PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Ep. 5: Selecting a 37-Game MVP, Archie Bradley's Streakiness, Replacing Zack Godley, and More

Episode Date: May 10, 2019

We discuss Archie Bradley's bounce-back outing, Luke Weaver's breakout, how the D-backs might approach the trade deadline, 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.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode five of the Rattle Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Jesse Friedman, along with Jeff Weiser, my co-host here on the Rattle podcast. And Jeff, this Arizona Diamondbacks team continues to plug along as we talk at this moment. They are 21 and 16. They're in second place in the NL West Division. for those of you who are tracking the playoff race already on the day of game 38, which I'm not really sure why you would be tracking the playoff race too closely at this point.

But if you are, the Diamondbacks are tied for the second wildcard spot in the National League as of this moment. So I suppose we'll continue to monitor that as the season plugs along. But Jeff, you look at this baseball team right now since we last spoke. they completed a two-game sweep of the New York Yankees. And then they went out to Colorado for a weekend series. They took two out of three there. I think the game on Sunday was one that a lot of Diamondbacks fans wish the Diamondbacks could have back.

Archie Bradley had a very rough go, as we all know, in that game in the bottom of the eighth inning. He gave up five runs. And what was a 7-3 lead turned into an 8-7 deficit? Diamondbacks went on to lose that game 8 to 7. And then the Diamondbacks went to Tampa Bay to take on what is arguably one of the best teams in the American League, maybe the best team in the American League at this point in the season. And I think the Diamondbacks went there and they figured out why. They lost the first game on Monday 12 to 1. That was a pretty rough one to watch by all accounts.

They also lost the Tuesday game 6 to 3. That was the game that Taylor Clark pitched in. That was his major league debut. And then on Wednesday, the Diamondbacks were able to salvage a 3-2 wins. in there and at least get one of those three games of the series. That of course coming in 13 innings. It was a bit of a wild game in Tampa Bay. But the Diamondbacks able to pull that one out. And then again, yesterday on Thursday, the Diamondbacks pull out an extra inning game against the Atlanta Braves by a final score of three to two. So, Jeff, you look at this team so

far, 21 and 16 as we enter the middle days of the month of May. And this Diamondbacks team is still by all accounts in pretty good shape, especially given the difficulty of the schedule they've played so far. Yeah, they've played a really tough schedule. And like, I think we touched on it on a previous show, but this was always going to be a really tricky month for them and they're a tricky lead into the season, and they've survived it.

So, you know, they've survived it too, like without Paul Goldman, without A.J. Pollock and then also without Lamb and Sousa. So it's kind of, you know, it's quite, surprising really like uh i don't know if anyone would have would have necessarily uh expected it but you know as you mentioned a couple of you know extra inning wins i mean the diamond backs are four and one already this season extra inning games um you know and those games are are usually close games decided by you know a very slim margin so those are kind of some of the little

things that you have to do along the way and you know are they going to continue to to win four out of every five extra inning games? Probably not, but it's certainly not hurting them right now. I don't think it's a very analytical word and maybe not one that we would use too often, but you have to admit this Diamondbacks team, like you said, they've performed very well in extra inning games. And I think at least as of late, they've performed well in close games in general.

We talked earlier in the season about the Diamondbacks just lacking the ability to win close games. games and is this a team that is going to struggle in one-run games like last year's team did for a large portion of the season? And as of late, the Diamondbacks have fared pretty well in those games. And I think, Jeff, I've gotten the sense from Diamondbacks fans that although there are maybe still questions floating around that this team is, you know, is this team really for real? Are they really contenders in the National League? I think those questions are very much still being asked. But at the same time, I don't think anyone is asking, is this team fun to watch?

Because some of these games have been just incredible. You know, really the kind of game that you draw up from the very beginning that has a little bit of everything involved. You know, you fall behind, you come back, you fall behind again, you come back. David Peralta hit a very, very dramatic game tying home run with two outs in the ninth inning yesterday. You can say that the Diamondbacks won't continue this throughout the entire season, the kind of performance that they have been able to play with so far.

But what you can't say is that this team has not been very fun to watch so far. Absolutely. I mean, I think one of the neat things kind of about the way this team's constructed is, and we've touched on, is that the lineups a little deeper. There seem to be more guys capable of putting the ball in play without making an out. You know, I don't think they have some of the power that they've showcased before, maybe. Christian Walker has certainly been trying to uphold that, but, you know, throughout like a lot of the lineup, and now that Adam Jones has kind of cooled off, you know, it's not the most thunderous lineup in baseball. But it's fun because they seem to be able to sort of like string together hits and, you know, put together some, you know, put together some crooked numbers without necessarily having to rely on hitting the ball over the fence.

So that alone makes baseball kind of exciting. I think it's part of like the larger debate going. on around the game, right? Of, you know, is this game of, of strikeouts and home runs and very little in between as entertaining as, you know, a double, followed by a run scoring single, followed by another double? Like, you know, I don't know. So, you know, to each their own, there's no, it's kind of like a racist. There's, there's no way, wrong way to enjoy baseball. You can kind of, you can kind of do, you know, whatever suits you, but I think, I think they've been particularly fun to watch. And there's been a lot of like

dramatic moments, kind of like we saw last night with, you know, extra innings. I mean, they're down to their final out. And, you know, David Peralta comes up huge, cranks a Homer, you know, and then we get, you know, an extra ending wins with the Carson Kelly double and Ketel Marte, you know, doing his job. And it's, you know,

they've not been, they've not been for like a lack of a lack of drama. And, you know, in one run games, the team is nine and eight. and we'd expect, you know, usually you're pretty much 50-50 on those, so that's fine. But what that tells us, I think, is that like 17 of the teams, you know, 38 games, essentially half of them have been really close competitive games. So that also, I think, adds to kind of the fun factor. This is something I tweeted out from the Rattles Twitter account today at the Rottles.

I believe this, if you're listening to this show soon enough, then this poll is actually probably still available. You can go and vote on it. But this is a question I want to pose to you as well, Jeff. I basically ask the question, through 37 games, who is the Diamondbacks MVP? And of course, Twitter only gives me four different options that I'm allowed to list.

So I believe I put Christian Walker, David Peralta, Luke Weaver, and Zach Granky, can tell Marte, Eduardo Escobar, are also guys that you very easily could. have included in that poll. And I think it's a really interesting question because in past seasons, you know, there's been, of course, the question, is Paul Goldschmidt, the MVP of the National League? But there's really never been the question, is Paul Goldschmidt the MVP of the Arizona Diamondbacks? Because it was basically a given that your star first baseman, this guy who would

become the face of the franchise over the course of his time here, he was the Diamondbacks best player pretty much unquestionably over the course of his time here. But now that Goldschmidt has moved on and is in St. Louis, and we might talk a little later in the show, he's not performing quite at the level that one would maybe expect Goldschmidt to perform out. We'll get into that in a second. But this Diamondbacks roster is it set right now without Goldschmidt, there really is no clear superstar.

So who would you choose through 37 games to be the closest that the diamondbacks have to that guy through what we've seen this season so far. This is a brutal question. It really is because I think you can make a case for the guys you listed. I mean, Christian Walker came in and filled a void, gives the line up that punch that it's, you know, really frankly kind of missing. He provides a little bit of that balance. But then David Peralta has just been so good, like, you know, consistently throughout the season.

I mean, it's, you know, he's kind of like the motor that makes it go, I think. And, you know, Luke Weaver has been like a huge shot in the arm. I mean, this team needed another guy that was going to go out and be able to pitch the way he has. And so I think that makes a tremendous difference. And then, you know, outside of really, you know, one horrendous start, Zach Granky's been awfully good, too. So, I mean, just a brutal, brutal question. If I had to pick, I would probably pick. I probably pick David Peralta just in the sense that I think he kind of carries the lineup.

And to me, he's the guy that you can count on the most. I mean, I think he's the most, probably the most consistent, doesn't seem to, or at least the season hasn't really seemed to have any sort of like prolonged slumps. He's just been kind of rock solid every day. And, you know, one of the things I like about him is he, you know, more often than not, gives you a really good at bat. And even if he makes an out, like, he's going to battle. So I would probably go that direction, but I would absolutely not fight anybody for picking

any one of the other three options. Like, you can make the case on all of them. You mentioned Luke Weaver and just how big he has been for the diamond back so far. And I think, you know, I think we all knew there was maybe a little bit more ceiling in his game, especially with the down year that he had last year in St. Louis. He was much better two years ago. and I think some people expected he could become, you know, the pitcher that he was two years ago and maybe get back to that.

But what Luke Weaver has done for the Diamond Back so far is far in a way the best of anything he's done in his career. I mean, you look at some of the numbers right now, a 2980RA, 293 FIP, or 355-X-FIP, so it's backed up by some other numbers as well. He's getting a lot of strikeouts. I believe he has 50 strikeouts in 45 and a third inning as compared to 10 words. walks, which are both extremely, extremely good numbers. He's not allowing a terribly lot of hits either.

And you go up and down, you know, all these numbers with Luke Weaver, and it is really hard to find anything that has gone wrong so far for this guy. He leads the Diamondbacks and wins above replacement among all of their pitchers. By actually a decently wide margin, he's at 1.3 wins above replacement as of this moment through eight starts. So, Jeff, Luke Weaver, what have you? seen from this guy so far this season? I mean, he continues to really, I mean, he's a guy that, to me, when I watch him pitch,

he's a competitive pitcher. He's around the zone a lot. Yeah. He doesn't seem to really want to waste a lot of pitches. Like, we talked about it a bit in the last show, but I do think he makes a lot of competitive pitches. The raw stuff is pretty good. It's not maybe super electric, but it's,

it's clearly good enough. And it's been really interesting. This season, you know, he, well, he came to the Diamondbacks was sort of a, you know, I guess, you know, a known issue with trying to throw a breaking ball. And he's had a curveball. They can kind of get over for strikes, but it's just not, it's not a swing and miss type of pitch for him. And, you know, he makes his living kind of off that change up and playing it off the fastball. But he's really reduced the curveball usage so far this season.

and, you know, picked up, you know, on using his cutter more, which, you know, is sort of a, you know, like a hard slider type pitch. But, you know, it seems to be getting the job done. I mean, the pitch has been very valuable for him. And, you know, it's kind of, it's kind of crazy. But he's, you know, maybe in some ways, like I think back to Robbie Ray, right? When Robbie Ray just couldn't throw a breaking ball really to save his life, you know, and he's certainly found that in time. But it looks like, you know, weavers kind of. of made his own adjustment. That's been going more to that cutter. So I think that's something for all of us to kind of keep an eye on is, you know, as a rightee, can he bury it in on lefties consistently? And against righties, you know, how's he using it? Is he running it, you know, off the plate kind of like he would have sliders? So that's going to be kind of a fun thing to watch. And so he's made that adjustment, right? So now we kind of wait and see if hitters make, you know, an adjustment in return. Speaking of making adjustments, I think you could make an entire storyline out of Archie Bradley's season, really just between when we last spoke and this episode right here.

As I mentioned earlier on Sunday, he completely blew up in Colorado. He gave up five runs in the bottom of the eighth inning. One of the more demoralizing losses that the Diamondbacks have had this year, you're up seven three going to the bottom of the eighth. You lose the game eight seven because your ace reliever. gives up five runs. It was a tough pill to swallow for a lot of people that loss against Colorado. And I think at least for me, I really expected that Archie Bradley was probably on the verge of having a game like that. Because at that point, the ERA was, I think, still around two or maybe even a little bit under two. But all of his peripheral stats were just all over the place.

just walking a lot of guys giving up a lot of hits a lot of hard contact it was very clear that even though at that point his ERA was still good his stuff was just not the same as is what we've seen in the last couple of years and in that game it became very clear and I think maybe course field has a way of of making that happen very quickly for a pitcher but it was it was a rough game for archie Bradley and after that game Torre levello announced that maybe he would steal year away from using Bradley in those late game situations where the game is on the line. He would try to go a different direction. And then, just a couple days ago, Tori Lavello uses Archie Bradley in extra innings with the

game, literally on the line, literally tied in a road game as well. So, you know, any run that he gives up, you lose the game. So by all means definitely at least a relatively high leverage situation. but he goes to Archie Bradley, and Archie Bradley goes in vintage form. You could argue three innings, one hit, no runs, one walk with five strikeouts. Maybe the stuff wasn't quite to the level that we saw back in 2017. But I think that was the first time that we've really seen flashes of the 2017 Archie Bradley since you could even argue that the middle of last season.

It was a really weird. It was really weird to sort of see that. I mean, I, you know, almost be better if Tori Lavello could just call off the eighth inning in general. Because it seems to be where they've run into trouble quite a few times. So, I mean, you know, just in this, you know, this latest, the finale there against, you know, Tampa Bay was, you know, was Yoshihara having some difficulties in the eighth inning. So that's just been kind of a bugaboo for them and, you know, it just seemed to kind of cause them trouble. You know, it was just a very different Archie Bradley out there, you know, in that extra inning kind of marathon game.

I mean, look, when he was in Colorado, I mean, the look on his face, I mean, he just looked shell-shocked. Like, I have no other way to say it. Like, just the look in his eyes. I mean, he looked lost. I don't think most of us as human beings know what it's like to go out there and to fail in front of, you know, tens of thousands of people, you know, on a national stage. I mean, I'd probably look pretty terrified myself. But then to see him come in in Tampa Bay, I mean, he just, he looked loose. He was letting it rip.

He was continuing to work quickly and just seemed to have just a different sort of mojo. And, you know, I'm not here saying like his fastball, you know, was, you know, doing something different or this, that, and the other. I mean, it just almost seemed like a confidence thing. and, you know, he kind of, you know, got through a couple outs, and it looked like he was just like, yeah, like, let's do more of this. And so that was, that was great. That was great to see. And they're going to need him.

I mean, there's no way to kind of get around it. They need him available. And so if they can get him back on track somehow, whether that's, you know, throwing some of these later innings or, you know, less, like lower leverage innings, you know, than so be. it, but they've got to have him. He's got to be functional for them, or they either have to, it's going to cost them big time or they're going to have to make some kind of a move because it's just not something that they

can go without. Another big storyline since we last spoke here on the Rattle Podcast has to do with Zach Godley, their former starting pitcher, who has since Ben moved to the bullpen. I mentioned that Taylor Clark made his major league debut as a starter. in one of the games against the Tampa Bay Rays, I believe it was the middle of those three games where Taylor Clark got the start instead of Zach Godley. Zach Godley, to put it lightly,

has had a bit of a rough go this season, and not exactly what you wanted to see from a guy who a couple years ago people were, you know, drooling over Zach Godley, thinking this was a guy who was about to break out to take it to the next level with the curveball and the cutter and the tunneling and everything that he had,

going for him really, really seemed to break apart last year in a lot of ways and this season has been really even worse than that. And so Tori Lavello wound up going ahead, making the move to take Zach Godley out of the starting rotation. Taylor Clark took his spot the first time around. But as of now, Jeff, we haven't actually heard, I don't believe, who is making that start the next time around. And it could be Zach Godley for all we know. Godley made a a, a relief appearance a couple days ago actually in that 13 inning game against the race to get the save, which was a little bit odd seeing Godley's name there in the box score. But Godley was used in that role, and now we don't really know what the future holds.

Is it Taylor Clark in that rotation spot? Is it Godley moving back there? John DuPontier was just called up again, though I'm still not sure exactly where he's out from a pitch, from a pitch count standpoint, excuse me. So I think there's a lot of unknown when it comes to that fifth rotation spot for the diamond backs at this point. Jeff, how do you see this whole thing shaking out? Yeah, they're going to have to find someone for that start because they don't have another off day until, you know, next Thursday. So they're going to have to make it through that little spot.

It's kind of, it's tricky. I'm not exactly sure who they'll go to. I do think that de Planteer will continue to be used kind of in a relief role with, you know, godly racking up kind of a high pitch count in his first relief of parents and having to be used like, you know, I think he had a day of rest and then had to come back and be used again. And then, you know, Clark was, was, I believe, option down. So, you know, he has to stay down for 10 days. And so that really kind of eliminates him for that next start.

So I'm still waiting like you to kind of figure out where they go with that. I'm not sure. Could it be godly? Could they do some sort of abbreviated start? I mean, if they could get a couple starters to go deep in a few of these games, you know, there's three more against the Braves coming up. You know, maybe they're able to kind of, you know, not have to rely on that Andres and T.J. McFarland too much. And then you can kind of maybe go like a, you know, some combination of, you know, godly Andres, T.J.

sort of deal there. We can kind of, you know, cobble one together, make it a bullpen game where everybody, you know, tries to get two or three innings in, and then you turn it over. So, but that can be risky because if they, you know, if the bullpen implodes or a starter has a really bad game and guys have to start soaking up innings that can make things really tough. So I'm not exactly sure that's going to be a kind of a fun one to watch

and then they get an off day to kind of reset themselves and that'll certainly help. We have a question from Joshua Lefferman. Thanks to Josh for submitting this for our show. I know our announcement was a little bit last minute for this one. So thanks to Josh for getting this one into us. He says, now that it's been a bit since the Paul Goldschmidt trade, where do you stand? Was it worth it? Can Carson Kelly turn it up?

And is Andy Young promising? Jeff, I'll go ahead and give you the first go at this one. Yeah. I mean, it's obviously created a position or an opportunity. for Christian Walker. So, you know, that in itself has been kind of nice. You know, and then obviously we, you know, we touched on, you know, Luke Weaver's performance, which has been solid,

and Carson Kelly's come around a little bit. So, you know, I still think it's obviously hard to evaluate the trade at this time. I mean, think about, you know, you kind of mentioned in the lead end that Paul Goldschmidt's been off to a little bit of a tough start. I mean, he kind of started off the pot, but it's really cooled. we all remember what he went through for about two months last year and then what he did so I'm not closing the book on Paul Galtzman's season just yet you know and you know that's you know that's just we've seen that from him before so it's it's kind of too early to tell but

Andy Young has been just fine in double A he started off really hot and has sort of cooled off so I think I think it's fine is it overwhelmingly positive or negative I don't really think So I think this trade still kind of feels like it did at the time where it feels like kind of fair value, but not maybe like a runaway victory by any means for the Diamondbacks. In terms of the on-field results, I think you pretty much have to say that the Diamondbacks have gotten the brighter side of this trade so far. And I think we probably do ourselves good to recognize how relatively meaningless that is. because we're 37 games into this trade. A lot of these guys are,

especially with Goldschmidt signing the extension with the Cardinals and both Kelly and Weaver being under team control with the Diamondbacks for four plus years. You know, this is a trade that we really can't evaluate at all at this time. But if you want to go, you know, simply by the on-field numbers, Luke Weaver, like I mentioned, as a sub-3RA, he's been quite good. Christian Walker and basically every meaningful statistic,

I guess he probably is a little bit lower on the home run side of things, but he has way more extra base hits altogether. Christian Walker has frankly outperformed Paul Goldschmidt quite handily so far, but whether you want to extrapolate that out to the next five years is a whole other question. And so in the interim, I think we have to say, you know, so far this has worked out about as well as you could imagine for the Diamondbacks. But over the course of the next four or five seasons, I think that's really when we're going to be able to fairly decide was this trade good or not. Yeah, I think looking at trades, it's really tough.

It's kind of like looking at the draft right where you need to give, you know, three, four, five years before you can really go back and evaluate. So, you know, I mean, I think if like Christian Walker is the real deal that he looks like, and let's say he continues to hit like this. He's just a late-blooming guy, but continues to sting the baseball and, you know, performs really well for like the next three or four years. You know, that sways the trade quite a bit too. But as we stand now, we're only through, you know, really like a month and a half of the season. And so it's kind of hard to, kind of hard to really say for sure. But I'm with you.

I think, you know, in terms of the direction that it's going, I mean, it looks encouraging as far as we can see for right now. another question that we got from Matt Steele. He asks us if the Diamondbacks end up being buyers at the deadline, where do you see them making an addition? My guess would be a reasonable bullpen arm, but nothing crazy. I think I'll go ahead and start with this one, Matt. I think this is a pretty reasonable prediction that the Diamondbacks would go after some sort of middling bullpen arm because I think that's clearly going to

be a need for them. But I also, I have a bit of a hard time seeing the diamondbacks push all of their chips in this season. I think last year was probably the last time where you could justify that. And in some ways, the diamondbacks really did go for it. They brought in multiple bullpen arms. They brought in Eduardo Escobar. They brought in John Jay a couple months prior to the trade deadline.

They really did just about everything they could, short of making the big trade for Manny Machado last season. And with this group, I think it's clear that the Diamondbacks can be a good team, but I don't know if any general manager, like I guess in this case, Mike Hazen, I don't know if Mike Hazen is going to sit down and legitimately think that this is a World Series contending team. As much as, you know, the record looks pretty good at this point at the Diamondbacks are, by all means still in the mix. They've played a very difficult schedule. This does not seem to be a fluke. But at the end of the day, you've got to look at the guys on your team and evaluate, is this really a team that can go all the way? And I don't really think the Diamondbacks are in that position.

So if they are still in the mix for the playoff race, I think Mike Hazen is the kind of guy who wants to take advantage of any time while he's general manager, when he feels his team has a chance to go somewhere in the playoffs. I think he will go ahead and make some sort of a move. Maybe for a bullpen arm, I think that's probably a good call, maybe a starting pitcher if this situation with the sort of lacking a good fifth starter situation kind of continues on. I think those are both things they could look to do. But I don't see the diamond backs really pushing all their chips in for one of the bigger pieces available at the trade deadline. Yeah, I mean, I think if we look at like what Pocoda has to say on the matter, if we look at baseball perspective, this is playoff odds.

The Diamondbacks right now, you know, our list that is having 39.9, so let's call it a 40% chance of reaching the playoffs. You know, that's certainly, that's all right. You know what it sounds actually, I mean, on the face of it, it sounds, it feels kind of high. but when we look across kind of the rest of the rest of the national league there I think that number is like seventh highest so and you know obviously only five teams get in so it's going to be it's going to be tricky for them you know to really to really try to make it I just think it's I just think that if they do go that route the bullpen's probably the direction they go it's what they can afford

from a financial standpoint, most likely. It's what they can afford kind of from a, you know, a player currency standpoint, you know, in terms of, you know, letting go of some, you know, letting go of prospects. They're not going to want to, like you said, push all in. They're not going to trade their top prospects for some other type of player. So I think, you know, that kind of feels like the right sort of price point, plus it matches a need.

the only thing that could really change that would be midseason injuries. And, you know, Susa and Lamb aside, you know, and Alex Avila has been hurt. The debacks themselves, you know, haven't suffered tremendously from injuries like some teams have. So I say that not as, you know, saying that it's going to hold, but more as kind of reasoning that those things are still coming. So maybe that changes the math a little bit in terms of something they add. But yeah, I've got a long ways to go there. I want, you know, for me, I want another, you know, six weeks at the very least before I start really thinking about that.

I think if you just look at the landscape of the National League, you mentioned, you know, six or seven teams having higher playoff odds than the Diamondbacks as it stands right now. But, you know, one way to think about this is to just look at the other teams in the league and think, you know, who can the Diamondbacks reasonably beat out? and I think we'd be a little bit crazy if we said the Diamondbacks are going to win the division this year with the way that Cody Bellinger is playing and the way that the Dodgers really all across the board are performing at this point this season. I think it's pretty clear that they're runaway favorites in the National League West,

unless something dramatic changes. Maybe the players are able to get back in the mix. But I don't think it's very realistic to say the Diamondbacks are going to take over the Dodgers in the NOS. So that ship is pretty much sailed. And at that point, you're basically looking at the wild card situation. And fortunately, the diamondbacks have, you know, two wild card spots to play around with. But you look at some of the other teams. You've got the Brewers and the Cardinals right now who are in the Diamondbacks way as of this moment in the wild card.

The Brewers are just a little bit ahead of the Diamondbacks. The Cardinals are actually in a tie with the Diamondbacks for the second spot. as of this moment. And then you've also got the Cubs and the lead for the NL Central. So I don't really think that the Diamondbacks are better than any of those teams. And I think also the Atlanta Braves are a team that could maybe jump back into this race at some point. The Phillies are probably not going anywhere as well with the lead in the NL East. So you look across the National League and frankly, unless the Diamondbacks are able to find a way to be better than the Cardinal, the Brewers, the Cubs, or that's probably the three teams you're looking at,

it's going to be real tough for them to find their way into October baseball. Yeah, and let's not forget, I mean, like, the Padres are a pretty good baseball team. I mean, they're projected for 82 wins and the Diamondbacks are projected for like 84. I mean, the difference there is really like one or two bad relief outings or, you know, a handful of well-timed hits. Right, you can't forget. You can't sway that. Yeah, and the Rockies haven't really like kind of.

of hit a stride, but I think we all know they're a pretty talented ball club. And the Mets are, the Mets have been surprisingly good and continue to be. And the nationals have really struggled, but like you look at some of the talent on that team, it wouldn't be a total shock when Wonsoto gets healthy to see them come back and be strong. So, you know, if the, if the Diamondbacks in the American League, you probably feel a lot better about it. But, you know, to your point, Like there's only a handful of teams you could really count out of this thing at this point. I mean, the Marlins, you know, you can count them out. Giants, you can count them out.

The Reds have had some struggles, but there is some talent on that team. And the pirates haven't been especially good, but that's actually a relatively talented team as well. So there just aren't so many bottom dwellers as there are in the American League. And that's going to really complicate the math for the Diamondbacks as they come down the stretch and think about, you know, maybe adding pieces. We'd be remiss if we went an entire episode of the Rattle podcast and didn't hear about the Diamondbacks Farm System from Jeff Weiser. So Jeff, go ahead and take it away, take us through some of the guys in the Diamondbacks Farm System who stuck out to you as of late. Yeah, so I'll just talk kind of quickly about three guys that I kind of pulled up. Centerfielder Alec Thomas, who was a second round pick last year, made the jump to Kane County.

in his first full pro season, which is a bit of an aggressive assignment for a kid that's 19. Wow. The Diamondbacks have been relatively cautious with a lot of their high school picks. I mean, I think it took, and there were certainly different prospects,

but like Marcus Wilson, who was recently traded, I think it took him probably three years to reach kind of like full season A ball. He really kind of worked his way up slowly, and Thomas gets there to start out in his second full season. So he's been doing extremely well on the year.

He's hitting 297, 388, 406 with not too much power. The 406 there kind of signifies that. But he is certainly notching his hits and managing the strikeouts well enough. I think he's doing fine there. So that's a good sign for a kid who's that young with plenty of room to grow. So you just kind of take it, I think, at this. this stage and say that's encouraging and we'll keep monitoring it. Another kid who's there at Kane County was recently added to that roster is right-handed pitcher Matt Tabor.

Tabor was a third rounder in 2017 and they've taken it pretty slow with him, although he's been, you know, pretty effective when he's pitched. They've just not overworked him, I guess would be probably the best way to say it. But I think he's ready for more. and in his first start he threw four shutout innings, allowed one hit and struck out seven and didn't walk anybody. And he did it in 45 pitches. So I think he's slated to start either today or tomorrow for Kane County and make his second start of the year.

And, you know, he's a kid from the Northeast who, you know, I saw a lot of him last year in Hillsborough. He was kind of, you know, 88 to 90. You know, the curveball flashed at times and the changeup was quite good. good. So I think he's a guy that as he continues to age and kind of physically mature, he's a guy who could add some velocity and could start, you know, kind of more regularly sitting in the low 90s and he's only 20 years old. So that's encouraging. And the last guy I'll kind of shout out is right-handed pitcher Josh Green, who's up in Visalia.

He was a 14th rounder last year. And it moved very quickly. He also pitched in Hillsborough last year. I got to see plenty of him. Fastball was kind of low to mid-90s, lots of sink, big heavy fastball. And he was promoted to start the year in Visalia, just skipped low A altogether and jump straight to high A. And has really held his own, has a 238 ERA and 34 innings. He's made six starts.

He's only struck out 23 over 34 innings, but he's walked only four. and the thing with him is his ground ball rate is is crazy um he is you know averaging more than than three ground balls for every fly ball that he registers so um he's really really kind of like a guy that keeps it on the ground manages the contact and you know i think he's capable of striking out more batters than his last start he went six innings struck out nine and walked only one so um he may still be kind of finding a little bit of that swing and miss but he's a guy that I think really started to pop up for scouts last fall. And then, you know, there was a little bit more buzz about him this spring.

And the team clearly feels like he was advanced enough because they've run him straight to high A. and he's moving pretty quickly. So those are kind of three guys that have been strong of late. And we'll be, you know, definitely sort of guys that continue to watch as the season goes on. One new feature of Arizona Diamondbacks radio broadcast. We want to bring all of your attention to real quick before we say goodbye on this episode is that the BP show, which is hosted by our good friend, friend of the show, Mike Farron, is actually now available after, or sorry, on demand.

So before every single game, you can actually listen to the BP show through the Diamondbacks podcast, which you can access on dbacks.com. If you go to the fans tab, it's right. under there under D-BACs podcast. If you click on that button, you can get it there. You can also subscribe on iTunes as well. So, Jeff, kind of a new cool feature of Diamondbacks broadcasts where for people who can't catch the BP show, which Mike does a great job on basically every single day, fans can still

listen to that on demand. Absolutely. I think, you know, everything, all of media is going towards on demand more and more. And the Diamondbacks have always been really exceptional kind of in their communications and, you know, sort of the broadcast sphere of the organization. And, you know, for some reason they hired Mike. But now we love Mike. And so, yeah, they're rolling it out for now with home games and they're going to make the shows available about two hours before game time for home games. And, you know, who knows, maybe they'll keep that up when it moves to the road for now.

it's just home games, but really cool and something that I'm looking forward to. The hour before the game, for me personally, is a little bit of a tough time. It's usually trying to get to the gym or make dinner or something like that. So it can be kind of a hard time to sort of really engage. I mean, it's one thing to put it on, but another thing to really actively listen. So selfishly, I'm just really excited that it's going to be available a little sooner and actually works really well for me. And for folks that are driving home from work or whatever, they can dial up.

up on iTunes and put it on and, you know, be queued up so that when they get home and in the game starts, they're ready to go. So I think it's a really cool idea and it's just cool to see the organization, I think, you know, continue to be forward thinking, not just on the field, not just with their prospects, but also kind of in the media side too. I think it's really cool. And with that, that concludes everything that we have for this fifth episode of the Rattle Podcast. Once again, thank you so much for listening. We really appreciate it. If you haven't already, be sure to give us a follow on Twitter. You can find us there at the RattleAZ.

We're also on Facebook at Facebook.com slash the RattleAZ. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes. Check out our website at www. www.org the rattle.net where you can find good original Diamondbacks content and analysis. We've got some new stuff coming out as well, hopefully soon. So be sure to check that out as well. Thank you. once again so much for listening and we will be back next week to talk more about the Arizona

guidelines.