PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Ep. 26: Spring Training Roundup

Episode Date: March 31, 2021

We recap the biggest storylines from Spring Training, and project the D-backs' 26-man roster on Opening Day. We also field some good listener questions about whether a few players really "earned" their spots. 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 26 of the Rattle podcast. As always, my name is Jesse Friedman here with Jeff Weiser, my co-host here on the Rattle. And Jeff, it was the top of the ninth inning, an epic last game of the spring training campaign for the Arizona Diamondbacks, J.B. Bukowskis comes in and takes the mound and epically gets his first save of spring training. And that is how the Diamondback Spring Training campaign. ended here earlier today against the Cleveland Indians with a three-two win. To close out, Jeff, what was, frankly, a fairly anti-climactic spring training, all things considered. The Diamondbacks finish nine and 15.

I guess on some level, pretty much all spring trainings are anti-climactic. It's spring training. It's called that for a reason. But anyway, Jeff, I thought it was sort of fun and fitting. The J.B. Bukowskis of all players was the man sort of finishing things off, the Diamondbacks, finishing off in a good way here earlier today. Yeah, I mean, I think he was probably the star of the spring, right? So, yeah, good for him.

I mean, good for him. He came out. He was pretty dominant, you know, once again and looked good. Like, he has all spring. So, yeah, it definitely felt kind of fitting to see him, like, get that first save and come in and slam the door on, you know, on a ninth inning and on a game where, you know, the D-Bex had to kind of clothe their way. way back. So it was like a very D-backs feeling game, right? They, they sort of, they came back late

and shut the door right at the end. So that's a nice, nice way to cap it off. Yeah, other than, other than J.B. Buchauskis, Jeff, just thinking through spring training, what we've observed here over the last few weeks, unfortunately, it, I wouldn't say there were, you know, a whole lot of, you know, a whole lot of guys who came out and broke out in a big, way a whole lot of surprises that we saw. But there definitely were a couple. So we'll start on the positive side of things with that. Obviously, Bukowskis is one of them, you know, seven and two, thirds innings, three hits,

no walks, no runs, 14 strikeouts for him. But beyond that, Jeff, I know Josh Rojas, you wrote about him recently over on our website. Maybe he's a guy to sort of be looking at here as the regular season gets going in a couple days? Yeah, I think so. You know, it was always going to be the case that this team was going to need, you know, a breakout or two to really do any kind of damage in the National League, especially the National League West. So, you know, in the spring, Rojas has really been that guy. You know, I mean, I will, you know, in full disclosure, just say like that, that really surprised me. I did not expect that from him. He's not a guy that I really anticipated was going to have that kind of breakout.

But man, he has hit and he's hit really well. And it looks like it stems from some sort of mechanical changes with his setup at the plate and his stance, really, where he's kind of opened himself up. He was closed before a bit. And so by really just kind of adjusting the placement of his feet even before he swings, he's now able to really, like, clear his hips, open up, rotate, and get to the inner half the plate more. And so, yeah, I've been sort of watching and rather surprised. I mean, it's, you know, breakouts are always fun, right? But you feel a lot better about him when it seems like it's tied to something tangible.

And so to see something that looks kind of real, you know, manifest itself is really exciting. So there's a guy that, you know, they really need. need to get something out of who they weren't expecting a lot out of. And there are guys that they need to get stuff out of that I think they have high expectations for, but for someone kind of from the periphery, I think Rojas is probably the guy. Yeah. And of course, we have to be sort of careful, right?

Because I think about a year ago at this time, we were looking at Ealdomar Vargas, who is absolutely knocking the cover off the ball. I know you mentioned his name in your article, which, by the way, you all should go check it out at the rattle.net. Jeff has some really cool visuals and stuff that he chased down to help you understand the changes that Rojas made to his swing. But yeah, I mean, you have to be careful, right? Spring training is, you know, you're obviously facing a lesser level of competition.

And, you know, the moment the regular season starts, things get pretty different, pretty quick. So certainly at least something to be looking for there for Josh Rojas, the Diamondbacks, as you mentioned, they're going to need everything that they can get this year. every unexpected production, amount of production they can get from any direction on the roster. They are going to need that this season. Beyond that, sticking here with the positive side of things, Jeff, I know you had a chance to watch all of today's game in its entirety with Taylor Widener on the mound. And looking at this rotation, the Diamondbacks rotation, has officially been announced.

We'll go through the roster more in detail here in a few minutes. But that rotation is Madison Bumgarner, Harold Kelly, Caleb Smith, Taylor Widener, and Luke Weaver. Those are the five in the rotation for the Diamondbacks to open the season. And honestly, Jeff, looking at that list and after, you know, seeing what Taylor Widener did today, I'm not necessarily convinced that Taylor Widener isn't going to be potentially one of the better arms in this rotation. And maybe that says more about the other arms in the rotation that it does about Taylor Widener

himself. But nonetheless, what he did today was. was impressive. There was, you know, some, a nice level of fastball command. He really felt sort of in charge on the mound, got through five and two-thirds innings on a pretty reasonable pitch count, made a couple mistakes on a couple of change-ups. But overall, this seems to be a pretty different pitcher than the one we saw

last year. I still have, and I'm sure many of our listeners probably have nightmares of Taylor Wydener a little under a year ago in those exhibition games against the Los Angeles Dodgers. got completely lit up a couple of days before the season started that sort of left a nasty taste in all of our mouths entering the regular season. But this year, his exhibition outing here right before the season certainly went a lot better for him.

And Jeff, you think there's maybe some staying power there for Taylor Widener? If he pitches like he did today, yeah, there might be. And I think one of the things that gives me some maybe some bonus. like optimism is that he was facing an Indians lineup that contains plenty of of good left-handed hitters uh wideners of course a righty um and they didn't uh this being like sort of the final tune up before the regular season starts they didn't like sit a bunch of their regulars um they had pretty much the full the full MLB lineup uh in there to face him so um he didn't get away easy by facing like a double a roster.

He really had to earn it. It did start with fastball command, but he also really showed that he was trying to establish his change up as a pitch that could work for him. As you mentioned, there were a couple that he didn't exactly locate and they were abruptly deposited into the outfield, you know, into the stance. So, you know, that could be the downside.

But he also generated some swings and misses. on the pitch too. So he had it, you know, he had it working at times and it seemed to really kind of come around for him. I think he sort of found it a little bit more as the game wore on. He did have an inning where he struggled, where he really fell behind hitters. He had a four-pitch walk in there. You know, just things weren't really pretty. And then he sort of righted the ship, found his release point again, found his stuff again, looked like he gained his confidence again. And all of a sudden he was like, you know, just back to sort of cruising along. So I think it was, that to me was really encouraging the sense that that he showed some command. He showed his ability to work his

secondaries in. His slider is a pretty good pitch already. He got ahead of a lot of hitters. He did struggle a little bit at times to put some guys away, but, you know, all in all, he was pretty efficient. He was pretty effective. Made a few mistakes and paid the price, but yeah i was really impressed i mean he looked he looked uh just so much different than the guy we saw a year ago uh the guy that we were you know really worried about that just didn't look like almost didn't look like he belonged uh that was not the taylor widener that was on the mound today this was a guy that uh looked like he belonged as a starting pitcher uh didn't look like a guy who you were holding your breath and thinking oh you know i hope he can just maybe make it as a reliever no this was a

a totally different guy. So certainly a welcome site. Yeah, if you both forget Taylor Widener was, I believe, the minor league pitcher of the year for the Diamondbacks organization, just like a couple years ago. So, you know, it's funny how the stock of prospects, especially pitchers, it feels like it can rise

and fall just so rapidly from one season to the next. But for Taylor Widener, obviously big shoes to fill when you consider that Zach Allen is really that that's really the rotation spot that Taylor Widener is here to fill. And with that, I'm sure probably all of you have already heard the injury news with Zach Gallen, but we'll give you a quick injury update about the roster here as the regular season draws closer, right around a little under 48 hours here as we record on this Tuesday night.

Zach Gallin, of course, the big name here, a stress fracture in his forearm. Jeff, word has it, this injury occurred. The details are a little bit murky for me. It's hard to tell whether he just felt the injury while he was hitting. Like maybe it was something that had already happened and he just didn't really feel it until he was hitting. Or whether the injury literally just happened while he was hitting and might not have happened otherwise. But nonetheless, you really hate to see, you know, a really good young starting pitcher like Zach Allen go down. certainly because he was doing hitting drills or something, which really isn't going to matter

in the grand scheme of things anyway. But that's the news with Galen. Tyler Clippard also since our last episode has gone down. I believe he's being shut down for six weeks with a capsule sprain in his right shoulder, which, yes, that is his throwing arms. So not good news there by any means for Tyler Clippard. He was obviously going to be a pretty big part of the back end for the Diamondbacks. And then a couple other lesser injuries on the position player front.

Nick Ahmed has had some knee stiffness here over the last few weeks. Hasn't played a whole lot in spring. But word has it. He is hopefully going to be ready for opening day. We'll see how that turns out. And then Cole Calhoun, the other name here, who's been out here for most of spring training at this point. But apparently he's starting to face live pitching and should be back here in relatively short order.

So Jeff Gallen and Clippard there are obviously. the biggest hits to the Major League roster. And for all of you out there who are wondering, why on earth are we still having pitchers hit and, you know, suffering injuries like the one that Zach Allen seems to have experienced here, this certainly would make for a pretty good argument in your favor. Yeah. Yeah, it's really disheartening. It's a terrible time for it to happen.

That's a terrible way for it to happen. And I think what's really frustrating about this, is that, you know, the DH in the National League argument has been really used as a bargaining chip between the Players Association and ownership as something to sort of wrestle over in negotiations for the upcoming CBA. And so rather than really working in the player's best interest, in the game's best interest, and the fans' best interest, it's, you know, unfortunately been, you know, sort of used as a ploy to get a, a broader point across. So you bake that into the equation and it's just more depressing.

So yeah, it's really unfortunate. You know, I think this is a roster that is going to survive based on the, you know, sort of the sum of its parts. You know, when it succeeds, it will succeed because it will be getting a lot of contributions from a lot of places all at once. Yeah. It doesn't have many players on it that can carry the team on a given night with any sort of expectation. That said, Zach Gowan was one of those guys that could do that.

And so losing him for any period of time is really frustrating, especially in this capacity. But he will be back. And we will certainly be looking for more details. And with you, it does seem a little hazy at the moment in terms of what we know and don't know. you know, what's been shared and what hasn't, et cetera. So I'm just kind of keep our fingers crossed. But, you know, you made a great point before we were even starting to record just around, you know, the number of innings he was expected to throw this year and sort of how this might change that outlook for him. So all in all, it might not actually rob us of a lot of Zach Gow in time.

It may just redistribute it, but would have liked to have seen him, you know, an opening day or the day after. Yeah, I've actually been talking with my two siblings are big baseball fans, big Diamondbacks fans. Of course, all of us are from Arizona originally. And we were talking a few weeks ago, and they have consistently said the reason that you watch Diamondbacks baseball in 2021 is you don't watch every game, you watch every fifth game because Zach Allen is on the mound. and that's really, you know, the main attraction that this team has. Aside from Cattel, I think you could make a pretty good argument that he's worth watching

every day for, right? But Zach Gowan was definitely a pretty big part of this team's entertainment value. And it will be tough for this team to carry on, to carry on without him for a lot of different reasons. But let's jump into the nitty gritties here, Jeff. We went through. It's not really rocket science at this point to pretty much nail down what this roster is going to look at, is going to look like. There's really only one name that we are unsure of yet, which we'll get to here in a second.

But I'll start with the definitive. So in the rotation, I've already mentioned that's set in stone. It's going to be in order. Bumgarner, Merrill Kelly, Caleb Smith, Taylor Widener, and Luke Weaver. You've got the two lefties in there in Bumgarner and Caleb Smith. on the position player side, you're looking at for catchers. You've got Carson Kelly and Stephen Vote. On the infield side of things, you've got Christian Walker, Josh Rojas,

who of course might find some time in the outfield as well. Eduardo Escobar is Drewbo Cabrera, Nick Ahmed, and Wyatt Matheson. On the outfield front, again, there's sort of a utility name in here, Josh Van Meter, who we've also seen play some second base and some first base. Ketel Marte, who we think will primarily play center field, David Peralta, Pavin Smith. I'll probably get a look at a corner outfield spot, especially while Cole Calhoun is maybe still nursing,

that knee issue, and then Tim LaCastro being the last name there. So those are all the position players. That's pretty much set in stone at this point. As far as the bullpen goes, this is where there's the one unknown. We've got Joachim Soria, Stefan Kreit, and Chris Devinsky. that's probably for for lack of a better term that's kind of your big three in the bullpen which for better or worse that's pretty much pretty much what we're looking at here Alex Young Taylor Clark Kevin Ginkle Yohan Lopez those names we also figure will be in there

and that leaves one one open spot Jeff which is sort of interesting because at this point I don't believe there's anyone who finished out spring training with the team who wasn't on the 40 man who we think has a really has a remote chance at making the roster. So you're pretty much stuck looking at the 40 man roster, just kind of staring it down and trying to figure out which of these guys might have a shot. And Jeff, what do you think? If you had to throw a guess out there, who's going to be that 26th man for the debacks? And this is why, you know, every day I start with my stretches, my sit-ups, my push-ups.

You know, I'm ready for the call. My ringer's on. I'm ready to be called up. I've probably got 55 in my right arm like three times and that's about it. Yeah, there aren't a lot of options here, which I think you and I, as we were kind of going through this exercise, found maybe a little surprising. There's not a lot here. You know, if they were to go with a non-rosary in by T, look for another lefty, they'd have to bump someone from the 40 man. and I don't think that's something that they want to do.

The one thing that kind of lingers that could maybe change things a little bit for them, you know, might revolve around the length of maybe Gallons injury or something like that. But it looks like it, you know, I think if I had to guess looking at the 40 man, I mean, the most obvious answer to me is a guy like Riley Smith, someone who's already accumulated some service time, someone who still has options that could go up and down, and they don't risk losing him.

He makes a lot of sense to me. If they were willing to roll the dice a little bit more or wanted to do something and weren't really shy of the controversy that would cause, J.B. Bacalskis could come up. And even though he was, you know, just like Riley Smith, assigned to Reno, that player can come up and take the place of a player placed on the injured list. So assuming gallons placed on the injured list, you know probably tomorrow by the time most people are hearing this on April 1st

that would you know open a spot where where someone could come where someone will come up and take that spot but you know after the the sort of the blowback around Bacalskis and him being being sent to Reno I would be very surprised if they were willing to you know do an about-face and call him back up to take Gowan spot so I think I probably am going to lean towards Riley Smith, just maybe filling that role is maybe the long guy, especially as pitchers are still kind of getting stretched out. Yeah, I think a lot of fans are probably heartbroken over,

I mean, Bukakis, I think hands down, has been the most exciting Diamondback of spring training. I mean, he's been absolutely lights out. Let's go ahead and jump into one of our listeners' questions, since we're already on the topic. Sean Ramberand said, is J.B. Bukowskis only starting the year at AAA for service time manipulation, or do they really want him to spend more time there after his ridiculously good spring training? And I think that's a very, very valid question by Sean. It's probably what's on pretty much everyone's mind at this point. I mean, what more would Bukowskis have possibly needed to do in spring training in order to rightfully earn a spot on the opening day roster? I think the only way you can answer that, question is to say that really there was nothing he could have done and no matter what they were going to start him at the minor league level and then you know wait however long they needed to in

order to eke out that extra year of service time. Jeff, I know this is sort of an ongoing controversy in baseball with how the service time clock works. If you keep a guy down for the first few weeks of the season and then call him up, you wind up with an extra year of team control. Is that really, do you think what's happening here? I mean, it's either that or he just like repeatedly parked in Madison Bumgarner's like parking spot. Like I mean, that's like the only thing that I could possibly think of. It really does seem to be an issue of, you know, team control of service time. And let's face it, you know, we know that this, we know that this is a pretty flawed and broken system in baseball.

Yeah. You know, as much as we'd like to see J.B. Akalsk is, you know, in the bullpen, I'm sure Ray's fans would like to see Wander Franco at shortstop, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So, I mean, we've seen this play out with Chris Bryant. We've seen this play out with a bunch of guys. So that hasn't changed. And it won't change until the next CBA, which the current one expires at the end of this year. And we're heading towards, you know, The negotiations have, you know, started, you know, I think in the last few years. There's been a lot of posturing.

So kind of know the two sides are preparing for a pretty nasty labor dispute. And this is one of those items that, you know, I think isn't the best interest of the game to address. And I think everyone wants to see addressed. But that said, it hasn't been addressed yet. And so a team like the Diamondbacks are not going to give away a year of control in exchange for calling someone like Bukowskas up, you know, when they could leave him down for, you know, for about two weeks and gain that extra year time. That's just a smart business move with the way the rules are written.

I recognize that it's terrible for the sport. I'd much rather see him in the bullpen than like perhaps Riley Smith. But it is what it is at this point. I think Sean's right. I think that's exactly what this is. Yeah, we've got a couple other questions here related to just the spring training battles that happened or in some ways maybe didn't happen. Mike Cleary says, is Caleb Smith in the rotation because he earned it or because of a lack of

options? It seemed like Smith was the frontrunner for the fifth spot from the beginning of spring, but we were told it was an open competition. Just looking at his numbers, it doesn't look like he earned it. And I think it's another great question. And it's hard to disagree with that assessment. I mean, what could Caleb Smith have done that he wouldn't have, you know, found a spot in the starting rotation.

Obviously, he really got lit up the other day in his last spring out. It was pretty, it was pretty ugly to watch. And unfortunately, Jeff, he's not the only one. This last go through of the rotation has not really been good for any of these guys, except for, I guess, Taylor Widener in his outing today here to cap things off. So I feel like it's a valid question, but also did Luke Weaver earn his spot in the rotation, you know, did Merrill Kelly earn his spot? I mean, Madison Bumgarner, I guess you kind of figured there wasn't really anything he could do to not get a spot and he was at least good enough

anyway. But it's a question I think you could ask about at least two or three guys in this rotation, not just Caleb Smith. But yeah, I don't think Caleb Smith really was all that impressive, especially not in his last doubting. But it definitely speaks to a lack of depth in the rotation. for the Diamondbacks. And I think even if it turns out that, you know, Taylor Clark or Alex Young or one of these other options they have is better than Caleb Smith, the difference there is probably not much. And I think the Diamondbacks at the end of the day probably just decided to go with guys who

have more proven track records who've been in the league for longer. And I think that's why you end up with a Caleb Smith and a Luke Weaver, you know, guys like this in the rotation, even though the numbers they put up really to much. Mike's point don't by any means show that they would possibly be actually worthy of that spot that they got. Yeah, there's, I mean, exactly. My very first rebuttal to this would have been, you know, I mean, you might as well lump, you know, Luke Weaver into this too, at the very least. Caleb Smith is a pretty vanilla lefty. There isn't a lot going on there with his stuff. That's all that exciting. And it's just, he's just going to have to be really on. And, and, uh,

you know, execute really well to have like prolonged success. I mean, that's just kind of where he is in his career right now. So, you know, the hard part, you know, as I think you were kind of alluding to is like, you know, we think about sort of the way the prospects are oriented in the system and the guys that are close. You know, you could, you could call up a Corbyn Martin perhaps. But I'm not sure he's exactly ready. And his, his innings totals are going to be pretty limited this year. So there just aren't a lot of places to turn, unfortunately. And so you have a guy like Caleb Smith under team control. And it's really imperative for Mike Hazen and his crew to manage not just the active 26-man roster that we see, but to manage the 40-man roster. And by extension, manage even beyond that 40-man roster into the depths of the organization. because there are ramifications of bringing someone who is not on the 40-man roster onto the 40-man roster, then you can't remove them without exposing them to waivers and whatnot.

So it's quite the tightrope if you look at sort of the macro level of all that they're trying to manage. So that's a long way of saying sometimes you just have to wear one and you just have to let a guy like Caleb Smith go out and kind of take his lumps and try to work through what may be ailing him, the positive there is that we know Caleb Smith has had some success in the past. We know that he has been able to figure it out at times, and he's been around this league a while for a reason. So I wouldn't say he did anything this spring that would make you say, oh, my gosh, this guy definitely belongs right in the middle of your major league rotation.

but I don't know that anyone else did enough to change the math on that when you consider all the external factors like the 40-man roster and beyond. So we're left with Caleb Smith. Well, I imagine Diamondbacks management was doing what a lot of fans are doing right now, which is going to the Diamondbacks official Twitter account and finding Zips projections for pretty much everyone on the roster. Right. Maybe Caleb Smith's Zip's projection was just so convincing his ERA was projected to drop by, you know, half a run next year.

And they just, you know, couldn't say no. Yeah, couldn't say no, right? Yeah, if you haven't, if you haven't caught onto the joke, the Diamondbacks lately have been posting some pretty amusing graphics of Zips projections that, interestingly, are not necessarily very good. but somehow because the projection numbers are better than how some of the players performed last year, you know, they're putting them on these graphics as if, you know, Eduardo Escobar is about to break out by hitting, you know, 254 or whatever it is. But anyway, that point aside, kind of along the same lines, we got a similar question here relating to Luke Weaver, which, Jeff, I'll tee this one up for you

and let you take the first stab at it. This is from Ryan at Mac Attack 71 on Twitter. He says over under May 26th, game 50, where Luke Weaver is relegated to the bullpen. Jeff, are you taking the over or the under? I don't know. This is tough for me. And this is this happens to be my wife's birthday. So I'm like hoping that like good things happen on this day.

And even that said, I don't know which way to go. like what would actually show which would actually be better um i'll take i'll take the over um only in the sense that i think uh only in the sense that i think um there there remains an incentive to let him try to figure it out sure yeah by that juncture of the season there'll be plenty of games left um things might be tightening up a bit um but what we don't know is we don't know where you know again like innings limits for guys like Corbyn Martin stand. We don't know where Zach Gallin's health will stand, et cetera, et cetera. I think I will say that I think Luke Reefress looks generally pretty poor this spring.

I just have not seen anything to really get excited about. It just isn't there. I don't know what to say. The stuff at times, you know, looks okay if you're not really looking at. where the catcher's asking for it to be thrown and where it actually ends up. But he just misses so many locations and it just gets pummeled.

It never bothered Robbie Ray, right? It's true. You just kept throwing it. Yeah, it's pretty tough. It's been pretty tough to watch. So, yeah, I don't, I'm kind of out of answers. And I mean, offensively, I mean, I'd kind of throw Eduardo Escobar

into the same, you know, in the same, pile where, wow, just another guy where, like, you, not only do you need breakouts from like a Josh Rojas and or a Tim LaCastro and or a Taylor Widener or somebody, but you also need the guys that you knew we're going to be on your roster all year

to also like get back to their career norms or start, you know, exceeding, you know, or succeeding in getting close to the levels you need them to play at. Yeah. And Escobar has a, shown a whole lot either. I mean, he chases a ton of high pitches and he has no business

swinging at. Um, and while I will say that his physique does look better, uh, he has made some actually some really nice plays at third base. Um, offensively, like it just doesn't look all that impressive for a guy that you kind of need to hit, uh, in the middle of your lineup. Yeah. Um, it's tough. But yeah, Luke Weaver, I'll take the over on that, but, um, You know, does make me wonder sort of where the cut bait, you know, spot is because there's a lot, there's a lot of optics and a lot of politics tied to that. Yeah. So that's a, that's a tough one for sure.

Yeah. I don't, I mean, Luke Weaver, some people would say, like, oh, Luke Weaver needs to develop into an ace. He was, you know, he came back in the trade for Paul Goldschmidt. It is his obligation to, you know, fulfill the very. big shoes that in a way he was trying to fill obviously Goldie and Weaver, you know, on two different sides of the ball. But, but nonetheless, yeah, Luke Weaver doesn't need to be that guy.

It's not his fault that he was, you know, the primary part of the return for Goldschmidt, along with with Carson Kelly, of course. But yeah, like you said, you just need him to be kind of a viable major league pitcher. And unfortunately, he really wasn't that last year. And he hasn't been that this spring. as you mentioned. He's looked pretty poor. He's looked frankly kind of like the same guy, albeit with maybe some, you know, a few pitches reshaped or something. We know he certainly has tried to make adjustments. I know Zach Buchanan near the beginning of the spring,

wrote an article about all the adjustments and all the effort that Luke Weaver was putting in. I, I have nothing against him as a person. I'm sure he's trying everything he possibly can. But yeah, the reality is that things just have not looked good for Luke Weaver. But, you know, on the flip side, I have a feeling the Diamondbacks are going to run into some innings limit issues this season. And it might not be the worst thing in the world for Luke Weaver to sort of wear it for a little while. And eventually you can bring in, you know, you could bring in some other option. At the very least, I think it's reasonable to put Luke Weaver in the rotation at the beginning. You don't have, again, with like Caleb Smith, it's the same situation. You don't have

any options that are clearly better than Luke Weaver, you know, give him a few starts, see what happens. Maybe he's able to make some adjustments once the regular season gets going. Yeah, and I'll just add, like, where do we think this team is on the, like, competitive scale? I mean, they're really not geared towards, I mean, they're not trying to, like, sprint away from the rest of the division right now. there's more interest and more of a long-term benefit to allowing Luke Weber to figure it out or to at least allow Luke Weaver to try to figure it out

because in a year or two when you hope that you're better it'd be really nice to have Luke Weaver as like your number three starter. Yeah, no, that's a great point. Moving on to more positive things. I know we have Catele-Marté on our list because Cotel-Marte has looked a little bit more like the Cotel-Marte of 2019 so far in spring training. And granted, it's just spring training. And I know he was raking last year at this time as well.

But nonetheless, Jeff, it is a thing of beauty to watch Cotel-Marte hit both from the left side and the right side. He seems to be pretty comfortable here going into the regular season. Yeah, he has been hitting absolutely. It is so much fun. I can't I can't count the number of like doubles. I've seen him just like rip through the second base hole that it seems like all come off the bat and like, you know, 105 plus miles an hour. I mean, his swing is so violent.

And it just looks like that ball just owes him so much money or something. I don't understand how he hits it so hard, but he does. it's been really magnificent. He has looked. He has looked apart. I don't know. I would expect that most of that will obviously carry over. I have no reason to think that it really won't.

He's just looked really good. He's looked much more like himself. And that's been great. He hit three home runs this spring. It's all kind of there. I mean, he slugged 732. So yeah, he's not going to do that all year. He's going to face better pitching on a night-to-night-out basis.

But man, it looks like the real thing is back, and that is exciting. Yeah, I think that's sort of what we're all holding on to, heading into this 2021 season. Coutelle Marte, we get to watch him play every day. And there is definitely something to be said for that, especially after how good he is like this spring. But more big picture, Jeff, thinking about. this season. We've pretty much talked about all of the little nitty-gritty details that I can imagine that we haven't discussed yet here regarding spring training regarding just this team heading into this season. And if we if we just think big picture here for a moment about what are

we expecting from this team this year, you know, what are we hoping for from this team this year? And frankly, Jeff, an observation that you made right before we started, we started actually recording. It sort of feels like what people are holding on to with this baseball team is that they have a pretty decent track record of being the underdog. They have a pretty decent track record of being a team that you expect nothing from, right? If you look back, I think we talked about this in our last show as well, you look back to the last few times, the Diamondbacks have made the postseason, 2017, 2011, 2007. All of those years, if you look at, you know, preseason power rankings, I pretty much guarantee you they were in the back 10 all three of those seasons.

And somehow, I guess, that's supposed to make people feel more comfortable about this team in 2021. Jeff, I feel like it speaks a lot. It says a lot that what people are holding on to about this baseball team going into 2021 is that they've been, they've turned out to be good when we thought they were bad before. I guess that's the, I guess that's the argument. And unfortunately, that's a, that's a pretty loose thing to hang on to. Yeah, that's, yeah, that's a real reach for me. Yeah, I mean, if, you know, I think my phrasing before was something along the lines of, you know, like if you're, your reason for optimism is that you're really not very good. You know, you might have a problem.

And I think, I think part of this stems from the. fact that there isn't another obvious direction to go with the narrative. The narrative isn't that they're so good that anything short of a National League title would be a disgrace. And the narrative isn't that they're so bad that they're just tanking and rebuilding. Looking around baseball, there aren't a lot of teams that are sort of in that middle ground. I think a lot of people have figured out that being in the middle is really. pretty bad and kind of a rough spot to be in.

So yeah, yeah, that's where the Diamondbacks are again, in a place they've been a lot over the last decade because they don't really want to go down that like deep, deep rebuild hole. And that's, we've been down that road and that's fine. Yeah. But yeah, I think, I think sort of holding on to this narrative that, you know, they're going to shock the world because people aren't expecting much of them. it's just not something I'd like to tie myself to you that said I will go into Thursday with the

expectation that they're going to go 162 and oh you know that would be tremendous but realistically I think it's going to be it's going to be kind of rough especially with gallon out and you know some of the injuries I think we don't know how some things are going to return I mean this could go a lot of ways but you know unfortunately I don't see see a lot of them being real positive. It's going to be, I think, kind of a tough year to sort of sit through. And I really, really hope I'm wrong. But I just don't see a lot here to get overly excited about. Yeah, I think when I look at this roster, I see, you know, there's, there's some teams that are, that are, you know, not expected to be great. But they have a lot of,

you know, up-and-coming young players that could, that could turn a team that's not expected to be great into a team that actually could be quite good. You know, granted, you're going to need some, some very unexpected breakouts. But when you look at this roster, you don't really see a whole lot of those guys. You know, you don't really see a whole lot of those, you know, 20, 21 year old stud prospects coming in where, you know, this is sort of their first year on the scene and you don't know what you're going to get from them, but maybe they turn out to be really good. Not, not really.

That's not really the vibe you get. You've got Eduardo Escobar. you've got David Peralta, you've got Nick Ahmed, you've got Christian Walker, you've got, you know, the list goes on of players on this baseball team that are not necessarily bad players, but whose ceiling is pretty set at this stage in their career, right? Eduardo Escobar is not going to hit 45 home runs, you know, and drive in 130, you know, 130, he's not going to hit over 300. You know, we just sort of know that these guys are pretty well established in who they are.

and it's one thing when you don't think you're going to be very good. It's another thing when you don't think you're going to be very good. And you just don't have a whole lot of ceiling to take you to the next level. Right. Yeah. And that's where they're short. Like, they're short on who's going to push them further.

I mean, you could get, you know, um, the best year of, you know, uh, you know,

I don't, I don't even like Christian Walker. Like a good year from him would be, great. But a good year from him is not going to be, like, even a year that's slightly better than his best career performance, he's not going to be enough to carry this team on a night-in, night out basis. Like, it's just not going to be there. You need several of those all at once, and the odds of that happening are just so slim that it's hard to bet on. Now, I mean, I will, I will absolutely say that, like, every year there's a team that sticks around and is pesky,

and get some of these performances and does way more than we anticipate. But trying to bet on that with any sort of consistency is extremely difficult and flimsy at best, as far as I can tell. So I'm with you. There's just, you know, the unknown can be helpful because, as you said, you know, like it could go bad, but it also could go really, really good. the problem is that so many of these guys are pretty well known we mean really expecting Nick Ahmed to like turn into you know a top hitter in the National League all of a sudden like

I mean if these things were going to happen I feel like we probably would have seen them coming you know at some point in time but yeah they haven't happened and I'm not about to start betting that they're going to happen now I hope they all happen but I I'm not betting on it It also doesn't help when you have the San Diego Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers in your division. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think, yeah, I think the Diamondbacks, you know, realistically, could they finish third in the NL West? Absolutely.

The Rockies and the Giants. Yeah, the Rockies and the Giants are not very good. So I guess you can kind of play that game both directions with the Dodgers and the Padres on one very extreme side of the spectrum and the Giants and Rockies potentially on the other. But yeah, hopefully this isn't a total Debbie Downer of an episode heading into the regular season. I think, Jeff, since I started doing the Rattle podcast, I cannot recall a season like this when, you know, we came in and there just wasn't a whole lot to get excited about. And, you know, the good news, Jeff, the good news for people like us and for listeners of our show is that baseball is a heck of a lot of fun.

and on some level, obviously winning is, you know, when this sport is really at its best for fans and whatnot. But nonetheless, we're going to have a lot of fun this year, you know, breaking down the team and watching baseball and hopefully having some sense of normality after the bizarre, you know, year plus that it has been since the pandemic sort of took over the universe. But nonetheless, baseball, ladies and gentlemen, is only two days away, about 48 hours from when we're recording right now. I know this weekend will be the first where we have baseball that matters. And we will not have another weekend where baseball is not played that matters for about seven months. So regardless of what team you're cheering for, Jeff, I think that is good news for all of us. Yeah, absolutely. I look at the, you know, I guess I'll close by saying, I feel like, you know, every night, you know, just, just as it is for the players, even for those of us watching, is a night to learn something, is a night to see something amazing.

Nick Ahmed seems to do something defensively amazing every single time he takes the field. True, true. You never know what Cote will do. it wouldn't be weird to see Madison Bumgarner, you know, spend a couple really great games this season. You know, and you never know kind of who will emerge. Like can Joshua O'Has kind of, you know, keep it up? Can he translate it? Or does he do a El-Damaro Vargas?

Like, I'm super interested to find out what is, what does Tim LaCastro do with more playing time? What is kind of Paven Smith like really look like on like a night-in, night-out basis while he's kind of subbing in for Cole Calhoun? And like, yeah, there's something to that. I mean, you know, I may not be, this may not be the most exciting Diamondbacks team that I think that I've, you know, covered and written about, you know, over the years. But at the same time, I am looking forward to being wowed every night to learning something new every night and to, you know, watching this team take the field and progress. So I'm still pumped about it. Yeah, well, I think that's a great place to, uh, to end our 20. 26th episode right there. So we will do just that. Thank you all for listening so much as always.

If you haven't already, be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at the RattleAZ. You can find me on Twitter at at Jesse N. Friedman or Jeff at at Outfield Grass 24. We'd love to have a conversation with you over there. And also be sure to check out our website, the rattle.comnet. We've got some good articles that are already up now. We've got some other good stuff in the pipeline. So be sure to to check that out. But yeah, for Jeff Weiser, my name is Jesse Friedman. Thanks again, as always for listening. And we'll be back here next week with some real regular season, 2021 Arizona Diamondbacks.