PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - How Diamondbacks ace Zac Gallen can win the NL Cy Young in 2024

Episode Date: December 28, 2023

On one hand, Arizona Diamondbacks starting pitcher Zac Gallen posted a career-high in innings and finished higher than ever in NL Cy Young voting in 2023. On the other, by some metrics, he actually had an uncharacteristically poor season. We dive in to what it will take for him to reach the next level. We also revisit the Diamondbacks-Blue Jays Gabriel Moreno/Daulton Varsho trade from last year, and talk early baseball betting odds for 2024.An ALLCITY Network ProductionSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports PHNX Events: Get your tickets to D-backs Takeovers, Knockout Nights & Suns Watch Parties at BetMGM, and MORE here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/phnx-56002330273 Desert Financial Credit Union: Open a free checking account online with Desert Financial Credit Union and get $200 in bonuses https://www.desertfinancial.com/200Schedule a free in-home estimate with Empire Today! All listeners can receive a $350 OFF discount when they use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See EmpireToday.com/PHNX for details.Sign up for Gila River Resorts & Casinos $1,000,000 Big Red’s Showdown! Stay in the game and get rewards; it’s that easy! https://www.gilamilliondollarshowdown.com/Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.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!OGeez!: OGeez! is not your average cannabis-infused gummy. Head on over to https://www.ogeezbrands.com to find out where you can purchase. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Four Peaks: Follow them on social @fourpeaksbrew & @fourpeakspub! Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. WYNK Seltzer + THC: Go to https://drinkwynk.com/ and use promo code “PHNX” for 50% off. Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. 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 the PHNX Daback's podcast. My name is Jesse Friedman, joined today by the one, the only Jacob Franklin, who is joining me from behind the Mac. Jacob, how are you today? Good. I think this will probably be the longest we've ever had an extended look at the back of our office over here. Like producers have occasionally popped on from this chair, but I have a feeling people are going to get a real gist of what goes on on a day-to-day basis. There is a foosball. table behind you, which gets used in our office very frequently.

Very frequently. It's actually the thing that gets used the most. Yeah, yeah. We just can't keep people away from the foosball table. So you'll probably see some action there throughout the show. No, you will not. That literally just sits there. And I don't think I've seen anyone play it in months.

The ASU guys used to play it all the time. But sadly, the ASU guys, you know, it's really just tootry now. So he kind of, I don't know if you've ever come in here during a postgame for ASU. He kind of just drops the ball and then just watches it. He just stares at it. Well, hey, hearty ski to everyone in the chat, as people have already started to say, happy to have you all here with us. Again, I'm Jesse Friedman here with Jacob, continuing along in this week without one Derek Montia, who is still off doing his mayoral. Who needs him?

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure what Derek is up to this week. I think he was just... I think he's at Top golf right now. Is he at Top golf? Yeah. Top golf is, that's a solid place to be on a Thursday afternoon. But hey, we have a lot to get to in today's show. We're going to talk a lot about Zach Gallen in this episode, which I'm excited to get into

some of the specifics there and what it might look like for Zach Gallen to take the next step in 2024. But before we get there, Jacob, we are going to start the show in this first segment, looking back on a very big trade that the Diamondbacks made just about a year ago. I wrote about this over at go phnx.com the other day. I wanted to bring it over to the podcast as well. December 23rd, just a couple days before. Christmas back in 2023, the Diamondbacks and the Toronto Blue Jays made one of the most fascinating

trades of that offseason, one of the more fascinating trades in all of baseball over the last few years. You don't really see deals like this a whole lot where two teams are simultaneously taking talented major league ready players off their roster at the same time. This, of course, was the trade that sent Lordus Greal Jr. and Gabriel Moreno to the Diamondbacks in exchange for Dalton Varsho going the other direction. And what I want to make clear about this before we get into the meat of this conversation, I think a lot of people have forgotten how big of a risk this was for the Diamondbacks at the time.

Dalton Varsho was a really good player for the Diamondbacks in 2020 in 2022. Not that the numbers are necessarily going to, you know, jump off the page. He was in the mid-20s in home runs. His OPS was decent. But what makes him such an incredibly valuable player is, is the fact that he's basically the most valuable defender in all of baseball. I mean, what he's able to give you in the outfield is truly off the charts. According to Fangraph's wins above replacement,

he was the most valuable position player on the Diamondbacks in 2022. And the Diamondbacks were like, hey, we're trying to take the next step toward contention and we're going to trade off our Major League team, you know, arguably the most valuable position player that we have. And in exchange, the debacks got two players. They got Lordus Guriel, who at the time was just a one-year rental, and they were making an enormous bet on one Gabriel Moreno, who of course really emerged over the course of the 2023 season. Jacob, as a Diamondbacks fan in general, I imagine in retrospect, you're a huge fan of this trade. obviously it's still early, but I think any Diamondbacks fan in their right mind is pretty happy that, you know, even though Dalton Varsho is a valuable player and certainly missed here in Arizona, Gabriel Moreno is sort of a cornerstone piece for this team for years to come.

Yeah, it was one of those like, you know how people say hindsight's 50-50, right? Well, in this case, hindsight is the positive side of 50-50. I mean, at the time people are, you kind of felt something like this might happen. I mean, obviously the Diamondbacks have had a tremendous. this amount of outfield depth that's been built up over the course of the last couple of years. And so you knew that a piece might fall at some point. You had Corbin, you had Alec, you had Jake McCarthy, you have Dalton Varsho at the time. Obviously, you know, Drew Jones was at some point down the pipeline. It was so it's one of those like you knew that some domino had to fall at some point. And you didn't know whether it was going to be Alec Thomas. You didn't know whether, yeah, I know Leah just call me out hindsight, 50, hindsight's

not 50-50. But it's one of those, something had to happen. And so it was, catching is not a position of strength for this organization. Yeah. And it never really has been. So it's, it was sad to see him go. But at the same time, I think everybody knew that Gabby Moreno was one of the top prospects in baseball over his tenure in the minor leagues. And so it was just, I was optimistic at the time.

And I wasn't, although his value was incredibly high, I wasn't the biggest Dalton Varsho fan in terms of I just felt like I wanted to see more bat on ball than I did. Sure. You know, he hit the ball hard when he did make contact, but it was just one of those. You wanted to see more. And I just didn't really see enough from him that even though the value was high, the war was high, it just, to me, it wasn't translating into what I was seeing on the field. Yeah, I think that's a fair point. You know, it's one thing to look at a war number on fan graphs and be like, wow, this guy's like a top 15 position player in the National League or whatever. And then you look at his offensive line and you're like, all right, this guy hit 235 with a 302 on base percentage.

Those aren't, you know, middle of the order type numbers necessarily, even though he certainly did have some power. And it's interesting to go to look back on how Blue Jays fans reacted in the moment. obviously Blue Jays fans are not super happy about it right now. At least that seems to be the general consensus given the season that Moreno had and the fact that Varshot struggled quite a bit in his first season with the Blue Jays. We're going to get into that in a second. But yeah, there was this initial, if you were a Blue Jays fan, you're like, wow, we just traded a prospect of Gabriel Moreno's caliber for a guy who hit,

you know, 235. Like these are not numbers that casual fans look at and are excited about. But again, so much value, you know, so much value defensively that I think a lot of people overlooked. And that's why this was a really big risk for the Diamondbacks at the time. Varsho was, you know, an emerging part of this young core, had four years of team control remaining at the time of the trade. And, yeah, I mean, now looking back, I guess this would be a good time to look at some stats for 2023 and where each of these guys lined up. If we start with Dalton Varsho and the season that he had with the Toronto Blue Jays, not great.

I just mentioned this, a 220 average, 285 on base, 389 slugging percentage. He did hit 20 home runs. There was still a showing of power there. He had 27 defensive runs saved, which I believe led all Major League fielders in general, just everyone. The crazy thing is when you watch him play defensively, he doesn't, like, it's not flashy. That's fair. Like if you watch him, it's not like he's going out there. He's not Kevin Kiermire and robbing home runs and diving for baseballs and making crazy stupid plays.

Like it's just he does your mundane stuff incredibly well. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, he does all of those things well. And you might not really notice the amount of value that he's bringing you. But again, even in a season like this where the offensive numbers were relatively poor, I think it was an 85 OPS plus for Varsho. in his first full season with the Blue Jays,

he still wore 3.9 wins above replacement, according to baseball reference, which is an utterly ridiculous number for a guy who is like a well below average hitter. If we flip over to Gabriel Moreno and the season he had with the Diamondbacks, here his numbers, a 284 average, 337 on base, 408, slugging percentage,

seven home runs, 50 RBI, 20 defensive runs saved. Varsho and Moreno were both near the very top of the league. Varsha was at the very top. Moreno not far behind him in terms of defensive runs, save both tremendously valuable defensive players. According to baseball reference, Gabriel Moreno with 4.3 war.

So just a little bit, a little bit higher than Varsho in 2023. And yeah, I mean, you look at, you look at Moreno's numbers, you look at Varsho's numbers in year one. It's pretty clear. The Diamondbacks in year one got the better side of this trade. When I asked Mike Hazen about this a couple of months ago, he wasn't going to come out and say that this was a big win for the debacks he said he thought it was a win for both sides but he also said that without it the diamondbacks don't go as far as they went they not only you know maybe don't make it to the world series but they probably don't make the playoffs in the first place the diamondbacks lost cars and kelly of course early in the season uh and then gabriel merino uh you know steps in and is is basically your everyday catcher from day one and that was that was a enormous for the diamond backs to have someone who is ready and able to step into that spot.

Without Gabriel Moreno, I mean, it would have been theoretically Jose Herrera, probably stepping into the everyday role. The debacks probably would have brought in another catcher in the off season if Moreno had not come over in that trade. But the debacks obviously would have been in a much worse, a much worse position there. Yeah, it's one of those. When you think back on this last season, the streak that Lourdes went on at the beginning of season was pretty much the key factor in how this team put together probably one of the most

successful starts to a scene when they were 41 and 25 are they 41 and 25 if lordis doesn't basically go otherworldly hot in may yeah he was ridiculous in may he was possibly the best player in baseball in that month i mean his his numbers were off the chart yeah he was beating the crap out of the ball and obviously the slump that followed was probably matched you know he was probably equal magnitude. One of the biggest reasons that they only won five games in one of those months. So it was, it's one of those, it's hard to look back on this trade and say that at any point, I missed Dalton Varsho. Yeah.

And I mean, it was, you know, maybe, maybe people did miss Dalton Varshow in some ways. But the reality was the debacks had so much depth in terms of left-handed hitting outfielders already. There was such a traffic jam. They were trading from a position of depth. The Blue Jays obviously as well were trading. from a position of depth. I think the deal at the time, you know, I think it made a lot of sense for both sides.

What I wrote the night that the trade was made, this was sort of my analysis of the move that I wrote over at go phtonx.com. Anyone who thinks the debacks fleece the blue jays doesn't recognize just how valuable Varshow is, and anyone who thinks the blue jays fleece the diamondbacks don't understand or doesn't understand or doesn't recognize how rare it is

for a prospect of Moreno's caliber to even, be moved in the first place. Moreno was a guy who I think in the mid-season prospect rankings from baseball America, he was a top five prospect. He was like right. He was just like a couple spots behind Corbyn Carroll on that list. That's how good. That's how well thought of Gabriel Moreno was.

And you just don't see guys move like that. You don't see guys in that position move very often. It was it was the kind of trade that we just don't really see. Like we don't really see teams trade like, all right, I'm going to give you my best. prospect in exchange for a very valuable major league player from from another team. And it's one of those like I just Danielle said in the chat. You can't quantify the value of a young franchise catcher because that position already is just thin. It's a it's a group of guys that you just you don't walk into the like a JT Riamuto all that often.

Right. Like you're you you really just hope with that position that you don't get, you know, somebody that's for lack of better examples here. Like if Jose Herrera started every game after Carson Kelly went down with an injury, where like where's this team now? And Gabby started the season pretty cold actually. Like it wasn't a great start for him. And so it was one of those.

Ah man, but at the same time, it was better than what you had anticipated. And it was better than what 50, 60% of teams had. And now looking back on it, you have something that's probably better than what 90% of teams. have behind the plate because the value of a catcher isn't just whether you can hit. It's also a few like if you can throw people out, that's a weapon. If you can call a great game, that's a weapon.

If you like that, the person that sits behind the plate is so invaluable to who's on the mound to the point where when this team signs Zach Rankie, they literally had to go out and sign Jeff Mathis just to come here and catch for him. Like he was so particular about who he wanted to catch. that the team had to go out and make a move. Like there are pitchers that like just don't mesh well with a catcher. And across the board, it looked like pretty much everybody on the staff had better numbers

with Gabby Moreno behind the plate than they did with Carson Kelly. Yeah, 100%. I mean, it's also well documented that the Diamondbacks just in games that Gabriel Moreno started had a substantially better record than games where he didn't. I don't know the number in front of me. I think there were something like 21, 22 games over 500 in the games that Gabriel Moreno started, which would mean they were about, you know, 15, 16 games under 500 in games that he did not start.

So just an enormous difference there. And yeah, I mean, beyond the pretty solid offensive numbers we showed earlier, Moreno wins the NL Gold Glove in his first full season. He hits third in the lineup in the majority of the Diamondbacks postseason games on their way to the World Series. Not a bad season for a guy in his first run at the majors at just 23 years old. impressive stuff all across the board for Gabriel Moreno. I do think it's important to point out now.

I think that while the Diamondbacks certainly got the better end in year one, I mean, Lourdes was a huge piece for them. Moreno was a huge piece for them. Varsho had a bit of a down season overall. I still think that the Blue Jays could do totally fine in this trade in the long-term Dalton Varsho. If Dalton Varsho can have an 85 OPS plus and still be like a full, four war player according to baseball reference how yeah how much weight is there on his defense yeah it

kind of defies logic but just think about like how good could varsho be if he just got back he did still hit 20 homers i mean he still hit he still had some power but like what could it look like if varsho had like a 110 115 o p s plus which i think is totally a reasonable goal for yeah he's probably a 30 home run guy if he's having an up offensive season he's got a lot of pop and his bat. And he runs pretty well. I mean, he does a lot of, you know, like you guys, you got all the tools, right? Dalton Varsho has all the tools. And, and so it's one of those, like he inherently just has value in every asset of the game. But this team had players that could fill those positions, right? Like, Alec Thomas, he statistically is not a better defender than

Dalton Varsho, but he plays a mean center field. Like, I don't know if I want anybody else other than Alec Thomas out in center field right now. And Corbyn's got a bat. And, you know, Alex has shown signs of life in his bat. The one that you're really waiting on is Jake McCarthy. But would you have gotten the same value out of Jake McCarthy? Yeah. You're not getting Gavin Moreno and Lorda Scuriel, Jr.

out of Jake McCarthy. Yeah. And that's a great point. That's another thing I wanted to touch on quickly is just the debacks traded away their most established outfielder at the time. I know, you know, we think back to this point. And like Corbyn Carroll, of course, out of this group winds up being the best. player at least as of right now but corbin carroll had only played a couple months um they're really about

a month in the majors i don't think the debacks were going to trade him anyway they certainly viewed him as a long-term piece we now see why but yeah i mean if you had a choice between trading varshot trading alec thomas trading jake mccarthy var show was certainly your most established player at the time and what mike hayson said was that was sort of the price we had to pay in order to get the level of impact that we wanted in return and yeah like you said If you traded McCarthy, if you traded Alec Thomas, you could get something, but, you know, Mike Hazen said it was going to be less. It was going to be less in terms of years of control where the debacks are maybe getting back a player that had less control as opposed to this situation where they get back a player that has more control. Or just in general, you know, just less impact, right?

You're not getting a player of Gabriel Moreno's caliber if you were to trade one of those guys. And in retrospect, you know, McCarthy and Thomas didn't necessarily. have great seasons, but this still feels like the right choice was made here. Yeah, I actually have always wondered, like, who was the one that made the final call, right? Like, was it the Blue Jays that said, all right, we'll give you, like, are they the ones that are saying we want Varshot? So here's Gabby and Lurtis, or is it Mike Hazen that's saying, like, we really want this guy? Because that's always a unique position to be in, right? It's one of those, like, who's the one that made the final call? Because is, is Hazen the one that was

seeking the generational catcher or is you know was it the blue jays that were looking for an established job so it's just yeah it was kind of almost like the match was made right those two teams both had a need for a certain type of player and they both traded from a position of organizational depth because the blue jays had another good catcher a Alejandro kirk had good numbers like they were like yeah i mean they had flexibility to say all right you know gabby has all the talent in the world like probably one of the better defensive. I mean, that was one of the things that was touted in this minor league career was like, yeah,

he's probably going to be one of the next great defensive catchers. Because that's a, that's a tool that almost follows you through every rank, right? Yeah. Your bat you can develop at certain spots, but defense is not something that you're just going to make some crazy leap in. Yeah, you don't often see guys who are like, you know, scouts are skeptical that they're going to make it as a catcher in the big leagues.

And all of a sudden, they like win a gold glove or something that doesn't really happen. Right? Like everybody knew Gabby had a hose, right? Everybody, everybody knew that that he was, you know, a very solid piece behind the plate. It was of whether or not the bat was going to develop. And so the Blue Jays felt like they had, I think somebody brought it up. I think it was Alejandro Kirk and Danny Jansen. They had the depth to be able to do this because they were like, well, our window's a little bit different. We're giving up Gabby, which is quite possibly, it looks like he's the best of those three catchers now. I don't know if I can finite say that because we've seen one season. Yeah. But it does look like he has the talent to be the best of those three guys. By far the most valuable asset moving forward. There's certainly, there's certainly no question about that.

Yeah, fascinating trade. The anniversary, the one-year anniversary was just five days ago on the 23rd. I thought it was worth visiting here on the podcast. We'll see how this thing turns out. Again, if I'm a D-BACs fan, I'd be a little hesitant to chalk this up as a far-in-away victory at this point. You've still got three more years of Dalton Varsho and what he can provide the Blue Jays. You've got five more years of Gabby Moreno from this deal with the debacks. I know Lourdes has been extended. That's a little bit of a separate matter now, that being a completely

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All right. We're going to talk about Zach Gallen, this guy who is pretty good. I think we can safely. Is that a safe bet? I know it's taken me years of, you know, building up my analysis, wisdom in order to make this judgment. But yeah, I think Zach Allen's a pretty good major league pitcher. If we look at his numbers from the 2023 season, brilliant performance. across the board here. 210 innings set far and away a career high in that regard. Of course, there was also, you know, almost 40 innings tacked on to that in the postseason. He had a 3470 RA, a 112 whip, a 26% strikeout rate, 5.6% walk rate.

Both of those are excellent. 5.2 wins above replacement on fan graphs. That is also a very, very big number. If we compare, however, his 22 season to his 2023 season, you could argue that, as good as these numbers are, this was a bit of a down year for Zach Gallen. I think that's a, that's a fair case to make, a 254 ERA in 2022 compared to the 347 this past season, 091 whip in 2022 compared to the 112 this year. Strikeout rates about the same, but last year, he got a 185 opponent batting average compared

to 237 this season. Jacob was Zach Gallen bad in 2023 by his standards? Okay. We're not, we're not about to do this. He was not bad. By Zach Gallen standards, yes, he had a down year. And I think by the eye test, I don't know if you would agree with me on this. He got hit hard.

Yes. At times, like even in his starts that were, hello, Saul. Even in his starts. I'm amazed that it took 25 minutes for someone in the office to come in. I knew it was going to happen at some point. So the eye test at times it was like, man, but he was, it almost felt like he was leaving a lot of stuff over the middle of the plate. His location wasn't where we had become accustomed to like, just like I've talked about with Merrill Kelly before. Like he's not a guy that's going to blow something past you.

He can hit 96, but he's not going to blow his fastball by you. It's his mix of pitches. He's got a killer change up. His curveball is as touted as it gets. You know, he's got a cutter. He's got the four seam. So he's got an arsenal of pitches that he can work with. But one of the developments that I saw out of him this year that I really was surprised by was the amount that he switched from utilizing his change up to throwing more curveballs.

Because I felt like in 2022, his change up almost felt like the most deadly secondary pitch that he had. At times, it seemed like a lot of his strikeouts were coming on that change up. And maybe it's a move that Strom told him to make. Obviously, his curveball is extremely good. there's nothing wrong with the curveball. But I felt like I was really disappointed in his lack of use of the changeup. Yeah, it's interesting. If you look at the usage numbers, I guess a slight tick up.

He was at 21.9% curveballs in 2022. That ticked up to 22.7 in 2023. Changeups went down from 14.2 to 13.9. Somewhat negligible there. I guess part of that story is that he did cut down on his changeup usage. a little bit last year as well. If we look at Zach Gallen's baseball savant page from 2023, which this is definitely not the end-all be-all of how you should be analyzing pitchers.

But there's actually a decent amount of blue, if you look at this page. Surprising amount of blue for the season that Zach Gallen had. You can see his expected ERA was actually 4.16, and nearly a full run higher than his actual ERA. in the three fours. His expected batting average was actually worse than the league average

at 254. And you very much, Jacob, were not mistaken in thinking that he got hit hard. Yeah. His average exit Vila was in the third percentile

at 91.5 miles an hour. His hard hit rate was in the fifth percentile at 46.2 miles, uh, 46.2 percent, I should say. Um,

and yeah, there's still some, some solid numbers there elsewhere. The chase rate was above average. Uh, his whiff rate was around Lee, average, but actually significantly better than it was in 2022. The strikeout rate, the walk rate, both of those are really excellent for a starting pitcher.

He still did plenty of good things in 2023. There's no getting around that. But I think there is this very real sense that Zach Gallen, I'm hesitant to call it a down year because the man threw almost 250 innings and was the best pitcher on a team that went to the World Series. He finished third in Cy Young voting. He finished third in Cy Young voting, yeah, which granted, part of that is that the, you know, the crop of guys vying for that award this year was not quite on the same level that it's been

in years past. But still, it was a very good season for Zach Gallen overall. But really from the very beginning of the 2023 season, it kind of felt like good, but not quite what we're used to same. It was incredibly streaky. Yeah. To say the least. I mean, he went on the really insane streak at the beginning of the year, obviously.

28 innings. 20 in a street. He was on the streak. Yes. But then he followed it up with like four or five straight starts where he gave up five runs. I mean, I don't know if you remember this. We did a watch-along for the game against the pirates. The pirates.

Yeah. And it was one of those like, oh, sweet. This is a Zach Gallen game. And then about like two innings into that game, we were like, oh, go. Oh, oh. Weren't we kind of avoiding like Zach Allen starts for a while? Yeah, because I'm pretty sure that we had a streak of our watchalongs being really, really bad games. Yeah.

The moral of the story is that if Zach Gallant, whatever, you know, down here, Zach Gallen had, it was because of our watch lines, which Jacob is the one who made us do those. So you can, you can blame him. I think the people would actually ask for more of those next year. That's fair. I mean, I'm down to do them. I just, you know, if it's going to jinx Diamondbacks players' performances, I don't know if people are going to be super on board with that.

But yes, there was the May 19th game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Gallin was on a very strong run at the time. He goes into Pittsburgh against a light hitting Pittsburgh Pirates team. He gets shellacked. He gives up eight hits, eight runs. Five of those earned four walks, two strikeouts in three and two, three and two thirds innings. One of the worst starts of Zach Allen's career, if not the worst start to watch.

That was hard to watch. Yeah, it was, it was just very, very, very uncharacteristic across the board. He wound up bouncing back from that reasonably well. He wasn't still did not have his 22 numbers, but he was still in good. enough position to start the All-Star game for the National League, which of course was a huge accomplishment for him making his first All-Star team starting the game for the National League, striking out Shohei Otani, of course, once he was in that moment. And then we get to the second half of the season where he was pretty steady, pretty solid for a while coming out of the

All-Star break. And then at the end of the year, Zach Gallen just didn't really look right. over his last seven starts Gallin had a 4.93 ERA and heading into the postseason he did finish the year fairly strong he was good against the Yankees he was good against the Astros but he had not been himself up until that point and in the playoffs we kind of saw that continue

Chris makes a really good point in the chat and it's something that we've definitely tossed around here at the office she said I think for a good portion of last season Kelly was better yeah I trusted him more now we've we've had had really long debates about who is actually the best pitcher on this team. Because Merrill Kelly definitely has a case for that. But I think more so Merrill has the case because he is a more consistent pitcher. I would say if Zach is pitching the way that Zach can pitch every single game,

which is what you expect from your ace, right? You watch a Blake Snell. You watch a Garrett Cole. They might have these outlier games like Zach had against Pittsburgh, but they don't follow them up with another three or four or five stars. also giving up five runs. Like they yeah you know what I mean like an a ACE is somebody that can go into a like go into a game after having a 28 inning scoreless streak give up seven runs in three innings or

whatever it is and then the next game they're back at it right seven innings one run 10 strikeouts like they're right back on track and now Zach is the guy that can do that we watched him do it in 2022 he was phenomenal in 2022 about limiting and for him it's always about limiting hits because his his walk numbers are now. ever. Yeah, he posted. He had the best walk rate of his career this season. Correct.

So for him, it's about hits. It's about location. It's about strikeouts. It's about just not giving up hard contact. So is some of this, is it an outlier? Maybe. But Merrill Kelly was certainly a more consistent pitcher. However, I would say the ceiling for Zach Gallen is higher than it is for Merrill

Kelly. Because I think what we've seen from Merrill Kelly is what you're going to get from Merrill Kelly. I think Merrill Kelly is at his ceiling. Now, I'd love for Merrill Kelly to prove me wrong. I'd love for him to come in the next season and improve, have a 2-7, 2-6, whatever it's going to be. But I think the better candidate to have an insane season next year is probably Zach Allen. Because I think the real Zach Allen is somewhere in between 2022 and 2023.

Yeah, I mean, for as much as Merrill Kelly took a step forward in 2023, and we spent like a whole show. a few weeks ago talking about Merrill and how he's probably a top 20 pitcher in baseball at this point, which is really impressive, just the way, the way that he's developed and gotten better every year, even into his mid-30s. Zach Gallen still has the better stuff of these two pitchers. I don't think there's any, I don't think there's any question about that. And as far as the big picture question of what does it take for Zach Gallen to get over the hump and actually win a Sy Young Award? He finished fifth in 2022. Yes, he did pitch worse until. 2023, but he finished third because the field was not a down year for pitchers, though.

It was, yeah, the nationally, Corbyn Burns didn't quite have his prototypical season. Sandy Alcantara, after unanimously winning the award in 22, was kind of a mess this season, eventually needed Tommy John surgery. Yeah, there weren't any, there weren't any clear options at the top. Heck, the guy who won the award also led the league in walks, of course, which was a very, a very bizarre situation. But yeah, as far as Gallant taking the next step and finding a way to win the Syung Award and really reach this ceiling that I think we all know he has, the change up is the key for me, which you talked about earlier. When Zach Gallen came into the league in 2019, this change up was filthy. It was, it was, I talked to Zach about this during the

season. His change up when he came into the majors was his best pitch. No question about it. Curveball was solid. Fastball was solid. His change up was the moneymaker. That was the pitch that made Zach Gallant elite in 2019. It made him elite again in 2020 when he got some down ballots. Sy Young Love there as well. And then in 2021, which was a major down year for Zach Gallen by his standards, that pitch sort of took a step back. And really since then, Zach Gallen has not found the change up that he had in 2019 and in 2020.

It has been a different pitch for him. It's been a pitch that at times he's really only used to lefties. It was a big pitch for him early in 2023 during that scoreless inning streak. It looked like it might be back. That's something we talked about on this show. And then as the season wore on, it kind of sunk into the periphery of his arsenal, as you talked about earlier. And it became a useful pitch, absolutely a good pitch, but not the elite swing and

miss weapon that it was when he first entered the league. There's also some interesting history here. This change up is a pitch that Zach Gallen was sort of forced. to throw in his time pitching in the Miami Marlins organization prior to the trade. This is some reporting that I did during the season. I spoke with former minor league pitching coordinator Chris Mahalick of the Miami Marlins. He is now with a different organization. I want to say the Colorado Rockies AAA pitching coach.

And Chris Mahalick is the reason that Zach Gallen developed that change up in the first place. It's a pitch that Gallen had thrown growing up. It's a pitch that he kind of always had in his arsenal. But once he got into pro ball, it was about fastballs. It was about spin and trying to generate swing and miss. And Mahalik basically told him, like, you're working too hard for this stuff. Like, if you throw this change up, you're going to get more soft contact early in at bats. It's really going to enhance your arsenal.

And Gallen ran with it. And in 2020, 2019 and 2020, as I said, it was a huge pitch for him. And these last few years, it just hasn't been the same. And in my mind, Jacob, kind of as you touched on earlier, that that's the difference. If Zach Allen ever finds a way to get back to that elite level change up, combined with a really good swing and miss curve ball, consistently one of the best four-seem fastballs in baseball with the ride that it has, the sky is the limit for how good he can be. He really could be the best pitcher in all of baseball if all of those things ever come together at the same time. For anybody that has watched Merrill Kelly throw his change up that he was touting at the end of the year. That change up that Merrill Kelly was throwing, I would almost even go out like just by the eye test,

I would go out there and say that the one that I saw Zach Allen throw when I worked for the team in 2019 was about four or five times better. I mean, it was a pitch that you watched it and you said there's no way in, in hell anybody could hit that pitch. Yeah. Like it was, it was it was one of the better secondary pitches. I had seen anybody throw at the time. Like it was, and so you pair that with the arsenal that he has. I think he accidentally,

what did he accidentally throw that was mixed with it? It was a cut change or something like that. Yeah, yeah, it was one of my favorite moments of the season. Vinnie Pasquantino is like, what did you just throw? And conveniently,

it also had part change up in it. So it was just one of those, it's one of those things that it's like, Zach Gallen is an incredible baseball mind. Like he's one of those guys that he, he's like I said he's not going to go overpower you but he studies meticulously every time you see him in the dugout he's looking at an iPad he's working on stuff constantly he's kind of a stat head like jesse so it's it makes you know perfect sense that those two get along talking about baseball statistics

Zach Gallen is one he's a great great person to talk to you about baseball especially if you're a nerd like me yes exactly that's what i'm trying to say jess he's a nerd so him and zach gallon they get along very well. But that change up is such a key piece of what he's able to do, especially as a location pitcher, because if you compare that with like you said, the fastball and the curveball that he has, it might be the best three pitch mix of almost anybody in baseball. The last thing I'll say before we take a quick break here is just that throughout the entire season, Zach Allen talked about not really having the feel of his pitches.

And this was true in spring training. and in his first couple starts of the year when he was not throwing well, it was also true when he was right in the midst of his 28-inning scoreless streak and was striking out everyone. He still wasn't happy with the- Yeah, I didn't have my best stuff today. Yeah, he's saying that after every start, and Tori Lavello thought it was hilarious and ridiculous,

and it was kind of funny to see those guys interact. But, yeah, I think there's some truth to the fact that Zach Allen didn't have his best stuff in 2023. The movement on a lot of his pitches was very good, and yet just kind of a tick not quite as elite as it's been in the past. Yeah, they were a little flat. There were certainly moments, and this is especially true of the change-up. He told me that when that pitch gets more horizontal, it is less effective for him, and that is something that we saw this year.

That pitch tended to be more horizontal than vertical as it's been in the past. So, yeah, I mean, and it's totally a credit to Zach Allen that his stuff can tick down. He can feel terrible about the way his stuff feels. And he still goes out there and gives you 250 innings and is a really effective pitcher across the board. A really remarkable season from Zach Gallen overall. I don't want to take away from that. But there's another gear here for him to reach. We'll see if he's able to take that step in 2024.

We're about to get into some fun betting odds for 2024. We're going to take a look at the BetMGM Sportsbook app. So if you haven't already, be sure to download the BetMGM Sportsbook app on iOS or Android or visit bedmgm.com. You can sign up and deposit at least $10 into your betmgm sportsbook account. Place your first wager and receive up to $1,500 back in bonus bets if the bet loses. If the bet does lose, your bonus bets will be available once your initial wager is settled. As I said yesterday, a really incredible intro offer right now from betmgm.

So if you've been on the fence, if you haven't done it yet, this is as good at time as any. So once again, sign up for BenMGM. use bonus code PHNX. Place your first bet MGM sportsbook wager through a bet MGM sportsbook mobile application of at least $10. If that bet loses, your bonus bets will be available once your initial wager is settled. Check out the show notes for full details. And now listen to Shane. Talk about the disclaimer.

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Thank you, Jacob. Finally. Someone did that with me. I still miss Derek. And, again, Derek apparently doing his golfing thing, whatever. But we know that OGs is certainly a... part of his day off here today. And it should be part of your day off as well. It's just picture this. It's you on the couch. Your favorite team is on the screen and a bag of OGs gummies is in hand.

That is always a winning combination, whatever team you happen to be rooting for, especially if you're a son's fan. I know that yesterday was a promising development for Suns fans, but some of you might want to keep the OGs close because it seems like once things seem good for the Suns, they immediately take a turn for the worse. I'm still emotionally preparing myself for that. But OGs, they have a variety of bold flavors. They are a slam dunk for your taste buds. Plus, you can customize your experience based on desired effect and strength. To learn more about OG's gummies and where you can find them, head on over to OGsbrands.com. Well, as I said, we are going to jump into a way too early look at some betting odds for various things in baseball in 2024.

We'll start. This is just some some Vegas numbers that I came across on Twitter. Some of you might have seen this as well. This is the NL. Say Young odds for 2024. Zach Gallen came in sixth on this list for the National League. That's criminally underrating it. It is.

It feels a little bit low for sure. Is he ahead of Yamamoto? He is ahead of Yamamoto. he is behind Spencer Strider, Zach Wheeler, Logan Webb, Corbyn Burns. So I apparently can't count. He is fifth, not sixth.

Sorry about that. The math guy. Can't do math. What can I say? Of course, last year, Gallon finished third in Cy Young voting, as we said earlier,

only Blake Snell and Logan Webb finished ahead of him. So I guess they have, they have Strider leaping over him. They have Wheeler leaping over him, at least in terms of odds. Logan Webb ahead of him again and then Corbyn Burns

who was good for the for the Brewers in 2023 they have him at slightly better odds in 2024 so yeah maybe a little bit of disrespect there for Zach Gallin I certainly would understand if people feel that way but he is

you know he's been sort of doubted his entire Major League career that's just sort of always been the situation for Zach Gallin if you go back and look at his scouting reports from like MLB pipeline when he was with in the St. Louis Cardinals organization. They graded all of his pitches as being like 45s or 50s.

And Sam is, you know, kind of a high floor guy, but a back end starter. It's funny looking back at that now. We do have a graphic here of World Series, betting odds, which of course,

the Diamondbacks, the team that were in the World Series. One would think they would maybe be here, at least somewhat near the top. Not really the case here, Jacob. Although there are the, this show this year, you're counting,

you're counting one of a correct on this. They're the sixth favorite out of the National League. So, yeah, let's count. So Cardinals, Matt, Phillies, according to this. They are a playoff team according to this if they're the sixth. So they would be the third wildcard team again, according to this. Theoretically.

Yes. Yeah. In terms of their placement here. There are a total of three, six, nine, if I can count here, there are 13 teams ahead of them. So they have the Diamondbacks at the 14th best odds to win the World Series, which I, you know, totally. get that you're not going to put an 84 win team at the very at the very top of this list.

I don't think that would make sense. I wouldn't have done that if this were me. But there are still some interesting things here, Jacob, like the Yankees at third feels pretty bold, given that they did not just sign Yoshinovo Yamamoto. The Cardinals and Mets, both being higher than the Diamondbacks on this list is also interesting to me. Yeah, the Cardinals, especially the Cardinals after having the down year that they had. I mean, they were picked to literally win the NL. at times and it just didn't pan out.

I mean, and they did nothing to improve. Like, they're pitching, they signed Lance Lynn, they signed Sunny Gray, correct? And they signed Sunny Gray, yeah. Kyle Gibson, I want to say. So, I mean, they added guys, but to me, they added guys that other than maybe Sunny Gray just don't really add any value in my eyes. Like, Lance Lynn is not the Lance Lynn of old. No, no, he's not.

And Diamondbacks fans could tell you that about as bad as good as anyone based on what happen in the NLDS. Yeah, the Mets also a little bit puzzling. I think they're a better team than they played in, in 20203 for sure. We'll see what they do the rest of the offseason. But putting them ahead of the Diamondbacks feels maybe a little surprising, at least at this point. A little surprised at how low the raise are on this list as well.

I know they've traded some key pieces off their major league roster, but I still view them as being, you know, a pretty formidable, talented team going into 2024, certainly higher than the Mets and the Cardinals and the twins, which this, according to this, are all ahead of them. The Mariners, the Mariners are ahead of them, which is also pretty, like, what did the Mariners do? Yeah, the Mariners have, I mean, they added Mitch Garver, but they still have a lot of work to do as well.

They lost a lot. If we look at the, if we look at the NL West here, this one, I think is, is probably reasonable. They have Dodgers, DeBacks, Padres, Giants, Rockies in that order. they have the Dodgers at minus 275. This is on BetMGM sportsbook as of this morning. They have the debacks in second place at plus 500. So the Dodgers far and away the favorites to win the NOS.

I think that's pretty hard to argue with. If we switch to saves, the saves leaderboard here, as far as who will lead all of baseball in saves in 2024. This one is interesting to me. They have Paul Seawald fourth on this list. pretty impressive jump around jesse jump around indeed manual class A number one josh hater number two edwin dyes coming back from injury at number three uh paul seawald

had 13 saves with the debacks this past year in about a third of a season so he was on roughly a 40 saves per year pace that's reasonably could be near the top of the league if he stays healthy the entire season and continues to be effective i could certainly certainly see that that making sense for him. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's funny that they're 13th in the World Series odds, but their closer is projected to have the fourth most saves because that means you think that this team's, I mean, if your closer has 40 plus saves, you're winning a decent amount of games. Yeah. Because obviously, you don't need a closure to save every game because you're going to hope that

you're going to win some games by more than three rounds. So it's interesting to see that this is the projection, but that he, like Josh Hader doesn't have a team right now. Edwin Diaz is a big piece for the Mets. but is he the guy that's going to go help them be better than the like the Diamondbacks? Yeah, they're going to need more than your whole team

is more important because the whole team has to get you to the end of the game with the position to get a save. Yeah. So this one was a little bit weird for me to see because it's contradictory to what the other the World Series odds said. Yeah, that is that is odd.

I mean, I guess they don't necessarily I don't know if they're thinking in those terms of like, all right, if we do, if with the odds say this in one area does it have to match up in another area? Last thing we're going to look at. This one's we're going to look at. This one's weirder than anything else.

Yeah, this. I mean, just the way that they framed this for MVP in the National League, they have Shohei Otani versus the field, which is kind of a bizarre way to look at this. They have Otani a plus 875, so he's not favored or anything. But Otani is going to DH in 2020.

Are we counting the revenue he drives for the sport? I don't know. To my knowledge, to my knowledge, no designated hitter has ever won. the NL or the MVP award in either league. It is extremely hard to do. Obviously, Otani's Otani. And if anyone was going to do it, you figure it might be him.

But yeah, this didn't make a whole lot of sense to me either. Yeah, I mean, it's just, this is just the media hype to me. Yeah, this is the media hype. Yeah, I shouldn't. I mean, they're not. This is crazy. They're not favoring Otani to win the award. I just think it's funny that they framed it in this way when it doesn't really make a whole

lot of sense to bet on Otani at this point. Well, you should. Otani was like any other player was the overwhelming favorite there. Yeah. So, I mean, it was minus 1600, which is like, it's basically them saying like, ha ha, this is the joke. Yeah, if you want to bet on Otani. Give me some legit candidates, please.

Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll get, I'm sure, some more specifics on that later on. Yeah, maybe you don't want to bet on Shohei Otani to win the MVP. What you do want to do is become a pH and X die hard if you have not already. If you do so, you can get access to all the writing behind. the paywall over at our website at go p hnx.com that includes writing for me Craig Morgan covering the coyotes Gerald Borges on the Suns a lot of fantastic content over there both in written and video format we're tapping more into that as time

goes on as well so be sure to become a diehard if you have not already we also today is a Arizona Scratcher Arizona Lottery Scratchers Day Jacob so if you want to pull yours out real quick we love our friends over at Arizona and Scratchers, as we've talked about extensively on this show, make an excellent, an excellent gift for anyone in your life. And as I said yesterday, if there's someone that you didn't quite make the cut in your holiday shopping, someone you feel like you need to do justice to and get them a little something else, you can get them a whole lot of money with our friends over at Arizona Lottery. How are we looking over there, Jacob?

I did not win, but I won the last time. Okay. All right. Doesn't look, doesn't look great for me as well. But yeah, we've had we've had some good luck. We've had some winners here recently. So if you haven't already, be sure to get in on Arizona Lottery Scratchers. They are a fantastic gift to give someone really at any time of the year.

So be sure to get in on that if you have not already. That is all that we have here in this Thursday edition of the PHNXD Back show. As always, be sure to give us all a follow on. Twitter. You can find me at Jesse N. Friedman. You can find Jacob at Jacob underscore Franklin 4. Of course, you want to follow us on Twitter at PhNX underscore D-Backs. That's our beat account where a lot of the fun memes and ridiculous things that Derek comes up with always show up. And of course, all roads lead to at pH&X sports. That's on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Well, once again, thank you all for being here. We really appreciate your time.

And remember, kids, baseball is fun, but it's so much more fun when Zach Gown. is at the top of his game.