PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Ep. 20: Baseball in July?

Episode Date: May 18, 2020

We discuss the complications surrounding baseball's plans to return, how the D-backs would be affected by the DH, and much more. 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.

Welcome back into episode 20 of the Rattle podcast. As always, my name is Jesse Frevin, along with Jeff Weiser, my co-host. Jeff, it's been a little while, obviously for a good reason with the whole coronavirus situation. We've had all too few baseball-related things to talk about lately, but we are back. There are some plans that have arisen to potentially bring baseball back. It seems like the consensus seems to be around the beginning of July. would be when that hypothetically takes place. There's all sorts of back and forth

between the owners and the players. There's some health concerns that I think people still want to find some answers to. But there are proposals on the table, and I know just for the baseball world at large, I think this is good news just to hear that we could have baseball, at least some sort of entertainment

as we all stay locked up at home for the most part. But Jeff, I know one big thing that came out today that you had mentioned earlier was that the state of California has announced that they are willing to have pro sports happen locally, of course, without fans. That's kind of a given at this point. But I think that, I think that raises optimism maybe even a little bit more as California, of course, is one of the more limiting states, one of the more restricted states when it comes to these kinds of things. And maybe, you know, them opening things up a little bit can kind of start a ripple effect across the league. Yeah, and now I was frankly a little surprised to see that news,

but I do think it's a big development for MLB. I think it's a big development for all sports. And so I know Texas is also like on that bandwagon as are probably some other states. So getting California to kind of open up to that is such a big deal. I mean, they have five teams in the state. And so the thought of playing anything even remotely close to. to resembling a normal baseball schedule really needs to include California because, you know, one-sixth of the entire league is, is there. So being able to do that, I think, is a big step and, you know, seems like a pretty important domino to fall.

Yeah, I think what's making the most headlines right now in the baseball world is this ongoing spat, if you will, between the player's side and the owner's side for those who may not know all of the details. I'll give you a quick rundown. Basically, a couple months ago when the season was originally postponed, the players and the owners sat down, they had a meeting, and they basically signed an agreement where players agreed to take a pro-rated salary for the season. So basically, whatever proportion of the season's games were played, that's the proportion of the salary that all of these players would make. Since then, owners are now saying, well, you know, we weren't aware back then that

there wouldn't be fans in the stands. And so now owners are kind of backed in the corner where they're trying to make the argument that they need players to take a further salary cut, whereas on the player's side, they're kind of saying, you know, we already went through this. We've already agreed upon this deal. You know, there's risk in this involved for us going out and playing in this environment. We don't want to take a further pay cut. So I think that's kind of the ugly back and forth that is that is making most of the headlines right now. Jeff, it's hard for me to, it's hard to maybe empathize. I think for a lot of people with either group, you know, you've got a predominantly millionaire player base on one side. You've got a predominantly billionaire, you know, owner base on

the other side. Obviously, these things are far more complicated than that. But I think from my standpoint, Jeff, the one thing that I think cannot get in the way of baseball being played in 2020 is this money issue. I think it'd be really ugly for the game of baseball. I think it'd be an enormous PR problem. And I'm really hoping that they're able to come to an agreement to at least on this issue sometime soon. I am so with you. I think it's, you know, it's probably, you know, we would say in poor taste. You know, sometimes you have to read the room, right?

We know what's happening to other people. We know what's happened to their jobs and their livelihoods. And so to continue a real public spat, you know, in this regard does not reflect well. and would certainly come off is pretty tone deaf to the reality that many tens of millions of Americans are facing on a daily basis. So, you know, jobless claims are, you know, approaching 40 million, you know, to, you know, to shut down over, over something like that, I think would probably not, you know, sit very well with a lot of folks. You know, and I think it's interesting that, you know, in-person revenues are, you know, have become a smaller and smaller slice of

the revenue pie for owners and for teams. Sure. More and more games are viewed, you know, online or through TV and TV deals being what they are. They certainly trump, no matter how many of those, you know, $18 bud lights you buy. The TV deal is still a bigger revenue generator for teams. So I'm really with you, Jesse. I really hope it doesn't come down to it. you know, with this news that California is going to, you know, make baseball, you know,

being played a reality and maybe some momentum going. I'm hoping that cooler heads can prevail. There's already a fight scheduled for, you know, when the CBA expires. So let's just deal with it then. And maybe we can have a little, have a little baseball in the meantime. Yeah, I think it's a very complicated debate. I think a lot of people are kind of oversimplifying the issue that, you know, oh, because these, you know, these billionaire owners basically have unlimited funds, you know, how could they possibly, you know, be trying to put players in this position? But, you know, you and I were talking before the show. And some of these teams in baseball are very well off.

They're doing very well for themselves. But other teams, not so much. And I think, you know, from a business standpoint, this is a lot more complicated than just, you know, an owner having, you know, tons and tons of money in his pocket. It's really not that simple of a situation. And even on the player's side, I think. you know, Trevor Bauer has really taken center stage, along with Blake Snell. They have both been very, very vocal about this issue.

I don't know if you've seen some of the tweets that have come out. But, you know, there have been some ugly articles written on some of these guys. And I certainly, you know, kind of see where they're coming from, where certainly there's risk in this and we don't want to, you know, we don't want to downplay the risk, you know, in a global pandemic to be going out and playing baseball. But at the same time, like you said before, Jeff, you know, the millions, the nearly 40 million Americans who are filing for unemployment may have a very hard time just kind of trying to empathize at all with these guys who are, you know, refusing to make two millions instead of four million or, you know, whatever that looks like. It's a very, very hard case for them to make. And I don't think in general that their views are going to be made super popular in this whole situation.

Yeah, they'll definitely be painted in a certain light. And ownership is a really interesting thing. I mean, we talk about, you know, owners as if, you know, $500 million, you know. It's like it's not like there's $500 million in cash just sitting somewhere, you know, waiting to be given out. I mean, we're talking about a lot of like non-liquid resources, non-liquid assets, like, you know, shares in companies, et cetera, et cetera. So it's very challenging to really nail down, like, I mean, hey, we couldn't give you a raise this year, but we've given you the owners, you know, Lake Tahoe vacation home. How's that? You know, it's like, I don't think that's an accepted form of a contract. I don't know. Maybe it is. I don't know it. But yeah, it's, it is really complicated. It's complex. And, you know, one of the one of the things about franchises is that, you know, there are only 30 of them. So they need to continue to go up in value to really remain valuable. And if one of them takes a hit for some reason, maybe they sell additional shares in the team to generate funds, do all these kinds of things that maybe you could devalue an individual franchise.

Well, it has a ripple effect on the other franchises as well. So it's easy to think about, you know, well, if the Marlins just, you know, aren't as profitable as everyone says they are, it does tend to have. you know kind of a ripple effect to the other organizations and so i think that's why we see a lot of solidarity between ownership um there you know at least publicly you know really no major factions within within ownership um it seems you know everyone's pretty united on making sure that the valuation of individual franchises uh continues to move in a positive direction so um i don't think they'll i don't think they'll um you know budge very willingly um they've definitely been pretty vocal and coming out and, you know, kind of putting the finger at the players. As you mentioned, people like

Trevor Bauer and folks are trying to point back. So, you know, hopefully with them both pointing at each other, they can work something out. But that's well beyond my expertise. But it is, it is frustrating. The timing may be a little poor. And if states and folks are going to be willing to host this and baseball doesn't seize that opportunity, you know, baseball, frankly, you know, you you know, in terms of popularity, is fallen a long ways in the United States in the last, you know, 50 years. So, yeah, this would be another blow in that direction. Yeah, I think Trevor Bauer, the other day over Twitter, tried to kind of liken the situation of players to that of a painter. You can easily find the threat on Twitter. It got all sorts

of engagement if you want to go back and find the specific details. But at least, suffice it to say, it was very hard, at least for me, to kind of see the comparison between, you know, a painter's situation and, you know, what we're dealing with in a global pandemic. You basically liken the situation to a painter who had done some painting work for, you know, for a contractor. And then, and then it turned out that, you know, the apartments that were painted caught on fire. And then, you know, is not, you know, his painting work just as valuable as it was before. That's an oversimplification, but kind of along the lines of what he was trying to say. I think, you know, everyone's, everyone's feelings and opinions are valid. We want to hear

than we don't want to shut any voices out, but at least from my standpoint, that was a little hard to really get behind. And the owners, we don't want to portray them as necessarily being perfect in this situation. I think there's been a lot of skepticism that maybe some of the data has not really been very accurate. Owners are kind of trying to convince players that they don't have enough money to pull this off if players don't agree to a further salary cut. And I think there's some skepticism that that's actually the case and rightfully so. I think, you know, owners are going to have to maybe release a little bit more financial information. But suffice it to say, Jeff, we think this is kind of a mess on both sides of the issue. It's hard to really pick one side over the other. But I think from

my standpoint, Jeff, just get this done. Right. This is kind of a, this is kind of a season of compromise for all of us. No one's life really looks like, you know, they really ideally want it to right now. This is something that's affected everyone. And so I think this, this of all times is a time where baseball really needs to find that middle ground. Yeah, we're pretty far off the map here. You know what I mean? Like there's no playbook for really how to handle this. You know, ultimately, the outcome that I'd love to see is see baseball come back,

see baseball come back in a way that keeps people safe, keeps people happy, and maybe provides, you know, even a little learning for us as the public about how a lot of folks go back to their jobs and, you know, how we navigate sort of public life again in the post-COVID world. So that's what I'm hoping for. And, you know, I'll just keep knocking on wood until that happens or, God forbid, something else happens. Yeah, yeah. I think the one other factor in this situation that I think is significant that we definitely want to acknowledge is that, you know, like the players are arguing, there is a legitimate, you know,

health situation. You know, there's a, there's a serious risk in this case. And obviously, players, the vast majority of them are in the demographic that is very, very much at low risk of the coronavirus. I think the data speaks to that pretty clearly at this point. But there are some players, you know, with preexisting conditions. You have, you know, immunity issues. It's certainly, you know, more the exception than the rule, but those players have a valid voice in a situation like this as well. So you certainly don't want to discount them. Jeff, from my standpoint, as much as I'll preach against the money problem all day and say that cannot be, you know, the reason baseball doesn't come back, I think that on the health side of

things, if there are some players that are just not comfortable with coming back and playing, or I also think about, you know, some of the coaches who are maybe a little bit older, I mean, they're also, you know, would be in maybe more of a risky category when it comes to this situation. So from my standpoint, those are the people we really need to be listening to right now. And if they're willing to take on that risk, you know, let's go play ball. Let's go for it. But I think there's certainly validity in them, you know, maybe being a little bit more hesitant and not wanting to go through with this. Yeah, that's a real concern. I mean, we were talking before we started recording about, you know, what happens if, you know, five or seven players

all of a sudden come down with symptoms from a certain team or, or something. of that nature and maybe they're, maybe they're been on a road trip and they've played and, you know, they're now in their third city in the last week or, you know, they've, they've interacted with hotel staff. They've been on airplanes with stewardesses and pilots. There's just so many, yeah, there's so many ways that it could go and without the ability to, you know, have a, you know, have a real cure or a vaccine or maybe even accurately, you know, trace back to, you know, where something may have come from, it's really disconcerting. And I mean, does that team just quarantine themselves from the baseball schedule for 14 days? Like, I mean, where does that go? What does that contingency

plan look like? So it does provide like a real, a real quandary. And I think you make a great point, right? A lot of our coaches are older. Umpires are older. And we, you know, a lot of players are of the age where they have young children and aging parents. And so I know there's, you know, an amount of, you know, quarantining and distancing that's happening now, but, you know, are we telling players, hey, during the season, you know, you can't see your folks for the next four months. And maybe that's the case, right? And I mean, it'd be probably pretty wise of players if the season does continue that they don't see their parents for that amount of time. But that is a, you know, that is a significant ask to make of somebody. So, yeah, I think it, it does.

provide a host of questions. The good thing is that they're not proposing that we start tomorrow, although, you know, I could certainly use baseball tomorrow. I think six more weeks of sort of data collection and, you know, understanding how things, trends are going and whatnot. We can continue to learn from other countries, you know, as well, even outside the United States, could provide very valuable information as to how baseball proceeds. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And in terms of, you know, baseball potentially proceeding, hopefully proceeding at some point here. They have come out with, once again, just a proposal. There's nothing, you know, nothing written in blood or anything just yet.

But they have released a major league baseball is proposing a very, very detailed plan to the Players Association that kind of outlines the protocols for, you know, things like what happens if somebody gets sick and, you know, what kinds of things are players going to be, you know, discouraged from doing? And some of those things include, you know, showering at the stadium. I've read that players would be encouraged to just shower at home. Things like no high-fiving, no hugging, wearing a mask if you're not playing. I even read in one of the articles that players would be discouraged from being close to base runners

unless they were, you know, trying to pick them off or something along those lines. They would be encouraged to kind of keep their distance. So it's a very, very in-depth list of restrictions that would be put in place. I think both Jeff Passon and Ken Rosenthal have done a good job covering it for those interested in finding all of those nitty-gritty details. But I want to move on from here, Jeff, to heck, we're a Diamondbacks podcast, right? We should be talking about the Diamondbacks on some level, which this situation certainly makes a little bit more difficult. But one of the elements of that plan is the introduction of a designated hitter in both leagues, which I think obviously has been, you know, rumored to maybe happen in baseball for quite some time. time. We were talking before the show about this. I think we both agree that this is something

that could have happened as soon as next year anyway, if none of this had happened. But it certainly looks like if baseball does come back this year, it's going to be with a designated hitter and it leaves all of these teams, you know, left to kind of answer a question. Maybe they weren't prepared to answer is, you know, do we have a designated hitter, you know, worthy type player on our roster if you're a National League team? For the Diamondbacks, I think Kevin Crone probably comes to mind. Jake Land. would probably come to mind as well. Jeff, I'm curious your take on just how well positioned or not so well positioned the

Diamondbacks would be if a DH is indeed instituted. I think it's a tough spot for them, you know, and I think a lot of National League teams will kind of find themselves there. You know, it's going to be challenging to adapt to that. You know, I guess it would make Tori Lavello's job a lot easier. but on the other hand it's it's going to be a little challenging and I think I think the most obvious answer at least you know as far as I see it against especially against right-handed pitching is you know we were gosh I guess maybe you know six months ago or five months ago sort of wondering you know why the debacks

were we're trying to keep Jake Lamb around and you know if it does go to sort of a DH type you know DH type situation for the remainder of whatever 2020 looks like. I think Jake Lamb probably fits that mold the best in the sense that, you know, defensively they've got a better defender at third base. Defensively, they've got a better defender at first base. There's really not much reason to play Jake Lamb over Christian Walker or Edwardo Escoa. So other than that, he bats left-handed. So I could see that being very useful.

I do also think that there will be some sort of roster expansion that's going to have to accompany an abbreviated season of some kind. So does that allow them to continue to carry like a guy like Kevin Crone to be the right-handed part of that D.H. platoon or something of that nature. So that's immediately where my mind goes because I didn't want to turn my mind to Yasmani Tomas. So I'll stick with Jake Lamb and Kevin Crone. Oh, man. Yeah, it's interesting. I saw, I think, our friends over at AZ Snake Pit, they wrote an article about the different candidates that could potentially service D.H.

And they went as far as to not even include Yasmani Tomas on the list. I saw that. Yeah, that certainly got some fun pushback. And, of course, use of the classic GIF of Yasmani Tomas swinging at a pitch that he, that literally hit him. Yes. So certainly all sorts of fun memories associated with Yasmani Tomas and his all too short time lived with the Major League Club. But yes, I think you make a good point. It's probably, you're probably looking at Kevin Crone or Jake Lamb.

From my standpoint, if you kind of extrapolate this out, and actually, I'll go ahead and jump into the question that we received in this episode because it's very much related. Greg Littleton asked us if the universal DH is instituted for this shortened season across the MLB, do you think it becomes permanent when the traditional AL-NL structure resumes in 2021? And I think that is a great question. It's honestly a question I've been asking myself. And as we were talking about before the show, it sounds like given that baseball was about to, you know, enter a new collective bargaining agreement anyway, it seems like that the DH very well might have been a part of that agreement.

So yeah, what do you what do you think, Jeff, as far as the long term outcome with the DH? I do think it was an inevitability. It was coming one way or another. It was going to be, in all likelihood, it was going to become part of the next CBA. And so, you know, if they had written it into the CBA that by, you know, in the 2021 season there would be a DH in both leagues or that. could have, you know, pushed it out and said, hey, by 2023, this will take effect or something to that, you know, of that nature.

But honestly, I think it was coming one way or another. So in all likelihood, if baseball comes back, I think we're going to see it sooner, which, you know, might not be, you know, might not be a terrible thing. So, you know, we were talking before. I've been kind of, I'm pro national league in general. I'm sort of, you know, I'm not a big fan of the DH. But at the same time, like, I'm not going to fight against it. I don't also enjoy watching Robbie Ray take a baths. So Robbie Ray is probably the worst hit or the Diamondbacks have.

It is rough sometimes. The bat speed is just severely lacking. That might have been a low blow on my part. But you know what I mean? That's not something I look forward to seeing. So yeah, I mean, if it comes, it comes. But I do think it was coming. And so I know there's a prospect that you and I were talking about the other day that

maybe fits that well pretty well. And that probably being Seth Beer, a guy who just, just like, let's say, you know, certainly isn't going to work in left field and the reports are of a nature that first base may provide too challenging. That just about leaves deaching as the only remaining option. So, you know, he could be kind of a plug-and-play guy,

you know, probably, you know, starting maybe even as early as 2021 in that kind of a role. Well, I guess so much for replacing Grinkees bat in the lineup up with Madison Bumgarner. That was kind of the big... I know. I know. Yeah, and that, you know, it is fun.

Like, we were, you know, I do think that watching, like, Zach Granky hit or even watching Madison Bumgarner hit isn't terrible. It's fun because it's, like, a novelty. But, you know, those are by far the exception rather than the rule. Sure. Yeah. And we certainly don't want to throw Robbie Ray under the bus too far because, you know, I don't think Merrill Kelly is exactly hitting any grand slams anytime soon.

Nope. It really, it really does apply to, you know, to just baseball at large. And I think there's certainly an argument to be made, you know, the game has more interesting strategic components in the National League when you, you know, when you have pitchers hit and managers have to, you know, deal with, you know, more double switching and trying to strategically decide, you know, when to leave a pitcher in or not when their lineup or when they're turning the lineup comes up. So I understand where those people are coming from, but I think at the end of the day, I, I

I think we probably will not miss seeing some of these guys hit who haven't really focused on hitting since high school for some of them. But Jeff, I know you did a little bit of research lately into the Diamond Back specifically when it comes to this whole situation. The first question I want to ask you, and these are articles that you've written over at Baseball Perspectus, which certainly want to give them a shout out for those of you who want to be able to have access to Jeff's work and be able to read the full versions of what we're going to talk about here. But Jeff, I know you did some research into the scheduling situation, and the current ideas that baseball would begin right around the beginning of July, and I know you did some work to kind of look at, you know, which teams would benefit if the schedule as was currently, as it is currently, you know,

as it currently stands, if we were to just kind of pick up that schedule right at the beginning of July and play through to the end of the year, which I'm certain is still at least a viable possibility at this point. Would the Diamondbacks gain from that? would the what would their outlook be if that were the case yeah i mean i really sort of like started started out with the question of you know thinking about the fact that schedules are pretty unevenly weighted in some instances like some teams have you know a lot of their difficult games early in the season others have them skewed towards the end of the season and a lot of

teams have been pretty evenly spread out but i did want to you know kind of look at you know if the season were just to resume like july first and carry on as scheduled as soon as no other changes and while that's certainly up in the air but if that was the way it went you know how would things sort of shake out and um there are some teams that really benefit from from such a scenario and these would be teams where you know a disproportionate amount of their difficult games were scheduled early in the season sure and so yeah and so to do that I looked at um like the collective you know projected winning percentage using pukota um of all opponents for every team and so for the diamondbacks they gain a slight advantage

You know, they have some really difficult games, specifically scheduled in June, actually. June seemed to make a pretty big difference from them, partly because I see at least seven games scheduled against the Dodgers in June. You take those seven games out, and that's a pretty healthy, you know, that's a pretty healthy advantage. And sandwiched in between two series against the Dodgers is a series against the Brewers, who are certainly going to be a worthy opponent as well. So they could benefit pretty greatly as compared to the rest of the N-O-West. The Giants and Dodgers were kind of dead even, didn't seem to make any difference. And then San Diego had a slightly uphill climb if things started just in July. And Colorado is really the big loser here.

They have a lot of difficult games in the back half their schedule. So that could provide a slight advantage for the Diamondbacks. and, you know, that could be a little hidden boost. But there are other teams in the American League that we're going to see a much greater, a much greater change. But at least the debacks as far as the NOS goes would, you know, kind of get the biggest benefit in that regard to a season that starts July 1st. Yeah, that is very interesting.

Certainly good news for Diamondbacks fans. And one thing we do want to throw out is that, you know, it's certainly not, you know, guarantee that the baseball would indeed just pick up on on July 1st and just play the schedule as it stands right now. I think the talk mostly seems to surround the idea of basically grouping together divisions based on their location. So the NL West and Aal West would kind of be pooled together along with the central and the east divisions from both leagues would also be pulled together.

So you basically wind up with three big divisions with 10 teams each. That seems to be the current idea. and of course the idea there is to just kind of mitigate, you know, as much traveling as possible, try to keep flights short and everything and make it so that teams can only wind up with so many, you know, so many flight attendants or, you know, whatever it may be, just try to limit the personnel involved with all of that travel that happens during the year. But that seems to be the idea that's flown out there right now. And as far as we know, I would expect they're probably going to rework the schedule to

to align with the back because obviously, you know, the Diamondbacks weren't scheduled to play the Astros or the A's or, you know, any of those games this season. So I do want to jump into that briefly, though, Jeff, if indeed that happened, we had the NOS and the AOS pooled together. The Diamondbacks would have the lovely honor of having both the Astros and the Dodgers in their division, probably the two, the two best teams in baseball. Maybe the Yankees are kind of in that conversation, too. So certainly no great benefits from that side of things. But there are also some weaker teams in those divisions. The Mariners certainly have not been great in the AOS. The Angels weren't particularly good last year.

Maybe Anthony Rendon kind of pushes them forward a little bit. What do you think, Jeff, about just kind of the outline of what that would look like if the debacks were kind of pooled into that larger Western division? Yeah, I think it's really tough, frankly. I mean, the AOS, I mean, really, because that's what we're looking at, right, is across the, you know, kind of across the line, what's the added difficulty. And I mean, to receive, you know, the Astros, the Angels and the Oakland Athletics, you know, as like regular opponents would be pretty tough. The Rangers aren't going to be, you know, very good. And as you noted, the Mariners are just about guaranteed to be terrible. So between, you know, kind of the Rockies, the Giants, the Rangers and the Mariners, you have some sort of bottom dwell. but between like the angels, the A's, the D-backs, and the Padres, I mean, those are, you know, some pretty similar teams where they're, you know, they're good enough, you know, to be in contention, but not, you know, clear front runners.

And then, man, you know, just Houston and Los Angeles are just to be really, really difficult. So I don't think, you know, I think it'd be a pretty, you know, it would be challenging. I'll put it that way. It'd be really challenging. But, you know, I don't know how much it really, how much it really swayed. things or changes things. It could be interesting because like the AL Central has, you know, three teams that aren't necessarily great.

Although I think the White Sox are maybe a little better than getting credit for. But, you know, for the NL Central to add teams like the Tigers and the Royals, I mean, teams are just terrible. It would be quite a boost to like the NL Central. Sure. And same with the NLEs to add teams like the Blue Jays and the Orioles. The Mariners might be on that level. I think the Texas Rangers are a little tougher.

So it would be. It would be tough. I don't think it helps the diamondbacks at all, you know, whatsoever. I'd be really interested to see sort of what a projected outcome in such a scenario plays out to you. Yeah, it's a very interesting question. I'm trying to just even think about, you know, where I would rank the diamondbacks on that list of 10 teams. I think the Dodgers and Astros are clearly one, two and in some order. Maybe there's some debate there over what order you put them in.

The Oakland Athletics, I feel, are one of the least respected teams across baseball, but I mean, they won 97 games last year. I think they were in the 90s and wins the year before that as well. So certainly probably put them at number three. And then at that point, it's kind of a toss-up. You know, I think the Pomerase made a lot of moves, as we talked about back when we actually thought there would be a season. You know, the backs have, you know, positioned themselves reasonably well.

The Angels with Anthony Rendon, maybe that point. pushes them into contention. Do you think the Diamondbacks would be in fourth place optimistically, Jeff? Or where do you sit on that? I don't know. I mean, it's tough. I think they're kind of right there neck and neck with probably the angels. I'm not, you know, I really appreciate what the Padres have done other than that they're

doing it in the division that Diamondbacks playing. But they have at least made a concerted effort to make their team better. And so that that much I can appreciate. um however you know san diego always seems to end up doing some kind of funky things and i'm not sure i buy that but i do think the angels could be pretty tough i mean rendon and trout in that lineup with you know some decent hitters around i mean just about and still there it's it's a pretty potent force i mean they have very little pitching whatsoever but you just have a tony pitch every single game and then i think yeah right i mean it's like you know that's kind of the the thing with them and i don't know if um you know having prepped and planned and prepared for having a DH, you know, that's where that this question becomes really interesting, right? It's like, you know, is Jake Lamb and or Kevin Crone or a platoon of

those players, you know, equivalent to what a team like the Angels or the A's will run out there all season. It might not be. And so that may favor, you know, the American League squad. So I think they're probably right there neck and neck kind of in that fourth spot. But, you know, I'm still not entirely sure how, like, I know they said an expanded playoff scenario. Yeah. I still don't know if that gets the Diamondbacks into that playoff scenario, but I think they'd be good enough to have a, have a chance to fight for it. Yeah. Yeah, I think one, the last idea that I heard was having 14 of the 30 teams wind up in the playoffs, which certainly would, I mean, that's almost borderline.

That's borderline what the NBA does where they have 16 of their 30 teams in the playoffs. So it's almost half the league at that point. So I think that would certainly, you know, raise some optimism that maybe the Diamondbacks can pull a playoff appearance that maybe they wouldn't have had otherwise out of the situation, which, you know, certainly would have its perks. The last thing that we want to hit on here in this episode is, although we may not want to ask the question, I think we probably should ask the question of what happens if the season just gets canceled. And like we said, given, you know, the announcement from California, that they're, you know, endorsing the idea of having pro sports without fans played there. We've got some optimism right now, at least, as far as baseball coming back. But the option remains on the table.

It is not a foregone conclusion. It could happen. And every team is going to lose something if that happens. Obviously, all of the teams will lose things financially. The players would miss out financially as well. There's a lot of losses here. But I think there's a very interesting question of just, you know, what specifically in terms of contracts and kind of the layout of each of these rosters,

what would teams lose? And the Diamondbacks are maybe have a bit of a softer blow than a team like the Dodgers who basically just sold the farm for Moogie Betts for one year. And then he may not actually play a regular season game in L.A. at all if the season were canceled. But the Diamondbacks, Jeff, as I'm sure you can speak to, they certainly would not, you know, leave this situation, not missing out on anything as well. Right. And, I mean, even we do have to also sort of acknowledge that there's a scenario in which a season begins and then is halted, right?

So there's a lot of ways that the season could ultimately be kind of lost. And the Diamondbacks, you know, in my estimation, of course I am a little bias here. But in my estimation are probably one of the biggest losers in such a scenario. I mean, you know, I know they didn't set out, you know, this winter looking for starting pitching, but Madison Bumgarner sort of fell on their lap. And part of the reason why that even worked was because he agreed to a $6 million salary in 2020. If 2020 doesn't happen, that whole like, and of course he agreed to that figure because the debacks were, they didn't have the money to spend, you know, on the 2020 side of his deal. And so if that opportunity just goes away, that $6 million season of Madison Bungarner just evaporates, I mean, that's a real lost opportunity for the Diamondbacks. Robbie Ray is in the final year of team control.

And I mean, at least publicly, you know, like we haven't seen any sort of like, you know, grand overtures about retaining him. It's most of the chatterers, but about him being traded. So, you know, it sounds like that ship would probably sail. could tell Marte was going to be really cheap again in 2020, and that's another loss season of cheap production for, frankly, an MVP caliber type player. They paid for two years of Starling Marte on the trade market. They might just get one year of him back.

Guys like Christian Walker, Carson Kelly, and Luke Weaver in their final league minimum seasons, and so they're just going to get more expensive. And then this is also the last year team control for Andrew Chaffan. I know it's just the bullpen, but frankly, Andrew Chaffin's been the most reliable part of the bullpen for about three years now. So, you know, it could be really, really frustrating for them because they did a lot of work sort of. We, you know, we had our offseason plan, right? Like, we knew there wasn't a ton of wiggle room.

They managed to put something pretty impressive together over the winter, and it might end up all being for not. And, you know, it's interesting to think back to questions of Robbie Ray. And certainly we've dealt with rumors of, you know, as you mentioned, Robbie Ray trade rumors have been swirling for years, it feels like. And, you know, maybe a situation like this makes you think back to, you know, what if the Diamondbacks had exchanged Robbie Ray for some prospects who would be more valuable in a situation like this. But obviously, hindsight's 2020, you know, there's really, there's really no way to know

in a situation like this. but I think it to me that conversation it just kind of epitomizes what this whole situation is all about right like us at home we're dealing with losses in our personal lives like even I am as someone who has been fortunate enough not to get the virus or you know have any of my family members get the virus it really has touched all of us in some ways and so to me Jeff this is just kind of all about you know the whole world right now is kind of going through this and heck even even Major League Baseball

all, you know, front offices are having to deal with this as well. So this has been a very, very difficult situation to say the least. Absolutely. I think, you know, we didn't talk about it, but, you know, the minor league season will almost surely not happen. Sure. So lost year of development time. And, I mean, you know, you think about last year, the Diamondback spent their first round pick on Blake Walston, considered a pretty raw left-handed pitcher. You know, what happens is development?

when he spends his entire first full year of pro ball, like throwing pitches at a screen in his backyard, you know? Yeah. I mean, what does that do to the timeline, the ETA? I mean, I really thought that, you know, Alec Thomas was really on sort of a fast track, you know, or a guy like Dalton Varsha who needs reps catching. Like, you know, I guess he's, I guess his dad could throw baseball for sure.

But, you know, like what happens when you're not getting that instruction, and Alec Thomas is not moving up levels and facing tougher pitchers. Of course, everyone has to go through it together, but it does throw some extra uncertainty into the mix as to like what emerges from all this when it's all of a sudden done. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Well, to all of you listeners, we certainly appreciate you tuning in here into this episode. We hope you're staying safe, you're staying well. If you haven't already, we'll throw out our shameless plug. Give us a follow on Twitter at at the Rattel-A-Z. You can find me on Twitter at at Jesse N. Friedman or Jeff at Outfield Grass 24. We would certainly love to interact with you as more information about a hopeful baseball season continues to come out.

But until our next episode, hopefully we have some announcements that are interesting about what the future of baseball this season will look like. And we'll certainly get another episode out once that time comes. But until then, thank you so much for listening. And we'll be back hopefully soon to talk more about the Arizona Diamondbacks.