PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Gallens of problems

Episode Date: March 23, 2022

On this episode, Derek and Jesse are discussing Zac Gallen's injury and when his season will start, the D-backs signing Zach Davies, and the lowest spring training attendance numbers we've seen in years. 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.

And welcome to another edition of the PHNXDBACs podcast right here at PHNX. My name is Derek Montia. Of course, you know me as your mayor of PHNX. And I'm joined by my vice mayor, my friend, my co-host, the insufferable thunderstick, Jesse Friedman. In sufferable. Wow. What a flattering introduction, Derek. Yeah.

Is that good for you? Is that good for you? Jesse and I have been arguing about whether or not spring training attendance numbers are a story or not. And I'm not saying they're not, but I'm also just saying in general, I'm not surprised. Should any of you be surprised that spring training attendance figures are down? I don't know. I don't think so.

Jesse does. They're down pretty significantly, Derek. We're not talking about a decrease of 10% or 20%. We're talking about an attendance today in the Cactus League of 3,753. If you go back to 2020, before COVID ended spring training, the lowest attendance that the Diamondbacks had for any Cactus League game was still above 7,000. So you're talking about around half of the lowest attendance. And this is a Tuesday afternoon game, so certainly not, you know, it's not going to be the game that draws the most fans.

It's against the Texas Rangers. But nonetheless, I think it's a storyline, Derek. And yeah, we'll maybe get into that a little bit more later on. Because we're talking about it. We're talking about it now. We're going to talk about it later. But first, I got to let everybody know that this very fine podcast is brought to you by the fine folks at the Draft King's Sportsbook app. Go download the Draft King Sportsbook app now.

Get down on the college hoops action for the March madness. New customers can bet just $5 on any team to win and get $200 in free bets if they do. It's that simple over at the Draft King's Sportsbook app. Jesse, before we get around to arguing about what is and isn't a story, definitely the biggest story right now, at least for the Arizona Diamondback, is the certain condition of Zach Gallen and his shoulder. Zach Gallen is behind on his regular season progression, just as far as where he's at in comparison to other pitchers. He hasn't had a spring training start yet.

He hasn't been in a spring game, and he's currently not scheduled to start any spring games. Tori Lavello told us today a little bit about that, but the good news is it sounds like if he does miss any time, he will only miss the first start of the season, and he might not even miss that first start. It might just be a matter of him maybe being, maybe even getting that start,

but being limited on pitches. It seems right now, though, like he will not be starting in the first four games, five games of the season for the Arizona Diamondbacks. I don't think he's going to be ready for opening day. Just looking at the presser that Tori Lavello did earlier, today. He tried to scoot around explicitly telling us that Zach Gallin was going to be unavailable for opening day. He maneuvered right around. Very skillfully, very skillfully, sort of like a

politician, kind of dancing around the question. But you could tell, I mean, Tori was like, yeah, I mean, you guys know how this works. You can probably figure out, you know, what, what position he's really in right now as far as making that start at the beginning of the season goes. We also already know, Derek, that Nick Pecorro made an observation that Madison Bumgarner, if you extrapolate where he's at right now, if you just look ahead if he was to pitch every fifth day from now until the season starts, at some point, his start would land exactly on opening day. So I think it's no secret at this point that that's the team's plan for opening day. And like you said, you know, maybe Zach Gallen isn't able to take his first turn through the rotation,

but maybe he's back for the second turn and maybe a little bit limited, but shouldn't be a big deterrent towards his season, like you said. They actually did ask Madbum about opening day, kind of phrased it that way, and he said that there was still a conversation to be had, but he definitely made it sound like he's aware he's the opening day starter, and it's all but confirmed at this point. We do have that clip, though, actually,

of what you were talking about of Toy LeVolo at the press conference, kind of maneuvering around the questions about Zach Gallant. How's going on? Feeling after yesterday? Really good. Feels really good. Had a brief conversation with the medical team about him. So we're going to determine what the next steps are.

There might be one more live before we get into a case. So you're trying to figure out is you're pushing forward with your timeline? No, I mean, I mean, not to like be blunt, but like it seems pretty clear. Gallin's kind of behind those guys, right? Yeah. She's throwing one on a day before Bumstone three. Yeah. we get into a point where it's pretty clear he's going to be not in that first

that group of first four are you ready to say that um yeah i think we have to be very cautious i'll say that at this point so um you guys you guys have been around going enough you know the game and know how it works so you're probably on the right side you did and yeah that's uh that that's the little skill for maneuvering like he said uh he did he did say obviously you know you guys are are a where what's going on. And, and, you know, you're probably on the right side here as far as Gallen missing that start. And Zach Buchanan went on to ask him about, you know, maybe pitching like he did when he came off of one of his injuries last season where he wasn't fully stretched out, but he still started in a game and pitched about 75 pitches.

And it was funny because Tori said he had to wrestle the ball essentially away from him to get him out of that game at 75 pitches. So Gallin sounds like a guy that's ready to go. I mean, we talked to him last week, and he made it sound like this was no big deal. Essentially, if he experiences some discomfort, it's, you know, he has some stiffness in his shoulder. And depending on the severity of the discomfort, it will depend on what, you know, where he's at. But he doesn't seem to be feeling too bad. And again, the first thing I asked Tori was about how he came, how he was feeling after the live bullpen. yesterday and he said he's feeling great.

So as far as, you know, where he's at, I understand them being cautious with Zach after all of the injuries he experienced last season. He was on the IL three times and it's not something that you really want from one of your biggest stars on your team, obviously. There's really no more important player for the Diamondbacks in 2022 than Zach Gallen, with the possible exception of Cattel Marte. But I mean, Gowan is the best starting pitcher they have. And I think you could make an argument that he's maybe even more important than Kattel is at the end of the day,

anchoring a rotation that has really not been very productive over the last few seasons. Yeah, at this point, Derek, I would probably target the New York Mets series when the Diamondbacks are in New York, the second weekend of the season. I think the first game of that series would be their seventh game of the year. and it would be about a week out from opening day. So I think that would give him the time that he needs in order to get those extra reps and hopefully build up his pitch count so that maybe he can't throw 100 pitches on day one,

but most starters don't really get to that point anyway. Correct. And you and I will be present for that game in New York, so that will be exciting to see. That's the plan. Yeah. Hopefully we'll get to see him make that start and not see any further delays. I'm not too worried about it.

I don't think there's a reason to panic. just yet but i think if we start to see his layoff uh you know last longer than two weeks there might be a little a little bit of a reason for concern there there there already is a reason for concern because it's it's our baby boys that gallon and we don't want anything bad happening to him um he's precious to us we know with him having scott boris as an agent that our time with him is limited so we just need to enjoy it while we can right uh but you can actually uh get a little bit more about that on, excuse me, non-draftings. They don't want to update you on Zach Gallen's injury,

but we do over at go-PhNX.com, and you can sign up to become a member. If you aren't already, if you get the annual membership, you'll get yourself a free t-shirt over at the PHNX Locker.com. I am wearing one, and like I've said, they make me feel better about myself. They're soft, and they also oddly make me invincible.

I'm not sure. Your results may vary depending on your shirt, but I'm just saying they're a very powerful shirt, and you'll get one for free if you sign up. to become an annual member. If you're not interested in that, you'll get your first month for just 50 cents if you sign up for a month-to-month membership. And members not only get members-only discounts over at the PHNX Locker.com, but you also get to join our Discord where, of course, like I said, we'll be talking about Moon Knight and other non-baseball related things. It's the Arizona Diamondback, so I'm setting my expectations low on our topics this season. But I will say, I know people want to talk about Mad Bum. I know I was out there today. and he while his velocity was very good, he did give up a few home runs and had a bit of a shaky outing there,

outing his second inning kind of went all over the place, wild pitch, walked a guy, gave up a single, a double at a pair of home runs. But he was oddly positive after the game. He was kind of, he's been in a really good mood, Jesse. It's kind of been weird.

He's not, well, he's still not giving up information. Like if you ask him what cereal he had today, he'd probably be like, I don't really want to provide you with that information just yet. I hit myself with the microphone. I'm so excited about his cereal.

But Mad Bum is just in a great mood lately. And I think, you know, again, his velocity is up early when we're talking about spring training. We have, you know, very positive things, even though his outing wasn't good.

I don't think he really cared about the results. It's one of those kind of spring training games where, you know, it was just more about what he was working on. And it seemed to be going well for him, even though he gave up the home runs. We don't care if he gave up 10 home runs, Derek. The fact is the man touched 93 miles an hour with his fastball. That's right.

Somehow I think, I think that's kind of all Diamondbacks fans care about in some ways. And I actually kind of buy into it a little bit. If Madison Bumgarner is throwing 93 miles an hour this early in the season, I mean, I think we all know that, you know, the cutter and the curve ball and potentially this change up that he's been working on, those things are going to come just like they always have for him. You know, those aren't the main concerns for him as he continues to age. So, you know, if he has that kind of velocity throughout the season, and I know he mentioned today, you know, we'll see if it sticks around. It sounds like even he's not totally sure. if he's going to throw 93 throughout the season. But the fact that he's hitting those numbers early on is a very good sign. But I have to tell us. He didn't want to tell us what he was, how he got there. He didn't want to reveal the secret because, of course,

that would give up too much information. Again, that's one of probably my favorite parts about Madison Bumgardner is his gamesmanship, his refusal to actually give up any secret. See, right now he doesn't want to give it up because it's not, He doesn't know if it's working or not. It's too small of a sample size. But if it starts working, is Denny going to give it up? I doubt it.

I doubt it. Yeah. All I know, Derek, is that if Brent Strong was my pitching coach, I'd probably be in a pretty good movie too. So that might explain a thing or two. He said he hasn't had a chance to talk to him much, but he's really loved working with him already so far. And those two seem like kindred spirits.

They seem like they're cut from the same cloth. And I imagine that it's, it's probably like it's hard to win Madison Bumgardner's respect as somebody in a coaching position. I feel like at this point in his career, he's probably had coaches that are actually younger than him within the Arizona Diamondbacks organization at times. So knowing him, I feel like Brent Strom is probably the person that's going to get through to him the most. And, you know, we'll probably do an excellent job of getting as much as as we can get out of Mad Bum this season. So that's exciting. Just like, you know, just like the addition of all the coaches,

kind of all over the place is exciting. But we also have another new addition to the D-Backs roster. The Diamondbacks have signed Zach Davies to a major league deal, Jesse. And it's a major league deal, guaranteed money as a starting pitcher. So it seems like this might be their answer instead of the competition that we were thinking we were going to see in spring training for that fifth starting rotation spot. that this might be it. According to his contract with incentives based on number of starts,

he could make up to $4.5 million in 2022. So again, it's performance-based, but somebody that seems like they have now the upper hand on that final spot in the rotation. If you look at Zach Davies' 2021 numbers, you might be a little concerned that the Diamond Vax just are pretty much naming this guy, their fifth starter. It's funny yesterday we were, you know, fumbling through names for who's going to win that fifth starter spot. And, you know, maybe after seeing Dan Strayley go on,

on the first day and, um, I don't think the diamond backs are going off of samples that are that small. But maybe based on what they've seen so far this spring from all of the guys who are, who are in the mix, they decided that they wanted to go outside of the organization. And, and that's not necessarily super surprising. We suspected they might have interest in making a move of this sort. Uh, Zach, Davies last year, Derek, 32 starts with the Chicago Cubs, a 578 ERA. Like I said, the numbers are ugly. 148 innings, which is not very many for a guy who made 32 starts. You're talking, you're talking well under five innings per start. 114 strikeouts, which is pretty low. 75 walks is a

little high. It was the worst season of Zach Davies' career by a pretty wide margin. And what you have to remember with Davies is that he's still relatively young. Zach Davies is currently 29 years old. So he is not necessarily, you know, on the wrong side of 30 by any means he's, he's, he's 29 years old and he still has bright days ahead of him on paper. The Diamondbacks just need to find a way to get him back to who he's been in the past, which has been a pretty solid back of the rotation type starter for a number of years. kind of a fun story you know mesquite high school he he was a local a local guy growing up so um so kind of a fun uh homecoming for for zach davies and eras yeah absolutely but again i mean are you surprised about by this we kind of talked and alluded to in the past that what we might see from them as far as free agency goes is them make a move more like this i mean we

we had our hopes and our dreams, right? But we kind of knew how unrealistic it was for them to spend a lot of money on a free agent, especially someone who wasn't, you know, quite young and could fit in with the timeline as far as this team being competitive, right? But Zach Davies is one of those guys that I could totally see based on past performances, them kind of getting him on the cheap a little bit right now, right? He has looked better in the past than he did last season. And now you bring him in to essentially an Arizona Diamondbacks team that could really use starting pitching and has, as we talked about before, Brent Strom in place as a pitching coach to help, especially the young guys kind of find where they need to be.

I know we talked about this, I think on yesterday's show, but like the difference in inches in baseball and the, and the difference in slight changes that made guys go from being somewhat mediocre to finding exactly what it needed for them to be, you know, a great performer in baseball is kind of wild, right? So the coaching that someone like Brent Strom can bring to somebody that that can improve their game could, could be, you know, priceless as far as the Diamondbacks are concerned. I feel like that's what they're banking on. and I feel kind of to a degree, even though they've never really said it, that that's their game plan, right? Their game plan has been to bring in these quality coaches and see what they could do with guys that they feel like have been, have been, you know, performers for them in the past, still have a lot to offer, but had really bad seasons kind of collectively last year as a group. Davies is definitely a guy, like you said, where there is a fine, line between him being a pretty good starting pitcher and him being, you know, what we saw

last year in Chicago. If you go back one more season to the pandemic year in 2020, Zach Davies was a San Diego Padre. And he posted a 2.73 ERA in 12 starts. And he averaged almost six innings per start in that season. So we've seen Zach Davies be a pretty effective major League starter in the past. As far as his future goes, I mean, obviously this is a short-term deal, so we're not there yet. But I think it's funny to bring up that Zach Davies is a Scott Boris client, which it seems like the Diamondback side. Quite a few of those around. Even I believe Oliver Perez, Oliver Perez, who we talked about on yesterday's show, is also, even at the age of 40, is still a Scott Boris client. So there's

they're all over the place, Derek. And I don't know if that's necessarily, something that you want as a baseball fan. I saw Oliver Perez in the clubhouse today. His hair looked great. It was gray as hell, though. And it made me, like, I was like, all right, if I, I know I won't look cool like that, but he gave me hope to not worry about going gray, you know.

I don't know. I think I'm going to skip like the gray phase and go straight to like Doc Brown white hair, but we'll see what happens. I'm not looking forward to it. I'm really not. I'll tell you that much. But yeah, I am looking forward to see.

what happens with Zach Davies. And I'm interested to see now what happens to the battle in camp between these guys like Dan Strayley and such. Like I understand that they still have to try to prove their value and they're still going to be kind of a battle there, right? Not to mention the fact that with Zach Gallen not pitching the first week, they're going to need Zach Davies and they're still going to need one of these guys to potentially fill in for one of their starts. Right, right. That's a great point. And even beyond, you know, who is the fifth starter in 2022, like we talked about the other day, we're still a little skeptical of the Diamondbacks depth at the starting rotation spot.

You know, forget who the front five is. You're going to need 13 of them in order to make it through a season. And so who's number six, who's number seven, who's number eight, who's number 12, right? That's a good point. That's a great point. Yeah. Yeah. So regardless.

It's terrifying. It is. It is. Yeah. And I, yeah, I don't know. Zach Davies necessarily makes us feel like, you know, they're good in that spot yet. I still think there's more that they could do on that front, but he's certainly a step in the right direction for them.

I will say that nobody's job feels very safe, right? You have Madison Bumgarner and Zach Gowan and honestly, Merrill Kelly, but probably, yeah, even nothing, I don't even think those guys are really guaranteed performance wise, right? So, the one thing that this team has more than probably any other team has is opportunity for someone like a Zach Davies for a Dan Strelie for one of those guys to to really find you know to get into a groove and find a way for them to outperform some of the other pitchers in the starting rotation I don't really feel like anybody's job is secure enough for them to not lose out on starts to one of these other guys if they can all of a sudden find a way to have a sub-threather

three ERA and be, like you said, able to last six innings plus in their starts. That's something the Diamondbacks were not able to find last year from hardly any of their starting pitchers. That's a great point. That's a great point. Yeah, starting pitching depth is, I don't know if there's really any more important aspect of your baseball team than your starting pitching depth. And yeah, I mean, whoever, regardless of who starts the year in the majors and who starts

the year in AAA, there's going to be operational. for those roles to change throughout the season, like you said. And we know the Diamondbacks don't have much of a reason to have a long leash on any of these guys, right? There's not necessarily a big track record with any of them other than those top few that you mentioned. So I think we will see a changing of roles probably at several points throughout the year. And again, I mean, honestly, no offense to Madison Bumgardner or Zach Gowan,

but if they come out and aren't able to perform. at the level we're used to seeing them perform or better. And I say that in regards to their time as a Diamondback, not trying to set the bar super high for Mad Bum. But I mean, we saw some pretty, pretty good starts out of both of those guys last season, including Mad Bum's no hitter, which I'm calling a no hitter. And I don't care what anybody says it's a no hitter. It's a no hitter.

It's a no hitter. But yeah, he was actually asked about like seven inning games and stuff. And my favorite part of the Madison Bumgarner interview today was when he went in a crotchety old Madison Bumgarner mode. It was like, oh, there's going to be like 12 changes tomorrow and all the changes. And what's the, like, he's so mad about all the rule changes and such. But like, he also seems over it. Like he doesn't, he's not really mad. He just seems to be like, is this whatever at this point?

Everything's going to change. Whatever you're talking about right now might change by next season when it's supposed to go into effect. And he's right. Because the ghost runners were supposed to go away. And now we're finding out today, ghost runners are back. They're back. They're back.

That's why you call them ghost runners, Jesse. They come back. There you go. Of course, as I've told you guys in the past, and always on this show, and we lead off the show with it, we are brought to you by the fine folks at the Draft King Sportsbook. And right now is the premier time of sports.

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21 and over only, Arizona only gambling problem, Dile, $1,800 next step. new customers only minimum $5 deposit required eligibility restrictions apply see draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details and I don't know do you want to argue Jesse now about the spring training numbers or do you want to talk of course the the black rimmed alternate hats for 2022 well yes like you said we'll talk about that the the low the low attendance numbers it's not great jesse things aren't great I'm not surprised just because I know of a lot of people. And again, my, my sounding board is Twitter. So when I say a lot of people, I mean like 12. But my point being is I've seen quite a few people that cancel trips into, into, you know,

Phoenix, Scottsdale, due to what was going on with the lockout, right? Just that uncertainty. And again, I don't know that many people that travel, but I do know that based on articles I read and interviews I heard from like businesses in Maryvale and parts of Phoenix that that rely on this tourism that comes into town that this was their exact concern. Their exact concern was as much as regular residents of Phoenix that live here still come out for spring training games, it still pales in comparison to what the tourists, to what people that don't live here flying into town to watch these games, bring to, to commerce, bring to these retail stores, bring to restaurants, bring to even attendance numbers. And you and I kind of went back and

forth about this on text messages because you're of the belief that there definitely wasn't like 3,500 Texas Rangers fans that didn't come out. No. Game against the debacks. And you're absolutely right about that. So I'm not saying there isn't a number of factors that play into this, right? Right. I honestly think just based on several jokes I saw being made about March Madness, that people working from home in general might play a factor here of not needing to get out of the office and go to a spring training game the way that we often need to sneak out. Don't you want to get out of your home though? Like if I'm working from home, I want to get the heck out of there even more than I want to get the heck out of the office because I live at home. Here's the thing. You're right, because I can, I can agree with that. And I mean, I've gone already to so many spring training games that I could be, I could easily skip out on the rest and have already gotten my fill, right? The reason why is because spring training games are what they are. They're not something that a lot of people have a tremendous amount of interest in the outcome, the score, what's really going on, right? But with that being said, I went out to the Angels D-Backs game on Saturday. And, it was packed to the gills, right?

So there's part of me that just feels like people don't need to like skip out on work like they used to. I know, again, the March Madness thing was that like I came from a generation of kids who literally got to sneak off to like the PE teachers classroom and watch March Madness games when they were going on during the middle of the day at my like junior and senior year and stuff like that. And that was like a huge deal. It's one of the reasons why I personally love March Madness so much, right? But I'm just saying now there's kind of this joke about how now working from home and having the ability to watch, you know, whatever you want, including your streaming services and other things during the day that like, you know, watching those March Madness games isn't as fun as it used to be, right? And I think the same could be said a bit for spring training. There's just a lot of other stuff going on. And a lot of people don't find that same need to go out and go.

to a spring training game. I do think, especially with, like, when you look at the attendance numbers, though, I think the shocking thing was, and you shared this with me from Vince Marada's account, was that it's the average across the league. So it wasn't even just the Diamondbacks Rangers game. It was all the Cactus League games, right?

So it feels a bit like the tourism thing is a big impact, but there are other factors there, right? I think people are still a little mad at baseball. And I laugh saying that a little bit because we were just joking on Saturday at the Angels DeVax game about how well, it doesn't look like baseball's taking any kind of hit. And that was just one game, right? It was one weekend game. I just don't know.

I mean, it was the first game that Mike Trout came back and played in since last May. And it was, it was Otani's debut too. Yeah. It was Otani's debut. It was on a Saturday. So and there's a lot of there's a lot of Angels fans that have a pretty easy road trip to come out here and and go to a game. So I view this there. That's, well, that's where you and I actually disagree on though, right?

Because you have this idea of these fans flocking in from different, you know, cities and such. And I am trying to convince you that these fans live here. They root for other teams. And they are coming out. in these spring training games in droves to watch the opposing team and not the debacks. But that counters what you're saying, right? Because if those people, if those people are living right here, then the narrative of, oh, you know,

this is only happening because there were all these trips plan that people had and those trips got canceled because of the uncertainty due to the lockout. If those people live right here in Phoenix, there, there's no reason for these numbers to be down as much as they are. I think there are. No, you said, you thought that the majority of the Diamondbacks games were filled with Diamondbacks fans. And I told you, majority. You were wrong about that. You are dead wrong about that. I can tell you. I mean, obviously, it's easy to say that about Colorado Rockies because they share a stadium. So being at the same spring training stadium, right? It's it's kind of expected a little bit for them to have a presence there. But it's the Colorado Rockies. Rockies, right? The Mariners, there were more, it seemed like, again, this is just my perspective. I didn't take a poll. I have no scientific data to back the up, but I just based it on the amount of like, especially old school throwback Mariners clothes and merch I saw being worn, that it was primarily a

mariner's crowd, even if it was a DeBacks home game. Well, that's what I'm saying, though, Derek. my concern is why are the Diamondbacks fans not showing up to these games? Right. If this season, it's majority Mariners, I've not been to as nearly as many spring training games as you have, but I was at a Diamondbacks Cleveland Guardians, of course, then it was the Indians, but now the Cleveland Guardians, I was at a game back in 2020 right before the pandemic. And there were some Cleveland fans there. I'm not going to say there weren't.

But the Diamondbacks don't have that problem with every team. I know we love to talk about how, you know, well, we hate to talk about it, but we have to talk about how the Dodgers, Dodgers fans take over Chase Field. Dodgers fans might even take over Salt River Fields when they're playing L.A. Cubs fans certainly will take over. But we have not had this problem, Derek, with the Mariners, with the Rangers, right? These teams don't come walking to Arizona. You fool.

You have not been here. You have not seen what's been going on. I have absolutely been. Here's the thing. For you to think it's surprising that the Diamondbacks fans aren't coming out after the worst season in franchise history is not the name of you. People are, here's the thing. People have other things to root for right now, right? I have a bunch of flags in my garage. Guess which one's not on the poll, Jesse?

It's not the Diamondbacks. It's the suns, right? So, like, I'm just saying people right now don't have that same excitement to go out to see them. They don't want to waste an eight hour, eight hours of PTO. Do you know how, do you know how precious PTO hours are? People just don't want to waste them on the Arizona Diamondbacks anymore. And I don't blame them. But I will also say we are historically a fair weather kind of city.

And the Diamondbacks coming off their worst season in, franchise history, it shouldn't surprise anybody, considering that they didn't make hardly any moves in the average person's eyes that would make this team better, why they would come out and expect different results this season, why they would expect this season to go any better than it did last season. And I understand why they think that. Look, so my point in all of this, Derek, is Diamondbacks fans aren't coming out. I think that's something that we can both agree on. And my concern is that if you look at attendance figures for the Arizona Diamondback since the franchise began, there is not a significant year-to-year fluctuation based on the team's

performance. Sometimes the attendance numbers were higher in years where they were not as good. And I would say there is still a general trend that when the team is better, they draw more fans. I think there is that trend. But you're talking about a difference of like 10%. You're talking about getting 2.2 million fans over the course of the year rather than 2 million. The team has always been in the low 2 million range, almost every single season, regardless of how they were performing.

So my concern is that if there's going to be this big of a change in Cactus League attendance, does this also mean that we should expect the Diamondbacks to be on a completely different playing field as far as attendance goes once the regular season starts? because last year there was the pandemic. That's understandable. They couldn't bring in as many fans at the beginning of the year. But this season, hopefully the pandemic is not going to play a significant role anymore. And the Diamondbacks need their 2 million fans in that building in order to make this franchise what it needs to be. We've already had concerns about the team not drawing enough fans. I'm going to tell you that right now.

They had more fans at Friday's game. they had more fans at Friday's game than they'll probably have on average at a lot of home games during the middle of the week this season. And it's what's the, what's the reason? What's the reason for that?

Like the Diamondbacks have had two million fans roughly almost every single year. And so my question is, with the pandemic, hopefully behind us, where is this coming from? Is it because, is it crazy here, Jesse?

Where is it coming from? They just had a fucking lockout. They just had a, a work stoppage. And I know to you, it didn't really impact the season. I know to us, at the end of the day, right, what got canceled? A week's worth of games. Spring training got rescheduled.

They're being rescheduled anyway. Yeah, rescheduled. Didn't get canceled, right? The spring training got moved out two weeks. That's all it was impacted. But that's not what people saw. It's just like, to be honest, Cactus League has done a great job of advertising for Cactus League games to be on.

It was very sudden. It was very sudden. They sold tickets like two days before the thing started. And so like, and I'm not, I watch local news. I mean, don't get me wrong. I fast forward through commercials and such, but I haven't seen this big push, this big marketing push to get people out here. So there could be a bunch of factors,

but one of them could be that people don't even know these games are going on because they might think that the baseball season was canceled because that's what they heard was going to happen. Or it might be people pissed off, Jesse, the same way they were in 1996 when it was some of the lowest attendance figures in baseball history because of what happened with the work stoppage. To be honest, people get soured on the idea of billionaires fighting with millionaires over money, right? Even if they don't really look into the details and get the actual story on what's going on and what's being fought for, that's the perception. And those are those average fans, especially when you talk about baseball, those are the ones that come watch spring training.

those are the ones that fill in seats. Those are the ones that sell out bobblehead nights, which won't happen in 2022 due to the supply chain shortage. And honestly, those are the people that come out to watch a good team, which as far as they know, this is one of the

worst teams in Diamondbacks history. So why would they come out to watch it? Right? Sure. The thing here, though, is that going back to the factor of the Cactus League, it's an average amongst the league. So as much as we want say Diamondbacks fans aren't coming out.

Baseball fans aren't coming out. People aren't coming out. I just think there's more, there's more of an excuse at least for other teams because the tourism element of this has been really canned, right? But there's no reason that the Diamondbacks being the one team in the entire Cactus League, where theoretically the vast majority of their fan base is local, if they're sub 4,000, even on a Tuesday afternoon, I mean, this is Arizona. This is where all of the Diamondbacks, at least the, the vast majority of the Diamondbacks fans live, that's concerning.

And I think you might be right. I think the lockout might play into this. Obviously, the 52 win season from last year plays into this. But if we go into 2022 and the Diamondbacks are still averaging, you know, 12, 14,000 on a nightly basis, that is a significant problem for this franchise moving forward. And I don't know if they're going to be able to recover from it like some of the other teams will be able to. I don't know either, but I also don't know from last season how they recovered from it.

There were times where that building was filled and it was typically a weekend game against the Dodgers. Against the Dodgers, yeah. And then I totally, then it's mostly Dodgers fans, right? I mean, we all know why that was filled like it was. But you and I had that conversation, right? Like there was a part of me that I started to grow, it started to grow worrisome for me. when I started seeing St. Louis Cardinals fans outnumbered the DeBax fans during a Cardinal series,

right? And don't get me wrong, they were not Goldschmidt jerseys. There were some, but this was, you know, St. Louis fans. Same thing with a series against the Brewers. I was even like, the Brewers? Really? Yeah. That one surprised me. I start to think geographically and stuff. I'm like, all right, well, these are a bunch of like cold weather cities where people are to like kind of snowbird down or kind of migrate down to live in Phoenix and they probably live here and whatever right but right now I think the biggest thing is is that baseball still has a lot of they have a they have a reputation and and a relationship with the fans to repair right and I will say another thing that I've heard personally people complain about is the price of

spring training tickets yeah I don't know how much that's changed over that period of time from like 2019 to now. Yeah. I know I've had more than one person complain that the price of spring training tickets for what you're getting is outrageous. And I remember during the pandemic, they were selling them in pairs. And even if you came by yourself, you still had to buy a pair of tickets if you wanted to sit in a seat. And that was just ridiculous. Right.

So stuff like that, I mean, stuff like that turns you off. and you're not as quick to come back when you have alternatives, right? And again, I just know working from home that at times I have lots of things to do, right? So missing out on leaving my house to go somewhere and do something isn't as big of a deal as it was when I wanted to literally escape from my office and go sit in the sunshine and drink a beer, right? I don't know how you don't want to leave your home, Derek. when I work at home I have PlayStation VR Jesse right there

Have you not seen my arcade in the background of my home shots? Like, why would I need to leave? I have beer and video games there and I think I bought Mark Grace's slot machine so I have everything I need at home. My dogs are there.

Why do I need to go? The question more so is why do I need to go anywhere else? But here's the real story. That was the story you want to discuss, but my real story is this. The debacks have black or yeah, black primed alternate hats

Jesse. And apparently they're a thing that they're going to, they just slyly stuck it in with a Josh Van Meat Sauce photo shoot. But throw those up there on the hat. That's what the hat's going to look like right there. Red on Red, Sedona Red on Red. I like that. I like the A on the red.

That's a sharp looking hat. I like the black. I think that hat would look very good with the black jerseys as well. But I don't know why Josh Van Meter is doing the gritty there. I have no idea what this photo shoot was about, but the white on white jerseys are looking very clean as well. And I like that. I'm not sure if they changed anything on those,

but they look kind of simplified. And again, it's baseball, so I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Who knows, Derek? Maybe the days of Diamondbacks uniforms being hated on are finally behind us. No, not at all.

Could you imagine that? No. Are people just going to be holding on to that hideous gradient, dark gray, that they were rolling out for a couple years. Everyone still thinks of that when they think Diamondbacks uniforms, even though those are discontinued a long time ago. Yeah.

Here's something that might be a bit of a scoop. I think they're going to change the Serpientis jersey. You think they're going to, the pants, the pants they're going to match the color? I don't know what they're going to do. They replied to someone's tweet about that with like the little eyeballs emoji. So I wonder if something's coming on that front.

There's that. And then there's also a possibility. And I don't know if they would go this far or do a radical change this much. But they might do a black with beige Serpentis. So I don't know. I don't know. I saw it on some merch and stuff and it looks really, really good. Could just be that.

But I, yeah, I got some eyebrow raising and some wink, wink, nudge, about some of the changes that we might see to the. the Serpientz jersey. So hopefully, whatever it does, it makes it look nice. And yeah, I think the beige on beige would probably look better than the beige on white. I'm not sure with that, but I do like this hat

a lot. This hat scores points with me, Jesse. Hopefully it gets some more fans in the seats, Derek. It's not going to. That is absolutely not what's going to happen. But I want to break into Chase Field and find out what they're doing with the food in there. because I swear to God, if where Portillo's was is now still closed, oh, I'm going to be

furious. I'm going to be so angry. And if there's a Dutch brothers in that place, I might, I don't know, I might go crazy. I mean, when they got rid of it, they didn't really say it was temporary, right? Like, as far as we know, they just got rid of it. No, everything. Yeah. No, they've just been quietly removing one thing at a time until all that's left is chicken tenders and

French fries and popcorn. That's all you can get in that place. It's pretty standard, except there's the one, there's the one stand that I still really want to try that has like the really nice looking, it's some sort of, some sort of meat.

I don't remember exactly what it is. You know what it is. No, it's not the enchilada stand. No, it's not the carving station. Yeah, the carving station. That's not trying to say, yes. Yeah, yeah. I mean, at this point,

if you go to Chase Field this year and there are not any new additions as far as the food goes, those those little carts the ones that you're like facing the field and buying food from those are your saviors hungry hill the carving carving station all those those are the ones to go to but

oh I'm getting hungry now Jesse I'm hungry we're talking about food we know we know that Diamondbacks fan what Diamondbacks fans love Derek is for us to talk about how food is going to increase the attendance yeah because the more the teams depends on food or the more interest there's going to be in this baseball team, right?

By the way, speaking of Zach Buchanan and his journalism, he had an ostrich hot dog today and told me it was good and tasted like meat. And you can get that at a stand at Salt River Field. So Salt River Fields is actually giving

Chase Field a run for its money as far as food options is concerned. And that shouldn't be happening. But we'll see. Let's hope we get some more food options. Maybe that'll solve Jesse's little problem of getting butts in the seats. I'm still skeptical. I'm cautiously pessimistic on that one. But you can tell us your opinion. You can get us on Twitter. You can follow me at cap underscore caveman with a K. You can follow

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when you go out to a spring training game. What are you doing?