PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Ep. 3: Swihart trade, Weaver/Holland impressing, Godley might lose his rotation spot

Episode Date: April 25, 2019

We break down what the Diamondbacks got in the Blake Swihart trade, Luke Weaver's early success, how AZ might approach the trade deadline, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode three of the Rattle Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Jesse Friedman, alongside my co-host, Jeff Weiser. And Jeff, this Arizona Diamondbacks team has had arguably their best week of the season over these last seven days since we recorded our last show. The Diamondbacks have started a 10-game road trip with a 6-2 record. They swept the Atlanta Braves. which I think for Diamondbacks fans was probably a pretty good feeling, given the Diamondbacks history with the Braves and all the players that they have unfortunately

traded over there. So that, I think, felt good for a lot of people. And then the Diamondbacks did drop two out of three to the Chicago Cubs over the weekend. A tough series finale there with Gerard Dyson hitting a big game-tying home run in the ninth inning. And then Archie Bradley, unfortunately, blowing that game in the bottom of the ninth inning. Diamondbacks lose that one, two to one and ultimately lose the series there. But then the Diamondbacks go to, or headed, should I say, to PNC Park, where they have so far, as we speak right now, I've taken the first two games of the four games series there.

Diamondbacks, as we speak, have won eight consecutive games at PNC Park, which is very impressive. I'm not sure exactly if there's anything to that, but for some reason the Diamondbacks have fared very well in Pittsburgh as of late. and Jeff, you look at the standings right now, the Diamondbacks are tied for second place in the NOS division. Their run differential is plus 10, which is frankly pretty good. It is second only to the Dodgers in the NOS. All the other teams are negatives, relatively strong negatives. So right now, Jeff, frankly, the Diamondbacks have put on a pretty good show

over the first 24 games of the season. The season is obviously still young. I don't think we can really definitively say what this team is as of yet. But by all indications, through 24 games, if you had told me the Diamondbacks were going to win 13 of them, I think I would have been happy with that at the start of the season. Yeah, same here. I agree. I think that's a pretty strong showing for them.

I think, you know, obviously we sort of came into the season with them pegged as about a 500 club. And they've really sort of, you know, produced that pace with some ups and downs. but yeah it's they're off to a strong start you know relatively speaking and you know it's it's interesting there's been some nights where you know the the starting rotation hasn't been good and the bats have picked them up and then you know vice versa they've they've eked out a win here or there when the bats were a little cold but the pitching was strong so you know they're they're kind of showing like you know what maybe we sort of thought this team was going to be you know like on the whole it's pretty solid does any

anything really jump out at you? I mean, I think going in, we probably would have thought the rotation would have been a little more, you know, consistently strong, but they're kind of like finding different ways to get it done. And it's, it's been kind of encouraging to see them win, not just the games, but also like win in different ways. Before we go any further talking about the Diamondbacks games and their performance on the field, this is actually a fitting segue, which just announced a couple hours ago, that Blake Swayhart is getting his first start tonight in a Diamondbacks uniform. The Diamondbacks acquired Swyhart from, of course, the Boston Red Sox,

so I believe it placed him on waivers. The Diamondbacks gave up outfield prospect Marcus Wilson in the deal. They also acquired $500,000 of international pool money in this trade. I'll go ahead and give my quick assessment of the trade, and then Jeff, I'll pitch it over to you. I'm curious what you think as well. this feels like the kind of deal that you really can't critique too hard in either direction. At best, the Diamondbacks got a guy in Blake Swihart who is said to have a decent bat,

at least in their eyes. They seem to be high on his ability to hit, even though his showing in Boston last season was not particularly strong. I believe he hit under 230. Didn't do a whole lot for them offensively, though he is a good utility-type player to have on your team. He plays virtually every position, potentially even center field. So we can literally play just about anywhere on the diamond, which I think does have value in itself. But Blake Swihart is not, you know, the same highly regarded guy that he was when he was

first coming into the league. A lot of people thought that Swyhart was going to be one of the better catchers in baseball for a long time. And he's really struggled for the Red Sox overall in his time there. He's been up and down. His role. have changed a lot. And so I don't think the Diamondbacks necessarily hit the jackpot with this trade, just based on the fact that Blake Swihart is a guy who's been in this league for quite some time now and really has yet to break through in any kind of major way. But on the flip side, it also feels like Swihart is not really a bad guy to acquire.

I think it's a hard argument to make that the Diamondbacks made a big mistake here. Marcus Wilson, I believe, ranks around number 20 in the Diamondbacks farm system, or at least he did. So by no means is Marcus Wilson one of the – or was he one of the Diamondbacks better guys in their system? But he was also good enough to make the top 30. He had a good season in Lowe a couple years back, really bursted on the scene, and then last year. And High A was not quite as good. had an OPS under 700 this season in a very small sample size for the Diamondbacks in AA. He had an OPS of up over 800, so very much a small sample size there, so it's hard to really

evaluate that. But I don't think Marcus Wilson is necessarily the kind of guy you're going to miss in a huge way necessarily, although he definitely could surprise us down the road. But Jeff, for me, this trade looks like a situation where the Diamondbacks didn't really win big, but they really didn't lose big either. This is this is kind of a trade that doesn't seem to fall very strongly in either direction for me. Yeah, I would I would think that the upside here is you know, in a sense significantly greater than the downside and the upside being, you know, sort of split, you know, with the return. I think Swihart is a guy that has for a long time been

been promising and as you noted has never really quite clicked um you know it's he's no longer young um i remember when blake swyhart was a top prospect in the game and everyone was very excited and yeah uh i looked and i was like he's now 27 like he is not young anymore um but you know the most playing time he ever received when he played 84 games and he was 23 uh and in his you know debut. He was just, you know, slightly under a league average as a hitter. And then he played 82 games for the Red Sox last year. But his age 24 season, he only played 19 games in the majors. His age 25 season, he only played six games in the majors. So I think that the jury in some ways, you know, maybe still out. Mike Hazen and company are obviously very familiar with Blake's

White Hart. And, you know, I keep coming back to sort of, you know, the extension that the Diamondbacks were able to come to with Eduardo Escobar, where, you know, it happened early in the offseason, and it just seemed like my case and the company felt like there was value there in that contract. And Eduardo Escobar is not the guy that's going to carry the team, but there was value there. I see the same sort of thought process around Blake's Weihart, where it's a value play. I really enjoyed covering Marcus Wilson and had a chance to interview him in the past. And it's a great kid.

And I'm going to kind of miss covering him. And I'll sort of keep an eye on him going forward. But I don't think he's the guy that the team is really going to miss from an organizational standpoint. But getting the $500,000 back in international spending money is really helpful. And the Diamondbacks already had a lot of international leverage. We sort of touched on that very briefly in our last episode. So this just like deepens their pocket on an international, from an international stance. And it's interesting because there are some big bonus guys.

I think of a guy like Christian Robinson who got a lot of money signing, you know, when he did out of the Bahamas. But then there are guys like, you know, Jazz Chisholm that did not sign for big money. There are a lot of international prospects because they signed so young, you know, like I like Geraldo Perdomo, I don't believe was a huge bonus guy. I mean, these aren't, you know, three, four million dollar bonuses. I mean, some of these guys are signing for, you know, 50 grand or, you know, something like that. So if you get $500,000, you can, you know, you can make $10,000, $50,000 bets. And so I think that that's a huge aspect of it for the diamond backs. And so, you know, where Swahart kind of fits in is, I think, going to be a work in progress.

But, you know, hey, they sold, you know, what in most people's eyes, I think, was probably very little. got back something that's at least interesting in return, and then there's the upside on the international market. So I love this deal for them. When I saw it, I couldn't believe it. I think this is a very typical Mike Hazen type of signing. You mentioned the comparison of the thinking with the deal that the Diamondbacks made with Eduardo Escobar. I think that's a really, a really good comparison. And I think that's kind of the characteristic type of thinking that we've seen from Mike Hazen and a lot of the moves that he's made. He just seems to be the kind of general manager who's not necessarily going to make a lot of big splashes, but he's going to make a lot of

relatively smaller, low-key, more behind, like under-the-radar type of moves. And they're going to be smart moves that legitimately bring value to the team, even if, you know, they don't get necessarily a lot of press coverage. And I think this is, like you said, probably a good example of that, where the Diamondbacks, they may not end up getting a ton of value out of this deal, but it's also very unlikely that they lose value in this deal. And I think from that standpoint, it really looks like it could be a win-win for the Diamondbacks either way. Speaking of Mike Hazen's ability to do a lot with a little to make these kind of under-the-radar

moves that work out well and bring value to the team, I think Greg Holland has really started to burst onto the scene for the Diamondbacks this season. It's hard to ask for more numbers or for better numbers than what he has put up so far this season for the Diamondbacks. Eight innings, two hits allowed, no runs, three walks, 13 strikeouts over those eight innings. He's five for five and save opportunities. Jeff, this is a guy who several years ago was thought to be probably the best closer in baseball or at least top three, you would probably say in his time with the Kansas City Royals. He doesn't have the same stuff that he did then, so I think it might be reasonable to question whether Greg Holland is going to, you know,

be able to perform at this kind of a level throughout the entire season. But what he's done for the Diamondbacks so far this year has been extremely impressive. And this is a position that the Diamondbacks really haven't had a whole lot of stability at for quite some time. I think Fernando Rodney had his moments a couple years back where he was really good for a time. Brad Boxberger had his moments last year where he was really good. But all in all, I don't think either of those guys were really too impressive at the end of the day for the diamond backs. And Greg Holland, maybe he can be the closer that really kind of makes a name for himself here in Arizona. And maybe he stays with the diamond backs beyond this year.

Yeah, I think you look at it. I mean, you kind of alluded to, I think he's allowed as many base runners as he's racked up in saves. like he's had I think I love like five base runners he has five saves on the year that seems good to me I'm not a scientist but that seems good so yeah I I do agree with with the sentiment you know I you look at Rodney and Rodney was certainly older when he came aboard and Boxburger just frankly like peripherals and everything was not very good I think Holland situation is a little different and also yet similar it's similar in the sense that Hazen has

sort of look for the under the radar sort of inexpensive like let's you know dig to the bottom of the closer barrel and see what we can find um and you know we've sort of seen what those results are and and they haven't always been um been very good but you know Holland is um you know been certainly up to the task and above uh so far this season and so you know early on you you you remain hopeful. I don't think he's going to continue posting a career best, you know, strikeout rate, but, you know, it's still early and he's been very effective. You know, does he keep it up?

Obviously, you know, we would never expect him to keep up this rate of performance, but, you know, he could regress a little bit and still be just fine. Like, and I think he's been such a stabilizing force that, you know, it's allowed, you know, I don't know if it's allowed, but it's kind of forced, you know, Diamondback fans to look at other components of the bullpen. Instead of having to worry about the closer, now they're sort of looking in other areas. So I'm very, very pleased with how he's performed this far.

And, you know, we'll just kind of see how long that holds up. But, you know, it was sort of an upside play again. Like another Mike Hazing kind of like, well, let's take a chance and, you know, see, see what we can do, you know, and Holland certainly picked things up at the end of last year. And they were going to bet on, you know, him, you know, sort of riding the ship and continuing the momentum from the end of last season. And they saw enough there. And it's certainly paying off. Another pitcher for the Diamondbacks who has fared very well as of late in the starting rotation is Luke Weaver, who delivered his third consecutive excellent outing

yesterday against the Pittsburgh Pirates. This is a guy who has really come on. strong this season. His first couple starts of the year were pretty rough. I don't think he made an excellent first impression with Diamondbacks fans, but he is very quickly rectified that. You look at the numbers now with 333-E-R-A-119 whip, at least on the surface. Those numbers look pretty respectable. And you look at the walk and strikeout numbers. He only has six walks this season. Over 27 innings, he has 31 strikeouts, a pretty good strikeout rate for Weaver here in 2019. And you compare these numbers with what Weaver did last season, and it's really a completely different story. I believe his strikeout rate this season, I don't have the number in front of me, but I believe it was 27%.

Whereas last season it was at 19%. And his walk rate has also dropped significantly. That was actually a pretty big issue for Weaver last year, whereas this season I mentioned just six walks over the 27 innings. So this is, albeit a still small sample size, I feel like we have to. to preface just about everything at this point in the season with the fact that we just have a small sample that we're working with so far. But early on, Luke Weaver really has looked good for the Diamondbacks in their starting rotation. Yeah, he's been excellent. And that's been really great to see. I mean, the fastball is still somewhat hitable. But if he can, you know, use it effectively

enough to get strikes and get to the changeup, that can be, you know, that can be quite good for him. Like that's that's a tactic that he's going to have to continue to kind of rely on. And it doesn't use his curveball very often, but it's been, you know, better this season than it has been in the past for him. A pitch that I've sort of picked up on the last, you know, in his last start was watching him work the cutter. Yeah. And it's kind of, you know, it's interesting. It's an interesting pitch in the sense that it has maybe a little more, or at least it feels like, it has perhaps a little more drop than we typically associate with a cutter.

And it's sort of caught in that sort of like baby slider, you know, cutter sort of somewhere on that spectrum. Like, is it a true cut? I don't know. He can call it whatever he wants. But it's working. And that's, you know,

that's all we care about. So that pitch has been surprisingly good for him this year. And I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be totally shocked to see him start to, you know, kind of, you know, continue mixing it in and maybe a little more frequently. but, you know, the fastball is good enough. And if he can, you know, get guys to foul off the first pitch or take a first pitch strike and, you know, command the pitch well enough that it's not hurting him and allow him to get to,

you know, specifically the change up or even working the curveballs. Like, he can be okay. And I don't think he's ever going to be that guy that just, you know, mows everybody down and blows you away. But, you know, then you kind of like you're alluding to you, you kind of look at the stat line. you're like, man, he kind of snuck up on me. Like he's actually, you know, when you pile it up, it's like, wow, this is actually really impressive. And, you know, with him being such a big piece of the return for Goldschmidt, it's really

great to see him sort of, you know, find that success. And we'll just learn more as we go along. I mean, as you said, you know, like five starts is not a lot to go on. But the early returns are really good. You mentioned the Paul Goldschmidt trade. We got a really interesting question from Andrew AJT. on Twitter. Andrew asks us, could the Goldie trade result in more wins this year or no way?

And this seems to me to be a pretty loaded question, pretty difficult question to answer. I think if you're looking at this from the standpoint of, you know, is not having Paul Goldschman on the roster winning the Diamondbacks more games? I think very clearly the answer is no. And it's very hard to really ever make a case like that when you're talking about a superstar type player like Paul Goldschmidt. But you also have to consider the flip side of, you know, Luke Weaver has been pretty good for the Diamondbacks.

Carson Kelly has kind of taken a bit of a step back offensively. He's not necessarily getting a whole lot of playing time every day quite yet for the Diamondbacks. But, I mean, you look at this deal long term, and before Goldschmidt had been extended with the St. Louis Cardinals, the thinking kind of was, you know, okay, the Cardinals have one year of Paul Goldschmidt, and the Diamondbacks get six years of Carson Kelly, and I believe it was five years of Luke Weaver. And you look at it at the trade from that standpoint, and suddenly it looks like the Diamondbacks are doing pretty well.

I don't think, as Andrew asked, I don't think you can really look at this season and say that the Diamondbacks are going to win more games without Paul Goldschmidt. I think that's a pretty hard sell. Maybe if you factor in that Christian Walker has had all the success that he's had, maybe the replacement of Goldschmidt with Christian Walker is not as big of a downgrade as we expected it to be, so the Diamondbacks don't lose quite as much value there. But if you're just comparing Weaver and Kelly with Paul Goldschmidt, I think it's pretty clear you're going to get more wins with Goldie on your team. Yeah, I would agree.

And I think the kind of elephant in the room with that is roster sides, right? So if you're locked in with 25 players, it's going to be really difficult to, you know, to sort of make up the difference, if you will, if Carson Kelly and Luke Weaver combined for the same war figure at the end of the season as Paul Goldschmidt, I mean, you might look at that and say, oh, look, I mean, they were just as valuable. But you had to tie up two roster spots to do that instead of one. So there's, you know, almost no way that this is, you know, going to work out. you know, in their favor in that regard. And just sort of a straight summation of the value. But, you know, like Kelly has not been really good, but at the same time, this is actually also kind of the best he's ever hit in the majors.

So I know the bar was extremely low, but, you know, so, you know, hopefully he can kind of continue to sort of find his groove and, you know, Weaver, as we talked about. Andy Young is doing his thing down in AA. So no, unfortunately, I don't think it's going to be better. But as you mentioned, it might not be that much worse if all goes well. Another question we got is from Sean McNally. Sean asks us, should the Diamondbacks offer Adam Jones a multi-year deal,

affordable for the Diamondbacks and favorable to an aging vet? I'll go ahead and give Adam Jones' stats for the season. Five homers, 16 RBIs is hitting 302 with a 910 OPS at this point in the season. So all across the board, the more basic statistics all look pretty good at this point in the year for Adam Jones. Once again, you're talking about 24 games. Jeff, at least from my standpoint on this one, I think it's really way too early to consider a contract extension of any kind with a guy who's only been on your roster for frankly about three weeks in the regular season. I don't think we really have a big enough sample to really see what kind of guy Adam Jones is at this point.

I think it's an interesting question moving forward though. You know, maybe Adam Jones actually sticks this out. He's been a pretty consistent performer in his career. You look over the last four or five seasons of Adam Jones' career and statistics. they all look pretty similar. So frankly, I would be kind of surprised if, you know, suddenly Adam Jones had this great breakout offensive season. All of a sudden at the right-pulled age of 33, it seems unlikely.

But if he is able to keep this up and maybe he has, you know, we've seen guys as they get older sometimes they make an adjustment in their swing or their approach at the plate and they actually do, you know, they get a few extra years out of their bats and they're able to perform for a little bit longer. Maybe Adam Jones is the kind of guy that the Diamondbacks look to extend at the end of the season. For me, though, Jeff, it's just really

way too early to consider anything like that. Yeah, I would agree. It's too soon to tell. And we're yet to see really Mike Hazen, you know, kind of dictate the direction of the organization, right? Like we talked just a little bit before about how he's been very value-based

in his approach where he sort of let moves kind of come to him and then very reactionary looking to kind of capitalize on, you know, on opportunities. And you could argue he did the exact same thing with Adam Jones, right? I mean, it's not like they targeted Jones early in the offseason to our knowledge, but he saw value there in pounds. And so we don't really know what direction they're going. And we just have to kind of keep in mind that, you know, there isn't a ton of value in locking up roster spots for, you know, a defined period of time for aging players. So, you know, could they work something out? Sure. My best guess would be, you know, even in a good scenario, if they wait until the offseason before,

approaching anything. And if they were to go that direction, you know, I would be surprised that there was anything more than a one-year deal, you know, waiting for Adam Jones because as the market showed, I mean, no one else, I mean, even if he continues to put up, you know, pretty strong numbers for Arizona. Like, I don't see anyone willing to come out and start bidding heavily for services. So they'll certainly take a wait and see approach on this. Like, this is, this is something that they will probably play out for quite a long time. And there are just a lot of factors and a lot of variables before they'll even probably approach that decision. You mentioned just the overall discussion about the Diamondbacks future and their direction

and what direction they're going to be looking to go at the conclusion of this season. I think it's a very interesting question, something that the Diamondbacks brass is going to have to face probably pretty soon. I guess this season, the jury is still kind of out on where the Diamondbacks are, how good this team is going to be. But something interesting just came out from CBS's Matt Snyder. And Matt is talking about the Diamondbacks and his opinion on what this team should do. I believe he's talking about the trade deadline this season, and he believes that the Diamond Back should go ahead and sell their pieces aggressively at the trade deadline. And so I just think this is a really interesting conversation starter,

because this is a question the diamond backs are inevitably going to have to face. And I think it even gets more complicated if this, you know, the diamond backs haven't been excellent so far and so far this season. There are two games over 500. We don't want to overblow their success so far. But if the diamondbacks were still in the playoff mix come around the trade deadline, it would make for a very interesting question. Should the diamond backs go for it like they have the last couple of years?

Or should they stand pat? and try to pursue a different direction. Matt says the diamondbacks should sell aggressively. Jeff, what do you think? I mean, I do know, yeah, we sort of headed this direction in our last episode. And I, you know, I could think about sort of where Matt's coming from, thinking about the diamondbacks are loaded heading into the draft. They've got money to spend internationally.

If there was a time to sort of, you know, reset the direction of the organization, this is probably it. So from that standpoint, you know, I can sort of logically think, okay, yeah, like maybe that, maybe that is a direction they should go. You know, and he's kind of making the argument that, you know, it's taking the Diamondbacks like a, I mean, they're seven and three over their last 10 games. It's taken them a pretty, you know, decent run to get back over 500 and kind of, you know, reestablish themselves. You know, but I look at sort of some of the wins, like they're not against bad baseball teams. Like the pirates are not a bad baseball team. The Braves are not a bad baseball team.

have some bullpen issues, but they're not a bad baseball team. So, you know, selling come the deadline, I think is another thing that will probably get, you know, obviously pushed off. And we've got a long ways to go before we know that. But it does make some sense. That said, as we stated last time, I just don't know, you know, what pieces they have to sell that are going to be, you know, really all that valuable on the trade market. And that's kind of where I get hung up.

And that's kind of the hard part for me. I don't know about you, but I mean, David Peralta, I guess I would assume, is the most valuable piece. But he's 33. So I just, I kind of, that's kind of where that theory sort of stalls for me. Yeah, I agree. I think the diamond backs are just not in a particularly good position to sell their pieces at this point. And it's interesting because I think about a year. or two ago, if you asked me this question, I think there was a time when I was pretty fired up

about the Diamondbacks ever selling, because I thought that the Diamondbacks could very quickly restock their farm system whenever they wanted to, because it seemed for a time that they just had so many young assets that really could earn you something in a trade. You know, there was a time when the Diamondbacks had Pollock, there was a time when the Diamondbacks still had Corbyn. I I was expecting that maybe they could look to trade those guys. Robbie Ray once upon a time, I think really had a lot of trade value. Jake Lamb, I think once upon a time, could have gotten you a decent amount in a trade. But you look up and down this roster right now, and they're just really, as you mentioned,

there's really no guy who's in that prime position to be traded. So I do think the diamondbacks will go ahead and sell at the trade deadline if they're clearly out of contention, like pretty much any team would. I think that's almost a given. But whether or not they're going to go ahead and, as Matt says, be aggressive about selling, I think is really just an entirely different question. Yeah, I do too. I think that's where it kind of gets tough for me is, you know, if someone's beating down your door and asking for, you know, David Peralton's willing to give you a bunch, you know, Mike Hazen will listen to that conversation, I'm sure. But, you know, selling aggressively, you know, that's, that almost sounds haphazard to me.

and they're a team that does need to get every last bit of value they can out of any trade. So I don't know that selling aggressively will ever really work for them all that well. And we look at the deadline. We talked about it before. If he keeps it up, you know, Greg Holland might be one of the better trade pieces they have. We're talking about a 33-year-old closer who's coming off of, you know, a pretty horrendous season and some pretty serious injury issues. So, yeah, I mean, and, you know, maybe Luke Weaver keeps it up and then you flip him, but didn't you just, I mean, didn't you just try? Yeah, right?

Like, how are you going to, how are you going to square that? I mean, they're not that, not that selling, you know, not that appeasing the fan base, you know, should be the driving factor. But that does come into play to some degree. And that's going to be, that would be a really tough sell. I think for the Diamondbacks, another guy who comes to mind that I want to talk about. real quick. And we have one more question to get to, which I'll get to in a moment. But before we get there, I want to talk briefly about Zach Godley, who has a 6.67 ERA at this point in the season. And frankly, Jeff, if you want to talk about an MLB starting pitcher whose

mechanics just look all over the place, there just isn't really a whole lot going right at the moment. I think that guy is probably Zach Godley, at least on this team. And this is a guy who in the past has had these kinds of issues where sometimes his mechanics just go out of whack. Last season, he finished with somewhat respectable numbers. He was at least a guy you could plug into your rotation, and I think he was good enough that you trust him as probably a number five starter. But with the performance that he's put forth so far for the Diamondbacks here in 2019, I think it might be time to start asking questions about if Zach Godley can actually

stick in the rotation. And I thought it was interesting. Tori Lavello was on with Burns and Gambo, which is a local radio show in Arizona. I'm not sure if you've heard of that, Jeff being out in Oregon. But yeah, so they did an interview with Tori Lavello, which they do every week.

And one thing that I thought was interesting after they did the interview was they just talked about how when they asked Tori about Zach Godley, just how clear it was in his voice that he didn't seem all that confident about Zach and Zach's ability to stay in the rotation. And I think that's very telling

because Tori is very much known as the kind of manager who trusts in his guys, who is always going to put their best first and he is always going to support them, potentially even too much, is kind of the opinion that a lot of people have about Tori Lavello. But I think it's telling that he,

he might be in that position with Zach or he might be willing to move another direction. And with Taiwan Walker, healing up from Tommy John's surgery, with Taylor Clark bursting on the scene with a good outing and John DuPontier not far away as well, the diamondbacks have some options that they could look to you to replace a guy like Zach Codley. Yeah, it's interesting. When Zach Codley came up, you know, or I guess I should even go back to when he was acquired as part of the return for Miguel Montero. It was just like, who is that, Godley?

And, you know, I was like, okay, this guy doesn't look like he's going to be much of anything. And, you know, sure enough, he came out and his numbers, you know, especially kind of early on, were pretty respectable. And so, you know, it seemed like, well, you know, maybe there's, maybe there's something here. But at the same time, he is a guy that throws a lot of balls. you know, he has always sort of hovered around 39 to 40% in terms of percentage of pitches that are strikes. And obviously, you know, there's such thing as throwing too many strikes.

You don't want to be over the plate all the time. But I also just kind of wondered, like, and I remember writing about this was like, what happens when guys just quit swinging at all the pitches that he throws out of the zone? And I think we've seen, you know, guys be more selective against him. And, you know, he could get a lot of, you know, swinging strikes at times on some pitches that weren't even close. I was like, you know, at some point, these guys are just going to quit swinging, like, especially in certain counts.

If it's 2-2, um, an account, like, what are your, what's your trust level that he's going to throw a pitch over the plate and strike you out looking? Like, I don't know. If it's me, like, I'm laying off. Um, and then it's 3-2 and then he has to make a pitch. And if that pitch is a bad pitch, he either walks you or it's a bad pitch. the other way and you know you do damage so uh i think the league has adjusted to him and i haven't seen him have really any way to sort of adjust back and you know you mentioned the mechanics i mean

he just kind of is who he is i could see him getting pushed back to kind of a bullpen roll again um he doesn't have any options you're not going to send him to the miners so he's in kind of a tough spot where you know it's probably the bullpen um you know when Taiwan walker comes back and they're going to need to make some room i mean you can't keep John de Planteer down, you know, probably don't want to keep him down all season. I don't know. They'll probably try to really manage his innings. I don't think they probably want him throwing too much, but I think the ice is getting thin for Zach Godley.

Last question that we have from our listeners before we let all of you go here with this episode is from Joshua Lefferman, who asked something that we did touch on a little bit last week. but I think it got even interesting, even more interesting this week. Josh asks us, what's your opinion on our catching situation at the Biggs? And who do you think should be our three guys or maybe two? He suggests the idea of potentially dropping Alex Vila, who of course is currently on the injured list for the Diamondbacks. So first of all, I think this question did get more interesting this week. We talked about it a little bit last week on the show.

but with the acquisition of Blake Swihart, I thought it was very, very funny when the acquisition was first made because all of Diamondbacks Nation was going crazy over the fact that they had four catchers on their roster. A lot of people were already giving them flack for having three catchers on the roster

and out of fourth just seemed very outlandish. And the Diamondbacks, to clarify on that point, the Diamondbacks plan to use Blake Swyhart not in a catching role. They plan to move him. around in the outfield, potentially around on the infield a little bit as well. I believe tonight he's getting this start in right field for the diamond backs. So I think it's very unlikely you see Blake Swihart doing any catching, at least not any time soon.

But this is an interesting question that Josh brings up. Nonetheless, I think you could make the argument that Blake Swyhart is maybe a guy that the diamondbacks want to bring back into a catcher's role at some point. in the future. I think the diamond backs are going to have to pick maybe a couple of guys at some point. And Jeff, I'll pitch it over to you. If you had to, you know, maybe pick two of these guys that the diamondbacks have out of the four choices that we have on this roster, who do you think those guys would be? Yeah, I mean, I would still err towards kind of the upside, right? I mean, I think we pretty much know what John Ryan Murphy is. He's a guy that is a good

framer and a good defender and can run into a ball at, you know, at times, but he's probably not someone you build around long term. Alex Avila is only here, you know, for this year. And probably that DL stay might end up being kind of lengthy on purpose. You know, there, you know, baseball has a way of sort of working these things out, right? So, you know, John Ryan Murphy, you know, has, you know, some injury and all of a sudden, ah, Alex Vila's better. He's been activated. So, you know, they'll probably play that out as long as they can. And so to me, it's still kind of Carson Kelly and probably eventually Blake's Whiteheart and getting him back there. You know, I saw today a leader board of pop time, which is the, you know, the time it takes

for a catcher to receive a pitch and get it down to second base on like a stolen base. And he was like, you know, stat cast had him measured with the third fastest pop time this year. So, I mean, he's quick. You know, he can kind of, he can do the catching things. And I was looking quickly kind of at baseball prospectus's framing runs metric of pitch framing. And he hasn't had a lot of opportunities, but he's been above average there as well. So I really think they're going to kind of move, you know, if it was me, I would kind of, you know, move that direction. with Dalton Varsho obviously not far away either.

And so, you know, maybe long term that kind of becomes your three. With a guy like Swihart being able to play some other positions, Varsho is athletically, definitely capable of playing some other positions. You know, Kelly is pretty much locked into catcher. But I think they'll probably, you know, being so value-oriented, you know, and I guess this is the value episode. But being so value-oriented, like maybe that's, you know, the direction they go because there's really no upside in a villa. You know, any upside John Ryan Murphy is just about gone.

So I would expect, you know, longer term, you know, those three guys to really be in the mix. Big thank you across the board to Joshua, Sean, and Andrew for submitting questions to our show today. We really always appreciate it. You too, as our listener, you can always feel free to. submit a question for our show either on Twitter or on Facebook. You can follow us on Twitter at at the RattleAZ. We're also on Facebook at Facebook.com slash once again the Rattle AZ. Thank you so much for listening to this third 2019 episode of The Rattle Podcast.

We really appreciate you tuning in. Be sure to subscribe to our show on iTunes or IHeartRadio or Spotify or pretty much anywhere you can find a podcast. You can find the Rattle podcast there as well. Thank you once again so much for listening, and we'll be back next week with more on the Arizona Diamondbacks.