal went down.

But news came out from the Astros general manager about how exactly this trade happened. And he was surprisingly upfront about how the deal went down. He basically said that I believe they initiated the call to the Diamondbacks about Zach Rankie. and Mike Hazen gave a very, very firm price in return, which was the price that the diamond backs eventually would get. And they left that out there and said, we're not budging. This is what it's going to take.

And the Astros were not going to take this trade. They were pretty adamant that they were not going to give up all of the prospects that were required to get this deal done. Because as you mentioned, this is a very forward-thinking, progressive organization. And we all know that forward-thinking progressive organizations in baseball don't like to give up prospects. And that's what it took to get this deal done. And I think if nothing else, even if this trade isn't, you know, a raving success when all things are said and done, the fact that Mike Hazen laid out the price and made the Astros come to him, I think is really telling about Mike Hazen's skill and just how good he is at his job.

Yeah, and let's contrast that with, you know, where this organization was five or six years ago. It's a big difference. It's night and day. And, you know, I remember writing about this team when Kevin Towers was the GM and, you know, ownership was in a public dispute with Justin Upton. You know, they weren't happy with then prospect Trevor Bauer. You know, we've just seen some of these things. You know, Dave Stewart making public comments about his own players and what they're, you know, seeking.

And I just felt like all of the public comment, all of the commentary coming from the front office, the bashing of current, frankly, employees continue to always drag down their own leverage in potential deals. If you talk bad about a player and, you know, you kind of drag them through the mud publicly, everyone knows that you want to remove that player from your roster and therefore they're not willing to pay so much because they know that you're already motivated to move them and you know you don't need to see the highest bid you'll just jump at the first chance so it's it's such a change and such a breath of fresh air and I think that

as a fan base you know Diamondback fans are going to have to get used to some of these things coming out of left field rather than being headlines for a month and then a move happening. So this is how Mike Hazen operates. This is how he's going to operate. And although it can be frustrating because as we kind of let off the show, we don't always know the direction of things. At the end of the day, you probably get a better deal.

And so that ultimately is probably where interest should lie. Unfortunately, we have found out all too clearly over the last couple of weeks, Jeff, that the difference between Zach Granky and Mike Leak is very wide. Or at least it has been over the small sample size. I think they throw equally as hard. I don't know what you're talking about. It's true. That's a great point.

But the numbers, unfortunately, for the Diamondbacks, would say otherwise. And Mike Leak over four starts since joining the team, 21 in the third innings, 37 hits allowed, 20 runs, 19 of them. earned three walks, all of nine strikeouts over more than 21 innings pitched. Jeff, there's clearly not a whole lot of swing and miss left in this guy's game. Not that there's really ever been a whole lot of swing and miss for Mike Leak. He's kind of always been more of a pitch-to-contact type of a guy. We love the story, you know, an ASU background.

I think a lot of people thought that was pretty cool. But on the mound, as far as that's concerned, Mike Leak has been a little bit difficult to watch so far in his young Diamondback's career. Yeah, it's a tough profile, right? I mean, in today's game where guys are launching the baseball more than ever, they're hitting the ball in the air, you know, they're hitting the ball harder than ever, and they're really coming to the plate with essentially one goal. And I wrote about this last week for baseball perspective,

but even in like two-strike counts, guys are hitting more home runs, a larger proportion of home runs in two-strike counts now than ever before. the two-strike count now you know the two-strike approach for a batter seems to be the same as a one-and-o count i'm going to look for a ball that i can elevate and i'm going to swing hard um that's going to be really tough for a guy like mike league to navigate unfortunately so um you know there's there's not a lot there's not a lot to say um he's always going to allow a lot of balls to be put into play uh you know what happens with those those baseballs is frankly really hard to predict there are very few pitchers that have ever been

able to really you know especially in recent memory especially in this live ball era and now that we're sort of maybe in the juiced ball era able to really control what kind of contact comes from from batten balls we simply we simply don't know the guys like brad ziegler were able to be you know sort of unicorns and are kind of that that rare breed But by and large, when the ball gets hit, what happens to it is very hard to predict. So you're really taking your chances with a guy like Mike Leak. On the flip side, the Mariners ate a lot of his remaining contract, and he is not entirely free, but very inexpensive for the dimebacks to have. And frankly, just kind of a pretty cheap insurance policy.

I mean, if, you know, a bunch of guys come back healthy, let's say Luke Weaver, who continues his rehab, you know, and Taiwan Walker are both healthy come next spring and John DePontier is feeling fine and, you know, Zach Aylund looks great. You know, and Robbie Ray so there, I mean, you kind of look at it as going, okay, well, you know, maybe a guy like Mike Lee gets traded or even frankly release at this stage in his career. But he's a very inexpensive insurance policy at the very least right now. I think you make a good point about just the nature of pitching to contact and just how little of control you have as a starting pitcher. I was at Mike Leek's most recent start on Wednesday, which I guess was just yesterday. And he actually kept the ball on the ground extremely well. The Colorado Rockies, the team he was facing, they weren't necessarily driving the ball to the gap or anything like that. but the number of balls that just snuck their way through the infield,

it was difficult to watch. And I mean, you know, like ground balls, like we love that. You know, that's something that you look for. But the nature of even being a ground ball pitcher, even if you can be elite at being a ground ball pitcher, you still can't control where that ground ball goes. And Mike Leak was the victim of that yesterday. If you don't have a whole lot of swing and miss in your game,

even if you can keep the ball. on the ground, you're still basically guaranteed nothing. Yeah, it's, uh, there's no justice in baseball. Right. And so like some days, you know, guys just have to wear it. And, um, that's really unfortunate. I don't think Mike Leak is as bad as he has been in his, uh, four starts, uh, with the diamond back.

So, right, right. Um, you know, he knows what he's doing. Uh, he's a professional. He's lasted in the game for this long for a reason. And so, you know, cheap insurance, he's filling innings. We had a discussion a few episodes back where we just, we even frankly talked about the value of just having people around that are able to take the ball every fifth day and at least like give you a five or six inning effort. So he's going to do that for them. And, you know, where they're at right now in their season, it looks like things have, you know, unfortunately kind of slipped away.

you know, this is probably fine and it's, you know, we're very close to needing to really start shifting our eyes towards 2020. Let's go ahead and play the long game, Jeff. This was what I thought was most interesting after the trade deadline, is what exactly is the Diamondbacks long-term plan for trying to get back into contention. We've heard Mike Hazen talk a lot about wanting to win a world series and not playing for just the occasional wild card appearance. He wants to build a team that can contend long term.

And I think the trade with Zach Ranky, the Zach Gallen trade, they kind of push us in a couple different directions. So here, I'll go ahead and start with this. These are the Diamondbacks starting pitchers that they will have available to them next season. I know you just mentioned a few of them. They've got Luke Weaver, Taiwan Walker, potentially coming back from injury, Zach Gallen, Merrill Kelly, Alex Young, Taylor Clark, Jonathan, DeW. Duplanteer, Robbie Ray, and Mike Leak.

I believe that's pretty much everyone who I think is pretty clearly going to be in that race for the Diamondbacks next season. And obviously, you know, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that there isn't really a true number one in that mix for the Diamondbacks without Zach Granke. They don't really have that type of a guy. And what this points, as far as I can tell Jeff, what this points to is a team that is kind of destined to once again not be real good but not be real bad it kind of looks like 2020 for the diamondbacks is going to be maybe a little bit more of the same unless you know

maybe there are more trades coming maybe this winter the diamondbacks uh tear some things down maybe they add to the bullpen there's there's several different directions they can go but i'm still a little bit dumbfounded jeff we've talked about how mike hayzen is not really giving us too many answers about this this long game about what what exactly is his his idea and his plan for getting the diamond backs into consistent contention as far as I can tell this this this change is probably not going to happen by next year I would agree with that I would agree with that timeline I do think the thing that Mike hason probably identified immediately and this you know obviously probably stems from from his time you know really as as as

you know, with Boston and examining kind of the league as a whole is that the Diamondbacks organization was frankly just, just thin on talent. You know, you had kind of, you know, you had some guys like obviously Paul Goldschmidt and Zach Granky maybe sort of masking that to a degree. But if you if you peeled back the layers a little bit, you got into kind of the fringes of the 25-man roster, you know, some of the back part. of the 40-man roster, really looking at the minor league structure, there was very, very little, you know, just overall organizational talent. So I think that's really been his goal, because

there's two types of currency. I mean, there's financial currency, which the Diamondbacks don't seem to really possess, you know, to really spend with some of their, even frankly, like division counterparts, like the Giants or Dodgers. But organizationally, they didn't have the prospect equity or value really throughout the system. So I think that's been his biggest task. And if we look for things that have changed most drastically under his leadership, you know, the easy thing to point to is, well, A.J. Pollack's not here anymore. Paul Goldschman's not here anymore. Zach Granky's not here anymore.

But if you look at the value of what the farm system is done, it's a lot. It's really frankly ballooned under my case. And so using kind of the framework that fan graphs relies on and their prospect rankings, you know, the looks of it now is that they have, you know, basically maybe about the seventh most valuable farm system. That's going to be very valuable to them because they can't just throw out dollars. However, Trading Zach Granky does give them some dollars to spend and now they have more prospect currency as well. So I think he's kind of creating his own path towards, you know, really building up the big league roster and the viability of the big league roster to contend. We see some of those pieces there now. Can he supplement them?

Can he supplement a Cotel Marte with other guys? So that's, I think that's been probably his biggest charge. And while he's, you know, that's not necessarily, you know, what grabs the headlines or what gets spoken about the most, he's positioning himself for, you know, for that next run of contention. And they're going to need that. They're going to have to rely on that type of strategy to compete. Yeah, well, you mentioned this farm system, which I think is maybe a bigger story than anything over the last couple months, even bigger than than maybe even the Zach Ranky trade,

is that this farm system is really thriving in the minds of pretty much everyone, it seems like at this point. It's kind of a consensus that the Diamondbacks farm system ranks right around the top five, maybe top 10 of all of Major League Baseball. And we've seen, especially, it seems like over the last couple months, some of their top prospects have really started to flash some big time potential and get a lot of people pretty excited. You think about Alec Thomas, who was recently promoted.

He's been really hot as of late playing for Vysalia. You've got Christian Robinson, who was promoted to Kane County. I had an opportunity to interview him. He's still kind of trying to figure things out offensively in Kane County, but obviously a guy with an extremely high ceiling. Corbyn Carroll has absolutely lit things out. I've heard rumors that his season might be over at this point. But for Hillsborough, after being promoted there, he was phenomenal.

Pavin Smith, you mentioned earlier. He's just absolutely knocking the cover off the ball over the last month and a half. You've got Dalton Varsho, who's maybe the biggest story lately. He's hitting 442 over his last 10 games with AA Jackson, which is not Reno. This is not, you know, you don't take these numbers with a grain of salt because the ball's flying everywhere. The league that he is playing for with the Diamondbacks is not known to be particularly hitter friendly. So Varshot has taken a big step forward as of late. And even some pitchers, Luis Frios, has been really exciting getting promoted to Cain County.

Levi Kelly. I got to see him pitch in Cain County. He looked really impressive. Geraldo Pardomo was promoted. He's looked really good with Vysalia. And the list just kind of goes on and on. The Diamondbacks don't necessarily have such a good farm system because, you know, they have, you know, one of the top five best prospects in all of baseball.

they don't really have that guy at least not yet but the amount of depth in this system and just the number of names that we can list off that bring some excitement it's something jeff that we have not had here in a long time no and and that's you know that's part of it that's really encouraging and i think we have to sort of you know take a step back sometimes and look at the um the landscape of the division uh i've referenced you know just previously that fan graphs had them ranked seventh in terms of like farm system value. You know, the two of the three teams in the top three are the Padres and the Dodgers. The Dodgers are already winning.

They look, you know, pretty well positioned to probably play in another world series. And yet their farm system is also incredibly deep and incredibly talented and very, very good. The Padres have, you know, progressed on the field. to some degree. Fernando Tatis has obviously been shut down, but the addition of Manny Machado, the emergence of guys like Chris Paddock, and plenty more on the way.

I think my case is kind of looking around at the division and understanding like I'm going to need to really develop my own prospects, whether that's for filling holes on the Major League roster when guys like Robbie Ray, David Peralta, Jake Lamb, Nick Ahmed are no longer there. Or that's, you know, making moves to supplement those players. So, you know, I think that, you know, you just have to kind of take that broader

perspective and understand that in today's game, it's not just good enough to go out and, you know, try to sign a bunch of free agents and, you know, we're just going to line them up and we're going to play and we're going to win. It's a much longer game than that. And while you could turn on ESPN or, you're fine. Fox Sports, Arizona, and watch the game. Behind the scenes, there's like a game of risk, you know, going on in real time that's much more nuanced.

And that's the game that ultimately is going to impact what you're seeing on your television. I'm glad you brought up the other teams of the division because I think that's absolutely something that we have to, you know, factor into the conversation, the Dodgers, the Padres in phenomenal positions moving forward. I think one myth that I think a lot of fans can subscribe to pretty easily and something that I think people need to kind of rethink just a little bit is that people think that the Dodgers are so great because they have all this money. And albeit they do have a freaking lot of money that the Diamondbacks simply do not have access to. But I mean, you look up and down the Dodgers roster. and the guys who are responsible for putting them in World Series contention year after World Series contention year,

those guys are not making any money whatsoever. Most of those guys are still on their rookie contracts or in their first couple years of arbitration. You think of Corey Seeger, you think of Cody Bellinger, who's obviously a top MVP candidate this year, Max Muncie, Jock Peterson has been stable for them. Jun Ngu is not making a whole lot of money. Will Smith, the catcher they just called up, who's absolutely been phenomenal so far. And they've got more guys waiting. As you mentioned, Gavin Lux seems to be the next big name coming out of Los Angeles.

The reason the Dodgers are so good is not primarily because of the money that they have. And people need to start believing that the Diamondbacks, if they continue to build a premier farm system like they've started to do, you know, Dodger level greatness is not completely out of the question. Obviously, the Dodgers will always have a leg up over the diamond backs in some ways. They can afford to make mistakes that the diamond backs can't afford to make. That's it. Right. But on the whole, it is absolutely feasible that the diamond backs could become the kind of perennial contender that the Dodgers become if they can play their cards right.

Yeah, I mean, you see the model. You see the model is there. This isn't a team built on expensive free agents that are supplemented by some prospects that have graduated. Exactly. It's a team that's built on prospects that have graduated that are supplemented by some free agents. Right. There's a big, big difference between those two things. All of those early 2000s years of watching the Yankees and the Red Sox and how they built some of those teams, that's long gone.

This is not how the game is happening now. Um, at 29 other teams would fall all over themselves to have Walker Guler on their roster right now. Oh, I didn't even mention him. Another one. Right. And it's just, and they just keep coming. Um, you know, Dustin May is up now. So, I mean, it's just, uh, it's just going to keep churning.

Um, there, there's no real end in sight for that. So the only thing you can do, um, you know, what's the saying? if you can't beat him, join them. They're going to have to adopt, you know, some of that. And frankly, right? Like, I mean, we can look at that and we can say, well, you know, Corey Seeger was a top flight prospect. Walker Bueller was a top flight prospect.

Max Muncie was not. He's a guy that is an organizational win in terms of development, strategies, you know, the organization looking at players differently, trying things. You know, one of the guys that I think, you know, would have been an organizational win in some degree was a guy that actually traded Mitch Hanager. You know, I don't think anyone's complaining because in some way he turned into Catelle Marte.

But you look at that and it's like, well, we're going to have, you know, they're going to have to, you know, continue to look for some of these guys that they can, you know, repackage, reshape, remold and help. frankly just kind of, you know, refine their game to continue to contribute. But that's a, they're at, they came at it from such a deficit as compared to some of their even divisional counterparts. That's going to take a lot of time. And that, that's why there was so much pressure on this 2019 draft.

And, you know, by all accounts, they did it very well for themselves. But, you know, those rewards when we reaped on the major league field for quite some time, So I really do think there's brighter days ahead. I do think Mike Hazen clearly sees the bigger picture. I can't say that for the people that preceded him and put him in that position. But there's going to have to be some staying of the course in order to get there. And sometimes there's really good intentions and things that just don't work out. I mean, I was looking today at the entry history of the Pirates as Jameson,

on and just what a miserable, you know, last, I think, four years that poor kid has had after the top of the top of the case. He was good. I mean, he's a guy that you're like, this guy's going to anchor a rotation for like 10 years. I mean, he's awesome. Yeah. And he's just lost so much. So there's going to be things like that, but I think the, the by and large, if they stay the course, you know, Mike Hazen has him heading in the right direction. Before we do that, jump into our couple of questions that we got from listeners here on this episode 11 of the Rattle podcast. I think we'd be remiss if we didn't mention the breakout, the Nick Ahmed, the Diamondback

shortstop has been on as of late. He was just named the National League player the week last week. He hit several home runs. It seems like he has really started to be a consistent force in the Diamondbacks lineup. Obviously, the defense, Jeff, is well documented. We all know what he offers defensively. He's continued that this season. But you combined that with what has become an average, potentially even above average bat,

and things start to get pretty exciting. And, Jeff, before I pitch it over to you on this, I don't know if you saw my tweet, which I can't remember if I tweeted this out yesterday or today. But entering today, Nick Ahmed had an OPS of 798, and Paul Goldschmidt also had an OPS of 798. I mean, he's the new Paul Goldschmidt. I mean, what is there to say? I will say this.

You know, even if OPS isn't your stat and you want to go deeper, Nick Ahmed has a weighted runs created plus that's at least one point over leak average. It's so much better than he's ever been in his career. And I just like, I love the stats. I love scouting. I love all the – I'm so happy for Nick Ahmed as a person. Nick Ahmed works his tail off. He gives you everything every night out.

And I think there are guys out there that are very naturally gifted. There are guys out there that can do things on a baseball field that few other human beings can do. And we could maybe make that case about him defensively, but as a hitter, we've never really said that about Nick Ahmed. But my goodness, I mean, I just, I really think it's a credit to like just hard work, perseverance and a guy that just has refused to quit. And I'm really, really pumped for him. I don't know how long he stays with the organization. I know he has another year of team control left. And I'm sure he'll be back next year.

Beyond that, I don't know. But I really hope, you know, in whatever fashion. and I hope it pays off for Nick Omick, because I really think he deserves it. Yeah, it's funny you mentioned his fuchsure with the team. We've received the question, I think, several times on the show, you know, who is the Diamondbacks next big extension candidate? And we've never really had a good answer to that question because the Diamondbacks don't really have any slam dunk candidates for an extension for guys who haven't already been

extended. People will instantly say, Cotel Marte, the Diamondbacks have team control of Catelle Marte through his age 31 season. You're not exactly in a rush to secure Cotel Marte until he's 45 years old. I think they're covered there. And beyond that, Eduardo Escobar has a couple years after this one. There just aren't really any guys who are super clear extension candidates. But I think Nick Ahmed, with what he's done over the last month or so,

and kind of taken that next step forward offensively, If you have a guy who plays defense as well as he does, and if he can be near average offensively, you're talking about easily, you know, at top 10, maybe even better shortstop in all of baseball. And the diamondbacks don't really have any clear options at shortstop that are just right around the corner. They've got some intriguing guys with Perdomo, like we mentioned before, Piguero is another guy who's really come on lately in the farm system. but both of those guys are probably a few years away, and maybe the Diamondbacks look into bringing Nick Ahmed back on some sort of extension,

and, you know, maybe bridge the gap to those guys for at least a couple more seasons. Yeah, and to call Nick Ahmed, like, a top 10 shortstop is like, you know, in some ways you think of that, it's like, well, there's 30 teams, so he's like in the top third and, you know, like, eh, you know, that's not really, like, that good. Right. But, like, look at the short stops in baseball now.

I mean, Alex Bregman, Trevor Story, Javier Bayez, Francisco Lindorr, you know, Corey Seeger, Trey Turner. You know, it's just like the list is so deep. So deep and so good. Zanderboger. I mean, it's just like, you go through this like, well, being top 10 in that company is pretty darn good. And, you know, with his age, I mean, he's not, you know, it's not like he's hitting free agency, you know, at the age of 26. or something, he'd be pretty affordable if they wanted to go that route. Right.

So I do think there might be something to that. I think the good thing for the Diamondbacks is that they're in the position where they can play it out another year. It's not something they have to address immediately. They have that extra year of team control. I would fully expect them to use that before they really go down the kind of the extension talk. I'm sure they'll engage. But I doubt they'd really do anything, you know, in advance. And, you know, it's not like you're going to have to sign them to a Bryce Harper, you know, three year, you know, $330 million deal or something.

So, you know, should they decide to extend them for two or three years and give themselves, you know, that cushion? Sure. That gives him another, you know, a couple of year or another year to evaluate a guy like, you know, per domo or, you know, kind of address their organizational depth. So. But I do think he's a candidate. He's going to have a really nice long career, I think, when it's all said and done. Let's go ahead and jump into our questions from our listeners, which of course we always appreciate here on the Rattle Podcast. From Mike Cleary, he says, which potential September 1st call-ups are you most intrigued about seeing in the big leagues?

Jeff, there's maybe a few people that come to mind for me. I'll go ahead and pitch it to you first, though. Who comes to mind for you? you know, I look at it and I, you know, I look at the 40 men roster and I look at kind of who's there that's not up currently, you know, and that that makes it a little tough. So, I mean, you know, there's always the option to sort of punt someone from the 40 men roster and, you know, DFA someone or whatnot. Right. But if I limit myself to kind of what's already there, I'd kind of like to see you get another shot. I do think he's kind of a limited player, but I would like to see Domingo Lava, you know, get a little more Major League time.

I don't know that he's ever going to necessarily really blossom into like a full-on, you know, kind of, you know, big league regular. You know, he's best suited for second base, and Wilmer Flores has very quietly been very good. But, you know, he's a guy that I wouldn't mind seeing some more of and just kind of, you know, trying to. to decide, I guess, for even my own personal evaluation, if he's really a piece that the organization should be looking at for anything long-term or whether, you know, even, frankly, I mean, for his sake that he's worth that 40-man roster spot. Yeah, I think for me, I think of Bo Takahashi, who is an interesting case because if I'm not mistaken, I believe he was called up several days ago, but wasn't actually given the opportunity to pitch. He never pitched, yeah. It was a, you know,

poor guy, 22 years old, finally gets the call up, and then, you know, he made his way back to Double A Jackson before he actually got in the game. But I think he's pretty much a shoe in. I think he's definitely going to be back. We should see him this season, which is exciting, like I mentioned, only 22 years old. So I think that's definitely something to look forward to. Other than that, the intriguing guys are, as you alluded to, there's some interesting guys who are not on the 40-man roster, which of course is,

quite an obstacle. So I wouldn't necessarily put any level of expectation on these names whatsoever, but we would love to see Dalton Varshot at the Major League level sometime soon. And Pavin Smith has also really come on strong at AA like we talked about before. I think 2020 is probably when we'll see these guys. I don't necessarily think that's a horrible decision either with these guys finishing long seasons with AA. But nonetheless, Jeff, I, I think especially when it comes to Dalton Varsho, there's certainly some anticipation to seeing these guys in a major league roster. Absolutely. I mean, if I'm given my wishes, Varsha is certainly the guy that I'd like to see.

Start him in center field, right? Yeah, right. I mean, why waste time? Let's just do it. No, I mean, yeah, it would be very exciting to see him up. I mean, we don't see a lot of, you know, sort of hitting first. average and hitting for power left-handed catchers in the game. It's just, it's a unique basis, nonetheless. No kidding. I mean, yeah, it's a, it's a very unique skill set for him and kind of seeing

how it fits would be very intriguing. I'm sure the club would probably rather run those experiments and see that next spring in the friendly confines of Salt River Fields, but I sure wouldn't mind seeing it this September. The other guy I'll throw out there is Jimmy Shirfian, just seeing, you know, there's been so much talk about why haven't the Diamondbacks called him up? Why hasn't he been part of the team? The bullpen has struggled, you know, frankly, you know, pretty mightily at times. And so, you know, can he get a shot?

How fresh is he, you know, how's his workload going? And so I'd be very interested to see what he can contribute. you know, we're really getting down the road with him in terms of his age and, and whatnot. So for some of these guys, you know, it's about cementing whether or not the organization even really wants to hang on to them long term. And he sort of seems to fit that bill. Go ahead and move on to our final question here in this episode from Greg Littleton. He says with Zach Ranky gone, Robbie Ray approaching free agency and Taiwan Walker, a question mark after Tommy John surgery. do you think any of the young pitchers, he mentions Zach Gallin, Alex Young, Taylor Clark, and John DuPontier,

could any of those pitchers actually become the next Diamondbacks ace? I'll go ahead and give my answer and then pitch it over to you, Jeff. From my standpoint, I do think it is possible that the Diamondbacks next true ace is within the organization already, but it's probably not one of those four guys from my standpoint. Zach Gallin is putting up some really good numbers here in his rookie year, still sporting the sub three ERA and all that. I think his stuff probably more profiles as a mid-rotation starter, maybe a number two at his ceiling. So I'm not necessarily sure you're looking at an ace in Gallen. I think Alex Young and Taylor Clark, both of those guys, honestly, if they stayed in a major league rotation for an extended period of time,

I think you'd consider that a big win right there. John DuPontier, there's definitely been talk about him becoming an ace at some point. He's really struggled with injuries, though, unfortunately. I think the potential for that is still there, but there's some pretty real durability concerns there with DuPontier that could potentially deter him on that path. Yeah, I agree. I don't know that I necessarily see it, you know, in the sort of traditional, framework and thought around what is an ace.

You know, by ace do we mean the best pitcher on the staff or by ace do we mean like a top five pitcher in the game? Right. I don't think they have the latter of those things. So I don't see that among this group. That said, I don't think they necessarily have to have that in the group to be competitive. You look at a team, you know, even like the Cubs right now, they're leading the NL Central. And they have, you know, if they have a rotation built on, you know, a different kind of pitcher, more veteran pitchers.

None of them are really, you know, probably true aces in the game. I mean, Kyle Hendricks, John Lester, Jose Cantana, you know, they have guys of kind of that age and that established quality. But they have five of them. Right. And so, you know, at the end of the day, the cumulative effort is pretty strong. So I do think this rotation even, you know, in the near future, is just, you know, built more to have a bit more quantity than quality in terms of, you know, finding a legitimate major league ace. Ladies and gentlemen, that is all that we have for this episode 11 of the Rattle Podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in.

We know it's been a little bit of a while since both me and Jeff have been here and we've had the whole crew. certainly good to be back with you. Absolutely. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at the Rattle AZ if you have not done so already. And be sure to check out our website as well at www. the rattle.net where you can find new and interesting Diamondbacks commentary. We've got some good interviews and some good content coming up as well.

So we'll be looking out for that. Thank you once again so much for listening and not forgetting about us. For Jeff Weiser, my name is Jesse. see freebin and we will see you once again next week to talk more about the Arizona Diamondback.