PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Ep. 30: How did the D-backs get here anyway?

Episode Date: June 15, 2021

Are the D-backs' struggles more the product of bad decision-making or tough luck? Jeff and Jesse delve deep into the trenches of the past decisions that have led to the D-backs having the worst record in the National League. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome back into episode 30 of the Rattle podcast, as always. My name is Jesse Friedman along with Jeff Weiser, my co-host. And Jeff, things continue to be a struggle for this Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team to say the least. But hey, on the bright side of things, they just released a new uniform a couple days ago that I know people are sort of excited about. But frankly, Jeff, that's about the only positive that has occurred for this. franchise here since we last recorded. Things continue to be a slog. I believe we are now up to 32 of their last 37 games that they have lost. I think I may have lost track. I think that's right. It seems like the numbers are of course continuing to go up on that front every single day.

But nonetheless, we are back here for episode 30. And Jeff, things continue, as I said, to be pretty rough for this Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team. Yeah, I'm with you. I think the uniforms are probably the most exciting thing that definitely has happened lately. They're pretty cool. I kind of like, I feel like there's been a missed opportunity for a while with kind of the desert landscape, you know, like using kind of that like light brown, sandy brown color. And they got that in there. And I appreciated that. Yeah, me too. I really like it. It certainly fits the motif. My one take on it is that that uniform looks better on a, may look better on a hanger or on a mannequin that looks on a person, but I still don't think it's bad. I just think that it looks like, I look at that jersey and I'm like, that is dope.

I really like that. And then I think about wearing it. I'm like, I don't know if I would wear that. It looks good on other people, right? Maybe. I don't know. It looked much better on David. Peralta and then was going to look on me, but so does pretty much everything.

Yeah, no, I liked the, I think it looked better with a, with a black background than with the, the sandy color background was a little bit too much. It was like, it was pretty light and I know they're going to wear it with the white pants. But anyway, we digress. We promise there's more to talk about with this baseball team than just the uniforms, although you could argue maybe there's not much. But we're going to, we're going to do our best here on this, on this Monday evening. And Jeff, our focus for this episode that we have identified, frankly, people don't really want to hear us talk about the Diamondbacks last week or two of baseball and go game by game and break down what went right and, or mostly what went wrong in each of those games. I think

at this point, we know what this baseball team is and they are currently sitting with the worst record in the league, I believe, as we record right now. And so we're going to focus less on the day-to-day happenings of the team. But I know there's one thing we want to touch on from the last two weeks. And that is that on Saturday, Wachim Soria came in the game for the Diamondbacks in the ninth inning. They did a 6-5 lead over the Los Angeles Angels. And Jeff, it only took about, I think it was about 10 pitches, maybe less for Joachim

Soria to blow what. was the Diamondback's first save opportunity in what was it like a month? I think you might you might have the day. Yeah. It is just crazy. Yeah, since May 10th, May 10th, which is just almost unfathomable to go from May 10th to June 12th, you know, without a traditional save opportunity. There is a save, I believe, on the record books in that span where Riley Smith pitched the final three innings of a sort of a lopsided win and took a, you know, got the save. But, yeah, it was, you know, kind of right there for the taking. And it all just felt like, hey, this might happen.

And yeah, it didn't happen, which was pretty rough. Jared Walsh doubled on the very first pitch that Soria threw. Max Datsy singled on the next one. Rendon hit a sack fly two pitches later. Three pitches later, Inglacius doubled. on the very next pitch, Taylor Ward doubled. Kurt Suzuki and Keen Wong both made relatively quick easy outs. But the damage was done, and that was it.

And Russell Iglesias nailed down the ninth for the Angels. So the quest for a save continues. Yeah. Oh, man. It has been a rough month or so of baseball. And it really puts into perspective for me, Jeff, looking back at, you know, some of our conversations over the off season. Everyone always wants to know, you know, who's going to be the closer, who's going to be the guy who comes in in the ninth inning to lock things down.

And frankly, for the Diamondbacks, the answer to that question just hasn't really mattered very much because they're not really getting there in the first place. It has really been a struggle for the Diamondbacks. It feels like almost all of these games, you know, they're not, you know, winning and then, you know, coughing up the lead at the end, almost all of these. games, they're trailing virtually from the very beginning, it feels like. And obviously, the starting pitching has a lot to do with that with just a lot of subpar arms, a lot of, a lot of the depth of this farm system when it comes to starting pitching is being tested.

And we are seeing the fruits of that. And it has certainly not looked good. Yeah, it's there behind the eight ball from the moment the game starts a lot of times. it's been really tough obviously goes without saying i mean the injuries have have piled up they're not necessarily getting those guys you know right back as i think we sort of talked about last time you know luke weaver is still out Madison bumgarner Zach gallon still her i mean Merrill kelly has really this is kind of a weird thing to say but Merrill Kelly has really been sort of a

savior in this time because Merrill Kelly has has kept them in some games when he he's pitched. But it's, it's been pretty, pretty ugly. Even, you know, John DePonty has a guy who I think a lot of Diamondbacks fans, myself included, were excited about, you know, a few years ago. And it really hasn't looked good for him. You know, his ability to locate has been pretty poor. And it just all adds up. And, you know, by the third, fourth, fifth inning, it, you know, kind of looks like the writing's on the wall. The lineup is short, a bat or two. There's nowhere to turn in the bullpen because of so many short outings they're having to give relief appearances to guys that, you know, are tired and have thrown a lot and really aren't that good to begin with. Yeah.

You know, add those things together and the game just just comes unglued. And so, yeah, it's, it's been a really familiar narrative, I think, night in and night out for everybody. Yeah, absolutely. Well, that brings us into sort of our meaty topic here for this episode, which is just to look back on the last few years, what the Diamondbacks have done, what they have chosen not to do when it comes to managing this roster, and try to figure out what on earth happened.

Because if you remember, Jeff, it was not that long ago. It was just a little bit over a year ago, almost a year ago on the dot before the delayed start of last season, when we had very high hopes for this baseball team. And somehow, some way, in just the span of one year, we've gone from expecting them to make the postseason and thinking that they really had a shot, you know, to maybe not win the division,

but certainly, you know, make a run in a wild card and see how far they could get in the postseason. But things have clearly just not even close to gone according to the plan that we had envisioned for them. And at the time, Mike Hazen was sort of, of revered and now you look back at some of the things that diamondbacks have done and there's just a lot of question marks surrounding a lot of the decisions that they've made looking back. So, Jeff, I'm going to pitch this over to you to get us started. I know you've done some looking

back over the years. You've written several sticky notes for us of bets that you feel the diamond backs have made over these last few seasons that unfortunately just have not panned out for the team. So I'm going to give this over to you here to sort of jumpstart this conversation for us. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and I definitely think your timeline is correct. I mean, it really was just a calendar year ago that, you know, with an expanded playoff especially, we really felt like it's a team that could kind of do damage. Yeah.

And be exciting, you know, be exciting for a change. And here we are a year later sitting, you know, firmly in the cellar, not just barely, but by a fairly comfortable mark. margin. And yeah, I was, you know, I think one of the things that I looked at when I looked at this roster was really trying to think about how the heck this happened. And I will, I just would always start by saying, I think, you know, playing sort of revisionist historian is always really, it's kind of fraught, you know, it can be really dangerous. And it's at times maybe not fair. But I think the roster itself was built with a lot of risk. I think there was a lot of risk

coming in, even into the, into 2020 to a degree, but certainly coming into this year. And so I looked at sort of some bets that it seemed like the team had made. And I guess we can kind of say, you know, we can kind of choose win, loser draw. But I'll just take them one by one, Jesse. I'll kick it to you for the first reaction and I'll give kind of mine. So I think the first bet they kind of made was that Madison Bumgarner would at least be a guy who would eat a bunch of innings. it's sort of a league average or maybe slightly better clip. You say win, lose, or draw to that.

I think that's a pretty clear loss. Yeah, I think so too. So so far, yeah, so far I would say definitely a loss. Let's go to this one. Heading into this year, Tyler Clippard, Chris Devensky, and Joachim Soria will shore up the bullpen in a way. Like we never, I don't think there are any illusions that they were going to have the best bullpen in the league, but that those guys would certainly help mitigate and kind of

stabilize the bullpen. Can we call that one a loss? Well, we can call it a loss because all three of them have spent substantial time on the injured list. Wachim's story is really the only one there that you've gotten much of anything from. And as we mentioned, a couple days ago, his first save situation in about a month. And we all know how that turned out. So I think, I think we're pretty clear oh and two here, Jeff. All right. Let's go. Let's take one that's a little bit further back. we'll go back even a little more than two years, but this factors into this roster, and I think sort of what they were looking at,

Corbyn Martin would really headline the Zach Granke return and be ready to make it impact by about now. I mean, clearly not right now, right? I mean, but I mean, Corbyn Martin, the book is certainly not closed there. They actually just called him up today, I believe. John de Plantey, they sent down. They called up Corbyn,

and he might get the start tomorrow. So still some more things to be seen there. But yeah, I think that the injuries have certainly played a factor in that. Corbyn Martin, of course, was in the process of having Tommy John surgery when they first acquired him. We thought we would see him last season, but then he had some setbacks in that process. We didn't get to see him until this year. So I think there's still some hope there.

I've liked the stuff that I've seen from Corbin Martin. But in terms of the timing, absolutely a loss, right? the diamond backs have gotten nothing, nothing effective from him at this point. Yeah, not so far. I mean, if we're being,

I think everything he says, right, and if we're being generous, right, we call the draw. So, I mean, at that best.

Caleb Smith came back from the Marlins. And I think sort of the idea was that Caleb Smith could at least be a useful back-end starter. Yeah. That's probably a loss. He was moved to the bullpen. Although he, has come back in a starter's role and had a couple of good outings just out of sheer necessity.

Yeah. But I'm not sure I believe in that to really be a real thing that is stable. So I'm going to call that probably a loss. Yeah. I mean, when you consider what you gave up to get Caleb Smith, right? I mean, he was, I know there were a couple other guys in that trade, but frankly, Caleb Smith is really the far and away centerpiece of that deal. And Starling Marte has been really, really good. ever since the trade over there.

I know the Diamondback certainly could have used him. I guess you save some money with that trade still, but yeah, yeah, that does not look good. Caleb Smith immediately got booted to the bullpen at the beginning of the year. Did some good things there, but all in all, certainly not what we were hoping for. Absolutely.

Let's go to the next one. We'll take this one a little further back too. Luke Weaver, you know, could really develop into kind of like a solid number three, like not top of the rotation kind of guy, but, you know, a good average major league starting pitcher. I think we're good to call that a loss. Oof, that is a big fat L, Jeff. That is really rough.

Yeah, that one we'll just move on from. Let's go with Eduardo Escobar heading into 2021 would improve on his 2020 season. Would you call that a win, loss, or draw? I mean, it's definitely a win. If the benchmark is what he did last season, then we certainly weren't expecting much. But, yeah, I mean, you know, he's like been top 10, top 15, and RBIs for most of the season, which is sort of bizarre. Yeah, he had a big game tying home run in the ninth inning a couple days ago that was exciting.

Of course, they went on to lose the game anyway. It's true. But, yeah, I mean, he's been more productive this season. I think for me the issue with Eduardo is the man just doesn't really get on base at any kind of effective clip. And when you have that in the middle of your lineup, which is generally where he is, you're going to run into problems. So I guess it's a win if the question is, did he improve from last year? But maybe there's another underlying question there of like what were the diamondbacks looking for when they signed him, when they gave him a contract after his first stint here.

and maybe in that sense they were hoping for him to be a little bit better at this point in his career. Yeah, that would have probably been a better phrase in the question, to be honest. But yeah, I think, yeah, I'm sort of there too, right? Like he took a sort of half step forward, not back to where he had been, but, you know, at least better in that direction. So that's, you know, maybe a draw if you want to be generous. Sure, sure. Let's take another one that I don't think is very, I don't think this. is very black and white either.

And I'd be interested your thoughts, but that Christian Walker is really just like an everyday first baseman. That's a tough one. It is. I've had a kind of a hard time with this one

because I think, you know, I think we've seen some stents where you're like, yeah, Chris Walker can be an everyday first baseman. And then we've also seen some sort of like, you know, first base is,

you really, I mean, I know the position has changed perhaps in some ways, but you're really hoping to get, you know, considerably more out of your first baseman, I think, than what they've gotten out of Christian Walker. So I think to me that, you know, that one feels, that one feels like a loss in the short term. I mean, he really has not hit at all this year. I mean, he is down to 200 on the season and a slugging percentage just 8. hair over 300. I mean, it's pretty bad. I mean, but at the same time, maybe we don't believe that's really obviously his true talent level. I don't know, but I'm in terms of a bet, I'm really starting to hedge towards calling this one a loss. Yeah, I think, I think it's hard to go

any other way. Certainly he's had the injury struggles this year. He's only played 30 games. So it's a reasonably small sample size that maybe I, maybe I'd lean more towards a draw there. But I mean, he plays a really solid defensive first base for the most part, at least. So I think there's definitely some value there. But yeah, you know, a year ago, I would have probably called out a win. But I think now things are obviously trending the other direction. Yeah, I agree with you. This one takes kind of a look at two, obviously the two most sort of veteran position players.

but the notion that David Peralta and Nick Ahmed, you know, still had plenty of gas left in the tank. And we're going to continue to be sort of, you know, very solid contributors to their club. That one's a little, that one's tough for me, but I'd say as things have turned now, I mean, for me, I feel like we're just moving sort of, you know, if that's a bet, we're kind of moving towards a loss. I think both are losing steam. Nick can obviously still pick it at short, but he hasn't hit it all this year after showing. some sort of like he had some of those sort of veteran like offensive growth traits where you're like well he's had enough experience like he'll find a way to you know be just he still won't be league average but he'll be closer to it and that is just totally regressed and I think we've seen

parralta really exposed to the point where he's now being pinch hit for fairly regularly I think this one starts to move to a loss for me yeah yeah no I think if if that's the question you know, that they have something left in the tank and they were going to be good over the life of these extended contracts, then it definitely looks like a loss right now. Part of me wonders, Jeff, particularly with Peralta, was that a bet they actually made? Like, did they actually think that David Peralta

was going to be, you know, like a starting caliber outfielder through the life of the contract? I mean, the guy is, I think, 33 years old. and part of me looks at that deal less so with Ahmed. I think he's a, you know, he's a little bit younger. Maybe you think he has something left in the tank based on what he's done in recent years. Sure. But I kind of feel like with David Peralta, it was sort of just like, well, we're not really going to pay for anything a whole lot better than this.

And he already is here. He's sort of a face of the franchise. Maybe not the face, but one of the more popular guys, he certainly has a lot better. a marketable brand that fans certainly appreciate. And I kind of wonder if that was maybe more the motivator there. I don't think they signed David Peralta, you know, to actually be a valuable contributor in the middle of the lineup, which is, you know, what he's kind of had to be. I mean, you know, he's normally in the middle of the lineup no matter what.

But I think if that was their expectation, it was just completely a loss from the very beginning. Yeah. And as I mentioned before, it does look good in the new uniform. So I'll throw that out there in a pause. That's true. That's true. Someone's got to make it pop. No, and you're absolutely right.

Like, I totally reserve the right to reject the premise of the question. I look at, I mean, he's going to turn 34 here in two months, which means he'll turn 35 before his contract expires. Yeah. And at three years for $22 million, they didn't pay him that much. Yeah. It's kind of the going rate for a, you know, sort of fringy, platoonish type veteran bat who, you know, is kind of a staple of your lineup, someone you can trust, but that you don't have to overly rely on. Seems fair. So, yeah, we could maybe call that a draw.

I mean, I don't have terrible, you know, terribly strong feelings about it either way. I might kind of lean in the lost direction, depending on how the rest of the season goes. But maybe it's kind of teetering, you know, right there. I think you just need him to really heat up in the next 45 days before the trade deadline because, you know, he's a veteran guy. You look at David Peralta's career numbers and they're actually still pretty good. So he might have some value to a team out there, you know, is more of a platoon guy, not in the role that the Diamondbacks use him in.

But he could have some value. But, yeah, the Diamondbacks really need him to pick things up here in the next month or so for that to happen. Yeah. And one of the things in favor of that, and I know this is part of our listener questions, but is that there are several contenders that could use a left-handed bat. Yeah, right. That might sort of, there might be a little more demand there than meets the eye.

Second to last one, that Cole Calhoun could fill a void on offense. I mean, if he was healthy, probably. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, the guy has been, if I'm not mistaken, he's been his story. fairly, fairly durable, I want to say. I believe so. Not, yeah, not necessarily always, you know, a true middle of the line at bat when he was with L.A.

But yeah, I mean, you look at Cole Calhoun from 2015 to 2019. He was 155 games or more every season except for one. And that year he was 137. That was the season he was inexplicably just not himself. So yeah, I mean, he's historically been a durable guy. And for some reason, you know, that's just sort of how things work sometimes on the free agent market. And the diamondbacks have just not gotten to see him play much. But, I mean, his numbers are actually phenomenal.

I mean, he had 16 home runs last year and 54 games. Hard to ask for a whole lot more from him than that. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And that one for me is like, you know, it feels. like a win in terms of like the thinking was right and evaluation was right but the luck was bad.

And that's how it goes sometimes, right? Especially when you're playing winless you draw. So let's go with our here's our very last was our 10th our 10th bet. They had a chance to really kind of

pivot at the end of 2019. Sort of do a reset. Like there was an opening there to kind of do that. You had some contracts that were going to start to go away. We talked about some of the extensions for guys like Ahmed and Peralta. There was some opportunity to kind of reset and maybe rethink a few pieces of the core. And instead, they sort of doubled down.

Did the Starling Marte trade, gave up some not insignificant prospect capital for that. And obviously, the return has not been commensurate with what they gave up on the front end. So, you know, that one I think for me still, I think if we're really looking at it and really being honest about what we think that team was going to be, you know, it's starting to feel like this is where I feel like it could be really dangerous to play revisionist history. Yeah. But, you know, that one feels like maybe a missed opportunity in my eyes. But how do you feel about that? That really kind of pivotal, pivotal time. Yeah, that's a good question.

I remember for a couple years on the podcast, we kind of pegged the end of 2019 is, oh, you've got all these, you know, all these contracts are coming up. And, you know, that's the year where some things could really change. But they kind of decided to push the chips back in. And we've seen how that has turned out and certainly, certainly not well. I think they learned the hard way that the core that was in place was just not quite to the point. would need to be in order to really make a run. Obviously, there were some injuries and some other misfortunes along the way that

contributed to that. But yeah, and in all honesty, I don't think here on the podcast, if we go back to what you and I were saying at the time, I don't think we were overly opposed to those moves. I don't think we particularly thought it was, you know, a jackpot of any kind. But, you know, I mean, we were sort of on board at the time. and that's, I guess, how this stuff works. Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

And that's why I think I will have to be accountable to our, you know, to our take, you know, in the moment, right? Where, you know, I'm sort of sitting there going like, okay, at the end of 2019, they have this opportunity where maybe they could sort of pivot, start rebuilding. Really, what is the core of the team and, you know, continue to maybe kind of turn a new leaf, do that sort of soft reset. And instead they sort of push in.

And I, you know, I haven't gone back to read or, you know, listen to what I said at that time, but I have a feeling that what I would have said at that time is you play baseball to win baseball games. Yeah. And this was an organization that recognized that it did, you know, it could bet on itself and try to win more baseball games. And I'm, you know, I know, I know it hasn't worked out well, but I don't have any sort of like philosophical problem with that thinking. Like, you could do a lot more trouble to yourself trying to fix a problem before it becomes a problem. Like, then, you know, giving it a try and seeing what happens.

I mean, we've seen some weird stuff in baseball for sure. Yeah. So, yeah. And of course, like, no one knew a global pandemic was coming. No one knew it was going to be a 60 game schedule. Sure. Yeah. I just, yeah, it ended up being obviously, you know, a total disaster. And now, and now kind of here we are.

And, you know, there's a whole lot. There's a whole lot behind that. Oh, there's a whole lot behind a lot of these settings, why there were a voids in the first place and why they've made some of these decisions. But I do think you've raised a good point. Like, we do have to think about how do we feel about this at the time. And I do think at the time, it felt risky, but it felt like a risk with good intentions. Yeah. But frankly, Jeff, I think it's more fun to, you know, we can judge the management based on the decisions they made and we can judge ourselves based on what we would do now looking back at the decisions they made, right? That's how

this works. That's right. at least on Twitter. The beauty of being a podcaster and having no responsibility, no stake in the game whatsoever. That's right. Yeah.

Are there any more, Jeff? No, that's it for, that's it for a win-lose-draaw. Did we have a confident win in there? I'm trying to remember. I should have kept score. We did not. There were some iffy ones, I guess.

Yeah, and the bets that were selected were, there may have been some, bias and the bets that were selected. Pull transparency. Sure, sure. Okay, there's a few other things that I want to bring in. I made some notes, some notes of my own, just things, you know, looking back. And of course, once again, this is totally, you know, things that at the time I also probably agreed with.

But in retrospect, there are a couple of moves that Diamondbacks could have done differently that I think actually might have made a fairly big difference here. the first one that comes to mind is the Diamondbacks. This one I don't know if people think a whole lot about anymore, but the Diamondbacks chose to non-tender Taiwan Walker. And he, Jeff, has gone on. I think, I believe he's in the top 10 right now in like a lot of pitching categories

and all of baseball pitching for the Mets. He was good last year too. There have been some little injury issues here and there. But the Diamondbacks, I do remember as kind of being a little confused. confused at the time because they had kept him on board through Tommy John's surgery. He pitched in like the last game of the season. I believe that would have been 2019, 2018.

And then following that, they decided to non-tender him. It only would have cost probably about $5 million to bring him back. And they decided to non-tender him. And he has gone on with the New York Mets to become one of the more formidable pitchers in the National League. So he comes to mind. the other name that comes to mind. And this one I can take no credit for

because in the moment I would have made the exact same decision the Diamondbacks did. But what the heck, Jeff? Somehow Robbie Ray has figured out how to throw strikes. I was hoping you were going to say anything but this. Yeah, I think at some point we're going to have to address this. I know you and I have tweeted about it. So maybe some of our listeners have caught wind of this.

But whether you want to hear it or not, folks, here's what Robbie Ray has done since joining the Toronto Blue Jays. Last season, he sort of looked like the same guy. But for some reason, this year, he said, you know, in typical Robbie Ray fashion going into the season, he thought he'd figured something out. He looked good in spring training, although we said the same thing last year.

These are his numbers. In 12 starts, he is thrown over 70 innings, which is an average of nearly six innings per start. He has 92 strikeouts and has walked 17 batters in those 70 in a third innings. Now, his ERA is 3.45. So for a while, if you had told me, you know, Robbie Ray's can have 17 walks and 70 innings, I would have said, okay, he's probably winning the Cy Young Award.

But he has a 345 ERA because he's given up a heck of a lot of home runs, giving up 16 home runs in his 70 innings of work. but looking back at this again, you know, there's certainly no way that this ever could have been predicted. We've had abundant patience for Robbie Ray over the years. But if you had to do something differently, you know, we're having Robbie Ray and Taiwan Walker back in this rotation, neither of them is making very much money.

Diamondbacks would be in a pretty different position right now. Yeah, a couple things. I mean, a whole lot's going on in my head when I thinking about this. You know, I think Joshua, first of all, wrote a really good piece along these lines at the Rattle here recently. So if you haven't checked that out, I'd point people to the Rattle.net and to read Josh's piece about sort of the pitching turnover on what's resulted. As guys like Robbie Ray, Patrick Corbyn, et cetera, have left the rotation.

Zach Rankine included. When it comes to Taiwan Walker, you know, it almost feels absurd to think that the Mets have somehow struck pitching gold like that in of itself. seems kind of interesting because they've been so plagued, right? I mean, aside from Jacob de Grom, I mean, Noah Cindergarde really hasn't pitched. He's been really hurt, but, you know, Stroman's been really good this year. And now you had Time on Walker to the mix, and that's certainly something. I know with Taiwan Walker, obviously, you know, he threw that that lone inning.

And I think you're right. I think it was 2019. And it's interesting to me, you know, I, this is where sort of making a, you know, from the outside looking in, basing your opinion on a decision with like an appeal to authority, you can get you in trouble, right? I sort of assume my thinking was, well, they've seen the medicals. They've seen what he's been through. They know what his elbow looks like inside.

And they're not willing to tender him a contract for even $5 million. They must know something that no one else does. You know, ergo, good move. Yep. Turns out maybe not. So, yeah, that's been really intriguing. And guys just, you know, it takes a while for some guys to figure it out. But you could never, you know, it was hard to disagree with the notion that a guy like

Timel Walker didn't have talent. He just, you could always tell he was just never quite living up to. Yeah. To what he had, you know, to what his raw ability was. Similarly to Robbie Ray. So that's just, you know, and that's brutal. I mean, and what's really interesting to me is that, you know, for Robbie Ray, This, to me, boils down to a lack of walks.

Because, okay, you mentioned he's given up 16 homers. That's a pretty healthy number of home runs. He's always been fairly home run prone. Yeah. But in 16 home runs, I mean, I'm just going to use what's easy here, but he's given up 27 earned runs on the season and surrendered 16 home runs. Yeah. Back in 2018, he gave up 19 home runs, but even though it was only three more home runs,

he surrendered 54 earned runs. And we could even go back to 2016. He gave up 24 home runs, which is certainly more by 30%, or actually by 50%, but he gave up 95 earned runs. So the point being, I mean, he's still getting hit. He's still going to give up the long ball. But if you don't walk two or three guys first, it hurts a lot less. And I think that's, you know, largely what he's, you know,

what's really bailed him out is that, You know, he has a kind of a lower Babbip than some years he's had, but it's not insane. And he's not walking guys. And so when the ball leaves the park, he doesn't get crushed. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, it's been, it has been fun and painful, of course. Yes.

But also, also fun just to, you know, finally see him kind of get back to what we always thought he could be. So best of luck to Robbie Ray moving forward. Yeah, he may, you know, a couple of years. years ago, we thought he was going to get this monstrous contract. And of course, that didn't happen. But he may, he may have a monstrous contract in his future. I mean, he's still reasonably young. And if he is able to finish out this season with those kind of numbers, it could be pretty impressive. Okay, a couple of other things here. Okay, this is digging back probably too far. But J.D. Martinez really seemed to want to come back to Arizona. And I don't

think the numbers would work out, Jeff. If I remember right, I'm assuming there were some financial details that were in the way of him coming back. But that sort of seemed as a pivotal, a pivotal, sorry, a pivotal moment for this franchise. You know, going from

2017, they won 93 games. They had all this hype and everything. And J.D. Martinez was sort of right at the center of that in 2017. And then the Diamondbacks chose ultimately to let him go. And since then, he's had I believe last season was quite a down year for him.

But this year he's actually turned it on and been an incredible hitter once again. So I don't know if there's much there, but that at least stuck out to me as a significant decision that they made to not bring him back, even though it really seemed like he would have been open to it. Yeah, and it was like an interesting set of, it was a set of circumstances that the team doesn't find themselves in very often. like very rarely are they in the position where they're like sitting on this player who's you know like they're not the wheeling dealing club at the deadline who acquires like the best

hitter in the league at the deadline to make a push like that is just not been traditionally really who they are um and so yeah i think it was maybe some strange you know unfamiliar territory but um yeah that that does kind of loom pivotal because he has continued to be I mean, outside of the pandemic shortened year. Right. He's been really good. Oh, my gosh. He's just a monster.

Like, I mean, he's just a monster. He, yeah, he's a monster. Obviously, that maybe more of an American league player, ideally. Sure. But I know, yeah, I don't think anyone was, was, you know, thinking at all about his defense in 2017 when the guy slugged over 700 and at 29 home runs in 62 games. That was one of the most memorable stretches by any Diamondback and a half season. People were just trying to defend themselves and the bleachers from all the home runs he was

hitting at them. Yeah, just dingers. Boy, that was a good, good memories. Yeah, so that was a moment that stuck out. Financially, you know, some things might have needed to move around. I seem to remember thinking that it might be possible if they stretch the wallet, but you always know with this Diamondbacks organization, that's easy. said than done. So that certainly didn't happen. There are a couple of things that I want to talk about that I think they might have actually made the right choice on.

Trading Paul Goldschmidt, probably the most controversial thing they've done in the last few years. And it's hard to argue with, Jeff. I mean, Luke Weaver and Carson Kelly, Luke obviously started out great and is turned into a guy you really can't even pitch. At least he did for a time. he showed some promise before going out with an injury earlier this year. And then Carson Kelly has, after the down year last year, has returned to his 2019 form

and might even make the All-Star team this year. So I don't think that, you know, the Diamondbacks benefited a ton from the trade just because, you know, Carson Kelly and Luke Weaver haven't, you know, replaced Paul Goldschmidt in any way. but it sort of looks like they did what is very hard to do. It's very challenging to know as a smaller market team when and if to let go of your franchise guy. It's a really, really hard, really gutsy move to make. You're going to take a lot of flack for it.

And Mike Hazen went out and did it, and it actually was probably the right move. So I want to shout some credit towards the Diamondbacks management for that. And the Granky deal is another thing that I'm sort of like, I think that was the right move. It's certainly not a big time win. I know you mentioned Corbyn Martin earlier and how he was sort of supposed to be the centerpiece. We haven't necessarily seen the full return yet.

J.B. Bukowski's, we just got a brief taste of. Josh Rojas has been reasonably productive in the lineup. What do you think about that trade looking back, Jeff? I mean, yeah, I do want to just quickly react to the Paul Goldchran one, but I do think a tough decision for some and unpopular decision, but like you have to give yourself a chance. Yeah. They gave themselves a chance. So I'll leave it at that, but you have to try. I think, you know, the Granky deal, I think I probably am pretty, you know, I am somewhat still probably in favor of it.

think the blossoming of Verhoas before eyes has been really helpful. I think he's still a player with some room to grow. There are some things that he could do better. Yeah. But he's also, you know, like proven that he's worth giving you bats to, which isn't something that we can say for everybody. And yeah, I mean, to know that you have kind of Corbyn Martin like in your back pocket as like a developmental piece sort of long term and we don't know anything really yet,

the stuff looks nasty, the ability to command it has been hit or miss. And so that's something you work on. That's just part of the game. And J.B. Bukowskis is still like clearly, you know, quite possibly a very useful reliever going forward. So, yeah, I think if I really think about it, I'm probably still in favor of it. I know we can say the money, like they got out from under the money. Right. That's helpful in a sense, depending on what you do with it.

they signed Cole Calhoun, traded for Starly Marte, signed Madison Bumgarner. I'm not sure I'd argue. I'm not sure the money part is the part we want to stand on right now. But I think it's probably, again, it's, you know, when you know that you're facing an uphill battle, giving yourselves more avenues to try to find success is probably preferable than sticking with one and hoping that it, you know, continues to pay off at a hefty price. Yeah, yeah. Well, hey, we're at 40 minutes and we've got a boatload of listener questions.

So to keep this from going too long, let's get them. Let's transition over here. We have a few people who, of course, the trade deadline only about 45 days away. A few people chiming in on that. Looks like Patrick and also Kyle Collins were asking about what the diamondbacks would do. Who's on the trade block? Who is untouchable? Kyle mentions Ketel Marte, Zach Allen, Carson Kelly, and Dalton, Varser.

Varshow is being the untouchables. I think I'm fairly on board with that. I don't know if I would necessarily call Dalton Varshow untouchable. I don't know if teams are going to particularly want to trade for him right now. But maybe that's something that they receive inquiries about. But I'd be surprised to see him move no matter what. So I don't think that's going to happen. There have been rumors about Ketel.

I know we addressed that last time. it certainly seems far-fetched that anything could happen on that front. But, I mean, I'm sure they're going to get some phone calls and we'll see what happens there. We touched on this briefly last week, Jeff, but anything, anything that sticks out to you on the trade block front, you think any of those guys that you think might be in play or any additional guys that you think might be untouchable? I think it still just comes down to, I think it still comes down to the notion that there are a handful of guys that, that, you know, very, very, very clearly will not be around when this team is good anymore. Or when this team, you know, turns it around and becomes more competitive.

And those are the guys I think they focus on. So, I mean, I think they'll continue to answer the phone. And so what teams have to say. But I would be, frankly, almost shocked if they did anything aside from, you know, focus on, you know, the Peralta's, the Escobars, the, you know, the pieces that maybe now is Dribal Cabrero, those are the things that I see. see going. Yeah, yeah, I think that's, I think that's fair. Yeah, I don't think we have anything else to say on that front. We'll certainly have more on that as rumors start to swirl and we get some real more, yeah, more formidable reports in the next month or so. Kyle Collins also asked an interesting one, how much longer is Tori Lavello's leash? This team simply doesn't seem to have

and he's been making questionable decisions as of late in the bullpen. See what you're saying there. I know there's certainly been a lot of chatter on Twitter about Tori Lavello and his management of the bullpen. At least for me, Jeff, it's pretty hard to blame Tori Lavello for much of anything. When you've got, you know, when you've got seven guys back in the bullpen, just none of them are frankly very good. It's hard to fault him too much for mismanaging a bullpen where he really doesn't have any great options. But I think it's still a valuable question for sure. obviously Darnell Coles and Eric Hinsky, two of the Diamondbacks, the Diamondbacks main hitting coach, one of their assistant hitting coaches,

both were let go over the past, the past week or so. So that was interesting to see. Obviously, the team is open to making some changes given how much things have just really been rough here for the Diamondbacks in 2021. Seems like Tori Lavello's job is safe for the moment, Jeff, but I guess things could maybe change. at any time? Yeah, I think it comes down to a couple things.

And that's really, I think it more has to do with a decision about where this team is going and what their tactics going to be at the deadline and into the winner. I don't think Tori has a lot to work with, obviously. It was interesting to see him, you know, to see some of the bullpen moves that have been made at times, you know, still. But it's like, where do you want him to go? There's no relief ace that's sitting there on two days rest ready to come in and throw 98. It's just not there.

So it's hard to fault that. And I think it comes, I think for them, the thought process is going to be not is Tori the guy for the team right now, but is Tori the guy to lead the next good Diamondbacks team? Right. And you think that's going to happen. Is he down to and is he the right person? to lead you through what's going to continue to be a downward trend and through sort of that, you know, that, that dark, that dark valley, you know, back into the sunshine.

Like, is he that guy? And I think that's the question you have to ask. Now, to me, it has a lot less to do with what's happening at present has a lot more to do with what's happening in the future because what's happening at the present. That's been decided. Yeah. Yeah, you're not going to fire Tori Lavello because he, you know, he put in Stefan Crichton instead of Taylor Clark or I don't know if you want to reverse those names or really who's

better than anyone back there at this point. But yeah, it's certainly more of a question about the future. And from what we heard a few days ago when they talked about Coles and Hinsky, I believe Mike Hazen did say, you know, we believe that Tori Lavello is, you know, the guy who is going to help us get out of this situation, you know, this rut that we're in right now. So as of this moment, And it seems like they believe in him for the future. And if that's the defining characteristic or sort of the defining factor in this decision, then it certainly seems like he'll be here for the future. So we'll certainly continue to monitor that.

Let's see what else we have here. John Johant says, realistically, how long until this team can contend again this year is scrapped and it's obviously hard to predict budget free agency trades. But best guess from both of you. Oof, this one is pretty tough. It's hard to look at a team like the Diamondbacks have right now. And you look at the farm system and there's certainly some compelling names there. We've talked a lot about, you know, how there's certainly some reinforcements on the way the diamondbacks have had one of the better farm systems.

But I feel like one of the things I've learned, Jeff, doing this podcast for the last few years, is that there have been so many players that at one point we were just so excited. about and raving about and oh my gosh you know yes we want mani machado at the trade deadline but probably don't trade john de plontea for it because he's just going to be too good there have just been too many moments like that for me to really you know hang my hat on on you know especially the guys at the younger levels of the miners which is really where most of the diamondbacks farm system depth is right now. So I hate to give John sort of, I hate to call this question completely unanswerable, but I feel like I'd just be sort of arbitrarily throwing a number out there and hoping it works.

There's certainly, do I think the Diamondbacks will contend next year? Probably not. And do I have a significant reason to think that they will surely contend, you know, the year after that or the year after that? at this point those players are just too far away to really say with any confidence. But there's certainly, you know, if you look at MLB pipeline and just kind of stack together all the years when the top prospects are projected to make the majors, you know, maybe 2023, 24 starts to look pretty good.

But I think you're just sort of grasping at the wind at that point. Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and grasp at the wind at this point. And I think that if I had to put it out there, I'd say 2024. I think that's the most likely scenario. I think if you have a few things work out in your favor, maybe that gets bumped up by a year. But the part that we don't talk about with prospects very often is how rare it is that they come up, make their debut, are really good, and just stay. And I know that those are the guys that get the headlines. You know, you have Boba Chet doing things.

I mean, we have Fernando Tatis Jr. doing things. I mean, these are guys that don't have to get sent back down. Yeah. When Wander Franco comes up, he is not going to get sent back down. When Abley-Rutchman comes up, he's not going to get sent back down. That's very unlikely. For the vast majority of the rest of prospects, it's a process. And so I don't think we talk about that very often.

I think we're seeing it in front of our eyes with, you know, Corbin Martin. We're seeing it in front of our eyes with some of the other guys that have come up. So that's going to continue to be, like, they have developmental time left. They have not seen Major League pitching on day and day out. They have not faced Major League hitting day in and day out. And so it takes some time and guys don't have to sort through that. So it always, you know, I'd love to say 20, 23, but I'm just going to call it 2024.

I feel like three years down the road is sort of the standard answer for when is your very, very bad baseball team going to be good again. Yeah, probably not next year, probably not the year after that. But yeah, let's go with three years. I think that's the magic number when suddenly the tide will turn. But if there's anything that we've learned, you know, covering this team over the years, is there have been many Diamondbacks teams that we didn't expect much from that, you know, suddenly were actually quite good.

That was sort of what a lot of people were holding on to coming into this year, all the articles that were being written, you know, know, this is the exact type of year where the Diamondbacks would break out and win the division or something when no one expects anything from them. And we've seen how that has turned out this year, of course. But yeah, things change, you know, maybe, you know, based on how big of a chasm there is between what we were thinking about this team a year ago and what we're thinking about this team now, you certainly can't count anything out. But yeah, I mean, that's just the the nature of this game and it's it's really just a matter of taking it in stride and going day by day

and, um, you know, hopefully some of these prospects at the younger levels eventually rise and, um, and become, you know, the players that we've really hoped they would be unlike a lot of the guys over the years that just have never taken that step. Correct. Yeah. Correct. Appreciate that affirmation from you, Jeff. Yeah. You said it. Well, hey, we've got a few more questions left, but for the sake of brevity and not keeping our audience here for forever, I'm going to go ahead and see if we can answer those off the air. But we certainly appreciate, yeah, we certainly appreciate everyone chiming in. I put out a thing for questions yesterday and did not anticipate getting as many as we did. It's a great thing, but it also makes it really hard to fit all of them in our shows.

But we certainly encourage all of you to continue submitting questions and continue engaging with us. I think we have maybe a few more of these sorts of things to break down in our next show. But Jeff, this was fun, just kind of thinking big picture. It's refreshing to not think about Diamondbacks baseball over the last week or two because that's just sort of always been a depressing conversation throughout the course of this year. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

need to kind of like, I feel, I mean, I just, I'm kind of in that mode where I sort of need to like step back and look at the big picture because like day to day and working for me right now. So I'm glad we had a chance to do that together today. Yeah, I imagine our listeners could probably relate pretty well with that. Well, we're going to cap this off right there. Thank you so much for listening to this 30th episode of the Rattle podcast. As always, be sure to check out our website. the rattle.net, as Jeff mentioned, Joshua Inman, our colleague, just wrote a good piece on some trade deadline stuff. I know a lot of you were asking about that. He'll give maybe some more specifics

than we could hear today over there. So be sure to check that out. You can follow me on Twitter at at at Jesse and Friedman. You can find Jeff at Outfield Grass 24. Once again, we say thank you so much for listening. And we'll be back again here in a couple weeks to talk more about the 2021 Arizona Diamondbacks.