PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Good faith bargaining

Episode Date: March 3, 2022

On this episode, Derek and Jesse are discussing reports MLB owners tried to sneak last minute changes into their proposal after their 16+ hour bargaining session on Monday, what the D-backs schedule will look like when the season starts, and their favorite guilty pleasure players they probably shouldn't like. 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.

Hello and welcome to another edition of the PHNX DBAX podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia occasionally known as the mayor of PHNX. And I'm joined by my vice mayor, my friend, my co-host, my partner in crime, the one and only thunderstick Jesse Friedman. So Derek, I was at I was at Panda Express today and I eat my meal. It was delicious as usual. Pro tip, by the way, go inside Panda Express. Don't wait in the drive-through because you will get your food way faster. But the punchline of my story, Derek, is that I eat the fortune cookie, right?

I break it open. And there is nothing inside of my fortune cookie. And I am trembling today, Derek, because I don't know what this means for my future. I don't want to say that, like, you. your time is short, but Jesse, what could that mean? I don't know. Oh, I wonder if that's what Rob Manfred saw when he went to Panda Express and opened his fortune cookie. Yeah.

Yeah, I think I got mine mixed up with Rob Manfred. That's almost to happen. Yikes. You don't want that to happen. You'll get a fortune that says you're bad at your job. Of course, before we get into all of that wonderful social commentary, we have to let you know this podcast is brought to you by the fine folks at the draft. Sportsbook app. Go download the Draft King Sportsbook app. Now use our code of PHNX. And if you bet one dollar on the main event between Covington and Mastvedal, you will get $100 in free bets no matter what the outcome of

that fight is. Go download the Drafking Sportsbook now, the official sports betting partner of UFC. Jesse, I know we said we weren't going to talk lockout. I know that. And we're not. We don't have any updates. Obviously, today we are recording on Wednesday. This is Thursday's show, a Thursday morning show. So as of Thursday morning, we are waiting to hear what happens in the meeting that is supposed to happen in New York between the PA and MLB. With that being said, there was something very interesting that came out from the other night. Obviously, we have discussed the fact that MLB may or may not have kind of used the media to give us a little bit more hope, maybe make us think that they had made a little more progress

than they actually had. Just in case the deal didn't go through, the players would look like the bad guys as far as wasting all of that time, that's 16-hour day of negotiation. Now what we are hearing in a, I guess, a statement from Ross Stripling, who is the Toronto Blue Jays, union representative, what might have actually been happening is that the owners were trying to sneak in some last minute provisions to their offer, provisions, some fine print,

whatever it might be. We don't really have details on what exactly they were trying to sneak in. But according to his statement, that was one of the things that kind of changed this negotiation, was some last minute shenanigans. He basically says that they were trying to catch the players sleeping a bit when the negotiations went long and went far past midnight, like as if in his words, you know, players, baseball players are, you know, they're not going to notice this stuff. Like they're dumb and it's going to be easy to try to catch, put one over on them

when things are late and have been going on for a long period of time. It was an interesting report that came out from Ross Stripling. I wouldn't say I'm shocked by that. We did see some last-minute reports of some pretty bizarre things coming out of the owner's side. They suddenly wanted to be able to change to make rule changes to the sport a lot more quickly and easily than they have been in the past. We heard about them wanting to change base sizes, which is not something that we've really talked about at all kind of came out of left field and and there were a number of things like

those that that came out that the owners apparently were we're talking about within the last 24 hours or so of the negotiating process and yeah we don't necessarily know if those are the things that ross tripling is referring to or if there was other stuff right um but but i think it's he said in his statement it got to be like 1230 and the fine fine print of their CBD proposal was stuff we had never seen before. They were trying to sneak things through us. It was like they think we're dumb baseball players and we get sleepy after midnight or something. It's like that stupid football quote.

They are who we thought they were. Arizona Cardinals fans, you know that one. They did exactly what we thought they would do. They pushed us to a deadline that they imposed. And then they tried to sneak some shit past us at that deadline and we were ready for it. We've been ready for five years. and then they tried to flip it on us today in PR, saying that we've changed our tone and tried to make it look like it was our fault. That never happened.

And that coincides with other statements we've seen saying something similar about that this was not the path that negotiations were going down, that they were in fact still kind of at odds on a lot of things. And the owners were pushing out to the media that things were going better, that things were going better, than they actually were so that when they didn't happen, it looked like the players were at fault. Unfortunately, we're at the point where there are really no, there's not really two sides to this story anymore, Derek. There's pretty much just a clear party that is in the right

and a clear party that is in the wrong. And we've tried to avoid that up to this point, right? like trying to bring nuance to this discussion and and make sure that we weren't blindly going with one side or the other. But at this point, everyone's saying the same thing. The owners just got a little bit too greedy down the stretch approaching this negotiation. And we are where we are as a result of it. And they're trying to put the players in a position where they're going to try to outlast the players.

They're going to try to see how long the players are willing to wait before they get back to playing baseball again. And unfortunately, the answer to that question is going to be more than six games, right? The players are willing and prepared as we talked about yesterday to last longer than that. And we might be here for a while, as we've been saying. I talked about, you know, I'm a little disgusted just because I've actually had a couple of people. bring up to me how they not not telling me what to do necessarily

obviously you and I haven't really disguised the the way we feel about this situation and who we feel is to blame I was told though that that they needed to and I just I thought it was a little bit weird I thought it was weird because in this situation like you said it it does seem

to be one side is right and one side is wrong kind of situation, but maybe it's because you and I have been analyzing this negotiation for so long. When I try to explain the nuances of this deal and what's going on to some people that don't really care, I can see their eyes glaze over, Jesse. I'm also a boring person to talk to you once I start getting into this kind of stats and information that people aren't familiar with, so they don't care, right? And that's kind of part of the problem is when you start trying to explain what what these players are fighting for, it's hard.

It's hard to make people hear and understand. Lately, what I've been going with is starting by telling them, you know, about the entire process of being a major league ball player and how long you have to be in like the minor leagues and what they make in the minor leagues. And then how long you have to wait until you can actually get your contract and actually get your money. and why this pre-arbitration bonus pool and some of this other stuff like minimum salary that they're fighting so hard for, is really to make up for the fact that you have to spend two to five to seven years of your life making less than $20,000 a year to be a minor league ball player just with the hope and dream that one day you will be in the major leagues. It's pretty reasonable to want to pay these guys once they get there a reasonable salary. considering how much of their life they had to sacrifice making such a minimal amount of money in the minor leagues.

It's just really, it's really disappointing just hearing Rob Manfred's demeanor in his press conference and just some of the answers that he gave to some of the questions. I almost was like, like the owners are pretty good in general at doing the PR stunt, at like trying to make it sound like their position is reasonable whether or not it actually is. But some of the answers the Rob Mandre, Gabe, Derek, were just straight up. Like, wow, like you're just kind of straight up acknowledging that you didn't really do everything in your power to avoid what is happening right now. One of the biggest questions that was asked is, you know, why didn't you have more

conversations sooner? Why did you wait 43 days to make your first proposal? And Bob Manfred didn't really have an answer to that question. He basically just said, well, we've been here the last 10 days and this is where we're at, right? He didn't even really try to play the PR stunt game and scoot around that. I'm going to give you his exact quote, Jesse, because and here, let me give you the spiel, obviously, because you can get this in my piece over on go phnx.com. If you're not a member, sign up to become a member.

Annual membership will get you a free t-shirt over at the phtonx locker.com. cost you 60 bucks and you get that free t-shirt you also have the option of going month to month where you'll get your first month for just 50 cents and if you do sign up you become part of our membership come part of our family you'll get access to our members only discord where you can come in and let us know outside a mailbag Monday what you want to hear us talk about and we will happily do that also give you my review of the batman in there like i did today so all sorts of fun happening as well as members-only discounts over at the p hnx locker dot com on our wonderful wonderful merchandise t-shirts all of the stuff we have we have stuff coming hats all sorts of stuff

i'm not supposed to tell you guys about that but that's kind of insider information i have to give you on this show considering that we don't really have much baseball to talk about but in that article that i'm referring to over and go p hnx dot com manfred was asked about like jesse said the amount of time that had been wasted and his answer to that, like why was so much time wasted, you know, versus why they went so hard into paint that last, you know, 24 hours. And he said, I think the best answer to that question is the last 10 days. We've been here ready to bargain, full committees, owners, players for 10 days, and it got going two days before the deadline.

That's the best explanation I can give you. That's the best explanation you can give us. Yeah. That, that, like, that's, I don't even know if that's the words. I don't know if that's a sentence. I don't think that the words you put together there are sentences that explain anything. So you could tell us that you gave us the best explanation you could, but much like this entire debacle, that sentence did not make much sense. Just like blocking out the players, just like, you know, it literally is the meme from the Eric Andre show where, you know, he shoots.

you know, he shoots, the MLB shoots baseball and then he turns around and says, why did the players do this? And it's Rob Manfred. It's just crazy to me the way that this has gone. But now what we have is the Arizona Diamondback schedule has been impacted. Interestingly enough, Jesse, games for spring training have only officially, as of now, been canceled up to this Friday. or wait no next Friday they've only been canceled through

March 11th as far as that the spring training right now is still on schedule for starting on March 12th so I should book a flight right now and that is not a good idea that's not a good idea

I'm on that's a very very optimistic view I think it's just because it's not official right but we do have officially being canceled the first two series of the year. So taking a look now that cancels out their opening series against the Brewers in Milwaukee and their opening series against the Dodgers, or not opening series, but their first matchup against the Dodgers of the year in L.A., leaving them to now open the series at home against the

Padres. And then kind of a difficult stretch based on some acquisitions that have been made to the New York Mets. We don't get a lot of relief there after that, if that is indeed when the season starts. And Jesse is still very pessimistic about that Padre series still happening. The Mets are, I mean, they are the Mets. So I guess we have to kind of take all those moves with the grain of salt. But yeah, the Diamondbacks have. Let's wait until we see them in play first. Yeah, you always want to tap the brakes when it comes to the Mets.

But yeah, the Diamondbacks have a road series. against the Mets the 15th through the 17th of April and then they're at home against the Mets the 22nd through the 24th. And then yeah, the Dodgers, the Cardinals. There's also a series with the Nationals in there through the month of April. And yeah, it's a tough open for the Diamondbacks, a tough opening schedule here over this first month or so. And yeah, we were joking about it earlier today.

You know, maybe maybe canceling the first month of the season if these games aren't made up. that might actually bode pretty well for a team like the Diamondbacks that has a pretty difficult April. You flip the calendar over to May, Derek, and things start to look a little bit nicer. You've got a three games set with the Marlins, home for three against the Rockies, home for three against the Marlins again, home for three against the Cubs. There's a lot of games in there that are very, very winnable. So obviously, we really have no idea when this thing is going to get going at the end of the day.

one interesting note that that we that we have heard is that it sounds like once we get to about 25 games canceled, that's when teams would have to give rebates to their regional sports networks based on the fact that they're carrying fewer games. So if there is some sort of tipping point. Yeah, it's interesting. If there is, if there is a tipping point here where the owners might not want to go past a certain day, that's it. I mean, that's the best hypothesis that I have right now is that after about 25 games, things do seem to change for them a little bit. So that might land us right around the beginning of May where the Diamondback schedule is quite a bit easier.

Yeah, that looking at that, you're right, that would put us, they would have to start the season by the Cardinal series on April 28th. Okay. That would be, because in that series would be when that 25th, I believe, either the that or the prior series against the Dodgers, which wouldn't be terrible to open the season at home against the Dodgers. Even if you get thumped, it's still a pretty exciting opening to the season.

I think you're on to something there, though, because obviously that's when owners start to take a hit. What we're happening right now is the pressure is being applied to the players. Yeah, as far as the players taking the hit. $20 million every day is basically what we've heard. Wow. It's a lot of money.

I mean, it's split among a lot of players, right? But yeah, it's still a big number for sure. And then we have that. So what baseball can do at any point prior to getting to that point is just stop the lockout, which is going to be interesting to see. if we get to that point, I can't imagine the backlash

not being pretty significant in regards to them saving themselves from missing out on money but not saving the players or the season for missing games. Well, we're hoping to be there in person

whenever the season starts and wherever the season starts. So I don't know, Derek, you want to go to St. Louis? You want to go to Miami? you want to go, let's see, mid-May. Oh, Jesse. Did you just ask me if I, you asked me if I, Derek Montillo, want to go to Miami?

Are you kidding me? With you? I don't know. I don't know. Do you like Miami? I get to corrupt you in Miami. Let's go. Come on. Are you kidding me? That's like asking me if I want to go to Las Vegas. Let's just say no more, fam. Just get my bag ready as well. Is there any place you really don't want to go? Like, like, where's like the, If we're choosing right now, worst place to start the season on the road, where would it, where would it be? I honestly don't as crazy as this sounds, I don't have one.

I really don't. For me personally, maybe Cincinnati. Yeah, I'm looking at Cincinnati right now. Yeah. Like I don't have a strong interest in going to Cincinnati. I just recently went to Washington, D.C. and it was beautiful. and I would love to go back to D.C. New York is always awesome and crazy and a joy to go to.

Los Angeles is one of my favorite vacation spots. I mean, as I look through this schedule, going to see the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, that's an honor. There's a few things here that I'm against. Pittsburgh Pirates have the best looking ballpark in all of baseball. So considering I haven't been to a lot of these parks, there's not a lot of places that I wouldn't want to go.

I would say, obviously, we have a lot of friends in Colorado with our DNVR connections, go hang out with Patrick and the family. So, yeah, no, I mean, they're looking even at the entire season. I would have to say Cleveland and Cincinnati are probably the two road trips. I wouldn't be, or road games. I wouldn't be excited to go to. You're just hating on Ohio, man. What do you got against Ohio?

Yeah, I don't know. I don't have an excitement to go there. Kansas City love Kansas City barbecue so let's go I'll go to Kansas City I'm just picking and choosing as I go through here but yeah no there's not a lot of places I wouldn't go on this schedule but that's because I love baseball and so to me the idea of being a part of it is an honor which is something I feel like people involved in this negotiation I forgot I also feel like you know getting a chance to go and see baseball anywhere with the with the current climate is very appealing. The only thing I'm very worried about is my daughter's birthday is the weekend right now of the current opening series. And I have promised to take her to Disneyland for her birthday. So that's currently a conflict for me. I'm not sweating it though, Jesse. Yeah.

That would require baseball to get their shit together and get something done this week. They'll probably do it just to spite me because now I actually have some sort of action in the game, much like you can get, obviously, over at the Draft King's Sportsbook app. Go download the Draft King Sportsbook app now. Our partner, our friend, and they are the official sports betting partner of UFC, has a knockout offer for new customers for UFC 272. You can bet just $1 using our code of PHNX on the main event and get $100 in free bets. Obviously, you can bet more than that if you want to.

You can bet whatever you want. But if you bet just $1, you'll get that $100 in free bets no matter what the outcome is. So even if you lose your bet, you're still getting those $100 in free bets. Then you can take and sprinkle and make some more bets and make all the money back. Or just keep adding to your winnings, whatever way your knight went. But the Draft King's Sportsbook app is safe, secure, and reliable. Best of all, you can deposit and withdraw your cash whenever you want. And really, you absolutely can.

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and get $100 in free bets no matter what happens in the fight. That's code PHNX this Saturday at Draft King Sportsbook, the official sports betting partner of UFC. 21 and over only Arizona only gambling problem dial 100 next step new customers only minimum $5 deposit required eligibility restrictions apply see draft kings.com slash sportsbook for details and jesse speaking of places we don't want to go and things places we do want to go I was thinking of something interesting today because I know that when it comes to being a fan of a team often you can't root for certain players, depending on how they might have affected your team.

Like, I couldn't respect an Arizona Diamondbacks fan who told me they were also a big Ryan Braun fan, right? For instance, like, that's something. That's fair. That would be, that would end our friendship. That would be, that's a, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's not negotiable for me as far as I'm concerned in my terms and agreement. I wanted to ask you, though, is there any players in baseball?

that you feel guilty about liking, like a guilty pleasure. Like, like, I have never, I've never hid my love for Shohei Otani, but that's because I am not ashamed. And nor should anybody be being a fan of someone as amazing, charismatic and good at his job as Shohei Otani. Well, and the angels don't really have any rivals. And the angels, right. Nobody's mad at the angels.

Yeah, the angels haven't upset. anybody in years. There's a lot of teams that have. Obviously, the Astros, the Boston, Red Sox, here within our own division within the Arizona Diamondbacks, NL. West, sometimes you are not allowed to like division rivals, even though sometimes it makes it hard. I know I was in a little bit of awe of Trevor's story when he made his debut that was so emphatic. And that stuck with me for a little while just not i don't know if i was a fan of his as much as just like i just couldn't believe how good this guy became in such a short amount of time right in front of our very eyes it seemed like but uh again getting back to the question do you who's your guilty pleasure in baseball do you have any

or or are all of your favorites Arizona diamond back centric uh well they're definitely not all Arizona diamond back centric right i mean we're we're we're here to support and cover the diamond backs of course but i think we're both you know baseball fans at large and there are some pretty fun players in this sport that don't play for the diamond backs you don't have any connection to the diamond backs um but the one that might get people a little bit a little bit riled up and honestly i don't think it's that bad um but he does play for the dodgers and his name is moogie bets and he is just a joy to watch honestly the moogie betts contract with the dodgers was very was very sad, very deflating, you know, for Diamondbacks fans, just given that he's going to be

in this division for more than a decade now. But also, there was a small part of me, Derek, when that deal happened, that was like, oh my gosh, we get to watch Buki Betts, like, all the time. And he is just, I always, when he was in Boston, even before he was a superstar in Boston, and he was a player I really, really enjoyed watching. He's another one of those anomalies who is very, very small, and yet just somehow has big power, an incredible arm, right? He's just extremely athletic even at 5,980 pounds. So he plays for the Dodgers,

but I don't get the sense that Mookie Betts is very hated among Diamondbacks fans. I don't know. I think he's, I feel like he's well respected. He's not like an A.J. Pollock or. or a Justin Turner. I feel like Justin Turner is a little bit more hateable. Even though he might not have done anything wrong to the debacks, besides have some very good games against them.

There's just something about Justin Turner's face that's very hateable when you're not a fan of the team that he's on. I was also going to go with somebody who's very diminutive in stature as well that might be a little bit more universally disliked at this point. And that's Jose Al Tuve. Altuve has always been one of my favorite players. And again, you know, I guess I'm guilty of it being that, like, that he's so good of a player for being as small as he is, having the power he does, just being as good at the game as he is, right? but it's it's also just because he has always been a player that whenever i've watched games he's been

involved with maybe not statistically i just know that when i'm watching games that he's involved with he's always done stuff that's been exciting whether it's defensively he's just an exciting player to watch when the diamondbacks play against the astros he again another guy that has always steps up and has a great game i understand there being a lot of hate thrown his way and the Astros way. They completely deserve it. And I'm not saying they don't. It's weird, though, when you do like a player in that kind of situation, I recall myself being a bit hesitant to vilify the Astros as much as quickly as other people were because I liked Jose Al-Tube. And then when things started to come out, I was almost like holding my breath, waiting to make

sure that he wasn't involved in stuff. Next thing you know, the whole buzzer scandal comes out whether or not he was wearing a buzzer device under his jersey when he didn't want it ripped off and such. It really deflated a lot for me.

And then surprisingly, he just kind of kept doing his thing. And I think for me personally, it got to be about, well, I don't know. He didn't have any concrete evidence against him. He wasn't relying on. He wasn't.

relying on trash cans in order to be a pretty He really wasn't right Yeah You know and and I still like them I don't expect people to understand it And I don't expect people necessarily to see My point of view on things when it comes to something like this It's kind of like an entertainer

You know I have certain comedians that I still Like despite the fact that they've gotten themselves And do quite a bit of trouble over the last five years you know running the gamut from john malaney to dave chappelle to louis ck i have a really hard time still not finding these people to be very very funny and there are there are people that would say like you shouldn't support someone like that or whatever i completely agree you know and i don't think that they should be like so like louis ck for instance of david sheppel they were some of the the like most they they were like at the top of the entertainment world for a minute you know as far as

money making and as far as like making headlines and then eventually some you know they did some dumb shit and they both got brought down to a completely different level than where they were at they didn't they weren't allowed to still attain that level of stardom but uh i don't know i like i don't really care i don't expect people to understand it but it's it's one of those things where i'm like well i still find them funny i still watch things that they're on And it really, at the end of the day, even if even if Jose Al Tuve was found to be, you know, somebody that benefited quite greatly from the trash can bit, I still wouldn't probably change my feelings about how exciting he was to watch at times.

I maybe a buzzer underneath the jersey. That might be a little bit much. Maybe if that came out, it might be a bit much. It's all depending on you, though. Like, it's all depending on you as a person. whatever you feel like someone does is crosses the line or not or is something worth hating, that's up to you and you're allowed to feel that way. That's why we all have feelings.

That's why we're all allowed to be individual people, right? I know some people that would absolutely hate any player in our division, no matter what, because there's such a diehard Diamondbacks fan. That's the rules to them. I get that. I understand their feelings on that. It's not how I feel. I think that's a ridiculous way to ask.

But if you also want to tell me for 20 minutes while you hate AJ Pollock, I will be here for all 20 minutes of that. And I want to hear every minute of it. I remember, I think this was probably about like six or seven years ago. I was out at an Angels game and they were playing the Astros in, in L.A. or in Anaheim, really. And I remember Jose Altuve standing on the field next to Chris Carter, who has his team. mate. I don't know if you remember Chris Carter. He's a first baseman on the Astros. Actually drafted by the Diamondbacks, oddly enough, wound up in Houston. But Chris Carter is like 6-6 or something, just an enormous human being. And I have this picture from like six or seven years

ago of Jose Al-Tuvae standing right next to Chris Carter on the field. And it was amazing. I mean, you don't realize how small Jose-Al-Tube is and how big Chris Carter is. And how big Chris Carter is. until you see them next to each other. It was pretty great. My personal experience, not with Jose Al-Tube, but with what you're talking about, was when Daniel Bryan, WW wrestler, former champion, was visiting Chase Field, and he's from the Seattle area, and he's a huge Randy Johnson fan, and he got to meet Randy Johnson. And he was talking to him right in front of me. I took a bunch of pictures of it. But like the height difference was so incredible to me. Like, Daniel Brian literally had to

cock his head completely back like a small child looking up at their parent to have a conversation with Randy and you know he's just towering over him looking straight down at him and stuff and it was it was wild and daniel brian is like my height so it's not like he's a very extremely short guy he's maybe a little bit shorter than me but not by much we're very close well shout out to shout out to johnny venerable and saul bookman who have been doing so nflarely own dynamic duo of short height and they are they are also seeing some of the shots of johnny and sell next to each other for sure by the way if you're phnx or excuse me if you're a irsona cardinals fan got to check out the phnx cardinals show they're out at the combine uh they're bringing some great stuff they posted

a video today that was pretty fire of their time so far there so make sure to check that out as well and also check out all of our content sign up over at go p hnx.com for a membership uh if you're listening right now to this podcast on your favorite audio podcasting app make sure to subscribe to us there and leave us a five-star review also hop over to youtube to our phnx sports page and subscribe there as well sign up for notifications that way you don't miss any of the content coming out from the cardinals from the coyotes from us from any of the amazing uh p h nx team members here bringing you this fire content of course you can follow me and jesse on twitter i'm at cap underscore caveman with a k. Jesse is at Jesse

and Friedman. Our show is at PHNX underscore D-Backs, but of course all roads lead to at PHNX underscore Sports and that's on Twitter Instagram and Facebook. We thank you guys again so much. We apologize for going back on our promise to not talk about the lockout

but it's pretty hard. Lockout's just here. It's looming. It's like 12 straight days of rainy weather and you don't want to talk about the rain anymore but it's hard not to. It just won't stop bring on us. So we appreciate you to tune in. We thank you on behalf of Jesse and myself. We thank you guys so much for always checking out the show. And remember kids, baseball is fun,

but it's so much more fun when we know when the schedule is going to start.