PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Have Diamondbacks Fans LOST ALL HOPE This Season?

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

Zac Gallen was a sight for sore eyes as he shoved in his return to the mound for the Diamondbacks against the Oakland A's. We discuss the duo of Gallen and Brandon Pfaadt giving this team some needed quality starts and the team's decision to designate Tucker Barnhart for assignment. Will we see Adrian Del Castillo get called up? Also, we discuss the results of our midseason survey and how things have changed since the beginning of the year. Have Diamondbacks fans lost all hope this season?An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/bet365: Use the code PHNX365 to sign up, deposit $10 and choose between either:Bet and Get offer and place a bet of $5 or more and get $150 in Bonus Bets OR First Bet Safety Net offer by placing a bet up to $1000 and if your qualifying bet loses you receive a matched refund in Bonus betsDisclaimer: Must be 21+ and physically located in AZ. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-NEXT-STEP, text NEXTSTEP to 53342 or visit https://problemgambling.az.gov/Indeed: listeners of this show will get a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to get your jobs more visibility at https://indeed.com/allcity. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed.Mint Mobile: To get your new 3-month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to https://mintmobile.com/diamondbacks. $45 upfront payment required (equivalent to $15/mo.). New customers on first 3 month plan only. Speeds slower above 40GB on Unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees, & restrictions apply. See MINT MOBILE for details.Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.Circle K:  Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!Four Peaks: Follow on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Shady Rays: Exclusively for our listeners, Shady Rays is giving out their best deal of the season. Head to https://shadyrays.com and use code: PHNX for 35% off polarized sunglasses. Try for yourself the shades rated 5 stars by over 300,000 people.Chicken N Pickle: Head to https://chickennpickle.com to see all the fun you can have at their Glendale location! PHNX will be hosting Trivia Nights and Pickleball Tournaments so stay tuned for info!When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome in to another edition of the PHNX Debax podcast right here on PHNX. If you're listening to this one, thank you for being here. If you're watching this one, thank you for being a diehard. Of course, my name is Derek Montia, occasionally known as your mayor of PHNX. And this man next to me, he never stops. He can't get enough of this podcasting gig. It's my vice mayor and your thunder stick, the one and only Jesse Friedman. And it's understandable, Jesse, because this was a big weekend, especially when we,

discussed whether or not Friday's game, Friday's loss to the Oakland A's, was rock bottom. Zach Gallen swooped in and saved us all, it felt like, on Saturday, because not only was he back, not only did he return from injury, but it was one of the best damn performances we've seen out of him all year. It really was, yeah, I don't, I don't know if I've, like, I cannot clearly identify in my head, really any start from Zach Gallen's career where I can say confidently he was better than he was on Saturday. Like that's how good it was. Not to say like I'm, you know, I mean, he's he's gone, he's gone eight scoreless with 13 strikeouts before. So I mean, I'm sure if you sort of looked through

and tried to find a game, you might be able to. But he was really, really good on Saturday. His velocity was way up. That was a conversation that we had in spring training and in the early parts of the season when, you know, his fastball was averaging about 92. It was about as low as it had ever been in his career. And then he comes off the aisle, Derek, and, you know, he throws 92, 97 mile an hour pitches to Shea Languiliers. Those were the two hardest fastballs of his major league career. He averaged 95.2, which was also a career high. And it wasn't just the fastball velo. It was the command of his pitches. It was the sharpness of the breaking ball. The changeup looked good. He had everything rolling.

And, you know, one of the first things Tori said after that game on Saturday was, boy, is it good to have Zach Allen back. And I think everyone watching that game felt the same way. Everybody except the P.HNX Cardinals crew. Because as you know, our producer Damon, along with those rap scallions from the Cardinals crew, Bo Brock and Johnny Venerable, decided to go do the 9-99 challenge on a day where Zach Gallen was absolutely dealing. Now, I don't want to call these guys frauds, Jesse, but I thought the way that this worked, and it made a little more sense when they explained it to me, but I thought the way this worked was after the game started, you get a hot dog and a beer, and you have to finish that hot dog and that beer before the end of the inning.

And with baseball being as unpredictable as it is, you have no idea how much time you truly have to accomplish this feat. Should you have any of your hot dog or beer left after the inning ends, you're out. That's the point where you're supposed to be out. These guys got like a head start. They were they were like three hot dogs and beers in in the first inning. And they needed that head start even though it does seem like cheating to me because that galah did not allow for very much time for the boys to get their hot dogs and their beers down. I took part in the challenge just as like a cheerleader, a mascot, if you will. And I was able to,

to get to the seventh inning, Jesse, until I realized that they had run out of value hot dogs. And as you may know, gee, I wonder why. I do not have the budget. Yeah. How did this happen? How did they run out of budget hot dogs in our section?

Well, I mean, you could blame a lot of people. There could be a lot of people to blame for that. But this was very fun until they ran out of pot dogs. and stop serving beer, which is another part of this challenge, which seems very hard to accomplish because they do cut off beer sales before the end of the game.

So how do you have those beers? Got it kind of pre-plan, I guess. I don't know how far the boys got, but I was very thankful to eventually get a message from Johnny Venerable, acknowledging that he was alive. Jesse, that was Johnny's first Diamondbacks game. Ever? Ever? Ever? Ever.

Ever. And he did the 9-90- challenge. How long is Johnny Venerable lived in the state of Arizona? I don't know. But pretty long time. He's a big Cardinals guy.

I'm not sure if you're aware of that or not. But Zach Gallen again was unforgiving that day. And the offense tried to help him out, but there wasn't a lot of offense scored in that one. But the Diamondbacks were able to give Zach the win. And then they were able to win again today, which is when we're recording this on Sunday. Brandon fought another excellent outing.

The Diamondbacks get two quality starts back to back. And that, Jesse, I think is the big story of the weekend. It's just that they got two quality starts. And then starting pitching in those 12 innings that those two guys pitched allowed one whole earned run between the two of them. That's, I mean, that's why we said on Friday's post-game show, as rough of a loss as that was, it was like, you're still set up decently well to win the series over the eight.

with Zach Gowan coming back Saturday, and then and then Brandon fought, who has pitched reasonably well for the debacks this season going on Sunday. So, yeah, I mean, they came out and they delivered, and this Diamondbacks team has been looking for starting pitchers to deliver for a long time. And it just hasn't, it just hasn't consistently been there for him. And, you know, they're going to, I mean, they're going to face another test here going into L.A., you know, with Jordan Montgomery pitching. I believe that's Wednesday. Ryan Nelson will start the opener against the Dodgers on Tuesday. Now, the debacks did move up, Zach Gallen. It sounds like Gallen is going to pitch every fifth day between now and the All-Star

break that gets him an extra start prior to the All-Star break, doing it that way. So if there's an off day in between, he'll basically move up one spot in the starting rotation. Right. He wasn't, yeah, I mean, he would line up to start Friday, the first game in San Diego, but the debacks moved him up to Thursday against the Dodgers. I don't know what it means for Slade Sacconi. That'll be kind of interesting to see. Is he just getting moved back?

Or are the debacks skipping him altogether this turn? I wasn't at the ballpark today, so I'm not sure exactly what the plan is there. But yeah, the debacks are being aggressive with trying to get down as many outings as they possibly can. We did have an Eduardo Rodriguez citing today in the dugout, Jesse. and that should put a lot of people's minds at ease. But even though that was an actual thing that happened and I tweeted it out, people still came back at me and were like, that was AI that was easily,

much like Elise hiring, you know, some sort of actor to come play, take, play her role at like takeovers and events and stuff. This is obviously a paid actor that they got in there to play, Eduardo Rodriguez. Now, that would explain how you and I have seen him. with our own eyes at least, as long as this actor is consistently the same actor. But he looks very much like the Eduardo Rodriguez I've seen on TV. He was in the dugout today, Jesse, and that was, again, a very encouraging site.

We know he has that MRI coming up this week. I believe it's this week, the week of, yes, this very strange week where we don't have a Monday show. And we're off on July 4th. But we will find out if he can then start throwing off a mound, which will then lead to complex games and then lead to probably a few starts for the Reno Aces. And then maybe we see Eduardo Rodriguez back here right around the All-Star Break, not around the All-Star Break, but post-All-Star Break. And we know Merrill Kelly being as cerebral as he is, he's probably very accurate with when his return is going to be. So that won't be until, you know, mid-August.

And that's going to be considerable weight. But again, much like Zach Gallen being kind of fresh and at his best upon his return, we can only hope that we get that out of those guys when they return. And if they do, then things look pretty good for this team all of a sudden out of nowhere. Yeah, I mean, the debacks need those two guys back. There's no question about it. And the trade deadline being at the end of, I guess by the time people are listening, to this probably the end of this month as we as we turn the calendar to July, there's a lot for

the debacks to figure out here. And yeah, there's, I mean, there's a lot of variables. It's not just a matter of how quickly Erod and Merrill Kelly are able to get back. It's also just in, you know, in this time between now and the All-Star break and immediately after that, when the debacks will surely be without either of them, how are they able to stay afloat against some of these better teams. I mean, debaques aren't taking on the A's this next week, Derek. They've got the Dodgers, they've got the Padres. They come home for the Atlanta Braves, the Blue Jays after that leading into the All-Star break. I know the Blue Jays haven't been quite as good this season, but they're an ALS, an AL East team. They're probably better than their record indicates. So this is going

to be a tough test for them here over these next couple of weeks. Honestly, put some respect on the Oakland A's name because even though they, uh, the Diamondbacks had their most significant win today. They were not an easy team to beat. And, you know, again, Zach Allen looked very sharp, but this was a team that kind of had their way with the Diamondbacks on Friday night. So, again, any team in baseball can be a team that gives you a hard time. You know, you never really know when a team is going to just click and be playing their best baseball of the season, even if they're a bad team record-wise or have been playing bad baseball all-season. long. But the Dodgers at least are without

mooky bets, and that's a plus as the Diamondbacks go in there. Because that's at least one less guy that the Diamondbacks have to deal with. However, we remember what him and Freddie Freeman did against this team in the playoffs. So maybe we're better off with him in the lineup. I don't know.

When we talk about this team improving, though, a big news today was that the Diamondbacks have, according to Nick Picoro designated Tucker Barnhart for assignment. And that was surprising to me, Jesse, very surprising, especially considering right now they are without Gabriel Moreno, who I imagine is going to return and is probably going to be the corresponding move to go along with this DFA.

I know Tucker has struggled, but it really did feel like he was providing them at least with a quality backup at times. and we spoke about it the other day that even though his, you know, his stats aren't great, he has provided this team with some timely hits at, you know, in big moments. So I think I was just not, I didn't really have that on my radar right now considering the roster problems the Diamondbacks are having,

like the shortage of guys that they're having that they would make this move. I, yeah, I wonder, I mean, Gabriel Moreno is, is going to return. on Tuesday. I mean, that's, as you said, that's clearly

the, kind of the other side of this move. Part of me wonders if Moreno hadn't gotten hurt and Jose Herrera wasn't up in the big leagues as a result of that.

Did the Diamondback still make this move? Is this maybe something they were kind of thinking about doing anyway? And this just sort of gives them kind of like a cleaner way to go, like a simpler way to kind of go about it

with Moreno coming off the aisle, not having to send Jose Herrera about. down to AAA. I don't know, but it's an understandable move. I mean, let's be honest here, like when the debacks first picked up Tucker Barnhart, you know, signed him to, I believe, what was a minor league deal initially. The numbers weren't very impressive. I mean, the Chicago Cubs last season signed Barnhart to a two-year contract, and they let him play there for about three months, I think, before just paying him off and letting him go with a year

and a half left on that deal. So the Diamondbacks just brought him in. They've just been paying him the league minimum, I believe. And he's been a very similar player to what he was last year with the Cubs. I mean, his defensive metrics were not particularly great last year with the Cubs. You mentioned the timely hits, which is a totally real thing. Like Barnhart has a 497 OPS, but it feels like there's been a decent amount of run production in that 47 OPS as ugly as that number might be.

But at the end of the day, Like, yeah, he's not, the defensive metrics are not good. He's not great at catching base sealers, the blocking numbers, the framing numbers. Both of those come in slightly below average on baseball savant right now. And so I can understand why the Diamondbacks are doing this, but like you, I am also a little surprised by the timing of it. I don't want to jump too far ahead, but we do know that Adrian Del Castillo has been playing some incredible baseball for the Reno Aces. Yeah. I'm not trying to say he's ready or, you know, whatever,

but it feels like they're getting closer and closer to not being able to deny him at least some sort of shot at a major league level, considering the offensive struggles that this team is having at times. It really feels like a guy like him, if he could do half of what he's doing at a AAA level, could impact the game at a major. league level. It just depends because we know that's not how things always go, right? We know that minor league ball players don't always come up and have the success they add at a AAA level.

And that goes probably double for guys that play for Reno because of that ballpark and because of the way that those numbers can look in the PCL. It just does feel like, you know, Jose Herrera and Tucker Barnhart feel like very comparable players. It doesn't really feel like you're getting much more out of one than the other, but it does feel like you're getting a bit more out of Jose Herrera behind the plate because we've seen Tucker make some mistakes back there. We've also seen Jose Herrera make some mistakes.

Both of those guys have very much made us miss Gabrielle Moreno being back there, especially when we see the opposing team running all over whoever's back there. But, I mean, this series definitely exposed, I felt like Tucker in regards to the A's running against this team. I'm glad you brought up Adrian Del Castillo because I think that a lot of this move has to do with him.

I think when the debacks brought in Barnhart initially, they just wanted to give themselves just more depth at the catching position. They probably would have been fine with Moreno as the front line guy and Herrera as the backup. But then, I mean, there's the inevitable question of what happens if one of those guys gets hurt. What does our catching depth look like at that point? And if they hadn't brought in Tucker Barnhart, they would have been forced. to go to someone like Adrian Del Castillo. Right. You know, maybe from the early days of the season before he had really put together the

breakout season that he has. So that was part of Pecorro's story over at the Republic was that this move was impacted by the Diamondbacks having more belief in Del Castillo and what he can do. The offense is still certainly ahead of the defense. We've talked about Del Castillo still needing to make some improvements on that side of the ball, specifically controlling the run game. has been something that that has been an issue for him at times. But from everything that I've heard talking with with Sean Larkin,

the Diamondbacks Farm Director, they believe he's made some real strides on the defensive side of the ball. And he's still hitting, man. I mean, he's still got a 1,000, 1,0002 OPS right now. And even in AAA, that's pretty dang impressive.

You want to talk about another guy that's impressive? And we have talked about him a lot lately. Davidson de los Santos Jesse the Reno Aces beat the Oklahoma City today it's the Oklahoma City baseball club hate that

that's this is this is triple A get your shit together don't this is you're not the Utah hockey club what are we doing the Oklahoma City baseball club which deserved to be beat lost by a score of

8 to 2 Jesse Davidson de los Santos accounted for all eight Reno Aces runs. He was three for four with two home runs and eight RBI. The man's a beast. It's outrageous. It's outrageous.

It's outrageous. It's insane. He is slashing 319, 362, 659 with 11 home runs and 37 RBI in 138 at bats. And that is all in, is that all intrepresent? That's all in AAA. Yeah, that's since being promoted from, from Amarillo. Yeah, I mean, these, those are pretty insane numbers. The Diamondbacks have young guys that, to be honest, again, you don't know.

And the Cleveland Guardians gave him an opportunity potentially to be a major leaguer. So it's not like there's a secret that he's a good ball player and that there might be something there. He just wasn't ready to be a regular major leaguer this year. and the Guardians wisely took a shot at it and realized it wasn't going to work. But, I mean, the Diamondbacks might not be able to avoid at least giving him an opportunity. I don't know what, again, fans always want these guys when they're putting up these numbers to get called up. But then it's like, what are you going to do with them? Where are you going to, who's going to go down?

Where are you going to play them? How often are they going to play? These are all important factors that people don't really think enough about when getting these guys up to a major league level. So again, David Sondalo Santos, you talked about his defense at third base not being great. He's really just a first baseman. And we kind of have one of those already, a pretty goddamn good one when it comes to defense. And he can also hit the ball pretty hard. The debacks have also, this is all of a prospect report out here pretty soon,

something I do every month on the written side. It might be out by the time people are getting to watch or listen to this. Still all your material. Yeah, yeah, I talked to you. I talked to Sean Larkin just this past weekend about Davis and Dela Santos, and the fact that his hitting really has translated right to AAA at a pretty exceptional level. And I think we talked about it briefly that Davis and Dela Santos is getting some looks at third base. That is something the Diamondbacks have sort of reintroduced after saying earlier this season

that they wanted to develop him solely at first base. They opened the door for third base again. And I think we all know why. I think we all know writing is on the wall. that the diamond backs of the big league level are not getting much of anything from third base right now. And Davis and DeLos Santos, even if he's not great there defensively, if you have a chance to have an above-average hitter at that position, even if you take a little bit of a hit on the defensive side of the ball, I think that's something the debacks are at least willing to consider. So, yeah, I mean, it's, DeLos Santos doing this at his age is the other really impressive factor. I mean, he's 21 years old.

That's really, really impressive to be putting up these kind of numbers at AAA. So I hope, I mean, just as like a baseball fan at large, like I want to see Davis and DeL Santos hit majors, right? Like his raw power is. Give it to me. His raw power is just otherworldly. And there are some reasons to be skeptical. Like his chase rate has been really high in AAA. I don't think that will, you know, you can get yourself into some trouble with like,

it was 42 percent, I think last I saw, which is really pretty high. You get yourself into into some trouble chasing that much in the big leagues, but it's gotten to the point where the numbers are so good in Reno that I'm intrigued at the very least. Well, the Diamondbacks finish the month of June with a winning record, their first month with a winning record since that very short amount of time that they played baseball in March. They're 16 and 11 in June. And again, at the very least, things are trending in an upward direction, I feel like, for this team at this point. And we are just now past the halfway point.

So I will acknowledge and concede to people that want to be panic, that want to panic about it, that yes, we are beyond the point of time where you should feel comfortable about where this team. is at and and their chances to make the postseason. I completely understand that. However, you know, we saw this team have one of the worst July's ever, maybe ever for any team. I mean, just as far as being, you know, 16 games above 500 down to what three games below or wherever they ended up at. Maybe that doesn't happen this July and maybe the Diamondbacks find a way to win

some games and trend upwards towards the end of the season. But again, even with that terrible July, we know how the postseason worked out. So it's too early to be looking at wildcard standings right now with too many teams bunched together. But there will become a point of time not too long from now where it won't be too early to be looking at wildcard standings. And that's probably one month from today, maybe when we get to the trade deadline. 100%.

Yeah, I mean, the standings like, I mean, you might not be doing a super granular, like, every day I need to know where that exactly where the diamondbacks sit in the standings. But it absolutely matters going into the trade deadline. I mean, that's what determines what teams are going to do in the approach that they're going to take. So yeah, the debacks at the halfway point. You mentioned they just crossed over that halfway point. You know, they're 41 and 43 now, but they were 39 and 42 then. That was their official first half of the season record. putting themselves on pace for 78 wins, the exact reverse of the record that they had last year, last year, 84 and 78 this year, they would have been on pace for 78 and 84, which is kind of a disastrous outcome, frankly, Derek, in a lot of ways. I mean, there's obviously a lot of pretty good reasons for it that we've discussed at length along the way, but if I told you at the beginning of the season that the debacks were going to go 39 and 42 in the first half, like, that would have felt maybe not worst case scenario, but probably pretty close. Yeah.

But if you would have also told me, hey, Derek, they're going to be missing three-fits of their starting rotation while that is all going on. I might even go, damn, only three games below 500? Because that sounds like a disaster. Of course, Jesse did ask all of you what you thought on the first half of the season with one of his precarious little mid-season survey reports and over 500 of you answered. Thank you guys so much for your wonderful answers. We thought we would just take a moment to go over the responses. And I know that Jesse wrote an incredible piece for you to check out on go phynx.com.

While you're over there, I implore you to maybe, if you're not already, a diehard, check out getting yourself a diehard membership. There's some wonderful options, by the way, that you get with that. You get yourself a free t-shirt of your choice from the PHNX locker, which is amazing, especially considering we have our brand new Valley collection of t-shirts right here that you can see if you are watching as a diehard. I shouldn't be selling you this on the video as much, I guess, but because if you're watching this, you already are a die-hard. But if you're not, and you're listening, of course, you get your access to all of our premium written content. entrance to the Discord lounge, including additional content like the video of this audio podcast

that you might be listening to if you're not a diehard, and discounts all of our events and so much more. So make sure to check us out today. Check out the diehard membership. I assure you it pays for itself. Plus,

we have an incredible community of people that pull together. They have some amazing events, even without us. Like today, they all met up and got a suite at the Diamondbacks game. It sounded like it was a delightful experience. So, of course, Jesse and I usually aren't at the ballpark on Sundays because, as my shirt says, Sunday is fun day.

And sometimes fun day means staying at home and getting one day off per week. And that's only one of us. The other one definitely gets multiple days off per week and enjoys his time very much all the time and is not working all the time. I'll let you decide which one you think those are. But back to Jesse's survey results. Jesse, let's take a look at what you had. Here we have the survey results for your first question. How many games will the Diamondbacks win?

Take it away. Yeah, most popular response here was 82 to 85 wins. That's 43.7%. 78 to 81 was 23%, 86 to 89 at 17.3%. And then we have 74 to 77 at 12.5%. Very few votes for 73. three wins or less or 90 wins or more, as you would sort of expect at this stage in the season. Something that stood out to me here, Derek, is that I also asked this question in my preseason

survey. And at that point, I believe it was 46% of people had the Diamondbacks winning 90 or more games in 2024. And in this mid-season survey, that number was down to 0.8% of you who still are holding out hope for the Diamondbacks to turn to think about to win 90 games. You absolute cowards. That's probably a good call. A big, big chunk here says 78 to 81.

I don't like that. I don't like that at all. Yeah, I mean, 82 to 85, you're in pretty precarious position there for making the playoffs. Like, as of right now, that could be all right. 86 to 89 is really where you start to feel more comfortable about making the playoffs. And, yeah, we're only at about, I think, just under 20. percent of people to have the debacks winning 86 games or more if we kind of pooled together those those categories so yeah it's uh i mean i think it's pretty realistic i think i this was

pretty much in line with with what i kind of would have expected on this one all right next question here will the diamondbacks make the playoffs 57.6 percent of you said yes 42.4 percent of you said no jesse how does this differ from your pre-seasoned survey? I didn't ask this question directly in the pre-season survey, but I mean, given that almost half of people said 90 or more wins, and I'm sure there was a really good chunk of people that were right below that, like, I am sure that if I had asked this question preseason, we're talking at least 80% say yes, probably closer to,

probably close to like 90-95. I mean, we were riding the, the World Series high at that point, right? And the D-BACs, I guess technically I distributed my survey before the Jordan Montgomery signing, but specifically if I had done it after that,

I mean, D-BACs fans were, they were, I mean, they were very, very happy, very confident. World Series or bust. We might have gotten like a 99% for making the playoffs, honestly. That wouldn't, that wouldn't have shocked me. All right.

next question most valuable player yikes that's a landslide could tell marty 94.8% other 5.2% we don't care about what the others are who got the next most votes is my only question yeah i think you i think there were a couple of guys who got six uh six votes not six percent but just six individual votes uh paul seewald got six votes he got six votes uh paul he got six votes and Christian Walker got six votes. Jock Peterson and Brandon Fott both had three and then Zach Gallen had two. Also, the Cotton Candy Guy did receive a write-in vote as well. The Cotton Candy Guy? Shout out to Cotton Candy Guy. I think there was a Pavin Smith right in, too, if I'm not. We know who that is.

We see you, Mark. We absolutely see you. All right. Next question. Most valuable pitcher. 41% said my best friend, Ryan Thompson. And we are Ryan's dogs, especially since Damon isn't here. Bark, bark.

24.2% Paul Seawald. That's interesting. It's interesting that our relievers are the biggest vote getters here, Jesse. Yeah, I mean, Justin Martinez got 10% too. So I wrote about this in the little blurb in the story. we've got more than 75% of votes going to relievers on the most valuable pitcher poll, which really tells you everything you need to know about the Diamondback's starting rotation this year, right? I mean, it's been just everyone's been hurt.

I will say this poll or this survey was distributed before Zach Gallen totally shoved in his first game back off the IL and before Ryan Thompson looked human for really the first time as a member of the Diamondbacks giving up three runs the other night. So I imagine if we had taken this, take it back. He's not human. You know he's not human. Take him back. He's not human. No human would talk to me about pro wrestling this much, Jesse.

It's obvious he's an alien trying to fit in with the rest of us. And you know it. But yes, he did look human, as you want to say, allegedly. But Ryan Thompson has been just insanely valuable to this team due to the fact that he has come in so often. he's been so durable this season. And he's just been the guy that whenever Tori needed to lean on, he's been there for him. I mean, that's why Tori said what he said in that post-game press conference the other day, that infuriated a lot of people because, yeah, I mean,

Tori was just being honest. And people don't want honesty, Jesse. They don't want to hear Tori say, yeah, we had a one-run lead. I had Thompson and Seawald. It was, in my head, it was over. Like, those guys have been lights out. And why wouldn't he think that because they have been, right? I also see Seawald getting a lot of these votes because we've talked quite often about

the mythical way that Paul Seawald just makes fixes everything. And that's why he's the bullpen dad. Jesse, he literally fixes everything. Does he, does he always, does he look flashy doing it? Like, are you always out there? Like, my dad's the best? No, because nobody really at times says that about their. own father. But he gets us through the ninth inning every single time. And the impact that he has

on the rest of the bullpen is undeniable. Like it just, it's a mess without him. And yet then when he's there, everybody seems to fall in. Like obviously, like you said, we had this game the other day, Ryan Thompson, you know, fumbled, you know, but he has been so reliable this season that for the most part, that's the one outlier, right? But I mean, this bullpen has just been incredibly solid when Paul Seawald's there and it doesn't even doesn't even make sense because it's not like other guys haven't been asked to step into that close a roll

so that everybody else can maintain essentially there, you know, where they would come in from the bullpen, but it just, it feels like Paul Seawald just helps. You know, it's just amazing. It really is. I mean, Paul Seawald, he pitched the

ninth inning again today, even though it wasn't a safe situation. Opposing hitters this year, Derek, are slashing 093-169-167 against Seawald this season. That is a 336 OPS. He has a 0.54 ERA, a 0.48 whip. He has not blown a safe. He has a perfect 11 for 11.

He's been ridiculously good. It's not just the, it's not just like his viability as a closer, which is sort of what it felt like it was last year, where it wasn't like he was coming in there and was peak Josh Hater or something, but just the fact that he was a reliable good closer made a huge difference. This year so far, he's taking it to another level where he, you know, he's not racking up strikeouts at a Josh Hader level,

but these numbers are as good as any closer you'll find in baseball. It's been just unbelievable what he's done so far. It's also unbelievable that he still just has so many problems with his pitchcom. Yeah, he's had a nice run though. He's had a nice run here over the last few days. So don't jinx him, all right? You know, he does the thing with the glove. It's just so funny every single time.

All right, what else we got? Most valuable fielder, Christian Walker, coming in there at number one at 54.7%, which is impressive because, again, we talk about first baseman, not really receiving the love they should. And it's great to see Diamondbacks fans acknowledging how great Christian Walker really is over there.

Yeah, the secret is, out, at least among Diamondbacks fans. There's no question about that. Walker is certainly very deserving here. Kattel Marte is also very deserving. Technically, if you go by the outs above average and defensive run, save numbers, Marte has actually been the most valuable defender on the Diamondbacks this season. He might have gotten my vote on this question, but you really can't go wrong.

I mean, Walker's an elite first baseman. He's probably going to win the gold glove there again. Kattel is probably going to win the gold glove at second base. And then I also thought it was kind of interesting that Gabby Moreno after winning the Gold Glove last season didn't get a little bit more love here at 6.6% of the vote. He might not have, you know, we maybe haven't seen Gabby do quite what he did last year in terms of catching base dealers, but it's still been still been pretty impressive. And I don't mean to call fans fickle, but fans definitely like have been disappointed with Gabby overall. and we know that he wasn't, he, again, he showed that he was human, right? He's not getting every single base runner.

He's not having the great offensive season he had last year. Corby Carroll probably deserves more love on this list, to be honest, because he's been out-asked to take on a role that really wasn't the role that he was, you know, the outfield role that he was playing. And even though at times he, just like Jake McCarthy today, could tend to make some things look a bit more complicated. than they need to be. I feel like he's really adapted well to center field and,

and he's gotten. I mean, he's, he's really learned how to use his speed to get the spots and, and make the catches. And I, I think that, I mean,

he's going to be a better overall outfielder. After all this is said and done, I just think that his season, his offensive numbers kind of impact people's feelings on that. Plus, yeah, he has made a couple of plays out there, uh,

or had a couple of plays in center field that didn't look great. A couple of plays out there that you know Alec Thomas probably would have got to with ease. And he kind of struggled with getting kind of turned around one way or another to try to catch a ball. But again, I mean, considering he was asked to step into the center fielder role, not played it last year, I still think he's done a good job, all things considered. Yeah, let's see what else we got. Biggest pleasant surprise. Jesse, you want to take this one away? Sure, yeah.

had no idea what uh who is going to be the the leading vote getter here and it wound us one's well round players yeah we had four players who basically all got about 20% of the vote just martina is technically out in front with 23.8% Kevin Newman at 20.4 jocke peterson at an even 20 and then jake McCarthy just behind him at 19.6 you can make a really solid case for for any of these guys um I wouldn't I I don't know I don't know who I would pick here Derek I probably should given time, I'm the one who came up with a survey question. But I guess Justin Martinez, like I can very much understand why people would have gone that direction on this one.

I mean, Jay Martin had a 12.6 ERA last year, and granted not a very big sample size, but his command was so all over the place that it just didn't seem like he was really a viable reliever. And then this year it comes out and he's got a 1.17, I think it is right now. So, yeah, I maybe would have gone J.mart, but, I mean, Jake McCarthy's bounced back well. Kevin Newman has certainly been solid for the debacks as well.

So these are all good choices. I went Jock Peterson myself. And I think that the reason I went with Jock was because, again, Jock has been one of the best hitters on this team. In fact, today when Tori pinch hit for Jock, even though I understood it based on the pitching matchup, I hated it. I hated it a lot because I just don't think, I think Jock this season has proved to be a better hitter than most of the other guys on the team.

And I think that he is just one of those guys that, like, especially in a big moment like that, he knows how to just get the ball and play. He's, he's not swinging for the fences, you know, like, like you see a couple of other guys do. He's not up there, you know, I mean, him and Randall Gritchick, they both, they find a way to just get a hit, just get, you know, the kind of hit that you need in that moment. And I wasn't expecting that out, Jock. I wasn't expecting to see him, you know, show the plate discipline that he's shown and work counts the way that he's worked them this year. Just overall, I've been really pleasantly surprised with Jock.

And again, you put his numbers up against some of the other options the Diamondbacks had at D.H. potentially. And it doesn't, you know, it looks like the Diamondbacks made probably their best offseason move there when it came to Jock Peterson and Randall Gritchie. 100%. mean, those are the two offseason moves that definitely stand out above the rest. And Jock, I mean, he's having the best season of his career, at least as of the start of play today. I think it was a 149 OPS plus that's higher than it's ever been. So, yeah, that's a totally valid choice as well. I know Blaze Alexander got some love here.

Randall Gritchick also got about 5% of the vote. He's been good for this team as well. So for as many guys that have been disappointing this season, there have been several that have come out and really exceeded expectations as well. I lie. Blase is actually my most pleasant surprise because when he came up to me and told me he thanked me for the things we've been saying about him on the show, that was my biggest surprise. And then he hugged me and that was great. And I've already talked about that at length. But anyway, what else we got? Biggest disappointments.

Oh, you monster, Jesse Friedman. all right well of course no surprise here actually yeah a little bit of a surprise i mean i know people have been disappointed with gino but i feel like honestly jordan montgomery uh in my mind especially based on the money the diamondbacks paid him and honestly the i don't feel like i don't feel like the weight of the team was on gino as much as the weight of the team was on jordan performing and stepping up and being a veteran starting pitcher that the Diamondbacks needed to go out there and do his job night in and night out. He wasn't going to get a lot of run support at times. It wasn't always going to go great, but man, it definitely has been a disappointment.

The debacks have had several pretty big disappointments this year. I mean, there's no way around it. This is another question where I didn't really have any idea how this was going to go. Gino being at the top here, I don't know if I, I can see where people are coming from, right? I mean, he has an OPS under 600. I think entering today was tied for the second lowest in all of baseball among qualified hitters. Like, that's not great.

But at the same time, in my mind, there was always a risk that Gino Suarez was going to struggle this year. Like, he's a player who's pretty clearly been on the decline last season in Seattle was a significant step down from the season. before that, it's just sort of the way it works in baseball. Like sometimes the slope is not gentle and you wind up with guys going from being well above average hitters to well below average hitters and just not very much time. So I don't think that I would really view Suarez as the biggest disappointment just because

I think that risk was kind of there. And we had probably should have known that was possible. We had preseason predictions from fan graphs that we thought were being like harsh and they ended up being actually fairly kind based on his actual numbers, right? So like, yeah, the expectation. Projected OPS was like 690 or 680 or something like that. And we were like, oh, that seems really low. And in reality, the deba back, you bitch, pretty happy when the 680.

Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. But, yeah, like when we look back at this, I mean, it's hard, again, it's hard to see Gino and Corbyn Carroll both be bigger disappointments than Jordan Montgomery. Corbyn Carroll, that's interesting to me considering he's the guy from this team, and people are just disappointed in the sophomore slump. But what's wild to me is other guys that we were talking about being potential rookie of the year candidates last year right along,

Corbyn Carroll, early on in the season, some of those guys aren't even in Major League Baseball, right now. And it just goes to prove that it's not easy for you to maintain that stretch when you come up to the majors and just stay as a major league ball player. You have options. There's reasons why at times roster moves need to be made. And a lot of times it's the fact that in your sophomore season, you go through that thing called a sophomore slump. Now, I do think that Corbyn Carroll, you know, I mean, it's a tough act to follow. right? He was incredible last year. So it's hard to just keep getting better as an athlete and as a baseball player sometimes. I mean, he was motivated, he was hungry, and it translated over to, I think, a combination of people not really knowing a lot about him. And kind of taking advantage of that, taking advantage of the new rules in baseball, which teams have gotten more used to now because they've had an entire season under their belt to adjust to the pitch. clock and all of that. But the Diamondbacks kind of took advantage of that. The only thing that I would say is a disappointment for me truly about Corby Carroll is his power completely disappearing. That's,

that's, that's, that's, that's, that's the thing that's disappointing me. I think in terms of, like, just the delta between expected performance, like what you kind of were thinking you'd get from these guys and actual performance, the delta is biggest with Montgomery and with Carol, for sure. way way bigger than Suarez in my mind i mean jordan montgomery had a three two er a last year and was a big piece of the rangers winning the world series he currently has i think it's the second highest era in the sport among guys who've thrown 60 or more innings like that's that's a really big gap and similarly corbin finished fifth and MVP voting last season and has followed that up by also being among the five or ten worst qualified hitters in baseball.

So for me, the gap is definitely biggest with those two guys. All right. What else we got here? We got the 2023-24 off-season grade. Now here at the midway point, not too many A's there. A got 5.8% of the votes. B, got 27.2% of the votes. C, got the majority of the votes.

48.7%. D got 15.3%. And of course, 3% there for Thunderbolt and Tim and a couple of the other guys that will never be happy. Definitely not an F off-season grade for me, Jesse.

But it's hard to give this team an A considering the way everything is gone. And it's not entirely their fault. It's not anybody's fault. Some of it is just bad luck. Some of it is guys not performing.

Like, I don't feel like the team or the front office, I don't feel like they deserve this grade, which sounds crazy. It sounds like I'm just, you know, making excuses for them. But I feel like they did a great job in their acquisitions. It's really the disappointment of the players, you know, being injured and Jordan Montgomery and Gino not performing and like combination of things. Like, it really is. Yeah, it's hard to really nail.

something like this down because it feels like a front office can like have a really good process and make moves that were genuinely good and just have just have those moves not pan out for whatever reason in a scenario where it's just like it's not necessarily their fault but at the other time I understand like okay all that really matters at the end of these day at the end of the day for front office people is the results of the moves that they make like that's ultimately what they're getting graded on and the results frankly have just been very poor. I mean, it's, it's Montgomery struggling. You couldn't predict that Erod was going to be out for the entire season up to this point, but that's what's happened. You know, Gino Suarez, you're paying about,

you know, 13 million or something like that, including the option buyout for next season. He obviously has not panned out. So the results are brutal. And I did a little comparison in the article between the preseason poll on this and where we sit right now. We had just over 95% of people giving either an A or a for the D-backs off-season. That was pre-Jordan Montgomery signing, by the way. I think it would have been almost all A if we had taken it after the Montgomery signing. And with this update that you just saw,

we are down to 33% of people giving it an A or a B. So it just goes to show, like, you can win the off-season and the Diamondbacks, they didn't win the off-season. I guess like the Dodgers probably won the off-season or some other teams. But they were one of the winners of the off-season. They were a low they were like the low key winner for a lot of people like the team that did it with well kind of balling on a budget didn't really spend a ton didn't commit years and years and years to guys. They were just able to take a team that made it to the world series and make it better and everybody kind of agreed that this front office went out there and made this team better. The catch here is how we still haven't seen this team. It is. It is. June 30th, while we're recording this, we're about to flip the calendar to July, and we have

still not seen this team. I'm not going to make excuses for Gino, though I will say we've tried experiments over there at third and seen how badly that's gone. So let's not forget what Gino does for us as a fielder over there at third base and how good he's been. But what I will say is that when it comes like Jordan Montgomery, the pressure applied to Jordan Montgomery, the expectations now for Jordan to step up and be that guy that I was describing earlier. I'm not the only person that felt that way. I'm sure he felt that way. I'm sure other people in the organization felt that way.

Like, you are our vet on the staff now. You need to go out and give us a quality start basically every single time you go out there because we have to. We need it. And you can't demand results like that, especially if it's going to get into a guy's head or whatever, you know, those expectations, they might be too big. Maybe the reason why he was able to succeed with the Rangers was because of the way that he could just file in with the staff and not expected to be that guy, but that that role is thrust upon him due to injuries all of a

sudden, right? So who knows how he even pitches once the rest of the pitching staff is back, taking some of that pressure off of him being that guy? It just, again, I don't know. I can totally understand people's people people going with sea like sea does feel like right now from what we've seen see see feels pretty good it also is a reminder that like when ken kendrick doesn't spend on this team in the future uh remember this year because there's a good chance that you're have a hard time convincing him to spend again after the way things have gone so we'll see though hopefully hopefully he will we'll see what else we got here what else we got here Jesse. Trade deadline approach. This is what people want to see. Yeah. Yeah. Buy somewhat aggressively

was the leader here at 55%. 21% of you said the debaq should stand pat. 13% sell somewhat aggressively, 10% aggressively buy and then only 1% said aggressively sell. And just to be clear, the question here was, how would you approach the trade deadline if it were tomorrow? Because obviously, you know, what what the debacks should do at the deadline is certainly going to depend on how the next month goes and none of us really know the answer to that right now. But hypothetically, like if it's July 29th and the debacks are in a similar position in the standings as they are right now, I wanted to know what people would do. And I think this is a pretty good, pretty good reflection of that. I like that by somewhat aggressively is the approach that

people would take. I also like Stan Pat being second because those people know ball. And those people know that the best trade deadline moves the Diamondbacks are going to make is getting their injured pitchers back. That's true. Yeah. That's going to improve this. I'd be pretty shocked. I'd be pretty shocked if the debacks did anything at the deadline, even if they were

semi-aggressive, that was more impactful than getting Merrill Kelly off the IL. Like, that's just the reality of the situation. And imagine if Eduardo Rodriguez can shove, Jesse. We don't even know what we get out of him. That's like a complete wild card right now for his. this team. So again, yeah, that's, uh, I like that. I like those results. People still believe.

And then there's the sell somewhat aggressively people that we need to have a chat. Well, the sell aggressively people. Like I'm like, those are like the blow it up people. I'm one. Yeah. No, I say it's like what scale of blow up we're talking about with those. Again, you know

who it was. You know exactly it was. It was the same guys I described earlier. All right. What else we got here? Next question. Confidence in Diamondbacks overall. direction, somewhat confident, 55%, very confident, 22%, unsure, 15%, not very confident at 7%, and not confident at all at 1%. Fair. This is fair, Jesse. I feel like this is very fair. Yeah, I think so. I did this same one in the preseason survey, and just over 99% of people said that they were either in the very confident or the somewhat confident category.

Oh, how three months will change things. Yeah. But even now, I mean, they're still at 77%, which was probably higher than I expected, honestly, given how the first half of the season is gone. It's because they know. They know these injuries are the big reason why. So we'll see what happens when those guys come back. Last question.

Rest of season's expectations. 53% of you glorious people said make the playoffs. 21% of you said make playoffs advanced past wildcard round. 15% of you said just finish above 500 but missed the playoffs. 4% said make playoffs win world series. You guys are the real MVPs. 4% said other. 3% said make playoffs advanced past division series.

Other would entail finishing below 500? Yeah, the other, and there was another option. So just to be clear, the question is, what do the diamondbacks have to do to meet your expectation? So this was less of like, what do you think will happen as what needs to happen for you to be satisfied with the season. And one of the options was make the playoffs and win the pennant, but not necessarily win the World Series. So that's part of the, that's part of the 4% in the other category. There was also literally type in their own thing. So some people did that as well.

Well, then I take back what I said because the people that said make playoffs, win world series, you guys are just too hard to please. Right. Exactly. Yeah. It doesn't always have to be the next thing. Can we just settle back on making the playoffs and then going from there?

Let's just make the playoffs and see what happens, Jesse. That's what I'm here for. Yeah. I mean, the Diamondbacks, I wrote this in the story. The Diamondbacks, talked about it before, they've only made the playoffs in back-to-back seasons once in franchise history all the way back 2001 and 2002. And the other thing is that they have never, never in Diamondbacks history have they won a postseason series in back-to-back years.

In that 2002 season, they got knocked out in the first round. So if the debacks were to do what the, I think it was 21%, we're saying, if they were to make the playoffs and find their way out of the wild card round, assuming they don't win the division and they have to go to the wild card round, which I feel like is a pretty safe assumption at this point. If that happened, it would be the first time it's ever happened where the debacks managed to win playoff series and back-to-back years. So, yeah, people are still pretty, they're still like hoping for big things from this team. That was my biggest takeaway here. Like most of you, almost all of you, want to see the diamondbacks make the playoffs and depending on, depending on, depending on which

one of you were talking about, you know, maybe go significantly far beyond that as well. And I was maybe at the same time as slightly surprised that 15% were content with just finishing above 500. But I guess given where the team is and in the injuries and whatnot, like I guess I could see how that could be considered a success. Just winning 83 games, but missing the playoffs. I mean, that leaves a bad taste in your mouth, but I could see it. I guess. I mean, I just, I don't know. I think for the most part, I could see how anybody would be disappointed with the Diamondbacks not making the playoffs again this year, especially considering, you know, the, you know, the potential this team still has and the roster that this team has, the weapons that they have, the starting rotation that they hopefully will have at some point this season. They should be able to be, you know, roll over. I mean, again, going out to Los Angeles, Jesse, you're going out to Los Angeles. This is the last time we go to Dodger Stadium this season.

So again, there is some of this is getting behind us. And it's not to say that the schedule gets much easier ahead. July is a very tough month for this team. But looking ahead, there are still a lot of games against the Colorado Rockies left on our schedule. There are still a lot of games left against, you know, sub 500 opponents and teams that the Diamondbacks will be battling for that wild card spot. So as they get better, they get healthier, hopefully they can make that run at the playoffs happen again. And you know who's going to be covering it. You know who's going to be drinking champagne out of a beer bat and shirtless.

It's going to be Jesse. But, of course, we thank you guys so much for joining us for this audio-only podcast. And we thank you diehards for being here for the video version as well. We appreciate your time. As always, of course, make sure to follow us on Twitter. I'm at Kapp underscore Keman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. our shows at PHNX underscore D-Backs,

but of course, all roads lead to at PHNX underscore sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We appreciate your time so much. We thank you guys for stopping by. We will see you on Tuesday with our post-game show. Regrets for No Mailbag Monday, the week of July 4th. But you hold on to all of those questions for next week. We will get you guys then.

But until then, we hope you have a wonderful, wonderful Monday and a wonderful 4th of July. I know this is way ahead of time, but just wishing you that now, don't blow yourselves up, kids. And also, remember kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when you take one of Jesse surveys.