PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Ep. 36: MadBum's bizarre D-backs career, trade deadline thoughts, & our favorite D-backs teams of all time

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

We discuss Madison Bumgarner's enormous highs and lows, why the D-backs didn't do more at the trade deadline, and our favorite D-backs rosters in franchise history. 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 into episode 36 of the Rattle Podcast. As always, my name is Jesse Friedman, along with Jeff Weiser, my co-host. Jeff, today it's kind of sad. We're not in the same place like we were in our last show, but nonetheless, joined together with the wonders of modern technology. Jeff, how are you doing on this Monday night, my friend? I'd be better, honestly, if we were at a baseball game together. That's fair.

That's fair. I feel the same way. Yeah, I've seen how that's not going to happen. I'm doing pretty good. I know you and I have both been traveling a little bit, so I'm back home now and just happy to be home. And yeah, I was able to catch a little Diamondbacks baseball action while I was gone too. So that was good.

Yeah, well, let's jump right into things. I got to watch at least most of the game yesterday, which I guess maybe our listeners are listening to this on Tuesday or maybe later in the week. But we're talking about the game on Sunday. Madison Bumgarner threw a really good game by all accounts. Unfortunately, the Diamondbacks did not win. Blake Snell was just better. It was quite a performance from Snell for the Padres, which is really good news for

them seeing as how he's really struggled lately, despite the massive stuff that he has and that he showcased yesterday. He has not really been that great over the course of the season. But nonetheless, for the Diamondbacks on their side of things, Bumgarner was really, really good in the game on Sunday. Seven innings, Jeff, just two runs allowed, five strikeouts. He's only walked four guys and five starts since the All-Star break. And I got to say, I'm not trying to pat myself on the back just yet.

But my mid-season prediction was that Madison Bumgarner would have an ERA under four in the second half and that he would just generally kind of ease our concerns about his future with the organization. And Jeff, so far, since the All-Star break. he's made five starts, 32 innings, only 25 hits allowed. Just the four walks, as I mentioned, he's sitting with a sub-2 ERA 1.97. His whip is under one. The numbers are starting to look pretty good for Madison Bumgarner here in the second

half of the season. For not patting yourself on the back, that sure sounds like a lot of back patting. No, dude, credit words do. Yeah, you're right. I mean, you're absolutely right. Madison Bunn-Garner has been pretty good of late. And those numbers are like kind of incredible. He's been really like, he's just been really good at like avoiding trouble.

I don't know what else to say. Yeah. It's, it is pretty interesting. And it's also, I love that you contrasted his sort of style. And sure, he, you know, he didn't get the W and, you know, the team ultimately lost. But like contrasting, you know, what he does. on the mound with that, you know, kind of funky, lefty, slingy, you know, deceptive action, you know, as he hurls the pitch towards home plate versus Snell, who's maybe a little more

traditional and certainly much more of a power guy. So, yeah, just very, very different kinds of pitchers at different points in their careers. But, yeah, it's interesting, man. I mean, Bumgarner really has, like, I think maybe settled some fears. It's just kind of, I don't know, for me, it's just, it's interesting how it goes about his, goes about his work. And it's kind of interesting, you know, the ways in which he's succeeding. Because I still don't always know how secure I feel about it. Yeah, you're still a skeptic, Jeff. I hear it in your voice.

I think it's fair in a lot of ways to be, to be a little bit skeptical just because we've kind of seen stretches like this from Bumgarner. We saw one earlier this season where he was basically the best picture. in the game, you know, for five or six starts. And then, you know, and then all of a sudden for three straight starts, you know, he just blows up and gives up six runs in, you know, three straight outings or something, which is, which is why I'm holding back ever so slightly on the back padding for the moment, just because, you know, we've seen stretches like this before with Bumgarner.

And I think it's, you know, we have to at least consider that he could sort of fall into the same patterns that he's fallen into in the past, even as recently as like a month or ago. But I did some research on Bumgarner, Jeff, and I know you've already seen this, but for those of our audience members who might not have seen the tweet, let me give you a quick breakdown here. So Madison Bumgarner, I kind of had this feeling that Bumgarner has kind of been all or nothing sort of guy ever since joining the organization. It kind of feels like he either has a start like he did yesterday, where he was, you know, good enough to certainly keep the team in the game, even though they might not have come away with a win, or, you know, there have been a lot of starts

where he's just been an all-out disaster. And so I went back and looked at Bumgarner's starts in his Diamondbacks career. He's now made a total of 26. And here's the breakdown, Jeff. He has given up zero to two earned runs. So between zero and two earned runs in 16 of his 26 starts. So that's more than half of his starts. That's about 60%. And that, yeah, that feels pretty good, right? between like two runs or less, two earned runs or less, more than 60% of the time. He is given up five or more earned runs in nine of his 26 starts. And there's only one start left, right? The only remaining start was his first outing ever with the organization last July 24th

when he faced the Padres and he gave up three earned runs. That is the only time that Madison Bumgarner and his Diamondbacks career has ever given up three or four earned runs in a game. Other than that, it has all been either two or fewer or five or more. So he has been in many ways sort of the definition of the all or nothing type of pitcher ever since he got here. And the results of that is, you know, a team, an ERA since joining the organization, I have the number in front of me, but it's probably in the five somewhere.

Because when he's been bad, he's been really, really bad to the point that, I mean, even his ERA this season, despite having two or fewer runs allowed in 11 of his 17 outings. His ERA is still 4.42 just because in those other outings, his ERA is above 11. So he has just been very much all or nothing. And Jeff, I don't really know what to make of this if this is, you know, something we expect to continue. But I thought it was a very interesting pattern that we've seen in his Diamondbacks career so far. Yeah. I mean, what a, what a stark, like, what a stark distinction between those two outcomes.

I mean, are we talking about Madison Bumgarner here or Robbie Ray? Like, yeah, I mean, we've dealt with the two-faced pitcher before, but I didn't expect it to be Madison Bumgarner. Not, surely not Madison Bumgarner, the guy that they signed to be sort of a stabilizing force for the rotation. And yeah, I mean, it's, that is, that's really incredible. It really is incredible. And you nailed it. Your guess was right on the money. His ERA since joining the Diamondbacks is 5.06.

So he's just kind of right there, which just doesn't jump out at you. But then you're like, yeah, I mean, he's got like 60% of his starts. He's surrendered two or fewer earned runs. It's like, I don't know. I mean, you kind of take that. So, yeah, and it kind of led me to do a little bit of my own sort of number crunching. and I looked at like, you know, I was trying to really like suss out some trends.

I was like, okay, like anytime this happens and your, your Twitter thread was a great source of inspiration for me. It was like, why the heck is this happening? And so I decided to just just kind of look through. And I'm going to be honest, there's not any like statistical thing that just makes a ton of sense here. You know, and I, it feels like a bit of a cop out to say. but it's like he either has it or he doesn't.

And I know that's not, you know, exactly like hashtag analysis here. But, you know, you can see like in the ones where, you know, in the starts where he just gets pummeled, it's like the walk rate is up. The home run rate is up like almost threefold. And you have to be kind of careful with some of this. You can't use raw figures because he gets pulled out of some of those other starts like pretty early. Yeah. And he sticks around and some of the good ones for quite a long time. So you can't really use like raw counts.

But if we look like on a rate basis, the K rates down a little bit and the ones where he's not so good. The walk rate's up a little bit and the home rounds are way up. But it's not like he absolutely walks the world. Yeah. And it's not like in the ones where he's good. I mean, let's face it, it's not like he strikes out everybody either. Right. So there's just a whole lot of kind of like middle.

components in his game. And it's sort of hard to suss out like what it is. The best it could come down to you is that he has it or he doesn't. And you're probably going to, you know, the way to see that is going to be to use your eyeballs to watch the game and see where he's landing his pitches. I mean, where are they being called for? And is he hitting his spots. And if he is, I think you and I both know, he can be pretty effective.

He's shown it. There are times where his stuff is, you know, just kind of iffy as it is. And sometimes those balls get hit. But, you know, if he's hitting his spots, he's okay. But if he doesn't, if he puts extra guys on base, it makes life kind of hard for him. If the ball leaves the yard, it makes life hard for him. And he is, frankly, at this stage in his career, just kind of a contact manager. So he's got to be pretty precise in order to manage that contact.

That's a hard thing to do. The kinds of guys that can pull it off tend to be sort of. crafty veteran guys that do something unique. I think his delivery qualifies as something unique. His left-handedness doesn't hurt. And he certainly checks all the boxes as a veteran. So I don't know. I don't know how long I expected to last,

but I think what he's doing is like barely repeatable. Yeah, I guess there's also the question of, is he getting every call he wants or is he yelling at the umpire, like after every single? pitch. Maybe there, maybe that's a lurking variable somehow in, in all of this. Yeah, he actually was barking at the umpire yesterday at the beginning of his outing and eventually started getting the calls he wanted and seemed like he kind of shut up from there. But, um, but yeah, I just, yeah, I think you're very right. There's not really any

clear takeaway from this other than sometimes he's really good. It's sometimes he's really not, just kind of as the, as the numbers have told us. But to, uh, to summarize, once Again, my prediction so far, we're holding up pretty nice. Madison Boomgarner's been pretty good in those five starts since the All-Star Break. Certainly hope that continues. Beyond that, we haven't talked about the trade deadline yet. This is our last or our first show since the trade deadline. So we're not going to delve too much here.

I think, you know, I mean, frankly, the team didn't do that much. And it was sort of expected. The biggest move was trading Eduardo Escobar for outfielder Cooper Hummel, who's right now with the Reno Aces and AAA for the Diamondbacks, and then a guy who is much, much further away, an infielder, Alberto Cyprian. This is really the only all that notable trade that the Diamondbacks made at the deadline.

Jeff, I think you're certainly not overwhelmed by this return. Maybe you're not too underwhelmed either. But I guess maybe there's some intrigue here for the Diamondbacks. Yeah, I think so. You're looking at a couple of lottery tickets. that are, you know, very differently shaped. Hummel is, I think, 26 in Reno. We probably see him at some point this season in a Diamondbacks uniform.

I just think that we're kind of that, you know, he's certainly at the age, right? And this is where, I mean, the age thing, you know, I'm pretty tough on ages when it comes to scouting and grading guys. But this is where a guy like, you know, at his age, you know, the loss of sort of the pandemic year and that kind of stuff really hurts him because he was probably knocking on the door as like a 24 year old and that didn't seem so bad but now he's 26 sure but that said yeah I mean I think he's a useful a potentially useful bat who allegedly can play you know several different positions and it was kind of stated by Kylie McDaniel vspan that he was a guy that teams at least

a couple teams had maybe seen as a player who if MLB goes to an automatic strike zone could be, you know, someone who sticks as a catcher because some of the fundamentals are pretty good, but like the receiving is maybe not. But if you could get that caliber of a bat behind the dish, all of a sudden, you've just like raised the offensive bar for a catcher. Yeah. So it's sort of an interesting, sort of an interesting play. And then I'll play some corner spots too around the infield and outfield. So I mean, that's, it's unique. But I think you and I also had an interesting conversation, I think, uh, here recently when, you know, some of these, there are some guys that are capable of playing a lot of positions. I think of a guy

like Josh Rojas or, you know, maybe a Phaven Smith or something like that. And then there are some guys who play a lot of positions just because they can't really play any position. Um, so I don't know. I haven't seen, um, Hummel enough to, to make a declaration there. But my gut tells me it, it probably leads a little, little closer to the ladder. Um, yeah, but I'll be interested to see him if he comes. And then, you know, Cyprian is just so young. I mean, he's 18. But he did get a $500,000 signing bonus, which is no small sum from the brewers here, several years, a couple of years ago, I think, in 2018. And so, yeah, I think once sometimes, I'm sorry, I might be 2019, but one of the best indicators we have for, for international players

is how much I signed for. There are those, always those instances of a player who signs for $10,000 and becomes really good, but most of the time it's the guys that sign for a fair chunk of change that turned out to be pretty good. So getting that for Eduardo Escobar, I mean, I guess, you know, we'll have to have to take it. I don't think, I think, I don't think it is overwhelming. I don't think it is underwhelming. It feels probably about right. If anything, I would have probably preferred to have seen the return consolidated into a single player, who is maybe a little bit better instead of, you know, kind of deferring the value a little bit They're spreading it out a bit amongst two players, but we'll take it.

Two more interesting guys in the system, and we'll see how they do. The other move the Diamondbacks made on Trade Deadline Day was they moved Joaquin Soria to the Toronto Blue Jays. They got two players to be named later, so there's nothing we can really comment on there. This seems effectively like a salary dumb from what I can tell, Jeff. I think they save a little bit over a million on the back half here of Soria's deal. I guess it's hard to be too high or low on a deal like that. I think it just is what it is. Yeah.

We don't know what the names look like. And these things are often pretty contingent on, you know, on some factors about, you know, maybe the team has their eye on a couple of guys and they're not sure who they want just yet. They might want to see how the rest of the year plays out. There may be some contingencies based on how Soria performs down the stretch for Toronto. So, yeah, I mean, I guess the only thing. to root for here. It's just that Sorias lights out. So let's root for that. I think the big question out of the trade deadline more than anything about either of those two

deals is, you know, why didn't the Diamondbacks do more? They had, you know, is Drewbel Cabrero, whose deal does expire in a couple of months, you know, don't you want to get something rather than nothing? Colahalhoun is still under team control, but I think a lot of people expected to move there. Merrill Kelly was probably the most valuable starting pitcher on the market that didn't get moved as far as I'm concerned. I think the Diamondbacks might have been able to turn him into a pretty decent prospect package to a team that was in contention, especially with how well he's pitched lately.

He's really, really been great. But yeah, that's kind of been the overarching question that I can sense among the Diamondbacks fan base. And I do understand, I mean, especially as Drewble Cabrera,

like literally, I mean, it's not like the Diamondbacks are going to the playoffs. Like, why aren't you trading him? and Mike Hazen during the press conference right after the trade deadline, essentially, I mean, he addressed that pretty much head on. That's what a lot of the media people were asking.

And he basically said, look, we were not about to just kind of move guys just for the heck of it. You know, we value the veteran presence that some of these guys bring. And we're not going to be taken advantage of by a team that basically just wants our player and wants to give us absolutely nothing in return, especially if there wasn't, you know, a big financial gain for the Diamondbacks in the process. So that was kind of what I could sense from Mike Hazen, just that, you know, teams just weren't really willing to give anything up of real value, which is understandable. I mean, you're not going to get much value for those guys, but the Diamondbacks sort of made

a statement that, you know, we value a veteran presence on our team and we're not trying to give that away for nothing. And, you know, I think is Drewble Cabrera out of walkoff base hit, you know, like the day after the trip. deadline. And I think, you know, I don't really have a problem with Mike Hazen's reasoning for anyone out there who thinks that, you know, the Diamondbacks just, you know, gave up a shot at having some great player five or six years from now that they could have acquired for his Drewball Cabrera. I just don't think that was going to happen. And really not for any of

these other guys that they could have dealt either. I just don't think there was really enough value in return that it was even worth making a move. So personally, Jeff, I didn't have an issue with that, but I know some of our listeners, that was something that probably bothered them. Yeah, and I think it's fair to ask that question. I'm glad the question got asked, and I'm glad Mike addressed it in the way he did. I mean, it was not really mince words. That's something I really respect about him is he's a pretty straightforward guy.

Yeah. And I totally understand. I totally understand, you know, thinking that you just sell everything that basically isn't nailed down. You sell everything that isn't definitely a part of the future. You know, why not? And that makes some sense to me. But at the same time, I think we've kind of come to find out that Hazen is a really, like, shrewd negotiator. And, like, we'll hold the line.

And if you, you know, you may feel, you know, people may feel how they want to feel about that. him holding the line is why the diamondbacks got Josh Rojas from the Houston Astros. Right. I mean, that deal hung up on Josh Rojas. He was adamant. He was insistent. And we learned in the days following that that was the guy that they wanted. And, oh, you know, guess who's making a rehab appearance right now for Reno on his way back to the big league?

And what is kind of a breakout season? I mean, Josh Rojas is here because of that. I think we can say what we want to say about how Luke Weaver has grown or not grown, been injured, et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, by all accounts, the return that the team got for, you know, what was going to be one year of Paul Goldschmidt was pretty strong. And Carson Kelly certainly looks like the catcher of the future for this organization, a team that didn't have a catcher of the future, really had lacked some depth of the catching position. since the departure, Miguel Montero. And so, you know, I think, you know, we could kind of say what we want about that, but do you really need, I mean, do, I guess the best way to say is, is you're correct.

No one was going to offer, you know, one of their top ten prospects for Asdraubal career. Yeah, they probably weren't offering a top 30. They probably weren't offering a top 50. They were probably offering a player to be named later and the list wasn't appealing. And you know what Mike Hazen said, I'm not going to play this game. I'm going to hold my ground. And it might not pay off for me right this very moment. But it's not going to burn me either.

And it might do me favors down the line because people know that when I'm serious, I mean what I say. And I will hold on to a guy if I don't get what I want. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a great perspective. Yeah, I mean, I'm actually curious what you think about this, Jeff. We've gotten a lot of a lot of Mike Hazen just.

hatred on the timeline lately. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not just for this trade deadline, but just kind of, especially the bullpen. I tweeted the other day, there was a graphic that they put up during a game broadcast the other day that showed the Diamondbacks, or actually it wasn't a Diamondbacks broadcast. It was when they were nationally televised for whatever reason the other night against the Padres. They were on FS1.

And they put up a graphic of the Diamondbacks bullpen rankings, and they were last in literally every category. They are the worst bullpen and ERA whip opponent batting average, a number of home runs allowed and runs allowed per game. So this is the worst bullpen in all of baseball this season. And I think that's another thing that has really fueled some of the Mike Hazen hatred that we've been witnessing lately. I'm still kind of struggling with some of it just because I still look at Mike Hazen's

body of work. And I think that he's done a pretty good job. with just like what he's been given. There aren't really a lot of moves that he made in the moment where I felt, you know, oh, that's not going to work out. That's a horrible decision. You know, we don't want such and such a player. It seems like in a lot of ways he's just gotten kind of unlucky, you know,

especially this year, Tyler Clippard spending like the entire year on the injured list and Joaquin Soria having such big injury issues. And I think the list sort of goes on, right? He just hasn't had the best of luck with some of these bullpen acquisitions in particular. And a lot of that also has to do with the fact that he's just like his budget is very, very low. And that's something that he doesn't control. And I think he's made good moves with the money that he's had for the most part. But that's sort of part of the deal with spending, you know, just a few million dollars to put together a bullpen every year is you're kind of prone to some bad luck happening.

and your bullpen being really, really bad. So I'm curious what you think, Jeff. I still look at his whole body of work, and I have a pretty favorable view of what he's done here. But I understand fans who feel, you know, that at least the results at the moment certainly do not, do not, you know, yield a good light on what Hazen has done here. Yeah, I'm with you.

It is a little frustrating. I've sort of debated at times about, you know, Do I want to have this conversation with someone on Twitter right now? When I see some of the sort of the vitriol directed towards Hazen, and, you know, I think he's calling plays from the playbook that have been really successful in the past. And I know that that's not what things look like right now. Like I completely and totally get that. But they are between waves of talent.

And they are kind of. you know, sort of trying to weather the storm, you know, in between. There was a pretty big exodus of guys here over the last couple of years. And there really wasn't, you know, a bunch of talent ready to sort of take over. So I think they're just sort of in a mode right now where they have to just kind of hold on. And I also definitely feel like there are things that Hazen is and is not responsible for. And those are things that I think are difficult to suss out because he's not going to come out and tell you that, you know, well, these are the guys we signed in our bullpen because this is all the money I had to spend. He's not going to say that. He really can't say that if he

would like to be employed the day after he said that or ever again, frankly. So I think I think part of the challenge is sort of sussing out like what he does and doesn't control. He has. He has. as a boss, that ownership has been in place for quite some time now. And payroll is kind of stuck in the same general vicinity, comparative to the rest of the league. Results have, you know, kind of oscillated a bit, but the vibe hasn't overwhelmingly changed. And, you know, kind of the ownership group is the one real constant there.

So I think this is what it is, and he's just trying to navigate it the best that he can. And when we kind of look at, you know, kind of look at like who is succeeding on this team. I mean, Merrill Kelly was a scouting find, you know, a guy that was known,

but like someone from, he was pitching a Korea and plucked under, you know, Haynes, under Haynes watch. I mean, Gallin was a trade acquisition. You know,

they've just like, the whole, like most of, you know, who's, I mean, Cotel Marte was a trade acquisition. Yeah.

You know, this wave of guys that are coming up in the 2017 drafts is the first draft class that Hayeson had of, you know, Drew Ellis, Dalton Varsho and Phaven Smith. So, I mean, I don't know. I have a really difficult time sort of leveling the blame at him. And I do think the one thing I'll say, the last thing I'll say in regard to this is that once the pieces are kind of put in place, the one sort of saving grace is that ownership has at times in the past decided when the time is right, they will sort of step up to the plate from a financial perspective. But that time

just isn't now. And they're not going to spend money when revenues are down. TV viewership is down. Attendance is down. They're not going to, you know, spend an extra $15 million on the bullpen. It's not happening. Yeah. Yeah, it kind of feels like, you know, everything that is going right for this team,

which granted, there's not that many things. But all of those things do have, you know, Hazen's fingerprints on them, as you mentioned, like Cattel and Zach Gallen and Merrill Kelly. And the things that are not going well, for the most part is like, yeah, I'm not like really sure what he could have done to prevent that, right? Like just all of the injuries and like Cole Calhoun having just a horrible season when he has played and Christian Walker just not playing well. And a lot of these things are just not things you can directly attribute to Mike Hayes in any kind of way. So yeah, we'll we'll leave that conversation there.

Let's go ahead and jump into some of our questions from our listeners here. We have just a few. I'm going to save the best one for last. I guess I don't want to call it the best one, but it's the most fun one. We're going to do the most fun one. Yeah, there we go. But we're going to start with Kyle Collins here,

who wanted to know why Dalton Varsho is like kind of not consistent at all. He was a big talking point in our last show. We were excited. And, you know, he had three homers and three straight games. And, you know, it looked like he might be turning a corner. And now he's really slipped up. I think he's like four for 24 in his last seven games now and kind of looks like the same guy he did before.

Jeff, I think in a lot of ways, both of us are still kind of trying to get a feel for Varsho and what is he doing when he's succeeding and what is he doing when he's not succeeding? What's your read so far on where Varshow sits and how he might be able to be a little bit more consistent at the plate? Yeah, the hot and cold nature, I mean, has definitely kind of, you know, it seemed that way sort of from the outside looking in. You know, I figured I'd just kind of pull up his game log and kind of run some, just like run like some quick figures.

And I mean, since July 1st, so really over the last five weeks or so, I mean, I guess we had an all-star break in there. But, you know, he's hitting 240, 352, 480, which is good enough for a 121 way to runs created plus. That's pretty good production. I mean, we would take that level of production for him. Oh, yeah. It's not, I mean, it's not, you know, Herculian, but it's quite productive.

And he is catching. You know, he has been been catching here and there. So, you know, if you can mix that in with a guy who does, you know, get some time behind the plate, you'd certainly take that. But before that, I mean, he was hitting 145, 243, 194 for a weighted runs created plus of 25. Ugh. That you just can't have. I mean, you can hardly stomach that from your pitcher. So, I mean, I say that to say that, you know, I think over the last five weeks or so,

something has maybe kind of clicked. You know, but then I also kind of look at even how the, you know, production over that short span has been sort of condensed, right? I mean, he hit four home runs in the span of seven games. And a lot of it kind of comes from there. So it's just been interesting. And I just still get the feeling when I watch him play that he just is not comfortable. with the plate. Some of his swing decisions, you know, baffle me. There are some times when he

looks really passive almost and really trying to work. And then there are times where he really swings at stuff like early in the count that I just, you know, sort of, it just looks like something maybe a young hitter would do. So I think it's really important that he continues to get playing time consistently through the end of the season. And we see if some of this holds. Because to me, there are just some times that he just doesn't look comfortable. And I don't know that I've really seen him look too locked in at times. So I think that's really kind of what I'm looking for. And aside from that, I mean, it's really been hard to, hard to nail anything down.

It just comes down to whether or not he really looks comfortable. And I just don't know that he really does. Yeah, it's kind of hard to know how to fix that. Right. Besides just repetitions, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he only has 273 played appearances in his major league career. And obviously last year was anything but normal.

And this year has been more regular for him, but still a little spotty with his playing time. And obviously, he's being asked to catch and play center field and play the corners. And I think that's a really difficult environment for a guy to come up and, you know, try to learn how to hit major league pitching at the same time. So, yeah, I guess with Varshow, I'm with you, Jeff. gets probably just more repetitions and, you know, hopefully we start to see him break out and, and be able to replicate what he did over, you know, that week or two for a little bit of a longer period of time.

Yeah. All right. Next question. We're going to go to Greg Littleton here. He said, should the Diamondbacks trade could tell Marte, talking about the offseason, of course, could they get a significant prospect return for him this offseason?

If the team won't be contending for a while, why not sell high? And he said, of course, this would be sort of contingent on Marte finishing out the year well. Obviously, you're not really selling high on him as it is right now, seeing as he really hasn't played that much lately. But hypothetically, you know, if he finishes out these next two months and starts to hit a little better, show a little bit more of that power and hopefully able to stay healthy

for this whole time, what do you think, Jeff? Is this something that Diamondbacks could look to revisit in the off season? Yeah, I think a lot of the moves that, you know, it would appear that the team neglected to make, I think are all still on the table, you know, with the exception of, you know, and as Drewball Cabrera. But I think a lot of those things will be on the table again come wintertime. You know, teams, teams weren't interested in Merrill Kelly. The Diamondbacks got calls on Merrill Kelly and decided to hold on to them. I'm sure they got, you know, people poking around on Katel, maybe even Galen. I'm sure another guys, too.

But I think, I think, so I think some of those. may come back. Like those rumors will probably swirl again this winter. But, you know, there's a couple things that come to mind. I mean, first and foremost, the prices at the deadline were maybe a little better. The returns were maybe a little better than anticipated in my eyes. So in that sense, maybe you feel like you could get a good haul for Cotele. Yeah.

You know, so that maybe feels one way. But then, you know, there's this like lingering Cs. CBA issue that, you know, is totally unclear. And it is unknown kind of, you know, what changes could happen in terms of how the early parts of players' careers are compensated. And so, let's say, for example, you know, you're going to, you're asking for prospects back. You're assuming you have team control over that guy, you know, those prospects that come back for, for six years at the major league level with three minor league options. How does the math change if you know you're only going to get them for four years, and they're only going to have two minor league options,

for example. Yeah. That might be kind of an extreme case. I don't know if a deal like that ultimately happens, but I think there's going to be enough, you know, kind of enough stuff kind of like fogging up the picture that it's going to be pretty difficult until there's clarity around some of those things for a deal like, you know, for a guy like could tell Marte to get done. So, but should they?

I'm sure it's something to explore. my personal opinion is you don't trade a guy like Hattel Marte, you know, kind of until your hand is forced. I think they play him out. He's on a team-friendly deal. I think you run him back out there next year. See how things are looking and reevaluate. You have time to trade him.

You don't need to trade him early. You know, you just don't need to do that. And I don't think they will. Yeah. I think a lot of times it's easy to view trading guys as like sort of this linear process where like every day that goes by, you know, your potential return like goes down by an ever so slight amount. And like every day you keep someone, you're just kind of wasting time if you're eventually going to deal them. Yeah. I don't think that's true ultimately. I mean,

we saw, I mean, we saw with our own eyes with Starling Marte, who the Diamondbacks, of course, dealt last year. And he got dealt again this year at the deadline. And I think the returns are arguably pretty, you know, pretty much the same, maybe even, maybe even more at this deadline when he was acquired by the Oakland Athletics. So I don't think that's the case, you know, you're obviously trying to read the market and what kind of demand is there for a guy like Cotel Marte. And I don't think the diamond backs are really necessarily missing out on anything if they hold on to him.

No, no, I don't either. And I mean, to your point, if moving these guys early, like, maximizing. the trade return, then all these GMs wouldn't wait until like four hours before the trade deadline to make their deals. They'd make them far in advance, but they don't. Every year they make them, you know, right up against a deadline. And that makes for some tremendous content. I mean, it is a really fun time.

Those are some really fun hours. But that is just, you're right. I mean, it's just not how it works. And what happens? I mean, the last thing you want to do is trade Cotel Marte this winter. And with, you know, he's under team control through, I believe, 2024. And then next year, you come out and you find out that a couple guys are ahead of schedule. Alec Thomas hits the majors and doesn't skip the beat.

All of a sudden, you, you know, you grab an electric talent, you know, one, one in the next draft. And some things are starting to, like, look up. Yeah. You know, you don't want to have sold short. And then, and then, you know, what happens with the three or four guys you got back for Kitel-Marte? now you're praying that those prospects turn out. I just, you're moving something that's certain, and it's a valuable, certain thing for something that's pretty uncertain.

And I just don't think you do that until your hand is forced, and I don't think they will. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you there. All right. Last question. Here's the fun one. Back to Kyle Collins. He says, excluding the 2001 team, because that would be boring.

What is your personal favorite Diamondbacks team? Kyle says he's a big fan of the 2017 roster, which of course was the last Diamondbacks Roster that wound up playing in the postseason. Jeff, I'll go ahead and start us off with this one. I'm going back to the anybody, anytime glory days of 2007. I was nine years old at the time. I'll go ahead and throw that out there. For those of you doing the math, how old I am, congratulations.

But it was just so much fun. I don't know if the Diamondbacks have ever in the history of their franchise, even 2001, I would wager. I don't know if they've ever had so many characters on a baseball team, like just guys who are like kind of fun and quirky and you just kind of liked them. Like Eric Burns was on that team and was actually really good. He had 286 with a 353 on base, 460 slugging percentage. 21 home runs and stole 50 bases for the time of back to 2007. Yeah, no, like that doesn't really happen that much anymore.

Eric Burns stole 50 bases in 2007 and was just hilarious to watch in the outfield. You're not going to find a more max effort type of outfield defender than Eric Burns was in left field. He was kind of an icon to his walk-up song jump in my mind is like still ringing in my ears from going to games as a kid. people just kind of loved Eric Burns. And then there was Orlando Hudson. The O Dog. Yeah, the O Dog. And like he was just like he wasn't, you know, a superstar type of guy.

But he was actually the Diamondbacks only All-Star that season, which is weird because, yeah, they won. I believe they were 90 and 72. And they only had one All-Star. And it was Orlando Hudson. And he was solid. He had 10 homers, 63 RBIs. He had 294. year and it was the first selection to the All-Star game of his career for a guy who was drafted

in the 43rd round of the MLB draft. Wow. So Orlando Hudson, hats off to him. I know he was employed recently as a coach with the organization. I'm not sure if he's still doing that. But Orlando Hudson, hard to not love him. I could go on for a while. There was Micah Owings and like the fact that he actually raked and was like a better hitter

than he was a pitcher. Yes, yes. But that was also like his one season where he actually wasn't a horrible pitcher. He had a 430 ERA over 152 innings. But he also had like that crazy day where he hit two home runs and had six RBIs back in August of that year. That was fun memories. And the list goes on. There was Brandon Webb who was like, you know, the obviously very viable superstar from that team.

There was Jose Valverde who was just an absolute character. out of the bullpen would always get your blood pressure skyrocketing. But he was actually pretty good. He had 47 saves. Mark Reynolds, that was the year Mark Reynolds got called up. That was the year Justin Upton got called up when he was 19 years old. Yes. I could go on for quite a while, Jeff, as you can see.

But the 2007 Diamondbacks, they got outscored. They literally allowed more runs than they scored. But they were just gritty and they were fun and they made it all the way to the NLCHA. I have many good, many good childhood memories of the 2007 Diamondbacks. Yeah, what a fun bunch. I mean, yeah, there's some names here as you're rattle them off and I'm going through. I'm just like, oh, my goodness. I think one of the thing that stands out to me is kind of stark is they had seven batters get

380 or more plate appearances. They had one, two, three, they have four guys with greater than six. 600 played appearances. You know, in today's baseball, you know, we see so much platoon work. We see guys, you know, sort of, there's just like a, you know, it's a more holistic roster, I guess. You're sort of, you know, mixing, matching and all this. And then you see, like, wow, they, like, they really just rode in, like, the same lineup every day. That's kind of, kind of incredible.

Yeah, that's a great one. It's a Kyle's point about the 2017 club. I mean, I won't ever forget being in the Oakland airport, like in a crowded bar watching Archie Bradley hit the triple. Yeah. Oh, man. That was a pretty iconic moment, and I definitely got some pretty weird looks. But whatever, that's fine. I think for me, I'll go with a different team.

I'll go with the 2011 squad. And just for a couple reasons. I think this was really for me when I started to. sort of maybe hone in or zero in a bit more on the Diamondbacks as like a team I was super interested in. I had some connections with the team and employees and people that work there. And so I started getting pulled in. And I think it's so interesting because it was a team where, you know, it still felt like the future was like ahead of them. Like everything was like, you know, starting to line up, you know. Justin Upton was like really in his prime. I mean, you know,

just hitting it. He was still young. It looks like he could do this. forever. Miguel Montero was like the best hitting catcher in baseball, it seemed. And, you know, I mean, Paul Goldschmidt had made his debut. It just seemed like there were so many of these guys that were, you know, fairly young, you know, coming onto the scene that the team just had so much set up. I mean, it seemed like Ian Kennedy and Daniel Hudson were going to be like the one-two punch for the next decade, you know.

And then, you know, you just, I mean, JJ puts and David Hernandez were really good in the bullpen. I mean, it just seemed like so much was there. Somehow, Brad Ziegler was still on the team. But, yeah, I mean, it's just, I guess you maybe kind of never forget, like, you kind of never forget the first time. You really picked your, you know, really picked your team and started rooting for it. And that was really that time for me.

And it seemed like so much was, so much was ahead of them. And, you know, you can kind of see and feel where things went awry now that we have a decade of perspective, but I'll pick the 2011 team, some really, really memorable characters there. That's so crazy. Just, well, your comment about the one two punch with Ian, Ian Daniel Hudson, I mean, yeah, like in the moment, I mean, that's kind of what you thought. I mean, Ian Kennedy was, was basically on top of the world. He won 21 games, which obviously no one really cares about that stat now, but still

say, I mean, very hard to do. You literally lost four games the entire season. He had a sub 3ERA. But yeah, as it turns out, you know, there was Randy Johnson and Kurt Schilling as a legendary one-to-bunch. And then there was Ian Kennedy and Daniel Hudson who very quickly devolved into bullpen arms. And I think each of them actually was just dealt at the trade deadline. They were.

I was going to say that. Yeah, two guys that a decade later were both, you know, exchanged for spare parts at a trade deadline. I mean, life comes at you fast, right? Life comes at you fast, absolutely. I also have to make a quick correction. Orlando Hudson was not the only All-Star for the 2007 Diamondbacks. Brandon Webb, of course, was also an all-star.

I was glossing over his name, and I wrote an article about this a while back that's still on our website. You could dig back and find it. But I wrote an article a while back and glossed over his name on the list of guys that I was talking about in the article. And obviously, you know, I was writing about how he was second in Cy Young voting. And I was like, it seems strange that he would be second in Cy Young voting. and somehow not make the all-star team.

That's true. Sure enough. Sure enough. I was wrong. Orlando Hudson and Brandon Weber, both all-stars for that team. But hey, Jeff, maybe this kind of helps us gain perspective looking into the future. You know, there were some things that we held on to back in 2007 and 2011 that we kind of look foolish for in, you know, in hindsight, or at least, you know, guys who were great then,

but, you know, maybe their careers didn't last that long. And the flip side also happens, you know, from time to time where you look at a team and you see next to nothing going for you as you might with this 2021 team. But, you know, things turn in baseball, you know, faster than it seems like they do in just about any other pro sport. And so maybe we can end this episode on a high note. You know, you never know what can happen in this game. And we should all keep that in mind here down the stretch. as we hope and pray that the Diamondbacks can meet Jeff's midseason prediction and somehow come away with 60 wins at the end of the year.

Yeah, I'm not overly optimistic. I like your prediction better than mine. 60 wins still seems pretty far in the, you know, pretty far in the distance here. They're really not to pull some miracles to make that happen. But, you know, I'm with you too. go, just, you know, here we are. It's the beginning of August. It's been an absolutely miserable season,

and I'll just say, I think, you know, the building blocks of the next winner are, you know, probably on this team or will be shortly. And, you know, we have to kind of keep focus because that uptick, that thing that we're hoping for, that next winner, that team that will, you know, someday be someone else's, you know, favorite time and back squad. that's, you know, slowly evolving before our eyes.

So, you know, I'm not playing on diverting my attention anytime soon. If anything, we should really dig in and start looking closer because the next winter's coming. Absolutely. Well, we'll go ahead and stop on that high note here in episode 36. As always, thank you so much for listening here to this episode of the Rattle Podcast. You can find us on Twitter at the Rattle AZ. You can find Jeff at Outfield Grass 24 or myself. at at Jesse N. Friedman. We would love to interact with you on Twitter at any of those pages.

Feel free to send us a question for the show or a thought or whatever it is on your mind at any point. We'd love to hear from you. But that's all we have here for episode 36. Thanks so much for listening as always. And we'll be back here next week to talk more about the 2021 Arizona Diamondbacks.