PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Ep. 37: Tyler Gilbert did what?

Episode Date: August 18, 2021

In the wake of the most fun weekend of D-backs baseball all year, we delve into Tyler Gilbert's historic night, the recent rise of Daulton Varsho and Josh VanMeter, Zac Gallen's struggles, and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome in to episode 37 of the Rattle Podcast. As always, my name is Jesse Friedman. Coming at you this evening from a bizarre location, I'm in an SUV parked in a random parking lot of the campsite in northern Minnesota. I am on vacation, but the Rattle Podcast must go on. So here we are with episode 37, joined as always by Jeff Weiser. Jeff, how are you here on this Tuesday evening? I'm good. I'm in a home.

I'm not necessarily in a parking lot at a campsite in northern Minnesota. But considering how much I like fishing, I don't know where I'd rather be right now. Have you been fishing, Jesse? That's my first question for you. You know, Jeff, it's kind of a long story. My family, obviously, we're sort of the Arizona outcast. My mom's side of the family is pretty much entirely from Minnesota. and naturally Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes,

pretty much everyone on her side of the family, they're all big fishermen. And then, you know, I originally being from Arizona, have basically never been fishing in my life. So we come out here and we do generally fish. I have yet to fish this time. We don't have a boat or anything. So it makes it a little bit harder for us to get out.

But I have a very friendly uncle who is, we're probably going to go out here in the next couple days. So I'll keep you posted on that, Jeff. We'll see what I'm able to catch here in the next few days. Nice. Yes, please do. Please, yeah, I'll be very excited to hear about this. Moving on to some Diamondbacks baseball.

Oh, yeah, Diamondbacks baseball. That's what we're here for, I guess, right? I've gone ahead and I think I can say without much hesitation, this weekend, this last weekend, was probably the best weekend of Diamondbacks baseball. Honestly, not probably. It was far and away. the best weekend of Diamondbacks baseball that we've had this entire season. There was sort of the giggler game on Friday night, or excuse me, that was Thursday night. The Diamondbacks won 12 to 3 over the Padreys.

It's just kind of a good old fashioned pound down, which is something we haven't really seen from the Diamondbacks that much this year, obviously. And then you follow that up Friday night, fireworks at the ballpark, and Dalton Varshow delivered some fireworks in the bottom of the ninth inning with a walk-off home around. That was super fun to see. And then, of course, on Saturday, Tyler Gilbert, the Diamondbacks lefty,

a name that many of our listeners probably hadn't even heard prior to this game. Tyler Gilbert went ahead and threw the third no-hitter in Diamondbacks history. Of course, we all know it should be the fourth because Madison Bumgarner should have counted earlier this season. But nonetheless, in the official record books, it is the third no-hitter in Diamondback.

history. He became the fourth pitcher in MLB history to throw a no-hitter in his first career major league start. Jeff, I think we both acknowledge, you know, the longevity of Tyler Gilbert and, you know, is he an ace in the making? That's a whole other conversation. But what we can all agree on here in episode 37 of the Rattle podcast is that Tyler Gilbert had an extraordinary evening. It was incredible to see his family's reactions throughout the game as they were in the stands, watching Tyler Gilbert and he delivered a no-hitter and gave us something to really cheer about in a season where frankly there hasn't been a whole lot to cheer about for Diamondbacks fans. Yeah, I mean, I hate to go back to fishing, but this is why you should go fishing, right?

Even if you didn't grow up a fisherman, you never know what you'll catch. I mean, look at Tyler Gilbert. Yeah. The guy makes one career start and he throws a no-hitter. Absolutely incredible. just an awesome moment, you know, in a season that hasn't had very many of them. And there's this huge difference, right, between, you know, like being unhittable and throwing a no-hitter. And I know that that may sound like semantics.

Towards the end of the game, it seemed like Tyler Gilbert was just throwing like mid-to- Upper 80s cutters like down the middle and just letting people hit them. I don't care, but that was still awesome. And I still think that was so great. So I'm super, super happy for him, happy for the team. Just a, just a magical moment. And, you know, I think one of the things that has drawn me to baseball so deeply over the last, I guess, you know, 12, 15 years of my life is that baseball is weird. Yeah. And weird stuff happens.

And I love stats. I love predictability. I love averages. I love being able to sort of suss out meaning from numbers. And I also love that some nights you just come to the ballpark and something totally wild and weird happens. And that's cool too. So yeah,

it was great. I think Jason Stark said it best. Like right after the game ended, he tweeted out, you know, something along the lines of Zach Granky, the Diamondbacks, Ace, you know, for a long time, of course,

and really an ace for a number of teams throughout his career. He has made almost 500 career starts in his major league career. He has never thrown a no-hitter. And Tyler Gilbert, this like, no name, I don't know if we even can call him a prospect.

He was 27 years old, you know, here in his rookie season. And he goes out and he throws a damn no-hitter in his first outing in his major League career. And it's just, as you said, it's just part of the beautiful craziness of baseball that you just, you absolutely cannot predict baseball as the same goes. And we saw that in its

full glory on Saturday night. Yeah. I mean, just the beauty of it and the beauty of the randomness and the human nature of the moment, you know, I, I sort of love seeing his pops like up in the stands, just kind of having the like, you know, having the sort of out of body experience, you know, He hooked through his kid. Oh, man. You know, you know, those two have, you know, have had their times when, you know, things have been rough for Tyler as a pitcher. And, you know, to be a, you know, a rookie when you're 26, 27, 28 years old, you know,

that tells us something about, you know, the struggle and difficulty that's led to him, you know, arriving there, you know, despite his age. And I would assume that there have been a lot of hurdles for him. And so that was probably a really special moment. I loved how just, you know, that it wasn't Zach Rankie that did it. It was someone who, you know, and I'm not trying to take any shine away from Tyler Gilbert. He's obviously extremely good at throwing a baseball. But, you know, something that seems very human about someone who maybe isn't, you know, the superstar.

Right. That can still pull off the amazing accomplice. So, yeah, just like an absolute total spectacle. And then like sort of low key, I thought it was super rad that the, the Debex team account was posted some photos from the clubhouse after the game. And the guys were all celebrating with some Coors lights. And I was just like, man, you know, like in baseball, you know, after like a, you know, an amazing night, the guys are just, you know, having a few cold ones with the boys and, uh, and celebrating. So it seemed cool. It seemed like it really kind of lifted everybody's spirits.

And, you know, as you mentioned, it was also part of, you know, what turned out to be, you know, or what it was kind of the culmination of what was, like a pretty nice little run there against a San Diego Padre team that, you know, even got, you know, you know, that they're still in the thick of a playoff race. So it felt good. And it wasn't just Tyler Gilbert. I mean, there was a lot that happened over the weekend. I mentioned, you know, Dalton Varsha's walk. off home run. I also think we need to mention that Dalton Varshot was the guy who caught

this no-hitter, which obviously he played a substantial role in this too. And Tyler, and Dalton Varsho has only made, I believe that was his 27th career start at catcher. So, you know, between Tyler Gilbert, who had never had, you know, a major league outing as a starting pitcher, and Dalton Varsho, who is only catching his 27th game in the big leagues, just the combination of that level of youth doing what they were able to accomplish was was pretty incredible. And there were some other things too. I mean, Varsho hit the ball well over the weekend. He wasn't alone.

Josh Rojas had just an absurd series. I think he wound up 10 for 17 or something ridiculous like that over the weekend. He continued it today. Actually, the Diamondbacks just beat the Phillies three to two, like about an hour before we started recording here. He had another big game there. And the list kind of goes on here, Jeff. I mean, Rojas and Pavan Smith has been playing well.

Josh Van Meter had a big game today. He started to look a little bit better of late. I think a lot of Diamondbacks fans, even though this season has obviously not been what people have hoped for, you can kind of start to see a little bit of hope on the horizon for this baseball team as some of these younger guys start to kind of come into their own and show us what they might be able to do, not only right now, but as they can continue to improve and move forward into the future with this

baseball team. Yeah, I think the biggest concern really heading into, you know, I guess the second half of the season or certainly post-all-star break is we knew that some of these younger guys were going to continue to get more and more playing time is like, what happens if you, you know, move a veteran or to create an opportunity, create some space on the roster and give some guys more at bats or an extra start or some more relief appearances. And what if they just flounder? Yeah.

You know, that's kind of scary. And I think that little bit of unknown, like we typically get excited about, you know, the prospect that comes up. We can't wait. You know, what happens if these guys who, you know, I think they're really kind of post hype post-prospects at this point? Most of them have really graduated and lost their prospect eligibility. I mean, these aren't young pups anymore. Like, it's time to kind of do their thing. And I think, fortunately, with the guys that you listed, they're showing up.

Yeah. The showing up on a nightly basis. There seems to be some real sort of tangible growth here. It's not necessarily a flash in the pan kind of night here and there. There seems to be a little bit of staying power. And there might be some things that we can dig into and kind of find some like process-oriented things where I'm sure it looks great in the box score that's so. and went three for four, or that they, you know, racked up 15 hits in a week. But we have to kind of figure out why that happened.

Like, was it luck? Is it, you know, is it just some good fortune or something really happening? And I think in the case of some of these guys, it's actually, like, there's something tangible happening, which paints a much better picture going forward. Yeah, well, let's jump into some of our listener questions. We have a lot. And so I don't think there's any reason to beat around the bush. here. We'll just kind of ride these questions. I think if we answer these, we're probably

going to hit on just about everything we would want to anyway. So I'm going to jump straight to at Viverosports, also known as the world's unhappiest fan on Twitter. Hopefully we can make your life a little better here this evening in this episode. But he says, we know Pavin and Rojas are having great seasons. But what are your thoughts on Van Meter and Varsho since the All-Star break, sort of along the lines of what you were just saying, Jeff. We know. know that these guys have have improved and and and this listener notes that. And he wants to know, what do you see in their future and what would it affect any future prospects or current players?

So looking specifically at Van Meter and Dalton Varshow, the numbers are starting to look a little better here over the last couple months. Jeff, I know you've, you've looked into this a little bit. What have you found? Yeah, I think the season lines still look pretty bad. So we kind of pull up the, you know, what's the season line look like? Not very good. But I did kind of dig in and I was a little concerned about using the All-Star break as a cutoff point.

I mean, any cutoff point really is pretty arbitrary. But I want just a little bit bigger sample. So I stuck with July 1st. That's sort of the cutoff point. So kind of take the two guys. I mean, I think for Van Meter, since July 1st, he's hitting 271, 319, 482. which is pretty good. It's like above average big league production.

How many, do you know how many bats are played appearances that is? Yeah, that's in 91 plate appearances. And so in that time, if we think, you know, the whole month of July,

which there was an all-star break, so there's a little time off there. Right. And then the first half of August, that's 91 plate appearances. Things are better for him. He's still striking out a lot, almost 30% of the time.

And he's not walking as much as he had been before. But that is like extremely better production than what he had before July 1st when he hit 165,300, 264. Yeah. He was walking a ton with the same strikeout rate. And if you kind of look like at some of his swing tendencies and whatnot, he's just swinging more. He's been more aggressive since July 1st. So in that sample of time, he's just swinging the bat more, plain and simple. and the walks have cut, you know, cut down as a result.

But the strikeouts haven't necessarily gone up and the production has. So you might be seeing something there where maybe they identified like, hey, you know, you got to swing the bat. Like, we got to get the bat off the shoulder. And you start getting good pitches, need to quit waiting, like need to start punishing them. And for some of these young guys, I think that can be a little bit of an adjustment, especially in the majors where they're going to get challenged. And when they're scuffle, like they, you know, a guy like, Josh Van Meter has early in his career. Pitchers are coming right after him.

They're not dancing around the zone. Yeah. They're going to come right at you. So that's been an interesting trend. And then for Varshow, you know, using the same cutoffs, in 101 plate appearances since July 1st, he's 271, 386, 529. Wow. Walking almost 16% of the time, striking out almost 21% of the time.

So a really nice mixture there. Way better than before. July 1st and he was hitting 145, 243, 194. I think it's interesting to note that before July 1st, so we take all of April, May, June, in those three months, he had 70 plate appearances total. And in the last month and a half of the season, he's had 101. So I think we can really see that there really has been a commitment

to more playing time and allowing him to kind of get comfortable. last episode I talked about him sometimes not looking decisive or looking maybe a little in between. Right. Just some decisions maybe being a little questionable. You look at that ball he hit out for the walk off on Friday night. That was a hanging breaking ball by Craig Stamon, who's a veteran relief pitcher. And man, I mean, he saw it like there was no hesitation.

And that just really looked like that was a great moment. Like he hit it. He kind of took a couple of slow steps. He was like, oh, yeah, that one's, that was not just going out by a little bit. That one's going out a lot. Yeah. And that was really great. So I think, you know, that's kind of interesting.

And he seems to be swinging a little less, specifically at pitches in the zone, which seems interesting in this time. But that might tell us that maybe there's something even within the strike zone, that they're asking him to look for something maybe specific. And so there might be even some borderline pitches or some strike zone. that he's letting go because he knows they really aren't the kinds of strikes and balls in the zone that he wants to swing at. With two strikes, you know, maybe he has to protect and do something different. But outside of that scenario, seems like he might be being a little more selective looking for stuff he can drive.

And that would seem to really line up with the production he said. Yeah. And I think we, we kind of glossed over Pavin Smith and Josh Rojas there. And we don't necessarily have to delve deep into that. But I also want to just point out, I don't know if, you know, we've, confirm that Pave and Smith and Josh Rojas are, you know, established players who are, you know, clearly here for the long haul. Although I think they're certainly on their way to that. Josh Rojas has a Babbup of 370 right now, which for those of you who don't know,

Babip is batting average on balls and play. And it certainly fluctuates from player to player. League average is usually around 300, Jeff, if I'm not mistaken, something around there. Yeah, that sounds, yeah, that's about right. Yeah. So normally, kind of the league average hovers around 300. And some guys are going to be above that and below that, depending on how hard they hit the ball. Generally, faster guys have the ability to get a little higher because they're able to beat out more of those infield grounders and whatnot. But frankly, at least as far as I'm concerned, Jeff, I don't know if we have reason to believe that 370 is like anything remotely close to sustainable for Josh Rojas.

and so I have some questions there. Not to say that he hasn't had a great season and I mean, it's hard to argue with the results that he's gotten lately. But don't, I wouldn't count Paven Smith and Josh Rojas as being, you know, like light years ahead of Van Meter and Varsho. I think all of those guys still have, you know,

a lot of strides to take forward in their career. Yeah, I agree. And one thing that's, you know, I guess none of them are specifically like, quite young. They're younger players and they're newer to the Diamondbacks, but none of them are like 20 years old. I mean, this is not, these are not like Fernando Tatis Jr. players who are, you know, putting big league results together as, you know, teenagers are 20 or 21 year old. So, so that's something to take into account to. And yeah, I think there's still plenty of growth

left. You know, they're all sort of pieces that it looks like if they can take a step or two forward, these may become kind of like big league regular guys. Yeah. But they all probably have a little bit of a step to take to do that. I think of guys that maybe I'm least confident in that role. I'm probably least confident in Josh Van Meter, maybe being that person. But you're looking at someone who has some like multipositional flexibility, who may be able to do some nice things with the bat.

That's still a valuable piece to have, especially at the league minimum. moment under team control. And yeah, I mean, there's a guy like, you know, Dalton Varsho, I mean, just his athleticism alone and some of the defensive positions that he can play, you maybe feel pretty good about the strides that he's taking. And, man, if, you know, if he can just kind of, you know, take one more step forward and just kind of lock this in and eliminate, you know, I'd even sacrifice some of the peaks if I could get rid of the valleys in production.

I mean, that's a nifty. That's a nifty little player. Pavin Smith kind of feels like a guy who's an outfielder that you love to have on your team, but isn't someone you maybe count on all the time when you're a real contender. And Josh Rojas, I'm not quite sure yet, but certainly looks like he has plenty of room to stick around as a regular for now. And so these guys are going to keep getting opportunities. And I'll just go back to where I started. But, man, I was a little nervous that what if they didn't show up?

What if they didn't produce? And luckily, that has not been the case. So I feel a lot better about that now. I think you touch briefly on the positional flexibility in that group. And I think that will keep those guys around in baseball for probably a long time. Even if they're, you know, even if things don't pan out the best and, you know, they don't become everyday regulars on the diamond backs. You know, I mean, Dalton Varsho can catch. and play center field and Josh Van Meter, you know, plays a bunch of positions.

Josh Ross plays a bunch of different positions. I'm not sure if Pavin Smith should be playing a bunch of different positions, but, but he certainly has, and maybe there's a case to be made along those same lines with some of those other guys. But nonetheless, I think that will certainly work in their favor. Something I want to kind of switch gears over to the Diamondbacks recently promoted several guys in their farm system that I know has caused some buzz. outfielder Alec Thomas and right-handed pitcher Luis Frios.

They were both promoted to AAA Reno. They both coming over from AA. Brandon Fad, who is a guy that we actually got to watch pitch in person just a couple weeks ago in Hillsborough. He was promoted up to AA as well as outfielder Eduardo Diaz. I'll start with a question here. Jim Marshall wanted to know, will we see Frios promoted to the big leagues in September? I'm sure people are maybe wondering the same thing with Alec Thomas.

Jeff, I think we're probably pretty safe to say we'd be awfully surprised if that happened at this point. Yeah, I think there are some things that work maybe in favor of Luis Friuss, you know, getting that a cup of coffee. And then there's some things that kind of work against him. You know, he is on the 40-man roster already, which helps tremendously. And I know that there's been some sort of chomping at the bit, especially around a guy like Alec Thomas, right, where I think a lot of people are excited to see him, but at the same time, he's not on the 40-man roster, which means, you know, the team loses the opportunity to retain someone else in order to add him.

So that's a tougher call. But for Frius, he's already there. So that helps. And I think with Frius, I mean, he's had, he's, I'll just be honest, he surprised me a bit in his ability to continue as a starting pitcher this far up the ladder. There's always been a good little bit of relief risk in his game. Command has always been sort of the weak spot. The raw stuff is pretty good.

You're looking at, you know, three or four pitches that are average or above average. But the command itself always made things a little difficult. But he's kind of hung around in that role. And this is, you know, I know at times even you and I, we've been a little critical about not moving guys to the bullpen faster. you know, they haven't and it's actually kind of worked out here for Frius, but I would still love to see him maybe tried out in that role. Yeah. So instead of kind of scraping by as a sort of fringy starting pitcher who has some really good nights but some really bad ones too, it might just be, you know, best served on all fronts to move him to that relief role. So I'd love to see that.

But I think one of the biggest risks that might be. keep him from doing that is that he might hit kind of his like innings cap before September. This is a guy. I mean, remember we're coming off a pandemic. We're coming off a year in which guys didn't, especially pitchers didn't throw as much.

And he's dealt with injuries at times previously in his career. So he's already set a career high for innings in the season. And I am just really concerned that that they may not wish to go. a whole lot further pushing him for a September call-up just for fun. I think the risk of, you know, some kind of injury, you know, probably outweighs just wanting to see the raw stuff on the major league stage. So, yeah, I don't know how they'll go, but I tend to assume they'll take sort of the conservative front, especially in terms of health.

Yeah, on the Alec Thomas front, I think we would all love to see that. I mean, he's, I think Alec Thomas is probably the most legit prospect that Diamondbacks have called up in, in probably a very long time. Dalton Varshow was maybe up there. He was a pretty well-regarded guy when he made the move to the majors. But Alec Thomas is, I don't want to say he's a sure thing. No one is in this league. But he's a guy who a lot of people feel pretty good about sticking around at the big league level for a long time. you know, he's a left-handed hitter.

He plays center field, has a good chance to stick there if he needed to. And he just kind of does everything. He can steal bases occasionally as solid speed, you know, can hit for average, takes his walks, has some decent power, maybe a little bit more gap power right now. But, you know, could hit 15 to 20 homers some seasons. And I think a lot of people would love to see that. But maybe next May, it seems like a reasonable timeline for him. Yeah, I think that's probably more realistic. I just, I don't think they're going to make that move in terms of the 40 man this season on his behalf.

And even come next year, you know, you know, service time manipulation kind of being what it is. We don't know what the new CBA is going to say. We don't know really what baseball is going to look like come next spring. But it's safe to say that at least under the current operating procedure, you know, it's unlikely he'd even break camp with the team. So yeah, and I think what you're getting at is, is true and in quite a sense, just because the floor with Alec Thomas is so high. He may not have the highest ceiling of anyone in the system. I don't think anyone, you know, we'd look at like Jordan Lawler, who is, you know,

just selected by the team and sort of the skies of the limit there. I think Alec Thomas's, you know, ceiling is as a very good, like, all-star caliber outfielder, but the floor, like there isn't a lot of threat that he's going to fizzle. He just brings too many skills to the table to not be useful in some way. So yeah, I think you're right on. But yeah, the timeline for a guy like Alex Thomas is definitely going to be pushed out. And those guys have their spots taken in AA by Brandon Fadden and outfielder, Eduardo Diaz.

I know Diaz in particular is someone who, I don't know, Jet, has your opinion on him changed? I know for a while you maybe weren't so high on him, but lately, I mean, he hit, what was it, like eight home runs in like two weeks or something like that? It was a crazy run from him recently. What do you have to say about the future of a prospect of a lot of fans might not have actually heard of in an outfielder, Eduardo Diaz? Yeah, I sort of like popped up on a bunch of radars, which I guess tends to have. happen when you hit eight home runs in 14 games. Yeah, funny how that works. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, in some regards, you know, it's a super cool moment. He's been a Diamondbacks prospect for a really long time. He's had some stance. And I recall back when he was in Missoula here several years ago,

that he performed pretty well. But he lost some time to injury and has kind of stalled, frankly. And I mean, there's a 24-year-old who was, you know, finally having a nice little run here in high A, but 24 is kind of old for that. So it's good that he's going to get a shot at double A. I think the scouting report on him has always been that the swing is kind of short and choppy. He's not an especially physical prospect. He won't really wow you necessarily defensively. It's not. and the power output, you know, would sort of suggest that maybe he's this large hulking human

who just, you know, bash his home runs on a, you know, every other game basis. But that's not quite who he is physically either. So it's been a neat time, but he's not someone who I have especially high hopes for being like a regular contributor for the Diamondbacks down the road. but I mean also he just did something that was pretty unique. So maybe there's more there than meets the eye. Maybe there are some more improvements that have been made and more to come. So you kind of remain optimistic, but he was sort of off the radar for a reason.

And yeah, I think that's kind of where things stand with him. Moving on here to Kyle Collins. Kyle is curious about Seth Beer. He says following his last month, what is the expectation? for him the rest of this year and going into next. Could Christian Walker be on his way out after this season? I think that's a great question. The team so far has seemed almost excessively committed to Christian Walker.

I mean, it sort of feels like there's got to be something up there. I know you were telling me this the other day that you suspected this, Jeff, that maybe they're trying something. Maybe they're feeding him some information, trying to get him to change something about his approach at the plate or something. but they've given him a lot of reps lately. And meanwhile, Seth Beer has sort of been crushing in AAA, which, of course, you always take with a grain of salt,

just given what we know about Reno and just how guys tend to hit there with the environment. But nonetheless, it sort of feels like kind of a, you know, a slam dunk moment to call on Seth Beer and give him a shot. Christian Walker hasn't exactly done anything this year to really prove, you know, prove that he deserves. this spot in the long term. I don't know if I'm ready to say Christian Walker is on his way out after this season,

but I think it's certainly, you know, a valid question. I mean, if Christian Walker is, I mean, this season has sort, I mean, he's looked like a completely different guy in a lot of ways. It's not just that, you know, he's not getting on base as much. It's that he basically isn't hitting for any power at all, which is something that I didn't really expect. I wondered if, you know, maybe Christian, Walker wouldn't be able to maintain a decent batting average at some point in his big league

career. But I didn't really expect the power to drop off on this level. He's not really been able to keep a slugging percentage anywhere close to 400 throughout the year. And that's obviously going to be something that you're looking for out of a first baseman. Jeff, I don't know if we necessarily feel like Seth Beer is the long-term answer either, but it sure feels like he probably warrants a shot at this point in the season. Yeah, I'm there. Yeah, I'm there, I think, in that regard. And, you know, Walker, I think always was, I guess I would, I guess I would maybe label him as a low end first base alternative. He was never, you know, it was never forecast that he was going to turn into Freddie Freeman or something. That just wasn't in the cards for him. The power was always a little bit.

bit on the light side, you know, based on how, based on some, you know, maybe traditional, you know, sort of first base production metrics. But to your point, I mean, Seth Beer and I've been a little maybe underwhelmed at times with with his production in AAA, he has turned up the heat somewhat considerably as of late. I don't know if he's, you know, sniffing that, you know, this might be coming for him. But he looks like someone who, is really ready to sort of, you know, starting to really, I guess, maybe more officially make that push. So it looks like, you know, he's kind of positioning himself well. And Walker just, you know, just is kind of failing to turn things around in any meaningful way.

And I know we were sort of talking perhaps offline about that and just, you know, kind of why they're continuing to give him those opportunities. You know, I tend to think there's a reason for these things. They don't happen in a vacuum. Yeah. So I wonder if there isn't some sort of adjustment, something that they're working on with Christian Walker, and they want to find out if it's going to work before they, you know, cut bait and pull the plug. So I think there's something probably happening there in order to just give him every last opportunity to prove that he really belongs. But Seth Beer is actually starting to knock on the door kind of more in earnest. and really prove that time is kind of ticking and he's going to need a look.

I think the hard part, again, is that he's not on the 40-man roster. That's going to necessitate a move. I don't know if you want to just outright release Christian Walker and let's sit beerfield, let's spot, or you want to make some other kind of move. Yeah, I'm not really sure how they want to handle that, but that does complicate the situation a little bit. So not quite so cut and dry there. And the last thing I'll add is that with the CB,

B.A. expiring at the end of the year, you know, does sound like there's more and more momentum that a universal DH will come into play. Seth Beer is, even for a first baseman, not particularly fleet of foot. Might be the way that I'd put that. So he may be sort of like a guy you just kind of stash and hide until you have a good feeling that you're going to have a DH next year and you'd just rather have him do that. Yeah, no, I think that's fair. That actually, I didn't realize he wasn't on the 40 man.

That makes a lot of sense that maybe the team is genuinely kind of fighting with the idea that they might need to release Christian Walker outright in order to bring Seth Beer up here. And that would certainly, you'd want to make sure that was something that you were ready to do if you were going to go that route. Another question here from Kyle Collins. We talked about the greatness of the weekend series against the San Diego Padres. There was one thing about it that wasn't so great, and that was Zach Gowan pitching on Sunday, who just did not really look like the Zach Gowan we've been used to seeing

throughout most of his Diamondbacks career. The last few weeks since his return from injury just hasn't seemed like the same guy. Kyle says, what do you think is leading to Zach Gallon's lack of usage for the rest of his arsenal? talking about his breaking stuff. He's focusing much more on the fastball than last year,

and I think that's a big part of his struggle. And yeah, Kyle is just curious on our thoughts on that. I think that's a great point. If you've watched Zach Gowan pitch lately, it's definitely been a lot more foreseamer, not as much with the cutter, not as much with the breaking stuff, which, at least from what I've seen in his career

when he's at his best, it's because his breaking stuff is filthy and no one can hit it. And he's just really struggled to do that with consistency ever since returning from injury. So I'm not sure if this is a matter of him not being as comfortable throwing those pitches or something with his mechanics that's become an issue since that time. But Zach Gallen has sort of changed the way that he's pitching and it really hasn't

worked at all as we saw on Sunday. Yeah, that's definitely a cause for concern. And I wanted to sort of look and just see how those pitches were performing, like on their own, and dig in a little bit there. And to my surprise, you know, I expected that, you know, since he's using the breaking pitches less, a slider and curveball less often, I thought perhaps those pitches had been, you know, less effective of late. Maybe you've been having a difficult time generating the same spin on them. I'm not sure from a raw spin rate perspective, but from a movement perspective, he's actually getting more vertical movement, more drop on his slider and his curveball. And vertical movement tends to play really well to both right and left-handed hitters.

It's sort of platoon proof, I guess you might say, or sort of hedges in that direction. So it doesn't look like, and even when I looked at sort of horizontal movement, I didn't see any red flags. It doesn't look like the pitches themselves. are performing really any worse. So that leads me to believe that it's not necessarily an effectiveness thing. It's more of a conscious choice. And then we look back at, you know, kind of the injuries that he's suffered this year. You know, the forearm fracture, the elbow sprain, some of those things.

And we think about the torque that's put on an elbow to throw a breaking ball. I mean, we think back to when Patrick Corbyn was rehabbing from Tommy John and trying to to throw his change up more, so he didn't have to throw that slider all the time. I'm starting to lean towards that direction of just taking some of the stress off of his elbow as a possible explanation for that. So I'd love to maybe hear more from Zach or hear more from the team about why that's happening. You certainly, you know, for a guy that really looked like the team's ace for the next

several years and you sort of hate to see something like that and hope that it's it's something that you know if it is physical it's something that with an offseason of rest and recovery and maybe a little rehabilitation will come back to the way that it was but um this fastball heavy arsenal is not really working as you noted and uh his command just has not been as pinpoint as it has been in years past and the stuff itself is not i mean the fastball itself is not that exceptional. What made it so exceptional was how well he located it. And when that's not happening, it's, the results can get kind of ugly.

Yeah, it's felt lately like he's kind of missed small in some ways with a lot of breaking pitches that are just like kind of slightly outside the zone and guys aren't chasing them. And they're just kind of sitting on the fastball. And he's just gotten way too much of the strike zone on a lot of those pitches. If you look through just, basically every hit that has come against Zach Gallen over the last few weeks. A lot of them are on pitches that are just getting way more of the strike zone than you normally expect for, you know, for a guy of his caliber who has established himself as kind of a corner's

artist over the last couple of years and unfortunately just hasn't really been able to replicate that. Moving along here, Sean Ramberan, this is a good one. He says, what do you think would constitute a successful last six weeks of the season. I'll go ahead and start off with this one. I think for me, it's all about the young guys. And maybe, I mean, I think that's fairly obvious in some ways. But I don't know what else you're really looking for other than for Josh Rojas and

Pavin Smith and especially I have my eyes on Dalton Varshow because I think his ceiling is about as high as anyone out of that group. and just signs from those guys that they can be part of a winning Diamondbacks team in the future. I think Dalton Varsho is probably the guy I have my eyes on the most because as I said, he has the ceiling. He had the prospect pedigree coming in here. And even though the results haven't been great so far,

I don't think the Diamondbacks have really given him that much of an opportunity. I'm really excited to see what he's able to turn the rest of these six weeks into just for his career as he can. continues to get more and more playing time. Seth Beer, I think will be interesting. I think that will happen at some point. The 40-man roster issue is sort of an issue, and we'll see how the team works through that, but I think we'll probably see him before the end of the year.

Curious to see what he brings to the club here as we continue to think about what first base might look like beyond this season. But I have my eyes on Dalton Varshow more than anything else, Jeff. what about you? I think for me, it's them playing 500 baseball down the stretch, which may seem unrealistic, but I really need that to happen for my bold prediction from about six weeks ago to come true. I think they have to be better than 500 by now, right? I guess they've won four out of five.

So maybe, yeah, maybe that would be about right now. It's either plus or minus a game of 500. I need them to be. No, I think it's, I just have to wave the white flag and your bull prediction is going to come true and mine isn't and that's okay. I'm with you. I think you kind of nailed it on Varshal. I'll go another direction. And if I'm kind of taking this aside from just, you know, hoping that the youth movement continues to pay dividends, I'm going to hope that Kattel Marte shows in

uptick and power at the plate and that he definitely stays on the field for like the remainder of the year. Yeah. It's a good one. You know, I'm scared about, you know, we just talked about was Zach Allen. You know, Catele-Marte is sort of the equivalent, you know, on the position player side. So that's where I'll look. That's where I'll pin my hopes that Cotel-Marte stays on the field.

And if we can see an uptick and, you know, empower production from him, even better. Yeah, that's huge. I mean, I think Kattel is sort of your key on offense and Zach Gallen is sort of your key long term on the pitching side of things. And if neither of those guys can stay on the field, you know, I mean, it doesn't matter what when some of these younger players turn into,

you're going to need those guys to perform day in, day out. I was blown away. The other day I was listening to the radio and Greg Schulte mentioned the numbers. Ketel Marte has missed more than half the season. He's missed 69 games. this year. And it's sort of that hamstring has just continued to creep up for him. And, you know, he's a pretty young guy. He's not, you know, is Drewbel Cabrera and Cole Calhoun. And, you know,

some of these guys on the wrong side of 30 who you kind of figure might have an occasional IL stint. Ketel Marte is, you know, kind of right in the middle of his career. And you'd certainly hate to see him kind of form a reputation for being the type of guy who just, you just can't stay on the field. So I think that's a, that's a big one there. Beyond that, Jeff, I think we made it to the end of all of these questions. Thank you so much to everyone for keeping us busy here in this episode. This is fun. I know one other thing you wanted to talk about, Jeff, is the Arizona Fall League,

which is always an incredible way to spend a night or a day in the months of September and October as the Arizona Fall League sort of takes over the Arizona League. landscape. There's always some, you know, some pretty fun baseball to watch around the corner in those months in the Phoenix area. And it's not always just the Diamondbacks. There's pretty much all of the best prospects in baseball, at least the ones that, you know, need the reps that are chosen by their teams, are all in the valley for about a month or two. And Jeff, it'll be interesting for the Diamondbacks. You know, they certainly have some guys, some guys who were really looking forward to seeing in the long term.

They have some guys who might be pretty fit for that role being in the Arizona Fall League to represent the Diamondbacks. Who's on your mind is someone that we might look to see once that rolls around? Yeah, definitely. I'm certainly excited for that. I know we did have some prospect-related questions tonight, and that's where a lot of the focus is going. I think one guy that I'm really excited to see there who I'm hopeful will.

We'll be there is right-handed pitcher, Slade Chaconi, who was shut down in Hillsboro here recently and placed somewhat abruptly on the 60-day injured list. Come to find out that it was more about, you know, the team meeting to sort of free up a roster spot by moving him to the 60-day injured list and that it was going to be difficult to sort of rush him back in time. He was dealing with a little bit of elbow discomfort, but it's said to be. be very precautionary and that actually the team would like to get him able to sort of make up the missed innings in the Arizona Fall League.

So that would be very, very exciting. I think he is a pitcher who has a chance to land on some top 100 lists this offseason. He's really kind of move forward in a really positive way. Second rounder from the 2020 draft. No, 2019 draft. I might have that mixed up. It's late here. I apologize.

But I think along those same lines could be Bryce Jarvis, who is just about, as just beginning a rehab assignment. He's been out for a little while after making it up to AA. So, I mean, those are two really big names on the pitching side that I think could be there. Yeah, that alone would be really exciting. But on the position player side, I don't really know. I was speaking with someone. last week about whether or not Alec Thomas would be someone that would show up in the

NFL. Yeah. In a sense, you know, he's kind of done what you sort of need him to do. We don't know how this AAA stint's going to go, but you kind of have a good feeling about it. So I don't know if they'll need to send him there or not, but he could show up there. I think Geraldo Pardomo could spend some time to Arizona Folly, given he had sort of some struggles this year. He was actually recently sent from AA back to the complex for a few weeks to iron some things out and has made it back to AA and is now all of a sudden hitting

quite a bit. He's been red hot in his return. And I know a guy who's maybe kind of sneaky and off the radar that you and I, Jesse, were talking about recently, Dominic Canzon. Is someone else who just, I think, flies under the radar in this system, but has hit and hit and hit everywhere he is gone. It has kind of a sneaky profile. I don't know that that's really a star in the making, perhaps the big league level, but could be a big leaker for sure. So I am really hopeful that this fall, this October, November, I'll be able to get out

to Arizona. It's a great time to be there. I really miss going to Arizona Fall League. So something I'm really looking forward to. And I know that we're all kind of looking ahead to the future. This will be another chance to see that. Shikoni was the 2020 draft. Just to set that straight.

Yeah, yeah, it feels like I've heard his name for a while. That was a pretty recent development. I realized we skipped over one question, which is another good one I want to sort of close off with here. Justin McDiarmont says, What prospects are having surprising seasons in the farm system this season, surprisingly positive and negative? I'll start with one real quick.

It kind of comes to mind right away. I know we've talked about him in recent episodes. On the negative side, Geraldo Perdomo has not been great. It's been really ever since he had a very brief stint in the major leagues with the diamond backs. They desperately needed someone to play shortstop. They pulled the trigger and called him up.

And he really has just not hit at all in AA. That's where he spent the majority of the season. And it's, yeah, it's been a tough year all around. for him. We know the defense is there. He's still taking his walks, but the numbers offensively have been pretty rough. I know he had a home run the other day. Things have maybe looked a little

better for him of late, but I think Geraldo Perdomo, I mean, he's only 21 years old. It's not like you need this guy in the big leagues right now. He's got time. But this was probably maybe a slight step back for him or just sort of a

slap in the face of reality that maybe Perdomo needs a little bit more time to just sort of figure some things out offensively before he's really ready to be an everyday big league guy. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's fair. The bat was always going to be a little slow. Yeah.

I know the hype sort of got there on him. And I think that's a little bit of the nature of just kind of how he arrived. He sort of showed up stateside and started generating a lot of buzz. But I think the bat still has a way to go. He showed some positive signs since coming back as we were saying. So, yeah, that certainly kind of. falls in the negative category for me. The Corbyn Carroll injury early,

I don't think that's going to cause him any problems necessarily for starting next year, but he's obviously been out all year that stinks. Corbin, Martin, and J.B. Bukowskis have really had their troubles. That hasn't been great. And there really just haven't been a lot of breakout bats overall. So those are maybe some of the surprises on the negative side, but on the positive side, like all of the starting pitching that's come through Hillsborough at some point this year has been amazing.

Brandon Fad, who has gone from, you know, semi-obscurity in a shortened draft last year to a guy who has a lot of national buzz. It sounds like the team was getting some interest in him at the trade deadline, etc. Blake Walson, Slade Chaconi, Bryce Jarvis, etc. All those guys have really had some great years. You know, Alec Thomas, I think kind of making good on his pedigree has been really, really solid to see. and a sneaky guy who is really young and is just starting to show up sort of on the radar of folks. And I've kind of noticed him here a month, month and a half ago when he started his season is 18-year-old, freshly 18-year-old, Davison de Los Santos, who is now playing at Vicelya.

He just turned 18. He is one of only a handful of guys from the 2019. international signing period to be in low A baseball. And that includes some guys like Jason Dominguez, who's one of baseball's top prospects. This kid has kind of gone from absolute obscurity. I think he signed for around $200,000. Wasn't really a huge sign. Has really shown up in a big way.

Has been very quickly promoted. Has been brought stateside and is hitting well. And Vicelia playing against guys that are two, three, four or five years older than him. I've only seen a little bit of him play, but it looks like there's some real feel for contact, feel for the barrel there. And he has the kind of frame that makes you think,

oh, if this guy can, you know, find the barrel of the bat, there's enough size and strength that look like they could come here, that this could be pretty exciting. So let's just,

let's just tuck that away right now. It's easy to get excited about 18-year-old player. who are just showing up on the radar, but Davidson de los Santos has really been intriguing. That might be my single biggest surprise. I hate to throw this out there as something to end the show with, but on the negative side of things, I guess that's where he would have to go.

We got some very unfortunate news about Diamondback's top prospect, Christian Robinson, earlier today, just about his whole situation. You could certainly go on and read about it. I won't bore you all with the details, but he made a mistake about a little over a year ago, last April, and basically was charged with assault of a police officer. He was going through some mental battles during the shutdown when obviously things were pretty crazy at that time last year in the middle of COVID and all of those things happening. But all that to say, Christian Robinson, we basically found out today, is sort of, is sort of an impossible position where he needs a visa in order to continue, you know,

staying in the U.S. and continuing to play baseball. But unfortunately, because of, because of his track record with that felony that's now on his record, we don't think he'll be able to get that visa in order to continue his playing career. So there's a longer story up on the athletic, which I'd recommend Zach Buchanan wrote a piece that kind of brings. and all of the details. But suffice it to say, Jeff, Christian Robinson is in just a really sad position. And this obviously goes far beyond his playing career just into his personal life. He has, I believe he has an infant son and his girlfriend.

They're both in Arizona. And he sort of is facing the possibility of kind of getting stuck in the Bahamas. And it's not really clear when he could begin his playing career again. And, you know, probably more importantly when he could, you know, see sort of this young, up-and-coming family in Arizona that he started. So all the way around just a really, really sad story. And yeah, I don't really know what else to say on the matter, except it's pretty devastating news for, you know, a 21-year-old in a really,

really tough spot right now. Yeah, absolutely. No, I think that's well said. And it's, it definitely transcends baseball. I think it speaks to, you know, what the last 18 or 20 months have been like for some folks. Yeah. You know, I definitely think empathetically about being in a foreign country,

being isolated, not being able to go home, not being able to have your family come to you, you know, and just sort of, you know, I think about being that age and, you know, I could relate back to being that age myself and sort of the mental immaturity that came at that time, the emotional immaturity that came at that time. And those were under normal circumstances. I definitely have a little bit of a soft spot there. And yeah, it's a really a tough, tough situation. And it does a, you know, we've talked about surprises a lot tonight from Tyler Gilbert to Davis and de la Santos.

And here's one for Christian Robinson. It's just a reminder that, you know, baseball, nothing is certain. Nothing is given. And, you know, it can all change really quickly. So I just, you know, I hope that Christian Rob is someone. I think you and I both have, you know, seen and or spoken to in person and interviewed and has always come off really, really well. I know from his time in Hillsborough, he was very highly regarded off the field by the staff

in Hillsborough and really appreciate it as an like upstanding young man. So yeah. Yeah, just a really sad situation, something that you hope that just him as a person is, is okay going forward. Yeah, yeah, I got to interview him. I guess that was a couple years ago now, summer of 2019, back when the world was normal.

And, yeah, it was a brief conversation, but Christian Robinson is probably the, I mean, I haven't interviewed that many players so far in my sports journalist career, but Christian Robinson is probably the interview that has stuck out the most to me, just how, you know, he and I are around the same age and just how well he connected and just an incredibly, incredibly mature young man just for, you know,

like you said, coming all the way over from the Bahamas at age 17 or whatever it was and just everything he's been through. So certainly wish him all the best moving forward. Hopefully, you know, there's a way out of this. We'll certainly keep you posted as we hear more on his situation. But with that, we're almost to an hour. So we got to get out of here. It's after one in the morning local time and I'm still sitting in a parking lot in a campsite and I cannot see anything.

So on that note, we're going to go ahead and wrap things up here. But thank you so much for listening here to this 37th episode of the Rattle Podcast. As always, you can find us on Twitter at the RattleAZ. We'd love to interact with you there. You can find our pages personally as well. Mine is at Jesse N. Friedman. Jeff's is at Outfield Grass 24. Hit us up. If anything else comes to mind, we'd love to hear from you.

But with that, thanks again so much for listening. And we'll be back again next week to talk more about the 2021 Arizona Diamondbacks.