PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Ep. 25: Baseball is Back!

Episode Date: March 7, 2021

Jesse and Jeff are back to discuss early spring training results, top prospects that could make a difference in 2021, realistic expectations for the team, and the D-backs' long-term path to competing with the Dodgers and Padres. 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 25 of the Rattle Podcast. As always, my name is Jesse Friedman, along with Jeff Weiser, my co-host. Jeff, this is the long-awaited episode 25 of the Rattle Podcast. It was a bit of a slow winter, to say the least. Not much happened with the Diamondbacks or frankly otherwise, unless you were the San Diego Padres, it sort of felt like. But here we are back with a new season here. We're seven games into spring training. And we are excited to be back with another baseball season.

We're playing the full 162 games. Jeff, I don't know what normal C will look like this year. But the hope is that the 2021 MLB season is at least a little bit more normal, a little bit more follows the regular rhythm of the game than what we saw last year. Yeah, thank goodness, right? I mean, you know, just very selfishly, just very much missed like, the ed and flow of the baseball season. And it's been so nice to have it back,

even in this very, like, you know, small sample that we've had so far. But just tremendous to get back to what feels like, you know, something normal in our lives. And, yeah, just very excited for baseball, man. I don't, just like keep it simple, right? Like, I'm just ready to have fun and watch baseball games and watch dudes hitting enormous homers. and watch Madison Bumgarner, basically, just strike everybody out.

Yeah, well, speaking of Madison Bumgarner, let's hop into some news from spring training so far. The Diamondbacks are three and four, which means pretty much nothing. Madison Bumgarner, though, as you mentioned, struck out six out of seven in his first outing against the Angels. And suffice it to say he wasn't facing Mike Trout seven consecutive times. There were some other Angels hitters that he was facing, that may or may not see a whole lot of time in the regular season.

But nonetheless, it was a big moment for Mad Bum. He looked really good in two innings of work. Seemed to have some pretty positive things to say afterwards. The velocity was up in the 90 to 91 range, which was, of course, really good to see. Jeff, I get so much deja vu with Zach Granky. You remember playing the velocity game with Zach Granky? Yes. Every year around this time, is it 88? Is it 89?

you know, is it, is it, you know, is it 94? And we're back in 2008 when Zach Ranky is, you know, a perennial Cy Young candidate. And now it feels like we're doing the same thing with Madbun. But suffice it to say, you know, he did everything he could in start number one. And hopefully, you know, that shows that this offseason was a little bit more normal for him. And hopefully, you know, it stays that way. We don't have any hiccups in the season. And he can get off to a better start this year.

Yeah, I mean, the year. is 2031. Zach Gallen takes the mound. And everyone's, you know, looking to see if he can hit 87 on the radar gun. Yeah, it feels like we've been playing this game for some time. Oh, goodness. Yeah, I, you know, the first pitch came in in 89, and I was like, okay. I was like, there's 90, okay, there's like, okay, there's 91.

I'm like, all right, yeah, we can, like, we can work with that, especially considering where we are in his, you know, in his ramp up and his development to get him ready for the season, starting to stretch out. And if he's touching, you know, 90, 91 look, like, we can live with that. But I'd also suggest that there's a chance that he,

you know, at times maybe turns that up to, you know, as he stretches out and gets comfortable, like maybe he turns that up to 92, 93 on occasion. My guess is he's probably, still going to sit 9091 a lot of the time. Maybe 9091 slowly creeps to 91.92, and there's a little more there where he needs it. The biggest thing and the most impressive thing was he looked healthy.

He looked free. He looked easy. He looked loose. He looked limber. He just, he had that feel. He was putting the fastball where he wanted it. He threw some sort of like front door cutters that were super nasty. Yeah.

Right where he wanted them. And then he was burying his curveball where he wanted it too. And it just looked like he had everything clicking. You know, John Jay hasn't been a good hitter for a really long time. Juan Ligaris hasn't been a good hitter ever. Brandon Marsh has never played above AA. But at the same time, you could see the makings of, oh, that looks like that could be like pretty effective, despite not, you know, rushing up there in the upper 90s.

So, yeah, A plus, A plus outing for where we are right now. Yeah, it was good. Yeah, it was just good to see him look poised and confident. And, you know, I don't think, in some ways, it felt like it didn't even matter who he was facing it. The reality was Madison Bungarner struck out six out of seven hitters. And I think that's really all the Diamondbacks fans really wanted to see. So a good sign there. Other news out of spring training, Cole Calhoun, torn meniscus in his right knee.

Not ideal, but these things happen around this time of year. The outlook for him doing a little work on the interwebs. And from what we've heard on the Diamondbacks, he had some sort of a procedure to kind of get things cleaned up. Roughly four to six weeks, it sounds like, to get back into the groove of things. So that could put him only a couple weeks out past opening day. I've heard some people say, you know,

opening day for him isn't out of the question. I'm probably going to basically put it out of the question. We know the Diamondbacks, they tend to, you know, play things pretty conservative when it comes to those kinds of things, as really all teams do. So I don't think we'll see Cole Cahoon on opening day, but the good news there is I think he could be back in relatively short order afterwards. Tim LeCastro also has tested positive for COVID-19, which to that I will say get used to it to all of our listeners.

these things are going to happen throughout the season. We've seen it in the NFL. We've seen it in the NBA, where you just, every once in a while, have someone take a mystery, you know, a disabled list stint because they get diagnosed with COVID and they have to quarantine. This is sort of going to be part of the rhythm of the season.

But hopefully he is doing well from what I know. I believe he was asymptomatic. So hopefully he makes a quick recovery. It can be back with the team, hopefully in plenty of time for opening day. Other than that, Jeff, yeah, I mean, the three and four, seven games, you know, do with it what you will. I remember a year not too long ago, I want to say it was 2016 where the Diamondbacks went something like 23 and 5 in spring training. And we were all hyped up about it.

And, you know, the season started and they had one of the most underwhelming seasons that they've ever had. So spring training results are sort of a crap shoot. You're more looking at players than you all. at record or really anything else. But yeah, is there anything else that is stuck out to you so far in these first seven games that we've seen? No, I think that's it. I would echo kind of your sentiment a bit of tempering expectations.

This is a time where our ambition or our excitement can easily get the best of us. We see what we want to see in some ways. And so we've been waiting for baseball for a really long time. So I'm just, I hate to be the pump the brakes person, but I'll be the pump the brakes person and just say, you know, there's a long ways to go. And they don't, they don't hang banners for winning the Cactus League. So I'm kind of, I'm not kind of continue to watch, but keep that nuance and that context in mind of sort of who's facing whom and, you know, how that works out, you know, is all well and good. But I won't read too much into it. I do think Calhoun's injury is interesting and that it does kind of open the door for a bit of a shuffle maybe to start the season, which could be interesting.

I'm with you. I don't know that they rush him back for something like opening day. This isn't a 60 game season. So the idea of, you know, well, every game is so precious, we need him back immediately doesn't quite apply. They'll probably be better served to make sure that maybe he comes back during the second or third week this season is actually. healthy. And this is also a time when he was really supposed to be getting his at-bats, really starting to fine-tune things. I know he's taking plenty of cuts in his lifetime. It's not like he's going to forget how to swing. But he will miss a little bit of that,

you know, ramp up time. So I wouldn't be shocked if his return takes a little while. And, you know, he misses a week or two to start the season. And that might, you know, provide some other opportunities for Tori to sort of mix up the outfield rotation a bit. Yeah, I think the main name that comes to mind for me is Trace Thompson, which I know he has sort of an issue where he has no options, which makes him pretty tough to carry on the Major League roster and bring into the season. So he's sort of behind the eight ball there. But he's looked good. As I remember him looking good last spring training, too. He hit a whole bunch of home runs, and it's been a good start for him so far.

beyond trace Thompson, Catel Marte is raking so far in 10 at bats or whatever it's been. I think he's six for 10 with three doubles, I want to say. So, you know, for, again, for what it's worth. You know, this is obviously going to be a big year

for Cattell, hopefully bouncing back from last season looked good so far and very, very limited and somewhat meaningless numbers that we have so far. But good so far from him. Josh Rojas has hit a few home runs, which has maybe been encouraged there. But yeah, I think you make a good point. You know, even if Cole Calhoun is, is, you know, not going to be gone for months, hopefully, to start the season. You're probably

going to have a window of maybe a couple of weeks where you're going to need to reshuffle some things around. So, you know, whether that's Trace Thompson or, you know, one of the other outfielder on the roster trying to make the roster. We'll see how things shake out there. another interesting storyline for me jeff i want to get your take on this is the the whole idea of how do you go as a starting pitcher from throwing you know 65 70 innings whatever it was last year in the shortened season to suddenly trying to ramp up as if you know as if that didn't happen and in preparing for the full 162 you know you think especially about the younger arms like you know like especially a zat gallon here in arizona you know what kind of

effect is this going to have on them? And Tori Lavello was asked about that recently in a press conference and he acknowledged that in fact he probably will have some sort of an innings cap on Zach Gallen this year. And as much as, you know, you are listeners probably hear that and may not like it too much. And I mean, I want to watch Zach Gallen pitch for, you know, 220 innings if I can. But that's probably not going to happen this year in his best interest. You just don't want to take that sort of a risk with especially such a young arm, an arm that means so much to this diamondbacks organization moving forward. That's probably not a risk worth taking. So, you know, whether that number for Zach Allen is 150 innings or 170 or, you know, maybe even less than 150, you know, maybe he gets capped off in, you know, in August or something if the diamondbacks aren't doing too well.

So it's a really interesting question, Jeff. you know, how Tori Lavello sort of has his hands full here. You know, he has to try to piece together 162 games of starts, knowing that pretty much every guy in this rotation probably doesn't have quite as much in the tank as they normally would. Yeah, and it's interesting because it's not a local problem. It's a global problem amongst sort of the MLB universe, right? And I think some of the teams that will maybe see less of the effect

are those that did go deep into the playoffs. teams like the Dodgers where Walker Bueller got several extra starts and extra innings in last season that maybe they feel a little more comfortable extending that. Whereas a team that, I mean,

aside from Gallen, like even think of Bumgarner. I mean, not only was the season short, but he also missed like a good chunk of it. Yeah. So like what can you expect from that? I mean,

that's really going to be tricky. So, but yeah, to your question and to your point, I think they're really going to have to monitor this. I think it's something that virtually all teams will do. I think a guy like Gowan, you're just not going to take unnecessary risks. If you're up by six runs through the fifth inning, that's why you pay relievers,

and they need to do their jobs. And so you're going to take him out rather than trying to push him through the seventh. If you have the hope of increasing the number of starts he makes. You know, and if we think about it, like, this is a team that probably, you know, is on the outside of the playoff picture looking in from the get-go before any games are played and, you know, things change. But if they do want to, like, make a push later in the season, you'd like to have Zach Gallen available.

So they'll sort of manage the roster with the, you know, or the pitching staff with the expectation that, hey, like, we need to be in a position where if we need you starting games in September, like, you need to be available. Yeah. And so we need to manage your innings in such a way that you're going to be available to us in September. So I could see shorter outings. I could see more sort of multi-inning relief efforts to pick up from starters.

Sure. I just think across the board, they're going to have to really dial it back. And that's going to apply to everybody. It's really going to benefit teams that have sort of a deeper collection. of arms to either turn to in the fifth, sixth innings, you know, even fourth innings at times, they can get them through two or three more innings, you know, and or teams with guys that they can call up and can fill spots later in the season without, you know, hopefully missing too much of a beat.

Yeah, so it's strange because I remember, you know, about a year ago, well, I guess not a year ago, I guess this would have been maybe like nine or ten months ago when the season, when the actual season was about ready to get. get started. We were having the flip conversation. I remember an interview with Archie Bradley in particular where he was talking about the idea of, you know, maybe picking up a few extra outings because the season was short and, you know, you knew you didn't have to go the full 162. So maybe you kind of ramp things up and go a little bit harder in those 60 games. And maybe some of those, some of those back end relievers we had talked about back then.

You know, maybe some of those guys take a few more of those of those late game outings when in the normal season they would have needed a rest because they've pitched on back to back days or whatnot. So it's such a, it's such an interesting just complete 180 from what happened last year to now we're talking about, oh goodness, how are we possibly going to ramp this up to a full 162? Yeah, absolutely. We've done that 180.

You know, it's such a weird. It's such a weird thing to wrap our heads around. It's going to take some getting used to probably for the pitchers as well. I won't be surprised to see some awkward, you know, maybe not necessarily in Arizona, but just across baseball. Some sort of awkward moments of the manager coming to the mound and taking the ball. The guy's looking up and going, I've only thrown 75 pitches. Like, what are you taking the ball for?

You know, I'm just getting warmed up. So, yeah, you're totally right. We've done this whole 180. where it went from like, well, let's just maximize innings from our very best pitchers. And now it's going to be, we need to like shelter and protect these arms. And, you know, I think the risk of injury for pitchers

always looms large. I think probably never more so than now. Yeah. So, yeah, it's going to be fascinating to watch. We're going to learn some lessons, you know, just as an aside, we may learn some lessons about pitcher management, workload management. You know, and how those things sort of, you know, continue to evolve.

We continue to learn more about that. But this may be an opportunity for us to really learn a ton about pitcher injury just because we have such, you know, such an anomaly in terms of context for them. So definitely something to keep an eye on for sure. It sucks, but it's smart, right? Yeah, right. It's one of those things that you, there's no part of any baseball fan that really wants that. but it's just sort of going to have to happen this year. We're going to have to deal with it.

Suffice it to say the Diamondbacks, as far as their offseason is concerned, things were a little bit slow to develop, but they wound up making three moves for the Major League roster, at least as far as I've counted. There were, of course, a plethora of moves, you know, minor league deals and whatnot as well. But the three moves they made for the Major League roster

are as follows. They brought in as Droobel Cabrera, who originally you might think, oh, as Drewball Cabrera, the great second baseman, the utility man's second baseman, but he really hasn't played a whole lot of second base lately, which we'll get into a little bit later. Walkeem Soria, formerly with the Oakland Athletics,

Diamondbacks brought him in on a one-year deal. Soria is, I want to say he's 36 years old, don't have the number in front of me. He has been around for a long time, but he's also been a really pretty darn good pitcher, one of the more consistent relievers in the game over the last 10 or 15 years or so. He's been around a long time.

Tyler Clippard is the last one. I believe that's the most recent move that has happened. Clippard, of course, this isn't his first stint with the Diamondbacks. He was with the organization back in 2016. I want to say in a season that didn't work out so well for Arizona, wound up being traded to the Yankees at the trade deadline. But Clippert is also sort of the model of consistency. And he actually is numbers in the last.

couple of years look even better than the numbers in years prior. So Clippbert, another guy, you know, in his 30s, but somehow some way has been one of the more consistent relievers in baseball over the last five or 10 years. So, Jeff, there's nothing particularly super exciting here. They didn't break the bank. These are all pretty low-key deals, single-digit numbers. But nonetheless, you know, pretty typical of Mike Hazen. And, you know, when I, when I looked at the at the bullpen moves that they made, Soria and Clippard. I actually like Soria and Clippard maybe a little bit more than some of the, the bullpen moves that Mike Hazen has made in past years. There's some good veteran presidents here and there's also quite a bit of consistency,

whereas it felt like with guys from the past, Fernando Rodney, Brad Voxberger, some of those guys that, you know, it had great seasons, but they were a little bit more up and down than Soria and clippard yeah i don't know if the club house had too much of like a gen z or like late millennial vibe to it and so they just decided to only bring him guys that you know were born well before the advent of facebook um but yeah it's uh like let's call it maturity you know or something along those lines where i think you're i think you're kind of hitting on something there especially with with soria and clippard um two guys that you can really count on night after night to not necessarily be, you know, lights out,

but you very much have a good feeling about what they're going to bring to the table. You know, this isn't, this isn't, you know, Fernando Rodney coming in, you know, with the banana or whatever. We're not sure what we're going to get. So I do feel like, I do feel like there's some maturity in the approach. There's a real veteran presence and not in the joking. way, but in the way of like these guys know how to handle their business. And we'll just bring, you know, a reasonable level of performance and expectations with

them. So I do, I do like it. It's not flashy. I mean, I will say that. It's, it's really not flashy. But it may be effective. And so, you know, both guys kind of do rely a bit on the ball being put into play to get out. I mean, we can remember from Tyler Clippert, he generates a ton of fly balls. Yeah. But, you know, he generates the right. kind of fly balls. He could change up and he's able to get the kinds of fly balls that are easy out. And Soraya just has a tremendous track record of, you know, just general success. He's not ever really been Mariana Rivera, but he's also been a very effective guy for a really long time. So I like it. I like it. It's not, it's not maybe the investment that I would have maybe

penciled out myself. But considering how it all came together, there were things that needed to happen. There was so much depth available on the relief market. I still feel like they ended up in a fairly good spot. And as you and I have said, you know, in years past, if there's a place where they need to go ahead and make another move down the line, the bullpen is the place to do it. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Looking at numbers for Clippard, I have him up here right now.

He actually has been quite good. I don't know if you want to check some of the back end deeper analytics numbers on your end, Jeff. But Clippard last season, obviously small sample, 26 games, 26 innings. But he had a 0.88 whip ERA of 277, four walks, 26 strikeouts. Those are pretty good numbers, especially for a guy who's, you know, in his mid-30s. A year prior to that, he was with Minnesota last year. He was with Cleveland in 2019. 2019, 62 innings. He only allowed 38 hits, 15 walks, pretty low number, 64 strikeouts, not too bad there. And again, a whip underneath 0.90 at 0.85.

So I don't know if that's an aberration and it may be an unrealistic expectation to have for Tyler Clippard to repeat those kinds of numbers. But it, at least on the surface, Jeff, it feels pretty compelling to me. Yeah, I think if we look at sort of where that's gone, and this is kind of funny because it sort of has changed since he was last in Arizona. Yeah. He's really sort of made a shift from like 2016 to present where he's gone away from using his four seamer and has started using a sinker far more often, like twice as much as he uses his four seamer now. And he's usually, to be he used his four seamer like five to one to the sinker and now it's flipped and now he's like two to one on the sinker to the four seamer so um i think probably the the sinker in the change up

just play really really well off each other he's not throwing the slider you know very much at all anymore and that's probably fine um he is who he is at this point which is a guy who who can strike guys out, but also we'll rely a bit on the, on the soft contact. And so that profile of sinkers and changeups that look very similar out of his hand and have similar movement, but move at different speeds, you know, probably plays really well for him. So he's found a niche and it looks like he's leaning into it more than ever, which, you know, they say old dog can't learn new tricks, but Tyler Clipper may beg to differ. Yeah, I'm curious. if we if we kind of think more big picture here for a moment for what this bullpen will look like.

On one hand, it's interesting. Obviously, Mike Hazen has brought in, you know, some veteran guys in, in Soria and in Tyler Clippard. But beyond that, there's not a whole lot of staple arms for this, for this bullpen. You know, you're thinking about Yohan Lopez and Stefan Crichton. Taylor Clark feels, you know, like a pretty safe bet to make the team. Chris Davinsky, who came over in a minor league deal. We feel fairly confident about him making the roster. We got a question from Jordan on Twitter. He was curious, back end of the bullpen, up one run heading into, you know, the seventh, eighth and ninth inning. Who is on the bump for the debacks?

Jeff, I'll throw out my best guess and then see what you think. my guess is they'll probably go something like Stefan Kreiton, Tyler Clippard, and Joachim Soria. I'm guessing those are kind of your three guys that you would slot it into those roles. Soria is my best guess for closer. We know the Diamondbacks tend to be maybe a little hesitant to firmly name a closer, at least certainly not this early in spring. That will probably come further down the road. Or maybe they'll even go by committee. But I'm guessing, Jeff, those are sort of your three higher leverage guys? Is that the, are those the names you would peg as well? I think for the time being, there's, there's no reason to do anything different

than what you just named. That's probably exactly how they'll play it. I think Crichton is, is someone that we know can get some high leverage outs. And so you can sort of deploy him, you know, if the top of the order is coming up, like you can deploy him. Like, he can try to get you through the heart of the order in the seventh. But also, if you're picking it up at, like, the sixth batter in the lineup, like, he can close out the back end, you know, very easily. So, I think there's, I don't see any way, I don't see any real way to, like, mix and match these guys based on anything specific.

There isn't one guy that you'd want to say, well, I mean, Soria is maybe the closer, but at the same time, you want to save him for when the best batters are up. Like, I think they're. Yeah, it's fine. They're fairly duplicative, right? Yeah, yeah. You just kind of roll them out, let everybody know sort of where they belong, and just say, look, like, you're going to get the seventh or the eighth,

you're going to get the seventh or the eighth, and you're going to get the ninth, and we're just going to let it ride. Yeah, I guess all three of them, of course, are right-handed pitchers. So, you know, there's a bit of a question there in the post- Andrew Chafin world here for the Diamondbacks. Alex Young certainly figures to make the opening day roster as a lefty. Other guys who I didn't mention before, probably Kevin Ginkle you feel might have a decent shot to make it. But there's certainly some openings here. I know one guy that we've been talking about a lot lately, Jeff, is J.B. Bukowskis,

who of course came over in the Zach Granke trade from Houston. He got roughed up a little bit in the minor leagues back in 2019. Obviously, last year there was not much of any minor league action. There was no minor league action at all. So a bit of a lost season, although he was still getting reps in, you know, playing, of course, just against his own teammates down in Arizona. So he's a guy, Jeff, that we feel pretty excited about moving forward potentially. and if I had to peg, you know, one name who might be able to overtake a Soria,

Clippert, or Crichton in one of those back-end roles, Bukowskis is probably the first name that comes to mind. He's exactly why I said for now. For now, these are the three guys that I would go with. Yeah. I think potentially moving forward, there's a chance that that changes. And the Diamondbacks have always been pretty slow. to really like allocate saves towards younger players.

I think part of that is due to not wanting to, you know, the more saves they sort of acquire, by the time you get to arbitration, you end up paying for those. So I think that's part of it. I think they also just fundamentally probably organizationally prefer a more mature approach late in games. Yeah.

Which, you know, has some merit, right? Like that's not for nothing. but yes, I agree with you. I think that's probably the one guy who can maybe come in and really like mix it up and sort of change the outlook. You know, that's a, there's potential there for that to be kind of a big deal. So he's probably the ace in the hole. I think if you're really looking at it, you know, that's probably the one guy that could come in and really make a big, big change. you know a guy that that threw on the same day as last Thursday the same day as

as bumgarner was John de Planteer who came out and threw a few innings yeah looked looked free and easy like looked good didn't look like anything was bothering him you know wasn't super sharp but wasn't terrible by any means either you know so he's maybe a guy that could give them a little bit of a boost but I don't see him as being sort of like a backhand guy probably he's probably more of a piggyback type that that maybe helps you know get another guy out of the game sooner a starter out of the game sooner and similar with maybe a guy like umberto mehia i mean his service time clock has already started yeah and there's some that feel that he's better suited for a relief role anyways so maybe the team makes the call and just you know by midseason

is like hey you're just going to be a just going to be a reliever and we're going to move forward with that for now. So there are some young sort of guys that I think were pegged as starting pitchers to begin with who could end up being a bit of a shot in the arm with a bullpen. But otherwise, yeah, it's sort of a who's who of random names like lurking in the depth. Yeah, Bukowskis, that's the name that we've been talking about a lot lately. He's had, I think he's thrown just a couple of in spring so far, but for what it's worth, he hasn't allowed to hit or run in his four strikeouts. So we're a little excited about that over here. Beyond that, that's the sort of the bullpen outlook. I think there's going to be, you know, like normal, especially with this

Diamondbacks team that is not really ever had a long-term commitment to any particular relief pitcher. I guess Andrew Chafin is really the one guy that comes to mind actually spent quite a bit of time here. But beyond that, you know, expected to sort of be a revolving door, you know, next man up. There's not a whole lot of guys in here who I would say have a firm guaranteed job in this bullpen. So it really is going to be based on results and sort of how things play out. We got a question from from Sean Ramberan on Twitter. What's your ideal starting rotation based on the limited amount of spring training we've seen? Jeff, I don't know if I would even say the limited amount of spring training I've seen is really what I'm going to base my answer on. I don't know. I don't know if there's a whole

lot to gain from, you know, the one or two innings we've seen from each of these guys so far. But I think the rotation has sort of been set from the beginning. I think we probably touched on this in our last show as well. I think you're talking Gallin Bumgarner in some order. Of course, everyone's excited to see, you know, does Zach Gallen get the ball on opening day? It was interesting. He got the ball for their first spring training game for what it's worth. doesn't really mean anything necessarily. And then backing him up, it's some combination of Luke Weaver, Merrill Kelly, and Caleb Smith. And I think that's barring injury.

That's just sort of, you know, what it's going to be. It was good seeing Merrill Kelly pitch. That is one guy who's spring outing, I will talk about quickly. He gave up a home run, but he had five strikeouts. Velocity was up for Merrill Kelly, which was really good to see. He's a guy, you know, coming off of thoracic outlet surgery that is not. not a minor procedure. And historically, it's been a procedure that pitchers have really struggled to come back from.

So really good seeing Merrill Kelly, even though he gave up the home run, he recovered quickly, struck out five. His stuff seemed good. Caleb Smith, I think, is just sort of there. I think he's got a really good shot to make the roster. I think he's got a really good shot to be in that rotation. We'll sort of see how he turns out to be is the resident left-handed pitcher. along with Madison Bumgarner.

And then there's Luke Weaver, Jeff. And Luke Weaver, I think, you know, we all hope and pray that Luke Weaver is able to figure some things out this year following what was really a pretty tough season for him last year. Yeah, I agree. I think those five are the five. I don't think there's anything that will change that unless there's an injury at play. That's probably, it probably is what it is. I think Luke Weaver, for better or worse, has become our new. Robbie Ray. He's become the guy that we.

We needed at least one Robbie Ray type just to keep us on our toes, right? Every team does, you know. You need that one guy that you just sort of pin your hopes and dreams on. And so, yeah, I think he's the guy that you look at and just say, you know, I don't know with Caleb Smith. I don't know him well enough to really, to really feel any certain way about it. I mean, I just feel like Caleb Smith is kind of a number four starter at this point. But I think Luke Weaver has more ceiling than that. And so he's the guy that we're going to hope, you know, continues to turn the corner and really figure things out. It's, you know, it's interesting. There were, there was an article that I believe Zach Buchanan put up at the

athletic talking to him about his offseason and him tinkering with pitches and sort of turning his cutter into Slidermore and a couple of things. And it was, I just, it just struck me a little bit. And maybe I'm going off script here a bit, but it, it surprised me that he for what felt like the second offseason in a row was at home sort of tinkering with his repertoire and messing with his pitches and trying to like figure out the best way to deploy them. And, and like that's his job, right? Like, we all have jobs.

We should spend some time. about how we can be better at our jobs. Yeah. That doesn't surprise me. What surprises me is that how is so much invested in Luke Weaver and so much writing on Luke Weaver, and I read no mention of him, like, taking two weeks at drive line or being put in a development lab where he, or being issued, you know, being issued like a Rapsoto device or something where he was at home and, like, you know, we think about the way pitches are developed now.

I mean, they really are almost developed in a laboratory anymore. Yeah. And here he is at home. Like, I mean, I, again, I may not have the full context, but it felt a lot like he was at home, like in his backyard, sort of messing with his grips and, like, you know, throwing into a net. So I don't know. I just, I don't know what to make of that.

It just feels like there has been so much left on the table when it comes to Luke Weaver. And we still haven't seen the best of him. And so, you know, it's not to say that what he did won't work. Maybe it does work. Maybe it's helpful. So I keep my fingers crossed, but there is a ton writing on that guy. It's like dissecting cow eyeballs on the kitchen table or something like that. With a steak knife.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We have a few other interesting questions here.

Kyle Collins asked a similar one about projections, rotation, which we've covered. He also said, who are the young names to watch that might sneak in there this season? I think we've probably mentioned most of those names. Corbin Martin is another one that I guess we haven't mentioned that we should. Corbin Martin, I think there's a whole lot of potential there. Another guy came over in the Granky trade coming back from Tommy John surgery right when they acquired him, so didn't pitch at all in 2019. And then last year, we expected to see him at some point, but unfortunately he had

some other hiccups in his return from injury, and we didn't get to see him last year. But hopefully, Jeff, this is the year that I'm excited to see what Corbyn Martin has to offer. He's, by all means, by all accounts, what we've heard is that the Diamondbacks really wanted to acquire Corby Martin for quite some time. The Granky trade finally opened the door for them to do that. And he's sort of a guy that you hear a lot of different opinions on, but every once he's seems to think he's a he's a totally viable major league uh major league starting pitcher uh at least as long as the injury concerns work

themselves out um but i've seen people say he could be an ace i've seen he could be you know a number three number four starter type uh what are we expecting to see from corbin martin jeff and curious if you have any other any other names to throw out there that could peek into the starting rotation uh if you have any of those as well yeah definitely i think when it comes to corbin martin the thought process or at least, you know, sort of where our hopes are is that, you know, he is sort of more of the two, three type of starting pitcher. I think you see what Zach Gallen is. I think you can pretty safely call that a one. There aren't a lot of those in baseball.

So hoping for another one of those seems like asking too much. If you stumble into it, great. But I'm not going to bet on it. But I think Taylor Clark, or I'm sorry, excuse me, Corbyn't Martin has a chance. chance to, you know, to be, you know, maybe just a notch below that. And so there's a chance there that if it all comes back together, he's, he's kind of a two, three type of starter. You know, a guy that's well above major league average and really can become like kind of an anchor for the rotation. So he's not, he's not that young anymore. I mean, he's 25 now. And so it's time for him to

sort of put his foot on the gas. As we think about some other prospects who may come up, I'm not going to, I don't have a ton for the rotation. I think it's going to be interesting to see how they manage that, given our previous conversation around probably needing some more arms like come later in the season. So there are some considerations there, but there are some guys who I think that are off the 40-man roster right now. And if the team really wanted to get aggressive, which I'm not sure they will, but if they wanted to,

so guys that I think could make, that are prospects that could make sort of more like bullpen type impacts, there are a handful of guys that they have drafted as starting pitchers who've had maybe kind of a rough go in that starting role, but have really, really big stuff. Ryan Nelson is one of those guys who has big time stuff. Connor Graham's we've heard is you know can touch triple digits um Dre Jameson was a 2019 draft pick and probably stays as a starter but if you wanted to call him up later in the season as a reliever he has stuff that plays we've seen Levi Kelly's stuff play pretty excitingly and even a guy like maybe like Matt Mercer someone where you just say

hey, we're going to have you throw your two best pitches and scrap everything else and just go out and throw hard. There are some guys here. They're not going to show up on a lot of the top prospect lists. They're kind of buried. But if you were looking for big stuff that might play in the majors sooner than later, those are some sort of on the edge guys that you'd have to make 40-man roster space for. But I think in the right scenario, you know, come the end of August. into September. Those are some guys that could,

could give maybe a very interesting look to the bullpen in more of a, you know, more of limited outings, but throwing hard and bringing kind of an element that isn't currently present. Yeah, that's good. We have another question from,

from Patrick on Twitter. He asked us possible replacements for Cole Calhoun, which we discussed earlier. He also asked, think Dalton Varsho makes the roster and says he's one of the best prospects in all of baseball in his opinion, which we of course would agree with. Yeah, yeah, what, Dalton Varshow, obviously last year, first season sort of just thrown in in a really, really bizarre year for everyone.

And, you know, he showed flashes here and there. I wouldn't say it was, you know, a failure of a season by any means. A lot of guys, you know, especially, you know, people like Varshot who are, you know, have big expectations on them, but are also really, really young. It can take, you know, a year or two to kind of adapt to major league pitching and whatnot. He was also sort of thrust into a position he wasn't super familiar with, played a lot of center field. So I think there was quite a bit going through Dalton Varsho's mind last year to say the least. I don't know if we can really hold these results to them too hard. But yeah, I mean, I would say, at least in my opinion, Jeff,

I would be pretty surprised if Dalton Varshow didn't make the opening day roster, just given his track record the fact that he is, you know, a pretty big time prospect here. And I don't think he really has a whole lot else to learn at the minor league levels. He seems to have sort of checked all those boxes and is ready to try to just get some more reps here at the major league level and hopefully you can figure some things out sooner than later. I think the injury to Cole Calhoun really opened that door. Yeah. If it weren't for that, I'd say it might be a little fringy. But given that Calhoun will probably miss some time, I think Varsha is probably the biggest beneficiary of that.

And so he probably makes the most sense. He is, he's really talented. He's really versatile. even last year when he struggled, he had consistently really solid at bats. There were times that he stung the ball and just hit it right at somebody. Totally. So it doesn't show up, but I think that he's a significantly better player than his stat line would have showed last season. So I think he's the beneficiary there. I think one thing that's interesting with Varsho is have we just thrown, have we just like rolled out that he's not a catcher anymore.

Like, yeah. Is that decided? Because if there is a reason to send him down and maybe he's a guy that goes when Calhoun comes back, do they plug him in back behind the plate more often? Or does he go to Reno and just start in center field every day? Be very interested to see, even when he's not in the majors, where he logs his innings. Because it seems a bit like the talent. has been thrown in on this idea of him of him catching with any sort of regularity.

Of course, having Carson Kelly as a young, as a young catcher who's quite good at catching, you know, gives them the opportunity to deploy Varsho elsewhere. Stephen Bowde is obviously still around. But yeah, it's very interesting. I'll be very, very compelled to see how much does Dalton Varsho catch? Like, and even through the spring, does he just not catch at all? because if he just doesn't catch it all, I basically would at that point

just think of him as sort of your like emergency catcher. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's super interesting. We are rolling in questions from listeners. Thank you to all of you for submitting them. Hopefully we can get to everyone's here real quick. Let's see what else we got. So Matthew asked a bigger picture, a bigger picture question. Excuse me.

What are realistic expectations? for this year. We know Catele Marte is good, but do you think he'll return to MVP caliber and be in the running every year like Goldie was when he was in Arizona? The really good question, Matthew, I think we're all kind of curious as well to see how things turn out with Catell. I'm more inclined, Jeff, to think of Cattel as closer to the perennial All-Star than to the just sort of nice utility player covers a lot of positions, you know, might stumble into a 30 homer season from time to time. I think Catelle Marte is a really, really good baseball player. And I know last year was not the season that we hoped for from him.

It was, I remember he had a monstrous spring training. He was totally raking in the intra-souad games. But, of course, you know, those don't necessarily mean a whole lot. But the season started and Kattel took a little bit of a step back. His final numbers look pretty decent, but the power seemed to be pretty absent for him over the course of the season. So, yeah, Jeff, I don't know if Ketel Marte is going to hit 32 home runs necessarily every year as he did in 2019.

But I do generally view him as being, like, I would be semi-surprised if Ketel-Marte was not an all-star. I think I'm somewhat on that level. Jeff, am I totally off base here? No, I take that bet too. I mean,

if someone asks, who's the all star on this team? You know, you have two choices. It's Zach Gallen or, you know, and or Cotele-Marty. Sure.

I just, there are things that he does, and you and I have talked, you know, offline about this in the past, have just hit, he has certain abilities that some of the guys around him,

you know, may just not possess or can't tap into as easily. On Thursday, he hit a double down the line that he just scorched and the exit below was like almost 114 miles an hour. Oh, my God. I mean, not very many guys hit baseballs that hard and he can do it from both sides of the

plate. He's cleaned up a bit of his splits between, you know, at least sort of his swings between left and right side. Yeah. He just has, he can really step into him. And when you, I think one of the fun things when watching Cateau-Marté hit is to just in a vacuum, just to really focus on him as an individual and almost disregard the pitch. And just look at how hard he swings the bat. And it's like amazing.

I mean, not everyone can generate that kind of bat speed and maintain some semblance of bat control. Like the actual skills themselves are quite unique and quite impressive from him. So I am of the belief that I think he is an MVP candidate maybe, you know, sometime down the line again. I don't know that that was a complete and total anomaly. But in the meantime, he's probably a pretty regular all-star. And a guy who's just, you know, because he plays in Arizona like Goldie did, He probably won't quite get the love that he deserves. Yeah.

But he is an exquisite baseball player. Yeah, not to mention the contract that he's on is absurdly team friendly. Yes, it is. Yes, he is. And on that note, I want to also touch on Matthew's question, you know, what are realistic expectations for this year? Think a little bit big picture for a moment. We all know what the Dodgers and the Padres have been up to, right? The Diamondbacks, let's face it.

Frankly, baseball is a crazy sport. I'm not going to rule anything out. You know, it's possible that somehow the diamondbacks turn out to be better than both of the top two ranked teams in all of baseball and a lot of the power rankings that I've seen. I don't think that's likely, though. I think you're probably looking at a at a wild card, hopefully a valiant wild card effort that keeps the diamond backs in the mix that keeps them relevant. I think if you get some bounce back seasons from, you know, Eduardo Escobar and Carson Kelly, and, you know, guys stay healthy. If Cattel Marte turns back into hopefully this more perennial all-star type that we've been talking about, I think this team could be pretty good. You know, last year we had, of course, much larger expectations when Starling Marte was here. But frankly, the roster this year, Jeff, is not that different. You know, if you expected the team last year to, you know, we really put.

a playoff expectation on them. We really thought that that's really where they belonged. And I don't know if, I mean, Starling Marte is a great player. You know, not to take anything away from him. You know, Archie Bradley's not here anymore. There's certainly a loss there. I don't think in any way are we expecting them to necessarily make the playoffs. But I also think a lot of people are sort of thinking of the Diamondbacks as, you know,

a 75-win team in 2021, which certainly could happen, you know, if, if some of these things don't go their way. If some of those guys that we're hoping will bounce back, just can't figure things out, the starting rotation depth is a little bit fringy. If you got into injury issues, you'd have some trouble. But I think, I don't think it's out of the question, Jeff, that this team could stay in the mix, could, you know, if things turn their way, they could win a wild card game. And, you know, who knows what could happen from there. So it's not an expectation. I don't think I'm expecting them to necessarily be in the playoffs. But if some things turn their way, I don't think it's unrealistic to, you know, think of

the diamond backs of the team that'll hang around, that'll be relevant, that will bother the Padres and the Dodgers at the very least. And, you know, who knows what could happen from there. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you there. I think we obviously did not see the best of them a season ago. I think we know that there's more talent than what showed up. And some things just went sideways. And so once again, I think that Mike Hazen has built, you know, what could be construed as kind of a high variance, a high variance roster where if things break right, you're looking at a team that could like really, really threaten for a wild card spot. Yeah. And if things go poorly, they're selling by the middle of July. And so, you know, I have a hard time.

And almost the worst thing that can happen is that they are like between those two outcomes. Like, you'd almost prefer that it's like one or the other. Yeah. Either start retooling for the run a couple of years down the line or, you know, let's go for it. But sort of the middle is really a bad, a bad spot to be. But I think they can stay in the mix. I think there's enough talent there to stay in the mix. But they really are going to need, you know, they're going to need the Escobars to show up.

They're going to need consistent production from Peralta. Cateau Marte is going to have to be a no doubt all-star. The rotation is going to have to perform as we know it can, but it really can't let up. They're going to need some breakouts along the way as well. And I think it's a pretty narrow, a pretty narrow avenue to get to a wild card spot, but I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility. I think it's something that can be achieved, and let's not forget, like the whole NL Central just like sat on its hands all winter.

I mean, there's not a ton to really be terribly afraid of there. Like most of those teams are not wildly better than the Diamondbacks. Yeah, true. And the NL East is a pretty strong division, but maybe it beats up on itself. And injuries happen in places, you know, what happens when, when some of those guys go down. So,

um, I think there's, I think there's a path for it. I just, I don't see it as the most likely outcome, but I think there's a path for it. And you're right. They're going to be staring up at,

uh, the Dodgers and the Padres the whole season. And that's just the way it's going to be for the, for the next little while. But, um, you know, this is a team where if they don't make the playoffs, but still finish 500,

to me, I would feel like that was a fairly successful season. Would you, would you feel the same? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I don't want to admit it. I don't want to acknowledge that 500 is is good and successful. But yeah, I think frankly, that's around where they probably belong. And, you know, the good news is that this is not a long-term rebuild that I think we foresee happening here. You've got a top five, maybe top 10, somewhere in that range farm system. a lot of exciting young players sort of in the mix here. This is not the moment where the Diamondbacks recognize what the Dodgers and Padres

are up to, which granted is sustainable. The Padres did not just push the chips in for one or two seasons. You know, they have a long, a longstanding team that will contend, I think. But from the Diamondbacks perspective, it makes no sense for them to sit on their hands and wait five or six years before trying to push the chips in. You've got Catele-Marte here on the aforementioned absurdly team-friendly contract. You've got Zach Galen here on an absurdly team-friendly contract. And you've got a really good farm system with some of these guys knocking on the door in the next two to three years.

It doesn't make sense for the Diamondbacks to wait five or six years from now. So I think Mike Hazen knows that. I think he's a smart guy. I think he wants to win. I don't think a rebuild is the plan here. but, you know, sometimes you have to go through a few seasons of maybe the Diamondbacks will be spared of, you know, having a season where they lose 90 or 95 games, hopefully. But sometimes you have to go through a couple years of, you know, just kind of being okay before you can, you know, really push the chips in and get back in the mix. Yeah, I think so.

I think that's where they're at. I think they're going to continue to sort of, you know, sift through the pieces. I think they'll continue to use like this year in the next few years to really find out. who's for real and sort of where they are going to need to make investments, you know, is, is there more for Caleb Smith or does he just kind of, you know, finish his service time out, you know, while he's under team control and then go elsewhere? Or is that someone that turns a corner you work with and you're like, hey, we actually, we want to extend this guy. Yeah. I think similar can be said for maybe Luke Weaver. You know, there's a whole bunch of guys

I think they can kind of sort through it. And I'm thinking not just this season, but in the next year or two, guys that will come up and they'll have a chance to sort of evaluate and see who really is going to be a core piece of the team, you know, two, three, four years from now. Because I think that's kind of what they're building towards. And that's what they need to sort of build towards. They're just, you were absolutely right. The Dodgers have a developmental pipeline and enough good young players. they're not going to disappear.

The Padres did not make a one-year splash, as you said. You're absolutely right about that. It's going to take time to build an actual, like a real, real, in-depth, you know, well-balanced baseball team to contend with those guys. So I think that's the path that they're on, and they'll be time to spend money, but now is probably not quite it. I think they'll continue just kind of sorting through what they have and trying to improve and get better every day and, you know, build for the things.

future, but, you know, certainly not throw the towel in on the short term, which as someone who sits down and watches a lot of Diamondbacks games, I can appreciate because, man, it would be really hard to watch them if they were just like only trying to win like 60 games a year. Yeah. Yeah. That is, that's one thing you'll have to say about this Diamondbacks franchise. It is you, I feel like, I feel like there are a lot of teams in baseball who have just full on without saying it, but full on just sort of. made it abundantly clear that they were not really trying to win games for at least a span of two or three years. And that really hasn't happened here. There have been seasons where in reality,

it turned out that they really were not going to be winning any games. But it was never the plan from the beginning. We've really never in the history of the Rattle podcast, we've never had, you know, an opening day that we weren't at least curious about, you know, like, hey, you don't really know what could happen. Baseball is a weird sport. And sometimes crazy things happen. And, you know, your team can, you know, win five or ten games more than you expect them to. And that's enough to kind of make a push and make things interesting. So yeah, it'll be fascinating to see how things play out. What, we've got to get going. We're up over an hour, which it's amazing, Jeff. I swear we talk about how there hasn't been much that's happened. And then we easily fill an

our productive Diamondbacks talk. It's incredible. We appreciate all of you for sticking around with what's been a longer episode for us here. I want to acknowledge Desert Dog 6969 and Manny G also on Twitter who asked us a couple of questions about prospects, which I think we touched on. There's certainly a lot of guys that are in a next man up sort of position. And it'll be interesting to see, you know, whether some of those names that you mentioned earlier, Jeff, can flourish. year. But yeah, we're going to go ahead and wrap episode 25 up there. Once again, thanks so much for listening. We really appreciate you sticking with us here. As always, you can find us on Twitter at at the RattleAZ. You can find Jeff at Outfield Grass 24 or myself at at Jesse and

Friedman. We'd love to interact with you over there as well. Over on our website, you should check that out as well, the rattle.net. Our colleague Joshua Inman has been a rock star over these last couple months and has written a lot of really great stuff. So be sure to check that out. At some point, we're going to have to coax Joshua into joining us on the podcast. See if we can make that happen at some point. But yeah, he is a brilliant young baseball mind. You won't want to miss his stuff over on our website at the rattle.net.

But with that said, for Jeff Weiser, my name is Jesse Friedman. Thanks so much for listening here to the Rattle Podcast. And we'll be back again soon to talk more about this 2021 season.