PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Ep. 21: Baseball is (Hopefully) Back!

Episode Date: July 1, 2020

We break down all the details of MLB's plan for an abbreviated 60-game season and define what "success" means for the D-backs in 2020. 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 21 of the Rattle Podcast. Baseball is back and so are we. My name is Jesse Freedman along with Jeff Weiser, my co-hosts here on the Rattle podcast. Welcome back in. It has been a while, but we certainly have enough things to talk about here for another episode of the Rattle podcast. And frankly, we may even have too much to talk about here in this episode.

So we'll see how much we're able to make it to. But Jeff, we officially have. Major League Baseball, the owners and the players did not particularly reach any sort of agreement, but it seemed like it was more of an agree-to-disagree kind of situation, and let's just play ball anyway. And so Rob Manfred went ahead and mandated a 60-game season. We have yet to see the schedule for said season. But Jeff, baseball is here. And I'm curious, just right off the bat, before we jump into all of the needy-gritty details this season obviously will not look like any other season we have seen before.

But let's just hold it right there. What does it mean for baseball to be played in 2020 as opposed to, you know, this opportunity for the game to kind of go by the wayside as we suspected it might? You know, I think given the standing that baseball's had sort of in the greater landscape of American sports and like the American sports discourse, I think we've seen the national pastime sort of slip, you know, pretty, you know, pretty resoundingly over the decades, you know, in terms of popularity. So I really did feel like in a sense that baseball was very vulnerable, you know, as compared to some of the other sports in terms of missing a season and the ramifications

that might lead to. So in that sense, I'm certainly happy it's back. It's been nice to think about actual baseball again, very selfishly. very, very selfishly, but it has provided, you know, a whole new thing. And it's, you know, it was tough to sort of stay engaged at times and through all the back and forth. But it was like once the announcement came, it's been full speed ahead for me. So, you know, personally, personally pretty pumped about it. Yeah, well, let's jump into some of the details here.

So we've got a 60 game schedule, which as I mentioned, as of this moment, has not been unveiled just yet. but we do know kind of the skeleton of that schedule. It's going to be 40 games against your division opponents, 10 each. So the Diamondbacks will play 10 games against the Dodgers, the Rockies, the Giants, and the Padres. And then they will also play 20 games against each of the five teams in the AL West Division. So there will be no interregional travel with how this schedule is created. The Diamondbacks will only play NL West and AOL West teams.

and that goes for, of course, all of the other teams around the league as well. They will only play games in their division and in the regional equivalent in the other league. That's basically how Major League Baseball has laid this out, of course, to try to mitigate travel and kind of cross-pollinating the virus, if you will, based on that travel that normally would happen over the course of a regular season. Some of the interesting rules that have come out of this situation, if you've been following this, you're probably familiar with.

these, but we'll give you a quick rundown. The designated hitter will be implemented into the National League this season, which of course is not necessarily a new idea. It's something that's been tossed around for years and years, but it seems to have come a little bit sooner than we expected it would be. And I don't believe it's necessarily part of the 2021 season, but there's certainly a lot of speculation that the DH will be, will be with us on a full-time basis sooner rather than later, but I'm sure we'll jump into that soon. We also have a really interesting rule in extra innings, which has been in place in the minor leagues in the past.

So this is something that has been done before, but not at the major league level. They're going to start with a runner on second base in extra innings in each of the half innings in order to try to expedite the end of the game and try to avoid these 18, 19 inning games over the course of this shortened season. It is 60 games over 66 days. I think that's important to mention as well. This is a really, really tight fit.

And so those longer drawn-out extra inning games, certainly if they can avoid those, I think that would be probably best for everyone. Other than that, Jeff, we've got a few other fun ones. The pitchers will have a wet rag in their back pocket to try to maintain their grippiness, I suppose, instead of the rosin bag, having everyone touch that same thing. So that'll be interesting to watch. We have a six foot force field essentially around all of the umpires. So any conversations between managers and umpires have to be distanced by six feet,

which historically is not how those conversations have gone. So that will be interesting to see. And then the other big thing is just the roster construction. So you've got not only 60 games, but you have 60 players altogether that you're kind of allowed to have in your system. And they will start with 30 of those players on the active roster, which will turn into 28, two weeks later, and then 26, I believe, two weeks after that. And then they'll play with 26 players through the end of the season. Trade deadline is August 31st, which is interesting that that is hardly more than a month from the start of the season.

So these teams will not have a whole lot of time to figure out what they want to do, or even if it's even really worth investing at the trade deadline in a season that is certainly far from a short thing with the coronavirus, of course, still out there and looming over the prospects of this season down the road as we get further into it. Jeff, that's kind of a quick layout of all of the rules. I'm curious, there's a lot in there, but what stands out to you about just some of the weird things that Major League Baseball has going with this season? I think what stands out to me is that you did a wonderful job of recapping a ton of information in about two and a half minutes.

And if you could have just maybe done all of this a few months ago, we'd already be watching baseball. But no, that was great. That was great. And it is. It's kind of a lot to digest. I know there are folks that have been following along with every sort of little piece of news that trickles out and those that maybe haven't. But that's worth rewinding and listening to, in my opinion. if you want to get a handle on the season that's about to take place.

Because it is different than we've ever seen. I think a few things for me that I would emphasize or things that maybe I've seen people misunderstand or things that just kind of stick out are around that sort of, you know, 60-man roster. And it's kind of been dubbed the 60-man roster. But it's really maybe a misnomer or maybe not as descriptive of language as what the 60-man player pool really is.

So there's still a 40-man roster. And to be on the active roster, you know, on the active roster, you have to be on the 40-man roster. So for those players that are part of the 60 that aren't on the 40-man, if they were to be called up to the big leagues, someone from the 40-man would have to go just like normal. And some of those other, you know, normal procedures still exist. if you get sent from the active roster, you know, back into the sort of, you know, other player pool, you still have to stay down for 10 days before you can come up, which is a really long time in this season. You know, 10 days is, you know, a fair-sized chunk of the season, depending on when games are played. And so those kinds of things stand out.

I mean, it still counts as an option, so you're still burning an option year if that happens and those sort of things. So there are some nuances that are different. I tend to kind of think of the 60-man player pool is like the major league guys plus sort of some condensed and distilled the version of your farm system. And then that's essentially what you have. And there are some guys that are in that pool that we know probably won't see the major league feel, but they're there for sort of development time. And those are your top prospect types.

You know, those are those guys. So you're Corbyn Carrolls, your Alec Thomas's. Christian Robinson's situation was really unique. I know that he had had concerns about being able to go to the Bahamas to go home and come back and whether or not to be allowed back in the country. So he has stayed at Salt River Fields and will continue to practice with the other 60-man player pool. So the debacks in essence are using sort of a loophole in the rules to have a 61-man player pool. I don't think he can be called up to the majors.

but, you know, he'll be there and getting it bats off guys, frankly, that are quite a lot older and quite a lot more advanced than him. And all that's going to be really good development time for these young guys. So those are some of the things that stand out to me. And of course, I would be remiss to not mention the wet rag. I don't know what to make of that. But I'm sure it will blow up all over Twitter the first time we see one. It's funny.

You mentioned Christian Robinson just staying at Salt River Fields. Now I just have this vision of Christian Robinson just hang out in a tent cot at Salt River Fields. It just hasn't moved in months just baking in the sun during the day. Hopefully they gave him an indoor place to stay as well. But that's beside the point. Yeah, the wet rag is interesting. The six foot thing with the umpires is interesting as well. And I think all of that stuff just underscores that this season is going to be unlike anything we have ever seen before.

in Major League Baseball. There's going to be very little about this season that feels normal. I know right now it's kind of the trendy thing. A bunch of people are putting out their articles about all of the weird statistical things that can happen over a 60 game season because obviously your counting stats aren't going to total up like they would over 162. But some of the other statistics like your batting average or, you know, you're on base percentage, your slugging percentage or things like that, those numbers.

have the potential to shoot up in ways that we have not seen in any kind of normal Major League Baseball season. And so I think Major League Baseball posted just a graphic the other day that talked about some of the different things that have happened over a 60-game stretch in MLB history. And it was just, it was unreal. I think Barry Bonds in 2001 hit 37 home runs over a 60-game stretch. There was a guy who had 90 RBIs over a 60-game stretch. I can't remember who that was.

But the point being, there's kind of a lot of potential for some fun here in terms of statistics. I think Mike Trout posted like five and a half war at one point in his career over a 60 game stretch. So yeah, all of that to say there's a lot of interesting things that can happen over 60 games that would not normally be able to happen over 162. Yeah, it's going to be pretty wild. There's so much variance. there are so many variables and like you said we're going to see some really crazy lines um you know i've seen the odds of someone hitting 400 and they are really really slim yeah um yeah the 400 thing is still pretty far-fetched yeah but also the odds are pretty significantly better than they would be in

any other situation so um if you're looking for someone to do that now's your probably your best hope um but yeah it's really really goofy um what we could see in the 60 game stretch and i think it's going to be high highs and low lows. You know, the other side of that coin is there are dudes that really scuffle for, you know, go through sort of extended slumps. And if you open the season, you know, with Wanner, you know, it's going to be really interesting to see how quickly managers, you know, cut bait on guys and, you know, go in another direction.

They have very little incentive under this scenario to really stick with a struggling player. And I'm not talking about guys that are hitting the ball hard. right at people, you know, making outs. And, you know, it's like, ah, we'll get them next time. It's more of the guys that come up, look a little lost, you know, bat at bats, timing is off clearly, those kinds of things. You can't really write it out very long.

And I think Tori Lavello has spoken to that a little bit in regard to the DH spot. So I'm going to really lean on sort of like very recent performance as a way to settle who's going to be in that role. So I think that's going to really provide us some. some food for thought and something to think about because as weird as that's going to be for the Diamondbacks, it's going to be, you know, the same for the other 29 clubs. So I think there could be a lot of movement, a lot of roster movement. We could see guys change, guys in, out pretty quickly. And I think the team that, you know, was able to kind of hit the ground running and just sort of

roll with it is probably going to be in a pretty good position. I do think the devax, you know, for some of what they may lack in star power are in a better position than some other clubs in the sense that they don't rely on one bat. Yes, Catelle-Marte is far and away the best offensive player for the club. But, you know, they have enough depth in the lineup. And to Hazen's credit, he did a lot of that work over the winter. But, you know, they could handle a guy, you know, here or there, maybe being a little sluggish because the rest of the lineup is deep enough,

and I think he's got enough depth around that lineup that he will have options. So it's really going to be incumbent upon them to turn it up from day one. You're going to have to play with a lot of intensity. Yeah, I want to jump into that 60-man roster that the Diamondbacks released and just some of the names that are here and some of the names that are not here.

Mike Leak was initially on the roster that we've received, but we expect that his name will be taken off as he became the first player to opt out of this Major League Baseball season, which of course is something that Major League Baseball is certainly allowing and supporting in a situation like this. And we would certainly support anyone in that decision as well, given the circumstances of this season. And that really all of these players, if they do choose to come back, are taking on some sort of risk. I think it depends on who you ask just how much risk is involved here. But certainly we can understand anyone wanting to do that for the safety of their parents or their kids or their wife or whatever that may look like for them. Absolutely.

So yeah, so Mike Leak has opted out of the season, which I know we'll talk a little bit more in a few minutes here about the implications of that. Other notable things on the 60-man player pool, Yasmani Tomas is not here, which I don't know how notable that really is. but I think a lot of people would have expected to see his name, especially with the DH, and he is not here when, you know, guys like Trace Thompson and John Jay and some of these other non-raster invitees from the beginning of spring are here,

and Yasmani is not. I think that kind of speaks to the Diamondbacks, just outlook on him as a player and how they don't seem to really think he really has a place with this team. And that's not really super surprising, given that Tomas has seen all of, you know, about five games of playing time since Mike Hazen took over here in Arizona. So maybe that's not too surprising.

Other notable things, there's a lot of prospects on this list, which might get people excited that, you know, oh, maybe we'll see Corby and Carol at the Major League level at some point this year. I do not think that will happen. But his name is on the list, and that's because there is no minor league baseball season. That was made official yesterday. And so pretty much the only way to make sure that guys are getting consistent work in and,

and, you know, have guys to face and are in a good situation to kind of continue their player development. The only way to do that is to put those guys on this 60-man roster. So you see Corbyn Carroll's name. You see pretty much all of the top prospects, except for Christian Robinson, as you mentioned. But there's a lot of guys on this list who, you know, maybe they're not on this list. yet to contribute at the major league level, but we certainly hope that that will be the case soon. Jeff, I'm curious, was there, was there any name who is here or who is not here that kind of

surprised you when this, when this roster came out? Yeah, the one that surprised me the most was 20-20 first round pick, Bryce Jarvis. Sure. Partly because the club has not made any sort of like large formal announcement in regard to him signing. So I'll be honest, it kind of caught me by surprise to even see his name listed here. Not from an ability standpoint, just from the standpoint of, you know, hey, we haven't really, you know, heard much about the players, the Diamondbacks drafted since the draft took place. We've heard very little about signings. Their fifth round pick did sign yesterday. Jarvis obviously signed, hence why he's on the roster. And so we're waiting.

on to see if picks from their second, third, and fourth picks will sign. But that was encouraging to see him there. I know these sessions and summer camp, as we may call it, is going to probably be close to the public. But it'll be interesting to hear the news that starts to trickle out as it pertains to Bryce Jarvis and how quickly he's able to get acclimated and up to speed with these professional guys. And there are a lot of guys on this list that were drafted,

obviously far, far lower than him. But, you know, over time, I've really sharpened up and become really impressive pitchers. And he's going to have to kind of jump right in there from day one and, you know, get a locker, you know, near a guy like Madison Bumgarner and share a locker room with him. I imagine he's going to have some really interesting, like, first days on the job. So that's really interesting to me.

One other guy that does stand out to me here is Louis Frius, who's a guy that I got a lot of looks at. young right-handed pitcher i i saw him plenty in hillsborough um the frankly the fastball curveball combo is lethal um and he's not someone i would expect to see the majors um but i do also think that if you put him in a big league bullpen right now you know with him being sharp uh he could get guys out um in short stints so um yeah you're looking at some some pretty nasty stuff from him so those are the two guys that really jump out of me there are there aren't guys that were omitted really that um you know i i can't sort of you know at least tell you know figure out sort of why

they were omitted so uh this feels about right and i just think it's going to be a tremendous opportunity for some of these young guys to step in and and learn from older guys about how they go about their business how they've got there and um you know really get a chance to face some dudes that are considerably advanced from anything they have ever seen before yeah i want to throw a plug in there for your piece on the diamond back's because that did happen since our last show. We won't jump into it extensively today, but head over to the rattle.net and find Jeff's article

on what the Diamondbacks did. And what was an abbreviated, kind of a weird, just five-player draft. Yeah. But Jeff did a great job there breaking that down. So definitely go and check that out. In terms of, we talked about some of these prospects and how we're not really expecting to see many of them.

But there are a few that I think we do expect to see or at least would not be surprised to see in the major league at the major league level this season. Those guys being Dalton Varshot, who of course was a very exciting guy in spring and someone we were hoping to see at some point this year, maybe as a September call up, we'll see how that pans out. But certainly he's a guy who at this point in his career seems to have earned the right to play at the major league level based on what he did in double a last season. So wouldn't be surprised to see him. Seth Beer is another name that comes to mind. He was a little bit slow last year after getting traded over to the Diamondbacks and the Zach Grinky trade.

But he is a first baseman. A lot of people think of him more as a DH given his defensive challenges and the fact that the National League will have a DH this season certainly opens the door for Seth Beer to get some to get some playing time at the Major League level. the Diamondbacks have been pretty open in saying that that DH position can really be a revolving door or it really could be just one guy depending on if someone is able to separate themselves from the competition. And I think Seth Beer probably has at least a shot to make that happen and secure that spot over the next few weeks of summer camp. Another name, J.B. Bukowskis is maybe a bit of a reach. he really struggled in AA last year after the trade, also coming over in the Granky deal, of course.

But he's a guy who people viewed as maybe being MLB ready at some point this season. So based on what they see in camp, I think that's possible. And the last name for me is Andy Young, who, you know, if there's any guy on the diamond in the Diamondbacks farm system who I think they've kind of beat into the ground with minor league baseball, it's probably Andy Young. I think he's shown that he doesn't really have anything. else to learn at the minor league level. He's ready for the majors.

He was really, really good, admittedly over a small sample size. But I think he was like eight for 21 or something like that during spring. So he was certainly looking good before things got shut down. So Jeff, out of those four guys, is there, you know, maybe a name that you're particularly excited to see at some point in 2020? Yeah, I mean, I kind of, you know, I think to state the obvious, I think Bartho makes a ton of sense. I think that this season, he was likely to probably see the field at some point this season anyways. So it doesn't, so I mean, first for me, like that one of the factors for me is that the timing has to sort of make sense.

And he was on that track to begin with. So to me, that makes sense. And there is sort of the, the quote, unquote, taxi squad of three players that do not have to be on the active roster. but can travel with the club on road trips. So essentially it's those kind of emergency guys. If someone was to go down the night before, you're trying to avoid some extra travel or that last minute call up or how do I shuttle a guy.

I guess you don't have to worry about going across the country, but going from Arizona to Seattle, for example, is still a considerable trip. So they'll have those guys at their disposal. and the rules state that one of those three players has to be a catcher. Well, if I'm looking at the depth chart, Dalton Varshal probably makes the most sense there. So I think we do probably see him at some point.

And then, you know, I will also piggyback on Andy Young. The dude can flat out hit. He absolutely demolished AAA pitching last year. You know, spoiler, so did everyone else. But at the same time, He's shown some pretty tremendous growth over his time coming up in the Cardinal system and now being with the Diamondbacks. And as you alluded to, I mean, there's not much for him to do at the minor league level. It's really come time and he's already on the 40-man roster.

It's really come time to see what he can do against major league pitching. And so I'm very hopeful for him. He's older. He's a little bit of an older prospect. but very, you know, is kind of come into his own, is who he is and sort of more of that second basement sort of utility infielder type. He could probably play some third. And I think he gives Toro Lavello some nice flexibility.

It might be sort of a, you know, I don't think he can play the outfield per se like Josh Rojas did, but it can be kind of that just another kind of cog there. And I wouldn't be shocked if he finds his way somehow onto that 30-man group to open the season just given his hitting ability. Another important thing to bring into the conversation here is that the playoffs were not expanded, which I know is something that was basically in every possible agreement up until the very end between the league and the players association, but they ultimately didn't come to an agreement.

So at least as of right now, I know Tony Clark said the other day that he wouldn't rule out that being renegotiated. I think he said that about five days ago now. So maybe this changes, but as of this moment, the playoffs have not been expanded. So you've got your typical division winners, two wild cards coming from each league. So 10 total teams out of the 30 will make it to the playoffs. And Jeff, let's talk playoffs here for a moment. I know you found an interesting piece over at Fangraphs that looked at teams' playoff percentages over 162 games

and then also created statistics for their playoff odds over a 60 game season. For the Diamondbacks, for those who are curious, over 162, fan graphs have them at 17.1% of making the playoffs in a 60 game playoff situation. They are now at 23.1%. So I guess you get a 6% bump there in your playoff odds, which makes sense, right? You've got a smaller number of games. There's certainly more opportunities. for fluky type things to happen and, you know, maybe some of the not as good teams kind of jump into the mix and teams like the Dodgers on the other hand had their playoff numbers go from almost 98% down to around 86%, which of course is still pretty high.

But it's just a really interesting situation where, you know, you don't have, you don't have more playoff slots. So things look the same from that standpoint. But just given a shorter span of time, The Dodgers in the last few years in the NOS, we all know. The Dodgers generally don't run away with the division, you know, in the first two or three weeks. Generally, they tend to be behind for the first month or so of the season and then they kind of catch up and things eventually even out. And they win the division by 20 games come October. But it certainly leaves room for a team like the Diamondbacks to kind of swoop in and potentially accomplish something that wouldn't be. nearly as likely over a full 162 game season.

Yeah, what the shortened season does, yeah, really, and, you know, it's just highlight sort of the volatility of what's about to take place, or if these odds do. And so we sort of see a redistribution of, you know, of odds and maybe shares of the playoff picture sort of get redistributed where those top teams, and like you said, the Dodgers are, you know, a great example. You're totally right. They don't often hit the ground running and run away with the division at the beginning of the season.

But they wear you down over 162 games because they have so much depth. They don't give away at bats and all those kinds of things. Well, some of those advantages, you know, start to go away when you really truncate the season. You can't grind it out the same way, in essence. So, yeah, so I think what we've seen is just really see a lot of these odds kind of get shifted around and, you know, spread out a little more evenly. you know, across baseball and especially across the National League picture. So, you know, it was interesting, Jesse. I really had thought when they were discussing some of the expanded playoff scenarios,

it just kind of felt like, well, you know, there's almost no way the Diamondbacks won't make that. You know, they sort of felt like, you know, oh, they've got to finish kind of in the top eight, you know, or something thereabouts. And so they'll get in a larger playoff format. That'll be fine. They'll make it. And then, you know, when it did get announced kind of later, in the in the process that things weren't going to change you know it definitely now sort of gives

me pause because i could see this team um i could see this team winning 30 games uh i could see this team winning 40 games and i can see this team winning 20 games um and what happens within that is is very small i mean it's very very minor it's uh you know it's one little injury it's uh you know a a couple of bad starts, you know, pile on top of each other, you know, so on and so forth. So, you know, maybe it's a hitter or two having an ill-timed slump. But those kinds of things are going to have massive reverberations. And I think that's kind of reflected in these odds and that essentially the odds are less certain of the top teams and, you know, are giving a bit of a chance to the teams that were, you know, kind of in the middle of the pack or just below.

So it's worth noting that the Diamondback still only have the 11th best odds in the National League for making. the playoffs. So, yeah, not, not, certainly not a lock, but also, you know, being 11th, they're really not far behind, you know, kind of the top five either. So, uh, it's going to be weird. It's going to be wild. It's going to be really fun. Yeah, it's interesting.

The looking at those numbers, the San Diego Padres are actually higher than the diamond backs pretty significantly. They were listed at around 41 percent to make the playoffs over 162 games, which honestly, given the Padres track record, I know they've got some young pieces and they made some additions over the off season, but that certainly felt like a pretty generous prediction for a team that was still in the low 70s and wins as of last year. But even over the 60 game season, they still give the Padres a 36.4% chance of making the playoffs, which is still about 13% bigger than the diamond back. So it'll be interesting to see how things shake out. Another interesting tidbit I want to

throw in there is last season. If you look at the Diamondback's first 60 games of the year, they were a dead split 30 and 30. If you look at their last 60 games of the year, they were actually 34 and 26. That's kind of when they made their stride toward the end of the year. They had kind of been, as we talked about over and over and over again on the show, throughout the season last year, they were kind of teeter tottering between, you know, one game under 500, one game over 500, 500.

It seemed like they were kind of stuck in that range for most of the year. But they did make a nice run toward the end of the season. And, you know, 34 wins over 60 games is certainly a pretty solid outing to have. One question that we got, I want to jump into our questions from our listeners here. We have a really good one from Matt Steele. He says, what constitutes success in this 60 game season? Is it postseason or bust or the Young Corps continue? used to improve. And I think that is a, that is a phenomenal question because, frankly, from one

standpoint, I want to say, you know, the season's a success if we even managed to play it, just given the, the coronavirus and everything that's going on right now, especially in Arizona, where cases are really shooting up at the moment. But Jeff, what, what do you think? What would a success look like for the Diamondbacks over these 60 games? Yeah, I mean, you know, in a sense, right. I'm a very competitive person and I feel like the Diamondbacks went to a lot of efforts this winter to put a team on the field that they feel like can compete and win. They were able to get Madison Bumgarner to sort of, you know, take the discount up front, they were able to swing the trade for Starlin Marte. They kind of like, you know, really made a push here. And it would feel,

you know, kind of just, I don't know, unfulfilling if they don't reach the postseason. But then there's that part of me that's like, this thing's going to be totally weird. And we could see some really, really wild outcomes. And so like maybe I shouldn't be so tethered to that. But I do feel like we are kind of, I will say, I think personally, we are beyond the sort of like,

let's improve. I would love to see the prospects improve, but I don't think they're going to be doing that on the major league field. They're going to be doing that behind closed doors, so we won't really see it. This group, though, this group that should be, you know, that would constitute your 26-man roster, this is a decent group. This is a decent group with a fair amount of experience who I think needs to make a push. And if this thing is really weird and there are a bunch of, you know, the league is, the National League is really top heavy. or there's really nothing in the middle and the Diamondbacks, you know, win a bunch of gains and fall short, you know, okay, you know, I could probably get over that. But I think this is a team that really needs to finish above 500.

And I think they really need to make that push for the playoffs personally. I just, I think they've done enough. They've seen enough. Some of these guys, you know, even the young guys are now in their second, third years, like League Weaver, Carson Kelly. Like, let's do it. You know, let's do it. It's time to go. So let's make it happen.

That's kind of where I'm at, but I'm super interested to hear your take. Yeah, I think I'm with you on that. I think it's easy to look at the Diamondbacks as of last July and say, you know, they traded away their ace. It seemed like they were, you know, building for the future. But I think Mike Hazen turned that narrative around pretty quickly. Getting Zach Gallen was more a move for now than for later. Obviously, they have team control with him for several years into the future.

So, you know, it's not like a one and done type of thing. But the Diamondbacks are in a position where they want to get something done this season. You wouldn't go and trade for Starling Marte. You wouldn't bring in Madison Bumgarner if that was not the case. And I know those moves happened so long ago now that it's hard to really even feel in touch with where the state of this franchise was going into spring. but the conversations we were having back in March were this team should make the playoffs or maybe not should but really, really needs to get really close in order for us to feel good about their progress.

And they also won 85 games last year. Yeah. The Diamondbacks weren't. They were not, you know, a mainstay in the playoff race the whole season. They were kind of near 500. But they didn't finish that far away. And they certainly added more than they subtracted. over the off season. So I think I'm with you there, Jeff. I think, I don't know if I would quite say

playoffs or bust, but the diamondbacks really need to be in that conversation for sure. Yeah, I agree. And that to me, you know, and I know this is going to be a really weird variable season. And like every time a game goes to the 12th inning and, you know, they put a runner on second and you lose, like we're going to want to blame the rule change or, you know, something like. that but you know they really need to they have the talent to be in the conversation deep into the season and um anything less than that is going to feel um it's going to be hard to take away moral victories um from anything you know anything less than that so um this team is it's it is it is young in spots um but it also has proven that it can it can do it in stretches you know

last year I do feel like they sort of underperformed in a sense where they just couldn't catch fire they couldn't keep it going you highlighted it you know there was all that toggling you know plus or minus like two games of 500 for long stretches of the season and then they sort of like

found that gear and started ripping off wins and it's like you're good enough to do that you know and I hope that they feel that way and really embrace it and lean into it because again I think that teams that come out firing you're almost going to have to have kind of a little bit of a college football mentality of you know every game is of the utmost importance or at least a college baseball mentality and you know it's not a long game it's a

short game this year and you know it's we're having some guys some kind of high energy guys like you know having an archie bradley um you know having some of these guys around that that aren't afraid to have a little swag like cateau martin you know like even that that presence of a guy like David Peralta, like, can, like, let's lean on that, let's get pumped up, let's drive the freight train from day one, because every game is going to be extremely valuable. Jonathan Quayar wanted to know who is the favorite to win the fifth spot in the rotation now that Leak has opted out, which of course is also a great question with, as we talked about before, Mike Leak opting out of the season. It kind of opens up a fifth starter conversation.

I think before, if I remember right, in spring, we were kind of. of going back and forth between Mike Leak and Merrill Kelly. At least that was that was kind of the conversation in my mind. So I think in my in my case, Jeff, I would say you probably just just give that to Merrill Kelly. We do have a follow up question in regards to that from Mike Cleary. He said, who is better every fifth day between Alex Young and Merrill Kelly? Assuming they don't go with a six-man rotation and assuming one through four is Madison Bumgarner, Robbie, Ray, Zach Allen, and Luke Weaver, which I think is pretty likely.

you can you can probably pencil those four guys in for sure. So, so Mike kind of poses this question is between Alex Young and Merrill Kelly, which I think is fair. Alex Young is definitely the next guy up that I would, that I would consider in that move. But I think just given the fact that, you know,

Merrill Kelly threw, what was it like 170 innings last year in the majors, he wasn't lights out, but he also really wasn't that bad either with an ERA right around 43 or 4,4, something like that, which you can certainly stomach at the back of a rotation. And based on what we've heard from Mike Hazen and Tori Lavello, it doesn't sound like a six-man rotation is super likely at this point.

Tori Lavello the other day said he was a traditionalist and he likes the five-man rotation. So I think it's something they would look into if they needed to for, I don't know, some sort of health reason or something, but it certainly didn't look like something the Diamondbacks were planning to do. Yeah, and I would lean. I would lean sort of the same direction. I just, yeah, I really would. I know that, you know, Merrill Kelly had sort of, you know, an up and down year.

He had months where he was, you know, times when he was certainly better. You know, his time in September was really quite good. And he closed the year out fairly strong despite, you know, hitting, you know, some pretty tough sledding there in July and August. But one of the other elements of this that I think maybe helps decide, helps decide this route is, you know, I'm not entirely sure how much work they're going to be willing to give Luke Weaver right out of the gate. And if you have to keep Luke Weaver on some sort of pitch count, and even if that pitch count is relatively high, but you're just, you know, you are going to be very careful with his innings and with his workload. having a lefty like Alex Young ready to come in and relieve him in the fourth or fifth inning

and carry another couple, you know, another, you know, couple innings. I can see sort of a piggyback situation there where having a lefty to come in, you know, after a righte could be very helpful. And it just seems to me like Luke Weaver's situation might be the spot where they might need that help. But it also, you know, and if you don't have to use you, don't have to use it, that's fine. What happens when Merrill Kelly gets into a pinch in the third inning? He's not a guy with necessarily the raw stuff to pitch his way out of it. He's going to need to try to use the sinker, use the change-out, try to get a ground ball.

But if you feel less comfortable with that, if the lineup's stacked with a bunch of lefties to face Merrill Kelly, then you call it Alex Young and you know that he can get you, hopefully, you know, give you that left-on-left advantage through that chunk of the lineup. up and then, you know, you don't have to pull them immediately either. So I sort of like having, you know, I feel like the right-handed starting pitchers are maybe a little vulnerable in this scenario. And so it might be really nice to have Alex Young there as sort of a safety valve should push come to shove. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That makes a lot of sense.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we've got a 60-game season. It's going to be nothing like anything we have ever seen, but it starts on July 20. 23rd, and we are certainly excited to take it all in with you. We'll get on a more regular schedule of doing shows here now that things are a little bit more in order. And certainly, we also want to acknowledge that given the coronavirus, none of this is really a given. And we've heard talk along the lines of the NBA that, you know, they had a bunch of players test positive and they're taking precautions. As of now, still planning to play the season. But unfortunately, this is a very fluid system.

situation. So every moment that we have to talk about real baseball, let's take advantage of it as much as possible. But yeah, with that, that is all that we have here for episode 21 of the Rattle Podcast. Thank you so much, as always, for joining us. If you haven't already, be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at at the RattleAZ. You can find me on Twitter at at Jesse N. Friedman or Jeff at Outfield Grass 24. We would love to interact with you on that platform. absolutely. And yeah, check out our website, www. the rattle.net. We've got some new pieces coming up there here shortly. Joshua just wrote one the other day that was good about Robbie Ray's situation and walking

through his case to maybe be the best pitcher on the Diamondbacks. That's an ongoing series that Joshua's been doing that's been really, really cool. But for now, Jeff, it's just really good to talk about baseball again. Absolutely, man. Absolutely glad we could do it. And that is all we have here for episode 21. Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with more soon here to talk about the 2020 Arizona Diamondbacks.